Piranesi, Part 3: The Prophet

In this chapter, Lindsey and Jeff talk about the man of the hour, Laurence Arne-Sayles.   Thanks for listening to The Great and Secret Knowledge: A Speculative Fiction Podcast! In this episode, Lindsey and Jeff cover Part 3: The Prophet.   Below you'll find our plugs, links, recommendations, and links to stuff from this week's episode!   Please join our Discord server and get to know the fam!  https://discord.gg/vtJnpkhd   Lindsey's podcasts   The Kurt Locker Cool Breeze over the Mountains Historical Hotties   Jeff's podcasts   Shattered Worlds RPG Everything is Awesome with Jeff and ?   Our theme song was composed by James Lark Visit his website! https://www.jameslark.co.uk/   And listen to his wonderful short story podcast, Neurotic Literature:  https://www.jameslark.co.uk/neuroticliterature   Recommendations   Dropout TV Dimension 20 Star Trek: Prodigy   Social Media   Lindsey Nelsen Instagram - LindseyCameronNelsen Tiktok - Noctisfilia (Darkness's Daughter)   Jeff Richardson @eljefetacoma on Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram, and Mastadon   Links   Prince of Wales check The Hays Code The Good Place John Robbins' Diet For a New America Doctor Who Flux Extended Notes   Part 3 The Prophet   "He wore a suit in a Prince of Wales check" - another thing he just knows   unless hes lying the prophet had no idea there were dead people here? i guess he mustve gone to prison before folks he knew got stuck there? this skinny old dude taught the Other! The others name is Val Ketterley second fiddle complete charlatan, "all his ideas are second hand"   "For all the grand intellectual manner and the dark, penetrating stare, he hasn't an original thought in his head. All his ideas are second-hand.' not moral, but didnt want society to crumble sentimental streak - doesnt want to lose civilization   "My contemporaries did not understand this. They were all enamoured with the idea of progress and believed that whatever was new must be superior to what was old. As if merit was a function of chronology!" A Distributary World   he confirms that the knowledge is not here   Ketterley is an egotist. He always thinks in terms of utility. He cannot imagine why anything should exist if he cannot make use of it.'   Poor James Ritter could barely string a sentence together by the end and hed been here half as long   sylvia could pop in and out at will - wherever you come from you always arrive at the first vestibule?   'You might like to head off the danger by killing him or something.'   I took time to study his words carefully. There was a great deal I did not understand though this, I expect, is usual with prophets, their minds being very great and their thoughts following strange paths   perhaps the other was the 75th person! but thats fantasy [could the listener be called The 75th?]   could the prophet have sent some of the dead here? its been 25 years since he was in prison so how long has he been sending people?   why did other hide existence of prophet?   the prophet is definitely a violent person - The Hays Code, the sinister gay trope   perhaps i will write a letter to him in future? all bets are off when time travel is in play   Other warns him that P will become his enemy if he talks to 16 - being embarrassed is the worst fate   if i find that you are mad then i think its best if i kill you. for both our sakes   the Other is rather inflexible in his character. I would not go so far as to say it is a fault, but it is a definite tendency   P practices hiding from 16   P puts his hair ornaments into a box   he indexes his recent journal entries   Stanley Ovenden is already in there! I knew as I looked at it that there was something very strange here. But the strange thing was so strange, so entirely incomprehensible that I found it difficult to form coherent thoughts about it. I could see the strangeness with my eyes, but I could not think it with my mind why is there a journal 21? he only has 10!   his brain is compelling him not to investigate this mystery, to challenge his assumptions i feel a certain parallel to whats happening at the moment in Israel, what i imagine Russians are facing wrt to Ukraine - why is this happening, whos to blame, what does it mean, are the people i trust intentionally hiding the truth? if you keep yourself from learning something new so you wont have to change your life     The Good Place New Names   Laurence Arne Sayles Orkney Ness of Brodgar Georgia OKeefe RD Laing JW Dunne Owen Barfield Rudolf Steiner Colin Wilson Srinavasa Ramanujan Nottingham, England Birmingham University of Manchester Maurizio Giussani   the disappearance of MG   More Names   Perugia Bannerman Hughes   Hughes first name is Tali this arne sayles guy is a real bastard   MGs girlfriend Elena Marietti "the other world"   Huxleyan psychedelic experience - discuss doors of perception MG disappears   what are Birmingham and Perugia? nonsense! "at the very point at which the Other has declared he will kill me if I become mad, I have discovered that I am mad already! Or, if not mad now, then certainly I have been mad in the past. I was mad when I wrote those entries"   the faun, the statue he loves above all others   faun comforts him   "The word 'Birmingham', for example, brings with it a blare of noise, a flash of movement and colour and the fleeting image of towers and spires against a heavy grey sky. I try to catch hold of these impressions, to examine them further, but instantly they fade."   he can almost remember university, but decides he extrapolated it from scholar   he now has evidence of his mental derangement   he decides he has to take better care of himself   twenty journals are missing!   reading the journals is a "triggering activity" so he decides to space it out - reminds me of emdr therapy, although my therapist believed it should be at least twice a month if not more "the House is the cause of my forgetting" thats a big shift for him   "It does not matter that you do not understand the reason. You are the Beloved Child of the House. Be comforted. And I am comforted" - a clear depiction of the mental process that keeps us stuck in bad information land   P waits week and a half before reading about Sylvia and John he sits by gorilla because he will lend Strength   more names Leith, Scotland Angharad Scott Death, Stars, and Mathematics is a fun title   she was the most devoted unpaid housekeeper and secretary house in Whalley Range Canal Street to pick up young men   cutting off parents as a test of loyalty - classic cult move Tom Titchwell, friend of her father, printed her poems   her first picture, Moon/Wood, in which a woman defies her hierophant, is beaten, then makes a deal for him to be imprisoned and eventually killed. Did she turn in Laurence?   she called the House the Castle and took footage there!   she tells her troubles to Robert Allstead LAS tells her to discard him, she refuses after that she is gone without trace   cleaner discovers John Ritter behind wall   Ritter is sectioned at Wakefield among others Ritter couldnt explain where hed been   Ritter explains that he was usually in the House   he mentions minotaurs   Journalist Lysander Weeks interviews Ritter he seemed chill   he describes the house and says working at town hall calms him because the decor was similar   university may be real but not in house, same with garden he says the House plants ideas in his head   "This is how the House places new ideas gently and naturally in the Minds of Men. This is how the House increases my understanding" his last thought is that there may be more people than dead in the House   John Robbins' Diet For a New America   "Benevolent is a strong word" - Lindsey Doctor Who Flux