The Conspiracy of Truth As shown in the painting by George Leonnec

by Nicholas Cueva

The Conspiracy of Truth As shown in the painting by George Leonnec

by Nicholas Cueva

"They are without fears and without desires, dominated by no falsehood, sharing no error, loving without illusion, suffering without impatience, reposing in the quietude of eternal thought..... a Magus cannot be ignorant, for magic implies superiority, mastership, majority, and majority signifies emancipation by knowledge. The Magus welcomes pleasure, accepts wealth, deserves honour, but is never the slave of one of them; he knows how to be poor, to abstain, and to suffer; he endures oblivion willingly because he is lord of his own happiness, and expects or fears nothing from the caprice of fortune. He can love without being beloved; he can create imperishable treasures, and exalt himself above the level of honours or the prizes of the lottery. He possesses that which he seeks, namely, profound peace. He regrets nothing which must end, but remembers with satisfaction that he has met with good in all. His hope is a certitude, for he knows that good is eternal and evil transitory. He enjoys solitude, but does not fly the society of man; he is a child with children, joyous with the young, staid with the old, patient with the foolish, happy with the wise. He smiles with all who smile, and mourns with all who weep; applauding strength, he is yet indulgent to weakness; offending no one, he has himself no need to pardon, for he never thinks himself offended; he pities those who misconceive him, and seeks an opportunity to serve them; by the force of kindness only does he avenge himself on the ungrateful..."

-Eliphas Levi, Threshold of Magical Science

Introduction

“Behold, I have climbed down from the mountain, which was the pit of my stomach and the coasts of my visual field. I have found the spirit without spirit. Belief without all the tedious question of truth.”

-Nicholas Cueva

At random I have found a painting, which was commercial in nature, made for a magazine cover in the 1920’s. I have taken my ability to see meaning where there is none, and turned it back onto itself in a hopes of a recursive poetry of neurological clarity and confusion.

This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it -- or similar thoughts. it is therefore not a text-book. Its object would be attained if it afforded pleasure to one who read it with understanding.

Its whole meaning could be summed up somewhat as follows: What can be

said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must scream incoherently.

How far my efforts agree with those of other I will not decide. Indeed what I have here written makes no claim to novelty in points of detail; and therefore I give no sources, because it is indifferent to me whether what I have thought has already been thought before me by another.

I will only mention that to the great writings of Lugwig Wittgenstein, Joseph

Campbell, Alan Watts, Daniel Dennett and to my discussions with William Sieruta to whom I owe in large measure the stimulation of my thoughts.

- N.C. Brooklyn

George Leonnec, 1924 “La Vie Parisienne” cover art

This painting was made in 1924, within it is the knowledge of the secrets of

living a good life. The painting represents the whole person. The rider is the mind (the

collection of thoughts, the consciousness) and the centaur is the body (our genes, our brains and even our mind’s concepts of the body). If one correctly understands the painting, one has come to terms with the self.

There is nothing inherent in the work, it exists as it exists. Yet one of the many joys of being a mind in the world, is to choose how one sees the things. As Wittgenstein so beautifully put it, “If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.”

Justly then, those who attempt to see the whole spectrum of experience as beautiful will, in their “eternal life”, live in heaven. This image, than is a key to heaven.

Now we may enter the rest of the hidden meaning, with the camel. This is the key to the meaning of the painting. The usage in the camel is a reference to Nietzsche’s “The Three Metamorphoses”. The metaphor in the book is one of the spirit. A strength in spirit comes from carrying more of the burdens of life (not just carrying but dealing with). A truly strong spirit will look for more and more to carry. When one live in this way one is the Camel.

Then after a duration as Camel, there is a transition. Camel bears the weight of the task only to find it meaningless and illusory,The spirit who carries the burden of will eventually tire. A separation in thought from those who still adhere to idealism is what is needed. “Behind every cynic is a disappointed idealist.”

Only in the separation can genuine creation be brought forth. This solitude is the desert. The Camel no longer finding meaning in the burdens given and taken; the spirit’s self will protests. The Camel no longer wishes to carry the burdens. At this point the Camel becomes a Lion, the spirit that lets go of these weights in order to carry on further, towards the spirit’s total freedom. The Lion is the discerning spirit, existing not only to deny the false things but to make room for affirmation.

This painting tells us that the messages within it will help the transition from Camel to Lion. This painting is a set of clues to become strong, to take life to the next step.

Here the body is not burdenen by the mind, but enraptured with it.

The next part of the hidden meaning is the severed hoof. This is the key to the visual operation within the painting. One must not disregard the humor in the meaning of the hoof. The artist chose to only allow three hoofs to be visible on the centaur. Even though there are only three visible, our minds fill it in and we believe it to have four. The severed hoof in the center asks us to acknowledge that we only see what we expect to see.

