OVO

Welcome to the Easter Challenge! Our panel of experts – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and our Mystery Guest – have two thousand years to give consistent answer to simple questions about the resurrection of Christ. No proof is required, only consistent answers. Our questions are prepared by Dan Baker, author of Losing Faith in Faith.

And now, let’s begin… The Easter Challenge!

from OVO 16 AntiChrist (January 2006)

Trevor Blake: I Am The 100%.  Digital image.  Public Domain.  February 2012.

[This review of OVO 20 JUVEN(a/i)LIA is reprinted with permission from Good Reads.]

I started mail networking in the fall of 1978 when I was 25. I’d gotten a list of names & addresses from my friend Cathy Gayhardt wch I later realized had been at least partially provided to her by “Blaster” Al Ackerman. I started by sending my 1st Mike Film Form Letter to the people I thought had the most imaginative names. These included Anna Banana (the editor of the great “Vile” magazine), & Cosey Fanni Tutti (a member of “Throbbing Gristle” whose “Second Annual Report” I wasn’t to hear until 2 yrs later). By a decade later, I was corresponding w/ 1,400 people. But long before then, certainly by 1984, such massive correspondence had gotten to be a huge bureaucratic challenge. I’d send out as much as 20 mailings a day & was keeping track of the often changing names & addresses of the people I was corresponding w/. In 1984, as a result of going to England & France for a mnth, partially for the 8th International Neoist Apartment festival, my ability to keep up w/ the correspondence began to fall permanently into arrears.

This was a very exciting time. The sheer quantity of outreach, the senses of purpose, the lifestyle experiments, these were phenomenal. I wasn’t much interested in the “Mail Art”, wch was often just a matter of sending out thoughtless objects for maximal presence in catalogs, as I was in finding other like-minded individuals – esp tricksters. Some of us used many different names & even different addresses & other strategies in order to keep our identities shape-shifting.

It was probably in 1985, while I was still in the thick of this networking, that Trevor Blake, the editor of this bk, & I 1st contacted each other. He sent me the 1st issue of his magazine “Surreal Estates” & I sent him the 3rd issue of my “DDC#040.002″ magazine. By early 1986, I had an interview in “SE” #6. Not long thereafter, “OVO” replaced “Surreal Estates” & by issue #2 I had some Mike Film in it. #7 had a bisected picture thing I contributed & #12 had my ‘resumé’ & an altered version of my “Lidznap” acct. It’s this latter that’s made it into this compilation from earlier issues.

All this fervent networking was beginning to bubble out of the underground into larger circulation & higher visibility. The Book of the SubGenius (1983) was, perhaps, the 1st of these to be of personal importance to me b/c of my inclusion in it. Remarkably, Rev. Ivan Stang made sure that even the most minor contributors, such as myself, got a royalty check. Such was his astounding integrity & the feeling of community & collaboration. “Re/Search” magazine put out its 1st “special book issue” in 1982 focussed on William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, & Throbbing Gristle – followed in 1983 by their “Industrial Culture Handbook”. Despite, or b/c of, the controversial content of such publications, they were widely distributed & eagerly sought after by many people of similar mindset &, as such, had some commercial success.

In the meantime, publications like my “DDC#040.002″, Trevor’s “OVO”, Bruce Andrews & Charles Bernstein’s “L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E”, cris cheek’s “RAWZ”, Julien Blaine”s “DOC(K)S”, Rick Sugden’s “HOMEX”, Sheila Gostick & co’s “End Paper”, Judith A. Hoffberg’s “umbrella”, Alan Davies’ “A HUNDRED POSTERS”, the Church of the SubGenius’ “Stark Fist of Removal”, Donna Kossy’s “False Positive”, Linda Frye Burnham’s “High Performance”, Mike Gunderloy’s “Factsheet Five”, John Foster’s “OP”, Monty Cantsin’s “SMILE”, Nenad Bogdanovic’s “Total”, John M. Bennett’s “Lost & Found Times”, Rev. Crowbar’s “Popular Reality”, AMK’s “Hare/Hunter/Field”, Manfred Vançi Stirnemann’s “Work in Progress”, “Light Times”, Katherine Nichols’ “A. C. Gazette”, John Rininger’s “Phosphorusflourish”, Joel Biroco’s “KAOS”, Rupert Wondolowski & Alfred Merchlinsky’s “Shattered Wig Review”, Lloyd Dunn’s “PhotoStatic”, Stephen Perkins’ “Box of Water”, Chris Winkler’s “(S)CRAP”, the San Francisco Cinematheque’s “Cinematograph”, Mlacolm Dickson & Lorna Waite’s “Variant”, Michel Lefebvre’s “SOUS LE MANTEAU”, Michael Amnasan’s “ottotole”, & many, many other (a)periodicals were keeping discourse very lively indeed.

What had previously been underground became increasingly available thru bks that radically broke new ground: Adam Parfrey’s Apocalypse Culture (1987), Rev. Ivan Stang’s High Weirdness by Mail (1988), Stewart Home’s The Assault on Culture (1988), Bob Black & Adam Parfrey’s Rants and Incendiary Tracts (1989). One of the publications I’d looked forward to the most was “SEMIOTEXT[E] USA” (1987). I’d been reading ‘SEMIOTEXT[E]” since the 1970s & had always found it to be stunning in its intellectual brilliance. Alas, despite its size & thoroughness, by the time it came out I felt a sense of denouement – as if it had nothing new to teach me – for me, it was already dated. A German friend of mine, Florian Cramer, sd the same thing about the preceding “German Issue”. Of course, that wdn’t've been the case for people less saturated in the underground than myself.

But, of course, not every underground publisher had the desire or the wherewithal to put out a bk & get it distributed. Many of us held onto the notion that interpersonal networking was the most important & continued to mainly put out small publications that were mostly intended to be traded w/ other such publishers. The PERSONAL vs the COMMERCIAL. While publications like Re/Search’s “Incredibly Strange Film” were initially exciting, for people like me, at least, they only represented a faux cutting edge. Any truly incredibly strange film, such as my own, wdn’t be included b/c they’re not dumb enuf, they’re not LCD (Lowest Common Denominator) enuf. To a few of us, w/ little or no commercial aspirations, what was most important was finding & communicating w/ the secluded obscure people who seemed to be trying to free themselves from an oppressive society thru following their imagination w/o becoming herders of (sub-)pop-culture sheep. People who took their egalitarianism seriously.

Now, decades later, the ‘landscape’ of underground communication has changed considerably. Many of us who wd’ve previously used the mails now use the internet. But much of the thrill is gone, for me at least. Instead of getting a tape in the mail, I get Facebook announcements. People ‘friend’ each other more for the quantity of connections than for their quality – just like much of Mail Art, but NOT the mail I participated in. Print-On-Demand has, fortunately, come into existence & it’s financially more feasible for someone like Trevor Blake to put bks out w/o having to cater to sensationalist marketing to make the substantial investment back. As such, now we have oVo 20 JUVEN(a/i)LIA: a bk that wd fit in nicely from an information standpoint w/ the aforementioned bks from the 1980s w/ at least a few people that wdn’t've previously made the editorial cut but who were, nonetheless, highly active.

One of Blake’s strengths is his sincere & long-term communication w/ a variety of very vigorous people – many of whom were important to my own correspondence too. Alas, I have to say that his weaknesses are in design imagination & in proofreading. In my 2pp article alone he & his spellcheck added something like 40+ errors. Back to that later. In general, this bk is a vital addition to further bringing to light underground culture – mostly in the us@.

Trevor’s “Public Domain” & “Disclaimer” present an editorial anti-copyright position: “Dedicators recognize that, once placed in the public domain, the Work may be freely reproduced, distributed, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, including by methods that have not yet been invented or conceived.” & such an approach is very much in keeping w/ the more radical proponents of freedom of information. The idea is pretty much that the creators of the works propose to pirate whatever’s out there for their own purposes & feel like it’s only fair to reciprocate in kind. Personally, I prefer non-commercial use w/ attribution. If someone’s going to make money off me, I prefer that they share it w/ me. Respectful friendship rather than exploitation.

The 1st paragraph of Blake’s intro claims that “All text and art appearing here was first published in OVO with the exception of the work of Thom Metzger and the work of Ernest Mann.” Alas, that’s inaccurate in my case. My “Lidznap” was published in its correct & complete form in my bk entitled How to Write a Resumé – Volume II: Making a Good First Impression (1st edition: Apathy Press, 1989 – see reviews of the 2nd edition here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2558817.How_to_Write_a_Resum_Volume_II_Making_a_Good_First_Impression_2nd_edition ) – 2 yrs before the OVO #12 that an abridged version later appeared in.

Blake’s intro goes on to mention some of the other publications that I’ve also mentioned above: Re/Search, Factsheet Five, & Apocalypse Culture. As Trevor explains: “OVO is a public record of my interests and inquiries. OVO is where I’ve taught myself how to write, edit and publish. Themed issues of OVO follow what I work to be less ignorant about. Contributors to OVO have nearly always been friends first.” There’s the emphasis on the personal again. His intro concludes w/: “Read with regularity outside your area of interests. Nothing will point out your own ignorance better than attentiveness to those who disagree with you, nothing makes what you know make sense like learning something unrelated to what you know. Take as many chances [as] you are willing to take lumps for. But most of all, get busy.” & it’s this philosophy that makes OVO highly worth reading.

There’s a drawing by Mike Diana at the end of this intro. For those of you not familiar w/ his work I strongly recommend the fantastic VHS release “affliction” edited by underground movie stalwart Mark Hejnar. Mike Diana got burned by the police state more than most of us. Here’s his contributor’s bio: “Mike Diana was born in Geneva New York in 1969. He started drawing at a young age. He is the first artist to receive a criminal conviction for obscenity in the United States. Based on drawings Mike made at the same time as his drawings for OVO, Mike was forbidden from any contact with children under 18, compelled to undergo psychological testing and enroll in a journalistic ethics course, pay a $3,000 fine and perform more than one thousand hours of community service. He was also ordered to cease drawing for personal use. To insure that Mike was not drawing, police were allowed to inspect his house at any time without warning or warrant. He escaped to New York City in 1996.”

Many of the ideas presented here have been far more important to many of us than may often meet the eye. Take Hakim Bey’s statement: “We might now contemplate aesthetic actions which possess some of the resonance of terrorism (or “cruelty,” as Artaud put it) aimed at the destruction of abstractions rather than people, at liberation rather than power, pleasure rather than profit, joy rather than fear. “Poetic Terrorism.” Our chosen images have the potency of darkness – but all images are masks, & behind these masks lie energies we can turn toward light & pleasure.” Well put!

I found Johhny Brainwash’s “Holding Games for Ransom” (published April 2008) to be interesting. It explains an alternative economic model for gamers & others akin to what are now kickstarts. Alternative economic thinking has always been important for people in the underground for various probably obvious reasons: not everyone in the world is by nature likely to ‘succeed’ in the economic conditions of the society they’re born into. “It takes money to make money”, as the saying goes, so if you’re born relatively poor you’re not as likely to ‘work yr way to the top’ as proponents of capitalism might have you believe. If you’re rich enuf to go to a rich university long enuf to get a PhD you’re much more likely to be shit out of the system straight into a position of privilege where it’s taken for granted that you deserve to be regardless of yr actual level of accomplishment.

Since poor people are much more likely to be more desperate than rich people are generally likely to understand, it’s no wonder that people wd seek out an economic system wherein their actual qualities & abilities have some value rather than the often unfair values assigned to them by people in power. Barter is very important. Hence we have “Indie Currency” as outlined in Klint Finley’s “The New Currency War” (OVO 18 Money(April 2008)). For an earlier article on the same subject, see Rita Rodentia’s “Money Schmoney – Alternative Currencies” (Street Rat-Bag #3, October 2000). I learned at least one unexpected thing from Finley’s article: “Pay Pal, eventually burdened with legal problems, banned the use of PayPal for gambling, pornography, and several other uses in 2004.”

Gerry Reith & Thom Metzger were both people I corresponded &/or traded w/. Reith, perhaps isolated more than most in Sheridan, Wyoming, committed suicide. Metzger & I didn’t correspond for long. I think I always figured that it had something to do w/ him becoming a somewhat ‘successful’ novelist. Therefore, it was interesting for me to see things by them in here that I may not’ve been previously familiar w/. However, part of what Reith wrote & what Blake writes later is something that I very much don’t identify w/. Reith 1st: “As anarchists: leafleting, speaking, proselytizing, agitating anarchists, we are continually trying to smooth over the inherent contradictions of trying to motivate people to act while disavowing any responsibility for their choice of action(s).” Blake quoting George Walford: “‘The overwhelming majority of those who have encountered anarchism have shown very clearly that they do not want to do what anarchists want them to do. They prefer to do what they are doing now. We have no reason to expect the others, when they meet anarchism, to respond differently. Can your anarchism accept this? Or do you feel bound to impose (however gently and rationally) your ideas of what it is good for them to do?’”

Now, I’m an anarchist & the reason why I consider myself to be an anarchist is very simple: I don’t accept rule from others & don’t want to impose rule on others either. Etymologically, it seems simple: “an” = without, “archy” means rule by. This is generally taken to mean ‘rule by someone other than yrself’ since it’s somewhat taken for granted that as an anarchist you think for yrself & take responsibility for yrself. Perhaps something like “esy-o-idios-archy” might be better or just plain “idioarchy” meaning “rule of yrself by yrself”. It seems that potentially etymologically applicable words like autarchy & monarchy are already laden w/ more dictatorial meanings. Anyway, my point here is that one of the things that I like about anarchy is that anyone self-declaring as an anarchist is hypothetically not going to proselytize b/c that wd mean trying to lead someone else & wd, therefore, be antithetical to “w/o rule”. Personally, I detest proselytizing & have no desire to “impose (however gently and rationally) [my] ideas”. So, WHAT THE FUCK?! I don’t even ask my friends whether they’re anarchists much of the time. If they try to proselytize to me chances are they won’t stay friends w/ me for long. I’d just find them too annoying. As such, I find this emphasis on proselytizing above to be very suspect.

Mike Gunderloy’s “The Meta-Network, or, A Battle with Footnotes” was one of the highlights of this “OVO” for me. Gunderloy’s Factsheet Five was the best meta-networking tool I’ve ever encountered & Gunderloy’s ability to write capsule reviews of hundreds or thousands of publications every mnth always struck me as qualifying him to be called “a human encyclopedia” – a compliment I rarely give out. His humorous approach in making this text have the footnotes quickly overwhelm the main text makes it even more enjoyable to me & smacks of parody of academia.

Anonymous’ “23 Sperm Stories 23″ starts off like a dry scientific explanation of sperm & related reproductive elements. However, many people have emphasized the #23 as some sort of significantly recurring # – often w/ occult meaning. As such, the title’s a bit of a giveaway that something other than the dry beginning, wch might just be cut’n'paste from undisclosed sources, might appear – as indeed it does about 6 pages in:

“Reports of alien abduction often include claims of the harvesting of or depositing of sperm. The Christian religion claims that when a sperm cell enters another kind of cell, a soul is created. Casteneda (a 20th Century novelist), claimed that sperm went to the recipient’s brain, causing a pleasant sensation. Bardon (a 20th Century occultist) claimed that retaining sperm in a special container called a condenser could allow the manipulation of energy and magnetic fluid. The Temple of Psychic Youth claimed that placing sperm on paper while concentrating on a desired goal would make that desired goal occur.”

“A majority of the world’s economy, technological progress, art and culture are centered on extracting sperm from one or more human and putting it inside of or in proximity to one or more humans or images. The second most active engine of the world’s economy, technological effort, art and culture is the prevention of these activities. The entire history of humanity can be explained as the dynamics of these two forces.”

For me, this is overemphasis.

“In 1999 a subject in Prague tricked a human into donating sperm to a local sperm bank with the claim this was part of a medical process. The subject actually used the sperm to create two new humans, which the donor human was then required by [law? - word apparently missing here] to financially support”.

I find this last story a bit unbelievable in its current state. I found nothing about it online but I didn’t look very hard either. If the story’s anything but an urban myth I suspect that there’s alot more to it than in this telling. According to this same article, “No human has ever been generated without sperm; sperm is the agent of all life”. According to Wikipedia: “Parthenogenesis (play /ˌpærθənoʊˈdʒɛnəsɪs/) is a form of asexual reproduction where growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization. In plants, parthenogenesis means development of an embryo from an unfertilized egg cell, and is a component process of apomixis.” Even the article itself refutes its claim re sperm: “Scientists at the Reproductive Genetics Institute in Chicago created a means of creating new humans without sperm in 2002.” & “clearly the need to reproduce with sperm is an option and not a requirement.” The point is that while I found “23 Sperm Stories 23″ to be dubious in its logic at times, I still think it’s very interesting.

I found Feral Faun’s “Thoughts on Experimentation” to be somewhat representative of a general thrust of OVO: “I consider the past ten years of my life to be a constant process of experimentation”. This leads me to PM’s “Liberating Wednesday”: “So far people have tried to liberate countries, but the results aren’t very convincing. So why not try to liberate a day of the week?” Great idea! This, in turn, reminds me of Ernest Mann’s “I am wasting less of my time (LIFE) watching, listening to and reading THOUGHT LEADERS, ie, TV, movies, radio, music, newspapers, magazines, and novels.” Wch takes me to Karen Eliot’s (misspelled throughout OVO as “Elliot”) “Operation Negation”: “From 1990 until an undetermined point thereafter there will be an employment of the negation of all forms of work (and play).” In other words, all of these people are trying to look at their life & to experiment w/ it in a liberating way.

Ernest Mann, whose “Little Free Press” publications I once rc’vd frequently, was definitely dedicated to freeing himself: “I spent 22 years of my TIME (life) working as a Wage Slave. [..] I don’t want to do that anymore.” I found this memorial to him online ( http://www.oocities.org/msrrtnewsletter/may96.html#mann ):

“While half mast flags in April marked the death of U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, our thoughts instead were on [a] real people’s hero, Ernest Mann. The 69-year-old editor of what must have been the longest running zine in existence, Little Free Press, was bludgeoned to death in March by his teenage grandson who then took his own life. The two had been living together in a Little Falls, Minnesota, trailer court. Formerly a successful real estate investor, Mann (a.k.a. Larry Johnson), “dropped out” in 1969 to live a contemplative life and promote his quixotic “Priceless Economic System.” Described as “definitely the most idealistic, and arguably the most naive set of pamphlets” (High weirdness by mail, Stang, 1988), Little Free Press has been part crusade, and part autobiography about squirrel trapping, raft building, and grandson raising. Mann first received regional attention in 1978 when Minneapolis Tribune columnist Larry Batson wrote about his quest to promote freedom. By the time the national media noticed him (“A Thoreau of the city,” Christian Science Monitor, May 16, 1990, p.13), he was already widely known throughout the zine network. Mike Gunderloy’s September 1982 edition of Factsheet Five (#4) reviewed Little Free Press #41. Thirteen and a half years later, Mann was still at it, pumping out issue #138 and visualizing “peace on Earth and goodwill.” We were not alone in corresponding with Ernest and wish we hadn’t procrastinated with plans to interview him. Profoundly human, an enjoyer of books and simple pleasures, an anarchist and atheist who never ceased his one-person utopian experiment, he will be missed.”

