Twin Peaks Usenet Archive

Subject: Re: the White Lodge
From: jimh@hprpcd.rose.hp.com (Jim Hickey)
Date: 1991-01-07, 10:23
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

/ hprpcd:alt.tv.twin-peaks / boyajian@ruby.dec.com (Cisco's Buddy) / 11:16 pm  Dec 11, 1990 /
Major Briggs: "There are powerful forces of evil. It is some men's fate
      to face great darkness. We each choose how to react. If the choice
      is fear, then we become vulnerable to darkness. There are ways to
      resist. You, sir, were blessed with certain gifts. In this respect,
      you're not alone. Have you ever heard of the White Lodge?"

Agent Cooper: "The White Lodge. No, I don't believe I have."


Well, Cooper hasn't, but I have. I don't know of any other "legitimate"
source for the reference, but following are quotes from the fantasy
adventure novel THE DEVIL'S GUARD (a.k.a. RAMSDEN) by Talbot Mundy,
first published in 1926, and sadly out of print for the last 20 years.
The page numbers cited are for the 1968 Avon Books paperback edition,
though if you happen across a different edition and are inclined to look
up the quotes, they can be found in Chapter XII, entitled "Dugpas".

[Background: James Schuyler Grim (a.k.a. "Jimgrim") and his companions
Jeff Ramsden, Narayan Singh, and Chullander Ghose, are hired to find
Elmer Rait, a fellow American who's disappeared in Tibet. Along the way,
they are beset by perils both natural and human.]

	Grim went on talking: "It's known, even in this monastery,
	that the dugpas have caught Rait. Dugpas is the name for
	sorcerers who cultivate evil for the sake of evil--that's
	as close as I can come to understanding it--they're vaguely
	like the Kali-worshippers of India. The people Rait set out
	to reach, and whom we want to reach, are the students of
	Life, so to speak--much in the same way that Luther Burbank
	studies botany, for the love of it. The dugpas are as much
	their enemies as the law of gravity is the enemy of the will
	to rise. Rait had intelligence enough to work his way into
	the outer fringe of the dugpa mysteries, but that was his
	limit. He began to try to use the Dalai Lama's letter that
	he stole from Mordecai. The Dalai Lama--or the Kun-Dun as
	they call him--and the Tashi Lama of Shigatze, are the trusted
	outer representatives of the inner secret White Lodge, whose
	whose headquarters is said to be Sham-bha-la."  (p. 120-1)

	Lhaten was talking..."--No, the White Lodge is not at
	Sham-bha-la, but some of its brotherhood live there. The
	White Lodge never interferes with individuals, as such, any
	more than Nature may be said to interfere with individuals,
	as such. The greatest good of the greatest number always;
	and no favorites. Do the stars, for instance, limit their
	light to individuals? Yet one learns more about than another.
	How? By trying; by concentration on the study. Do the stars
	come nearer? No. Do they treat him differently? No. Neither
	does the White Lodge make distinctions. It is secret, just
	as electricity was secret before Thales, Gilbert, Faraday,
	and all of the others following them, discovered something
	about it. Electricity was there, always, but they had to
	find it; and having found it they could give it to the world,
	to use or misuse. Was electricity confined to any one place?
	No. Neither is the White Lodge confined to any one place.
	But some places are more suitable than others, just as there
	are certain places where it is more practical to establish
	electric plants...."

	"How has the White Lodge kept its secret all these years?"
	Grim asked.

	"Who kept the secret of electricity?" Lhaten answered. "Was
	there any need to keep it, while men were too stupid, or too
	busily engaged in cutting one another's throats (which is the
	same thing!) even to look for it? They were too superstitious
	to dare to investigate; afraid to be mocked or burned for
	heresy. Nowadays men know not much more, and they are as
	superstitious and as cocksure as ever. Nine tenths of them
	will mock you if you speak of the existence of the White
	Lodge; of the remaining tenth, some will try to put you in
	a lunatic asylum, some will curse you in the name of their
	religion, and the remainder will try to believe you for
	various reasons, most of them selfish..."  (p 124-5)

	"To pursue evil, a man must have evil tendencies which will
	increase through cultivation as he becomes more and more
	responsive to the impulses that govern evil. Owls live in
	the dark. [emphasis mine - jmb :-)]          ^^^^^^^^^^^^
	^^^^^^^^                        Whales swim in the sea.
	Men with scientific tendencies discover laws of nature.
	Only those who have the character pertaining to the path
	they choose can succeed in the end; and though a shoemaker,
	like Kabir, can become a poet, that was because he had the
	poet's nature. In the same way, only they who have the
	necessary character can find or be received into the White
	Lodge, although anyone can receive its benefits, as anyone
	may read the poems of Kabir."  (p. 128)

-- "Evvy little bug got a honey ta hug but me." --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, "The Mill", Maynard, MA) UUCP: ...!decwrl!ruby.enet.dec.com!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%ruby.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM ----------