The Good the Bad the Funny [Paperback]

"The Good, the Bad, the Funny" is an entertaining and thought provoking look into the ways we use logic, and an attempt to change the way we think. While it deals with some rather abstract issues, authour Ramsey Dukes manages to write in a very clear and humourous style which makes for a very engaging read... I found myself thinking over the book throughout the day, while I waited to get back into reading it.

The main focus of the book is to examine the deeply ingrained duality (e.g. good/bad, God/devil) which affects most of our beliefs, attitudes and reactions, while proposing a fresher and newer way of thinking and acting. Duality is a very static realm for ideas to be caught in... always bouncing back and forth between good and bad, or lying static somewhere in the middle. Dukes proposes that we advance to a Trinitarian way of thinking, which allows for a flowing, flexible and fluid movement rather than a static binary. As a possible evolutionary path for our thoughts, the trinity is chosen instead of unity, because it permits the possibility for humans to continue generating new possibilities of expression, and maintain the dynamic creative force that is absent in unity. Try thinking about some singular concept, such as "a boundless, eternal universe"... perhaps your mind soon jumps to questions such as "when did it begin?" or "well, can anything really have no boundaries?" or "how do we have a concept of eternity, without a concept of limitation, and then how can something limitless contain the concept of limitations", or some other confused series of internal debate and questioning that takes a concept based on unity as a starting point. This, Dukes argues, is because unity is very boring for our minds. We are excited by the possibilities of dynamic change and generation.

If somebody asks you what the opposite of "God" is, what would be your reply? The aim of this book is to open your mind, to expand your way of thinking, so that you would be as likely to respond with "Trickster" as you would with "Devil". The quality of the Trickster (often a detached, neither good nor evil character) is used by Dukes to explore different ways we can broaden our way of thinking to evolve beyond a restrictive dualistic way of thinking. Examples of three-fold thought include "Creation, Maintenance, Destruction" and "Love, Hate, Indifference".

Dukes is predominantly a writer on occult philosophy, and a prime instigator in the development of Chaos Magic... so I was a bit surprised while reading this book, because it really seemed to come across more as a book about logic. However, in the last chunk of the book the direction took a very interesting turn and revealed itself as the most practical writing on magic that I have ever encountered by Ramsey Dukes. Amazing, but I won't go into details here. Additionally, the book is an excellent counterpart to both SSOTBME (because of it's exploration in cyclical patterns in thought and in culture) and WORDS MADE FLESH (which considers matter, energy, and information as models of reality... one of the best books I have ever encountered, ever).

Changing the way we think is an incredible task, and fortunately this book is so good that I will be happy to reread it several times, and take the effort to implement it into my way of thinking. This may take patience and effort, and may lead to long-lasting changes... if none of this is appealing, fortunately the book is an excellent read and provides page after page of amusement.