Books and Monographs by the Author
The Dimensions of Intelligence (M.S. thesis, W.S.U., 1946)
The Social Dimensions of Personality (Ph.D. thesis, U.C., 1950)
The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality (1957)
Multilevel Assessment of Personality (1957)
The Existential Transaction (1960)
The Psychedelic Experience (with Metzner and Alpert, 1964)
The Psychedelic Reader(ed. with Weil, 1965)
Psychedelic Prayers from the Tao Te Ching (1967)
High Priest (1968)
Politics of Ecstasy (1968)
Jail Notes (1971)
Principles and Practice of Hedonic Psychology (1972)
Confessions of a Hope Fiend (1973)
Neurologic (with Joanna Leary, 1973)
Starseed: A Psy-Phy Comet Tale (1973)
The Curse of the Oval Room (1974)
Terra //(with Joanna Leary and L.W. Benner, 1974)
What Does WoMan Want?(1976)
Exo-Psychology (1977)
Neuropolitics (1977)
NEUROPOLITICS
The Sociobiology of Human Metamorphosis
Timothy Leary
with
Robert Anton Wilson
and
George A. Koopman
A StarseedlPeace Press Publication 7977 Los Angeles, California
Copyright © 1977 by Timothy Leary
All Rights Reserved
Published jointly in the United States by Starseed/Peace Press, Inc.
P.O. Box 188 Culver City, California 90230
Manufactured in the United States
Printed by Peace Press, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Catalog Card No.: 77-079606 Leary, Timothy
NEUROPOLITICS: The Sociobiology of Human Metamorphosis
Los Angeles, California ISBN 0-915238-18-7
Chapter I was originally published by the Forum for Contemporary
History. Chapter
2 originally appeared in the National Review under the title, "TV and
the Outlaw
Industry How Our Paranoias are Hyped for Fame and Profit." Chapters 3
through 12
were originally published as "The Curse of the Oval Room" by High Times
Press.
Chapter 13 first appeared in Oui Magazine as "Brainwashing: How to
Fold, Spindle
and Mutilate the Human Mind in Five Easy Steps" copyright © 1976 by
Playboy
Publications, Inc. Chapter 14 also appeared in Oui Magazine, titled
"Meeting
Manson" copyright © 1976 by Playboy Publications, Inc. Chapter 16 was
previously
published in Laughing Coyote Magazine. Chapter 18 was published in
association
with Level Press. Chapter 21 originally appeared in the L-5 NEWSLETTER
as "Tim
Leary on Snake Oil, Liberals and Amino-Uganda."
Edited by Daniel Gilbertson and George A. Koopman
Coordinated by Jay Levey
Designed and illustrated by Cynthia Marsh for Starseed
Layout by Linda Norlen
Typesetting by Tin Roof
Cover design by The Daily Planet
98765432
The Tactics of Evolution are:
Space Migration
Intelligence Increase
Life Extension
SMI2LE
The Goal of Evolution is:
Fusion
(at higher levels of intensity
acceleration
aesthetic complexity)
Table of Contents
NEUROPOLITICS
The Sociobiology of Human Metamorphosis
Introduction by Daniel Gilbertson
PART I: The Twilight of Terrestrial Politics
1. The Seeds of the Sixties 1
The sociology of the counter-culture before and during the
Nixon administration.
2. The Outlaw Industry 7
The lawyer-media combine that promotes symbolic crimes;
includes a critique of Bob Dylan's exploitation of the counter-
culture.
3. Partners In Time 21
The international network of dissenters who defy and define
dictatorships.
4. Political Voyeurism 23
The sexual longings behind espionage.
5. Gordon Liddy's First Spy Caper 25
The harassment of Leary which led to Liddy's appointment as
the White House Drug Expert.
6. Helicopters and Teepees 27
Compares the harassment of hippies and Vietnamese by
Nixon's administration.
Table of Contents
7. Woodstock and Watergate 31
How fear descended upon America, creating the climate of
'Good German' docility.
8. The Adversary Process
33
"The whole mess was created by lawyers."
9. Secrecy
35
Secrecy breeds fear and paranoia.
10. The Curse of the Oval Room 39
The mysterious series of misfortunes which consistently
descend upon the occupants of the White House.
11 .The Fall of Representative Government 41
The process of selecting "representatives" to govern is a relic
of the horse-drawn culture which produced the American
Constitution.
12. The Return of individual Sovereignty 43
Mature electronic communication networks make possible
immediate democratic registry of opinions.
13. How To Wash Brains 47
Written with Robert Anton Wilson. The cases of Patty Hearst,
Lt. Calley and Squeaky Fromme demonstrate that we have all
been brain-washed.
14. The Neuropolitics of Courage: A Brief Encounter with
Charles Manson
59
The neurological vulnerabilities which Manson learned to
manipulate.
Table of Contents
15. A Minor Intelligence Affair 75
An encounter between Leary and a group of Federal Secret
Police Agents provides insights into power-struggles which
rage within the American Intelligence Community.
16. From Inner Space to Outer Space 83
Written with Robert Anton Wilson. The evolution of conscious-
ness during the 1960's and its meaning in light of Space
Migration.
17. The Sexual Domestication of the Four-Brained Biped 97
Written with Robert Anton Wilson. Sexual role impersonation,
sexual domestication and the emergence of an individually-
oriented, hedonic culture.
PART II: The Dawn of Extraterrestrial Politics
18. Starseed: A Psy-Phy Comet Tale 113
The inevitability of Space Migration as it was understood by a
groop of convicts trapped in the "Black Hole" of Folsom Prison.
19. Conversations with Higher Intelligence 123
How Leary and a group of surprised radio announcers receive
the first signals from Extra-terrestrial Sources; includes a ver-
batim transcript of the first message ever received from Higher
Intelligence.
20. War and Centralization as Necessary Prelude to
Space Migration 133
The genetic meaning of technology and technological com-
petitions among nations.
Table of Contents
21. In Defense of Snake Oil Salesmen 145
A spirited, satirical rebuttal to attempts by N.A.S.A. bureau-
crats to control space migration. The most important political
issue of the next decade involves the control of space. This
piece, originally published in an Aerospace journal, defines the
next round in the struggle for individual freedom and diversity
of cultural style.
22. H.O.M.E.S. A Real Estate Proposal 151
Written with George A. Koopman. A stock-offering brochure
which describes how Space Migration will be directed and
controlled by cooperatives which pool resources to finance
and construct Space Settlements.
Introduction
By Daniel Gilbertson
We are the first species able to consciously affect our own
evolution. And, because
of this, Homo sapiens will soon be extinct. After a reign of more than
300,000 years he
will sacrifice himself beneath the greatest evolutionary wave ever. The
prophets who
predict doom from nuclear holocaust, energy starvation and
biodetonation are wrong.
Homo sapiens will succumb to the one threat he is powerless to resist
a new
species of man better suited to new worlds.
In the pages that follow, Timothy Leary combines recent and future
history into an
optimistic and fascinating guide-book to evolutionary fulfillment. The
unifying theme
of his message is that we must understand ourselves as a developing
life-force with a
three billion year history and act on this to ensure our continued
evolution.
Part I, "The Twilight of Terrestrial Politics," is focused feedback.
These chapters
chronicle the exploits of a modern adventurer intent on observing and
analyzing the
decade which more than any other has changed our lives forever. Set
against the
sights, sounds and attitudes of the '60s, are fresh insights into the
stories behind
the books, magazine articles, newspaper headlines and TV newsflashes of
this
turbulent era.
Leary's insider's perspective on amongst other things, Woodstock,
the legal in-
dustry, Calley, the C.I.A., the sexual domestication of the
four-brained biped and the
curse of the oval room, combine authenticity with the seductive appeal
of deja-vu.
They will horrify some and inspire others. None however, will fail to
note that these
essays mostly written in solitary confinement by a political prisoner
are utterly
devoid of hatred and self-pity. Rather, they convey an eagerness for a
self-imposed
evolutionary mission fired by a wide-eyed sense of optimism and
purpose. Adven-
turers may indeed be a dying breed but who does not still dream of
being one?
Perhaps the greatest of the horrors that daily oppress us in the
'70s is the continual
emphasis on survival. Holding on, not rocking the boat, coping, have
become the
dominant motifs of this decade. In contrast, the events of the '60s
were a renais-
sance of action and creation. Whatever else they may have done, the
Sixties made us
aware that we could alter our consciousness. Rapid changes in behavior,
sexual
Introduction
mores and drug use stimulated unprecedented advances in personal
freedom,
responsibility and choice. These cultural mutations complete an
essential link in our
ongoing evolutionary program. We are ready for a change.
The future is up for grabs and novelty and invention make the best
catchers. Won-
der, if you will, where expanding human consciousness is taking us. Try
to imagine
the number of stars in the universe or the sum of the possible neural
link-ups inside
your brain and you'll be in the right mood for Part II.
Part II, "The Dawn of Extraterrestrial Politics," deals with the
necessity of leaving this
planet and the possibilities of living in space. Leary argues for the
inevitability of
space migration, summarizing this next step in human evolution with the
acronym
S.M.I2.LE. Space Migration, Intelligence Increase and Life Extension.
Parallel scientific advances in biology, genetics, psychology,
pharmacology, bio-
chemistry and astrophysics are making space migration a practical
alternative to our
polluted and overcrowded planet at a time when N.A.S.A. is making Star
Trek's "En-
terprise" science-faction. Although relatively few actually teach it,
most experts have
given up actively attacking space migration. Not many want to seem that
immune to
the evidence or so naive.
Space migration to High Orbital Mini Earths will offer ample room
for collective ac-
tion and self-definition. Novel, open and free space habitats will
stimulate increases
in intelligence (not to be confused with the sterile concept of I.Q.).
Biologists are
already predicting that anyone born after 1990 need never die. Life
extension will
follow naturally once we're inhabiting limitless space and it's O.K.
for everyone to get
the longevity pill. Not surprisingly, informal polls indicate that at
least 50% of
Americans given the choice, would opt to migrate up to a new H.O.M.E.
in space and
live forever.
In the closing chapters, Leary anticipates encounters with
extraterrestrial life and
political fervor over the control of space. Who gets to go? Though an
elitist policy is
now being pursued, we should remember that N.A.S.A. is still young.
There is an
urgent necessity to foster the democratic philosophy of public
participation and in-
volvement in all phases of space exploration and decision-making. Leary
concludes
with a proposal to ensure us all a voice in the most important genetic
and political
debate ever. Whose children shall inherit the stars?
Those children, seeking to understand what it was like when man
first came of age,
will treasure these honest essays.
PART I
THE TWILIGHT OF TERRESTRIAL POLITICS
(HOW WE ARRIVED HERE)
These days each decade is a statement in the age-long global human conversation.
In the cultural message of the 1960's every American was, actively
or passively,
engaged. It so happened that I was most centrally involved in these
social changes as
member of, and shamanic spokesman for, a small group of innovative
intellectuals
who sought to receive, integrate and transmit emerging cultural signals.
The meaning of this explosive decade will be evaluated by history in
the light of sub-
sequent developments. It is natural that those who were engaged in the
transaction
present their versions of what happened and their predictions of the
events to come.
In January 1960 I accepted an invitation to come to Harvard
University to initiate new
programs in what was then called Behavior Change. I was convinced that
mental
illness could be cured; that drastic limitations on human intellectual
and emotional
function were caused by inflexible states of mind, static imprinted and
conditioned
neural circuits which created and preserved artificial and
malfunctional states of per-
ceived reality.
I believed the nervous system to be a bio-chemical-electrical
network capable of
receiving and creating a changing series of adaptive realities if and
when the chemical
key for altering consciousness was found and employed in the context of
an adequate
theory. In the then-zeitgeist of Salk, Fleming, Pauling, I believed
that the right chemical
used correctly was the cure. The "career ailment" I had selected as
curable was human
nature.
Space Migration Intelligence Increase Life Extension
The Seeds of the 1960's
A new science is defined. I have suggested the term Neuro-
logic: the understanding and control of one's own nervous
system.
To oversimplify, I believed that man did not know how to use his
head, that the
static, repetitive conditioned circuit known as the normal mind was
itself the source of
"dis-ease" and that the task of the psychologist-neurologist was to
discover the neuro-
chemical for changing mind, i.e., to allow for new imprints of new
realities and new
conditioned sequences. Our initial experiments at Harvard suggested
that L.S.D. might
be such a drug.
In the early sixties we tested these hypotheses in a series of
controlled experiments
sharing LS.D. with several hundred persons under the following
conditions: the
set or expectation was for philosophic exploration and self-discovery;
the setting was
supportive, secure, and respectable. There was not one casualty or "bad
trip." Our sub-
jects would routinely experience meta-mind intensities and were
encouraged to con-
template the personal and social implications of these new signals.
The results of these and other psychedelic drug experiences led us
to conclude that
organic neuro-chemicals could be used as instruments for studying the
nervous
system, for freeing brain from the limits of mind, for training human
beings to develop
new neural circuits (new minds) for reception, integration and
transmission.
The implications of these conclusions for human freedom were
far-reaching. A
new science was defined. I have suggested the term Neurologic: the
understanding and
control of one's own nervous system. More important, a new mythic
conception of
human nature emerges. The human being is seen as having several "minds"
(defined
as neural circuits) which evolve during the course of individual
development and which
can be turned on and off selectively and adaptably as one "turns on and
tunes" the
many external electrical circuits surrounding the modern human.
In 1960-63 we tested these theories in a series of objective studies
of prison rehabil-
itation, psychedelic psychotherapy, and personality change. The
hypotheses were
confirmed. We cut the prison-return rate by 90%. We demonstrated
quantitative
psychometric improvement in personality. It was prize-winning elegant
research. Our
subjects shared our enthusiasm but the medical directors didn't. We
were naive
enough to be surprised that many administrators didn't really want to
eliminate the
pathologies they administer.
God knows they liked me personally, respected our results and in
their secret hearts
hoped that we were right. But there is this larval inertial fear of
change. Three times I
was offered tenure at Harvard (and the post of chief psychologist at
Massachusetts
General Hospital) if I would just play down the drug research. But by
then more than
careers were at stake. We had entered the dialogue of myth, tapped into
that ancient
current of passionate hope and risky belief that humanity can evolve
into a higher
We were thinking far-out history thoughts at Harvard...believing
that it was a time for visions, knowing that America had run
out of philosophy, that a new empirical, tangible meta-physics
was needed.
wisdom. It was the familiar Gnostic, hermetic, Neo-Platonic,
alchemical, Faustian,
Jeffersonian belief in the individual as microcosm, the all-out vision
of multi-centered
universe that gives life to individual existence, perennially
recurring, always opposed
by the Inquisition, always mocked by the current version of cynical
cool-out Stoicism.
We were thinking far-out history thoughts at Harvard, some thirty
graduate students,
young professors and theologians, believing that it was a time (after
the shallow,
nostalgic fifties) for far-out visions, knowing that America had run
out of philosophy,
that a new, empirical, tangible meta-physics was desperately needed,
knowing in our
hearts that the old mechanical myths had died at Hiroshima, that the
past was over,
and that politics could not fill the spiritual vacuum.
The vision we offered was the "head-trip" a scientific,
experimental neurologic.
Whereas the pre-scientific oriental philosophies and the western
mystical off-shoots
speak vaguely of the divinity within each person, we tried to
operationally redefine the
old teachings and to offer an experimental Neo-Platonism. Your brain is
the center of
your universe. Read any basic text on the nervous system. Learn which
of the seven
types of drug-yoga turns on which circuits of your nervous system;
learn to dial, tune
and focus your time ship. Then you learn to accept total responsibility
for the realities
you intersect.
The basis for this new meta-physics was the belief that advances in
modern science
now make it possible to develop an understanding of the nervous system,
its evolution
in the individual and the species, and the effects of chemical and
electronic adjuvants
on its expanding function. This new understanding of the source and
instrument of
consciousness is leading us to a truly scientific philosophy of a
self-responsible
human nature.
The alert and reasonably educated person in 1960 was familiar with
the following
scientific concepts which, if known by the philosophers of antiquity,
would certainly
have influenced their theories: (1) The Einsteinian equations
concerning relativity and
the co-variance of timespace. (2) The nervous system as bio-computer
organized in
hierarchial centers selectively mediating the reception, storage,
analysis and trans-
mission of messages. (3) Elementary computer theory. (4) Electrical and
electronic
technology providing for selectivity of frequency, intensity and
clarity of signal. (5) The
D.N.A. code as source of instructions for constructing, maintaining and
evolving both
body and nervous system.
With these scientific concepts as suggestive text, L.S.D. as
instrumental sacrament
and prayers for grace, we began to write and to talk publicly about the
possibilities
of a new philosophy, a new individual scientific theology.
All of this educational work was enormously successful. Mil-
lions of Americans accepted the "head philosophy", the be-
lief that Ego and "Social Reality" are neural fictions.
At this point (1963) I left Harvard, abandoned the role of
conventional, academic
scientist and became, without knowing it, a shaman. This shift in
occupational role
was accomplished slowly, hesitantly, exploringly and not without
self-conscious
humor. First, a diligent study of religious history revealed that
psychedelic plants had
been used in the great philosophy-generating cultures of the past
Egypt, Persia, In-
dia, China and Greece always for initiation into adulthood, entrance
into the
spiritual life and for the training of shamans, prophets, and special
priests who played
colorful and apparently necessary public ceremonial roles. At the same
time I began
personal training in Hindu Vedanta, Buddhist Tantra, and Taoist
techniques for under-
standing the flow of various energies. The "obligatory pilgrimage" to
India occurred.
In 1963 we started centers for training in consciousness expansion,
a scientific
journal and lecture tours for communicating the results of our
research. We were par-
ticularly concerned with the development of neurological language of
both verbal and,
more important, electrical and electronic patterns to communicate the
broadened
range of consciousness.
Our Castalia Foundation in Millbrook, New York was visited by
musicians, electronic
sound technicians, painters and light technicians. The new modes of art
we developed
(based on the capacity of the nervous system to receive, synthesize and
transmit ac-
celerated, compressed and multi-media presentations) have since been
taken over by
commercial film and television people.
All of this educational work was enormously successful. Millions of
Americans more
or less accepted the "head philosophy," the belief that Ego and "Social
Reality" are
neural fictions, clusters of synaptic connections, consensual
paranoias. What might
be called a neo-radical-nominalism characterized this philosophic
revolution, an in-
visible, implicit, amused, sometimes pious, detachment from reflex
social conventions
and the fears which they are designed to induce. A general "hip"
rejection of partisan
politics, war, violence, military service, racism (white and black),
enslaved careerism,
erotic hypocrisy, sexism, establishment religion, local orthodoxies of
dress, grooming,
posture, art. A rejection too of pomposity of mind, including one's
own, and the
platitudinous hippie philosophy itself. This signal of hope and freedom
was sent
throughout the world. Poets in Soviet prisons heard it. And young
people everywhere.
The inevitable backlash from this new message of individual power
began in 1966
when various legislatures and Congress began considering bills to
criminalize LS.D.
and similar drugs. In this year I testified before two Senate
committees urging that
control of all mind-changing drugs be assigned to the medical
profession supervised
History may well decide that the second belligerent disaster
of the Johnson administration was the decision to turn drug
control over to the police.
by Federal and State health agencies. I predicted that if control of
drugs were ad-
ministered by law enforcement agencies, the result would be a black
market more
rational and widespread than that of alcohol prohibition and the growth
of enormous
police-state repressive bureaucracy. And who, indeed, wanted that?
My political position then was by no means radical or solitary.
Indeed, during the
Johnson administration, a bitter battle was fought on this issue.
Medical and scientific
people (backed by the Kennedys) urged that drugs be administered by the
Department
of Health, Education and Welfare, while law-and-order people politicked
for the Depart-
ment of Justice. History may well decide that the second great
belligerent disaster of
the Johnson years was the decision to turn drug control over to the
police. L.S.D. was
made illegal and most of the top drug scientists began their steady
exit from govern-
ment responsibility. Another war on heresy had been declared.
At this time the "new consciousness" became a political issue
indissolubly inter-
twined with peace, sexual liberation, reform of education, racial
equilibrium, ecology,
and "end the draft." I suppose the political manifestation was
inevitable. So I joined the
circuit. Peace, love, and free your head, we said.
It is my folly to believe deeply in the Jeffersonian vision and the
First Amendment. I
accept this Merlin heritage, this national trust. Could this first
America be saved? Well,
we said, if they can make laws we can repeal them. With the other
dissenting
spokesmen I opposed the war and defended marijuana and L.S.D. against
unscientific
slanders. We warned of the heroin peril and unlicensed, ill-informed
drug abuse. I ad-
.ccated, not drugs (no one had to do that), but a rational,
philosophic, scientific under-
standing of drugs. It was the time (can we remember?) of civil rights,
nonviolent
dissent debated openly, registered in the polls and litigated in the
courts.
was followed, set-up and busted like everyone else, fought test
cases, got the
Federal marijuana law declared unconstitutional. It was in the American
tradition to
defend what you believed. Every court decision and every poll showed
that the "new
consciousness" was growing. The love-ins, hippie beads, the Beatles and
the demon-
srations were the silly froth. The real thing had to do with the way
people looked each
other in the eye and smiled knowing that something new and
self-responsible was
happening in their heads. The world listened. Messages came to us from
the dissent-
ing underground in Russia and Brazil. The real revolution of the
sixties was neurological.
The emergence of a new philosophy occurs at rare, crossroad points
in history.
Political, social, economic changes follow changes in the conceptions
of human
nature. The consciousness revolution of the sixties challenged every one of the in-
The seeds of the sixties have taken root underground. The
blossoming is to come.
situtions and moral principles upon which our society was based.
This systematic questioning of the orthodoxies led inevitably to the
Nixon counter-
reformation, the attempt to re-impose the old authority by means of
police power. But
the history of Inquisitions teaches that cultural-philosophic matters
cannot success-
fully be legislated despite heresy trials, sumptuary laws,
informer-provocateur espion-
age tactics, and secret police.
A second classic reaction to the collapse of authority is
existential loneliness. Once
you have accepted that your nervous system creates from the Heraclitan
flow your own
reality, what guideposts, what compass readings, what new goals? The
divergence, in-
dividualism, and Utopian optimism of the sixties were crushed by
violent reaction. This
philosophic vacuum was temporarily filled by a renaissance of old
dogmas which
latched on to the new energies experiential Christianity, homogenized
Buddhism,
TV Hinduism. These pessimistic, nostalgic creeds served to turn-off,
shallow-out,
calm-down the explosive expansions of the last decade. The Jesus Freaks
are long-
haired rednecks. The Maharishi is a C.I.A. agent, etc.
I believe that a new philosophy will be created by those who were
born after
Hiroshima which will dramatically change the human condition. It will
have the
following characteristics: (1) It will be scientific in essence and
science-fiction in style.
(2) It will be based on the expansion of consciousness, understanding
and control of
the nervous system, and will produce a quantum leap in intellectual
efficiency and
emotional equilibrium. (3) Politically it will stress individualism,
decentralization of
authority, a live-and-let-live tolerance of difference, local option
and a mind-your-own-
business libertarianism. (4) It will continue the trend towards open
sexual expression
and a more honest, realistic acceptance of both the equality of and the
magnetic dif-
ference between the sexes. The mythic religious symbol will not be a
man on a cross
but a man-woman pair united in higher love communion. (5) It will seek
revelation and
Higher Intelligence not in formal rituals addressed to an
anthropormorphic deity, but
within natural processes, the nervous system, the genetic code, and,
without, in at-
tempts to effect extra-planetary communication. (6) It will include
practical, technical
neurological-psychological procedures for understanding and managing
the in-
timations of union-immortality implicit in the dying process. (7) The
emotional tone of
the new philosophy will be hedonic, aesthetic, fearless, optimistic,
loving. We are now
experiencing a quiescent preparatory waiting period. Everyone knows
that something
is going to happen. The seeds of the Sixties have taken root
underground. The blos-
soming is to come.
The Outlaw Industry
April 1976
Federal Prison, San Diego
"/ pulled the gun on the President to call attention to Manson"
Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme
The average American watches television five hours a day. This is a
neurological fact
so ominous in its implications that it cannot be understood in words.
Would it take a
year of full time Television explanation and neural demonstration for
us to understand
how our brains have become addicted to electronic "junk", how
television creates,
manages and schedules our reality, how tonight's crime show becomes
next week's
crime wave, how the images and illusions of politics are produced?
In order to package and arrange the flow of "news" our television
civilization
requires a continual supply of newsmakers...reality-actors who play
parts in the day-
time and prime-time shows which define our existence.
And who, besides the "mad-programmer" of ABCBS, understands how
news-events
are carefully calibrated to meet seasonal scheduling?
It is no accident, for example, that political carnivals usually
occur as summer
replacement shows. Urban riots, conventions, and political upheavals
occur in the
summer not because of the weather. Don't you dig? They are scheduled to
charge up
the boredom of summer programming. It's not the heat, it's the cupidity.
Many have wondered why the Watergate investigation was postponed
until after the
elections of 1972. To avoid prime-time competition! Got It? The Ervin
hearings carried
us nicely through the desert of summer 1973 and then the scandal cooked
along on the
back-burners of the evening news until July-August 1974 when the
impeachment
Hearings again filled the programming vacuum. The essence of "news" is,
of course,
the modern version of Roman coliseum shows and gladiator combats.
American
civilization, for certain explicit biblical reasons, apparently
requires that its leaders, its
political heroes be publicly sacrificed.
The Outlaw Industry
The En/in hearings carried us through the desert of summer
1973 and then the scandal cooked along on the hack-burners
of the evening news until July-August 1974 when the im-
peachment hearings again filled the programming vacuum.
An enormous industry, similar to the national projects of
pyramid-building in Egypt,
cathedral-building in medieval Europe, and prison-camp building in
Stalinist Russia
has emerged in America the production of political martyrs, fallen
heroes and "con-
cept outlaws."
There is nothing new about the political martyr role. In mammalian
politics as in
every other competitive game there is a winner and many losers. Martyrs
are tradition-
ally produced and exploited by losers to symbolize their resentment
against those on
top. Dreyfuss, Sacco-Vansetti, the Scottsboro boys, Alger Hiss, Patrice
Lumumba, Che
Guevara are classic "loser-heroes" all apparently modelled after the
guiding sacrifice
myth of our epoch the political assassination of Christ by a gang of
Italians.
American television culture has added an ancient twist to the
familiar "martyr role".
In a religious ritual rivaling that of the blood-letting Aztecs, the
American people seem
to demand the public immolation of its top officials. This mysterious
process has been
called "The Curse of the Oval Room" to remind us that, since 1900 (the
beginning of
American Empire) the psycho-history of the American Presidency reveals
an ominous
record of failure, break-down and death.
1900-William McKinley...........................assassinated
1904 - Theodore Roosevelt...................repudiated in 1912
1908 - William Howard Taft...................repudiated in 1912
1912 - Woodrow Wilson.........physical and mental breakdown;
repudiated while in office.
1920 - Warren Harding............................died in office
1924 - Calvin Coolidge........................................*
1928 - Herbert Hoover........................repudiated in 1932
1932 - Franklin Roosevelt.........................died in office
1948- Harry Truman...................repudiated while in office
1952 - Dwight Eisenhower...................................**
1960 - John F. Kennedy...........................assassinated
1964 - Lyndon Johnson................repudiated while in office
1968 - Richard Nixon..................repudiated while in office
1972-Gerald Ford............................repudiated in 1976
To summarize this wretched record of executive sacrifice: of the
last 14 presidents,
four have died, eight have been repudiated, and only two, Coolidge and
Eisenhower,
*Alleged to have died before assuming office
**Heart failure while in office
8 S.M.I2.LE. S.M.I2.LE. S.M.I2.LE. S.M.I2.LE. S.M.I2.LE.
The verdict is usually determined by current moral-market-
place values. Blacks and war-resisters, at the moment, have
strong guilt-credits upon which to draw; and are usually
acquitted.
coasted out of the White House, with any psycho-political rapport.
Does some sort of
mythic mystery operate here? One is reminded of the "Ritual of the
Slain Hero" which,
in antiquity, demanded the fall of the leaderDionysus, Anu, Adonis,
Attis, Lao, Jesus,
Osiris and which in modern times has cursed the American throne of
global power.
This ritual destruction of The Leader is a topic which deserves a
more detailed analy-
sis. The series of televised ordeals through which candidate-martyrs
must pass to
reach the sacrificial altar of the Oval Room is particularly
awe-inspiring in an election-
year. In this more modest essay, however, we shall consider the
phenomenon of the
"outlaw martyr", the enormous media industry which commercializes it,
and the om-
nipotent lawyer-caste which produces it.
The Outlaw Martyrs
"Patty and the Harrises read about Jack Scott's new notoriety in
the newspaper room of the Sacramento Public Library where they
went to keep acquainted with the media chronology of the SLA
saga...In their accumulated stacks of books and newspaper clip-
pings they still had the unfinished manuscript Scott had helped
them write before their falling out...Bill seized upon an idea. They
could do Jack and themselves a favor if the manuscript could be
sold to a major book publishing company.
In early May an SLA messenger presented the proposal to Scott
in San Francisco. If Scott would play literary agent for the fugi-
tives, they would split the profits with him..."
Rolling Stone
The "Outlaw Industry" depends upon the cooperation of three groups:
1. The Symbolic Outlaws are the talent, the players.
2. The defense and prosecuting lawyers are the producers.
3. The Media provides the Artistic Direction.
Like the movie and record business the Outlaw Industry needs a
continual supply of
new faces and groups.
The more leisurely print-cultures of the past required no more than
one "Concept
Criminal" a generation. Dreyfuss. Scopes. Alger Hiss. Today's voracious
television
appetite requires a new crop of outlaws each year. 1975, for example,
gave us Joan Lit-
tle, Hurricane Carter, Donald Cinque De Freeze, Patty, Squeaky, Jane
Moore, Emily and
Bill Harris, not to mention a return of the irrepressible Berrigan
Brothers, the peren-
nial pranks of Dick Gregory and the re-incarnation come-back of
Eldridge Cleaver.
Criminals- from the echelons of organized crime to the street
hoodlums - appear on the scene, make their play, and get
dragged off stage, but the lawyers remain administrating and
profiting from the action and booking in the next show.
The rituals and performances of "Concept Criminals" are totally
stereotyped and
perfectly understood by both the players and the consuming public.
1. A symbolic crime publically committed.
2. The chase or surrender.
3. The arrest.
4. The Grand Jury hearings (optional).
5. The pre-trial litigation.
6. The trial and verdict.
7. Sale of media rights by the lawyers.
The Symbolic Crime must be committed deliberately and publicly. The
criminal, in
violation of the customs of the professional crook, claims credit for
the deed! The
taboo-infraction cannot involve the normal motives greed or passion.
The offense
must be a moral flouting of authority. The enormity of the act can
range from the
sophmoric cutup of the Berrigans to bombing, high-jacking and outright
assassination.
The aim is always to morally shock, to incite retaliation, to stir
up public opinion. The
crime (better described as sin) is directed against a sacred object
the flag, draft-
records, an authority figure or symbol the president, a building; or
it must threaten
the sanctified-security airplane high-jacking, Mansonite invasion of
middle-class
homes, Black Panther guns in the streets.
The Chase is, of course, the most basic mammalian thrill
celebrated in every TV
crime show and realized in the hunt for the Weather Underground, the
SLA, the
Cleaver-Leary exiles.
The Arrest scene is the climax which ends the first act of the
Outlaw Play. The
obligatory AP photos and TV shots of the hero shackled in
Galilean-handcuffs,
surrounded by grim-faced agents, great climax moment of triumph for the
police; the
first welcomed spiritual wound for the believers of the symbolized
cause.
The Grand Jury scenes (optional) follow the classic New Testament
script and offer
the martyr's friends their chance to deny the heretic or to stand
defiantly before the
cameras accepting jail rather than betray! This phase in the drama also
allows for the
entrance of informers, double agents and Judas ambiguities.
The Pre-Trial Litigation brings on stage the defense lawyers who
circle the victim like
quarreling vultures fighting for control of publicity, of the script
and of the defense-
fund financing. The victim is also offered options of firing and hiring
counsel, of
demanding self-defense status or of moving side-stage to wait the
sacrificial moment
to come.
Just as every Hollywood picture is "put together" by pro-
ducers, who are always in tight control of the enterprise and
reap the lion's share of the profits, so is the Outlaw Industry
managed by lawyers.
The Trial and Verdict is the climax of the Second Act of the ritual.
From Pontius
Pilate to Kunstler, Sirica and Jaworski the judgement scene is the
central ceremony of
terrestrial civilization. The prosecutors relentlessly present the
vengeful case of the af-
fronted state; the symbol-hero retaliates with Hir denunciation of
Caesar and presents
the alternate heretical morality.
The verdict is usually determined by current moral-market place
values. Blacks and
radical spokesmen, at the moment, have strong guilt-credits upon which
to draw; and
are usually aquitted. Ruchell Magee, the Black San Quentin convict
whose picture was
flashed around the world holding a gun to the head of a kidnapped judge
could not
be convicted!
It is worth noting that the Establishment figures who violate the
game-rules and
the taboos of the political ethic are invariably condemned (although
the shame of
their fall is usually seen as punishment sufficient to save them from
prison). Senator
Joe McCarthy, Parnell Thomas, Nixon, Agnew, Hunt, Liddy, J.Edgar
Hoover, Mitchell,
Colson, have all faced the bar of judgement and lash of coliseum scorn
for fallen
moralists; then the million dollar book contracts soon follow.
The Lawyers are the Producers of the "Outlaw" Show
In a civilized society one expects that violations of social rules
would be fairly in-
vestigated to determine the true fact and that compassionate
intelligence would be
applied to compensate the injured and to ensure that the conditions
which produced
the crime were not repeated. It goes without saying that all parties
involved are com-
mitted to a search for the "T.R.U.T.H." to borrow the words of Judge
John Sirica.
The judicial process in the United States is, however, a bitter
adversary enterprise.
There is little pretense at establishing scientific facts which could
determine whether
the accused has committed a crime or whether the circumstances
mitigated the mis-
deed. The judicial climate is enthusiastically competitive. Sides are
drawn. Strategies
contrived. Secrets kept. Distractions and bluffs are employed by clever
lawyers.
Let us state the truth simply. Crime in America is a business which
is run by (and for
the profit of) those who create the law i.e. the lawyers.
The American government is a government of lawyers. There are more
than 200,000
attorneys on government payrolls!
All domestic opposition to the American government, all anti-social
behavior, crim-
inal and political, is master-minded and administrated by lawyers.
Criminals from
the echelons of organized crime to the street hoodlums appear on the
scene, make
Are we not all media-trained to recognize the nattily dressed
man carrying the chic briefcase who flanks the accused?
their play, and get dragged off stage, but the lawyers remain
administrating and
profiting from the action and booking in the next show. It is
conservative to estimate
that half of the profits from criminal activities in this country end
up in the hands of
lawyers. Litigating crime is a multi-billion dollar business controlled
by the Power of
Attorney.
The old cliche must be up-dated: crime does not pay for the three
victims of every
crime the victim, the tax-payer and the crook. Crime does pay,
however, and hand-
somely, for the attorneys who produce the National Crime Show.
And nowhere is the exploitation of the public, the victims and the
criminal more ob-
vious than in the Symbolic Outlaw business.
"This is a terrible thing. I guess the young people don't want to
fight anymore," said
William Kunstler, after Underground Weatherwoman Jane Alpert surfaced
and an-
nounced that she was giving up illegal revolutionary activities.
When all is said and done the culminating goal of most radical
activism in this coun-
try is The Trial. Surely no one with more than two fingers of forehead
ever believed that
an armed revolution was possible in America. In the last decade the
sporadic violence
expressed by the New Left was and still is symbolic, "Exemplary
actions", to use the
jargon of the Weather romantics. Everyone knows that militancy results
not in the over-
throw of the government but in the well-publicized court trial.
And behind the rhetoric and the headlines operate the Movement
Lawyers who en-
courage, plan, incite, and aid the illegal actions that they later
defend in court. Just as
every Hollywood picture is "put together" by producers, who, although
less well-
known than actors and directors, are always in tight control of the
enterprise and reap
the lion's share of the profits, so is the Outlaw Industry managed by
lawyers.
Let us recall that the prime-time Outlaw capers of the last decade
are better remem-
bered by their indictment-label, and numbers. The Chicago Seven. What
was their
crime? Who were they? The New York 21. What did they do? Gainsville is
the place of
the trial, not of the heretical crimes. We recall the case of Huey and
Angela and Bobby
Seale and Hurricane Carter but are vague about the specific acts they
were accused of.
It is the memory of dissident courtroom postures and legal defenses
that remains.
Which brings us to the box-office issue of the Outlaw Business:
Defense Funds.
Eldridge Cleaver, in 1976, muses that over a million dollars were
raised for the Huey
Newton trials. Where did the money go? The Ellsberg-Russo trial cost
$800,000.
How? Why? Where did the money go?
The scenario is stereotyped. Four times I have found myself in jail-visiting rooms
The American media-consumer is judge-jury-parlor-dictator
choosing at whim and with a flick of the dial, the winner and
losers in the consumer competition.
shortly after the bust talking to the lawyers. The first item of
business is the Defense
Fund. Planning the benefits, the mailing list appeals, the fund-raising
cocktail parties.
The routine defense of defense funds goes like this: the government
has endless
resources to hire prosecutors, investigators, experts, to pay for
tests, transcripts and
deposition interviews. Should not the political martyr be entitled to
the same army of
professional bureaucrats? What injustice! Surely the outlaw should have
as much
money to spend on lawyers as the government!
The Symbolic Criminals themselves do not question the process. What
choice is
there for the chained outlaws facing possible imprisonment? Looking for
forum justifi-
cation? Reassured by the proffered support? And they do know the script.
The rewards for the producer-barrister are not limited to financial.
Aphrodisiac fame
beckons to the defender of the conceptual defendant. Are we not all
media-trained to
recognize the nattily dressed man carrying the chic briefcase who
flanks the accused?
His denunciations of injustice quoted in the morning paper. Applaud,
please, this
courageous fighter for the cause, flamboyantly risking a
contempt-of-court citation.
The most successful of the Movement lawyers is William Kunstler, who
you re-
member, stole the show in the Joan Little trial with a swift media
maneuver that merits
text-book consideration. In one day Battling Bill flew to Raleigh,
North Carolina,
walked into the on-going trial of a black woman, presented himself to
the judge as a
consultant counsel, was rejected by the court as unnecessary, received
a contempt
citation for his fiery denunciation, was sentenced to two hours
incarceration(!), held a
press conference after release, and took the late afternoon flight back
north! The net-
work news that night featured the bold Crusader raid. Bravo Bill! (Joan
Little spent the
night, as usual, in her jail cell.) At the present time Kunstler is
still flying around the
country offering his services to symbolic criminals whose cases promise
wire-service
appeal. (Joan Little is now in the state prison serving a
seven-to-ten-year sentence.)
In fairness to the attorneys it should be pointed out that their
production-monopoly
on the Crime Business is not their central interest. Let us give credit
where credit is
due. Lawyers run the government, they run the corporations and they run
the labor
unions.
The Mass Media Direct The Crime Show
So far we have discussed how the Outlaw Industry operates without
asking the more
basic question: Why? Fame and fortune are, of course, the goals of the
actors,
producers and directors. But why do the consumers buy the stereotyped
act?
Today, reality is created mainly by television and movies
The media producers have become a priest-caste who guide,)
direct, and manage reality.
The first answer: entertainment. "The News" is Spectacle,
Manufactured Drama,
Diversion from Boredom, the chance to vicariously live a richer life.
