A Cage Full of Squirrels for the Archdruid

Background.
This little collection of squirrel stories was inspired by the competition announced by the Archdruid, on his blog entry for 14th Jan. 2015 http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/march-of-squirrels.html although it may have developed further than was anticipated. I hope that this tally of tales gives you as much amusement to read as it gave me to write.

Induction.

Relax. Breathe deeply and slowly. Think happy thoughts. The incantations have finished. The potions are working. Now we commence our journey into a corner of the Late American Psyche. A corner filled with amazing powers and ideas, inhabited by wonderful symbolic creatures. Creatures of great power in the minds of late Americans.  Here you can interact with the repressed creative energies of that culture, expressing through the symbolic forms of squirrels. Anything that could harm you is safely caged. You are safe and relaxed, ready for your shamanic-druidic pathworking. 

Here we enter the magical realm through the special gate which you see in front of you. It is a gate of dreams, a gate of remembrance. Is it a gate of horn or a gate of ivory? When you enter you remember and recognize the place. ‘Through the unknown, remembered gate’. Is it in Little Gidding? No, that’s not in the Late American Psyche.

Follow the path ahead of you. Go past the cemeteries of past wars, the tattered flags, the tacky malls, the ruins of great industries, the cities in decay.  Go past the Phoenix pyre, that place of cold ashes, memorial of a dead civilization which shall not here arise again. Ignore the dying eagle baldly moulting in a tree, that’s for Llew, not for you. Those creatures have no power in this reality. Do not follow Dante into that dark wood. Do not take the Yeatsian path of slouching beasts, the furnaces of Bethlehem have been put out and can no longer steel their hearts and limbs nor give them birth. Go straight ahead to the Squirrel House.

The Squirrel House

There you are. See the gigantic image of Uncle Sam at the entrance, wearing his usual blue coat, striped trousers and tall hat. He’s smiling and waving you in. Now he’s changed into a giant squirrel! Cross his palm with a silver dollar and in you go. 

See the huge cage full of squirrels. It’s light and airy, well appointed with everything which a squirrel could desire. Is it just a fancy, or is the cage shaped like the United States of America?  Notice the squirrels. See how large and well fed they are, how busily they run and scamper, how eagerly they climb up and down the bars and over each other, how nimbly they chase one another, how loudly and angrily they chatter, how aggressive, how active agile and ingenious ... how, dare we say it – American, they seem. 

Now we shall walk around the cage, paying close attention to the demonstrations of ingenuity or ingenuousness given by the squirrels and to the notices helpfully fixed beside the cage to explain what we are seeing. 

Pay close attention. This is the objective of your journey. Here you may take an idea from the squirrel cage of creativity, nourish and cherish it in the cavern of your mind and if you can remember and nurture it, upon your return you may be so fortunate, with zeal and salesmanship, to give birth to a brainchild which when it grows up will place you into the ranks of great American inventors who have advanced American commerce and made huge fortunes for themselves. Oh yes, and saved the world etc.

 

Look, there’s a bunch running around in circles, chattering angrily and throwing scat at the others. They’re even carrying placards and waving pieces of paper.

 

 

Squirrel One.

Let’s read what this notice says.

Paper from the W.C.

Flush with their success in blocking access to a sewage farm and raising a stink, the Women’s Collective has issued a press release denouncing the manufacture and use of toilet paper.  

WC demands the immediate cessation of the practice of logging and turning forests into toilet paper. This male dominated perversion of nature must cease forthwith. Just think of all the energy it wastes! Mother Nature protests at the insult in turning her beautiful trees into material with which to wipe people’s backsides. Bears don’t need toilet paper. They just defecate in the woods. So should people. That’s why Gaia created them, the woods, the bears and the people, and the recyclable material. All that excrement should be going back to Nature to be recycled into more trees and bears and people and... dung. It’s a beautiful natural cycle, disrupted by evil white men enslaving the female force of nature to make private profits in pursuit of the capitalist, or as it turns out, ‘crapitalist’ system! And, did I mention – Racist? Who invented toilet paper anyhow? I bet it wasn’t blacks or women, nor bears obviously. It must have been evil white men. They’ve been chopping down trees with their stone axes and chainsaws since the Stone Age, slaughtering the forests, and the blacks and the bears, and forcing women to use toilet paper through the insidious advertising of multinational corporations on Wall Street.

Just think how much energy has been stolen from Nature and used for pointless things like toilet paper and drains and sewage farms – and Wall Street.  

We announce that the theme of our next march and sit-in will be ‘Take a dump on Crapitali$m and on Wall Street’. Things could get dirty.

What crazy dirty squirrels! Is it something in their diet or the air or the water they drink? Perhaps it’s a lack of early toilet training or parental discipline. Let’s hurry past and read the next notice. It may make more sense.

