CYCLE TWENTY-FOUR

1. To contrast the phenomenal subjectivity of pipe smoking with the phenomenal objectivity of cigar smoking - the former mundane and the latter purgatorial.

2. Likewise to contrast the noumenal subjectivity of roll-ups with the noumenal objectivity of cigarettes - the former heavenly and the latter hellish.

3. Although smoking is rooted in the alpha, on whichever spectrum of moral evaluation, we can distinguish between the subjectivity (both noumenal and phenomenal) of roll-ups and pipes on the one hand, and the objectivity (both phenomenal and noumenal) of cigars and cigarettes on the other hand, the former negatively good (both absolutely and relatively) and the latter negatively evil (both relatively and absolutely). Put theologically, one could argue that whereas the smoking of roll-ups correlates with the Antispirit (negative God), pipe smoking correlates with the Antimother (negative woman). And that whereas cigar smoking correlates with the Antichrist (negative man), cigarette smoking correlates with the Antifather (negative Devil). Thus we descend, in negativity, from the divinity of roll-ups to the femininity of pipes via the devility of cigarettes and the masculinity of cigars.

4. From the nonconformist/lunar standpoint of cigars, cigarette smoking corresponds to a fundamentalist/solar damnation. Conversely, from the humanist/planar standpoint of pipes, the smoking of roll-ups corresponds to a transcendentalist/stellar salvation. In fact, where the cigar is middle class, the cigarette is upper class. And where the pipe is working class, the roll-up is classless - though only, of course, in relation to the alpha of negative evaluation. For the omega of positive evaluation will always be beyond smoking ... of whatever type.

5. Magazines, newspapers, co-mags (comic books), and books are all lunar by dint of their intellectual essence, whereas televisions, midis, video-recorders, and computers are planar (planetary) by dint of having an instinctual essence - the former quadruplicity based on the neutron and the latter on the electron. Hence whereas the first-named quadruplicity is nonconformist and materialist, the second one is humanist and realist - all the difference, in sum, between the masculine and the feminine (albeit to greater or lesser degrees, depending upon the nature of the media in question). For although each quadruplicity is phenomenal (as opposed to noumenal), those in the first category are cerebral, or of the head, while those in the second category are corporeal, or of the body, given the lunar/planar, or intellectual/instinctual distinctions which exist between them, as with regard to the purgatorial Overworld and the mundane World. Hence the way to the Beyond is not via magazines, newspapers, co-mags, or books, but via midis and computers, since these are the media of the World which are most subjective, and thus closer to the spirit.

6. Just as the above distinction between a 'neutron' quadruplicity and an 'electron' quadruplicity suggests a kind of middle-class/working-class antithesis, so such an antithesis is suggested by the distinction between acoustic and electric music - the former usually Classical and the latter Popular (pop). For where Classical music is generally intellectual, Pop music, by contrast, is generally instinctual and thus a music (to dance to) of the World as opposed to Purgatory, wherein the acoustic 'neutron' has its intellectual throne. Now on this throne, traditionally, sits man in a sort of objective defiance of the feminine World, his music no less relatively evil in relation to the phenomenal subjectivity of Pop music ... than the above-named quadruplicity (of magazines, newspapers, co-mags, and books) is relatively evil, in its phenomenal objectivity, in relation to the electronic quadruplicity which more typifies human nature in the modern age.