Walter Alter’s yet-another person in OVO that I corresponded w/ in the ’80s. While I more or less completely disagree w/ his statements such as: “Meeting the necessities of biological survival is a piece of cake; an amoeba can do it.” “Technology is inherently democratizing.” “By visually representing and revealing the interconnectivity of events within a phase and, by extension, of all phases within our universe, technology becomes the most humanitarian of all human endeavors.” “When television is discussed it is always within the parameter of a single screen, much like cinema.” reading his article here made me want to listen to his “Air Bag!” tape that he’d sent me. Alas, I cdn’t find it but in the process of looking I was reminded of just how amazing the hundreds of tapes that I once traded for were. As for cinema being a single screen medium? I’d say: no more or less so than tv. There’re many instances of people experimenting w/ multiple projections. Take, eg, my own:

“Multiple Projections: 1978 to 2009″:

Trevor’s reviews are particularly useful for pointing people in the direction of obscure publications. The 1st of these here is about Mark Mothersbaugh’s 1975 bk entitled My Struggle published in 1978 in an edition of 100. While Blake mentions that “These small thick books have red covers to make them look the same as Chairman Mao’s Book of Quotations”, he fails to mention that “My Struggle” is the English translation of Hitler’s famous autobiography “Mein Kampf”. Also reviewed is a documentary called The Skin Horse “by and about disabled people and their sex lives.” Trevor notes that “Channel 4 (formerly Central Television) commissioned the 1982 film but does not sell it. No one sells it, not legally.” &, again, we have a central concern here for probably many of the OVO contributors: seek out & study obscure & obscured info.

After Trevor’s reviews come his interviews. I have a particular affection for interviews – esp w/ people that mainstream media might find unworthy. As I write in my essay entitled “On the Importance of Personal Archives” (not in OVO): “I’d rather live life fully with friends than vicariously thru the icons. Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous? How about Lifestyles of the Eccentric & Imaginative? Of the Intelligent & Visionary? Of the Friendly & Accessible? These may include the rich & famous but certainly aren’t excluded to them.” Blake’s 1st interview here is w/ a bulimic. Another subject of interest to me. In 1989 I made a movie called “Barfroom” that’s a parody of bulimics made w/ 2 ex-bulimic friends of mine. Another interview is w/ my old friend, long since lost touch w/, Yael Ruth Dragwyla. She discusses “varieties of non-physical travel”. I made a super-8mm film of her in 1986 performing ritual magick.

Perhaps most germane to the theme of underground publishing is Trevor’s interview w/ V. Vale, the co-editor of Re/Search. Vale’s philosophizing provides another good summary of a thread running thru the intentions & experiences of many underground publishers: “A lot of people just become criminals or whatever, or drug addicts, or they just can’t cope for a lot of good reasons. Society gives us plenty of reasons but it also provides the narcotics in the form of television and actual narcotics so that we can “adapt,” shall we say. And so yes, it’s definitely a struggle against mind control, against conditioning, against banal information. We were born with the birthright of curiosity and there’s nothing more natural than to be curious, but of course this faculty is extinguished early in life. It seems like society does everything it can to either extinguish this faculty or to channel it along channels of consumption rather than something creative on your own, something creative and original and obsessive and unique on your own.” BRAVO!!

Alas, at some point I have to critique the treatment that my own article, “Lidznap” rc’vd. Perhaps I shd preface this by explaining that from 1969 on I’ve used meticulously calculated d liberate d viations from conventional writing for encryption purposes, for abbreviation, for ambiguity, & for many other reasons. These d viations are always intended to expand the meaning of my text in a way that conventional writing wdn’t – & are rarely mistakes. The mistakes come along when editors & their machines ‘correct’ my writing – esp my puns, wch are often numerous & highly charged. Hence if I call myself a “psychopathfinder”, eg, some spell check program might ‘correct’ that as a ‘nonexistent’ word. Of course, neologisms have to begin somewhere & I’m an active force in birthing them. Explanations of my systems wd require too much space here. The reader is directed to the “Dos & Dont’s of Dating” & “l;a;n;g;u;a;g;e” chapters of my bk entitled footnotes ( see reviews of that here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2349153.footnotes ).

The original article wd’ve been sent to Trevor around 1987. It’s about an event & a project from 1979. The project involved a phone # that cd be called for somewhat unpredictable results. This phone # spelled TESTES-3. A reporter named Franz Lidz, whose early life has been represented in the Dianne Keaton movie Unstrung Heroes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unstrung_Heroes ), expressed an interest in writing an article about TESTES-3, wch was operated anonymously. He wrote one article before he found out who we were & one after we led him on a wild ride. “Lidznap” is about that wild ride. My original begins w/ the title, followed by this subtitle: “Two Ironic Endings” followed by the section headed “Preface”. That’s followed by a photocopy of Lidz’s 1st article entitled: “For a Good Time Call TESTES-3 – Underground Telephone Network”. That’s followed by page 1 of the 2nd part of my text entitled “Lidznap” wch is followed by 2 relevant photos & the end of my article. Finishing the whole thing is a copy of Lidz’s 2nd article, entitled: “VD-RADIO Goes On The Air”.

When this was 1st published in OVO #12, it was called “Lidznap: Two Ironic Endings” & Lidz’s 2 articles were removed. Only a cropped version of one of the 2 original photos was left in. Trevor retyped my original, rather than photocopying it & cutting it into a form that wd fit his layout. In this original process, this sentence:

“Given that we considered anonymity to be essential to our functioning as mysterious catalysts & given that we wanted to put emphasis on TESTES-3 as a communally produced participatory phenomenon we reacted cautiously to his request in a way that we thought to be consistent with our principles.”

became:

“Given that we considered anonymity to be essential to our functioning communally produced participatory phenomenon we reacted cautiously to his request in a way that we thought to be consistent with our principles.”

Over a quarter of the sentence is missing: “as mysterious catalysts & given that we wanted to put emphasis on TESTES-3 as a”. Why? B/c in the original that’s an entire line & when Trevor was transcribing his eyes jumped from the preceding line to the following one & missed it altogether! That one mistake alone is enuf to make me cringe but there are many, MANY more. Any mistakes Trevor made in his original typing are then repeated & further compounded by the singularly ‘stupid’ & inflexible spell check program he must use. IMO spell checks shd be disabled in any text program used by any reasonably literate person. They’re mainly designed to be helpful for covering up the mistakes of the barely literate – like college students. Text programs will accept the wrong word if it’s spelled correctly, they’ll also ‘correct’ the types of meaningful d viations that I specialize in.

Hence, if one writes “CD” as an abbreviation for “Compact Disc” it might become “Cd”. If one writes “than” instead of the intended “then” it’ll stay that way. If one writes “4″ as a phonetic abbreviation of “for”, it might get changed. If a proper name is misspelled, it’ll never notice. If one creates a d liberate contraction, it might get changed: “awhile” might become “a while”. The list is endless. tOGGLE cASE is not permitted. Words like “typewriter” & “lawnmower” were once written as “type writer” & “lawn mower” until the 2 words became commonly enuf associated w/ each other to become one word. The intermediary stage is “type-writer” & “lawn-mower”. I often prefer to recognize these contractions as likely to occur in the future & to make them happen NOW. Hence, I write “alotof” instead of “a lot of” b/c “a lot of” is sd so often that it’s basically blended into one word in common speech even tho it’s not usually written that way. THIS IS NOT A MISTAKE ON MY PART but a spell check program will react to it as if it is.

Then there are things like the word “basically” that I’ve just used. This isn’t underlined as a possible mistake in the program I’m typing this in. However, the word “publically” is underlined as a mistake. So what’s the rule? When I was a kid, a rule was that when a word ending in “l” was having “ing” added to it, the “l” was to be doubled. Reading older bks will routinely present this spelling: “travelling”. These days, that’s considered ‘wrong’ & it’s to be spelled “traveling” – no more doubling of the “l”. My point here is that while I actually pay attn to many of these rules & try to either consciously d viate from them or to stay consistent, what’s considered ‘correct’ is actually a mess of irregularities that have no actual grammatical consistency.

I also d liberately do things like put punctuation outside of quotation marks. Yes, yes, I ‘know’ that this isn’t the conventional procedure. I cd give a shit. The people who teach/enforce these conventional procedures are generally doing so by rote, I’m actually thinking about the language. Fancy that! In general, I use punctuation as I imagine myself saying something. Therefore, if I imagine myself pausing, I’ll use a comma (“,”). If I imagine myself not pausing I’ll leave the comma out. SO, in my original article, I wrote “or “line” as we called it”. Trevor ‘corrected’ this by writing it as “or “line,” as we called it” adding punctuation that I didn’t want in there. Not only did he add the comma, he also put it w/in the quotation marks (” “) wch I wd’ve never done. To me, in my much more consistent & logical grammatical world than that enforced by convention, the word “line” shd stay isolated w/in the quotation marks & the comma shd come as a pause after it. Sentence #2 begins: “It was run anonymously” & Trevor changed that to “It was operated anonymously”. & so forth & so on – over 40 changes in toto. “John’s camera flashes added to their already substantially disoriented vision” becomes “John’s camera flashes added to their already substantially distorted vision”. Here “disoriented” is far more accurate b/c Franz was wearing prism glasses that I made that reversed his left-right, etc..

A common problem w/ editors who feel the need to to standardize their visual presentation is that the editors then have to retype all text into their computers. Unless the retyping is done very carefully, wch it rarely is, the result is a mess. Given that I’m a highly literate & careful person, it’s always painful for me to see something credited to me so full of mistakes that I seem very sloppy indeed. Esp given that my d viations are often symbolic, the actual meanings of my article become distorted. Take, eg, this bit from my original: “They’re coming to take me away, hoho, heehee, haha..” – in Trevor’s retyping this becomes “they’re coming to take me away, hoho, heehee, haha…”. 2 seemingly minor changes have been made: the beginning “T” has been made lower case – hence no longer showing that this is the 1st line of a verse of the song; the ellipsis at the end has been changed from having 2 dots (“..”) to the more conventional 3 dots (“…”). In my number symbolism I recognize the conventional 3 dot ellipsis as a symbol of the so-called “Holy Trinity” used, again conventionally, as a symbol of infinity. It’s Christian. I’m an ATHEIST & I detest Christinanity (pun intended, as usual – another word that wd be ‘corrected’ by a spell check program) – as such, I use 2 dots as my symbol of the fade-out &/or infinity. Once again, it’s d liberate! Reading thru this “oVo”, I find a near continual parade of typos. Some people probably don’t care – but to someone like myself, these typos can significantly change the meaning of a text.

Ah, much of what I feel I shd write next is even more difficult. I like Trevor & think that this issue, & others before it, have a significant enuf place in the history of the us@ underground to be worth reading. Still, there’re parts I find myself substantially critical of that I’ll address here. Trevor Blake’s “Trajectory Through Anarchism”, in particular. In this, Trevor traces his development as an anarchist & a post-anarchist starting w/ age 16 & ending w/: “Whatever I am, I an [sic] definitely not an anarchist.”

One phrase that runs thru the article is “imp of the perverse” used as a positive term: “The same imp of the perverse that led me to read about anarchism pricks up his ears when he hears a friend say how concerned he is that another friend is reading Ayn Rand.” “I call up the imp of the perverse to see what other forbidden ideas might be out there.” “2005: The imp of the perverse continues to slip books into my hand”. I can relate to Trevor’s usage of the “imp of the perverse” as meaning his tendency to seek out ‘forbidden’ knowledge. I’ve been calling myself a “blatant pervert” for much the same reason for a long time. However, it might interest readers who don’t already know this, that this phrase probably originated in Edgar Allan Poe’s story of the same name that 1st appeared in Graham’s Magazine in July, 1845, & that Poe says this about it:

“We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss – we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnameable feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the Arabian Nights. But out this our cloud upon the precipice’s edge, there grows into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any genius or demon of a tale, and yet it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height. And this fall – this rushing annihilation – for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination – for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire to do it.”

As I mentioned earlier in this review, I find the idea of proselytizing for anarchy to be self-contradictory. Of course, people are self-contradictory all the time. But there’s so much written here about anarchy that I find inaccurate that I want to counterbalance it. This, even tho I’ve often sd things to the effect of “Sometimes I’m an anarchist. If other people say I’m not an anarchist &/or if the common notion of anarchy were to become too oppressive, no biggie, then I’m not an anarchist. 1st & foremost, I’m me.” In other words, let’s not get too attached to labels or let them get too attached to us. To my mind, one of the worst things that can happen to anarchism is for it to become a popular movement that people ‘join’ – not b/c it’s what they feel inside, but b/c they’re conformists & being an anarchist is part & parcel of whatever subculture they’re part of.

Trevor emphasizes his correspondence w/ George Walford, who I’ve never heard of:

“1993: From a letter by George Walford: “You remark the scarcity of ‘real live human being stories’ in anarchist literature. Very perceptive. But it’s not an accident. Anarchism is not about people as we meet them, it’s about abstruse principles and theories (and, even more, about the resistance these encounter). The real human stories appear in the literature at the other end of the range, in the popular romances, thrillers love-songs and — perhaps most of all — in tabloid newspaper stories, which go to extreme lengths to personalize (humanize) political events.”

Whew! Not only do I find Walford to be astoundingly un-self-consciously pompous, I also find his claims to be as far from my own personal experience as they can get. A “scarcity of ‘real live human being stories’ in anarchist literature”? It’s hard for me to imagine how any reader of anarchist literature cd find this to be the case. Arguably the most famous & widely read anarchist bk in English might be Emma Goldman’s Living My Life wch is, of course, an autobiography. Or what about Alexander Berkman’s Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist?

To continue w/ Walford:

“The dilemma of orthodox anarchism cannot be escaped by ‘practical living anarchy’ within present society. We cannot live without taking part in society, paying taxes and supporting capitalism by our consumption, and orthodox anarchism condemns all of this. The attempt to live the anarchist life is a living demonstration of the arid, empty, abstract unreality of orthodox anarchism; it cannot be put into practice, it is virtually nothing but theory.”

Again, I have to strongly disagree. 1st, it IS possible to avoid “paying taxes and supporting capitalism by our consumption” but if one’s born into a capitalist country, it’s certainly hard to do w/in that context. But, for me, that’s besides the point. It’s important to at least be conscious of the ramifications of one’s tax-paying & of one’s consumption. There’s a big difference between the guy who owns the factory that uses slave labor & the person who refuses to buy his product b/c he knows of these conditions. I prefer to be among the latter. I know that trees are destroyed to create bks but I still love & collect & read bks anyway. I have no aspirations to be ‘pure’ or ‘perfect’ but that doesn’t make me any less of an anarchist.

Trevor asks: “Where are the older anarchists in a movement that started in the 19th Century?” Well, he’s 13 yrs younger than me, so I’m one of those “older anarchists” & I’ve met a few older than myself. If one were to go to Barcelona, eg, one wd find much more continuity than one’s likely to find in the us@. Any study of us@ anarchist history will reveal a heavy suppression that led to many deportations & imprisonings. I’ve seen at least one documentary on the Wobblies where the few survivors expressed astonishment that anyone even knew who they were any more. It’s probably safe to say that from 1930 to 1970 this suppression thinned out the number of anarchists extensively. After the Spanish Civil War, members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade didn’t necessarily come back to the US b/c they were either criminalized or just disgusted by the US’s official non-opposition to the rise of Franco. The great player-piano composer, Conlon Nancarrow, eg, moved to Mexico instead. In 1969 or 1970 when I came across the term “anarchist” & realized that that’s what I was, I’d either never met anyone else who’d ever heard of anarchy or might’ve met ONE other such person once. It wasn’t until 6 yrs later that I met another one. Obviously, things have changed – largely as a result of the popularization of anarchy in punk culture.

Trevor goes on to ask: “And what has anarchism done… ever?” Wow! Such a question amazes me. Anarchist agitating is certainly centrally linked to such things as the 8 hr work day & the 40 hr work wk. Ever heard of “Food Not Bombs”?! It’s a pretty widespread free food program that most big cities, & quite a few small ones, have by now. In Pittsburgh, “Book ‘Em”, a bks-to-prisoners program run by volunteers, was founded by anarchists; “Free Ride”, a bikes project that teaches people how to build & repair bicycles & makes the opportunity available for kids to get a free bike by going thru a similar learning program, was founded by anarchists; “The Big Idea” is the local anarchist info & coffee shop. There are anarchist medics for protests where people take the risk of being attacked by police. There were anarchist volunteers who worked in New Orleans after Katrina. All of these things are typical & all of them are trying to improve society at the level that they can work at w/o having to create hierarchies.

More Walford replying to Blake: “‘Just as …’ in which you blame the personal inadequacies of individual anarchists for the failure of anarchy.” Does Blake do this? If so, I agree w/ Walford that “That does not stand up any better than blaming individual supporters of capitalism for the failures of that system.” I have no expectations of ANY human to be somehow ‘perfect’. However, there’s a higher probability that someone who at least tries to live by a philosophy of Mutual Aid is less likely to fuck me over than someone who believes that Dog Eat Dog is the only way to get what you want. Blaming individuals is a waste of time if one expects individuals to be some sort of ultimate representative of any philosophy. I don’t represent anarchism, I represent myself.

Walford: “Not only can anarchy not be practiced under the state, it can’t even be thought out as an independent social system, in any concrete way, without running into contradictions that, appearing in practice, would wreck the whole world.” Really? What a blowhard! I want to know more about Walford so I look him up online & find that he was a socialist. How many times do anarchists have to point out that Nazism was National Socialism & that Mussolini was a socialist before he created Fascism?! Statements like “anarchy not be practiced under the state” are based on the idea that anarchists are trying to set up a different type of ‘state’ “under the state” & that this won’t work. As an anarchist, I’m simply trying to live as close to my own personal principles as I can. I have no expectations whatsoever that my own individual anarchism is going to be able to function w/ absolute purist integrity w/in any particular social conditions. There will always be factors beyond my control & things that I disagree w/ & that’s just fine. In some respects, such a view of anarchism is ‘moderate’ more than it is ‘left’ or ‘right’ ‘wing’ b/c I think that the more people who live stable & satisfied lives the better off we’ll all be. In other words, I prefer to foster social conditions in wch interpersonal animosity doesn’t reach homicidal proportions. IMO, ANY system is likely to create bad conditions for SOMEONE so I prefer to choose NO SYSTEM AT ALL.

