I apologize for my long absence. I can only say that it couldn’t be helped.
Now that I can (somewhat) focus on writing again, I decided to resume it where I began. This chapter will focus on the mechanics of incarnation itself, and humanity’s role in that process.
When I started The Cat Was Never found back in September of 2022, I was offered the option of including a tagline. I chose the following:
A player's guide to the Apocalypse.
The choice was a bit tongue-in-cheek. Framing Armageddon as a “game” might even be deemed blasphemy by some believers (not to mention the hubris in thinking I could offer any useful advice).
But the spirit behind those words was sincere: If we are indeed hurtling towards the battle-to-end-all-battles, our strategies and tactical choices will look a lot like a game when viewed from a certain height and angle of perception. And like all wargames, there will be objectives to complete, stakes to be risked, opponents to outmaneuver and overcome. Many of these opponents will be human. Others will be something else entirely.
Are we living in the End Times? If we investigate the claim linguistically, one could say that worlds are always beginning and ending all around us, given a certain definition of “worlds”. But the broad strokes of the past century-or-so of history are certainly alarming, in that they seem to line up neatly with prophetic visions recorded long ago.
This could merely be a form of pareidolia, of course: a bunch of overly-credulous rubes, teasing out the signals we quietly want to see.
On the other hand:
Don’t you feel it?
The sudden and energetic sharpening of blades? Two battle lines hardening into steel, and the rapidly fading hope of surviving in between them?
Most of all, don’t you feel the presence of an inexplicable evil looming everywhere, transforming pockets of reality with an ever more chilling ease and speed?
In my very first Substack article, I attempted to translate the description of our ultimate, non-human opponent into the rationalist’s tongue. But the artist’s tongue is probably more accurate and useful for the game to be played. In that language model, Satan’s true form is that of a shapeshifting monster with many arms and tentacles, many heads adorned with many eyes, many fire-breathing mouths, filled to bursting with sharp fangs and forked tongues.
This anatomical description is not purely symbolic or metaphorical. For one thing, this is what evil actually looks like, when viewed through the spiritual lens. For another, I suspect these sorts of nightmarish shapes both can and will be reflected in the more obvious, brick-and-mortar substance of reality, in the strange days ahead.
In other words, I think spiritual warfare will inevitably merge with the physical kind. One doesn’t need to study biblical prophesy to glimpse what that might look like. Essentially every artist who ever lived has seen and transcribed a version of this merging process, usually culminating in one or more monsters that are unleashed upon the Earth.
But therein lies a very thorny problem, which is typically reduced to the following claim:
Monsters aren’t real, dude.
That’s one of those commonplace, axiomatic claims a man could go his entire life without examining. It also functions as rite of passage, and a talisman of sorts. The child sleeps soundly, with the newfound knowledge that Dracula isn’t hiding in her closet or underneath her bed. Her disbelief in monsters marks a step into the adult world of reason and rationality.
But if she also attends church, she may find her brow troubled anew, because scripture tells of many monsters, past and future. Revelation in particular boasts a horde of spectacular mutants to rival the brood of Typhon and Echidna. As the seals are busted open, these obscene creatures will crawl, slither and soar forth, transgressing the barrier between the World of Make Believe to the one outside your window.
And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
ANATOMY a part of the body resembling or likened to a crown.
Probably just a coincidence. Nevertheless, we will revisit these lion-locust-scorpion-horse-corona-smoke-beasts in future chapters, as well as the identity of the “bottomless pit” from which they are summoned.
As if these freaky little bastards weren’t bad enough, we’ll also have this Final Boss to contend with, as the endgame draws near.
And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
But little Susie will still sleep soundly tonight. Even her church will tell her these wacky critters are mere metaphors and symbols, all of which refer to more mundane phenomena. For example, the seven-headed dragon will be translated into a sinister alliance of nations, its various horns and body parts representing key figures that command its wicked structures and intrigues. Same goes for the locust-lions of the pit, the whore of Babylon’s mount, and all the other beasties and bugbears described. So, she is once again reassured that the structure of reality is entirely stable, and what changes we see are mostly gradual, predictable and deterministic. Most importantly, it does not permit for monsters and magic spells, which are only-and-always metaphors.
