841 lines
55 KiB
Plaintext
841 lines
55 KiB
Plaintext
______________________________________________________________________________
|
|
| File Name : INCUNAB1.ASC | Online Date : 11/06/94 |
|
|
| Contributed by : Jim Shaffer | Dir Category : UNCLASS |
|
|
| From : KeelyNet BBS | DataLine : (214) 324-3501 |
|
|
| KeelyNet * PO BOX 870716 * Mesquite, Texas * USA * 75187 |
|
|
| A FREE Alternative Sciences BBS sponsored by Vanguard Sciences |
|
|
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|
|
The following is in two parts, INCUNAB1 and INCUNAB2.
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
I N C U N A B U L A
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
A Catalogue of Rare Books, Manuscripts & Curiosa,
|
|
Conspiracy Theory, Frontier Science & Alternative Worlds
|
|
|
|
Emory Cranston, Prop.
|
|
|
|
Incunabulum : / cocoon/ swaddling clothes/ cradle/ in-cunae,
|
|
/ in the cradle/ koiman, put to sleep/winding-sheet
|
|
/ koimetarium (cemetery)/ printed books before
|
|
1501, hence by extension any rare & hermetic book...
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
INTRODUCTION
|
|
|
|
No book for sale here was actually printed before 1501, but they all answer
|
|
to the description "rare and hermetic" - even the mass market paperbacks, not
|
|
to mention the xeroxes of unpiblished manuscripts, which cannot be obtained
|
|
from any other source!
|
|
The symbol INCUNABULA was chosen for our company for it's shape-cocoon,egg-
|
|
like, gourd like-the shape of Chaos according to Chaung Tzu. Cradle:
|
|
beginnings. Sleep: dreams. Silken white sheets of birth and death; books,
|
|
white pages, the cemetery of ideas.
|
|
This catalogue has been put together with a purpose: to alert YOU to a vast
|
|
cover-up, a conspiracy so deep that no other researcher has yet become aware
|
|
of it (outside certain Intelligence circles,needless to say!) - and so
|
|
dangerous that the "winding sheet" imagery in our title seems quite
|
|
appropriate; we know of at least two murders so far in connection with this
|
|
material.
|
|
Unlike other conspiracy theories,such as Hollow earth, Men In Black, cattle
|
|
mutilation, UFO, Reich & Tesla or what have you, the INCUNABULA Theory
|
|
harmonizes with genuine frontier quantum mechanics and chaos mathematics, and
|
|
does not depend on any quack nostrums,psuedoscience or ESP for proof. This
|
|
will become clear to anyone who takes the trouble to read the background
|
|
material we recommend and offer for sale.
|
|
Because of the unprecedented nature of the INCUNABULA File we have included
|
|
short descriptions of some of the books, pamphlets, flyers, privately-
|
|
circulated or unpublished manuscripts, ephemera & curiosa available through
|
|
us. Some of this is highly inflammable and sexual in nature, so an age
|
|
statement must be included with each order.
|
|
|
|
Cash(or stamps) only.No cheques or money orders will be accepted.
|
|
|
|
Thank You,
|
|
|
|
Emory Cranston,Prop.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
INCUNABULA PRESS
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
1. Wolf, Fred Alan. - Parallel Universes: The Search for Other Worlds
|
|
(New York, Simon & Schuster,1988) cloth; 351 pp.; $25
|
|
|
|
Written by a scientist for non-scientists, simplistic and jokey, makes you
|
|
feel a bit talked-down-to. Nevertheless Wolf uses his imagination (or other
|
|
scientists imaginations) so well he seems to hit accidentally on certain
|
|
truths-(unless he knows more than he reveals). For example: the parallel
|
|
universes must have all come into being simultaneously "at the begining" in
|
|
order for quantum uncertainty to exist, because there was no observer present
|
|
at the Big Bang, thus no way for the Wave Function to collapse and produce one
|
|
universe out of all the bubbles of possibility (p.174). If an electron can
|
|
dissapear in one universe and appear in another (as suggested by the
|
|
Everett/Wheeler material), a process called "quantum tunneling", then perhaps
|
|
information can undergo a similar tunneling effect. Wolf suggests (p. 176)
|
|
that this might account for certain "psychic phenomenon, altered states of
|
|
awareness", even ghosts and spirits! Actual travel between worlds must of
|
|
course involve tunneling by both electrons AND information-any scientist would
|
|
have predicted as much-but the mention of "altered states" of consciousness is
|
|
extremely revealing! Elsewhere (p.204), Wolf speculates that a future "highly
|
|
developed...electronic form of biofeedback" will allow us to observe quantum
|
|
effects in the electrons of our own bodies, making the enhanced consciousness
|
|
and the body itself a "time machine" (which is what he calls a device for
|
|
travel between universes). He comes so close to the truth then shies away!
|
|
For instance (p.199) he points out that the Wave Function has a value BETWEEN
|
|
zero and one until it collapses. If the wave function does not collapse, the
|
|
"thing" it describes exists in two universes simultaneously. How strange of
|
|
him not to mention that fractal geometry also deals with values between zero
|
|
and one! As we know the secret of travel between worlds is rooted in the
|
|
marriage of quantum and chaos, particularly in the elusive mathematics of
|
|
fractal tesseracts (visualize a 4-dimension Mandelbrot Set-one of the simplest
|
|
of the trans-dimensional "maps" or "catastrophic topologies"). Wolf appears
|
|
so unaware of this ,we must sadly conclude that he's not part of the
|
|
conspiracy.
|
|
Particularly interesting-and not found in any other material-are Wolf's
|
|
speculations about schizophrenia. Are schizophrenics recieving information
|
|
from other worlds? Could a schizoid observer actually observe (in the famous
|
|
double slit experiments) a wave becoming two particles and then one particle?
|
|
Or could such an observation be made by an extremely blank and simple-minded
|
|
watcher (a sort of zen simpleton perhaps)? If so, the perfect subject for
|
|
parellel-worlds experiments would be a paradoxically complex simpleton, a
|
|
"magnetized schizophrenic" who would be aware of the split into two worlds
|
|
which occurs when a quantum measurement is made. Oddly enough, such a mental
|
|
state sounds very close to the "positive schizophrenia" of certain extreme
|
|
psychedelic experiences as well as the meditation-visualization exercises of
|
|
actual travelers between worlds.
|
|
Despite it's flaws, an essential work.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
2. Herbert, Nick. - Quantum Reality (NAL,1986) Cloth,$40
|
|
|
|
A masterful and lucid exposition of the different versions of reality
|
|
logically describable from various interpretations of quantum mechanics. The
|
|
Everett/Wheeler Theory is here given it's clearest explanation possible in lay
|
|
persons terms, given the authors awwareness (at the time) of experimental
|
|
verification.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
3. ibid. - Faster Than Light:Superluminal Loopholes in Physics
|
|
(NAL,1988) cloth,$30
|
|
|
|
Some of the theorists who touch on the Many-Worlds "hypothesis" place
|
|
too much emphasis on time distortions and the implication of "time travel".