Blake: “1994: I define anarchism as the belief that it is possible and desirable to maintain the world’s population at the current standard of living without government and without a period of transition from the present to an anarchist world.” I, personally, DON’T define anarchism in that way, I just hope it’s more conducive to non-warring social conditions than most social philosophies. HOWEVER, I don’t think that there’s such a thing as an “anarchist world” nor do I want such a thing. I don’t want everyone in the world to be anarchists – just those who want to be.

Trevor’s “The Bonus Army” was one of the most interesting articles for me. It taught me about something that I knew nothing about AND it brought up a familiar historical figure who’s always fascinating: General Smedley Butler: “Butler went on to write the book War is a Racket.” I’d like to read that.

From pp98-100, there’s Blake’s article entitled “Multiple Name Identities”. This is a subject dear to me & one that I have alotof direct experience w/. I’ve always found the term “Multiple Names” to be misleading. I prefer “Collective Identities”. Both refer to the deliberate use of one name by multiple people, often for a common purpose. Blake’s article tells of such names previously unknown to me & claims a few things that I think are inaccurate.

Blake mentions Nicholas Bourbaki, Kenneth Robeson, Stefan Brockhoff, David Agnew, & Van den Budenmayer – none of whom have I ever heard of. THANK YOU TREVOR! To these I might add Ern Malley, an Australian hoax poet identity created by 2 poets who hated modernist poetry in order to parody such poetry & prank a particular editor. Trevor also mentions the children’s bk entitled The Little Engine Who Could & that: “The story is attributed to Watty Piper, which was the house name of publisher Platt & Munk. Many men and women wrote under the name Watty Piper.” To wch I add that this is somewhat common in kid’s bks insofar as publishers create series that they perpetuate far beyond the lifespans of individual authors. Hence we have Hardy Boys stories written by “Franklin W. Dixon” & Tom Swift stories written by “Victor Appleton”, etc..

Blake: “Since 1968, films which the director wishes to distance themselves from are attributed to Alan Smithee.” Many, if not all of these are porn & it’s not just the directors who use the name. People largely use it so they don’t ruin their otherwise more aboveboard professional careers. I made my own movie “Teenagers from Inner Space” under the name Alan Smithee in order to deliberately associate myself w/ the other Smithees.

Blake: “Rrose Sélavy was an artist and model in the 1920s, associated with a number of dadaists.” Trevor shd’ve researched this one a little bit better. Here’s what’s basically common knowledge in the art world as presented on Wikipedia:

“Rrose Sélavy, or Rose Sélavy, was one of the pseudonyms of artist Marcel Duchamp. The name, a pun, sounds like the French phrase “Eros, c’est la vie”, which translates to English as “eros, that’s life”. It has also been read as “arroser la vie” (“to make a toast to life”).”

The collective identities that Blake writes about that I know the most about are those of Monty Cantsin, Karen Eliot, & Luther Blissett. I’ve been all 3 of them at some time or another. Blake spells “Monty” “Monte” at times & “Eliot” “Elliot” at all times so I call attn to those errors. He also presents David Zacks’ version of the origin of Monty Cantsin wch is probably mostly accurate but one shd keep in mind that Zack was a diabetic who was often too much of a space cadet to be always keenly aware of what was going on around him. “Blaster” Al Ackerman’s somewhat different history for such things is helpful for getting a more general feel.

Blake writes: “Stewart Home has written about Karen Elliot, who appeared in 1985: ‘Karen Elliot is a name that refers to an individual human being who can be anyone.’” What Blake seems to fail to understand here is that Home was simply rewriting earlier texts done under the name of someone else explaining Monty Cantsin. This text did not entirely originate w/ Home. Parts of it may’ve been written by him, other parts definitely by others. Essentially, such texts are written by the collective identity that they’re written under. Hence, attribution to Home is both inaccurate in terms of ‘actual’ authorship & in terms of the spirit of the collective identity.

“Stewart Home, in turn, has seen publications under his own name that he did not write.” [..] “including “Anarchism is Stupid: How Luther Blissett Hoaxed Bakunin’s Idiot Children,” “Communism or Masochism? An Appeal to All Revolutionaries Concerning the Rubber Slave Larry O’Hara,” and “An Open Letter to My Avant-Garde Chums by Stewart Home.”" Ha ha! There’s more to this than meets the eye, eh! EG: “Anamorphosis: Stewart Home, Searchlight and the plot to destroy civilization” is credited to “Larry O’Hara” (w/ the quotes around the name), who’s a critic of Home’s, but it was actually Home “who contributes to and edited the pamphlet” (according to Home here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3901990-anamorphosis ). In other words, these faux creditings are part of a prankish interplay of political argument.

All in all, Blake’s article is remarkably thorough. I’d add a few more names: Emmett Grogan ( I highly recommend his bk Ringolevio – a Life Played for Keeps. See its listing on GoodReads here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1069602.Ringolevio ), Bob Jones (who may or may not be a fiction of Stewart’s), David A. Bannister, Jesus Christ, & Shakespeare. Now I don’t really claim that Shakespeare was a collective identity but there have been suggestions to that effect & there is a bk by Ralph L. Tweedale entitled Wasn’t Shakespeare Someone Else? that questions whether Shakespeare was a pen name.

Finally, on this subject, I tell a tale about a university professor friend of mine & of an action undertaken inspired by the Monty Cantsin collective identity. This friend, who I’ll call Monty, was hired to teach English or some such at a university. On the 1st day of class, he had a friend appear as him & teach the class, On the 2nd day of class he had another friend do the same thing. By the 3rd day of class. he actually finally appeared to teach the class. By then, the students didn’t believe him anymore. At least he got them to question more.

&, NOW for the most difficult of Trevor’s articles to critique: “Co-Remoting with the Thunderous”, his article about me. It’s difficult to critique b/c it’s extremely flattering in some ways & lardy knows I’ve had more than enuf hate directed at me to last more than a lifetime so such positivity is much appreciated – but it’s also not necessarily always accurate & it’s probably a little too filled w/ fantasy to be a portrait of a mere human who’s turning into an old man as he writes & who’s slated for mortality along w/ the rest of the meatbags.

The title, “Co-Remoting with the Thunderous”, is a truncated quote from the last line of the 1st edition of my bk Telepathy Receptivity Training (see it on Good Reads here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2598123-telepathy-receptivity-training ). The full phrase is “Dilating with the physical, co-remoting with the thunderous” & I very much like that Trevor used the latter part as his article’s title. All of the phrases in TRT are language thought of by me while half-asleep, usually when waking up. As such, they’re strongly evocative for me w/o being overdominated by conscious intention. That gives such a phrase an interpretive flexibility & Trevor’s use of it plays right into that.

One thing that immediately tickles me about Blake’s article is that he deliberately overuses the name “tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE” in its full form in sentences where the tOGGLE cASE is disruptive. When I originally conceived of the name (or the answer to the question: ‘What’s yr name?’) in 1975, I wrote it lower case so that when it wd appear in sentences it wd cause a sortof cognitive dissonance. EG: We were sitting there & tentatively, a convenience walked into the room. For someone who doesn’t know that “tentatively, a convenience” is a person’s name (originally conceived of as a collective identity by the by), that sentence wd be saying that “tentatively, a convenience walked into the room” – ie: “a convenience” wd be some sort of ambulatory thing capable of walking in a rm? ‘What sort of convenience?’, one might ask, etc.. Trevor’s use of tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE seems to play right into that deliberate disorientation possibility.

Blake’s article reveals a truly substantial level of knowledge about some aspects of my ‘work’/play & makes a few mistakes too. Unlike almost everyone else in the world, one thing that Blake understandingly hones in on is my obsession w/ context. The article begins: “There is no context for the man whose name is tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE.” [..] “One of the many publications by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE was titled DDC#040.0 – dewey decimal classification number 0 (generalities) 4 (not used) 0 (no subject) 0 (miscellany)… just as a book with this dewey decimal classification number would stand apart from all other books, so does tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE stand entirely apart from all other people.” Thank you, Trevor – & when I was younger that might’ve been more accurate than it is now as I hurriedly type this before I have to rush off to work.

Trevor writes: “Re/Search magazine requested a photograph of tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE’s tattoos for their ‘Modern Primitive’ issue, but the photographs were not used. tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE does not fit the profile for a modern primitive. tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE has not modified tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE’s body to attach it more firmly to a tribal past – tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE has propelled it forward to a sixth-finger future.” Thank you for writing that Trevor! It’s particularly perspicacious in a way that few, or no, other writers about myself & my projects have ever succeeded w/! For those for whom the sixth-finger reference makes no sense: I was once interviewed for a BalTimOre newspaper & I sd: “Normality is what cuts off your sixth finger & your tail” by wch I meant that normality suppresses extraordinary characteristics that might be useful but that are ‘abnormal’. 6 fingers, eg, wd be great for finger-picking for guitarists. The newspaper changed the quote to: “Normality is what cuts off your sixth finger & you fail”. Re/Search quoted me correctly in the back of their “Modern Primitives” issue. Thank you, V. Vale.

I don’t know why my foto was excluded from the Re/Search “Modern Primitives” issue. I sent a foto of my head getting its 3D brain tattoo. A drawing of a brain was inked on there 1st & the tattooist was following that. It may’ve looked like it was faked. It wasn’t. In my experience, I’m usually just a little bit off from what people are looking for when they’re looking for trend-setters. I try to sabotage trends in advance, I like to do things that I know are too complex & ‘uncool’ for conformists to want to have anything to do w/ them. “Modern Primitives”, despite how great so much of the body modification in it is, spawned a slew of cheap imitations. Piercings & tattoos suddenly became ever-so-much ‘hipper’. What a shame. I’ve still never met anyone else w/ a 3D tattoo like mine, tho.

So much of what Trevor Blake writes about here is stuff that I have long stories about. There’s certainly much more to the 6 fingers biz. Trevor notes that I’ve “appeared in public wearing a shirt that reveals [my] chest. It is not a normal chest, but one with six small sow-like teats.” The story behind that is that my fashion model friend (who I haven’t seen in decades – are you out there somewhere?), Eugenie Vincent, did an ad for jeans where she had a 6 titted chest modeled after her own breasts made, maybe by the same person who made the original Planet of the Apes masks or some such, & then she wore it over her own bare chest while in a doggie position overlooking a set of Rome. This was supposed to be a reference to the legend of the she-wolf who suckled Romulus & Remus – the mythical founders of Rome. As it turned out, the 6 tits & her position on all fours proved controversial & the ad either wasn’t used at all or it was only used in limited environments. Then Eugenie was kind enuf to give the faux teats to me & I sewed them onto a similarly colored short-sleeve sweat shirt that I used in performances in 1986.

Trevor explains that I “fashioned a suit of clothes made from zippers, which can be unzipped into a single. long strip.” Not quite, but close. I made pants in 1984 & a jacket in 1988 & the jacket’s arms can be unzipped as a long zipper. In 1989, on my 36th birthday, I washed these clothes & dried them & recorded the process so that I cd make an audio piece called “Drying Clothes Made Entirely of Zippers” wch was then used as part of “The Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7″. For decades I’ve heard “Man, you could make alotof money selling those!” to wch I usually explain that I prefer to be the only one wearing them. 20 yrs or so later I’ve heard of artists making dresses using only zippers but I’ve still never seen a jacket or pants. They’re much harder to sew & I did it by hand.

Trevor also writes that I “made a frightening suit of long-hair wigs of many colors and fashions, and shoulder bags of giant globes”. Regarding the former: the wigs are all pretty similar, I call it my “Hir Sute” or “Hair Suit”. Regarding the latter, it was actually my friend John Sheehan, under the name of Monty Cantsin, who took a moon globe & turned it into “NEOIST T.OREISTER Luggage” for me. It delights me that Trevor references things such as my 12 moustaches haircut or my use of false eyelashes as displaced facial ornamentation.

But, I have to disagree w/ his “Forbidden only by economic circumstance from actual genetic engineering” insofar as I’m quite happy w/ the genetic cards I’ve been dealt.

Trevor mentions that “One film shows tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE in a dog mask, walking on the hands and knees through the streets of London serving as a guide dog for his blind companion.” That film can now be witnessed on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM92UGWzMPM ).

Over the decades I’ve sent thousands of things to over 1,400 people thru the mail & I don’t know of anyone other than Trevor Blake to ever so thoroughly compile the info in these into an article. THANK YOU. Despite the various mistakes, this is still truer to the spirit of my activities than most other articles. Importantly, Trevor writes:

“The most common mistake made by those attempting to classify tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE is that he is an ‘artist,’ tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE understands art and has created art , but he is not an artist. tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE has used paint, film, video, sound and words in his research, but the process of the research and the results are science. tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE’s attention to detail, tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE’s willingness to carry out the research far beyond any hope of personal gain or safety, and the quality of his documentation, give credence to the title tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE gives tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: mad scientist.”

Furthermore, he writes: “No fringe group will accept tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE – neither will any reputable institution. tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE has petitioned the international museum of the extreme, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, to exhibit tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE. So far, they have refused.” Well.. considering that I’m a Saint in the Church of the SubGenius, I think it’s more a matter of as long as I’m a member of a group they stay lunatic fringe. As for Ripley’s? I approached them in the late 1970s & we actually had some dialog. They were friendly & open. Why my being put on display never happened I don’t remember anymore. It’s possible I just didn’t pursue it enuf. I remember some Ripley’s representative being open enuf to ask me about logistical requirements.

“for the most part tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE has invented (that is, created from discarded or stolen items) the majority of tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE’s life support systems.” Actually, I’ve worked – banal tho that is. What hasn’t been banal is convincing people to employ me, eg, in 1987 when I had my head shaved & w/ a 3D brain tattoo on it. Things have changed alot since then & it’s been people like me who’ve changed it. As for “tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE seems exceptionally unable to assimilate into normal society”? Well, for better or worse, I’ve spent my whole life being what a friend of mine calls a “Daffy Diplomat”. In other words, while “normal society” & I aren’t likely to ever mate, I have to interface w/ it all the time. I get pd to do things for other people, I pay the bills, that sort of thing. Other than that, I certainly don’t want to “assimilate”! “Normal society” is a tomb for the imagination.

As for my ‘bad reputation’ as a person prone to “violent tantrums and theft” & “indifference to others and cruelty”? Nah, I’m one of the most honest people I’ve ever known & I’m hardly indifferent or cruel. In fact, if I were ever even remotely as cruel as most people have been to me the world wd have to look out. Finally, Blake writes: “after an unsuccessful experiment in creating a book and record store (called NORMALS), tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE has left Baltimore”. Normal’s is actually quite successful as a store & has existed now for 22 yrs. Here’s a link to their website: http://www.normals.com/

All in all, typos or no, this is an excellent bk. Blake’s strong point is his personality as a seeker & oVo is his Lost & Found.

Rev. Stang:

Dr. Onan Canobite sent two self-published books, one a best-of from his OVO zine and one about the monuments and plaques of Portland Oregon, his town, which he loves, having grown up in Knoxville TN.

See also: Church of the SubGenius.

Trevor Blake: The Return of John-A-Dreams (after Grant Morrison).  Digital image.  September 2011.

More Invisibles at OVO.

OVO has been a fan and follower of blort dot meepzorp dot com since 2001.  Today we got the nod from Madam Jujujive after sending her a link to tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE’s video for an anti-Neoist rally.  The honor is all our own!

Trevor Blake: Unpaid Data Entry. Digital image. July 2011. Public Domain.

Anonymous: Lost Dog Reward! This 8.5 x 11 inch photocopy poster was made by someone I knew in the early 1990s in Portland Oregon. The seven-digit phone number on the poster has been obscured.

House of the United States of America:
Warbucks Intra-Family Communique

I know that you don’t like to think this, but we are much like humans. We are subject to the human frailties. We forget. We get slip-shod. We fall short of our disciplines. You have selected me to be the family coordinator and I agreed to be, at least until someone better comes along. So that’s why I’m now reminding you of some of our basic principles for handling slaves.

Our slaves can get bored easily. When bored, they get restless. They start thinking, and questioning order. Therefore it is necessary for us to direct their thinking into areas which keep them dependent on our leadership. We must make them feel dependent on society for all their needs. Make them feel important to the Great Whole to which they belong. Keep them too deep in debt to have any spare time to experiment with principles of self-sufficiency, or even just getting out of hole.

A few of the slaves who refuse to conform are squatting in various places and planting their apple seeds, plum pits, grape seeds, avocado pits, orange seeds, nuts of all kinds and vegetables. They are not using our hybrid seeds. They found organic natural seeds more productive. They are creating Gardens of Eden, with free food, no rent and and acceptance of the Golden Rule instead of Government. So far, only a few of the smarter nonconformists are doing this. This gets them off our case; however, we must not give them any publicity, as it might encourage more our workers to not conform.

The family came up with a great innovation when they first decided to “allow” the peons to “own” land. Ownership gives them roots ties them down and makes it a easier to find them. It also gives us a classification of slave known as landlords. They serve us by forcing people to pay them rent in order to have a space to sleep on this planet. Thus they all work for us for the rest of their lives. We must always make them think that this is normal and that everyone has always had to pay rent and that they always will.

If the slaves deviate from present thought patterns, they might think it strange that they “agree” to work for us for 30 years to buy a place to sleep. They might wonder why some “primitive” people are able to build their homes from the material at hand in a couple of weeks and have no mortgage to pay. They might even find it simpler, more enjoyable and even more adventuresome to walk to where they wish to go instead of working for us to earn money to make perpetual car payments to us, so that they can get to a job to make the money to make their car payments. To say nothing of the car maintenance costs and depreciation. We must constantly entice them to buy. They make much better workers if are always in debt.

If we allow them space to think, they may question the vehicle with which they are killing themselves: 50,800 persons dead and 1,900,000 disabled in 1981 in the United States alone.They may see how machines and their present manufacturing processes are destroying their life-support system. They may see that all the processed junk food we’re selling them is making them sick and costing them more; see that their boring, unsatisfying jobs are driving many of them crazy. They might even discover the simplest unprocessed foods which are cheap and healthful.

