Sex, Drugs & Magick Week Three: Mourning for a Lost Century and It's Lost Hopes

Dadd

Sex, Drugs & Magick: Preface to the 2000 Edition

My first job out of college became immediately uncomfortable because I was promised the Human Resources manager's job after the first manager left. The quick transition to discomfort was caused by this; before I learned the actual job description, I had to fill out the standard application on my first day. The application included a page about a mandatory drug test to be taken the first day- I immediately texted my friend, whose family I was newly-employed by, in a state of panic. In fact, he and I had smoked a copious amount of cannabis the night before. Of course, the mandatory drug test wasn't necessary for office workers and by my friend's unnecessary, asked for, intervention, I was disqualified for the job. You see, the human resources branch of this office was mostly concerned with insurance and piss: it was grotesque. Perhaps it was the taste of sour grapes, but I do feel I had a true moral opposition to the requisition of urine. When I heard of one man being tested by an unwilling hair sample, whose results go back further in time than piss, I almost flipped out in the office. That was unconstitutional! (I was naïve.) That was unconscionable! (I was dumb.) That was against Natural Law! (I am an idiot.) It was wrong. (But the world has never really cared about "right" and "wrong.") Thus I failed at yet another job.  

And yet, for all the parentheticals, even in this starry horizon of the loosening of drug laws, I can still relate to the red-hot iron anger of Wilson in his 2000 Preface. The "Book of Urinomics" is juvenile, crass and ridiculous, but it could never be as ridiculous as the societal trends which inspired its writing. Perhaps it is because I still live in an uncivilized land where cannabis is not completely legal; more likely it is because of my utter moral revulsion about the amount of prisoners with marijuana charges who remain in prisons all over this failing state, but I am still troubled by the state of our society's relationship to drugs. In the most basic, legalistic sense. Later in the book, Wilson will discuss a middle-class couple with a combustible, tamper-proof safe in which they stored their marijuana. While the paranoia is bizarre, and perhaps fictionalized as Wilson notes in this preface, I can understand its genesis in this society where a drug charge, or a hospital bill, can land you in the most dire of circumstances. 

When I first read my New Falcon edition, I was struck by the most recent preface because of Wilson's honest, striking analogy for no longer being the person who wrote the original book. As an adolescent/young-adult I developed a neurotic fear that I would continually turn into someone who felt nothing but scorn and disdain for the person he was last year. Thankfully, age has proven that I grow gentler in my reminiscences, recognizing my flaws and Wilson's original Enemy, "ignorance," within myself. And Wilson's expansion into Fuller's enemies is similar to my own: I don't own property, nor am I an architect, so I don't understand the malignancy of zoning laws. I am not immune to fear; indeed, I am full of it, but I focus on understanding that fear "is failure and the forerunner of failure", and my desires are simple enough where I desire little beyond what I have as an admittedly unambitious part of society. 

The second half of Wilson's preface, penned right before the iris of the twenty-first century,  is full of the same righteous rage but the target has moved. The barbs don't land as surely as they did twenty two years ago. That's space-time for you. While the federal government remains a fucking mess, it also seems much more reasonable in many ways than current state governments that seem to be contesting who can pass the most egregious, regressive law possible. The policies against drugs and the lack of civil liberties is not ideal; however, that does not make me sympathetic to the alternative health community that cheered on reactionary bullshit during a worldwide crisis and pushed anti-vaccination conspiracy theories to the point where people who question the FDA, a perfectly intelligent stance, can start spouting fluoride-in-the-water type insanity in a split second. 

I'm not an expert on Ruby Ridge. I don't know what happened, which sounds like a lame, post-truth cop-out. It was a situation that was escalated. I'll admit that I don't agree with Randy Weaver's ideology and believe he put his own family in danger. Weaver had an extreme worldview and took a course of action that was so extreme that it remains notable years later. The echoes of the Ruby Ridge disaster resonated when Waco erupted in flames. At first, many viewed the Branch Davidians as the ultimately wronged party. Janet Reno and the Feds had violated all that was good and true about America's guiding light of free expression with armed assault. Then one reads about Koresh and his batshit ideas, the facts of the Branch Davidian way-of-life, replete with pederasty and abuse, and that his idiot followers were the ones to set fire to the compound on his moronic, self-aggrandizing orders. 

