The Misadventures of Crowley and Squirrel

A mechanical musical marvel from the late 1800s.

early batman is a swashbuckler and he’s having a good-ass time beating up these bad guys, because he existed in the context of organized crime being a big fucking problem. they were coming out of the 1930s. that’s the era of al capone, you know? john dillinger only died five years ago and he was a fucking celebrity. and batman shows up to be like YOU KNOW WHAT’S COOLER THAN SHOOTING PEOPLE AND BRIBING GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS? BEING BATMAN.

early batman could not have been more clearly edutainment, pulpy enough to make kids feel like they were reading That Good Shit but always with a really obvious message (the message was DON’T DO A CRIME). he fights a lot of giants because having to protect yourself from people twice your size is very #relatable to children.

when he adopts robin it’s very clearly to give kids a character to relate to more strongly than they can bruce wayne–FIGHTING CRIMES ISN’T JUST FOR RICH MEN, IT’S ALSO FOR COOL KIDS LIKE YOU. see how cool robin is, kicking the shit out of these dudes? don’t you wanna be cool, like robin? he’s from the circus, that thing you wanted to run away to because that’s a viable life choice in this era!

bruce wayne was rich but his whole cover was that rich people are fucking useless. a man who inherited money? a fucking useless, lazy shit, no question. this was just accepted by everyone, that obviously an heir would never be suspected of doing anything that might take effort. the difference in attitude on a fundamental level toward the idle rich is staggering.

his wealth is also MONUMENTALLY downplayed, in the same way you see in old movies. they deliberately did not film the philadelphia story in an actual mansion because they didn’t think anyone would believe that the rich got to live like that. so bruce wayne ends up looking like he lives in a tract home in a suburb. “is this how rich people live? yeah, sure, probably. who cares, let’s fight crimes.”

they only introduce a backstory after the comic has been going for a while, because at first it’s like? why would he need a reason to fight crime? it’s fun? but i guess they figured they had to create SOME reason for bruce wayne to not be completely useless, as all rich men are. why is bruce wayne the only rich man capable of doing cool shit? because his parents died, that’s why. check out robin kicking this dude in the head. fucking sweet, right?

there’s a whole storyline where batman fights a whole fucking town because it’s corrupt and the cops are corrupt and THE WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM IS CORRUPT so he’s gonna FIGHT THE WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM IF HE HAS TO, FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR COCAINE.

then the comics code happens and fucks everything. batman can’t fight, like, systemic corruption and dudes with tommy guns anymore. all the crimes get CARTOONY AS SHIT. the joker isn’t just a murderous jewel thief with a weird face, he’s a fucking clown. he’s a weird clown man committing clown crimes. puns everywhere. suddenly batman is fighting Supervillains, and they’re all insane. but they aren’t, really? they are a cartoon’s idea of insanity, like a wolf in a straitjacket getting hit on the head with a mallet. when a character is insane what that actually means is they’re wacky, they do weird shit, they have no meaningful motivation and do crimes for no reason because the alternative is having them commit real crimes for good reasons and that’s not good for the kiddos. the fact that batman changed so much after the code is fucking WILD because, remember, it was ALWAYS for the kids. it was BLATANTLY for the kids. the code still managed to fuck it just through the culture shift it created.

then later there’s this shift, again, away from the code and away from kids entirely. late seventies, i think? fuck if i know, i don’t know shit about damn. suddenly they want to be more GRITTY and REAL and DARK. they want REAL CRIME. batman is PUNCHING RAPISTS IN ALLEYS. but this isn’t the era of dillinger anymore. as a society, collectively, we understand more about crime and the societal forces that drive people to crime and so on. there are a lot of alley rapists in this era of comics tbh and this is probably why. rapists always deserve to get punched regardless of class struggle. also at this point we understand more about violence, and people who are violent, who commit acts of violence and solve problems with violence and enjoy being violent. a rich guy having a blast kicking a guy in the head for robbing a bank is no longer great optics.

so batman stops having fun. this is now his dark mission, his grim assignment. he doesn’t like this job, but someone’s gotta do it. he will not smile as he punches a rapist in the head. this is serious business. i don’t necessarily have a problem with this decision, because i think it’s a legitimate course of action to say “in a modern context, these behaviors become unacceptable, and so we will change his behaviors so that he can continue to be a heroic figure”. that’s valid as a motherfucker and i wish more people would remember that the whole point of making batman a grump was so that he could continue to be a good guy, as opposed to the alternative of gleeful violence.

