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Loftiness of Rock: The Authentic Popular Mystery-Religion of the Late 20th Century
Contents
Acid Rock as 2-level mystery
religion
Rock, the authentic mystery
religion of 20th Century
Heavy Rock religion as ongoing
conversation among poets
Misguided critique of
"seriousness" in Rock.
"Seriousness" in Rock and
definition of "modern day Christianity"
Rave Ascension: Youth, Techno Culture and Religion
Acid rock is the authentic mystery religion of our time. One lyrical approach, the non-mystery approach or lesser-mystery approach, is to write lyrics that are obvious allusions to the entheogenic loose- cognition state. The higher or more extreme mystery approach is to write lyrics that to the uninitiated, appear to be completely unrelated to the entheogenic loose-cognition state, but contain dense subtle allusions to that state for those who are initiated and can recognize the set of allusions and double-entendres.
In this sense, the Rush song "Red Barchetta" is a more sophisticated and has pure mystery lyrics, as opposed to the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" or Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?", which are explicitly about the altered state and thus cannot reveal any hidden meaning as "Red Barchetta" can. This suggests a distinction between plain "Acid Rock" and "Acid Mystery Rock". Rush is the best example of the latter. The Beatles did some of both; in the Rubber Soul era, their songs claimed to be simply about pop romance, but had a mostly hidden layer of allusions to the altered state.
Another category, of "Acid Baffling Rock" is needed for lyrics that are simply puzzling, strange, arbitrary, and meaningless to the uninitiated, like "Bohemian Rhapsody", but fully allude to the altered state phenomena such as ego death. This is the distinction between:
o Obvious allegory with obvious meaning (Acid Rock). Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Eight Miles High, Are You Experienced?
o Hidden allegory with contradictory surface and hidden meaning (Acid Mystery Rock). Red Barchetta, Chemistry, Help!
o Obvious allegory with puzzling meaning (Acid Baffling Rock). Bohemian Rhapsody.
felix
wrote:
>So are
you saying that the greater the buildup of literally believing the deliberate
lie, the more profound the revelation of the entheogenic experience will be?
Both in the Jesus mysteries and in acid rock, such that it will embrace most
every aspect of life in which you've been tricked into taking things literally,
and the transformation will be complete?
That's not
what I meant to assert, but I largely agree with that. Earliest Christianity may have been
predominantly esoteric, experiential, and mythic, rather than exoteric,
creedal, and literalist. In that case,
the fictional stories about Jesus and company were taught to candidates only as
preliminary stories -- same as myths of Demeter. The intensity of revelation was not due to the intensity of false
literalist belief in the Jesus stories, but just due to the great difference
between the uninitiated mind and the mind that has experienced loose cognition
and the concomitant realm of altered-state experiences and insights about self,
personal power, moral agency, and time.
These
days, in addition, we have the history-shattering revelation that Jesus is
mainly or solely a fictional character -- collapsing two millenia of literalist
error. But the main revelation of
Christianity is not that literalism is wrong -- it's that our assumed control
agency and power to decide or change the future is wrong.
In the
LSD-soaked 1970s, it was a moderate revelation to discover altered-state
allusions in Rush lyrics, but no great surprise. In the 1990s, blinded by the history-suppressing sham drug war,
we gained an additional degree of astonishment. Not only did we discover the altered-state allusions in the
lyrics of 1970s Rush albums, some young and culturally over-sheltered Rush
listeners also were stunned and surprised to consider that Rush may have used
LSD -- a fact that is anything but a surprise to those who know the cultural
context, but comes as a distinctly counterintuitive, taboo, and
quasi-paradoxical revelation to the poor propagandized, deceived young students
who were subjected to the lies the schools told in the 1990s. Rush was a heavy rock band in the 70s.
Therefore
we should assume they did drugs, on that basis alone, unless we have really
good reason to think that, for some reason, they are the only band who didn't
(which would be very much against the trend).