Where do we go when we cross the wires of illegality and equate certain verboten matters to others? I don't think it is anywhere "good." Wilson couldn't have foreseen this a couple decades ago, in the autumnal years of his life, but as (one of) his chroniclers, I would be remiss if I didn't note incongruities with today's world. Wilson was no Saint, nor am I a hagiographer. I am against a strain of antigovernmental thought in today's world.  As quaintly horrifying as the Ruby Ridge incident might have seemed in the 90s, fodder for enflamed opinions and twenty-four-hour news, we are not living in the relative comfort of the past. The sentiment that led Randy Weaver to sacrifice his family's wellbeing in favor of his fanaticism has led to unnecessary strife and death. Whether it is COVID-misinformation, Q-Anon inanity, or pro-Putinism, there is a clear and present danger. What does one do when one simply wants to smoke weed and not endorse partisan fatuousness or the excess of the ancien régime? This is not the best of all worlds. 

Sex, Drugs & Magick Week Three: Incoming

 

Apologies, we have a few days off for break this week and I lost track of my obligations. I'm trying to finish a proposed introduction for Hilaritas during this time and will have our third post up soon! 

Sex, Drugs & Magick Week Two: The Morning Chorus

For the first time this year I heard spring peepers on the air. Like frogs asking for a king, we shall now consider the words of magicians. 

Sex, Drugs & Magick: The Four Forewords 

Howdy, friends and foes! It's time to paw into Sex, Drugs & Magick a little further than quotes and my personal reminiscences- instead, you'll get my tiresome opinions on the forewords that have been newly included in the Hilaritas Press edition. And there was much rejoicing...

I have to ask myself, am I allowed to be dismissive here? Will I drive my few readers away if I bristle? I don't want to be unpleasant, but I have searched and searched for something to say about Morrison's foreword but it seems phoned-in and uninspired in the light of prefacing such an integral text. Their original writing for this edition seems like Moore- or Wilson-lite (that's reaching) and, overall, the short matter seems awfully trite. However, I'm not a famous author, don't know what other demands were upon them at the time and can't criticize too much. I don't think there is much to say about what they have to say about the book at hand. Perhaps I am being pedantic, but I appreciated their foreword to Ishtar Rising much more. 

Damien Echols also doesn't talk much about Sex, Drugs & Magick in the particular, but that is understandable. Echols discusses, with an underplayed sensibility that is still haunting, the unconscionable circumstances of his introduction to magic; and in the cell walls which shadow his prose- Echols finds something strong and eternal. The feat of Will carried out by Echols cannot be overstated, when he had every reason to "curse god and die," he walked through the walls. His foreword is more of an Ode to Wilson, and one of the most moving I have read. We all owe a lot to the Grand Old Man, and many of us have bared our heart/hypothetical-souls to express How Much, yet Echols' story is unique, honest and profound. His reflections on the living nature of art and the continuing conversation between ages of humanity and human achievement, enabled by Hermes, Friendliest of Gods to Man, are succinct and worth rereading. I wish him health, wealth, strength and length of days. 

I really enjoy Phil Farber's books. I've found ATEM and Brain Magick to be a couple of the most useful grimoires I've ever read- my copy of FutureRitual is scarred and mangled from its in-the-moment use during rituals and ritual-practice. It is predictable that I would enjoy his foreword as well; from his charming story about cheering Wilson in a Chinese restaurant to his substantiated optimism about the state of the War On Some Drugs, Farber exudes the authenticity I have always appreciated in his writing. Furthermore, he includes this very important statement: "And through all his books, Bob did more to raise awareness of magick as a form of brain-change than anyone since Aleister Crowley himself." To which I say- "Hear! Hear!" (Farber's High Magick, I read it through this summer and it still remains on my bookshelf to revisit as occasioned, is another typically efficient grimoire and I might incorporate some its exercises into our reading group for those who are game, in their way.) 

