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16.The Symbols Universe
The symbols universe was set up as a prison universe probably around 60 or 64
quadrillion years ago.
The transfer implant used to send people down to the Symbols Universe has them
set up hidden pieces of themselves which give them all sorts of compulsions
etc. This is mental machinery which the person builds and then hides from
himself. This was based on penalty universe symbols etc. and gives him urges
such as needing to eat and to feel sensation based on the degraded goals
established by the penalty universes. For the first time, the individual has a
sort of "subconscious" and does things (mainly to himself) that he is not aware
of doing.
Since each convict had hidden pieces of himself, various mockups based on the
penalty universes would stir up feelings of hidden things in motion etc. This
expanded into a general concept of symbols where seeing any mockup might imply
other things that are not immediately visible. And so we have a situation where
symbols were given great significance and there was a continual struggle to
communicate as a result.
This actually acts as a sort of reactive mind based on symbols. The person
meets, lets say, a tiger and gets a stimulus response reaction even without the
presence of mental image pictures. He gets the reaction because there is a
piece of him sitting in a compulsion pool being the tiger of the penalty
universe "To Eat". At this time, the individual did not have an Engram bank or
a time track. He could not be affected by force (although his mockups could be
affected) and knew it. But you could show him some object out of a penalty
universe and make his hair stand on end.
As a result, the subsequent games, implants, etc. used here were primarily
based on symbols. A common method of fighting was for opponents to send waves
of symbols at each other (especially symbols of penalty universe terminals). At
first these only had mild impacts. But everyone kept postulating so hard about
wanting to create heavy effects on their opponents that they agreed too heavily
with the power of symbols. So these symbols developed a real kick. This in turn
let people commit stronger overts and become motivator hungry which made them
even more affected by the impact of a symbol.
The individual was mostly worried about the effect of a symbol being pushed
into his viewpoint since it could trigger compulsions. So he tended to put out
substitute mockups in place of himself (he was not as concerned about these
mockups being affected). Here you have the individual flinching from direct
telepathic contact and using communication vias to protect himself.
The MEST (matter/energy/space/time) of the symbols universe primarily consisted
of "Thought Planes". These are like photographs drifting in space. You could
float over to one of these and look at it and then sort of turn sideways and
step into the picture. The picture would then expand out in its own 3
dimensional space that was at an angle to the normal 3 dimensional space of the
universe (2 co-ordinates were shared and the 3rd co-ordinate would be in a
different direction, hence you get a 2 dimensional plane at the point of
intersection).
Over the course of time, more and more beings were exiled to the symbols
universe. Eventually entire populations were mass captured and dumped.
By around 46 Quadrillion years ago, the motion universe was getting empty and
wilting away. The remaining "winners" wanted to establish themselves in the
symbols universe while retaining high status. So they invaded. There might have
been many invasions and the range of dates might be as much as from 48
quadrillion down to 42 quadrillion years ago.
The invaders came in with implants. They designed the implants based on their
"higher" knowledge of earlier track and the anatomy of the sentencing implant
mentioned above. The symbol universe people were not much affected by force (it
only hurt mockups) but were very subject to counter thought and gradually came
to be affected by counter emotion as well (symbol masses could pack a
considerable emotional punch as well as a heavy confusion of thought).
A common invader implant was the Pyramid Trap. This is a big pyramid in empty
space with an open doorway leading to something interesting in the center. The
unwary being goes in (later is drawn in by beams or tricked in) and the door
closes. The pyramid has 128 layers of walls, one for each penalty universe and
each inversion. Each wall is covered with the symbols of that penalty universe.
The innermost is create, next is destroy, etc. all the way out to Endure and
its inversion. The victim can push through a few of these, but then he hits one
that he can't confront and falls back to the center. In some variations, there
is only a single wall for each dynamic covered with all of the symbols for
every goal associated with the dynamic. This required fewer walls and therefore
was easier to manufacture.
Once captured, the victim is left inside for a very long time to soften him up.
Occasionally the walls would state that another trillion years had gone by to
make him feel that it was even longer. Eventually he gets worried about missing
out on things and becomes aberrated about time. He starts getting desperate to
get it over with and will put up with being implanted if only they will let him
out.
So he gets trapped in the pyramid, sits there for a few thousand years while
getting implant items that tell him that many trillions of years have gone by
and then the invaders come and pull him out. Then he gets hung on a wall and
simultaneously hit from both sides by a stream of symbols. The first stream is
Create/Destroy using the terminals from the penalty universe and its inversion.
These symbols alternate in each wave and opposing symbols collide in the center
of the victim forming a ridge. The symbols have the "price" thought in them
(things like, the price of enlightenment is to suffer, etc.). This is done 64
times, once for each penalty universe. After that he is allowed to compete in a
game. The winner is always an invader. The being is then given to the invader
as a prize.
