The Swirling Black Void: An Examination

A comment from my new friend Cullen:

“Another thought I had last night before retiring to bed (I get all my best thoughts right before falling asleep): Have you considered that the “horrenda caribdis” on the Magnus woodcut we talked over is a reference to THE VOID that so often appears in zombie art?”

Cullen refers here to the “horrenda caribdis,” the Maelstrom, on the lower right of the Olaus Magnus woodcut, detailed in a previous post:



He compares it to the “void” described in many Tzombi testimonies as written about by Dr. Teresa Morgan through her work in Personality Reclamation using hypnotic regression. Her article in Sentience: A Journal of Consciousness 36, no 3 which describes the unique plight of the post-deceased, many of whom (87% by her count) have lost touch with their former lives. A quote:

One recurring motif in regression is the “swirling black void” or “vortex” which, if the subject is able to remember anything at all about his/her pre-decease existence, is the sole memory.

One subject had a very particular experience of this void -- a “vision,” if you will, while under hypnosis:

I saw a…black mass…which drew me to it. It was alive and…kind of—howling? But ‘howling’ isn’t the right word, because it was like everything was howling. Like a black hole would pull you apart if you fell into it? This was like a mental black hole. I could feel it would pull my thoughts apart-rip them right out of my head.

Compare this to my graduate work in which a small percentage of those experiencing NDE’s (Near Death Experiences) mentioned the “swirling black void”(Published in Thoughts on Thought: An Anthology of Consciousness, Brain Burst Books, 1992.)

At the time, I hypothesized this void to be the inverse of the commonly described “tunnel of light,” After years of studying the Tzombi, however, I am prepared to suggest another cause, the two of which need not be mutually exclusive: this “void” may be a genetic memory of the Black Rock of Cybele (or Assyrian Cenotaph, for those of you of Ashmolean bent) which imprinted itself on the DNA of the Tzombi race.

Tzombi Rennaisance in Los Angeles

As a peace offering, I took J. to a gallery show last night, another wonderful example of the Tzombi renaissance here in Los Angeles. J. seemed more interested in the free wine and cheese cubes, but I was quite taken with an artist named Glen, whose work is comprised of wonderful, vicious swirls that he has proudly entitled Void 1.1, Void 1.3, Void 1.5.

Though J. left halfway through the evening, I had the good fortune of meeting Cullen Preys, the Assistant Curator of the show. We spoke about the renaissance of Tzombi culture in the Los Angeles area and traded thoughts on a series of Olaus Magnus woodcuts that were on exhibit at the Natural History Museum last month (see my previous post entitled FROM HERE TO GREENLAND AND BACK).

Cullen has a wonderful mind and an open heart, and I hope that we might continue our fascinating exchange of ideas in the near future. First and foremost is that I would like to persuade him to change his e-mail address to read “Tzombi Gallery” rather than “Zombie Gallery.”

From Here to Greenland and Back

I’m happy to report that J. has been out of the office for several days with a sinus infection; therefore we’ve all been enjoying a wonderfully cool workplace. What a difference! I’ve realized that seventy-five degrees is simply too high a temperature for serious thought of the sort my research requires (what shall be done when J. returns is a matter for another day).

One needs only look at a list of world literatures and compare the vast bodies of literature of colder climates with the scant literature of the equatorial zones for an illustration of this. There is also evidence that Tzombi flourish in colder zones —because one of the characteristics of PMMS is a cessation of the bodily functions we associate with everyday life, they also have an inability to sweat, which makes life in the warmest climates unbearable, and which may provide another possible reason the Drunken Monkeys of Palau headed into the caves of Mt. Tmerou.

Of course, this brings up an interesting question: why do the Tzombi seem to flourish in a mild climate like that of Los Angeles?

But there is simply no disputing that one of the most successful Tzombi colonies was the one which flourished in Greenland for almost 400 years. In 986 A.D., Erik the Red set sail from Iceland to Greenland with an armada of 25 ships, only fourteen of which reached their destination. A ship’s log, frozen in a block of sea-ice, was later recovered by the colonists and copied verbatim into the Konungs Skuggsja, the “King’s Mirror” of 1250:

13 August. Events of the day brought dire circumstance; owing to dearth of provisions and uneasiness of spirit, Thorvald Thorvalsson, called the fat, endeavored to hoard what remained of the salt cod, upon which Eyjolf Ulfsson drew his knife and slashed the greedy limb, which action divided the men, and resulted in seven deaths from knife-wound. The bodies of the dead were thrown over the side of the boat, and number thus: Thorvald Thorvaldsson, Eyjolf Ulfsson, Sigurd Vifilsson, Saemond Saur, Thorvald Krakuson, Ingolf Thorbjornsson, and Gudrid Sigmundsdottir.

Though the ship never made it to Greenland, it appears some of the bodies did. Adam of Bremen, writing in his Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, relates the “miracle of Eiriksfjord,” which occurred 97 years after the voyage, when five blocks of ice washed ashore with people “of bygonne dress” frozen inside them. When they were taken ashore for a Christian burial, the “miracle” occurred. Adam of Bremen describes: “Moreover, that the frozen came to life with the rejuvenating fire of Christ is not a fabulous fancy, but from the accounts of those present we know to be a fact.”

Though it’s entirely possible that this episode is fabricated -- there were frequent concerns on the mainland that the colonists were “going native,” and an account of a miracle would have assured the mainlanders that the colonists were still in God’s good graces -- we have the corroboration of a bizarre woodcut by Olaus Magnus, which depicts a fat man in outdated dress (possibly Thorvald Thorvaldsson?) frozen in what appears to be a block of ice:


And a closer look here: