In the six years since the Amazon Basin experience the McKennas have been developing a model to account for the action of psychedelics in general and their own experience in particular. This model is detailed and specific in more ways than I can summarize here and suggests numerous experiments in neuro-psychology, chemistry and quantum physics, which might prove of crucial importance to science as a whole.
Briefly, the McKennas regard our universe as a hologram, created by the interaction of two hyper-universes, just as an ordinary hologram is created by the interaction of two lasers. One consequence of this model is that, if our universe is a hologram, every part contains the information of the whole, as in normal holography. As we have seen, the Sarfatti interpretation of Bell’s Theorem and the Leary theory of eighth circuit consciousness also lead to this conclusion, which, in effect, means that every atom contains the “brain” of the whole universe.
This is also the basic axiom of magick and was originally stated in the Table of Hermes in the famous sentence, “That which is above is in that which is below.” Alchemists and occultists have usually referred to it as the principle that “the macrocosm is within the microcosm.”
But the McKenna theory goes far beyond this. There are 64 time-scales in the hologram of our universe, they say, and each one is related to one of the 64 (8 x 8) hexagrams of the I Ching. What we call “mind” or “consciousness” is a standing wave form in these 64 time-systems. As the two hyper-universes making up the hologram of our known universe interact in time, “mind” manifests further in our continuum. This means, in concrete physical terms, that the quantum bonds of the DNA are evolving faster and faster. We are riding not one but 64 evolutionary waves all mounting toward a cosmic Awakening something like the Omega Point suggested by palaeontologist Teilhard de Chardin.
The action of psychedelics, in the model, opens the quantum information system within the DNA to inspection by the higher neural centers. When Dr. John Lilly says he has traveled in time with LSD, and then adds that this is “only” a metaphor, he is perhaps too modest. If the McKennas are right in their basic theory, every psychedelic trip is literally a voyage through the quantum information system at faster-than-light velocity, i.e., outside “time” in the local (Einsteinian) universe.
This sounds much like a more scientific formulation of the incoherent ideas about time that many UFO Contactees have tried to communicate.
The natural question, of course, is just when are the McKennas’ 64 time-scales reaching their peak in our linear time?
The McKennas have programmed a computer with their 64 I Ching time systems and the answer is that everything goes jackpot around A.D. 2012.
(For some perspective on this rather apocalyptic notion, consider one of the regular studies performed by the McGraw-Hill Publications Company, in which a cross-section of scientists are asked to predict the technology of the next quarter-century. In the latest McGraw-Hill poll, the majority predicted that by A.D. 2000 we will have:
drugs to cure cancer
artificial eyesight for the blind
drugs to permanently increase intelligence
chemical control of aging
chemical control of senility
successful cryogenic preservation.)90
The McKenna scenario is somewhat more dramatic than the exponential accelerations suggested by Henry Adams, Korzybski, Fuller, Toffler and even Leary, because, within the McKenna theory, all of the 64 time-scales peak together. That is, they assert:
a 4,300-year cycle from urbanization to the dawn of modern science;
a 384-year cycle in which science has caused more upsurge of novelty than in that 4,300-year cycle;
a 67-year cycle (from the technological breakthroughs of the 1940s, including nuclear energy and DNA, to the peak in 2012) in which there will be more acceleration than there was between Galileo and Hiroshima;
a 384-day cycle in 2011-2012 when there will be more transformations than in all the previous cycles;
a 6-day cycle at the end of that in which things will move even faster; and so on, down to a grand climax in which, as they say,
in the last 135 minutes, 18 such barriers (i.e., barriers comparable to the appearance of life, the invention of language or the achievement of immortality – R.A.W.) will be crossed, 13 of them in the last 75 x 104 seconds.91
That is, in the last two hours before Peak, we will achieve 18 extensions of consciousness and power, each one comparable to the passing from sea to land or from Earth to Space.
And in the last .0075 seconds of the Great Cycle we will pass through 13 such transformations.