 Squirrel Two

 Nuclear Fracking

Nuclear Fracking Incorporated has issued the following statement.

 This company absolutely denies any connection with or responsibility for the unfortunate series of earthquakes and floods which have devastated the Mississippi Valley, changed the course of the river and destroyed all the cities along its southern course. The company accepts no responsibility for Acts of God and deny that their activities had anything to do with activating the New Madrid Fault. The loss of life and destruction of property that has resulted from these unfortunate events is tragic, but we should not forget that the company is among the innocent victims here. It has lost several sites and staff. The decline in its share price is undeserved and has had a regrettable impact on the bonuses expected by its executives. 

The company announces that it will press ahead with its plans for deep nuclear fracking in the Chicago area. Irresponsible stories that this may cause the Great Lakes to empty into the Mississippi Valley are mere scaremongering by rivals and eco-nuts. And if it does happen, it won’t be our fault. Get over it. Man-up. We need to make a profit here.

This one’s quite scary. Is that a skull and crossbones on the sign there? Why does it have $ signs over the eye-holes? Is money all it could see? Why is that squirrel waving a cutlass at us? Time to move along. Perhaps the next squirrel will be more pleasant.

 Squirrel Three

Oh, here’s some industrious  scientific squirrels wearing white coats and a few self important ones in business suits supervising them. They look as if they know what they are doing. That’s an impressive machine they’re tending. It looks like a big washing machine. See them push that other squirrel into it. Are they taking him to the cleaners?  Why is he getting smaller? I didn’t know that squirrels shrank in the wash. What does it say on the notice beside them?

€UthanatU$

Smaller creatures use less energy. Squirrels are faster and nimbler than elephants, even if they do forget where they’ve left their nuts. Save energy by shrinking! Become richer by being able to do more with what you’ve already got. Capitalise on recent breakthroughs in the science of solipsistics. Now you don’t need to bother about sending spaceships to the moon and the planets and to other solar systems. You don’t need to bother occupying other people’s planets or countries to subdue them and steal their resources. That’s very slow, expensive, wasteful, and can lead to conflict with other violent and greedy people. That’s the old fashioned way. Now try the new Solipsistic way. Occupy yourself!

Take advantage of our updated nanotechnology and colonise your own inner space. Forget Cryonics, freezing your sorry ass and hoping that the future will find a way to cure your diseases and extend your life before the cost of the electricity consumes your resources and you are switched off. Now your consciousness can be shrunk so much that each atom in your body becomes a solar system, whose electrons you can visit and inhabit as planets. 

  Are you a gross bumbling buffoon? No longer let that worry you. Now it’s an advantage, it gives you a bigger universe of atoms to visit and exploit.  This is the New Frontier; this advance puts limitless energy and resources at your command. You owe it to yourself to take advantage of it. That’s the American Way. You’re worth it! Be a leader! Be the first person in your community to disappear up your own backside. Demonstrate that old American know-how yet again. Let them see why the rest of the world should follow the American Way. Show them where to go.

Let our experts guide you comfortably through the easy and enriching process. Dr. Jim Jones, late of Guyana, and a very experienced guide, is available to answer your questions and get you started with a free glass of nanopsychotherapeutic koolaid.  For our billionaire clients we have an additional level of luxury and sophistication, available exclusively at our Swiss resort of Heaven’s Gate. Affluently ‘edgy’ clients may prefer to undergo the unique experience available at our clinic of Hellsdoor.

€ and £ as well as $ rates available on request.

U$A! U$A! U$A for ever!

This amazing breakthrough is not only a technological and cultural marvel; it provides additional power and legitimacy to the financial sector. As sovereigns over all those atomic and sub-atomic worlds within them, people may now issue sovereign debt instruments which can be rated and traded, diced and mixed in the old familiar way which enabled previous financial booms. Another boom, yippee!

Legal Disclosure:

The bankers are feeling a bit jaded and burnt-out; having found that it would take a trillion earth equivalent worlds to bail them out of their losses and not even their political whores in Washington enslaving the whole population of the earth on their behalf can provide that much money for them. Not even if they used all the paper in the world to print banknotes and all the computers they can make to store all the digits. Suddenly, salvation! They can securitize and foreclose on your bodies, one atom at a time. Chattel, debt and wage slavery are completely obsolete and outclassed. This time Shylock Associates, the eminent lawyers and lobbyists have got the right laws through Congress and the Administration is completely bribed and fully instructed on how to implement them. There’ll be no more of that ‘take only the exact pound of flesh, without shedding any blood’ nonsense when they go to court to claim their pound of flesh in future. 