She will happily retail this theory in conversation, and quickly grow frustrated with any dissent. Discussions along these lines often include subtle accusations, too. If one speaks of the forthcoming reality of monsters, retorts will often imply that the speaker is engaged in misdirection, pointing at “imaginary” problems (nightmarish beings prowling the Earth) to distract from the “real” ones (that army of murderous men over there, raping and pillaging the countryside). WE are the REAL monsters, is the embedded either/or proposition, with the accuser never pausing to consider that the answer could be yes/and.
I think the fractal-symmetrical structure of reality portends the answer is almost certainly “yes/and” on a long enough timescale. The patterns reiterate and mutate at multiple scales and dimensions, limited only by the available pathways in each snapshot of spacetime. But the trick is that these pathways are always multiplying and expanding, and accelerate in their expansion over time. What was impossible yesterday becomes possible next week, widespread the following day, ubiquitous an hour later, obsolete in a heartbeat.
With that in mind, consider the following thought experiment. Assume that the visions described by John of Patmos were exactly that: an artist’s attempt to verbally describe the unfamiliar pictures that he was actually seeing in his mind’s eye, but limited by the words, motifs and analogies of his particular position in spacetime. That’s to say, he is directly describing audiovisual snapshots from the future (potentially our present), which also happen to work as metaphors because of the universe’s fractality. Monsters as human institutions and agents, but monsters also as frightening beings that are entirely alien in shape and function.
Regardless of whether we are currently playing the game-to-end-all-games, we risk being caught flatfooted if and when these real monsters hit the table. It’s not that they’ll necessarily be more difficult to defeat than our enemy’s human minions. Generally speaking, I think the reverse will be true. That’s mostly down to rules-of-engagement: unlike human foes, there is little in the way of moral constraints to consider when fighting a monster. Just bust out that +2 Sword of Smiting and go bananas, buddy.
But they would still present an unusually dangerous challenge. We will need to use different weapons and tactics to defeat them. Most of all, we’ll need to adopt a different mindset about what is and isn’t possible.
We need to be ready for anything, in other words. That’s because a monster’s greatest weapon — be it as small as a microbe or big as a whale — is fear itself. And I don’t mean just any old fear. I mean the kind of mind-bending, paralytic terror that makes the worst bad acid trips seem like you drank a few two many beers at the office New Year’s bash.
Let’s face it: if you looked out your window tomorrow and saw some kind of seven-headed Kaiju cruising the cloud deck, you’d promptly shit your pants. I don’t care if you’re the world’s top horror movie aficionado or a combat medic who served in the hottest of hot-zones. This image simply will not compute.
And if you’re not intellectually and spiritually prepared, chances are you’ll bow down to any earthly authority who promises to protect you from it.
Lucky for us that dragons ain’t real, right?
Well, I have some good news and some bad news for you.
Let’s start with the bad news.
What is a monster?
As usual, we should begin by defining our terms.
A brief scan of various sources will reveal much plasticity and confusion about the word “monster.” For example, Oxford — notably the first Google (English) result — leads with the standard talisman/rite-of-passage version (accompanied by a string of childish cartoons to emphasize the point):
Merriam-Webster does a better job in both epistemic constraint and order:
1 a : an animal of strange or terrifying shape a mythical monster a sea monster … visualize this scaleless monster, eight or nine feet long, sprawling in the shade by the side of the mud pools …—W. E. Swinton
b : one unusually large for its kind That truck is a monster. That's why I was born in my grandmother's house—a grand, brick Federal monster of a house.—John Irving
2 a: an animal or plant of abnormal form or structure.
b: one who deviates from normal or acceptable behavior or character an immoral monster
3 : a threatening force the same monster—Destiny … that rolls every civilization to doom—W. L. Sullivan
But like all the oldest words that are still in common usage, we also have a sense of what “monster” means, beyond any particular definition. If I could only choose one word to describe this sense, it would be “horror.”