On a recent lecture tour, I have spoken to literally hundreds of scientists about the SMI2LE scenario, and the majority of them agree that we can indeed have Space Migration, Intelligence2 and Life Extension by the 1990s. Some agree with Leary’s optimistic claim that we can have them by the 1980s, if we try hard enough.
By the turn of the next century, then, we will be a completely new species in many dimensions: living in space, not on a planet; able to program our nervous systems for any degree of any function we wish; possessing a lifespan in centuries, and well on our way to Immortality. Between 2000 and 2012, if the McKenna scenario can be trusted, the real Cosmic Action will begin. As the McKennas say, it is hard to avoid hyperbole in trying to contemplate what this means.
Part III:
Trigger
Trigger:
A FINAL FABLE
From the Egyptian
The goddess Isis married her older brother Osiris, whom she loved very much. Set, the old serpent of envy, hated their happiness and murdered Osiris by stealth. Then, to prevent all possibility of resurrection, Set dismembered the body of Osiris and scattered the pieces up and down the Nile River.
When Isis learned what had been done, she called upon Thoth, god of Eternity, to stop the flow of Time, so that she could find all the parts of Osiris before the sun set. And Thoth stopped the wings of time, and the universe stood still, and Isis went forth weeping and grief-stricken to hunt one by one for the pieces of the dead Lord Osiris. And when she had found all of them, she performed the Black Rite, and eternity gave birth to Time again, and Osiris was alive.
And the secret of the Black Rite is the Secret of Secrets, and even those who know it do not know it fully; but it will be revealed when we pursue Isis and Osiris unto the heights, yea, into the starry infinity above us.
Sirius Rises Again
Three more bits of data have come to me recently. Alan Vaughn, a well-known West Coast occultist and editor of Psychic magazine, read a draft of this book and immediately phoned me in high excitement. Mr. Vaughn also had the impression of being contacted by Sirius in 1973 — January 1973, to be exact. Those who want to confirm this, or get more details, can contact Mr. Vaughn at Psychic, 680 Beach Street, San Francisco.
The second datum is most striking when we notice that, whether we approach the Sirius Mystery from the modern end and work backward from Aleister Crowley, or start from the ancient end and work forward from the Egyptians, we continually collide with the mysterious and enigmatic history of Freemasonry. I recently acquired Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, by General Albert Pike 33°. Standard references agree in considering Pike the highest initiate in 19th century American freemasonry. Concerning Sirius, he says:
To find in the BLAZING STAR of five points an allusion to Divine Providence is also fanciful; and to make it commemorative of the Star that is said to have guided the Magi is to give it a meaning comparatively modern. Originally, it represented SIRIUS, or the Dog Star.92
This blazing star appears in every Masonic lodge, needless to say.
My third new clue comes from a rather sensational book called The Curse of the Pharaohs, by Phillip Vandenberg. According to Vandenberg, an archeologist named Duncan MacNaughton discovered in 1932 that the long dark tunnels in the Great Pyramid of Cheops function as telescopes, making the stars visible even in th
e daytime. The Great Pyramid is oriented, according to MacNaughton, to give a view, from the King’s Chamber, of the area of the southern sky in which Sirius moves throughout the year.93
Despite my skepticism and my alternative models, I can’t help wondering: but what if it’s true? What if Earth and Sirius do have some strange cosmic link? As Robert K.G. Temple says in his Sirius Mystery:
I would even venture that we may be under observation or surveillance at this very moment, with an extraterrestrial civilization based at the Sirius system monitoring our development to see when we will ready ourselves for their contacting us . . . Would they think that [this book] was their cue? If what I propose in this book really is true, then am I pulling a cosmic trigger?94
Sirius is only 8.6 lightyears away. The British Interplanetary Society already has a design for a starship that could be sent to Barnard’s Star (6 lightyears away) in 2000. The first O’Neill space cities will be orbiting the earth by then, and by 2004, according to Dr. Asimov’s calculations, the biological revolution will be producing DNA for any purpose we want, possibly including immortality. In 2012, if the McKenna scenario is right, comes the Omega Point. In that case, Dr. Temple, we are all pulling a cosmic trigger.