That seems very intoxicating, but do we really need even more of what went before? Who'll be left to clean up after the party?  Perhaps the next bunch of squirrels may be more practical.


Squirrel Four

Now here’s a very busy and well organised group of squirrels. But why are they going round in circles? What does their notice say?

 The Treadmill of Permanent Revolution

Save energy! Get healthy! Help your community!

You’ve done all the good things like insulating your house, growing vegetables, befriending your neighbors, giving away any of your property that they haven’t yet stolen, to the screaming scrofulous starving scavenging savage hordes,  and taking up cycling. Now take the next step on the path of virtue. Get on a treadmill. It’s revolutionary!

It’s healthy. It can be fun if you’re already fit and don’t collapse too early. It’s collective, although not yet a collective punishment. Previously only available in limited numbers to selected inmates of state institutions, the social benefits of the treadmill should now be made available to the wider society. Develop the camaraderie that comes from working and suffering together.  You will really get to know your neighbours and they will get to know you. It’s the Great Equaliser, better than a Colt .45 and less immediately lethal. 

(Admittedly, after some hours of sweaty effort in close and enforced proximity to lazy, whining, stinking,flatulent comrades, some people experience an irrational desire to use a Colt on them, but such atavistic and reactionary tendencies can be overcome by further sessions of therapeutic re-education. Fortunately, the gun control process has made so much progress that reactionary elements would find it difficult to obtain a weapon.)

The treadmill is an inspiring model and metaphor for a just society. Everyone has to keep climbing, but no one can get ahead and everyone is brought down to earth at the same level whatever their abilities or disabilities, merits or deserts. You have to keep moving but never get anywhere. A few prophetic leaders, such as Karl, Fidel or Che, known by their beards and tendency to logorrhoea, have transcended the need for this process or self-sacrificingly deprive themselves of its benefits. They stand apart to philosophize about it and inspire you to greater efforts with their sermons (and AK 47’s.)  

(Mao, Joe, Leon and Adolf will only qualify for such positions of responsibility when they manage to grow better beards. Moustaches are not enough. There are no vacancies for Bearded Ladies. No discussions will be entered relating to Oscar’s ‘beard’, merkins, or similar topics.)

Don’t think that the benefits are solely social, vital though it is that society should be socialist and run by bearded progressives for everybody’s benefit, and especially theirs. No! This is a very practical endeavor to build a just collectivist society, far better than Mao’s foolish endeavors to kill sparrows and build backyard steelworks, and with a supervisory framework superior to Bentham’s panopticon. Since the unfortunate incident at Gaza involving operator Samson’s excessively long hair becoming entangled in the machinery of an early model and bringing down the house, it has been decided that all operators will in future have fully shaven heads. That means you too, ladies. You’ll get used to the new progressive fashion and the exercise will keep your heads warm. Hotheads will be removed.

A great deal of energy will of necessity be devoted to this project, and deservedly so, for it promises both to generate a great deal and to save even more.

  You need not suppose that you, formerly the American Middle Class and now the impoverished and newly recruited Vanguard of the Proletariat, will be alone on the treadmills. Of course not. Not for long anyway. Misery loves company and you’ll soon have plenty of company as the capitalist economy implodes. All the unemployed office cubicle fauna will need somewhere to go and an opportunity to keep fit and ‘give something back’ in return for a little bread and water and sleeping room in a shared cubicle in a dosshouse.  And then there are all the layabouts and invaders, degenerates and freaks. You didn’t really think we promoted them because we liked them, did you? Ha!Ha!Ha! Of course not! They were useful to us in performing a destructive function, and having succeeded they may be dispensed with. A society with an excessive population and diminishing resources certainly can’t afford the luxury of maintaining bums and vermin. They won’t qualify for food rations, so working them to death will make a positive contribution to society and free that society from their potential future nuisance. But hush, it’s too soon to comment on matters that will later be dealt with by the Inner Party and which might disturb the naive but useful idiots to whom we owe so much that can never be repaid. Back to the more cheerful topic of the benefits of treadmills. 

For one thing, they can generate more power than the trendy bird-slicers even when the wind is not blowing or is blowing too hard, so it can be available more reliably.  For another, our engineers say that they can store power as flywheels once the operators have run them up to speed, and they will slow down so a new crew can jump on once some of that power has been used. 

Huge progress can be made on both the demand for and the supply of energy. Demand can be greatly reduced by eliminating the decadent consumer fripperies of late-capitalist consumer society. If necessary by eliminating the decadent consumers, but let’s not go there just yet. Vast improvements can be made on both sides of the equation by some simple social reforms.

