High weirdness : drugs, esoterica, and visionary experience in the seventies

An exploration of the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson.A study of the spiritual provocations to be found in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson, High Weirdness charts the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality that arose from the American counterculture of the 1970s. These three authors changed the way millions of readers thought, dreamed, and experienced reality—but how did their writings reflect, as well as shape, the seismic cultural shifts taking place in America?In High Weirdness, Erik Davis—America's leading scholar of high strangeness—examines the published and unpublished writings of these vital, iconoclastic thinkers, as well as their own life-changing mystical experiences. Davis explores the complex lattice of the strange that flowed through America's West Coast at a time of radical technological, political, and social upheaval to present a new theory of the weird as a viable mode for a renewed engagement with reality. Intro Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 0.0.0 Welcome to the Weird 0.0.1 Highly Weird 0.0.2 Weirdly High 0.0.3 On Weird Naturalism 0.0.4 A Wayward Word 0.0.5 Uncanny 0.0.6 Varieties 0.0.7 From Beyond 0.0.8 Construction Set 0.0.9 Building Blocks 0.0.10 Metaprogram 0.0.11 Acrobats 0.0.12 Comparison 0.0.13 Long Strange Trip Part One: Set and Setting 1.1.0 Spinning Out in the Seventies 1.1.1 Bummers 1.1.2 The Centrifugal Self 1.1.3 Hide and Seek 1.1.4 The Occult Milieu 1.1.5 Bootstrap Witchery 1.1.6 Separate Realities 1.1.7 Wasteland 1.1.8 Paranorms 1.1.9 Consciousness Culture1.1.10 ASC 1.1.11 Access to Tools 1.1.12 We Ate the Acid Part Two: McKenna 2.2.0 Scientific Romance 2.2.1 Freak Flag 2.2.2 High Science 2.2.3 Crypto Rap 2.2.4 Esoteritech 2.2.5 Pharmakon 2.2.6 La Chorrera 2.2.7 Shroom With a View 2.2.8 Radio Daze 2.2.9 Liquid Lingo 2.2.10 Romancing the Stone 2.2.11 Psy-Phi 2.2.12 Metabolic Ontology 2.3.0 Experiments 2.3.1 Seeing the Elephant 2.3.2 Enunciations 2.3.3 Psychogenesis 2.3.4 Weird Media 2.3.5 The Tale of the Silver Key 2.3.6 Martian Hop 2.3.7 Daemonic Men 2.3.8 Weird Beings 2.3.9 Logosophia 2.3.10 The Tale of Two Books2.3.11 The Tightrope 2.3.12 Time Waves For No One 2.3.13 Voices 2.3.14 Guides Part Three: RAW 3.4.0 Profane Illuminations 3.4.1 Plot, Counterplot 3.4.2 Conspiracy Culture 3.4.3 Illuminate Us! 3.4.4 Fnord 3.4.5 Open Source Sacred 3.4.6 Eight Balls 3.4.7 Mindfuck 3.4.8 Orgasm Heretics 3.4.9 Eldritch Palmer 3.4.10 Sacred Chaos 3.4.11 Zenarchy 3.4.12 Discordia Oppositorum 3.5.0 Cosmic Triggers 3.5.1 Null-A 3.5.2 Encounters 3.5.3 T'angpoon Tantra 3.5.4 Skeptical Theurgy 3.5.5 Al Azif 3.5.6 Meta-P 3.5.7 Beliefs Unlimited 4.8.3 Morning Pages4.8.4 Hermenaut 4.8.5 The Hymn of the Signal 4.8.6 Auto-Anamnesis 4.8.7 Missive 4.8.8 Tractates 4.8.9 Viral Word 4.8.10 Screen Memory 4.8.11 Albemuth 4.8.12 Sacred Trash 4.8.13 Flash Cut 4.8.14 Daydream Nation Conclusion 0.0.0 The Netweird World 0.0.1 Compare and Contrast 0.0.2 Lattice 0.0.3 Lo, the Network 0.0.4 Aquarian Conspiracies 0.0.5 Mutant Prophets 0.0.6 Global Weirding Illustrations Notes Introduction: Welcome to the Weird Spinning Out in the Seventies Scientific Romance Experiments Profane Illuminations Cosmic Triggers Stigmata 2-3-74 A study of the spiritual provocations found in the work of Philip Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson, this book charts the emergence of a new psychedelic worldview out of the American counterculture of the seventies. These three visionaries changed the way millions of readers thought, dreamed, and experience reality - but how did their own writings reflect, as well as shape, the seismic cultural shifts taking place in America during one of its most surreal eras? In this book, the author - America's leading scholar of the strange - examines the writings of these vital, iconoclastic thinkers, as well as their own extraordinary, life-changing experiences along the way. The author maps the uncanny lattice of culture and consciousness that characterized America's West Coast at a time of radical technological, political, and social change. What results is a new theory of the weird that illuminates the seventies, while providing for a renewed engagement with reality during our own highly weird times An exploration of the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson. Psychedelic Studies; Literary Studies; Science Fiction; Histories of Consciousness; Religious Studies; Counterculture; Magic; The Occult; Terrence McKenna; Philip K. Dick; Robert Anton Wilson; Counterculture; 1970s; psychedelics; religious experience; mysticism; occultism; esoteric studies; spirituality; bohemia; drugs; psychosis; social constructivism; William James; Bruno Latour; LSD; cannabis; psilocybin; Timothy Leary; John Lilly; H.P. Lovecraft; Aleister Crowley; libertarianism; ufology; Discordianism; anarchism; weird literature; speculative realism; science fiction; Thelema; pragmatism; cultural history; California; consensus reality; An exploration of the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality in the work of Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson.;Intro; Table of Contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 0.0.0 Welcome to the Weird; 0.0.1 Highly Weird; 0.0.2 Weirdly High; 0.0.3 On Weird Naturalism; 0.0.4 A Wayward Word; 0.0.5 Uncanny; 0.0.6 Varieties; 0.0.7 From Beyond; 0.0.8 Construction Set; 0.0.9 Building Blocks; 0.0.10 Metaprogram; 0.0.11 Acrobats; 0.0.12 Comparison; 0.0.13 Long Strange Trip; Part One: Set and Setting; 1.1.0 Spinning Out in the Seventies; 1.1.1 Bummers; 1.1.2 The Centrifugal Self; 1.1.3 Hide and Seek; 1.1.4 The Occult Milieu; 1.1.5 Bootstrap Witchery; 1.1.6 Separate Realities; 1.1.7 Wasteland; 1.1.8 Paranorms