It would be amazing if Rush *didn't* use LSD in the 70s, being a heavy
rock band. But today's worse than
know-nothing kids have been told the opposite of the truth, they've been
assaulted with lies upon lies. They
think that Rush is sophisticated and "therefore" didn't use
drugs.
They have
been told that down is up and up is down; it's been hammered into them. Not only is it a revelation in waiting for
them that Rush alludes to mystic phenomena, and that Rush used LSD as well as
cannabis, and to a religious degree, but also, that their education about drugs
has been a steady diet of lies upon lies.
It is disturbing that everyone considers Rush to be philosophy rock and
*therefore* must have shunned drugs.
The opposite is true -- the greatest philosophy rock is bound to preach
the true mystery religion.
>>You
have entirely different ideas compared to 'tradition' theorists about what the
esoteric core of religion was: drugs, vs, at best, some sort of meditation,
contemplation, or Jungian "active imagination", which you consider
mostly a placebo, why it was hidden, why it was lost, who has the secret now
(science and stoners).
To a large
extent, Science immediately saw the good sense in the entheogen theory, ever
since that theory was formulated.
Computer science is strongly entheogen-influenced. However, this demonstrates the relation
between de facto use of entheogens (and entheogen-positive views) on the part
of individuals, versus the official stance of fields or industries: don't
expect any official statements on the part of Science or Computer Science that
entheogens are of greatest relevance.
It's not
yet the view of Science that religion is essentially entheogen-derived. That's a likely conclusion as entheogen
scholarship continues. Consider the
various motives Science has to portray religion as entheogen-derived or as not
entheogen-derived.
In
Stonerism, as in any field or genre, there is both Low Stonerism and High
Stonerism. Ozzy Osbourne and Rush (even
more so) are representatives of High Stonerism. High Times magazine usually caters to Low Stonerism, while
Cannabis Culture is more geared toward High Stonerism. Psychedelic Illuminations, renamed TRP,
renamed Trip, is geared toward High Stonerism.
A typical
Stonerist move is to deliberately conjoin low and high, per the Ken Kesey/Merry
Pranksters approach. Osbourne's Diary
of a Madman deliberately explores the range, progressing from innocent
adolescent "Flying High Again" through the breakdown of control of
Little Dolls, the dark night of Tonight and SATO, to a heavy metalesque dark
pensive conclusion in "Diary of a Madman" -- overshadowed, however,
by the real conclusion, Ozzy's glorification and crucifixion in Christ on the
back cover.
Acid-influenced
Rock is the authentic initiatory mystery religion of the late modern era,
because it combines muse-inspired poetic lyrics, music, gatherings, encoded
allusions to mystic-state phenomena, and genuine 'good wine' -- entheogens on
tap, particularly the combination of cannabis and lysergic acid.
The high
level of any two fields is closer than the high and low version of a particular
field. Ozzy is in High Stonerism and
Mystery Religions are High Religion.
Modern existentialism and Psychology are merely Low Philosophy and Low
Psychology. Therefore Ozzy Osbourne and
Mystery Religions, both being High, must be grouped together, separate from
typical 20th century Philosophy and Psychology, which are Low.
It's
ironic that the uninformed accept grouping Rush with Mystery Religions, while
banishing Ozzy to the lower realms.
Ozzy and Rush are both firmly based in High Art -- the acid-rock mystery
religion -- whatever their relative artistic merits. Any praise of the religious inspriation of Rush must be granted
as well to Ozzy and the other acid-oriented Rock artists, who form a tradition,
a genre -- they are not at all isolated lone individuals.
Acid-influenced
rock lyric allusions are a collectively shared language, consciously spoken
among the lyricists and understood, recognized, and respected by a significant
portion of the audience. Similarly, I
am not alone in my interpretation of the lyrical allusions; it's a matter of a
group of people who read the lyrics as I do, versus a group that denies the
correctness of such a reading -- it's two views, not my own view held in
isolation, versus the view held by the rest of the world.
Michael
wrote:
>>The
religious banqueting associations were like small Rock or Punk Rock clubs,
against the Prog Rock arena shows of the mass-scale mystery initiations. Mithraism was like a large network of
intimately tiny Rock clubs.
