Initiation (double bind)
Wash my fur. But… don’t get me wet! What if someone expected you to do that? What would it be like if someone stood in front of you, on a dark rainy night in a dark alley, and demanded exactly that from you? You would probably look at him strangely and perhaps say, „Listen, that’s a lot of nonsense what you want from me. I can’t wash your fur without water. He will get wet then willy-nilly. And anyway, where do you get off approaching me with this demand? I think we’ll forget about it and both go our separate ways.“ And you want to turn away.
And the figure straightens up thereupon, broadly, darkly threatening, glares at you with rage glowing eyes and says with quiet threatening voice only one: Wash – my – fur… and don’t make – me – wet…! You would become then perhaps nevertheless somewhat nervous and worried and with played firm voice say: „Listen, this becomes now too bunt for me! I don’t want to get involved any further! Move on immediately or I’ll call the police. How can we do that without getting wet? And anyway: There’s nothing to it! You’re a case for the mad doctor!“
And he straightens up even more, bends forward and roars in merciless hatred in your face: WASH MY FUR! BUT DON’T GET ME WET!!!! Without the possibility of escape, pushed into the dark corner of the lonely alley, you might stammer, „Okay… ….Okay…… And frantically and erratically fumble your cell phone out of your pocket and call the police. 911. Immediately someone is on the line and you, breathing heavily and always keeping a sweaty gaze on the dark figure, feel initial relief. „Hello? Hello, thank God! I’m standing here with a person. He is threatening me! He’s demanding that I wash her fur and not get her wet in the process….“
„Aha. Yes well, …and then?“ you hear it sound a little perplexed from the speaker.
„How?! How: and on?! What do you mean?! I need help! What should I do?!“ you shout into the microphone with your heart racing.
„Yes…, Yes well… then just do it.“ the police officer from the emergency call replies a little irritably. „Just do what the person asks you to do. What’s the problem? What’s your problem with that?“
„Me?“ you cry incredulously in absolute helplessness „I have a problem? This figure is my problem, who demands something impossible from me. Who threatens me and who won’t let me go! I have tried to speak reasonably with him and to explain to him about the water! That getting wet is perfectly normal and okay!“
„Water? What water? – Listen. This is an emergency line here. You must not block it unnecessarily. That’s punishable by law. – You know what, I’m gonna connect you with our police psychologist. Is that okay? Will that help you for now?“
„Yes…it’s okay…please…. please connect me. Okay…yeah. Thank you… thank you very much… yes…“ you breathe into the cell phone, completely disoriented, deprived of the budding hope again, dull and powerless, close to dizziness, everything revolving around you, your head lowered, leaning swayingly against a wall of a house and secretly keeping an eye on the snarling creature waiting full of hate out of the corner of your eye.
„Police psychologist on duty. Hello?“ it sounds jovially to you.
„Hello? Yes hello, I…, I… please help me!“ You whisper urgently, at the end of all your strength and close to fainting „At the emergency call, there was a misunderstanding. I’m being threatened here. By a creature. He wants to force me to wash his fur and not get her wet! Please, please…. What should I do? What am I going to do? I’m going crazy with fear here! I tried to explain to him about getting wet and the water…“
The psychologist clears his throat a little. From the loudspeaker you hear him say: „Water? What water? Well, yes. Well I say once: It is up to everybody himself whether he feels exposed to a compulsion or not. Fear is a very relative matter and whether you go insane or not, you probably can’t judge for lack of psychological-psychiatric and academic and scientific expertise. I’m not on the scene now, but you seem to have a case of obstinate denial of reality.“
„WHAAAT?“ you scream into the phone at the end of all your nerve as you press yourself further and further into the corner to keep distance between you and the slowly approaching hairy monstrous creature. „You’re the police psychologist: tell me: what the fuck am I supposed to do now????!!!!“ You shout into the microphone with bare nerves.
„Well, I think you should calm down first.“ the psychologist says – with a slight but clear rebuke in his voice – „I could prescribe you a few pills. Or you could go out and buy yourself something nice. That often helps, too. A little distraction. But. First of all: Wash the person’s fur and don’t get it wet, for God’s sake! Is that so hard to understand?“, you hear full of suppressed anger.
These are the last words you hear as the phone slips out of your hand and your consciousness slips into a black faint. Hard and without resistance, you hit your face on the wet and dark asphalt of the nightly alley. At some point, after what feels like 1000 years of darkness and hounded by 10000 monsters from 1000 man-crushing nightmares, you quietly hear a dull throbbing in the darkness from a distance. You feel it more. It is the blood pulsing through your swollen lips and bruised cheek. You feel the wet asphalt sting painfully against your face. Slowly, with a never-ending headache, you open one eye and what you see and what you hear makes you instantly turn gray. In front of you stands the figure. Grinning maniacally, staring up at you. Around you stand millions of people and they also stare at you, looking out of empty eyes, in the same madness as the figure, with the same loopy white hair as you and they all whisper, hissing like snakes almost: „Wash his fur and don’t get him wet. Wash his fur and don’t get him wet. Wash his….“ And you scream in infinite horror. For another felt thousand years. And you instantly lose the last remnant of your battered and oh so sore mind. And slowly you straighten up. First on all fours. Then on your knees. And you raise your hands in empty dead rapture. And you look at the creature and grin and you join in the chorus. And you hiss in a whisper, „Wash his fur…“
„That’s right…“ whispers a voice next to you in satisfaction in your ear. It could have been that of the policeman from the emergency call.
„Everything will be all right now…“ sounds encouragingly from the other side, as if from the mouth of a psychologist.
And you accomplish the feat. You wash the creature’s fur and don’t wet it….
„Now you are free…, child. Now you are – grown up! Child.“ you hear it murmuring from countless throats. And the beings surround you and lift you from your knees to your feet. And you grin around you. Uncertain at first and then more and more self-confident. Then you tear the arms in the height and with thundering the universe shaking hate you roar, the head high in the black rain in darkest night stretched: „WASH MY FUR AND DO NOT MAKE ME WEEEEEET!!!!!!!!!“.
And the millions and the billions with their empty eyes join in, in this most moonless and starless of all nights, to an all-destroying, animalistic howling. And your tears, the never-ending streams of your tears from your empty eyes…, the black rain washes them – the lost ones and not witnessed by anyone – away from your cheeks, down into the dirty and foul gutter of your earthly damnation in self-denial….
For you cannot exist truly happy and in purpose if you are forced to deny your soulfulness and think of yourself as a dead machine whose only future is to be annihilation in eternal darkness. For this you are not created. That is the suppressed hell on earth.
You are created for soulful, divinely inspired acting! Acting for the benefit and the enlightenment of the whole creation. And this is withheld from you and billions of others. A crime against mankind.