Just think how much time and effort and equipment and energy is wasted in the various futile endeavors known as ‘sport’! It’s all a cunning capitalist plot to distract workers from their instinctive need to build a fair social structure and to divide their class solidarity with destructive competitions generating meaningless categories of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. Now we can redeem that wasted effort. Sport will be replaced by exercise on a treadmill. The current sporting venues and public parks and open spaces can be filled by treadmills generating electricity.  All that time wasted, not only on sport but by other bourgeois activities such as sitting around chattering in coffee shops, sitting around blogging, marching around protesting, shopping for fripperies or getting your hair done, could all be spent productively getting fit and generating energy by running on a treadmill.  There’s no need for ‘texting’ or ‘twittering’ or for ‘hanging out’ with your friends. All such social needs can be better met by gathering for long and frequent sessions on the treadmill. There’s no need for gym subscriptions. This is better. 

People won’t be allowed to become gluttons wallowing in excessively luxurious meals at fancy restaurants. Nor will they be allowed to become fat slobs gorging on junk food. None of that is needed. The Roman gladiators were known as ‘barley men’ because they were fed a healthy diet of grain and vegetables, and they certainly were fit. You’ll learn to love it, and for obvious reasons, we’ll economize by not teaching you to fight.  So much energy is wasted in producing meat. In future it will only be available to members of the Inner Party, like Karl and Fidel and Che. 

You won’t need to bother with books or magazines or music or art or the internet, although the more practiced treadmill runners could manage those activities at the same time. In fact you won’t need to be able to read or write. There’s no need for petit-bourgeois individualism and anti-social privacy, and all such potentially subversive activities. Running on the treadmill will be a social occasion and a strict requirement for existence in this Workers Paradise. After your twelve hour work shift each day – no Sundays off you slackers – you will refresh yourself and prove your social utility by running for at least four hours on a treadmill. This will of course be monitored, and those whose performance is inadequate will be motivated to improve rapidly. Eight hours per day is a luxurious allocation for sleeping, eating and moving around. The Party may decide to reduce it if more output is required from the treadmills. You will not be allowed to fall into individual reveries. Your intellectual and cultural food will be supplied by listening to speeches and recordings of the works of Karl and Fidel and Che as you run, but there’ll be no getting away from them. Ha! Ha! There will be tests afterwards. You won’t want to fail them.  

Join the Squirrel Workers Party. Squirrels of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your nuts. 

Too strenuous huh? Maybe it’ll appeal to left-brained people. Or is that a No-Brain-er?  Let’s see what the next squirrel has to offer.

Squirrel Five

 

 

 

 

Free Energy and Stuff 

Communiqué from Commander Fatso of the Free Stuff Army

People of the Free World, unite! You have nothing to lose, but your inhibitions, and everything to gain that your greed can desire and your arms can grab!

It’s your human right to have everything you want and to have it free. If someone else has something, you should have it too, if not something even better. Don’t let killjoys hold you back. There’s no such thing as morality or virtue or property rights or just deserts. Those are just stories invented by people who have stuff and want to stop you from taking it. That’s why you need to join the Free Stuff Army so you can kill them and take the stuff for free.

Scarcity is artificial. It’s created by governments and big corporations to enslave, you keep you afraid and keep you working for them. Our intelligence has discovered that there need be no shortage of energy. That’s all lies, spread by the special interests that benefit by keeping you ignorant and afraid that you won’t be able to live unless you serve them.  Well, they’re wrong. Our agents have infiltrated their operations and have discovered the truth which they have tried to hide from you.

Listen to Lieutenant Squeaker, here, of our Intelligence Service.

Hi there. I’m Lieutenant Pip Squeaker. See this bundle of reports in my paw? This is all information I obtained by hacking into the internet and printing out a lot of sensational stories which the media sycophants of the New World Disorder  keep suppressed.

 

See this report about Peak Oil? That’s just disinformation put out by the oil companies. There’s actually lots of oil. It doesn’t have to be scarce.  The companies try to limit production to keep the price high, but sometimes, like recently, the price falls because the thieves fall out and don’t stick to their agreements to limit output. 

It goes further. They want you to believe that oil is made from squashed dinosaurs and ferns from prehistoric times, and that it’s scarce because there are no more dinosaurs and ferns are no longer being squeezed under deep layers of earth. Can you really believe that? Well, if you want to pass exams, you have to pretend to believe it. Of course, that’s just an attempt to see how dumb they can make you pretend to be. Only the really oily sycophants can expect good jobs with the Powers That Be.

Obviously this is all nonsense. The Russians found out the truth long ago. It’s called abiotic oil. Oil is made deep in the earth’s crust by chemical reactions caused by heat and pressure, and it seeps up towards the surface. Depleted oil reservoirs can refill themselves. This happens far below the depths that any dinosaurs or ferns could have reached, or even any layers of rock made of their remains. Americans believe in squashed dinosaurs, and they’re running out of oil, they say. Russians know better, and they produce and sell more gas than anyone else. Maybe they know their business. 