There were also other sorts of traps based on symbols. Usually these are either
the terminal of a penalty universe or a symbol of one of the valence masses
(from the fall of home universe). The guy would be floating along and then he'd
come to a big mockup of The Tiger or something like that floating in space and
he'd feel drawn to it and slide in. Then a cage would appear around the tiger
and he'd be stuck. The bars of the cage would be covered with symbols so that
he couldn't pass through them. Then they'd come and haul him out and handle him
as above.
Eventually there was a revolution and the invaders were thrown in their own
traps. Also, more elaborate traps (big colorful energy structures etc.) were
built, usually with pyramids hidden in the center or other sophisticated
variations.
Finally a complex civilization of thought planes and symbol masses developed
and went through the usual decline.
This seems to be the first time period when there was a real government. People
were just aberrated enough to need a formal organization to undertake large
projects and see to the welfare of civilization. So a controlling council was
set up, originally consisting of individuals who were most instrumental in
combating the invaders. Once established, the council saw to it that everyone
continually perceived the need for such an organization. They undertook the
construction of large "Cities" consisting of interconnected thought planes and
other mockups. They established a police force to protect these sophisticated
mockups from the ravages of malicious individuals and perpetuated the invader
machine building implants and traps. Here are the early upsets with governments
and their police forces and bureaucracies.
The mockups of this civilization are a bit strange compared to our current
experience. Bodies and scenery as we know it only existed in the thought
planes. You might be drifting around disembodies and then feel the presence of
another disembodied being who would then flash a symbol identifying himself
(maybe a body mockup or even something like a Chinese pictogram). Let's say you
were being asked to a council meeting. The request might be a series of symbols
flashed at you. Then you'd float over to the Council's thought plane which
would appear as a flat picture of the council chamber. Then you'd turn sideways
into the picture and appear in the chamber. You'd need to "manifest in form" so
you'd tap the definitions for a suitable mockup that was not in use and
materialize as that body. Note that this would not be a complex body with
internal organs etc. as we have them today. It would simply be the image of a
body which you would shift around by postulate. Then maybe you'd walk around
and talk with and argue with other councilors etc.
Of course if you had to appear in court the police would enforce the mockup you
were supposed to appear in.
Note that this controlling council was in existence for most of the duration of
the symbols universe. This is an immense period of time and the lifespan of
councilors was very, very short. The council was constantly being overthrown
and replaced. It was a position allowing for great overts and the motivators
tended to come in very fast. There were also periods of round robin rotation of
council positions or competitions for the post etc. So I think that most people
will probably find some point where they served on this council. Usually it was
a very aberrating experience where the being played endless games of treachery
and betrayal, especially against other council members. Of course the universe
was vast and there were occasional rival governments, but generally they didn't
last long or control large areas. The controlling council was very jealous of
its privileged position and stamped out competition as fast as it could.
The only exception was that people were in good enough shape to wander off on
their own and just pick an empty place and start building their own thought
planes. So the bulk of the universe was really in a big state of anarchy with
the controlling council holding the organized area in the center. Sometimes
they would try to take over some of this anarchistic area, but they wouldn't
have much success. But let a crowd of the anarchists try to form up into an
organized group and the council would move right in and make them join up.
This was the first great machine building period. They would take individuals
and condition them so heavily that they became robots and would follow a canned
set of instructions without thinking about them. Even after the invaders were
overthrown (and made into machines), people were trapping each other and
programming them up. Nobody stayed as a machine throughout the entire span of
this universe, but everyone had it done to them at least a few times. One of
the common uses for the machines was to keep favorite through planes mocked up
and dusted off. Whenever someone uses a through plane, their postulates tend to
alter-is it, so the "machine" would reset the mockup back to its pure state
when they were done.
A final invader wave came down from the motions universe against a civilization
that was armed (with sophisticated traps) and ready. To really fix these guys,
the Controlling Council (which tried to run things in this mostly anarchistic
era) had a prison universe constructed. Soon there were many more convicts
being exiled and the cycle was starting to repeat itself.
But this time, after a few quadrillion years the prisoners researched the
implants, erased them, and came out and took over. Of course they needed to
build a new prison universe for the former controlling council members and
various other peoples that displeased them.
This sort of thing was repeated a number of times. Each time, the sentencing
implant became more complex.
To some degree, the prison universes became an interesting game, like Houdini
doing his famous escapees. If the beings didn't dig themselves out after a few
quadrillion years, generally someone would be sent down to start them on the
road.
Because these prison universes were intended as temporary, the Symbols Universe
kept going at full strength for a long time.
On the whole, it was actually a very interesting universe. The thought planes
often had a tremendous aesthetic. The use of symbols and substitution made for
very fine art and in a thought plane, you live the art rather than simply
looking at it. These thought planes were actually very much like limited
versions of the individual universes of the home universe matrix. You'd enter
them to see and experience things or meet with people or play games or be told
a story.