One’s experience of life is the pallet of information one has. To experience the world, we must be aware of the limits of our own selves. I can not escape the imagined reality of their being four hoofs until one actually looks at the image. Knowing where one’s mind is constructing reality is a line one must know before becoming a whole.

Because it is at the center of the image, the severed hoof is the key to negative space of the whole painting. All the hidden imagery in the negative spaces are the obstacles of separating what we know of the world from what is really just within our own heads. That which is in the world is really in ourselves.

This is also a cry for developing taste. The art one chooses to surround one’s self is the expression of the way one wishes to see the world.

With a sense of humor, the hoof is cloven, implying the ability of the mind to not only expect, but transform and change expectation.

Another secret truth in this painting is the three leaf clover. The clover is an icon of luck. It is a three leaf clover and therefore doesn’t mean luck from fate (as it would if it was four leafed), but three leaves mean luck from work. The centaur in the painting is grabbing towards luck through work. We will address more of the meaning of the centaur later, but the clover asks us to acknowledge the reality of the world. There is no real knowable direction one’s life must go, other than to imagine a direction and to know that one is imagining the direction.

No one may know the course of one’s life, unless one were to kill one’s self. So the idea of luck from work is illusory. One may be a genius, working well and quickly, but this only increases future probability of “success”. This painting though asks us to cast away this illusion.

This is to say, one must not embark on a course of action we think may bring us luck, because there is no such thing as luck. One must instead find success in the action itself. There really is no such thing as probability. That is an idea that carries us from moment to moment, but signifies nothing. Things will happen as they will happen. Things will be as they will be, due to the course of nature’s unknowable complexity.

Here’s the trick though. We know from social interaction and self motivation that believing that there will be success can actually facilitate some success (as long as it does not blind one from a correct course of action). Any course of action to increase success should be taken on.

The pleasure from being in the moment is success. This is not to say become hedonistic. To consume the world will not fill the gut. Instead one must turn inward upon the self to find pleasure in everything.

This turning the whole world to pleasurable luck is completely personal. Therefore one may take on superstitions, knowing that they are not real, yet believing they will work. One may enjoy the excitement of the totem, knowing it’s power is not in the object but in the self.

The image of the buck is a metaphor for the presumed state of nature. (As anyone who has taken a vision quest in the north east will know what I mean) a buck is a powerful image of nature’s grace and power. We may imagine ourselves, our bodies, to be like this animal: a creature in nature. Then we must awaken all of our faculties, and listen as intently as the buck.

To live the good life, as this painting suggests, is to become inquisitive and active, all the while paying close attention to one’s own instinctive reactions. But, because it is in the negative space, one must acknowledge too that most things we consider instinct are suppressed reactions to past situations. These illusions have to go. To get to the true self, one must separate instinct from reactionary Qualia induced behavior.

The buck may wander the forest, feeding and mating. The buck though, is aware, just by being itself, of what danger may be present. It is always ready to flee or fight, but is never anxious, as it never has a need to plan it’s escape. It is it’s escape, because it is aware of where it is and what is happening, which is the best it may do.

The easiest to separate is the idea of evil. Another hidden symbol is the head of Satan. The imagining of the head of Satan will cause one to see a devil’s threesome in the total image. The head of Satan is to symbolize the reality of an internal darkness, but it is preceived to be an external thing. The evil we imagine in the world is a construction of our own mind. Once this has been accepted and bravely confronted, one can better find the true self. One is one’s own devil.

As one begins to drop the burdens, one may find that evil or the language of evil becomes more akin to the alien and imposed instincts we relabeled Qualia induced behavior. Real human evil in the world, is someone acting in their own separate logic, unaware or apathetic of how it affects others.

If one was abused, one cannot blame one’s abuse of others on the past abuse. One must take those types of “instincts’ and relabel them as something alien and imposed, and not truly of the self. These could be labeled as “Shock Qualia”. These “Shock Qualia” are understood as “Engrams” by those in Scientology.

Unlike Scientology, this painting ask us not to shed our Engrams, but to embrace them, better knowing what they are. They are experiences, and while experiences shape who you are, they are also not the self. You are not your experiences, but instead you are the thing that reacts to your experiences.

A negative or evil experience in the world contorts the individual into trying to accept it as reality, when clearly it is not reality to anyone else. Take for instance, child abuse. An abused child, unaware of the larger reality, sees their abuse not only as abnormal, but specified to them. They do not witness the abuses of their peers, and are not told that abuse, though harmful, is neither their fault not unique. It is the “bad luck” of having sick adults in one’s community.

Even if the child does express their abuse to others, it is treated with odd silence, and if talked about, only in the most vague and disconnected way, leaving the child unable to express a real experience, only able to internalize it.

Unfortunately, abuse is systemic, as abused individuals tend to refocus energies on “controlable” parts of their lives, often becoming very successful, but in danger of passing on their unexpressed terror to the next generation.

