27-07-2013, 12:52 AM
Colin Wilson in The Occult:
"It is an idea that has occurred to many occultists: that life is basically some kind of game, whose pre-condition is that the players should suffer from amnesia, and then cope as best they can with the series of choices presented over three-quarters of a century. In that case, criminals could be regarded as the losers, those who have made the worst possible choices; the winners would be those who have come closest to overcoming the forgetfulness' with which we begin the game. In The Mysterious Stranger, Mark Twain made the disturbing assertion that God got tired of being in a lonely, empty universe, and created the whole shadow-show of life, in which he is the only real person the others being robots, made to seem alive."
Thomas Ligotti, in his book The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, takes the "puppet show" theme to more pessimistic extremes, where nature has accidentally created self-conscious puppets who have the illusion of free will.
"It is an idea that has occurred to many occultists: that life is basically some kind of game, whose pre-condition is that the players should suffer from amnesia, and then cope as best they can with the series of choices presented over three-quarters of a century. In that case, criminals could be regarded as the losers, those who have made the worst possible choices; the winners would be those who have come closest to overcoming the forgetfulness' with which we begin the game. In The Mysterious Stranger, Mark Twain made the disturbing assertion that God got tired of being in a lonely, empty universe, and created the whole shadow-show of life, in which he is the only real person the others being robots, made to seem alive."
Thomas Ligotti, in his book The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, takes the "puppet show" theme to more pessimistic extremes, where nature has accidentally created self-conscious puppets who have the illusion of free will.