I know little of the last author aside from his glowing reputation amongst the modern Discordian milieu, which isn't an insult, but a compelling praise. The cunning-man's foreword is our lengthiest, multi-faceted and apropos. He also convinced me I need to watch Dark City as soon as possible. Can't believe I missed out on that one. Vincent also updates Wilson's writing a little bit- by pointing out, in spite of some cynical remarks, that the contrivances and twists of expression should be welcome to any neophile-leaning person. A good dose of Wilson's anti-xtian rhetoric is always refreshing and the snapshots of London circa-Cosmic Trigger on stage has all the charm of nostalgia and cultural history. The spiral motif of the subheadings even works out with Wilson's ring and the Hilaritas symbol! If that isn't synchronistic synergy, I don't know what is. I share Vincent's prayer that these tools will help us navigate the age that is to come. 

Other nets, that's typically how I view the words of magicians. We are all of use trying to encompass all like Indra whilst also crudely fingering fibers into the barest of sensory and survival mechanisms, still numb-tingling-awakening to Athena's art. We are not weavers, nor are we, to duly avoid Christian associations,  fishermen. We are, if anything, the people who enjoy casting our nets and catching a glimpse of what wriggles through. Forgive me for what I missed and enlighten me to your perspective! Next week we dive into the (R)aw meat of the matter. 

 

Guided By Memory, a Tintinnabulum to Ward Our Studies

I really hope Bobby is okay with me using this.

Editor's Note: Nothing will ever be "sharp" with me, angels know nothing of Time.

We will begin with the beginning- with the six quotes especially included in the Hilaritas Press edition of Sex, Drugs & Magick as well as Rasa and Christina's Foreword to the Forewords/Afterwords to the 2021 Edition. 

My memories of Sex, Drugs & Magick are appropriately hazy. For many years, I kept it as a constant resource, constantly referencing chapters three and four while occasionally revisiting the interludes. I can vividly remember the sense of pure disgust I always felt at the denouement of the "Slouching Towards Bethlehem: The Story of Leonard." I can also vividly remember how Wilson guided me to an understanding of the Ninth Degree Ritual of the O. T. O.. Teaching moments that are buried deep inside whatever construct I am after years of trying to be something beyond the realm of the rational. My New Falcon copy is properly tatty at this point, so I am glad to have another before me. 

At first, I avoided this book. I wasn't interested in the "drugs" part and believed that I could entirely avoid the "drugs" side of sex, drugs and magic. Which is entirely laughable, almost Shakespearian in how my prudish, classist conceit was brought to its knees by the sweet, smokey lure of chronic cannabis usage. Reading Sex, Drugs and Magick probably became viable because of an early, overly-solemn, in only the way a young magician can be, wintertime experience with psychedelic mushrooms. And then a further three experiments, in quick succession, over the Spring. Because of one of the authors quoted in the first pages of the text that we are beginning to explore, I somehow believed it was more responsible for me to try psychedelic mushrooms than smoke a joint- I was, and continue to be, very dumb. But I did the mushrooms and as I geared up I excused myself to watch something, I wasn't quite sophisticated enough yet to remember to memorize Crowleyean rituals beforehand- ha! What I watched was Moore's eulogy for Wilson, given in London a few months after our Great Human's Great Feast.  Later that night the world fell apart and I heard the story of Tulsi Das and His Monkey Army. Good stuff. (Moore)

So months later, after reconciling myself with what I had perceived as the rambling and hippy-dippy language of Illuminatus! and Promethea, I read Sex, Drugs and Magick. There were secrets here, primed to slip into a spellbook; descriptions of potent drugs and the states of consciousness they could engender. Lush historiography of mankind's gropes towards ἐλευθερία  (eleutheria) coupled with suspension-of-disbelief-requiring accounts of its grand, occult successes.  Is it crude, bold and somewhat foolish compared to Wilson's later writing? Sure, but that's why I love pre-Illuminatus!-being-published-by-Dell RAW. He was brash and silly and full of It. He had the broken spectre and glory of a newborn magician. Wilson the Magician. I wouldn't argue that this is our closest contact with that persona, but I would argue it is one of the more straightforward. 

