CONVERSATION AT A TEA STALL (reprise)

Around midnight we were cruising down Imbi Road, headed for my usual tea stall.

The roti pan was still sizzling but empty and the small heap of unsold nasi lemak indicated that we had arrived ahead of the late night movie crowd.

“What will you have?” I positioned myself where I could keep an eye on the street life. The man came over with a damp rag to wipe the tea rings off our table.

“Boss, teh tarik dua, kurang manis.” I ordered two teas with sweet milk, pulled to aerate and cool the steaming brew.

I looked at her, probing to see if she felt comfortable here. She smiled, then leaned forward solemnly: “You know, I really enjoy talking to you.”

Our drinks arrived. I grinned and ritually raised my glass to her. “Cheers! The best conversations are held over tea.”

“I’m bored to death with my job,” she said. “The other girls are quite friendly, really. But they’re strictly lunchtime, you know what I mean? The guys there are corporate jerks. Well, most of them. David’s okay, he comes over to my desk every day and chats. He’s the only one who’s relaxed, who can be himself...”

“It’s the same everywhere,” I offered.

“Well, my pay will be reviewed next month, if I am confirmed. Another three months and I’ll have saved enough to move into my own place. God, I can hardly wait! No more explanations and excuses, no more nagging. Mother will probably turn on dad and drive him up the wall. Oh, I just wish working life wasn’t such a pain.”

“Look at it this way, you could have been born a Rohingya.” (My latest all-purpose consolation.) “Besides, you’re not exactly dumb. You’d do well in any job. Anyway, even geniuses have to put up with occasional employment. Take my situation, for instance.”

She giggled. “That’s another thing I like about you... you’re modest!" Her tone was teasing but I could tell she was sympathetic towards self-styled aristocrats-in-exile.

"One thing I know... you can't become a genius if you succumb to boredom," I added with a wink.

“My, my... I guess I don’t qualify as a genius yet. I felt bored, even more so, when I wasn’t working.”

“Maybe boredom’s not such a bad state. Billions of civilians find comfort and security in it. People like complaining, that’s all.”

“Oh well, if you’re going to be bored you might as well get paid for it!” She finished her tea with a flourish.

A few yards away on the kerb, two painted ladies were waiting for a taxi. Pointing with my chin, I remarked: “Look, there’s two people on their way to work who probably couldn’t agree with you more.”

“You’re terrible” She kicked me in the shin (but not too hard).

“More tea, madam?”

“Hmm.... okay.”

I decided to investigate the nasi lemak. “Want one?”

“No thanks. You know, it’s really ironic.”

“What? The nasi lemak?”

“No! I mean life. Life’s pretty ironic.”

I chuckled heartily. “That’s because so many people are still living in the Iron Age. Although, personally, I prefer to call it the Age of Irony.”

“Hey, I’m serious.”

“Sorry, carry on...”

For a few moments she absently watched me unwrap my packet of cold rice and I pinched myself mentally for having interrupted her so flippantly. “I’m listening,” I said.

“Well, take my parents. They’ve worked their butts off to be comfortable, so their kids could have all the advantages, you know. They’ve worked and worked and worked and now they’ve made so much money they don’t know what to do with it. They’re very generous with their children. I could ask them for anything and they’d give it to me. But there’s always a string attached, you know what I mean? That’s why I decided to get a job. The only reason I can find for working in a office is just so I can get away from my parents. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

“You’re lucky. Some people have to work to support their parents. At least, you can quit anytime you want and you won’t starve.”

“I know... but what bothers me is that I really don’t need a job. My family’s well off enough to support the next few generations in style and here I am, taking on a job just so that I can enjoy a little independence. Well, that hasn’t happened yet, but it’s what I’m working towards. I mean, sometimes I can’t help feeling guilty about depriving someone else of a job - someone who might really, really need the money. It’s no problem for me to get employed. My dad has all kinds of connections.”

I nodded sympathetically. “You know, this nasi isn’t bad at all. Sure you won’t try some?”

“Positive. Well?” She refused to let me off the hook. She insisted on some kind of response.

“Supposing you give up your job. Do you have any idea what you’d do with your time and energy?”

She rested her chin on the back of one hand and pondered my question with mock profundity. Then she broke into an impish smile: “Well, for a start, I’d sit around and read and think and dream and meditate until I become a genius. Then I’d write a book or an opera or make an amazing film or just go about inventing wonderful things. What do you think of that?”

“You want an honest opinion?”

“Of course!” she frowned.

“Now what’s a genius? I think the whole concept is vastly overrated. Do you know where the word 'genius' comes from?”

“Uh-uh. Pray, tell me.”

“Okay, since you asked. It comes from the Arabic word jinn, as in 'genie' - remember the story of Aladdin and his lamp? Right, the ancients were convinced that everyone has a Guardian Angel or Muse, some spirit guide or guides, that can bestow gifts of inspiration. See, even the word 'inspiration' contains the word 'spirit.' This belief is just as strong today. People still go into trances, speak in tongues, and they ask for all kinds of favors. Some actually try and bribe the spirits. I’m not kidding! They do - and sometimes they get results (but corruption breeds further corruption and they end up paying in full). Anyway, there’s a hidden teaching the in the Aladdin story. The magic is always waiting within the lamp, you only have to rub it and the genie appears to grant your wishes. Well, the lamp represents your mind. Rubbing, however is open to interpretation.”

“Mmmmmm... sounds like a good practice!”

“Indeed! Anytime you need some inspiration, sister - just come over and I’ll gladly give your lamp a rub.”

“But....is it habit forming?” she asked, feigning wide-eyed innocence,

I managed to maintain a serious expression. “Let’s just say there are good habits and bad habits. If you keep your lamp well rubbed - in other words, if you keep your channels open – you’ll receive a steady flow of inspiration and turn into a genius. As more people understand this simple trick, geniuses will become a dime a dozen.”

“Are you trying to tell me you don’t think being a genius really means very much?”

“Right. There’s a difference between getting inspired and actually putting it to some use. For example, you might suddenly get a flash, say, a really grand vision - but if you don’t have the energy or the skill to put it on paper and actualize it, the vision simply evaporates. Follow through is what they call it. And believe me, it’s just as important as inspiration. A lot of people find it easier to turn into village idiots or they just stay employed.”

“All right, I get the point. Deeds not words, or something like that. So how does one begin?”

There was a brief commotion at the next table: a fresh group of customers, shifting chairs noisily about on the uneven ground. And to punctuate the interruption, the hideous high-pitched whine of a toy bike hell-bent for Puchong or Salak South.

My answer was a grimace, by the time the din subsided at least 15 seconds had ticked by. I glanced at my watch and said: “Now, we could easily spend the next 10 minutes venting our displeasure at traffic noise in general and attention seeking hell-riders in particular... and work ourselves into a foul mood, saying somebody ought to do something about it... and, of course nobody will. Which means we suffer a 10-minute energy loss. Or we could spend the time discussing something pleasant and beneficial which would give us a 10-minute energy gain. What I’m trying to say is that it’s possible - in fact, I believe it’s necessary - for us to get into the habit of making conscious choices about how we use our time and energy, how we interpret and respond to environmental stimuli. For instance, you can finish your cup of tea and see nothing but tea leaves, and all you can say is 'Ugh!' But you can also choose to study the dregs and catch a glimpse of the future. Do you get what I mean?”

She peered cautiously over the rim of her empty glass and squinted moronically. “Yes.....yes.... I think I see it now!” she hissed. “The future will consist of .... more tea! No, I think I’m about ready to switch to coffee, how about you?”

“Excellent idea. Eh, boss... kopi dua!”

“Don’t complain. That’s what you mean, right?” she beamed at me like the brightest girl in the class.

“Right! But let me qualify that. Sometimes, rather than just complain to no one in particular, you can try and present it as feedback - and, when you feed information back into the system, it usually does some good because it can help increase awareness and coherence within the system.”

“Hey, don’t get technical on me!”

“Aren’t you in the IT department?"

"I'm still a trainee," she explained.

"Well, okay, but let me give you a little background to what we’re discussing. Not far from here, actually just a few yards behind you (no, don’t bother turning around, you won’t see anything), up in one of those shophouses, lives an extraordinary man I called the Wizened Metaphysician. His friends called him George and quite a few regard him as their guru.”

She couldn’t resist looking around, as though expecting George to materialize behind her. However, when she turned back towards me, our coffees were steaming on the table.

“Is he a real guru... do you know him personally?”

“Well, I’ve chatted with him a few times – and I’ve picked up some valuable ideas through him, so I guess he qualifies. But he doesn't have a white beard down to here or a fluorescent halo. His hair is getting somewhat silvery and sometimes I notice he looks a little more ... er, radiant than you’d expect to find in the average coffeeshop clientele. The most extraordinary thing about him is how ordinary his life appears. By day, he repairs video recorders, gets nagged by his wife, and enjoys freestyle discussions on metaphysics. He smokes a lot and washes it down with Chinese tea. I think he’s also a massage therapist and a renegade Jesuit. He seems to know an incredible range of philosophies from Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin to Gurdjieff and Tibetan tantra.”

“Good who? The first two I’ve heard of, but who’s Good Jeff?”

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
(1866~1949)

“Goorr-chi-eff, Gurdjieff. Can’t spell his name offhand. A Greek-Armenian born in Russia, I think...” (I began to realize the enormity of her question.) Who’s Gurdjieff? Er... let me think. Well... I believe he was engaged in the smuggling of Sufi notions across the borders of Western Paranoia. Something like that.”

“I see,” she sniffed. “Very enlightening.”

“Look, I don’t even know how to begin telling you about Gurdjieff. Labels don’t seem to stick on him. You could say he was a mystery man, a magus – a student of life and limb, as another friend of mine would describe him – a shamanistic metapsychologist (hmm I like the sound of that!). At any rate, Gurdjieff attracted a small but influential following of aristocrats and intellectuals interested in the esoteric. They spent a lot of time devising techniques and terminologies to enhance and understand awareness. Some people dismissed him as a trickster but I think his work will prove very important in the near future. He died in 1949.”

“Where on earth do you pick up all this weird information?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s just like mushrooms, I suppose.” (I smiled at a private joke.) “As soon as you show an interest in them, they simply pop up all over the place.”

“This Goody-Chef fellow sounds intriguing. Has he written any books or something?”

“Remind me to dig in my library for something about him. But I was telling you about George, our friendly neighborhood metaphysian.”

“Oh, yes. Please do carry on.”

I looked at her, grinning. “Yes, I do carry on, don’t I?”

“No, no, I’m not bored at all. Bum’s a bit sore, that’s all.”

“By the way, Gurdjieff’s first name also happens to be George - but so what, right? Well, it was George, our George, who transmitted this very useful attitude to me: why complain? That’s really stayed with me and helped me emerge from the primal pits countless times. Now, don’t think it’s at all easy. Like everything else, you’ll find there’s a sort of learning curve where it gets harder and harder till, finally, you master it - then suddenly life becomes fun again!”

“Hmm... ‘why complain?’ You think it works for everyone?”

“Anyone who’s complained so much he’s sick of hearing himself moan should give it a go. Of course, you need to apply the correct visualization when you use this formula. You have to put yourself in the position of the pauper prince - do you know the story by Mark Twain? You have to be inwardly secure and insufferably superior, totally above it all. Be an extraterrestrial on a secret mission, a messenger from God disguised as an ordinary taxpayer, whatever. Okay, so the going is getting rough but why complain? You lined up to buy the ticket, you went on the tour, you wanted excitement, adventure, a blast of raw reality, so here you are... on Planet Earth! Am I making sense?”

“You’re making me feel tired! Must we always be forging on, chin up and all that ... can’t we be allowed to just throw a tantrum once in a while? You must have been a headmaster in a past life!”

“Oh, dear... I was just getting to the good part. A little trick George taught me. How to get yourself recharged directly from the Sun and redistribute the healing energy to your environment... never mind, let’s save it for another day, okay? It must be the coffee.”

It was her turn to chuckle. “You’re not exactly romantic - but I like your intensity.”

“I know. I get so intense I tend to overload people’s circuits.”

“Well, right now my circuits aren’t the only thing that’s overloaded. My bladder’s ready to burst!”

I wagged my finger at the empty glasses on the table. “That’s what tea does to you! It’s a dangerous substance - I ‘m about to explode myself. Let’s pay up and rush back to my place. You can do it in the loo while I pee on a tree.”

She giggled and then winced. “Ouch” she said. “It hurts when I laugh!”

“Patience and fortitude!” I cried, directing my thoughts immediately to more pressing affairs.

26 March 1985

[With thanks to Margret Voon, who kindly retyped the yellowing photocopied original and sent it to me so I could dedicate this to her father's memory. First posted 31 July 2013, reposted 28 June 2015 & 3 September 2016]

PROJECT XTC ~ THE PRELUDE TO MAGICK RIVER (reprise)

It was the last week of my brief stint at a major ad agency from which I had just resigned. I saw an ad in the newspapers promoting a competition sponsored by Rolex with a 50,000 Swiss Franc cash prize (worth about M$250,000 perhaps) for the winning project proposal (I don’t remember what the categories were, but there was one for ‘Exploration and Discovery’). I sat down at my typewriter and wrote the following proposal. I never did hear back from Rolex but this intriguing document just resurfaced from my rusty filing cabinet after 40 years...

PROJECT  XTC - OR “HOW I INTEND TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE”

Antares in 1977 playing Snoopy

What constitutes a satisfactory human life experience? Does all life exist on an experimental basis – or do life processes simply fulfil specific ontological programs (in accordance with an archetypal metaprogram)? To what extent can we see foresee, accelerate, or escape evolutionary trends? Is it possible to develop a true Group Mind? Do we really qualify as gods?

Having found no ready answers to the above questions, I am determined to devote a fair portion of my life to investigating basic issues from as many angles as are available to a human individual – and to formulate practical ways to assimilate and synthesize, as comprehensively as possible, all the intelligence and wisdom humanity has inherited from philosophers, sages, scientists, artists, and laymen and women past and present – so as to ultimately realize a joyful continuity and conscious coherence on the earth plane.

In an earlier era such an undertaking would have been considered impossible, since it would be expected to go on forever. Today we have an option to go on forever.

[Project XTC will, of necessity, include every conceivable and inconceivable field of Enterprise including all three listed in this competition. Exploration and Discovery, nevertheless, seems to capture the underlying spirit of the project most aptly.]

Reality is whatever one thinks it is

Thoughts are multidimensional wave emanations of Mind. Some thoughts occur on single planes, others on multiple. All thoughts are valid expressions of being. The scientist records the motion of thoughts and observes their effects, in an attempt to intellectually grasp the meaning of their manifestation. The mystic arrests the motion of thoughts by understanding their causes, in order to know the source of their manifestation. The fine line that distinguishes science from mysticism swiftly vanishes as each area of investigation graduates into what is popularly classified as the esoteric. Only on the more exoteric or fundamental levels do traditional divisions remain apparent. The physical world and the metaphysical world are one – each differentiated from the other only by function and relative position on the spectrum of manifestation. But what has all this got to do with Project XTC?

The Third Man Theme

In a dualistic frame of reference, all debate becomes destructive and ends in a deadlock. A third factor is obviously necessary to the solution or resolution of problems in which two factors appear to be in direct and irreconciliable conflict. The third factor, then, may be said to add an extra dimension to the eternal quest for the right answers.

It is to this quest that Project XTC addresses its primary thrust. Twenty years have gone into this project and an essential working theory has been evolved. Subjectively, Project XTC has already been successfully accomplished. Objectively, however, it has only just begun. The final outcome of every research project is determined by its contribution to civilization as a whole. Just as the scientist’s ultimate challenge lies in coherently redistributing the wealth of his experimental results within and beyond the defines of his discipline, so the mystic’s ultimate challenge is to transmit faithfully the distillations of his supramundane experiences to those well tuned to receive. The immediate objective of Project XTC would necessarily be to design an operational structure for personal, as well as collective, utilization in progressive stages of an ever-evolving reservoir of intelligence and wisdom fed by tributaries from all fields of endeavor.

A Nuclear Interactor Mindpower Plant

Every individual has a unique mind potential. Genius is unique mind potential developed to an optimally discernible degree. Madness is unique mind potential accelerated to the spectral fringes of human thought. Assuming that every mind is a discrete nucleus of existential being, it follows that principles derived from a study of nuclear  physics apply, to a limited extent, in the case of vital relationships.

Entropic heat/hate may be said to be generated in fission/division within, between or amongst mind nuclei. Katabolic radioactivity results which, on a socio-political plane, invariably terminates in lethal, internecine warfare. Envisage, however, the fusion or synthesis of interacting mind nuclei (note subtle difference between “reacting” and “interacting” – in terms of human relationships, reacting is more often than not an involuntary thalamic response overriding cortical conditioning; whereas interacting implies a combined “inner and outer” brain response qualified by immediate circumstances) in which anabolic radioactivity, with its healing and nurturing properties, may give rise to syntropic (anti-entropic), reciprocal love/evolution.

