A study of the relationship between magick and science in the rocketry and sorcery of Jack Parson... more A study of the relationship between magick and science in the rocketry and sorcery of Jack Parsons, co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and mid-century Thelemite magus. From MAGIC IN THE MODERN WORLD: STRATEGIES OF REPRESSION AND LEGITIMIZATION, ed Edward Bever and Randall Styers (University Park: Pennsylvania State, 2017).
The story of Jack Parsons--the Southern California rocket scientist-cum-sex magician who co-found... more The story of Jack Parsons--the Southern California rocket scientist-cum-sex magician who co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and did Thelemic rituals with L. Ron Hubbard--features a charismatic blend of sex, sorcery, technology and death. The tale haunts a dark crossroads of the SoCal mindscape, scrawling a prophetic glyph in the wet pavement of postwar America. In this essay, I explore an unremarked aspect of Parsons’ life and thought, what I will call his magickal feminism. In his 1946 text "Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword," Parsons issued a call for women to take up the spiritual, sexual, and political sword—a libertarian cry for female autonomy that also eerily anticipated the militant witchcraft that would finnd historical expression in California over twenty years later.
In this paper, I dig into the cultural, esoteric, and McLuhanesque contexts that compose the famo... more In this paper, I dig into the cultural, esoteric, and McLuhanesque contexts that compose the famous psychedelic experience that Terence and Dennis McKenna underwent in 1971, known as the "Experiment at La Chorrera." I explore issues of resonance, alchemy, media theory, and shamanism, all of which compose what I call the brothers' "weird naturalism."
A 2004 investigation of Burning Man's relationship to religion and spirituality, identifying five... more A 2004 investigation of Burning Man's relationship to religion and spirituality, identifying five patterns or "cults" and placing them in the context of West Coast alternative religion.
We sketch out some of the main strands of religious innovation that weave together into what we c... more We sketch out some of the main strands of religious innovation that weave together into what we call “California consciousness:” the often heterodox blend of spiritualities with movements elsewhere but uniquely and influentially concentrated in California. The main strands are: nature religion, esotericism (including Theosophy and the occult), counterculture (including psychedelic use), East-west Hybridity, and the human potential movement. We discuss the historical development of each strand, including important texts, figures and events and suggest how they form a unique regional sensibility. These strands vary from traditional organized religious orientations by being based less on institutional structures or revealed texts than on subjective experience (individual and collective). The borders often straddle the sacred and the profane, the numinous and the psychological or psycho-physiological. California consciousness thus stands as a fundamental influence on the “spiritual but not religions” orientation that is increasing in popularity. Its geography is an important influence on this diffuse movement. The state’s extraordinary landscapes have inspired various forms of nature mysticism; its location on the Pacific locates an important site where Euro-American civilization encounters Asian religious traditions (both historical and imagined); and the state’s cultural construction as a clement site of healing and transformation has encouraged forms of migration and identification that fuel California consciousness. Along with many sects and informal movements, California’s spiritual legacy gives rise to numerous and widely varied structures and spaces of religion or spirituality, from bohemian enclaves to Zen monasteries and Theosophical retreat centers. We explore how these various strands came together and how California changed and intermingled in the process of forming its own landscape of modern religious innovation.
A Deleuzian investigation of jungle music, African polyrhythm, dub, and the logic of the trickste... more A Deleuzian investigation of jungle music, African polyrhythm, dub, and the logic of the trickster. A 2002 revision of a paper written in 1994, later published in Sound Unbound, ed. Paul D. Miller (MIT, 2008).
Offers a conceptual cartography for understanding the historical and cultural imbrication of the ... more Offers a conceptual cartography for understanding the historical and cultural imbrication of the American counterculture of the sixties and early seventies with the occult revival.