|
|
These of course seem present in the theorems, but in practice have turned
|
|
out (so far) to be of little consequance. Chaos Theory places much more
|
|
emphasis on the temporal directionality than most quantum theory (with such
|
|
exceptions as R. Feyman and his "arrow of time"), and offers strong evidence
|
|
for the past-present-future evolution that we actually experience. As K.
|
|
Sohrawardi puts it, "the universe is in a state of Being, true, but that state
|
|
is not static in the way suggested by the concept of 'reversibility' in
|
|
Classical physics. The 'generosity' of Being, so to speak, is becoming, and
|
|
the result is not reversibility but multiplicity, the unmeasurable resonant
|
|
chaos-like fecundity of creation. "Nevertheless, Herberts second book is a
|
|
brilliant speculative work-and it led him directly to a certain circle of
|
|
scientists and body of research concerned with dimensional travel, rather than
|
|
"time travel", with the result that his third book (see next item) finally
|
|
struck paydirt.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
4. "Jabir ibn Hayaan" (Nick Herbert). - Alternate Dimensions
|
|
(publication suppressed by Harper & Row,1989);bound uncorrected galleys,
|
|
179pp. $100. (We have 5 sets of proofs for sale,after which only xerox
|
|
copies will be available at $125)
|
|
|
|
While working on _Faster_Than_Light_ Herbert came into contact with one of the
|
|
"travel cults" operating somewhere in California, perhaps one with a sufiistic
|
|
slant ("Jabir ibn Hayaan" was a famous 10th century sufi alchemist); according
|
|
to the preface of _Alternate_Dimensions_, which is irritatingly vague and
|
|
suggestive, this group seems to have trained him and sent him on at least one
|
|
trip to America2. Herbert suggests that he already had so much experience of
|
|
altered states of consciousness and ability to visualize complex space/time
|
|
geometries that only a minimum of "initiatic" training proved necessary.
|
|
In any case, despite it's vagueness and brevity, this book is the most
|
|
accurate and thoroughly-informed work on travel between worlds in our entire
|
|
collection. So far we have been unable to obtain and deep theoretical work,
|
|
and only a few papers dealing with practical aspects-but Herbert provides a
|
|
magnificent overview of the entire field. Written for the lay person, with his
|
|
usual clear and succint approach to theory, Herbert's is the first "popular"
|
|
study to make all the basic links: the Everett/Wheeler hypothesis, Bell's
|
|
Theorem, the E/R Bridge, fractal geometry and chaos math, cybernetically-
|
|
enhanced biofeedback, psychotropic and shamanic techniques, crystallography,
|
|
morphogenetic field theory, catastrophe topology,etc.
|
|
Of course he's strongest in discussing the quantum aspects of travel,
|
|
less sure when dealing with the math outside his field,and most inspiring when
|
|
describing(pp.98-101) visualization techniques and "embodied ecstasy" (ex-
|
|
stasis, "standing outside" the body; hence embodied ecstasy paradoxically
|
|
describes the trans-dimensional experience).
|
|
Herbert makes no claim to understand the traveling itself, and goes so
|
|
far as to suggest that even the (unnamed) pioneers who made the first
|
|
breakthroughs may not have completely understood the process, any more than
|
|
the inventor of the steam engine understood Classical physics(p.23). This
|
|
definitely ties in with what we know about the persons in question.
|
|
Unfortunately the six illustrations promised in the table of contents are
|
|
not included in the galleys-one of them was a "Schematic for a Trans-
|
|
dimensional Express" which might be worth killing for! - and the publishers
|
|
claim that Herbert never supplied the illustrations. They refuse to say why
|
|
they suspended publication of _Alternate_Dimensions _ and in fact at first
|
|
denied ever having handled such a title! Moreover Herbert has apparently
|
|
dropped out of sight; if he hasn't met with foul play, he may have returned
|
|
permanently to Earth2.
|
|
We regret having to sell copies of a flawed book for such an outrageous
|
|
price; we'd like to publish a mass-market edition affordable by all-but if
|
|
Harper & Row ever find out what we're doing, we'll need the money for court
|
|
costs and lawyers' fees! So get it while you can-this is THE indispensable
|
|
background work for understanding the Conspiracy.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
5. Thomsen, Dietrick E. "A Knowing Universe Seeking to be Known"
|
|
(Xerox offprint from _Science_News_,Vol.123,1983);$5
|
|
|
|
Unwittingly demonstrates the resonance between quantum reality theory and the
|
|
sufism of (for example) "the Greatest Shaykh" Ibn'Arabi, who discusses in his
|
|
_Bezels_of_Wisdom_ a saying attributed to God by Mohammad (but not in the
|
|
Koran): "I was a hidden treasure and I wanted (lit.'loved')to be known; so I
|
|
created the universe, that I might be known."
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
5a. We also have a few offprints (at the same price) of Thomsen's witty
|
|
"Quanta at Large:101 Things TO DO with Schrodinger's Cat"
|
|
(op.cit,129,1986).
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
6. DeWitt, Bryce S. & Neill Graham. The Many Worlds Interpretation of
|
|
Quantum Mechanics (Princeton,NJ,1973);cloth,$50
|
|
|
|
The standard (and far from "easy"!) work on the Everett/Wheeler hypothesis-a
|
|
bible for the early pioneers.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
7. Cramer, John G. "Alternate Universes II" (Analog,Nov.1984)
|
|
|
|
A popularization of the Theory by a prominent physicist-no knowledge of the
|
|
Conspiracy is detectable. We're selling copies of the SciFi mag itself for
|
|
$10 each.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
8. Greenberg, D.M.,ed. New Techniques & Ideas in Quantum Measurement
|
|
Theory (Vol.480 Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences,1986);cloth,$50
|
|
|
|
Contains the valuable if somewhat whimsical article by D.Z. Albers,"How to
|
|
take a Photograph of Another Everett World". Also the very important
|
|
"Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling at Finite Tempatures" by P.Hanggi (we suspect
|
|
him of being a Conspiracy member).
