"I've got your number"

The Fragile - These were the songs/albums that were released in this period and every one of them could be referenced with some substance as per the redemption/ restoration of the universal consciousness and herself. With NIN’s The Fragile I’m going to, because what happened with that album, in terms of what I was writing at that time in terms of The Sanctification Principle was so important:

“There was an unspoken flip side implication in The S.P. document, which made it something like the dual edged sword of truth. As I was reducing the event to explain it, asking myself what was the significance, then, that this dynamic, the transformation of souls had transmitted successfully from one individual to another across the globe and been commonly articulated, and yet completely unspoken, I made a startling conclusion:

‘[S]ince we’re dealing with the transmission of a process between completely separate persons, and yet this process was perceived as one and the same, we can establish it was achieved outside of environmental inducements. That there was transmission of an active process from its progenitor, to a recipient, without any pre-conceived identity or links, and yet despite the process had the same definition in both participants, establishes that the definition exists beyond any human inducements or conceptions. Neither of us made this up on either side of the equation, yet it was common and real for both. Essentially we achieved common perception beyond our respective perceptions, beyond human perception itself. (Holy fuck!!!) Which means Truth exists absolutely somewhere, beyond the eye of the beholder, doesn’t it? How can the same perception transmit beyond either party’s perception? And if it does, doesn’t that veritably establish it’s real, above and beyond any form of communication? And if you can pull that off without communicating, doesn’t that establish its reality beyond how events were construed? I mean if you achieve transmission of an active belief, beyond all perceived modes of transmission, that means all the accoutrements of perception did not transmit; no one was assuming, or being affected by anyone’s point of view. The awareness transmitted beyond perception; hence it was purely awareness. Hence there is no way to argue that the awareness was humanly induced. Hence there is no way to argue that it was assumed. Hence there is no way to argue it was false. Which means there is no necessity, actually, to verify the nature of its origins is there? You see, by transmitting my awareness in this manner, I took my parameters of thought and established their reality; it is no longer contingent on the environment that induced my perception in any way. Which means that the challenges I faced in terms of judgment, my enactment of redemption, retention of the union, all have meaning even if the environment that generated them was completely false. I became my own reality.’

                                                                                    The Sanctification Principle

I bet this is starting to look pretty alarming. Don’t worry, I’ll desist, once I’ve finished with the sword arm. The above is over the top, I think, but the implication is still enormous. (Really you can only establish what was already there, verifying reality not creating it. But you’ve established it beyond environment. It’s really a chicken or the egg question: you accomplished this, but inside a set of parameters that were far too designed to be chance, which modified you. Is it God or you who’s doing it? The beauty of the redemption is that is resolves that both are happening at the same time. On one side of the coin I have established my reality beyond human perception.)
All this tooting had to do with a singular moment, one where I’d stepped right off the edge, but the only edge I could designate under the circumstance was that it was like stepping off the edge of perception itself. (Thanksgiving, 1995.) Of course this seems pretty preposterous and impossible. Except that I knew the edge, and I knew what was below it. I knew what the ones below would cackle when I fell, that they’d crow now you know what it is, to be us. I could already sense it. For with that step I would lose all meaning and everything I believed in. And I knew I would only rise again based upon my own essential purity. And I knew that I was putting myself out so far, I’d be beyond the cacklers themselves. And I knew that if any one of those fallen was in fact elect, trapped in an endless perceptual cycle of destruction they could not unloose, the arrival of my aspect would break in like a shaft, provide a pristine vantage to a pure existence, what one had been, for I had just accessed a pristine reality that I saw as heaven. And I knew that the way I would rise was when the trapped ones reacted to what they felt, and in turn acted in altruism to recover me. Through this vantage they would recognize an original perception of reality and themselves that they had lost. Which would only happen if I were right about them, that some were fallen too. And if I was correct about my own essential purity. So I placed absolute belief in them, and I placed absolute belief in myself. On the selfsame day where I wrote the nucleus to the above, that transmission beyond perception established its reality beyond any respective perception, I was greeted by an offering; the new release of Trent Reznor arrived on the shelves. I had been waiting for it a long time.
Trent articulates the purest form of rebellion to the God order extant, the purest articulation of hate. Yet Trent was linked. His articulation of the arch-type (the feminine anointed/moon) was the complete inversion of the arch-type; he practically described her as the blood drinker of souls, putrescence itself. There was a full spectrum potential of response inside the psychic funhouse mirror, the feedback reflection. Trent was its most extreme deviance. As such Trent was the furthest indication of how far you could go.
Trent’s offering had been wholly one of destruction and revilement, until now. With this the first light ever appeared in his work. In this he called her ‘The Fragile’, and this is what he said:

the Fragile she shines in a world full of ugliness she matters when everything is meaningless fragile, she doesn't see her beauty she tries to get away sometimes it's just that nothing seems worth saving I can't watch her slip away I won't let you fall apart    3xs she reads the minds of all the people as they pass her by, hoping someone will see if I could fix myself, I'd –but it's too late for me I won't let you fall apart    3xs we'll find a perfect place to go where we can run and hide I'll build a wall and we can keep them on the other side – but they keep waiting . . . it's something I have to do I was there too before anything else I was like you the great below staring at the sea, will she come? is there hope for me after all is said and done anything at any price, all of this for you all the spoils of a wasted life all of this for you all the world has closed her eyes tired faith all worn and thin for all we could have done and all we could have been ocean pulls me close and whispers in my ear the destiny I've chose all becoming clear the currents have their say, the time is drawing near washes me away, makes me disappear and I descend from grace in arms of undertow I will take my place in the great below I can still feel you even so far away . . .   4xs

we're in this together I've become impossible, holding onto when when everything seemed to matter more the two of us, all used and beaten up watching fate as it flows down the path we have chosen you and me, we're in this together now none of them can stop us now we will make it through somehow you and me, if the world should break in two until the very end of me, until the very end of you awake to the sound, as they peel apart the skin they pick and they pull, trying to get their fingers in but they've got to kill what we found they've got to hate what they fear they've got to make it go away well they've got to make it disappear the further I fall, I'm beside you as lost as I get, I will find you the deeper the wound, I'm inside you for ever and ever I'm a part of you and me we're in this together now none of them can stop us now we will make it through somehow you and me, if the world should break in two until the very end of me until the very end of you all that we were is gone we have to hold on      2xs when all of our hope is gone we have to hold on all that we were is gone but we can hold on you and me, we're in this together now none of them can stop us now we will make it through somehow you and me, even after everything you're the queen and I'm the king nothing else means anything Nine Inch Nails, The Fragile, 1999