(To learn more of these non-scientific thoughts on child abuse, please read Nicholas Cueva’s Spare)

The non-existent image of the woman displaying her genitals in the corner of the painting represents imagined desires. All desires are from imagination, as once a desire is no longer in ones head but is manifest, it is no longer a desire. Desire is pleasurable, and one must not fight one’s desires, but acknowledge them and keep them as something to enjoy.

One may never see one’s desires fulfilled, so one must find the desire itself pleasurable. One must be content where one is, but also striving for what one desires.

One of the issues in desiring that one must deal with is the language of our desires. The hidden word “FUCK” in the painting points to this. The language one uses to describe one’s desires actually shapes one’s desires. Some people have a compulsion, but without information, the desire cannot be attained. Does one want to FUCK, or does one want to ride their centaur lover, in a mad embrace of physical and mental intimacy? The poetics of your desire shape how you fulfill them.

Next we look at the “big and small” imagery. Appearing twice in the negative space, and once in the positive space, each represents change. The exterior changes we experience are the changes in the world. Some changes seem like the world is getting better, some that the world is getting worse. Reality, there is no better or worse, just things that we like and don’t like, but only as we perceive them. ------------------------------------------REMOVE

But the world is always in a state of flux, everything is changing without one’s control and anything you care for may get closer or farther away from you. The interior symbol shows us the true path. That one cannot stop change, but one can change oneself to accept change with a light heart.

The next clue to truth in this painting is the hidden image of the finch. The finch, being the main animal studied by Charles Darwin in the Galapagos, symbolizes the premise of Natural Selection.

To live well, one must understand that one is an animal, with certain goals. And the expression of the self is the attempt at such internal goals. One’s need to reproduce can be sublimated, but that drive, though sublimated, is real still.

Just as one must tame the body, one must also take into account subconscious evolutionary drives. Once one recognizes the workings of such drives, one may be freer to make choices in one’s life, and to truly realize the self.

One cannot simply ignore these impulses and drives, but it would not be prudent to give one’s self completely over to them either. Instead, one must ride them, controlling their direction but not hindering their energy.

In a similar vein, we are presented with the image of the cuttlefish. The cuttlefish is one of the most intelligent animals, having one of the largest brains for it’s size. The cuttlefish appears in the coat of the rider, and symbolizes the internal need for intelligence, not as the drive, but as a tool.

Just as one need not let one’s biological drives dominate, one need not let one’s intelligence dominate. Our mind is incredible at problem solving, that is what drove it’s success in evolution. One must realize that we solve problems by observing patterns and correcting them towards our ends. Yet not everything in the world or the self is a problem. Sometimes it is one’s intelligence that is the problem.

Any intelligent person understands that drugs (alcohol, marijuana, etc.) are social lubricants. They are also helpful in work, especially of the creative nature, and in romantic endeavors. This is because the active mind paralyzes the self, trying to tackle problems that have no real solution. One must be the robot who is smart enough to know when to turn off parts of it’s brain.

P.S.

The cuttle fish is also the original source of sepia (which is a dye/ink that the creature produces). This isn’t crucial to understanding the painting, but is a small art joke for artists.

The most blatant hidden image in this painting is that of a penis entering a vagina. This first, being as a grabing device to bring a viewer in (sex sells), and second to represent the physical act of love being based in the body. The enjoyment of sex is an mystery, but one that is so obvious it is humorous.

It is interesting to note that this image of intercourse is still not obvious. It was made not obvious because it is important we imagine it out into reality. The sexual imaginings one has are one of the most interesting aspects of life. They are secrets we keep from others and one’s self. Our minds are quick to imagine these things in a compulsory way.

One often has no choice in imagining them, no choice in what stimulates. One is a prisoner, as a child safe in their room imagining monsters in every shadow.

This then is a key to the self that is crucial. One is in a prison of one’s desires. But just as is the case with the sexual imaginings, often what is needed isn’t repression, but acceptance.

If for instance, as I was walking down the street I looked up from my feet to see a woman walking on the other side. Instantly, without my consent, my mind makes a play:

She sees me. She stops. She walks across the street as I walk across the street. We meet in the center, eyes like spouts of molten iron hitting each other. I spin her around, and rip off her skirt, bend her over. She is willing, and her sex is dripping in anticipation. I drop my pants and with the force of bull I plough into her. At this point, cars are crashing into us and each other, but like unmovable statues we stand our ground, surrounded by the wreckage of the world.

This thought is instant, and for all intents and purposes out of my control. But I may accept it as part of me, and not reality. I may enjoy it then, without shame. I don’t need to concern myself with what the woman actually thinks of me, if she is married or not, or if I am actually attracted to her or if I am married or not. The imagined world can is already enough.