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
9. (Anonymous). Course Catalogue for 1978-79, Institute of Chaos Studies
|
|
and Imaginal Yoga (no address); xerox of mimeographed flyer,7pp,$15
|
|
|
|
An in-house document from the Institute where the first breakthrough was
|
|
attained (probably in the late winter or early spring of 1979)-therefore,
|
|
although it makes no overt mention of Travel or the Egg, the catalogue is of
|
|
prime importance for an understanding of the intellectual and historical
|
|
background of the event.
|
|
According to an unreliable source (see ESCAPE FROM EARTH PRIME!, #15 in
|
|
this list), the Institute was located somewhere in Dutchess County, New York,
|
|
where the founder and director, Dr. Kamadev Sohrawardi, was employed by IBM in
|
|
the 1960's, "dropped out" and began investigations into "consciousness
|
|
physics"; it is also claimed that Sohrawardi was a Bengali of mixed English,
|
|
Hindu and Moslem origin, descended from an old sufi family, and initiated into
|
|
Tantra. All this disagrees with clues in other sources and is perhaps not to
|
|
be trusted. Other groups take credit for Breakthrough, and Sohrawardi may
|
|
have been a fraud-but we're convinced that the catalogue is authentic and
|
|
Sohrawardi's claim the most certain.
|
|
At first glance, the Catalogue appears an example of late-hippy/early -
|
|
New-Age pretentiousness. Thus there are courses in "Visions of Color & Light
|
|
in Sufi Meditation", "Inner Alchemy in Late Taoism", "Metaphysics of the
|
|
Ismaili 'Assassins'", "Imaginal Yoga & the Psychotopology of the Imagination",
|
|
"Hermetic & Neo-Pagan Studies", (apparently based on Golden Dawn teachings),
|
|
"Visualization Techniques in Javanese Sorcery", "Stairways to Heaven:Shamanic
|
|
Trance & the Mapping of Consciousness", "Stirner, Nietzsche & Stone age
|
|
Economy-An Examination of Non-Authoritarian Hunter/Gatherer Societies", and-
|
|
interestingly enough!- "Conspiracy Thoery".
|
|
The "shamanic" course may have been a blind for research in psychotropic
|
|
drugs, including such exotica asahuasca (yage, harmaline), ibogaine,
|
|
yohimbine, Telepathine and Vitamin K, as well as the more standard
|
|
psyche-delicatessan of the late 70's.
|
|
However, the Catalogue also contains amazing courses in frontier science,
|
|
any combination of which could have provided the key or final puzzle-bit to
|
|
the Breakthrough: apparently Sohrawardi taught or supervised most of them.
|
|
Thus "The Universe in a Grain of Sand" promised information on models of brain
|
|
activity, cybernetically-enhanced feedback, Sheldrake's morphogenetic field
|
|
theory, Rene' Thom's Catastrophic Theory as applied to consciousness, lucid-
|
|
dreaming research, John Lilly's work on "altered states" and other mind-
|
|
related topics. Then in "Strange Attractors & the Mathematics of Chaos",
|
|
Sohrawardi discussed matters unknown outside of the margins of academia till
|
|
the mid-80's, and made the astounding prediction that Chaos in the macroscopic
|
|
world could somehow be found to mirror Uncertainty in the microscopic or
|
|
Quantum World, a truth still unrecognized in "official" scientific circles
|
|
today. He felt that n-dimensional strange attractors could be used to model
|
|
the quantum behavior of particles/waves, and that the "so-called collapse of
|
|
the wave function" could actually be mapped with certain bizzare ramifications
|
|
of Thom's catastrophic topology. Making references to work by Ilya Prigogine
|
|
which was still being circulated in private "preprint" or samizdat form at the
|
|
time, Sohrawardi suggests that "creative chaos" (as opposed to "deterministic"
|
|
or entropic chaos) provides the link that will unify Relativity, Quantum
|
|
Complexity and consciousness itself into a new science.
|
|
Finally in his "Advanced Seminar on Many Worlds", he states baldly that
|
|
the alternative universes predicted by Relativity (Black Hole Theory) are the
|
|
same as the many worlds predicted by Quantum, are the same as fractal
|
|
dimensions revealed in Chaos! This one-page course description is the closest
|
|
thing we have to an explanation of why travel to other worlds actually works.
|
|
Hence the Catalogue is an indespensable document for the serious student of
|
|
the Conspiracy.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
10. Beckenstein, J.- "Black holes & Entropy",(xerox offprint from Physical
|
|
Review, Vol.D7, 1973; 28pp), $15
|
|
|
|
An early (pre-Breakthrough) speculation with suggestive hints about quantum
|
|
and chaos-as-entropy- although no knowledge of actual Chaos Theory is
|
|
demonstrated. This paper was referred to in an in-house memo from the Inst.
|
|
for Chaos Studies & Imaginal Yoga, believed to have been composed by K.
|
|
Sohrawardi himself (see #9).
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
11. Sohrawardi, Dr. Kamadev. - "Pholgiston & the Quantum Aether", (Offprint
|
|
from the J. of Paranormal Physics, Vol .XXII, Bombay, 1966), $40
|
|
|
|
An early paper by Sohrawardi, flooded with wild speculations about quantum and
|
|
oriental spirituality, probably dating from the period when he was still
|
|
working for IBM, but making visits to Millbrook, nearby in Dutchess Co., and
|
|
participating in the rituals of the League of spiritual discovery under Dr.T
|
|
Leary, and the psychedelic yoga of Bill Haines' Sri Ram Ashram, which shared
|
|
Leary's headquarters on a local millionaires estate. The basic insight
|
|
concerns the identity of Everett/Wheeler's "many worlds" and the "other
|
|
worlds" of sufism, tantrik Hinduism and Vajrayana Buddhism. At the time,
|
|
Sohrawardi apparently believed he could "prove" this by reviving the long-dead
|
|
theories of phlogiston and aether in the light of quantum discoveries!
|
|
(Phlogiston Theory-based on the thinking of the sufi alchemist Jabir ibn
|
|
Hayaan-the original Jabir-was propounded seriously in the 18th century to
|
|
unify heat and light as "one thing".) Totally useless as science, this
|
|
metaphor nevertheless inspired Sohrawardi's later and genuinely important work
|
|
on alternate realities.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
12. ibid. "Zero Work & Psychic Paleolithism", East Village Other, Vol. IV #4
|
|
(Dec.1968); xerox reprint, single sheet 11 1/2 x 17 $5
|
|
|
|
Unfortuantely no scientific speculations, but a fascinating glimpse into the
|
|
political background of the inventor of Travel (or rather, one of the
|
|
inventors). Making reference to French Situationist and Dutch "Provo" ideas
|
|
which helped spark the "Events" and upheavals of Spring '68 all over Europe
|
|
and America, Sohrawardi looks forward to a world without "the alienating
|
|
prison of WORK", restored to the "oneness with Nature of the Old Stone Age"
|
|
and yet somehow based on "green technology and quantum weirdness."
|
|
Wild and wooly as it is, this text nevertheless poses a fascinating
|
|
scientific question in the light of the author's later accomplishments-a
|
|
question still unanswered. All the "First Breakthroughs" we know of with any
|
|
degree of certainty (those in New York, California, and Java-the actual
|
|
sequence is unclear) without exception entered parallel worlds without human
|
|
inhabitants, virtual forest-worlds. Most science fiction predicated other
|
|
worlds almost like ours, populated by "us", with only a few slight
|
|
differences, worlds "close" to ours. Instead-no people! Why?