As it is recorded in our family archives, one of our forefathers, Galus Julius Caesaer once sald: “Give them breed and circuses, to keep them from rebelling.” It is a simple matter to give them food, but it takes a little more imagination to give them circuses. I guess this is the creative part of being slave masters – to create diversions to keep their gullible little minds busy.

Our Watergate Scandal was a fine circus. It kept them thinking and talking along safe lines for years. We are still getting some mileage out of the Kennedy Assassination and they still aren’t sure whether we shot the real Kennedy, his double or a dummy. We have fine show going on Central America and in the Middle East, some still lingering in Germany, others in Vietnam, the USSR and China.

We may use the recent invasion to start another World War. It will be a challenge to attempt to involve our sheep in another big war, so soon after the last one. However, we may be able to pull it off, to get them angry enough to fight. We wouldn’t need to use the older nuclear bombs, as they could be dangerous to our families’ health. We might use a few of our cleaner H-Bombs. It will be a creative, fun time for us. Wars are truly the sport of kings. They are more fun to stage and run than chess games, or are hum-drum activities of production or politics.

Creating straw men for slaves to knock down is one of our best numbers. We set it up and let them tear it down. It diverts much of their creative energy. We create another excellent diversion by resisting their efforts to tear it down.

We learned long ago that people can think only one thought line at a time. We feed them thoughts and they either fight them or go along with them.

Music has always been an effective tool for setting their moods, their pace and leading their thoughts. While dancing they learn to step to the beat of our drummer and keep the pace we set. This teaches them to obey orders. The drum has always been useful for this. We let them touch each other during the dance. They seem to enjoy touching and they feel successful when they keep in step, so this training process becomes self-perpetuating. It also serves as an excellent distraction.

They must occupy their minds with keeping in step to the beat and with how they are going to entice their partners to deb. If they are constantly bombarded with distractions they will have no time to do any real thinking. They will only be aware of that which we make them aware.

Our closest guarded secret is the fact that slavery still exists in every country on this planet.

Laborers, farmers, traders, professionals, managers, directors and presidents – all take pay, so they must obey our orders. They are not aware of their bondage. Some are vaguely aware of the idea that “big money” runs everything. But they are unable to relate to the idea that they are part of that “everything.”

They think that they are free people, making all their own decisions We allow them to make the unimportant ones. The important ones we cover in their laws, and in their customs and religious and moral codes. We have even trained them to punish their own kind when they do not conform.

We have been masters for a long, long, time. We teach kids how to work, to be submissive and to obey orders. These kids grow up to he good slaves, like their parents. Most of the parents even go so far as to break their own kid’s spirits. So by the time they are of work age, them are docile, gullible and easy to manipulate.

Through all our media, including books, we give them a substitute for living. For example, we encourage them to live vicariously through the exciting adventures of fiction. This puts their fantasy life through an exciting energy drain which seems to satisfy some of their emotional hunger.

This substitute fills one of those spaces in time which they might have used to go out and experience life first-hand. Distractions keep them from discovering the bondage they are in. We must continue to titillate them to want to watch television and movies, to read newspapers, magazines and books to listen to radio and music.

We use the mass media not only for a distraction but also to help create their basic beliefs and expectations. Of course, the schools and churches serve this purpose too, as do popular songs and music. We use the media to create the desire to buy. In this way we motivate them to work for us.

They continue to administer to our needs as they did to Caeser’s and as they did for the priests in the time of the great pyamids. Our ancestors really knew how to handle people! As slaves get more education it takes a little more finesse to keep on top of them; however, it’s basically the same even today. Keep them fearful; fearful of death, fearful of pain, fearful of each other. Always encourage competition: it’s like fighting, separates people and keeps them fearful of losing.

We have made them afraid of death by telling them that they have spirits which live on after their death. If they obey our rules, which we tell them were inspired by God, their spirits will be assured entrance into Heaven or reincarnated into a better existence, depending on which of our religions they have chosen. This makes them afraid to die, because they know they haven’t obeyed all the rules (which we deliberately made too difficult to always be obeyed). If they can be kept afraid they are more easy to manage. Then they look to us for guidance and protection.

Promoting fear of pain is another distraction we have always used. We must not give them time to discover that pain is their body’s method of alerting them to the fact that they are doing something wrong to it. So before they can check out the reason for the pain, we channel them to a doctor who will attempt to numb the pain. The doctor will take up time and money doing so. It creates a great diversion, and debt. Some people talk about their pain constantly. The patients’ pain will usually return (sometimes to a different part of their body) after their cure. Doctors usually don’t remove the cause of pains. This would put them out of business.

We hire some of the slaves to act as police and soldiers so that we can threaten to inflict pain and imprisonment on the others. They literally enforce their own slavery when they take jobs in law enforcement and the military. We keep them too busy and too broke to realize this.

Sports and gambling have always been good spectacle. Sex may rate second place, drugs third. We have achieved a sort mass hypnosis by using movies, TV and music, with which we have been able to implant suggestions and beliefs without their being aware of it.

We may need to give our ecology program front page coverage again soon. It can take up the Slack to hold their attention in case it is untimely to start a war now.

Remember, the Warbucks family has ruled on this planet for six thousand years, so it is our right and destiny to continue doing so. Keep up the good work and if you have any problems, contract Alexandria or Ernest, as I’m taking a little vacation.

- Cleopatra Warbucks

from OVO 11 CONTROL (September 1991)

See also:
OVO 2 (1987)

via youtube
See Brooklyn Feral Cat one year ago.

Kerry W. Thornley
The Idle Warriors
Atlanta: IllumiNet Press 1991

Written between 1959 and 1961, The Idle Warriors is the story of a troop of Marines in the Far East getting laid, pulling pranks, eating and talking about life. It’s a story similar to any number of films and books from that time both in style and content. But there are two significant qualities in this book that set it apart from, say a Bowery Boys film (which is what it reminds me of the most).

First, it is written by Kerry Thornley.  I’ve been reading Kerry’s work since 1979 and have always found him insightful and interesting.  I also consider him a friend and it’s always good to see a friend make it.

Second, one of the characters in the novel, Johnny Shelburn, is based on a friend Kerry had in the Marines named Lee Harvey Oswald.  In his introduction Kerry said he was trying to explain why Lee defected to the USSR.  In hindsight he said he failed, and I agree.  But the book is still a sort of eerie novelty, like the appearance of Fidel Castro as an extra in a Busby Berkeley film.  Kerry’s introduction by itself makes the book well worth reading.

from OVO 11 CONTROL (September 1991)
see also OVO 17 The Dreadlock Recollections (January 2007)

Trevor Blake: The Residents. 1990.

Multiple name identities are co-incarnations, individuals who exist in more than one body at the same time.

A few multiple name identities can be found in academia. Nicholas Bourbaki has written several influential papers on mathematics since 1935.  A number of men were Nicholas Bourbaki.  The theologian Franz Bibfeldt was also a number of men.

Most multiple name identities are found in the arts. No one knows who is the author of the 1930 book The Little Engine That Could.  The story is attributed to Watty Piper, which was the house name of publisher Platt & Munk.  Many men and women wrote under the name Watty Piper.  

Kenneth Robeson was the creator and author of the Doc Savage character, who first appeared in 1933.  Lester Dent and a number of men wrote the stories, all of which were published under the Street & Smith house name Kenneth Robeson.

Three German men were Stefan Brockhoff, author of mystery novels from the 1930s to the 1950s.  

Kilgore Trout is a science fiction author who first appears in the 1965 book God Bless You Mr. Rosewater by science fiction author Kurt Vonnegut.  Trout is modeled after the science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who in turn was born with the name Edward Hamilton Waldo.  Philip J. Farmer wrote the 1974 science fiction novel Venus on the Half-Shell and attributed it to Trout.

Since 1968, films which the director wishes to distance themselves from are attributed to Alan Smithee. The Internet Movie Database lists more than seventy titles attributed to Alan Smithee.

David Agnew is a name used by the BBC as a shared scriptwriting credit since the 1970s.

Bruce Lee died during the production of the 1978 film Game of Death.  Two other actors took on the role of playing Bruce Lee playing the character Billy Lo and the film was released.

V. C. Andrews’ 1979 book Flowers in the Attic was so successful that authors have published dozens of books under her name since her death in 1986.

Between 1988 and 1994, the Dutch composer Van den Budenmayer wrote the score for Zbigniew Prisner’s films.  den Budenmayer was several men working under one name.

Nicholas Palmer wrote the 1990 book Fuck Yes! under the pseudonym Rev. Wing Fu Fing.  On a lark, author Tom Robbins signed a copy of Fuck Yes! when a Robbins fan handed it to him.  This started the rumor that Robbins was the secret author of Fuck Yes!, a rumor which helped Palmer sell 50,000 copies of the self-published book over the next four years.  Fuck Yes! tells the story of a man who says ‘yes’ to every circumstance that life presents him.  In 1996 Palmer sued Robbins, who agreed to never sign another copy of the book again.  Palmer said: “It’s not just Robbins, the book is good. It has allowed him to take advantage of my anonymity.”  In 2008 Jim Carry starred in the film Yes Man, which tells the story of a man who says ‘yes’ to every circumstance that life presents him.  Yes Man is based on the 2005 book of the same title by Danny Wallace.

Actor Heath Ledger died during the production of the 2009 film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.  Three other actors took on the role of playing Heath Ledger playing the character Tony Shepard and the film was released.

The author Wu Ming is several Italian men who have published books since 2000.

There is a species of human behavior that is not quite art, not quite politics, and not quite as presumptuous as all that sounds. I prefer the term pranks. I first learned of multiple name identities from pranksters. Rrose Sélavy was an an artist and model in the 1920s, associated with a number of dadaists.

In 1960 the young Kerry Wendell Thornley worked as a desk clerk for the United States Marines.  As a prank, he entered a false name in the training lecture roster: Omar Kayyam Ravenhurst.  Over time Thornley and other Marines completed more paperwork for the non-existent Marine, giving him an IQ of 157 and fluency in 17 languages.  Ravenhurst then got the blame when Thornley or one of his friends made a mistake on base, making Private Ravenhurst a multiple name identity.

A free music festival was held near Stonehenge in 1974.  The audience decided to squat the location at the site after the performance.  Eviction laws required naming each of the squatters, and so the squatters all adopted the same name to make the job of the police more difficult.  Thus several dozen people became Wally.  One of the Wallies, Wally Hope, was sent to a psychiatric institution for possession of LSD in May 1975.  He was unable to detox from the forced drugging of the institution and died in September 1975.  His free-spirited life and oppressive death was a central inspiration for Penny Rimbaud to form CRASS.  Unrelated is the Stonehenge built by Wally Wallington.

David Zack has written about Monte Cantsin, who appeared in 1975:

Maris [Kundzins] and I were in Portland [Oregon]. We’d been working with a Xerox 3107 that makes big copies and reductions. We were making giant folios; monster folios and dinosaur folios we called them. And one night Maris started fooling around with the tape recorder, singing songs in Latuvian about toilets and traffic. Well, we decided to make a pop star out of Maris. But it had to be an open pop star, that is, anyone who wanted could assume the personality of the pop star. This open pop star would be the most talented in history, better than Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Sal Mineo and even Ry Cooder all rolled together in one. Pop stars have always been special to me, growing up the son of a symphony conductor the way I did. To me they stand for rebellion and acceptance, revolution and success and a whole lot of other things at the same time. We were mouthing Maris Kundzins’ name, and it came out Monty Cantsins. Then we got to saying can’t sin and can’t sing and quite a few other things to give the impression that this pop star could be a thief as well as a saint.

One thing I definitely did invent is “Monty Cantsin,” the open pop star. I did not do this alone, I did it in Portland, Oregon with the very first Monty Cantsin, an artist named Maris Kundzins. Maris and I sent a card to Kantor in Montreal, you are Monty Cantsin, the open pop star. Well Graf I have to assert what Kantor did with this simple postcard belongs in any history of art and also any history of the world. The idea that people can share their art power is a very good one I think. My own understanding of Neoism is that it is about sharing, about bash: cooperation between people, putting egos and tempers aside. Though not always seeming to. [1][2]

Stewart Home has written about Karen Elliot, who appeared in 1985:

Karen Eliot is a name that refers to an individual human being who can be anyone. The name is fixed, the people using it aren’t. Smile is a name that refers to an international magazine with multiple origins. The name is fixed, the types of magazines using it aren’t. The purpose of many different magazines and people using the same name is to create a situation for which no one in particular is responsible and to practically examine western philosophical notions of identity, individuality, originality, value and truth.

Anyone can become Karen Eliot simply by adopting the name, but they are only Karen Eliot for the period in which the name is used. Karen Eliot was materialised, rather than born, as an open context in the summer of ’85. When one becomes Karen Eliot one’s previous existence consists of the acts other people have undertaken using the name. When one becomes Karen Eliot one has no family, no parents, no birth. Karen Eliot was not born, s/he was materialised from social forces, constructed as a means of entering the shifting terrain that circumscribes the ‘individual’ and society.

The name Karen Eliot can be strategically adopted for a series of actions, interventions, exhibitions, texts, etc. When replying to letters generated by an action / text in which the context has been used then it makes sense to continue using the context, ie by replying as Karen Eliot. However in personal relationships, where one has a personal history other than the acts undertaken by a series of people using the name Karen Eliot, it does not make sense to use the context. If one uses the context in personal life there is a danger that the name Karen Eliot will become over-identified with individual beings. [3]

I published work by Karen Elliot in OVO 3 (1987)

Stewart Home, in turn, has seen publications under his own name that he did not write.  These include the books Stone Circle, Harry Potter and the Quantum Time Bomb, and essays including “Anarchism is Stupid: How Luther Blissett Hoaxed Bakunin’s Idiot Children,” “Communism or Masochism? An Appeal to All Revolutionaries Concerning the Rubber Slave Larry O’Hara,” and “An Open Letter to My Avant-Garde Chums by Stewart Home.”  Someone anonymously suggested the (then) anonymous blogger Belle de Jour was Stewart Home.  Not necessarily with his cooperation or consent, Stewart Home has become several people.

Luther Blissett (born 1958) is a professional footballer, manager and coach.  His name was adopted by the Luther Blissett Project as an open reputation in the 1990s.  Blissett the footballer is aware of the other Blissetts and has taken his open reputation in stride.

I enjoyed several people being me in the early 2000s.  A number of my friends in Portland were on a site called irreality.  They encouraged me to join, but I had enough internet time in my day and didn’t want to.  Some time back I’d heard that David Bowie had hired actors to play his press agents, and Bowie confirmed whatever exaggerated claim they made about him.  Inspired by this story I encouraged 2-3 of my friends to set up an irreality account for me and post to it as if they were me, promising I’d confirm anything they posted as my own.  For a year or two these friends would mix some of my own writing (from ovo127.com) with original writing of their own and post it at irreality.  When I’d meet up with those who thought I’d posted what they read at irreality attributed to me I’d confirm it.  Some of the friends I made on irreality are friends to this day, perhaps only now learning I wasn’t necessarily who they thought I was at the time.  Irreality closed shop in 2008.

The second-most influential multiple name identity is Anonymous.  Although Anonymous began as an internet meme around 2006, Anonymous is also the name of many individuals who have appeared in public.  Inspired by a scene in Allan Moore’s V for Vendetta, Anonymous appears in numbers wearing the mask of Guy Fawkes.  As of December 2010, Anonymous is conducting successful attacks on major credit card and communication companies around the world in retaliation for slights against wikileaks.

The most influential multiple name identity is St. Nicholas / Father Christmas / Kris Kringle /  Santa Claus.  Every December for over a century, Santa has appeared around the world, wearing the same clothes, carrying out the same actions, exhibiting the same demeanor, claiming the same home-base and promising to return at the same time next year.  A significant part of the world economy is shifted when Santa Claus comes to town.  In the late 1980s the Orange Alternative of Poland held a parade of seventy-seven Santas as part of their absurdist protests against Communism.  The SantaCon / Santarchy tactic appeared again in 1994, carried out by Suicide Club of San Francisco.

“You should never run out of people to be.” – Genesis P-Orridge.

Fortean content in the first five years of OMNI Magazine.  Compiled October 1997, previously unpublished.

Including notations for articles relating to accupuncture, alchemy, alternative energy sources, the Amazing Randi, ancient astronauts, artificial intelligence, astral projection, astrology, the Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, cargo cults, cattle mutilation, communication with non-humans, creationism, cryptozoology, Dianetics, dinosaurs, dowsing, earthquakes, firewalking, Uri Geller, gravity research, hidden planets, hoaxes, hypnosis, killer clowns, kirilian photography, lake monsters, life on Mars, mind control, mystery boats, Muzak, near death experiences, Nostrodomus, parapsychology, perpetual motion, planetary alignment disasters, psychic phenomenon, pyramid power, reincarnation, the Rosicrucians, SETI, the Shroud of Turin, spontaneous human combustion, teleportation, TM, test-tube babies, the Tunguska explosion, UFOs, vampires, volcanos, voodoo, weather control, Velikovski, weird science, yellow rain and zombies.

