My Christmas haul

 I often get books for Christmas (because I ask for them.) This Christmas, I got three titles by asking my wife and my son to give them to me. What fascinates me is that all three of the books are connected to this blog. 

John Higgs' book on the Beatles and James Bond has not yet been published in the U.S., so my wife ordered it from the Book Depository, which ships books worldwide from Britain. I am eager to read it. It turns out to be a pretty hefty book, about 500 pages. 

The back cover has endorsement quotes from Salena Godden,  Jeremy Deller and Stuart Maconie. I kind of know who Salena Godden is because she has been associated with John Higgs and the British Discordian crowd. I have no idea who Jeremy Deller or Stuart Maconie are. Presumably when a literate British person hears that Jeremy Deller or Stuart Maconie have endorsed a book, he or she will possibly feel an irresistible lust to read it. I wonder who will be quoted in next year's American edition?

I put up a blog post announcing Kumano Kodo: Pilgrimage to Powerspots by J. Christian Greer and Michelle K. Oing earlier this year, and now that I have it, I can finally read it. It is about "Japan's oldest pilgrimage route," and it includes many collages in color. It seems like an unusual book. More information about the book at the link. 

Speaking of Christian Greer, here is an announcement on Twitter from Berkeley Alembic: "We're extremely excited to announce a new 5-part seminar with @erik_davis and J. Christian Greer: 'Expanded Minds: Spiritual Wisdom from the Psychedelic Underground'." More information here. One more bit about Christian: "His forthcoming book, Angelheaded Hipsters (Oxford University Press), explores the expansion of psychedelic culture in the late Cold War era." 

Finally, I have a new copy of RAW Memes by Richard Rasa, which collects together many of the memes Rasa has produced. On the pages facing the memes are additional extracts of RAW prose. Apparently the reader is supposed to figure out the patterns Rasa used in assembling the book, so this should be a test of my RAW scholarship. 

Also, fortunately, by its nature this is a book that can be read in bits, and I have other distractions now. For one thing, I am trying to finish a biography of Claude Shannon, A Mind At Play, that I got interested in after listening to the Hilaritas Press podcast featuring the two authors, Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman.

My main Christmas gift some years ago was a big hardcover, the Oxford Classical Dictionary. It had little connection to this blog. It was an expensive hardcover, and soon after I got it, they put out a new edition! 

Christian Greer's new book

 

Scholar and Discordian Dr. J. Christian Greer, currently in the Bay Area preparing to teach at Stanford University, has a book out, Kumano Kodo: Pilgrimage to Powerspots, which he co-wrote with Michelle K. Oing, chronicling a trip in Japan I thought it sounded like something sombunall of you would be interested in, so I invited him to tell me a little about it. He responds:

"Writing Kumano Kodo: Pilgrimage to Powerspots is now something of a blur, as the text & art poured out of me over the course of a few weeks. Broken into three parts, it opens with a meditation of pilgrimage in the modern era, focusing heavily on the re-enchantment of travel by Kerouac. The other Beat writers loom large in the background too, especially Snyder who made some pilgrimages through Japan as well. The second part explores the Japanese traditions of mountain shamanism along the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage routes, and describes the business conspiracies that transformed their training grounds in the Kii peninsula into a UNESCO World Heritage site. The final section recounts the alterations of consciousness I experienced while walking the Kumano Kodo in March 2020. Also, the book contains dozens of full-color mandaras, which I made in Kyoto while waiting for the US to reopen its borders."

Here is the back cover blurb:

Kumano Kodo is a journey into the hallucinogenic power of pilgrimage. Part travelogue, part speculative fiction, part scholarly history, this book speaks to the universal human impulse to explore the sacred through travel.

By focusing on Japan's oldest pilgrimage route, the Kumano Kodo, the authors offer their readers a boldly transgressive and abundantly humorous look at the merry art of pilgrimage. Whether uncovering historical conspiracies, recounting bawdy folklore, or collecting ghost stories, this surrealist investigation establishes a new paradigm for spiritual travel inspired by an impressive breadth of scholarly research, and the authors' many years as pilgrims across the globe.

Compiled in Kyoto at the height of the pandemic in 2020, the book is a unique reflection on the unwieldy power of the sacred in times of crisis, and contains dozens of original, full-color mandalas.

My link at the top of this blog post goes to the book's Amazon page, where you can read useful reviews.   

John Sinclair news

Announcement from Steve Pratt on Twitter: "John Sinclair's 78th Birthday Party at
PJ's Lounge #DETROIT October 2nd $15 admission."

Announcement from the venue (listed as "PJ's Lager House" on the web):

"Detroit poet, broadcaster and marijuana legalization pioneer John Sinclair will celebrate his 78th birthday on Wednesday, October 2 at PJ’s Lager House!