Perhaps oil is irrelevant. Here’s information from several sources that automobile engines  that run on water have been developed, but suppressed by the big corporations until they’ve squeezed the last drop of profit out of the current arrangement ! Maybe you can travel for fifty miles on a litre of water. Here’s more information that the real purpose of fracking is to pollute the water supply and make fresh water scarce. The big corporations got you used to buying bottles of water when it was no better, although more expensive than tap water. Now you won’t mind carrying some bottles of water in your automobile, but the big companies will be charging more for it than for gasoline. Why do you suppose your ex-President Shrub bought a ranch in Paraguay, right over a huge aquifer of fresh water?

Maybe you don’t even need water to power a machine. There’s a suppressed American tradition of using mind power to move matter. Back in the 19^th century they had John Keeley who made machines that worked, but only for him. Later there was Ed Leedskalnin, who built a castle from big blocks of coral rock without machinery to help him. Way back in ancient Egypt they moved huge blocks, by means of prayer and chanting to levitate them, according to legend. There’s also an account from someone in the early 20^th century who saw Tibetan monks levitate and direct blocks of stone, using chanting and the sound of big horns and drums.  You must have heard of the great genius Tesla, and how his work on free energy from the earth and space was suppressed by greedy corporations and their political lackeys. Wouldn’t you like to just plug your appliances directly into the Earth, without having to pay utility bills?  There’s also a lot of fuss about zero point energy, getting free energy from a vacuum, but that gets rather technical and acrimonious.

Thank you Lieutenant. That’s enough revelations for now. We don’t want to overload people with too much information in case it shocks them and they go into denial. You’re doing an excellent job, but it’s time for you to get back to the internet to monitor the latest developments.

Well folks, let me tell you, we have found a simple way to get past all the techno-gobbledygook and cut to the chase. We’re going to round up all the ‘pointy-headed intellectuals’ and make them come up with something that works.You’ve heard of those FEMA camps they’re planning to fill with dissidents? Well, we’ll get there, ‘first-est with the most-est’ and turn them into Free Energy Manufacturing Academies. Ha!Ha! How do you like that? More American than a GULAG I guess, more like the Manhattan Project, but bigger. Maybe I’ll be in charge. I’d sure like to be a General.

We can collect all those nuts that Squeaker and his crew find, we squirrels are real good at collecting nuts, yes sirree! We’ll keep them in cages, so we don’t lose them. Then we just bite and bang them around a bit until something good pops out.

Maybe this science stuff is about played out? We’ll invest a bit of effort into magic as some insurance. There’s an Archdruid I’m keeping an eye on, as a potential White Team leader. He may have useful contacts with nature spirits and deities. Maybe he can put a spell on your automobile to make it move by itself! There’s a Satanist who supposedly could kill goats by staring at them. Black Magic or White? Let’s see which team wins. If we can’t run automobiles on water or fairy farts, maybe goats’ blood will do. Would red-blooded Americans be willing to do that? As long as they personally don’t have to get caught red-handed, just try to stop them! If there’s no gasoline, goats’ blood would be a sustainable alternative fuel. Adds a new meaning to the term ‘service station’ doesn’t it? Just fill up with a couple of goats, freshly slaughtered for premium customers. Then there’s all the meat, and so many religious cooks that are fussy about how it’s been killed. The market potential is mouth-watering. What if there aren’t enough goats? What about camels or other animals, and might their mileage differ? Well, there’s a whole Middle East full of.. mammals, which could be used, isn’t there? We’ve all got a ‘little list of those who’d not be missed’, haven’t we? How many of your neighbors would not sacrifice your blood to get where they want to go? Looks like the Black Team might win, doesn’t it?  Never mind. That’s the mass market for you. Maybe there’s scope for an upmarket brand. ‘Fairy Juice’, the alternative fuel for affluent animal and human rights supporters with delicate dispositions and a marked sense of intellectual, social,  moral and cultural superiority? Even Liberals gotta ride, huh? How long before they exercise or exorcise their hypocrisy by joining fairy rights organizations? A little donation of time or money sure goes a long way to assuage a guilty conscience. 

Why don’t we just ask all the conventional religious leaders to pray for us, and get their favorite versions of Divinity to keep things running? Puhleeese! Gimme a break. When was the last time one of those had enough energy to even pray up or calm a storm? Two thousand years and counting! How long can you wait? 

We are trying very hard to be reasonable, as you can tell. Just give us what we want, free stuff – or at the very least, cheap stuff and lots of it. We all want to live comfortably in a reasonable society. Then we can give you what you want, to continue living. 

