- Beware! -
If you value normalcy... if you value a comfortable, predictable world... turn back now.
Once you cross the threshold of Chapel Perilous, there is no going back... for to enter this portal is to enter into the realm of magick, meaningful coincidence and synchronicity. Here the laws of common sense do not apply. Chapel Perilous is guarded by that ancient trickster... Fate.
Should you proceed... you have been warned.
"Chapel Perilous" is an occult term referring to a psychological state in which an individual cannot be certain whether they have been aided or hindered by some force outside the realm of the natural world, or whether what appeared to be supernatural interference was a product of their own vivid imagination.
From the (Tek) Gnostic perspective, to enter Chapel Perilous is to come to the shocking realization that "the Gods are Crazy." This is the epiphanous moment when one realizes the ambivalent... or worse... malevolent nature of what the Gnostics identified as the Demiurge. This deranged entity is not to be confused with the ultimate, transcendent creative power, which cannot be named.
Chapel Perilous was used as a Discordian term by the late writer and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson in his 1977 book Cosmic Trigger. According to Wilson, being in this state leads the subject to become either stone paranoid or an agnostic... there is no third way.
The concept of "Chapel Perilous" was used by Antero Alli, in his 1986 book, Angel Tech: A Modern Shaman's Guide to Reality Selection which is based on Timothy Leary's Eight-circuit model of consciousness. In Alli's book, Chapel Perilous is regarded as a rite of passage, when moving between the four lower circuits of consciousness to the higher circuits. In Chapel Perilous, the integrity of the lower circuits is tested in preparation for activation of the higher circuits.
The term Chapel Perilous first appeared in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) as the setting for an adventure in which sorceress Hellawes unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Sir Lancelot. T. S. Eliot used it symbolically in "The Waste Land" (1922).
Students of the Grail romances will remember that in many of the versions the hero... sometimes it is a heroine... meets with a strange and terrifying adventure in a mysterious Chapel, an adventure which, we are given to understand, is fraught with extreme peril to life. The details vary: sometimes there is a Dead Body laid on the altar; sometimes a Black Hand extinguishes the tapers; there are strange and threatening voices, and the general impression is that this is an adventure in which supernatural, and evil, forces are engaged.
- Jessie L Weston
The history of the term is interesting. Traditionally, the Chapel Perilous or Grail Castle has been the ultimate destination for knights questing after the Holy Grail. For most people of my generation, this brings up an image out (those great tekgnostic saints) of Monty Python, as well it should. The story has been around for a long time, though. The mystical experiences within this chapel are the climax of many an Arthurian adventure story. Those who entered were typically subjected to a rigorous battery of challenges, some of which seem to be training exercises of sorts, while others are ultimate tests of purity, conviction, and understanding.
Dangerous traps are to be found there, often tailored to force a confrontation with an individual knight’s personal weaknesses. Those who failed would not be allowed to access the Grail and might even be killed or driven mad in the attempt. On the other hand, a candidate who proved worthy might hope to be granted great power and priceless treasures.
The idea of Chapel Perilous as it is commonly used in psychedelic parlance comes from Robert Anton Wilson’s countercultural classic The Cosmic Trigger. Uncle Bob defines Chapel Perilous as: "A stage in the magickal quest in which your maps turned out to be totally inadequate for the territory and you’re completely lost." He has quite a lot more to say on the topic, having spent a good deal of time there himself:
"Chapel Perilous, like the mysterious entity called ‘I,’ cannot be located in the space-time continuum; it is weightless, odorless, tasteless and undetectable by ordinary instruments. Indeed, like the Ego, it is even possible to deny that it is there. And yet, even more like the Ego, once you are inside it, there doesn’t seem to be any way to ever get out again, until you suddenly discover that it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside thought. Everything you fear is waiting with slavering jaws in Chapel Perilous, but if you are armed with the wand of intuition, the cup of sympathy, the sword of reason and the pentacle of valor, you will find there (the legends say) the Medicine of Metals, the Elixir of Life, the Philosopher’s Stone, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness.
That's what the legends always say, and the language of myth is poetically precise. For instance, if you go into that realm without the sword of reason, you will lose your mind, but at the same time, if you take only the sword of reason without the cup of sympathy, you will lose your heart. Even more remarkably, if you approach without the wand of intuition, you can stand at the door for decades never realizing you have arrived. You might think you are just waiting for a bus, or wandering from room to room looking for your cigarettes, watching a TV show, or reading a cryptic and ambiguous book. Chapel Perilous is tricky that way."
I myself tend to think of Chapel Perilous as the place where you find yourself when the sheer absurdity of it all can no longer be ignored. When it all starts to add up and multiply while remaining somehow stubbornly indivisible. When synchronicity spirals out of control and you finally discover that you really are, in fact, the center and purpose of the universe after all. Either that or you’re stone-cold crazy. Or maybe it’s both. It’s the dark night of the soul, and it’s generally understood to be some kind of a trap. But it’s also a doorway, if one has the courage, strength, intelligence, and luck to pass through it.
- Teafaerie
CHAPEL PERILOUS is the place "souls" go after leaving their robot bodies...while these bodies are still alive and walking the planet's surface. Also known as "The Dark Night of the Soul." It relates to post-Factor X activities in that both refer to "out-of-body" states. However, CHAPEL PERILOUS is where souls go when they are lost and Factor X communications refer to how souls are found. Can also be seen as a negative activation of the "neurosomatic circuit," which is endured for as long as it takes the neophyte to effect a positive activation, or permanent body rapture.
- From The Game of Life by Dr. Timothy Leary
No comments:
Post a Comment