Reply #41: onwards [View All]

:toast: hell, you got us (including me) thinkin'...

the Dead always seemed tuned in to the hidden, although they kept it well-balanced with the manifest. That lyric reminded me of what in younger days my pals & I would have called "bad vibes", like when you're camping in the woods at night (hence "camping in the bad vibes woods") and inhaling smoke from certain plants (ahem) and you get the spooks... I perceive it as the same energy which is involved in fear of the unknown and in group struggles for dominance - the focus is not so much on a real tangible threat of some form to one's survival as on the relativistic struggle between people, which is essentially a social transaction, and in which the fear is of the other party gaining power over one. Specifically and more fundamentally, it is the fear of losing the power of self-determination - this is the essence of commercial horror art as well, it seems to me. The next step in the response is "I'm going to get them before they get me. Someone has to come out on top." A few steps further, it's no longer a response to a threat, it's a habitual way of relating to existence, including all other parties occupying it, whether they are threats or not. As so frequently happens, the target of malefic power learns to wield it themselves - this is the fundamental notion behind the theory that abuse is handed down as abusee becomes abuser.