Fatherland

27 February 2002...April 2002
(24 pgs.)

The Van Gogh painting this cover most reminds me of is Starry Night:

The cover nicely reflects the art shown in 18 of the 24 pages of this isses except that Promethea and her caduceus are always drawn in the normal way not painted as on the cover.
TITLE:
Literally this refers to Sophie and Promethea meeting their physical fathers in this issue but Fatherland also means the land of one's ancestors or one's native country and it is in this context that it was used in Germany during the First World War and later by Hitler in World War II.
Some more information from TL
The word "Vaterland" exists in German since the 12th century, it's a free translation of the latin word "patria" (french: la patrie). The word became first a political slogan in the wars against Napoleon. The poem by Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769-1860) you quote ("Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland") is a famous example of the patriotic propaganda against Napoleon. It's also a call for national unity and means a harsh critic of the fragmentation of Germany in the 18th and 19th century. The word appears also in the actual national anthem of Germany ("flourish in the splendor of happiness, German fatherland").

Even though Crowley doesn't appear in this issue Fatherland could also be taken as a reference to the magazine that was one of his main sources of income in 1915.
From Lawrence Sutin's biography:
In January 1915 Crowley had his first meetings with George Sylvester Viereck, a writer and editor who would play a pivotal role in Crowley's life during these war years. Viereck is remembered as the most influential propagandist for the German cause in America during both World War One and World War Two....[he] founded two influential journals-The International in 1912 and The Fatherland in 1914...With the war underway Viereck and The Fatherland had a twofold political propaganda agenda: to argue the German cause in pro-British America, and to keep neutral America out of the war that Britain wished her to enter.
...Viereck was understandably intrigued..by the willingness of Aleister Crowley, an "Irish" man of letters, to write for the Fatherland. Crowley's first appearance on January 13, 1915, was entitled "Honesty is the Best Policy" and excoriated British hypocrisy in claiming justice as the motive for its mercenary war aims.....Crowley ...claimed that he deliberately cultivated the trust of Viereck to gain a prominent voice in The Fatherland that would-paradoxically-frustrate German aims by carrying the style of propaganda to ludicrous extremes. In sum, he alleged to have played the role of a double agent, albeit one without official sanction from British intelligence, so as to poison the German propaganda apparatus by methods that today would be called "disinformation."
pgs. 244-247

SYNOPSIS
In Chesed Promethea meets her father for the first time since his death. He takes her away from Sophie who also finds her father Juan Philippe Estrada. Boo boo must abandon Barbara as she and Sophie step off into the Abyss.

QUOTES:
“Are these the rooms you had back in the twenties, or whenever?” – Stacia
“More a fanciful memory really. It’s the apartment I couldn’t afford.” – Grace, pg. 1
“It’s very empowering, don’t you think? When we finally face up to what we are?” – Grace, pg. 1
“I’m rather enjoying our little partnership…just like you are.” – Grace, pg. 1
“”Here”, this world, our lives, all this is just some kind of a dream. And “there”…”there” is what we wake up to.” – Dennis Drucker, pg. 3
“There ain’t much $&in’ form once you get up past Hod. It’s like the further up you go, the less there is to see, and the more there is to feel and understand.” – Boo-boo, pg 6
“Despite everything being made from cloud it all feels solid and reassuring, like it would protect you.” – Promethea(6), pg. 7
“When the energy of God pours down into being, this is the first place it truly materializes.” – Boo-boo, pg 7
“This is Indra’s net. See, Indra, he’s the Hindu sky-god, okay? And his net, it’s this infinite mesh of gleaming beads…and in every single bead, all the other beads are reflected, along with the reflections that are in them, going on forever. So, like, every part completely and perfectly reflects the whole. That’s Indra’s net…” – Boo-boo, pg 8
“The tree of life…That’s a map of the whole universe. It’s also a map of what’s inside each of us.” – Boo-boo, pg 9
“Demons are just your lowest drives, getting out of hand when they should be workin’ for ya. Us angels, we’re your highest drives. As for the deities, maybe they’re part of you, maybe you’re a fallen part of them. But it don’t matter. Everything’s part of God.” – Boo-boo, pg 10
“This is bigger than the love people have for each other. This is the unconditional love of the universe for its children. For itself.” – Boo-boo, pg 10
“It’s like we all have to protect everything, because it’s all precious. It’s all us.” – Promethea(6), pg. 11
“Well, girl? Have you forgotten me? I said that we would meet each other in the Western Lands.” – Promethea’s father, pg. 12
”All parents must at last send their children out into the desert, praying that the gods find them before the wolves.” – Promethea’s father, pg 13
“I am gathering you up, my child, as once I did when you were small. I am gathering you up into my arms.” – Promethea’s father, pg. 15
“He ain’t seen her in sixteen hundred years. I guess he wants quality time.” – Boo-boo, pg. 17
“You gonna wait forever for a beautiful woman, then three gonna show up at once.” – Juan Philippe Estrada, pg. 18
“You get back from this in one piece, you’re gonna know how to find me again.” – Juan Philippe Estrada, pg. 20
“…where you’re going, even your Holy Guardian Angel abandons you.” – Boo-boo, pg. 20
“I guess that’s why her father took Promethea away from me. I guess it’s part of the Abyss thing. Being alone…” – Sophie, pg 21
“This is the edge of existence, Barbara. This is as far as everything goes.” – Sophie, pg. 24

