Friday, December 31, 2010

A pataphysical conspiracy

Many tracks have been sought to discover the secret of Rennes-le-Chateau. Some seem plausible, but many oddball ideas have been uttered. One of the strangest in my opinion links the Priory of Sion to… a pataphysical conspiracy! Or the opposite (which from a 'pataphysical POV is the same).

The Société Périllos, editors of some hermetic books, published one page on their website proposing an interesting story, where 19th century symbolism is mixed up with fin-de-siècle occultism, and absurdity is elevated to a level Alfred Jarry would have appreciated.

First, a little history.



Alfred Jarry became famous by writing the father Ubu trilogy, considered the first absurdist theatre plays. He also wrote "Gestes et Opinions du Docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien" (Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician) in 1898, published posthumously in 1911.
In this book, he inserted his main ideas on the Science of imaginary solutions in a strange symbolist tale where Doctor Faustroll navigates through land, accompanied by 27 'Livres Pairs' (equivalent books), his ape-servant Bosse-de-Nage, who could only express himself with the words "Ha ha" (probably meant as a pun to insult Jarry's Belgian friend Christian Beck who used this as a meaningless expletive) and a bailiff named Panmuphle. They travel from island to island, each one populated by a writer contemporary of Jarry and his microcosmos. In the end Faustroll goes on a little killing spree after having seen a horse's head, the surface of god is calculated and Faustroll himself appears to be the book in which his adventures are told. All of it extremely bizarre to most people, and written in an impeccable erudite French influenced by François Rabelais, French philosophy and scientific odd facts.

Jarry was much admired by dadaists and surrealists (Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and Juan Miro amongst others) and his ideas started to proliferate amongst the happy few, creating an environment where they were bound to give birth to some sort of club. In 1948 the Collège de 'Pataphysique was founded by one man (if I told you his name I'd have to kill you). From the start and totally in the spirit of Jarry, he clouded the creation of the college in mystification. Officially the founder is a Doctor Sandomir, who became the first Vice-Curator (the ethernal Curator being Doctor Faustroll, assisted by his Starost Bosse-de-Nage), about whom only one portret is known. He was assisted by Mélanie Le Plumet (a cat), Oktav Votka and Jean-Hugues Sainmont, all avatars of the same person (I didn't tell you this).

From the beginning writers and artists who were part of the French intelligentsia joined in, and what was at first meant as a one-man mystification shifted from imaginary towards reality. The movement slowly invaded other countries, giving birth to offsprings of the College, some of them detailed on my blog.
Since 1948, the College published regularly a magazine (only available to members) under the leadership of three other Vice-Curators elected by an unique elector (who was chosen by all members - a system not unlike the complex elections of the Doge of Venice): Baron Mollet (who used to be Guillaume Apollinaire's secretary), Opach (who was very real but about whom very little is known) and the present leader, Lutembi (a large crocodile in Uganda who might have died in 2007), while the secret founder kept hiding under different personalities (Sainmont ending up in a lunatic asylum after being thrown out of the College). Opach decided to occultate of the College from 1975 to 2000, effectively making a secret of all nominations in the complex ranking system. Meanwhile the publications went on, even more surrounded by a halo of secrecy, and more and more groups worldwide joined the movement.
All of this created a rather elitaristic atmosphere, and to people attracted to conspiracy theories the College might look like a very secret society indeed.

In Wallony, Belgium, Richard Tialans (1943-1995), an erudite librarian, painter, photographer and theater-maker, member of the College, created in 1969 the "Centre d'Orientation et d'Information Théâtrale" (COIT), a theatrical society, and started for his own pleasure to publish an irregular journal called the "AA Revue", a name obviously borrowed from Bosse-de-Nage. He claimed in 1991 to be read by 10 people and to have only one paid subscription. I still have a friendly letter from him refusing (damned) to add me to his list. A second paid subscription (from the New York Library) was simply refused! Many members of the College wrote quite bizarre bits for the Revue, which helped to make it a much sought after mythical underground publication. I still haven't managed to find one!

Now for the conspiracy interpretation.


It seems Belgian nobleman Philippe de Chérisey was linked to the Priory of Sion by French conspiracist Jean-Luc Chaumeil. The writer of the Société Périllos, André Douzet, claims to have been approached by people with a new document concerning rather personal writings by de Cherisey.
And this was none other than AA Revue # 123, which next to a French translation of Immermann's Baron Munchhausen, published three texts for in total 25 pages by the same Philippe de Cherisey: "Catalog of common circumflexes", "Circumflexes of names" and "Circumflex and Umlaut".

Because of the secrecy of the publication, Douzet even issued doubts whether there had been other issues. The date, from the pataphysical calender, "Absolu 107", was seen as another hermetic sign. (1)
Douzet adds 123 to 107 and wonders what 230 means. The word 'vulgar' next to actual date is interpreted correctly as "meaning that they are using the ordinary calendar system as compared to a more sacred calendar, like that of some organisation or society", and through the use of another calendar "the reader may think that this publication is created by 'initiates'”, but the author goes on to refer to the Masonic calendar. Then there's the title of the publication. Douzet wonders whether this is the secret review of the enigmatic AA. And the editor goes by the strange name of 'Richard Tialans', for Douzet obviously a pseudonym! And as out of three texts, three are by de Cherisey, Douzet extrapolates this is all a mystification… but one to cover the real editor, de Cherissey and his secret agenda. de Cherissey might have published this review as part of a disinformation scheme, in the same vein as Dan Brown's books.
Douzet then elaborates on his doubts on the amount of publications as no one within the 'esoteric France' community ever heard of it. "This document appears to be almost totally unknown and unstudied". (2)

(1)The Collège issued several versions of the calendar, all based on the first one proposed by Jarry in his two almanachs of 1897 and 1901. Erroneously Douzet mixes up the first calendar by Jarry, which used the Christian year, and the later editions developped by the College, where the 'Pataphysical Era start on September, 8, 1873, the birthdate of Jarry. What remains is that the Pataphysical calendar used thirteen months, twelve lasting 28 and one lasting 29 days. They are: Absolu, Haha, As, Sable, Décervelage, Gueules, Pédale, Clinamen, Palotin, Merdre, Gidouille (29 days), Tatane, Phalle. Later on the College changed the names of the saints and holidays.
(2) And for obvious reasons… I recieved a list from Tialans with the aformentioned letter and can assure he did publish more than 200 issues from 1969 to 1991. Most used the Christian date, but N° 78 to 126 used the 'pataphysical calendar.

