August Book-Blog: Maurice Conchis, Master of the Godgame - a Mage: the Ascension mentor/antagonist/wildcard based on John Fowles' The Magus

This month's book is both spoilable and utterly not so, and I can't even really explain what I mean by that. Suffice to say that much of the plot is tales within tales, and the physical, psychological and narrative realities are often going in quite different directions. All that said, unmarked spoilers for this and also one significant spoiler for Brideshead Revisited ahead, but honestly I don't think 'spoilers' could spoil the actual experience of either of those books really.

The covers of this book simply DO NOT MISS - my copy's the top left one, which is understated but very beautifully done.

Review

The first half or so of The Magus made me go 'I'm going to need to read a fucking journal's worth of critical reviews after this in order to understand it, aren't I?' This wasn't for lack of engagement - the main character starts in a very normal world, a sort of post-Brideshead Revisited witty satire of the dullness of Life After Oxford in 1953 England for a middle-class wannabe-philosopher/artist. Amusing, psychologically well-realized, it makes you like Nicholas D'Urfe in all his cynical 'existentialism' and highly unethical but very modern serial monogamy. Then it plunges him into a job teaching on a tiny Greek Island, where he gets drawn into a psychosexual drama staged by eccentric polymath and millionaire Maurice Conchis ('Anglicize my name. I prefer the "ch" soft.') Conchis (probably) fakes supernatural or mythic events, tells a series of plausible but unreliable stories about his own past, and draws Nicholas into a romantic entanglement with a young woman (for various reasons, I won't name her) which confuses his feelings for another who he came to the island following a breakup with. All this is pretty explicitly part of some grand masque that he describes in dramatic terms, and all seems to be leading up to some attempted psychological transformation.

Then it began to become clear that no, I wouldn't be needing much academic support, because whatever Conchis is playing at, Nicholas doesn't really have the capacity to puzzle it out and I suspect Fowles doesn't have the capacity to write it. No shade in the latter statement - Fowles makes clear in his intro to the 1977 edition that he rejected a 'clear supernatural element' from earlier drafts as essentially adolescent, and without that (hello again, Brideshead!*) you have to have a character like Conchis present genuinely transformative ideas if they're to live up to their promise. I think every GM has had the experience of making the wisest smartest most enlightened character and then struggling to provide them with viewpoints beyond borrowed cliché or personal opinion recast as absolute truth. The '77 intro suggests Fowles considers Conchis' message closest to the latter - 

If there was some central scheme beneath the (more Irish than Greek) stew of intuitions about the nature of human existence - and of fiction - it lies perhaps in the alternative title ... The Godgame. I did intend Conchis to exhibit a series of masks representing human notions of God, from the supernatural to the jargon-ridden scientific; that is, a series of human illusions about something that does not exist in fact, absolute knowledge and absolute power. The destruction of such illusions seems to me still an eminnently humanist aim; and I wish there were some super-Conchis who could put the Arabs and Israelis, or the Ulster Catholics and Protestants, through the same heuristic mill as Nicholas. ... God and freedom are totally antipathetic concepts; and men believe in their imaginary gods most often because they are afraid to believe in the other thing. I am old enough to realize now that they do so sometimes with good reason. But I stick by the general principle, and that is what I meant to be at the heart of my story: that true freedom lies between each two, never in one alone, and therefore it can never be absolute freedom.

I'm... going to ignore that. Not just because there's obviously a rather English Liberal set of IR assumptions there, because it doesn't gel with my reading of the text. If Conchis' melange of mythic symbolism, use of hypnosis to give Nicholas an experience of communication with the stars, visitations from the past etc. are intended to achieve some end, it's pretty clear Nicholas (almost our sole POV, bar a moment of omniscient narration to the audience towards the end) doesn't access it. He's textually, and Fowles isn't especially subtle about this, a white moderate - secretly sneers at gay people, views the one black character as borderline animalistic, and has a view of women that starts off seeming modern but is, it quickly becomes evident, entirely self-serving and potentially dangerous.One of Conchis' allies describes D'Urfe as caught up in puerile Freudian fantasies, and he basically agrees with her before proceeding to interpret everything going on as part of a sexual-liberatory movement. And his attitudes on that... well: 'Something very deep in me revolted ... Perhaps [a mildly polyamorous ally of Conchis] looked forward to a sexual morality for the twenty-first century; but something was missing, some vital safeguard; and I suspected I saw to the twenty-second.' 

