Neoism is an artistic rather than scientific approach. It is an open approach not dependent on provability.
First of all, Neoism is based on laws of formation and dissolution, of mass influences, and environmental limitations. Neoists find new ways of communication. The important thing is that Neoism has decided make life fun.
Second, Neoism tends to destroy rigorous, precise, and tested rules, every Neoists is free to follow his own impulses. In this he will show his genius or lack thereof.
Third, one type of Neoism will be found suitable in one situation and completely useless in another. To undertake an active Neoist operation, it is not necessary to make a scientific, sociological and psychological analysis first. Proper training is not necessary for those who want to use Neoist research to full effectiveness.
Finally, one last trait reveals the artistic character of Neoism: it does not depend on external controls or criteria, it is not concerned with standards of success and failure, it remains undefined in its goals. A Neoist is prompted by a certain internal impulse to experimentation and a desire to ponder.
The Individual and the Masses
Neoism will, first of all, address itself at one and the same time to the individual and the masses. It cannot separate the two elements. For Neoism to address itself to the individual, in his isolation, apart from the crowd, is very possible. The individual, as an isolated unit, is of great interest to the Neoist Society. To win people over one by one is a typical Neoist Society strategy. Neoism begins where simple dialogue begins.
A Neoism that functioned only where individuals are gathered together would be incomplete and insufficient. Neoism reaches individuals yet it also aims at a crowd, but only as a body understood to be composed of individuals.
The individual is considered in terms of what unique characteristics he has, such as his motivations, his feelings, or his myths. The individual is never considered as part of the mass because in that way his psychic defenses are stronger, his reactions are faster and more provocative and he is less prone to identify a message as being directed exactly at him. But the individual must never be considered as being alone; the listener to a pirate radio broadcast, though actually alone, is nevertheless part of a large group, and he is aware of it.
Pirate radio listeners have been found to exhibit a kind of terrorist mentality. All are tied together and constitute a sort of underground society in which all individuals are accomplices though they may never meet any other members of the group that they believe themselves to be a part of.
When Neoism is addressed to a crowd, it must touch each individual in that crowd. To be effective, it must give the impression of being personal, for we must never forget that the masses are composed of individuals, and is in fact nothing but assembled individuals.
When individuals are in a group, their individuality is weakened, they enter a state of receptivity, and are in a state of psychological regression yet they pretend all the more to be strong individuals. The crowd as an organism is clearly subhuman but pretends to give superhuman qualities to its members.
Thus Neoism profits from the structure of the mass, but exploits the individual’s need for self affirmation. Neoism has precisely this remarkable effect of reaching the whole crowd all at once, and yet reaching each individual in that crowd.
The movie spectator, though elbow to elbow with his neighbors, is always alone, separated by the darkness and the hypnotic attraction of the screen. This is the situation of the “lonely crowd”, or of isolation in the mass, which is a natural product of present-day hi-tech Massurreality and which is explored, utilized and deepened by Neoist practice.
The most favorable moment to seize the attention and influence a potential participant is when he is alone in the crowd: it is at this point that Neoism can be most effective.
Total Neoism and Neoist Propaganda Methods
Neoism must be total. Neoists may utilize all of the technical means at their disposal - the press, radio, TV, movies, posters, graffiti, stickers, mail art, networking, music, Internet, video, DVD, computers, painting, sculpture, poetry, novels, collage, montage, etc. There is no Neoism as long as one makes use, in sporadic fashion and at random, of a manifesto here, a poster or a radio program there, organizes a few apartment festivals and network meetings, writes a few slogans on the walls; that is not enough. Each usable medium has its own particular way of limited penetration. A video does not play on the same motives, does not produced the same feelings, does not provoke the same reactions as a poster. The very fact that the effectiveness of each medium is limited to one particular area clearly shows the necessity of complementing it with other media. A word spoken on the radio is not the same, does not produce the same effect, does not have the same impact as the identical word spoken in private conversation at an apartment festival or in a public speech before a large crowd at a stadium. To draw the individual into the net of Neoism, each technique must be utilized in its own specific way, directed toward producing the effect it can best produce, and fuse with all the other media, each of them reaching the individual in a specific fashion and making him react anew to the same theme - in the same direction, but differently.