Blood of the Gods?
Recently, Ancient Astronauts magazine printed an article claiming that a number of prominent occultists and consciousness-researchers were interstellar hybrids — descendants of the matings between normal humanity and von Daniken’s space-gods. I was pleased to find myself on the list of Godlings. The article asserted that what all of us have in common, besides a proclivity for the higher states of consciousness, is Rh-negative blood.
It is a charming theory. The only thing wrong with it is that your humble Narrator happens to have Rh-positive blood. Sorry about that . . .
Weirdness and synchronicity continue to haunt me. (“Beyond a certain point,” Crowley wrote, “the whole universe becomes a continuous Initiation.”) When the psychic lady with the incredible name, Penny Loony, gave me the prophecies mentioned earlier, she added that within a year I would be traveling to Europe and diving into the ruins of Atlantis. I didn’t put much faith in either of those forecasts, especially not the second, since I don’t believe in Atlantis.
But on November 23, 1976 — a sacred Discordian holy day, both because of the 23 and because it is Harpo Marx’s birthday — a most ingenious young Englishman named Ken Campbell premiered a ten-hour adaptation of Illuminatus at the Science-Fiction Theatre of Liverpool. It was something of a success (the Guardian reviewed it three times, each reviewer being wildly enthusiastic) and Campbell and his partner, actor Chris Langham, were invited to present it as the first production of the new Cottesloe extension of the National Theatre, under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen.
This seemed to me the greatest Discordian joke ever, since Illuminatus, as I may not have mentioned before, is the most overtly anarchistic novel of this century. Shea and I quite seriously defined our purpose, when writing it, as trying to do to the State what Voltaire did to the Church — to reduce it to an object of contempt among all educated people. Ken Campbell’s adaptation was totally faithful to this nihilistic spirit and contained long unexpurgated speeches from the novel explaining at sometimes tedious length just why everything government does is always done wrong. The audiences didn’t mind this pedantic lecturing because it was well integrated into a kaleidoscope of humor, suspense, and plenty of sex (more simulated blow jobs than any drama in history, I believe). The thought of having this totally subversive ritual staged under the patronage of H.M. the Queen, Elizabeth II, was nectar and ambrosia to me.
The National Theatre flew Shea and me over to London for the premiere and I fell in love with the whole cast, especially Prunella Gee, who emphatically has my vote for Sexiest Actress since Marilyn Monroe. Some of us did a lot of drinking and hash-smoking together, and the cast told me a lot of synchronicities connected with the production. Five actors were injured during the Liverpool run, to fulfill the Law of Fives. Hitler had lived in Liverpool for five months when he was 23 years old. The section of Liverpool in which the play opened, indeed the very street, is described in a dream of Carl Jung’s recorded on page 223 of Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections. The theatre in Liverpool opened the day Jung died. There is a yellow submarine in Illuminatus, and the Beatles first sang “Yellow Submarine” in that same Liverpool Theatre. The actor playing Padre Pederastia in the Black Mass scene had met Aleister Crowley on a train once.
The cast dared me to do a walk-on role during the National Theatre run. I agreed and became an extra in the Black Mass, where I was upstaged by the goat, who kept sneezing.
Nonetheless, there I was, bare-ass naked, chanting “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” under the patronage of Elizabeth II, Queen of England, and I will never stop wondering how much of that was programmed by Crowley before I was even born.
And so Penny Loony’s prediction that I would travel to Europe came true, and Crowley and the Illuminati were involved in it.
As for the prediction that I would dive into the ruins of Atlantis: after I got back from England, an occultist named Alve Stuart contacted me and invited me to join an expedition to the Bermuda Triangle to investigate various legends, including the idea that part of Atlantis was down there, and reports from natives of the area that UFOs are often seen rising from the waters. I declined, partly because of competing projects that seemed even more bizarre and amusing, and partly because I wanted to see what would happen if I refused “Their” evident desire to get me to Atlantis.
