Okay, so this "Chapel Perilous" thing. Explain it, please.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Okay, so this "Chapel Perilous" thing.  Explain it, please, without jargon.

Because, for the life of me, I can't figure out what the fuck people are talking about.  I see this shit all over TFYS and OKM, and everyone talks like it's a well-known definition.

[Suu]

I have no idea.

*googles*

Oh, it's RAW stuff. Tells you how much I paid attention to his fucking books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapel_perilous

The term first appeared in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur[2] as the setting for an adventure in which sorceress Hellawes unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Sir Lancelot, and was first used as an occult term by the late writer and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson (b. 1932 - d. 2007) in his book Cosmic Trigger. According to Wilson, being in this state leads the subject into becoming either stone paranoid or an agnostic. In his opinion there is no third way.

[East Coast Hustle]

stone paranoid OR agnostic?

RAW really didn't get it sometimes, huh?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Chapel Perilous is a metaphorical state where the individual is exposed to information that disagrees with their perception of reality. It could be spiritual (which is what Bob was discussing on the paranoid vs agnostic quote). It could also be philosophical, social or even physical. Chapel Perilous is different for different people. Some people enter and come out the other side, some enter, get confused and run back out the front door, some get lost forever in there and some stand at the door completely unaware that the Chapel is there.

In PD lingo, standing at the doorway (and realizing it) is like realizing that you're in a Black Iron Prison... when you realize that YOUR reality is not reality, but just your perceptions and beliefs based on your experiences in life. Those who enter and come out the other side are the ones that recognize that they can modify their BiP and then do it. Those who run back out the front door, are the people who can't deal with life in a BiP and go back to their old way of thinking because its safe... and the people that get lost forever in it, are the people that spend the rest of their lives trying to completely escape.

Chapel Perilous also has a  metaphorical application for people that play with the occult. When you experiment with Magic and something works, thats the doorway to the Chapel. How you deal with that experience, how you allow that experience to shape your life, etc. all depends on how you deal with the Chapel. For a simple example, the 23 Enigma is an entrance to a Chapel Perilous. If you have the experience and learn from it (wow, I can teach my brain to recognize/focus on a specific pattern) then you escape out the exit. If, however, you lose your shit, think that 23 is really really mystical for realz, then you're trapped inside.

Bob discusses in in several of his books. He uses it to discuss his own experiences with the metaphysical (his year or so where Aliens from Sirius beamed messages into his head) and explain how he processed that experience without becoming a 'stone cold paranoid' or a 'true believer'. My favorite is the story of Fission Chips (from Illuminatus!) an MI6 agent that ends up completely mired in the absurd conspiracies going on around him. At one point he actually ends up in a little chapel, wherein all hell breaks loose, physically going through the Chapel, while also metaphorically going thorough the chapel.

Ok thats as jargon free as I can make it... hope it makes some sense.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Chapel Perilous is a metaphorical state where the individual is exposed to information that disagrees with their perception of reality.

Oh.  Well, 99% of humanity is perfectly safe, then.

Thanks for the explanation.  A lot of TFYS makes more sense now.

[East Coast Hustle]

thats as jargon free as I can make it

I'm sure glad you gave us the layman's version.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

thats as jargon free as I can make it

I'm sure glad you gave us the layman's version.

[Jasper]

It's the moment just as Horror dawns, and you either stop thinking or act like a Doktor.

[Cain]

RAW-speak for a mid life crisis.

[Jasper]

OR that.   

I FOUND MYSELF AT CHAPEL PERILOUS - THE SUZUKI DEALERSHIP! 

[Triple Zero]

Thanks for this thread, the "Chapel Perilous" thing is a lot clearer to me now, as well

RAW-speak for a mid life crisis.

Is it though? Cause that's what I always thought as well. But Rat's explanation makes it a bit more useful term.

What I used to think it means (though maybe you meant something else by "mid life crisis"), is that Chapel Perilous is this Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, a period of hardship, from which you, if you defeat it properly, can arise more "enlightened" (or whatever). Which (IMO) is part self-fulfilling prophecy, and part wishful thinking or a feeling of entitlement. The (story-telling and fairness-based) belief that one ought to be rewarded for their suffering.

But the way Rat explained it, it's not so much a time-period you must endure, but more of a situation you find yourself in. Or lose yourself in.

I'm not entirely sure about his paragraph that references PD's BIP, but that could also be cause I find myself a bit jaded with the metaphor by now*.


(I wanted to write more but I got distracted)




* FUCK that means we did it!! If I'm not the only one, that means the BIP is now Discordian scripture for really realness, as proven by PD.com jadedness :-P

[Faust]

Its just a catch all for any crisis of conscious, cosmic trigger was mostly waffle dressed up in occult analogies.

[Suu]

I just think that Thomas Mallory made a bunch of weird shit up and later-day psychologists and philosophers had no right taking weird shit from the Arthurian tales and making some sort of analogies or disorders out of them.

I'm consecrating my living room chair as siege perilous now. First person who brings me the grail can sit in it.

[LMNO]

Chapel Perilous = An especially intense form of cognitive dissonance, one that is fairly difficult to resolve.

[hooplala]

Chapel Perilous = An especially intense form of cognitive dissonance, one that is fairly difficult to resolve.

See Rat?  It can be done!