|
|
Two possible explanations:
|
|
(1) We cannot enter worlds containing "copies" of ourselves without causing
|
|
paradox and violating the consistency principle of the "megaverse"-hence
|
|
only wild (or feral) worlds are open to Travel.
|
|
(2) Other worlds exist, in a sense, only as probabilities; in order to
|
|
"become fully real" they must be observed. In effect,the parallel
|
|
universes are observer-created, as soon as a traveller "arrives" in one
|
|
of them.
|
|
Sohrawardi wanted a paleolithic world of endless forest, plentiful game and
|
|
gathering, virgin, empty but slightly haunted-therefore, that's what he got!
|
|
Either explanation raises problems in the light of what actually happened;
|
|
perhaps there is a third, as yet unsuspected.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
13. (Anonymous). - Ong's Hat:A Color Brochure of the Institute of Chaos
|
|
Studies (photocopy of the original color brochure) $25
|
|
|
|
* Note - I am in the process of putting this in a file that will be available
|
|
here or in my files. This is the only RARE pamphlet from this series that
|
|
I have been able to procure. - Joseph Matheny mediak@well.sf.ca.us
|
|
(This Brochure is at the end of the file INCUNAB2 on KeelyNet....>>> Jerry)
|
|
|
|
This bizarre document, disguised as a brochure for a New Age health retreat,
|
|
reveals some interesting information about the activities of Sohrawardi's
|
|
group or a closely-associated group. A fairly accurate description of the Egg
|
|
is provided, as well as a believable account of the first (or one of the
|
|
first) Breakthroughs. However, everthing else in the pamphlet is sheer
|
|
disinformation. The New Jersey Pine Barrens were never a center of alternate-
|
|
worlds research, and all the names in the text are false. A non-existant
|
|
address is included. Nevertheless, highly valuable for background.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
14. "Sven Saxon". The Stone Age Survivalist (Loompanics,UnLtd., Port
|
|
Townsend,WA 1985),Pb,$20
|
|
|
|
"Imagine yourself suddenly plunked down buck-nacked in the middle of a large
|
|
dark forest with no resources except your mind," says the preface."
|
|
What would you do?"
|
|
What indeed? and who could possibly care? - except a trans-dimensional
|
|
Traveller! Loompanics specializes in books on dissapearances and survival
|
|
involving a good deal of escapist fantasy-but as we know, this situation is
|
|
all too real for the Visitor to Other Worlds.
|
|
Part I: Flint-knapping,an exellent illustrated handbook of paleolithic tool-
|
|
production;
|
|
II: Zero-tech hunting and trapping;
|
|
III: Gathering (incl. a materia medica);
|
|
IV: Shelter;
|
|
V: Primitive warfare;
|
|
VI: Man & Dog: trans-species symbiosis;
|
|
VII: Cold weather survival;
|
|
VIII: Culture ("Sven" recommends memorizing a lot of songs,poems and
|
|
stories-and ends by saying "Memorize this book-'cause you can't take
|
|
it with you. "Where is "Mr.Saxon now, we wonder?).
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
15. Balcombe, Harold S. - Escape From Earth Prime! (Foursquare
|
|
Press, Denver, Colo.,1986), Pb, $15
|
|
|
|
This-unfortunately!-is the book that blew the lid off the Conspiracy for the
|
|
first time. We say "unfortuantely" because ESCAPE!, to all appearances, is a
|
|
piece of unmitigated paranoid pulp tripe. Written in breathless ungrammatical
|
|
sub-Fortean prose, unfootnoted and nakedly sensationalistic, the book sank
|
|
without trace, ignored even by the kook-conspiracy fringe; we were able to buy
|
|
out unsold stock from the vanity press which published it, just before they
|
|
went out of business and stopped answering their mail.
|
|
Balcombe (whom we've been unable to trace and who may have "vanished"),
|
|
is the author of one other book we've seen-but are not offering for sale-
|
|
called "Drug Lords from the Hollow Earth" (1984) in which he claims that the
|
|
CIA obtained LSD and cocaine from Dero-flying-saucer-nazis from beneath
|
|
Antarctica. So much for his credentials. How he got hold of even a bit of the
|
|
authentic Other Worlds story is a miracle.
|
|
According to Balcombe,the first breakthrough was due not solely to K.
|
|
Soharawardi - despite his importance as a theoretician-but also a "sinister
|
|
webwork of cultists, anarchists, commies, fanatical hippies and renegade
|
|
traitor scientists who made fortunes in the drug trade"(p.3). Balcombe
|
|
promises to name names, and out of the welter of rant and slather, some hard
|
|
facts about the pioneers actually emerge.
|
|
Funding (and some research) emanated in the 70's from a "chaos cabal" of
|
|
early Silicon Valley hackers interested in complex dynamical systems,
|
|
randomicity, and chance, and - gambling! - as well as a shadowy group of "drug
|
|
lords" (Balcombe's favorite term of abuse), with connections to certain
|
|
founders of the Discordian Illuminati. Money was channelled through a cult
|
|
called the Moorish Orthodox Church, a loose knit confederation of jazz
|
|
musicians, oldtime hipsters, white "sufis" and black moslems, bikers and
|
|
street dealers (see" A Heresologist's Guide to Brooklyn", #24 in this list)
|
|
who came into contact with Sohrawardi in Millbrook in the mid-60's.
|
|
Sohrawardi was a naive idealist and somewhat careless about his
|
|
associations. He received clandestine support from people who were in turn
|
|
connected to certain Intelligence circles with an interest in psychedelic and
|
|
fringe mind-science. According to Balcombe this was not the CIA (MK-ULTRA) but
|
|
an unofficial offshoot of several groups with Masonic connections! The
|
|
Conspiracy was penetrated almost from the start, but was actually encouraged
|
|
in the hope of gleaning useful information about parallel worlds, or at least
|
|
about the "mental conditioning techniques" developed as part of the basic
|
|
research.
|
|
By the mid-70's, Sohrawardi and his various cohorts and connections (now
|
|
loosely referred to as "the Garden of Forked Paths" or GFP) had become aware
|
|
of the Intelligence circles (now loosely grouped as "Probability Control
|
|
Force" or PCF) and had in turn planted double-agents, and gone further
|
|
underground. In 1978 or 79 an actual device for trans-dimensional Travel, the
|
|
"Egg" (also called the Cocoon or the Cucurbit, which means both gourd and
|
|
alchemical flask) was developed in deepest secrecy, probably at Sohrawardi's
|
|
institute in Upstate New York, certainly not at a branch lab supposedly hidden
|
|
away in the NJ Pine Barrens near the long-vanished village of Ong's Hat (see
|
|
#13 in this list), since no such lab ever existed, nor does it exist now,
|
|
despite what some fools think.
|
|
The PCF were unable to obtain an Egg for several years and did not succeed
|
|
in Breakthrough until (Balcombe believes) 1982. The California groups,
|
|
however, began Egg-production and broke through (into "BigSur2") in early 1980
|
|
(again, Balcombe's chronology). (Balcombe clearly knows nothing of the
|
|
situation in Java.)