(getting rid of most of the violence is also good–he’s a detective–but these are comics we’re talking about here so lol)

and then there’s the villains. you’d think this would be the point where they say “hey, maybe let’s go back to the way some of our villains were before the code”. you’d think that if they hated the goofy villains so much they’d just move on. but it’s comics so nothing ever goes in the trash for good. and that’s when you have writers who look at a cartoon wolf in a straitjacket and they say “that’s not what insanity looks like! we should make him a sociopath.”

i mean you could have just said “let’s stop calling him crazy and try to find a better motivation for these crimes, like being an asshole” but instead now batman has all these villains with sociopathy and OCD and DID and schizophrenia, because that makes it REAL, because now instead of being cartoon crazy people committing cartoon crimes they are real crazy people committing real crimes!! OH BOY

and at some point someone looks at this and goes “you know i feel like this might be ableist as shit” and writers could have said “yeah in retrospect the only evil clown i’m aware of was legally deemed sane and didn’t actually commit thematically appropriate crimes, so maybe mental health isn’t the issue here” but instead they said “yes, batman is kind of an asshole to be punching these sick people, but he’s a necessary asshole because without him there would be Crazy Crimes and we all just have to come to terms with that i guess”

now we’re at this place where we’re trying to reconcile about eighty years of nonsensical horseshit and all of these decisions that were made because of shifting cultural attitudes or to sell comics or because one writer in particular assumed everyone would love his cool OC as much as he did, and there are writers going “you know, bruce wayne probably has pretty severe ptsd” and there are writers going “what if batman was the REAL villain all along” and there are writers going “lol rich man wears bat costume to punch the mentally ill and poors, did u ever think about that” and there are writers going “hey have you heard of this ayn rand chick because boy howdy i just did and now i’ve got ideas”

If that were so, then yeah. It’d be as ableist as making what looks like a fun lifestyle out of being triggered, or being “OCD”, etc.

Except… it’s clearly not. We’re not playing. We’re not romanticising a very real, very serious disorder – we’re just being ourselves. And to think that it’s impossible for anyone to be any kind of multiple without also having DID is pathologizing so many more than just us here. It’s demonizing a way of being that has existed for hundreds of years on the fringes of normal society. Saying that there’s no way anyone can ever have any more than one person in their head without also having a serious disorder, casts doubts and aspersions on the health and sanity of such notable persons as:

Carl Jung, who had Philemon

Socrates and his daimon

Leonard Nimoy, who experienced Spock as having a mind of his own

Fernando Pessoa and his heteronyms

Countless authors who’ve heard and seen and talked with their characters – whether they believe the characters to be real people or not is irrelevant to the fact that they’re still actually experiencing something at least on the fringes of being multiple.

Buddhists, and Westerners, who’ve delved into creating tulpas, some from a religious standpoint and others from secular ones. (While it’s exploded in popularity in Western society in recent years, it’s been a thing for at least a hundred.)

Joan of Arc and probably a whole host of other saints who’ve talked to God or angels and gotten responses back, and sometimes have even felt that it was God literally doing things through them, rather than them doing it themselves.

There’s countless religions that view spirit possession as a real, positive thing, interacting with other beings existing inside them. Even Christianity, with its focus on listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit, which some denominations take very literally. Regardless of whether these spirits actually exist and are doing so or not, people are and have and will continue to experience the presence and influence and possession of other persons/minds inside and alongside their own.

This month triX celebrates the artist known as bluefluke, creator of the free, and undoubtedly ass-kicking PSYCHONAUGHT FIELD MANUAL, an expertly crafted, irreverent expose of practical diy chaos magic, with generous dollops of heart. He was kind enough to answer our 13 Questions challenge. 

triX: What inspired you to create the Psychonaught Field Manual? 

bluefluke: Originally I had just planned on making simple one panel meme style images. Like “How to meditate!” or “How to create a servitor!” in a single small image that people could post on forums and image boards. I eventually made so many of them that it only made sense to put them together, rewrite a more descriptive narrative and make the thing into a comic book. I always wanted to make one and now I had an excuse.

tX: What has the response been like? 

bluefluke: It proved me wrong and restored my faith in the people. I was fully prepared to be swept under and drowned in a  sea of “I’m King of the wizard people and you’re doing it wrong!” or “You’re an Illuminati shill selling *insert conspiracy here* to children!” But this imaginary army of ghoulish hate trolls and zealotous redneck barbarians never appeared. Instead it exploded on tumblr and reddit. Jason Luv even posted it on Ultraculture. Everyone has been so nice.

tX: Who/What/Where do you consider your ‘magical home’/community? 

bluefluke: The Discordian scene here in Cincy. It’s warm, loyal, open to new tech/ideas and artsy in all the right places. It’s a perfect spiritual incubator for someone like me. Fits like a glove.

tX: Which artist inspires you most? 

bluefluke: Moebius is my hero. Always will be. His work makes me want to be a better artist.

tX:  What kind of practices are you currently exploring/or have incorporated as personal discipline? 

bluefluke: Automatic writing/drawing. It’s something I hadn’t taken much stock in previously but recent experimentations have yielded astonishing results. It’s good to be wrong.

tX: How important do you find personal expression in magical work? 

bluefluke: I truly believe creative endeavours such as art, writing and music are the very language of magic translated to the closest representation possible in the material world. I know that sound pretentious, don’t judge me. I am fragile.

tX: How has art influenced your magic and vice versa?  

bluefluke: As I said previously, I find it difficult to differentiate the two.

tX: Are you familiar w the concept of ‘self-secret’? 

bluefluke: If I understand the phrase correctly I’m assuming it to be similar to the concept of your Superconscious/HGA/Higher Self protecting you from ugly truths you cannot handle and only by “knowing thyself” can one see these truths clearly.

tX: What, in your opinion, is the most annoying thing about the occult scene? 

bluefluke: Egotistical jackassery and mindless zealotry. Never fully buy into anyone else’s bullshit. That goes double for you own bullshit. It’s a stumbling block and the death of magical/spiritual growth.

tX: What is the most promising thing about the occult scene at the moment? 

bluefluke: Thanks to the internet even the most highly guarded secret practice is open to the public for experimentation and peer review. The result is leaner meaner more effective tech that can be shared and improved on by larger groups than at any other point in history. Moreover, a grand and unprecedented sort of “interfaith” dialog now exists between people who would have, even a decade ago, never considered each other peers, much less as friends. A Chaos magician, a Mason and a Taoist walk into a bar…

tX: How did you get into illustration/drawing? 

bluefluke: I learned to draw using an NES emulator that would allow you to replace in game graphics with your own. It was a great teacher because it forced you to be creative in order to get the most out of the consoles (very) limited graphical abilities. Although I’ve shed these restraints I still use many of these techniques which is why people tend to find my art style “familiar” but can’t quite put their finger on why this is so.

tX: Are there more publications and/or projects currently in the pipeline? 

bluefluke: Besides the Psychonaut Field Manual I’m working on a Tarot deck made for both divinatory and Kabbalistic practitioners equally and respectively. I’m hoping to release it sometime in october. Fingers crossed!

tX: If you could weave one grand spell for humanity, what would it be?

bluefluke: I would weave into us a greater empathy so as that we might unite into a greater whole, Babylon style.

- ED

I once held a similar perspective. Any belief system can be made into a working tool if used correctly. There’s no need to abandon logic or rationality. Rather, use that as your ticket in. For example you could embrace the belief that magic is a psychological/hallucinogenic experience rather than a mystical one and work from there. Think of it as brain hacking. Once you’ve got the tech working and producing results shed what you find to be false and formulate your own hypothesis based on what you’ve learned along the way. You don’t have to embrace a theological explanation of the universe to pull back the curtains and see the “hidden world” all around you but you do have to believe in yourself and your ability to do so. Good luck psychonaut! :3

cop: one of your tail lights was blinking

me: you mean my turn signal?

Done  ToT