V1#1 10/78
p 12 / letter [UFO] Melinda Moore
p 14 / letter [dowsing] Ted Kaufman
p 14 / letter [astral projection] Martha Fotinos
p 28 / The Sciene Conflict [UFO] James Oberg
p 44 / Life In Vents [czoo] ?
p 46 / Kirilian Photography [k.p.] ?
p 48 / Electricity & Weather [ e. & w.] ?
p 49 / quote ["The universe is... queerer than we can suppose."] J.B.S. Haldine
p 49 / Magnetic Sense of Sharks [czoo] Kenneth Rose
p 50 / Birds [czoo] Jeff Cox
p 63 / Listening for Life [in outer space] Alton Blakeslee
p 92 / The Turin Shroud [t.s.] Barbara Culliton
p 149 / advertisement [Project Blue Book] Blue Book Coordinator

V1#2 11/78
p 24 / Moonglows [mg] Patrick Moore
p 31 / Betty Hill [UFO] James Oberg
p 41 / Talking Bird [czoo] Barbara Ford
p 105 / Communicating with Dolphins [czoo] John Lilly
p 113 / Lifetides [para] Lyall Watson

V1#3 12/78
p 10 / letter [UFO] Barry Goldwater
p 12 / letter [UFO] Sam Piazza
p 12 / letter [UFO] Charles Labbe
p 12 / letter [UFO] Al Porterfield
p 12 / letter [UFO] R. Brown
p 12 / letter [UFO] James Irwin
p 20 / Star of the Magi [s.o.t.m.] Mark Chartrand
p 32 / Queen of the UFOs [UFO] James Oberg
p 40 / Einstein’s Brain [where is it?] ?
p 108 / PSI Burn: A Study of Psysiological Deterioration in Parapsychological Experimentation [satire] David Searles
p 146 / Man Will Never Fly [m.w.n.f. society] Lawrence Maddry

V1#4 1/79
p 8 / article [UFO] Frank Kendig
p 12 / letter [UFO] Terry Hansen
p 12 / letter [UFO] Robert Barrow
p 32 / The Coyne Incident [UFO] James Oberg
p 71 / intv: I. J. Good [weather control, UFO, more] Christopher Evans
p 117 / advertisement [Dianetics] Church of Scientology
p 125 / advertisement [Project Blue Book] Blue Book Coordinator
p 130 / letter [Velikovsky] Garry Tillery

V1#5 2/79
p 6 / article [text-tube baby hoax?] Frank Kendig
p 10 / letter [Einstein's Brain] Gerard der Leun
p 12 / letter [czoo] William Bond
p 32 / Astronomy and the Flying Saucer [UFO] James Oberg
p 39 / Flippant Earth [magnetic pole switching] ?
p 42 / More Ancient Astronauts [A.A.] ?
p 103 / Nutrition Fads and Fallacies [N.F.a.F.] Daniel Greenberg
p 110 / advertisement [Love of the Two-Armed Form] Dawn Horse Press
p 137 / letter [Betty Hill map] Charles Atterberg

V1#6 3/79
p 10 / letter [PSI Burn comments] Alan Vaughan
p 32 / UFO’s at the U.N. [UFO] James Oberg
p 117 / advertisement [Other magazine; a little of everything] Other
p 127 / advertisement [The Discovery of the Wingstars; fossils found in meteorites] Wingstar Research Society
p 137 / letter [g.r.] Peter Singelakis
p 137 / letter [w.s.] David Hargrave
p 137 / letter [all mathematics prooven wrong, mathematically] H. Murker
p 140 / next issue [static gravity hoax] ?
p 140 / next issue [loch ness] ?

V1#7 4/79
p 6 / article [parapsychologists accused of sloppiness] Frank Kendig
p 12 / letter [UFO] Ben Price
p 16 / Turning the Crank [crank science] Mark Chartrand
p 27 / New Scandal in Psychic Research? [para] Scot Morris
p 52 / First Encounter [UFO] E. Speigle
p 77 / Static Gravity [w.s. April-Fool] Christopher Priest
p 115 / advertisement [Undreamed-of Possibilities] Self-Realization Fellowship
p 121 / advertisement [Dianetics] Church of Scientology

V1#8 5/79
p 10 / letter [religious birds] Eugene Marquis
p 12 / letter [anti-gravity, incl J. R. R. Searl] Allan Grise
p 32 / * Global Disclosures [UFO] Harry Lebelson
p 92 / Return to Loch Ness [czoo] J. Chesternan and M. Marten
p 117 / advertisement [Dianetics] Church of Scientology
p 125 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 128 / letter [UFO] David Travis
p 128 / letter [UFO] David Schroth
p 128 / letter [czoo: Loch Ness M.] B. Goldman
p 130 / letter [PSI Burns commentary] Charles Honorton
p 146 / The Gulibility Factor [UFO] Thomas Monteleone

V1#9 6/79
p 12 / letter [UFO] Jeff Henry
p 22 / A Hidden Earth [new planets in our solar system] Patcick Moore
p 32 / Saucer-Eyed Spies [UFO] Art Gratti
p 36 / Clarke’s 1st Law ["When a distinguished scientist says something is impossible... he is very probably wrong."] Arthur Clarke
p 40 / Ignored Prediction [earthquake] Tony Fusco
p 41 / Magic Stone [bezoar protects against arsenic poisoning] Don Fabun
p 42 / Medical Milestones [2nd heart discovered, more] K. S.
p 96 / Flight of the Dragon [czoo] Peter Dickinson
p 134 / letter [czoo] David Edelshick
p 134 / letter [cargo cults] Tully Scott
p 136 / letter [stacic gravity hoax commentary] Anthony Blokzyl
p 146 / Vampires Revamped [V as a form of rabies] Bruce Wallace

V1#10 7/79
p 10 / letter [static gravity hoax commentary] Robin Carpenter
p 10 / letter [static gravity hoax commentary] Norman Mclead
p 10 / letter [para] Gerry Erberich
p 14 / letter [U. Geller] Arthur Clarke
p 14 / letter [UFO] Harry Lebelson
p 14 / letter [para] G. Dew and L. Hillshafer
p 18 / A Bit of Lunacy [moon in language and legend] Mark Chartrand
p 32 / Trance Figures [UFO] Allan Hendry
p 37 / Loch Ness Dolphins [czoo] O.D.
p 41 / Year of the Atom [nuclear hijinx] Douglass Colligan
p 41 / quote ["The most beautiful experience... is the mysterious..."] Albert Einstein
p 42 / The Earthquake Boom [e.b.] Dan Ross
p 126 / letter [UFO] John Harding
p 127 / letter [para] Vickie Lloyd
p 127 / letter [turning the crank commentary] A. Abajian
p 127 / letter [UFO] Paul Krause
p 129 / next issue [ancient astronauts evaluated] ?
p 133 / advertisement [Dianetics] Church of Scientology

V1#11 8/79
p 10 / letter [UFO] Jon Stone
p 12 / letter [para] Brenda Thomas
p 30 / UFO Over Iran [UFO] James Oberg
p 40 / UFO Tips [UFO] Terrence Dickinson
p 44 / White Dwarfs and Green Men [a. a.] Carl Sagan
p 128 / letter [a. a.] John Tran
p 128 / letter [UFO] Janice Tonietto
p 135 / letter [UFO] Philip Klass
p 135 / letter [UFO] Jeffrey Benner

V1#12 9/79
p 12 / letter [Flight of the Dragon commentary; czoo] Eugene Marquis
p 32 / True UFOs [UFO] James Oberg
p 37 / Quake Lights [earthquake lights] Tom Kovach
p 41 / Animal Trivia [weird animal facts] S. D.
p 42 / Viruses from Outer Space [v. as "messages" from o.s.] O. D.
p 112 / advertisement [What is Scientology?] Church of Scientology
p 113 / advertisement [Undreamed-of Possibilities] Self-Realization Fellowship
p 129 / advertisement [The Cycles of Heaven] Avon paperback
p 135 / advertisement [Dianetics] Church of Scientology
p 142 / letter [czoo] Jason MacCallum
p 142 / letter [cargo cults] Alan Vaughan

V2#1 10/79
p 18 / letter [vampires] Count Dracula
p 44 / Tunguska [Tunguska event] James Oberg
p 57 / Yogis [y. exhibit amazing body control] D. S.
p 58 / quote ["We think so because other people all think so... "] Henry Sidgwick
p 108 / Unseen Yeti [czoo] John Hunt
p 140 / advertisement [I am magazine] I am
p 163 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 165 / advertisement [Metascience Quarterly] Metascience
p 165 / advertisement [Nebulon Gazette] Nebulon Gazette

V2#11 11/79
p 10 / letter [astrology debunked] Philip Ianan
p 12 / letter [Sagan anc. astro. article commentary] Stan Stephenson
p 12 / letter [Sagan anc. astro. article commentary] Don Peterson
p 30 / Alien Metals [UFO] Harry Lebelson
p 36 / Pregnant Men [p.m.] Dava Sobel
p 38 / Gay Vaccine [gay men used in hepatitis vaccine trial (AIDS
conspiracy?)] Joel Davis
p 44 / Antimatter Revealed [ws] Robert Forward
p 80 / interview: Carl Sargent [para] Christopher Evans
p 84 / Illegal Aliens [extraterrestrials and the law] Robert Freitas
p 128 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosecrucians
p 142 / advertisement [The UFO Handbook] Doubleday
p 142 / letter [para] James Bobula

V2#3 12/79
p 10 / letter [czoo: yeti] John Hunt
p 10 / letter [UFO] Giles Guthrie
p 16 / letter [UFO] John Warren
p 16 / letter [UFO] David Hofer
p 18 / letter [anc. astro] Gena Davies
p 28 / Syncronicity [s.] Bernard Dixon
p 40 / Alternatives [UFO] Robert Wilson
p 45 / quote ["Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."] Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi
p 46 / Fossil Footprints [f.f.] Alton Blakeslee
p 49 / quote ["Scientists, especially when they leave the particular field in which they have specialized, are just as ordinary, pig-headed, and unreasonable as anybody else."] H. J. Eysenck
p 50 / quote ["Science has become adult; I am not sure whether scientists have."] Victor Weiskopf
p 108 / Prizes [Klass anti-UFO prize] Scot Morris
p 130 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosecrucians
p 134 / advertisement [UFO: The Documented Evidence] Methuen Publications

V2#4 1/80
p 12 / letter [Viruses from Outer Space debunked] Deborah Katz
p 28 / Death on the Range [cattle mut.] Harry Lebelson
p 40 / Urban Legends [u.l.] D. C.
p 42 / quote ["Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects"] Will Rogers
p 62 / interview: Jacques Vallee [UFO] Christopher Evans
p 88 / Talk to the Animals [signing apes] Eugene Linden
p 116 / advertisement [Mystery Stalks the Prairie; c. mut] Niagra Sales Company
p 117 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 122 / erratum [Yogi, 10/79] editor of OMNI
p 126 / letter [Dracula debunking] Andras Rozsa

V2#5 2/80
p 10 / letter [czoo: yeti] Bill Tabit
p 32 / Alone Again [UFO] James Oberg
p 41 / Wildlife Trivia [weird animal facts] S. D.
p 41 / quote ["Due to unforseen circumstances, we must postpone the Psychic Fair...] Tamara Rand Institute
p 42 / Psychic Cops [para] D. C.
p 109 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 120 / letter [Illegal Aliens commentary] Jane Morgenstern
p 120 / letter [Illegal Aliens commentary] Gabrielle Davis

V2#6 3/80
p 14 / letter [synchronicity] Sebastian Foti
p 36 / Phantom Moonlight [UFO] James Oberg
p 45 / Invisibility Lessons [TM debunking] James Randi
p 48 / Eyeball Flora [plants grow in eyeballs] S. D.
p 49 / Psychic Scoreboard [para] Joel Davis
p 128 / letter [Randi, Dixon commentary] Steven Yates
p 129 / letter [Unseen Yeti commentary] James Justus
p 132 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 141 / letter [Talk to the Animals commentary] Eugene Linden
p 146 / Thinking out Loud [para] Martin Pitt

V2#7 4/80
p 10 / letter [Talk to the Animals commentary] Edd Doerr
p 12 / advertisement [czoo: tube worms discovered with RCA camera] RCA
p 14 / letter [Talk to the Animals commentary] Jim Stone
p 14 / letter [Death on the Range commentary] Alan Bingham
p 32 / Close Encounter [UFO] Harry Lebelson
p 39 / Space Oddities [weird things spotted by Brittish satellites] Douglas Colligan
p 76 / interview [James Randi] Scot Morris
p 120 / advertisement [Haiti ("Voodoo, you can feel it in the air...")] Haiti Gov’t Tourist Bureau
p 128 / advertisement [Undreamed-of Possibilities] Self-Realization Fellowship
p 130 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 131 / advertisement [two Genesis-as-science books by R. Jastrow] Warner Books
p 138 / letter [Jaques Vallee commentary] D. Anderson

V2#8 5/80
p 10 / letter [UFO] Arlan Andrews
p 20 / Galactic Germs [germs from space] Bernard Dixon
p 32 / Honest Illusions [UFO] James Oberg
p 40 / quote ["Heaven and Earth were created... Oct. 23, 4004 BC..."] John Lightfoot
p 41 / Nature Trivia [czoo] S.D.
p 41 / quote ["Rail travel... is not possible..."] Dionysys Lardner
p 137 / advertisement [Crystal Pyramid Pendant] Cosmic Connections
p 137 / advetisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 138 / letter [cattle mutilation] Rod Faust

V2#9 6/80
p 10 / letter [telepathy, interspecies communication] David Palter
p 12 / letter [TM, levitation] Roane Dantzler
p 20 / Jupiter’s Noneffect [planetary allignment disasters] John Gribbin
p 32 / The French Connection [UFO] Charles Berlitz
p 39 / Life on Mars [l.o.m.] L. D.
p 42 / quote ["Science is the topography of ignorance"] Oliver Holmes
p 122 / letter [TM, levitation] Gregory Trulen
p 124 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 130 / Save the Toad! [giant flying vampire toad hoax] Norman Spinrad

V2#10 7/80
p 10 / letter [Shroud of Turin] Sandy Shakocius
p 12 / letter [Amazing Randi, Sagan] Richard Currey
p 12 / letter [Amazing Randi] M. Stone
p 12 / letter [Amazing Randi] Immanuel Chin
p 12 / letter [Amazing Randi] Peter Schwartz
p 12 / letter [reply to above] James Randi
p 14 / letter [UFO] Ronald Berends
p 14 / letter [cattle mutilations] Michael Albers
p 24 / Ghost Story [para experiments] Morton Schatzman
p 30 / The Russian Connection [UFO] James Oberg
p 35 / Mutilation Madness [cattle mutilation] James Randi
p 125 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V2#11 8/80
p 16 / letter [planetary alignment disasters] Mary Boland
p 32 / Repeaters [UFO] James Oberg
p 36 / Blow to Creation Myth [scientific creationism] Joel Davis
p 38 / Nastiness by Degree [weather and social unrest] Peter Evans
p 39 / Narwhal Mystery [why the tooth?] Barbara Ford
p 40 / Scientists and Monsters [czoo] D. C.
p 41 / quote ["If the scientist doesn't start with a sense of mystery, he doesn't start."] Rene Dubos
p 111 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V2#12 9/80
p 10 / letter [electronic mind control] Laura Collins
p 10 / letter [giant flying vampire toads] Athens Friends of the Toads
p 10 / letter [giant flying vampire toads] Ray Hermann
p 10 / letter [giant flying vampire toads] Steve Conklin
p 10 / letter [giant flying vampire toads] Suzanne Helder
p 10 / letter [reply: giant flying vampire toad article was a hoax] editor
p 14 / letter [TM] Edd Doerr
p 14 / letter [TM] Marvin Minsky
p 18 / Sea Serpent Survey [czoo] Bernard Dixon
p 32 / Jung Ideas [UFO] Harry Lebelson
p 36 / quote ["No quackery is ever rejected by the American public until a more scientific-sounding but inherently less plausible quackery is ready to take its place."] H. Mencken
p 39 / quote ["Sciene is nothing but trained and organized common sense."] Thomas Huxley
p 41 / quote ["For the people liable to be killed by earthquakes, quake prediction is certainly significant."] Gordon Taylor
p 42 / Animal Vibrations [animals and earthquakes] S.D.
p 113 / letter [Amazing Randi] C. Anderson
p 113 / reply [to above] James Randi
p 113 / letter [UFO] Mike Bucker
p 113 / letter [UFO] Peter Adams
p 113 / letter [UFO] Richard Bridges
p 120 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V3#1 10/80
p 10 / letter [Which is hotter, heaven or hell?] M. Eckard
p 10 / letter [Shroud of Turin] John Wagner
p 12 / letter [electronic mind control] Bill Katz
p 30 / Minnesota Attack [UFO] James Oberg
p 35 / The Creationist’ “Equal Time” [scientific creationism] Ben Bova
p 37 / ESP and the CIA [psychic spies] Judith Hooper
p 38 / quote ["Sciene is not a sacred cow. Science is a horse. Don't worship it. Feed it."] Aubery Eben
p 40 / Wildlife Tales [weird animal stories] S. D.
p 42 / quote ["Like a mutation, an idea may be recorded in the wrong time, to lie latent like a recessive gene and spring once more to life in an auspicious era."] Loren Eiseley
p 155 / UFO Unemployment Insurance [UFO] D. T.
p 155 / Astrology Defense [a. in the courts] D. T.
p 156 / Face From Space [face on Mars] Harry Lebelson
p 156 / Psychic Healer [psy healing] Allan Maurer
p 158 / Sumerian Astronauts [a. a.] ???
p 158 / quote [exerpt from "backscrewing theory of gravity"] George Gillette
p 158 / quote ["Apart from the known and the unknown, what is there?"] Harold Pinter
p 163 / letter [cattle mutilations] C. Harper
p 163 / letter [planetary alignment disasters] Terry Fischer
p 182 / Calendar [UFO, dowsing, man will never fly society meetings announced] Geoffrey Golson
p 188 / advertisement [Autobiography of a Yogi] Self-Realization Fellowship
p 188 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V3#2 11/80
p 10 / letter [creationism] Michael May
p 32 / More Soviet Encounters [UFO] E. Speigel
p 36 / Death on Mars [simulated life on m.] Nick Engler
p 39 / Hoku Point [ice on hands cures headaches] Allan Maurer
p 40 / Mokele-Mbembe [czoo: contemporary african dinosaurs] Douglas Colligan
p 42 / Maligned Squid [czoo: giant s. sightings] S. D.
p 121 / letter [planetary allignment disasters] Terry Fischer
p 123 / advertisement [The Necronomicon] Necronomicon
p 126 / article [volcanic prediction by Janet Cullen-Tanaka] Dick Teresi
p 134 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V3#3 12/80
p 36 / Target: Denmark [UFO] Harry Lebelson
p 41 / Kudzu [weird k. facts] Stuart Diamond
p 41 / quote ["The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made, not by theologians, but by scientists unable to shake off altogether the piety absorbed with their mother's milk."] H. Mencken
p 42 / Life From the Clouds [l. originated in c.] Alton Blakeslee
p 44 / quote ["Science is built of facts the way a house is built of bricks, but an accumulation of facts is no more science than a pile of bricks is a house."] Henri Poincare
p 136 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V3#4 1/81 : missing, but contains perpetual motion article by James Randi