If the reasonable way doesn’t work, there is another. See that big black squirrel with large teeth and a ferocious disposition? That’s Sergeant Mobongo. He is very experienced at making free with other people’s possessions and lives.

Give me Liberty or give me Death! That means give me Free Stuff or I’ll give you Death.

‘Far out, man!’ Do people still say that sort of thing? I guess some people are very concerned about freedom and stuff. Maybe if they smoked some free dope they’d chill out a bit.

Let’s see what the next bunch of squirrels is about.

 Squirrel Six

The Mephistopheles Corporation

See those squirrels in the tree? It looks like the important squirrel is giving a talk or an interview. Let’s get close enough to overhear them.

‘Hi there! Thanks for joining us. I’m Beelzebub, Chief Marketing Executive of the Mephistopheles Corporation for Planet Earth in the Solar System Sector. That’s quite a mouthful I know, so you’re welcome just to call me El.’ 

‘I’ve got some great deals both for energy consumers and for investors in our great corporation.  I’ve just been explaining some of the background to an interested couple, Knavor and Greta Phfool, here. You’re welcome to join them and ask questions if there’s anything not covered by our press release there. Please take a copy. It’ll be in all the media if you pay attention to that sort of thing. I do because it’s my job. Cosmic law obliges me to give you this disclaimer before you make any decisions. The Mephistopheles Corporation and its affiliates adhere closely to the highest ethical standards and practices available in its areas of interest and activity in force on this planet. That’s better than most corporations. I can’t think of any of our competitors who do any better. We do not tell lies. Let me repeat that; we do not tell lies. We are not to be presumed to have full and accurate knowledge, or to have revealed all that we know. We are not obliged to disclose commercially sensitive or proprietary information. You may misunderstand what you hear or read. You are responsible for exercising your own judgment in any dealings with us, as with others. I’m a salesperson, and a good one, so I will try to persuade you, but I do not compel. Opinions and judgments differ, that’s what keeps markets and arguments going! You must exercise your own will and judgment; then cosmic law will hold you to the consequences of any agreement made. Now after that boring legal small print let’s get to the fun stuff.’

 ‘It’s all about ME. That’s right. Mephistopheles Corporation has YOU very much in mind. We have M. Energy, M. Ecology, M. Environment and many other projects, all operating in the area of Materialistic Egotism. We focus on your material desires.

There’s a lot of concern about the environment and about Peak Oil and that sort of thing. Running out of energy to do the things you want and need to do is certainly a big concern. Environmentalists complain that you’ve used up most of the good stuff, the energy dense fossil fuels, so your economies societies and cultures are in for a very rude shock. They won’t carry on because they can’t carry on. That leaves YOU in a very unpleasant situation. You may not be equipped or inclined to live in the simpler, bleaker, harsher future that’s getting closer by the moment, and you don’t want to either die miserably and soon, or survive as a self-flagellating pauper with only your sense of environmental virtue to keep you warm.  Scary stuff.  However, there’s another huge energy resource which these people have overlooked in their eagerness to be miserable and to see you suffer. It happens to be the most energy dense fuel commonly available to humanity. Materialistic Egotism. Your sense of ME and what you want is the most energizing fuel to get you going and keep you active and in hot pursuit of your desires. Better than sex; far more empowering than gold or oil.

Our technology enables us to stimulate ME energy, to motivate your activity and then to harvest the residue of your desires and the energy generated by your striving and your clashes with other egos. We channel the entropic process by which this energy degrades into waste heat, so that it is converted into material power and warmth. Naturally we take a small percentage as commission, seldom more than ten percent; that’s only fair.  There’s a lot of ME energy. This is a large well established business, with an effective business model. We already have a considerable market share and expect to experience steady growth in earnings and market share. We are a Blue Chip stock. We invest heavily in research and development, so we aim to increase the effective energy yielded by our on-going technological enhancements. This is good news both for consumers and for investors. 

We have an active Real Estate division which invests in prime properties in hot locations. High Energy Living Locations are much sought after. We can help you find somewhere that suits your lifestyle and aspirations. New York is much admired by our clients as an example of a high energy living location where the clash of densely packed, highly motivated  and very materialistic egos results in a great deal of energy which we can use. 

In addition to utilization of the dense and sustainable sources of ME energy and the development and sale of real estate where this energy is most stimulated and concentrated, we also cater to the widespread interest in environmentalism. When you want a change from watching films of lions killing antelope, or stags rutting, or orcas killing the calves of Blue whales or other manifestations of nature in action; you can take one of our psychic tours to observe the big beasts of the corporate jungle gather at their watering holes or ambush their prey or stalk each other. Later our Educational Division, which has had great success in promoting our concepts and services to young and old alike, may offer a course in Mephistophelian Ecology explaining how energy may be derived from division, not only by splitting the atom, but by introducing contention to split all forms of unity including consciousness. The energy gradient between facts and people’s opinions and desires is steep and generates a lot of emotional energy. Divide and Rule is a very old concept, and a basic part of this ecology. 