The American
media-consumer is judge-jury-parlor-dictator choosing at whim and
with a flick of the
dial, the winner and losers in the consumer competition.
Transgressors both mercenary and conceptual play a key role in
the religious
rituals of an electronic media culture. Crooks commit crimes.
Conceptual outlaws
commit sins. The ceremonies of hunting sinners, publicly trying them,
and assigning
retribution is the basic religious ceremony of domesticated primates.
Let's face it, the conceptual outlaws Patty, Galley, Manson,
Berrigan, Huey
Newton although tried in criminal courts are clearly
media-heretics, taboo-
violators, traitors to the national sensitivity. We tread here on the
dangerous turf of
witch-craft, Inquisition, persecution for belief.
At an even deeper level the Outlaw industry plays an important role
in the genetics of
the species. Human evolution, we have learned recently, is the
evolution of the nervous
system, the metamorphic growth in contelligence
(consciousness-intelligence) as new
circuits of the brain emerge. The civilized primate possesses a
four-brain nervous
system bio-survival, motion-emotion, symbolic and social. The key
factor in neural
evolution is communication. The more evolved the species, the faster,
the more com-
plex and the more flexible the modes of communication.
Reality is defined for each species by its channels and methods of
communication.
A primitive tribe communicates by means of grunts, gestures, jungle
drums, runners,
smoke-signals. The early species of domesticated primates communicated
in terms of
printed pages, pictures, costumes, religious dramas, songs and statues.
The reality
thus created preserved social morality and the social survival
techniques which guide
the pre-electronic species.
Today, reality is created mainly by television and movies. The media
producers have
become a priest-caste who guide, direct, and manage reality.
"Now's the time for
violent Revo...looooooo...Shun!"
This quote from Street Fighting Man was heard by millions of young
people in 1969-70.
The singer, Mick Jagger, was at the time living in a luxurious villa in
Southern France
(to avoid taxes), stoned on hedonic, layback drugs.
The Establishment Press is a powerful genetic tool in defining and
defending the
domesticated ethic. The news is "managed" in a cybernetic feed-back
loop in which
The UG press is vitally dependent upon the Outlaw Industry
for its spiritual and economic survival. Martyrs must be pro-
duced on a monthly basis. Injustices must be discovered!
the press tells the public exactly what it senses the public wants
to be told so the
public will buy the paper. Headlines, emphasis-de-emphasis, slants and
plants, photos
are all part of the image shaping, and define the actors who
personalize the morality
3rama. The game is fierce and merciless. While almost everything is
tolerated if kept
private, one public slip, one show of vulnerability and the image is
fixed. SHOT: Muskie
weeping in the snow of New Hampshire. CUT TO: Wallace standing at the
schoolroom
door. FLASH: Teddy at the bridge.
"Public Image" is a collective neurological imprint which requires
continual re-
enforcement. Just as the private citizen must be reminded every minute
of his waking
life that he is who he thinks he is so must public image be
maintained by means of
repetition. The persona of Winston Churchill, for example, had to be
hammered out like
a metallic mask and once formed had to be continually worked on to keep
the features
clear. One false move and the mask is badly damaged, perhaps
irreparably.
An amusing twist in media-image-making occurred in the Patty Hearst
case. For a
century the Hearst empire has probably been responsible for more
lurid-pop caricature
media images than any other reality-industry in the land. And suddenly
it became
necessary for Hearst's San Francisco Examiner to change the image of
America's
most famous terrorist into the role of a misguided innocent girl. And a
tearful Mrs.
Hearst denounces the press for pre-judging her child!
The Underground Press operates in true-magnetic polarity to the
orthodox press.
The establishment morality is consistently opposed. Everything that the
orthodox
defines as sin is gleefully sanctified by the counter-culture
publications. Conspiracy
theories, rooted in the deliberate "dirt" of the underground, thrive
and blossom. There
is no diabolical accusation against orthodox dogma that cannot be
blithely levelled.
The readers understand that "facts" are not the issue. The more
implausible the
charge, the more titillated the audience.
These remarks should not be interpreted as criticism of the
counter-culture press. A
valuable function is performed. Monolithic state morality is designed
to produce the
efficient insect hive with all individuality and mutant differences
suppressed. But
absolute conformity in a social group has a negative genetic effect
closing off adapt-
ability and flexibility. The blind counter-reactivity of the
underground press is a healthy
phenomenon in a primitive society. The danger comes when a rebellious
paper is taken
over by a rational, responsible faction espousing a narrow political
cause. The Berkeley
Barb serves best when it is mindlessly eclectic, scattering its shots
wildly.
The UG press is vitally dependent upon the Outlaw Industry for its spiritual and
Successful Pop-Stars are skillful market-researchers, antici-
pating trends, probing the consciousness of the young, per-
forming for their constituencies the same function as the
establishment media - saying what their public wants to hear.
economic survival. Martyrs must be produced on a monthly basis.
Injustices must be
discovered! Conceptual crimes are incited, encouraged and directed by
headline fiat.
The communiques from each terrorist cult are breathlessly transmitted.
Pronuncia-
mentos and anarchic threats rushed into print. Conceptual crimes
passionately ap-
plauded.
The Pop-Music Contribution to the Outlaw Business cannot be
over-estimated.
Successful Pop-Stars are skillful market-researchers, anticipating
trends, probing the
consciousness of the young, performing for their constituencies the
same function as
the establishment media saying what their public wants to hear. With
shameless
"sincerity" they croon the messages of the moment, accurately
reflecting the up-to-
date counter-culture-adolescent fad: drugs, long-hair, peace,
revolution, Woodstock,
laid-back, ecology. A more elegant, ancient and cynic thread of
"Sin-for-Profit" is ex-
pressed by Mick Jagger singing Sympathy for the Devil, Sister
Morphine, Brown
Sugar. Gullible groupies gape as their bisexual Satanic Majesties boogy
down to
Altamont to get their fair share of abuse a certain decadent grandeur
glowing
around their Cadillac perversions.
The most blatant banal exploiter of the Outlaw Trade is John Lennon,
who in 1971
reaped still another fortune from a self-indulgent album in which he
admitted that he
didn't believe in any of the dozen causes he had previously profited by
singing about!
In his admitted compulsion to say-and-do anything to hit the top charts
Lennon, in one
year, ripped off a Gubernatorial candidate's slogan (Come Together),
the motto of the
Militant Blacks (Power to the People, Right On) and the peace movement
(Give Peace a
Chance). He then banked the proceeds and hired a platoon of
who?...lawyers...to con-
vince the Republican administration that he should be allowed to stay
in the American
Tax-haven because he was "harmless."
More successful in skimming the energies of the Outlaw Assembly
Line, and much
more malevolent, is Robert Zimmerman, who first conned onto the
media-stage by
taking the name of a lyric Welch poet and chanting plastic protest
songs to a bar-
biturate beat. (If this sounds like a Philip Dick Sci-Fi horror story,
be assured that it is.)
"Something is happening, but you don't know what it is, do you Mr.
Jones?" sang
Zimmerman in the 60's and the uneducated, naive nervous systems of
Squeaky
Fromme and Sandra Goode were inundated by the authoritative voice
warning "A Hard
Rain's going to fall." Sneering hatred and warning contempt amplified
electronically
and broadcast to create hateful realities for millions of adolescent
listeners.
It's the great Outlaw Exploitation game, folks, more fun and
easier than Texas oil-drilling. Just wait until the next martyr
is discovered. And watch it gush!
Once stardom is achieved the snarling rebel retires as a millionaire
and adopts a
scornful posture towards those unfortunate enough to have opened their
nervous
systems to imprint his cosmic snivel.
Then, in 1972, smarting from the accusation that he had copped out,
"Dylan" elec-
trifies the counter-culture with his elegy for George Jackson! Once
again warning
hatred is turned towards the establishment/The record is a sensation!
Zimmerman
fans weep in gratitude that the bard has come back to fight injustice!
Enormous air-
play! The single rockets to the top! Dylan is again the Messiah! There
is only one little
flaw in the operation:
There is one person who is not around to share the royalties and the
applause. The
slain martyr. George Jackson is truly Dead. But no matter, there's a
new seeding of
discontent, a new victim to sanctify, a new generation of gullible
youth thus en-
couraged to nihilist sacrifice and stupid rebellion. And a new wave of
popularity for the
clever kid who in one album made more money imitating Guthrie than
Woody ever saw
in his life. It's the great Outlaw Exploitation game, folks, more fun
and easier than
Texas oil-drilling. Just wait until the next martyr is discovered. And
watch it gush!
Who's next? Now, remember, don't get political because you can't be for
anything; or
take sides, because McGovern's position on Zionism may be suspect. But
here comes
Hurricane Carter and another cheap shot at the charts.
Sure, Hurricane Carter deserves our sympathy. So do thousands of
other prisoners
who bought the Zimmerman line of cynical snarling hatred and stuck
needles in arm or
quit working on Maggie's farm or robbed Mr. Jones' bank where Dylan
happens to keep
his money.
Perhaps Hurricane should be free but not at the expense of another
generation of
alack kids who listen to the snarling lines of Dylan's new inflammatory
rip-off telling
them that it's not safe for a black man to walk the streets.
Meanwhile Squeaky Fromme and Sandra Goode stand in a Sacramento
Courtroom
and, for believing exactly what Zimmerman told them in the 60's ("You
don't know
what's happening Judge McGrath...a hard retribution is gonna fall on
the polluters")
are led off to life-imprisonment because they were unlucky enough to
have owned
record-players in their vulnerable adolescence.
The profound neurological mischief done by the Zimmerman Effect is
not under-
stood because of its invisible pervasiveness. Electroids, primates
robotized by elec-
tronic brain programming, are of course, unaware that they inhabit a
reality that has
At exactly the time when this enormous genetic wave was
open to receive a post-Einsteinian reality, SHAZAM!...4000
years of Old Testament pessimism popped-up in the person
of the Electronic Bad-Trip Evangelist.
been selectively imposed on them. Neurological revelation occurs
when one discovers
how the alternate reality one inhabits has been imposed on one. This is
usually a
moment of exultant release although it can be experienced as horror.
The first Post-Hiroshima generation was the first completely
electroid. At exactly
the time when this enormous genetic wave was open to receive a
post-Einsteinian
reality, SHAZAM!..4000 years of Old Testament pessimism popped-up in
the person of
the Electronic Bad-Trip Evangelist.
The one song "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" probably caused more
biological and
philosophic suicides than any poem in western history. This is a
tribute, not to the
dismal poet, but to electronic amplification.
Examine, if you can, with a precise mind the Zimmerman lyrics of the
1960's
snarling, whining, scorning, mocking. "Just Like a Woman." "No, no, no,
It ain't me
Babe." "Subterranean Homesick Blues." "It's All Right Ma, I'm Only
Bleeding."
The classic techniques of Brain-washing are unconsciously employed
in these
albums. First the dogmatic command, "Everybody Must Get Stoned",
encourages a
chemically induced state of neural receptivity. Note the semantics:
stoned. Don't get
high; don't space out; don't trip (with its multi-reality flexible
implication), don't get
blissed out. "You must get stoned" sung to heavy, slow plodding beat.
And accom-
panied by the other nihilist hits which systematically converted a
generation to
neurotic complaint.
Read, if you dare, the lyrics to "Like a Rolling Stone" and cringe
at the deliberate
trampling of hope and self-confidence. Barbiturate Barbarism. "How Does
It Feel?" It
feels like that Old Testament Masochism Bob.
The evil of the Zimmerman Effect is not just that it imprinted
destructive, nasty
realities on young brains the 4000-year Judeo-Christian culture is
mobilized to do
that without help but even more ominous is the fake, plastic
alienation from direct
experience. Electronics without erotics is robotry. The Zimmerman
Effect alienates
because the media-manipulator broadcasts about other people's
experience, not his
own, to an anonymous audience. Did Dylan stand on picket lines? Get his
head busted
by Company police? March at Selma in the hard rain? Get tear-gassed at
Chicago?
Sleep in the mud at Woodstock (just down the road from his comfy
retreat), lay on a
roach-ridden mattress in a state prison? Put his body on the line in
any real action?
Live the fugitive life? Go into exile during the Nixon-Agnew years? Or
put his nervous
system on the line in neuronaut exploration? Yes, we know what he was
against. But
what was he for, besides fake nostalgia? When an entire generation was
on the move,
swirling into unchartered neurogenetic territory, where was the young
millionaire
Read the lyrics to "Like a Rolling Stone" and cringe at the
deliberate trampling of hope and self-confidence. Barbituate
Barbarism.
waif? Protected, dear boy, in the arms of producer Al Grossman,
promoter Bill Graham,
3olda Meir, Allen Ginsberg, Joan Baez and a supporting brigade of
Mother figures?
Looking back we see that "Dylan" truly never understood that it
ain't no good to let
other people get your kicks for you.
Academic Zimmerman groupies will protest that it is not the function
of the minstrel
to storm the walls of Troy or beat against the wind on argonaut craft,
but rather to
:ass on, in verse, the myth of the era.
But there are two factors which make the Zimmerman Effect a
perversion of the an-
cient and honorable bardic role:
1. Zimmerman portrays not the glory and the heroic pride of an
evolving species, but
the dark, craven themes of the loser cult;
2. The true Minstrel sings in person; wanders around in
face-to-face contact with
those he is influencing. He is forced into eye-ball confrontations with
Mr. Jones and
Maggy's Father and everyone watches to see if he's for real or if he's
all talk. It just ain't
no good to let the agents, record producers and tax-lawyers take your
licks for you. You
gotta get down and look into the eyes of the Squeaky Frommes you are
urging into
rebellion.
It's no accident that the Weathermen, the most publicized group of
Dylan groupies, a
bewildered, fugitive band of terrorists now cut-off from their culture
and condemned to
underground existence, took their name from a depressing "Dylan" song.
One thing is
certain as the Uncivil War of the 1960's fades into ancient history
we surely don't
need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows and we've all been
blown light-
years away beyond the rhetoric of violent revolution, haven't we
Bernadine?
We can now speak frankly about the Zimmerman Effect because it is
waning. We can
-: ,v view with compassion, not only the passive, but the active
casualties of Electroid
Brain-wash. Zimmerman, like Manson, was the original victim of the
Effect. Which oc-
curs when Electronic and chemical neural-vulnerabilities are ripped-off
by commercial
exploiters. "Dylan" whined endlessly for himself and his own Lost
Innocence. However,
recent statements and actions it is clear that Dylan is beginning to
sense that it was
no accident that he was propelled into premature pop-star status by
forces he himself
detests, beginning to discover that you can't look back. Dylan now
seems to be
listening, learning. He seems able, at last, to sidestep the
literary Mafia which sought
to freeze him as a beatnik poet. Dylan is mutating. Don't retire Bob,
you haven't started
Television, is, of course, the major manufacturer and seller of the
Outlaw Myth. We
are familiar with the classic confrontations: cowboys-Indians, cops and
robbers,
We surely don't need a Weatherman to know which way the
wind blows and we've all been blown light-years beyond the
rhetoric of violent revolution, haven't we Bernadine?
Romans vs. Palestinians, shorthairs vs. hippies, FBI vs. terrorists.
Six months after SWAT
premiers on prime-time, imitation SWAT teams of kooky-cops are
organized in every
local police force and a new outlaw tactic is popularized. Angry
husbands who, a year ago
would have smashed a dish on the floor and headed for the neighborhood
saloon, now
obediently grab a gun, hold the Missus hostage and docilely crouch in
the parlor until
TV crews arrive and bull-horns command them to come out with their
hands on their
heads.
Meanwhile Henry Fonda plays Clarence Darrow and F.Lee Bailey plays
Perry Mason
and Petrocelli gets a million dollars from the Hearst Foundation to
defend Patty.
The "freeze-shot" which appropriately closes this essay was just
handed to me by
my neighbor in the next cell of the San Diego Federal Prison, Eldridge
Cleaver.
"THE DELL DATELINE
DECEMBER 1,1975
A WEEKLY ROUND-UP OF CURRENT AND FUTURE DELL BOOKS
PUBLICITY FOR DELL SALES PERSONNEL AND BOOKSELLERS
SOUL ON ICE TO HEAT UP
Look for new action on Eldridge Cleaver's SOUL ON ICE (available in
both a Dell Books
and Delta edition, 95 cents and $1.95). After years of exile in France,
(sic) the Black Power
radical has this week made a dramatic return to the States. His
forthcoming trial
should keep both him and his books in the public eye."
Partners In Time
September 1973
Folsom Prison
A letter came to me in Folsom Prison from Vienna transmitting a
friendly signal from
Andrei Amalrik and his beautiful wife. Andrei is serving his second
three-year sentence
in a Russian prison for predicting the decline and fall of the Soviet
state. The KGB
plans to keep him incarcerated for life.
Vasilios Choulos, Kent Russell and Melvin Belli have just written a
brief challenging
my illegal kidnapping in Afghanistan by American agents. We sent a copy
to Kim Dae
Jung, who was abducted from Japan by South Korean agents. The American
gover-
-lent protested the illegal snatching of Kim because the secret leaked.
Alexandras Panagoulis, just released from five years in Greek
prison, is broad-
:asting his message of intransigent courage. He's going to write a
book, if they let him.
The secret police hate publicity.
Meanwhile, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, and Andrei Sakharov,
physicist, con-
tinue to uncover facts about Soviet police methods:
'But here we have a peculiarity, I would almost say an advantage of
our social
structure: not a single hair falls or will fall from my head or from
the heads of mem-
bers of my family without the knowledge or approval of the KGB. That is
the extent
to which we are observed, shadowed, spied upon and listened to."
It's a small dissident world now, and a small exclusive club of
fearless, free men and
women. So it goes. Nixon is still in the White House and Cleaver is
still in exile and I'm
still in Folsom Prison.
Political Voyeurism
September 1973
Folsom Prison
The compulsion to spy on others is derived, so it is said, from the
sexual curiosity of
the pre-pubescent child who burns to know what grown-ups do behind
bedroom doors.
Reaching maturity the sexually confident person expresses erotic energy
in love-
making. The voyeurism of childhood remains as a delicious form of
foreplay. For those
who do not mature sexually, whose erotic expressions are inhibited,
voyeurism, the
surreptitious spying on others, can become a highly sexual obsession.
As with most
other guilt-ridden "sexual deviates," the voyeur is invariably a
political conservative
shocked, moralistic, and censorious about behaviors which he
compulsively and
secretly seeks to discover. We think of the priest in the confessional
or of vice squads
or of J. Edgar Hoover, forbidding extramarital expressions to his
agents on pain of dis-
charge, and who, himself unmarried, presumptive virgin voyeur
extraordinaire, guard-
ed files containing reports, tapes, and photos of the sexual
peccadillos of American
Politicians.
We define the 1960s as a time of erotic explosion. But the freedom
of sexual ex-
ession was not shared by all. While part of the population was making
love, another
part was reading spy novels about enemies doing bad things that must be
investigated
and stopped. The cold war petered out when it became obvious that the
Commie lead-
e-s were basically hard-working, no-nonsense law and order folk and
that the "bad"
things were being done right here in America by grass-smoking,
long-haired people
who were growing in numbers and influence.
So the C.I.A. is called home to join the Hoover-gang and the
Liddy-plumbers in spy-
ng on their fellow Americans.
Space Migration Intelligence Increase Life Extension 23
Gordon Liddy's First Spy Caper
August 1973
Folsom Prison
It was Saturday night the 64-room mansion at Millbrook, New York,
filled with
staff members of the Castalia Foundation and weekend guests. Dinner in
the oak-
oaneled dining room, low tables and cushions. The big stereo speakers
trembled with
Dylan, Beatles, Ali Akbar. Later, around the huge fireplace, David
played guitar.
Musicians came to Millbrook to learn that sound was energy to play
with. Strange new
vibrations filled the air. Painters, discovering that light was energy
to free from canvas,
splashed, rippled, exploded color across the walls of Millbrook,
chromatic patterns
bubbling, rainbow crystals blossoming, multi-hued cellular blobs
undulating. Beautiful
women moved with yogic grace and most of the men wore longish hair. The
year was
1965.
Outside the house, crouched behind dark bushes, binoculars glued to
his eyes, G.
Gordon Liddy peered through the windows at the activities within the
mansion. He, the
first "square" American to witness a "psychedelic" light show, was
whispering in-
structions to the walkie-talkie pressed tenderly against his cheek.
Twenty uniformed,
booted, armed sheriffs in cowboy hats were staked out around the
mansion, a real-life
T.V. posse led by two assistant D.A.'s, Alphonse Rosenblatt and
G.Gordon Liddy. It was
decided to wait until the revelers within the castle retired to their
bedrooms. Liddy was
used to waiting. Castalia had been under surveillance for weeks. G.
Gordon Liddy and
commando staff hidden behind trees spying into living rooms and
bedrooms and bath-
rooms, noting who slept where, and then, back in the courthouse,
endless conferences
with maps, floor plans, schedules. It was an exciting caper.
At midnight the raiders burst into the mansion, pushing open
unlocked doors. Liddy
leading four troopers bounded upstairs to the third floor and smashed
open the door to
the master bedroom. She was reclining on pillows on the mirror bed. I
was sitting on the
edge of the bed talking to my son Jack and his friend. I stood up and
looked into the
wild eyes of G. Gordon Liddy.
As with most other guilt-ridden "sexual deviates," the voyeur
is invariably a political conservative - shocked, moralistic,
and censorious about behaviors which he compulsively and
secretly seeks to discover.
We were ordered, illegaly, "Don't move," while nervous deputies
searched the room,
confiscating Her innocent geranium plants and boxes of papers. I was
given per-
mission to call a lawyer, but mysteriously, the phone was "out of
order." Rosenblatt
and Liddy took me aside to a small, unused bedroom and played out the
Mutt-Jeff,
good-guy-bad-guy interrogation. Policemen are usually fascinated by me
and love to
initiate deep conversations. In their hearts they cherish envy and a
secret hope that I
am right.
As I have done a thousand times, I patiently outlined the
scientific, philosophic,
historical, political and legal dimensions of what we were doing.
Rosenblatt argued
gently. Liddy snarled about narcotics, addiction, the murder-weed,
moral corruption,
and running us out of the country. That's a tape I'd like to have
played back.
I recall one zany moment. Liddy accused us of being dangerous
enemies of society. I
explained that society would, in time, be very grateful for what we
were doing. Then
Liddy made this strange remark. "Hell will freeze over," he said,
"before the people of
this county erect a statue of you in the town square."
The "big raid on Millbrook' was, of course, a bungled bust, the
search warrant
illegal, no evidence found, the case thrown out of court. But Liddy,
undaunted, raced
around the country talking breathlessly to wide/eyed Rotarians about
his crusade
against wickedness. He used the first-initial middle-name label in
imitation of his
hero, J.Edgar Hoover, G. Gordon Liddy.
Helicopters and Teepees
July 1973
Folsom Prison
Well, this cops and robbers drama which was to last so long and
involve such a
global cast of characters had just begun. The surveillance seige of
Castalia continued.
Roadblocks. Automatic stop-and-search of every long-haired car. Strange
looking men
were coming around to repair the phone once a week. I felt secure.
Circuit One scan-
ning revealed that no one was going to be killed. Circuit Two instincts
assured that we
had control of the territory. We allowed no drugs in the house. There
must be a hundred
stashes still buried in the woods for future archeologists to uncover.
Minor possession
beefs were nothing to worry about. No one went to jail for a handful of
grass. It was
comforting to know that the townspeople of Millbrook were with us. By
this time the
locals knew us well. We were the best customers of every store in town.
The thirty
oeople at Castalia spent one hundred thousand dollars a year in a tiny
town with a two-
block shopping district. Our people were young, good-looking, happy,
open. The con-
servative village naturally adopted and protected us against the
ambitious, tricky
politicians from Poughkeepsie. Millbrook was populated by tradesmen and
workers
whose families had settled there to service the castle where we lived.
Dietrich, the
utilities baron who created the estate, had made his money in carbide
lighting. He was
the first to popularize the new form of illumination. Legend whispered
that every street
light in the state of New York was testimony to his genius. He imported
hundreds of
Italian stonemasons to build gates, towers, bridges, miles of stone
walls, a Bavarian
bowling alley, waterfalls, gothic garden cottages. For thirty years
after his death the
Then we swept in with young Mellon wealth and Harvard char-
isma. The lawns were lush and green again. The great castle
gleamed with light.
grand estate had crumbled in disuse. Wild vegetation covered the
lawns and gardens.
The nobility drained away. Rich Americans lacked the energy to maintain
estates with
acres of lawns and gardens.
Then we swept in with young Mellon wealth and Harvard charisma. The
lawns were
lush and green again. The great castle gleamed with light. Young people
rich with con-
fidence and vision drove through the huge portcullis gates, a new
aristocracy. (Aside
from the cosmic God satori business, what acid did to millions of young
people was
to ennoble them, crack them loose from the middle class monolith, free
them to wan-
der around the country, a new amateur royalty playing in the garden of
incredible
goodies, treating the world as a here-now paradise to be gratefully
enjoyed. The
Laguna Beach hippies used to dance barefoot through the beaches and
mountains
murmuring, "Thank you God.")
The village of Millbrook stirred again with grandeur, however funky
and controver-
sial. World attention focused on the castle grounds. Once again the
village watched and
listened and gossiped about the goings-on at the Big House. And once
again the Grand
Old Party politicians from Poughkeepsie stirred with know-nothing,
Cromwellian
puritan anger at anything "foreign," glamorous, frivolous, elegant. One
of the many
curious aspects of American culture is the absence of an "upper" class,
a "high"
society, an hedonic aristocracy. America since Roosevelt has been a
heavy, feet-on
the-ground John Wayne society. The triumph of mediocrity and
practicality. America
has just reached that stage of growth when military, political, and
economic security
makes possible the emergence of an erotic Psi-Phy philosophic elite.
The alchemical
renewal. The time trip. Alexandria. Eleusis. Delhi under the Moguls.
Elizabethan
England. Palermo. Prague. Konorak and Khajuraho. The India of King
Asoka. The Chou
Dynasty in China.
At the Millbrook summer pageants a hundred consciously garbed
initiates wandered
through the grounds, under wide porticos. Ambassadors came from the
cultural
duchies, from Herman-on-Hudson, from RAND, from Palo Alto, from
Hyannisport, from
Bethesda, from Beverly Hills. From "high" society came Ronnie Laing,
Allen Ginsberg,
Alan Watts, Ken Kesey, swamis, gurus, stars of every magnitude, while
great
musicians strolled across terraces filling the warm air with sound,
light machines pour-
ed color patterns on the outside walls, fountains played and, in the
bushes, his Ford-
ham morals outraged, his soviet mind seething with civil service
ambitions, G.Gordon
Liddy watched.
Twice a week we would hear the ominous flap-flap-flap of
the whirling paddles and watch the sheriff's helicopter circ-
ling above and men with cameras and binoculars pointed at
Arcadian bliss.
The roadblocks and surveillance continued, so we closed the castle
and set up
camps in the forests. The tepee is the most sensual living arrangement
ever designed
by mankind; soft, fur-lined nosecone of pleasure pointed at the stars.
Twice a week we
would hear the ominous flap-flap-flap of the whirling paddles and watch
the sheriff's
helicopter circling above and men with cameras and binoculars pointed
at Arcadian
bliss. Liddy used to tell lurid stories of seeing naked women (!)
emerging from tepees.
This is what police work is all about! We treasured those moments of
surveillance,
feeling a strong bond of affiliation with Vietnamese peasants and Che
guerillas and
African lions and all wild, free creatures on this planet gazing up in
surprise at armed
agents, Sci-Fi spies in government motor ships. Some of the forest
people wondered if
we could bring down a helicopter with the power of thought. Others
suggested laser
rays. But the wheel of karma was to balance everything.
Woodstock and Watergate
July 1973
Folsom Prison
Head-high dissident youth ended the Vietnam war, drove Johnson from
the White
House, and would have elevated Robert Kennedy to the presidency, but
Sirhan's steel
ballots elected Nixon.
If Bobby Kennedy had lived...well, among other things, the control
of drugs would
have been given to physicians and researchers in H.E.W.
The night of his election Nixon was interviewed in the locker room
and, in flush of
super-bowl victory, revealed the philosophy which was to guide his
administration:
Keep Fighting. The influence of Vince Lombardi (win at any cost) on the
American right-
wing cannot be overestimated. It is no accident that Lombardi died in
Washington.
Another omen.
Nixon was later to blame Watergate on the counter-culture, claiming
that his special
police force was necessary to deal with anarchy and disorder in the
late sixties.
Very few Americans, even in these post-Watergate days, understand
how Nixon set
up his very own Special Service elite police, whose mission was to
harass, intimidate,
arrest and imprison dissenters. Under the guise of "drug control" this
Orwellian coup
was accomplished with the approval of middle-aged liberals. It was so
simple. The
Narc budget jumped from 22 million to 140 million. Narcs are
"mood-police," "thought-
police" pursuing the victimless crime of cultural dissent.
Constitutional rights were
suspended and martial law (no-knock, stop-and-frisk, curfew, etc) was
imposed selec-
tively on one easily identifiable segment of the population, the
victims exactly those
Space Migration Intelligence Increase Life Extension 31
Woodstock and Watergate
Fear descended upon this land. The spokesmen for the counter-
culture were arrested, harassed, silenced. The press coop-
erated completely, endorsed the dope-program and piously
denounced the counter-cultures.
who are persecuted by the same police tactics in communist,
socialist, and right-wing
dictatorships thoughout the world. Nixon nixing pant-suits and Agnew
rock and roll.
Fear descended upon this land. The spokesmen for the counter-culture
were
arrested, harassed, silenced. The press cooperated completely. Slanting
reporters,
columnists, and editorial writers endorsed the dope-pogrom and piously
denounced
the counter-culture. Most everyone born before 1930 hated the sixties,
felt alienated,
left behind.
We were told to blame ourselves for being too innocent, optimistic,
for failing to
recognize the reality of evil. The Manson-Nixon paradox. Lampoon
editors got rich en-
tertaining New Yorker audiences with the bizarre notion that Woodstock
was a lem-
ming-assemblage of death-cultists.
Everyone with a media hook, a money itch, an ambition habit can make
it by playing
on the mediocracy's fear of the free unknown. G. Gordon Liddy, on the
basis of his
Millbrook dramatics, rides it to the White House as super-narc. Any
ex-Marine with a
sadism kink too conspiratorial for the F.B.I, or state police
volunteers for the new
gestapo. American narcs make expense-paid tours around the world
teaching foreign
police how to detect the new enemy. And at home neo-Stoicism becomes
the philoso-
phic cop-out. Cynical retreat from hopeful Utopianism. Swami turn-off
passivity. Think
little. "Lay low" replaces "stay high." Don't you realize that this
Nixon wave of repres-
sion was a check-out test to see where we're at and where we want to go?
The Adversary Process
June 1973
Folsom Prison
Nixon often referred to "the other side" in justifying his
repressive moves. The
enemy is whomever keeps one from power. Brezhnev and Mao become allies,
useful in
keeping one another in office. Villagers bombed in Cambodia are not
enemies. They
aren't even people. The real enemies are Muskie, Larry O'Brien and the
dissenting young.
This is the global trend that leads to international detente and
domestic repression.
Brezhnev drinks champagne with Nixon and goes home to imprison the
Russian dis-
senters. Chou En-Lai pals with Kissinger and crushes the attempt of
Chiang Ch'ing
(Mao's wife) and the youthful Red Guards to loosen the bureaucracy.
Algeria patches
up its quarrel with America and turns the police on its college
students. Nixon swaps
oil for jets with the Shah while Iranian students picket in the
streets. Etc.
Watergate is the last phase of the War Between the Generations.
Nixon, forced to
organize special police to deal with protesting youth, picks out his
own "good kid"
John Dean to be the fall guy. It turns out that Watergate was just a
bunch of irrespon-
sible kids masterminded by Dean and Segretti in over-zealous opposition
to another
bunch of irresponsible kids led by Dan Ellsberg and Tony Russo.
One of the many enlightening facets of Watergate is the growing
realization that the
whole mess has been created by lawyers. By the "whole mess" I refer to
the govern-
ment. A country run by law is a country ruined by lawyers. It is
neurologically im-
possible for a lawyer or a military man to think creatively or to act
in harmony with
nature. Obfuscation and opposition based on paralyzed precedent. There
are over
200,000 lawyers working for the United States government.
Space Migration Intelligence Increase Life Extension 33
Secrecy
May 1973
Folsom Prison
Karma works with perfect precision in this life. Whatever you think
comes true and
so does its opposite. In his State of the Union message on crime, Nixon
vows, "We
shall have no pity on criminals." Eight months later he and Agnew are
looking around
for permissive judges. The adversary process gets everyone in the end.
Every jury is
hung. Vice versus. We get to play every part in the dramas we initiate.
There's no way to
avoid total responsibility. The very moment World War II ends, the
wheel flips over and
the Germans start becoming Americans, Americans transform into good
Germans, and
the Jews develop the most efficient military and secret police in the
world. Beware of
your enemies because you are going to become them. Right-wing
anti-communists
ape Soviet methods. Stalin becomes Czar. "We'll throw every crook in
jail," promises
John Mitchell. Every prisoner is a jailer. Eldridge taught us that.
Roosevelt the great
liberator condemns the working man to Archie Bunker slavery. No
amnesty, said
Nixon. No one learns. A convict leans on my cell bars delightedly
cursing Nixon and
Agnew. The warden's wife has just been shot. "Those dick-sucking
motherfuckers will
change their mind about capital punishment now." "How about amnesty for
everyone," I suggest, motioning towards him and myself and them over
there. "String
'em all up," says the convict who opposes the death penalty.
When you think about it, secrecy is the cause of the whole flap.
Ellsberg and Russo
published some secrets. Leaks in the White House. The plumbers steal
Ellsberg's
Secrecy
I can tell you bugging is nothing to worry about. I've been
tapped, surveilled, tailed for ten years. The Algerians knew
every move we made. That's why they liked us.
psychiatric secrets. And bug the Democrat's phone calls. The entire
White House is
involved in cover-up. The hearings center on cover-up of the cover-up.
Secrecy is the enemy of sanity and loving trust. If you keep
secrets, you are an in-
sane paranoiac. Concealment is the seed source of every human conflict.
Secrecy is
always caused by guilt or fear. Liddy's parents were guilty about sex.
And Nixon's
parents. It drives them crazy when he secretly suspects that she's
keeping secrets so
he hires a private detective and vice versus.
Let's break out of the huddle. Before J. Edgar Hoover there were no
secret police in
this country. Before World War II there was no C.I.A. and America was
amazingly un-
concerned with secrecy. The hidden sickness has become lethally
epidemic in the last
forty years.
Now comes the electronic revolution. Reveal-ation. Bugging equipment
effective at
long distances is inexpensive and easily available. Good. Liberals want
stiff laws
against bugging. It's the wrong move. Legalize everything. Legalize
bugging. Let's
forget artificial secrets and concentrate on the mysteries.
I can tell you bugging is nothing to worry about. I've been tapped,
surveilled, tailed
for ten years. In Algeria everyone knew of at least three taps on all
international calls
Algerian, French and C.I.A. The Algerians knew every move we made.
That's why they
liked us. I was called in once by the Swiss Secret Service about some
threats on my
life. They offered me body guards. I looked at the chief agent and
laughed. "Moi! Merci,
non." The agent laughed with me. "Professor, the Swiss police never
sleep. We watch
over you twenty-four hours a day." Any real true intimate secrets are
preserved in the
tender codes of love. Privacy is woven with electric threads of contact
that cannot be
INTERCEPTED. Love has nothing to hide.
Secrecy is the original sin. Fig leaf in the Garden of Eden. The
basic crime against
love. The issue is fundamental. What a blessing that Watergate has been
uncovered to
teach us the primary lesson. The purpose of life is to receive,
synthesize, and transmit
energy. Communication fusion is the goal of life. Any star can tell you
that. Com-
munication is love. Secrecy, withholding the signal, hoarding, hiding,
covering up the
light is motivated by shame and fear, symptoms of the inability to
love. Secrecy means
that you think love is shameful and bad. Or that your nakedness is
ugly. Or that you
hide unloving, hostile feelings, Seed of paranoia and distrust.
Those who love have no need to hide their actions. As so often
happens, the extreme
wing is half right for the wrong reasons. They say primly: if you have
done nothing
wrong, you have no fear of being bugged. Exactly. But the logic goes
both ways. Then
F.B.I, files, and C.I.A. dossiers, and White House conversations should
be open to all.
36 S.M.I2.LE. S.M.I2.L.E S.M.I2.L.E S.M.I2LE S.M.I2.LE
Let every thing hang open. Let government be totally visible.
The last, the very last people to hide their actions should be
the police and government.
Let every thing hang open. Let government be totally visible. The
last, the very last
people to hide their actions should be the police and government.
We operate on the assumption that everyone knows everything, anyway.
There
is nothing and no way to hide. This is the acid message. We're all on
cosmic T.V.
every moment. We all play starring roles in the galactic broadcast:
This Is Your Life. I
remember the early days of neurological uncovering, desperately
wondering where I
could go to escape. Run home, hide under the bed, in the closet, in the
bathroom? No
way. The relentless camera "I" follows me everywhere. We can only keep
secrets from
ourselves.
And none of the legal experts get the point of Watergate. Cox
chasing leaks from
his own staff.
We recall the classic political scandals involving secrets: Dreyfus,
Alger Hiss, the
Rosenbergs. The heroic figures around whom Watergate revolves, Tony and
Dan. Brave
Russian dissenters uncovering the secret that everyone knows about
Soviet
repression.
I laugh at government bugging. Let the poor, deprived, bored
creatures listen to our
conversations, tape our laughter, study our transmissions. Maybe it
will turn them on.
Perhaps they'll get the message our love-shine transmits: there is
nothing to fear.
The Curse of the Oval Room
August 1973
Folsom Prison
Power corrupts, rots, destroys, curses those who impose their rules
upon others. We
can only explain the addictive inability of politicians to recognize
this historical fact as
another one of those weird and faulty wirings that incapacitate the
crippled nervous
systems of our species.
Before 1914, the one throne of planetary power was contested by the
kingdoms of
Europe. After World War I the one crown passed to the Presidency of the
United States.
The word "crown" is not a metaphor but a scientific construct referring
to a confirm-
able neurological state. Enormous psychic energies are directed towards
the person
who assumes the position of global power-holder. Unless this person
possesses extra-
ordinary psychological strength, clarity, and flexibility, his
neurology blows a fuse. It is
not altogether fanciful to refer to the "curse" of power that crazes
all but those rare
sovereigns who are genetically prepared for the responsibility. It is
one of the many
paradoxes of power that it can never be safely bought. The strength to
rule is a neuro-
geneticgift.
Since the time of Woodrow Wilson (Nixon's broken hero, by the way)
ten men have
ruled the world from the Oval Room of the White House. Three have died
in office
Harding, Roosevelt, and Kennedy. Four lived out their days crippled by
failure
Wilson, Hoover, Johnson, and Nixon. The remaining three Coolidge,
Truman, and
Eisenhower also teach us something about the enigmatic, humbling
pursuit of
puissance.
The Curse of the Oval Room
Power corrupts, rots, destroys, curses those who impose
their rules upon others.
And in the background the wailing Cassandra keen of Martha Mitchell:
"John and I
had everything going for us until he went to Washington. Now we've lost
everything."
It's a God-damned Greek morality play. Two days before the Agnew expose
I wondered
how many more disasters must come down before the writing in the sky
becomes
clear.
"G. Gordon Liddy for Congress"
campaign poster. Liddy claims credit
for smashing Millbrook mob.
The Fall of Representative Government
September 1973
Folsom Prison
Americans, reeling with premonition, look around for a hero, an
untainted leader. Let
me tell you the good news. There won't be one. Politics is too
important now to be turn-
ed over to ambitious politicians and adversary-process lawyers. The
wise administra-
tion of social and economic affairs requires temperamental and
intellectual character-
istics notably absent in those who are driven to seek power. Do you
really want to know
what causes our political secrecy problems? Representative government.
Elective
democracy: one person is selected to "represent" others. Government by
proxy. Even
in the most liberal democracy, no one can represent someone else. (The
non-repre-
sentative nature of totalitarian governments is even more unwieldy.)
We have been robot-trained to believe that democracy as practiced in
this country is
something sacred. Everything we have been taught is dangerously wrong.
Our history
books are self-serving fabrications. Everything printed in our
newspapers is a selective
fraud. (I know that you know this, but we have to keep reminding
ourselves.)
Representative government as practiced today is a brief and now
outmoded histori-
cal phase designed to bridge the period between the rise of national
states and the
emergence of globe-linking electrical-electronic communication.
The generic definition of democracy is equal voice for each citizen.
In the town
meeting or in the city-state participative democracy worked. As the
national state
emerged, the practice of selecting representatives to be sent to the
distant capital
became an inevitable step. An ominous division of labor developed. A
class of
secretive professional politicians.
The Fall of Representative Government
The American Constitution was written in a late-stone-age,
pre-mechanical, horse-power, slave-holding period. The ar-
ticles which set up the mechanics of government are
dangerously archaic.
The American Constitution was written in a late-stone-age,
pre-mechanical, horse-
power, slave-holding period. The preamble to the Constitution, which
states the aim of
the game, still stands as a good computer program. But the articles of
the Constitution,
which set up the mechanics of government, are dangerously archaic.
Senators elected
every six years to represent two million people? A president elected
every four years to
represent 200 million people? This slow, cumbersome system was
necessary when it
took two weeks for the news to travel from New Orleans to Boston.
Representative
government by strangers and political party partisanship is outdated.
Most Americans
have never met their representative indeed do not know his name.
Government
by law is an unworkable cliche.
The political model should be based on the nervous system: 20
billion neurons
each hooked to an electric network. Electronic communication makes
possible direct
participatory democracy. Every citizen has a voting card which he or
she inserts in the
voting machine and central computers register and harmonize the
messages from
every component part. Neurological politics eliminates parties,
politicians, campaigns,
campaign expenditures. The citizen votes like a neuron fires when it
has a signal to
communicate. The voices of the citizenry continually inform civil
service technicians
who carry out the will, not of the majority (a vicious and suicidal
elevation of the medi-
ocracy) but of each citizen. The central computer is programmed to make
everyone as
free and happy as possible.
October 1973
Folsom Prison
Technology can be used to reduce individual freedom and to enhance
the
power of politicians controlling centralized governments. B.F. Skinner,
the condition-
ing psychologist, speaks for the authoritarian technocrats advocating a
control beyond
human freedom and dignity. The control people realize that a highly
technological
society requires total cooperation and docile obedience of the
citizenry. Skinner's
system for conditioning children requires total control of
reward-punishment and
complete secrecy about the methods involved. The vulnerability of any
technological
system of totalitarian mind control is the prerequisite of secrecy and
unanimity. One
dissident electronic-media expert, one libertarian psychologist can jam
the system. I
did it here. Sakharov is doing it in Russia. Only by understanding the
principles and
techniques involved can one avoid being computerized and conditioned.
This is, of
course, why I am the prototype Sci-Fi prisoner in America.
The challenge and glory of techno-neurological democracy is this:
society can no
longer allow one person to feel abused, persecuted, ignored. Everyone
must under-
stand how the open neural network works and have access to it. Listen.
Last August I
was invited to dinner by an influential Swiss politician who said he
could arrange for
political asylum in his canton. He was a secret sexual dissident, his
apartment a cozy
culture cave, walls lined with classical albums, and upholstered with
leather-bound,
never-opened books. My host cooked and served a gourmet dinner. I sat
at the head of
the table drinking wine, listening to six businessmen explain why
Switzerland should
The Return of Individual Sovereignty
The glory of electronic technological scientific culture is that
it operates according to the laws of nature and cannot be
permanently captured by the artificial laws of politics.
vote "yes" on the referendum to authorize the manufacture and sales
of arms. "It's not
the money, it's the market principle; if the underdeveloped countries
want to buy arms
why shouldn't we profit." Etc.
I had been shooting screen tests for the role of Harry Haller in the
film production of
Hesse's Steppenwolf.
Then the party fell to discussing the shoot-out at the Munich
Olympics. Everyone
clucked and shook their heads.
I was totally programmed by the Hesse-Haller script. You remember
the bust-of-
Goethe-scene? Haller tells the professor that he is a drunken, outlaw
philosopher un-
fit for social appearances. Unhappily none of the dinner guests had
read Steppenwolf.
It's untidy when the other actors don't realize that we're playing out
the classic script,
almost word for word.
I recited the Haller-Hesse lines:
"Munich, my friends, is neither good nor bad. It's an inevitable,
undeniable symp-
tom. A meteorological signal. Too bad that ten men were slain, the
games disrupted,
and the very word Olympics now and forever associated with political
despair. Will the
lesson be learned? The same week a thousand peasants bombed to death in
Vietnam,
half a million Pakistani-Bangladesh rot in prison camps, while the
affluent gather in
Munich to play flag-waving contests for national prestige. The lesson
of the Munich
Olympics is that in this technological world as long as any one person
hurts or even
believes that he hurts we have to stop games-as-usual and pay attention
to the wound-
ed member. Life on this planet is one living organism and the pain of
the smallest
cluster of cells can cripple the whole. Hijackings, electronic
sabotage, crime waves,
biological-germ guerilla coups, are the initial symptoms."
I'm walking on the prison yard with Wayne, who asks me about the
lesson of Water-
gate. I tell him that we are going to replace representative government
by proxy and
substitute electronic voting. Every citizen registers his or her
signal. Wayne's a realist.
He shakes his head. "Of course, it's the only solution, but it's too
far out. It will scare
people." I tell him that it's not so new. The stock market works
exactly on that principle.
Continual votes of confidence. Ongoing registry of opinion. Tell people
they all own an
equal share in the government. Wayne shakes his head. "Keep thinking."
(People would
be surprised at the level of prison conversations. All I ever hear are
discussions about
the great political and philosophic questions and their solution.)
Okay, how about this? There is one thing that every American agrees
on. The
dishonesty and incompetence of politicians. Any politician who runs for
office on the
Language, thought and custom are becoming electrically
energized. Those born into the electronic culture will soon
learn how to govern themselves according to the laws of energy.
platform that he's going to do everything he can to take power away
from politicians
and return it to the people is going to ride a powerful wave. The
number one issue is
the inability of the government to govern. A new constitutional
convention charged
with the responsibility of creating a governmental structure which
utilizes electronic
expression of individual opinion will get the country alive and
laughing again.
The glory of electronic technology and scientific culture is that
they operate accord-
ing to the laws of nature and cannot be permanently captured by the
artificial laws of
politics. The medium is the evolutionary message. Science and
technology cannot be
controlled by a national leader or restrained by national boundaries.
Language, thought
and custom are becoming electrically energized. Those born into the
electronic culture
will soon learn how to govern themselves according to the laws of
energy.
Platitude tells us that Nixon will never recover from Watergate.
Neither will the
country. Competitive politics is dying. Vince Lombardi is a crewcut
dinosaur. The
secret is out. Tap our wire any time you want, Liddy. We're
broadcasting for you, too.
We've got continuous power output, direct coupling, audible spectrum,
low noise
transmission, high circuit reliability, superb capture rate, excellent
selectivity. If we
had known you were hiding in the paleolithic bushes we would have
invited you to tune
in. It's the new Hi-Fi, Psi-Phy, polychromatic, multi-channel planetary
network and
we're all linked up love.
How To Wash Brains
December 1975
San Diego Federal Prison
The fight for Patty Hearst's mind is symptomatic of the world-wide
battle for the
control of consciousness.
*
"Mom, Dad I'm OK. I had a few scrapes and stuff, but they washed
them up, and
they're getting OK...I heard that Mom is really upset and that
everybody was at home,
and I hope this puts you a little bit at ease...I want to get out of
here, but the only way
I'm going to do it is if we do it their way...I just want to get out of
here and see everyone
again and be back with Steve."
February 12,1974. The speaker is Patty Hearst. Although she has been
held prisoner
by the Symbionese Liberation Army guerrillas for eight days, she sounds
relatively
normal, and the tape is reassuring to her parents.
A second tape is released by the S.LA. 49 days later, and everything
changes. A
new voice, that of a stranger named Tania, is speaking and the words
are hostile:
"I know for sure yours and Mom's interests are never the interests
of the people.
You, a corporate liar, of course, will say that you don't know what I'm
talking about, but I
ask you then to prove it. Tell the poor and oppressed people of this
nation what the
corporate state is about to do. Warn black and poor people that they
are about to be
murdered down to the last man, woman and child."
This tape is accompanied by the famous photo of Tania holding a
tommy gun, stand-
ing before the Symbionese seven-headed cobra.
There is no escape from our robothood unless and until we
first recognize the fact. Only then can we learn to take control
of our nervous systems and to reprogram our individual
realities.
Randolph Hearst, Father of the Year and top manager of a mass-media
propaganda
machine that has helped domesticate millions of minds during the past
century,
comes before the TV cameras and says, unconvincingly, "We had her 20
years; they've
only had her 60 days. I don't believe she's going to change her
philosophy that quickly
and that permanently."
Two weeks later, Tania is photographed robbing a bank with her new
comrades, and
the third tape, even more vehement, describes the parents she had
wanted to see again
as "pigs" and Steve Weed, the lover she had wanted to return to, as "a
clown" and a
"sexist pig."
Tania would live to change her mind again, but obviously she would
never again be
the original Patty Hearst.
During the trial of Lieutenant William Calley, it was obvious to
millions all over the
world that the U.S. Army was seeking to disguise its own guilt by
making a scapegoat
out of a singularly naive young man. It was not obvious to Calley,
however. "I'm for the
Army all the way," he told reporters. "I'm behind it, a member of it.
The Army comes
first. No matter how much I could help my own defense, I won't make any
derogatory
statement about the Army."
Rusty Calley was, before induction, an unattached, marginally
employed drifter a
bellhop, a dishwasher, a pieceworker until he underwent the
brain-changing ordeal
of infantry basic training. Today he dutifully defends his brainwashers
as robotically as
Tania once defended hers, and he justifies mass murder in the jargon of
the true
believer.
Between the time of her arrest for pointing a gun at Gerald Ford
last summer and her
conviction last November, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme did nothing to aid
her own
defense and everything to broadcast the philosophy of Charlie Manson,
in whose
commune she had been brainwashed. Nothing said by the judge or by her
own lawyer
could make Fromme's legal situation real or important to her. All that
she cared about
was having the attention of the media in order to broadcast Manson's
message.
There is nothing to indicate any special weakness in Patty or Rusty
or Squeaky. They
were quite normal young Americans until they came into the ambience of,
respective-
ly, the S.L.A., the U.S. Army and the Manson family. This is the first
lesson we must
UNDERSTAND.
The four survival brains are progressively bleached out and
reimprinted in the relatively simple mechanical process called
brainwashing.
Brainwashing, like malaria, is a disease of exposure. Put people in
a malarial environ-
ment and most of them will get malaria. Put them in a brainwashing
institution and
most of them will get brainwashed.
The concept of "washing" is, of course, unscientific and crude. The
brain is not a
dirty garment but a bio-electric computer a living network of over
110 billion nerve
cells capable of io^2783000 interconnections, a number higher than the
total of all the
atoms in the universe. In this elegant, microminiaturized computer,
more than
100,000,000 processes are programmed every minute.
The brain and the nervous system, like the rest of the body, are
designed and
programmed by the genetic code. The human being, like all other life
forms, is
primarily "a giant robot created by DNA to make more DNA," as Nobel
geneticist
Herman J. Muller has observed.
We are all neurogenetic robots. And, however unpleasant it may be
for Christian
theologians or sentimental humanists to acknowledge this, there is no
escape from
our robothood unless and until we first recognize the fact. Only then
can we learn to
take control of our nervous systems and to reprogram our individual
programs.
A basic example of brain programming, which helps us to understand
Rusty,
Squeaky, Patty and ourselves, concerns the newborn giraffe whose mother
was shot
by hunters. The baby giraffe in accordance with its genetic program
imprinted the
first large moving object it saw, which happened to be the hunters'
jeep. It followed,
vocalized to, tried to suckle and eventually to mate with the
unresponsive vehicle. The
giraffe's survival instincts were hooked to that jeep.
The human being also imprints or hooks its neural equipment to
external ob-
jects. Among humans, these imprints come in four stages:
I.The infant biosurvival circuit, concerned with safety-danger
signals here and
now.
2. The older-infant (toddler) circuit, or ego; concerned with motion and emotion;
3. The student, verbal-symbolic circuit, or mind; concerned
with language and
knowledge;
4. The adult sociosexual circuit, or personality; concerned
with domestic behavior.
These four circuits are the four brains that are progressively bleached
out and re-
imprinted in the relatively simple mechanical process called
brainwashing. The
process is simple, because the original imprinting of these circuits
was also relatively
simple.
Throughout human life, when the biosurvival brain flashes
clanger, all other mental activities cease. To create a new im-
print, first reduce the subject to the state of infancy, i.e., first-
brain vulnerability.
The first circuit, or biosurvival brain, is activated at birth. Its
function is to seek food,
air, warmth, comfort and to retreat from what is toxic, harsh, or
dangerous. The biosur-
vival circuit of the animal nervous system is DNA-programmed to seek a
comfort-safety
zone around a mothering organism. If a mother is not present, the
closest substitute in
the environment will be chosen.
For the newborn giraffe, a four-wheel jeep was fixated. In one of
Konrad Lorenz's
ethological studies, a gosling that could not find the rounded white
body of a goose to
fixate imprinted a round, white ping-pong ball.
Throughout human life, when the biosurvival brain flashes danger,
all other mental
activities cease. This is of key importance in brain programming: to
create a new im-
print, first reduce the subject to the state of infancy, i.e.,
first-brain vulnerability.
The initial step in this process is isolation of the victim. A
small, dark room is ideal,
since the social, emotional and mental techniques that formerly ensured
survival will
not work there. The longer the person is isolated in such a state, the
more vulnerable to
new imprint he or she becomes. As Dr. John C. Lilly has pointed out, it
takes only a few
minutes of true isolation before anxiety appears and only a few hours
before hallucin-
ations begin, and the victim is ready to be imprinted with a new
protective, maternal
object.
It is no paradox that even the captor who is imposing this
brainwashing on the un-
willing subject can be the one imprinted. The victim is forced by
instincts
biochemical programs many millions of years old to seek this imprint
and to hook it
to whatever external entity comes closest to the mother archetype. For
a human
prisoner, any two-legged being who brings food will serve.
The second circuit, the emotional brain, or ego, is initially
imprinted when the child
begins to use muscle power to crawl, walk, master gravity, overcome
physical obsta-
cles and manipulate others politically. The muscles that perform these
functions are
very quickly imprinted with what become chronic, lifelong reflexes.
Depending on the
accidents of environment, this imprint will make for either a strong,
dominating ego or
a weak, fearful ego.
Status in the pack or the tribe is assigned on the basis of an
unconscious signaling
system in which these muscle reflexes are crucial. All of the emotional
games or cons,
listed in the popular game-manuals of Dr. Eric Berne and the
transactional analysts, are
second-brain imprints, or standard mammalian politics.
To re-create second-brain imprint vulnerability in an adult, the
subject must be made
to feel like a clumsy infant. The subject's neurological Scoreboard
must clearly
Basic imprint vulnerability occurs when the subject comes to
believe, "I have no choice; they can do anything they want
with me."
register the message, "I am one foot tall, ignorant, inept,
frightened and wrong. They
are six feet tall, wise, clever, powerful and right."
Helplessness can be escalated to panic by means of terror tactics.
In Costa-Gavras'
film The Confession, the Communist brainwashers take the subject from
his cell, put a
noose around his neck and lead him to a place where he expects to be
hanged; some
African tribes take candidates for "initiation" and bury them alive for
hours.
Basic imprint vulnerability occurs when the subject comes to
believe, "I have no
choice; they can do anything they want with me." At this point, the
emotional brain
hooks into the victim internalizes a rank in the pecking order under
the protection of
the most powerful figure available.
The third brain, or rational mind, is imprinted when the child
begins to use artifacts
and to ask questions. The imprint sites are the nine laryngeal muscles
that are
used in speech and a neural feed-back loop between the right hand and
the left cortex,
which is used in examining, classifying and rearranging the objects of
the environ-
ment. The entire edifice of science, art and knowledge is built on this
foundation.
The quickest way to reimprint the third brain is to detach the
victim from those who
share the same language, symbols and doctrines by placing the victim in
a situation
where his usual verbal skills and physical dexterity won't work, where
he has to imprint
new signals and skills in order to survive. For example, it is well
known that the best
way to learn a foreign language is by living with those who speak that
language only:
Hook the first-circuit survival needs (food, shelter) and the
second-circuit status needs
(security, recognition) to the third-circuit necessity of mastering the
new tongue.
Conversely, the proverbial Englishman who dressed for dinner every
night in his
lonely tropical hut was no fool. He was keeping an English bubble
around him by con-
stantly reaffirming an English reality, and so avoiding being engulfed
in the reality of
the natives. It is not unusual for a man to become a Communist when he
lives with
Communists, or a convict when he lives with convicts. In fact, it
requires delicate
neurological engineering to remain oneself under such conditions.
The fourth brain, or personality, is activated and imprinted at
adolescence, when the
DNA signal awakens the sexual apparatus. The teenager becomes the
bewildered
possessor of a new body and a new neural circuit hooked to orgasm and
sperm-egg
fusion. The pubescent human, like any other mammal, lurches about in a
state of
mating frenzy, every neuron gasping for the sex object.
Imprint vulnerability is acute, and the first sexual cues to turn on
the adolescent
nervous system remain fixed for life and forever define the
individual's sexual reality.
We should not be surprised, therefore, at the various fetishes that are
so easily
Everywhere, in every society, the sexual brain is ruthlessly
domesticated, channeled into tribal productivity. Socially ap-
proved orgasm is directed toward monogamous procreation;
pleasure directed orgasm is denounced.
acquired at these sensitive moments. In fact, we can tell precisely
at what period in
time a person was imprinted by noting which fetishes continue to turn
him on: black
garters, booze, cool jazz and crewcuts define one whole generational
imprint group,
just as sleeping bags, Mick Jagger, grass and tight jeans define
another.
When Sinatra sings at Las Vegas, the menopausal fan ignores his
wrinkles and
double chin and the neurons kick over in reflex rapture. The younger
generation is
amused and bored: "What's that balding old man got to do with sex?" No
group ever
understands the fetishes of another sexual-imprint group.
It is important for the brainwasher to understand that sexual
behavior is intensely in-
fluenced by social-domestic morals. The tribe always surrounds
sperm-egg exchange
with fierce threats and violent taboos to the degree that most people
don't even
know that the word morals refers to anything other than sexual no-nos.
Everywhere, in every society, the sexual brain is ruthlessly
domesticated, channeled
into tribal productivity. Socially approved orgasm is directed toward
monogamous pro-
creation; pleasure directed orgasm is denounced and the practitioners
are often per-
secuted.
Rewiring the sexual circuits, then, breaks the domestic bond,
fissions the
domesticated personality and allows for the creation of a new bond to a
different sub-
culture and to its heretical sexual value system. Such reimprinting of
the erotic brain
can be a most effective mind-washing technique but only as an adjunct
to the basic
bleaching out of the first- and second-brain circuits of security and
ego status. For
example, if Cinque had raped Patty Hearst the first night of her
captivity, a strong
revulsion on her part would probably have occurred. However, after the
subject has
come to look to the brainwasher for biosecurity, physical support,
emotional reality
definition, then a sexual seduction can imprint a new erotic field.
In order to maintain one's reality bubble, it is necessary to
surround oneself with
tribal reassurance. Most human communication is embarrassingly
primitive, con-
sisting of endless variations on "I'm still here. Are you still there?"
(hive solidarity) and
"Nothing has really changed" (hive business as usual). Isolation, the
first step in brain-
washing, removes this protective bubble. When the subject no longer
receives feed-
back "We're all still here; nothing has changed" the imprints begin
to fade.
Explorers and shipwrecked sailors who have survived prolonged
isolation, Dr. Lilly
has noted, are quite shy after being rescued. They are literally afraid
of human conver-
sation sometimes for weeks because they know that what they will
say might
sound insane to the domesticated ordinary adult; their imprints have
faded and they
Once the subject looks to the re-programmer for biosecurity
and ego support, just as the infant looks to its parents, any
third-brain ideology can be impressed on the vulnerable
neurons.
are in the unconditioned free-floating world of the yogi or the
mystic. It takes many
days, at least, to reimprint their social bubble.
Similar imprint vulnerability and return to infancy occurs in many
cases of prolonged
hospitalization, an ominous fact that many medical technicians do not
understand.
Some patients are literally brainwashed into becoming lifelong invalids
a classic
case of second-brain helplessness and are accused by the staff of
being
malingerers, a label that shifts the blame from the incompetent
technicians to the
helpless victim.
It is the function of the nervous system to focus, to select, to
narrow down, to
choose, from an infinity of possibilities, the biochemical imprints
which determine
the tactics and strategies that ensure survival in one place, status in
one
tribe. The infant is genetically prepared to learn any language, master
any skill, play
any sex role; in a very short time, however, he becomes rigidly fixated
to accept, follow
and mimic the limited offerings of his social and cultural environment.
In this process, each of us pays a heavy price. Survival and status
mean forfeiting the
infinite possibilities of unconditioned consciousness. The domesticated
personality
inside the social bubble is a trivial fragment of the potentials for
experience and intel-
ligence innate in the 110-billion-cell human biocomputer. We have
literally been robbed
blind; we have literally taken leave of our senses; we are literally
only slightly more
conscious than any other herd animal.
The brainwasher's job is simple, then, because it consists only of
substituting one
set of robotic circuits for another set. Once the subject looks to the
re-programmer for
biosecurity and ego support, just as the infant looks to its parents,
any third-brain
ideology can be impressed on the vulnerable neurons.
Because we are all imprinted by our own social bubbles, it isn't
generally recognized
that each reality map held by humans however eccentric and paranoid
makes
nearly as much sense as any other. People are vegetarians or nudists or
Communists
or snake worshipers for the same reasons that other people are
Catholics or Republi-
cans or liberals or Nazis.
During imprint vulnerability, anybody can be switched from one
system to another.
We can easily be induced to go from intoning "Hare Krishna" to "Jesus
died for our
sins" to "Kill the pigs," and to find meaning in each of the implied
ideologies. The next
step is for the brainwashers to persuade us that anybody who doesn't
see the world
according to a particular reality map is wicked, or stupid, or insane.
After programming a third-brain bubble around the subject, a complete brain-
The ironic truth is that our concept of reality is so fragile that
it collapses in a matter of days if we do not have continual
spot announcements reminding us of who we are and that our
reality is still there.
washing procedure must then reimprint sexual drives and taboo
systems. It is here that
governmental brainwashers are amusingly inept, as compared with outlaw
bands.
Governments are prudish, uptight and sexually cold, because
domestication depends
on directing genital passions away from individual gratification and
into the nuclear
family or, in modern insectoid socialisms, away from the individual
and the family,
and into collective hive productivity.
Sexual reprogramming can imprint either a new sex role (as when the
Mau Mau
insisted that would-be members perform an act of homosexuality, in
order to sever
themselves from family-oriented sex) or a sex-avoidance role (as with
nuns, who
become brides of Christ and convert sexual charges into religious
tingles). The military
and the prison systems, after isolating people from ordinary social
reality, allow and
tacitly approve asocial sexual imprints, whether heterosexual or
homosexual; a year's
worth of sperm on cell or barracks sheets is a year's programming in
anti-domesticity.
Similarly, everybody knows that the classic attraction of military life
has been the
opportunity for socially approved sexual license, including whorehouse
adventures
and the rape of enemy women an enticing program to a young male
primate.
(The great mystery that puzzled and irritated the menopausal males
who ruled
America in the Sixties why weren't young males eager for the
adventure of Vietnam?
is easily answered in a neurological context: The new sexual imprints
of the mari-
juana revolution made it unnecessary and unaesthetic to go to Saigon to
get righteous-
ly laid.)
Continual follow-up is necessary to reinforce any new reality
imprint. The ironic truth
is that our concept of reality is so fragile that it collapses in a
matter of days if we do
not have continual spot announcements reminding us of who we are and
that our
reality is still there.
The military accordingly constructs a military-reality island for
its personnel. Every
successful brainwasher, whether Synanon, a Jesus cult, a Hindu swami
movement, a
Manson-type family, or a militant terrorist group, creates a similar
reality island; once
a person joins, he is in all the way, 24 hours a day, seven days a
week. Similarly, revolu-
tionary governments dare not relax censorship or permit free
communications in their
drive to wash out the old imprints and reinforce new ones. Foreign or
dissenting sig-
nals cannot, therefore, be tolerated.
This reality-island context helps us to appreciate the ease with
which the Army
brainwashed Galley.
A confused, ineffective youth joins the Army; during basic training, he is isolated
The hippie movement, with its estimated 35,000,000 pot smok-
ers, can be viewed as an experiment in self-induced brain
change. Neurotransmitter drugs perform the same function
as isolation, as they weaken or suspend the users' old imprints.
from civilian society and all reinforcers of domesticated-herd
imprints; his food,
clothing and shelter are provided by the Army; and new authority
figures make him feel
helpless and inferior. Once Rusty has been reduced to an infant state
and made totally
dependent on the new father figures, he is allowed to work his way up
in the new
pecking order and to become one of the elect. After a few weeks of
being made to feel
one foot tall, helpless and clumsy, he is given weekend leave to
explore the new
soldier morality of easy camaraderie and socially approved casual sex.
(And where else
in straight America is casual sex so enthusiastically approved?) Day
after day, Rusty's
third brain is being programmed with military jargon, military
concepts, military reality.
When he encounters civilians on the street during weekend leaves, they
seem alien.
Rusty has now been fully incorporated into the Army reality bubble.
When his
superior officer, Medina, shouts "Kill!," Calley will not ask about the
Articles of War,
the Nuremberg precedents, the ethics of Sunday school they belong to
other reality
islands. He kills. The whole function of the reimprinting in basic
training has been to
ensure that Calley will obey in such situations.
The robotization of Squeaky Fromme by Charles Manson was just as
simple,
although the source of Manson's powers has been misunderstood.
It is insufficient, first of all, to say that Manson and his
powers over the family
members was a product of the drug culture. The hippie movement, with
its
estimated 35,000,000 pot smokers, can, in fact, be viewed as an
enormous, mostly
amateurish experiment in self-induced brain change. Neurotransmitter
drugs perform
the same function as isolation, as they weaken or suspend the users'
old imprints.
This is exactly why conservatives dread dope: They do not want the
younger half of
the population experimenting with consciousness alteration, ego change,
mind meta-
morphoses and sex-role roulette. If the military had pioneered the use
of grass as
an adjunct to imprinting military obedience, social attitudes would
probably have been
reversed. Conservatives would have defended Cannabis with the same
pragmatism
that they brought to the dropping of napalm bombs, and radical
dissidents would have
dreaded Cannabis as much as they fear wire tapping.
Manson used drugs as but one brainwashing tool, and he did so for
ends alien to the
drug culture. While other gurus of the sixties used drugs to rewire
their followers for
the peace-love-ecology trip, Manson used the same drugs to imprint his
family for
fascism, racism, sexism. Manson could have become a platoon sergeant in
the Green
Berets.
In Helter Skelter, prosecutor Bugliosi lists the programs Sergeant Manson employed
The reality bubble Manson later created at the Spahn Movie
Ranch near Los Angeles was the stereophonic 3-D dream of
every pimp-doper-convict.
with his drugs: first-brain fear and isolation from straight
society; second-brain com-
munal status and rote-repetition of emotional phrases from the
ever-convenient Bible;
third-brain occult teachings; fourth-brain guilt-free sex. In The
Family, Ed Sanders adds
that female members were usually initiated with an LSD trip, during
which Charlie per-
formed oral sex on them several times.
Of course, Manson's hypnotic power also derived from the pathetic
fact that he was
the most brainwashed robot of them all; Manson not only followed but
believed in the
blood-drenched script of the book of Revelations the great beast, the
war between
good and evil, the last judgment. Instant apocalypse defined Manson's
third-brain
reality bubble; prison taught him how to enforce it.
Manson spent 17 of his first 32 years in prison; isolation behind
walls and bars rein-
fantized his survival brain; competing gangs of cons and guards
impressed the most
violent mammalian politics on his emotional brain; a weird variety of
fundamentalist
and racist ideologies was fed to his symbolic brain; and anything
except domesticated
reproductive sex programmed his erotic brain. The reality bubble Manson
later created
at the Spahn Movie Ranch near Los Angeles was the stereophonic 3-D
dream of every
pimp-doper-convict.
The S.LA. hideout of general field marshal Cinque, another graduate
of the Cali-
fornia archipelago, was the Marxist version of the same convict
fantasy: guns, stolen
cars, girls, obedience, senseless killings. S.L.A. kidnapers merely
applied to Patty
Hearst the standard brainwashing techniques learned by Cinque in the
brain-change
prisons of California: first, the physical shock of kidnap, the
disorientation of the car-
trunk ride and confinement in a small, dark room. Then came Cinque's
visits to the
isolation cell, and the transformation in his role from that of captor
into that of the
source of Patty's biological survival. The motherlike Cinque brought
food and drink; the
fatherlike Cinque told her sternly that her survival depended on his
whims. Patty is
reduced to the status of a suckling infant, one foot tall in a
six-foot-tall world.
Throughout life, when the first brain flashes danger, all other
mental activities
cease.
Once Patty had imprinted Cinque in place of her distant parents and
unavailable
lover, he introduced the new symbol system, the new reality bubble. His
powerful
laryngeal muscles filled the air of the tiny room with the sonorous,
poetic rhetoric of
the ghetto, the prison and the underworld, strengthened by Marxist
apocalyptical
theology. The same mindwashing has been experienced by thousands of
runaways
and dropouts who, during the past decade, found themselves in the
crowded, womb-
Neuropolitics
The importance of funk cannot be overestimated in these
cases. The brain of the baby and of the reinfantized adult
craves warmth, texture, skin smell, sloppy-moist contact.
warren pads of Haight-Ashbury or the East Village, vulnerable to a
new, hip version of
the ancient anarchist, outlaw symbolism.
(The importance of funk cannot be overestimated in these cases. The
brain of the
baby and of the reinfantized adult craves warmth, texture, skin
smell, sloppy-
moist contact. The newborn correctly equates dirt and smell with
survival, and so does
the hairy, aromatic hippie who thrives on incense, candlelight,
sleeping bags, crash
pads. Domesticated moralists who denounce this rank way of life do not
realize that, to
the reinfantized brain, funk means survival bliss.)
The culmination of Patty Hearst's reprogramming was the new sexual
reality im-
posed on her fourth brain. In a curiously naive account of Patty's
captivity, an
anonymous S.L.A. member has unwittingly outlined the brainwashing
procedure:
"There are many people who still cannot comprehend Tania's swift
evolution from
sheltered bourgeois to freedom fighter. We wish to end all metaphysical
speculation
around brainwashing and sexual enslavement."
With this disclaimer, the S.L.A. account found in the Harris' San
Francisco hideout
proceeds to describe classic brainwashing techniques. "In the
beginning, we provided
for Tania's basic needs: shelter, food, clothing, medical attention and
news from the
outside. Although we considered sex a basic human need, our commitment
to not ex-
ploit her sexually, coupled with her over-all status as a P.O.W.,
denied Tania the
freedom to have sex with another person. But later on...as she became
more integrated
into the day-to-day aspects of cell life, we tried to treat Tania as an
equal. It was only
natural that with increased personal interaction...these relations
would develop
sexually."
Tania's S.LA. imprints, reinforced by 24-hours-a-day immersion in
the new tribe's
reality, seem to have remained durable until the Los Angeles shoot-out.
Jack Scott's
description of Tania in the subsequent months of cross-country flight,
however,
reveals a restless, irritable, unsettled person. The chief programmer,
Cinque, was gone
and Patty/Tania eventually returned, with the instincts of a migratory
bird, to San Fran-
cisco, the locale of her two birthplaces.
After arrest, a campaign to reprogram Patty yet again was initiated
by her captors.
Again her biosurvival needs were satisfied by her captors; her ego
status depended on
pleasing them, and ceaseless effort was made to induce her to verbalize
anew the
symbol system of her parents. The only deficiency in the new program
was its lack of
attention to Tania's liberated sexual imprints.
The hope for Patty Hearst as for the rest of us brainwash victims is to realize
Space Migration Intelligence Increase Life Extension 57
Brainwashing is happening to all of us all of the time. Know-
ledge of brain function is our only protection against it. The
solutions to our predicament are neurological. We must
assume responsibility for our nervous systems.
how robot-imprinting works, to exult in joyous insight and to start
choosing our own
imprints.
Was Rusty Calley, the Florida drifter, guilty of murder? No. The
crimes were commit-
ted by Lieutenant Calley, a brainwashed robot programmed by the Army to
kill on com-
mand.
Was Lynette Alice Fromme guilty of attempted assassination? No. The
Sacramento
gun was carried by Squeaky Fromme, a brainwashed robot from Charles
Manson's
zombie platoon.
Was Patty Hearst guilty of any crime? No. Tania is a brain-changed
product of the
neurotechnology of Drill Instructor Cinque.
But let us pursue the neurology of guilt a few steps farther. Who
taught Charles
Manson and Cinque the techniques of brain change, as well as their
philosophies of
violence? The prison system did. And who supports the prisons that
robotized Manson
and Cinque, along with the Army that mechanized Calley? Taxpaying
citizens.
Our purpose here is not to provoke another round of liberal
we're-all-guilty hand-
wringing. Guilt, innocence, morality and will power have nothing to do
with the neuro-
logical situation, which, in brief, is that we are all automatons
responding automatical-
ly to imprinted realities of an embarrassingly arbitrary nature. The
motivations of crim-
inality and law-abiding virtue, of violence and love, of domestication
and deviance, of
laziness and industry, promiscuity and prudery, stupidity and
cleverness, are always
random neurological imprints. What impresses the neurons during imprint
vulner-
ability is what gets imprinted.
Guilt, innocence, punishment, forgiveness, law and order,
rehabilitation all con-
stitute the mythology that masks the simple reality of badly wired
robots bumping into
one another. Most agonizing and supposedly intractable social problems
are caused
solely by our ignorance of the brain's capacity for rote repetition and
abrupt change.
Brainwashing is happening to all of us all of the time. Knowledge of
brain function is
our only protection against it. The solutions to our predicament are
neurological. We
must assume responsibility for our nervous systems. Our robothood can
remain static
if we endlessly repeat the imprints of infancy to adolescence, or it
can be drastically
altered by brainwashers without our consent, or we can take control of
our nervous
systems. If we don't assume this personal responsibility, somebody else
will; if we do
take over the control board, we can each be any person we want to be.
The Neuropolitics of Courage:
A Brief Encounter with Charles Manson
Commodore Leri, Agent from Central Intelligence assigned to earth,
third planet of
a G-type Star, sits on the bench of the holding cell of Soledad Prison,
dressed in the
white jump suit worn by transferees. On his left, John O'Neill, a slick
good-looking big-
city Irishman down for ten to life for murder two. To his right, a
tall, slim, pretty cowboy
named Ted with Indian cheekbones, and a deep tan. Ted babbles
evasively. He has
been in and out of the joint for years and has the reputation of being
a professional
fuck-up. ("He ain't playing with a full deck," whispers O'Neill. "He's
one of the girls
and a snitch, too.") The three hold one-way tickets to the Dark Tower,
and that has for-
med a bond among them. The Dark Tower is Folsom, a trans-Einsteinian
Black Hole in
the Earth Galaxy from which nothing ever escapes but feeble red
radiation.
Leri had done some primatology research in Hollywood after the
Tate-La Bianca
murders and was fascinated by the wave of fright that swept through the
film colony.
The chic reaction was to install gate locks, which were opened by
remote control after
visitors identified themselves over an intercom. Whatever solace this
arrangement
provided, it certainly would not have thwarted the creepy-crawly
Mansonites, who
avoided the gate at the Tate house because they suspected that it was
electrified. So
Leri wrote a memoir for OUI magazine to show that none of the human
fears that Man-
son systematically exploited can be neutralized by external defenses.
These terrors, he
wrote, are internal neurological reactions and, in order to understand
Manson, one
must understand the neurology of human fear.
Before we can understand Manson, we must realize that a
prison system is a microcosm of a culture and that the Ameri-
can prison system is run on raw fear and violence.
Manson, it was said, stimulated fear in others in order to gain power.
"One aspect of Manson's philosophy especially puzzled me: his
strange attitude
toward fear," Vincent Bugliosi says in Helter Skelter. "He not only
preached that fear
was beautiful, he often told the family that they should live in a
constant state of fear.
What did he mean by that? I asked Paul Watkins, (Manson's
second-in-command).
"To Charlie, fear was the same thing as awareness," Watkins said.
"The more fear
you have, the more awareness, hence the more love. When you're really
afraid, you
come to 'Wow.' And when you are at Wow, you are totally conscious."
Let us give credit where credit is due: Manson's manipulation of
fear has its roots in
the paranoia behind the Cold War military posture, the antidrug scare
campaigns, the
addictive success of the most popular movies and crime shows, the
actions of all
bureaucracy and law-enforcement agencies, and the operation of our
penal institu-
tions.
Before we can understand Manson, we must realize that a prison
system is a
microcosm of a culture and that the American prison system is run on
raw fear and
violence.
The bus comes snorting into the Soledad parking area. The
Folsom-bound trio is
motioned outside to stand in the sun glare, waiting for the chains.
Commodore Leri
recognizes the transport guards from previous trips: the burly black
who likes to clean
his automatic, the pink-faced John Wayne type, the sleek, mean sergeant.
"It's a hot day and a short ride and only a few of 'em. So we won't
cuff 'em," says the
sergeant.
"The Professor's an escape risk," says glum pink-face, rocking back
and forth on his
feet.
"Ah, he won't try a rabbit on us," purrs the sarge.
"Not until we make one mistake. Right?" says the black, looking at
the Commodore
coldly.
There are four other cons on the bus. All claim to have done time
with the Com-
modore at joints he's never attended. "It's like Kennedy's PT-boat
crew," he thinks.
The bus wheezes through Soledad's inner inspection gates and stops
at the prison's
main entrance. The guards dismount and wait while their guns are
lowered in a basket
from the tower. The bus chugs through the main entrance gate and
Soledad is left
behind.
The ride through California's central valley is a pleasant exploration. Blake said that
Once, when his unwitting snub of a gang member thrust him
into the center of a confrontation, several hundred men armed
with prison knives stood uneasily on the yard while negotia-
tions were conducted. Naked adrenaline diplomacy.
the fool sees not the same tree that the wise man sees. The free see
not the same tree
that the convict sees.
The power and politics of fear are, unfortunately, beyond the
experience of middle-
class electroids, who let televised actors get their kicks for them.
Only the cop, the
prisoner and the ghetto veteran know the primal exhilaration of total
alertnesswhich
they must maintain in order to survive.