V3#5 2/81
p 12 / letter [god in science fiction] David Bowring
p 14 / letter [electronic mind control] Sidney Weinstein
p 24 / Hypnotic Witness [h. memory recovery] R. McColm
p 32 / Space Encounters [UFO] James Oberg
p 36 / Horned Wonder [czoo: mystery fossil skull] Douglas Colligan
p 37 / Chorus Girl Hypothesis [thought-transferance among birds disproven] Barbara Ford
p 42 / Killer Wave [k.w. responsible for bernumda triangle?] Tom Summer
p 45 / In Through the Out Door [subliminal mind control] Eric Lander
p 120 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V3#6 3/81
p 35 / Useless Animal Slaughter [vivisection] Brandon Kuker-Reines
p 40 / quote ["Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."] Winston Churchill
p 42 / quote ["The future is beyond knowing, but the present is beyond belief"] William Thompson
p 95 / Interview: Donald Symons [scientific proof: women exist to serve men!] Claire Warga
p 100 / Postmarks [stamps of the world, incl. Grenada UFO stamp] Marc Kaplan
p 140 / Washington Debate [UFO] E. Speigel and K. Ehrlich
p 144 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V3#7 4/81
p 12 / letter [Amazing Randi, perpetual motion] William Watkins
p 12 / letter [god in science fiction] Susan Saltiel
p 26 / The New Biofeedback [biofeedback] Bob Kall
p 35 / The Stealth Affair [stealth planes hype, debunking] Paul Nahin
p 40 / Animal Trivia [weird animal facts] Stuart Diamond
p 40 / Death Blow from Space [asteroid killed dinosaurs] Joel Davis
p 41 / quote ["Nothing is rich but the inexhaustable wealth of nature. She shows us only surfaces, but she is a million fathoms deep."] Ralph Emerson
p 42 / quote ["The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide."] Ralph Emerson
p 76 / Psychic Search [psy] Stephan Schwartz
p 118 / People [Uri Geller section] Dick Teresi
p 135 / advertisement [booklet on "space aliens"] American Raelian Movement
p 140 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 141 / advertisement [The Necronomicon] Necronomicon

V3#8 5/81
p 10 / letter [subliminal mind control] Craig Waller
p 12 / letter ["right to life"] Sandra Seipke
p 36 / Mainland Mysteries [UFO] Paul Dong
p 45 / quote ["Kids get ideas about UFOs where I learned about sex: the tabloids and the sleazy press."] J. Hynek
p 45 / Whistling Air Crashes [80% pilots whistle before crash] Allan Maurer
p 50 / Psychic Fools [psy debunk experiment] Kendrick Frazier
p 93 / advertisement [books incl. Stonehenge and Mystery of the Pyramids] Natural Science Book Club
p 120 / People [incl. Tut curse debunk] Dick Teresi
p 128 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 131 / letter [hypnotic memory retreival] The Amazing Kreskin
p 131 / letter [Amazing Randi, perpetual motion] Edward Cheesbrough
p 138 / Last Word [psy] James Randi

V3#9 6/81
p 16 / letter [Sumerian Astronauts] Zecharia Sitchin
p 44 / Gossamer Wings [UFO] Daniel Cohen
p 48 / Soul Gun [kirilian search for soul] Minael Jeffries
p 50 / Mammary Madness [photos of women in stuffed bras judged "less intelligent" in study] Ellen Bilgore
p 53 / Brain? Who Needs It? [hydrocephalus students with literally no brain and 120 IQ] Judith Hooper
p 54 / quote ["There is more religion in men's science than there is science in their religion."] Henry Thoreau
p 129 / advertisement [Three Mile Island Creamy Mushroom Dressing] The Catalyst Company
p 134 / People [psychic tattoo consultant Jamie Summers] Dick Teresi
p 147 / Gravity Watch [g. is not a constant?] David Lynch
p 148 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V3#10 7/81
p 12 / letter [perpetual motion, Amazing Randi] Dave Martell
p 12 / letter [perpetual motion, Amazing Randi] Paul Nahin
p 27 / Music [Muzak] Scott Cohen
p 32 / Hoax [UFO] James Oberg
p 35 / Feminism and the Brain [men's brains are superior] Judith Hooper
p 37 / Animal Revenge [a. getting r.] Stuart Diamond
p 39 / Pet Neuroses [animal psychiatry] Douglas Colligan
p 41 / quote ["In the final analysis, randomness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder"] R. Hamming
p 42 / quote ["Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions."] Oscar Wilde
p 69 / interview [Albert Hofmann] David Monagan
p 109 / advertisement [catalog incl. alternate energy, biofeedback] Edmund Scientific
p 110 / Competition ["rumors" of the choking doberman / conspiracy sort] Scot Morris
p 119 / letter [Stealth questions] John Price
p 123 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V3#11 8/81
p 10 / letter [psy. archeology] Ed Starkins
p 14 / letter [mystery spots] James Swan
p 41 / Hunger Cues [looking at food can make you fat] Stuart Diamond
p 41 / Reasonable Chimp [animal intelligence] Alton Blakeslee
p 69 / Project Tesla [Tesla research continued] ?
p 101 / letter [octopus intelligence] Linda Palter
p 108 / advertisement [UFOlarm UFO detecter] Tucker Scientific
p 108 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 116 / letter [mystery spots] Ray Hyman

V3#12 9/81
p 12 / letter [big breasts and intelligence] Paula Siddens
p 12 / letter [new religion: Random Factor Faith] Eugene Shelby
p 14 / letter [early mystery airships] Carl Baumann
p 34 / The Pine Bush Adventure [UFO] Harry Lebelson
p 45 / Half a Brain [is all we need] Douglas Colligan
p 45 / Human Tidal Waves [human rhythms & behavior linked to moon] Norbert Lempert
p 48 / quote ["A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a great truth."] Thomas Mann
p 48 / Shock Treatment [is useless and traumatic] David Cohen
p 50 / Surprise Sight [woman born blind, corrective surgery, knew colors anyway] David Colligan
p 50 / quote ["I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, and the conclusion is false. The hundreth time I am right."] Albert Einstein
p 71 / advertisement [books incl. mysteries of pyramids, stonehenge] Natural Science Book Club
p 81 / The Healing Bran [think yourself healthy] Douglas Garr
p 127 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 133 / letter [animal IQ] Cameron Stante
p 133 / letter [creationism] N. Spencer
p 146 / Last Word [amazing collection of science quotes... they ain't so smart] Bernard Dixon

V4#1 10/81
p 12 / letter [acupuncture, Amazing Randi] K. Chan
p 12 / letter [NY White sewer pot rumor expounded] S. Wishevsky
p 14 / letter [psy slurs] Ray Hyman
p 14 / letter [psy defence] Stephan Sscwartz
p 20 / Shape Shapes Shape ["morphogenic fields" effect form & behavior] Bernard Dixon
p 26 / Man Bites Man [human bite attacks] Patrick Huyghe
p 46 / Binge Disorder [bulemia study] Douglas Colligan
p 47 / Sleep-Wake Biofeedback [b. to stay awake, go to sleep] Robert Kall
p 70 / Ghosts and Goblins [waiting for hard para evidence] ?
p 73 / Intelligent Machines [coming soon] ?
p 133 / Mobius Psi-Q Test [para test] S. Sschwartz and R. Mattei
p 169 / UFO Update [UFO] Stella Iner
p 170 / Unicorn [goat w-horn by Glory and G'zell] Harry Lebelson
p 170 / quote [about "heresy"] Isaac Asimov
p 170 / Stalking Anomalies [Center for Scientific Anomalies Research in MI] Douglas Colligan
p 170 / quote ["There is no ox so dumb as the orthodox"] George Gillette
p 170 / Mystery Ship [1976 mystery boat photo] Harry Lebelson
p 171 / Soviet Psychics [s. p.] Allan Maurer
p 171 / quote ["Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."] Albert Einstein
p 172 / Emotional Alarm Clock [hypnosic monitor] Robert Kall
p 172 / Coincidence [maybe not so rare or odd] Kendrick Frazier
p 172 / Fang Count [vampire census] Allan Maurer
p 183 / advertisement [catalog incl. biofeedback and alt. energy] Edmund Scientific
p 184 / Burroughs at the Bunker [WSB on women as "genetic mistake"] Regina Weinreich
p 192 / letter [UFO] Dean Kurath
p 196 / calendar announcement [International Fortean Organization meeting Oct. 17-18] Geoffrey Golson
p 196 / calendar announcement [International Conference on Alternative Energies Dec. 14-16] Geofrey Golson
p 205 / advertisement [The Necronomicon] Necronomicon
p 208 / Cosmic Dangers [asteroid strikes] Patrick Moore
p 212 / advertisement [Autobiography of a Yogi] Self-Realization Fellowship
p 212 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V4#2 11/81
p 12 / letter [Tesla] Edson Johnson
p 16 / letter [n.d.e.] Debra Shotwell
p 39 / Parent of the Apes [human/ape genetic cross] Barbara Ford
p 44 / Gay Disease [mysterious "decreased resistance"] Judith Hooper
p 80 / Witches [w.] Erica Jong
p 111 / Anti-matter [UFO] Allan Hendry
p 112 / Transsexual Reincarnation [r. as cause of t.] Allan Maurer
p 112 / Global Cryptozoology [International Society of C. established] Douglas Colligan
p 113 / Feminist Hex [witches hex trailside killer] Allan Maurer
p 114 / Magnetic People? [magnetic sense?] Carol Johmann
p 114 / Psychic Better Business Bureau [The Association of P. Practitioners established] Allan Maurer
p 114 / Placebo Horoscopes [prepared and placebo h. equally accurate] Kendrick Frazier
p 124 / advertisement [catalog incl. alt. energy, biofeedback] Edmund Scientific
p 147 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V4#3 12/81
p 10 / letter [lunar madness] Richard Ornberg
p 45 / Noisy Vegetables [plants makes noises when in need of water] Judith Hooper
p 131 / Anti-Matter [UFO] Jeff Hecht
p 132 / French Flying Saucer [built by Jean-Claude Ladrat] Philip Black
p 133 / ESP Believers [parapsychologists are] Kendrick Frazier
p 133 / Human Combustion [Jack Angel, SHC survivor] Harry Lebelson
p 133 / quote [meat and snake showers in Scientific American, 1877] ?
p 133 / UFO Ports [UFO] Margaret Sachs
p 134 / Russian Sleeptalk [Gene Sutherland speaks r. in s., hounded by parapsychologists] Mark Teich
p 161 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 161 / advertisement [catalog incl. biofeedback] Edmund Scientific

V4#4 1/82
p 10 / letter [mystery ship of 10/81 issue SOLVED #1] Mark Epling
p 10 / letter [mystery ship of 10/81 issue SOLVED #2] Anthony Romain
p 10 / letter [second sighting of mystery ship?] W. Krohn
p 12 / letter [phantom-limb sensations] Donald Eisner
p 12 / letter [goat-unicorn of 10/81 issue explained] Draper Kauffman
p 33 / Near Death [n. d. e.] Judith Hooper
p 35 / Whistling Ears [ears that make noise] Judith Hooper
p 37 / SETI Axed [SETI funding cut] Michael Michaud
p 39 / OM Swat Team [TM team's mere presence stops violent crime] Judith Hooper
p 40 / quote ["Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man. But they don't bite everybody] Stanislaw Lem
p 67 / interview [Martin Gardner] Scot Morris
p 89 / UFO Update [UFO] Lee Speigel
p 90 / Mermen and Mermaids [explained] Douglas Colligan
p 90 / quote ["That which is incapable of proof itself is no proof of anything else."] Percy Shelley
p 90 / Voodoo Traffic [Brittish motorists use v. dolls to curse cops] Allan Maurer
p 90 / quote ["We are waiting for the UFOs. We know they exist."] Grahm Parker
p 90 / Dogu Space Suits [a.a.] Madeline Lebwohl
p 91 / Sole on Fire [firewalking] Harry Lebelson
p 91 / Uri Geller, Where Are You? [Uri-bating by Randi and OMNI] ???
p 92 / Nostradamus Interpreted [by Jean de Fontbrune] Mark Teich
p 92 / quote ["An abnormal number of all reported paranormal phenomena appear to have happened to holy idiots, fools or crooks."] C. Snow
p 92 / Remembering Birth ["the fact is we do."] Marc McCutcheon
p 119 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V4#5 2/81
p 10 / letter [Tesla] Michael Milanovich
p 10 / letter [UFO] Allan Hendry
p 12 / letter [creationism] Les Brown
p 12 / letter [creationism] James Milton
p 12 / letter [creationism] Keith Croes
p 24 / Cheap Talk [modern myths, ala "Paul is dead"] Gary Fine
p 35 / First Earth Battalion [Army goes new age] Michelle Bekey
p 37 / quote ["The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious... "] Albert Einstein
p 38 / Ancient Recordings [in pottery] Allan Maurer
p 58 / Recollections of Death [n.d.e.] Michael Sabom
p 62 / interview [Candace Pert: sex relations hardwired in brain?] Judith Hooper
p 93 / UFO Update [UFO] Jack Thornton & Pamela Weintraub
p 94 / Raging Skeptics [pick on each other] Irving Lieberman
p 94 / King Tut’s Shroud [just like J.C.'s only we have the body too] Sandra Dorr
p 95 / Nutrition for Psychics [psy] Robert Sheaffer
p 95 / Discojet [UFO-like jet by Paul Moller] Margaret Sachs
p 95 / Killer Clowns [k. c.] Pamela Weintraub
p 96 / Modern-Day Voodoo [belief makes it work] Eric Mishara
p 96 / Time Tripping [by Association for Past-Life Research and Therapy] Margaret Sachs
p 96 / China’s Armpit Savants [psychic readings or frauds?] James Randi
p 96 / quote ["Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed form deep nonsense."] Carl Sagan
p 121 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V4#6 3/81
p 10 / letter [satirizing anti-choice legislation] Audrey Glickman
p 10 / letter [n.d.e.] D. Amaral
p 14 / Yellow Rain [y.r.] Douglas Starr
p 22 / Gay Origins [g. o.] Judith Hooper
p 36 / quote ["There was never an idea started that woke men out of their stupid indifference but its originator was spoken of as a crank."] Oliver Holmes
p 36 / Cruelty to Monkeys [in the name of science] Sandra Dorr
p 37 / quote ["In a way, science might be described as paranoid thinking applied to nature: we are looking for natural conspiracies, for connections among apparently disparate data."] Carl Sagan
p 38 / Loch Ness Monsterlings [czoo] Michael Jeffries
p 40 / quote ["Science has proof without and certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof."] Ashley Montague
p 41 / Grass Intelligence [pot studies] Judith Hooper
p 45 / Cool Immortality [life extention] Roy Walford
p 75 / interview [Francis Crick: life on earth was planted by intelligence from beyond] David Rorvik
p 91 / UFO Update [UFO] Jeff Wells
p 92 / Haitian Zombies [zombies] Pablo Fenjues
p 92 / Phantom Animals [animal teleportation] Pamela Weintraub
p 93 / Haunted Personalities [some p. more condusive to h.] Dave McNary
p 94 / Dracula Revisited [tour of Ducharest] Margaret Sachs
p 94 / Demons of Brookfield [inspire multiple murderer Arne Johnson] Peter Rondinone
p 123 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V4#7 4/82
p 10 / letter [sound in pottery] Robert Mest
p 10 / letter [UFO] Janina Leeds
p 12 / letter [Nostradomus] Everett Bleiler
p 12 / letter [n.d.e.] Walter Isenhour
p 12 / letter [UFO] Steven Soter
p 36 / Music [DEVO] Michael Shore
p 51 / quote ["Ignorance is the womb of monsters."] Henry Beecher
p 52 / quote ["The wallpaper with which men of science has covered the world of reality is falling to tatters."] Henry Miller
p 101 / UFO Update [UFO] Peter Rondinone
p 102 / Voices from Beyond [on tape] Allan Maurer
p 102 / Joan of Arc: Genetic Male [j.o.a.:g.m?] Eric Mishara
p 103 / Deadly Dreams [monsters become real] Peter Rondinone
p 103 / Huge UFO [UFO] Katherine Jason
p 103 / quote [UFO] Woody Allen
p 104 / Nuclear Premonitions [n.p.] Peter Rondinone
p 104 / Champlain Monster Meeting [czoo] J. Greenwell
p 104 / ELF-Wave Antidote [extreme low frequency mind control] Eric Mishara
p 115 / advertisement [Autobiography of a Yogi] Self-Realization Fellowship
p 130 / letter [sound in pottery, Seth] Dona MacVicar
p 137 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V4#8 5/91
p 10 / letter [animal experimentation] Richard Snedeker
p 10 / letter [shroud] Ann Smith
p 12 / letter [n.d.e.] Mary Flood
p 12 / response [n.d.e.] Michael Sabom
p 12 / letter [n.d.e.] Jerry Stockton
p 12 / letter [n.d.e.] William Reynolds
p 12 / letter [n.d.e.] Ira Marvin
p 12 / letter [n.d.e.] Bill Horne
p 12 / letter [n.d.e.] Michael Jackson
p 12 / letter [n.d.e.] John Kogut
p 12 / letter [n.d.e.] Anthony Klotz
p 40 / Barley Cure [tribal remedies ahead of science] Sy Montgomery
p 43 / Hypnosis on Trial [h. maybe not reliable] Yvonne Baskin
p 45 / Tunguska and Ozone [t. explosion] Joel Davis
p 111 / UFO Update [UFO] Al Furst
p 112 / Past-Life Skiing [p.l.s.] Margaret Sachs
p 112 / Mummy’s Curse [Tut] Robert Sheaffer
p 112 / Examining Bent Metal [burned by Uri] D. Rogo
p 112 / quote ["Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge."] Stendhal
p 113 / The Jerusalem Cover-up [The City of David was really Edinburgh, Scotland] Pamela Weintraub
p 114 / quote ["Men are most apt to believe what they least understand."] Montaigne
p 114 / UFO World Record [UFO] Peter Rondinone
p 114 / Satellite Seances [se. by way of sa.] Rachel Basch
p 137 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 154 / Last Word [psy., para., Uri, Dowsing,] James Randi