I started smoking cannabis on the reg a few months after reading Wilson, and almost wouldn't have been ready for it. I wasn't ready to have that many laughs with my friends. It was a brilliant blanket experience that spread over me and filled my mind with a royal road that united disparate sections of myself- the euphoric, the abstract, the mundane and the foolish. I am a being of smoke whose pleasure imitates the Prophet's, peace be upon Him, in that I love, above all things, perfume, prayer and women (woman) with the addendum of certain drugs. (The Koran, as well as the Bible, is imminently more entertaining and lucid under the influence of THC. I believe, if hazy memory serves, this is mentioned in Sex, Drugs and Magick.) Needless to say, all I have said in this paragraph is entirely based on my own experience and mileage may vary. (Marincolo) (Thompson) 

I have changed since the last time I read Sex, Drugs & Magick. Changed in many ways. The cannabis abuse still remains; I find myself in complete agreement with Alan Moore's alter ego in Jerusalem,  Alma Warren, that "anyone who doesn't think marijuana is addictive isn't trying hard enough." The magic remains; I will bang my head against this door until it cracks. The sex, thankfully and improbably, continues- which is more than I deserve. If someone were to ask me what was good about life, I would easily answer "sex, drugs and magic." Still can't mark the purpose, not yet. But with these tools, these necessary cyborg tools that cling and peel from our innermost selves, we continue to grope towards something beautiful, something harmonious, something immortal. That's the Art that we all strive for- life is nothing less than drudgery without that hard-pressed vintage of the human imagination, that faculty which brushes against the (underbelly?) of something greater and grander than our fleeting impressions. (Eno) (Havens) (Crowley)

Thus do I end my catechism. 

And, according to Christina and Rasa's promising words, we will be treated to the reflections of eight, much more impressive, magicians by the time we are done with this fanned-out edition of Wilson's tome- written during the tumult of the counter-Revolution and the first nuclear-blast blindness of the post-Sixties era--in this blessed year of Our Lord 2022. The world has changed--I have changed--since this was published last year and it landed in my hands. I wonder how we shall change before we have concluded. 

(Havens)

The Truly Dangerous Book For Boys and Girls

 

Sex, Drugs, and Magick will regenerate February 28th.  8pm Sharp

Ishtar Rising Week Eleven: The Spirit of '73 or- Not Impossible, Only Improbable

 If we are to end on a number, I would like this to be Ishtar Rising Week Eleven. Although, due to delays, this group has lasted longer than eleven weeks, eleven is a good number to end our account of the unending ascent. Certainly, eleven is the most appropriate number if we are to "seek the light and quit the dark" as we look forward to Wilson's proposed golden dawn. 

Ishtar from Myths and Legends of Babylonia and Assyria (1916) (A volume that can be found in Alan Moore's library.)

Ishtar Rising Chapter Seven: Making A Clean Breast Of It

I have never grown out of the infantile belief that the universe was made for me to suck.  

This chapter struck me as one that had two authors, more so than the rest of the book. (Alas, my only other copy is the 1989 New Falcon edition.) It seems 1989 Bob felt a need to drop in and add notes to '73 Bob's ideas. Understandable, the mention of the AIDS crisis at the end of one paragraph is an essential update. I'm unsurprised Wilson doesn't say much more about the crises, as he would have been as confused and horrified as the rest of the world with this seemingly unstoppable disease; unlike others, Wilson seemed to prefer not to talk about things he didn't understand. Wilson spent much of his time in the eighties living with Arlen in Ireland, a country where he wouldn't have seen many signs of sexual progress. In America, the Silent Majority backed Reagan's HUAC-toady smile to the forefront of the world's stage and Jerry Falwell's simply toad-like visage to the airwaves as the grim speaking asshole of the Religious Right. Margaret Thatcher ruled as the Iron Lady and despite being a female, wasn't exactly a model of feminism. 

Thatcher's legacy is best summed up in this snippet from the often transcendentally funny Eric Andre Show: 

Eric Andre: Do you think Margaret Thatcher had girl power?

Mel B (of Spice Girls fame): Yes, of course. 

Eric Andre: Do you think she effectively utilized girl power by funneling money into illegal paramilitary death squads in Northern Ireland?

