If there's so much material — how come there's no such thing as karmic astrology? Maybe
because nobody has yet assembled that material in one place and named it karmic astrology.
Where did I get all that material? Watching science fiction shows on television, mostly. Reading
Futuristic or Fantasy Romance novels.
Reading science fiction/fantasy in general. And trying to jigsaw all that together into the "map of
reality" described by Tarot and Astrology as I understand them.
As I've said in this column before, most sf/f is classed as Action/Adventure, especially on TV which
is still hobby-horsing on s/f formulae of the 1950s.
One bit of "material" is a quotation. I can't recall which show I heard this quotation on most recently
— Highlander: The Raven maybe. It has been a serious puzzle to me until the news story broke about
the shooting at a high school in Colorado by the "Trenchcoat Mafia".
The quote: "Don't thank me: I'm just doing my job."
My response: "But I always thank people for doing their job. Why shouldn't I? Am I not to be grateful
that they exist to do
their job?"
Why would anyone object to being thanked?
The TV News showed a group of serious professional power-users "just doing their job" (one of
them used that phrase in an interview) securing that high school and rescuing the trapped students, just what
any White Magician would
do. Why wouldn't everyone involved thank those S.W.A.T.
team members?
Why wouldn't the operatives expect thanks? Ego. Power. Acceptance. Respect. And the
implications regarding one's social status relative to the thanker?
If you're being paid to do something (i.e. if your palm is crossed with silver), your motive
is one thing. If you just volunteer
and do it — your motive is something else.
What class of people are due thanks even though they also get paid?
Think back to the customs (historical romances are good for
something) in turn-of-the-century England. (This was brought home to me a short time ago when I went to the Catskills to a resort area for
Passover week. Not only were the buildings from the early part of this century, but the customs were, too.)
When a noble invited other nobles to a manor house in the country, the host did not pay the servants
extra for the added work load. The guests were expected to tip-as-you-go each servant belonging to the household.
The phrasing by which one dis-misses a servant while crossing their palm with silver or copper was
and still is, "Thank you. That will
be all."
To pay and thank a person classes them as a servant — someone beneath your own station.
You do not thank an equal you have hired. You simply pay them. And one can't "hire" a superior —
they don't work for hire, certainly not for their inferiors.
This is a very hard notion for an American to contemplate because our society is so different with
regard to class. We still have social class, but we are all legally, morally and ethically free to choose which class
we would prefer to belong to. Our only remaining constraint in choosing our social class is financial.
Okay, now back to the tragedy in Colorado. Soon after the S.W.A.T. teams had done their job, the
media turned to psychologists, asking why anyone would do such a thing.
I heard one psychologist advance the thesis that an outbreak of vicious, violent and destructive
behavior often happens because the adolescent is not "accepted" by his peers, is seen as "different" and thus
socially unacceptable and feels disenfranchised and powerless because of it.
Interesting that this socially rejected self-image is prevalent among sf/f readers and fans, and that
the literature that Manhattan and Hollywood have decreed is the only form you will be allowed to imbibe
within the sf/f genre is the literature of violence and destruction (i.e., action).
But sf/f is not just "action genre" — it is heroic action. The main characters are the S.W.A.T. team
that "just does its job" — and the villains are the ones who slaughter the innocent. The hero, the "white
magician," is the one who uses his power to rescue others, considering that his "job" _ is a karmic job for which he/she
is due no thanks.
Then there's Kung Fu: The Legend
Continues, and Highlander. In martial arts, the reason to
acquire "power" is to have "options" — i.e., to have enough power to solve the problem without using
maximum force.
According to that one psychologist, the boys who murdered those people felt they had no other option,
no other way to make the world behave the way they needed it to behave, but to reject Blacks, Orientals and
jocks . {They didn't consider that they could) accept them instead.
The novels I had read before
this incident erupted from my TV screen typifies the sf novel that I adore reading and writing. They are
about how having or not having power (knowledge) or options causes karma — as those boys have now
caused themselves much sad karma.
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