Frank
wrote:
>This
is a great way to look at it. It can
also be a bit depressing. If
Christianity got to its arena rock phase around the time of Augustine, us
gnostic types have barely gotten out of our garage band startup!
The
ancient towering powerful Catholic church is largely an illusion; it was but a
recent mouse.
Today I
found that Erik Davis a similar description in the book TechGnosis:
"...
the freak scene would never have spread without technology ... Especially the
electric guitar. ... the rock concert had become the hedonic agora of the
counterculture; musicians dove headfirst into the electromagnetic imaginary,
transforming ... electrical effects like feedback and distortion into ferocious
transcendental chaos. ... Combined with ... light shows and [entheogens
originating from the Establishment] ... these kundalini-tweaking soundstorms
staged electrified Eleusinian mysteries ..." p. 145
TechGnosis:
Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information
Erik
Davis
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/060980474X
Currently
pages 2-29 are available online here
1999
Rank 70K
(popular)
http://www.techgnosis.com
Allusions
to acid mystic state phenomena in practice amounted to a kind of ongoing
conversation among Rock groups. Not
only must you study an artist's later song in the light of their earlier songs;
you must include the songs (and visual album and concert art) by other previous
Rock hierophants as well.
What's
greatly needed is a chronological listing of acid-rock lyrics, starting with
Help! by John Lennon, toward finding which acid-alluding song lyrics led in the
next year or two to thematic variations from another artist in response.
>>Do
you think that the artists not only compose lyrics in an altered mental state,
but compose the music itself in an altered state so that the music itself has
deeper meaning while tripping?
Examples
of music that is composed to allude to the phenomena of the intense mystic
altered state is the two symphonic build-ups in Day in the Life by the Beatles,
the ascending suspenseful phasing and violins in Cheap Trick: World Turns Round
(on Dream Police), and the haunting chords and erratic heartbeat at the end of
Cygnus X1.
Poetic
music is better than electronica (acid rave), because words convey allusions
more complexly than just trippy sounds; words carry meaning that can unfold and
blossom in a state-dependent fashion.
I have heard
that it is standard practice among Classic Rock lyricists to compose poetry as
the ancients did, in the inebriated visionary state. This only makes sense.
Classic
Rock in general, by definition, is written and performed within the
psychotomimetic THC plus LSD state of consciousness. Pot with acid is the standard religion of Heavy Rock; pot with
acid is the Heavy Rock religion. Rush
are only differentiated by their higher than average devotion to the Heavy Rock
religion.
>>I
happened to listen to Rush while tripping on acid. I was at a friend's house while listening to Rush and because of
the messages I thought I was hearing, I swore up and down for years that either
my friend had rigged his stereo and computer equipment or that Rush had encoded
their music. It is amazing to see that
others have experienced this.
This
unfolding effect is known and deliberately played upon by the Heavy Rock
artists and poets.
>>The
frequency of the allusions convinces you that that Rush has encoded their
music. Could the frequency of the
alleged allusions seem to increase simply because the artist writes more
intelligently than another, mediocre, artist?
That is
hypothetically possible but pointless and not the case. All the bands tripped on pot with acid all
the time, and like historical mystics, some did a better job of it than others.
>>Is
it that Peart encodes and the acid savvy listener decodes, or is it that Peart
writes very creatively, with many metaphors, and that this is fodder for an
altered mind?
Peart encodes
many metaphors deliberately alluding to the phenomena of the pot-with-acid
state of cognitive processing. He is
skilled at maximizing this acid encoding/decoding effect richly, in a skill
development feedback loop.
>>I
remember experiencing the same things watching Star Trek. Any info on this?
Moving
pictures are not my specialty, but there is some interest in the subject of
acid mysticism allusions in movies, among other researchers.
>>Very
few fans of respective bands know about the double meaning of the lyrics.
That's
uncertain. Many fans have at least
experienced the extended meaning, even if they retain a far hazier grasp than
the heavy-tripping poets.