And, yes, seems like he did, albeit he overshot a bit in dating the reaction; if he were alive today, I'm sure Mr. D'Urfe wouldn't need to teach on a quiet Greek island, because he'd have a youtube channel on the respectable fringe of the manosphere.

If, then, there's something Conchis is doing with his 'Godgame', it doesn't seem to be as simple as the presentation of a 'god is dead and I am free' perspective, a simple extension of Nicholas' unserious 'existentialism'. Even to the end, Conchis is playing divine roles, and even to the end he and all of his associates are telling Nicholas that his basic perspective on the whole business is flawed, inviting him in to further circles of knowledge that he keeps rejecting. Not that I necessarily think it makes sense to read Conchis as having any particular theistic project - but certainly it's easy to see him as much more aligned with a 'weirding' project, heterogenous and re-enchanted reality, Campagnian Magic of the sort I discussed last time. Even his most atheistic statement, defining life as 'hazard' or risk early on, which is very close to Campagna's vision of the furthest and weakest hypostasis of Technic in 'Life as Vulnerability', does so explicitly in terms positive about life and hostile to the staid linguistic reality of Technic. Indeed, Conchis' overall project of false or misleading description and identity that contrast with unconvincing psychical realities seem rather similar to Campagna's desconstruction of 'absolute language', and the one very clear successful effect on D'Urfe is that he rejects English social norms† and becomes an unwilling member of Conchis' parallel society in exactly the same idea-first transformation Campagna suggests. He doesn't replace this with a reality-system rooted in ineffable being like Campagna, sure, preferring a model of pure chance... but chance covered over in a set of fictions which have genuine power. I don't think we know what Conchis is, what he believes, but a fully disenchanted vision of the eponymous Magus (who really does keep coming back to magic imagery) appears to accord more with D'Urfe's cynicism about the possibility of deeper meaning than whatever Conchis is trying to inculcate.

All that said, here, have some of his and his allies' quotes from apparently-more-honest moments towards the end of the novel and make up your own mind. 

'"My plans are whatever happens ... you cannot spoil that. ... You wish to be liked. I wish simply to be. One day you will know what that mean, perhaps. And you will smile. Not against me. But with me." I [D'Urfe] left a pause. "You sound like a certain kind of surgeon. A lot more interested in the operation than the patient." "I should not like to be in the hands of a surgeon who did not take that view." "Then your...  meta-theatre is really a medical one?" ... "You may see it so. I prefer to think of it as a metaphysical one ... it is above all an attempt to escape from such categories." "More an art than a science?"  "All good science is art. All good art is science."' (408  in the Vintage Books 2004 edition)

'No real play has a curtain. It is acted, and then it continues to act.' (442)

'But [his seeming sadistic pleasure in breaking down others' self-image is] precisely why one believes him. Or he would say, precisely why one doesn't stand up against the real thing ... the apparently sadistic conspiracy against the individual we call evolution. Existence. History ... I think he's the greatest teacher in the world. I don't even think. I know.' (479)

(From a short fairytale left for Nicholas, author unknown) '"I must know the real truth, the truth beyond magic." "There is no truth beyond magic," said the king. The prince was full of sadness. He said, "I will kill myself." The king by magic caused death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. he remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses. "Very well," he said. "I can bear it." "You see, my son," said the king, "you too now begin to be a magician."'

'The godgame is over ... Because there is no god, and it is not a game. ... But in the godgame we start from the premise that in reality all is fiction, yet no single fiction is necessary. ... The basic principle of life is hazard. Maurice tells me that this is no longer even a matter of debate. If one goes deep enough in atomic physics one ends with a situation of pure chance. Of course we all share the illusion that this can't be so.' (628) 

And perhaps most  compellingly, from D'Urfe himself: 

'And then I felt towards the godgame some of the mixed fascination and repulsion one feels for an intelligent religion; I knew there "must be something" in it, but I as surely knew that I was not the religious type.'

(He immediately returns to talking about sex.) 

This isn't a criticism, except of Fowles' self-analysis. Fowles-Writing-Conchis has actually achieved that exalted trick of the GM playing the enlightened NPC: he implies depths, knowledge or at least intent, far beyond what the creator can actually bring to bear personally.  Also, I don't know if you can tell but I was very charmed by the prose of this book; and D'Urfe is a shockingly engaging and even likeable anti-hero, even as you begin to realize how much of a tosser he is.

 

*TBC I fucking love Brideshead Revisited, the only reason it didn't make my Appendix JHGW is that I haven't really played with its aesthetics and themes in games yet. But its closing conversion experience isn't intrinsically impactful unless you already place some weight on the Catholic religious experience.

† At a party: 'The terrible faceless Avenging God of the British, One, was standing like a soot-blackened obelisk over the whole evening.' Of an insufferable ex-military package holiday entrepreneur with far-right leanings: 'the last I saw of him was of a dark-blue back marching towards Shaftesbury Avenue; eternally the victor in a war where the losers win.' 

OK let me rephrase. This cover misses. If you go into the book expecting this, you're going to have an experience much more like Nicholas D'Urfe than the average reader. 

Gameable content: Conchis, Master of the Godgame

As established above, Conchis' teachings make me think of Federico Camapagna a lot, and not just because I was writing the Technic and Magic book-blog the whole time I was reading The Magus. He also pretty explicitly describes his God-game like a rather pretentious LARP GM, which is sort of what he is:

'"Back during the war ... I conceived a new kind of drama. One in which the conventional separation between actors and audience was abolished. In which the conventional scenic geography, the notions of proscenium, stage, auditorium, were completely discarded. In which continuity of performance, either in time or place, was ignored. And in which the action, the narrative was fluid, with only a point of departure and a fixed point of conclusion. [Hey, this is early-days. He can be a bit tradgamery.] Between those points the participants invent their own drama.' His mesmeric eyes pinned mine. "You will find that Artaud and Pirandello and Brecht were all thinking, in their different ways, along similar lines. But they had neither the money nor the will - and doubtless, not the time - to think as far as I did. The element they could not bring themselves to discard was the audience.'

And from an ally, later:

'It's improvised, Nicholas. Not planned. If you like, the rat is given a kind of parity with the experimenter. It also can dictate the walls of the maze. As you have, perhaps without fully realizing it.' (478) 

He'd be an excellent Mage NPC, still playing his mysterious game half a century on despite his claims of ailing health; not, perhaps, a member of the Unruled we created last time, but certainly a sympathetic Orphan. Let's give him a profile!

Anthony Quinn in the 1968 film version

Maurice Conchis, Master of the Godgame

Maurice Conchis grew up in the early 20th century... somewhere. Possibly England, or maybe he visited there later. His exact story seems to vary, though he'll often claim to have fought in the first World War, and certainly he maintains close links with many of the Unruled mages who emerged from that period to this day. Some consider him part of their faction, but really Conchis is an Orphan, albeit one sympathetic to their goal of creating a world where mortals can put aside their false social mores and live in a more honest way. Many Sahajiya have studied under him for a time, even been Awakened in his games, and although the Order of Hermes has never initiated him he seems aware of many of their secrets. Reformist European Technocrats and members of the Umbral Underground are also sometime correspondents. A relatively progressive man for his age, he's capable of getting along with basically anybody, and will just as happily chat with an Ngoma as with a Chorister if one turns up, though he often grows frustrated and angry when others are too dogmatic in their own beliefs.