Of course, Trent maintained his older self as well. He still treated her as the vampire of souls in other places. He still reveled in his own destruction. And crowed his hate, as below. There were only these shards of light as above, but they existed now in what had once been total blackness.

the wretched just a little reminder of all the what abouts and all the might have beens another day some other way but not another reason to continue and now you're one of us, the wretched who hopes and prays for better days and far aways, forget it it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to it didn't turn out the way you wanted it, did it? it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to it didn't turn out the way you wanted it, did it? now you know this is what it feels like    2xs    the clouds will part and the sky rips open and God himself will reach his fucking arm though just to push you down just to hold you down stuck in this hole with the shit and the piss and it’s hard to believe it could come down to this back in the beginning, sinking, spinning and in the end we still pretend the time we spend, not knowing when you’re finally free, and you could be but it didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to it didn’t turn out quite the way that you wanted it, did it? now you know this is what it feels like     2xs

somewhat damaged so impressed with all you do tried so hard to be like you flew too high and burnt the wing lost my faith in everything lick around divine debris taste the wealth of hate in me shedding skin succumb defeat this machine is obsolete made the choice to go away drink the fountain of decay tear a hole exquisite red fuck the rest and stab it dead poisoned to my rotten core too fucked up care anymore in the back, off the side, faraway, is a place where I hide, where I stay. Tried to say, tried to ask, I needed to, all alone, by myself, where were you? how could I ever think it’s funny how everything you swore would never change, is different now just like you would always say, we’ll make it through, didn’t quite, terrified, Where the fuck were you? Nine Inch Nails, The Fragile, 1999

And I looked at what he had written, remembering my own projections. I had achieved common identity. I had fallen. I had gone past him. He knows I am beyond him. He responded precisely as I had projected. I really had stepped off that edge. So the day I wrote what the implication of stepping off that edge was, was the self-same day I received confirmation I had done it.
Furthermore the implication I had written that day, what having done that accomplished, meant that Trent’s rendering of her as the vampire of souls was irrevocably false. It was only based on his perception. The purity of awareness inside The Fragile was not. It inherently could have not transmitted, if it was false. If perception had in no way tainted the transmission, there was no way it was a false image of purity. I could not have contrived it as a deception, nor could I have been deluded, as that would have been part of my perception.
(There’s no one in existence, in this instance, other that Trent, who would be more likely to assume falsity, or deception. That’s his accusation in itself, that she is wholly evil. It’s his entire perception of her. Therefore if that was his regard of her already, it’s pretty much impossible to think that he wouldn’t have assumed it, if it bore a shred of truth. If that’s his perception of her, what transpired to alter it, especially since he was deliberately joined in the depths? Why did he not retain his original perception, which was the totality of his belief? Why, if it were true, did the reality of the fallen not assimilate with the reflection?)
In fact what had happened was just the opposite; the advent of my awareness caused him to respond as I’d projected, in true altruism, all he was capable of. As it had caused a transformation in him that was tangible, cleaved a totality of blackness with a shaft of light, it is manifestly impossible that his evil rendering of her could have any precedence over the light one.
And that was the dual edged sword of the truth. Once it is an established truth, truth established by transmission beyond perception, it achieved a form of existence beyond all respective perceptions. All the opposing renderings become false. If they continue to perpetrate themselves in the face of the truth, they become lies, by which they shall be segregated, for they generate the most heinous of untruths of their own volition, in face of the light.
I walked out of there laughing, “I’ve got your number.”
The real reason that altruism recovers him is not simply because it’s his act of selflessness, it’s because it confirms my faith in him, and my faith in stepping off the edge was absolute. This is not faith as belief; it is that selfsame faith utilized as a device. (How can you be said to exist in faith, if you are not prepared to act irrevocably on the basis of that faith?) That faith had proven true with respects to myself, because indeed it had resulted in the transformation of souls, (a potential I’d imagined possible. I’d attempted the “car crash” as stood with Jesus and Mary Chain, and had the “correct” outcomes. So that faith had not been false.) I’d believed in Trent (in fact he’d been unnamed, it dealt with an open potential), with the same faith I’d believed in myself, and that faith asserted that some were fallen, not eternally damned, and could be recovered, and that these would respond with altruism. That Trent’s action fulfilled this potential of his own volition, without knowing what it was, verifies his potential to be saved, for it sprang from his own heart. By his own heart he establishes that he is what I defined him as. That is how I got his number. The song that follows “The Fragile” is a beautiful soaring instrumental that just goes up and up and up. It is titled “Just Like You Imagined” . . .
In redemption is captured the paradox between the orchestration of circumstances, the potentials, and yet complete autonomous free will. Those potentials were sent into a void of the senses, the empty nether, more invisible than the air. They were only received if they affected and were perceived as such.
I’d danced with the dark one and won. The day he hit me with his entire arsenal, I had the refutation, I went out and wrote it; I’d already figured it out. That is why I walked out saying, “I’ve got your number.”