Notes and Annotations

Chesed
Reality Creator Workbook Series

Image Source

Page 1 Panels 1-3: We get to see 3 walls of this room.
Liquor cabinet potted plants and Sun with quote type illustration
Sofa & painting only bottom visible. According to JHW3 the painting
is just a random piece of art
Bookcase and fireplace
Note the eyes in the window on panels 1-2.
Panel 5: the closer we are to reality the more the edges of the panel frames become normal.
...UCK
...TAR : I’m guessing this might be DUCK STAR although I might be wrong. There actually is an open star cluster called Wild Duck designation M11.

Page 2:Thomas Lautwein points out:
Agents Ball and Breughel visit Drucker at the Laing Clinic. We see the inscription "The Laing Clinic" and a symbol looking like a pretzel. two allusions: Ronald D. Laing is a well known psychiatrist. The "pretzel" is in fact a symbol of Austin Osman Spare and means the unity of the four principles harmony and conflict, life and death. "One form made by two, that is three-fold and having four directions." See

Austin Osman Spare: The book of pleasure - the psychology of ecstasy
The Consumer of Religion
Kia, in its Transcendental and Conceivable Manifestation.

Of name it has no name, to designate. I call it Kia I dare not claim it as myself. The Kia which can be expressed by conceivable ideas, is not the eternal Kia, which burns up all belief but is the archetype of "self," the slavery of mortality. (...) This ancestral sex principle, and the idea of self, are one and the same, this sameness its exaction and infinite possibilities, the early duality, the mystery of mysteries, the Sphinx at the gates of all spirituality. All conceivable ideas begin and end as light in its emotion, the ecstasy which the creation of the idea of self induces. The idea is unity by the formula of self, its necessary reality as continuity, the question of all things, all this universe visible and invisible has come out of it. As unity conceived duality, it begot trinity, begot tetragrammaton. Duality being unity, is time, the complex of conception, the eternal refluctuation to the primeval reality in freedom-being trinity of dualities, is the six senses, the five facets of sex-projecting as environment for self-assimilation in denial, as a complete sexuality. Being tetragrammaton of dualities is twelvefold by arrangement, the human complex, and may be called the twelve commandments of the believer. It imagines the eternal decimal, its multiplicity embracing eternity, from which spring the manifold forms, which constitute existence. Vitalized by the breath of self-love, life is conscious of one. Self being its opposing force, is alternately conflict, harmony, life and death. These four principles are one and the same-the conception considered as the complete "self" or consciousness-hence they may be blended into unity and Symbolized. One form made by two, that is three-fold and having four directions.
Nomenon Austin Osman Spare Archives.
Page 2 Panels 1-5: This reminds me of the opening of Blade Runner when we zoom into a closeup of a window and then the conversation starts
Panels 1-2: Note the naked woman on the screen.
panel 3: The picture of Promethea is from the Pseunami episode in Issue #11.
L52 – does this have any siginificance to anyone?
Page 2, Panel 5: Northern Light Fantastic Voyage to Arcturus, lar
Northern Lights is the original name of the first title in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. For some strange reason in the USA it was retitled The Golden Compass.
‘to trip the light fantastic’ is an expression meaning to dance.
Fantastic Voyage is the name of a SF movie. Here is the script. Here is a webpage concentrating on Raquel Welch’s contribution to this film.
A Voyage to Arcturus is a novel by David Lindsay. Here is the entire novel online and here is a new edition with an introduction by Alan Moore.
Here is a quote from the introduction:
"A Voyage to Arcturus demands that David Lindsay be considered not as a mere fascinating one-off, as a brilliant maverick, but as one worthy and deserving of that shamanistic mantle; of the British visionary and apocalyptic legacy."
Alan Moore
The piece is entitled Prism and Pentecost: David Lindsay and the British Apocalypse -- Introduction by Alan Moore
Thanks to John O'Neil for explaining about lar
lar is Scouse dialect for "lad".
Liverpudlians (or Scousers) supposedly end their sentences with it. In some Scouse dictionary sites on-line it's often spelled "la'" however
We will finally learn the lyrics to this song in issue #25 where we can see that they consist mainly of rewritten Beatles lyrics.
"The one thing worse than being stalked about is NOT being stalked about" - nice variation on Oscar Wilde's famous quote.