Conchis is significantly a myth, a shadow, to the Sleeper world. His Greek island home of Phraxos is now undetectable to any outside influence, and the records of him that appear in various national archives seem to do so only when he wishes and wholly independent of any actual truth. He spends his time on Phraxos, where most of the locals of influence are in his pocket to one extent or another; on his Yacht; or at various society events in England or the Mediterranean, particularly those orbiting cinema culture. Conchis is apparently a director of some talent, and many significant people remember working with him, though his appearance in any credits is as fickle as anything else. 

If somebody he meets in such settings interests him, he may begin to invite them to spend more time with him, often in isolated places. He will act at first as a kindly host, then possibly as a lover and patron, whilst all the while strange things begin to happen around the subject. People - material people, employees or guests of Conchis - begin to act in a way that mirrors myth, or archetypal imagery. Any attempt to confront him leads to more plausible stories of his past, as well as to endless philosophical 'revelations', each of which both offers a stopping-point and draws the subject on. For a man who purports once to have burned all of his books of fiction, he is a great spinner of tales. Subjects eventually reach a state of near psychological collapse, unsure what is real, where they either break and pitch into madness or join Conchis' circle, possibly Awakening in the process in some cases.

Said circle consists of a dozen or so inner inductees, plus a few peripheral figures, all of whom habve undergone the same process at Conchis' hands. Many are upper-class English aristocrats, but French, German, and African-American members are also known to have existed at various points. Their exact identities change over time, but they are united by a certain level of calmness, a trust of the man himself and his methods, and by many bonds of love and free sexuality amongst their own ranks.

What Conchis' aims are, none are quite sure, but they seem to include the exultation of the human individual and the imposition of great wills on the chaos of the world - not as tyrants, either open or veiled, but as self-actualized non-selves. He views the periodic creation of Marauders by his 'godgame' as perfectly acceptable, a natural consequence of those individuals' paths. Beyond this, even those operatives of other factions devoted to observing his activities cannot determine his ultimate ends are, if indeed he has any.

Uses in play:

• (Obvious) The PCs are guests of Conchis, under the pretence that they are auditioning for roles in a new esoteric play. As he tests and torments them psychologically, they may turn against each other, their numbers whittled down til only the most worthy remain
• An ally of the PCs has been drawn into Conchis' web. They must locate and then travel to Phraxos to retrieve them - but will they be the same person by this point? And will Conchis allow them to leave his centre of power?
• A subtle K'llasshaa wants to send Conchis through the cauls, believing after studying him at length that he would accept Descent rather than perish. They manufacture his guilt in some crime to persuade the PCs to unwittingly help them capture him, which is of course challenging enough in itself. Once he's in the PCs' grasp, the Nephandus works to seize him. But has he been playing everybody all along?
• A string of dissipate young students just out of prestigious universities have turned Marauder - one per year over the past several years. The PCs investigate, and eventually discover that they're all linked to a loose, cult-like network that centres this mysterious man. Other Mage visitors are unwilling to tell them much more without favours done in return. Meanwhile, a new Marauder emerges and is integrated into God's Left Hand, which begins its own hunt for Conchis and his allies.
• Operation Black Gull, a Void Engineers Aquatic Exploration Team intended to locate Conchis, succeeds in putting Phraxos back on the map... in a big way. Suddenly the Greek government is asking lots of questions about how they missed that since the 50s, and the rest of the world is increasingly interested in this 'stealth technology'. Conchis and his followers are forced into the limelight, up against people who can resist anything they do to pull the wool over the world's eyes, and pull out the big psychological guns to retain their status and independence. The PCs might be mediators or the original VE crew.

