DONKEY ON YOUR BACK

by Tara Carreon

The Golden Ass, or Metamorphoses, by Apuleius
Seven (7) Faces of Dr. Lao -- Illustrated Screenplay & Screencap Gallery, directed by George Pal

"What I've been trying to do is put the donkey on your back in such a way you'll never forget the master, the great magician who makes the grass green, the one who creates the whole universe you live in." -- Robert Anton Wilson

_______________

The Pictorial Language of Hieronymus Bosch, by Clement A. Wertheim Aymes

Since ancient times the donkey has been the symbol of the physical body as the bearer of the spirit, but the donkey represents the physical body as it became after the Fall, serving the spirit only reluctantly, both lazy and tough, difficult to guide, yet full of endurance when laden, clever and stubborn. In Isis and Osiris Plutarch tells that the god Osiris -- who corresponds to what is higher and divine in man -- was suffocated by Seth Typhon in a casket which had the form of a human body. This Seth Typhon is portrayed with a donkey's head. Here already the donkey appears as the symbol of the living physical body. When the human body became hardened, and grew to be the casket of the soul, man began to develop material understanding, but became cosmically dull. St. Francis of Assisi called the physical body brother donkey.

"Maybe Logic -- The Lives and Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson"

When you have seen the one who makes the grass green, it's like meeting your own father in a crowd -- you'll have no doubt whatsoever.

Nasruddin went galloping through Baghdad one day on his donkey. He went up every street and into every alley and across every plaza. Every place he goes, an unending race, a hunt and search. Everybody got curious, everybody came out of their houses, and they were all yelling, "Nasruddin, Nasruddin, what are you looking for?" He said, "I lost my donkey, and I'm looking for it."

The donkey represents what everybody is looking for, which is a mystical school. It's the answer to all the riddles of the universe. And you hunt for east, west, north, south, up, down, everywhere you can imagine, and all the time it's carrying you around. It's the human nervous system which takes out of the infinity of the universe the little reality tunnel that you consider reality, which is your creation, which you think is the whole of the universe, unless you went to a Sufi school, or studied General Semantics, or did a lot of Zen meditation, or dropped LSD once or twice. Then you realize the universe is much bigger and more complicated than any little map we can make of it. The map is not the territory. The words that describe the map are not the territory, are even further from the territory.

What I've been trying to do is put the donkey on your back in such a way you'll never forget the master, the great magician who makes the grass green, the one who creates the whole universe you live in.

Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche

"And thou thyself, thou old pope, how is it in accordance with thee, to adore an ass in such a manner as God?"

Better to adore God so, in this form, than in no form at all!  Think over this saying, mine exalted friend:  thou wilt readily divine that in such a saying there is wisdom.

Mine old heart leapeth and boundeth because there is still something to adore on earth. 

The old God liveth again.

"And thou," said Zarathustra, "thou bad old magician, what didst thou do!  Who ought to believe any longer in thee in this free age, when THOU believest in such divine donkeyism?

Perhaps I dare not believe in God:  certain it is however, that God seemeth to me most worthy of belief in this form.

Thou thyself -- verily! even thou couldst well become an ass through superabundance of wisdom.

"And thou thyself, finally," said Zarathustra, and turned towards the ugliest man, who still lay on the ground stretching up his arm to the ass (for he gave it wine to drink). 

A little valiant nonsense, some divine service and ass-festival, some old joyful Zarathustra fool, some blusterer to blow your souls bright.

Forget not this night and this ass-festival, ye higher men!  THAT did ye devise when with me, that do I take as a good omen, -- such things only the convalescents devise!

And should ye celebrate it again, this ass-festival, do it from love to yourselves, do it also from love to me!  And in remembrance of me!

Beyond the Threshold -- A Life in Opus Dei, by Maria del Carmen Tapia:

Frequently [Monsignor Escriva] talked to us about cleaning and especially about cleaning his room. He insisted that his room was simply a kind of corridor, which was true in a way. His office, however, was not simply a corridor, nor was the room where he ordered that special glass cases be constructed to keep all the donkeys and at a later stage ducks that men and women numeraries from all over the world sent him as presents. The collection was picturesque and varied. It was based on the story that one day he prayed to the Lord: "I am a poor mangy donkey" and heard an answer from heaven saying, "A donkey was my throne in Jerusalem." Hence, on occasion when he gave someone his photograph, he would inscribe "Ut iumentum" (Like a donkey). During the time that Alvaro del Portillo was Opus Dei prelate he continued the practice. There is no word yet on what the current prelate, Javier Echevarria, will do. Ducks were collected on the basis of Escriva's saying that as ducks plunge their ducklings into the water to make them learn how to swim, he sent his daughters and sons to do things they had never done before.

"Bush-Bin Laden-Al Qaeda Money Laundry Conspiracy," by Wayne Madsen

Al Taqwa subsequently changed its name to Nada Management Organization.

Al Taqwa and a complex web of affiliate front companies and brass plates in Switzerland, the Bahamas, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Jersey, Isle of Man, Turkey, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, the United States (Delaware and Texas), Germany, Belgium, Albania, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Austria, Bahrain, Singapore, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Liechtenstein were reportedly involved in funding terrorist operations around the world, including the procurement of nuclear material from the former Soviet Union through Baltic intermediaries.

According to a EUROPOL diagram obtained by WMR [Wayne Madsen Report], these companies included Iksir Holding, SA (Italy), Asat Trust (Liechtenstein), Iksir Ltd. (Bahamas), Gulf Center (Italy), NASCO (Turkey), Nasreddin International Group (Liechtenstein), Akida Bank (Bahamas), MIGA (Switzerland), and Nasreddin Foundation (Liechtenstein).

"False Testament:  Archaeology refutes the Bible's Claim to History, by Daniel Lazare

"Deuteronomy is so real to me," Michener has a fictional Israeli archaeologist declare, "that I feel as if my immediate ancestor -- say, my great-grandfather with desert dust still in his clothes -- came down that valley with goats and donkeys and stumbled onto this spot."

"The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz," by Ordo Templi Orientis, aka CIA. 

THE SERVITORS OF BEELZEBUB: LAMARION: A donkey-headed beast the size of a spaniel with a long twisted tail; LAMALON: Has human feet, thin legs, and a skinny body; the head is huge and a goats, the arms long and skinny.

"The Snakepit of Human Suffering Lies Here -- An Excerpt from 'Be Here Now,' by Ram Dass

IT'S INTERESTING THAT WHEN I TELL THE
STORY OF MY JOURNEY IN INDIA AND TELL OF THE GURU, I AL-
WAYS SPEAK OF HIS MIRACLES, ALTHOUGH, FROM MY POINT
OF VIEW THEY ARE NOT THE ESSENCE OF THE MATTER AT ALL.
BUT: THEY ARE THAT WHICH IS SPEAKABLE OF ...
IT'S A LITTLE LIKE THAT PERSIAN STORY WHERE NASRUDDIN IS
LOOKING FOR HIS HOUSEKEY UNDER THE STREETLAMP AND
OTHERS COME TO HELP HIM AND FINALLY THEY ASK HIM
"WHERE DID YOU LOSE IT?' AND HE ANSWERS, "IN MY
HOUSE, BUT IT'S DARK IN THERE AND SINCE IT'S LIGHT OUT
HERE THIS IS THE BEST PLACE TO LOOK."

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