|
|
It remains unclear whether the East Coast and West Coast groups both
|
|
entered the same alternate world, or two different but similar worlds.
|
|
Communication between the two outposts has so far proved impossible because,
|
|
as it happens, the Egg will not transport non-sentient matter. Travelers
|
|
arrive Over There birth-naked in a Stone Age world - no airplanes, no radio,
|
|
no clothes ... no fire and no tools! Only the Egg, like a diamond Faberge
|
|
easter gift designed by Dali, alone in the midst of "Nature naturing".
|
|
Balcombe includes a dim out-of-focus photo of an Egg, and claims that the
|
|
machine is part computer but also partly-living crystal, like virus or DNA,
|
|
and also partly "naked quantumstuff".
|
|
Eggs are costly to produce, so the early pioneers had to return after
|
|
each sortie and forego permanent settlement on E2 until a cheaper mode of
|
|
transport could be discovered. However, emigration via the Egg proved possible
|
|
when the "tantrik" or "double-yolk" effect was discovered: two people (any
|
|
combination of age, gender, etc.) can Travel by Egg while making love,
|
|
especially if one of the pair has already done the trip a few times and "knows
|
|
the way" without elaborate visualization techniques and so forth. Balcombe has
|
|
a field day with this juicy information and spends an entire chapter (VIII)
|
|
detailing the "perversions" in use for this purpose. Talent for Travel ranges
|
|
from brilliant to zero - probably no more than 15% of humanity can make it,
|
|
although the less-talented and even children can be "translated" by the
|
|
tantrik technique - and extensive training methods have somewhat improved the
|
|
odds. California2 now contains about 1000 emigrants scattered along the coast,
|
|
and the eastern settlements add up to 500 or 600. A few children have been
|
|
born "over there" - some can Travel, some can't, although the talented
|
|
percentage seems greater than among the general population of Earth-prime. And
|
|
being "stuck" on E2 is no grave punishment in any case!, unless you object to
|
|
the Garden of Eden and the "original leisure society" of the Paleolithic
|
|
flintknappers.
|
|
Balcombe claims that the PCF was severely disappointed by the sentience
|
|
"law" of Travel, since they had hoped to use the parallel worlds as a weapons-
|
|
delivery system! Nevertheless they continued to experiment, hoping for a more
|
|
"mechanistic" technique; meanwhile they devote their efforts to
|
|
(a) suppressing all information leaks,
|
|
(b) plotting against the independent GFP and infiltrating the E2
|
|
settlements,
|
|
(c) attempting to open new worlds where technology might be possible.
|
|
They are however handicapped by a shortage of talent:the kind of person who
|
|
can Travel is not usually the kind of person who sympathizes with the
|
|
"patriotic discipline of the PCF" and rogue Masonic groups, but some of these
|
|
end up defecting and "doubling", and anyway most of them are much too weird
|
|
for the taste of the rigidly reactionary inner core of PCF leadership, who
|
|
wonder (as does Balcombe) whether these agents are "any better than the scum
|
|
they're spying on?"
|
|
More worlds have been discovered - E3 and E4 are mentioned in ESCAPE! (and
|
|
we know that E5 was opened in 1988) - but all of these are "empty" forest
|
|
worlds apparently almost identical with E2.
|
|
In summary, Balcombe's style is execrable and attitude repulsive, but his
|
|
book remains the most accurate overview of the Conspiracy to date. If you're
|
|
only going to order one item from us, this is it.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
16. (Anonymous). "Bionic Travel: An Orgonomic Theory of the Megaverse",
|
|
(xerox of unpubl. typescript headed "Top Secret Q Eyes Only";27pp),$15
|
|
|
|
If this paper emanates from PCF sources, as we believe, it indicates the poor
|
|
quality of original research carried out by the enemies of Sohrawardi and the
|
|
GFP, and may explain the PCF's relative lack of progress in the field
|
|
(especially considering their much larger budget!). The author attempts to
|
|
revive W. Reich's Orgone Theory, with "bions" as "life-force particles" and
|
|
some sort of orgone accumulator (Reich's "box") as a possible substitute for
|
|
the Egg. An unhealthy interest is shown in "harnessing the force of Deadly
|
|
Orgone" as a weapon for use on other worlds. References are also made to
|
|
Aliester Crowley's "sex magick techniques" of the Ordo Templi Orientis. Even
|
|
speculations on human sacrifice as a possible source of "trans-dimensional
|
|
energy". A morbid and crackpot document, devoid of all scientific value (in
|
|
our opinion) but affording a fascinating insight into PCF mentality and
|
|
method.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
17. Corbin, Henry. Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn'Arabi
|
|
(trans. by R. Mannheim; Princeton, NJ, 1969), cloth, $50; Pb, $20
|
|
|
|
One of the few books mentioned by title in the Catalogue of the Inst. of Chaos
|
|
Studies & Imaginal Yoga (see #9 in this list). The "mundus imaginalis", also
|
|
called the World of Archetypes or the "Isthmus" (Arabic, barzakh), lies in
|
|
between the World of the Divine and the material World of Creation. It
|
|
actually consists of "many worlds", including two "emerald cities" called
|
|
Jabulsa and Jabulqa (very intriguing considering the situation on Java2!). The
|
|
great 14th century Hispano-Moorish sufi Ibn'Arabi developed a metaphysics of
|
|
the "Creative Imagination" by which the adept could achieve spiritual progress
|
|
via direct contemplation of the archetypes, including the domains of djinn,
|
|
spirits and angels. Ibn'Arabi also speaks of seven alternate Earths created by
|
|
Allah, each with its own Mecca and Kaaba! Some parallel universe theorists
|
|
believe that Travel without any tech (even the Egg) may be possible, claiming
|
|
that certain mystics have already accomplished it. If so, then Ibn'Arabi must
|
|
have been one of them.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
18. Gleick, James. CHAOS: Making a New Science (Viking Penguin, NY, 1987),
|
|
cloth, 254pp, $30
|
|
|
|
The first and still the most complete introduction to chaos, required reading
|
|
BUT with certain caveats. First: Gleick has no philosophical or poetic depth;
|
|
he actually begins the book with a quote from John Updike! No mention of
|
|
chaos mythology or oriental sources. No mention of certain non-American chaos
|
|
scientists such as Rene Thom and Ilya Prigogine! Instead, alongside the
|
|
admittedly useful info, one gets a subtle indoctrination in "deterministic
|
|
chaos", by which we mean the tendency to look on chaos as a weapon to fight
|
|
chaos, to "save" Classical physics - and learn to predict the Stock Market!
|
|
(As opposed to what we call the "quantum chaos" of Sohrawardi and his allies,
|
|
which looks on chaos as a creative and negentropic source, the cornucopia of
|
|
evolution and awareness.) Warning: we suspect Gleick of being a PCF agent who
|
|
has embedded his text with subtle disinformation meant to distract the
|
|
chaos-science community from any interest in "other worlds".