Leri's education in this raw reality of fear came quickly on the
main line of a pre-
Folsom Gulag. Every morning he would leave his cell at 8:30, walk to
the end of the cell
block, wait to be unlocked and then lope down the half mile of main
corridor to his
work assignment. On this daily commute, he passed more than 50 inmates
and guards.
And each intersection demanded a conscious and precisely accurate
social signal.
Failure to say "Hey man" to this one, failure to smile at another,
failure to stop for a
quick "What's happening, man?" with the next, could set off a complex
reaction that
might mean death. On the other hand, he dared not look at this one, nor
smile at that
one, nor stop to talk to the next, lest another cycle of paranoia be
set off.
Once, when his unwitting snub of a gang member thrust him into the
center of a con-
frontation between opposing factions, several hundred men armed with
prison knives
stood uneasily on the yard while negotiations were conducted. That's
reality politics.
Naked adrenaline diplomacy.
At other times during his penal career, he was lucky enough to sit
in prison yards
and listen to scores of armed robbers describe their capers. Almost
every one of these
bandits admitted that the kick of the robbery came not from the money
but from the
panic aroused in the victim. "Man, those donkeys really piss their
pants when you
shove that big .45 in their faces." Loud laughter.
He also learned that the fear-generating bully who despises his
victim also longs to
submit to someone else. The most authoritarian person is comfortable
only when sup-
ported by a stronger force. Manson, at the height of his Spahn Ranch
power, was lost
and confused without someone telling him what to do. As Manson told
Bugliosi in a
post-trial interview, "Prison has always been my home; I didn't want to
leave it the last
time, and you're only sending me back there."
The bus groans up to the Folsom perimeter. A gray-faced trusty with
crablike
motions runs to swing open the first gate. "All hope abandon, ye who
enter here." The
bus crosses the yard and parks by the entrance to the Folsom cell block.
The transit prisoners look out at the baseball diamond surrounded by concrete
Intelligence, defined as the accurate, flexible, inventive use
of the laryngeal and manual muscles, has no place in a fear
society; the most dangerous and the strongest are automa-
tically the smartest.
walks. The area is deserted except for a husky black man in a blue
shirt who is watering
the outfield, his rubber boots squishing in grassy puddles.
"Is this the main yard?" asks the Commodore. "It's not very large."
"Wait till you see it crowded with 2000 blue shirts," says a black
slumped down in
the front seat.
The escort guards jump down and confer over papers with prison
guards. Everyone
is bored.
"What happens now?"
"We gonna get put in the bottom tier," says the black. "We stay
there till they decide
we safe here. Like we don't have no enemies, you know. Except if they
take any of us to
4A."
"What's 4A?" asks the Commodore.
"That's just the baddest place you can get," the black says,
laughing. "The adjust-
ment center, you know. That's where they stow the real badasses, too
mean and violent
for the main line. Or snitches who like ain't worth five minutes on the
main line. Folsom
is the bottom of the prison system, and 4A is the bottom of that. Here
the 4A bulls now.
That means one of us be heading for the hole."
Prison is the classic laboratory-training school for fear and
fearlessness. The middle
class is terrified of its raw jungle reality; it took four years of
incarceration for Leri to be
able to understand that if you show fear, you are marked for continual
physical coer-
cion.
Since Charles Manson spent most of his adult life in prison, he was
obviously well-
educated in the fear tactics of physical threat ("I am dangerous"),
emotional domi-
nance ("I am strong") and symbol manipulation ("I am smarter than you").
Intelligence, defined as the accurate, flexible, inventive use of
the laryngeal and
manual muscles, has no place in a fear society; the most dangerous and
the strongest
are automatically the smartest. Subtlety, insight, sensitivity,
complexity, tolerant ex-
change of facts are verboten in a totalitarian system. The prison gang
leader never ad-
mits ignorance or allows himself to receive facts. Communication is
governed by
pecking order. No one listens. No one thinks.
The seven men in the bus look at one another appraisingly: Who will
Iron Jaws drag
down to the hole? The metal door of a newer concrete building opens and
three guards
walk down the steps toward the bus. Big muscular men, carrying clubs
held to their
wrists with leather thongs. One of the transit guards leans inside the
door of the bus.
The Alchemist is led into a bare room with a counter running
along the left side. There are eight large guards, each carrying
a club. Their faces are blank. "Strip."
"Hey, Doc. Come out here."
The agent assigned to a larval planet must confront every peril,
descend to every depth, transmute gravity into levity.
"They got yo ass now," says the black. "Keep cool and you can talk
your way out in a
few weeks. Or years."
The Wizard nods to the commiserating faces of his fellow voyagers
and descends
from the bus. The afternoon sun steams off the concrete. There is a
deserted, dead
feeling.
The three club carriers look at him impersonally. One of them jerks
his thumb in the
direction of 4A.
The Philosopher, feeling suddenly quite thin and vulnerable, walks
Biblically
toward the metal door. He is flanked by two guards with clubs. A third
covers his rear.
At the entrance, a guard talks into a squawk box and the door clicks
open noisily. They
march into a long hallway running to the left.
It is, of course, pointless to attempt to summarize the Florentine
factions that competed in standard mammalian fashion for terri-
torial dominance in 20th Century America, except to note that Leri
emerged in corporeal form just at the high-water mark of the
American empire and was trained at West Point, a pre-space mili-
tary academy for anti-Oriental warriors. Later he studied preneur-
ological psychology at Berkelium and took part in the philosophi-
cal and epistemological brawling of the period.
One of the guards blows a whistle and two approaching convicts freeze.
The procession walks 20 feet down the hall and stops in front of
another metal door.
A guard bangs with his club against the steel. From within, another
guard peers out
through a peep-hole and the door opens. They are now inside a
windowless room.
Another door. The guard bangs again. Another face peers through another
peephole.
Now this door opens.
The Alchemist is led into a bare room with a counter running along
the left side.
There are eight large guards, each carrying a club. Their faces are
blank.
"Strip."
When Manson was released from prison in March 1967, he brought to
the loose,
open, gullible, happy, flower-child culture of the Haight-Ashbury the
three fear-provok-
ing skills he had learned in crime school: physical threat, emotional
dominance and
The Neuropolitics of Courage: A Brief Encounter with Charles Manson
Millions of young people and some flexible older people
were left floating in an ethical vacuum. Into this void moved
the spiritual promoters and ethical mafias the soul fuckers.
dogmatic repetition of symbols. To these primitive methods, however,
he added the
fourth and most effective source of his power: moral coercion.
Before the Sixties, most domesticated humans were unaware of the way
in which
moral threat determined their behavior. They were oblivious to the
coerciveness of
family, clan, church, school and civil law, and of how each tried to
limit behavior to that
which would benefit the hive, the clan, the species. In the Sixties,
however, a cultural
revolution occurred which allayed the fear that is variously known as
sin, guilt, evil and
taboo. Millions of young people and some flexible older people were
left floating
in an ethical vacuum. Into this void moved the spiritual promoters and
ethical mafias
the soul fuckers.
America, in the past decade, became a spiritual Wild West, with San
Francisco as its
Dodge City; religious gang leaders and ethical gunslingers competed for
control,
among them the Diggers, black militants, hippie gurus, Hindu swamis,
hedonic
prophets, Jesus freaks, makeshift messiahs, health-food fanatics, soul
pimps and
hope dealers.
Into this Byzantine situation came Manson, fresh from the academy of
fear, brand-
ishing a book that cites the highest ethical authority to justify
ritual murder, a 3000-
year-old text loaded with prescription and pronunciamento designed to
strike fear into
nonbelievers: the book of Revelation.
Leri, as ordered, removes the white jump suit, socks and the white
track shoes pur-
chased in Lucerne.
His mistake, back in the early Sixties, had been to enter the
Black Hole as detached observer, Newtonian fashion, according
to preneurological notions of science. He learned, post-Heisen-
berg, that observer-observed are a seamless unity. You must
enter the Black Hole as its true citizens do, defenseless, trapped,
helpless. Only so can a fully Einsteinian scientific report on the
domesticated apes of Sol-3 be accomplished.
He stands naked and a guard approaches with a metal detector the
size and shape of
a ping-pong paddle, which is passed around his head, face, neck and
body. The guard
then moves the detector over the discarded clothes. Another tosses Leri
a tattered
gray jump suit and cloth slippers, and points to a storeroom at the end
of the counter.
"Get a mattress and two blankets in there."
The barred door to the right clicks open and the Professor,
surrounded by three
guards, walks into the bottom tier of 4A, past a row of cells on his
left.
64
S.M.I2.L.E. S.M.I2.LE
S.M.I2.LE. S.M.I2.LE. S.M.I2.LE.
While the soul fuckers shot it out in San Francisco, the Castalia
Foundation, a continent away in Millbrook, New York, was
becoming a world-recognized center for research in con-
sciousness extension and self-induced brain change.
The slippers are too large, so the Wizard, carrying the mattress on
his shoulders, is
forced to shuffle as he passes the inspecting eyes of the prisoners,
who begin to
whoop and shout in pleased recognition.
"Hey! Whooee! Look who's here! Welcome to 4A, brother."
Leri nods and smiles at the muscular blacks and stocky whites who
stand by their
bars, watching him stagger past. In the last cell of the row, a small
man sits on the floor
in the lotus position, smiling benevolently.
While the soul fuckers shot it out in San Francisco, the Castalia
Foundation, a con-
tinent away in Millbrook, New York, was becoming a world-recognized
center for
research in consciousness extension and self-induced brain change. To
the 64-room
Alte Haus situated on an estate "twice five miles of fertile ground,"
came thousands of
self-appointed messiahs, occultists and adepts. Millbrook was the
Wimbledon of the
spiritual upheaval. However simplistic, spaced-out, disorganized and
anarchic this
neurological phenomenon may have been, let no one doubt that the
experiences were
philosophically intense.
From 1963 to 1968, there were almost no acts of physical threat,
muscular coercion
or symbolic intimidation at Millbrook. Of spiritual banditry, however,
there was an
epidemic.
Leri himself was scared witless scores of times by the energies
released. At one
peak of naivete, he took the innocent precaution of assuming that any
wild-eyed
pilgrim who knocked on the great oaken door waving celestial
credentials should be
admitted and given temporary benefit of doubt.
After five years' experience, the Millbrook staff became quite
sophisticated in re-
acting with sympathetic skepticism to this army of divinities.
When a stranger would announce, "I am a special agent of God!" the
genial answer
would be: "Welcome to the club. So what's new with you?"
A cell door opens to a small anteroom, which leads to a second door,
beyond which
is a dark windowless cave. The guards close both doors and the
Alchemist finds him-
self in a strip cell in the Adjustment Center.
In it are a seatless toilet, chipped and stained, a rusty-metal face
bowl and a metal
slab on which he throws the soiled, smelly mattress. The room is dark
except for a rec-
tangle of light that comes through the outer door. He has 24 years left
to serve.
The Philosopher feels a sense of elation. This is it, he thinks. The
indisputable, un-
deniable, Dantean bottom. After 18 jails and prisons on four
continents, this is the ulti-
mate pit. Now that the death penalty has been abolished, a strip cell
at the end of the
Aided by bands of red-larvals, he escaped the dungeons of the
West and fled to the Middle World, only to be imprisoned
again by North African pirates. Such events were all too typi-
cal of that backward planet in primitive ages.
row in the bottom tier of Folsom's 4A is the nadir. "From here
begins the journey
home," he says to himself, looking up.
During the Indochina Wars, where the Western Imperial tide
was thrown back, Americans took sides, and the two parties,
Hawks and Doves, fought in the streets. It was at this moment
that Leri's brief political career temporarily distracted him from
his role as Evolutionary Agent. With superhawk Nixon's ascen-
sion to power in 1968, the Evolutionary Agents were savagely re-
pressed. Among those arrestedand, of course, convictedwas
Agent Leri. Aided by bands of red-larvals, he escaped the dun-
geons of the Past and fled to the Middle World, only to be im-
prisoned again by North African pirates. Such events were all too
typical of that backward planet in primitive ages.
After ten minutes of darkness and silence, the outer door opens and
a young blond
prisoner enters. He leans against the bars of the inner door, smiling
cheerfully.
"I'm sorry you're here, man, but welcome. I'm the trusty for the
first tier. Do you
smoke?"
"Yeah. And is there anything to read?"
"Sure. What do you like? I bet you don't like shit kickers, right?
I'll get you something .
good. You may not be down here long. If they figure you're not violent,
they'll move you
upstairs."
The trusty slides out, leaving the outer door open. Reflected light
of the setting sun
warms the cell. In a few minutes, he is back, carrying a white envelope
filled with
tobacco, a pack of rolling papers and four paperbacks.
"These came from Charlie. He's in the next cell." That would be the
guy sitting in the
lotus position, looking benevolent. "He wants to know if you take sugar
and cream
with your coffee. And if you like honey."
"Sure. Anything," says the Neurologician, smiling.
The trusty grins and disappears.
But as to what really happened in the Sixties while the Acid-
Assassin Leri and his cronies were at large, there was no general
agreement. The whispered words "spiritual revolution" could be
heard in college classrooms, collective-farm meetings, youth
congresses, suburban dachas and hooligan radio broadcasts. The
infamous Leri seemed to be everywhere, instigating continuous
By the use of white magic neurological techniques that
enable people to understand and to control their own nervous
systems he neutralized occult power moves.
thought-crime and neurological child molesting, until the social-
ist masses themselves demanded that the authorities confine
him to an educational labor camp. A new outbreak of rumors-
sexual, pornographic, extraterrestrial, involving multiple agents
and convoluted espionage networksspread further terror and
an enigmatic eeriness.
Sitting on the bunk, Leri sniffs at the tobacco. Bugler. He rolls a
cigarette and watches
the smoke puff and cloud in the sunlight.
Twenty-four years left to serve.
He examines the books that Charlie has sent via trusty. The
Teachings of the Com-
passionate Buddha. In Search of the Miraculous. The Teachings of Don
Juan. And The
Master and Margarita, a thick paperback novel about life in modern
Russia, by Bulgakov.
Some improvement on the Reader's Digest condensed novels from previous
holes.
Now the blond trusty is back bringing envelopes filled with sugar
cubes and
powdered cream, a cardboard cup filled with organic honey, a box of
crackers.
"Charlie sent these. I gotta go now. The bulls are watching me. I'll
be back later if
you need anything."
The disciplined study of advanced levels of consciousness and brain
change inevit-
ably leads to a consideration of black magic, which at Millbrook was
defined as the use
of neurological techniques to obtain power over others. Leri decided at
that time that
he would have nothing to do with black magic and deliberately refused
to learn
anything about satanic rituals. He was operating on the tar-baby
assumption that any
admission of black magic into consciousness could contaminate and make
one sus-
ceptible to it.
Later, after belatedly discovering that he was being hexed, vexed,
perplexed, painted
into pentagons, exposed to Kali death-goddess mantras and flashed by
charms and
jujus, he decided to learn enough about the dark arts to recognize and
reactnot so
much for self-protection, but to defuse misguided practitioners. By the
use of white
magicneurological techniques that enable people to understand and to
control their
own nervous systems he neutralized occult power moves. He became
adept at
sensing precisely how realities are created at the beginning of an
interaction, of how
realities are subsequently imposed on others and of how reality
invasions can be
checked. He developed dozens of simple, humorous and aesthetic
protections against
black-magic reality take-overs.
One example is the Buddhist mudraor hand movementwhich means "have no
"This is eternity, brother. This is the end of the line. No one
ever gets out once they've been here. This is forever."
fear." The thumb and index finger are joined to form a circle; the
three remaining
fingers are extended, as in the American OK sign. The circle thus
formed can be used
to focus consciousness. Through the circle, one sights the person who
is projecting
an unwanted reality. Then one shifts focus to one's own hand, and the
person splits in-
to two peripheral fuzzy optical blobs. And one's attention is centered
on one's own
ability to maneuver and control one's own consciousness.
Thus, years earlier, did Leri prepare for his first-and-only reality
skirmish with Charles
Manson, who began by imposing a reality in which he came on as Biblical
prophet. Leri
reacted with here-and-now Zen concreteness: "Gotta cigarette?" "How do
you feel?"
The Extraterrestrial Agent sits on the floor, looks over the cell
again. Reduced to
isolation and helplessness, the bio-survival circuitry and
emotional-glandular systems
react in primitive, emergency patterns. The trained Neurologician scans
the circuitry,
turns off the surrender/bail-out/die reflex, tunes in the
success/bliss/patience net-
works and serenely waits for the past to catch up with the future.
Eighteen prisons and
jails in five years are good preliminary training in neurological
engineering.
He hears a voice.
"So you finally made it here. I've been watching you fall for years,
man. You know
where we are?" The voice is cocky, somewhat patronizing. The
lotus-position charac-
ter in the next cell, who sent the books and coffee makings. Charlie.
He repeats: "Do
you really know where we are?"
"Where are we?"
"This is eternity, brother. This is the end of the line. No one ever
gets out once
they've been here. This is forever."
Leri listens to the voice with pity and irritation. He senses that
Charlie speaks a
resigned subjective truth. True, that is, for Charlie. The Commodore is
not willing to be
included in that reality, which he is planning to discard. But anybody
on the inside
deserves compassion. Besides, the Neurologician understands how this
reality has
been formed. Fear is the force that energizes and structures our social
insitutions, and
Charlie is the totally institutionalized man, a Kafkaesque symbol of
our technical-moral
domestication. The military mind.
"Hey," Leri calls. "Did you send me the Bugler and the food? Thanks."
"It's my pleasure," says the voice. "I love everyone and try to
share what I have. I've
been waiting to talk to you for years. Our lives would never have
crossed outside. But
now we have plenty of time. We were all your students, you know." The
voice is low
"That was exactly the point," the Professor replies wearily.
"I didn't want to impose my realities. The idea is that every-
body takes responsibility for his nervous system, creates his
own new reality."
with the assurance of a fundamentalist minister.
"What do you mean?" The Wizard is leaning against the bars, cocking
his ear to
catch the soft, self-assured words.
"You know how it happened. I had been in prison all my life, and
when I got out in the
middle of the Sixties, there was a whole new world. Millions of kids
cut loose from the
old lies, free of hangups, waiting to be told what to do." The voice
takes on a slight
edge of complaint. "And you didn't tell them what to do. That's what I
never could
figure out about you, man. You showed everyone how to create a new head
and then
you wouldn't give them the new head. Why didn't you? I've wanted to ask
you that for
years."
"That was exactly the point," the Professor replies wearily. "I
didn't want to impose
my realities. The idea is that everybody takes responsibility for his
nervous system,
creates his own new reality. It's the end of the monotheism trip,
remember. You can be
anyone this time around. Anything else is brainwashing."
"That was your mistake," the voice says in a ghost-hollow whisper.
"Nobody wants
responsibility. They want to be told what to do, what to believe,
what's really true and
really real."
"And you've got the answers for them?"
"It's all in the Bible, man. That's the one thing prison does for
you. Gives you time to
read the Bible. I figured it all out. Do you know why everything went
wrong?"
The Bard remembers: He is the guest, the receiver of giftslittle
gifts, but all he
could give, probably. Patiently, he asks, "Why?"
"It was the women. They got scared and forced all these laws and
morals on the
men. It's all in the Bible, man. What does the Bible say about women?
That they're the
cause of evil. Right? Don't you get the message? Read it while you're
here. It's ruthless
and stern. Evil has to be killed. Only a few are to be saved. I'm the
only one who really
takes the Bible seriously and that's why I'm here."
The Professor asks quietly, "How do you feel, Charlie?"
There is a pause and then the voice returns, less messiah, more convict.
"I feel bad, man." After the confession, a new rush of words: "I got
the rawest deal in
two thousand years. Sure I laugh at it most of the time. But the pigs
got me good. I
can't write letters. I can't get visits. They got me completely cut
off. They really want to
kill me. I can feel it. The murder in their hearts. My trial was a
farce. It's stupid. I play
out their script, act out their Bible, take the whole thing on
myselfall their feelings of
evil and murder, all the sins of mankind, climb on the cross for them.
And nobody un-
The Professor eats dinner on the floor. It Is passed through a
swine trough on a plastic tray and eaten with plastic spoons
too fragile to be used as weapons. As he eats, he watches the
light from the hall throw a yellow puddle on the floor.
derstands. Nobody sees what I'm doing for them. Do you? Like do you
understand
about Sirhan Sirhan?"
The Psychologist answers carefully:"l recognize that this is a very
Christian country
and that every convict is forced to play Christ. But, to tell you the
truth, I don't have
much to do with that. I'm an Irish-Catholic pagan. Oldest god game
going."
Manson should not be feared, lest he be made fearful. Leri's
feelings toward his
fellow prisoner were pitying and he certainly had no desire to wish the
unfortunate
fellow further harm.
Later on, in the yard of Folsom, he would fall into a conversation
with Bob Hart, a
wild, tough, wise veteran of the prison system.
"Why is Manson locked in segregation?" asked the Commodore.
"He'd get beat up if he came out on the yard," replied Hart.
"Because of his crime?"
"Naw. That's propaganda to please the squares. What you did on the
street ain't im-
portant in here. Prisoners can't act as judges for each other. We take
a man as he
comes. Manson's first problem in prison and on the street is his size.
He's a runt, you
know. Can't be over five-two.
"Now, if he was six-two and two hundred pounds, you better believe
that he'd be
walking around cheerful and confident, instead of sitting in lockup.
Not that size is
everything in prison. The Mexican Mafia is the most feared gang in the
system,
because it's organized and ruthless. Manson isn't accepted here because
he's a head
fuckercoming on with all that Bible talk. That may scare the squares
out there, but in
here, it don't cut it. Manson's conned himself into believing his own
Bible trip."
The Professor eats dinner on the floor. It is passed through a swine
trough on a
plastic tray and eaten with plastic spoons too fragile to be used as
weapons. As he
eats, he watches the light from the hall throw a yellow puddle on the
floor.
Americans have eaten 1.8x1010 McDonald's hamburgers and
elected Richard Nixon twice. We live at the bottom of a 40-mile
gravity well. It has taken all four and a half billion years of terres-
trial evolution to produce nervous systems capable of devising a
technology with which to climb out of that well and launch migra-
tory-colonization cylinders into space. There is no reason for us
"Read all the books you can get about the future. And leaving
planet earth. And finding immortality. And contacting higher
intelligence."
to ever climb back down into such a planetary hole again. Our
evolutionary mission is to fly free through timespace. The origin-
al sin of "Genesis" is gravity: the fall.
The trusty is back. "Doc?"
"Yes?"
"What are the most important books in the world?"
"That depends. What do you want to learn?"
"About life. About metaphysics. About the higher life."
The Professor's tone is dry, pedantic. "Metaphysics means beyond
physics. Do you
know a lot about physics?"
"No. I'm not interested in science. I want to know about spiritual things."
"Well, you can't go beyond physics until you understand the basic
principles of
physics. Do you know what Einstein did?"
"He made the bomb."
"He showed mathematically that all matter is energy at different
rates of speed.
Think about that for a minute."
"It's far-out, yeah. But I want to know about God. Do you believe in
astrology? Do you
believe in the tarot? Charlie keeps telling me to read the Bible. My
cellmate has the I
Ching. It's heavy, man; 740 pages. Should I read the Bible or the /
Ching first?"
"Don't bother with either of them. They're thousands of years out of date."
"Well, what should I read?"
Long pause. Sirag, Wheeler and Sarfatti on new quantum theories?
Paul on non-
histone proteins? Ettinger and Harrington on longevity? O'Neill on
extraterrestrial
migration? Sagan on contacting advanced civilizations in space?
"Read science fiction."
"What? That's not spiritual."
"Yes, it is. Read all the books you can get about the future. And
leaving planet earth.
And finding immortality. And contacting higher intelligence."
After the trusty leaves, the Bard's eyes tire rapidly and he
abandons, for the night,
Bulgakov's satire on a robot society where the free mind is chained,
caged, confined.
Sleep comes quickly.
BUGLIOSI: Directing your attention to verse 15, which reads: "And
the four angels were
loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a
year, for to slay
the third part of men." Did he (Manson) say what that meant?
"Death is obsolete, or will be soon. They laid that trip on you,
Charles, and you bought it. I'm really sorry because that mo-
ment is just the suspension of biochemical imprints in the
nervous system.
WATKINS: He said that those were the people who would die in Helter
Skelter...one
third of mankind...the white race.
After breakfast, Charlie's voice is there again.
"Hey, I want to ask you a question. Are you there? Are you listening?"
"Yes, I'm listening."
"When you take acid. And the world and your body dissolve into
nothing but
vibrations. And space becomes time and there's nothing but pure energy,
nothing to
hang onto. You know what I'm talking about?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's the moment of truth, right? But what is it? What do you call it?"
The ultimate Cosmological question posed. A silence ensues in the
cell block of the
maximum-security prison, broken only by the humming of a generator, the
clunk of
toilet valves, the sound of rushing water, a distant rattling of metal
keys.
"Charles?"
"Yeah?"
"What do you find at that moment?"
"Nothing. Like what death must be. Right? Isn't that what you find?"
"Death is obsolete, or will be soon. They laid that trip on you,
Charles, and you
bought it. I'm really sorry because that moment is just the suspension
of biochemical
imprints in the nervous system. You can take off from there and go
anywhere you want.
You should have looked for the energy fusion that's called love."
Later, from the perspective of post-terrestrial migration, Leri
would send back the message to Manson and his followers:
S.M.I2.L.E., or, in larval language, Space Migration, Intelligence
Increase, Life Extension. "They need something to S.M.I2.L.E.
about," the Commodore would say.
Footsteps and jaunty whistling in the hallway. The young blond
trusty leans in.
"Heyhome! You're getting moved. Just heard the bulls talking. You're
going up to
the third level."
"What does that mean?"
"it's good. You're going up. You're getting out of the hole in the
hole."
The Philosopher folds the tobacco, sugar, coffee, honey and the four
books in
The Philosopher throws the mattress on his shoulder and,
surrounded by the three clubs, walks back down the tier past
the hard-core cells. Charles Manson, sitting in the lotus
position, smiles and waves.
blankets, throws the mattress onto his shoulder and, surrounded by
the three clubs,
leaves the strip cell, walks back down the tier past the hard-core
cells. Charlie Manson,
sitting in the lotus position, smiles and waves.
The power of terrorists to frighten the middle class was dramatized
to Leri in a later
conversation with a young and inexperienced guard. A group of convicts
was in the
prison dayroom watching the documentary film Manson, produced by Robert
Hen-
drickson. It contains a scene in which Brenda, flanked by other Manson
girls, idly toys
with a rifle, looks directly into the camera and quietly says "We are
what you have
made us. We were brought up watching Gunsmoke, Have Gun, Will Travel,
FBI, Com-
batCombatv/as my favorite show. I never missed Combat."
At this point, the young guard rushed in the dayroom in an agitated state.
"Who was saying that?" he demanded.
"A girl from the Manson family."
"That's the scariest thing I ever heard in my life."
"Yeah, the continual violence on TV is alarming," agreed the
Commodore. "The daily
body count on this TV set alone runs into the hundreds."
"No, I don't mean that," said the guard. "I mean Manson and those
girls, threatening
us that way. I want to run home and put double locks on my doors."
"But that girl says that they are just acting out the popular TV
scripts and the Bible's
instructions to get rid of sinners."
"Well, I'm glad I got a couple of rifles and a bunch of pistols in my house."
"And the TV antenna on your roof to receive the programs that tell
you what to be
afraid of."
"That stuff is weird," said the bewildered bi-ped.
Leri nodded in agreement.
A Minor Intelligence Affair
March 1976
San Diego Federal Prison
Commodore Timothy Leri, agent from Central Intelligence assigned on
special mu-
tational duty to Planet Earth, walked into the office of the Senate
Committee on Sub-
versive Activities and nodded cheerfully to Klute, the Chief
Investigator, a burly bi-ped
earthling with the tweed-demeanor of a College Dean.
Klute rose and approached Leri with a happy smile. The two embraced
and shook
hands chuckling and reciting the standard affectionate welcome noises
exchanged
by terrestrials who trust each other.
The Chief Investigator introduced his three deputies, alert looking
primates who
greeted the Commodore with respectful smiles. Shoulder holsters. C.I.A.
or F.B.I.?,
thought Leri. The vibes are good.
"Coffee, Commodore? Let's see, you take everything, as I recall," said Klute.
The door opened silently and an attractive black female earthling
entered the room
carrying a tray with steaming cups and a plate of doughnuts.
Leri and two of the deputies lit nicotine cigarettes.
Klute cleared his throat.
The tape is running, thought Leri. That's good. The Director and the
Senators will get
it direct.
"We wonder if you would be willing to answer some questions which
the committee
is really concerned about."
"With pleasure. That's my job," replied the Commodore, who, after
all these years,
had finally mastered the social habits of the domesticated primates.
The Chief Investigator introduced his three deputies, alert
looking primates who greeted the Commodore with respect-
ful smiles. 'Shoulder holsters. C.I.A. or F.B.I.?,' thought Leri.
'The vibes are good.'
"We still don't understand what happened in the late 60's and 70's,"
said Klute,
stuffing tobacco into his pipe, frowning with his serious young man
look. "This mili-
tant revolutionary stuff. What caused upper-middle class kids, affluent
and well
educated to embrace political violence? The Weather Underground. The
S.L.A. Why?"
Here we go again, thought the Commodore. They just won't quit. "Of
course you
want to show foreign influence," said Leri. "Moscow, Peiping, Hanoi and
Havana must
be to blame for these alien influences, correct?"
The four agents exchanged uneasy glances. Everyone suddenly lifted
coffee cups.
Cigarette smoke filled the room. Everyone shifted position.
"That's what we're told," replied the Chief Investigator, choosing
his words
carefully. "What other explanation is there for this sudden explosion
of revolutionary
aggression? European Marxists don't act so violently. So we need your
help. You've
travelled the third world. You've lived with these people. What
countries? What foreign
agents? What contacts?"
"My role in these matters is not blind transmission of information,"
said the Com-
modore stiffly. Why are they interested in foreign influence now? Why
now? That stuff
won't get appropriations anymore. '/Present me with a problem that
requires intelligent
synthesis of historical facts and I'll solve it for you. I'm really
more interested in the
history of your species than you, as you are well aware. I'm always
fascinated by what
your people define as a problem."
"I know," said Klute somberly but smiling. "Our questions are your
data. So here's
your question. Was there any tie between the Weathermen and Communist
countries
while you were in Algeria?"
The Commodore leaned back in his chair and laughed. This is going to
be amusing.
"First let me retrieve the factoid memories." He closed his eyes during
the neural
scan. "Okay. Delegations of American leftists did visit China, North
Korea, North Viet-
nam. Think of them as naive pilgrims to the shrines of their
gullibility. Spiritual tour-
ists. Like Catholics from South Boston visiting Lourdes. Plus, of
course, your planted
agents who heavily infiltrated the delegations. In Algeria all visiting
leftists made
obligatory visits to the North Vietnamese embassy and were given those
horrid/heavy
steel rings with the inscription FLN-SVN...the rings made from metal
salvaged from
downed American planes."
The agents' eyes flicked at each other. Ah, thought Leri, that was
the plus-fact they
needed to show my cooperation. Now they'll probe with an obvious
minus-fact.
Why are they interested in foreign influence now? Why now?
That stuff won't get appropriations anymore.
"What about Bernadine Dohrn's secret visits to Algeria?" from Klute
stuffing his
pipe.
"It was so secret that I never heard of it. There were, however,
certain other
Americans secretly negotiating to end the war on terms totally
favorable to the enemy.
Do you want their names?"
The four agents leaned forward in unison. "We sure do."
"Kissinger and Nixon," replied the Commodore. "Do you really think
that Hanoi was
interested in directing sporadic Weather bombings of R.O.T.C. buildings
at the same
time they were winning their poker game with Kissinger? If I had wanted
to escalate
the Vietnam war I would have infiltrated Weather and provoked them to
senseless
militancy. Neither Hanoi or the American left understood the
groundswell cultural
revolution that ended the war and threw Johnson and Nixon out of
office. Nor, ap-
parently do your people."
"Tell us what we don't understand," replied Klute dryly.
"With pleasure. Please tell the Senators and the Director that they
are continuing to
repeat the same mistake that Hoover, Johnson and Nixon made. You can
blame
domestic unrest on outside agitators and Moscow gold in order to get
your
Congressional appropriations. But the mistake is to believe your own
lying. You recall
that Johnson fell because he clung to the belief that opposition to his
war must be
based on foreign agents. And then Nixon fell for the same propaganda.
The Watergate
burglars were hoping to find evidence of Castro payments to Larry
O'Brien. If they had
found checks from Fidel in the Democratic Headquarters the burglars
would have been
heroes and Watergate a glorious patriotic success. Right?"
The four agents sat hunched in the standard pose of cops being
scolded by a su-
perior. It was Klute who broke the silence. "You still haven't answered
our question.
Who turned the middle class kids onto violence?"
"I can tell you who. And how your guys set it up."
The Chief Investigator and the three deputies leaned forward, pens
poised over
yellow legal note pads.
"Who did it?" whispered Klute.
"Your own lower class steeped in violence and hip to the ghetto-fact
that middle-
class security is based on the violence of their protectorsthe police
and the military.
The kids off the block, the ex-cons, black and white, to whom the gun
and the fist have
always been the basic equalizers. The well ordered society maintains
educational
'It's good that we can talk this openly,' thought Leri. 'That
means that the young guys control the tapes made in this
office.'
control over its young by keeping the children of the managers away
from the unset-
tling raw facts of power politics. Your guys made a great blunder by
throwing middle-
class kids in prisons for victimless, cultural crimes like draft
resistance and dope.
Prisons, as you well know, are schools for violence where you teach
lower class kids
how to play their roles as criminals. Middle class kids are supposed to
read about
social problems in college text books. They aren't supposed to be
exposed to the true
facts about the crime industry."
The Chief Investigator wrote rapidly with a black felt pen. The
three deputies sat in
cautious silence.
"What about the Marxist rhetoric and the Castro revolutionary
slogans?" said Klute
wearily.
"Your college kids read Fanon and Che and Marighella on urban
guerilla tactics.
They drooled over that stupid movie Battle of Algiers. All this was
standard parlor in-
tellectual stuff until Johnson and Nixon made the tactical mistake. Was
it a mistake?
Or was it a deliberate tactic?"
"What mistake?"
"Throwing the verbally aggressive college kids into close contact
with lower class
muscular violence. The bourgeois kids taught the ghetto kids the
rhetoric. Suddenly
every rapist and armed robber became a political prisoner. And the
college kids learned
the emotional power of the gun and the fist to create fear and respect."
"Why do you ask if this was a tactic?" asked Klute.
He's good, thought the Commodore. He knows all this. He's just
getting me to say
what he wants said. His faction in the bureau is using me as conceptual
hit-man to roll
the heads of the old guard. The Commodore had long ago learned that the
worst enemy
of any police-bureaucrat was the faction in his own department that
wanted his power.
And that criminals and crime waves were created by competing factions
among power-
holders.
"Well, Nixon and Reagan rode into power on the wave of fear
generated by the stu-
dent uprisings. I'm glad to help clarify this issue. But I sure hope
you know what you're
doing."
"What do you mean?" asked Klute, smiling. In relief?
"We all know that there are powerful people in the government who
don't want these
things said. They're going down, sure, but they aren't going down
meekly. And there
are, I suspect, lots of indictable records stuck away in the files that
haven't been
shredded. Can you protect me if I front for you?"
The four agents looked at each other and began to laugh. "Yes," said
Klute. "You're
"Who turned the middle class kids onto violence?'
"I can tell you who. And how your guys set it up."
safe. As safe as we are."
The four agents laughed again. "We've gone so far out on a limb to
rescue you that
you can advocate anything except high-jacking and we'll protect you.
The facts of the
matter are that if you go down, we'll go down with you."
"That's what Cleaver said in Algeria," replied the Commodore
soberly. "I told him, as
I now tell you, that I'm more interested in us all going up." It's good
that we can talk
this openly, thought Leri. That means that the young guys control the
tapes made in
this office.
"We agree," said Klute rising from his chair. "And right now let's all go to lunch."
At the restaurant the agents seemed relaxed and cheerful. I must
have given them
what they wanted, thought Leri. He turned his head and smiled into the
eyes of Klute.
"You guys aren't still chasing dissidents are you?"
Klute looked at his colleagues and they all laughed.
"Shall we brief the Commodore?" said Klute.
The agents nodded, smiling grimly.
"No we aren't chasing leftists. In the first place, we've so
infiltrated every left group
that the Berkeley Barb, Rolling Stone and the New Republic would fold
in a day if we
pulled out our people.
"Since McCord and Judge Sirica started this Watergate business no
police agency
in Washington will touch a left-wing case. Don't you hear what is
obsessing every
federal agency these days?
"The return of the avenging Democrats."
The four agents glanced at each other and nodded.
"You realize who the worst enemy of the Director of any agency is?"
demanded
Klute.
"The rival political faction in his own agency," replied Leri promptly.
"For sure. Now tell me who is the worst enemy, the dangerous
security threat to the
head of the F.B.I, office in Topeka, Kansas."
"The head of the F.B.I, office in Kansas City." replied Leri.
"Exactly," said Klute. "And who are the other threats to the chief in Topeka?"
"The local sheriff, the local police chief, the local narcotics agency."
"Affirmative. And are the local Mafia and the local Black Panthers
and the local
Communists threats to the F.B.I, chief?"
"No, they are pawns to be used or avoided according to bureaucratic
develop-
ments."
"Affirmative," said Klute. "Now tell me, as the Watergate scandal develops what is
'He's good,' thought the Commodore. 'He knows all this. He's
just getting me to say what he wants said. His faction in the
bureau is using me as conceptual hit-man to roll the heads of
the old guard.'
every Federal Agency Director doing?"
"Covering tracks, covering up illegal or partisan political acts,
shredding memos in
anticipation of November 1976 when rival factions in each agency move
in to expose
what's been going on since 1968."
"Right. So you can be certain of one thing," said Klute. "The
central concern of every
Federal Law Enforcement bureaucrat these days is to avoid prosecution
in 1977. You,
of all people, should know how many "dirty tricks" and political crimes
were commit-
ted by Nixon."
"And by Johnson," agreed the Commodore.
"And by the Kennedys," added Klute. "Take your kidnapping in
Afghanistan by
American agents. The officials who stole your passport and had you
shipped back un-
der armed guard are, right now, wondering if they'll face a forcible
abduction charge
when a liberal, pro-marijuana president gets elected in 1976."
"About the Kennedys," said the Commodore, "I figure their crimes and
dirty tricks
haven't surfaced because they weren't as pious and hypocritical as
Nixon."
"They never hid their criminal past," murmured Klute, "people
respected that instin-
ctively."
"And they're dead," added Leri.
"Some people still wonder who killed them," mused the Inspector.
"Do you know?" exclaimed the short deputy Inspector.
"Sure I know," said Klute breezily. "And the Commodore knows too."
Leri nodded smiling.
"Who killed the Kennedys?" asked the Deputy Inspector.
"They were killed by their own device," said Leri.
"The Kennedys," Klute added quickly, "were killed by the crashing of
the com-
plicated structure they temporarily destroyed, the ricochets of the
bullets they fired."
"What structure?" asked the Deputy Sheriff.
"The code of honor among the thieves and assassins who run almost
every govern-
ment in the world."
"That's right," added Leri. "Among every Mafia group there's a code
of self-
protective ethics. Generals wine and dine captured generals for obvious
selfish
reasons. And Sicilians may kill rivals but they never touch each
other's families. The
IRA bombs Protestant kids but don't torture. The Arab Mafia and the
Jewish Mafia each
have their own codes."
"What does this have to do with the Kennedys?" asked the Deputy.
