Mavericks of the Mind Live! by David Jay Brown & Rebecca McClen Novick.
By Steven ‘fly agaric 23’ Pratt.
Amsterdam. March 2, 2013.
David Jay Brown quickly rewarded me for my response to a post he made on Facebook, proposing friends of his--read and review--advance copies of his new book ‘Mavericks of the Mind Live!’ I have spent the last week dipping in and out of the dialogues, sampling their taste, considering how to weigh them, and by what metric?
“Seems to me like everyone should have an isolation tank and get free of all this! This is my addition to technology, the isolation tank.—Dr John Lilly
Each of the panel members do not always agree, which to me shows the tolerance and good will of the participants and the tricky terrain they are exploring together. David and Rebecca launch the panel into free flowing feedback based on their provocative questions that include psychedelics, theology, law, anarchy and death. For me, the contributions by Dr Wilson in particular, illustrate how well human consciousness can formulate meaningful answers, on the fly, including both personal experience and published sources, with the noticeable effect of speaking like he writes: artfully. A great accomplishment for a social scientific philosopher and master satirist, me’ thinks. I should add that the book is worth purchasing and reading for the RAW and Timothy Leary contributions alone.
"Psychedelics just accentuated what I was beginning to develop out of mathematics and physics--a sense of the order.-- Dr Robert Anton Wilson.
The wisdom from the speakers, together with the good timing of the conferences that were right on the tip of the internet information explosion (1993-94), set an historical intersection point, well worth of reconsideration. Without the present day reference points of Google, Facebook, and Twitter each of the speakers navigate somewhat familiar pathways into discussion relevant to our current hyper-connected social networks, search engines and intelligent predictive technology. Also how interpersonal relations, and everyday social life changes during consciousness shifts. These Mavericks are invoking the future (1993-2013) and beyond with good cheer and a no-bullshit attitude.
“We can literally flash millions and billions of ideas to each other, and change and change, and change and add. William Gibson talked about the global atmosphere. You can tap into it and still be as personal and intimate as you want with those that you want to communicate with that way.--Dr Timothy Leary.
Due to exulted status of these Maverick futurists, in particular Dr Robert Anton Wilson, Dr Timothy Lear, Dr John Lilly, Dr Nick Herbert and Dr Ralph Abraham, the trajectories they set as a tribe together in these dialogues, stand testimony to the great consciousness revolutions that flared during the 1960’s, and the technological innovations & methodologies they spawned, plus, lots of sex, drugs, rock and roll and yoga in the streets. Amen!
“When nobody is complaining that they’re being hurt, that’s what I consider being a victimless crime. And the difference is not only that I can’t see any reason that a victimless crime should be against the law, but the only way you can enforce laws against victimless crimes is setting up a totalitarian state--because, to return to my example, if I’m getting hit over the head I’m going to go complain. But if three people are smoking pot in the next room and listening to New Age music, nobody is going to complain about that, because we don’t even know about it--so there’s no victim. The only way you can find out how many people in Santa Cruz are smoking pot and listening to New Age music tonight is by spying on the citizenry. – