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Gary Lachman (Blondie)- Touched by the Presence · The Occult Rejects

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Something's going to happen. What's going to happen?
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: I welcome to the Occult Rejects.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: This episode, we got a very very special guest, somebody
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: that we're all excited about getting on. But before we
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: introduce him, going to introduce the other rejects of joining us.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: First, we're going to start off.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: We've got the lovely Lisa could reject MADA scientists joining
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: us today.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: How are you, Lisa? What is going on?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I'm good?
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me on. I'm very very excited
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: to talk to Gary today. I've read through a little
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: bit of his excerpts and stuff like that. I've also
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: watched some of his interviews that he's out over the years,
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: So very excited to kind of hear what he has
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: to say, you know, be in the discussion. So thank
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: you for having me on with the fellow rechecks. And
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: the only thing I'd like to plug is the whole
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: Research Institute dot org check us out.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Awesome. Thank you very much and I appreciate you making
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: and we got Jin the Ninja. What is going on? Sir?
• 1:17
  Speaker 5: Hey boss, thank you so much for inviting me on.
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: I'm really excited for this. I listened to as you know,
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: preparatory episode with Gary on the Mage as the Mage
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: of the podcast, which was really fascinating and incredible interview.
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: I've got also questions for him, obviously I'll save some
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: of them, but so if you want to follow me,
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: you can on Twitter at woucong Reborn, w uk O
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: and g Reborn or.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: The show at Threshold Saints.
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: Also for ig at Threshold Saints and for The Gray Lodge,
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: which is the show that I co host with four
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: other three other boys on Friday nights. You can follow
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: us at The True Gray Lodge with a V not
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: a you, the True Late Gray Lodge dot com, as
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: well as our YouTube channel, The Great Lodge. So thank
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: you guys so much and I'm really excited.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Awesome, thank you very much for making it. And we
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: got Robbie Marks himself. What is going on, sir?
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: How are you? Oh? It might be.
• 2:12
  Speaker 6: Muted, Yeah, basically, I've just been working on a piece
• 2:16
  Speaker 6: of art all day for a local event. In regard
• 2:20
  Speaker 6: to the whole rock and roll thing, Gary, I'm a
• 2:23
  Speaker 6: big fan of you know, traditional everything. Leading up I
• 2:28
  Speaker 6: do a lot of concert and festival posters for various
• 2:32
  Speaker 6: bands and also you know, miscellaneous mom and pop shops.
• 2:36
  Speaker 6: If anybody wants to check out my other stuff, you
• 2:40
  Speaker 6: can go to my link tree which is r M
• 2:42
  Speaker 6: A r X and that'll pull up all my links
• 2:46
  Speaker 6: as far as my artwork, my podcast, The metamind Cast,
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: and very much like you, I was very enthusiastic about
• 2:53
  Speaker 6: this stuff, and as time has progressed, I've become much
• 2:57
  Speaker 6: more interested in the historical aspect and the arcs and
• 3:01
  Speaker 6: all the different things associated with it, as it's kind of,
• 3:05
  Speaker 6: you know, fractalized through the whole. But yeah, thanks for
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: having me on, Nick, Yeah.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Of course, of course.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: And finally the guest himself again, we have a very
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: special guest, Gary Lackman, who was an American writer and
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: a musician. He was Blondie's original bassist and songwriter who
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: went by Gary Valentine. We are having him on today
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: to talk about a book that will be coming out
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: called Touched by Presence From Blondie's Bowery and Rock and Roll.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: To Magic in the Occult.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: But I will say I highly suggest to go check
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: out some of the stuff he's already done, already in
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: a written form. He has a Dark Star Rising, which
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: I think our listeners might be interested in because you know,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: I always loved showing Trump and the occult, so I
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: think you guys would be very entertained by that. And
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: he has done stuff on Crowley and you know, you
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: guys talk about Crole and I talk about the Lima,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: So go check that out. But enough out of me, Gary,
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: please introduce yourself and let everybody know what your deal
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: is and plug anything that you'd like to plug.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, Hi, I'm Gary Lachman. I'm a Yank
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: living in London. I've been living here for nearly thirty
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: years now. And actually the book that Nick mentioned touched
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: by the presence, It ends with my leaving Los Angeles
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: at the end of nineteen ninety five and getting on
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: a plane to arrive here in London in the beginning
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety six. In my second or third fourth
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: kind of career. There was like two careers I started.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I was in Musician Asians Ago, I played in Blondie
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: and I had my own band for a while, and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: then I played with Icky Pop and all those people
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: turn out in the book turned up in the book
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I'm plugging. This is what I'm plugging, and plugging in
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the books. I'm doing that right now. They're all in there,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: a bunch of other folk. But also I transitioned, as
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: people say, from while I was playing rock to getting
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: interested in magic and the occult and Crowley and all
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Yes, and I did write book
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: about Crowley many years later. It's Alista Crowley, Magic, Rock
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: and Roll in the what is it? The Wickedest Man
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: in the World, And that came out about ten years ago.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: So but I've written quite a few other books as well.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: We'll get onto that. So, yeah, this is fun. Yeah,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I haven't been on this program before, so let's go
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: for it.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I guess does anybody have a question before
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: I start getting into it?
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: O quick, I'll ask my question if you don't mind, neck,
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: just because I think it starts a little bit before
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: Gary starts his autobiography, is that I'm really fascinated, as
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: Robbie mentioned, I'm also fascinated by the history of modern
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: American magic and sort of its nexus points. And I
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: think Gilbert's in LA was one of those places. And
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: it's a place that you touched on in the in
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: the aforementioned interview, And I'm just wondering if you could
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: explain to people who are maybe unfamiliar with that history
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: and like how important those kinds of places were in
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: the Los Angeles scene.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I think I would be interested to hear, and I
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: think everyone else would also. Well. Gilberts was a great
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: old bookshop on Holleyoo Boulevard east of Vine And I
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: first found out about it probably the summer of nineteen
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: seventy seven or something like that, or late summer or
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: early fall. I had moved out to LA with my
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: girlfriend at the time, Lisa Jane Persky, who was an
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: actress and photographer and writer. She was on the scene
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: as well, and by this point had become quite interested
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: in Crowley and Gilberts was one of these great places.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: It wasn't completely or solely a cult bookshop, but it
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: had a very hefty collection and people like Kenneth Anger,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: you know, the avant garde Curley filmmaker, and he used
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: to go there, and David Bowie went there, and Jimmy Page,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and I don't know if it's that bookshop. There was
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: another one I think was called Cherokee on Hollywood Boulevard
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: that the guy who ran it have a story of
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and the anger, you know, stiffing him on a check
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: or something like that for some you know, rare addition
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: of some Croley item. But it was at that time
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: in when I lived there then, so it would have
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: been seventy seven to about eighty, and I was going
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: back and forth between LA and New York. It's my
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: own band, the No And yeah, there was just so
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: many good bookshops there and Gilberts was one of them.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: And in my own experience, I used to go there
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: quite a bit and one time and I this is
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: how I got involved with this Crole group. Back then,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: it was the OTO, I mean, but they book This
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: is well before the Internet, well before anything that we
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: take for granted these days. But they had a physical
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: bulletin board and there were people putting notices up on
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and I saw a notice for a Croley group something
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: like that. So I thought, okay, well, I've been reading
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: about this stuff for the past couple of years. I
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: first got interested in nineteen seventy five in New York,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: living on the Bowery with Christein and Debbie Harry. I
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: mentioned this crazy gay biker artist who was totally into
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Crowley but also into the Hill's Angels and all of
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And he used to do these
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: impromptu tarot readings with the Crawley staff Taro deck, and
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: he did these paintings based on the figures I modeled
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: for one of them. I don't know whatever happened to it.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: And that's how I got interested and all this sort
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: of stuff. So I had been reading about it for
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a couple of years and I thought, Okay, let's see
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: what happens. So I just answered them, and a couple
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: of days later, there's a knock at my door and
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: this very unprepossessing guy is standing out there and he's
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: asking me if I'm ready to devote myself to achieving
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: the knowledge and conversation of my holy Guardian Angel. And
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: I had to think about that for a second, you know,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: because I was like standing outside Jehovah's witches. Well, this
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: is exactly how I refer to it in the book.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: It says if somebody at Jehovah's witness said, are you ready?
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: And I always wonder why do they want people to join?
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Because there's there's a certain number of them. I forget
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: how many it is, there's an exact number it's going
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: to be saying, so if you keep people joined, I know,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: people die, Okay, fine, but somebody's got to get pushed
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: off the bench, right if they keep they keep kind
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: of joining new people somebody, what do you keep? You know?
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: So I know, I never knew why they kept.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: You know, we have two hundred thousand members that aren't
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: being saved. What do we do? Oh?
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: There there there you go. Well, I guess any case,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: So I thought, okay, let me think about this, and
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, never the armchair magician. Okay,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: let's go for it. So I I said, sure, why not?
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And then I signed. I still have the document somewhere
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: among my files. And I took a magical name, which
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: is Amorphati and a more Fati is Latin for love
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: of fate. And that was actually the title of one
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: of the songs I did in my band, the No
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: and the band was called the No ken O W
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: because my interest in narcissism and nosis and that kind
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: of a you know, a cult knowledge or you know,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: immediate kind of direct knowledge, not not episteme, not not
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: knowledge through the left brain as it were. And you know,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: so I just went for it and h got the robe,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: started doing practicing different you know I had already read
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: magic and Theory and Practice on the Bowery amazing, and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: a bunch of other crowly stuff I'm rambling on. That's
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: just somebody should answer.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: All right, well, since you brought up I guess like
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: the robe and stuff. I mean I would assume, like,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: what was your all right when I used to practice
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: my every day like I guess magical regimen, you know,
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: I would get up and meditate, maybe sometimes do the
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: l B r P, maybe even do the lesser banishing
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: ritual of the Hextagram if I felt like it, and
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: stuff like was that part of your like daily.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Normal banishing virtually? I mean, no one thing drove but
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: my girl from Lisa's crazy because you know, the adorations
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: during the day.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: So the dawn oh rash, yeah, yeah, rash.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Sunset at midnight, so all that stuff. It was like
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the I think the noon was the difficult one because
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: we'd be out having breakfast. Oh okay, I'll breck back.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta go pray to I got to do this.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: And she's looking at me Jesus Christ. But okay, but
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: you know that was that was tough. And the civet,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: you know, the Albert maline oil. At least that's what
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: they told me.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: It was this civot was and it was like it burned,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: you know, you put it on. But all that kind
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: of stuff. And that's you know that I had had
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: the you know, the robe da Matria I picked, which
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, divindatory practice I wanted to and that
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: was in keeping with my Capricorn sign of the Earth,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: and apparently Curly at one point preferred it and all
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, and yeah, I did you know,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: the you know, the various different at the various.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: If you want to use them, all that kind of stuff.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: So I was, I was doing that and then it
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: was kind of like weekly meetings. But the the thing
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: that one thing that side, well two things put me off.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: And one of the guy that I got involved with it,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: he turned out to be a little you know, Curly himself,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and he was, you know, kind of a nasty character.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: And I in an earlier memoir, New York Rocker, which
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I wrote about little more than twenty a bit more
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: than twenty years ago, which is that's all the rock
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and roll stuff. This new one coming out in no
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: memorical touch by the presence, and the title is a
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: reference to a blondie soul and called called them always
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Touched by Your Presence Dear, which was a big hit
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: in the UK and Europe, not in the States, but
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: top ten UK Europe. It's in nineteen seventy eight, Long
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: time ago, kids, but it's a song about the telepathic
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: experiences and shared dream experiences Lisa and I were having
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: at the time. So that was my first foray into
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: any of this sort of stuff because I was living
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: on the Bowery with Christen Derby, reading Proley, hanging out
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: with this guy Benton, who's a remarkable character, and talking
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: about magic and all this kind of stuff, and then
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I started having we started having these experiences and so
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: on and so and so I wrote that song. So
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: that's the reference to that. That's where the title of
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: the book comes from. But in this earlier memoir, New
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: York Rocker, it's all just the rock and roll stuff,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and I go into detail about this character in La
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: but he you know, he just turned out to be
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: a little bad. That was the bad kind to do
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: what you liked kind rather than to do without wilt kind,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. In any case, but
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I mean that was how so I just did that,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: and I got into it and all that kind of
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: thing in practice. But after a while it became clear
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: that this guy was kind of a free loader. And
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: then after a while I just got Crowley. Is all
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: roads lead to Crowley? I mean, so I just started
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: to feel sort of claustrophobic about it because it seemed
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: to be you know, and I became more I said,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I started out interested in nineteen. By the time I'm
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: in la I'm about twenty two. The book that really
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: got me into what I'm doing now is a book
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: by the British writer Colin Wilson, and it's just called
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: The Occult, and it came out in seventy one. I
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: read it in seventy five. I borrowed Tommy Ramone's copy
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: The Drummer and then manager of the Ramones his cop
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I borrowed it. I mentioned that and the book I
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: wrote about Crowley, and I say in that book that
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: other Ramones, he's original Ramones. He was the only one
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: who's still a lot And sadly he passed away after
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the after the book came out, it would have been
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: about twenty fifteen, about ten years ago. But yeah, in
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: that book, I go into like all the But that
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: was the thing with Croley. I just got kind of
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the old roads led to him, and I became more
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: interested in basically consciousness, you know, And I was more
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: interested in the effects. I never got into wanting to
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: contact you know, some you know, interdimensional being and talk
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: to them, And I thought, why would they know anything
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: more than I do? No, I just wondered, why would
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: they know anything more than I? For their perspective, I'm
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: an interdimensional being, I'm from some other play as well,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: maybe I know things la. So I was more interested
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: in finding out about consciousness. And this is this is
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: from reading Colin Wilson because at the time and I
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: first read him, I didn't know that he had a
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: previous career writing about existentialism, phenomenology and all this sort
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: of thing. So we had this whole approach to the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: It wasn't the magic, let's wear the capes and do
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: all the weird stuff, like, well, what's actually going on
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: in consciousness? What are the potentials of consciousness? What does
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: this tell us about that? And it was through reading
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: that book that that took me on the beginning of
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: that so it broke, you know, drifted away from Crowley
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: because it just became kind of I just outgrew it
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: and then I got interested in other things.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Nice. Uh, something I did want to ask you.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: I hate to go back while It's just I don't
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: have people on the show too often that actually admit
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: to like being a thom might of practicing that stuff.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: So I just want to like nerd out a little
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: bit and ask you some more stuff about that. You know,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: most people have on our and have.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: To remember this is nineteen seventy eight, so it's a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: while ago.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: No, you had mentioned something about a areta were you
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: were you getting out instead of saying arita, you can
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: actually say the letters like each.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean the reason that that just popped into my.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Head, okay, right, because there was a different way.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, I did all the visualization sort of thing,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: and you know, we see the pentagram and all of
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: that and when you you know, you know, and in
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the center stands the sixth rade star. I mean, I
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: did all that sort of thing. But the one thing
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I should mention about getting involved with the OTO at
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: that time. So I think Grady McMurtry initiated me. So
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I think he was at this initiation because he would
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: have still been around it was I don't know for sure,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and I'm never been in touch with anybody ever again,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to be. But I wondered because
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: he this was seventy eight, he was still around. He
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: had started it up again in the seventies. And what
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: I remember it and I write about it in the book,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: is it took place. It's been in Orange County, somewhere
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: outside of LA That's what I remember. And it must
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: have been near I don't know. It must have been
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: near a marino some kind. And it was around Christmas
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: time because I remember boats going by. I could see
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: out the window, boats going by, you know, little you know, uh,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: with lights on them saying for last Navi DoD. So
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I'm I have this memory of that happening, and I'm
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: in this kind of tent where this probablistic ritual Crowley
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: cablistic ritual. I forget exactly. There was a kind of
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: tent that was put they had put up in the
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: living room, so it looked like you know, Midnight on
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the Oasis or something like that. Oh, and and you're
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: you're that's what I mean. I kind of like not
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: not not like you know, a tent growing camping.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, The reason why, the reason why I'm saying.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: More something oriental or out in the desert kind of
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. And this was like a sacred space.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I guess where the initiation took place.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Reason I'm saying.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I was asked a few questions and it was I
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: was actually, now what I think about. It reminded me
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: when I grew up Catholic. It reminded me of like
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: making my confirmation, because I remember, like the bishop asked
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: me a question, Oh I had the answers to and
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: so at this thing, they asked me some questions about
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: cobble lot and I'm a diligent study and I you know,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: and somebody said, oh, he knows his stuff or something
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: like that. So I thought, oh, gee, any case. And
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: then the other thing I remember is that a kitten
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: died that night and somehow and someone had said, ah,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: you know, one life ends as a another begins or
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: something like that. That I mean that that that that
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: that happened, and then I was in it and then
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: sorted of doing the thing. And the other thing I
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: remember is attending a Gnostic mass and uh in ingesting
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: a communion wafer that had been spiked with menstrual blood.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well all the my uh Lisa asked me
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: whose blood it was, and I said I did. But
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I'm I'm making light of it now,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: and I don't mean in any way to detegrate or
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: you know, suspersions on or diminished you know, people that
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: are into this and do this and all that kind
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: of stuff. But I I I have a kind of
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you know, fond but sort of Okay, I did that
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and time to move on, you know, memory of it.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: I know, I was just h yeah, I was just
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: wondering about somebody. Did you some of your experience. Did
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: you ever get into like the star Ruby at all?
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Was that like a ritual?
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: That? This is ages Ago? I mean I I what
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: I mostly did was read the books. I practice some
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: rituals on my own. I remember fasting for a few
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: days and strange life like that. But I specific kinds
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: of things I can't say, you know right now remembering that. Yeah,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I mean again it's ages Ago.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: I thought it was interesting you said the tent and
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: what I was trying to get at in av there's
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: a tent in the room anyway, so I'm wondering if
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: that's what you were talking about. There's a big tent
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: in where you're taking the initiat, so I think maybe
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: that's a tent you were talking about.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: So it's something something that I'm saying.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks yeah, it's not like what you're saying now.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I mean it came back to me I was writing
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: about it. So, but I do. The thing that I
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: think is funny is the felice I be Dodd going by,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: you know, I just remember, like that's a strong memory,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Like I'm being initiated into this weird magical cult claims
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: to go back to the you know, the Templars, but
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: you know who doesn't you know.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: That the Rosa Cristians is always a good one to claim.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: And there you go.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: All right, does anybody else have questions?
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I was going to bring it. I've been into
• 20:40
  Speaker 6: I was just talking with Nick about in regard to
• 20:43
  Speaker 6: working to remember my dreams, and I have a dream journal,
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: and you're talking about the shared dreams now I've had
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: with my brother. We had some shared dreams at one
• 20:54
  Speaker 6: point in my youth. And then I've also had cases
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: where I've had like etheric entities coming and have teachings
• 21:01
  Speaker 6: for me while I'm sleeping. Have you like I'm interested
• 21:05
  Speaker 6: more in these these shared dreams that you're speaking of.
• 21:09
  Speaker 6: If you're willing to open up about that.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean no, I wrote a song about it.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: It was a big hit and it paid my rent
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: for quite a few years. But no, again, I don't
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: remember exactly again that this this was. Let's see, I
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: would have written the song in nineteen seventy seven and
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: it was premiered in the UK tour because what had
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: happened is the first Blondie North American tour. We would
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: support act for Iggy Pop, and David Bowie was his
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: keyboard player, but incognito. He wasn't announced, And this was
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: well before well my phone was the internet, so it
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: was actually, wow, man, did you hear the actual old
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: fashion grapevine whatever? Nice? Yeah, yeah, it's Bowie. It's Bowie, man,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: it's Boie. Okay and okay. So and on this tour,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: whenever I wanted to call Lisa, she wanted to call me.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: We were at the phone. Each of us are at
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: the phone, right, So had I called her and she
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: picked it up, it would have been busy, yeah, because
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: she was trying to call me, so that that happened.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: And again this is long before, so you had to
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: be back before we were constrained by time and space.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: You had to be at a certain place at a
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: certain time in order to do that. This is one
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: of the things that we take for granted. But to me,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: this says something about our reality now we're not so
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: constrained by time and space anymore. And just parenthetically, this
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: was something that the Swiss German philosopher Jehan Gebster said
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: was indicative of our time now, that our relationship with
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: time would be radically different. And it is not in
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: some weird, you know, Terrence McKenna's singularity kind of way,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: but in ordinary, stupid, boring ways, but in the sense
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: like my kids, what you had to be weird what
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: to get it and to watch something on television, So
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: any case, parathetically, so nineteen seventy seven, I'm in Chicago,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: leases in wherever or someplace, and we were calling each
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: other at the same time and then talking to each
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: other where we realized we have similar dreams. So that's
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's vague like that. I don't remember the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: exact dreams, but that was like the beginning. And then
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: subsequent to that, I read a book called An Experiment
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: with Time by a fellow co J. W. Dunn, who
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: was an aeronautics engineer, and he was written in the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenties and he had discovered just by accident that
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: he had dreamt bits and pieces of his own future
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: ahead of time. And I read this is again. But
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: I was in New York musician and I was indiscriminately
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: reading all this stuff about the paranormal and magic and
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: everything like that, and so I thought, Okay, I'll just
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: start writing down my dream. So I did, and then
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: boom it happened, right, And I've written a book about it.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I wrote a book about this during the first COVID
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: nineteen lockdown here in London in twenty twenty. It's called
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: dreaming ahead of Time Experiences with precognitive dreams, Synchronicities and coincidence.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: And I just have been recording precognitive dreams since then,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: so forty plus years years. Wow. Yeah, And so it's
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: like that and then very very powerful, kind of vivid,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: lucid dreams and things. But I haven't had any entities
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. The one time I felt that I
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: had some kind of thing like that was I was
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: actually during a fever, and I remember feeling something was
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: on my back and I had been reading about you know,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: the incubus or yeah, and I kind of said, look,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm interested in all this stuff, but my
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: life's complicated already. I I don't really need this, and
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: please can you guys go please go away? And it
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: kind of did. So I was in a fever. I
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: don't know, it could have been a weird, but I
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: In that book, I also talk about hypnagogia, which is
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: you know, very strange in between state, the limital state,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: and also sleep paralysis, which not so much in recent years,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: but I used to be quite prone to that, and
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: that that's related to you know, abduction experiences and things
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: of that sort. So I'm not I'm not reducing it
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: to that, but I know that's related to and so
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: that's kind of the area BIB. But I I've not
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: had any kind of powerful dreams where I felt like
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: there's an intelligence there it's more than mine. And that's
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: how I feel about the synchronicities I've had like that.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: So I think there's a gradient, you know, there's the
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: intelligence that I come encounter in my dreams, and then
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the ones that somehow arrange these synchronicities. It's the same,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I would say, and the one again we're rambling on.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: But the other thing is like, you know the eaching.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I've been using the EA ching for since nineteen seventy eight,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: and if you know number four Mang beautiful folly, that's
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the one you get if you ask the same question twice.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: So how does a book I bought a secondhand bookshop
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: in Santum Barbara in nineteen seventy eight, and these Chinese
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: coins I got in Chinatown in Jula sometime, how does
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: it know? I'm asking the same question twice because it says,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: you know, the first time you asked the oracle, it's okay,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: But if you importune a second time, it's basically you know,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: you got.
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: Some strange time space algorithm that some sort of way
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: precipitates into this well. And as far as that hit
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: in the gogic state, in between waking and sleeping, I
• 26:46
  Speaker 6: was reading the Spanish monks used to sit with a key,
• 26:49
  Speaker 6: and as soon as they would drop off, that dropped
• 26:51
  Speaker 6: the key, and that would wait so that they could
• 26:53
  Speaker 6: have this etheric state where it would be prone to
• 26:56
  Speaker 6: bring the visions you know.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Well also, yeah, I mean there's a story about it
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: was that Thomas Edison, the scientist or the inventor. He
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: used to keep bull bearings in his hand and lean
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: back in the chair and he would have a metal
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: kind of plate below. He would drift off and then
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: bang it would wake him up, and then the light
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: bulb as it were. Yeah, yeah, I mean, oh, there's
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: a whole you no, I mean that that's no, it's
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: a remarkable I mean, and we go through it every day.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a hypnagogic when you go into sleep,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: and then if you want to split hairs, its hipping
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the pompic when you're coming back up. And if you
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: want to explore this area, I suggest you concentrate on
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: waking up a bit earlier in the day rather than
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: trying to catch it as you fall asleep, because if
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: you do that you usually initially just wind up with
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the bad night's sleep after you you know, you have
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: to you have to work a lot to master it.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: But if you do the other one in the morning,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: if you can arrange to wake up a little earlier
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: and then drift back. That's how those that's when I
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: most I have the most sort of vivid and dreams
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: that I remember the most is when I do that.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: So I generally wake up.
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: Early then and then something that have a second second
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: momentary sleep. Yeah, I found that as well.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, Carrie.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: Was this when you were having these dreams with Lisa,
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: which is weird because my.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Name is Lisa.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: That were you doing rush at the time? And I'm
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: not trying to promote rush?
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Well what? Sorry?
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: Sorry that when you were having these dreams with Lisa,
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: were you also practicing rush?
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Practicing rush or leave rush rush? What?
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: That was a prayer that you mentioned before you did
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: four times a day?
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Oh you mean the oh, the adorations kind of thing.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Yes, well I would have uh no, no,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: that was earlier. That was early that, I'm sorry, that
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: was all. I was still living in New York, so
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I I I hadn't I hadn't joined, you know, and
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: doing the thing. We just discovered that this was but
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, she she she was interested in this stuff,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: and then because I was interested in it, you know,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: we were both reading this kind of thing. So and
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: we were young and in love, which is one of
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: the things that well, being in love. Being young helps too,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: I think you get older. I'm sorry, no, no, no, no. Oh.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: So the reason I say that is because there is
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: a lot of hypothesis and theories that watching the sun
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: during the morning, midday, night, and midnight allows for the
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: ability to download the algorithm from the sun, you know,
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: with the spectrum charging your pineal priming it as well
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: to not only be aware of I guess, not only
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: your surroundings or whatever, but also tap into that quantum
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: ability to channel or to be in touch with people
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: at a distance their feeling or thinking, as well as
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: having very vivid dreams as well. And so that's why
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: I was asking if that was also going on at
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: the time. That was not that.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: No, no, I didn't know that, so thanks thanks to
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: mentioning it. But no, I mean it was. That was
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: the kind of thing that led me later on, you know,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: to to do it.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, listen, did you want to ask anything about the
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Colin Wilson.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: I did. I had read Mind Parasites a while back
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: and I was given it. I was given that book
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: as a recommendation, and it was to me it was
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: very transformative. I had never read Colin Wilson before I
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: had never even thought of some of that type of
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: I guess spin On. I mean the way that one,
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: the way he writes was amazing. I had never read
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: anybody like that. But the main thing was that how
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: he kind of literalized like physical dysfunction as an actual
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: like well parasite really, but actually like something that you
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: can treat or something that you can potentially work through
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: and maybe even evolve out of, like through discipline or
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: anything like that, to enhance kind of like consciousness and
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: stuff like that. And I'm I'm a biologist by trade,
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: and so I deal with the diseases and everything. So
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: this was like right up my alley. But to actually
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: have that analogy, to speak to it through or at
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: least give it more of a personification through that way,
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: to me was was mind blowing for sure. And that
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: you have had you spoke about Colin Wilson and how
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: his book kind of was impactful to you, and I
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: kind of wanted to ask you about that a little bit.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, mind power sites. That's a one of
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the ones I read after I'd read The Occult and
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: I was living in Los Angeles, and actually an edition
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: of It came out some years back when I wrote
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: an introduction to it, and it's it's sort of a
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: science fiction Lovecraftian novel, kind of more of a fable.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: I mean his novels are sort of fables. I mean
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: he uses he uses he uses a lot of different
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: genre for his philosophical purposes. So he uses science fiction
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: or that fantasy or crime novels, things of that sort.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: And in this one he's trying to well you're saying
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: he's literalizing or fictionalizing what he wrote about and earlier.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is I think he wrote
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: this in nineteen sixty six, so this is before he
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: was writing about the occult. So this is during his
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: sort of existential phenomenological period. But his first book, The Outsider,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: came out in nineteen fifty six, and he was twenty four,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: and he had spent like the previous ten years learning
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: how to write and keeping faith in the conviction of
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: his genius. And then this very first book comes out
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: and he was like he was overnight success. He was
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: a bestseller and all this kind of stuff. Sadly, the
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: British turned against him because they don't like people who
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: are smart. But don't go to university, so it's his
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: class kind of thing. But his first book, The Outsider,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: it's basically about these people who individuals, creative individuals who
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: have a strong appetitor need for meaning and purpose and
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: in the increasingly secular, comfort oriented I mean again, this
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: is nineteen fifty, so it's you know, seventy years ago.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Now you can't find it. You can't find so it's
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: like basically kind of existential religious kind of questions. And
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: he was considered like Britain's own homegrown interesstentialist, but he
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: was he he was fascinating like people like say Nietzsche
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: and van go and Strindberg and all these others who
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: kind of blew up or went insane or died early.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: And he said they were these people had this kind
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: of appetite for meaning and purpose, and they also had
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: these visions of kind of you know, transformed of all
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: his good you know, absolutely redemptive vision of meaning and
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: purpose in the face of everything and all this kind
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: of stuff in variety of ways. But why did they
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: wind up either blowing up in some way, cracking smashing,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: you know, dying young, or you know, committing suicide of
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: going insane. So he explores that question through the series
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: of books that he called The Outside, and he applies
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I can't come into it in any depth, but he
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: applies essential analysis to and but they're all page turners.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's existential. It's not. Sorry, who's like really
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: tough to get through. It's like thick, you know, turgid stuff.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: But no, Wilson's Wilson's a writer. So it's it goes.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: But in in the novel The Mind Parasites he he he,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: he invents this notion of a kind of parasite that's
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: actually it's not it's not it's not a micro parasite
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: that gets into the body. It's actually in the psyche.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: It's we. We we exist in the physical realm, right,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: and we tend to think there's a little blob of
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: consciousness in our heads, but actually that little blob is
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: connected to a larger, objective psychic realm that's within us,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: and we're all a variety of different ways everything trying
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: to explore that. Uh. And what he says is that, oh,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: for centuries, there's been a kind of mental parasite in
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the psychic realms, living, sucking life energy off from human beings.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: And then sometime in the nineteenth century, these these Titanic figures,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: these romantics, and then great, you know, powerful figures like
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Nietzsche and Strenberg and whatever. So the early ones could
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: overcome them, Beethoven and Gerta. But then they got tougher
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: and tougher, and then he said, the parasites realizing that
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: humanity is learning its own strength and power, and then
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: we won't be able to you know, suck a dry anymore.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: We have to get rid of these guys. And so
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: he says, the mind parasites drove them all mad, you know,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: drove them crazy because they you know, they were getting
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: too close to the secret. And so characters a spoiler
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: character and actually it takes place well, it was written
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: in sixty six, I think it takes place in I
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: don't know, nineteen something or other. So it was the
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: future when it was written. Now it's the past. But
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: characters in the book learn about this and learn about
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: them and learn methods to be able to overcome them.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: And there's a fantastic I'm going but there's a I
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: think one of the most remarkable things Wilson did in
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: this genre where he's using genre writing for philosophical means.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Is that he has this incredible cosmic battle going on
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: between this one character who's learned about the parasites and
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: has developed he's learned about phenomenology, which is this philosophical
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: methodology of understanding consciousness. It's tough to pronounce and it's
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: even tougher to practice, but he's learned how to do this,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: and he's able to ward off the parasites, but it's
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: all going on inside his head. So it's the most
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: remarkable battle ever taking place. Is some guy's sitting in
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: a chair and he's sweating because it's all well doing
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: like that. So it's just incredible, and yeah, if you
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: ever get a chance, it's really a great it's a
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: great read. Unfortunately, one of his novels called The Space Vampires,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: written in late seventies, was turned into one of the
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: worst films ever made called Life Force Toby Hooper effect eighties,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: and it's I mean, my joke about that film is
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: that there are there are two good things in that movie,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: and the lead actress has both of them.
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: I actually liked that movie. Sorry again, I do enjoy it.
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: I think it's a great you know, it's it's weird.
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: It's kind of like a o cult sci fi I
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: think they did with it something. It's weird, and so
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: it takes someone of a particular you know, it's not
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: true keno, but perhaps there's something interesting in it.
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I enjoyed this movie as a youngster as well,
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: So that's uh.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Well, Will Wilson has an interesting story because I don't know,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: if you know the novelist John fowls The Magas and
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: the bench Liintendant's women, they knew each other. And if
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: you ever the John Fowl's novel The Magas is one
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: of these high literary works that came out during the
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: mystic sixties when cultism and magic and all this was
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: like my first book, turn Off Your Mind is all
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: about how like the occult and magic saturated not only
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: popular culture. But it's it's you know, it's fairly hot
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: high mind at high literary hygrow and it's a very
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: good novel. But the film is ridiculous with Michael Kaine
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: and Anthony Lewen, it's like one of the worst films
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: ever made. And John Fowl sent you know, Colin Wilson
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: of Postcard saying, you know, if you ever think of
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: seeing my film The makea Stone. It's one of the
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: worst things ever made in that kind of thing. And
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: then when Life Worst came out, Wilson wrote him back
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: and said, you know, John, I've done you one better.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean again, I'm you know, it's a
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: different kind of thing. It's a different I tell you
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: one book I think should have been made of Wilson's
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: is his first novel. It's called Ritual in the Dark
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: and it came out in nineteen sixty and it's best
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: characterized as Jack the Ripper meets the brothers Karamtsov in
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Duffel coded post war nineteen fifties London, and it's an
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: early serial killer novel with existential intent. And I think
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: that would make a great film, but I don't know.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: No one's approached it.
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: So I guess I just drew parallels with my parasites
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: and the blip on your new book. That is this
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: lifelong pursuit of learning about consciousness and kind of trying
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: to rise above. So that's kind of why I brought in.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: No No Do Please. Yeah, I know, he's he's been
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the most I said, it's it's a cliche, but actually
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: reading that book if has changed my life. And then
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I went on the pilgrimage and met him. That's I
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: talked about that in the book two in nineteen eighty three.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: He's very well. He was very very warm, very very generous,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: very busy. I mean, I let me say eighty three.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I was all of twenty seven, and I went on
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: at the time what I subsequently called the mini Search
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: of the Miraculous. And if you know the book In
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Search of the Miraculous, this is a book by Russian
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: writer philosophy P. D Uspensky, and it was about his
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: time under the tutelage of the enigmatic Armenian Greco esoteric
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: teacher gi Gord Jeff. And after my time with the
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: Crowley group, the next kind of group I got involved
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: it was this Fourth Way Crowley excuse me for there
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: I was a YOUNGI and Croley thelemic slip Fourth Way
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Gergy group. And part of this mini search to the
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: miraculous I was I visited the chateau outside of Paris
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: and Fontainebleau where Gerjev had his briefly had his Harmonious
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Institute for Thermonious Development of Man. But on one leg of
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: this I was at I was into lay lines and
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: things like that, so I was going to lots of
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: like megalithic sites and I had the Ordinance Survey map
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and trying to find ley lines. But one of the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: things I did was making pilgrimage down to Cornwall, this
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: tiny place called goren Haven, Wilson escaped to in the
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: late fifties to escape the notoriety that he had as
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: an angry man in fifties. And yeah, I mean I
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: only spent one night there, but we got through a
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: couple of bottles and he explained to me his ideas
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: about philminology and consciousness, and I got it that night.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: It was a little difficult to dredge it up the
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: next morning, but right then I think I nailed it. No,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: he's very warm, and I mean a story about him
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: is like estimates on the number of books that he had.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: It's somewhere between sixty and one hundred thousand. I mean,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: he just had enormous amount of books. And I after
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: that visit, well, you know, lots of people visited him.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: So I say I became friends, but it wasn't particularly close,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: but I was someone who you know, they knew, and
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the family got to know me, and I got to
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: know them and all that. I kept visiting him, and
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: he died in twenty thirteen, and I subsequently wrote a
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: book about him called On the Robot, The Life and
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Work of Colin Wilson. So yeah, he was enormous, enormous, influential.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: But I tell the story of the pilgrimage to his
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: place in the book and all that. And one thing
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: I do regret is in the late eighties, I worked
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: at a at the time famous metaphysical bookshop in Los
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Angeles called the Bodi Tree, which doesn't exist anymore, but
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Shirley maclain, the actual Shirley McClain, put it on the
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: map in the eighties because she had discovered her past
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: life and aura and all that kind of stuff there.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: And Wilson was in town giving a lecture in Los Angeles,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: and he was staying at a travel launch or something,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: and I was house sitting for one of the owners
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: of the Bodie Tree, and they had and they were Buddhists.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: They started out in aeronautics at Lockheed in the early
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: seventies and they decided they wanted to do something meaningful
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: in their lives that they opened up this this metaphysical bookshop,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: and it was it was a success. So this was
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: been about I don't know eighty eight or something like that,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: maybe eighty nine. Wilson was in London, excuse me, I'm
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: mixing it up in la giving a lecture, and I
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: was house sitting for one of the owners. And they
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: have this fantastic place in the Hollywood Hills and Laurel Canyon.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: I called it a zen castle. So I said, why
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: don't you come and stay? So he and his wife
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Joy stayed with us. And one of the things I
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: regret is that we got so slashed one night that
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: the next day he was having lunch with Robert Anton
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Wilson and he invited me along, but I was so
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: hungover I couldn't go. So I absolutely regret that. So, yeah,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: this is amazing.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: You actually met the people we.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Talked about some of them.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And it almost seems like with some of the
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: biographies that she's the list of biographies that you've written
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: about the same there's like this theme, and please correct
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: me if I'm wrong, like this biological resonance of sorts
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: in that like a thread that runs throughout all of
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: the people that you speak of or the people that
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: you wrote about, and then as well as some of
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: the interviews that I've listened to of you. Is that
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: something that that you were I guess like a topic
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: that you are interested.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: In or I'm not quite sure what you mean exactly.
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: Almost like there's this kind of connection to like in
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: like the the intellect itself to a metaphysical and it's
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: like this thread that that runs between everybody. That's almost
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: like this pursuit of transient trus transients that that it's
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: this pursuit of higher, higher intellectualism mixed in with a
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: metaphysic cool, but also kind of developing a personal relationship
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: with it.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, I'm I'm I'm I mean, I'm
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: interested in all these things, not well, you know, I'm
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: interested in them because they're fascinating, and I'm also interested because, well,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: what can I get out of it? You know, I
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: mean for myself my own development. That's what I mean.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: With Wilson, I.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: Just was.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: His idea struck me as the ones I could apply
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: myself to most profitably over time, and then it was
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: through reading his books. I mean, one of the theme
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: in Touched by the Presence is that I mean one
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: of the things. Okay, I used to be. It starts
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: out I'm often asked how I went from being a
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: rock star to writing the sort of books I do. Well,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: let me tell you, And so there it is. It
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: starts when I'm five years old learning how to read
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: comic books. We're learning to read through comic books. And
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: then it ends when I'm getting on the plane at
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Lax to come here, and in between I'm reading Her
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: and Hesse and I'm doing this and I'm going there,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: and I'm I have an academic career during the early
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: PC days and I didn't want to deconstruct anything, and
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: so it's all. And then ten years after playing in
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Blondie and my own band and iggy Pop and you know,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: getting this a story where I'm kicked out of David
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Bowie's loft in Manhattan sometime nineteen eighty because he tells
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: this ridiculous story. Excuse me, yes, yes, he told this
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: ridiculous story catch my drift about Colin Wilson heading a
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: coven in Cornwall, and I in all innocence and just
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: sitting there and a friend of mine says, oh yeah, Gary,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: he reads Colin Wilson, what do you think, I said, well, actually,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: as far as I know, that's not the case. Oh yes,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: he does. And he goes on and on about this
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: and I'm not realizing that I'm causing a scene, and
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, you know, and I'm giving this
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: is the stuff that people should wait if you want
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: to know what happens next. Folks know, but I'll tell
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: you what happens next. What happens next is, uh, Bowie
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: has these two female bodyguards, and I think it's the
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: last and if it's never Diamonds Off, I think it's
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: time forever. I think the penultimate Sean Connery Bond film.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Again I'm dating myself, and like, there are these two
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: kind of female assassins named Thumper and Bambi. So his
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Bowie's bodyguards are like these. And they come up to
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: me and they say, David's tired. We think it's time
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: you leave. And I said, okay, sorry to me, but
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: it just he was just And subsequently I realized what
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: had happened is he he was reading he was read what.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Wilson has a book called Mysteries and it's a follow
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: up to the Occult and it's it's came out in
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: the late seventies, but it's still a great read. It's
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: basically a compendium of all everything that was going on
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: at the time, but the paranormal everything. But he does
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: tell a story about not him, but someone else in
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Cornwall who was telling a story about a witch going
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: around and like making like which he signs on the
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: you know, the front doors of people's cottages. But that
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: was a story that Wilson was telling about somebody else
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: in this book, but in his exalted state, Major Tom
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: had had had mixed it up, uh and if any case,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: So that's you know, that was kind of the thing.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: So I had these you know, run ins in that
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: with with that with Wilson. But I know, but I
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: got to know him, you know, very well, I uh said.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: I wrote a book about him. I reviewed many of
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: his books for when they came out here in London,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: visited in Cornwall quite a few times, and know the family.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: And just recently this year there was a there's a
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: columnist and international conference that's been going on in the
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: past few years and I saw his sons there. So yeah,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: we're trying to keep his legacy going. And actually the
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: book I wrote about him went out of print, but
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: my current publishers and traditions they're going to reissue it.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: Oh So, going back to your book, I know you
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: kind of left off like a little bit about Gerjeff.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you wanted to get into that
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: or maybe go forward a little bit more, because I
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: think you also get into like, besides Gurjeff, you also
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: get into like armatic Golden Dawn style stuff as well.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Right, well, I mean that was that was part of
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: the crowthy thing. Okay Dawn stuff. No, I got involved
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: in the Fourth Way, the Fourth Way Gurjef Society, which
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: is the real thing. There were quite quite a few
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: sort of bogus groups out there, or at least they
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: used to be so. But this would have been about
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one in New York first off, and I
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: had been reading about this stuff again, reading Colin Wilson
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: and other other people about it, and he spoke highly
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: of it out of all the kind of gurus and
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: teachings and things of that sort that he had written
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: about in the Occult and other books. He has a
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: long section on Crowley and Yates and the Golden Dawn
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: and Leovatsky and you know, it's still if you ever
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: find it, you know, it's still a great read. It's
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: just called the Ocult. It's still a great read. But
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: he had a good section on Gurjev and Uspensky in
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: the Fourth Way, and I always liked Duspensky's early stuff.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: He has a book called Turchier Organum, which means the
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Third organ of Thought, and something he wrote in the
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: early twentieth centuries in Russia, and it was all about
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: like higher space, higher dimensions, like sort of like chaos theory,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: or I guess entanglement now is kind of like the craze,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: and so this was like, you know, the time is
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: the fourth dimension, then five, fifth, sixth, seventh dimension, and
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff and a variety of different
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: ideas about consciousness and so on. Then another book called
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: New Model of the Universe, which is a great again
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: collection of different essays on dreams and hypnotism and at
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: the superman and the variety of other things. So I
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: liked reading all that stuff. And then I actually again,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: as I had in La I had moved back to
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: New York at this point, and I had came across
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: a notice for a lecture about you know, the Courage
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: of Fourth wait at the Barberzan Hotel. So I thought, okay,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: I'll go. And actually the lecture I went to. The
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: people doing it are one of these bogus groups. But
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: I and I had mentioned that I had gone to
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine with whom I had discussed this
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: sorts of stuff in my interest in you know, a
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: variety of different spiritual and esoteric ideas. And he said, yes,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: well they're not the real thing. If you really interested,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: I've been involved, you know, for a while. And oh,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: he hadn't mentioned to me, and he was kind of
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: like he was checking me out, you know kind of thing.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: And so then he said, if you're really interested, here
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: this is a phone number. Call it and I'll I'll
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: I've mentioned you to my the group leader, and I'll
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: tell him that I told you, and he expects you
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: to call. So I did, and this again I had
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: this is I my own I left Blondie, my own Bami.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: We had failed to nail a record deal, and I
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: was kind of in between in New York and trying
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: to figure out what to do and all that sort
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: of stuff. And but I met this fellow and his
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: name is Paul Raynard, and he was an artist, and
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: he was also one of the principal instructors of what's
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: notice the Gerchef movements, which are these very very intricate
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: and strange and difficult sorts of dances. I don't know
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: if you've it was a film of Gurdjeff's book Meeting
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: with Remarkable Men, that came out in the late seventies.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: It's done by Peter Brook. If you know Peter Brook,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: he did the mahab Haka. There's different versions of that,
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: like an eight hour version and a sixteen hour version,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: so it's very serious filmmaker and he tends to use
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: non professional actors in it. But in this film Meetings
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: with the Markable Man, he does use one professional actor,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: the late Terrence Stamp who just passed away. But there's
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: a fantastic scene. If you know the Gurjeff story, like
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Madame Vatsky, he went to the east and different you
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: know lands in search of hidden knowledge. For him, it
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: was more Central Asia, you know, it wasn't wasn't Indian Tibet.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: It was like Central Asia. And among other things, he
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: tells the story of finding this hidden monastery, the Stomong
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Brotherhood and this is where he learns these very intricate
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: and very very difficult and complex sort of dance. I
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: mean they're not you say they're dances, but they're they're
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: much more like kind of weird movements. Again, the thing is,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: if you know the old that sort of thing, rub
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: your tommy, impat your head, it's like that to the
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: tenth pour something. But in this film there are some
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: scenes of these things, so I think they're on YouTube.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: You can find it on YouTube, and they're just remarkable
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: to see. And so the fellow I met was one
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: of the teachers of these things, and I, you know,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: but this time, I you know, I a song of
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: my was a hit song, top ten, I got a
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: gold record. I played around. I are you know whatever?
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: I told David Bowie you didn't know what he was
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: talking about, and you know whatever. But this is the
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: first This guy was the most solid present person I'd
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: come upon. He was he was just there. He didn't
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: have to do anything, He just was sitting there and
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: I just felt what And he said, he said the
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: simplest thing, why do you want to get involved in this?
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: And it was like, ooh, that is a tough one.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Why do I am. I just curious that I had
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: been in this Crowley thing and it was I and
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: I fumbled and I just, you know, lamely said I
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: want to wake up, and said, well that will take
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: some time. Uh, And then you know, here's here's the meeting.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Go there. And so I started going to these things
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: and it was very, very different than the Crowley.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: It was saying, sit in these meetings and we've been
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: given an exercise, and you'd go and nobody would talk.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: We'd sit in silence sometimes until somebody actually had a
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: serious question about something. So it wasn't about and again
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: I can't go into any great I mean I talked
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: about in the book, but it was sort of like that.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: But on the whole, if you know the gurge of idea,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: it's this notion that we're mechanical or asleep, which doesn't
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: sound like much these days because we tend to you know,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: we've heard it all very different New Age kind of ways,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: talking about similar sorts of things, mindfulness and so on
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: and so on. But when he first came across to
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: the West in the nineteen twenties, and by the way,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: I've written biography of Uspensky and I've also written a
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: biography of hill named Morris Nicol, who was of Gusbensky's students,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: who originally started out as Jung's British lieutenant here in
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties and the New Jump Ship and became
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: a follower of grigory from Duspensky. So I've written in
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: the background, that's my background in it. But it's this
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: whole idea that we're mechanical, you know, we're just stimulus response,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: you know, machines, which pretty much straightforward behaviorism and pretty
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: much straightforward you know, clinical psychology that we've been teaching
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: in the academies at the time. But he said, there's
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: a way not to be a machine, and so we had,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: you know, a whole technique of doing this. And one
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: of the things that struck me, and again it's it's
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: this about consciousness itself. We hate this notion what they
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: call self remembering. And I've actually just been finished and
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: just working on a book about the old the whole
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: idea that we forget that we exist. We we if he,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: if he, of course I exist, but most of the
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: time we actually don't. You know, we know the fact
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: that we exist, but we don't know the reality that
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: we exist. And this is something you can even find
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: in you know, existential philosophy, like and Heidiger talks about
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: zion but guess and height, you know, forgetfulness of being,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: and this is something and both Gurjeff and Heideger they
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: both hit on this, say like, the one sure fire
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: method of reawakening to being would be to have a
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: vivid grasp of your own death. You know, So this
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: this vivid grass of your own finitude that one day
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: you're not going to be here. We all know that,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: we know that factually, but we don't know it experientially then,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: you know, and when we do grasp it generally, you know,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: strikes us pretty hard. All that. So any case, this
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: was sort of the thing I was. I was getting
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: into this, and I was doing, you know, very different
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: exercises going to these meetings. But on the lights side,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: one of the things I did experience in this is
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: the Gurd Jeff uh Gerjeff's birthday is generally celebrated on
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: the thirteenth of January, and I was invited to a
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: celebration uh in a mansion in upstate New York. And
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: I the person who had got me in I met
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: with him and some others. We all got in the car,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: didn't know the other people, and we drove and it
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: was and we got there. And if you again, if
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: you're familiar with the Gerd Jeff kind of uh millieu,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: there's what they call the toast to the idiots. And
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: one of the things Gerd Jeff did was he used
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: to get people to knock back several, you know, very
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: strong shots of vodka, and the idiot, I mean, we
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: tend to think of idiot meaning somebody who's stupid. Idiot
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: actually means unique, like an idiosyncratic or idiosyncrasy. It's unique
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: to you. So if you look just the etymology of
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: it goes back to it just means unique. But an
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: idiot now means, well, you know whatever, somebody who is stupid.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: But Gerjeff would say, there are different kinds of idiots.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: And after you had a few of these shots of
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: the vodkas and you toast to the round idiot, you know,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: to the square idiot, whatever it might be, your particular
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: kind of idiot would come come out and he would
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: see you and he would and he would and this
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: was well after I mean, he taught one thing to
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: U Spensky, and U Spensky turns it into a kind
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: of system, you know, kind of intellectual sort of system.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: But Gergie was more the shaman Maha. He just had
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: the stuff and just to be around him. And what
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: he used to doing is last days in this tiny
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: flat he had in Paris. But he would cram as
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: many people as he could possibly into the dining room,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: fifty people around a tiny little table where he prepared
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: this sumptuous, fantastic meal. And by the way, ger Jeff
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Crowley and Young World good cooks. So someone should do
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: a cookbook of those guys. And while you were eating
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: all these meals and knocking back this vodka, he would
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: sort of see you and point out who you were
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: and all that kind of thing. So any case, that's
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: the background to that. So I'm taking to this mansion
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: up in upstate New York Gurjef celebration. We knocked back
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: quite a few, you know, shots of vodka, and then
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: we're told that we're going to be treated to a
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: special performance performance of Gilgamesh and fine, and who do
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: I see getting up on the stage. It's the comedian
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: actor Bill Murray Oh from Saturday Night Live. And see
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: he's up there, and I hadn't had anything to eat,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: but I had like three or four these fuckers, And
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: every time he said, ank you do, I couldn't stop laughing.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: And but no, if you remember the film Groundhog Day,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: it's the eternal recurrence, It's the one day. But it's
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: not not so much in the work. But Uspensky is
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: one of Huspensky's pet ideas was this notion of rather
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: than reincarnation, there's what he calls the eternal wheel, the
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: eternal recurrence. You when you die, you were born again
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: into the same life and what you know throughout life,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: there are opportunities for us to wake up and realize,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: you know, where we are and to make different decisions
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: and all that. So that that was kind of But
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: also an early an earlier film that Bill Memory was
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: in was a remake of The Razor's Edge. That's the
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Somerset mone There was a film in the forties with
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: Tyrone Power, and it's about somebody as like as a
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: socialite who goes through the harr of World War One
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: and then comes back and he realizes he can't he
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: can't live the shallow life anymore, and he must go,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: you know, in search of the Truth. And it's supposally
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: be based on Christopher Isherwood, who was the English novel
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: who eventually got into Vedanta and things like that, but
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Bill Murray did a version of that as well. So
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: and I knew people in Hollywood when when because I
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: knew people in the acting world, and a lot of
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: them are really into that kind of stuff because the
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Gerzia version of it, not the Uspensey, but the Gersia
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: version does a lot of role playing and psychodrama and
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: things of that sort. And that was one of the
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: things that Spency couldn't deal with. It's just was too
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: kind of crazy for him, and he wanted to like,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: it's a system, you know, you do it like that.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: I like that story with you said World War one
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: and then came back, and it reminds me of I think.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: The first Islamic alchemist has a story like that where
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: I think he was a prince that went really yeah,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: and then afterwards he was like, oh, I give this
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: ship up, and he sort of getting into alchemy and
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: you know in the occult and stuff that's wanted to
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: hear like you know, somebody else kind of like having.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: The same story.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: I can see that stuff making you change your you
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: maybe change your ways, or making you look at the
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: world differently. Sure, yeah, was there anything else on the
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: book that you wanted to get into it?
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: Again? Like I understand you also want people.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: It's just it's well, I mean, I could get all
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: profound uh and say it's a book about how becoming
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: who you are. I would say it's, Uh, that's Nietzsche
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: says that become who you are. Young's psychology of individuation
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: is about that, yeah, or Abram Maslow's psychology of self
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: actualization is about that. So I talked about in the book.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: I mean that's what it is. I mean, that's I mean,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: I've been kind of you know, keeping the funny stories
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: do here, but I mean, what happened. I'll tell you
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: the truth. There's a story behind writing the book. And
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: I say in the in the acknowledgments in the back
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: that I wrote this book, you know, to stay sane basically.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: You know, whether it's achieved that or not, I don't know.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: But I was going through a very very difficult time
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: in my life, and I'm going to details about it,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: but there was a time and this was let's see.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: I think I started reading writing at twenty twenty three,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: I think. And oddly enough, I said the book, the
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: book ends with my leaving Los Angeles in coming here, okay,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: And that was the beginning of January nineteen ninety six.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: So at the beginning of January twenty twenty three, when
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: I was going through this very very difficult time in
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: my life, there's a place here in London called the
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: British Library, which was a fantastic resource if you have
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: a researcher. Everything published in the UK, there's a copy
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: of it there in tons of other stuff as well,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: and you can bring your laptop and sit and get
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: a desk and you can work there. So living conditions
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: where I was living meant that I was spending quite
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of time in this place, and and I
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: didn't have any work. I just finished this book I
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: was saying about this, Uh, this follower of Uspensky called
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: Morris Nickel, who started out as a YOUNGI and then
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: he became Musbensky and gerd chef and all that sort
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: of thing. So I just finished the book about him,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: and he didn't have any work. And I'm the kind
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: of guy if I don't have work. It's you know,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: I always say I need a break, and when I
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: don't have work, I go out of my mind. Uh
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: so I and and there you go, there you go,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: and and I'm I can't stay at home. So I
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: just found myself in the library and I was just
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: reading stuff, and I said, I'm spared to do something.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: And I think it just just an effort to assert
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: my existential being, my actual being in presence on here
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: on the planet. Because where what was happening I can't
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: go into detail, but what was happening was such that
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: I was feeling like, my god, this is this, This
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: can't be happening to me. Just cannot be the case.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: So I have the mind parasites coming on me. So
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: I had to fight them off. And so I sat
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: down and said, just started, just just start writing. Just
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: sit down and start writing. So I sat down, I said,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: I wrote, I am here. Yeah. Oh, on my sudden,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: I actually have a copy, and I wrote, yeah. I'm
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: often asked how it went from being a rock star parentheses,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: although I never was a star, more of a satellite
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: and one with an eccentric orbit, to a writer on
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: esotericism and the history of consciousness. This memoir is an
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: attempt to answer that question. So January twenty twenty three,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: the January twenty twenty four, I answered that question beautiful.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: Can I even have it? Yeah, I even have British
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: Library January twenty twenty three. January twenty twenty four completed
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: on the twenty eighth end of our of my relocation
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: to London. So the book ends at my leaving La
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: to come here. And I finished writing the book on
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: the twentieth anniversary of my coming here, and it'll soon
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: be the thirtieth later this year and knock on wood.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: So it had this kind of oraboric kind of thing,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: you know, the circle returning on itself in some way
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: which I hadn't planned, but it just came out that way.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, it's all the stuff about, you know,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: growing up reading comic books. And I think I can
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: trace my interest in all this kind of stuff back
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: to when I was about five years old and there
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: was a comic strip in Adventure Comics DC Comics called
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: the Legion of Superheroes. I'm sure there's whatever now movies
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: about them now. I don't know if they were teenage
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: teenagers with superpowers from different planets and the future and
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: just weird stuff, and super Boy got involved with them.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: Remain ones. There was Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: So I'm five years old. Lightning Lad makes sense, he
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: shot Lightning bulls. Saturn Saturn Girl quite gets she had
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: mental psychic powers, but there was a neat Saturn you know,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: on her, on her bosom, you know, with the rings
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: and all that kind of thing. Cosmic Boy he had
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: like pink, white and black kind of costume and that
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know, if you know the British expression chav.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: That it was kind of like chav colors, like pink
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: and black, real chav colors, and that he he had
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: magnetic powers, And I thought, why don't they call them
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: magnetic boy? What's what's cosmic got to do with it?
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: What does cosmic mean? So that's my sisters? I don't know,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: yess my mother she didn't know. I didn't bother ask
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: my father. So I thought, ever since then, I've been
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: trying to figure that one out? So what does cosmic mean?
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: So it all started all started back then. So yeah,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: so this comics influenced me. Then I got into Lovecraft
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff and the Conan you know,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: the rubberty Howard Conan stories. And I was a victim
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: of all the all that paperback reissue of the pulp
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: stuff from the thirties and the forties. And then a
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: hippie girl about nineteen seventy when I was fourteen, whom
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: I had a crush on. I can still remember the
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: smell of the pe Julia oil she wore. She handed
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: me a copy of hermann Hesse's novel, said Arthur, the
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: Bantam paperback. It was all blue and there was like
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: a stature of the Buddha on it, and that was
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: like the first serious, you know, literature I read. And
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: then that was at the beginning of my journey to
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: the East and all that, and I became a hess,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: you know, one of the victims the many many early
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: teens and in America then and yeah, so that was like, well,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: that's just that's drifted, that's who we went. And then
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: read the Beats and all that kind of stuff. You know,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: found myself living in New York at eighteen, starving writing
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: really bad poetry. Not purposely writing bad poetry, but subsequently
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: I realized it was and this is before I joined
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: blondie was I was living. I was sharing a storefront
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: on East tenth Street between First Avenue and Avenue A.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: And if you know New York in nineteen seventy four
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: seventy five, you didn't go It's Alphabet City. Now it's
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: like it's overpriced. You can't afford the cappuccinos.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: Oh that was the hood back in the day, Alphabet City.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, back then you didn't got you just did not
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: go there. Yeah, you look tougher than I did. But
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: you know, But and the guy who was living it
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: was like a weird I tell these stories. This guy,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: he's the weirdest guy where I grew up in Bay,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: New Jersey. But then when we were sharing this place together,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: he became a born again Jesus freak and drove his
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: witness and he wanted to start a rock band and
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: go to Israel and join the Kibbitz because the end
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: of the world was coming. That doesn't add up, Like
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: why do you want to start a band at the
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: end of the world's coming? And why an a kipp it?
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: Are you gonna play and ship like this? He stuff
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: like that, And this guy was gradually going off his
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: nut and Clem Burke the Lake. Clem Burke, who just
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: passed away earlier this year, one of the greatest drummers ever,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: whom I knew from high school. We went to high
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: school together in Bayo, New Jersey, and he had only
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: just joined Blondie because they kept losing musicians. They kept
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: losing the drummer, the bass player, stuff like that. He
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: had only just joined. And the first gig he did
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: at CBGB, you know, the famous club where everybody came
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: out of the bass player quit and I was I
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: was not a musician. I was allowed to hang out
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: with the musicians in New Jersey. I could kind of
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: sort of almost maybe you know, play Johnny B. I
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: didn't get up to good, but you know, you know
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: so kind of kind of play. But that was what
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: you needed, you know. And in this place I was
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: living in the storefront and he's tent that there really was.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: There was a broken down, upright piano for almost every
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: key was wrong. But I somehow learned how to, you know,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: write songs on this and Clem said, come come in audition.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: So I went and auditioned. What I remember is playing
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: the Stone song lived with me for like forever. I
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: kind of I could figure that one out. And then
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: the end they said, that's it. What happened after that
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: is that my roommate who he saw what was happening.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: So I was playing in them and all that kind
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: of stuff, and he said, look it's it's either the
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: kibbitz or out, so he kicked me out. I didn't.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: I was. I was on the street for a while,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: I was sleeping in the studio, and then Debbie Harry
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: finally took me in. So she had a tiny one
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: bedroom flat in little Italy on Thompson Street and you
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: know where like there was an Italian social club below
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: and the Massachue ladies are sitting outside, you know, smoking
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: cigarettes and drinking their espressos. And I'm you know, she's
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: already living there with Christine and her three cats, and
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: all the all the guitars, the amps and stuff is
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: in there, and then now the bass players there. So
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: we crushed it. So from living in that tiny place,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: then we moved into this loft space on the Bowery
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: and then my my life of magic began there. Sorry,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: that was that's half of those there. That's great, thank you.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: That isn't me.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: That's an awesome story. Thank you very much.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: It's almost sorry I'm going to interject. It's almost like
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 4: you had to you had to play for blinding in
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: order to be placed in the actual space, in the
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: actual space and time of these people to hand you
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 4: a book, to hand you an information, to invite you
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: to a party, to plant a seed in your brain.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: And then too.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean that's why I see it now. I
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: mean's idea. You know, your actions in the future can
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: regime your past, so everything up to the air could
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: be just it's a big, big mistake. It's all horrible.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: Then oh you do some things. Oh yeah, it's all
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: added up to that. So that's well, we all have
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: that opportunity somewhere in life to kind of regime. And
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: that's like you know, you turn. That's how chemical you turnub,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: That's what I was going to say.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 6: It's very alchemical in the sense that you have to
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 6: u have this bottoming out basically to have the tabula
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 6: rasa to be able to create the new thing that
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 6: is becoming.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: And uh yeah yeah. And I think as an paras
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: house is to kay is the mother of great things.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 6: And I think every artist in essence as you're working
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 6: through these creative processes. You have to have these bottom
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 6: times where you know you're able to have a larger
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 6: perspective to be able to move into and make something grow.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, Yeah, yeah, that's true. True.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah very well, sir, well, thank you very much again.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: Gary.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: It's awesome show, tons of stuff, great stories. I definitely
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: love to get you back on again, even to talk
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: about when your older books. Is there anything that you
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: would like to plug again, if you want to plug
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: the book or anything.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: If you want to check me out. I've got a website.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: It's I think it's Gary dash Lockman dot com. But
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: I think if you just, you know, put my name,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: I'm so famous. If you just put my name in Google,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: it'll take you right to it. And there's actually lots
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: of stuff up on YouTube videos and stuff like that.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: And let's see. I'm trying to think what's coming up.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: I will be in December for the Philosophical Research Society
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: and if you know them in LA. This was started
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: by Manly P.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: Hall.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: He was one of the great occult and hermitic encyclopedia
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: of the early twentieth century. Elvis Presley was one of
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: his readers.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: Uh, and.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: They there's a wonderful building that's in the Lost Peelss
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: area of LA and it's a weird Mayan Deco thing
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: that was like, uh, it's fantastic building. But they they
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: do online things and I'll be I'll be I'll be
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: giving a talk about the book for them in December
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: and all that. So I'll post that up on my
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: website and I post stuff up on on YouTube and
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: you know whatever it's called now Twister whatever it is
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: now these days and stuff like that. So yeah, I
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: mean god, I just have to say, it is so
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: strange being over here seeing what's happening. Uh, over here
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: sat side, it's it's it's my god. It's like it's
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: I can't It's like a bad dystopian movie. That's, oh
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: my god, this is like really happening, you know, So
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: keep the faith, you know.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 6: That we're being sign opped.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, Well, I'll agree, I definitely like in one
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: of your books, I definitely think there's been a lot
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: of magic and occultism involves this.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: Well. I mean again, I don't want to I didn't.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: I mean I kind of I say I saw this
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: coming in Dark Star Arising magic compower in the age
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: of Trump, just in the sense that if you know
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: anything about him, you knew that this was. It's just
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: incredible and all the kind of I mean, wait for
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: the torchlight, you know, processions. I mean what I saw
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: on the news here of that funeral service, you know,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: for the fellow Charlie.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: It just it's just it's in any case, you can't
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: it just seems so stupidly cliched textbook exactly the same thing.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: And even Stephen Miller he looks like Gerbel's and he's
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: he's he's plagiarizing. And you think, I don't know, I mean,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: they'll be after me after saying this. I know, I
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: mean I just think, you know, it just seems it
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: just seems how stupid, how obviously stupid. Can it gets
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: to ask.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 6: The terminology, the colors they're using, the every it's yeah, yeah.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: Well he's a showman. That Trump is a showman. And
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: this is one of the things I say in the book,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: where again there's the power positive thinking, that's the one
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: magical side of him that Norman Vincent Peel, you know,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: focus on it, forget about the facts. But it's also
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: the glamour. It's also the show. It's also the biggest
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: spectacle kind of thing, and that's you know, he did
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: you know, beauty pageants and all that kind of crap,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: and and I mean that's that's part of the magical
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: side of it. It's glamor, you know, it's like, you know,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: it's definitely that kind of thing. And it's it's it's
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: it's gone. I don't know, you know.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 6: And then when you let the vampire in your house,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 6: it's another story.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: I have to get him out, I'll tell you. Yeah,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: that's a good way to put it. Yeah, I like
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: that's true. So sad. And it's like I did, It's like,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: are they waiting for him to keel over? So that
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: you know, the the reason he was after the cat
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: Ladies is he's a cat person. You just look at him.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: He's like that old movie cat People. You look at
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: his eyes, he looks like a cat person. I mean,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: I really, I really think so that's why he was
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: after the cat ladies because they would have they would
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: they would have noticed, they would have found him out.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: So sorry, all right, uh but yes, thank you very much.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: Gary, Like I said, I'd probably like to have you
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: on in the future to talk about that one very
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 3: interesting stuff real quick before you wrap it up, I'll
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: let the other rejects quickly plug themselves again or whatever
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: they like to Lisa you call reject man scientist or what.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: Is going on?
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 4: Thank you Nick for having me on asking me on.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much, Jerry for sharing your book with
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: us and sharing all of those little anecdotal stories as
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 4: well as kind of entertaining some of our questions. I
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 4: the only thing I would like to plug is your
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 4: cool research institute dot org where some of the other
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 4: rejects have contributed to content on it. And check us
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 4: out there and Gary again, thank you fellow rejects. Amazing
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: to also have a discussion with you guys.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you awesome, thank you, and I appreciate you joining us.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: And mister Jin the ninja over here.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Boss, appreciate it. And thank you
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 5: of course, Gary. That's an honor to be on a
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 5: roundtable with you. Thank you for letting me fielding my questions,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 5: and of course the other rejects. If you want to
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 5: check me out at Wukong Reborn, w uk O and
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 5: g Reborn on nex Twitter or at Threshold Saints as
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 5: well as on ig at Threshold Saints and if you're
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 5: interested in The Gray Lodge, which is a speculative gnostic
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 5: group Meta Magicians for a new and you can check
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 5: us out at the True gray Lodge dot com. But
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 5: True is with a V, not a you. So thank
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 5: you guys so much, appreciate it and have a great
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 5: uh you know, evening. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: Jen.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you joining us man as always, and Robbie Marks.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: So.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I would like to say thank you to such
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 6: a great crew. It's always good to come and talk
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 6: with all you and Gary, I really appreciate your time
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 6: and coming on and sharing the stories. As far as myself,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 6: if you'd like to check out, I'm gonna encourage you
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 6: if you want to just you know, go view some artwork.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 6: Go check out my link tree r M A r
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 6: X and that has my website, my Etsy, my Instagram
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 6: is where you're going to get most of my art.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 6: Twitters where I talk most of my weirdness. But then
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 6: uh yeah, you know, I just encourage you to go
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 6: look and check out and let it play with your eyes.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 6: So and that's about it. Thanks for everything, and Nick,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 6: thanks for having me on for sure.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: Of course, Robbie, I'm glad you could make it.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: And again Gary, thank you very much for coming on,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: and the other rejectually appreciate you making the time and
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 3: jumping on. And that that's the end of another recall rejects,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: and until the next one, everybody be well later