heres a little thing from an online pdf
SIMON MORRIS
AT THE REQUEST OF MRS MOIR
ON THE MORNING I received an invitation to write about Downard, I also received an
answer-phone message at the house where I was staying. The phone number there is
apparently similar to a social security helpline. The message was from an old-sounding
lady called Mrs Moir – “M-O-I-R” of Kirkstone Way. She left her address and telephone
number, and at the end of the message she keyed in several numbers on her
handset. Bleeps.
James Shelby Downard’s lifelong sense of alienation led him to extrapolate a perfectly
constructed and utterly paranoid weltanschauung in which tiny details had sinister
significance, in which a romantic failure in his youth was connected with age-old battles
for the planet’s control, in which Cosmic Coincidence Control Centre had been replaced
by Creepy Conspiracy Control Centre.
I find it hard to empathise with Downard’s prudish Puritan streak, or with his constant
‘othering’ of the demonic forces which irked him so. But from a pro-psychosis
standpoint, his crazed insights are undeniably exciting and stimulating, and like Philip
K. Dick, can leave the reader with the sense that consensus reality is crumbling around
them. Our cognitive faculties filter out a huge proportion of the information received
by our senses.
I decided to call the third album by my band “Shergar Is Home Safe And Well”.
The previous album had featured Natalie Imbruglia (pop-star/actress) as the final sampled
voice, and the cover art featured a caricature of her. During the same week in
March 2004 that we received the ‘Shergar’ album back from the pressing plant, Channel
4 television broadcast an hour-long documentary about the kidnap of the racehorse
Shergar. The last advert shown directly before the documentary featured Natalie Imbruglia
flogging some face cream or shampoo.
I had a memorable month in July 1988, when I underwent a very unpleasant experience
on a substance which was probably PCP, while in St James’ Cemetery, Liverpool –
a dramatic sunken graveyard below the Anglican Cathedral. While trying to recover
from this bad trip, I happened to see a live show by the useless 1980s light entertainer
Bobby Davro at Blackpool Grand Theatre.
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In October 2000, for a number of reasons, I was unhappy and approaching suicidal.
Some photocopies of Christian prayers with a Catholic/Superstitious angle were put
anonymously through my letterbox. I know a lot of eccentrics and I get some weird
stuff in the mail. I muttered the prayer to invoke St Jude—Patron Saint of lost causes—
to myself and thought nothing more of it. Two days later I was in Liverpool, going
shopping for records to try and cheer
myself up. As I was about to get the
train home, I felt the urge to walk to
St James’ Cemetery.
Twilight was descending as I entered
the overgrown corner—from
which two 18th Century tunnels began—
where I had my bad drug experience.
A piece of paper was at the
spot I often sat. It seemed to be an academic handout for a media studies course on
which several different types of live performance were compared. The first of these was
Bobby Davro’s Summer season, July 1988, Blackpool.
Reality has been defined as what doesn’t go away when you stop believing it. This
actually leaves a lot of scope for us when it comes to deciding what to notice, and how
to interpret what we notice. I would agree with the founders of cognitive-behavioural
therapy and neuro-linguistic programming that it’s what is useful which is important in
any model of cognition. So if something inexplicable refuses to be filtered out by my
consciousness, or written off as coincidence, I find it useful to see it as evidence of the
existence of mischievous but benevolent higher powers.
I wouldn’t like to believe in a Downardian Cryptocracy. There are enough breathtakingly
cruel and corrupt acts being perpetrated by humans out in the open, without
any meaning in particular.
ODDMENTS NOTE: These events occurred in the North of England, and one may note
Onomatology (Science of Names), in that moir (or moire) means ‘watered mohair’, ‘watered
silk’, or another fabric with a watered appearance (moiré means ‘watered’). Mystical
Toponomy (Science of Places) is also present in the word kirk (from the Old Norse
kirkja), the Northern English dialect-word for ‘church’. Thus, when processed by SOS
The portal corner of St James’ Cemetery, Liverpool, UK.
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(Science-Of-Symbolism), Mrs Moir becomes a person who has received and carries the
banner of the “Holy Dew” from Heaven (not the “dew” used figuratively as the silent/
invisible refreshment of the soul [Psalms 110:3; Proverbs 19:12], etc.), synonymous with
the medieval hermetic-alchemical “Royal Wedding” or “Sacred Marriage” operations (a
mystical union between human and Source or its deity. St John of the Cross spoke of
the “mystical marriage,” also see the Biblical Song of Solomon, aka the “Song of Songs”).
On the title page of John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica (1564, which ‘explains’ his enigmatic
‘monas’ emblem said to contain all the secrets of his philosophy) is a Latin Biblical
quotation which translates as: “God give thee of the dew of heaven and of the fatness
of the land” (Genesis 27). Also on this page the theme of the descending spiritual
dew uniting Heaven and Earth is visually illustrated. Ros Lux (Latin: “Dew of Light”)
is a Caballistic and Rosicrucian image, which may place Dee in the Rosicrucian fraternity,
whose name, formed from the Latin rosa (rose) and crux (cross), conceals this more
esoteric Ros Lux meaning (also note that in ancient alchemy, “celestial dew” is the element
mercury, ergo the Roman god, Mercury, the Patron God of messages and communication
(including divination), amongst other things, and the “Keeper of Boundaries”
in his role as bridge/guide between the upper and lower worlds).
Mrs Moir herself resides in Kirkstone Way, whose name implies the Cornerstone of
the Church or Keystone of the Arch (masonic or Freemasonic), that is in turn symbolises
the Invisible College (the hidden true Great White Brotherhood Church-withinthe-
Church). It appears that this Sovereign Sanctuary assisted Mr Morris during his
time of need in the 1980s, and has also made Itself known to him at a later date in a
coded-symbolic fashion via a mysterious ‘coincidental’ phonecall whilst he was pondering
his past Downardian-type experiences because we had asked him to write about
them. Such is the way They work.
FURTHER READING: James Shelby Downard, The Carnivals of Life & Death: My Profane Youth: 1913-
1935 (Feral House, 2006), his autobiography. James Shelby Downard, ‘King-Kill/33°’ in the v/a anthology,
Apocalypse Culture (Feral House, 1987), later expanded (although Michael A. Hoffman II’s Preface
was deleted) as ‘Sorcery, Sex, Assassination & the Science of Symbolism’ in Jim Keith, ed., Secret & Suppressed:
Banned Ideas & Hidden History (Feral House, 1993). James Shelby Downard, ‘The Call to Chaos’
in the second edition of Apocalypse Culture (1990), that deletes ‘King-Kill/33°’. Adam Gorightly, James
Shelby Downard’s Mystical War (Virtualbookworm.com, 2008), a biography. Adam Parfrey, ‘Riding the
Downardian Nightmare’, in Adam Parfrey, Cult Rapture (Feral House, 1995), an appreciation.