Sinclair will be joined and supported in performance by an all-star band of Blues Scholars led by Jeff “Baby” Grand on guitar and including Harmonica Shah (harp), Phil Hale (keys), Chris Rumel (bass) and Tino Gross (drums) plus special guest musicians drawn from the countless number of Sinclair’s band members since the formation of the Blues Scholars in December 1982.

The festivities start at 7:00 pm and last until the party is over. Admission is $15 with all net proceeds going to the John Sinclair Foundation, located at 2930 E. Jefferson, Detroit MI 48207.

Sinclair will be performing poems from his elongated blues work in verse, Fattening Frogs Fir Snakes, which will be issued next April as a deluxe boxed set of vinyl records by Jett Plastic Recordings. Additionally, Volumes 3 (Don’t Start Me To Talking) and 4 (Natural From Our Hearts) will be issued as a double CD next year by Funky D Records/Studios.

WED OCT 2 | 7pm doors | $15 at door"

Follow the John Sinclair Foundation on Instagram. 

Christian Greer, who updates the Instagram account, reprinted John Sinclair's "Marijuana Revolution" pamphlet (pictured.) For copies of the reprint, please contact Christian via the Instagram account.

Moorish Orthodox Church archive launches

Cover for an issue of the Moorish Science Monitor

Christian Greer has announced he has launched the Moorish Orthodox Church of America archive, devoted to preserving radio broadcasts and other cultural productions of the group.

Greer explains:

This page is designed to provide an archive for the material culture of the The Moorish Orthodox Church of America. This diminutive church emerged in the first half of the 1960s on the Upper West Side of New York City, and before long, its members became embedded in the network of religious fellowships, esoteric sects, and street crews that populated the larger New York City bohemian scene. This psychedelic enclave provided fertile ground for the Moorish Orthodox Church of America (henceforth MOCA), which soon produced its own publications, and radio shows. It also operated its own temple/head-shop (known as The Crypt) on W. 103rd street. In addition to focusing on their own spiritual self-cultivation, members also doubled as "righteous dealers" who dispensed the "sacrament" of LSD to their brothers & sisters. The church worked alongside dozens of other heterodox mystical sects, as well as an army of psychedelic evangelists, to seed wide-spread spiritual illumination, and their combined efforts produced an exuberant culture of religious experimentation that soon spread across America, and points beyond.

More about the church on Wikipedia. 

The archive includes many radio programs featuring Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey), thought to be lost. You can listen to them on Greer's new site.

One radio program featured Robert Anton Wilson, Greer writes:

Over the course of Robert Anton Wilson and Peter Lamborn Wilson's two-hour on-air exchange, they offered an intimate look at the obscure persons, ideas, and events that characterized psychedelicist radicalism as of 1987. During their conversations, these men traced the genealogy of their own illuminated politics, beginning with early 20th century individualist anarchism, up through the psychedelic era (both had spent time at Millbrook), and far into the future, which they imagined in cyberpunk terms.  It was clear, even then, that their lively conversation represented an invaluable literary document, as it elicited a sizable response from listeners. In fact, the demand for copies of the show prompted WBAI to issue special cassette tape recordings as a premium for its highest-level contributors.

Greer is cleaning up the audio for that show, which will be posted soon. I'll let everyone know here when it's available.

J. Christian Greer on Discordianism [UPDATED]

Christian Greer 

Today's must-read for everyone interested in this blog is "Discordians Stick Apart" by J. Christian Greer, an article about "The institutional turn within contemporary Discordianism."  It's included in a book, Fiction, Invention and Hyper-reality, edited by Carole Cusack and but Christian has posted it online at academia.edu to make the text available to everyone.

Amusingly, Christian divides the history of Discordianism into five periods. Brilliantly, he illuminates that history by sketching its various influences, such as science fiction fandom.

And he makes some very good points. For example, many Discordians don't recognized that the Principia Discordia that's considered canonical is only one version of the work. And by treating Discordianism as a religion with a received text, modern Discordians differ from the way the religion originally was practiced.

Christian's piece emphasizes the important role that Robert Anton Wilson played in popularizing Discordianism and giving it a mass following. Here is a good sentence: "The second period of Discordianism's history (1969-1984) is characterized by its emergence from total obscurity."

I read the article obviously knowing a fair bit about the subject and found very few mistakes. It's not correct, however, that April 23 is "Robert Anton Wilson Day." As proclaimed by the mayor of Santa Cruz, it's July 23. Read the proclamation text.  July 23 is the date RAW allegedly was contacted by denizens of Sirius, as described in Cosmic Trigger; April 23 is an important date in Illuminatus! 

I liked the attention paid in the article to The Golden APA. You can read my piece about it. 

Hat tip, Adam Gorightly on Twitter.

UPDATE: You can also download a copy of Greer's essay. 

Christian Greer on Illuminatus!