Four covers found online, #109-110, 123, 166 and 202-203.

Then the inquiry takes a leap forward: Douzet discovers the 'Pataphysical calendar was developped by Alfred Jarry. The apostrophe in front of the P is another mystery to him. But the concept of 'Pataphysics in relation to metaphysics as metaphysics is in relation to physics, confirms the belief that it deals with a realm beyond soul and spirit. And the author utters the very pataphysical (inconscious, hence without apostrophe) "Ubu is in their interpretation both God and the Devil. And it is hence obvious that this discipline is at the same time both utterly serious, and totally laughable – absolutely absurd and philosophically essential."
And then he totally looses his marbles. "And what are we to make of the fact that Alfred Jarry provides his “father Ubu” with a mistress, and gives her the name Madeleine – Magdalene? Does it not sound similar to that old Cathar ideology, in which they too believed that there was an “other god”, to use the words of Yuri Stoyanov, whom was deemed to be female, and which in the region of the Languedoc, by the local Cathars, was apparently identified with Magdalene (…)". And he goes on, comparing the riddles in the Rennes-le-Chateau mystery with the grotesque plays featuring père Ubu.


Now the order of AA, not to be confused with uncle Al's A:.A (or is it?) was supposedly a hermetic order in 17th and 18th century France and consisted exclusively of priests.
One of the two main sources about the AA is a book published in 1775, 'L'AA Cléricale', published by 'Mysteriopolis'.
The other source is count Henri Bégouen's, "L'AA de Toulouse aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles, d'après des documents inédits" (1913), a recent reprint of which I bought last month. Bégouen was a French archeologist, and this is his only work outside of his field.

The AA is linked to the "Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement" (Company of the blessed sacrament"), a French catholic secret society, self-proclaimed charitable society, and a militant association for the defence of the Church founded in 1630 and abolished by Louis XIV in 1660.
The AA might have existed prior to the dissolution of the Compagnie, but it took over some of its goals in an even more secretive way. The name AA is unclear. Maybe it comes from the alchemy, where AaA means 'amalgamate'. Others think it's shorthand for Associatio Amicorum. Or it might mean 'Amis', the plural of friend just as 'MM' in French means 'messieurs', plural of sir and 'CC' means the plural of consul. Bégouen discovered 29 cities in France where a secret AA society regularly convened. The mystery of the AA was such that it might appear as a hoax, and its central 'secret' goal remains unknown. It has been compared to an intelligence agency.
From RH-forum:
"There is mention of a password, how to envisage the self-destruction of the cell, to destroy all traces of its existence, to pass from action to silence if there is the slightest doubt. You can wonder whether terrorist organizations practice such a level of secrecy. This type of moral convention is of such an inconceivable rigor that the only framework in which this document could come about is that of a fanatical sect… or of a movement that was elected to safeguard a frightening secret."
“At the same time, behind this congregation or visible company, there was another occult one. It was the true AA, whose existence was a mystery and the name of the members an even greater mystery still. There were several political characters among them. The meetings were secret and certain members, in particular Prince de Polignac, only went to them in disguise. For on being allowed into this association, it was necessary to swear to absolute secrecy, to promise a blind obedience with passwords which no-one else knew.”
"The AA is the best candidate for the framework in which Saunière and his closest allies operated; membership of the AA could explain the extreme level of secrecy that Saunière adhered to – at the same time being instructed on how to maintain that secrecy so that his “double life” would never be known."


From Philip Coppens' website
"The reference is so enigmatic that you might suspect you had become a character in a detective novel! The “with permission” reference is just one in a long series of incredible details. Is it a hoax? A joke? Have these documents been falsified, as has been the case in some instances in the mystery of Rennes-le-Château? "

At the end of his article on the aforementioned Perillos website, Douzet thinks he found the link: as de Cherissey became involved with the story of abbé Saunière, who might have been part of the AA, it's only fitting that he should write in a publication called AArevue; and as such, for Douzet, both the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau and the College of Pataphysics are both smokescreens, part of a larger secret: the AA society. Or how a mystification can become a conspiracy in the mind of the gullible.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Only if you want to...


A lot of our readers may well fall into the 'starvin' artist' category, so we just wish you a cool season, but for anyone with spare gift money, looking for a good cause...The Bucky Fuller Institute (a non-profit) need to reach $25000 by the end of the year to stay solvent, and have so far got $14,500.

If you do like the idea of supporting a worthwhile group of researchers, then maybe consider this...worth a visit, anyway, to see what they get up to...

Bucky Fuller fund-raiser

Friday, December 10, 2010

Mavericks of the Mind (Second Edition)

(Please post and redistribute. :) ~DJB)

Dear Friends,

I am happy to announce the launching of the second edition of my book,
Mavericks of the Mind, which was just recently published by the
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

Just in time for the Holy Daze!

Loaded with new material--a new introduction, additional interviews, as
well as new photos and artwork--the second edition of Mavericks of the
Mind also includes the transcripts from the events that brought together
interviewees from the book to debate philosophical topics in roundtable
discussions. This stimulating collection features in-depth conversations
that Rebecca Novick and I did with accomplished thinkers, such as
Terence McKenna, Laura Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, John
Lilly, Carolyn Mary Kleefeld, Rupert Sheldrake, Riane Eisler, and Robert
Anton Wilson.