Monsters horrify us, in one or more ways. Humans and animals can also horrify us, but only by their actions. A monster is innately horrifying in ways that transcend a mere deviation from some norm. Even humans born with gruesome birth defects do not horrify us in the same way. Spending a few minutes in their company will reveal their ultimate familiarity, reminding us they are beings to be loved instead of feared. As Publius Terentius wrote:
“Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.” (“I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me.”)
That said, the central horror of a monster typically stems from their eerie similarity to recognizable forms — including and especially human ones. This is the phenomenon that the Uncanny Valley attempts to graph:
The shapes we fear most are the ones that feature one or more superficially familiar traits, yet come off as obviously wrong in their overall affect or gestalt. In the Chimera, we can recognize the components of lion, goat and snake, which aren’t individually horrifying per se. The horror stems from the bizarre way in which those components have been assembled.
But hybridization/incongruity isn’t the sole source of horror. If given a few more words to describe a monster’s wrongness, I might narrow it down to the following set:
In this model, the monster is an animate being with actuality (i.e. it is independently moving/changing states) which exhibits abnormal qualities when compared to the others in the taxon. The atypicality of these structures or behaviors exceed the norm to such an extreme degree that the prospect of a purely natural origin is called immediately into question. The more likely explanation becomes that these qualities are the product of intentional design, or were the result of accidents which radically altered the being’s physical growth and development cycle.
The monster’s artificial/unnatural origin typically includes infertility as a side-effect: It cannot procreate or otherwise fruitfully spawn. If it does multiply, it’s only in an ultimately self-destructive way (e.g. cancers, plagues, etc). It also cannot commune with others of its kind (if those exist at all), leading to a singular existence. In that sense, the monster could be described as both living and non-living, or even to exist in a category outside of that dichotomy (e.g. the way some microbiologists describe viruses).
Due to all of these strange qualities, a monster’s presence surprises us. And because it’s inherently dangerous, this surprise generates a fright response in most other creatures. If elements of designed construction are assumed (or even proven through investigation), it’s possible the monster’s most dangerous qualities were also the product of intentional design. In that sense even a monster that is utterly mindless and/or incapable of moral action can be called evil, though the ultimate source of the evil is the designers themselves.
At this point, we could easily jump off into a discussion of BSL-4 laboratories, and other corporate and/or governmental installations where murky experiments are conducted. I’ve dipped a toe into those waters before, after all.
Well, me and the boys were at it again this past Sunday. The sunny topic this time around was the prospect of World War III. It was off-the-cuff, as per usual, meaning lots of umm-ing and uhh-ing on the part of yours truly. I apparently have yet to master this format. I will persevere.
But for now, let’s keep the focus on our osmotic, sense-knowledge of what differentiates a monster from natural fauna and other anima.
Ironically, Oxford’s first definition hits closer to that mark, while simultaneously whiffing big-time with its insistence on “imaginary” beings. The trouble is that the Enlightenment and its descendant philosophies have led humans to believe that imagination is the ultimate source of monsters, instead of an intermediary node on the path to incarnation.
Or, in the strange case of dragons, to reincarnation.
The Sleeping Dragon
Once upon a time, dragons were declared to be imaginary creatures. Until we started digging up their fossils everywhere, that is, and using their blood1 to fuel our industrial empires and war machines. That the official nomenclature doesn’t reflect these fairly dry and obvious facts is due to a certain timeless rivalry.
Scientists hate artists with a fiery passion. It’s a hatred born of the bitterest envy, because the tools of art circumvent all the sacrifices of time, money, focus and effort that scientific study requires. Given stakes as high as the existence of motherfucking dragons, no quarter would be given. After all, if the artists were right about that doozy, what other shameful shortcomings of the institutional sciences might they expose? Such exposures would almost certainly lead to a lowering of status for scientists, who had fought tooth-and-nail for centuries to sit at the right hand of the king.
So, at best, the name-change was the result of institutional gatekeeping. But what about at worst? In the context of our game, what could be the evil strategy behind renaming dragons to the much blander — and ultimately less accurate — neologism “dinosaurs.”
For one thing, there’s that ancient, talismanic effect of demystification. Baby needs his binkie, to remind him that an enormous bird-lizard won’t suddenly convert his little body into brunch. Or, at least, it can’t do that anymore, since natural dragons are long vanished from the natural world.