So, there is probably a reason Wilson saw a need to tidy up his "last words" on the subject, as the state of the world had changed so very drastically. Society had shown new ways to tamp down on Consciousness III, whether through persecution (the War on Drugs) or conversion (a la Jerry Rubin and I imagine many of that generation). While the end of the Cold War was only a couple years off, at the time many felt the world was closer to nuclear warfare than ever before. 

I know I've said this, you've said this, we've all said this on this site and Tom's: I wonder what Bob would think of Now?

Would the "big if" that we need to get past for a rosy future still be "blowing ourselves to hell?" Perhaps. The major powers still have enough nuclear devices to end our civilization; however, the concern over nuclear war is no longer as ubiquitous as it once was. Perhaps that is simply how our monkey-minds have adapted to the ever-looming threat. Yet, we have at least a couple more "big ifs" that we need to somehow hurdle if we are to leave our descendants a happier, if not happy, inheritance. 

First, climate change. While the existential threat of climate change is outside of this book's purview, one could argue that nuclear war was as well and Wilson still felt the need to bring it up. Unlike The Bomb, the red button has already been pushed in this case. If the human race doesn't collectively get our shit together, or more to the point The Powers That Be don't get their shit together, we're fucked three ways till Thursday. Jesus, Fuck. 

Second, our culture---indeed that of the world--is more unstable now than it was at the end of the twentieth century. I was born at "the end of history" and remember vividly how that sentiment came crashing down on September 11th, leading to the slow attrition of sanity that simultaneously accompanied the spread of the Internet. We're still up to our thighs in history and the nightmare isn't over yet. The rise of extremism is a clear and present danger to the welfare of all free peoples. The democratization of information and platforms isn't quite what the classical liberals expected as people are extremely stupid and have poor discrimination facilities. There are no arbiters who seem up to the task of stabilizing the boiled-over pot of our varied identities and our different demands. 

Wilson's distress over a then-recent Supreme Court ruling is completely understandable as our current Supreme Court seems quite intent on sending us back to '72. Wilson would have a bit of revenge by making many of the Puritan Justices' names slang for body parts in Schrodinger's Cat (Mr. Justice Berger's name was the equivalent of shit.)  I'm not sure if there's an ugly enough term to match the name of Barrett. 

But that's why these things are "big ifs." The future is dictated by the past, but the past has a way of constantly shifting from the viewpoint of the present. So, I'll try to look into my obsidian mirror and talk to my better angels: 

I don't see us ever becoming a purely sensualistic culture and seriously doubt that nudism will ever become the cultural norm, at least not as far into time as I can peer. Indeed, I think that some of the things that we view as signs of sexual liberation at the nonce will probably be looked down upon in the future. The Internet of the last two decades has given birth to sexual identities that seem to "harm no one" but still irritate and offend many people when posted for the world to see. Our societal emphasis on kink has led to a world where Dan Savage advised a woman to be thankful her husband was only sexting with his cousin as she needs to expand her notion of monogamy and be thankful he wasn't fucking anyone else. While I am for the LGBT movement, I see the current trend of pasting on whatever letter the new sexual identity demands being laid to rest. The harsh realities of the "real world" are going to hit the children whose sexual identities shift throughout the day like a ton of bricks. The oversaturation of students attending college, and too much academic thought seeping out into broader discourse, in our society will continue to trigger backlash across economic and societal sectors. I see our current education system as unsustainable.

This could end up yielding net positives, though, if sexuality ends up becoming more about private individualism than about a need for public validation, with the added benefit of more elasticity. While I don't think of myself as a prude, I do find myself raising an eyebrow at the public displays of what-really-doesn't-seem-to-be-any-of-my-business-and-I-don't-see-how-I-figure-in. And while I find the screeds of leftist sexuality advocates hysterical, I appreciate a sense of self-determination. Pornography will continue to be pornography. I don't really know if there's a way to put that djinn back in the bottle and I'm not sure I'd want to, despite what I see as an unhealthy influence on our population. I enjoy porn, a term which encompasses everything from de Sade to Aubrey Beardsley to Ron Jeremy to 2Girls1Cup. We all have our degrees of acceptability, and I really don't care about what happens behind closed doors. Despite the conservative movement to instate onanism as a punishable offense, I believe that most people feel about the same: what I don't know, I don't really consider. On the whole, I think my view of the current sexual milieu could be compared to the "Story of Leonard" in Sex, Drugs & Magick (the next book I believe we'll go through on this blog). 