You could also have thought planes which contained subordinate though planes. A
high level though plane might be an art gallery where you could walk around and
look at the paintings. But the paintings would be lesser thought planes and you
could step into the ones you liked (similar to Disney's cartoon rendition of
Mussorsky's Pictures at an Exhibition). If you are one of the people with a
horror of art galleries, just remember that implant designers just love to take
something nice and use it as the twisted hook that sticks you to an implant.
Eventually there was an art gallery implant used in the symbols universe where
you were forced to go around in a gallery and experience horrible thought
planes. But this is minor compared to some of the other things that went on.
One mockup, usually used by the police, consisted of walls which could attract
or repel you. Their action is based on the symbols inscribed on the walls. The
repulsive walls had symbols you'd pull away from (as in the pyramid traps). The
attractive walls would have desirable symbols from the various penalty
universes. Things like symbols of wealth and power and sex. Sometimes the
symbols on a wall would change from one kind to the other or there'd be complex
sandwiches of walls of various types. They'd try to bang you around with
various walls and get you into high motion. The being was already slightly
subject to motion sickness if he was made to jump around too much in too little
time. This comes from the earlier Motion Universe (which starts with the
Treadmill which lays in a spinning sensation).
The police also used Black Thought Planes. In this case, the picture is
concealed and you have no idea what you're being thrust into. So there's the
flinch at black pictures. Often they would bang you around with walls until you
were dizzy and then push you into a black plane where you'd get an implant.
One common implant used this way is The Sources Implant. This played on the
fact that the people were already upset about hidden sources of things because
of the compulsion pools. The implant pretends to tell you what the real source
of various things is. Of course the items are intended to trick you. They are
things like "The only source of energy is Machinery".
Another thing present in the late era of the symbols universe is a sort of
earlier similar on Arslycus (discussed later) where endless slaves were made to
serve in a city of endless thought planes that was much too large and where the
tasks were much too boring. The city was known as "Alpha Prime" (really just an
intention that means "The First City"). The incident may include a body builder
type sequence. You might be assigned to clean up a thought plane and have to do
that over and over endlessly.
This thing was probably one of the controlling council's big projects. It seems
to end with a collapse in a manner similar to Arslycus (these collapses are all
based on similar collapses which occur in the text of the penalty universes for
the goals To Build and To Orient).
The symbols universe also made heavy use of somatic pools. These were mostly
used to supply the sensations etc. that were experienced in the thought planes.
Instead of simply telling someone to feel and emotion, pain, or sensation,
large numbers of people were ordered to place a feeling of this kind into a
sort of "pool". Then when the sensation or whatever was needed, an individual
could be "connected" to the pool to get the feeling from it, which made for a
much stronger experience than simply having him imagine that he felt a certain
way.
The universe went on (in an active manner) for an incredibly long time period.
This is probably because everyone was Clear in the sense of not having a
Dianetic engram bank. You might think this to be a strange statement in light
of the fact that we were loaded with problems, guilt, upsets, pains,
sensations, emotions, and every other ill. And we were subject to hidden
influences and continually fighting against a suppressive government, and
occasionally being made into machines etc. Yet we just kept getting up and
dusting ourselves off and carrying on. Because all these aberrative things did
not have a cumulative and compound effect. The Dianetic A=A mechanism was not
present and therefore things would not go into chronic restimulation. You could
just go off somewhere for awhile and cool down. So things only slid downscale
very, very slowly.
Our entire sequence of universe since we left the symbols universe (i.e.., the
thought universe, the conflicts universe, the magic universe, and the current
universe) have a combined duration of only around 4.3 quadrillion years. This
is nothing compared to the duration of the symbols universe. So it seems like
we've just gone down into one of these interesting little prison universe
sequences again. But this time, the implant was much more sophisticated. And
the subsequent war between the thought and conflicts universes (the theta MEST
wars) was very interesting. And it seems like the last of the beings in the
symbols universe got so interested in the wars that they came down as "gods" to
join in. So there might not be anyone left up there to dig us out. And I don't
think that any of the other prison sequences went deeper than two universes
below the symbols universe. Now we're 4 universes deep and the next one is
already in operation below us (the Mud Universe). So I think we're playing for
keeps.
The symbols universe contained much, much more than the things listed here.
I've really barely scratched the surface. Certainly there are numerous other
implants and aberrative factors. But also, there was a great deal of good and
wonderful things. In this write-up, we're concentrating on what was wrong. But
there was tremendous rightness as well. The universe was generally very
exciting and enjoyable. At least 90% of your time in the symbols universe was
better than anything you've ever experienced here on Earth. You can spot some
pleasure moments of sliding into some incredible picture and having the most
wonderful time. Or even the satisfaction of creating a thought plane that
others enjoyed and marveled at.
Sent from my iPad
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