>Even
most people familiar with both (i.e., band and acid) would laugh in your face
at the mere idea of it.
Evidence
so far contradicts that assertion.
Around 2/3 of the people I hear from who are familiar with the bands and
with acid heartily agree with the systematization I've pulled together. Around 2/3 who so qualified, agree. It's not enough to be somewhat familiar with
the albums, or to have tripped just a handful of times. The more one has tripped and has done so
with the albums playing, the more one is likely to agree with the entheogen
theory of Heavy Rock lyrics. The terms
'Heavy' and 'Rock' function practically as code-words for tripping on acid.
>>It's
obviously not everyone's favorite hobby to do high-dose trips. The first one
you do with a *really* naive mindset regarding what will happen to you. [will
blow you away disturbingly?] Even if
you are informed. On the other hand,
this naivety may in some sense be useful/necessary, as it is doubtful that
people would embark upon a journey so harsh.
>>Nowadays
I'm really rather timid going beyond medium-strength trips. I know that it delivers
some of the best moments one can possibly experience but it always comes with
the price. I guess here come rituals handy: They provide for a preset occasion
to trip and one "just does it" without having to struggle hours about
if one really should do it or not.
Poets and
hierophants: We trip hard so you don't have to.
We Will
Rock You
>>I
hope I don't discover that Rush is taking their own lyrics way too seriously,
but I guess a lot of the art rock bands of the 70's are guilty of that.
Criticizing
"taking lyrics too seriously" gives a feeling of superioriority, but
that's often a sign of incomprehension of the meaning in lyrics. Do people really want to limit Rock to the
mindless Boogie Rock of the self-titled Rush album, or the Ramones as the ideal
scope of Punk thematic materials?
It's not
immediately clear what "taking their own lyrics too seriously"
means. Generally, the most standard
single theme or motive of Classic Rock (1960s and 70s Rock from Freakbeat to
Psychedelic Rock, Acid Rock, Heavy Rock, Heavy Metal, then Metal) is to reflect
the phenomena of the LSD altered state.
Consider Heavy Rock, such as Queen's song Bohemian Rhapsody or Rush's
song No One at the Bridge.
Punk Rock
is "guilty" of the same supposed crime. For all of its *talk* about offering a "less pretentious and
serious" approach to Rock, Punk treated politics every bit as seriously as
Classic Rock treated the LSD altered state and its phenomena.
>>Ozzy
Osbourne definitely is not guilty of that.
No album
takes its lyrics more seriously than Ozzy Osbourne's album Diary of a
Madman. Similarly, Sabotage is also
insanely serious and grandiose.
http://www.egodeath.com/sablyrics.htm
Listen as
well to Osbourne's song Revelation (Mother Earth):
Mother
please forgive them
For they
know not what they do
Looking
back in history's books
It seems
it's nothing new
Oh! Let
my mother live
Heaven is
for heroes
And hell
is full of fools
Stupidity,
no will to live
They're
breaking God's own rules
Please
let my mother live
Father, of
all creation
I think
we're all going wrong
The
course they're taking
Seems to
be breaking
And it
won't take too long
Children
of the future
Watching
empires fall
Madness
the cup they drink from
Self
destruction the toll
I had a
vision, l saw the world burn
And the
seas had turned red
The sun
had fallen, the final curtain
In the
land of the dead
Mother,
please show the children
Before
it's too late
To fight
each other, there's no-one winning
We must
fight all the hate
Rock
doesn't get any more serious and grandiose and cosmic than that. So much for "taking their own lyrics
... seriously ... Ozzy Osbourne definitely is not guilty of that."
>>I
started on this journey by listening to and researching the Beatles who tried
to capture the feeling one gets from transcendental meditation and eastern
religion in their music. Of course, the
acid experience is a huge part of that experience.
The music
of Ozzy and Beatles has much in common -- playful taboo crossing and the mystic
altered state, mystery-religion, cosmic gnostic footloose profundity, ultimate
concerns transcendently freely mixed with British wacky absurd humor.