Page 3 Panel 1:“I’m starting to think he’s beyond better living through chemistry” – In 1935 the Du Pont company began using the slogan “Better Things for Better Living…Through Chemistry” which was adopted by the counterculture in the 60’s to refer to mind altering drugs.
This is our first view of Dennis Drucker since Issue #7
Panel 2: “You think I’m a fag?” – Dennis was homophobic enough to shoot Bill Woolcott when he found out that the Promethea he had been having sex was really a man.
Panels 2-5: The aquarium in the back reminds me of Jean Luc-Picard’s office on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Pages 4-5: We wake up to some beautiful Van Gogh inspired background images with Promethea, Barbara and Boo-boo flying upwards towards two platforms the lower one of which has a vase as well as columns on it.
Pages 6-7:..on the arch above the Jupiter symbol
I can't see a Jupiter symbol anywhere on the arch but there are two on the stone blocks at the bottom of the stairs.

Page 7 Panel 1: Daddy Warbucks is the father figure in the comic strip panel Little Orphan Annie.
Panel 2: the Sheltering Sky is the name of a novel written in 1949 by Paul Bowles. It was filmed in 1990.
Page 8 Panel 1:
Zeus
Thor
Jupiter
Mallarme Poem
The azure the azure the azure
Indra
Some information about Indra's net sent by Thomas Lautwein
In Buddhist literature, the most famous passage on Indra's net can be found in chapter 43 of the Avatamsaka Sutra (translated into English by Thomas Cleary, The flower ornament scripture, Boston 1987):

"...particles are dynamically composed of one another in a self-consistent way, and in that sense can be said to 'contain' one another. In Mahayana Buddhism, a very similar notion is applied to the whole universe. This cosmic network of interpenetrating things is illustrated in the Avatamsaka Sutra by the metaphor of Indra's net, a vast network of precious gems hanging over the palace of the god Indra. In the words of Sir Charles Eliot:
In the Heaven of Indra, there is said to be a network of pearls, so arranged that if you look at one you see all the others reflected in it. In the same way each object in the world is not merely itself but involves every other object and in fact IS everything else. "In every particle of dust, there are present Buddhas without number.'
The similarity of this image with the hadron bootstrap is indeed striking. The metaphor of Indra's net may justly be called the first bootstrap model, created by the Eastern sages some 2,500 years before the beginning of particle physics."
Source of above Information.
Page 9 Panel 1: "As above so below"
Pages 10-11 Panels 2-3: Note that we can see some of the Sephiroth underneath the clouds. Red, gold, green and blue plus Malkuth at the bottom.
Pages 12-13: JHW3 writes that
those are unicorns in issue 19. I painted in their horns in a vague manner to suggest that unicorns don't have physical horns, that the horn itself is of a spritual significance. The other reason I did it that way is to avoid the look of bad cheesy unicorn paintings.
Panel 2: Note that Promethea lets go of her caduceus. It keeps following her. Unlike Prometheas' cool looking caduceus that of her father looks old and wooden. Even the snakes look like they're made of wood.
Pages 14-15: Poseidon (or Neptune) is holding his trident in the Painted background. Note his fish tail visible underneath the pathway.
Page 15 Panels 1-2: Nice change from Promethea to Sophie accompanied by multicolored smoke.
Pages 16-17: Each of the four panels has one of the tarot suites in the background. Disks, Swords, Cups (overflowing) and Wands.
Does anyone else see a blue angel flying skyward in the paint above the castle on Panel 1?
Pages 18-19: Each of the four images in the paintings looks like items used in religious ceremonies. We see 4 types of staffs.
1) has wings and snakes
2) looks like a kings sceptre
3) is a simple crosier but
4) doesn't look like a staff at all.
Page 18 Panel 1: Juan Phillipe Estrada wears a crucifix necklace, has a bracelet on his wrist and an interesting tatoo on his left arm.
Page 19 Panel 2: Not only was Promethea's original father killed but Sophie Bangs father also suffered the same fate.

