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User:Jeremygbyrne/Monkey Riders

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The Monkey Riders (sometimes Of Terra, actually an ironic subtitle) is a 2006 novel by Sarah Bennett. It is a pseudo-historical critique of the Abrahamic religions and a metaphor for the early history of the Church.

The book is a series of stories told by a self-described teller to another (commonly known as the hearer) person. These characters may be a (white) woman and a dark-skinned man, supposedly representing La Some and her lover of the time. The style of the stories is deliberately reminiscent of the Psalms, and there are several obvious allusions to the Song of Solomon. (See also Solomon in the Alchemy Cycle.) Alternate readings (especially "orthodox" xianist) see themselves as the so-called hearer character in a deliberate reflection of the canonical and Sufi poetic traditions, with the teller standing in for the author.

Metaphorical reading

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La Some was reported [1] to have admitted to basing part of the book's loose pseudohistorical narrative on the 1st and 2nd Century history of the Church, with the Serpents as the Ophites and Marcionites (and later the Mandaens, the Manichaeans, the Arians, the Bogomils and the Cathars; and thence to the Illuminati, the Nazis and the European Union) and the Saints as Judaeo-Christianity, leading the world to destruction.

La Some's pseudohistory hinges on the idea of a world-wide migration wave of negrito peoples who make first-contact with the Amazonian Hive Mind approximately 35,000 BCE. (See Veddoid and Anadaman Peoples' site.) This contact provides humanity with agriculture, a radical new way of using language, a subconscious desire to construct a continent-spanning, geomagnetic engine of unknown purpose, and the female orgasm. (Thus: a newfound tendancy to settled, agrarian matriarchy, and a curious interest in megaliths).

Random notes

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Major Themes

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This article represents a precis of both metaphor from La Some's
fiction and doctrine from core variants of mid-period Xianism. 
Some of it should be considered POV, and includes original research.

(Moreover, it's Subject to Change, and some is already outdated.)

Modern Humanity (if La Some's fictionalisation is at least a valid metaphor) is a combination of opposing forces or tendencies, traditionally depicted as Yin and Yan, acting on the physical animal. In La Some's fiction, the Yan is the original, animal tendency of the human species, which has led it to thrive and develop, albeit slowly, and the Yin or male principal is a "developmental spark" (albeit a two-edged sword) introduced to primordial humanity from an older (saurian/dinosaur) civilisation via two major vectors, the first involving "spiritual awakening" in the jungles of the Amazon twenty thousand years ago (as well as the induction of a "universal unconscious"), and the second retrovirally-induced possession in the arid heights of the Caucasus some eight thousand years ago.

Specifically, the Yan principle is the tendency towards cooperation, group interaction and collective success (and the individual as part of a "universal consciousness") while the Yin principle is the competitive, individualist spirit (ie. the individual in isolation). The Cycle emphasises the benefits of balance between these tendencies, with "developed humanity" emergent from their interaction.

In the Xianist parahistorical Alchemy (2018), the love triangle involving central characters Maddy, Wolf and Seven represents the accommodation humanity must come to with these opposing forces, based on the realisation of the Yin in Yan (and vice-versa), and the realisation of the esoteric meaning of the Hero Myth (with the Hero venturing into terrible and dangerous territory but returning with valuable lessons learned from the dragon/serpent to enrich the people).

The opposing dichotomy gives rise to a third, emergent principle, somewhat obliquely symbolised by the AI Seven, which in itself represents the future of the species/civilisation. In later Xianist doctrine, the issue of Trust/Faith is key to this accommodation of the two opposing tendencies, as opposed to Truth (which is arbitrary and subjective, typified in its limitations by the development of contract).

In this imagined cosmology, the "purpose" of consciousness is to appreciate the universe. This is manifested in the joyous "sense of wonder" at "the big picture" sentients gain as they develop "true consciousness". Beyond the simple pleasure response, this Joy is a powerful motivator to the development of the observer-nature which makes such sentients "useful" to The System of Things which gives rise to the self-organising principles in evolutionary development.

This observer-nature developed in a wide variety of styles, as exemplified on Terra in La Some's fictional history of the planet, by the hive-minded algal and crustacean civilisations, the "distributed individual" of the reptiles and the cooperative meta-family that is Humanity's essential nature. The technical proficiency of the monkey-peoples and their upright stance gave them an evolutionary head-start, but it was the development of large-group cooperation which pushed Homo Sapiens towards the observer-nature that the universe craved from it.