A month later, Charles Berlitz claimed to have found a sunken pyramid in the Bermuda Triangle. He said it was twice the size of the pyramid of Cheops, and that was really amusing, because Shea and I had put a pyramid “twice the size of the pyramid of Cheops” right there, in Illuminatus, but we thought we were writing fiction at the time.
As we go to press, I hear from Carl Weschcke, an occult publisher who has printed many of my articles in his magazine, Gnostica, that Berlitz has joined forces with Alve Stuart, the man who wanted to take me to Atlantis. The two of them are down there now, hoping to bring back photos of that damned pyramid Shea and I think we invented, and of the UFOs rising into the stars. Lovely. I am still living in Jung-land. I turned on TV last night and picked up an ad for a film called Airport 77. The ad began with a radar operator shouting “Flight 23 is down in the Bermuda Triangle.”
I have by now encountered the “real” Head of the “real” Illuminati several times. (The fellow who gave me $200 when I was on Welfare did not claim to be the Head of the Illuminati, only an agent.) The first real Head I met was Rev. Thomas Patrick McNamara of San Francisco. He is a charming and witty person. The second real Head is Robert Shell of Roanoke, Virginia. I haven’t met him in person yet, but we’ve corresponded quite a bit, and he seems charming and witty also. The third real Head is an individual in southern California who shall be nameless and who is neither charming nor witty. He threatened to sue me for a put-on letter I had written to an occult journal, Green Egg, in which I had jokingly pretended I was the real Head of the Illuminati. I sent him back a form saying his letter would not program into my computer and would he please resubmit it in Fortran; I haven’t heard from him since. Another real Head of the Illuminati is a chap called Frater Paragranis, in Switzerland, who registered his claim to that title in Francis King’s book, Sexuality, Magick and Perversion.
I have also been corresponding for a year now with a 33° freemason in Texas. Part of the time I think he's the real Real Head of the Illuminati. Part of the time I think that he thinks I’m the Real Head. And part of the time I think he just likes to correspond with professional writers about occult subjects.
Recently, English playwright Heathcote Williams sent me a Xerox of There Is No More Firmament, a one-act play written by the pioneer surrealist, Antonin Artaud, back in the early 1920s. This strange, weirdly suggestive drama certainly deserves to be mentioned as part of
the Sirius Mystery.
There Is No More Firmament begins with discordant music indicating “a far-off cataclysm.” The curtain rises on an ordinary street scene, with actors coming and going rapidly. There are bits of ordinary conversation (“Wines . . . window-glass . . . gold’s going down”), suggestions of violence and insanity (“He’s undressing me. Help, he’s ripping my dress off . . .” “I’m on fire, I’m burning, I’m going to jump”) and, finally, the word “Sirius” repeated in every tone of voice and every pitch of the scale: SIRIUS . . . SIRIUS . . . SIRIUS . . . SIRIUS . . . Then a loudspeaker thunders, “THE GOVERNMENT URGES YOU TO REMAIN CALM.”
Actors rush about claiming that the sun is getting bigger, the plague has broken out, there is thunder without lightning, etc. A reasonable voice tries to explain: “It was a magnetic phenomenon . . .” Then the loudspeaker tells us:
“STUPENDOUS DISCOVERY. SKY PHYSICALLY ABOLISHED. EARTH ONLY A MINUTE AWAY FROM SIRIUS. NO MORE FIRMAMENT.”
One actor claims it is the end of the world. Another says it is two worlds ramming each other.
Tom-toms beat and a chorus sings the Internationale. Communist and anarchist slogans are shouted. One actor suggests, “There, you see, it was the Revolution.” There is a chant, hailing the new ruler, King Mob.
A group of scientists appear and disagree with each other vehemently about what is happening, while a Revolutionary objects, “It isn’t science any more, it’s immoral.” Another promises us, not very reassuringly, “We won’t see the Antichrist yet.” Finally, one scientist comes forth to explain to the audience, “The molecular grouping in Sirius is everything. These two forces, ours and theirs, had to be put in touch with each other.”
Final Secret of the Illuminati Page 25