"The Kennedys," Klute added quickly, "were killed by the
crashing of complicated structure they temporarily destroyed,
the ricochets of the bullets they fired."
"The Kennedys broke the rule that governs the game of government
leaders," said
Klute.
"And it was so karmically reckless," said Leri, "that business about
the three
brothers was so obvious."
"Three brothers?"
"Don't you remember. At one time there were two sets of brothers who
ran the two
countries which pre-occupied the gang warfare plans of the Kennedys."
"Fidel and Raoul Castro, and..?"
"The Diem brothers in Vietnam. You remember what happened."
The deputy whistled softly. "Jack and Bobby sponsored all those plots to kill Fidel."
"And they set up the Big Minh coup that assassinated the Diems."
said Klute. "It
was barbarian Borgia duplicity imposed by the two Big Brothers on a
world that had
been mildly civilized since Hitler and Stalin. Even kooky Stalin was
canny enough not
to sponsor assassination plots."
"Because," said the Commodore, "once a Mafia moral taboo is broken,
every one
gets into the act."
"And no capo is safe."
"I see now," said the deputy, "why no one is eager to uncover the
Kennedy scandal.
Too many agencies involved in the assassination plots. Will any of this
ever come
out?"
"That's the point of your visit, isn't it?" asked Leri. "It's all
going to come down after
the 1976 elections. (Lots of blood on honest cops' hands and lots of
burglar tools in
honest cops' pockets.")
"And all in the name of national security."
"So the question of foreign support of domestic dissents could save
some high level
heads?" said Leri. "By the way, when, if ever, will I know the results
of this meeting?"
Klute shrugged his shoulders and made his little-boy gesture of
contrived ignorance.
"Who knows? These matters have a way of getting leaked to the press at
the right time.
You should know that, Commodore."
"Yes, I'm aware of how images are made and changed by press leaks,"
said Com-
modore Leri. "I wish you guys luck. I hope you know what you're doing."
"We'll all find out soon enough," replied Klute.
Two months later, the Commodore received in the mail an unmarked
envelope which
contained the xerox copy of an article in the New York Times:
A Minor Intelligence Affair
"But one source familiar with the prosecutors' thinking said
today that reliable information from high sources assured the
Security Committee that the Weather Underground had no
foreign connections."
NO FOREIGN LINKS TO FUGITIVES SEEN
U.S. Prosecutors Discount Alien Threats
in Targets of Federal Agency Burglaries.
Washington Aug. 22
Justice department prosecutors have seen no evidence that
the Senate Security Agency's search for fugitive members of the
Weather Underground organization was motivated by the group's
purported links to hostile foreign governments, sources close to
the department's investigation said today.
The issue of whether the fugitive group had been directed or
supported by foreigners has been raised by Murray Steinmetz, an
attorney for some 20 Senate Security agents who have become
subjects of a Justice Department investigation into burglaries
they carried out against friends and relatives of the fugitives over
the last five years.
Mr. Steinmetz asserted last week that such connections had
existed between the Weather fugitives and "foreign hostile
governments" and other Washington sources have said that the
Senate Committee is attempting to marshal evidence of those
links as a prelude to demonstrating that the break-ins were legal.
But one source familiar with the prosecutor's thinking said
today that none of the Security Committee documents
requesting or granting permission for the burglaries had
suggested or even alluded to such foreign connections to the
Weather Underground as rationale for their commission.
The Washington Post reported today that the Senate Commit-
tee on Security was preparing a 500-page report showing that
some of the Weather fugitives received financial support from
the Vietnamese and Cuban governments. The newspaper quoted
a "high justice department source" who cited concern that such
evidence could weaken the department's criminal case against
the agents.
Two sources close to the prosecutors dismissed the
suggestion that there was such a concern. "It's too late," one
said, "The dam has burst." And another noted that several past
and present federal agents had already accepted immunity from
prosecution in return for their testimony about the burglaries.
82 S.M.I2.LE S.M.I2.LE. S.M.I2.LE S.M.I2.LE S.M.I2.LE
Neuropolitics
From Inner Space to Outer Space
Co-Author February 1974
Robert Anton Wilson Vacaville Prison
The infamous Drug Revolution of the
1960s has inspired more nonsense, on
both sides, than any event of our time.
It was not a sudden mutation from a
society without drug use to a society with
massive drug use. Far from it: America,
before the 1960s, was a heavy, hard drug
culture already, but the drugs widely used
were not defined as drugs. They were
"medicines" (aspirin, barbiturates, tranks,
amphetamine "diet-pills," etc.) or "Relax-
ants" (tobacco, alcohol, caffeine).
The accompanying chart, from Sex and
Drugs by Robert Anton Wilson, gives the
actual figures on drug use in the U.S.A. at
the end of the 1960s, when the "Drug
Revolution" was completing its first
decade. It will easily be seen that, even at
that late date, the most popular drugs in
the country were not those usually
From Inner Space to Outer Space
"...we began to speak of the experimental subject as a neuro-
logical cosmonaut tripping through inner space, the session
being programmed by a 'trip-guide' who acted as Ground
Control."
associated with the "Drug Revolution" but those which had been
around for generations.
The acceptable tobacco, booze and pills were still the majority drugs;
the forbidden
weed, psychedelics and junk were still by comparison minority
preferences. The accept-
able drugs, the prescription drugs and (among the forbidden drugs) junk
had not in-
creased markedly in use. What had increased was the usage of turn-on
drugs.
The much-exaggerated chemical metamorphosis of our time has not been
from no
drugs to drugs, but from one kind of drugs to another.
To understand this is to begin to understand what has been
happening. The change,
we will show, has been from terrestrial drugs to post-terrestrial
drugs. From down
drugs to up drugs. From the earthy to the spacey, from gravity to
levity, from low times
to High Times.
These metaphors are not as extravagant as they seem. They are part
of a new and
meaningful slang that is heard everywhere from academia to the ghetto.
For instance,
the astronaut metaphor began in the Harvard psychedelic research
project of 1960-62,
when we began to speak of the experimental subject as a neurological
cosmonaut
tripping through inner space, the session being programmed by a
"trip-guide" who act-
ed as Ground Control.This buried imagery is still subliminally carried
by the words trip,
tripping, tripper, now in international use.
To understand neurological space, assume that the nervous system
consists of
eight potential circuits, or "gears", or mini-brains. Four of these
brains (including the
left lobe) are concerned with our terrestrial survival; four are
post-terrestrial, reside in
the "silent" right lobe, and are for use in our future evolution. The
right lobe usually
inactive at early stages of our development, becomes active when the
person ingests
psychedelics.
We will explain each of the 8 "brains" briefly.
I. The bio-survival circuit. This marine or vegetative brain
was the first to evolve
(billion years ago) and is the first activated at birth. It programs
perception onto an
either-or grid divided into nurturing-helpful Things (which it
approaches) and noxious-
dangerous Things (which it flees, or attacks.) The imprinting of this
circuit sets up the
basic attitude of trust or suspicion which will last for life. It also
identifies the external
stimuli which will ever after trigger approach or avoidance.
II. The emotional circuit. This second, more advanced
bio-computer emerged when
vertebrates appeared and began to compete for territory (perhaps
500,000,000 B.C.). In
the individual, it is activated when the DNA mastertape triggers the
metamorphosis
from crawling to walking. As every parent knows, the toddler is no
longer a passive
(bio-vegetative) infant but a mammalian politician, full of physical
(and emotional)
The imprinting of the first three circuits determines by age
3.5 the basic degree and style of trust/distrust, assertiveness/
submission and cleverness/clumsiness; with which the mind
will handle tools or ideas.
territorial demands, quick to meddle in family business and
decision-making. Again
the first imprint on this circuit remains constant for life (unless
brain-washed) and
identifies the stimuli which automatically trigger dominant, aggressive
behavior or
submissive, cooperative behavior. When we say that a person is behaving
emotionally,
egotistically or "like a two-year-old," we mean that SHe is blindly
following one of the
robot imprints on this circuit.
III. The dexterity-symbolism circuit. This third brain emerged
when hominid types
began to differentiate from other primate stock (circa 4-5 million
B.C.) and is activated
when the older child begins handling artifacts and sending/receiving
laryngeal signals
(human speech units). If the environment is stimulating to the third
circuit, the child
takes a "bright" imprint and becomes dextrous and articulate; if the
environment is
made of deliberately stupid people, the child takes a "dumb" imprint,
i.e. remains more
or less at a 5-year-old stage of symbol-blindness.
In popular speech, the first brain is generally called
"consciousness" per se: the
sense of being biologically alive, in this body, oriented to the
survival of the body.
(When you are "un-conscious," the first circuit is anesthetized and
doctors may per-
form surgery on you or enemies may attack you, and you will not evade
them or flee.)
The second circuit, in the same vernacular language, is called "ego."
So-called "ego"
is the second circuit mammalian sense of status
(importance-unimportance) in the
pack or tribe. The third circuit is what we generally call "mind" the
capacity to
receive, integrate and transmit signals produced by the hominid hand
(artifacts) or the
hominid 9 laryngeal muscles (speech).
The imprinting of these three circuits determines, by about age 3.5,
the basic degree
and style of trust/distrust that will color "consciousness," the degree
and style of
assertiveness/submissiveness that will determine "ego"-status, and the
degree and
style of cleverness/clumsiness with which "mind" will handle tools or
ideas.
In evolutionary terms, first brain "consciousness" is basically
invertebrate, passive-
ly floating toward nurture and retreating from danger. Second brain
"ego" is mam-
malian, always struggling for status in the tribal pecking-order. Third
brain "mind" is
hominid, hooked into human culture and dealing with life through a
matrix of human-
made gadgets and human-created symbolism.
The fourth brain is post-hominid, specifically characteristic of
Homo Sapiens, the
"domesticated" WoMan. This is:
IV. The socio-sexual circuit. This fourth brain was formed
when hominid packs
evolved into societies and programmed specific sex-roles for their
members, circa
30,000 B.C. In the individual it is activated at puberty, when the DNA
signals trigger the
The first four circuits are called 'terrestrial' because they have
evolved in and have been shaped by the gravitational, climatic
and energy conditions determining survival on this sort of
planet.
glandular release of sexual neurochemicals and the metamorphosis to
adulthood
begins. The first orgasms or mating experiences imprint a
characteristic sex-role
which, again, is bio-chemically bonded and remains constant for life,
unless some
form of brain-washing or chemical re-imprinting is accomplished.
In daily speech, fourth circuit imprints and programs are known as
the "adult person-
ality," the domesticated sexual impersonation.
Masters and Johnson have demonstrated that specific sexual
"dysfunctions" so-
called "perversions," "fetishes," low-or-no performance conditions like
premature
ejaculation, impotence, frigidity, etc., or eccentric imprints defined
as "sinful" by the
local tribe are determined by specific experiences in early
adolescent mating. The
same is true of the equally robotic behavior of the "normal,"
"well-adjusted" person.
The sex-role (or, as it might more appropriately be called, the sexual
impersonation
style) of the human is as rote and repetitious as that of any other
mammal (or bird or
fish or insect.)
These four circuits are normally the only networks of the brain
activated. It should
now be clear why we call them terrestrial. They have evolved on, and
have been shaped
by, the gravitational, climatic and energy conditions determining
survival and
reproduction on this kind of planet circling this variety of Type G
star. Intelligent
organisms evolving in space, not living at the bottom of a 4000-mile
gravity well, not
competing for territory on a finite planet-surface, not limited by the
forward-back, up-
down, right-left parameters of earthy life, would inevitably develop
different circuits,
imprinted differently, not so inflexibly Euclidean.
Forward-back is the basic binary choice programmed by the
bio-computer operating
on Circuit I: Either advance, go forward, sniff it, touch it, taste it,
bite it or retreat,
back away, flee, escape.
Up-down, the basic gravitational sense, appears in all ethological
reports of animal
combat. Rear up, swell the body to maximum size, growl, howl, shriek
or cringe,
drop the tail between the legs, murmer softly, skulk away, crawl and
shrink the body
size. These are domination and submission signals common to iguana,
dog, bird, and
the Chairman of the Board of the local bank. These reflexes make up
Circuit II "ego."
Right-left is basic to the polarity of body-design on the
planetface. Right-hand
dominance, and associated preference for the linear left-lobe functions
of the brain,
determine our normal modes of artifact-manufacture and conceptual
thought, i.e. third
circuit "mind." Assymetry is the key to improved brain function.
It is no accident, then, that our logic (and our computer-design)
follows the either/or,
binary structure of these circuits. Nor is it an accident that our
geometry, until the last
Neuropolitics
To activate the first brain take an opiate. To activate the sec-
ond brain take alcohol. To activate the third brain take an
energizer.
century, has been Euclidean. Euclid's geometry, Aristotle's logic
and Newton's
physics are meta-programs synthesizing and generalizing first brain
forward-back,
second brain up-down and third brain right-left programs.
The fourth brain, dealing with the transmission of tribal or ethnic
culture across
generations, introduces the fourth dimension, timebinding culture.
Since each of these circuits consists of bio-chemical imprints or
matrices in the
nervous system, each of them is specifically triggered by
neuro-transmitters, i.e.
drugs.
To activate* the first brain take an opiate. Mother Opium and Sister
Morphine bring
you down to cellular intelligence, bio-survival passivity, the floating
consciousness of
the newborn. (This is why Freudians identify opiate addiction with the
desire to return
to infancy.)
To activate the second brain, take an abundant quantity of alcohol.
Vertebrate
territorial patterns and mammalian emotional politics immediately
appear when the
booze flows, as Thomas Nashe intuitively realized when he characterized
the various
alcohol states by animal labels: "ass drunk," "goat drunk," "swine
drunk," "bear
drunk," etc.
To activate the third brain, try coffee or tea, a high protein diet, speed or cocaine.
The specific neurotransmitter for circuit four has not been
synthesized yet, but it is
generated by the glands after pubescense and flows volcanically through
the blood-
streams of adolescents.
None of these terrestrial drugs changes basic bio-chemical imprints.
The behaviors
which they trigger are those which were wired into the nervous system
during the first
stages of imprint vulnerability. The Circuit II drunk exhibits the
emotional games or
cons learned from parents in infancy. The Circuit III "mind" never gets
beyond the per-
mutations and combinations of those artifacts and symbols originally
imprinted, or
abstractions associated with the imprints through later conditioning.
And so forth.
But all this Pavlovian-Skinnerian robotism changes drastically and
dramatically
when we turn to the right-lobe, the future circuits and
extra-terrestrial chemicals.
The four evolving future "brains" are:
V. The neurosomatic circuit. When this fifth "body-brain" is
activated, flat Euclidean
figure-ground configurations explode multi-dimensionally. Gestalts
shift, in McLuhan's
terms, from linear visual space to all-encompassing sensory space. A
hedonic turn-on
'Most probably, this 'activation' results from a general suppression
of higher neural circuits which
leaves the brain dominant.
Space Migration Intelligence Increase Life Extension 87
About 20,000 years ago, the specific fifth brain neurotrans-
mitter was discovered by shamans in Asia and quickly spread
throughout Europe and Asia. It is, of course, cannabis.
occurs, a rapturous amusement, a detachment from the previously
compulsive
mechanism of the first four circuits.
This fifth brain began to appear about 4000 years ago in the first
leisure class civiliza-
tions and has been increasing statistically in recent centuries (even
before the Drug
Revolution), a fact demonstrated by the hedonic art of India, China,
Rome and other af-
fluent societies. More recently, Ornstein and his school have
demonstrated with elec-
tro-encephalograms that this circuit represents the first jump from the
linear left-lobe
of the brain to the analogical right-lobe.
The opening and imprinting of this circuit has been the
preoccupation of
"technicians of the occult" tantric shamans and hatha yogis. While
the fifth circuit
imprint can be achieved by sensory deprivation, social isolation,
physiological stress
or severe shock (ceremonial terror tactics, as practiced by such
rascal-gurus as Don
Juan, Matus or Aleister Crowley), it has traditionally been reserved to
the educated
aristocracy of leisure societies who have solved the four terrestrial
survival problems.
About 4,000 years ago, the specific fifth brain neurotransmitter was
discovered by
shamans in the Caspian Sea area of Asia and quickly spread to other
wizards
throughout Eurasia and Africa. It is, of course, cannabis. Weed. Mary
Jane.
It is no accident that the pot-head generally refers to his neural
state as "high" or
"spaced-out." The transcendence of gravitational, digital, linear,
either-or, Aristotelian,
Newtonian, Euclidean, planetary orientations (Circuits I-IV) is, in
evolutionary perspec-
tive, part of our neurological preparation for the inevitable migration
off the home
planet, now beginning. This is why so many pot-heads are Star Trek
freaks and Sci-Fi
adepts. (Berkeley, California, certainly the Cannibis Capital of the
U.S., has a Federa-
tion Trading Post on Telegraph Avenue, where the well-heeled can easily
spend $500 or
more in a single day, buying Star Trek novels, magazines, newsletters,
bumper stick-
ers, photographs, posters, tapes, etc., including even complete
blueprints for the Star-
ship Enterprise.) Hedonic Consumerism.
The extra-terrestrial meaning of being "high" is confirmed by
astronauts them-
selves. Most of those who have entered the free-fall of zero gravity
describe "mystic
experiences" or rapture states typical of the neurosomatic circuit. "No
photo can
show how beautiful Earth looked," raves Captain Ed Mitchell, describing
his Illumin-
ation in free-fall. He sounds like any successful yogi or pot-head. No
camera can show
this experience because it is inside the nervous system.
(Captain Mitchell has left Aero Space to found The Institute of
Noetic Sciences, con-
cerned with scientific research into right-lobe functions. Buzz Aldrin
has joined him.)
Strong psychedelics like mescaline, LSD and psilocybin open
the nervous system to Circuit VI Brain Change signals.
Free fall, at the proper evolutionary time, triggers the neurosomatic mutation,
which has previously been achieved "artificially" by yogic or
shamanic training or by
the fifth circuit stimulant, cannabis. Surfing, skiing, skin-diving and
the new sexual
culture (sensuous massage, vibrators, imported Tantric arts, etc.) have
evolved at the
same time as part of the hedonic conquest of gravity. The Turn On state
is always
described as "floating," or, in the Zen metaphor, "one foot above the
ground."
VI. The neuroelectric circuit. The sixth brain consists of the
nervous system becom-
ing aware of itself apart from imprinted gravitational reality-maps
(circuits I-IV) and
even apart from body rapture (circuit V). Count Korzybski, the
semanticist, called this
state "consciousness of abstracting." Dr. John Lilly calls it
"meta-programming," i.e.
awareness of programming one's programming. This Einsteinian,
relativistic con-
telligence (conscious-intelligence) recognizes, for instance, that the
Euclidean,
Newtonian and Aristotelian reality-maps are just three among billions
of possible
programs or models for experience.
This level of brain-functioning seems to have been reported first
around 500 B.C.
among various "occult" groups connected by the Silk Route (China-North
India.) It is
so far beyond the terrestrial circuits that those who have achieved it
can barely com-
municate about it to ordinary humanity (circuits I-IV) and can hardly
be understood
even by fifth circuit Rapture Engineers.
The characteristics of the neuroelectric circuit are high velocity,
multiple choice,
relativity, and the fission-fusion of all perceptions into parallel
Sci-Fi universes of
alternate possibilities.
The mammalian politics which monitor power struggles among
terrestrial humanity
are here transcended, i.e. seen as static, artificial, an elaborate
charade. One is neither
coercively manipulated into another's territorial reality nor forced to
struggle against it
with reciprocal emotional game-playing (the usual soap-opera
dramatics.) One simply
elects, consciously, whether or not to share the other's reality-model.
Tactics for opening and imprinting the sixth circuit are described
and rarely ex-
perienced in advanced rajah yoga, and in the hermetic (coded) manuals
of the
medieval-Renaissance alchemists and Illuminati.
No specific sixth circuit chemical is yet available, but strong
psychedelics like
mescaline (from the "sacred cactus," peyote), psilocybin (from the
Mexican "magic
mushroom," teonactl and LSD open the nervous system to a mixed-media
series of
Circuit V and Circuit VI channels. This is appropriately called
"tripping," as
distinguished from straightforward fifth circuit "turning on" or
"getting high."
It is charmingly obvious, once we realize that the spaced-out
neural experiences really are extra-terrestrial, that getting
high and spacing out are accurate metaphors.
The opening of the sixth circuit is so alarming to terrestrial
circuit I-IV expectations
that it has been traditionally described in paradoxical, almost
nonsensical metaphors.
The Not-Self. The No-Mind. The White Light of the Void.
This semantic surrealism is no longer necessary. The Einstein
revolution in physics,
the post-Weiner breakthoughs in cybernetics and neurology, the
synergetic language
of Buckminister Fuller, the Neurologic of Lilly and Leary, allow us to
describe sixth cir-
cuit functioning in operational and functional terms as the nervous
system metapro-
gramming the nervous system or serially re-imprinting itself.
The suppression of scientific research in this area has had the
inevitable result
of turning the outlaw drug culture back toward fifth circuit hedonics
and pre-scien-
tific models of right-lobe experience. (The occult revival.) Without
scientific discipline
and methodology, few can successfully decode the often-frightening (but
philosophically crucial) sixth circuit metaprogramming signals. Those
scientists who
continue to study this subject dare not publish their results (which
are illegal). They
record their findings only in secret notebooks like the scholars of
the Inquisitorial
era. (Voltaire announced the Age of Reason two centuries too soon. We
are still in the
Dark Ages.) Most underground alchemists have given up on such
challenging and risky
self-work and restrict their trips to body-hedonics, i.e. fifth circuit
cannabis raptures.
The evolutionary function of the sixth circuit is to enable us to
communicate in Ein-
steinian relativities and neuroelectric accelerations, not using third
circuit laryngeal-
manual symbols but directly via feedback, telepathy and computer
link-up. Neuro-
electric signals will increasingly replace "speech" (hominid grunts)
after space migra-
tion.
When humans have climbed out of the atmosphere-gravity well of
planetary life, ac-
celerated 6th Circuit contelligence will make possible high-energy
communication
with "Higher Intelligences," i.e. ourselves-in-the-future and other
post-terrestrial
races.
Think of it like this: the higher right-lobe circuits (V-VIII) raise
to higher conscious-
ness and other time-dimensions the corresponding, more primitive
left-lobe circuits (I-
IV). Thus, Circuit V centers on the same body-centered sensory-somatic
loops as Cir-
cuit I; but Circuit V is time-expanded, "laid-back," funny, hedonic,
conscious, where
Circuit I, bonded to survival, is instantaneous, reflexive, blind,
robotic. Similarly, Cir-
cuits II and VI both deal with "politics." Circuit II, however, only
allows us to bargain or
bluster for freedom-or-submission with those on the same evolutionary
level (our own
species) or downward to species below us but using the same
proxemic-kinesic body-
Circuit VII is best considered, in terms of 1976 science, as the
genetic blue-print archives activated by anti-histone proteins.
The DNA memory bank coiling back to the beginning of life.
language (dogs, cats, etc). Circuit VI allows us to engage in
reality-brokering with
species above us in evolution, i.e., the more advanced intelligences of
the galaxy.
It is charmingly obvious, once we realize that spaced-out neural
experiences
really are post-terrestrial, that getting high and spacing out are
accurate metaphors.
Circuit V neurosomatic rapture is preparation for the next step in our
evolution, migra-
tion off the planet. Circuit VI is preparation for the step after that,
interspecies com-
munication with advanced entities using electronic (post-verbal)
reality-maps.
Circuit VI is the "universal translator" often imagined by sci-fi
writers, already built
into our brains by the DNA tape, just as the circuits of the future
butterfly are already
built into the caterpillar.
\
VII. The neurogenetic circuit. The seventh brain kicks into action
when the nervous
system begins to receive signals from within the individual neuron,
from the DNA-RNA
dialogue. The first to achieve this mutation spoke of "memories of past
lives," "rein-
carnation," "immortality," etc. That these adepts were recording
something real is in-
dicated by the fact that many of them (especially Hindus and Sufis)
gave marvelously
accurate poetic vistas of evolution 1000 or 2000 years before Darwin,
and foresaw
Superhumanity before Nietzsche.
The "akashic records" of Theosophy, the "collective unconscious" of
Jung, the
"phylogenetic unconscious" of Grof and Ring, are three modern metaphors
for this
circuit. These visions of past and future evolution described by those
who have had
"out-of-body" experiences during close-to-death episodes also describe
Circuit VII
contelligence.
Specific exercises to trigger Circuit VII are not to be found in
yogic teaching; it
usually happens, if at all, after several years of the kind of advanced
rajah yoga that
develops Circuit VI facility.
The specific Circuit VII neurotransmitter is, of course, LSD.
(Peyote and psilocybin
produce some Circuit VII experiences also.)
Circuit VII is best considered, in terms of 1976 science, as the
genetic blue-print
archives, activated by anti-histone proteins. The DNA memory coiling
back to the dawn
of life. A sense of the inevitability of immortality and interspecies
symbiosis comes to
all Circuit VII mutants; we can now see that this, also, is an
evolutionary forecast.
We stand right now on the doorstep of extended longevity leading to immortality.
This is no exaggeration. In a laboratory at UC Berkeley, researcher
Paul Segall
already has a group of rats who are not only alive but reproductively
active and bearing
litters at an age when normal rats are long dead. Segall speaks of
having a formula
Circuit VII is literally neuro-atomic...when the nervous system
is turned on to this quantum-level circuit, space-time is
obliterated. Einstein's light-speed barrier is transcended.
within ten years that might raise human life-span to 400 or 500
years. Similar research
by Bjorksten in Wisconsin, Froimovich in Los Angeles and hundreds of
others, has
raised longevity to the status of a real scientific probability within
the next few
decades.
As Senator Hubert Humphrey said after observing Russian longevity
research, "A
decade or two from now we may look back to present-day attitudes toward
death as
'primitive' and 'medieval' in the way we now look back upon a
once-dreaded killer like
tuberculosis."
The exact role of the right-lobe circuits and the reason for their
activation in the
1960s cultural revolution now becomes clear. As sociologist F.M.
Esfandiary writes in
Upwingers, "Today when we speak of immortality and of going to another
world we no
longer mean these in a theological or metaphysical sense. People are
now striving for
physical immortality. People are now traveling to other worlds.
Transcendence is no
longer a metaphysical concept. It has become reality."
There is no reason why you must die. Already many farseeing pioneers
have had
themselves frozen by Cryonics Societies at "clinical death" to await
medical resurrec-
tion when science has advanced a few decades. Only stupidity or
allegience to death-
ist philosophy will prevent you from living as long as you want.
In The Immortality Factor by Osborn Segerberg Jr., we find that
predictions from
scientists about when immortality will be achieved have steadily moved
closer to the
present. A 1962 panel predicted immortality in the late 21st Century; a
1969 panel the
end of this century; etc. Already the 1973 prediction by Timothy Leary
and L. Wayne
Benner, naming 1990, begins to seem conservative. We can probably have
eternal life
in the 1980s if public consciousness is raised High enough to demand it.
The evolutionary function of the seventh circuit and the drugs which
activate it is to
prepare us for conscious immortality and interspecies symbiosis.
VIII. The neuro-atomic circuit. According to quantum mechanics,
consciousness
probably precedes the biological unit or DNA tape-loop. "Out-of-body
experiences,"
"astral projection," contact with alien (extra-terrestrial?) "entities"
or with a galactic
overmind etc. have all been reported for thousands of years, not merely
by the
ignorant, the superstitious, the gullible, but often by our finest
minds (Socrates,
Giordano Bruno, Edison, Buckminster Fuller, etc.). Such experiences are
reported daily
to parapsychologists and have been experienced by such scientists as
Dr. John Lilly
and Carlos Castaneda. Dr. Kenneth Ring has attributed these phenomena
to what he
calls, very appropriately, "the extra-terrestrial unconscious."
The left-brain terrestrial circuits contain the learned lessons
of our evolutionary past. The right-lobe post-terrestrial cir-
cuits are the evolutionary script for our future.
We suggest that Circuit VIII is literally neuro-atomic infra,
supra and meta- physio-
logical. A quantum mechanical communication system which does not
require a
biological container. The attempt to construct a quantum model of
consciousness
and/or a conscious model of quantum mechanics by such turned-on
physicists as Prof.
John Archibald Wheeler, Saul-Paul Sirag, Dr. Jack Sarfatti etc.
indicates strongly that
the "atomic consciousness" first suggested by Leary in "The Politics of
Ecstasy"
(1962) is the explanatory link which will unite parapsychology and
paraphysics into the
first scientific empirical experimental theology in history.
When the nervous system is turned on to this quantum-level circuit,
timespace is
obliterated. Einstein's speed-of-light barrier is transcended; in Dr.
Sarfatti's metaphor,
we "escape electro-magnetic chauvinism." The contelligence within the
quantum
projection booth is the entire cosmic "brain", just as the
micro-miniaturized DNA helix
is the local brain guiding planetary evolution. As Lao-Tse said from
his own Circuit VIII
perspective, "the greatest is within the smallest."
This neuro-atomic contelligence is four mutations beyond terrestrial
domesticity.
(The current ideological struggle is between Circuit IV tribal
moralists-or-collectivists
and Circuit V hedonic individualists). With our need for higher
intelligence, richer in-
volvement in the cosmic script, further transcendence will no longer be
satisfied by
physical bodies, not even by immortal bodies capable of genetic
engineering, Circuit
VIII will open a further frontier. New universes and realities. "Beyond
theology: the
science and art of Godmanship," as Alan Watts once wrote.
It is possible that the mysterious "entities" (angels and
extra-terrestrials) monoton-
ously reported by Circuit VIII visionaries are members of races already
evolved to this
level. Even more exciting is the theory propounded by Saul-Paul Sirag,
based on
Godel's mathematics, that They are ourselves-in-the-future.
The left-lobe terrestrial circuits contain the learned lessons of
our evolutionary past
(and present). The right-lobe extra-terrestrial circuits are the
evolutionary script for our
future.
Thus far, there have been two alternative explanations of why the
Drug Revolution
happened. The first is presented in a sophisticated way by
anthropologist Weston
LeBarre, and in an ignorant, moralistic way by most anti-drug
propaganda in the
schools and the mass media. This explanation says, in essence, that
millions have
turned away from the legal down drugs to illegal high drugs because we
are living in
troubled times and many are seeking escape into fantasy.
This theory, at its best, only partially explains the ugliest and most publicized aspect
Without totally endorsing Charles Fort's technological mysti-
cism ('It steam-engines when it comes steam-engine time'), it
is obvious that the DNA metaprogram for planetary evolution
is far wiser than any of our individual nervous systems.
of the revolution the reckless drug-abuse characteristic of the
immature. It says
nothing about the millions of respectable doctors, lawyers, engineers,
etc., who have
turned away from second circuit intoxication with booze to fifth
circuit rapture with
weed. Nor does it account at all for the thoughtful, philosophical
sixth circuit investi-
gations of persons of high intelligence and deep sensibility, such as
Aldous Huxley,
Dr. Stanley Grof, Masters-Houston, Alan W. Watts, Carlos Castaneda, Dr.
John Lilly and
thousands of scientific, and religious researchers on consciousness.
A more plausible theory, devised by psychiatrist Norman Zinberg out
of the work of
Marshall McLuhan, holds that modern electronic media have so shifted
the nervous
system's parameters that young people no longer enjoy "linear" drugs
like alcohol and
find meaning only in "non-linear" weed and psychedelics.
This is certainly part of the truth, but it is too narrow and
over-stresses TV and com-
puters without sufficiently stressing the general technological picture
the ongoing
Science Faction Revolution of which the most significant aspects are
Space
Migration, Increased Intelligence and Life Extension, which we have
condensed into
the formula S.M.I2LE.
Space Migration plus Increased Intelligence plus Life Extension
means expansion
of human intelligence into all space-time. S.M. +I2+ L.E. = Infinity .
Without totally endorsing Charles Fort's technological mysticism
("It steam-engines
when it comes steam-engine time"), it is obvious that the DNA
metaprogram for
planetary evolution is far wiser than any of our individual nervous
systems which
are, in a sense, giant robots or sensors for DNA. Science-Fiction
pulps, the crudities of
Buck Rogers, the sophisticated sci-fi of brilliant writers like
Stapledon, Clarke, Hein-
lein, 2001 all were DNA signals transmitted through the intuitive
right lobe of sen-
sitive artists, preparing us for the post-terrestrial mutation.
It is scarcely coincidental that mainstream "literary" intellectuals
the heirs of the
Platonic-aristocratic tradition that a gentleman never uses his hands,
monkeys with
tools or learns a manual craft despise both sci-fi and the dope
culture. Nor is it coin-
cidental that the Whole Earth catalogs created by Stewart Brand, a
graduate of Ken
Kesey's Merry Pranksters are the New Testament of the rural drop-out
culture, each
issue bulging with eco-technological information about manual,
dextrous, gadgety
know-how that Plato and his heirs consider fit only for slaves. Not
surprisingly, Brand's
latest publication, Co-Evolution Quarterly, has among other things,
been devoted to
publicizing Prof. Gerard O'Neill's space-habitat, the L-5 colony.
Nor is it an accident that dopers seem to prefer sci-fi to any other reading, even in-
Those who were burned or jailed in the 17th century (Bruno,
Galileo, etc.) were forerunners of the Revolution of Outer
Technology. Those who were jailed or ostracized in the 1960s
were forerunners of the Revolution of Inner Technology.
eluding the extra-terrestrial-flavored Hindu scriptures and
occult-shamanic Circuit VI-
VIII trip-poets like Gurdjieff, Crowley and Hesse.
The circuit VI drugs may have contributed much to the
metaprogramming conscious-
ness that has led to sudden awareness of "male chauvinism" (women's
liberationism),
"species chauvinism" (ecology, Lilly's dolphin studies), "type-G star
chauvinism"(Carl
Sagan), even "oxygen chauvinism" (the CETI conference) etc. The
imprinted cultural
programs which identify one as "white-male-American-earthling" etc. or
"black-
female-Cuban" etc. are no longer big enough to enclose our exploding
contelligence.
As TIME magazine said on November 26, 1973, "Within ten years,
according to
pharmacologists, they will have perfected pills and cranial electrodes
capable of
providing lifelong bliss for everyone on Earth." The 1960s hysteria
about weed and acid
was just the overture to this fifth circuit breakthrough. Nathan S.
Kline, M.D., predicts
real aphrodisiacs, drugs to speed up learning, drugs to foster or
terminate any
behavior. Those who were burned or jailed at the beginning of the 17th
Century
(Bruno, Galileo, etc.) were forerunners of the Revolution of Outer
Technology. Those
who were jailed or ostracized in the 1960s were forerunners of the
Revolution of Inner
Technology.
The neurogenetic meaning of the cultural revolution is now clear.
Neurochemicals
are designed to be pursuitist, not escapist. They open the nervous
system to the
possibilities of future post-terrestrial evolution. And they reaffirm
the interstellar op-
timism of aero-space pioneer and sci-fi prophet Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
who foresaw
and designed prototypes for much of the technology of the 1970s, 1980s
and 1990s as
early as 1910 and 1920. As Tsiolkovsky wrote, "The murky view which
some scientists
advocate as to the inevitable end of every living thing on
Earth...should not now be
regarded as axiomatic. The finer part of humanity will, in all
likelihood, never perish
they will migrate from sun to sun as they go out. And so there is no
end to life, to in-
telligence and to the perfection of humanity. Its progress is
everlasting."
The Sexual Domestication
of the Four-Brained Biped
Coauthor November 1973
Robert Anton Wilson Folsom Prison
Frank, the Hip San Francisco Disc Jockey, has finally cajoled his
luscious wife (play-
ed by Marilyn Chambers, the Ivory Soap advertising angel) to join him
on the swinging
Bay Area orgy circuit. Remember? The Resurrection of Eve, the most
elegantly arty
(and frequently revived) porn epic to date? One
panting-gasping-bongo-orchestrated
reel too late, Frank is aghast by Eve's suddenly awakened passions,
especially for
black young males with jumbo-sized prongs, "The way it used to be..."
he starts to
complain. And she tells him all, everything, what's really coming down,
the straight
scoop from Evolutionary Central, in just three little words: "It's over
Frank." As the film
freezes porn has at last achieved a typical European static-ambiguity
ending (right out
of Polanski's Knife in the Water, in fact).
And Marilyn-Eve, fresh from her baptismal cleansing in 99 and
44/100th pure Ivory, a
true witch-initiate, spells out the next evolutionary mutation. The
"search for the
apocalyptical orgasm" has triumphed the search which Mailer alone in
"The White
Negro" (1958) had defined as the vector of the Hip Revolution, before
anybody else
realized there was a Hip Revolution. Sexual Armageddon has arrived. We
don't need
Steinem to tell us that the Patriarchal Age is over. We don't need
Alvin Toffler to
remind us that the nuclear family has been fissioned along with the
atom itself. We
only need to look around to see that we are in the midst of the
greatest bio-social
upheaval since the Neolithic Revolution founded cities, created
centralized govern-
ment and domesticated humanity.
Sexuality (along with every aspect of our culture) will be trans-
formed more in the next thirty years than in the previous thirty
thousand.
We are in the primitive, larval stages of the mutation. The chief
cause of our ac-
celerated changing, changing, changing, is the extension of our nervous
systems
through chemistry and technology (as Buckminster Fuller and Marshall
McLuhan keep
reminding us). Our culture is dramatically influenced by the fact that
there are more
scientists alive and engaged in research today than in all previous
generations added
together. Sexuality (along with every aspect of our culture) will be
transformed more in
the next thirty years than in the previous thirty thousand. (We will be
mutating from
terrestrials to post-terrestrials, for instance, much more rapidly than
most people
realize.)
Scan the socio-sexual trends and remember that all this is overture, preamble:
The United States divorce rate is now almost 50 per cent (and over
75 per cent in
California, the most avant segment of the union). The remarriage rate
among the di-
vorced is a fantastic 80 per cent. These two facts mean that the U.S.,
the most ad-
vanced technological nation on the planet and the harbinger of change,
de facto has
evolved from a culture of traditional monogamy to one of consecutive
marriage or
serial polygamy. This is about as major a cultural change from frontier
mores as if we
had switched from Christianity to Islam.
Acceptance of pre-marital sex is no longer a minority or heretic
stance. A clear
majority of students in both a middle-class and a lower-class San
Francisco high
school, in a recent study, approve of what used to nervously be called
"going all the
way." (Exact figures were 53 per cent of the males and 58 percent of
the females in the
middle class school; 64 per cent of the males and 48 percent of the
females in the
lower class school.) Paul C. Glick, senior demographer at the Census
Bureau's popula-
tion division, reports that cohabitation outside marriage increased 800
per cent during
the 1960's. Illegitimacy increased 200 per cent since the 1950's.
Other census figures show the number of new marriages falling and
new divorces
rising faster in 1975 than during the previous tumultuous decade.
(Divorce stood at 2.2
per thousand in 1960, reached 2.5 in 1965, 3.5 in 1970, and is now over
4.6.) In New York
State, the divorce rate jumped 300 percent between 1969 and 1975.
While communes, group marriages, crash pads, come and go, form,
reform, break-
out, start anew, no very exact figures on this retribalization are
available, but the
nuclear family is clearly evolving. A recent United Press study of 22
cities showed that
in 54 per cent of them, marriage license bureaus reported dramatic
decreases in new
marriages. In San Francisco, the drop was over 25 percent in five years.
To see sex realistically (for once), try seeing it as part of the
evolution of the nervous system.
Women are having more pre- and extra-marital sex than ever before.
