This Writer Knows What You're Hiding From Yourself | Bruce Wagner

Writer Bruce Wagner explores the intersection of Hollywood's vanity and spiritual transcendence, using his personal traumas and philosophical inquiries to craft transgressive narratives that delve into the human condition's darkest and most sacred aspects.

• Bruce Wagner's writing uses Hollywood's extremes to explore spiritual transcendence and human suffering, often incorporating Buddhist philosophy.

• His artistic process is deeply rooted in a 'love affair with language' and a transgressive impulse to expose hidden truths and challenge societal norms.

• Influenced by Carlos Castaneda, Wagner distinguishes between ordinary ('tonal') and non-ordinary ('nagual') realities, recognizing impermanence and viewing writing as an act of personal liberation rather than legacy.

Bruce Wagner, a prolific novelist, utilizes Hollywood as a laboratory to dissect human need, vanity, and the spiritual journey towards transcendence. His work, characterized by its "fiery and operatic" nature and "laser-like observational powers," confronts the extremes of wealth and poverty, celebrity and invisibility. Wagner seeks to superimpose a sense of the sacred onto his dark narratives, offering a nuanced perspective on suffering and the human search for liberation amidst life's inherent impermanence.

Writer's Unique Vision

• 00:01:05 Bruce Wagner's work profoundly uses Hollywood as a 'laboratory for need and vanity,' mirroring human behavior and its spiritual journey towards transcendence. His fiery, operatic, and theatrical nature is coupled with acute observational powers, allowing him to explore themes of extreme wealth, poverty, celebrity, and invisibility. He is attracted to the 'scent' of Hollywood due to its stark contrasts and the inherent vanity, which a Buddhist story illustrates as one of the hardest things to overcome on the path to enlightenment.

Literary Influences & Sacred

• 00:03:50 Wagner's early work, often compared to Nathaniel West's 'Day of the Locust,' explores Hollywood's dark side, but he sought to incorporate an element of the sacred and transcendence, which he felt was missing from West and Fitzgerald. He was deeply influenced by F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'Pat Hobby Stories' for their poignant and dark portrayal of an alcoholic screenwriter's fatalism. His aim was not merely laceration but to explore conditional suffering—the suffering imposed by social order—and the possibility of escaping it through the sacred.

Buddhist Suffering Concepts

• 00:05:25 Wagner incorporates Buddhist concepts of suffering into his work, specifically mentioning three types: physical pain, the fluctuation of moods influenced by impermanence, and conditional suffering imposed by the social order. He endeavors to find a path beyond this suffering, which he finds reflected in parables and literature that offer a transcendent, sorrowful, yet ultimately liberating experience. This aligns with his aim to provide an element of the sacred, ensuring his narratives don't just 'lacerate' but also offer affection for his characters.

Impact of Predetermination

• 00:09:15 The concept of predetermined behavior is central to Wagner's understanding of human nature and his artistic output. His personal experience with a sadistic, alcoholic, and absent father led him to accept that his father could do 'nothing else' given his nature. This fatalism, reinforced by the teachings of Romesh Balsekar, helped Leonard Cohen alleviate his depression by accepting that all events are predetermined, though this does not excuse actions but rather corresponds to one's inherent nature. Wagner's childhood trauma, combined with his Beverly Hills upbringing, shaped his unique lens on Hollywood and his search for mentors.

Language & The Artist's Craft

• 00:15:12 Wagner's 'sporadic romance with the English language' is his sustaining force, even as his ability to read voraciously diminishes. He describes a unique sensory connection to books, absorbing their 'scent' rather than strictly reading every word, similar to a blind person with a keen sense of smell. Dickens, for Wagner, represents a powerful 'perfume' due to his 'obsessive, romantic, almost mathematical use of language' combined with pathos. This deep, kinetic, and almost religious involvement with words remains undiminished, even as other aspects of his perception fade, becoming his primary conduit for understanding and expression.

Transgression & Truth

• 00:32:05 Transgression is fundamental to Wagner's work, serving as a core mechanism for overturning accepted norms and 'cracking the code' of reality. He explores forbidden internal places, including themes like incest, viewing these explorations as a way to 'knit together' ideas of family and intimacy, rather than simply being provocative. His transgressive approach aims to dismantle the artifice and superficiality of mainstream narratives, seeking the truth hidden behind appearances, much like dissecting the glamorous facade of Beverly Hills to expose underlying darkness.

Castaneda's Influence

• 00:59:14 Carlos Castaneda significantly influenced Wagner's worldview, particularly the concept of distinguishing between 'tonal' (ordinary consensus reality) and 'nagual' (non-ordinary reality or the second attention). This framework highlighted the profound effect of conditioning and the social order, and the possibility of liberation from it. Castaneda's teachings, including the idea of 'sensient beings,' the 'assemblage point,' and the practice of 'recapitulation' to re-experience life's moments, resonated deeply, offering a mythological and poetic lens through which Wagner understood the world and pursued transcendence.

AI, Impermanence & Legacy

• 01:18:32 Wagner contemplates the future of writing in an age of AI, believing it will eventually produce works indistinguishable from human authors, potentially fulfilling the spiritual goal of 'erasure of self.' He dismisses the concept of legacy as an 'absurdity,' emphasizing impermanence as a constant lesson, especially highlighted by events like the recent fires. Despite the declining cultural appetite for novels, Wagner acknowledges the art form's vital role in connecting humanity and glimpsing deeper truths. His own creative process is driven by an internal 'furnace of rage' and a compulsion to show the workings of a 'sacred machine,' rather than external validation or political change.