Here' goes... For about a year now, and well before knowing who Herman Hesse was, I've been dominated by a certain mental game. Now that I'm reading the GBG I feel that I've stepped into a mirror.
It started with random (seemingly) weird playful things. I began to follow the color red, mostly just to be random. After picking a day, I gave up my idle time to this concept. I read books/magazines or documents 'if' they were red. I followed people wearing red down the street and into a store. I bought colored items (when buying shampoo, I bought the red one). I allowed it to be the only criteria of importance knowing full well that this was random and made no linear sense. That's what I liked about it. Basically, I was bored.
Just for fun I added a few dimensions to the game. While following red I struck up conversations only to people leaning on their left foot and reading. While talking to them I collected numbers that came up (in the conversation, or perhaps numbers on what they were reading or even the number on the subway that went by as we spoke) . I also listed all the numbers I came across while following red. When the day was done I sat down and digested all the day's events and noticed patterns. For example, the left foot/reading people on their own accord mentioned mothers, or things to do with mothers or maternal things. One person shared a story about a a tragic fire in Brooklyn where a mother lost a child, while talking to a woman I was repeatedly interrupted by a mother inappropriately reprimanding her kids, stuff like that.
Looking for more patterns, I took the numbers and played with them by removing all the 9's, taking all the threes and replacing them with the number of total threes there were, adding up the strings of numbers and dividing by the number of people I talked to etc.. the system was I dialed the digits into the phone fully expecting nothing to happen. My mother had just moved from one city in Arizona to another and had not yet (I thought) received a new phone number... I had just dialed my mothers new phone number. She picked up the phone and said "how did you get my number? I just go it today. I was going to call you later?"
I nearly passed out.
No matter what I played this game with or how random it was, the results are always order. Linear. I recently noticed that the camera movement (zoom in's and outs and pans left and right) on award shows (like the MTV Awards etc...) are musical. I believe that if I sat down and wrote out the patterns of the movements with the velocity of the camera movement, that I'd have music.
I can go on and on with little ways I play with this stuff. What I was hoping that you could tell me is if you think that this is in any way similar to the GBG?
In an effort to make sense of it, I've settled into this explanation... there is order in chaos and all things explain every other thing. Similar to our discovery about our dna and how the same it is to all other living things. All the regulations, agreements, systems that are recognized by society are just 'agreements' and should we step outside of these agreements and create new modes of 'reality' they will hold up just as well as the all the things we've agreed on.
Delightful story! I love it! I would call this sort of thing a GBG, though not so much in the sense that Hesse described. I would say that the GBG you are playing into is the realm of Magick. Your experiences are very Castaneda, and very dream time. Hesse was more cosmologically orientated with a nice tinge of mysticism, but that doesn't meant that Magick should be excluded from the GBG. After all women are excluded from Hesse's book, and that certainly doesn't make them irrelevant.
Since the ultimate GBG is actually the Divine Lila, of the Indian tradition, meaning the dance or play of life, what outside of manifest and even unmanifest existence is not a part of it. I like your approach, the spontaneity of it is very Zen and the mystery is very magical and shamanistic. You should read Castaneda's series of books if you haven't starting with Journey to Ixtland and sequentially from there. But before those read the 2 books by 2 of his female cohorts, "Being In Dreaming" by Florinda Donner-Grau and "The Sorcerer's Crossing" by Taisha Abelar. These will be very familiar with your experience.
There is also a side to metaphysics called "reading the book of life" which is very much along the line of what you are doing. It centers around reading the signs and symbols as the pass you in the moment and using them as guides. The entire tradition of Magick is very involved with this sort of reading an following signs, and besides those above, I might refer you to Franz Bardon's work listed on the SS site. There is an alchemical philosophy centered on reading the book of nature as well.
I think your game is much more a a GBG than many of the attempts on the Internet, and I think a living GBG is more along these lines. The cosmology is the symbolic scientific GBG, but can be a bit crusty, which is why the GBG is more than just an intellectual game, the more interesting part is all about turning the knowledge to experience through Magick and Mysticism, which takes us out of the stale realm of the intellectual mind.