Metal such
as Iron Maiden and Metallica can cover only half the themes or mood of the
intense mystic altered state; that genre as an expressive medium is
restricted. Mainstream acid-oriented
Rock can cover more ground in exploring the world of the intense mystic altered
state, because it does not have to restrict itself to constant heaviness.
Ozzy/Sabbath
is ultimately superior to Metallica as an expressive style because Ozzy/Sabbath
has always had full room for humor and light beauty, unlike the Metal
genre. Much of the Iron Maiden lyrics
seem to have their inspired quality handicapped by a rigid rule of always
having to be dark, negative, hardcore.
>>Perhaps
my critique of "seriousness" in Rock comes from the technical and
academic nature of the posts on this newsgroup.
http://www.egodeath.com/#AlteredStateLyrics
It doesn't
get any more straightforward than this set of Web pages. An explanation of allusions to the mystic altered
state is potentially as straightforward and explicit than this. Where can people find a less "technical
and academic" explanation of Rock mysticism than this? The present posting would as well, and as
absurdly, be called "technical and academic".
This
discussion group is technical and academic compared to postings saying just
"Dude, too much tripping and my soul's worn thin." One step simpler than this discussion group
will land you in the public newsgroups.
If you
hate academic bluster, you'll love to hate the existing books that fail to even
see the presence of primary religious experiencing in Heavy Rock. The allusions go right over their heads, so
we end up with the familiar combination of sophisticated-sounding blustery
explanation, that completely misses the essence, producing a study that
pretends to be about certain Rock lyrics, but really ends up being about the
ideas embraced by Academia.
I would
like to search more of the books about Rock for real insight -- not just saying
that bands used LSD, not just saying that Lucy... is about LSD, but spelling
out the allusions to altered-state phenomena in songs far and wide. The books I've seen have nothing even
remotely like that.
Book
lists:
Rock as
philosophical mystery-religion
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/2PTKEDT3LYDKZ
Some of
these books on Heavy Rock *might* provide insight. I wouldn't count on it, but look up "acid",
"mystic", "lsd", "psychedelics", and
"drugs" in the indexes.
Rush books
(Rock group)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/2RLOST1ROMDCA
>>I
recently dropped out of a Master's Program, so I am in an anti-academic frame
of mind at the moment. I have more
faith in my own intuition and intellectual efforts than in institutional
knowledge, much to my own detriment.
Reading
today's quarter-baked scholarship is a necessary evil. I have to do a major mental transformation
to extract value out of most books.
The
biggest mistake of so-called "higher education" is modern ignorance
of the use of visionary plants throughout human history. That fault may be laid on academia rather
than outside it.
>>I
have relied heavily on the works of Joseph Campbell for a roadmap of my
journey.
From what
I've read so far, Campbell seems more insightful than Jung. The problem is the whole modern Psychology
paradigm, which distorts its own field as much as shining light on it. Both of them are grounded in the era before
the late 1960s, and therefore they are almost wholly ignorant of the
explanatory solution provided by visionary plants.
Scholarship
in psychology and symbols will eventually be divided into before and after the
era of the rediscovery of entheogens, which had a turning point around
1972. By 1972, any scholar of
myth-religion-mysticism who was not aware of the entheogen theory of religion
is guilty of professional incompetence and inexcusable oblivious
ignorance. Prior to around 1972,
theories of myth-religion-mysticism can be excused for ignorance of the
entheogen solution to their questions -- not so after about 1972.
Jung on
Christianity
Murray
Stein (Introduction), Carl Gustav Jung
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691006970
>>Campbell
has become popular through his populist approach to mythology and Jungian psychology. I am trying to reconcile my familiarity with
Campbell to "modern day Christianity", which I define the Christian
Church as an institution, which deems salvation is achieved primarily through
works rather than faith.
Official
Christianity is a system of salvation through works, with a veneer of salvation
through faith and regeneration through the Holy Spirit laid on top. Because the official Church in fact lacks
the Holy Spirit, the masses fall back onto striving for salvation through
works.