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
19. Pak Hardjanto. "Apparent Collapse of the Wave Function as an n-
|
|
Dimensional Catastrophe" (trans. by "N.N.S."in Collected Papers of the
|
|
SE Asian Soc. for Advanced Research, Vol. XXIX, 1980), 47pp, xerox of
|
|
offprint, $15
|
|
|
|
An early paper by the little-known scientific director of the Javanese "Travel
|
|
Cult" which succeeded in breakthrough, possibly in the year this essay was
|
|
published or shortly thereafter. Hardjanto is known to have been in touch with
|
|
Sohrawardi since the 60's; no doubt they shared all information, but each kept
|
|
the other secret from their respective organizations. The pioneers of Java2
|
|
became known to the GFP and PCF only around 1984 or 85.
|
|
This article, the only scientific work we possess by Hardjanto, shows him
|
|
to be a theoretician equal or even superior to Sohrawardi himself - and if
|
|
Hardjanto is also the anonymous author of the following item, as we believe,
|
|
then he appears a formidable "metaphysicist" as well!
|
|
"Apparent Collapse", while certainly not a blueprint for Egg construction,
|
|
nevertheless constitutes one of the few bits of "hard" science published
|
|
openly on our Subject. Unfortunately, its theorems and diagrams are doubtless
|
|
comprehensible only to a handful of experts. The topological drawings
|
|
literally boggle the mind, especially one entitled "Hypercube Undergoing
|
|
'Collapse' Into 5-Space Vortex"!
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
20. (Unsigned, probably by Pak Hardjanto). A Vision of Hurqalya (trans. by
|
|
K.K.Sardono; Incunabula Press, 1988), Pb, 46pp, $20
|
|
|
|
The Indonesian original of this text appeared as a pamphlet in Yogjakarta
|
|
(E.Java) in 1982. We ourselves at Incunabula commissioned the translation and
|
|
have published this handsome edition, including all the illustrations from the
|
|
original, at our own expense.
|
|
If one knew nothing about the Conspiracy or Many-Worlds Theory, A Vision
|
|
would seem at first to be a mystical tract by an adherent of kebatinan, the
|
|
heterodox sufi-influenced freeform esoteric/syncretistic complex of sects
|
|
which has come to be influential in GFP circles, inasmuch as the idea of
|
|
"spiritual master" (guru, murshed) has been replaced by "teacher" (pamong);
|
|
some kebatinan sects utilize spontaneous non-hierarchical organizational
|
|
structures.
|
|
However, in the light of our knowledge of the material existence of other
|
|
worlds, Vision takes on a whole new dimension - as a literal description of
|
|
what Hardjanto and his fellow pioneers found on Java2.
|
|
They discovered another uninhabited world - but with one huge difference.
|
|
The author of Vision steps out of his "alchemical Egg" into a vast and ancient
|
|
abandoned City! He calls it Hurqalya (after a traditional sufi name for the
|
|
Other World or alam-e mithal). He senses his total aloneness - feels that the
|
|
City's builders have long since moved on elsewhere - and yet that they still
|
|
somehow, somewhere exist.
|
|
The author compares Hurqalya to the ancient ruined city of Borobadur in E.
|
|
Java, but notices immediately that there are no statues or images - all the
|
|
decoration is abstract and severe - but "neither Islamic nor Buddhist nor
|
|
Hindu nor Christian nor any style I ever saw". The "palaces" of Hurqalya are
|
|
grand, cyclopaean, almost monolithic - far from "heavy" in atmosphere, despite
|
|
the black basalt from which they seem to have been carved. For the City is cut
|
|
through by water ... it is in fact a water-city in the style of the Royal
|
|
Enclave of Yogjakarta (now so sadly derelict) - but incomparably bigger.
|
|
Canals, aqueducts, rivers and channels crisscross and meander through the
|
|
City; flowing originally from quiescent volcanic mountains looming green in
|
|
the West, Water flows down through the City which is built on a steep slope
|
|
gradually curving into a basin and down to the placid Eastern Sea, where a
|
|
hundred channels flow dark and clear into the green salt ocean.
|
|
Despite the air of ruin - huge trees have grown through buildings,
|
|
splitting them open - mosses, ferns and orchids coat the crumbling walls with
|
|
viridescence, hosting parrots, lizards, butterflies - despite this desolation,
|
|
most of the waterworks still flow: canal-locks broken open centuries ago allow
|
|
cascades, leaks, spills and waterfalls in unexpected places, so that the City
|
|
is wrapped in a tapestry of water-sounds and songbird voices. Most amazingly,
|
|
the water flows at different levels simultaneously, so that aqueducts cross
|
|
over canals which in turn flow above sunken streams which drip into wells,
|
|
underground cisterns and mysterious sewers in a bewildering complex of levels,
|
|
pipes, conduits and irrigated garden terraces which resemble (to judge by the
|
|
author's sketches) a dreamscape of Escher or Piranesi. Viewed from above, the
|
|
City would be mapped as an arabesque 3-D spederweb (with waterbridges
|
|
aboveground, streams at ground level and also underground) fanning out to fill
|
|
the area of the basin, thence into the harbor with its huge cracked
|
|
basalt-block docks.
|
|
The slope on which the City is built is irregularly terraced in ancient SE
|
|
Asian style - as many staircases as streets thread their way up and down, laid
|
|
out seemingly at randowm, following land-contours rather than grid-logic,
|
|
adding to the architectural complexity of the layer of waterways with a maze
|
|
of vine-encrusted overpasses, arched bridges, spiralling ramps, crooked
|
|
alleyways, cracked hidden steps debouching on broad esplanades, avenues, parks
|
|
gone to seed, pavilions, balconies, apartments, jungle-choked palazzos,
|
|
echoing gloomy "temples" whose divinities, if any, seem to have left no
|
|
forwarding address ... all empty, all utterly abandoned. And nowhere is there
|
|
any human debris - no broken tools, bones or midden heaps, no evidence of
|
|
actual habitation - as if the ancient builders of the City picked up and took
|
|
everything with them when they departed - "perhaps to one of the other Seven
|
|
Worlds of the alam-e mithal" - in other words, to a "higher dimension.
|
|
Thus ends the Vision of Hurqalya - raising more questions than it answers!
|
|
There is no doubt that it describes exactly what was discovered in Java2 in
|
|
1980 or 81. But if the "observer-created" theory of other-worlds Travel is
|
|
true, "Hurqalya" represents the "imaginal imprint" of what Hardjanto (or
|
|
whoever) expected to find. Yet again, if that theory is false ... who built
|
|
Hurqalya? One current explanation (arising from time-distortion theorems which
|
|
have so far remained unsolvable) suggests that the Builders "moved" in
|
|
prehistoric times to Earth-prime and became the distant ancestors of the
|
|
Javanese ("Java Man"). Another guess: the Builders have indeed moved on to a
|
|
"distant" alternate universe, and eventually we may find them.
