~ LIBER LXI vel CAUSEWAY ~
THE PRELIMINARY LECTION
In the Name of The Ignitiator, Amen
1. In the beginning was Ignition. The car dealer profiteth with money; the man profiteth with a new vehicle; that which is unknown to you and above these, while firmly based upon their equilibrium, giveth one a driver's license.
2. In all systems of Driver's Education is to be found a system of Ignitiation, which may be defined as the process by which a man comes to learn how to get behind the wheel of a new car and start the Motor.
3. Though no one can communicate either the knowledge or the power to achieve this, which may be called Turning the Key, it is yet possible for ignitiates to teach others.
4. Every man must overcome his own obstacles on the road, expose his own illusions caused by drinking and drugs. Yet others may assist him to do both, and they may enable him altogether to avoid many of the other cars, leading to the loss of one's license, which tempt the weary feet of the unignitiated pilgrim. They can further insure that he is duly tried and tested by Sears Instructors, for there are many who think themselves to be Drivers who have not begun to tread the Way of Auto Service that leads thereto.
5. Now the Obtaining of one's License is one, and the Ignitiation is one, and the car Insurance is one, however diverse are the causeways whereon the Teenager will drive.
6. Hear then the history of the system of our roads which this lection gives you the opportunity of investigating.
Listen, we pray you, with attention: for once only does the Obtaining of One's License knock at any one door.
Whosoever fails to obtain his license as such, can never drive another, until he has attained to mastery.
Here, therefore, we pause, that you may thoroughly search yourself, and consider if you are yet fit to take an irrevocable step behind the wheel.
For the reading of that which follows is Recorded at the DMV.
THE HISTORY LECTION
7. Some years ago a number of cipher MSS. were discovered and deciphered by certain students. They attracted much attention, as they purported to derive from the Department of Motor Vehicles. You will readily understand that the genuineness of the claim matters no whit, such test scores being judged by itself, not by its reputed source.
8. Among the MSS. was one which gave the address of a certain person in a remote South American country, who is known to us as an M&M with peanuts. Those who discovered the ciphers wrote to the M&M, and in accordance with instructions received, an Automobile Association was founded which worked in a semi-conscious manner.
9. After some time M&M died: further requests for help were met with a prompt refusal because M&M had previously taken away the license of all those concerned for diverse reasons, like the plotting of his earthly retirement. It was written by one of them that M&M's scheme to make them Drivers had always been regarded with disapproval. But since the absolute rule of the Driver Instructor is never to interfere with the judgment of any other Instructor homsoever-how much more, then, one of themselves, and that one most highly restrictive!-they had refrained from active opposition. The adept who wrote this added that the Tennessee Automobile Association had already quite enough knowledge to enable it or its members to formulate a magical link and continue to drive on the causeway.
10. Shortly after this, one called by many names announced that he had formulated such a link, and that himself and others from around New York, Chicago and Nashville were to govern the new Automobile Association. Other people's books were edited and reissued, and fresh knowledge pored out in yellowish streams.
11. We must pass over the unhappy juggleries which characterize the next period. It has throughout proved impossible to elucidate the complex facts behind certain road repairs.
We content ourselves, then, with observing that the hiding of some of his colleagues, and the weakness of the others, secured to He, who has many names, the sole authority of the Automobile Association. The rules of the road were then elaborated, though scholarly enough, into verbose and pretentious nonsense; driver's clothing was designed so that no one in their right mind would ever wear it except on Halloween, the knowledge of driving proved worthless, even where it was correct; for it is in vain that Keys are given to the uninsured.
The ordeals of the road were turned into contempt, it being impossible for anyone to fail their tests. Unsuitable candidates were given their license for no better reason than that of their money.
In short, the School failed to prepare its drivers. Roads became dangerous.
12. Scandal arose and with it schism.
13. In 1997 a long time driver from a different Driving School, instituted a rigorous test of G.B.S.W. on the one side and their particular Driving School on the other.
14. He discovered that G.B.S.W., though with some scholarly ability and a driver of remarkable powers, had never attained complete mastery of the road: and further had fallen from his original place, having imprudently attracted to himself forces of evil too great and terrible for him to withstand, meaning he occasionally drank while driving.
The claim of the Driving School that the true teachers were in charge of it was definitely disproved.
15. In this old Driving School, with two certain exceptions and two doubtful ones, they found no persons prepared for teaching the skills of the road of any sort. They couldn't even read maps.
16. He thereupon, by something subtle or another, ignored both the old Driving School and its instructor(s) G.B.S.W.
17. Being no sober driver himself, he was driven by another designated driver to a deserted parking lot, where they abode for six hours, studying by the over-head parking lot lights the sacred manuals of Driver's Ed and the secret system of driver's training of all countries and ages.