Thou Art
That: Transforming Religious Metaphor (covers Christian myth-religion, fine
content)
Joseph
Campbell
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1577312023
Oct.
2001
I have written about lyrical allusions to the phenomena of the mystic altered state in various entheogen-inspired rock genres. This popular entheogen-oriented music tradition began with psychedelic rock, lived on much more strongly than people realize in progressive rock and heavy rock, including Queen, Rush, Metallica, and Slayer, as well as the Grateful Dead, and now lives on in the rave culture.
>From the main Theory Notes section of my site:
http://www.egodeath.com/mcpnotes.htm#lttatarwmsp
http://www.egodeath.com/mcpnotes.htm#xtocid15333
>From the Lyrics section of my site:
http://www.egodeath.com/#lyrics
http://www.egodeath.com/acidlyrics.htm
>From my Amptone site:
http://www.amptone.com/overview.htm -- find section: Amp Tone and the Experience of Ego Death (moved to Egodeath site)
We should also check to see what Erik Davis has to say about the intersection of psychedelic rock, rave culture, mysticism, and technology.
>From the Visionary Plants discussion List:
Dr St John is looking for contributions at a post-graduate level, either novel or previously published. Check with him. The Project may be published by Routledge Research.
The deadline is 17th September 2001.
Contact Graham directly at:
g.stjohn at unimelb.edu.au
_______________________________________________________________________
Call for submissions to a new anthology -
Rave Ascension: Youth, Techno Culture and Religion
To be edited by Graham St John
"…dance parties have transmuted the role that organised religion once had to lift us onto the sacramental and supramental plane". Such was the thinking of Goa veteran and self-styled 'trancetheologian', Ray Castle in a paean to the power of rave in his 1995 communion with Eugene ENRG (aka DJ Krusty): http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/metanet/meld1.html
Despite its diasporic fragmentation and hybridisation throughout the nineties, the dance party rave - involving masses of youth dancing all-night to a syncopated electronic rhythm mixed by DJs - maintains rapturous popularity in the West. Commonly accorded effects ranging from personal 'healing' or replenishment, to transformations on social, cultural or political scales, the rave - from clubland, to outdoor doof, to technomadic festival - is a hyper-crucible of contemporary youth spirituality. The question thus arises:
* What is the role of the technocultural rave in the spiritual life of contemporary youth? *
Emerging in London in 1988 and subsequently exported around the world, the rave has proliferated and mutated alongside associated music (electronic) and body ('ecstasy') technologies. Throughout the nineties, vast numbers of western youth attached primary significance to raving and post-rave experiences. Regularly regarded by participants as a site of 'self-transcendence', a kind of temporary utopia, the rave grew prevalent in the experience of urban youth. With the combined stimulus of electronic musics, psychotropic lighting and chemical alterants, young novices and experienced habitues transcended the mundane in converted warehouses, wilderness areas, beaches, deserts and streets.
Participants and observers have variously reported 'communion', 'telepathy', 'trance' states, 'ecstasy' or the 'sacred' along with a transcendence of subject, ethnic or gender categories at rave and post-rave events. Producers of rave soundscapes and visual components (from video images to décor) reportedly possess 'shamanic' characteristics. Events are often deemed 'tribal' celebrations - even 'corroborees'. And, experienced habitues of dance champion psychedelic 'sacraments', sometimes claimed to accelerate the reception of esoteric knowledge.
Yet a torrent of inquiry issues from our initial question. Is the rave a nascent rite de passage - and, if so, what is its telos? What is its level and quality of efficacy? Is it a ritual of communion, a mass 'return' to a 'womb' which sees co-inhabitants secure in a nutrient rich and numinous pre-separation stage, or an anomic post-partum 'dead-zone' catering for 'escapist' desires and tragic careers in over-expenditure? An 'oceanic experience' or a kind of prolonged youth suicide? Does the rave or post-rave more closely approximate a Church, Disney World™ or a "detention camp for youth" (Reynolds, Energy Flash 424). Has the cyber-chemical-millenarianism which flourished under the roof of the original acid house been domesticated - the rapture contained and smothered in regulated and commodified leisure sites? Or has its technospiritual fervour been smuggled away into furtive temporary autonomous zones where it percolates still?