The interviews explore such fascinating topics as the frontiers of
consciousness exploration, how psychedelics effect creativity, the
relationship between science and spirituality, lucid dreaming, quantum
physics, morphic field theory, interspecies communication, chaos theory,
and time travel.

Copies of the book are available on Amazon for $22.95. To order a copy
today go to: http://alturl.com/idhbw

Wishing you a most joyous holiday season. May 2011 bring you many
unexpected delights.

Warm Greetings,

David Jay Brown

Reviews:

"When it was first published, Mavericks of the Mind was more than a
breath of fresh air -- it was a hurricane of ideas and visions perfectly
tuned to the time. This 21st century expansion pack will ensure that
these maverick spirits--many of whom have now passed on-- will continue
to channel the mindscape beyond the bend." --Erik Davis

"This is a fine collection of original thinkers, an important national
resource. Everyone who wants to stay current with information from the
outer perimeters of consciousness exploration should read it." --Jerry
Garcia of the Grateful Dead

"Depending on how one chooses to view it, this aptly named book is
either a potpourri of strange and wonderful ideas or a collection of
far-fetched suppositions. ...there will certainly be readers interested
in this volume's unique subject matter." --Library Journal
"This is a fine collection of original thinkers, an important national resource. Everyone who wants to stay current with information from the outer perimeters of consciousness exploration should read it."  --Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Spatial Thinking

Bucky time seems to have arrived (no doubt he predicted about how long it would take for his ideas to reach their moment - he always appeared aware of how long it would take for new ideas to become obvious, depending on the field of study).

He seems to have used visualisation as a way to approach the world, and whether you think it stimulates holistic thinking (whole-istic?), or the right brain (or the cerebellum as Stan Gooch controversially suspected) these meditational devices may feel to you as inspirational or soothing, fascinating or simply beautiful.

This one appears on Grunch.net here


By Chardhawk (or can we assume that means by Richard Hawkins & Kirby Urner?)

Anyway, Synergetics on the Web (definitely attributed to Kirby Urner) might intrigue you for a while...



"The brilliant manner in which Fuller fused the development of a revolutionary structural system, the geodesic dome, out of a combination of many hundreds of paper and cardboard geometrical models that were ostensibly intended to be analogical aids for a system of thought, deserves careful consideration. Perhaps the best explanation of it is offered by his 1989 biographer Lloyd Steven Sieden.

'Thinking is sorting experiences’, writes Sieden at the beginning of his exposition of Fuller’s approach, ‘Separating the huge set of experiences that are irrelevant from the very small set of experiences that are relevant’. But irrelevant material itself falls into two categories, and Fuller believed that imagining thought as a transparent sphere helped him to see a way of distinguishing between them. He visualized a situation in which all irrelevant experiences that were too small and too frequently occurring were inside the imaginary sphere, and all those that were too large and too infrequently occurring could be regarded as outside it.

The way Fuller imaged the thinking process, the surface of the imaginary sphere itself would then only consist of relevant experiences, or thoughts. He then wondered how many relevant experiences it would take to establish the ‘insideness’ and ‘outsideness’ necessary to create a sphere of thoughts. His answer was that while any two experiences could be joined by a line, it too three to fix their relationship – a concept perhaps not dissimilar to the journalistic principle that it takes three events to make a trend. This point Fuller diagramatized by drawing a triangle. But to establish a sphere containing ‘insideness’ and outsideness’ something robust enough to be called a thought, was impossible using flat triangles on paper, because the triangle had no integral space-enclosing depth. Three-dimensional structure, in thought as in geometry, could only be achieved by plotting in a fourth experience. The resulting three-dimensional model, a three-sided pyramid, or tetrahedron, Fuller came to believe, was the true geometrical model of a thought. It consisted of four points, or experiences, which in turn generated six sides, or relationships."


from p122 of Martin Pawley’s little book on Bucky

Hey, feeling child-like? Try this Bucky4kids site - why not?

you'll find all sorts of fans out there...this website hasn't updated since 2006, but might prove worth a visit...

"The whole world has to be turned into music or into a Fuller university." John Cage

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

The imaginary is something that tends to become true

The man who started the ball rolling with one of the most popular memes of the conspiracy sub-cultures wrote one final book.

Gérard de Sède "Rennes-le-Château: the dossier, the impostures, the fantasies, the hypotheses” (tr. Roger Kersey)
If anyone wants to read a summing up of this widely covered field, I would recommend this book. The first edition was 1988, but we now have an English translation available.

His original book, “Le trésoir maudit de Rennes-le-Château” (translated as "The Accursed Treasure of Rennes-le-Château") published in 1967, fell right into the meme-field then current (Morning of the Magicians, Erich von Daniken, etc), but although it had the air of journalism, it seems a good idea to bear in mind that de Sède had belonged to a Surrealist group called La Main à Plume back in the 1940s.

The Dossier section reiterates the various strands of the story.

Section Two covers the impostures and fantasies, referring to the activities of M. Pierre Plantard, Henri Lobineau, the Merovingian tale, the affair of the Red Serpent, all the way to “The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail” (Baigent, Leigh, Lincoln), "Genisis" (David Woods’ thick felt tip lines drawn on small scale maps to produce patterns) and The Temple of The Stars. He seems fair in his assessments, and writes amusingly.

The third Section covers some more reasonable hypotheses to explain the odd events surrounding Abbé Bérenger: the selling of Masses, treasure, forged documents, etc., but he settles for a version which implicates occult groups of the turn of the century, Rosy-Cross and Freemasonic, as well as fairly sinister sounding groups inside the Catholic Church, like the Sodalitium Pianum (no-one expects the SP!). And what do we know of George Monti (the ‘serial esoteric society joiner’) and his links to (infiltration of?) the OTO and other groups.

