Smith was convinced this was possible, and that all aspects of all visible and invisible worlds were connected. The cabala's Tree of Life, Brecht operas, Tibetan mandalas and tankas, peyote ritual, civilizations gathering power then destroying themselves, fairy tales, tantric art, ancient alphabets, folk music, occult formulations, string figures, the past, present and future -- Smith believed if you stacked them up on some giant template in the sky, you'd find the human breath rising and falling in all of them, at the same rate, forever. Such consolations of union and continuity are the gift Smith offers, and the leitmotif of his Mahagonny.