Page 24 Panels 3-4: Taken in combination these two panels break the famous 180 degree rule of film-making also know as the axis of action. Basically since Barbara and Sophie are facing left in panel 3 then their feet portrayed in panel 4 should also be poing toward the left but since they are pointing in the opposite direction the rule has been broken creating a slightly disconcerting effect.
Thelma and Louise.
Here’s the screenplay.
Here’s a negative review.

rough transcript to be fixed up later Issue 19 Immateria off route 32
Rooms fanciful memory of the 20’s.
The apartment I couldn’t afford
Empowering when we finally face up to what we are
“I’m rather enjoying our little partnership just like you are
Zoom in to
L52
Stalin’s formerly Trotsky nice political joke. Trotsky fell from power with the Communist leadership and was eventually assassinated on Stalin’s orders.
Limp formerly the Limp
Monty formerly Montemilar Sykes
The only thing worse than being stalked about is not being stalked about” nice take on Oscar Wilde’s original quote
Drucker same as he’s been the last 30 years
New anti-psychotic drugs
He’s beyond better living through chemistry
You think I’m a fag
We called last week
Here this world our lives all this is just some kind of a dream and there is where we wake up to
CHESED
Fatherland flying up to blue rich arrived home cloudy vapours
Boo boo there ain’t much form once you get past Hod
Farther up you go less there is to see more to feel understand
4th Sphere
Chesed Jupiter mercy
Smell dad planing wood
Cedar incense
Fatherly type place
Everything made from cloud
Solid reassuring protect
Daddy Warbuck (see Little Orphan Annie)
Rich & succesful patrician 4 square solid
4 minimum number you need to define a solid 3 dimensional object eg pyramid
Energy of god pours down into being
1st place it truly materializes
right at the top of the universe
everything’s born into existence
this place nurtures and protects. Sheltering sky (book & film)
Sky gods all father represented
Zeus, Thor, Jupiter, Indra
Reassured safe with grownups
Sapphire light
Beads polished every detail of my refletction
Indra’s net Hindu sky god net
Infinite mesh of gleaming beads
In every single bead all the other beads are reflected…going on forever
Every part completely and perfectly reflects the whole
Reality hologram every piece still has the whole image in it
Kabbalah tree of life map of the whole universe what’s inside each of us
As above so below
existence reflects itself
Levels of ourselves
Demons, angels, gods part of us
Demons = your lowest drives
Angels = your highest driver
Deities = maybe part of you maybe fallen part of them
Everything’s part of god
Existence is all one thing
All part of some big vast flock immense organism
Everyone’s included
Loved & forgiven
Unconditional love of universe for it’s children for itself
Feel know mercy vision of love tries its’ hardest for us
Farm farmers cared tried their best protect everything all precious all of us
Put bread on table
Keep sky over our heads
Magic of man not angels
All parents
Barbard Ramirez (Shelley)
Truest nature
Wastelands
Gathering you up in my arms
Without her angel
Regain these treasures on it’s furtherest shore
Quality time…precipice
City transport
Juan Philippe Estrada
Sophie Bangs
Dealin’ coke decided to quit inform slug in head dumped in east river
Quest
You get back in one piece again
Abyss
Hermit path back to Tiphereth
Bereaved being alone
Lazy proud high and mighty
frightening
Edge of existence as far as everything goes
We jump into nothing
What magicians do