All very intriguing.
"The imaginary is something that tends to become true." André Breton

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Neil Gaiman's The Price animated

I just saw this on Neil Gaiman's blog and it sounds like a really cool project. A guy called Christopher Salmon wants to animate the short story The Price from Gaiman's book of short stories Smoke and Mirrors. He's got 9 days left to raise just over another $75,000. Here's his site with a preview of what it would look like narrated by Gaiman.
And if you want to listen to the story its available to stream here for free.
The minimum pledge is $10 and you will only be asked for that contribution if he reaches his target and as you can see on the website there are different levels of incentive too.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Hip-Hop and Shamanism course postponed

PropAnon's Hip-Hop course logo You may have noticed in the sidebar the announcement that PropAnon's Hip Hop course will start a little later than advertised.

The new start date looks like the first Monday in December (6th) but we will try to keep you up with the news.

Or (why not?) go and register at the MLA forum...


Bobby Campbell's RAW media course logo



Meanwhile, Bobby's RAW Media course has moved onto blogging, so you may see some fresh input here from students this week!

RAW EPIPHANY

Looking back now this just seems like a rather ordinary observation, but at the time it felt like an epistemological/ontological breakthrough!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Dodgem Logic Issue 6 out now!

Latest Issue: Issue #6
Features: Alan Moore, Iain Sinclair, Stewart Lee, Dick Foreman, Robin Ince, Kevin O'Neill, Melinda Gebbie, Steve Aylett, Barney Farmer & Lee Healey.
Cover/Feature photos by Hoax

Dodgem Logic website

Friday, October 01, 2010

Leaking into popular culture

An Afternoon Play on BBC Radio this week:

The Conspiracy of the Illuminati

By Nigel Baldwin.

A historical mystery set in Arras in the lead up to the French Revolution, exploring the influence of the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati.

[Monday 4th October update]
Unfortunately, the 'listen again' period for online audiences has now ended - will stay alert for a repeat.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

It's not too late...

We had an announcement that the start of Fly's course has been postponed until the 27th Sept, so you didn't miss anything.

Access to enrollment in all the MLA courses - follow this link.

Note: It appears that you do have to create an MLA account first (if you don't already have one) by going to the forum.

MLA 2010 Fall Course Schedule

Enochian/Vision Magick • Lon Milo DuQuette • September 6 • $140

Program Or Be Programmed • Douglas Rushkoff • October 11 • $150
Bob Dobbs
Secret History of the Church of the SubGenius • Rev. Ivan Stang • October 25 • $120

Magical Experiments • Philip H Farber • November 8 • $130

MLA 2010 Fall Alumni Seminars

Fall 2010 Alumni Series (all 3 courses) • All 3 courses • Fall 2010 • $100

Email To The Tribe • Fly Agaric 23 • September 27 • $pay-what-you-can - recommended price: $50

Hip-Hop & Shamanism • Prop Anon • October 17 • $50

Global Village • Bobby Campbell • November 5 • $pay-what-you-can - recommended price: $50

Scholar Access: Five MLA Courses • $500

Saturday, September 11, 2010

email to the tribe and the tale of the tribe

Hi,
Together with propaganda anonymous and Bobby Campbell, I'm honored to have been asked to craft a course in collaboration with the Maybe Logic Academy. The three new courses will run throughout this fall, enrollment and details can be found here.

My class is titled email to the tribe and begins September 20th' through to November 5th, on which date Bobby's class 'The Global Village' begins. Props class 'the god has found me' starts October 17th.

Please join with us as we open up the creative processes' and share our ideas, on the fly, and with luck produce some new tools, lets build!--steve fly.



email to the tribe
Homogrammic Prose

The tale of the tribe approximates a tale of humanity, or 'tales', a new global epic that must capture illuminating details from humanity and juxtapose them in a special way using special language (Hologrammic prose, the Hermetic style, Ideogrammic method, Joyce's 'epiphany' etc.) Dr. Robert Anton Wilson crafted his tale of the tribe to suit, among other definitions; the architects of post-modem' cyber-culture, reaching back to the renaissance and pulling up-tense to our decentralized--hyper connected--future present.

During a six week period, I-fly will share his open interpretations of the tale of the tribe, performing an on-line multimedia vortex of signals, dialed into James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Giordano Bruno, Marshall Mcluhan, 'Bucky'Fuller, and RAW himself.

email to the tribe will reprocess communications from across time, and produce new maps, new metaphors, and mold new memes that help forward the tale of the tribe and the RAW wisdom oozing out from all quarters.

Each week fly will provide a spread of multimedia for you to process, generally keeping in step with the program, encouraging a wide variety of conversation and focused feedback. Feel free to drop in and drop out, as you like.





EMAIL TO THE TRIBE: WEEKLY PRESCRIPTION.

WEEK ONE - WHEELS AND CYCLES (Sep 20-26)
The wheels of the tribe go around and around.
WEEKLY DOSE: Decentralized and Rotational Map Warfare.

WEEK TWO - GENERAL EPIPHANY (Sep 27-3rd October)
Hologrammic Prose and meaningful common speech
WEEKLY DOSE: RAW-FLY interviews. (Oct 4-10)

WEEK THREE - IDEOGRAMMIC FULLERENE (Oct 11-17)
The synergy of history
WEEKLY DOSE: Vicosahedron and Canto LXVI. Open Source History.

WEEK FOUR - GLOBAL FEEDBACK (Oct 18-24
If its not connected its useless
WEEKLY DOSE: Shannanigums Wave & Future Present.

WEEK FIVE - CINEMA OF UNITY (Oct 25-31)
Moving pictures to TV/Internet
WEEKLY DOSE: Maybe Logic & RAW Multimedia.

WEEK SIX - THE TALE OF THE CYBERNET (Nov 1-5)
My-wiki-face-twitter
WEEKLY DOSE: Work of the tribe. email to the tribe.

COURSE TEXTS: Recorsi by Robert Anton Wilson.
• $Pay-What-You-Can$ - Enroll Now •
[$50 recommended minimum price]



The Tale of the Tube' & The Tale of the Tribe

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Global Village - A RAW Media Workshop

I'll be teaching a course over at the Maybe Logic Academy this fall...


