Essential dubiety (ICA)

This is an awareness of the possibility that one may be the victim of the great cosmic charade – life is a joke. One is thrown into self-doubt even in moments of great victory: it simply cannot be true. In the book "The Magus" something like this happens when the main character realizes he is not the main character; or it is like discovering at the age of 25 that one is an adopted child, or a young child realizing that his parents have betrayed him. There is a haunting possibility that one's life may be the most painful tragic/comedy ever created.

A dimension of this experience is a sense of awe, that is fear and fascination. The fear is that nothing is legitimate about one's self. One is the jackass of history and somehow missing some clue as to what is really going on. The fascination is that although existence itself seems to be laughing at one and one does not know why, one finds one's self joining in the joke. The decision is to not die of shame; to stand before what is happening and not try to escape. After this it is no longer possible to believe that things are going to get better and better. There is a strange sense of selfhood as one knows there is nothing to lean on for support.

This state is number 13 in the ICA Other World in the midst of this World.