Human contact is the best medium for the spreading of the Neoist agenda in terms of social climate, fast infiltration, progressive inroads, and over-all integration. Public meetings and posters are more suitable tools for providing shock effect, intense but temporary, leading to immediate action. The press tends more to shape general views; radio and TV are likely to be instruments of international action and impregnation of the psycho mental sphere of the Massurreality, whereas the press is used domestically. In any case, it is understood that because of this specialization not one of these instruments may be left out: they must all be used in combination.
We are here in this world in the presence of an self organizing reality that already controls the formation of the entire universe. We ourselves, each of us, are a part of this self organizing reality and are never apart from it. We merely are creating a mythic version of it to facilitate our ability to communicate to each other about it and help to shape our expression of it. Through the myth it creates, Neoism imposes a complete range of intuitive knowledge. Intuitive knowledge - being ambiguous – is susceptible to multi-sided interpretation.
This myth – due to the primal nature to which it refers - becomes so powerful that it invades every area of communication, leaving no faculty or motivation unaffected. It stimulates in the individual a feeling of all inclusiveness. Neoism has such motivational force that it engages the whole of the individual.
This explains the totalitarian attitude that the Neoist adopts where ever Neoism has successfully been inculcated.
Everything can serve as a means of Neoist propaganda and everything must be utilized.
Continuity and Duration of Neoism
Neoism is continuous and everlasting - continuous in that it leaves no gaps, but fills the Neoist´s whole day and all his days; everlasting in that it functions into the incalculable future.
Neoism occupies every moment of the Neoist´s life, at home, in the street, at the dentist, in a bar or in bed. Its base is a constant impregnation of the impulses of the Now into the mind of the Neoist. It creates convictions and compliance through imperceptible influences.
Neoism is a complete environment for the Neoist master from which he never emerges.
Neoism is not a stimulus that disappears quickly; it consists of successive impulses and shocks aimed at various feelings or thoughts. As soon as one effect wears off, it is followed by a new shock.
The Now is always surprising. Thus the content of Neoism can seem so inconsistent that it can approve today what it condemned yesterday. Monty Cantsin considers this changeability of Neoism an indication of its confusing nature. Actually it is only an indication of the grip it exerts, of the reality of its effects.
Neoism continues its assault without an instant’s respite. The Now is forever just now happening and the Neoists are there to participate in it.
Organization of Neoism
Neoism is a self arising, self organizing and self correcting thus it must not be organized along any particular rule. Though Neoism negates the need of a centralized administrative organization, each practitioner of Neoism is the administrator of his own activities. The practice of Neoism is tied to the realities of the everyday life of each practitioner which spawn the specific rules of construction of all individual Neoist actions and activities.
Neoism cannot operate from inside of a vacuum cleaner. This is a principal conviction of Monty Cantsin.
Neoism operates through the promise of a better future - an effective way of counter propaganda. Thus the apparatus of Neoism removes the people from a reliance on past traditions that lose weight on the treadmill of argument.
Neoism then, is practice. Practice furnishes the Neoist with vital reasons, juicy justifications, and rejuvenating motivations for continuing his daily neoist activities and refining his wakefulness.
Each must act with sincerity as if they believe in what they are doing. This is the only way to find complete satisfaction in Neoism.
Each Neoist is a representative of the holographic organization that is the Neoist Society: each is a complete Neoist Society in himself; a self sufficient shard of the greater body of the Neoist Society. Monty Cantsin is the greater body of which each Neoist is a part, his personage casting the long shadow of Neoism. Each has an inner knowing that lets him know why he speaks certain words and what effect they should have. His words are no longer human words but hyper words of entirely spontaneous ideas to reflect the structure of the Neoist Society. When necessary he can turn in the opposite direction and act with similar conviction should the New require of him to move thusly. He must believe only in the arising Newness and not bogged down by the past in order to remain fluid. Fluidity is a critically important trait of a neoist.
No! Monty Cantsin will never become the prisoner of his own formulas. What protects him is his exact and precise adherence to the principles of the New and the Neoist Society to which he belongs. The Neoist Society never promotes rigidity.