|
|
A small settlement now exists in Hurqalya. Once the American groups heard
|
|
of the City's existence, members of both the GFP and PFC were able to
|
|
visualize it and Travel to it from America (the Javanese can do the same from
|
|
Java-prime to America2). Since 1985 all three groups have expanded most of
|
|
their exploratory effort on "opening up" new worlds in the Java series.
|
|
Apparently Indonesian sorcerers and trance adepts are very good at this, and
|
|
we believe they have reached Java7 - without, however, finding replications of
|
|
the City or any trace of the Builders - only more empty forest.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
21. Von Bitter Rucker, Dr. R." 'The Cat Was Alive, But Looked Scared As
|
|
Hell': Some Unexpected Properties of Cellular Automata in the Light of
|
|
the Everett-Wheeler Hypothesis" (Complex Dynamical Systems Newsletter
|
|
no. 8, 1989), offprint, $10
|
|
|
|
Who is this man and what does he know? No other serious mathematician has so
|
|
far made any connection between cellular automata and the Many Worlds. Tongue-
|
|
in-cheek (?), the author suggests that Schrodinger's poor cat might be both
|
|
alive and dead, even after the box is opened, IF parallel universes are
|
|
"stacked" in some arcane manner which he claims to be able to demonstrate with
|
|
a piece of software he has hacked and is selling for an outrageous sum; we
|
|
have also seen an ad for this program in a magazine called MONDO 2000,
|
|
published in Berkeley and devoted to "reality hacking". We'd love to know what
|
|
certain members of the Conspiracy would make of this bizarre concept!
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
22. Kennedy, Alison. "Psychotropic Drugs in 'Shared-World' & Lucid Dreaming
|
|
Experiments" (Psychedelic Monographs & Essays, Vol. XIV, no. 2, 1981,
|
|
offprint, $5
|
|
|
|
This writer appears to have inside information. The notion of a drug-induced
|
|
hallucination so powerful it can be shared by many (in a proper "blind"
|
|
experiment) and can actually come into existence, into material reality; the
|
|
idea that drugPenhanced lucid dreaming can be used to discover objective
|
|
information from "other ontological levels of being"; and finally the
|
|
"prediction" that "a combination of these methods utilizing computer-aided
|
|
biofeedback monitoring devices" will actually make it possible to "visit
|
|
'other' worlds in 'inner' space" (which suggests that the author adheres to
|
|
the "observer-created" theory of parallel universes) - all this leads us to
|
|
believe that the author is probably a member of one of the California Travel
|
|
Cults - as well as an expert bruja!
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
23. (Anonymous). A Collection of Cult Pamphlets, Flyers, Ephemera & Curiosa
|
|
from the Library of a Traveller (Looseleaf portfolio of photocopied
|
|
originals) sold by lot,$25
|
|
|
|
The unknown compiler of this Collection (whom for convenience we'll call "X")
|
|
left it behind when he "vanished", whence it came into our possession. We know
|
|
something of the compiler's career from an untitled document written by him
|
|
and found with the Collection, which we call The Poetic Journal of a Traveller
|
|
(#24 in this list), as well as a pamphlet believed to be by the same author,
|
|
Folklore of the Other Worlds (#25).(The Ong's Hat Color Brochure was also
|
|
discovered in the same cache, and is sold by us as #13.)
|
|
The Collection contains the following items:
|
|
1) A History & Catechism of the Moorish Orthodox Church, which traces
|
|
the origins of the sect to early (1913) American Black Islam, the
|
|
"Wandering Bishops", the Beats of the 50s and the psychedelic churches
|
|
movement of the 60s - deliberately vague about the 70s and 80s however.
|
|
2) The World Congress of Free Religions, a brochure-manifesto arguing
|
|
for a "fourth way", a non-authoritarian spiritual movement in opposition
|
|
to mainstream, fundamentalist and New Age religion. The WCFR is said to
|
|
include various sects of Discordians, SubGeniuses, Coptic Orthodox
|
|
People of the Herb, gay ("faery") neo-pagans, Magical Judaism, the
|
|
Egyptian Church of New Zealand, Kaos Kabal of London, Libertarian
|
|
Congregationalists, etc. - and the Moorish Orthodox Church. Several of
|
|
these sects are implicated in the Conspiracy, but no overt mention of
|
|
the Travel Cults is made here.
|
|
3) Spiritual Materialism, by "the New Catholic Church of the Pantarchy,
|
|
Hochkapel von SS Max und Marx", a truly weird flyer dedicated to
|
|
"Saints" Max Stirner and Karl Marx, representing a group claiming
|
|
foundation by the 19th century Individualist Stephen Pearl Andrews, but
|
|
more likely begun in the 1980s as a Travel Cult. Uses Nietzsche to
|
|
contend that material reality itself constitutes a (or the) spiritual
|
|
value and the principle of Infinity "which is expressed in the existence
|
|
of many worlds." It argues for a utopia based on "individualism,
|
|
telepathic socialism, free love, high tech, Stone Age wilderness and
|
|
quantum weirdness"! No address is given, needless to say.
|
|
4) The Sacred Jihad of Our Lady of Chaos, this otherwise untraceable
|
|
group calls for "resistance to all attempts to control probability." It
|
|
quotes Foucault and Baudrillard on the subject of "disappearance", then
|
|
suggests that "to vanish without having to kill yourself may be the
|
|
ultimate revolutionary act ... The monolith of Consensus Reality is
|
|
riddled with quantum-chaos cracks ... Viral attack on all fronts!
|
|
Victory to Chaos in every world!"
|
|
5) The Temple of Antinous, a Travel Cult of pedophile boy-lovers and
|
|
neo-pagans devoted to Eros and Ganymede. (Warning: this leaflet contains
|
|
some just-barely-legal graphic material.) "Wistfully we wonder if the
|
|
boygod can manifest only in some other world than this dreary
|
|
puritanical polluted boobocracy - then, gleefully, we suddenly recall:
|
|
there ARE other worlds!"
|
|
6) A Collage, presumably made by X himself, consisting of a "mandala"
|
|
constructed from cut-outs of Strange Attractors and various Catastrophic
|
|
topologies interwoven with photos of young girls and boys clipped from
|
|
Italian fashion magazines. Eroticizing the mathematical imagery no doubt
|
|
helps one to remember and visualize it while operating the Egg.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
24. (Anonymous). Poetic Journal of a Traveller; or, A Heresologist's Guide
|
|
to Brooklyn (Incunabula Press, pamphlet, $15. Believed to be by "X", the
|
|
compiler of the Collection, & transcribed by us from manuscript.)