But what about supernatural dragons, and the supernatural world?
By “supernatural”, here I’m referring to the non-local domain that logically precedes the development of formal material. It’s not a world of mass and friction, but of those informational lattices and patterns around which energy stiffens into what we call “matter.” What we label the inhabitants of this supernatural world — blueprints, archetypes, thoughtforms, potentialities, energy fields, bioelectric metaprograms, ghosts — hardly makes a difference from an ontological standpoint. What matters is this: while natural dragons may be extinct at the moment, the supernatural “dragon patterns” persist in this informational domain.
That is how artists were able to retrodict their existence long before scientists discovered their fossils. The tools we use allow us some degree of vision into that non-local domain — a peek outside Plato’s cave, so to speak (And if you’re a scientist who’s feeling envious about this so-called “power” of artists, rest assured it comes at the cost of many sleepless nights).
Because supernatural dragons still exist, so does the possibility that they will one day be reconstructed and actualized in the material domain. In light of this, are dragons really gone forever from the Earth? Or are they merely sleeping in some ice core sample or server farm, to be one day reawakened by a band of highly credentialed and financed corporate sorcerers?
As usual, the artists give us a sneak preview.
One of the more fascinating conceits of the novel “Jurassic Park” (reduced to a couple of throwaway lines in the film) was the notion that the park’s occupants weren’t actually dragons, but were rather hybridized beings constructed via a process of cut-and-past genetic engineering. The Greek minotaur gave us insight into such hybridization techniques, though in that case the immediate mechanism was fornication with a very unique bull. In the wake of the Enlightenment, artists began to see other potential methods of construction. Notably, Mary Shelley invited the biomedical sciences to the game, and her artistic descendants — including Michael Crichton— continue to take that ball and run with it.
Crichton’s zoo exhibits were monsters in every sense of the word, stripped of all symbolism and metaphor. The fact that the barrier of their singular/infertile nature is ultimately breeched is perhaps the sole departure from our working definition (“Life finds a way.”). And even here we might call this supposedly spontaneous, natural development an act of God, intended to punish us for hubris.
But the pseudodragons of the book and film still don’t meet the requirements of “real” monsters, because the patterns they describe still lack actuality in the local domain. To the best of our knowledge, dragons have not yet been re-hardened into forms that move and change in measurable ways.
Nor can we ever “recreate” dragons from whole cloth, the way God created being. We can only rearrange, dissect and tinker with those materials that are currently available, reconfiguring them to match our desires. We may manifest the Cave Pattern as a log cabin, parking garage or skyscraper, but not the trees and stones that form them. In the same way, whatever draconic forms we help reincarnate will not be our “creation” per se, but some degenerated mutant, stitched together from the shattered corpses of God’s own.
At this point, a rational-reductionist skeptic might respond as follows:
Okay, Bisone. You’ve convinced me. Dragons were once real, and something dragon-like can be real again. But certainly not one with seven heads!
Maybe not. On the other hand:
To be clear, I don’t think a seven-headed dragon is strictly impossible. But as with all vertebrates that deviate from the bilateral-symmetrical body plan, it seems likely that such a creature’s function would be severely deprecated instead of enhanced. Even a two-headed tyrannosaur probably wouldn’t survive to adulthood. Horrific, yes. Final-Battlefield-ready? Probably not.
But even leaving aside the question of functionality, there is also the problem of durability. The flesh is weak. We almost hunted whales to extinction using weapons not much more powerful than those wielded by our Neolithic ancestors. The inherent weakness of flesh is even more apparent given our current toolsets and technologies. The biggest, most ferocious grizzly on Earth could be conquered by a 90-lb teenage girl, provided she was loaded for bear. Likewise, we probably wouldn’t need to waste a single JDAM on Godzilla. Even sustained small-arms fire would probably do the trick.
But what if our pseudodragons and other endgame species aren’t made exclusively of flesh? What if some of them require no biological components at all?
I suspect those might turn out to be the most horrifying monsters of all.