It must be added that the metabolic processes of the energy-matter universe invariably include both anabolic and katabolic phases – hence the question arises, why bother about either entropy or syntropy? The point is, civilization inherently favors the birth of Order out of Chaos – insofar as we remain cognizant of the vital contribution of Chaos in every formulation of Order we derive from our existence. This explains the romantic appeal of Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde and Tarzan-Lord Greystoke characterizations. One of the most significant potential contributions of Project XTC, therefore, would be the development of a prototype Nuclear Interactor Mindpower Plant with its roots deeply embedded in the firm ground of common sense and its branches freely dancing in the breeze of current discoveries. The need for such flexibly organic intelligence-processing and wisdom-fruiting plants will become increasingly obvious as present nationalistic self-interest matures into planetary mutual-interest. (And this should make it very clear why Herman Kahn and the Hudson Institute, the Rand Corporation, Club of Rome and similar “thinktanks’ are inadequate to our planet’s purpose. They disqualify themselves by their partisanship and their vested interest in maintaining the status quo.)

Apparatus Required:

1. Free Time, i.e., time that is not mortgaged to the compulsions of artificially imposed necessity or siphoned into limited-objective activities. And in this instance the prerequisite of Free Time may apply to the entire Earth population – but for the time being, it is enough for a single individual to experience unconditional use of a human lifetime.

2. Physical Space in which to establish a working base for Project XTC. Equipped with efficient communication and comfortable living facilities (such as a telephone that works and a bathroom that’s well ventilated).

3. “We may take anything we want from our mother planet, so long as we finally return everything in even more perfect condition.” – House Rule #1

4. Money. 50,000 Swiss Francs to start with!

A tool for every technique, a technique for every job

Positive thinking schools teach the successful use of the autohypnotic mind. Vedantic schools preach the folly of dependence on intellect alone; that to enjoy life in all its glory one must learn to utilize every aspect of one’s being. The scientist has his extended sight in microscopes and telescopes. The sage, his insight born of silence. Whether through scientific method or magical ritual, every channel of investigation is justified. For any venture, great or small, can only enhance – if not increase – the quality and scope of life as we know it. 

Of course, there are human activities which do ostensibly just the reverse. But even in such instances, the payoff comes from realizing that we can choose, of our own volition, from a seemingly endless range of options. Ultimately the question arises: who evaluates and determines the merits or demerits of any given system of belief or behavior? In the context of Project XTC, the answer is obvious and simple – I do! “I” being a representative individual member of the planetary populace which, in fact, consists of human, animal, vegetable and mineral cultures configured in symbiotic interdependency. The true “I” must attain and maintain an inclusive universality of viewpoint which can only be realized in perpetual attunement with reality’s flux and flow.

There are any number of known and unknown techniques to achieve attunement vis-a-vis the individual and society, the part and the whole, the one and the all. Pioneers of physical-metaphysical synthesis have contributed immeasurably to the maturation of Mind in our energy-matter universe; each idea, each ideal, has been a success unto itself, only awaiting eventual realization. 

Patanjali gave us our modern Yoga technique. Lao-tze gave us a fluid, timeless philosophy of harmonious living. Men like Spinoza, Kant, Hegel and Descartes gave Western civilization a logical framework upon which to build. Einstein gave us a glimpse behind hitherto locked doors of physical laws. And in recent days, scientist-philosophers like Buckminster Fuller have shown us possibly wiser ways to utilize our limited resources. Then, again, there are thinkers who have thought the unthinkable – and who wait in the shadowy wings of fame, living enigmas in their time – L. Ron Hubbard, to name but one, who offered us Dianetics (the science of mind) and “Scientology” (the religion of knowing one’s mind) but who continues to be regarded by the academic mainstream as a charlatan, crank, or worse. Are all these efforts, then, mere flashes in the pan of primordial nescience? Or can we conceivably use them each and all in various applications, experimentally directed towards a hypothetical, supraconceptual point of convergence?

Carl Jung spoke of the Collective Unconscious – a reservoir of archetypal images and of pure intelligence – which feeds the aspirations and dreams of all sentient creatures. Can it ever become the Collective Conscious? Attempts have been made – and are being made – to test the potentiality of group-mind harmonics and dynamics. It is easy to dismiss these attempts as wishful-thinking and a lot of “occult mumbo-jumbo.” Open-ended experimentation, however, will be a keynote of Project XTC. I want to find out firsthand. It is not enough to say, “Others are already doing it, so why should I?” Can Project XTC be considered “an original idea” since there is hardly anything new about ontological, eschatological and epistemological research? I would describe any enterprise that may bring us closer to knowing our unknown origins as “original.” QED.

Objectivizing Project XTC: Structure &/or Nonstructure

Ideas generally need a structure to hang on. Any plan of action involves structural design. In the long run, however, structures tend to obstruct further development of the abstract principles they contain. This is the reason I am reluctant to delineate an organizational program for Project XTC. Flexibility is essential to the unfoldment of true form. Nonetheless, for the sake of elucidation, I shall attempt to briefly describe one likely scenario of exploration.

It is important to bear in mind the premise that all kinds of structuralization in Project XTC will be organic in nature and therefore mutable and ephemeral. Let me state that I am not interested in founding a new religion or saving humanity from certain extinction. I am involved with the project only insofar as it gives me pleasure and delight – and what gives me the greatest pleasure and delight is knowing that I am on the right track. If in the process of implementing Project XTC I succeed in by-producing far-reaching and unforeseen benefits for others, I would consider it a matter of serendipity or plain good luck.

  

Community Scenario – Draft One

Act I: Focus 100% on developing effective interpersonal communication/communion channels and methods. Test various group-dynamic models, e.g., gestalt, encounter and transactional therapy, incorporating elements of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and transcendental meditation. Explore altered states of consciousness techniques, learning from aboriginal or pentecostal trance-inducing rituals – whatever can enhance conscious bonding among members of the community/tribe. Stress honesty and openness in everyday interactions. Investigate and elaborate on pioneering efforts by visionaries like G.I. Gurdjieff, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Dass). Monitor progress of related community projects  at Findhorn, Lindisfarne, Esalen and the Arica Institute. Establish energetic contact with research groups such as the Association for Research & Enlightenment (ARE), Stanford Research Institute, the Fuller Research Foundation, Masters & Houston’s Foundation for Mind Research, Human Software, Inc, and so on.

Act II: Attract seminal taskforce comprising individuals from a comprehensive spectrum of ethno-cultural affinities with cross-sectional innate abilities and skills. Work towards “Castalia Foundation” concept of a creative seed-community able to operate cooperatively and synergetically on all levels. Encourage self-healing via non-invasive methodologies that include yoga, meditation, taichi, tantra, plant medicines, deep massage, and so on.

ACT III: Assess feasibility of forming a semi-permanent seed-community along autonomous lines (learning from the experience, positive and negative, of predecessor communities like Findhorn and Auroville). Being part of a seed-community will almost certainly be necessary to ensure the continuance of Project XTC during periods of prolonged global confusion and apocalyptic vicissitudes.

ACT IV: Encourage and reward inventiveness in all areas of everyday living, striking a comfortable balance between order and chaos so that innovative ideas can be grounded in technological expertise and engineering knowhow. Beneficial breakthroughs can be exported for the benefit of ever-increasing numbers of planetary inhabitants. It is crucial that the seed-community consciously breaks free of useless, irrelevant, unnecessary or oppressive cultural or ideological imprints inherited from the past. Whatever deemed of value which can be salvaged from traditional institutions – probably not very much – will need to be carefully reassessed and reformulated to avoid a repeat of the mind-control patterns our ancestors fell victim to.

ACT V: Dissolve and disperse the seed-community at its time of ripeness, facilitating cross-pollination with other compatible seed-communities all over the renascent planet. Practise retrospective re-evaluation and introspective reassessment at every stage of the Project. Be willing to recognize and rectify defects and errors in every plan of action or problem-solving approach, no matter how petty or gross, and be ever grateful to the mysterious Wisdom and intuition that makes it all possible.

  

Keeping a Holistic Outlook and Allowing for a Free Play of Insight

“This is my prediction for the future: whatever hasn’t happened, will happen, and no-one will be safe from it.” ~ J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964)

  

Of necessity, the foregoing notes and conceptual sketches cannot be regarded as anything more than a crude structural outline of Project XTC. I do not envisage the project as a guided tour of paradise complete with glossy brochures and carefully planned itineraries. Just as no human entity is born with an instruction manual on how to live, so no human culture group or civilization can be expected to function and develop according to a great big factory blueprint. I believe that the dignity of being human stems from the free will factor, that the beauty of humanity lies in its capacity to be wise and foolish at the same time. I do not accept B.F. Skinner’s behavioral engineering theories simply because I feel they epitomize the sense of alienation, anomie and depersonalization that began with the Industrial Revolution and surreptitiously morphed into an overcentralized system of governance that has grown increasingly Orwellian as the 21st century approaches. Even if would-be social engineers like Skinner were to come up with a mandatory vaccination designed to ensure that every newborn baby grows into a helpful, friendly, honest and loving adult, it would only result in a pathetically plastic utopia – and our collective dream of heaven on earth would turn into the ultimate sci-fi nightmare.

Project XTC is founded on the premise that every individual is unique and worthy of autonomy and has the potential to evolve and mature into a divine and sovereign entity, firmly rooted in an innate sense of responsibility, which grants the greatest degree of freedom to the individual without impinging negatively on the well-being of the collective.

A great many of the difficulties confronting our current pseudo-civilization are potentially instructive to our onward evolution as a supposedly sentient species. As we outgrow artificially imposed limitations (such as cultural imprints of tribal, ideological or theological differences) we will discover that the solution to any problem is most likely to be found with only a minor shift of attitude - wherein we choose the gentlest and wisest solution - and altitude - wherein we raise our atomic vibrations to a subtler frequency, thereby enjoying vastly enhanced and expanded consciousness.

Most boundaries and limitations are actually imaginary - and explorers have been called foolhardy because they figured this out ahead of everyone else. But only the ones that make it back alive are given the badge of courage. When a civilization approaches senility, explorations are discouraged or ignored and orthodoxies enforced on pain of death. A culture in its busy, ego-driven, ambitious youth often has no time to explore its own depths and the amazing universe beyond its immediate concerns. Yet explorers and explorations will endure and persist through all time: the quest for the grail of truth is an intrinsic quality of consciousness itself, and we inhabit a sentient planet, indeed an entire multiverse of as-yet-unknown possibilities. Just as a man seeks to know himself, the universe too seeks to know itself. As within, so without – and there will always be a complementary interrelation between inner and outer voyagings.

Project XTC is essentially an attempt by a single individual, working in collaboration with others, to create a dynamic interface and link between explorers of Inner and Outer Space.

Why XTC?

Ecstasy is a state of consciousness reported by mystics and visionaries who have discovered a way to transcend their own boundaries and limitations and reconnect with the supreme wisdom inherent in the natural world. Cognitive ecstasy is the conduit through which mages and sages, seers and shamans, oracles and visionaries derive their spontaneous knowing, or Gnosis. We are beginning to realize that both the mystical and scientific approach to unlocking the mysteries are guided by the same irresistible impulse – the only difference lies in the choice of tools and terminology. The moment we lower our defences and stop mocking one another, we stand a damn good chance of ecstatically reaching the exact same conclusions – of finally, orgasmically, coming together.

  

Papers I have written

The Organization as a Geometric Projectile for the Exploration and Mastery of Spatial Mundanity (Private circulation, 1975)

A Letter to R. Buckminster Fuller describing protoconcepts of Multiphase Space-Mastery Techniques (August 1975)

Why We Must Say NO to Nuclear Power (Private circulation, 1977)

Books others have written

Passages About Earth:  An Exploration of the New Planetary Culture by William Irwin Thompson, Harper & Row, 1973, 206 pp.

The Magic of Findhorn by Paul Hawken, Harper & Row, 1975, 343 pp.

Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon, Methuen 1930 (reissued by Penguin Books in 1972 with Last Men in London, 605 pp.

Starmaker by Olaf Stapledon, Methuen 1937 (reissued by Penguin in 1972), 284 pp.

Olaf Stapledon – an inspiration to Project XTC

Olaf Stapledon beautifully expresses a vast-pattern visionary perspective of human existence, against an awesome backdrop of Cosmos. His superwide-angle overview of past and future history, with clear-sighted nonpartisanship, greatly aids in our contemplation of the human condition. Starmaker and Last and First Men offer valuable mental exercises in advanced futurology.

Simulations of God by John C. Lilly, Simon & Schuster, 1975, 284 pp.

Center of the Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space by John C. Lilly, Paladin 1972, 215 pp.

Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer by John C. Lilly, Bantam Books,1974, 174 pp.

Remarks on John C. Lilly’s work

John Lilly is a pioneering technician of the psyche who has creditably and credibly translated the supra-rational symbology of mystical experience into scientifically coherent and accessible terms. Familiarity with this material would be vastly helpful in assessing Project XTC.

Tentative Schedule for Project XTC

Prephase - January 1957 through January 1970

Phase I – January 1977 through 1984

Phase II & III – 1984 through 1991

Phase IV – 1991 through 2005

Phase V – 2005 through 2018

Phase VI – 2018 through ?

 25 March 1977

(Revised  & reposted 11 June 2017)

GOD, SEX & THE TAO (updated)

“The ultimate truth is so simple; it is nothing more than being in one's natural, original state. It is a great wonder that to teach such a simple truth a number of religions should be necessary, and so many disputes should go on between them as to which is the God-ordained teaching. What a pity! Just be the Self, that is all.” ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

Kent W. Dahl

Leaving aside the Tao for now, God and Sex are both loaded, explosive words that have ruined lives, divided families, ignited wars, and destroyed entire civilizations. This is why I tend to avoid using these two contentious words. There are so many different ways to approach these concepts – and just as many ways to bypass them altogether. But in this instance I choose to label the ineffable mystery of our origins and destiny, God, if only for the sake of controversy...


IMAGINE MY SHOCK when I discovered, at 19, that I was God.

It was confusing, to say the least. Outwardly I looked the same as I always did – but inwardly I was seeing everything through different eyes. I realized that I existed in all things as sub-atomic awareness.

Everyday “inanimate” objects came alive as mineral or vegetable consciousness, responsive to focused attention. When I turned my eyes skyward to admire the stars and planets, I was conscious that what I was seeing was actually an externalization, a holographic projection of the awesome beauty and mystery of my own being. When I later stumbled on an exclamation attributed to Pythagoras (“Astonishing! Everything is intelligent!”), I understood perfectly what he meant.

Everyone I saw around me was essentially an aspect of my extended Self – not my superficial Ego but my Core Self. The astounding diversity and ingenuity of my multitudinous permutations of form and function inspired deep awe and reverence.

The ineffably sublime, the absurdly ridiculous, the ultramicroscopic, the supertelescopic, the metagalactic, and the paracosmic. All of it was me. Indeed, the individual ego dissolves the instant it experiences the sacredness of gecko shit and the equanimity of snowcapped mountains as part of the same continuum of wonder.

This mystical initiation made it impossible for me to ever again subscribe to anthropocentrism (which the dictionary defines as “interpreting reality exclusively in terms of human values and experience”). Inevitably, the use of alphanumeric symbols and language has led us to a male-dominated evolutionary dead-end – one in which we destroy everything beautiful and natural around us in our psychopathological pursuit of illusory power.

Only much later did I learn that what I had experienced was the death of my social ego, my persona. In its place arose a transcendental identity (which some call Paramatman), reconnecting me with a vivid remembrance of having always existed in a world without beginning and without end.

And yet, in my interactions with people around me (parents, friends, strangers) who saw only my physical form - and who insisted on relating to me as a 2-dimensional social ego, devoid of mystery and existential depth – I became aware that I could easily slip back into the role I had played up till now, as a human being transiting between adolescence and adulthood.

Perhaps if I had chosen to be born in India or Tibet, my parents may have taken me to a temple where some priest or lama might have understood the situation immediately and suggested that I be placed in their care for special grooming as a newborn divine human. Instead, my parents took me to a madhouse where, for 3 months, I was left to learn how to navigate multidimensional realities, with the help of other inmates.

“You have to go out of your mind to come to your senses.” ~ Timothy Leary

It was a truly instructive period in my early life, and in those 3 months I learned far more than I could possibly have, had I spent 3 years in some university. The physical world around us, I discovered, is akin to a grand illusion maintained by consensus – by the acquiescence of millions of humans hardwired to believe that their everyday lives are the only empirical reality, and that the realms of the divine, as well as the diabolical, exist somewhere else (if at all) and not within our own minds.

I began to notice that the spark of divinity – and its shadow aspect or terrible twin – remains dormant in most humans until activated by some powerful experience. However, few have the necessary attention span or focus to nurture and fully integrate it. So our intimations of divine or diabolical consciousness are usually evanescent, fading from memory the moment we snap back into mundane awareness. That’s when God (as well the Devil) are banished to the mythic realms, as mere superstitions or external, unseen forces – where they can be invoked by predatory priesthoods as a means of behavior modification through religious indoctrination.

Celibacy and abstinence from sensual pleasures have long been considered prerequisites of the spiritual path. Sex and God have been made into seemingly antagonistic and antonymous concepts. Adam and Eve’s fall from grace and banishment from Eden are euphemistically attributed to their disobedience when they tasted the Forbidden Fruit, against God’s specific instruction. A closer reading reveals that the real issue was their discovery of the pleasures of recreational sex.

Well, that’s the Old Testament God for you. A judgmental, punitive, authoritarian male despot who views pleasure as sin, and pain as virtue; who sees wise women as witches and beautiful ones as temptresses. An angry, warlike, almighty tyrant who demands absolute loyalty and blood sacrifice. Who loves all creatures great and small – yet consigns some to eternal perdition and neverending torment.