18. Finally, there was given unto him a certain exalted License whereby a man becomes master of road knowledge and intelligence, and no more its slave by needing road maps as printed by others. He perceived the inadequacy of Sears' Teachers, Driver's Ed, and Books on How to Drive Safely; and exposed the self-contradictory nature of the thinking faculty if under the influence of booze and drugs while behind the wheel.
19. Being in southern California, he laid his achievements humbly at the feet of a certain Female Adept, who welcomed him brotherly, kiss kiss, and admitted his name upon the License which he had so hardly claimed was his.
20. Thereupon the two instructors conferred together, saying: May it not be written that we should consider the source of those silly robes? Wherefore they resolved to establish a new Driving School which should cost nothing, or not that much, and would be free from the errors and deceit of the 'traditional authority' of the Order and whereby they wouldn't have to wear those funny Halloween costumes.
21. Who cares if they had Authority? They knew they were exalted in their rank amongst other drivers. They resolved to prepare things, Cadillacs to Volkswagens great and small, against the day when such Authority should be received by themselves of course, since they knew not where to seek for better drivers than themselves, and they knew that the true way to attract the notice of the police was to be inebriated behind the wheel. Still, the car had to be tested before the God can indwell it.
22. Therefore by the order of the Female Adept did E. prepare all things by some out-of-date blight and wisdom, choosing only those road symbols which were common to all systems, like stop signs, and rigorously rejecting all names and words which might be supposed to imply anything legal or of worth. To do this utterly was found impossible, since all language has a history, and the use (for example) of the word "stop sign" implies the Legalistic Philosophy of the State of California as well as United States' theories concerning the putting on of one's break. So was it difficult to avoid implication of some undesirable bias by using the words "right turn," "left turn," "yield," "curve ahead," "deer crossing," or any other to designate the rules of the road.
23. Deliberately, therefore, did he take refuge in a vague-mess. Not to reveal the truth to the new Drivers, but at the same time to warn them against valuing other old Driving Schools, often termed non-essentials. Should therefore the candidate hear the names of any of them, let him not rashly assume that it refers to any real Driver, save only the Driver known to himself. Or should the back roads speak in terms (however vague) which seem to imply something coming from New York, Florida, Tennessee, Ohio, yea verily and most important the Texas rules of the road, let him reflect that these are merely the defects of Reality; the literary limitation of road truth and not the reality check of the man E.
24. Especially let him guard against the finding of standardized symbols of the road in the teachings of his own master, and the reasoning from the known to the unknown highway which ass-uredly will tempt him.
We labor earnestly, dear Driver, that you may never be led down a dirt road to perish off a cliff; for thereon have many moldy and just Drivers been wrecked. By this have all the traditional authorities running their own Driving Schools lost the essence of the road map.
We have sought to reveal the Road Map's Legend or Key; we have only deranged it.
25. Now when E. had thus with occasional toil prepared all things under the guidance of the Female Adept (even as the hand writes, while the semi-conscious brain, though ignorant of the details of a car's movement, applauds or disapproves of the finished driver's manual) there was a certain time of repose, as his life lieth fallow.
26. Meanwhile these Drivers busied themselves intently on the Great Road.
27. In the fullness of time, even as other blossoming Driving Schools beareth fruit in their season, all the plans were ended, and the Drivers and their passengers obtained some kinda reward at the drive thru window they had sought-they were admitted to the Eternal and Invisible Automobile Association that hath no name among men because it is not registered.
28. They therefore who had with cute smiling little faces abandoned their homes, their possessions, their wives, their children, in order to Drive on the Great Road in a new fancy car, could with steady calm and firm control of the wheel abandon the Road itself to drive out into the desert: following this last and greatest projection of a blinding summer Sun.
29. Also one E.I.E.I.O. got up off the couch, now being an exalted Driver of the rank of Master of the Road (or as much He disclosed to the new Drivers) and His utterance became enshrined on the dirty road maps to the Stars.
30. Such are his own False Leg Liber, Liber Tie the Cord around your one-eyed Serpent, Liber Liberate the Lapis from the Jewelry Store and such others whose existence may one day be divulged unto you for an appropriate price. Beware lest you interpret them either in the Kitchen or in the bathroom, for only by the Dashboard Light may they be understood.
31. Also He conferred upon the Female Adept, himself and another yet to be named, the Authority of a new College, who in turn have delegated it unto the Temple, and they yet again, so that a New Body of Drivers may be OK, even from their own point-of-view unto the Kingdom of the Black Asphalt and beyond.
32. For Perfection abideth not in what we do, or in our Foundation, or in anyone else's for that matter, but in the Harmony of being one with Road.
- end -
(c) Cornelius 2003ev
NOTE: Originally published in RED FLAME No.6 The Foolish Issue (1999).
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