Calling for submission from scholars of contemporary religion, dance ethnologists, sociologists and other cultural observers, this anthology seeks to answer such questions, and in the process unravel the socio-cultural religious dimensions of rave and rave-derived phenomena. Though various commentators have initiated research on this youth cultural moment, Rave Ascension will be a venue devoted to such research.
Contributors might address one or more of the following themes:
- Rave as New Age religion. Discussion could transpire on rave as manifestation of New Age techno-spirituality. The presence of esotericism - eg gnosticism - in the dance party space, music and mythos - would be a worthy subject of analysis.
- Rave as ritual (communion, rite of passage, potlatch, therapeutic). Subjects of analysis and documentation could include Earthdance described as 'a global dance party for world peace and healing'; techno-utopian festivals like Burning Man; or outdoor doofs of the 'Goa Trance' tradition.
- Rave as TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone): Contributors might address the influence of inspired anarcho-mystic Hakim Bey (aka Peter Lamborn Wilson) upon the 'rave movement' and techno-art communities.
- Techno-spirituality: Rave's location in 'postmodern' technospiritual developments. Relevant themes for discussion include techno-futurism; and the use of the Internet by 'cybergnostic' rave communities.
- Psychedelics and dance: the role of entheogens (Ecstasy), LSD and other chemical alterants in the dance-space. For example, the work of Nicholas Saunders or the nuances and implications of the interfacing of body and cyber technologies - cyberdelics - could be addressed.
- 'Techno-paganism': from Fraser Clark's Shamanarchy to the Drop Bass Network's interest in Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan.
- Comparisons of the rave experience with the ritual experience of non-western cultures - eg. in relation to similarities in music, repetitive percussive rhythm and/or psychotropic stimuli.
- Electro-primitivism. The appropriation/sampling of the exotic 'Other' in rave performances, symbolism/décor and electronic music. Processes and implications.
- Trance: dance, music, visual effects and the trance state. For example, Matthew Fox's Creation Spirituality and the 'techno-mass' would be relevant.
- Techno-shamanism: DJs as 'engineer-poets', technicians of ecstasy, or high priests?
- Raving as 'consumer spirituality'. Is the purported religiosity or social strengthening of raving improved or threatened by the consumer capitalism with which it is implicated?
- Rave as presexual/pregendered paradise - the temporary androgynous zone.
- Raves and Christianity: The fusion of Episcopalian services, vicar V ravey's Nine O'Clock Service in Sheffield , and Club X organised by Billy Graham's Youth for Christ are relevant high interest topics.
- Victor Turner: The usefulness of Victor Turner's processual theory - including 'spontaneous communitas', the 'cultural drama' and liminoidal 'play' - to the study of rave and rave-derived events.
- Michel Maffesoli: rave as exemplary 'orgiastic' or 'empathetic' sociality particular to 'neo-tribalism'.
- George Bataille: The value of Bataille's ideas on eroticism and trangression to dance.
- Dance, corporeality and place: the establishment of somatic connectedness to place through dance.
- Technoculture and ecologism: How may 'rave technologies' be mobilised to facilitate or mediate consciousness of the natural world? Do dance events possess a role in (re)producing ethical, eco-conscious individuals and communities?
I am open to suggestion on other relevant themes and lines of inquiry.
Routledge Publishers Research have expressed interest in the project. If interested, please submit (email) an abstract of no more than 300 words to Graham St John by Sep 17, 2001. Chapters are requested to be around 7000 words in length.
g.stjohn at unimelb.edu.au
Graham St John is a Visiting Fellow at the School of Anthropology, Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Melbourne and is the editor of FreeNRG: Notes From the Edge of the Dance Floor, an OzAuthors/Pluto Press co-production available from Sep/Oct 2001
http://www.feelergauge.net/projects/freeNRG/
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