Was this really an aspect of my Godself? I was prompted to do a little research on the God of Abraham, variously known as Yahweh, IHVH, Jehovah, Ialdabaoth, Zeus, Deus, Jove, Eli, and later Allah. The Hebrew version of the Old Testament, I discovered, was a paraphrase and summary of a much earlier, far more detailed scripture from Sumerian times, called Enuma Elish (When the Gods Walked the Earth).

In Hebrew the word God appears as Adonai (Lord) and sometimes Elohim – a plural reference to godlike entities involved in designing ecosystems and cultivating intelligent life within the galaxy, and perhaps beyond. Mystical literature (e.g., The Urantia Book and J.J. Hurtak’s Keys of Enoch) describes the Elohim as “Paradise Sons of God.” As I pondered this I had a vision of a primal supernova emanating rays of energy and consciousness in all directions.

Alone instead of All One

Each ray acquired individuality as it separated from its Source and had the potential to become a new star and condense into a multitude of planetary systems. I experimented with altering the spelling of Son to Sun – and it made even more sense. I was reminded of the rainbow effect of passing a beam of light through a prism. This is how One becomes Many.

Along with individuality came the potential to disconnect and disengage from everything beyond our ego fields, thereby reinforcing the illusion of separateness. Unplugged from the morphogenetic field or collective mind, it was easy for us to feel more and more isolated – alone instead of All One - to the extent that we no longer remembered where we originated, the source of our being. Eventually we even began doubting if something called Source existed.

To assuage the terrifying sense of eternal solitude, we began an internal dialog with ourselves, and eventually split into bi-polarity – one pole taking on the Yin or Feminine aspect, the other the Yang or Masculine aspect. Thus was formed the electromagnetic spectrum – the extrovert electrical male interacting with the introvert magnetic female in an endless dance of attraction and repulsion.

In the state of polarized consciousness we learnt to individualize as egos, and then specialize – just as atoms become different components of the anatomy as they form dense electromagnetic fields which gain mass and become molecules, then cells.

Evolution is driven by cell permutation and diversification, as differences get emphasized over similarities. Variations on a theme begin to occur and recur, according to synergetic-energetic-geometric principles that govern the manifestation of physical form.

We have only recently begun to recognize and identify these universal principles or mathematical laws of form. The golden or phi ratio rediscovered by early scientist-mystics like Pythagoras is what inspired a gifted 12th century Italian mathematician named Fibonacci to realize that all growth proceeds spirally in accordance with a predictable numerical sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34… the next number being 55, the sum of the two preceding it, and so on… to infinity!

Through an understanding of hidden structures gained by a close study of fractal geometry, cutting-edge thinkers have been repairing the broken link between female and male brains, between intuition and intellect, between mystical experience and the scientific method.

Meanwhile back in the realm of mythology, I found mytheology

So where does that leave the jealous, vengeful, punitive God of Abraham? It turns out that Yahweh (whose name in Hebrew is spelt IHVH) is by no means the Supreme Being or Prime Creator. In fact, IHVH is a collective of Archons inhabiting the Material Universe (or at least the other planets in our Solar System, according to Gnostic teacher John Lamb Lash).

Archon is the Greek word for lord, judge, or ruler. In short, external authority. From the Gnostic perspective, the Archons are really just a freakish species of Mind Parasite that preys on organic lifeforms through "neurological hacks," manipulating our perception of reality through fear, thereby thwarting our evolutionary potential and hijacking our true destiny as autonomous aspects of Divine Intelligence.

The Greeks, particularly the Platonists, called the Archons demiurges and named Ialdabaoth as the young demiurge associated with Gaia or Earth. Some Gnostic scholars attribute the formation and seeding of the physical world to Ialdabaoth – and believe it was Ialdabaoth who expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. (John Lash has a very different and far more intriguing interpretation of the Gnostic creation myth, too complex to discuss here, which he eruditely expounds in his seminal 2006 work Not In His Image).

Ialdabaoth was, it turns out, a parthenogenetic experiment conducted by Sophia, the Research and Development department of Prime Creator, Inc. The story goes that the newborn god was so deformed and monstrous to look upon, Sophia kept it quarantined in a Null Zone where it grew and began exploring its godlike powers of sub-creation, utterly unaware that it was merely a localized phenomenon – and by no means the whole shebang. Truth is often stranger than science fiction.

In effect, we have a bastard, feeling-unloved god believing itself to be God Almighty and imposing its arrogant, immature and temperamental will on everything around it. Sound familiar? That’s you and me on a bad hair day! Alas, this happens to be the monolithic image of God imprinted within the deep psyche of those who subscribe to the Abrahamic Agenda.

So when I broke free of my social ego and reconnected with extradimensional aspects of my Self, I spontaneously regained access to data from well beyond the Null Zone - where information flow is closely monitored and controlled by the agents of the Archons, to keep subscribers addicted to and imprisoned within the recycled ego-reinforcing melodramas they experience as their everyday lives. That’s right, folks, we’re talking about The Matrix.

Liberated from layers of old programming, I became the Metaprogram, and then the Metaprogrammer or Architect. I could have stopped there and ended up trapped in the realm of Mind in a holographic labyrinth. But my physical atoms, the wisdom of my cellular being, became animated with the remembrance of Sophia, my cosmic mother, who joyfully took me back into her arms and proclaimed me beautiful and true – not only as a soul, but also as a physical body.

Gods, like everyone else, experience infancy, adolescence, and maturity. In view of this, it is apparent that the psychic oppression of religious dogma is really just a problem of humans with domineering mothers who haven’t outgrown their belief in a childish, insecure, ill-tempered deity who is prone to approve of some things, and disapprove of others.

Experience becomes Knowledge (or Gnosis) as maturity sets in - and ultimately blossoms into Wisdom

Those who imagine God as an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent father figure tend to associate sex with deeply-ingrained guilt feelings and anxiety about getting caught and expelled from paradise. Indeed, the Book Religions warn of the grave perils of sexual intercourse unsanctioned by holy matrimony. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam emphatically preach that “illicit sex” is a damnable offence in the eyes of God. The taboo against recreational (as opposed to procreational) sex has spawned widespread neuroses and psychoses and perpetuated a culture of false piety and hypocrisy. Sex has been the subject of countless off-color jokes and the ruin of many careers, especially among politicians and priests. Sex has been equated with dirt – but what is dirt if not the earth itself, the soil from which springs sustenance and abundance?

Dragon vs Phoenix by Alex Grey

The suppression of sexuality has, in fact, only served to turn it into an obsession, giving rise to aberrant attitudes toward pleasure wherein sex becomes confused with power - with dominance and submission, conquest and colonization, rape and pillage, with the exploitation and enslavement of women and children. By distorting and perverting our understanding of sexuality, stripping it of its sacred dimensions, power-hungry predator priesthoods have been able to maintain a deadly stranglehold on human consciousness, keeping it confined within a prison built of psychological and emotional blocks, with invisible bars of erroneous belief and fake morality.

How many generations of humans have been bludgeoned into submission to external authority with the evil teaching that pleasure is sinful - and that the wages of sin is death without hope of resurrection or salvation? Spiritual pilgrims of all faiths have been misled into renouncing sex if they desire union with God - their own Core Self. Others are promised unbridled sexual pleasure should they willingly martyr themselves in the name of Allah.

I consider myself entirely fortunate that I have never, even for a fleeting moment, experienced sexual guilt. Even as a child beginning to explore the secret pleasures of autoeroticism, it was a sense of excitement and wonder I felt, never shame. Instinctively, I knew the social taboo against sex was diabolically wrong, and that the key to true enlightenment and liberation was to be found in activating the kundalini, the primordial life force symbolized by the coiled serpent asleep at the base of the spine. Indeed, the awakened kundalini unleashes the creative urge when it isn’t channeled towards procreation.

Everywhere I looked I found the hidden clues: in the binary code of lines and circles, the playful dance of wind and water, sky and earth consummating their desire, the courtship rituals of dragons and unicorns.

Life itself is erotic, a paean to Aphrodite and Eros… the sacred portal to our own original and ultimate divinity… our sovereignty as bodies, minds and souls… our precious Humanity. I experience sex as a yearning to fuse with other energy fields – the impulse to reintegrate with all aspects of our Original Self.

To be fully present in the body, surrendered to love, heart wide open, tingling with vitality, blissfully merging with another warm, quivering, welcoming field – becoming one again and whole, and therefore holy. That’s the foretaste of paradise that lures us back into the beauty and truth of wholly conscious physical embodiment.

Godly sex as sexy gods and goddesses – that’s the path to balance, health, sanity, and integrity

The duality of Good Gods versus Evil Gods is finally reconciled when we see the evil in good and the good in evil – just like the Yin-Yang. Bringing focused attention to the joy of the moment, holding back nothing, dark secrets transmuted to self-aware humor, turning the static to ecstatic, dynamic, harmonic equilibrium. Amazed and amused by the miracle of our limited physical vehicles in the limitless context of the metaphysical, easing comfortably into our beautiful bodies and activating them with tender kisses and caresses, we go beyond confusion to fusion. No longer alone but All One again.

And this is where the Tao comes in

The first line of the first verse in the Tao Te Ching states: “The Absolute Tao cannot be named.” It is ineffable, beyond concepts or words, nothing and everything, beginningless and endless, the Great Void or Primordial Chaos from which all formal existence issues. The Tao is a field of infinite potentiality beyond life and death, being and non-being. It cannot be seen but can be felt; cannot be dissected or discussed – but it can be embraced, enjoyed and celebrated.

The Tao is the silent backdrop against which all cosmic dramas are enacted. Our stories – and we are all stories – unfold in a many-storied universe that resembles a gigantic server farm where individual as well as collective memories are stored. It works along the lines of social networking sites like facebook and twitter: each entity is free to create an account, present a public profile, share photos, videos, opinions, interests, discuss current affairs or philosophy, play trivial games or build virtual communities, trawl pixel oceans for food or sex, interact with many or just a few.

Each timeline becomes an expression of the individual who has the ability to post and delete, expose or hide; the timeline documents the journey of each user through time and space. There is a delicate balance between anarchistic freedom and authoritarian control – a constant push-and-pull between users and shareholders, between follower and followed, between private and public, between active and passive involvement.

Digital technology has introduced a plethora of refreshing and stimulating new metaphors with which the mind can apprehend the mystery of Arthur Koestler’s ghost in the machine, explore fact and fantasy, navigate the known and the unknown, the spontaneous and the predictable, the mechanical and the magickal.

In the numinous realm of the Tao, creationism and evolutionism are reconciled, either/or is replaced by both/and. We are divine and human, animal and angel, magnificent and insignificant. In our canine aspect we are God; in our feline we are the Devil. If you can love both cats and dogs, you have integrated the diabolical and divine within your psyche.

Welcome home!

Earth Angel by Josephine Wall

"The Universe is made of stories,
not of atoms." ~ Muriel Rukeyser

[First posted 3 October 2013. Reposted 22 July 2015, 1 June 2016, 

14 February 2019, 30 April 2022 & 12 January 2023]

John Lamb Lash is indeed the true successor of Joseph Campbell, unraveler of myths!

Published 1 Feb 2017

Spoken commentary on Sophia/Lucifer Part 2 - The Satanic Distortion:
In this discourse John Lash debunks 'Salon Satanism,' and talks about how to delete the contaminated files of 'Satan' & 'Satanism' in order to utilize the Super Learning Event provided by Gaia Sophia through the Maitreya Process.

Recorded on 28th January 2017