V4#9 6/91
p 12 / letter [UFO] Travis Walton
p 12 / letter [humans were planted] Mark Baisley
p 12 / letter [humans were planted] Z. Sitchin
p 12 / letter [increase in gay men caued by favorable female wiring] Robert Hyre
p 14 / letter [gay origins] Nathan Daniels
p 14 / letter [self-contempt is the root of homosexuality] Pamela Goren
p 14 / letter [earthquake prediction] Steven Montgomery
p 14 / letter [firewalking] James Randi
p 36 / Deadly Intercourse [sperm allergy in women] Eric Mishara
p 39 / Biten by Love [psychosomatic arthritis in abused women] Charles Craig
p 41 / quote ["If triangles had a god, he would have three sides."] Clarles de Secondat
p 100 / Creationist Comics [c.ism] Bill Lee
p 109 / UFO Update [UFO] Carol Johmann
p 110 / Jesus Insurance [estate willed to Jesus] Peter Rondinone
p 110 / quote [psy.] Trevor Hall
p 110 / Time Foils ESP [psy.] Dava Sobel
p 110 / quote ["It is curious what unlikelihoods people - particularly scientists - will accept in order to 'save appearances...'"] Martyn Skinner
p 111 / Integraton [alien-inspired technology] Margaret Sachs
p 111 / Loc Ness Worms [czoo] Ivor Smullen
p 111 / quote [para] Trevor Hall
p 112 / Monster on Ice [Frank Hanson's "Big Foot Creature" exposed] Kendrick Frazier
p 112 / quote ["Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature."] St. Augustine
p 137 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V4#10 7/82
p 12 / letter [creation of gays] Ned Flaherty
p 14 / letter [yogis] Melvin Carter
p 14 / letter [yogis] Selene MacKenzie
p 14 / letter [yellow rain] Robert Levi
p 14 / letter [yellow rain] Timothy David
p 14 / letter [yellow rain] Fred Greene
p 35 / Good News for Lab Animals [vivisection] Douglas Starr
p 37 / Keeping Quiet about Earthquakes [predicting e.] Eric Mishara
p 39 / quote ["There are no facts, only interpretations"] Friedrich Nietzche
p 41 / Mystery Lake [unfrozen water near S. Pole] Madeleine Lebwohl
p 41 / Whole-Mind Predictions [use both halves for success] Judith Hooper
p 46 / Butterflies in the Dark [psy] Les Ericson
p 91 / UFO Update [UFO] Pamela Weintraub
p 92 / Bubbling Blood [St. Januarius miracle] Kathrine Jason
p 93 / Ghost Hunt [g. poll -- seen one?] Allan Maurer
p 93 / UFO Counseling [UFO Contact Center] Joel Davis
p 94 / Pyramid Wine [w. made in a p.] Peter Rondinone
p 94 / Hieroglyphic Hoax? [about Jewish exodus] Carol Johnmann
p 123 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V4#11 8/82
p 10 / letter [psi, czoo, UFO] Tom Pyzdek
p 12 / letter [astrology] Land Fleming
p 20 / Sudden Death [from fright or imagination] Patrick Huyghe
p 36 / Fetus on the Couch [personalities formed in utero] Eric Mishara
p 37 / Talking Computer for Dolphins [t.c.f.d.] Owne Davies
p 39 / Fateful Names [n. determine your future] Dava Sobel
p 91 / UFO Update [UFO] James Oberg
p 92 / Psychic Sleuths [p.s.] Marcello Truzzi
p 92 / American Triangle [Bermuda T. shifts west] Robert Sheaffer
p 93 / UFO Auto Accidents [UFO] Bethany Campbell
p 93 / Aroma Therapy [a. t.] Eric Mishara
p 94 / Suburban Pyramid [James Onan built one] Mark Teich
p 94 / quote ["The unknown always passes for the marvelous."] Tacitus
p 94 / Out-Of-Body Survey [University of Kansas findings] Tom Kovach
p 121 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V4#12 9/82
p 10 / letter [Jerusalem Cover-Up commentary] Robert Stephanos
p 10 / letter [Jerusalem Cover-Up commentary] Ken Turnbull
p 10 / letter [Randi mistake noted] Marcello Truzzi
p 22 / Foresight Saga [precog] David Loye
p 46 / quote ["When you collect the ten wisest men of the world and ask them to find the most stupid thing in existence, they will not be able to find anything stupider than astrology."] David Gilbert
p 47 / quote ["If a minister believes and teaches evolution, he is a stinking skunk."] Billy Sunday
p 53 / OOPArts [out-of-place artifacts] Robert Patton
p 99 / UFO Update [UFO] Bethany Campbell
p 100 / Big Foot Fraud [by Rant Mullens] Douglas Starr
p 100 / Pet Telepathy [psi] Owne Davies
p 101 / Living Neanderthals [crypto-anthropology?] J. Greenwell
p 102 / Messages for the Dead [carried by terminal patients] Eric Mishara
p 102 / Vampire Hall of Fame [v. museum in NY] Herny Packer
p 127 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians

V5#1 10/82
p 12 / letter [Loch Ness Worms commentary] Robert Huffman
p 14 / letter [Creationist Comics commentary] Sharon Lunsford
p 14 / letter [Creationist Comics commentary] Bill Melancon
p 14 / letter [Creationist Comics commentary] Roger Thrasher
p 49 / quote ["Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel."]
Bill Greener
p 52 / Subliminal Diet [s. tapes] Allan Maurer
p 72 / Mind Tripping [altered states lead to health] Judith Hooper
p 108 / advertisement [Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard] St. Martin’s Press
p 112 / Fetal Thought [does it exist?] ???
p 129 / interview [Karl Pribram] Judith Hooper
p 135 / advertisement [The Mastery of Life] The Rosicrucians
p 136 / Psi-Q Test 2 [psi] S. Schwartz and R. Mattei
p 151 / UFO Update [UFO] Alvin Lawson
p 152 / Bigfoot at Walla Walla [czoo] Owen Davies
p 152 / … And on Film [bigfoot, that is] Owen Davies
p 153 / The Alchemist’s Curse [a. really works] Moria Anderson
p 154 / Blond Mummy of Sinkiang [caucasian mummy from 2000 BC China] Douglass Starr
p 154 / Phantom Hitchhiker [para] Mark Teich
p 167 / advertisement [Autobiography of a Yogi] Self-Realization Fellowship
p 190 / Sun Shakes [may disprove Einstein's theory of relativity] Allan Hendry

Trevor Blake: Struggle! Digital images, 3 September 2010.

Why do the results achieved by a conspiracy as a rule differ widely from the results aimed at? Because this is what usually happens in social life, conspiracy or no conspiracy. And this remark gives us an opportunity to formulate the main task of the theoretical social sciences. It is to trace the unintended social repercussions of intentional human actions. I may give a simple example. If a man wishes urgently to buy a house in a certain district, we can safely assume that he does not wish to raise the market price of houses in that district. But the very fact that he appears on the market as a buyer will tend to raise market prices. And analogous remarks hold for the seller. Or to take an example from a very different field, if a man decides to insure his life, he is unlikely to have the intention of encouraging other people to invest their money in insurance shares. But he will do so nevertheless.

We see here clearly that not all consequences of our actions are intended consequences; and accordingly, that the conspiracy theory of society cannot be true because it amounts to the assertion that all events, even those which at first sight do not seem to be intended by anybody, are the intended results of the actions of people who are interested in these results.

It should be mentioned in this connection that Karl Marx himself was one of the first to emphasize the importance, for the social sciences, of these unintended consequences. In his more mature utterances, he says that we are all caught in the net of the social system. The capitalist is not a demoniac conspirator, but a man who is forced by circumstances to act as he does; he is no more responsible for the state of affairs than is the proletarian.

This view of Marx’s has been abandoned – perhaps for propagandist reasons, perhaps because people did not understand it – and a Vulgar Marxist Conspiracy theory has very largely replaced it. It is a come-down – the come-down from Marx to Goebbels. But it is clear that the adoption of the conspiracy theory can hardly be avoided by those who believe that they know how to make heaven on earth. The only explanation for their failure to produce this heaven is the malevolence of the devil who has a vested interest in hell.

First published in the Library of the10th International Congress of Philosophy, 1948. From Conjectures and Refutations. Routledge 1989

A true personal experience by Nabil Shaban. Nabil is about to embark on a full time postgraduate Masters degree in Psychology Research Methods, and upon hopefully successful completion, will move on to Ph.D research in Parapsychology.

During the winter of 95, I was on a theatrical tour of England and Scotland. I was starring as Volpone, a lecherous old con artist, in a new adaptation of Ben Johnson’s play. (You probably know Ben Johnson was a contemporary of Shakespeare). Our theatre company, Graeae, had created a radical version which was entitled FLESH FLY. The poster was a colour photo of me, semi-nude in kinky bondage gear and a gag-ball in my mouth, suspended from the ceiling. People who came to see the show often complained of being disappointed that I didn’t actually appear on stage as depicted in the poster. I guess it was just a cheap advertising gimmick… not my idea, I hasten to add… but I did enjoy going along with it.

All the actors in the production had a disability… Graeae, which I created with a friend in 1979, is a theatre company of disabled performers. Although I left the company in 1981, I occasionally return to do the odd production. FLESH FLY was the last show I did with them.

A production assistant on the show was a woman called Teresa… her boyfriend was acting in the play with me. After a week or so, I noticed that Teresa was paying a lot of attention towards me… I had a feeling she was somehow attracted to me. She was always making me coffee, sitting next to me in the bar… then when we stayed in hotels with indoor swimming pools, she would volunteer to teach me how to swim, she would ask to go in the sauna with me and often ask me to go shopping or to the cinema with her. All the time I was feeling a bit awkward because I could see that her boyfriend was getting quite stressed by our friendship. I was determined to keep the relationship platonic. I didn’t want to hurt my colleague and I didn’t want to jeopardise the play. I try to stick to my rule never mix business with pleasure… I try not to get sexually or emotionally involved with people I am currently working with. But… I still couldn’t help falling in love with Teresa and desiring her. However, I kept these feelings and yearnings to myself… except…

One day, when we were in Aberdeen, Scotland… it was now January 96…  I was driving through the city to the theatre. It was the afternoon and we had a performance that evening. I was thinking intently about Teresa… wanting her badly, wishing that I could have a relationship with her without having to hurt anyone… I wanted her to somehow “feel” my love, know that I was thinking about her. As I drove I kept thinking her name, pouring all my emotion into an mental image of her.

I was convinced she would be aware of my sendings… because I had been successful before with another woman I had been madly in love with several years previously. I mean, I had managed to send a telepathic message to a fellow student when I was at university. At the time I was having a bad trip with a load of magic mushrooms I’d taken. I was feeling very sad, alone, depressed, paranoid and I was desperate for love of a woman. There was this Pakistani girl (her name was Bangla) I had fallen in love with. We were friends and she had told me she was psychic. She had once heard her father’s voice calling her name in her room when they were thousands of miles apart. Minutes afterwards the phone rang and it was her father asking if she was alright… he had had a feeling she was in deep trouble and she was. Since I knew she was psychic… .and I knew that certain hallucinogenic substances can enhance telepathic abilities because there had been successful ESP experiments with people on LSD and magic mushrooms… plus – it was well-attested that love as energy was a powerful booster to psychic transmission… I concluded that with all these conditions present, if I tried to communicate to Bangla, there was a high probability it would work. So, I kept calling “Bangla” in my mind, calling her name over and over again, pleading with her to come to me. It was 3 o’clock in the morning… well, she didn’t come when I mentally called for her… so I eventually went to my room and crashed out. Then at nine in the morning there was a knock on my door and in walked Bangla. She looked at me strangely… deep concern was etched across her face. She asked me if I was alright. I said “yeah, fine, thanks.” She sat down on my bed and kept staring at me. She asked again if I was okay because she thought I looked a complete mess. Had I been drinking heavily? Was I suffering from a hangover? I said No but I had spent the night tripping out on magic mushrooms and now I’m just coming down to earth, chilling out, man. Everything is fine, I feel cool.

She laughed and then frowned and shook her head. “Something weird happened last night” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah – well, actually it was this morning, early this morning. I was still up at my desk, trying to finish this essay which I have to hand in today” she said, still staring hard at me, but mainly out of the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, did you get the essay written?”

“No, because what happened really disturbed me… I haven’t been able to concentrate since.”

“What was it that freaked you out?” I asked, intrigued.

“As I said I was writing at the desk… when I heard a voice in the room… behind me.”

“You heard a voice?”

“Yes… right in the middle of my room, behind my back. It kept calling my name – Bangla, Bangla, Bangla… ” she said.

“That’s amazing,” I exclaimed “What time was this?”

“I don’t know exactly. Around three o’clock, I think.”

“That is fantastic!” I then proceeded to tell her of my attempts to psychically transmit a plea for help to her. “And that was about three this morning” I added.

“Yes, I thought it was you. The voice was like yours except it was more childlike… it sounded like you was a child in trouble. But it was definitely your voice. That’s why I thought I’d better come and see if you were alright.”

That was one of the most important experiences of my life. It was proof of paranormal abilities, of being able to use them at will. I realised it was totally possible to develop and exploit the latent skills of telepathic communication.

However, I chose never to try it again… until that day in Aberdeen, 7 or 8 years later. This time without the narcotic boost of magic mushrooms… just LOVE. I concentrated hard on Teresa.

Well, eventually I reached the theatre and went to the dressing room and got ready for the evening show. I saw Teresa before the show but she didn’t say much except that there was a party after the show in the bar. I’m a bit of an introvert and I don’t drink alcohol (I stopped back in ‘82 when I could see the writing on the wall warning me not to go the way of the likes of Richard Burton and Oliver Reed… not that as an actor I was in their league but I could have been as a drinker), so I don’t normally socialise after a performance. I usually prefer to go straight back to the hotel room and read a book. I’m so boring, aren’t I…

This night, however, I decided to be different. I like to be unpredictable. I surprised everyone by appearing at the party. Teresa was particularly pleased when someone told her I was around, hiding in a corner. She sought me out and asked if she could sit in the empty chair next to me. I was overjoyed. “Yeah, of course” I said.

“You save it for me, then?” she asked mischievously.

“Nah, you must be joking. There’s this tall leggy blond, I’ve got my eye on.” I lied. “Can’t you see… her name is carved on the back of the seat.”

“Well, I’d better not hang around, then. Don’t want to ruin your chances, eh?”, she said, grinning, giving me a sharp dig in the ribs.

“Nah, it’s alright… she won’t mind you having the seat for five minutes. She’s not the possessive type.”

Suddenly, there’s a serious expression on Teresa’s face. “Are you really reserving this chair for someone?”

“Nah, just joking.”

“Because I’ve got to tell you about something that happened this afternoon. Something really weird.”

“Oh? What was that, then?” I asked, intrigued.

“You don’t mind me telling you about it? I know you like to be left alone after a performance. I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

“No, of course not. What was the really weird thing that happened?”

“Well, I was in your dressing-room, gathering your costume together to put it in the washing machine and have it ironed before this evening’s show.”

“About what time this afternoon?” I asked.

“Hmm… something like two-thirty.”

“Oh right”, my mind was racing… I had a feeling I knew what was coming next.

“Well, you know on the back of the dressing room door, there’s this full length mirror?” Teresa says, watching me intently.

“Yeah… ”

“Well, as I picked up your washing, I turned and looked at my reflection in the mirror… and this bit is really weird… I swear it happened. It was as clear as I see you now.”

“What?”

“I saw my reflection and then suddenly, my head disappeared and was replaced by YOURS. Your head was on my body. You looked straight at me and smiled. Then your head disappeared and mine came back.”

“You are joking?”

“No…  I knew you wouldn’t believe me.” Teresa sounded depressed.

“No, I do. It’s just… I’m amazed. So… I mean… did you just imagine my head on your neck? Was it an image you superimposed in your mind’s eye?”

“No. I had nothing to do with it. It just happened. One minute I saw my face in the mirror… and the next I saw yours. It was a real reflection. It wasn’t like an hallucination.”

“How did you feel when you saw me in the mirror?”

“I was shocked at first. But I felt calm. Seeing you didn’t worry me… except… ”

“What?”

“Well, I’m just left wondering what did it mean? What do you think it happened?”

“Got no idea,” I lied. I was too embarrassed, too scared to tell her that I might have put the image in the mirror. It would have meant declaring my love for her. And I couldn’t possibly do that. I couldn’t rock her boat. “Its all very strange” I said quietly. I really wanted tell her that she saw me because we loved and wanted each other… that there was a special psychic connection between us… but I felt it would have been irresponsible of me to do so… and besides, I might have been mistaken. And I didn’t want to upset my fellow thespian, I didn’t want him to be heartbroken if I ended up taking his girl.

I couldn’t look at Teresa as I denied knowing why she saw me in the mirror. As she got up to rejoin her friends, she asked more emphatically “Why have you got into my head?”

“I don’t know. Do you know?”

“Perhaps it’s best not to know.” she said walking away.

“You could be right, there.” I said feeling both sad and elated. Sad because it was a cop out… an easy retreat… we were both aware of something extraordinary happening between us but neither were prepared to admit it, and take the consequences. Elated because I was privileged to witness another example of the paranormal power of love.

Love and Telepathy copyright © 2000 Nabil Shaban

From Chris Gross to Trevor Blake, 27 April 1990
… I heard from the Striebers this week. Looks as if l might be sitting in on a Communion meeting. I should be hearing from Anne about it some time next week. I dunno how those ‘experiences’ of mine stack up next to those other folks, but this whole thing is getting interesting. Especially since I had two almost waking ‘experiences’ last week and I’ve begun to remember some dreams that might be relevant (and which pre-date Communion). One concerned ‘visitor’-like beings with high, squeaky voices that came at me with scissors – but they took too much off the top and left the back too long.

I’m generally pretty detached when I dream (unless the dream is an overt nightmare, which isn’t often). But some of these ‘dreams’ do seem to sneak up on me later on. For example, one of those two ‘experiences’ last week was a very vivid dream of being back at my parents house in the Poconos. I was ‘awakened’ by some moving white lights at the front and side of the house. I went to the window and saw something with a pale, bobbing head that I couldn’t identify. The first time l saw it l ducked away from the window, thinking ‘I can’t let it see me!’ I looked again and the thing seemed much less threatening, almost like a scarecrow. I also saw a small (about 2 inches high) skull and crossbones sign in the yard. A glance out the front window didn’t reveal anything In the front yard and there was nothing in the house. I woke up feeling very apprehensive. The dream itself was very tame, emotionally; I don’t know why I acted so frightened afterward. At any rate, it was hours before I got back to sleep. The room had a very haunted feel to it.

The second ‘event’ was very scary at the time (it involved my brother Richie, who once told me that he’d seen ‘an elf with black eyes’ in the woods behind the house) but it seems to have worn off…

From Chris Gross to Whitley Strieber, 1990
Dear Mr. Strieber:
I had been planning to write you after having read Transformation but I’d somehow put it off. Your talk at the New York Fortean Society meeting made me finally decide to sit down and type this up.

I was deeply affected by Communion because it was the first time I realized that other people had been having experiences similar to mine. I’ve been a Fortean (as a member of INFO) since about 1980 and have come across some bizarre stories I think should have rung a few bells in my mind when l read them – but at the time they were just more bits of data to be collected. I never connected them with anything in my own life. The “visitors” paradigm, now that it is a paradigm (though not a firm one) had helped me link up many strange events in my life that seemed unconnected at the time they happened.

I won’t go into detail about these events in this letter because I don’t want it to run too long. I’ll outline them in a separate enclosure. If you would like any further information about the events described in the outline I would be happy to provide it.