Electronic manuscript available at http://www. …
A study of the relationship between magick and science in the rocketry and sorcery of Jack Parson... more A study of the relationship between magick and science in the rocketry and sorcery of Jack Parsons, co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and mid-century Thelemite magus. From MAGIC IN THE MODERN WORLD: STRATEGIES OF REPRESSION AND LEGITIMIZATION, ed Edward Bever and Randall Styers (University Park: Pennsylvania State, 2017).
The story of Jack Parsons--the Southern California rocket scientist-cum-sex magician who co-found... more The story of Jack Parsons--the Southern California rocket scientist-cum-sex magician who co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and did Thelemic rituals with L. Ron Hubbard--features a charismatic blend of sex, sorcery, technology and death. The tale haunts a dark crossroads of the SoCal mindscape, scrawling a prophetic glyph in the wet pavement of postwar America. In this essay, I explore an unremarked aspect of Parsons’ life and thought, what I will call his magickal feminism. In his 1946 text "Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword," Parsons issued a call for women to take up the spiritual, sexual, and political sword—a libertarian cry for female autonomy that also eerily anticipated the militant witchcraft that would finnd historical expression in California over twenty years later.
In this paper, I dig into the cultural, esoteric, and McLuhanesque contexts that compose the famo... more In this paper, I dig into the cultural, esoteric, and McLuhanesque contexts that compose the famous psychedelic experience that Terence and Dennis McKenna underwent in 1971, known as the "Experiment at La Chorrera." I explore issues of resonance, alchemy, media theory, and shamanism, all of which compose what I call the brothers' "weird naturalism."
A 2004 investigation of Burning Man's relationship to religion and spirituality, identifying five... more A 2004 investigation of Burning Man's relationship to religion and spirituality, identifying five patterns or "cults" and placing them in the context of West Coast alternative religion.
We sketch out some of the main strands of religious innovation that weave together into what we c... more We sketch out some of the main strands of religious innovation that weave together into what we call “California consciousness:” the often heterodox blend of spiritualities with movements elsewhere but uniquely and influentially concentrated in California. The main strands are: nature religion, esotericism (including Theosophy and the occult), counterculture (including psychedelic use), East-west Hybridity, and the human potential movement. We discuss the historical development of each strand, including important texts, figures and events and suggest how they form a unique regional sensibility. These strands vary from traditional organized religious orientations by being based less on institutional structures or revealed texts than on subjective experience (individual and collective). The borders often straddle the sacred and the profane, the numinous and the psychological or psycho-physiological. California consciousness thus stands as a fundamental influence on the “spiritual but not religions” orientation that is increasing in popularity. Its geography is an important influence on this diffuse movement. The state’s extraordinary landscapes have inspired various forms of nature mysticism; its location on the Pacific locates an important site where Euro-American civilization encounters Asian religious traditions (both historical and imagined); and the state’s cultural construction as a clement site of healing and transformation has encouraged forms of migration and identification that fuel California consciousness. Along with many sects and informal movements, California’s spiritual legacy gives rise to numerous and widely varied structures and spaces of religion or spirituality, from bohemian enclaves to Zen monasteries and Theosophical retreat centers. We explore how these various strands came together and how California changed and intermingled in the process of forming its own landscape of modern religious innovation.
A Deleuzian investigation of jungle music, African polyrhythm, dub, and the logic of the trickste... more A Deleuzian investigation of jungle music, African polyrhythm, dub, and the logic of the trickster. A 2002 revision of a paper written in 1994, later published in Sound Unbound, ed. Paul D. Miller (MIT, 2008).
Offers a conceptual cartography for understanding the historical and cultural imbrication of the ... more Offers a conceptual cartography for understanding the historical and cultural imbrication of the American counterculture of the sixties and early seventies with the occult revival.