An 8 week adventure in understanding media via theory & practice. This flabbergasting journey through the information age will explore & experiment w/ the state of the art in communication, culture, and commerce. If you want the eschaton immanentized right you have to D.I.Y.!


Class begins on November 5th and runs until the end of the year.  I'm going w/ a pay whatever you can set up.  So you can basically pitch a quarter at me and holler "Dance monkey! DANCE!"


Here's the current course outline, which gives you a general idea of what you're in for.

WEEK ONE - INFORMATION EXPLOSION
PRESENTATION: Jumping Jesus On A Pogo Stick
WORKSHOP: Tools of the Tribe -
(FTP, HTML, & Bit-torrent)

WEEK TWO - SPACESHIP EARTH
PRESENTATION: Here Comes Everybody
WORKSHOP: The Social Medium Is The Message -
(Weblogs, Wikis, & Feed Aggregation)

WEEK THREE - OPEN SOURCE CULTURE
PRESENTATION: The No "Mind"
WORKSHOP: Dada Is Not Dead -
(Cut Ups, Collage, & The Public Domain)

WEEK FOUR - REALITY LABYRINTHS
PRESENTATION:  Who Is The Great Magician That Makes The Grass Green?
WORKSHOP: Ineluctable Modality of the Visual -
(Images, Comix, & Animations)

WEEK FIVE - PROMETHEAN OVERTURES
PRESENTATION: The World Turned Upside Down
WORKSHOP: Radio Free Arcadia -
(Digital Audio, Podcasts, & Live Streams)

WEEK SIX - GLOBAL THEATER
PRESENTATION: Reality Is What You Can Get Away With
WORKSHOP: Movie Magick -
(Digital Video, Vidcasts, & Live Streams)

WEEK SEVEN - GUERRILLA ONTOLOGY

PRESENTATION: Dream@wake!
WORKSHOP: Operation Mindfuck -
(Trends, Memes, & Viral Media)

WEEK EIGHT - FIRING THE COSMIC TRIGGER

PRESENTATION: The Great Work Accomplished
WORKSHOP: D.I.Y. -
(Self Publishing for Fun & Profit)

  
"Nothing of any importance can be taught. It can only be learned, and with blood and sweat."
 The lives and ideas of Robert Anton Wilson will be providing the backdrop to what is basically a modern media training montage.  

Anything I can do, you can do, hopefully even better, and I can do anything, everything, whatever!



Monday, August 16, 2010

The Holy Bible, in E-Prime

I stumbled upon this today and thought readers of this blog might find it of interest-

Dr. David F. Maas began composing the New American Standard Bible in E-Prime in February 2009 and published the version below on the Institute of General Semantics website in July 2010.

I still consider E-Prime the Swiss Army Knife in my toolkit. Wonder what might happen if I could get an E-Primed bible in the hands of every Christian in amurika...?

imagine a world where maybelogic and e-prime becom the norm

imagine a world with the pope saying "maybe an ordained priest can turn
a piece of bread into the body of a dead Jew but the priest needs a Willy
for the magick to work"

imagine Jerry Falwell bellowing "maybe Jesus hates gay people as
mch as i do"

imagine a rabbi chanting "Hear O Israel:the Lord God seems one, maybe"

imagine every tower in Islam resounding with "There
'is' no god except maybe Allah and maybe Mohammed 'is'
his prophet"

The world might go stark staring sane?

- Robert Anton Wilson, Quantum Psychology Course, Maybe Logic Academy, 13 January 2005

Monday, August 09, 2010

UNIVERSE CONTAIN'S A MAYBE. RAWdio at the Prophets Con. 2000.

ROBERT ANTON WILSON:
UNIVERSE CONTAIN'S A MAYBE


December 16, 2000, Palm Springs, CA.
Speaking at the Prophets Conference ~ Palm Springs (number 8) held at the Marquis Resort Conference Center.

Recorded by Steve Fly using a portable minidisc recorder. Special thanks to Robert Anton Wilson for encouraging me to record and inviting me to his room afterwards for an exclusive recording and some tasty clandestine reefers.


For more details on this recording please visit my extended linear notes in progress at http://ataleofatribe.blogspot.com/

Universe Contains a maybe monday by rawmemorial

Universe Contains a maybe tuesday by rawmemorial

Universe Contains a maybe wednesday by rawmemorial

Universe Contains a maybe thursday by rawmemorial

Universe Contains a maybe friday by rawmemorial

Universe Contains a maybe saturday by rawmemorial

Universe Contains a maybe sunday by rawmemorial

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

MLA Meet-Up No. 6 - Oxford, England

Pungenday, Confusion 62 - Year Of Our lady Of Discord 3176

Some (but not all) of the European members of the Maybe Logic Academy have been meeting up around the 'dog days' in summertime, for the past six years. The date was set to the 23rd of July because that was the day in 1973 that Robert Anton Wilson had a strange experience and thought he was receiving communication from an intelligence in the Sirius ("The Dog Star") system. He remained agnostic, as always, and later chalked it up to his right brain communicating with his left brain.

Past meet-ups were held in Milton Keynes, Berlin, Bruges, Amsterdam & Dublin. Berlin was an early candidate for the 2010 meet-up. I had been invited to the past few, but couldn't attend, due to not enough 'coin of the realm' in my account. Someone (Fuzzbuddy?) mentioned another UK location, which I was jazzed about, because for one: my passport had expired and I hadn't got round to having it renewed..and two: less kish-kash to spend on travel. The decision to hold number 6 in Oxford totally clinched it for me...I would finally be able to hang out with critters that I had communicated with on-line.

Here's how it went down - from my reality-tunnel..

Day One (Thursday, 22nd July) - Chris M. and Bogus Magus are due in at the train station at 1:15 p.m. I grab a bus to the city centre. When the bus just about reaches town, the sky opens and a downpour drenches the streets. It doesn't last long and soon the sun clears the clouds. I meet Fuzzbuddy at the station and soon Chris and Bogus join us. First stop is the backpacker's hostel where most of the crew will be staying. Chris had booked a room in a hotel down the road and he left to stow his gear there. Once the four of us are ready to hit the streets, it's nearly time for Tons, Borsky and Non-Prophet to arrive in town. They have ridden in via The Oxford Tube and are let off on the High Street. After introductions and greetings--it was back to the hostel. Bogus brought a stash of books for anyone to take. I chose a cool collection of Terry Southern's writings, called Now Dig This! . Fuzz brought copies of the 23 film (the cool German one, in which RAW has a cameo appearance - not the shit Jim Carrey 'thriller'), a DVD of lectures on James Joyce's Ulysses and a CD chock full of RAW audio, for everyone. Borsky also handed out a DVD-R with literally one hundred books on metaphysical, occult and esoteric matters--plus, official meet-up T-shirts. What treats!! I was stunned at their generosity! After a time, it's decided that food and drink are in order. Fly Agaric 23 and Diclonius still haven't arrived, but we all reckon they'll contact us when they do. The rest of us troop down to Broad Street, then on to the famous Turf Tavern. One of the beers on tap is Stonehenge Ale's Eye Opener, whose logo looks very familiar. I had to have a pint, natch! I bought one for Bogus, too. Turns out that the barrel emptied right after ours were poured--cheers to the Pookah for that! Much great conversation followed---on into the early evening. We then had a little reconnoiter around the area--before heading back to the 'Turf. Fly and Diclonius had arrived at this point and met us down there. More pints were downed, then it was almost closing time. Those who had gone without dinner grabbed some...er....food, at a roadside kebab van. I did as well, though I did come to regret that late-night cheeseburger the next morning. I bid my fellow MLA-ers adieu, as they were heading back to the hostel and I was catching the late bus home.

Day Two (Friday, 23rd July) - The time for me to meet the rest was given as 10:30 a.m., so I did my best to be up and ready. Owing to the somewhat late night - I was nearly late...but I managed to get to the others by the appointed time. Our first destination is the Pitt-Rivers Museum, full of interesting anthropological artifacts and even some dinosaur skeletons. N.P. and I were fascinated by the collection of weaponry, remarking on Bucky Fuller's aphorism, "developing ways to cover vaster and vaster distance and kill larger and larger amounts of people"..I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea. Once we left the Pitt-Rivers, it was getting close to the luncheon hour. It was back to the 'Turf, but to our collective chagrin--the pub was full-up, this being optimum tourist season and all. We all squeezed into one of the side chambers of the King's Arms and enjoyed a half-decent lunch, for the money we paid. Oxford can be over-priced and is not immune from a bit of the ol' 'fleece-the-tourists' action. The plan was to head to the Bodleian Library and try and have a look at some of the old manuscripts and books. Not having been there before, I wasn't sure if one were allowed to just walk in. We found out that you need to take a tour, which costs about £3.50. After milling around the lobby for a bit, the B.L. idea was scrapped, in favour of punting. As there were nine of us, or eight at that point, we had to hire two punts. Diclonius, Tons, Fly and I were in one..and Fuzz, Borsky, Chris and Bogus the other. I found punting not as easy as it looks, but I suppose you can pick up the technique after a while. We all had turns in piloting the punt - Tons and Fly were especially good. Along the canal, a scene from the German version of Miss Marple was being filmed--so the camera crew kept stopping punts for a time, then letting them continue on. A joke started about a film-bloke, who had a walkie-talkie and an earpiece, saying "4 to 5 minutes..." to everyone, then remarking about how "some fruity chap has just fallen in the water." We all headed back to the hostel for a chill-out on the open terrace, with more discussion and Diclonius's amusing LSD-party anecdote. Once again, dinner plans were brought up and everyone wanted to stay close to the hostel. We decided to eat at Al Salam, a Lebanese restaurant just down the street. I quite enjoyed the meal and the waitcritter even obliged in taking a group photo of us. Once we finished eating - I thought it a good time to break for the night, so off I went to the bus stop. I heard that Fly, Borsky and Fuzz adjourned to a club, to sip a little absinthe. I am sorry I missed that.

Day Three (Saturday, 24th July) - I stuck to the 10:30 meet-up time and round about 11 a.m., everyone seemed ready to go. Well, mostly everybody - Fly and Diclonius elected to catch us up a bit later. Today, the Botanical Gardens was deemed to be the initial port of call. Again, a fee was required - which put most of us off the idea - so we had a stroll around the Christ Church college grounds and watched the punts go by. The Ashmolean Museum was the next stop. N.P. had some urgent business and headed back to the hostel. The museum had been re-furbished in the past year, so there was plenty to see. We had a good investigation of the ancient Egypt section, as well as the Cretan and Greek displays. Since we didn't have too much time to explore, we headed up to the Chinese and Japanese sections. Borsky, Fuzz, Bogus and I had a look round the gift shop--but walked away with no treasures. A stop at a cafe was in order, caffeine for most of the crew and fruit juice for me. We ambled back to the hostel (after another round at the 'Turf, natch!) for another chill-out sesh...and then it was time for Bill Spectre's Oxford Ghost Trail. Bill himself seems an amiable bloke and he gets points from me for being a King Crimson fan (he noticed my T-shirt when we were purchasing our places on the trail). Bill has a great theatrical style and also makes use of props (a book that bursts into flame, a key that emits electrical sparks, etc.). He led us around various spots in Broad Street and the High Street, detailing strange and often macabre events that happened there. Once Bill's tour ended, I was starving. We couldn't all agree on one place to get food, so Chris and I decamped to the Cafe Coco Restaurant. I had a scrumptious mushroom pizza and Chris ordered a massive canole. We discussed various things and then it was back to the hostel, for an experimental virtual meeting via Skype. N.P. managed to get B. Kane on the video link, all the way from Norway. There were really funny moments, like B.'s game of "Book Bingo" and the misapprehension of a cigarette-holder that once belonged to Errol Flynn. A bit later, Bobby Campbell was on-line and though we couldn't have a split-screen convo with both of them, everyone could still hear each other. Bobby let us know that he's developing new artwork for re-prints of two Tim Leary books that have been long out-of-print. Huzzah! I can't wait to buy those! It was a remarkable ending to a brilliant day. Once the lap-tops were put away, we all trooped down to the street for some air...and I said "good night" to the crew and once again ambled on toward the bus stop. I was given a plague mask by Fuzzbuddy, as he had extras--and I was tempted to wear it back to the bus stop, but I feared it would have been wrecked by one of the drunken revelers spilling out of the pubs.