In any event, I’m glad to see The Communion Foundation is off the ground. I will be subscribing to the newsletter as soon as possible, and I hope The Foundation will be able to help the people who have been ‘visited’ to cope with their experiences. In that regard, I think that my research in Fortean activities has helped me to take this sort of thing in stride; after years of reading about spontaneous human combustion, chocolate-chip cookies falling out of the sky, etc., the “visitors” seem a bit easier to take!

I’m now going to go back and re-read Transformation so I’ll sign off. It was a pleasure to see and hear your presentation, and I hope the enclosed is helpful.

Sincerely,
Chris Gross

1. DREAMS
I have always had a very vivid dream life; my dreams are usually very detailed and dense with information. One element of certain specific dreams had always puzzled me these dreams involve places I’ve never been to (or which don’t exist) and people I’ve never met. One of these dreams featured the theme of experimentation. As far as I can remember it took place between 1979 and 1981 I was in college.

In this dream, I was in a strange, grey painted room with three or four other people. We were all lined up, straddling a bench and facing what looked like a large gray plastic shield of some sort. This shield was at least six feet high and resembled a welder’s mask seen from the inside. As the person in front of the line underwent some sort of treatment and was escorted out of the room, the rest of us would move forward one space and the process would begin all over again. When my turn finally came, I found myself facing a gaunt, white-haired man (identified in the dream as “Antionette”) who began pricking my face with a long, thin needle. The experience was very painful. The needle felt as though it had been electrified. I was then escorted from the room. I have no memory of the people who led me out, apart from the fact that they were wearing dark overalls. My strongest emotion at this point was anger. I felt as though I had somehow been used. The dream then became more unreal in texture and degenerated into a revenge fantasy against “Antionette.” I also began to experience what I later learned were called “haggings;” I would wake up paralyzed and unable to breathe properly, with the feeling that someone else was in the room with me. The haggings eventually got so bad that I sought help; the results will be mentioned in an upcoming section.

In the mid-’80s, (I wish I could be more specific about some of these dates but I was reluctant to write these experiences down) I experienced a series of dream whose texture was very different from anything I was used to. These dreams were extremely vivid and emotionally intense but my sense of time and the visual imagery were vague. I can only compare the experience to a delirium. In these dreams, some sort of non-human entity was trying to enter the house either through the TV set or my bedroom closet (depending on the dream). One repeated image tied all these dreams together: several hairless, slow-moving creatures with huge dark eyes approaching me through a darkened hallway. I am an occasional freelance writer, and I incorporated this image into a horror-movie treatment I was writing at the time. The general tone of these dreams was absolute panic, although the actions of these creatures was not threatening. They seemed to be possessed of a form of demonic energy that they were struggling to hold in check.

Two other dreams occurred in the mid-’70s. In one, a doctor was giving me a painful injection in my hand (probably the right one). The needle left a pale blue mark on my skin, resembling the mark made by a fine-point Magic Marker. For some reason I decided not to tell anyone about this. I was in my teens and living at home at the time. The other dream is a vague one concerning large, dark eyes and very small features. Nothing much happened in this dream: all I did was look at the entities, who struck me as being benign.

I would like to emphasize that the preceding dreams differ greatly in “texture” from the dreams I normally have, even the ones that are very bizarre. I was more alert in these dreams than I usually am, and I also had a sense that on some level these events were actually happening. The haunted feel of these dreams often carried over into the next day, or even the next several days.

I have had several apocalyptic dreams. They all involve a limited catastrophe here in the Northeast that involves an unnatural darkness during the day (usually around 10:00 AM) and something coming out of the sky, although whatever it is coming out of the sky is never cited as the cause of the catastrophe. There is also a suggestion of a series of plane crashes, bomb scares, etc., but these seem only concommittants. One of these dreams involved a symbolic cracking-open of the sky just before the darkness fell.

In the interest of brevity I am leaving out many other dreams dealing with elements that appear in Communion, Transformation and Budd Hopkins’ Intruders. The rest can be provided on request.

2. HAGGINGS
As mentioned earlier, I have experienced many incidents of “hagging” since about 1980. Almost all of them involved the feeling that someone else was in the room when no one was. This entity (sometimes group of entities) normally seemed less malicious than possessed of immense energy and powers of concentration. In one case, however, a group of these entities seemed to have a sense of humor.  They seemed to be standing next to the bed out of visual range and laughing in an unusual, reedy manner. I mentally told them to knock it off and let me sleep. Instead, I began to hear a confused series of noises, ranging from what sounded like taped snippets of radio program played at wrong speeds to a bicycle horn. I repeated my demand that the entities leave me alone, and the noises ground down like a record player being turned off.

These experiences would often include an element of space-distortion. I would have the feeling that I was somehow facing in the “wrong” direction, although everything about my bedroom appeared normal. It was as though the room itself had been turned around, although my position relative to the room was unchanged.

My most severe hagging came in the Summer of 1988. I had attended my first channeling session the night before, at the invitation of a friend of the channeler. I came home with a severe migraine and had an attack of vomiting. I went to sleep, got up a few hours later for glass of Coke, and went back to sleep again. At about 5:00 AM I woke up paralyzed, aware of a strangely relentless being in room, and completely unable to breathe. I felt as though someone were trying to push a thin metal rod down my throat, which had closed up and gone into spasms. I lost consciousness several times while trying to fight this thing off. I never saw it, and could barely keep my eyes open. Eventually I gave up, and I fell asleep again. The next day, I called the friend who had invited me to the session (a physical therapist / hypnotist from Brooklyn) and asked if I could talk to her about a strange incident in which I had been involved. We met in Prospect Park, and I described the hagging, we were both overcome by a growing feeling of oppression. By time for lunch, we were both feeling disoriented and physically sick. We went back to her apartment, and my friend called the channeler for advice. Her assessment (l don’t quite agree with it myself) was that we were under attack by an earthbound spirit, so my friend performed a “deliverance” and we both felt much better. The haggings went away or several months, but there have been a few minor incidents since then. Luckily they were nothing serious. One interesting point is that the entity I felt during some of mess incidents had a high-pitched, reedy voice. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what it was saying. The traumatic “delirium” experience mentioned in the previous segment felt very similar to hagging, but it was much less coherent.

3. AUDITORY “HALLUCINATIONS”
These happen very infrequently, sometimes in a hypnogogic state and very rarely in a waking state, and usually take the form of loud bangs or crashes heard while I am falling asleep. Ironically, I sleep through most thunderstorms. A recurring “hallucination” this past winter consisted of a Morse code-like beeping in my right ear. It was never loud and after a while it would usually fade out entirely. The sound was very similar to that of a marine navigation beacon, which generally broadcast on the long-wave band, repeating a series of letters in Morse code. It was a repeated sequence lasting about five or six seconds. I have had many problems with my right ear (at least five middle ear infections, several times rupturing the eardrum) but my hearing has remained unaffected and there is no evidence of tinnitis.

4. PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS
I recently discovered that I have a deviated septum. The only explanation I’ve received for this is the possibility that I may have broken my nose at some point in my life. I have no memory of anything like this happening, although in 1982 I suffered a series of recurring, unexplained nose bleeds. At the time of my “delirium” experiences I began to have severe migraines. I had several of them in high school and college, but new batch was much worse. My doctor sent me to the hospital for tests (CT scan, EEG, strobe test for epilepsy), but nothing abnormal was found. I was put on Inderal, a beta blocker that seems to prevent migraines. It was only occasionally successful; the migraines only stopped after the “deliverance” although recently they’ve started up again. I came down with one after the NYFS meeting on May 20.

5. ANOMALIES
My experience with UFOs is minimal. I used to see occasional star-like orange lights in the sky (two of which seemed to dip down and fly over the house) when I live in the Poconos (1971-1981). I had one further incident after moving to New Jersey.

On June 25, 1987 I was waiting to cross a street in Paramus (Forest Avenue), when I happened to look at the sky and saw a black ovoid object flying due West. It appeared to be made of some sort of flexible material; it was a flat object set up on edge rather than horizontally, and its edge rippled as it veered a bit from side to side. I eventually lost sight of it behind some trees. When I got home I wrote up a report for INFO.

The next day my phone line was severed. I called the police from a pay phone. An officer inspected the line, which seemed to have been sliced with a razor blade and told me that it had been deliberately cut. I saw what looked like crimp marks about an inch from the cut on either side. The phone company repairman told me that a passing truck must have snagged it. However, I live on a dead end street and the wire was at least 15 feet above the ground. I had been home all day except for a trip to the video store and had noticed nothing unusual.

I have had occasional phone calls from someone with a voice very similar to the ones I’ve heard in my dreams and haggings. The voice resembles that of a little girl or of the voice at the end of The Fly that says “Help mee-e-e-e… ” It also seems disembodies, as though it were coming directly from the larynx with no chest tones. These phone conversations have all been nonsensical. I generally put unusual calls out of my mind, but I do remember one that went like this:

CG: Hello?
VOICE: Hello. (LONG PAUSE)
CG: Who is this?
VOICE: WwwwhhhATT? (I should explain that one: it’s the word ‘What’ pronounced in a drawn-out manner with a rising inflection. The “t” at the end was pronounced almost as a separate syllable.)
CG: (AFTER ANOTHER LONG PAUSE) Hello?
VOICE: Hello.
CG: Who is this?
VOICE: WwwwhhhATT?
CG: I said, ‘Who is this?’
VOICE: WwwwhhhATT?

At that point I hung up. That conversation took place at about the time my haggings started, and as l recall I received two more of these calls after moving back to New Jersey in 1981. Unfortunately, I also began receiving more prank calls and wrong numbers, so I never thought much about them and eventually forgot their contents. I remember they were very short conversations, in which only a few sentences were exchanged.

For what it’s worth I was constantly being pulled out of class from first grade through senior high school and given intelligence tests. As far as I recall, I was the only one to whom this was done. I was never told who the people were who were testing me or why the tests were being given, but I guess it’s a comfort to me to know that I did very well. I was never told the results of these tests except that they were exceptional and apparently even baffling. I did overhear a remark while in high school that my sister had an IQ of 170 and that mine was higher than hers. The testing did not continue into college.

My overall view of these and other incidents as they relate to the visitor phenomenon is that my experiences, though not conclusive or even very coherent, indicates to me that something real is going on above and beyond any “hallucinations” that may be an integral part of it. I don’t know if I’ve actually run into the visitors or had some odd experiences but the events listed in your books really hit home and made me re-evaluate many of the unusual dreams and phenomena I’ve experienced over the past ten to fifteen years. If the visitors actually exist, I don’t believe that I’m in any kind of conscious rapport with them although I assume that if they are involved in my life l must be interesting to them in at least a clinical way. As to the nature of the visitors I agree that it’s very easy to anthromorphise. I get the impression that the beings I’ve encountered in my dreams and “haggings” are extremely alien in their thought processes. Either that or they drink a lot. I did feel some fear towards them at first, but I think I’ve been able to gradually rule out malice as a motive or their actions. They seem to be going about things tentatively, occasionally making mistakes (some damaging, some humorous). These days I seem to feel an amused affection for them most of the time. Maybe that’s John Keel’s influence rubbing off, since he seems to feel the same way about the Men in Black, Mothman., etc.

One intriguing aspect to my own experiences (based on a seemingly unconnected batch of vivid, recurring dream) is that these beings are involved in some sort of communications network that is occasionally tapped into by humans. These “leaks” would be symbolized in some cases by dreams of television sets, radios, newspapers, some computers, etc., bearing extremely cryptic information. This idea is very difficult to defend because it’s based on subjective experience and hunches. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it, but there’s always the chance that someone else may have experienced the same thing.

As I mentioned in the letter, this is all just the tip of the iceberg. I’m just selecting the information that appears to be the most relevant to The Communion Foundation’s studies. If you would like further information on anything I’ve mentioned here, I would be happy to supply it.

From Chris Gross to Trevor Blake, 30 June 1990
… about the Strieber stuff… still no word from the NYC group. BUT – you can run the letter as is, provided that you mention that no connection with Whit is to be implied, since I took one look at the letter, signed it Popeye, and tossed it back into my files. He hasn’t read it. I’d rather not re-write it as an article, partially because the disc with the information on it has disappeared and partially because I think the letter would be more evidential. So even I don’t know what it says anymore!

(from OVO 12 SCIENCE November 1991)

Silent Weapons… was uncovered quite by accident on July7, 1986 when an employee of Boeing Aircraft Co. purchased a surplus IBM copier for scrap parts and discovered inside details of a plan, hatched in the embryonic days of the Cold War, which called for control of the masses through manipulation of industry, people’s pass times, education and political leanings. It called for a quiet revolution, putting brother against brother, and diverting the public’s attention from what is really going on.
- Preface, Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars.

Silent Weapons… attempts to masquerade as several chapters out of a top secret National Security Council Operations Research Technical Manual. However, its style and emphasis quickly give it away as a political-economic romance-satire in the tradition of Joly (Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu), the Transcriber (The Occult Technology of Power) and Edward House (Philip Dru: Administrator). However, its warning regarding the subtle totalitarian potential of “operations research” (social mathematical modeling and manipulation) for benefiting a covert elite at the expense of liberty and prosperity is well taken.
- A-Albionic Book Catalog, The Lure (and Hook?) of Secret Documents.

Silent weapon technology has evolved from Operations Research (O.R.), a strategic and tactical methodology developed under the Military Management in England during World War II. The original purpose of Operations Research was to study the strategic and tactical problems of air and land defense with the objective of effective use of limited military resources against foreign enemies (i.e., logistics).

It was soon recognized by those in positions of power that the same methods might be useful for totally controlling a society. But better tools were necessary.

Social engineering (the analysis and automation of a society) requires the correlation of great amounts of constantly changing economic information (data), so a high-speed computerized data-processing system was necessary which could race ahead of the society and predict when society would arrive for capitulation.

Relay computers were to slow, but the electronic computer, invented in 1946 by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, filled the bill.

The next breakthrough was the development of the simplex method of linear programming in 1947 by the mathematician George B. Dantzig.

Then in 1948, the transistor, invented by J. Bardeen, W.H. Brattain, and W. Shockley, promised great expansion of the computer field by reducing space and power requirements.

With these three inventions under their direction, those in positions of power strongly suspected that it was possible for them to control the whole world with the push of a button.

Immediately, the Rockefeller Foundation got in on the ground floor by making a four-year grant to Harvard College, funding the Harvard Economic Research Project for the study of the structure of the American Economy. One year later, in 1949, The United States Air Force joined in.

In 1952 the grant period terminated, and a high-level meeting of the Elite was held to determine the next phase of social operations research. The Harvard project had been very fruitful, as is borne out by the publication of some of its results in 1953 suggesting the feasibility of economic (social) engineering. (Studies in the Structure of the American Economy – copyright 1953 by Wassily Leontief, International Science Press Inc., White Plains, New York).

Engineered in the last half of the decade of the 1940′s, the new Quiet War machine stood, so to speak, in sparkling gold-plated hardware on the showroom floor by 1954.

With the creation of the maser in 1954, the promise of unlocking unlimited sources of fusion atomic energy from the heavy hydrogen in sea water and the consequent availability of unlimited social power was a possibility only decades away.

The combination was irresistible.

The Quiet War was quietly declared by the International Elite at a meeting held in 1954.

Although the silent weapons system was nearly exposed 13 years later, the evolution of the new weapon-system has never suffered any major setbacks.

This volume marks the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the Quiet War. Already this domestic war has had many victories on many fronts throughout the world.

Descriptive Introduction of the Silent Weapon
Everything that is expected from an ordinary weapon is expected from a silent weapon by its creators, but only in its own manner of functioning.

It shoots situations, instead of bullets; propelled by data processing, instead of chemical reaction (explosion); originating from bits of data, instead of grains of gunpowder; from a computer, instead of a gun; operated by a computer programmer, instead of a marksman; under the orders of a banking magnate, instead of a military general.

It makes no obvious explosive noises, causes no obvious physical or mental injuries, and does not obviously interfere with anyone’s daily social life.

Yet it makes an unmistakable “noise,” causes unmistakable physical and mental damage, and unmistakably interferes with the daily social life, i.e., unmistakable to a trained observer, one who knows what to look for.

The public cannot comprehend this weapon, and therefore cannot believe that they are being attacked and subdued by a weapon.

The public might instinctively feel that something is wrong, but that is because of the technical nature of the silent weapon, they cannot express their feeling in a rational way, or handle the problem with intelligence. Therefore, they do not know how to cry for help, and do not know how to associate with others to defend themselves against it.

When a silent weapon is applied gradually, the public adjusts/adapts to its presence and learns to tolerate its encroachment on their lives until the pressure (psychological via economic) becomes too great and they crack up.

Therefore, the silent weapon is a type of biological warfare. It attacks the vitality, options, and mobility of the individuals of a society by knowing, understanding, manipulating, and attacking their sources of natural and social energy, and their physical, mental, and emotional strengths and weaknesses.

Diversion, the Primary Strategy
Experience has prevent that the simplest method of securing a silent weapon and gaining control of the public is to keep the public undisciplined and ignorant of the basic system principles on the one hand, while keeping them confused, disorganized, and distracted with matters of no real importance on the other hand.

This is achieved by:

(1) Disengaging their minds; sabotaging their mental activities; providing a low-quality program of public education in mathematics, logic, systems design and economics; and discouraging technical creativity.

(2) Engaging their emotions, increasing their self-indulgence and their indulgence in emotional and physical activities, by:
(a) Unrelenting emotional affrontations and attacks (mental and emotional rape) by way of constant barrage of sex, violence, and wars in the media – especially the TV and the newspapers.
(b) Giving them what they desire – in excess – “junk food for thought” – and depriving them of what they really need.
(c) Rewriting history and law and subjecting the public to the deviant creation, thus being able to shift their thinking from personal needs to highly fabricated outside priorities.

These preclude their interest in and discovery of the silent weapons of social automation technology.

The general rule is that there is a profit in confusion; the more confusion, the more profit. Therefore, the best approach is to create problems and then offer solutions.

Diversion Summary
Media: Keep the adult public attention diverted away from the real social issues, and captivated by matters of no real importance.

Schools: Keep the young public ignorant of real mathematics, real economics, real law, and real history.

Entertainment: Keep the public entertainment below a sixth-grade level.

Work: Keep the public busy, busy, busy, with no time to think; back on the farm with the other animals.

(from OVO 12 SCIENCE November 1991)

Happy Easter, everybody!

Trevor Blake: Quit While You Are A Head. Digital image. 1 April 2010.