Electronic manuscript available at http://www. …
"Ce dont il est question ici, c’est du transhumain. Le terme transhumain caractérise la pratique ... more "Ce dont il est question ici, c’est du transhumain. Le terme transhumain caractérise la pratique transitionnelle de la transformation de l’humain que les transhumanistes embrassent par le biais d’une myriade de protocoles et d’expériences conceptuelles, technologiques, pharmacologiques, et biologiques. Si le côté obscur du 'post' signifie une sorte de critique réflexive ou d’anxiété parasitaire, le 'trans' offre, au contraire, un bouquet exubérant de connotations plus agréables : transition, transformation, transvaluation, transcendance."
Attention, la présente traduction est sujette à modification.
The present essay by Erik Davis, written in 1996, is of extraordinary importance for our series o... more The present essay by Erik Davis, written in 1996, is of extraordinary importance for our series of books and for the rhizosphere thought in general. Despite its 22 years of age, the essay still displays its keenness and foresight. If it is true that it maintains the captivating vibration of the 90s, the essay of the Californian writer has great merit according to the metamatic perspective of the Strong of the Future: it enriches the Deleuzian thought with the “polyrhythmic splendour” of the Afro-diasporic cultures of the last part of the ‘90s and of the new century. (Read more)
Erik Davis' Bio
Erik Davis was born during the Summer of Love within a stone’s throw of San Francisco. He grew up in North County, Southern California, and spent a decade on the East Coast, where he studied literature and philosophy at Yale and spent six years in the freelance trenches of Brooklyn and Manhattan before moving to San Francisco, where he currently resides. He is the author of four books: Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica(Yeti, 2010), The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape (Chronicle, 2006), with photographs by Michael Rauner, and the 33 1/3 volume Led Zep- pelin IV (Continuum, 2005). His first and best-known book remains TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (Crown, 1998), a cult classic of visionary media studies that has been translated into five languages and recently republished by North Atlantic Press. He has contributed chapters on art, music, technoculture, and contemporary spirituality to over a dozen books, including Suzanne Treister’s HFT: The Gardener (Black Dog), Future Matters: the Persistence of Philip K. Dick (Palgrave), Sound Unbound: Writings on Contemporary Multimedia and Music Culture (MIT, 2008), AfterBurn: Re ections on Burning Man (University of New Mexico, 2005), Rave Ascension (Routledge, 2003), and Zig Zag Zen (Chronicle, 2002). In addition to his many forewords and introductions, Davis has contributed articles and essays to a variety of periodicals, including Bookforum, Arthur, Artforum, Slate, Salon, Gnosis, Rolling Stone, the LA Weekly, Spin, Wired and the Village Voice.
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Attention, la présente traduction est sujette à modification.
Erik Davis' Bio
Erik Davis was born during the Summer of Love within a stone’s throw of San Francisco. He grew up in North County, Southern California, and spent a decade on the East Coast, where he studied literature and philosophy at Yale and spent six years in the freelance trenches of Brooklyn and Manhattan before moving to San Francisco, where he currently resides. He is the author of four books: Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica(Yeti, 2010), The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape (Chronicle, 2006), with photographs by Michael Rauner, and the 33 1/3 volume Led Zep- pelin IV (Continuum, 2005). His first and best-known book remains TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (Crown, 1998), a cult classic of visionary media studies that has been translated into five languages and recently republished by North Atlantic Press. He has contributed chapters on art, music, technoculture, and contemporary spirituality to over a dozen books, including Suzanne Treister’s HFT: The Gardener (Black Dog), Future Matters: the Persistence of Philip K. Dick (Palgrave), Sound Unbound: Writings on Contemporary Multimedia and Music Culture (MIT, 2008), AfterBurn: Re ections on Burning Man (University of New Mexico, 2005), Rave Ascension (Routledge, 2003), and Zig Zag Zen (Chronicle, 2002). In addition to his many forewords and introductions, Davis has contributed articles and essays to a variety of periodicals, including Bookforum, Arthur, Artforum, Slate, Salon, Gnosis, Rolling Stone, the LA Weekly, Spin, Wired and the Village Voice.