Profile

Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Charisma 5 (Fascinating), Manipulation 5 (Psychological Games), Appearance 3, Perception 4 (Uncanny Insight), Intelligence 5 (Deep Thoughts), Wits 5 (Improviser)
Abilities: Academics (Liberal Arts) 4, Alertness 3, Area Knowledge (Isle of Phraxos) 5, Art (Harpsichord) 3, Art (Theatre) 5, Awareness 3, Belief Systems 2, Blatancy (Appeals to Vanity) 4,  Carousing 1, Cosmology 1, Empathy (Emotional Manipulation) 5, Enigmas (Metaphysics) 5, Esoterica 3, Etiquette 3, Expression (Shut-Downs) 5, Finance 2, Intimidation 2, Investigation 2, Leadership (Transformative) 4, Media 2, Meditation 3, Medicine 3, Occult 3, Politics 2, Research 3,  Science (Psychology) 5, Seduction 2, Stealth 2, Streetwise 3, Subterfuge (False Revelations) 5, Technology 1

Backgrounds: Allies 3, Alternate Identity 3, Arcane 5, Avatar 1, Backup (Actors & theatre pros) 5, Contacts 5, Cult 1, Demesne 2, Fame (niche academic and film industry circles) 1, Fame (Isle of Phraxos) 3, Influence (Media, Isle of Phraxos) 3, Legend (Svengali) 1, Library 4, Resources 6, Retainers 2, Sanctum 4 (Mansion of Bourani, Isle of Phraxos), Spies 3, Status 2
Willpower: 9

Arete: 6

Spheres: Correspondence 3, Entropy 3, Life 2, Mind 5, Spirit 2, Prime 2
Health Levels: OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, Incapacitated
Image: An aging yet ageless man, sun-beaten but never bowed, bald and bronze. Exceedingly piercing gaze. Wears either the clothes of a fashionable British holidaymaker in their resort home or a ritual garment resembling the Magician card of the tarot.

Roleplaying Notes: Be friendly without ever being fully a friend, then suddenly dismissive and cold. Reply to every accusation with a perfectly convincing explanation of the 'truth' the interlocutor has finally been clever enough to grasp. Never seem mystifying, sadistic, or deeply emotional, just satisfied with the progress of things. You know more than anybody around you, and don't suffer fools gladly, but mostly you are (or seem) fairly humble. Tell made-up anecdotes liberally and with passion. You despise killing and will never kill anybody, though you're happy to make it seem like you might have.

Magick

Paradigm: Everything is chaos, hazard, risk, but it's chaos wrapped in an illusion or set of illusions. By shaping our illusions, we shape reality. Life is basically worthwhile insofar as it's the thing that has the illusions. Magick is just magic, being the best illusionist on the stage. (And All The World's A Stage).
Practice: Conchis works through a version of the Art of Desire with tailored to the complex psychological and philosophical yearnings of interesting people, leading them on a semi-collaborative dance that broadly heads in his favoured direction, now withholding, now giving bounteously. His Reality Hacking leaves participants unclear on what's real and what's false. He also incorporates elements of Domination, God-Bonding, Medicine-Work, and Gnostic Intellectualism from time to time.

Instruments: Artwork, Books and Periodicals, Food and Drink, Household Tools, Music, Ordeals and Exertions, and occasional Drugs and Poisons all help Conchis put his subjects in the right frame of mind; whilst he and his allies make use of Symbols, Eye Contact, Fashion, Dances and Movement, Group Rites,  Management and HR, and Voice and Vocalization. Both sets engage extensively with Sex and Sensuality, and he spins nested Tricks and Illusions round them all.

That's all for nowwwww. Bye.

Jago

 Also finished reading for pleasure this month: Laozi trans. wikisource, Tao Te Ching

Also reading for pleasure this month: Robert Lawrence Smith, A Quaker Book of Wisdom; John Power Jr. (Ed.), Wyrd Science 3; Peter Andrew Vincent Sarris, Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint; James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes; Jeannie Bailey & David England, Lancashire Folk Tales; C.E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles & Practice; Gary Zhexi Zhang (ed.), Catastrophe Time!, Lao Tzu trans. Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching: An Illustrated Journey (and if that isn't environmental storytelling...)