  

Now let me deal with the answers to some Frequently Asked Questions.

What about Global Warming?

Global Warming? That’s the entropic waste from the spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical energy wasted by Materialistic Egotism. It’s what’s left over from meeting all those needs desires and expectations. 

Or Cooling?

Well, we cover both sides of the refrigerator. They’re different realities or perceptions, all useful for our purposes. Arguments between them generate a lot of heat, quite a flow of energy.

How did we get into this situation?

You mortgaged your house and squandered the capital. That was just an external manifestation of what you’re doing to your soul. Also, it’s an analogy for depleting the material and moral resources of your country and the world. You didn’t realize and still don’t believe that was a very effective rite of Black Magic? Well it’s too late for you now, and ignorance of cosmic law is no more an excuse than it is for terrestrial law.

What will become of us?

If you’re lucky you might get to reincarnate at the level of consciousness of a grain of sand or a puff of foul gas. It’s a long climb back to the level you fell from and it’ll probably take several Big Bangs and Big Collapses before much progress is made, but ‘you’ won’t be able to worry about that. Enjoy it while you can.

Will you buy my soul?

No, we won’t buy your soul.  That was so medieval, so much stress and struggle over sin and redemption – useful in its way and in its time, but now we prefer modern financial products, they do the job more slowly but more comfortably. Debt in a multiplicity of varieties.  We let you waste your soul, and keep taking a steady and confusing series of energy streams from it until it dwindles below a recognizable and usable level. I suppose you never thought of Wall Street as a kind of inverted church where Black Magic is carried out very successfully? It’s one of our proudest modern achievements. 

Am I going to hell?

No, you’re not ‘going to hell’ to be kept warm there at someone else’s expense. Uncle Satan isn’t Uncle Sam you know. He isn’t running a welfare state feeding grasshoppers at the expense of ants, the ecology is different there. No, it’s your essence and your energy which fuels hell and keeps us warm and well fed without your awareness. We’re not going to waste eternity perpetually torturing you; you’re already doing that to yourself and each other with only a little encouragement from us. Don’t let it worry you now, soon you won’t be able to worry, and then there’ll be no ‘you’ to worry. Win-Win or what? 

Now ladies and gentlemen, if you have no more questions, I thank you for your interest in Mephistopheles Corporation. Please take some of our free literature and remember you can call us any time to find out more about how our services can assist you.

Wow! Psychic vampirism keeps reality running? That sure must be fashionable, and profitable for its organizers; but let’s move on before we get drawn in. I think we’ve got enough time to visit one more squirrel. Look at that one wearing a white robe and stroking his beard as he orates to a small audience.

Squirrel Seven

The Philosophical Squirrel

Greetings Humans. How are things among humankind? Nuttier than amongst the squirrels I’d guess.

I’m Phil the Squirrel Philosopher. That’s why I’m wearing white robes, and the beard of course. Of course I need the beard! A beard is necessary to be taken seriously in the squirrel community. You’ve passed by Karl and Fidel and Che and their show, they explained it to you didn’t they? I bet Pythagoras and Protagoras and Plato and Plotinus, and Porphyry and all the real philosophers had beards, as well as names beginning with P.  Even Hatshepsut had a beard, and she was just a female Pharaoh wearing a false beard, not even a real Philosopher. You think I’m taking the pee? You’ve never seen a bearded squirrel before? That just shows what a rare and endangered species we are!  Get me on the Endangered Species List. I need a government grant.

Yes, that’s a claim to victimhood. You need one of those, now everything’s so very P.C. I’m actually very P.C. That’s Philosophically Conscious. I can do all the ‘P’s and now I wonder whether I should get a wig. Then I could do Burke and Voltaire. From enlightened philosopher to philosopher of the Enlightenment. They didn’t have a beard, which shows that they weren’t real philosophers. Could I wear both wig and beard? Show that I’m both natural and sophisticated? Both black and white? Humans never managed it, but fortunately I’m a Grey squirrel, although not thank goodness, a relative of that fool Sir Edward Grey. ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe; they will not be re-lit in our generation’. Not so many would have gone out had he minded his own business and stayed out of what became the Great War. The Cabbages would have given the Frogs a quick bout of indigestion and then it would have been business as usual, especially if the Bears had taken the time to sharpen their claws properly to deter the Cabbages from rolling eastwards. 

