"Time Junky": Shamanic Journeyings and Gnostic Eschatology in the Novels of William S. Burroughs

〈時間迷幻者〉：威廉˙布洛斯小說中的巫師式旅程與諾斯提教末世論

Kurt Cline

《Tamkang Review》 43卷2期 (2013/06) Pp. 33-58

https://doi.org/10.6184/TKR201306-2

摘要

身為美國五○年代的垮掉的一代文學潮的重要成員之一，威廉‧布洛斯承襲了一種法術與宗教的詩學，此乃源自於遠古巫術，以及諾斯提教之異教教義的聖經那格哈馬帝之古抄本中。設若威廉‧布洛斯的小說新星三部曲的巫術觀點為西方文明所曲解，他的看法仍是忠於巫術之召喚，仍是指向一條通往文化以及個人的心靈復原之路。本文闡述威廉‧布洛斯與南美的巫術主義之間的緊密關係，並檢視他作品中的幾位主要角色：班威醫生原是一位江湖巫醫，後轉變為一位誆騙藝術者；相對的，檢察長李則從哄騙者成為一位導人以正途的巫師；而伯得利先生，亦同時是馬丁先生，則代表諾斯提教的反派造物主。因此，本文分析了諾斯提教派的作品〈論世界的起源〉，並據此比較威廉‧布洛斯與諾斯提教派對時間概念的相通處，也強調其刻意的文句與概念的重新拼湊，乃是一種從語言之毒中解放出來的一種神諭式的敘述技巧。

關鍵字

垮掉的一代文學 ； 巫師煉金術 ； 諾斯提教主義 ； 實驗派寫作 ； 意識研究

並列摘要

William S. Burroughs is the inheritor of a magico-religious poetics stemming from ancient shamans and informed by the Gnostic heresies found in the Nag-Hammadi Library. If, in Burroughs's Nova Trilogy shamanic vision is twisted by the Western cultural matrix, however, it is in a way that, true to a genuine shamanic calling, points the way toward cultural and individual healing. I demonstrate the novelist's close connections to South American shamanism, and read key characters in Burroughs's ”oeuvre”, Dr. Benway as the unredeemed shaman, the shaman as con artist; Inspector Lee as the con-artist turned shaman; and Mr. Bradley-Mr. Martin as the Gnostic Demiurge. I then analyze the Gnostic work ”On the Origin of the World” to show parallels between Burroughsian and Gnostic conceptions of time, and examine the cut-up as an oracular strategy for liberation from the virus of language.

並列關鍵字

Beat literature ； shamanic praxis ； Gnosticism ； experimental writing ； consciousness studies

參考文獻

Blake, William. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Ed. David Erdman. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982. Print.

Bolton, Michael Sean. “Get off the Point: Deconstructing Context in the Novels of William S. Burroughs.” JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory 40.1 (2010): 53-79. Print.

Burroughs, William S. Cities of the Red Night. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981. Print.

Cline, Kurt.“The Shaman's Song and Divination in the Epic Tradition.” Anthropology of Consciousness 21.2 (2010): 163-87. Print.

Doresse, Jean. The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics. New York: Viking, 1960. Print.