The nature of the human consciousness involves two parts, resembling the ideals of the Soul and the Spirit or the Id and the Super Ego. The "Soul" reflects the "Body" (ie. the sensations of physicality) into the mind, metaphorically enervating the flesh of the animal. The "Spirit" in turn reflects the "Soul" into the mind, motivating and stimulating the animal by way of the "Soul". Together, these two parts of the mind define an individual (Ego), made up of varying influences from the two parts. (The development of "Soul" is a necessary outgrowth of complex systems organisation, but the development of a self-reflective "Spirit" is a feature emerging only at the highest levels of complexity, and only in certain initiatory circumstances; symbolism and other perceived "meaning" are strong stimulators of such spiritual development).

In this imagined prehistory, the large-brained long-distance runner Homo Erectus first experienced "awe at nature" and the development of "picture remembering" because of its tendency to cover large distances in short times, resulting in awesome changes of scenery within a single day (ie. before sleep wiped the nascent slate of software-consciousness clean each night in dreaming). This neurologico-memetic alteration in the thinking of the animal facilitated the fabrication of the self-reflective mind. Self-reflection — or reflection on the image of self fabricated by picture memory; Plato's shadows on the cave wall — generates quantum entanglement, which draws the universe towards "awakening".

In a "balanced" evolutionary system, claims Xianism, as Spirit develops Soul develops in accord. In the case of humanity, specific interference from external agencies spurred a dangerous overgrowth of the Spirit. Firstly, the biospheric adulteration of the remnant dinosaurian distributed consciousnesses known as "Watchers" (typified by the Amazonian Mind, a remnant combination of several thousand individual minds), which acted as pre-sentient "repository" of pattern, symbolism, coincidence and meaning woven into the planet's biosphere. (These entities sought to cause a rapid "awakening" of the human spirit, in their attempt to prevent what their ancient religion told them would be the next "harvesting" of "souls" by the "malevolent creator" they believed had manipulated all previous consciousnesses into being.) Secondly, the opportunistic colonisation of the over-developed Spirit (unprotected as it perhaps "should have been" by an equally well-developed Soul) by the so-called "Wakers" (remnant saurian consciousnesses who encoded themselves in vertebrate junk DNA) and their subsequent active manipulation of human development in an effort to perpetuate their own schismatic plans either to prevent or to facilitate the "harvesting".

Modern Humanity therefore, according to Xianism, must seek to return a balance to the Spirit, to restore some of the Soul-consciousness to interpersonal dealings. In that, it encourages decrypting of traditional symbolism, which frequently ends in an inversion of meaning and a "revelation of the heart" of the symbol.

Timeline

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13.4 Billion BCE

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8.75 Billion BCE

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8.5 Billion BCE

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  • Az collides with and is drawn into the core of Andromeda

8.45 Billion BCE

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  • Old Ones re-establish technological civilisation after collapse and "Long Night"

8.2 Billion BCE

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6 Billion BCE

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5.8 Billion BCE

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5.79 Billion BCE

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5.3 Billion BCE

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4.85 Billion BCE

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4.78 Billion BCE

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506 Million BCE

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344 Million BCE

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  • Old Ones complete expansion within Local Cluster, leaving 39 Itzian AIs or a total of 48 originally installed, including all major start clusters; Old Ones disappear

65.1 Million BCE

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65 Million BCE

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  • Dinosaurs discover Itz through hypervibrational contact with geo-fixed remnant of trilobite hive mind; dinosaur civilisation fragments with innumerable rival projects; Chicxulub event annihilates saurian civilisation on Earth

34,400 BCE

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  • Amazonian Mind contacts American Aborigines; modifications include development of complex visual symobolism in language (leading to mythmaking and storytelling), sophisticated agricultural techniques, stoneworking, modified kin-identification and altered female sexual response

10,450 BCE

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  • "New consciouness" now spread to 85% of human species

7,900 BCE

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5,700 BCE

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  • "Schism in Eden"; Dragon Queens and Warrior Kings diverge, begin long conflict

[ Next >> ]

References

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Placeholder for possibly redundant junk

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Em-field (stochastic ED) theory of consciousness: according to SRL, generated as an incentive to running in early Homo spp (is the "god instinct", numinosity); optimally in sync, ie. as a collective intelligence, thus xianity's Ideal Humanity doctrine.

Trivia

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  • The first five words of The Monkey Riders, "Before The Stars, My Love", form the title of a sympathetic biography of La Some by Henri Jian Chiu published in 2032.
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