Day Four (Sunday, 25th July) - Feeling a bit washed-out from the previous three day's adventures, I made the journey into town. I arrived at the hostel as the rest of the crew were preparing to leave--lots of packing and tidying the room. We made our way to George Street, which is dotted with coffee bars and little eateries. We stopped at one, so everyone could get their caffeine fix and some breakfast. Borsky needed to get back to London fairly early, so after a few photos - he and Tons and N.P. headed for the bus station, with the rest of us in tow. Good-byes and well-wishes all around and then the three boarded the coach bound for The Big Smoke. Fly, Fuzz, Bogus and I walked down to Great Clarendon Street and found the Jude The Obscure pub. I hadn't been there in ages and I had forgotten how much I liked it. We had a couple of rounds. Fly mentioned he was going to see Inception at the cinema later in the afternoon. A bit of time passed and it was decided we should move on. I parted from the rest at around 3 p.m., as I had to buy a few gifts for the goodwyf. I finally arrived home at 4:30 p.m. and was quite exhausted.

Such a lovely time - I hope to be able to participate in next year's gathering. All Hail Eris! All Hail Pope Bob!


Cross-posted at Blog Is Not A Four-Letter Word.

Friday, July 30, 2010

MLA meeting 2010 in Oxford

From the 22nd till the 25th of July 2010, 9 members of the Maybe Logic Academy met in Oxford.

Day one

I left Bruges at 5:58. After some waiting in Brussels, the Eurostar left packed with people (and gave me the impression these trains were build for pygmies or people without legs). Arrived in London St. Pancras at 9ish local time and walked further towards Holborn to meet up with Tons. From there we went to grab a bite near the British Museum, where Nonprophet joined us. The Atlantis bookshop was still closed, so NP took us to see the John Dee display in the British Museum. Apparently NP had a bit of an argument with mr. Dee in his previous incarnation as a professional deceiver. Counterfeiting letters, lawsuit and all that. No surprise then that mr. Dee tried to hide his treasures for us. To no avail: NP's detecting skills soon showed us one of the most ancient magickal artefacts: the mysterious obsidian scrying mirror used for divination by John Dee and his medium Edward Kelly. Actually obsidian looks a lot like bachelite. And that's what it was, an antecolumbian telephone with the Otherworld.


"John Dee’s mirror originated in Mexico and was brought to Europe between 1527 and 1530 during the time of the conquest of Mexico by Cortés. Mirrors of this type were used by Mexican priests for divination. Tezcatlipoca the Mexica god of rulers, warriors and sorcerers, was connected to this practice. The Aztec Tezcatlipoca figure can be found in former Mesoamerican cultures as divine beings worshipped by the Olmec and Maya. The name Tezcatlipoca translates to mean Smoking Mirror. Tezcatlipoca is depicted with a mirror either as his right foot or on his chest, the mirror is named Itlachiayauhque which translates as the place from which he watches."

From Scrying, catoptromancy & John Dee's mirror
As a sidenote, Edward Kelly was killed in 1595 while trying to escape from a prison in Prague. Which might be the place for the meeting next year…

After the museum we were warmly welcomed by Geraldine, the owner of the Atlantis bookshop, who had graced us with a memorable hermetic tour of London during the RAW Memeorial in 2007.


We left London and caught the Oxford coach at noon, and we arrived in Oxford High Street at about 1:45 PM, passing by Bogus, Chris, the Purple Gooroo and Fuzzbuddy on the sidewalk and just in time to catch the rain, probably a result of some dark ritual involving burning dolls by Chris.





We arrived at the hostel and were able to leave our bags and started to explore Oxford under the expert guidance of The Purple Gooroo. Who has been living in Oxford since six years.






Psychogeographical map of Oxford

View Oxford MLA meeting 2010 in a larger map


I started to grow a pinhead when we finally ended in the Turf tavern for a nice evening beer, a pub where we would end up daily sooner or later. And where we finally met up with Diclonius and Fly.



Together we went past Trinity College to visit the Pitt Rivers Museum, in front of which was a massive display of dead trees.



Inside the museum we were welcomed by some fabled creatures inside the Museum of National History.
From left to right: the bloodthirsty rabbit from the Aaaaaaargh cavern, the dodo which inspired Carrolls 'Through the looking glass' and one of our demonic ancestors, the Beelzebuth monkey.




One of my favourite displays in the Pitt concerned Netsuke, an ancient Japanese miniature artform. The result seemed often surreal, even of a Lovecraftian intensity.


After a walk through a scenery reminiscent of Venice, we ended up taking the secret passageway to the Turf Tavern. The talks went on and kept on in the hostel until one by one we finally got to sleep. To sleep, perchance to snore.

























Day Two

After being reminded by Chris that we'd never manage to take over the world, getting up at about Elevenish and after having lunch we went to visit the Bodleian library. Somehow in metaphysical limbo we seemed to have lost Nonprophet, while actually it was HP who had lost us, and had returned safely to the hostel.