First off thanks for not thinking me a cook. After these experiences started happening to me I peeked a bit into a few areas like magick (which I enjoyed but found a wee bit 'serious') and chaos magick (which I really liked). I have not done the Castaneda trip yet but surely will.
When you mentioned "the dance or play of life" it really hit home. I have a flickering experience of that all the time. Suddenly everything (traffic, the moving sky, people walking, wind, me) turns into a one mechanism totally interrelated and it's movement as a whole is beautiful and writing a new pattern of it's own. Lately I easily fall into a disconnected, too cosmic space and I've spent a lot of time trying not to play games but rather, trying to control the volume of all this awareness. In keeping with my high speed personality, I get huge doses of psychic weirdness at a time rather then a slow and gradual increase. So, at times I have to get a grip and sort it out. Getting acknowledgement from people like you helps resolve a lot of loneliness. It's hard to have experiences that only you are having. The only word I can apply to this is loneliness. Sometimes I fear it distances me from other people (friends and family) and so I don't discuss it. But, it also keeps me searching for those who understand and I suppose that is a good thing.
I would love to share with your community. I have many games I've come up with similar to those I mentioned to you. One that I really enjoy and have repeated great results with is this..
Pick five books of varied topical nature. Example: Gurdjief, a book on psychics (The Elegant Universe), a children's book, a cook book, and Rumi's poetry. Read them all at once but one page of each at a time and then back to the first one. Continue reading a page of each and back to the first until you complete all the books. You'll have tough moments and a bit of headache but a week or two later when you've stopped reading 'poof' you'll see patterns everywhere, interrelatedness etc... I compare this game with the theory taught in colleges about creativity. They suggest that you over think about a problem or issue that your working on. Over read, over think, don't let yourself have a break. Then stop and refuse to let any thoughts of the subject in. When your not expecting it a breakthrough shows up. I think these are similar games. As you switch the book topics around and create different mixes you'll find different types of results including different types of patterns.
I noticed that the the Sacred Science Institute site has a group who use GBG philosophy to speculate on the stock market. I had a very cosmic meeting with a group that does the same thing. I'm still sorting out what this group is about. There's lots of strangeness in it like that they were founded by Benjamin Franklin and still abide by the same structure as his original group. The person who heads it 'collects' people who see patterns (they recently collected me). In the group are classical musicians, painters, hand ball players, it's real eclectic. Most of them are published and have merit's like "the worlds best ....." I've met with them twice and it's been rather strange. I know nothing of the stock market nor do I much care to. I thought that was an interesting parallel.
I understand your vision of the interrelatedness of all things. Actually my favorite philosophy is based on exactly that same concept, Hua Yen Buddhism, the most subtle and refined branch of Buddhist thought, its summation and final culmination. Their primary principle is the mutual interrelatedness and interpenetration of all things as symbolized by the Jeweled Net of Indra, an infinite multidimensional web with a jewel at each facet which holographically reflects every other jewel in the net. Each Jewel presents the perspective of individuality, yet is totally dependant of every other, while every other is dependant on it. Quite beautiful, and profoundly true. The scripture which presents this vision, which is pure GBG, is called the Avatamsaka Sutra, translated as the Flower Ornament Scripture, by Thomas Cleary, Shambala, and is considered on of the greatest works of spiritual vision ever conceived.
It is understandable that you feel isolated with your sort of experience in our world, as most are pathetically socialized into robotic habit patterns. It is simply a matter of finding beings who vibrate with your frequency, and they are out there, I have met many of them. Follow your heart and they will make themselves clear as the patterns in your games do.
I again strongly recommend the Castaneda work, and the two girls first, I think you will find here exactly what you are looking for. I know what you mean about the stuffy seriousness of the Magick community, but Carlos blasts all that nonsense away with a humor which you will surely enjoy. Go for Florinda first, then Taisha. I have seen these people live, and they embody what they teach. Fascinating!
This group of yours sounds quite interesting. I haven't heard of them per se, but I know such people exist being linked up with quite a number, though most not serious enough about it. Yes, the markets are probably the best laboratory in which to experiment, test and prove the absolute validity of universal order and causation. It sounds like your friends are barking up the right tree.
Have fun playing.