Six out of ten
teen-age mothers are now unwed or got married about the time of giving
birth. While
male infidelity remains where Kinsey found it in the 1940's (around 50
percent), female
extra-marital affairs have increased from about 25 percent to 40
percent; and this
breaking out of the monogamy game is occurring earlier (average age 40
in Kinsey's
sample; average age 35 today). 50 percent of the wives in Bell's latest
study predicted
that they "certainly" or "possibly" would have affairs in the future.
This trend is
strongest in the youngest (as always); in Kinsey's females, only 8
percent had been un-
faithful to their husbands by age 24; now it is 24 per cent.
And in the Redbook study of last year, 40 percent of a large
statistical sample
(100,000 wives) complain that they are not having enough sex. Let us
call this the
"Resurrection of Eve" syndrome. It portends apocalypse in every bedroom.
Marijuana, used by only one or two hundred thousand (mostly Southern
Blacks and
Mexican-Americans) when Congress outlawed it in 1937, is nowon the
historical eve
of decriminalization used by somewhere between 30 and 40 million. A
great deal of
this Weed-smoking has erotic meanings, in several dimensions, as
Barbara Lewis
demonstrated at length in The Sexual Powers of Marijuana, and as
antipot crusad-
ers enviously suspected all along./85 percent of the grass-smokers
interviewed by
Prof. McGlothlin in a 1968 study mentioned enhancement or stimulation
of sex as one
of their main reasons for using the heavily-penalized cannabis in
preference to the
legal anti-aphrodisiac alcohol.
The hipster search for the transcendental Maileresque or Reichian
orgasm is not
only the root of all this ferment but the beginning of the
de-domestication of sex. Con-
servatives, of course, have been more aware of this, in their own
suspicious way, than
optimistic liberals and academic humanists. A whole phase of human
civilization is
ending. Nietzsche and Aleister Crowley saw moral (i.e. sexual)
apocalypse clearly at
the dawn of the 20th Century and celebrated the collapse of domesticity
(inaccurately)
as the re-birth of heroic barbarism Nietzsche's "blonde beast"
warrior-Superman,
Crowley's self-identification as the Great Beast in Revelations whose
law was "Do
what thou wilt." Alas, both of these bards of evolution were better at
analyzing what
was dying-off than at discerning what was actually being born.
To see sex realistically (for once), try seeing it as part of the
evolution of the nervous
system. Mailer correctly identified the hip quest for erotic
transmutation as part of the
hipster's "attempt to build a new nervous system." The extensions of
our nervous
systems, our self-created scientific sensors, are all exploding. The
speed of com-
None of our social organizations are prepared to deal with
change. Utopianism, Futurism, Science Fiction are the only
realistic "politics" around these days.
munications increased 10^7 times since 1900, and is accelerating
faster in this decade.
Speed of travel in the same period is up 10^2, data processing 10^6 and
known energy
sources 10^3. "UnWoManned" spaceships have reached other planets.
Prof. J.R. Platt of the University of Michigan, who made these
calculations, com-
ments ominously that "None of our social organizations are prepared to
deal with
change on such a scale." Utopianism, Futurism, Science Fiction are the
only realistic
"politics" around these days. The mammalian Left and reptilian Right
are both ob-
solete, blind, irrelevant. None of our social organizations can house
the new
humanity being born. We are literally, demographically, too big for the
womb-cultures
which nourished us.
The loosening of monogamous robotry has followed inevitably the rise
of contra-
ceptive effectiveness from 50-70 per cent (douches and old-fashioned
condoms) to 98-
99 percent (the coil, the pill). The inevitable advance to 100 percent
perfect contra-
ception can be no further away than 1985. Pregnancy outside the womb
will be com-
mon by 1990, completing the biological liberation of women and ensuring
their
political liberation. Genetic engineering means that longevity can't be
much further
away and some of the brightest young scientists in that field, such
as Paul Segall of
Berkeley, are already aiming beyond longevity for immortality.
O'Neill's space-cities,
housing not monastic astronauts but families, tribes, human
communities, will circle
the sun, beginning the greatest evolutionary mutation since the ascent
from the ocean
to land.
We can now see that the domestication of humanity was a necessary
but temporary
stage.
The mammalian (and other animal) nervous system evolves in
metamorphic stages,
over long historical spans, and this is quickly recapitulated and
imprinted for local
conditions in each individual. Imprinting is a bio-chemical process in
which certain
pathways, patterns, networks are bonded in synergetic response-units,
activated to
trigger the same robot-reaction whenever similar events happen in the
environment.
Ethologists have demonstrated that conditioning can only build further
associations
onto the basic bio-chemical imprint. Conditioning cannot change or
reverse imprint.
The imprint stays in the neurons until it is changed bio-chemically. In
most cases it
stays until death.
The first circuit, formed in the evolution of the (marine) nervous
system, and the first
activated in each newborn human, is the bio-survival brain. This hooks
the organism
onto a maternal object and then slowly builds up a safe space of
territory around her.
The sexual imprint literally freezes behavior into robot pat-
terns almost as inflexible as the so-called "instinctive
mating rituals of birds and insects.
This is basic viscerotonic consciousness, being here-now, the DNA
memory becoming
identified with this nervous system in this small, helpless body, in
this social grouping,
now. Basic feelings of anxiety or security are set by this imprint, and
never change
(Unless bio-chemical re-imprint is achieved by careful scientific or
brutal brainwashing
techniques). In popular speech, this is the "will."
The second circuit evolved later in evolution (amphibian,
post-marine), and deals
with territory and status. As soon as the infant is able to walk,
master gravity, exert
muscular effort, and meddle in family politics (decision-making), the
basic imprint is
laid down. This is the emotional script, the tribal status, the sense
of being strong-
dominant-manipulative or weak-submissive-manipulated. In traditional
language, this
is the "ego."
The third circuit evolved in early hominid society and deals with
artifacts, from the
flint-axe to the Orion starship, and with verbalization (laryngeal
signals), from "Me Tar-
zan, You Jane" to "E = mc^2." The basic imprint is made by age 3 and is
either "bright-
dexterous" or "stupid-clumsy." (Headstart programs failed because they
started too
late. Subsequent conditioning never reverses a basic bio-chemical
imprint.) This cir-
cuit is usually called the "mind."
These circuits are designed by the DNA master-blueprint for the
survival of the in-
dividual organism.
The fourth circuit provides for the continuity of the species. This
circuit connects
the sexual apparatus to an imprinted social behavior syndrome. The
first orgasms or
mating experiences create the bio-chemical imprint in the human class
of life, the
sexual "role." Again, no amount of Behavior Mod or conditioning has
ever shown any
significant or consistent success in altering this basic bio-chemical
imprint. This
sexual impersonation is generally called the adult "personality."
The sexual imprint literally freezes behavior into robot patterns
almost as inflexible
as the so-called "instinctive" mating rituals of birds and insects.
Explicit male superi-
ority, garter-belts, booze, black lace panties, cool jazz defines one
human imprint
group as rigidly as any twig-gathering pattern defines the ritual of
any robin or sparrow.
Attempted equality, long-hair, incense, grass, sleeping bags, Rock 'n
Roll defines
another imprint group just as rigidly.
The division of labor and the wide varieties of cultural style,
together with the aston-
ishing ability of the nervous system to imprint almost anything,
prevent domesticated
humans from realizing that their socialized sex-roles are just as rote
as those of the ant
and the platypus.
The fifth circuit of the brain defines "neurosomatic intelli-
gence": the capacity to suspend, integrate, re-wire and he-
donically engineer all the previous imprints in terms of direct,
bodily sensation.
A fifth neural circuit has been emerging for at least a few thousand
years. It has
given rise to a great deal of mysticism, occultism, witchery and
superstition, together
with astonishing, sporadic breakthroughs in art, music, and science.
(There are also
dawning sixth, seventh and eighth circuits, to be mentioned later.) The
fifth circuit
defines neurosomatic intelligence: the capacity to suspend, integrate,
re-wire and
hedonically engineer all the previous imprints in terms of direct,
bodily sensation.
The first scientific study of this circuit, Cosmic Consciousness, by
psychiatrist R.M.
Bucke, proposed that this was a new evolutionary development, not a
pathology, and
seemed to be statistically increasing in recent centuries. Psychologist
A.H. Maslow
showed in The Peak Experience that this circuit appeared spontaneously
in many
cases, but only among "self-actualizing" (i.e. relatively
undomesticated) individuals.
More recently, Ornstein and his school have demonstrated that fifth
circuit exper-
iences are mediated through the right lobe of the brain, whereas
circuits I-IV are
mediated through the left lobe and lower brain centers.
Fifth circuit right-lobe experience is more or less familiar to:
a. Casual, recreational users of neurotransmitter chemicals,
such as weed, who have
mild-to-major fifth circuit raptures some of the times they turn on;
b. Scientific and shamanic technicians-of-the-nervous-system
who have learned how
to use such chemicals to re-imprint for Rapture Control, i.e. precise
neurosomatic in-
telligence;
c. Other shamans and yogis who have learned how to turn on the
rapture circuitry
without ingesting biochemicals. This means producing similar
bio-chemicals
within the body, by various kinds of physiological stress. In yoga,
this consists of what
is now called "social deprivation." In most forms of shamanism, it
consists of cheer-
fully scaring the student out of his wits until the ecstasy-chemicals
typical of death or
near-death are released to produce a re-infantile state and allow for a
new imprint;
d. Some epileptics (e.g. Dostoevski) and schizophrenics (e.g.
Van Gogh) have oc-
casionally triggered bio-chemical mutations to fifth circuit rapture.
e. Tantra. An excruciatingly sensual art in which sexual fusion
is prolonged until a
neural electric-storm ("the rising of the serpent") triggers the
neurosomatic mutation.
, This neurosomatic fifth circuit is "polymorphous-perverse" in
Freud's dismal
Teutonic jargon; "childish, playful, creative," in Taoist descriptions;
"just like ordinary
life, but one foot above the ground" in the famous Zen metaphor. In
some highly-
significant and prophetic modern slang, it is "high," "spaced-out,"
"trippy,"
"floating," "flying," "far fucking out." It is the new nervous system
Mailer's 1958 hip-
sters were seeking, and their pursuit of apocalyptical orgasm was an
intuitive sense of
Fifth circuit experiences are mediated by the right lobe of the
brain, whereas the four survival circuits are mediated through
the left hemisphere and the brain stem.
the pivotal role of Tantra (hedonic engineering) in this mutation to
extra-terrestrial,
post-domesticated evolutionary stages.
A grim warning against the fifth circuit, and a stirring defense of
fourth circuit
domestic robothood, has been presented by George Gilder in his
melodramatic book,
Sexual Suicide. Correctly sensing that recent explosions of Fifth
Circuit rapture and
the new age of freedom between the sexes poses an evolutionary
competition for the
four-circuited domesticated species, Gilder eloquently defends
traditional robotic sex-
roles.
Among four-brained creatures, he says, "sex is bound to their
deepest sources of
energy, identity and emotion. Sex was the life source and cohesive
impulse of a
people, and their very character was deeply affected by how sexuality
was sublimated
and expressed, denied or attained." By comparison, among post-domestic
fifth-
brained hedonists, Gilder says "sex is devaluated and deformed" i.e.,
in-
dividualized, de-robotized.
Gilder understands how second circuit ego-politics and third circuit
competence
were basic preliminaries to the development of fourth-circuit sex-role.
Among four-
brained humans, he says, "The boy's sexual identity is dependent on
acts of explora-
tion and initiative." (Second circuit courage, third circuit
dexterity.) "Before he can
return to a woman he must assert his manhood in action. The Zulu
warrior had to kill a
man, the Irish peasant had to build a house, the American man must find
a job." (Just
as robotically as the penguin must find a specially colored stone and
bring it to his
mate.) "This," says Gilder, "is for them the classic myth and the
mundane reality of
masculinity, the low comedy and high tragedy of mankind." Or of
mammalkind or ant-
kind.
"Female histories are different," says Gilder, still identifying
humanity with the four-
circuit domesticated species and assigning women an insectile
housekeeping role.
We turn in relief to sci-fi prophet Robert Heinlein, who with relaxed
precision suggests
the multi-role flexibility of the post-domestic, post-terrestrial:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an inva-
sion, butcher a hog, design a building, conn a ship, write a son-
net, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying,
take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations,
analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook
a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for
insects.
Maoism is the highest, and ultimate, form of terrestrial
domesticated four-brained humanity.
The 10-billion cell human brain, including the Hedonic right lobe
unactivated in
domesticated primates, is designed to handle all these sex-role
programs, and a
million more; and to learn to reprogram itself for ever-higher
intelligence, emotional
stability and artistic-ecstatic meta-programming of its own programs.
Continuing his lonely struggle for domesticity, Gilder says, "Of all
society's in-
stitutions that work this civilizing effect"domestication"marriage is
perhaps the
most important...The family is the only agency that can be depended on
to induce en-
during changes in its members' character and commitment." We shall
ignore the
curious ambiguity of the phrase "enduring change" and simply add that
the family is
the only agency before Chinese Communism, to be precise, for Maoism is
a philos-
ophy of total hive-domesticity.
The sexual roles imprinted on the adolescent four-brained human
Gilder calls "the
sexual constitution" of the tribe. This constitution, he shrewdly
notes, "will deeply in-
fluence the productivity and order of the community." (Hive
solidarity.) "It will deter-
mine whether social energies are short-circuited and dissipated or
whether they are
accumulated and applied to useful pursuits." Useful means useful to the
hive; short-
circuited or dissipated energies are those which produce somatic
pleasure, interper-
sonal fusion, brain reward, personal growth, individual freedom.
The Sexual Constitution (robot imprint), Gilder gushes, "will
determine whether the
society is a fabric of fully integrated citizens" an ominous phrase
"or whether it
is an unorganized flux with disconnected individuals pursuing sex and
sustenance on
the most limited and anti-social scale." What ominously Soviet
semantics! The hive is
all-virtuous; the free individual is, by definition, anti-social.
Pravda would only improve
Gilder's rhetoric by adding "decadent" and "hooligan" to the adjectives
decrying the
self-actualizing hedonic individual.
"A job is thus a central part of the sexual constitution," Gilder
summarizes grandly.
"It can affirm the masculine identity of its holder; it can make it
possible for him to
court women in a spirit of commitment; it can make it possible for him
to be married
and thereby integrated into a continuing community."
These blatantly insectile moral views cause Gilder to be equally
alarmed by all fifth-
circuit manifestationsPlayboy, Rock and Roll, Women's Liberation,
objective sex-
ological scientists like Masters-Johnson, Gay Pride militants, hippies,
liberal clergy-
men, anybody, literally anybody, who departs from the robot domestic
imprint bio-
chemically hooked into Gilder's neurons at puberty.
So-called "future shock" is, of course, actually present shock. The present is the
The DNA strategy calls for continuous acceleration of the
genetic script, and evolution has never happened faster than
at present.
future of the nervous system, in four-brained humanity, because the
neurons normally
do not take new imprints after the sex-role is fixed at adolescence.
Nixon's sexual
system was formed in 1925, Frank Sinatra's in 1930, etc. Thus, it only
takes 10 years for
a liberal to become a conservative, another 10 to become reactionary.
But Gilder is a valuable witness. He makes explicit the
preoccupations of fourth-
circuit hive humanity with static-insectoid continuity as opposed to
individual evolu-
tionary exploration. The positive moral values for Gilder are
"productivity," "fully in-
tegrated citizens" (hive units) and "social energies" (a curious phrase
meaning individ-
ual energies preempted by the hive). The delightful Taoist-Einsteinian
term
"unorganized flux" becomes a sinful derogation to this stern moralist.
Maoism is the highest, and ultimate, form of terrestrial
domesticated four-brained
humanity. When a U.S. Embassy official admits ruefully that a woman can
walk alone
through a Chinese city at three in the morning, without danger, what
American fourth-
brained moralist is not envious, awed, secretly shamed? For the sake of
evolutionary
perspective, we have mildly satirized the domestic-social ethic, but we
do not con-
demn it or despise it. "Women and children to the life-boats first!"
"Be ready to die for
your tribe's survival!" "United We Stand!" "Defend Our Turf!" Out of
such gallant
mammalian politics the survival of the seed was ensured, the species
continued.
It does become ominous when defenders of status quo domesticity
whether of
the nuclear family or the Maoist collective justify legislative and
coercive force to
prevent the emergence of higher levels of consciousness and evolution.
The social
moralist then becomes a neurological fascist relentlessly opposed to
any conception
of human destiny higher than docile ant-hill productivity.
What Gilder and all orthodox moralists fear is the unfolding of the
fifth neurological-
rapture circuit, freedom from static imprints, disciplined release of
right-lobe ecstasy,
the joyful experience of Zen freedom, the spirit of levity which will
free individual
atoms to float loose from the terrestrial molecule and form higher
units in neurological
(and physical) Outer Space.
It must be emphasized that the evolution from fourth-circuit gravity
to fifth-circuit
levity is much, much more than a struggle between generations. The DNA
strategy
calls for continuous acceleration of the genetic script, and evolution
has never hap-
pened faster than at present. The bitterness of the old species grows
increasingly
paranoid, violent, vengeful.
Think of the short-lived but symptomatic Spiro Agnew cult. The
random shooting of
longhairs. The death-wish implicit in Gilder's grim title, Sexual
Suicide. The absolute
There are no holds barred in the domesticate's genocide
against the fifth-brain mutant. Pleasure is worse than treason.
blockage, after many long years, of all attempts to secure justice
in the Kent State
youth-massacre.
Think of this: in all our years of reading book reviews, after
assuming that we had by
now witnessed every extreme of spiteful cruelty that critics can impose
on creative art-
ists, only once have we actually seen a reviewer express the wish to
literally murder
the subject of a biography. Was this a response to the history of some
great scoundrel
and mass murderer, some notorious thug or dictator, a Hitler, a Stalin,
a Mao, a
Nixon? No. It was in a commentary upon a book about Janis Joplina
long, hysterical
diatribe against Janis, actually, with little comment on the book's own
merits.
And this homicidal berzerkersang is historically important. The
critic was (who
else?) Midge Decter, one of the arbiters of New York lit-crit
oligopoly, and the New
York Times knew with intuitive precision that her polemic against Janis
deserved a full
spread over the first three pages. The middle-aged middle-class must
have loved the
review; it told them just what they wanted to hear. Many must have
cheered aloud when
Decter declared her instinctive impulse "to throttle her [Janis] on the
spot."
Decter is direct and honest. She articulates without hypocrisy what
must surely be
the most fascinating phenomenon in genetic history, the genocidal
hatred of one
generation for its own children.
We are all bored with "generation gap" debate, but Decter will not
let the issue die.
Janis, she writes, "was proclaimed by a whole generation in our midst
to represent
their best and deepest impulses...to know who Janis Joplin was is to
know a good
deal, if not indeed everything that matters about the epidemic of antic
despair that
carried off so many of our children in the late 1960's." Please re-read
the last two sen-
tences and remember this is not some Dallas-based Fundamentalist but
the middle-
brow intelligentsia.
"Epidemic" means some form of plague or disease that was,
fortunately, destroyed
by the Watergate crowd, the stop-and-frisk-laws, the no-knock laws, the
bugs and wire-
taps, the legions of terrorized D.E.A. informers, the curfews against
young people, the
Gestapoization of America under the Nixon counter-revolution. "Antic
despair" refers
to the cheerful, generous cultural revolution which, among other
achievements, per-
manently changed and improved the student-teacher-administrator
relationship in our
universities, clarified the relationship between the sexes, liberated
the body to healthy
hedonism, imported a dozen varieties of Oriental neuro-science(and two
dozen varieties
of Oriental charlatanism) which spiced-up and enriched our epistemology
and culture,
provoked the ecology movement, recreated a true love for nature and
wild creatures,
The caterpillar cannot understand the butterfly.
Civilization, as Freud dismally admitted, is based on authori-
tarian State-control over individual life and individual sexuality.
millions of us live on a little warmer and shinier because Her
radiation touched us. And
the energy still moves the machinery of the "Janis Industry." The
record companies,
who separated Her from Big Brother, still prosper off Her sound.
Royalties are paid to
Her biographers. Decter gets three pages up front in the Times Book
Section to per-
form necro-sadism upon Her corpse. We hope this paragraph would
compensate Her a
little for Decter's brutality. It's a small act of gratitude to Janis.
Her eyes would
smile thanks and She'd hand us the bottle of Southern Comfort. Is it
worse to shoot
heroin with Janis than shoot heroines with Midge?
(This is not old history, by the way. The prisons are still full of
sensitive young nerv-
ous systems, post-larval, open and vulnerable, but lacking the
neurological know-how
to deal with the violence of the moralists. They are there for the same
reasons that
Janis' corpse is dug up and savaged by Decter: for no crime against
life or limb, no
theft or swindle, but the manifestation of cultural dissent.)
Civilization, as Freud dismally admitted, is based on authoritarian
State-control over
individual life and individual sexuality. Domestication, the
fourth-brained stage of
evolution, is, in fact, (as Freud also realized in his own jargon) "the
sublimation and
repression of Eros," the creation of Gilder's "social energy" out of
the robotic submis-
sion of the masses. Monogamous marriage, the Mom-Dad form of
child-rearing, al-
though necessary to the fourth-brained stage of development, has mostly
been a
neurological and genetic trial of passage.
Domesticated robot-sex, as every sane person from Ibsen to Gloria
Steinem has
realized, is a socially-acceptable form of prostitution. He gives Her
$$$$. She gives
Him a tepid orgasm. "Frigid fucking for Frigidaires," as poet Kenneth
Rexroth said so
bitterly.
Most of the men who go to prostitutes, according to Judge Murtagh's
sane and
compassionate book, Cast The First Stone, are married. Domesticates who
are the-
oretically "getting their sex" from a female domesticated robot at
home. What are they
paying extra money for, to a stranger? The truth is funnier and more
tragic than any
satire. Harmless frivolities like fellatio, in almost all cases. Simple
hedonic arts that
their robot-mates did not imprint in uptight Christian culture and are
too senile (at 25 or
35) to learn. A minority of Johns, of course, are seeking fetish-relief
satisfaction of
"bizarre" imprints which, statistically, just happen because of the
vulnerability of the
nervous system to imprint anything at the sensitive moments of
adolescence.
The attempt to eroticize marriage has spawned the enormous industry
of sex-
manuals, sensitivity sessions, cosmetics, costumes, erotic
reconditioning stimuli
The attempt to eroticize marriage has spawned the enormous
industry of sex-manuals designed to free robots enough to
cure their more obvious inhibitions. It can't work. You cannot
recondition until you re-imprint.
designed to free the robots enough to cure their more obvious
miseries. It can't work.
You cannot recondition until you re-imprint. The fifth-circuit
chemical, cannabis, has
changed more sex compulsions than all the reconditioners and retrainers
in the world
but at the cost of setting the post-larvals more free than larval
society will tolerate.
It is imperative to understand that no anthropological study of
"primitive"
tribal groups has found the prevalence of neurosis, hysteria, rape,
violence, psycho-
somatic ailments, outright psychosis, typical of the urban hive and the
Mom-Dad
nuclear family. The extended family of the native village is always
saner and more
peaceful.
Civilization, based upon erotic inhibition and sexual domestication,
is psychopath-
ically dangerous, inevitably leading to the repression of women (it is
always Eve who is
to blame) and neurotic displacements of sexual charge into violent,
coercive, often
genocidal policies. Ashley Montague, the anthropologist, has commented
ironically on
the paradox: "all the civilized nations at war, all the savages at
peace." It is no paradox.
Repressed sex is the most violently explosive neurological blockage
possible.
Contraception and conscious procreative choice give us, for the
first time in history,
individual decision and individual responsibility for sexual behavior.
At the same time,
electronic communication-technology has made it possible to link humans
into social
molecules and ethical collectives based, not on robotic hive-morality,
but on shared
evolutionary goals, consciously chosen. Both are part of the mutation
that is preparing
us for Space Migration. The H.O.M.E.s, of course, house the nuclear
villages.
The first four neural circuits, with associated imprints and
conditioned-reflex net-
works, are totally Euclidean, "square," concerned with adapting and
preparing the
newborn to survive in the spatially polarized and hive-dominated
terrestrial environ-
ment. They will not be adequate for outer space.
Circuit I "consciousness" masters forward-back strategies for
survival; the first
dimension of Euclidean space.
Circuit III "mind" masters right-left polarities of the nervous
system itself. Right-
hand preference and associated left-brain dominance creates Euclidean,
Aristotelian,
linear modes of "reality"-definition.
These circuits "place" the nervous system in three spatial-psychic
dimensions; the
fourth circuit "personality" mediates the evolution of the genetic seed
in time by
domesticating sexual behavior on a "moral" chess-board of squares
dogmatically
marked "right" and "wrong" by the infallible authority of the Hive.
The function of the emerging larval nervous system is to focus, to select, to narrow
Ours is not just another civilization falling; it is a Post-
Terrestrial Prometheus Rising.
Terrestrial Prometheus rising.
down, to choose from an infinity of possibilities those spatial
tactics, those survival-
security strategies, those sequences which insure life and reproduction
here in this
local place of birth and growth.The infant is cellularly prepared to
learn any language,
master any art or science, play any sex-role, but is imprinted to
fixate, follow, mimic the
narrow offering of hive parochialism.
In so doing, four-brained humanity has paid a heavy price. They kept
the Seed alive,
they kept the species growing, but they lost the endowment of free
choice and change.
In less poetic terms, larval imprinting and conditioning focus
awareness-potential on a
trivial fragment of the possibilities for intelligence and experience
in a 10-billion-cell
bio-computer capable, for instance, of vast right-lobe meta-programs
for Hedonic
Engineering (Circuit V), psionic-neuroelectric multi-phase-intelligence
(Circuit VI),
genetic-evolutionary wisdom (Circuit VII) and meta-physiological
synergetic fusion
with Higher intelligences throughout space-time (Circuit VIII).
One-half of the nervous system, unimprinted and unconditioned, is
kept from con-
sciousness by the right-handed left-lobe imprints and sex-role robotry.
The awakening
of this repressed half of our heads (the "Buddha-Mind" of the East, the
"Silent Self" of
Western occultism) does not signal a return to high barbarism and Macho
Boy's-
Adventure-Storyism, as was hoped by Nietzsche and Crowley, hysterically
dreaded by
Gilder and Decter. It is not just another civilization falling; it is a
Post-Terrestrial
Prometheus rising.
Behind the surface froth noted by the newspapers and the
superficialities of hip-vs.-
square, old-vs.-young, right-vs.-left, the new consciousness being bom
in the West as a
result of turning on to Eastern brain-science will transcend
terrestrial reality. It will not
be Eastern-passive-yin (right lobe) or Western-aggressive-yang (left
lobe), but both
entering Inner Space and Outer Space simultaneously, balancing the
symbolic-rational
mind of the third circuit with the Dionysian rapture-mind of the fifth
circuit. It will be
scientific in essence and science-faction in style. It will be based on
the expansion of
consciousness, the deliberate self-disciplined raising of intelligence,
new understand-
ing and control of the nervous system, and will produce a quantum leap
in joy, courage,
security, warmth, curiosity and sense of humor.
Neurogenetic awareness will accelerate and finally resolve the
angers, confusions
and injustices in the old racist and sexist imprints, by making the
Declaration's "pur-
suit of happiness" a scientifically tangible, neurologically attainable
goal.
Neuropolitics
All through history we have been going somewhere, as a
domesticated society. Now we are going everywhere, in many
different post-domesticated groups.
The Post-Hipster Age will seek revelation and Higher Intelligence
not in crude rituals
addressed to anthropomorphic dieties (Mommy and Daddy magnified) but in
natural
processes, the nervous system itself, the mysteries of sex, the genetic
code, and
especially in post-terrestrial exploration and communication.
And what will replace the Mom-Dad nuclear family? The question
itself is larval, four-
brained, an example of what McLuhan calls rear-view-mirrorism. The only
question that
need concern you is: what will replace it in your case? Or will you
consciously, in-
telligently continue it? (It has well-known survival value and merits
we do not deny). All
through history we have been going somewhere, as a domesticated group.
Now we are
going everywhere, in many different post-domesticated groups.
O'Neill's space-cities, within half a century, will exhibit a
spectrum of sexual pat-
terns duplicating everything that has ever existed on earth: group
marriage, sexual
communism, polygamy, polyandry, Gay Pride (longevity will solve the Gay
problem of
survival as a self-contained culture without genetic link to the
heterosexual hive),
Amazonian female communes, etc. and dozens, later hundreds and
thousands, of
sexual groupings never tried under grim survival conditions on
primitive planet Terra.
The categorical imperative of Kant asked: what is right for all men
and all women?
This is the key ethical question of terrestrial domesticated humanity;
but it is now ob-
solete. The post-terrestrial question is individualized: what is right
and wrong for me,
and how do I find the other free, growing, post-larvals who also want
to combine and
explore in that particular multi-dimensional timespace continuum? In
simplest
terms, the meek indeed shall inherit the earth, and domesticate it
totally in Maoist-
insectoid fashion. The bold shall migrate to H.O.M.E.s (High orbital
mini earths) aloft.
Space Migration Intelligence Increase Life Extension 111
Neuropolitics : Part II The Dawn of Extraterrestrial Politics
Starseed: A Psy-Phy Comet Tale
Folsom Prison
October 1973
"Kohoutek will have a pale blue and yellow tail stretching
out for somewhere between 75,000,000 and 100,000,000 miles
the yellow portions of it in the shape of a scimitar. It will first be
seen by the naked eye in mid-November and will look dull. But
since it will be approaching the Sun at 250,000,000 miles an hour,
it will brighten and from mid-December to Dec. 28 the peoples of
the world will have the finest Christmas star ever."
How about that, Chump? Do you still believe everything out
there "just happened by accident."
From a "memo to a friend who is an atheist" in Bob Considine's
September 16 column in the San Francisco Examiner & Chron-
icle. The quoted paragraph is from a release by the American
Museum Hayden Planetarium.
This signal is being transmitted from a cell in Folsom Prison, which
is the Black
Hole of American society. A Black Hole is a dense space with a heavy
gravitational
pull. Matter which falls into a Black Hole fades from view and
disintegrates in the
stress of gravity. Given sufficient time, its radiation becomes too
feeble to be detected
from without. Although the matter of the Black Hole cannot re-escape as
matter, some
Life is an interstellar communication network. Life is dissem-
inated through the galaxies in the form of nucleotide tem-
plates. These "seeds" land on planets, are activated by solar
radiation, and evolve nervous systems.
of it may manage to escape in the form of feeble red radiation. Some
cosmologists
suggest that Black Holes are the link to another realization of matter.
They may be
passageways to another universe, just as the manholes of Paris lead to
a world
beneath the street. Well, the maximum security prison is a fine place
from which to
scan the universe. It's beyond pure, undiluted bad. As good as bad can
be.
Out here, beyond good and evil, one sees America in pain, injured
nervous systems
propelling robot-bodies in repetitious, aimless motion along paths
labeled rights and
wrong. I watch hardened criminals watching Ehriichman on television
protesting that
his personal rights have been violated.
Sri Krishna Prem, the wisest man in India, sat on the floor of his
little mountain-top
ashram showing me pictures from medieval alchemical books. He pointed
to the
design of a man standing naked with devil on one shoulder, angel on the
other. He said,
"When you understand that, you can go on to the next lesson."
The next lesson was a parable about a great castle that was
separated from shore by
a swamp. Pilgrims, searchers, warriors seeking the castle disappeared
into the marsh
because each rock they stepped on sank from view. The Hero and his mate
sat on the
bank and watched for days. Then SHe rose and held his hand to Hir. He
whispered the
instructions that Sri Krishna Prem transmitted to me: "Leap from rock
to rock more
swiftly than they sink. The trick is simple. Have courage and keep
moving."
Each spot we stand on crumbles beneath us, becoming a launching pad
for the next
stride.
From the far future. We transmit these messages back to planet
earth. Beware of the
Hindu trap. It's anti-sexual. The guru, god, and the swami universe is
a soft, sweet
custard mush. Undifferentiated unity. True unity is contacted through
increasing
precision of distinctions. Psy-phy. Philosophy of science. The universe
is not
chaos ruled by casual chance. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is
pessimistic
nineteenth century fraud. Higher order structures emerge and lawfully
evolve because
of the underlying magnetic charging. Positive-negative. WoMan.
Life is an interstellar communication network. Life is disseminated
through the
galaxies in the form of nucleotide templates. These "seeds" land on
planets, are ac-
tivated by solar radiation, and evolve nervous systems. The bodies
which house and
transport nervous systems and the reproductive seeds are constructed in
response to
the atmospheric and gravitational characteristics of the host planet,
the crumbling
rock upon which we momentarily rest.
Evolution is concerned with nervous systems and the sexual
attractive efficiency of
bodies, the expansion of consciousness, Intelligence Increase.
The human being is the robot carrier of a large brain, con-
scious of being conscious. A robot designed to discover the
circuitry which programs its behavior.
The human being is the robot carrier of a large brain, conscious of
being conscious.
A robot designed to discover the circuitry which programs its behavior.
The nervous
system is the instrument of consciousness. When mankind discovered the
function
and infinite capacities of the nervous system, a mutation took place.
The metamorpho-
sis from larval earth-life to a higher destiny. The person who has made
this discovery
becomes a time-traveler. A Psy-Phy entity. When Astronaut Mitchell saw
the blue
jewel of earth against the black velvet expanse of interstellar
distance, he became Psi-
Phy. Ecology is a low-level distraction. Psi-Phy boy scouts picking up
trash. The
genetic goal is communication. Telepathy. Electronic sexuality.
Reception and trans-
mission of electromagnetic waves. The erotics of resonance. The entire
universe is
gently, rhythmically, joyously vibrating. Cosmic intercourse.
This is a message of hope and interstellar love from the Black Hole.
Irrepressible op-
timism. Yes, it is true that repressive pessimists now (1973) control
planetary politics.
This is a larval phase. Life has been evolving for three and a half
billion years and has
just reached the half-way point.
This message of neurological resonance can be censored, imprisoned
but cannot be
crushed because it comes from within, from the DNA nucleus inside each
cell. From
the evolving nervous system. The Higher Intelligence has been seeded on
planet
earth and its script is writ within our bodies, emerging in every
generation.
In 1963, we began searching for a spot on this planet where a
station could be set up
for time experiments. In that year, we were expelled from Harvard, from
Mexico,
Dominica, Antigua. No crimes alleged or committed. Just too much energy
trans-
mitted. Blew out the local fuses.
In 1966, G. Gordon Liddy led several midnight raids, helicopter
assaults on our cen-
ter at Millbrook, New York. We were literally under siege. No evidence
of illegal activity
was found, but I was forced to leave the county. G. Gordon Liddy went
straight to the
White House on the basis of this harassment. The relentless web of
Karma. Thus, I
helped to create Watergate. Howard Hunt was a White House narcotic's
expert, direct-
ing the campaign of surveillance, raids, and arrests, which eventually
drove me to exile
in Algeria and Switzerland.
Too much energy. Keith Richards and Anita reported the same problem.
Exiles on
Main Street. The only solution seemed to be a boat. A new society of
timeships, sailing
the high seas. The Noah myth. Premonitory preparation for the
emigration from planet
earth. Load the boat with transmitting equipment. Radio Free Earth.
At the Kabul airport the official from the American embassy grabbed
my passport
illegally and the Afghani police busted me for not having a passport.
We were kept un-
/ sat in the dim light of solitary confinement and wrote a com-
plete systematic philosophy: cosmology, politic, epistomology,
ethic, aesthetic, ontology, and the most hopeful eschatology
ever specified.
der armed guard for three days and driven to the airport. The
Afghani policeman wept
and the Army Major told me the pilot of the airplane would return my
passport.
Armed American police agents escorted me back to prison. Dumped in a
solitary
confinement cell for four months I wrote Neurologic. At the escape
trial I testified un-
der oath that I felt like a man from the 21st century being boiled in a
pot by super-
stitious savages. Now is the time in the Sci-Fi books for the cosmic
intelligence agen-
cy to send the extra-planetary rescue ship.
The first time I visited the Folsom Prison library I picked up
Lovell's book on outer
space. The last chapter presents a drawing of the remnant of a living
organism found
on a meteorite. A nucleic acid molecule. The first signal from
extra-terrestrial life. Help
is on the way. Prisoners began to etch the design on silver pins and
leatherwork han-
dicrafted in the hobby shop. We called it STARSEED. The symbol of
Psi-Phy.
In early July the New York Times carried a story about a newly
discovered comet en-
tering the solar system. Unexpected. Named after its finder, an East
European
astronomer, it would be visible during the fall of 1973 with a
brilliance greater than the
full moon.
Here was the greatest astronomical event in recorded history
appearing right on
schedule. We named it Starseed, new light, new life, bright reminder of
our extra-
terrestrial origin and future. Symbol of freedom.
As the weeks went by a curious fact emerged. There was no more
publicity about
Starseed. Nothing in the scientific magazines in the prison library. No
one else had
read about it. I wondered if I had dreamt it out of longing
anticipation. Mysterious.
Why so little publicity about the greatest light in the sky? Since
returning to the United
States many other mysterious things had happened. Watergate began to
leak two days
after my incarceration. The United States began to sink in the swamp.
The dollar
collapsed. Food shortages. Energy crisis. Even the King of Afghanistan
took a dive.
Was it possible that the American government had kidnapped me back to
help out?
The worst thing to observe was the mental depression, the cerebral
pollution. No one
was speaking clearly about what was happening. No new solutions. A glum
stagnation.
A damp nostalgia. A frivolous melancholia. Prison provides a clear
perspective. I sat in
the dim light of solitary confinement and wrote a complete systematic
philosophy:
cosmology, politic, epistomology, ethic, aesthetic, ontology, and the
most hopeful
eschatology ever specified. I kept telling other prisoners: society
can't take care of it-
self, so it can't take care of us. It's up to us to provide the vision.
It always happens this
way. New light from the Black Hole.
There exists a repression, a taboo about facing the implica-
tions of the recent scientific findings which compel a total
revision of our concepts of life and of human nature.
And nobody said anything about the comet.
Then Paul Kantner sent in a report:
"On March 7,1973, Dr. Lubos Kohoutek, a Czechoslovakian astronomer,
at Hamburg
Observatory, Bergedorf, West Germany, discovered a new comet. As with
most
modern discoveries, this one was made photographically. Later, a
prediscovery image
plus numerous subsequent ones have enabled astronomers to compute the
comet's
orbit with considerable precision.
"During July through September, it will be too close to the sun's
direction for optical
observation, but in mid-October, at a distance of about 168 million
miles from the sun,
its brightness should increase to a magnitude of between 8 and 12. From
then on it
should brighten quickly and is expected to reach naked eye visibility
about mid-
November. It will then be in the morning sky, in the south-east, about
two hours before
the sun (from San Francisco).
"It is not possible to predict with precision what form the comet's
tail will take nor
what brightness it will attain, but indications are that it will exceed
that of Halley's
comet, last seen in 1910 and not due again until 1986. There is a
possibility that its
magnitude at perihelion (closest to the sun only about 13 million
miles) may ap-
proach that of the full moon, making it one of the brightest ever seen
by man."
This confirmed the coming but renewed the question: why the silence,
the lack of in-
terest? The newspapers were filled with stories anticipating the advent
of the football
season. Another sign of the times. The philosophic perspective has been
lost. There
exists a repression, a taboo about facing the implications of recent
scientific find-
ings which compels a total revision of our concepts of life and of
human nature. Ein-
stein's equations. Nuclear energy. The revelation of DNA code as
literally a code to be
deciphered. Neurological imprinting. Anti-matter. Humanity clings to
the old myths,
avoids the new truths.
It happened before.