Bobby Campbell illustration for Illuminatus! Week

[J. Christian Greer is a Ph.D. candidate at the Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (HHP) at the University of Amsterdam. A collection of his papers and talks show that he has discussed Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, Carole M. Cusack's book on invented religions and Hakim Bey, among other topics. Recently he was awarded a Short-Term Research Fellowship at the New York Public Library, which resulted in his "Timothy Leary as Illuminatus!" article posted in September 2014. As you can see from his piece below, his academic career should produce plenty of interesting scholarship for years to come. -- The Management.]

J. Christian Greer

Reading the Illuminatus! trilogy feels like being dropped into an echo chamber that features multiple voices, which on more than one occasion speak at the same time. The most miraculous thing is that the voices harmonize so readily. Describing the trilogy as an "anarcho-occultist romp" or a "labyrinthine tale of Tantrick Reicheanism" (as I have done in classroom settings) only serves to obscure the full complexity of the layered investment of the authors. On one level, I like to try to read the book as the product of a distinct context, to wit, late-1960/ early-1970s radicalism in Chicago. Under this label, a network of intersecting intellectual currents can be traced. The most salient include anarchist anti-authoritarianism, ceremonial initiation, magick, psychedelic consciousness, Reicheanism, General Semantics, the Tarot, and conspiracy. A heady mix indeed!

I have attempted to paint a more accurate picture of the way in which the aforementioned intellectual currents intersect, but always find myself falling down rabbit holes that lead to halls of mirrors that extend ad infinitum. That said, I believe I have identified some of the main thematic pathways that run through the text. I would venture to say that they include: (1) an investment in esotericism that is mobilized to critique the materialist bias within anarchism/libertarianism; (2) conspiracy theory that is employed as a means to destabilize institutional history. In their effort to change the reader on a spiritual level (or, at least on the level of their spiritual identity), they subvert one of the most significant bases upon which identity is created: the past. By challenging the hegemonic influence of official history, Shea and Wilson attempted to renegotiate the construction of American identity. The last (primary) pathway to run through the trilogy is an extension of the first and second. It concerns the revolution that was unfolding all around them; in fact, one cannot hope to understand the trilogy if one is not steeped in the spectrum of late-1960s revolutionary thought. This “pathway” concerns the way in which (3) the militant’s phantasy of violent revolution, which fascinated so many within the protest groups of the 1960s, is rendered obsolete when confronted with the nondual nature of reality (see point 1) and the fact that only spiritual paradigm shifts (see point 2) can facilitate a true revolution. I take the narrative episodes focusing on Atlantis and the founding fathers as illustrations of successful revolutions, and point (3) in particular. Shea and Wilson seem to argue that you cannot expect change to occur if the revolutionaries are still mired in the same 'Yang'/militaristic mentality of those they oppressed. It is only with a Ying revolution (that is, radical consciousness change) that actual utopian change will occur.

On a deeper level, though, the book seems to be a dedicated attempt to make a serious (but not sober) contribution to the “secret teachings of the ages” viz. esotericism. It offers an expansive account of the way in which Discordianism offered a means by which readers could access higher knowledge (through sex magick initiation combined with psychedelics) and “occult” power (such as telepathy, gnostic communication, and transcendental orgasms) which, when used by enough people, would create the possibility for experimental utopian communities. The Leif Erikson serves as the model for this plan. Needless to say, the application of this knowledge (which, would be little more than the conversion to Discordianism) by thousands of people would be enough to bring down all world governments.

In a different dimension, the Illuminatus! trilogy was published upon its completion in 1971. Featuring all of its original, unexpunged chapters fully intact, the book gained wide distribution across the US and then the world. The trilogy revitalized the rainbow coalition of revolutionary groups dedicated to contesting the status quo at the time. However, under its influence, they shifted their focus from challenging the government and its lackeys, to overthrowing consensus reality in toto. Unable to withstand the full brunt of Operation Mindfuck (which has reached such epic proportions that Acapulco gold, Alamut Black, and acid were used as means of putting all the weirdness into perspective), the U.S. government fell and a de-centralized network of 'bolos' blossomed within the fertile soil of its decaying corpse. Within fifteen years, an exponential growth in intelligence makes space migration and life extension realities...

On a personal note, I have greatly enjoyed the reading group for the very plain reason that it provided me with the opportunity to interact with a small community of experts on the text. Clearly, the trilogy is a monument of erudition, and through  the contribution of all the commentators, and the dedication of Tom, I feel as though we have laid a solid foundation for the future study of the text.  While the preceding comments are all in my dissertation (hopefully available next summer!), I am fairly certain that they will not be as appreciated, or even understood, as they are in this forum. It has been an honor and a pleasure to read alongside you all, and, as always, it is my hope that these comments will serve not as a “final word” on the text, but as a means of deepening our discussion of this wonderful trilogy.