Orthopraxy
Neoism is very frequently described as a conspiracy of the New for the purpose of replacing old ideas or opinions, with new and better ideas and opinions. Neoism is based on an intuitive response to the ever arising New rather than a reasoned building up of traditional beliefs into an edifice of logical stupidity.
Once awakened the Neoist’s first response to this miss shapened body of incongruities is to make fun of it, through parody and mocking: to then abandon its false order and raise up nonsense in its place but this is only to add braces and prosthetic devices to a disfigured tragedy that is the result of accidental conditions.
This is much of what we have seen in Neoism till now. This line of reasoning is completely wrong. To view Neoism as still being what it was in 1960 is to cling to an obsolete concept; it is to condemn oneself to understand nothing about Neoism. Neoism is always advancing and evolving. It is never in the same place twice.
To cleave to the ever arising New is to create a firm adherence to truth and to negate everything else. When one’s sincerity is sufficiently strong; one’s intuitions sufficiently clear and after some soul searching, the individual is ready for the destruction of the edifice of belief he has falsely groomed and clung to as his self leading to the possibility of being an awakened Neoist - the most dangerous creature alive.
The aim of Neoism is to open the door, leave the cage and learn to fly.
Neoism aims solely at the artful participation of the free and awakened Neoist in the everyday life all around him sometimes passively sometimes through action. The neoist always harmonizes himself through alignment to what is happening precisely now.
To be effective, Neoism must constantly short circuit all artificial thought and decision making. Neoism has meaning only when it obtains the convergence of the ever arising internal impulses, with the artful expression of the Neoist. Neoism must at once operate on the individual at the superficial level of the ultra conscious in concert with the profoundly internal, intuitive knowing. The individual knows that he is being shaped by the internal forces of Now while bring refinements to that shaping with his growing knowledge of Neoism without care about the release that will provide the appropriate action at the appropriate moment. Once the Neoist has cleared his mind to the point of paying complete attention to the present moment, is willing to allow that moment to be expressed through him, he will be free from all decision making. There are no decisions other than to do precisely what his moment calls for.
Through telepathic transmission emitted by the Masters of the Neoist Society through the infinitely arising Present, the proselyte receives an overwhelming impulse that makes him awaken the whole of his being to the New. He is transformed into a lion in a psycho sociological sense. Action by an awakened Neoist makes Neoism’s effect possible and irresistible. The awakened Neoist can never return to that life that went before when he lived in a random poorly constructed dream of someone else’s making. He is now obliged for his own good through his Neoist wakefulness to uphold Neoist practice. He is obliged to continue to advance in the direction indicated by the Neoist impulses arising within him: starting demands continuing. The individual who has acted in accordance with Neoism has taken up his place in the Neoist Society. From then on, old farts hanging onto the past make themselves his enemies though he is enemy to no one. Often the power of his connection to newness causes an estrangement with what had been previously established. He starts to recognize new friends that the Neoist Society has made for him. He is caught up in a hidden movement that totally occupies his consciousness. Neoism and the Now occupies him completely and we must bear in mind that if Neoism leads to this kind of participation it is child’s play – the very best kind of play.
In order for a Neoist to become a master a certain amount of time must elapse, a period of training and conditioning. He must unlearn what he thought he knew. Knowing takes precedence over knowledge. One cannot hope to obtain the capacity for subtle reactions to the ever arising impulses of the Now after only a few weeks’ practice. A real psychic reformatting of priorities must be undertaken, so that after months of patient work a Neoist will react automatically in the hoped-for direction to his inner impulses. What is visible in Neoism, what is spectacular and seems to us often incomprehensible or unbelievable, is possible only because of such slow preparation; without it nothing would be possible. Be patient, be persistent, be empty.
The aspiring Neoist creates myths intended to express that force by which the entire universe has come into being and by which he at first and later many people will live by. By myth we mean a cult-activating total image: a sort of vision of primal ambiguous objectives, practical in character and having over-whelming, all-encompassing influences on the surrounding community. Such an image inspires the Neoist to action precisely because it includes all that he feels is direct, compelling and incomprehensible in its spreading power. Eventually the myth takes possession of the Neoist’s mind so completely that his life is consecrated to it. Neoists create and live in a collective milieu of myth.
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