"Towards the end of the sixteenth century, Giordano Bruno aroused
the groggy
world, asking it to fling its mind far beyond the planets. He
speculated that the cosmos
extended to infinity.
"This in itself was not so shocking: but Bruno went considerably
farther he
postulated a multiplicity of worlds: suns and planets with life, unseen
companions for
the race of man. He toyed with man's conception of himself: for this,
and for magical
claims and political entanglements, he was burned in 1600." The
Discovery of Our
Galaxy, Charles Whitney.
Starseed: A Psy-Phy Comet Tale
It is likely that extra-terrestrial signals will be received by the
instrument which has evolved over three billion years to pick
up electro-magnetic vibrations. The human brain itself.
"Shortly before Bruno's death, in 1600, Tycho Brahe made the first
announcement of
a 'new' star in the sky. A few years later he observed a comet, and
proved that it moved
among the planets, thus he shattered the crystalline spheres which had
been sup-
posed to carry the planets and stars about the heavens."
Tycho's star set off excited controversy because it forced a change
in the
cosmology. Current theories held that the stars were fixed. But the new
evidence was
there flashing in the sky. The stars moved. Cosmology is not a
peripheral hobby,
speciality of scientific experts. Every aspect of human life is based
on the answers to
the cosmological questions: where did we come from? Where are we going?
Tycho's
star appeared exactly where Christendom was unsettled by the
Reformation. Luther's
challenge to the immovability of Catholic theology. You could get
busted those days
as Galileo discovered, for advocating the idea that the earth moved.
We recall the irritation of the Air Force with U.F.O. reports. The
negative finding of
the Condon report that no extra-terrestrial sightings had been
confirmed, was not sur-
prising. What disturbed was the obvious emotional bias, the fact, and
this is the crucial
experimental datum, that the Air Force didn't want people thinking
about extra-
terrestrial intervention. Just as the Catholic hierarchy and its
Scholastic philosophers
four hundred years ago didn't want people thinking that the stars might
move. The an-
cient, basic cosmological fears and hopes. If you start speculating
about Higher In-
telligence visiting planet earth, a galaxy of embarassing issues get
raised. What would
the celestial visitors think of how we are running the planet? Whose
selfish securities
and biased superiorities would be threatened?
The Air Force U.F.O. study included, indeed, emphasized, a factor
which infuriated
the "flying saucer" partisans. A team of psychologists studied the
personalities of
those who reported the sightings. How clever of the Air Force to
suggest that those
whose cosmologies, however vague, included the possibility of
extra-terrestrial in-
telligence, were themselves "kooks." In wider perspective, we can only
endorse the Air
Force psycho-diagnostic attempt. It may be that the contact with
extra-planetary in-
telligence, the discovery of the master plan will not come via radio
telescopic contact.
And certainly the anticipation of "saucers" transporting humanoid
bodies is naive. It is
more likely that extra-planetary contact will be received by the
instrument which has
evolved over three and a half billion years ago to pick up
electro-magnetic vibrations.
The human nervous system itself. The Air Force psychiatrists might have
done better
if, instead of administering Rorschach personality tests, they had
performed intensive
"The simplest thing would be for them to kill you."
"No," I said, "the technique now is to say that the dissenter
is crazy."
neurological examinations, brainwave studies on the wild-eyed
"saucer-sighters."
Maybe some of the kooks carry nervous systems receptive to a broader
spectrum of
electro-magnetic impulses?
I am standing in the main yard at Folsom Prison talking to a group
of inmates about
the Starseed conspiracy story. There is enthusiastic laughter about the
Psi-Phy
possibilities. We are being watched from five gun-towers by guards
armed with high-
powered rifles, who scan the yard with binoculars. They are especially
worried when a
group of convicts clusters in conversation.
Every prisoner has, during long lonely night hours, scanned the
liberating possibil-
ities of catastrophe. Folsom is near the San Andreas fault. What if
nuclear war is
declared?
Johnny James, a tough guy, clubs down hope. "The guards have
instructions. In
case of catastrophe the orders are to lock inmates in their cells and
abandon the
prison." Folsom Prison is half a mile below the Folsom Dam.
It is agreed that I should send out a message posing the Starseed
questions. Could
there be a secret conspiracy to censor extra-planetary contact?
Thoughts of Dallas,
Sirhan, Martin Luther King, My Lai, Cambodia, Liddy, Hunt, Haldeman,
and Ehrlichman
run through neural pathways. Many inmates are convinced that Hunt will
never live to
testify; that "they" are planning to have me killed if I start
broadcasting any messages.
Walking back to the cell-block Chaslon says, "Do you know that the
odds on your
getting offed may have just jumped a hundred times?"
Michel-Gustav Hauchard, French swindler extraordinaire, my
protector-sponsor in
Switzerland, friend of J. Edgar Hoover, and admitted CIA contact, used
to muse aloud:
"The simplest thing would be for them to kill you."
"No." I said, "the technique now is to say the dissenter is crazy.
Anyone who op-
poses the monolithic system must be crazy."
The old menopausal-Stoic view of galaxies as quiescent swirls of
stars, gas and dust
is giving way; signs of creative upheaval are everywhere. Stepping
stones in the pool of
time popping up and disappearing. When Black Holes find their places in
cosmology
(and local politics), neurologicians will have written the most
complete revision of the
creation story since the days of the first ancients.
Cosmologist Hyde now suggests that creation emerges, not uniformly
throughout
the universe, but in regions of high density and intense activity, such
as a developing
Black Hole. Contractions and expansions take place at scattered points
within the
In case of catastrophe the orders are to lock inmates in
their cells and abandon the prison.
universe. Astronomers used to think that the radiation which
energizes the universe
originated from one Big Bang. Now it seems possible to explain creation
as the
product of Black Holes.
The comet Kohoutek could mean nothing or it could mean everything.
It could be a
reminder that this planet is just a brief crumbling stepping stone in
the voyage of life
across the galaxies. That the Higher Intelligence has already
established itself on ear-
th, writ its testament within our cells, decipherable by our nervous
system. That it's
about time to mutate. Create and transmit the new philosophy.
Behold a great light appears in the sky. The offer is made. The
signal is flashed.
Resonate with it or die eye-ground and bored.
Bob Hyde, the strongest, wisest man in the prison system, who has
sold a lot of used
cars in his time, scanned this print-out and shook his head.
"Too general and inspirational. Thousands of years from now they'll
point to your
Starseed signal as the most intelligent signal from the twentieth
century. But right
now people are confused. They want to be told what to do. Something to
give their time
and money to. Like Ralph Nader."
"Ralph Nader is a monster. A puritanical, moralistic, efficiency
robot. We're offering
the first true, hopeful cosmology in history. We gave them their
nervous systems. More
practical and useful than the wheel. We gave them a sign of rebirth in
the sky and a
Starseed symbol and showed them how to activate and hook-up their
circuitry. We
liberated them to ecstasy."
"Not enough," said Hyde, who once sold two hundred repainted
Philadelphia taxis
in Holyoke, Massachusetts. "They want everything, but they want to pay
for it. Your
mistake was to give it free. They want to be told what to do."
"Let's try again," I said.
"Let's see what happens when the comet appears," I said.
But how could prisoners see the comet? At Folsom prisoners are
ordered off the
yard at 3:30 p.m. and spend the next 17 hours locked in their cells.
We stood around the yard discussing petitions and legal writs that
would permit
prisoners out of their cells at night to view the comet.
But the comet failed to show. As November changed to December, to
the rains of
January, newspapers reported that Kohoutek, far from full-moon
brilliance, was in-
visible to the naked eye.
One morning at five, I was awakened by a guard rattling the cell
bars and ordered to
the custody office where two federal marshalls waited. "You've been
subpoenaed to
We gave them the first true, hopeful cosmology in history. We
gave them their nervous systems. More practical and useful
than the wheel.
testify in Federal Court. We're taking you to the San Francisco County jail."
"What a drag," I said, "that's the most fucked jail in the state."
"Yeah, I know," said a marshall, "but at least you'll get to see the
sunrise on the
way."
Sunrise? The comet was scheduled to be seen just before dawn. Maybe
this was a
heaven-beckoning chance to see the comet.
So it happened that I sat handcuffed and leg-shackled in the rear of
the marshall's
car as it rolled along the East Bay freeway crunching down to look up
at the Berkeley
hills (where I had lived for 15 years) and the eastern sky.
Nothing to see. The dark night blue faded to silver dawn and
sunlight flushed the
sky pinkbut no comet to be seen.
A week later, standing on the yard at Folsom, I was approached by
Stupid Stan,
burly, giant sub-leader of the Hell's Angels.
"Hey man, what's happening?"
"I'm dealing from my own hand," I replied.
"Out-a-sight," replied Stupid Stan.
"How you doing, man?" I asked.
"Out-a-sight," said Stupid Stan.
"Nice weather," I said.
"An out-a-sight day," agreed Stupid Stan. "Hey man, I just thought
of something.
You remember telling me about that comet that was going to be brighter
than the full
moon and fill up half the sky? I been looking out of my cell at night
and I ain't seen
nothing. What happened? Did someone forget to pay the light bill?"
"It turned out to be an out-a-sight comet," I replied.
"Well that's the way 1973 seems to be coming down," said Stupid Stan
shaking his
head. "Maybe next year, huh Tim?"
"Maybe next year," I said.
Conversations with Higher Intelligence
July 1976
At Large in U.S.A.
Commodore Timothy Leri (agent for Central Intelligence assigned to
mutational
duty on planet earth) awoke, opened his eyes and found himself once
again in a prison
cell. This time it was Vacaville. his light-emitting diode flashed 8:00
a.m., Pacific Time.
The year was 29 P.H. (Post-Hiroshima).
The Commodore yawned and stretched comfortably. He had been on the
planet
some 3.2 billion years and was enjoying his middle age.
On the metal table next to his bunk he saw the Wall Street Journal,
brought silently
every morning by Everett (stock fraud).
Leri rose, picked up the ceramic cup containing coffee crystal,
sugar and powdered
cream, walked to the wash room and stirred in steaming hot water.
Returning to his bunk he opened the brown paper bag and selected a
warm, fresh-
baked Danish roll redolent with melted butter and topped by strawberry
jam. The rolls
had been smuggled out of the prison bakery by Marshall (heroin sales).
From a silver, Chinese-inscribed case made in the prison hobby shop
by Manolo
(marijuana sales), he withdrew a cigarettetailor-rolled to his
particular taste
one half Bugler for body, one quarter pipe-mix for bite, one quarter
Kite for a dash of
mint.
He inhaled the luxurious, rich smoke and felt welcome nicotine buzz
his neural
equipment. The Danish roll crumbled sweetly on his tongue and the
coffee soothed his
throat.
"Aren't you prepared to talk to U.F.O.'s when they arrive?
Don't you really believe in Extraterrestrial Intelligence?"
After shaving, the Commodore patted his face with the electric-sting
and Byzantine
scent of Chanel #5 smuggled into the prison by Jackie Dee, the
cell-block barber
(forgery) and turned to greet Tony (heroin possession), who was paid a
carton a week to
clean the cell.
Tony leaned on his broom and initiated the daily metaphysical
conversation flying
saucers, Jean Dixon, Chariots of the Gods, Swami Booboodananda, Kirlian
photo-
graphy, Uri Geller's key-bending, pyramid magic and reincarnation.
The Commodore's brain informed his nine laryngeal muscles that it
was time to talk
more rigorously to Tony.
"Tony, I want to speak to you about something important. Are you ready?"
"Sure thing, Doc," replied Tony grinning.
"Okay. Dig this. Suppose you are walking out on the prison yard all
by yourself and
suddenly, KAZAMI.down comes a flying saucer right in front of you. Got
it?"
"Yeah," murmured Tony, his eyes wide open.
"And a silver stair case unfolds with a ruby-jeweled carpet and a
platinum hand
railing. And down walks a Superior Creature from the center of the
galaxy, shining with
light and wisdom.
"Whew! Far out!" murmured Tony.
"And this beautiful voice says, 'Tony, we have come trillions of
light years and
descended down, down into the ocean of your atmosphere to where you
humans are
crawling around on this swamp bottom. We have come down here to help
you. And to
begin, we'll answer any three questions you'd like to ask us.'"
Tony's eyes bulged and he laughed uneasily.
"That's far out, doc. Say, do you believe in flying saucers?"
The Commodore's eyes flashed in mock sternness. He took two steps
toward Tony
and spoke in a firm voice: "Tony! Pay attention! Once in a life-time!
Three questions,
Tony. What do you want to ask Higher Intelligence?"
Tony's gaze fell to the unswept floor. He shuffled uneasily. After a
long pause he
spoke reluctantly.
"Say, Doc, are you going to the movies tonite? It's a John Wayne western!"
"Tony!" exclaimed Commodore Leri. "Don't you have any questions to
ask Higher In-
telligence? All this occult reading! And all these conversations about
metaphysics!
And you aren't even prepared to talk to U.F.O.'s when they arrive?
Don't you really
believe in Extraterrestrial Intelligence?"
They say they can travel throughout our galaxy instantan-
eously using faster-than-light methods which they are going
to teach to our quantum physicists. What's your second
question?
"Sure I do."
"But you don't have your questions ready?"
Tony grinned sheepishly.
"Tell you what we'll do," continued the implacable Commodore. "You
think about it
and tonite you write down three questions. You bring them to me
tomorrow and I'll see
if I can get you the answers."
The next morning Tony failed to show up to clean the cell until
after Leri had left for
his prison job. That afternoon when they met in the mainline corridor
the challenge
was repeated. The following morning Tony dutifully brought his three
questions.
"Well, my first question to Higher Intelligence is, how did you get here?"
The Commodore closed his eyes for a long minute and then spoke.
"Okay, I just
picked up their answer on my neural transceiver. They say they can
travel throughout
our galaxy instantaneously using faster-than-light methods which they
are going to
teach to our quantum physicists. What's your second question?"
"Well, next I want to know if they have atom bombs that they are
going to drop on
us."
The Commodore closed his eyes again and then spoke. "They say that
they can use
nuclear energies and many other, more powerful sources which they will
teach us, but
that they will use these forces only to heal and help. There is nothing
to fear."
"Gee, that's great," said Tony in obvious relief. "My next question
has to do with
Christ. Ask them if Jesus is going to return to save us."
The Commodore closed his eyes again and then spoke. "They say that
nothing much
can happen in the atmosphere swamp of a planet; that we must use our
scientific
knowledge to join them up there. They said to remind you, Tony, that
Christ said that
our kingdom was not of this world."
The rug in front of the radio executive's apartment door was
inscribed with Jewish
letters and a mezuzah was fixed to the door frame.
Schwartzman was young, plump and very pleased with himself. The
Commodore
declined lunch and drank apple juice while Schwartzman gorged himself
on pickled
fish, fried squash, spicy potato salad and rye bread. With a sigh of
satiation the radio
executive patted his mouth with a napkin and smiled in princely
invitation.
"So you have a script fora radio show. So tell me."
"My proposal," said Commodore Leri, "is frankly modeled after the one event in the
"/ mean that we'll dramatically announce on network radio
that we've contacted Higher Intelligence from Outer Space
and we'll invite listener questions and then we'll answer them
on the basis of scientific fact."
long history of radio-television that totally grabbed its audience,
shook people up and
changed their behavior. Do you know which epochal broadcast I'm
thinking about?"
"Of course," said Schwartzman with a patronizing smile. "Orson
Welles' War of the
Worlds."
"Precisely. I've asked hundreds of people to name the most powerful
media signal
ever sent out and everyone comes up with that same answer. The Mars
invasion. And
that's my ambition. To do another Orson Welles, but better."
"Better?" said Schwartzman, frowning. "I doubt very much if it can
be done at all.
Government regulations and FCC supervision. I don't see that its
possible."
"It can be done, if it avoids the two drawbacks of the Orson Welles
script. First of all,
the original was a negative trip. The extraterrestrials were hostile
and powerfully
dangerous. That caused that panic that the FCC worries about. And
second, it was
make believe. The script was based on a science fiction tale by H.G.
Wells. What I have
in mind is a program which convincingly contacts an Extraterrestrial
Intelligence
which is helpful, loving, and which generates uncontrollable joy and
inspiration in the
listeners. How can the government object to that?"
Schwartzman frowned and lit a filter-tipped Kool cigarette.
"Uncontrollable joy?" he
murmured dubiously.
"And the second improvement we'd make in the Orson Welles script is
this: the
event would be science faction."
Schwartzman puffed fiercely on his cigarette and coughed
challengingly. "Science
faction? What's that?"
"I mean that we'll dramatically announce on network radio that we've
contacted
Higher Intelligence from Outer Space and we'll invite listener
questions and then we'll
answer them on the basis of scientific fact."
"But that's a fraud," sputtered Schwartzman. "You haven't really
contacted Higher
Intelligence."
"Ah," replied the Commodore, "who can be sure? Even those of us who
are transmit-
ting the signals won't know. The facts which science can now produce
about the basic
philosophic questions are far beyond and above what is routinely
transmitted by the
media as far beyond Walter Cronkite as he is beyond the cave man.
Science faction
is stranger than fiction."
"No, it won't go," said Schwartzman shaking his head. "Facts are
boring and don't
sell. To give you the hard, marketing truth, facts are not believable
these days. There's
no interest there."
"But how can I double my intelligence?" protested Schwartz-
man. "Perhaps that should have been your first question,"
replied Leri, continuing to smile.
"Well, let me try it out on you. Are you ready? Zap!" exclaimed
Leri, clapping his
hands in front of the astonished radio executive's face. "Here is
Higher intelligence on
the line! What three questions do you have?"
The forces of one-G gravity tugged on Schwartzman's sagging facial
muscles and
his red tongue extended, lizard-like over his juicy lower lip. Then he
smiled slyly.
"Well, first I want to know the time of my death."
Leri responded without hesitation: "The answer to that question is
simple Higher
Intelligence says that you need not die! That terrestrial science
already knows enough
to prolong your life-time indefinitely."
"Why that's horrible," replied Schwartzman angrily. "The purpose of life is to die."
"The answers from above are not guaranteed to please. What's your
second
question?"
Schwartzman smiled broadly. "My second question is easy. When will I
make a
million dollars?"
"And the answer is easy," assured the Commodore. "You'll make a
million dollars
within a year if you syndicate these Conversations with Higher
Intelligence. What's
your final question?"
"Hmmm. Let me think," said the radio executive, fumbling with the
green and white
cigarette package. "How can I cope with the emotional problems of life?"
"Higher Intelligence says that you can only cope with your emotional
problems by
becoming twice as intelligent," said the Commodore with a smile.
"But how can I double my intelligence?" protested Schwartzman.
"Perhaps that should have been your first question," replied Leri,
continuing to
smile. "I must say, your Questions were quite materialistic. You know,
sometimes
people ask scientific questions, like the formula for exceeding the
speed of light and
so forth."
"Well, I'm a very materialistic person," said the radio executive.
Gabriel Wisdom, disc jockey for KGB-San Diego, skillfully parked his
Datsun station
wagon on a cliff above the beach.
"We can walk from here. Shall we take surf boards?"
"No. We'll body surf the brain waves today," replied the Commodore
as he stepped
out of the car.
Both men were dressed in swimming trunks and both were tanned
darkly. Wisdom's
hair, beard and body fuzz bleached to blonde and Leri's silver and
black. They walked
"How are we going to get the voice of Higher Intelligence
on tape?"
along the sidewalk, hot against the soles of their feet, and then
climbed down the
steep cliff. The secluded beach was deserted except for groups of
surfers, Southern
California men with long blonde hair and bodies polished and smoothed
by the in-
cessant massage of sand and sea. And women with long, smooth cocoa
limbs who
casually floated by to chat affectionately with the disc jockey and the
Agent from Cen-
tral Intelligence, both of whom were legendary figures to the graceful
shoreline
creatures.
"Surfers understand the nature of energy better than any other
group," said Gabriel
Wisdom walking along the shore. "No guru or swami, no other yoga is so
pure and
precise. And they all love you."
"That's because I'm a surfer too. Riding the waves of evolution.
It's the simplest job
to be a visionary prophet. Just open your eyes and see how the next
genetic wave is
coming in."
"And ride it in," said Wisdom, laughing.
"Without getting trapped or confused, by the ebb-tide between waves."
"Like the Nixon reaction?" said Wisdom. "When is the next wave coming?"
"Soon," said the Commodore. Can't you feel it gathering? And its
going to be a big
one. It will make the 60's look like a ripple."
The two men had walked the length of the beach and stood at the edge
of a wide plat-
form of black stone stained with bright green moss. They watched sea
rush into narrow
crevice, surge up through blowhole with high, feathery spumes of white
covering
bodies of children and surfers sitting against the cliff, shouting and
laughing with wet
shock.
The disc jockey and the Commodore sat on the sand with their backs
against the
cliff.
"I have only one technical question,"said Gabriel Wisdom. "I can do
the newscaster
who interrupts the regular program to announce that Higher Intelligence
is sending
radio messages to a 13-year-old kid in Los Alamos. And we'll tape the
kid's voice by
phone. And you'll play the on-the-spot correspondent. But how are we
going to get the
voice of Higher Intelligence on tape?"
"I've always assumed that the Voice of Higher Intelligence would be female."
Gabriel Wisdom laughed with pleasure. "Or how about the voice of a child?"
Both men laughed. The Commodore was stroking the warm sand with his hand.
"And another question...! mean...how is it going to sound...I mean
it's gotta sound
real...how is it going to be real?"
'He's good,' thought Leri. 'He's an actor. And he plays with his
throat like a stringed instrument. No, more than that, like a
sexual organ.'
"You know," said the Commodore, "I love this here. The sea, the
sand, and the hot
caress of the sun on my skin. This is the way to work. Don't you feel
the same way?"
"I guess I take it for granted," replied Wisdom.
"But it's going to be real," said Leri. "The human brain is a
transceiver. It's basic
function is to pick up and transmit signals from Higher Intelligence.
If we can just set
up the right conditions and get a brain open to transceive."
The Commodore stood just before midnight in the center of the
broadcasting studio
of KGB. Behind him, the News Room was dark. To his right, through the
window, he
could see Gabriel Wisdom seated in front of console panels twisting
dials, selecting
records, speaking in a low mellow voice to the AM audience. To his left
through the
glass he could see Michael Sheehy in the FM booth spinning rock and
roll.
At midnight both announcers emerged from their booths, Gabriel
disappearing in a
production room to tape the late news. Michael Sheehy, retiring to
another production
room to tape a shoe-store commercial, waved Leri to follow.
The Commodore watched from the door as Sheehy, earphones over his
head, sat in
front of the console, mouth ten inches away from the obscenely bulbous,
foam-padded
microphone. Sheehy cleared his throat, rocking gently back and forth,
crooning into
the mike he psyched himself in a trance-like voice pouring out
sonorous, majestic
poetry about the Everlast Shoe Line.
He's good, thought Leri. He's an actor. And he plays with his throat
like a stringed
instrument. No, more than that, like a sexual organ. When the red,
NOWRECORDING
light blinked out Wisdom opened the door and motioned to the Commodore.
The two men walked to the new production room, where the
fifteen-year old boy was
waiting.
"Have you read over your script?" asked Gabriel.
The boy nodded tensely.
He's nervous, thought Leri. That's good. He has every reason to be.
The boy sat in front of the console. Gabriel fiddled with the dials
and punched the
tape buttons making loud clicking sounds. He nodded ready. Leri read
the cue lines
and the boy addressed his welcome to Higher Intelligence.
When the boy was finished Leri took his place and read his lines
interviewing the
boy.
Gabriel punched the rewind button and the tape spun back with a
whining screech.
The two men and the boy listened to the interview.
"Remember," said the Commodore, "you're a billion miles
away and you're right here in our window pane. You're an
ancient creature of the galaxy.
Wisdom hit the rewind button and nodded. "That stuff is good. I can
edit it smoothly,
dub in the background excitement noises, murmur of voices and so forth.
And I can do
the breathless newscaster. But we still need the voice of Higher
Intelligence.
At that moment the door to the studio opened and Sheehy walked in.
He's your basic, successful hip talent, thought the Commodore.
Super-skeptical.
Totally cynical about hype. A fine audio craftsman. But jaded. Turned
on, but no where
to tune it in. And he's Irish. That's a break. The Catholics are the
only ones who really
believe in heaven and immortality.
"Tell me, Sheehy. How would you like to be the voice of Higher
Intelligence from
Outer Space?"
Sheehy nodded with a grin and moved to the chair in front of the mike.
"Why not? Let's give it a try."
Commodore Leri handed the script to the disc jockey. Sheehy began
reading.
Leafing through the pages he smiled, nodded, then broke out into a
laugh.
"This is heavy stuff," he said. "You know, we could add an echo,
just a tiny bit to give
it texture and phase over it to give a hollow, wavering, interstellar
effect."
Gabriel Wisdom nodded and strung a fresh tape through the recording
machine.
Sheehy cleared his voice and leaned towards the mike. Leri and the boy
stood in front
of him watching intently.
Sheehy began to read the script softly, adjusting sound levels. He
closed his eyes
and repeated the lines. Then he looked up.
"Would you mind moving back out of my line of vision? I want to get
myself into this
part."
"Remember," said the Commodore, "you're a billion miles away and
you're right
here in our window pane. You're an ancient creature of the galaxy.
You're the great
Mother-Father in the sky talking down to this infant race. Teaching
these children
whom you love and cherish."
Sheehy nodded and started putting himself into trance, reading and
re-reading the
first lines, slowly increasing the volume, juicing up the vibrato, the
sonority. Your om-
niscient, genial, all-wise radio voice laying it down. Suddenly he
broke off.
"Look, I'm having some trouble reading the pencil additions. Could
we have the
script typed on the big machine in the news room?
Leri nodded and took the script into the news-room. He sat in front
of the manual
typewriter and slowly, precisely tapped out the first speech from
Higher Intelligence in
giant script of the cue-print machine. He ripped the first speech out
of the machine and
Sheehy stood transfixed, his mouth half open in amazement.
"You know," he said slowly, "I'm a believer. That sounds real
to me."
rushed to the studio. Sheehy took it without a word and turned to
the mike, vanishing
into auto-hypnotic trance.
Leri returned to the newsroom to type the next speech.
For the next half hour the routine continued, Sheehy taking each
speech, losing him-
self in some neural tract between brain and vocal cords.
When the last transmission was finished Sheehy pushed back from the
mike, took a
deep breath, and turned to the tape, flicking the rewind button. "This
thing is getting
me more and more involved," he said to Wisdom. "Let me dub in the
phasing."
Headphones circling his face, hands twisting the dials, Sheehy sat
listening with a
faint smile on his face.
"Okay. Let me rewind and we'll listen to what God has wrought."
Sheehy stood,
removed the headphones and walked to the recording console. The
Commodore,
Wisdom, and the Kid waited while the rewind tape whined. When it
flicked to stop,
Sheehy punched 'Play' and the small room cornered by quadrophonic
speakers sud-
denly boomed with thunderous sound-waves amplified by electromagnetic
power.
HELLO PLANET EARTH. THIS MESSAGE IS BEING SENT FROM THE CENTER OF
YOUR GALAXY. CONGRATULATIONS. LIFE ON SOL-3 HAS NOW EVOLVED TO THE
POINT WHERE THE HUMAN RACE IS READY TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR
NEIGHBORS, LEAVE YOUR TINY, RESTRICTING WOMB PLANET, AND JOIN THE
GALACTIC COMMUNITY. THIS IS A MOMENT OF GREAT CELEBRATION FOR US
WHO HAVE WATCHED YOU GROW...AND IT IS A GREAT MOMENT FOR YOU WHO
ARE ABOUT TO GRADUATE TO A HIGHER LEVEL. THE HUMAN RACE, AS AGENT
FOR ALL LIFE ON YOUR PLANET, IS NOW ABLE TO LEAVE THE WOMB AND TO BE
REBORN AS GALACTIC CITIZENS. WE, YOUR NEIGHBORS AND RELATIVES, SHALL
BE TEACHING YOU, HELPING YOU GROW. YOU, AT STATION KGB, HAVE BEEN
SELECTED TO ACT AS RADIO CONTACT, TO RECEIVE AND SEND SIGNALS BET-
WEEN THE HUMAN RACE AND YOUR FRIENDS OUT HERE.
Sheehy stood transfixed, his mouth half open in amazement. "You
know," he said
slowly, "I'm a believer. That sounds real to me."
"It figures," said the Commodore dryly. "Galactic Intelligence
naturally assumes the
voice of a radio announcer."
"Is this going to be aired?" asked Sheehy.
"We plan to get it syndicated," replied Gabriel Wisdom cheerfully.
"We're going to
ask all the listeners to write in and ask three questions of Higher
Intelligence."
"Why not," added Commodore Leri. "Everyone I know is bored at the level of conver-
Conversations with Higher Intelligence
Sheehy stood silent, frowning. "You know...some religious
people might not like this. It's too...authentic. We could get
in trouble with this."
sation down here. We think that a lot of people are ready to start
talking to Higher In-
telligence. It's like tennis. You're better off playing with someone
better than your-
self."
Sheehy stood silent, frowning. "You know...some religious people
might not like
this. It's too...authentic. We could get in trouble with this."
"Not we," said the Commodore, smiling. "You could get in trouble.
I've been through
that scene already and my dues for the broadcasting unions are paid in
full. This time
I'm just going to write the script."
Sheehy laughed. Everyone laughed.
War and Centralization
as Necessary Prelude to Space Migration
March 1976
Federal Prison San Diego
Post-technological civilization now faces in the most practical,
market-place form,
basic directional species questions which formerly could be relegated
to ivory-tower
philosophers.
"Hey there, you driving down the freeway. What is the purpose of life?"
"And you there, kicking back to read this chapter. What is the goal
of evolution?
Where are we going?"
Before 1945 (and today in countries which have not yet mastered the
technologies of
the 20th century), four less philosophic issues have kept our species
ener-genetically
preoccupied:
1. Bio-Survival: "How do I stay alive?"
2. Territorial-Expansion and Control: "If we don't fight them
in Vietnam we'll have to
fight them here at home."
3. Technological Competition: Russian Sputniks, Japanese Cameras, German VW's.
4. Cultural Homogenization: 150 million Americans regardless
of race, creed,
color, sex or national origin watching Kojak. 150 million Europeans
watching Kojak.
150 million Russians reading Pravda's denunciations of Kojak.
These four challenges to survival on this planet have now been
solved.
1. Bio-Survival Is No Longer an Issue
Bio-survival is the first goal of every species. When faced with
starvation or threat-
ened by violent attack neither the wolf nor the domesticated ape
wonders about the
In "Gravity's Rainbow" Thomas Pynchon brilliantly demon-
strates how neuro-technology became the motivating force
behind the seemingly irrational convulsions of the 20th
century.
goal of evolution. The issue is to stay alive. Now, however,
medicine, public health and
technological agriculture have dramatically increased life expectancy.
Even war has
been eliminated as a species threat. In its boredom and crowded
abundance, post-
technological society has had to invent bio-survival fears which are
transmitted by the
entertainment industry to titillate the protected. Crime shows.
Detective novels. Horror
movies. Scary roller coasters. Jaws. Car racing. Conspiracy theories.
Swine flu panics.
Glamorized highjackings and Entebbe raids. Ecological doomsdaying.
Now that science has almost eliminated the causes of bio-survival
insecurity, the
navigational question returns: "You there reclining in comfort reading
this essay: an-
swer me, survival for what?"
2. Territorial Expansion and Control Are No Longer Goals of the Human
Species
During the last 2000 years the population of our species has
increased in number
and expanded in geographical spread. Up until 1900, politics i.e.
neuromuscular
mastery of territory and other humans (slavery in its many
forms)preoccupied
human consciousness.
The great political conflicts war, conquest and enslavement
were, some say,
necessary to neural evolution. Xenophobia (i.e. territorial jealousy)
may be a natural
phase through which mammalian species must pass.
Political ideologynationalism, imperialism, class struggleas a
goal of life is
now obsolete. Police and military control assure that there will be no
more big
conquests or dramatic revolutions involving industrialized countries.
Surely it is ob-
vious that almost every civilized country now has the land and the
government its
people desire. The Chinese like insectoid Maoism. The Russian people
adore authori-
tarian centralization. We Americans apparently prefer the televised
popularity contest.
(This is not to say that civilized people are happy. Far from it.
The more socialized the
country, the more morose and bored the quality of life.)
3. Technological Competition Is Diminishing
During the 20th century politics was replaced by technological
rivalry as the goal of
life.
In Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon brilliantly demonstrates how
neuro-technol-
ogy became the motivating force behind the seemingly irrational
convulsion of the
20th century.
The politics and suicidal tactics of World War I seem inexplicable,
indeed, almost
comic-opera, until one realizes that the real issues were
neurogenetic-technological.
...the stages of emerging technology on this planet, including
technological warfare, are standard and inevitable stages in
the development of nervous systems on nursery planets like
our own.
The national competitions of 1914 compelled the antagonist countries
to master the
tank, the airplane, radio and the rapid transportation of masses of
people.
The political line-ups of World War II seem equally absurd until we
understand that
the real purpose of the conflict was to stimulate the development of
radar, rocketry,
synthetic chemistry, atomic fission, long-range naval maneuvers and
accelerated aero-
nautics.
As soon as World War II ended, like magnetized iron-filings, the
victorious central-
ized states immediately and magically lined up in new polarized
competitive order. Ac-
tually, the Cold War increasingly lost political meaning as America
catapulted towards
centralized welfare socialism and Russia moved towards a consumer
middle class.
The rivalry from 1945 to 1975 really involved nuclear fusion, computer
flight control, in-
tercontinental missilery, bio-chemical-genetic research, sophisticated
electronics
and, most important, space flight.
We see, now, that centralized governments require diligent,
competent middle-
classes to mobilize the technology necessary for Space Migration,
Intelligence In-
crease and Life Extension (S.M.I2.LE.).
Without totally endorsing Samuel Clemen's technological mysticism
("we grow
back bones when it comes back-bone time"), let us consider the
possibility that every
aspect of neurogenetic evolution has been pre-programmed by DNA, that
the stages of
emerging technology on this planet, including technological warfare,
are standard and
inevitable stages in the development of nervous systems on nursery
planets like our
own.
4. Cultural Homogeneity Is A Dead End
The structures of the evolving human body-brain and the outcomes of
its changing
interaction with the chemical-physical resources of a routine planet
like Sol-3 are
galactic constants. It is inevitable that technological societies, even
the most com-
munist-Spartan, produce a technical-consumer culture. People who work
during the
day in computerized factories manufacturing Soviet electronics cannot
be expected to
return each night to pre-industrial living quarters. Thus does
technology create the
electroid-homogenized society, almost insectile in its centralization.
Urban Russians
insist on access to electronically amplified rock and roll and
[bootleg] pocket com-
puters.
A centralized consumer civilization is an inevitable evolutionary
development. But
what is to come? The Russian-Chinese-European-American citizen is
approaching the
Growth restriction, back-to-the-earth ecology and zero-
population plans are clearly unsatisfactory answers, selfish,
defeatist and pessimistic.
point where the next post-technological questions emerge:
Bio-survival for what?
National security, for what?
Technological efficiency, for what?
Consumer-cultural homogeneity, so what?
The four basic terrestrial challenges seem to have been solved. It
is clear that the
problems which our species now faces are of a new order
over-population, energy
shortage, nuclear proliferation, scarcity of resource, a general
clogging of the social
machinery, aimlessness, boredom, escapism, technological redundancy,
hedonic
consumerism, narcissistic self development.
In the most advanced nations the first blind and superficial
reaction to these prob-
lems has been the band-aid policy of "growth-limitation": futile
attempts to reduce
energy-use, constrict collective aspiration, emphasize internal-hedonic
experience
(expressed as erosion of the work ethic, sexual preoccupation, oriental
mysticism,
health faddism and the drug culture).
The peculiar (and perhaps perverse) blindness of the Nixon
administration was an at-
tack on all three directions of growth which kept the boom decades
(1950-70) going:
detente, and the cutback in sophisticated defense research
and technological
advance
the disasterous slow-down of N.A.S.A. and non-military scientific research.
The Americanization of the war, i.e. the initiation of
civil-war against domestic
enemies including the enormous and steadily-increasing hedonic minority.
Nixon left America in a most pregnant state of confusion. The
national goals were
systematically eroding and, in spite of conservative rhetoric, the
work-aesthetic
badly damaged by self-indulgent consumerism. Cynicism, pessimism and
petty moral
meanness (expressed in the expose investigations) produced the
currently popular
neo-populist, bland realism of "think small and lower aspirations."
Liberals, pacifists
and ecologists, we see, are equally to blame for the current American
malaise. A slow-
down policy can only be rationalized if it is accompanied by an all-out
consideration of
the question which America must face at this bi-centennial point: where
do we want to
go? What is the purpose of society and of human life?
Growth restriction, back-to-the-earth ecology and zero-population
plans are clearly
unsatisfactory answers, selfish, defeatist and pessimistic. Every
African and Asian
wants technology two cars and color T.V. And they deserve them.
What gets lost in the pessimism is the fact that our species is
riding an enormous
evolutionary brain-wave, a gigantic upsurge in energy-release which
must be designed
Our species is riding an enormous evolutionary brain-wave,
a gigantic upsurge in energy-release which must be designed
with some goal in mind.
with some goal in mind. All the graphs reveal a sudden explosion of
human potential in
the last hundred years. At the same time that every other form of
mammalian life (ex-
cept the domesticated) is plummeting to extinction, the human-energy
chart takes off
in a breath-taking launch.
INTELLIGENCE INCREASE: The wave we are riding!
The number of important inventions and discoveries, by century from
A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1900 (from Lenski,
1970, reprinted from Sociobiology by E. Wilson). Similar, but even more
dramatic diagrams chart the ex-
plosive emergence of other indices of neurogenetic intelligence:
altitude and velocity attained by species;
population growth; communications networks including literacy rates;
number of scientists; life-span;
specialization of survival tasks; etc., etc.
The Next Goals of Human Life are: S.M.I2.LE.
Exactly at the time when the four problems of terrestrial survival
seem to have been
solved, centralized civilization has produced three technologies which
suggest the
next evolutionary goals for our species.
Space Migration relieves population pressure, uplevels territorial
conflict, offers
humanity unlimited energy and space not on uninhabitable planets, but
in O'Neill's
space worlds.
Intelligence Increase: Modern neurology, humanistic psychology and
psycho-
pharmacology has, in the last decade, demonstrated that the body-brain
is a complex
War and Centralization as Necessary Prelude to Space Migration
All of the sciences provide converging data which point to the
certainty that Migration from the earth is the next step in
evolution.
bio-chemical instrument which can be understood and used to define
new dimensions
of consciousness and intelligence.
Knowledge of how the brain creates realities (via imprinting) makes
possible self-
directed brain-change and reality expansion.
Life Extension: Micro-biology and genetics are deciphering the DNA
code thus
providing the possibility of rejuvenation and indefinite Life
Extension. Bio-chemists
assure us that there is no scientific reason why a healthy person
cannot extend her-or-
his life span several hundred years. Thus, in addition to unlimited
Space and expanded
Brain our species now faces the challenge of unlimited Time.
Let us briefly consider the three elements of the S.M.I2.L.E.
formula that now com-
pel us to reshape our species philosophy.
Space Migration is the Inevitable Next Step in Evolution
The inevitability of Space Migration can be seen clearly when we
compute the trajec-
tories of species evolution, of theology, of scientific progress, and
social organization.
All of these systems seem to point us upwards away from the heavy pull
of gravity.
The trend of biological evolution on this planet has been from
water, to shoreline, to
land, to atmospheric flight. Now, humanity has reached the velocity
necessary to
escape the G-1 pull. The nervous system has similarly evolved in
contelligence. Com-
munication has moved from close-range contact (touch-taste-smell)
through distance
vision to the present point where light-speed signals are routinely
transceived.
