Two Sounds of the Virus: William Burroughs’s Pure Meat Method
A Culture for Growing Viruses
“Abandoning past theories may do damage to treasured beliefs and one’s nostalgic love of the old school tie, but a fact is a fact.” – L. Ron Hubbard
Burroughs’s work was centered on scientific and quasi-scientific theory – and by his obsession with fact.
It was within the culture of fact that his conception of the virus grew, at the microbial and cellular levels.
The fact out of which his virus grew was composed of 3 organismic theories, which were associated with 2 distinct phases of the virus.
I. General Semantics (Count Alfred Korzybski) & the Orgone Theory (Wilhelm Reich)
A. Associated with the first phase of the virus and lasted until 1959
1. informed his books, observations and images in his letters
2. accompanied by 2 closely related bodies
3. identified through it’s main functions
B. 1st body: undifferentiated (immature, embryonic or primitive) protoplasmic (contents of a living cell) body found in the theories of Korzybski and Reich.
1. Theories: discrete boundaries between the bodies and their environment, and bodies and it’s cellular components were diminished by the flow of energies and -
2. Consequent prioritization of function over location
a. so the virus could exist at the cellular level, or the societal level
C. 2nd body: derived from Burroughs’s own experience
1. the function of the energy of the organism is driven by need.
a. desires for junk and sex in his writings
D. the 1st and 2nd bodies were fused together and formed the first phase virus from the idea of schlupping bodies – the fusion of one body to another.
1. represented with images of homosexual love – “ to become the other person”
II. Dianetics (L. Ron Hubbard)
A. Emergence of 2nd phase of the virus
1. underwent a major mutation: became highly differentiated, more virulent, and widespread
2. shift from junk and sex need of the first virus, to language based proclivities
a. parallels his shift in life from an uncertain standing as a writer to dedication to writing with the fame from Naked Lunch
3. Correlates to the 3rd organismic theory he encountered – L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics
a. Hubbard reworked earlier theories, including Korzybski’s, to extend their pathogenic (disease causing capabilities) scope
4. Burroughs’s virus began to operate through specific means
a. operating at a miniature scale and –
b. developing the capacity for language.
c. existed parasitically as another body inside the organism
controlling a person’s thoughts and words
B. Both viruses made sounds and were made of sounds
1. for the first phase virus – the sound is schlup
2. for the second phase virus – it was irrepressible speech of the Dianetic Demon.
a. “a surrogate self speaking with words previously recorded by the “reactive mind” – the pathogenic unification of accumulated trauma recorded at the cellular level”
b. will be talked about later
Schlupping
I. The First Phase Virus
A. The first protoplasmic bodies were not associated with disease, but with the term schlepping, the total ingestion or fusion of one body by another
1. “The sound is the word made flesh, the sound of soft organs, a protoplasmic sound”
2. Onomatopoetic connection with the sounds of saliva, sweat, semen “and other sexual fluids that accompany the ingestion of penises and fingers and tongues.”
The schlupping scene from Naked Lunch – p. 299
3. Also bears a relationship to the sounds of eating and digestion.
On Goo Behavior
Burroughs’s elevation of the first virus to represent the entire human body can be traced to the doctrine of General Semantics by Korzybski.
And particularly to the idea of “colloidal behaviour.” Colloids are microscopic particles in some sort of liquid medium.
Burroughs had much respect for his thought.
I. General Semantics
A. The rules, imagistic and functional, of protoplasm and colloids are most important.
1. Korzybski used the word protoplasm to speak of the human body.
2. Humans were subject to being understood through the exigencies of inorganic structuring
a. no great divide between organic and inorganic
b. protoplasm and colloids were known for their commonality and continuity
3. No aspect of human body behavior could be isolated from colloidal behavior--
a. which along “formed the most important known link between the inorganic and organic.”
B. Colloidal matter
1. images of liquids and gelatins created a place where boundaries were broken down and exchange between all entities increased.
2. all the goo provided lubricant where imagistic slippages could take place among Burroughs’s protoplasmic bodies
From Naked Lunch – p. 304
3. Colloids existed as smoke and mist as well, not just emulsions and gelatins.
a. Burroughs’s schlupped bodies exhibited this characteristic as well
p. 305
C. Korzybski’s Thoughts
1. The boundaries within bodies, between bodies, and between the body and the environment are blurred because of the sensitivity of the protoplasmic surface.
a. the surface has become all-encompassing through auto ingestion.
2. Emotion or thought is always connected with electrical currents
a. electricity seems fundamental in colloidal behaviour
p. 306
The Cancer Virus
The Second Organismic Theory that Burroughs studied.
I. Wilhelm Reich, the 2nd Organismic Theory, The Cancer Biopathy
A. Reich studied protoplasm and electricity, but related them to sex.
1. the site of pathology became located at an explicitly microbial level, or a protoplasmic and colloidal scale.
B. Reich’s biopsychiatric theory
1. Full of colloids, protoplasm, protozoa and amoebae
2. Philosophically similar to Korzybski goo
3. Protoplasm functions without being structured
4. There was a state of energy between organic and inorganic matter – and he understood this in terms of sex.
“Where as Korzybski needed the fluctuating needle of a galvanometric reading to prove the electrical basis, for Reich the sweep of an erection was demonstration enough.”
5. Orgasmic energy is also at play between organic and inorganic states.
a. sparking and tingling inside and outside the organism
b. also distributed throughout the earth’s atmosphere
6. The Orgone Box
a. designed to receive and concentrate the energy and pass it to the person sitting inside
b. it can produce erotic stimulation and spontaneous orgasm
7.
Cellular Phones
I. Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard
Theory whose pathological sphere was practically limitless.
For Korzybski, disease was the exception. For Hubbard, it was the norm.
For Burroughs, it was a mutation into a newly pervasive and virulent role.
Burroughs favored Hubbard’s stated central belief – “man is motivated only by survival.”
A. The Engram – the basic pathogenic building block of Dianetics.
1. it is a painful moment literally recorded by the body
a. not to be confused with memory
b. a person need not be conscious to record an injurious experience
c. the recording occurs anywhere in the body at the cellular level
2. Contain absolutely everything “like phonograph records or motion pictures, if these contained all perceptions of sight, sound, smell, taste, organic sensation, etc.
3. if the engrams stay in place, and are not discharged through therapeutic means, the individual will be predisposed to psychosomatic illnesses (all familiar diseases and mental disorders)
a. therapeutic means: discovering these recordings and playing them back over and over again, until they lose their power or become boring, and shifted out of the reactive mind.
4. Overall, engrams are generated by anything ranging from brutal surgical procedures to feeling a bit vague