|
|
|
|
Apparently X began this MS with the intention of detailing his experiences
|
|
with a Travel Cult and eventual "translation" to the various alternate-world
|
|
settlements, but unfortunately abandoned the project early on, possibly due to
|
|
PCF interference.
|
|
It begins with a summary account of X's spiritual quest, largely among the
|
|
stranger sects of his native Brooklyn: Santeria in Coney Island, Cabala in
|
|
Williamsburg, sufis on Atlantica Avenue, etc. He is disappointed or turned
|
|
away (and even mugged on one occasion). He becomes friendly with a Cuban woman
|
|
of mixed Spanish, black, amerindian and Chinese ancestry who runs a botanica
|
|
(magical supplies and herbs). When he asks her about "other worlds", she is
|
|
evasive but promises to introduce him to someone who knows more about such
|
|
matters.
|
|
She orders her grand-daughter, a 14-year-old named Teofila, to escort X
|
|
through the "rough neighborhoods" to the old man's shop. The girl is wearing a
|
|
t-shirt that says "Hyperborean Skateboarding Association", and indeed travels
|
|
by skateboard, "gliding on ahead of me like Hermes the Psychopomp." X is
|
|
clearly attracted to Teofila and becomes embarrassedly tongue-tied and
|
|
awkward.
|
|
The old man, called "the Shaykh", who claims to be Sudanese but speaks
|
|
"pure Alabaman", runs a junk shop and wears a battered old Shriners fez. His
|
|
attitude toward X is severe at first, but X is enchanted by his rather
|
|
disjointed rambling and ranting - which reveal a surprisingly wide if erratic
|
|
reading in Persian poetry, the Bible, Meister Eckhardt, William Blake, Yoruba
|
|
mythology and quantum mechanics. Leaving the girl in the shop, the old man
|
|
takes X into his back office, "crowded with wildly eclectic junk, naive
|
|
paintings, cheap orientalismo, HooDoo candles, jars of flower petals, and an
|
|
ornate potbellied stove, stoked up to cherryred, suffusing waves of drowsy
|
|
warmth."
|
|
The Shaykh intimidates X into sharing a big pipe of hashish mixed with
|
|
amber and mescaline, then launches into a stream-of-consciousness attack on
|
|
"Babylon, the Imperium, the Con, the Big Lie that there's nowhere to go and
|
|
nothing to buy except their fifth-rate imitations of life, their bullshit
|
|
pie-in-the-sky religions, cold cults, cold cuts of self-mutilation I call 'em,
|
|
and woe to Jerusalem!"
|
|
X, now "stoned to the gills", falls under the Shaykh's spell and bursts
|
|
into tears. At once the old man unbends, serves X a cup of tea "sweetblack as
|
|
Jamaica run and scented with cardamon", and begins to drop broad hints about
|
|
"a way out, not to some gnostic-never-land with the body gone like a fart in a
|
|
sandstorm, no brother, for the Unseen World is not just of the spirit but also
|
|
the flesh - Jabulsa and Jabulqa, Hyperborea, Hurqalya - they're as real as
|
|
Brooklyn but a damn sight prettier!"
|
|
Late afternoon; X must return home before dark, and prepare to take leave
|
|
of the Shaykh - who gives him a few pamphlets and invites him to return. To
|
|
X's surprise, Teofila is still waiting outside the shop, and offers to escort
|
|
him to the subway. The girl is now in a friendlier mood and X less nervous.
|
|
They strike up a conversation, X asking about Hyperborea and Teofila
|
|
answering, "Yeah, I know where it is - I've been there."
|
|
The main narrative ends here, but we have added some other poetic fragments
|
|
included with the original MS, despite the fact that they might offend some
|
|
readers, in light of the importance of the "tantrik technique" of other-world
|
|
Travel. (And let us remind you that a statement of age must be included with
|
|
every order from Incunabula Inc.). These rather pornographic fragments suggest
|
|
that X, too shy to attempt anything himself, was in fact seduced by Teofila,
|
|
and that his subsequent "training" for Egg-navigation consisted of numerous
|
|
"practice sessions for double-yolking" with a very enthusiastic young tutor.
|
|
We believe that X subsequently made an extended visit to America2 and
|
|
Java2, that he returned to Earth-prime on some Intelligence or sabotage
|
|
mission for the GFP, that he composed a paper on Folklore of the Other Worlds
|
|
(see #25), that he and Teofila somehow came to the attention of PCF agents in
|
|
New York, aborted their mission and returned to Java2, where they presumably
|
|
now reside.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
25. (Anonymous). Folklore of the Other Worlds (Incunabula Press, pamphlet,
|
|
$15. By the same author as #24, transcribed by us from manuscript.)
|
|
|
|
Our anonymous Traveller from Brooklyn appears to have composed this little
|
|
treatise after his first extended stay in E2. It deals with tales of
|
|
Travellers and inhabitants of the other-world settlements, pioneers'
|
|
experiences and the like. Of great interest is the claim that ESP and other
|
|
paranormal abilities increase in the parallel universes, that the effect is
|
|
magnified by passing through the series of discovered "levels", and that a
|
|
small band of psychic researchers has therefore settled on Java7, the present
|
|
frontier world. The "temple" of Hurqalya (or whatever these vast buildings may
|
|
have been) are used for sessions of meditation, martial arts and psychic
|
|
experimentation. X claims that telepathy is now accepted as fact "over there,"
|
|
with strong evidence for telekinesis and perhaps even Egg-less Travel.
|
|
Also intriguing are various accounts of "spirits" seen or sensed around the
|
|
settlements, were-animals supposedly glimpsed on higher levels, and legends
|
|
which have arisen concerning the lost Builders of Hurqalya. Something of a
|
|
cult has grown up around these hypothetical creatures who (it is said) are
|
|
"moving toward us even as we move toward them, through the dimensions, through
|
|
Time - perhaps backwards through Time"!
|
|
X points out that this legend strikes an eerie resonance with "complex
|
|
conjugate wave theory" in quantum mechanics, which hypothesizes that the
|
|
"present" (the megaverse "now") is the result of the meeting of two infinite
|
|
quantum probabililty waves, one moving from past to future, the other moving
|
|
from future to past - that space/time is an interference effect of these two
|
|
waves - and that the many worlds are bubbles on this shoreline!
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
26. Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Univ.of
|
|
Chicago Press), Pb, $30
|
|
|
|
This "bible" of the modern neo-shamanic movement also served as a metaphorical
|
|
scripture for the pioneers of interdimensional consciousness physics and
|
|
alternate-world explorers. Not only does it contain innumerable practical
|
|
hints for the Traveller, as well as a spiritual ambience conducive to the
|
|
proper state of mind for Travel - it is also believed that Eliade's mythic
|
|
material on the prototypal Stone Age shamans who could physically and actually
|
|
visit other worlds, offers strong evidence for the possibility of Egg-less
|
|
Travel - which however so far remains in the realm of "folklore", speculation
|
|
and rumor.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|