Now, let me describe how to best use your body parts for sex. That part of the chapter struck me as amusing this time through, especially because I'm sure it was educational the first time I read it. Wilson did teach me a lot of things. I did feel that he saved that bit for last as bait to keep the Playboy readers trekking through the book- he finally threw them red meat to accompany the illustrations. 

The meshing of East and West will hopefully continue as the world continues to mesh together. Whether we end up figuring out ways to travel around the world with ease without destroying the environment or have to settle for localized communities connected simply through communication, our cultures will continue to find themselves entangled. Refugee surges will continue, and while they will surely initially lead to all sorts of depredations, as some of the world's governments and societies are forced to grapple with an unceasing tide, and those refugees begin to arrive from different, "novel," parts of the world due to the effects of climate change, the refugees will be integrated into a shifting geopolitical landscape. While I doubt this will lead to some sort of pansocietal tantric attitude towards sex, it will have major influences on our mores and ways of relating to one another, often based around attitudes towards sex and gender. Personally I feel that this will lead to a more liberalized attitude towards sex as those from more conservative societies are forced to deal with the already considerably looser sexual mores of the West. I do not believe that extremism, especially "foreign" extremism, poses much of a threat to liberal societies in terms of ideological takeover. Whether we can beat homegrown extremism and that old time religion is another matter entirely. Assuming that we do, conservative Christians will continue to be conservative Christians and a canker sore on the ass and mouth of society. 

And I think that's as much of a guess that I'm willing to hazard. So no, we probably won't live to see even the foundations of a truly "tactile, pneumatic society, sensually and sensorially oriented," but parts of that society will continue to bleed through into ours. Even now, I sit amongst "rich fabrics, incenses, psychedelic art and the general paraphernalia of Consciousness III," partly due to the author. Wilson was a vector for this particular disease of language, and he certainly infected me. "Now," as Mr. Green says at the (true) end of Clue, "I'm going to go home and sleep with my wife." 

With Wonder Where The Ascent Shall Lead,
Without Lust For Result,
With Laughter and Love, 

A. C. 

Stray Thoughts

I think it is perhaps best that we never find ourselves in the sensualist society of Brave New World, which we should remember is a dystopia. All the more attractive is the island of Pala in Island with their discipline of maithuna. However, Huxley seems to indicate that Pala is able to exist as a small miracle, a miracle that is doomed to flicker out. I try to maintain as much of my own practice of "Tantrik Buddhism" in this sea of confusion. 

I wonder if Wilson wasn't being purposefully gnomic while talking about his experiments with psychedelics, sex and kundalini energy. He gives a markedly different account of these experiments in Cosmic Triggers I and II as well as other books. 

I won't really know when we're beginning Sex, Drugs & Magick until I finish copyediting TSOG. Hopefully I'll have an update within a month. 

It's been Illuminating. Thank you Rasa and Christina, Tom, Oz, Eric and Spookah for your support and massive contributions to my reading experience. And thank you to Adie for proofreading everything for my weird ways of writing. And for your breasts. 

I read the first part of Chapter Seven last night and dreamed of a fragment of a chandelier from my Grandmother's house being very important to a magical operation. This isn't a novel idea but it is a recently reoccurring one. Happily, I have one of the faux-crystal shards with me. When I woke up from the dream I was compelled to look through a journal where I found an unexpected entry about another dream wherein I learned the alternative names of the Sephiroth. At the time I was only able to recall the alternative titles of Chockmah and Binah, respectively Tadull and Harde. Make of this what you will. 

There's a version that is somehow closer to home and my own Magna Mater: 

And, I agree with Wilson's statement in the last couple pages that no matter what else, we do need a little more tenderness in this world: 

Or, if you prefer the Green Man...

In Lieu of Substance...

Detail from Bruegel's Desidia

In observance of Labor Day, I did very little this weekend. (Also my daughter was ill, so we had a nice little COVID scare.) We're coming to the end of the book this week so if anyone has any grand, profound pronouncements to say about going through Ishtar Rising this time, be prepared.