Most of the religious revelations and cosmologies which have guided
humanity in
the past have agreed that the goals of life are to be found in "heaven
above." Surely it
is no accident that winged angels, celestial realms, messianic descents
and ascen-
sions, are basic themes found in almost all theologies. The Higher
Intelligence and
humanity's destiny has always been located in the sky. Even such an
occult, kabbal-
istic scheme as the Tarot has been so designed that the first 12 cards
portray mundane
personages (Emperor, Chariot, Pope) whereas the last ten cards present
extra-terres-
trial entities.
Science, too, systematically leads human contelligence to the
recognition that
humans need not be restricted to the heavy-gravity atmosphere of earth,
and, indeed,
that the surface of a planet is the worst place to operate a
technological civilization. All
of the sciences provide converging data which point to the certainty
that Migration
from the earth is the next step in evolution.
Astronomers tell us that there are probably hundreds of millions of
planets like ours
in our solar system. Life forms on half of these planets, maybe ahead
of us in the evolu-
Off the planet surface, on the moon and in the asteroid belt,
there awaits unlimited material resources, inexhaustible solar
energy and boundless space in which to construct custom-
tailored worlds.
tionary process, have presumably migrated from their womb planets
and await us to
join them in the communication networks of extraplanetary space.
N.A.S.A. committees have confirmed Gerard O'Neill's conclusions that
the surface
of a planet like ours is emphatically not the place for an accelerating
industrial civiliza-
tion. There are neither the resources nor the energy available down
here at the bottom
of a four thousand mile gravity swamp to meet the technological and
material aspira-
tions of our fellow humans. Off the planet surface, on the moon and in
the asteroid
belt, there awaits unlimited material resources, inexhaustible solar
energy and bound-
less space in which to construct custom-tailored worlds.
In addition to the evolutionary, the religious and the scientific
evidence is the
psycho-social impulse to migrate which is manifested in almost every
aspect of
current pop-culture. It is as though our species senses intuitively
that the great
mutational movement is about to occur. The fact that two-thirds of the
American
polled-public believes in the reality of "flying saucers" (in spite of
the unconvincing
evidence of their existence) does suggest that some sort of a
mutational premonition
has infiltrated the consciousness of our species.
The sudden popularity of science-fiction books, space movies (Star
Wars, Encounter
of the Third Kind) and the inexplicable, unquittable grasp of the silly
STARTREK series
are media phenomena pointing to our aspirations upward. Then too, the
hippy-drug-
culture movement can be seen as a premature quiver of extraterrestrial
conscious-
ness. The sudden mass impulse to "get high," to float, to space-out, to
trip, to avoid
the "downer" seems to express the new revelation that gravity is the
ultimate drag,
that the "Fall" in Genesis is literally a fall, that the ultimate
energization and discovery
of human potential is the process of becoming a "star."
Here, as always, we meet the recurrent paradoxical nature of
evolution: in order to
attain the ultimate human freedom of space existence, in order to
attain the velocity to
escape the planet it was necessary to link up in
centralized-collectives. This is the
Centralization Paradox the phenomenon which has so confused planetary
politics
for the last few decades. Capitalistic countries insisting that we must
organize to coun-
ter Communism. Republican Big-business competing with Democratic
Big-Govern-
ment for control of the centralized economy. It is true that technology
has created
assembly-line societies insectoid in its harnessing of the individual
to the collective
goal. But trust in the genetic design (always paradoxical when seen in
the short view)
may comfort us that centralization and only centralization can organize
private enter-
prise and public structure to produce the enormously complex technology
necessary
Until the present time it has been downright dangerous to be
too smart or let it be sensed by the collective mind that one
was too intelligent.
to migrate from the planet. Despite the campaign rhetoric, the
bureaucracies big
business and big government are here to stay. The centralization
effect cannot be
checked. But it can be rationally directed towards our species goal:
Space Migration:
which in turn offers the only way to re-attain individual freedom of
space-time and the
small group social structures which obviously best suit our nervous
systems. It is
another paradox of neuro-genetics that only in space habitats can
humanity return to
the village life and pastoral style for which we all long.*
Intelligence Increase Is Required for Space Migration and Life Extension
Intelligence, we define, as the range and acceleration of
information-bits (energy
signals) received, integrated and transmitted by structure, organic or
pre-organic. The
more intelligent the species or the individual the wider the scope and
the faster and
more precise the information transceived. Humans are more intelligent
than other
mammals because we have learned to (1) receive, (2)
remember-retrieve-organize and
(3) transmit by means of symbols and artifacts an enormous range of
energies
microscopic, telescopic, mechanical, electro-magnetic.
The Law of Least Effort determines that no individual or no species
is any more in-
telligent than necessary. During certain phases of evolution and of
history (social and
personal) there are periods of calculated stupidity; a coasting along
on energies
already mastered. Periods of repetition and stability and lazy
affluence. The 1950's and
the 1970's are recent periods of collective stupidity. There are other
periods in the life
of a species, a race, an individual when the evolutionary process
forces a confrontation
with the future, a challenge which demands an upsurge of intelligence,
an opening-up
to reception of new frequencies, new organizing principles, new methods
of trans-
mission. World War II with its sudden explosion of technological and
political innova-
tion was such a period. The 1960's with its sudden explosion of new
consciousness
and new cultural philosophies was another such period.
Here it should be pointed out that the DNA code guides and guards
the evolutionary
process using hive-instincts of conservation. The individual or the
group that becomes
too smart, too far advanced, is inevitably checked. Until the present
time it has been
downright dangerous to be too smart or to let it be sensed by the
collective mind that
*ln the O'Neill-N.A.S.A. designs, agriculture and industry are
separated from the living habitats thus
returning the space colonists to small pastoral or village environments
where face-to-face interactions will
allow the formation of the multi-person social molecules which
apparently are necessary for the synergistic
linkage of humans.
Has evolution labored for three and a half billion years to
produce a new race of sun-tanned, organically fed, gracefully
exercised, poly-orgasmic, self-actualized, somatic technicians?
one was too intelligent. Eccentric geniuses are tolerated only if
isolated in ivory-towers
and if they make no attempt to rock the species boat or to corrupt the
young with new
ideas.
At times of species mutation and genetic challenge there is a sudden
eruption of
genius. The 6th century B.C. produced Pythagoras, Buddha, Lao-Tse. The
Elizabethan
and Renaissance period in Europe and the Islamic eruption of the 9th
century A.D.
were similar explosions of mutation and migration.
It will be noted that most periods of intellectual breakthrough and
neurological
mutation have occurred during epochs of migration and exploration. The
DNA code,
girding itself to hurl its seed outward, activates new neural circuits
and allows the
conservative species-stupidity to relax its inertial control.
We may now be witnessing such a neurological mutation. If humanity
is to migrate
in space and to extend the life span we must get smarter, fast.
It is no accident that just at this point in history neurology,
psych-pharmacology and
humanistic psychologies (in the form of the mental health and personal
growth move-
ments) are offering the human being the opportunity for increased
understanding,
liberation and control of his own psychological destiny.
For the first time in human history, control of one's own body and
of one's own life
style and identity (luxuries formerly reserved to the aristocracy) is
now, however
uneasily and trivially, an accepted right of the middle-class American.
Many of our most perceptive social critics have worried about this
psychological ef-
florescence and the obvious question: what is the meaning and goal of
this new philos-
ophy of self-discovery and personal growth? Has evolution labored for
three and a half
billion years to produce a new race of sun-tanned, organically fed,
gracefully exer-
cised, poly-orgasm, self-actualized, somatic technicians?
If there is any goal beyond narcissism for the new generation of
hedonic consumers
freed from the constrictions of the work-aesthetic and the old-time
religions, if there is
any social or genetic purpose to this new, self-conscious individualism
perhaps it is in
preparation for the greatest challenge our species has faced in
millenia the expan-
sion of space and time.
Life Extension Is Only Conceivable in the Context of Space Migration
and Intelligence
Increase
All of the religious and philosophic systems constructed by human
beings have
concerned themselves with the basic issue of death. The western
religions have of-
fered immortality in a post-mortem, heavenly realm to be attained by
the socially vir-
The conquest of death should be the basic and central
concern of science. Death should be wiped out.
tuous. The oriental religions, addressing themselves soberly to the
gloomy fact that
human life ends inevitably in sickness, senility and death, have
offered passive resig-
nation and a detached individual yoga.
Recent developments in biology and genetics have added a startingly
new perspec-
tive on this ancient preoccupation. Scientists now inform us that the
human life span
can be extended indefinitely and that within a decade virtual
immortality is technically
possible. The first in-depth study of the implications of extended
life-span appeared in
a book, The Immortalist by Alan Harrington. The cover of this book
contains a striking
endorsement by Gore Vidal (never one to waste praise on fellow authors)
who was led
to wonder if "this may be the most important book ever written."
Harrington's thesis is
simple. Death is the only enemy of humanity. The conquest of death
should be the
basic and central concern of science. Death should be wiped out.
Life Extension, however, without Space Migration and Intelligence
Increase is
clearly an impossible nightmare. Until now it was necessary for
post-menopausal
humans to die and get their bodies off the scene to make room for the
new arrivals. Is it
nucleic-acid mysticism to suggest that current break-throughs in
life-extension
sciences are inevitably synchronous with the emergence of space
technology? Surely
life extension would be unthinkable without space frontier. And with
limitless space
available immortality becomes a migratory tool.
No rejuvenation without migration! could well be the motto to
protect us from the
horrid possibility of John Denver and Frank Sinatra at age 500 still
re-appearing at Las
Vegas. And Richard Nixon running for the presidency for the fiftieth
time, and, out of
boredom, winning!
Longevity is equally forboding without Intelligence Increase. A
recent opinion poll
about attitudes toward life extension revealed the surprising result
that most people
can't bear the idea of living longer. "My marriage can limp through
another ten years,"
was one reaction, "but a hundred more years would be a disaster."
Extended life span
will obviously require a sudden quantum jump in neural efficiency, the
knowledge of
how to re-imprint realities, to create new identities, to absorb new
mental styles, to
learn new tricks.
The Parable of the Five Caterpillars and the Butterfly
These three evolutionary developments Space Migration,
Intelligence Increase
and Life Extension offer our species a chance to resuscitate our more
enduring
visions of challenge and grandeur; a change to, once again, think noble
thoughts about
our future.
The technical caterpillar snorts, "They'll never get me up
in one of those."
It is for this cause that we consider the parable of the five
caterpillars, just before
their own metamorphosis, who see their first butterfly.
The conservative caterpillar sniffs and says, "That's illegal and
immoral. They
should arrest that irresponsible individual and cage her down here on
the ground
where she belongs."
The technical caterpillar snorts, "They'll never get me up in one of those."
The liberal-progressive caterpillar shouts rhetorically, "How dare
that frivolous crea-
ture float free when there are caterpillars in Bangladesh who don't
have color T.V.'s."
The Hindu-Buddhist caterpillar chants "Ohm" in a superior manner and
says, "Why
go to the bother to build those wings when I can just sit in the lotus
position and fly by
means of astral travel."
And the religious caterpillar murmurs piously, "If God had intended
caterpillars to
fly he would have given us wings."
In Defense of Snake Oil Salesmen
June 1976
Pecos, New Mexico
"We (sic) expect to have our (sic) orbiting space station planned
to house two hundred workers (sic) by 1983-1984....We (sic) feel
that public participation in its planning is feasible."
Jesco Von Puttkamer, N.A.S.A. Office of Space Flight
"Von Puttkamer predicted that in the building and operation of
this space station, which he sees as the crucial first step toward
the colonization of space, "...a lot of hardships should (sic) be
encountered and overcome. What we (sic) don't want is for these
hardships to generate a backlash. Supporters of space coloniza-
tion should (sic) show a measured judgement no snake oil
salesmen are needed."
L-5 News, April 1976
At the present time, as always, political-spiritual-aesthetic
differences alienate
human groups. Most of these conflicts (for example Irish-Catholic
versus Belfast-
Protestant, Arab versus Jew, Democrat versus Republican) serve only to
provide a
sense of self-identity and escape from boredom to the groups involved
and are
irrelevant to the evolutionary process. Major political conflicts,
however, the cold-
war blocs are genetically useful in that they stimulate the great
monolithic powers
into technological competition which furthers the evolution of the
human nervous
system.
...one ominous possibility the restrictive limitation of post-
terrestrial reality by bureaucrats who are unashamed advo-
cates of "hardship," control and uniformity.
The best explanation of how technological competition, i.e.
extension of the neuro-
muscular systems, operates as a basic cause of the last century of
warfare can be
found in Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, a book which serves well
as an initia-
tory primer for Space Migration aspirants.
Since Hiroshima, territorial war as a necessary and healthy stimulus
for intellectual
advancement has been replaced by space rivalry. Since Peenemunde and
Sputnik it
has been obvious that the most intellectually and survivally
interesting issue on this
planet concerns humanity's transition to extra-terrestrial life.
The familiar east-west competition continues, of course, on the
surface of the
planet. Indeed, we might speculate that such transcontinental rivalries
exist on all nur-
sery planets at that stage in evolution when neurological-primates
start assembly line
tool-making preparatory for post-planetary migration. But Apollo-Soyuz
is probably an
accurate forecast of Inter-National collaboration in Space Colonization.
"There can be no doubt that in the future the crews of orbital
stations will be international and space exploration will become a
matter involving the whole planet."
Academician V. Glushko quoted in Izvestia, August 1975
This cooperation among super-powers may seem, at first impression,
to auger a
Utopian state of global harmony. We can have no doubt that Academician
Glushko and
our own Herr Von Puttkamer are eager to hook-up their respective
bureaucracies. But
evolutionary currents always run deeper than the political and it is
most important that
Apollo-Soyuz linkages not conceal the fact that Space Migration
confronts our species
with a most critical evolutionary choice.
We recall that, after 1492, the various European powers set out
boldly to impose
upon the new world their own bizarre national versions of reality. Thus
were created
such astonishing and monstrous cultural mutations as Spanish-America,
Anglo-India
and Amino-Uganda.
Let us have no illusions. Space Migration will produce the most
intense ontological
struggles our planet has seen since the reptilian-mammalian conflict of
long-ago.
Space Migration offers our unfinished species the opportunity to create
new realities,
new habitats, new neural perspectives, new worlds unlimited by
territorial longitudes
or gravitational chauvinisms. We are surely indebted to Jesco Von
Puttkamer for pre-
senting in his "snake-oil" pronunciamento a clear example of one
ominous possibility
the restrictive limitation of post-terrestrial reality by hard-headed
bureaucrats
openly opposed to enthusiasm, optimism, pluralism and poetic vision.
The upcoming conflict over the future of Space Migration may
well become a debate over the future of human evolution.
Archangel Von Puttkamer's lofty attempt to guard the gates of the
new celestial
realms is not the first attempt by hardheads to co-opt space. Shortly
after the first
lunar landing, Thomas Paine, head of N.A.S.A.'s Apollo program produced
in his
exultation one of the most partisan statements since the Reformation.
"This," said
Paine, "is a victory for the crew-cut guys who use slide-rules, read
the bible and salute
the flag." Let us applaud Director Paine who in one magnificent flight
of chauvinist
rhetoric manages to alienate all tax-payers who are female,
non-engineers, non-
Protestants, and prefer non-marine hair styles. Substitute the word
"Marx" for "bible"
and the N.A.S.A. version of whose reality should control space is in
close agreement
with Soviet planners.
Thus we see that the upcoming conflict over the future of Space
Migration ("snake-
oil salesman need not apply") may well become a debate over the future
of human
evolution; a debate which is philosophic rather than political and
finds its roots, not
in transient national rivalries, but in an inevitable tension which has
existed for the last
several centuries and which can best be described as technology versus
humanism,
engineering versus ecology, poetry versus logic, freedom versus control
and, to use
the brilliant unconscious metaphor of Von Puttkamer, snake-oil versus
motor-oil.
It so happens that for the last 30 years I have been preoccupied
with this wretched
misunderstanding between engineering and humanism. I have consistently
and
perilously attempted to personalize, neurologize, eroticize and
subjectify engineers,
and on the other hand to make more rigorous, precise, replicable and
objective the
language and thought habits of poets and philosophers. Interestingly
enough, both
engineers and humanists are hopelessly trapped in the wheels of their
own abstrac-
tions and control mechanisms. We are led to wonder whether the solution
to these
rigidities which prevent engineer-bureaucrats from communicating
smoothly with
each other as well as harmoniously meshing with the humanists is a
certain lack of
neurological flexibility which can accurately be described as
"snake-oil deprivation."
In the basic sense, however, this polarity between technology and
humanism is ar-
tificial and statistically common-place i.e. stupid. Is it not
demonstrably true that in
any generation among the bureaucratic brigades of engineers and
laboratory directors
there are rarely more than twelve major scientists? And is it not
possible that among
the armies of literature professors, pop-novelists, faculty
philosophers and foundation-
supported theologians, there are, at most, twelve major philosophers?
And do we not
find that these twenty-four frontier thinkers are usually in close
agreement as to the
direction of human evolution and the basic nature of energy-matter? It
is both the self-
appointed liberal humanists and the civil service engineers who
threaten Space
The Space Migrant's reply to the socialist's complaint is, of
course, "let the meek inherit the earth; we have farther-out
plans."
Migration with their clashing doctrinaire opinions the former
peevishly suspecting
that any escape from earth gravity is an elitist liberation from their
compulsory egalitar-
ian plans of limited-growth and intra-planetary bussing.
The Space Migrant's reply to the socialist's complaint is, of
course, "let the meek
inherit the earth; we have farther-out plans." To which the liberal's
stern reproach is:
"You have no right to float away from this planet with the ill-gotten
gains you have
wrenched from the poor." The obvious response to the liberals is, as
always, to buy
them off. When the administrators are shown that private-enterprise
space migration,
like 15th Century colonization, will return enormous energy riches, the
distribution of
which they will be allowed to administer, they will be intellectually
offended but prac-
tically mollified.
The Glushko-Von Puttkamer engineer-axis will be more difficult to
evade. The Apollo
project, we recall, perfectly executed its genetic mission: to return
moon-soil samples
rich in exactly the raw materials necessary for the construction of
space colonies. All
this, we suspect, was a serendipitous and mildly disturbing side-effect
to the N.A.S.A.
planners whose visions for the extraterrestrial future we have already
seen reflected in
the military flavor of the Apollo launches, the stuffy exultations of
Director Paine, the
Viking probes and the Sky-labs, none of which include the shocking
possibility that
civilian Americans and their families might insist on getting into the
pioneer-frontier
action.
As G. Harry Stine demonstrates in his book, The Third Industrial
Revolution, the in-
dustrialization of space opens enormous new perspectives: "...new
industrial empires
will be forged, new billionaire industrial moguls will emerge." Much
more significant
than the economic are the cultural possibilities of Space Migration. It
is the remarkable
anthropological genius of Gerard O'Neill to recognize that the
establishment of
thousands of space-cylinder habitations will create an enormous
plurality of culture-
styles and moral systems. Literally each group of colonists who band
together to
finance and design a Space Habitat will be moulding a new consensual
reality. Within
the limits of physical security the colonists can determine the
political, cultural and
aesthetic dimensions of the psyche-space they inhabit.
Comparisons with 15th Century colonization (Pilgrim fathers, etc.)
or with the first
two industrial revolutions are much too modest. The migration situation
may be more
accurately analagous to the movement from marine to amphibian life or
from reptile to
mammalian. Imagine, if you can, the snake-oil commercials at the time
of amphibious
migration:
Space Migration Bureaucrats who start setting up criteria for
who need not apply, need not apply themselves.
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THESE UNLIMITED REAL ESTATE POS-
SIBILITIES: SWAMPS, SHORELINES, FORESTS, PRAIRIES, CAVES,
BURROUGHS!!! YOU CAN BE THE FIRST ONE ON YOUR BLOCK
TO GROW SCALES, FUR, FEATHERS; TO SQUIRM, SCRAMBLE,
LOCOMOTE ON MULTI-PEDAL APPENDAGES!!!
Von Puttkamer's diatribe against snake-oil salesmen is the
bureaucrat's timid con-
cern that politicians and voters might be scared off by visions and
enthusiasms, based
on the underlying assumption that governments and legislators are going
to sponsor
Space Migration. We do well to listen to the shrewd advice of Astronaut
Russell Sch-
weikert (published in Co-Evolution Quarterly) to keep government
bureaucracies out of
Space Colonization and rely on private initiative and personal
investment of vision.
Was it not exactly "snake-oil" that stimulated the last Age of
Exploration? Marco
Polo returning with spices, pungents, perfumes, soft silks, strange
herbs and medica-
ments? Upon what resinous substances was the wealth of the East India
Company
founded? Did not Ponce de Leon set off after the Elixir of Life? Did
not Coronado seek
the fabled Seven Cities of Gold?
If Space Migration is going to be anything more than insectoid
bureaucracy or
another Alaska pipe-line adventure controlled by the oil politicians,
the lunar Mafia and
the Inter-Planetary Teamster's Union, it is going to be "snake-oil"
that softens the
rigidity, soothes us through the moments of hardship and makes the
venture one of
hedonic liberation and experimental diversity. We could do worse than
re-read that wry
little novel Journey To The East in which Herman Hesse suggests that
each person
who sets out on the great genetic voyage has his-or-her private and
highly personal
goal of discovery.
Upon reading Von Puttkamer's ominous "snake-oil salesmen need not
apply" one's
first reaction was to reply: "Bureaucrats who start setting up criteria
for who need not
apply, need not apply." But this is to fall into the old terrestrial
competitive trap which
need no longer limit us. Rather our invitation should read: Let
everyone apply. Let us
be open to everyone's vision. Let every group form its own social
structure. If Acade-
mician Glushko and Director Von Puttkamer wish to share a space habitat
in which
wild aspirations are banned by all means let them do so. But before
condemning
themselves to a post-terrestrial reality in which "hardship and
measured judgment"
are the preferred styles, let us suggest two experiments. Herr Von
Puttkamer, you
should review the history of science and recall that every great
breakthrough has
In Defense of Snake Oil Salesmen
Every great breakthrough in the history of science has been
opposed and postponed by the most renowned scientists
of the time.
been opposed and postponed by the most renowned scientists of the
time; and that all
of the respectable-senile predictions about the fission of the atom,
the size of the uni-
verse, the landing on the moon have consistently overestimated the
difficulties and
underestimated the grandeurs.
And would it be indiscreet to ask what Mrs. Von Puttkamer and the
von Puttkamer
children think about N.A.S.A. hardship versus all-out enthusiastic
commitment? If
Snake-Oil is a smooth substance which makes the skin feel good,
produces pleasant
squirming motions, and encourages optimistic aspirations, perhaps
director Von
Puttkamer should obtain a supply (from government approved
laboratories, of course)
and apply some to himself and his wife one starry night. Then let us
review the issue of
who shall live in space, and how, and why.
H.O.M.E.S. A Real Estate Proposal
Coauthor February 1976
George Koopman San Diego Federal Prison
THE TIME FOR HIGH ORBITAL MINI EARTHS
Life on the Planet Earth is now being transformed by the three basic
tactics of the
evolutionary process:
MIGRATION
MUTATION
METAMORPHOSIS (REJUVENATION)
The movement away from the gravity-prison of our
overpopulated-underenergized
planet is rapidly becoming, not just a futurist speculation, but an
inevitable mutational
step.
Space migration is a practical necessity.
Just as the early amphibia were forced out of the primeval water
onto the shoreline,
so are we being squeezed off the womb-planet into extraterrestrial
existence.
THE MESSAGE OF THE D.N.A. CODE IS: MIGRATE FROM THE NURSERY PLANET.
Life is an Interstellar Communication-Transportation Company.
A Free Enterprise. Unlimited.
Life is disseminated planfully on planets throughout the Galaxy in
the form of
nucleotide templates. These "seeds" land on "farm-planets" like ours,
are activated by
solar radiation, and evolve nervous systems.
A Real Estate Proposal
The "Earth As Womb" theory also recommends itself because
it is funny, pregnant with future possibility, delightfully
impudent to pompous self-conceptions.
The bodies which house and transport nervous systems and
reproductive seeds are
constructed in response to the atmospheric and gravitational
characteristics of host
planets.
The nervous system is a tool for deciphering the genetic code.
The message of the D.N.A. code turns out to be: MIGRATE! REJUVENATE!
EXPLORATION AND EXPLOITATION ARE GENETIC IMPERATIVES
We propose the "Earth As Womb" theory because there are no facts to
disprove it;
because the available facts confirm it; because it is in line with the
synchronicity and
recapitulation laws.
Synchronicity: What happens to the individual also occurs at the
microscopic and
telescopic levels.
Recapitulation: The first nine months of prenatal life repeat the
cycle of evolution.
The first 24 years of individual development repeat the four stages of
terrestrial evolu-
tion: infant (marine), child (mammal), pre-adolescent (primate),
post-adolescent (sexual
domestication). Every stage is larval, embryonic to the next. The cycle
of molting-
metamorphosis continues.
The "Earth As Womb" theory also recommends itself because it is
funny, pregnant
with future possibilities, delightfully impudent to pompous
self-conceptions. What
more entertaining conceit than to suddenly discover that, in the most
scientific prac-
tical sense, we are just about to be born! The current writhings and
convulsive spasms
of our species which now disturb the serenity of our planet can be seen
as natural birth
pains.
This planet can no longer hold us. We are crowding and fouling the nest.
Rational, socialistic plans to reduce population, restrict growth,
think small and
limit free expansion are unnatural and genocidal.
The growth-restriction plans so popular among bureaucrats are anti-evolutionary.
It is in the nature of every form of life to joyously, confidently expand and multiply.
The embryo cannot decide to stop growth and remain comfortable in the womb.
Conserve energy? No way.
Expand without limit. E = mc^2.
The answer of Life to its restrictors is always the same:
EXPAND! EXPEND! EXPLORE! EXPLOIT! EXCHANGE!
We must not cringe from the word "exploitation." We must
exploit every level of available energy to build the structure
to reach the next evolutionary cycle.
THERE IS NO CHOICE: LIFE MUST LEAVE THE WOMB-PLANET
TO SURVIVE AND EVOLVE
We plan to organize Space H.O.M.E.s (High Orbital Mini Earths) as a
practical step to
explore and activate new resourcesinternal and external to the nervous
system.
Space H.O.M.E.s open up new unexploited territories, new energy
sources, and new
stimulation for the brain. We must not cringe from the word
"exploitation". At every
level of energy the laws of nature seem to require new and more complex
engage-
ments of elements to accelerate the evolutionary process. We must
exploit every new
level of energy in order to build the structure to reach the next
cycle. The embryo
ruthlessly exploits the supplies of the maternal body. The derogatory
flavor of the word
"exploit" has been added by reactionary political groups who wish to
slow down the
expansion of energy. Rhetoric aside, there has never been an example of
a surviving-
evolving species which did not use all energies available to it.
Nothing can stop the
surge towards Space Migration. In addition to the logical reasons for
the voyage one
must face the fact that we have no choice. The mutation from
terrestrial to interstellar
life must be made. If only because this planet is going to explode in a
solar flare-out
within a few billion years. Common sense trust in the wisdom of the DNA
code should
convince us that Life wouldn't have got Herself into this planetary
crisis without
having figured a way out.
THE ONLY QUESTIONS WORTH ASKING
Here are the only questions worth consideration by any intelligent person.
Is physical immortality possible in our lifetime?
Does Superior Intelligence exist?
How can we attain these two goals?
If your answers are negative then nothing makes any difference to
you except satis-
faction of robot comfort, transitory ego-reward.
If your answers are affirmative, then the most profitable,
adventurous and hopeful
prospects emerge.
Humanity now hungers for reassurance that the ancient, philosophic
aspirations
were not in vain.
And for reminder that there is a practical purpose for existence.
What sounds like
the most spaced-out fantasy becomes, upon reflection, the only sensible
proposal.
The most exciting, least boring way to pass our time is to
assume that we can develop an immortality pill, leave the
planet and contact higher intelligence.
Is it our destiny to die? Is there no Superior Intelligence beyond
the gradual ac-
cumulation of scientific knowledge?
Longevity and rejuvenation are not only possible but inevitable
productions of an
evolved nervous system. Superior Intelligence will be contacted as soon
as we leave
the embryonic membrane of earth atmosphere.
Superior Intelligence is Us in the future.
No matter which of these hypotheses one aesthetically prefers, the
fact remains that
the best investment of our energies, the most exciting and least
offensive way to pass
our time is to assume, pretend, gamble that we can develop an
immortality pill, leave
the planet and contact Superior Intelligence. From the history of
science we learn that
the only way a new energy is discovered is to look for it.
Indeed, do we not find exactly that for which we search? If Superior
Intelligence
does not exist it is time for us to create it. In ourselves, if
necessary.
When millions of space migrants from every country assemble to work
together in
the dedicated search for Immortality and Superior Intelligence, the
results, even if
negative, cannot fail to be amusing, instructive and profitable.
There is simply nothing better to live for.
Neuropolitics
The Star Seed Migration Company is a profit-making coopera-
tive designed to be the most lucrative venture in human history.
PROSPECTUS PROSPECTUS
5,000 Shares
Per H.O.M.E.
HIGH ORBITAL MINI EARTH
Capital Stock
(Without Par)
THESE SHARES ARE SPECULATIVE IN THAT THEY INVOLVE A
HIGH DEGREE OF EVOLUTION.
Prior to this offer there has been no public market for alternative
evolutionary futures.
The initial offering price has been determined by Central Intelligence
in accordance
with the most precise and reliable data available.
THESE SECURITIES HAVE NOT BEEN APPROVED OR DISAPPROVED BY
THE EVOLUTIONARY COMMISSION NOR HAS THE COMMISSION
PASSED UPON THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS PROSPECTUS.
ANY REPRESENTATION TO THE CONTRARY IS ENCOURAGED.
Price to
Public
Underwriting (1)
Discount
Proceeds
To Colony
Per Share $100,000. (1) $100,000. Total $500,000,000. (1) $500,000,000.
(1) These shares will be treated on the STARSEED EXCHANGE, which is
underwriting
this offering in exchange for the opportunity to MIGRATE, MUTATE and
META-
MORPHOSISE. Any commissions earned in evolutionary futures will be
reinvested
under the rules and regulations of the Genetic Code.
Each mini-planet will have its own post-terrestrial goal. Some
will stay in industrial orbit around the earth. Others will colon-
ize the planets and asteroids. Others will leave the solar system.
Offered by
THE STARSEED EXCHANGE
The Interstellar Energy Communication Transportation Recreation
Company
a better opportunity employer
The date of the Prospectus is NOW
No dealer, salesman or government agency has been authorized by
H.O.M.E.s, the
Underwriters or the DNA code to monopolize the colonization of space,
and any
representation to the contrary is amusing. This Prospectus constitutes
an offer to par-
ticipate in a new venture to increase options, get smarter and live
forever, while having
fun, making money, and evolving, except within any state or archipelago
to any person
or robot where or to whom it is unlawful to make such offer or
solicitation. The delivery
of this Prospectus shall under every and all circumstances create the
distinct impres-
sion that the future is up for grabs.
IN CONNECTION WITH THIS OFFERING, THE DNA AND OUR EXTRATERRESTRIAL
NEIGHBORS MAY INTRODUCE MUTATIONS, COMMUNICATIONS OR OTHER QUAN-
TUM EFFECTS WHICH WILL STABILIZE THE GAME AT A LEVEL ABOVE THAT
WHICH MIGHT OTHERWISE PREVAIL IN A CLOSED-EARTH MARKET. SUCH EFFECTS
IF COMMENCED, WILL BE REGARDED AS NORMAL FOR ANY WOMB PLANET
EXPERIENCING INTERSTELLAR BIRTH.
THE INVESTMENT
The Starseed Exchange (Starseed) will fabricate to order a High
Orbital Mini Earth
(H.O.M.E.) for any group desirous of living, working, playing and
evolving in a world of
their own design. A cooperative stock company will be formed by the
Underwriter for
any such group, and the shares in each such company so formed may be
traded on the
Starseed Exchange.
Each H.O.M.E. will be a complete ecosystem manufactured from the
finest extra-
terrestrial materials available, and built to exacting gravitational,
climatic and environ-
mental specifications, in keeping with the philosophy, cosmology,
political system,
STARSEED is engaged in the satisfaction of political, social,
economic, technological and environmental desires.
epistomology, ethics, aesthetics, ontology and eschatology selected
by the migrants.
As each H.O.M.E. is a self-supporting free-enterprise without tax
subsidy or other sup-
port from Old Earth governments, it will be wholly self-financed. Some
H.O.M.E.s may
choose to associate with one of the many ongoing ventures (see The
Company) in the
Personal Service, Information, Energy or Materials Groups. Others will
spread through
the solar system, taking charters, performing scientific missions, or
engaging in ven-
turesome exploration. Still other H.O.M.E.s may develop propulsion
systems for
leaving the solar system on interstellar voyages.
The cost of a H.O.M.E. will be equal to or less than the cost of
earth homes of the
same quality for a similar population. This offering is for the
construction of H.O.M.E.s
of the $100,000 per dwelling style, roughly comparable to 5,000 family
dwellings in any
American suburb, and similarly situated. It should be noted that
STARSEED will also
manufacture H.O.M.E.s of any size, shape, climate, gravitation or
environment for any
group. The partnership shares in any H.O.M.E. may be closely held, or
traded on the
STARSEED EXCHANGE.
THE COMPANY
High Orbital Mini Earths (H.O.M.E.s) are directly descended from
primitive biological
systems evolved in interstellar space and brought to this planet by
meteorites about
three billion years ago (see Hoyle and Wickramasinghe). STARSEED is
engaged in the
satisfaction of political, social, economic, technological and
environmental desires, as
follows:
PERSONAL SERVICE GROUP
H.O.M.E. Construction Division: Manages the design, development,
fabrication and
furnishings of H.O.M.E.s, luxurious miniworlds with multiple gravity,
tailored eco-
system, adjust-a-matic climate and free energy.
Tourism Division, dba "Head Trips Unlimited": Arranges
transportation and accom-
modations for recreational visitors from the Old World. Also runs
amusement parks
and orbital docking facilities.
Medical Division: Provides longevity treatment for migrants, while
operating Select-
O-Gee convalescent complex and the Total Isolation Labs for genetic
research.
Entertainment Division: Operates the Genetic Broadcasting Company
and its sta-
tions WRNA and KDNA. Artists are brought together with the materials
and environ-
ments of space under the Udall Fellowship program.
Do we not find exactly that for which we search?
INFORMATION GROUP:
Communication Division: Offers solar system wide telephone and date
communi-
cation services. Planet-face features include global telephone service
via satellite-
linked wrist radio for US $.10 per call regardless of time or distance.
Remote Sensing: Provides environmental and resource mapping and
surveillance
services across entire frequency spectrum at lower cost than
planet-face systems.
Navigation/Location Division: Locates users precisely in timespace
for purposes of
sub-surface, surface, aerial and personal movement relative to precise
coordinate
systems.
Sensor Polling Division: Remote instantaneous polling of individual,
group or auto-
mated terminals or sensors. Formerly the Gallup/Roper/Harris Division.
ENERGY GROUP:
Solar Power Division: Constructs and maintains solar power
satellites supplying
pollution-free electrical power at 1 mil/KW hour to earth below the
cost of fossil
fuels.
Rent-a-Lumen Division: Rents light-time to areas of the earth
desiring additional
illumination at high or low intensities for social, agricultural or
hedonic purposes.
MATERIALS GROUP:
Raw Materials Division: The Luna Station operated by this Division
furnishes lunar
soil to the space refineries by mass driver. Additional raw materials
are provided to the
refineries by the Asteroid Prospecting and Retrieval Teams in the form
of carbonaceous
chondrite asteroids.
Vapor Deposition Division: Vapor-Phase fabricates massive structures
and thin-film
solar sails of any size, shape and material. Formerly the
Henson/Drexler Division of
Engulf and Devour, Inc.
Structural Materials Division: Produces immiscible alloys, float
zone refined and
directionally solidified castings, joinings and composites.
Process Materials Division: Produces catalysts, membranes, powders
and devices
in zero to high gravity environments. Also provides hyper-pure
materials refined in
space.
Optical Divison: Produces fibers, lenses, filters and other optical
specialty devices.
Grows crystals of any required purity, structure and dimension.
Biological Division: Separates, purifies and cultures the numerous
Pharmaceuticals
and industrial chemicals which are produced most cost-effectively in
zero-g environ-
ments.
Neuropolitics
Superior Intelligence is us in the future.
WARNING: THE GENETICS EXCHANGE COMMISSION REQUIRES THAT THE
FOLLOWING WARNING MESSAGE BE IMPRINTED IN LARVAL SYMBOL UNITS ON
EACH MUTATIONAL MESSAGE.
Your Genetic Director has determined that
MIGRATION
has reliably resulted, throughout evolution, in
METAMORPHOSES,
change in the individual, and
MUTATIONAL
change in the species.
The STARSEED EXCHANGE must also warn potential investors to
seriously consider
the possible effects on their own nervous systems of living for 150-800
years in a reality
of their own design, with controlled weather, multiple gravities and
free energy.
COMPETITION
The field in which STARSEED intends to function is highly
competitive, as higher in-
telligences from at least 100,000 star systems in our galaxy are most
assuredly
engaged in the same business. Such entities may possess far greater
experience,
finances and facilities than the solar system or STARSEED.
It is recognized that in the broad sense, STARSEED will be competing
not only with
other producers of homes (Kaiser-Aetna, Irvine, ITT-Leavitt) but also
with all producers,
manufacturers and promoters of alternative realities (Earthfirst,
Oneworld, Small is
Beautiful, Limit growth and the Club of Rome). Additionally,
competition may be con-
sidered to be present from all individuals and groups promoting the
viewpoint that the
highpoint of evolutions is larval forms stuck in two-dimensional
planet-space who live
less than 100 planet cycles.
Sales
STARSEED will solicit sales through various self-selecting
mutational agents scat-
tered over the planet-face who, through whatever means or media, gather
a group to
construct a H.O.M.E.
Although few such groups presently exist, the Company's past
experience in pro-
moting such ventures under the sponsorship of the DNA code, leads it to
believe that it
Space Migration Intelligence Increase Life Extension 159
A Real Estate Proposal
Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, Life Extension.
will be back-ordered above its projected ten (10) year capacity
within six months. Such
past ventures include the Plymouth Bay Space Colony, the East India
Migration Com-
pany, and the Hudson Bay Extraterrestrial Trading Company.
Employees and Promoters
The Company's founder and promoter (the DNA Code) presently employs
and pro-
motes all life on the planet.
Legal Matters
To the best of anyone's knowledge, it is.
Risk Factors to be Considered
A. Although the Company was incorporated over three billion
years ago, it has only
been conscious for a few tens of thousands of years.
B. Although the Company offers solutions to the four major
systematic dilemmas of
the species (growth, control, distribution and species-role) there is
no assurance that
the limited species consciousness of prevailing power-interests will
respond.
C. Although the ideas suggested herein are drawn from the work
of the most evolved
minds in the solar system, including higher intelligence from
Princeton, MIT, Stanford,
NASA, the aerospace community and our leading futurists and
philosophers, and sup-
ported by years of study and reams of scientific data, many would
rather ignore these
ideas than validate them in their own nervous systems.
D. Since it will be fun to live in space, get smarter, richer
and live longer while evolv-
ing into a new interstellar species...why not?
160 S.M.I2.LE. S.M.I2.LE. S.M.I2.LE. S.M.I2.LE. S.M.I2.LE.