It is also true that in coitus, one’s mind may jump from one sexual imagining to another, sometimes barely engaged in the present activities. This is normal and real, because sexual desire is not in the having, but in the mind. Whatever gets you off.

Along the same lines, the anal must also be controlled. First, as one must learn to deal with the workings of one’s own body and to become comfortable with them. Secondly, one must avoid anal retention. In becoming comfortable, one must also realize the limits of control and one must allow one’s nature to be, even while being in control. On will not be able to make real choices if one has to constantly choose to not be the self.

Do not fight the self, but tease and finesse the self to be more productive towards how one wishes the world to be. One who has working legs would be expected to walk. One with a limp may play the game of walking poorly, or may learn the rhythm one’s own body and turn the walk into a dance.

The image of the raven appears in the rider, again, the mind. The raven, like the cuttlefish, is incredibly intelligent and can solve problems. The raven, in this image, is a cry for one to allow the problem solving part of the self to be the lead, the head of the whole animal (mind and body).

The raven, in many mythologies, is also the image of provision (which goes hand in hand with problem solving. The raven shows many prophets and kings that the world provides for those in it, not because of the generosity of the world, but because the creature is intelligent enough to get what it needs out of the world. There is no need in the person that doesn’t have some correlation to a reality in the world. The only thing between a creature and it’s need is the act of problem solving.

This ying-yang of the female/male, mind/body is the crux of the issue. One must live in control of the body, the mind must subjugate the body. BUT that is not the end. After subjugation, the mind must embrace the body. The body doesn’t just serve the mind, but the mind serves the body (And infact, they are not even separate things, but our culture’s language, which we inherit, makes such a distiction).

The mind and the body are not separate, but the mind is the program running within the body. The “better” the program is at running the hardware, the more control and success one will have. “Better” though is not in a universal scale (as IQ is) but is the ability for the mind to adjust itself. The mind must also realize it is not ever really in control if the beast is not tamed, and even then only out the body’s respect for the mind.

It is also to be noted that this duality shows one’s minds propensity to break things into binaries, it is how one constructs everything, not because that is how it is, but it is the only way one can see it.

The hidden image of the number 21, both in the figure, and in the number of visible flowers in the bouquet represent the mind’s need for magic and lack of understanding.

In the paper "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" by George A. Miller, one gets a hint at what the artist is getting at. It is about our ability to deal with the world, and letting go.

The mind is roughly capable of holding around four things at once easily. Seven things, is the point where keeping these things in mind breaks down. But twenty-one is three seven’s, and twenty-one represents, from early mythology, a concept of things that are beyond us. You cannot imagine twenty-one faces at once or twenty one animals. It is a metaphor for infinity (without all the messy math). It is the number that is far beyond humans.

This painting then, as the centaur lets the bouquet fly, asks us to let go of the world in it’s infinite nature as something we could dare hold. We are to be free. But the twenty-one is not just exterior, but also interior. One is also made of countless parts, and daring to hold on and to believe that one understands the self must be realized as equally impossible.

But because the internal twenty-one is internal, it is the reality of the task. One must realize one is an insanely complex animal, and that is our challenge until death, to deal with ourselves.

The image of the pentagram as it is the most hidden, having the most layers to it. First, the pentagram usually means mathematical perfection. But this pentagram is skewed and takes on a more humble and darker tone. The usage of the pentagram in this painting is that of Eliphas Levi, the french occultist.

Levi observed that the pentagram with one point up, and two points down represented good, and a pentagram with two points up and one point down represents evil. In this image though, it is split and is rotated. The way in which one chooses to construct the imagined parts of the pentagram is a choice. One may choose to see their own imagined order in the chaos as good or as bad, but it must be acknowledged that it is all within oneself.

If man is five, and the devil is six, then god is seven (or that which is beyond us). We must recognize the broken nonsense as sense, knowing that it really isn’t. As Levi said in his Threshold of Magical Science: "To practice magic is to be a quack; to know magic is to be a sage."

Then we come to the image of Bastet. Located in the female rider, located in the mind, one is asked to let Bastet ride one’s coat tales. She is a mother, but she is also death. She is the wife of Shiva, Parvati who is also Kali.

It is the reality of this two things: one’s birth in the world and one’s death. One must carry the reality of one’s self as a being in the world. One was born and one will die, and that is reality. And we need not fear it. The time before one existed will feel the same as the time after one existed.

Lastly we encounter the chalice. The chalice comes from the mysticism inherent and hidden in symbolism for all time, notable recent examples are the Tarot chalice and the pimp cup. The chalice is the container, and represent the keeping of something. To have a chalice, is to have a container for the elixir of life. And what goes into the chalice? What is the elixir of life?

The orchid is the elixir of life. The orchid, the symbol of non-truth and non-sense, must be cherished and hidden.

These are the secrets of the universe that have been presented to us in this beautiful painting by George Leonnec.