On the sage advice of Dame Bisone, I’ve decided to chop this chapter into two parts. I haven’t published in a good, long while, and this subject is too important to me to rush through. Stay tuned.
I’d also like to thank you all for sticking with me through what has been a very rough couple of months for me and my family. We’re not out of the woods yet, but it seems like the worst of the storm has passed. For us, at least; the world-at-large is another story entirely (which is why I’ve returned to the subject that jump-started my pen in the first place).
The upshot is that I now have more breathing room to read, write and generally commune with all you beautiful and dangerous spirit warriors.
Which is great news for me: I’ve missed you dearly.
P.S. If you found any of this valuable (and can spare any change), consider dropping a tip in the cup for ya boy. It will also grant you access to my “Posts” section on the donation site, which includes some special paywalled Substack content. Thanks in advance.
Hi Mark! You know what weirds me out? When it occurs to me I haven't heard anything from this stack in a long time and I go and check to see if I've missed something, and no, still quiet. Then the very next day you deliver a nice long letter. Happened that way last time, too.
1) Nina Paley's art: I cannot look at it, don't know why, but MUST scroll it out of view asap. Weird, because lots of people love her stuff.
2) My husband is a scientist, I am an artist (the painting kind). We get along fine. Theory too broad. BUT he thinks my love of Jesus and Bible reading is a little off. God will bring him around but he's hanging on to his materialism for dear life.
3) check out Job 41: description of Leviathan. Doesn't that sound very dragon like? And the last verse: "he is king over all the children of pride". Just like a dragon, as Satan is called in Revelation.
4) my dad used to say "think too much about demons, attract demons". Fortunately, I have been given the Holy Spirit (praise God!), but I really don't enjoy them lurking about and trying to get at me. Something about Paley's art brings his caution to mind every time I see it. As does any AI generated art, as does the work of Cesar Santos who is ridiculously talented, got bored, and is (I suspect) now caught by the machine/powers/principalities. Check him out on IG and see if his things creep you out.
5) Yes, almost everyone is uneasy at this point. Isn't it interesting we were born to live in this time? There are no accidents with God. He knows the plan. Hang on! (And for anyone who reads this comment: if you don't know Jesus, find Him now! You might not have the time you think you do!)
6) glad you and family have weathered your difficulty! Don't forget to be praying. It's our most potent weapon against monsters!!
Not only do I love this post, I especially love that your pet peeve/righteous anger about dinosaurs aka dragons is so obviously very real!
The smile was much appreciated, because unfortunately the answer to this is a resounding yes:
"Don’t you feel it?
The sudden and energetic sharpening of blades? Two battle lines hardening into steel, and the rapidly fading hope of surviving in between them?"
Hi Mark! You know what weirds me out? When it occurs to me I haven't heard anything from this stack in a long time and I go and check to see if I've missed something, and no, still quiet. Then the very next day you deliver a nice long letter. Happened that way last time, too.
1) Nina Paley's art: I cannot look at it, don't know why, but MUST scroll it out of view asap. Weird, because lots of people love her stuff.
2) My husband is a scientist, I am an artist (the painting kind). We get along fine. Theory too broad. BUT he thinks my love of Jesus and Bible reading is a little off. God will bring him around but he's hanging on to his materialism for dear life.
3) check out Job 41: description of Leviathan. Doesn't that sound very dragon like? And the last verse: "he is king over all the children of pride". Just like a dragon, as Satan is called in Revelation.
4) my dad used to say "think too much about demons, attract demons". Fortunately, I have been given the Holy Spirit (praise God!), but I really don't enjoy them lurking about and trying to get at me. Something about Paley's art brings his caution to mind every time I see it. As does any AI generated art, as does the work of Cesar Santos who is ridiculously talented, got bored, and is (I suspect) now caught by the machine/powers/principalities. Check him out on IG and see if his things creep you out.
5) Yes, almost everyone is uneasy at this point. Isn't it interesting we were born to live in this time? There are no accidents with God. He knows the plan. Hang on! (And for anyone who reads this comment: if you don't know Jesus, find Him now! You might not have the time you think you do!)
6) glad you and family have weathered your difficulty! Don't forget to be praying. It's our most potent weapon against monsters!!