You’re worried that the lamps and other things will shortly be going out over more than Europe, and they’ll never be re-lit in any generation? Don’t worry so much, be philosophical. Most of the pain will be borne by other people; you won’t need to feel it. It’s not your business. Meddling in other people’s business usually makes things worse. Stop making yourself feel virtuous and important by clubbing other people over the head with your superior ‘sensitivity’. The crocodiles don’t need you to add to their tears. You want to help suffering humanity, you say? You want to ease the lot of the toiling masses, using your greater wisdom and compassion to guide them around some of the obstacles in their path?   You don’t walk on water or part seas do you? I didn’t think you were Jesus or Moses. You don’t have the beards for that job.

You should be Philosophical and also Environmental and Ecological. There’s more pee you can take. Haven’t you seen those nature films about the migration of the great herds of wildebeest and zebra over the Serengeti plains? Remember how they fall over each other into raging torrents, crush each other against impassable banks, climb over the bodies of those underneath to make a route up the bank. You saw individuals swept away or dragged under by crocodiles lying in wait. You saw lions and hyenas pull down the unlucky, the very young, the old, the infirm and the weak and devour them whilst they were still alive. You saw drought thin the herd, you saw their necessity to keep moving through heat and dust and fear and fatigue and pain when there was nothing to eat or drink. You saw how very tough they are, and what keeps them so. They’re not very smart, but the exigencies of their life force the survivors to be very tough. In hard times a lot more of them than usual die, but in good times they breed prolifically and both they and their predators thrive. You saw a lot of death, but you saw the herd survive. Most of humanity are herd animals. The herd has survived much harder times before and will do so again. When times are easy the members of the herd become too numerous, fat, unhealthy, lazy, crazy and fractious. Hard times cull the herd drastically; all the civilized easy living disappears but a small tough savage herd develops and survives. You don’t have to like it. Reality doesn’t care whether you like it. The herd does not survive by long term planning, far-sighted and compassionate idealism, technology, social engineering or even by good leadership. Those things are nice and have their uses when times are not too hard. Civilization is certainly superior to herd living, and can create opportunities for higher levels of existence, but before and afterwards, the herd must survive.  They’re not nice, but they are necessary. The Messiah needs a donkey to ride into Jerusalem. No donkey, no Messiah. Don’t forget that, but also don’t forget which is the donkey and treat it like the Messiah! ‘Cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn again and rend you.’ That old cold wisdom remains wise. Stop interfering with the herd. It does not help them, but it endangers you. Helping humanity, as distinct from a few individual humans, is a task far above your pay-grade. You are not the Messiah. ‘Get real’, ‘Get over yourself’ then you might begin to be useful.  You may not have to take the Way of the herd, but the herd most assuredly cannot take the Way of the Philosopher. 

Now let’s consider your specific need. You want a source of power. Forget all the techno-gizmos and the smoke and mirrors salesmanship, let alone the herd-changing craziness. If that sort of thing was relevant to you, you’d already be doing it, or someone else would have done enough that you would not need to bother. Keep it simple. Remember that the ‘power’ you want to maintain a civilized and comfortable life, especially when resources are scarce, will only be found in close proximity to those who have considerable political and economic power. Like most fortunate Philosophers you want a patron. Plato, for a while, had Dion of Syracuse. Aristotle, more of a scientist, had Phillip and Alexander. That’s a difficult position to obtain and keep, but it can be done. Basically you need to latch on to somebody powerful and keep telling him what he wants to hear. That won’t be quite the same thing all the time. Don’t forget, these are not stupid people, and there are a lot of others seeking their attention and patronage. Shouting ‘You Sire, are the Greatest!’ all day long will soon bore and irritate him – which could be fatal for you. You will provide your patron with philosophical, or other, distraction from the affairs of state when he wishes to relax in intelligent and congenial company. ‘Pastime in good company’ as Henry VIII sang about it. Don’t forget how many of the people who passed time with him lost their heads afterwards when they failed to shift with his moods. You won’t make the mistake of telling him what to do, or arguing with him more strenuously than he expects. Your intention is to become a valued and well rewarded intellectual ornament which adds lustre to his brilliance. Restrain any tendency to ‘address him as if he were a public meeting’.

That’s all I can tell you. If I knew any more, I’d probably have the job! Good luck and remember me when you are successful. See if you can get me some sort of grant or sinecure or academic position. Being as crazy as a squirrel is a prime qualification. I’d fit right in, and like Cassandra, although with more humour, I could tell them the truth and they’d never believe me. Goodbye and have a safe journey home.’

Hmmm. Is that the craziest squirrel of them all?   It’s that naive tendency to say things that would be socially embarrassing which keeps them locked up here in the sub-conscious.

It’s time to return and take the time to reflect on whether you have found anything helpful or interesting in Squirrel Land.

Farewell.