And then they were eight. We had no idea the Agatha Christie reference would turn up to be predominant that day, and we decided to go punting at the Magdalen Bridge.
Two teams tried to move forward. I must admit my catastrophic punting got us left behind by Tons, Diclonius, Fly and The Purple Gooroo, so Chris had to save the day.
Turning a curb and seeing the others moving on, we were suddenly stopped by a guy with a microphone who claimed they were filming a German Miss Marple , and so we had to wait for about 5 minutes. 5 minutes later he repeated the same thing to boats that followed us, and so 5 minutes ended up becoming 30. He did change his story however, ending up telling the last of the row that a fruity person had jumped in the water. We never knew whether this last claim was true, but were able to get past the curb at last and returned to our starting point.
We might have known from our rather dodgy pedalo ride in Milton Keynes a few years ago and with the exception of Fly (whose algae regime helped develop gills) that we're not the floating kind.

After meeting up with Nonprophet we ended up in the Lebanese restaurant not far from the hostel.From left to right: Tons, Bogus, Fly, Nonprophet, Borsky, Fuzzbuddy, Diclonius, Chris Matthias and The Purple Gooroo.
That night and in order not to wake our sleeping friends, we hadn't turned on the light but used tea candles to be able to see what we were saying.
At about 2 in the morning the fire alarm went off, waking everybody. Of course we hid the evidence. But we weren't to blame: apparently some fruity person had hit the alarm just for fun.





Day Three
After a slow start (again) we visited the Ashmolean museum, bizarrely renamed 'Asmodeus' by Tons' dark side. Quite a big collection, so we skipped some floors. Below a laughing sarcofagus, some Horii with a hermetic gesture and a large statue of the ithyphallic god Min (whose wooden phallus fell off aeons ago).
















At 6:30 we went to the Oxford castle where for the Bill Spectre (whom we ended up renaming Phil Spectre and who according to Bogus looked like Kryten from Red Dwarf) ghost tour. Our host erroneously claimed a ciseled door inspired CS Lewis 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' while it actually is a gorgeous Green Man. En passant he did mention a 'Brazenose Hellfire Club' .












Below are my last pics of the trip (Fly made us realize a real ghost must be the life of the party at the Oxford church meetings). We gathered for the final online meetup that evening in the hostel.












NP had downloaded recording software beforehand so we could archive this meeting for the generations to come.
We managed to have first a video meeting with B.Kane, which was truly great. The reception at our end wasn't very good though, so I apologize for totally misunderstanding what Errol Flynn collectible it was he was so proud to show us. Result of long days in booze and smoke, and a twisted sense of humour. It felt rather surreal sitting there, while Chris and TPG were gone for a pizza, talking to B.Kane and expecting Chris to suddenly pop up behind him. Finally all 9 of us gathered in the microscopic room facing the webcam, B.Kane showing us some of the treasures from his library. After a while we had to put him on hold (sadly skype doesn't permit more than two video chats) when Bobby Campbell entered the virtual room. Strangely the image and audio were much better. Cool to meet for the first time, Bobby. We switched to audio so we could all chat together. Fuzz asked me whether the recorder was on, after which I switched it on… Then everybody started talking at the same time, all I recall is Diclonius' great idea to start a pope group on Facebook.
After the meeting Fly, Fuzz, Bogus and I went to the club for an absinthe (they should really tell the people behind the bar that they should add water!) and for a nightly walk in the park. Slowly turning into a zombie I tried to write down in the fading moonlight some of what then appeared like a bright discussion, but all I can read today looks like a lot of gibberish.
"Gilligan is Terry Gilliam" (Fly)
something about a gig with multiple stages and people wearing headphones (Fly)
"I heard one of your friend's connections cut the hair of Harry Potter" (Fuzz)
something about the movie 'Harvey' with James Steward (Bogus)
"Locker- BP" (Fly)
something about Lady gaga's cock (a running gag for the last couple of days)
and my favourite Fly quote:
"You might feel you're in the crowd, man, but really… you're it!"
Which imho resumes the way we felt during these three wonderful days, a crowd of very different people feeling united by Maybe Logic.


Day Four
All we did on Sunday were goodbyes. We were all fairly tired, I left Oxford with Tons and Nonprophet at noonish, and after a little visit to speaker's corner in London we begged each other farewell. Hopefully we'll find a way to organise video meetings every 23rd, until we meet again IRL maybe next year in Prague, or Stockholm, or Capitola…
Some of us have big projects going on. Tons, I hope somehow I'll be able to read your book once it's published (even if I have to learn German); Fuzz, Fly and Nonprophet, I won't divulge your respective projects but I hope we'll hear more of you soon!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Fresh blood, Hot Links, Good Gravy!

I am happy to pass along word of a new blog dedicated to the lives and ideas of Robert Anton Wilson:
http://rawillumination.blogspot.com

The blog is written by Tom Jackson and offers a daily posting of his RAW thoughts. He even seems to be a fan of our very own DJ Steve Fly Agaric 23!

I'll add the site to the "breaking news" widget in the OM sidebar.

Along similar lines, Bandito recently popped into alt.fan.rawilson to share links to recently archived RAW realist articles.

Another new blog I came across is written by someone called PQ and centers around two of my very favorite subjects: James Joyce & Baseball. http://abuildingroam.blogspot.com/

This blog came to my attention due to the recent interesting conjuncture of Joyce & Baseball when an Umpire named Jim Joyce came to national attention for a blown call that cost a pitcher his perfect game. The story then takes an unexpectedly heartwarming turn and everyone learns a valuable lesson about sportsmanship, honor, and synchronicity. PQ does it a great service in his series on the matter.

Our very own DJ Steve Fly Agaric 23 turns up in this blog as well! Along with a sidebar link to OM's Wings of Art post.

For my own part I'm keeping well busy at the drawing board. Exciting stuff to share soon!

What do you think of the "You Might Also Like" Doohickey I installed? Really kinda opens the place up a bit I think.

Excelsior!

bc

Webring

Member of the NEW TRAJECTORIES webring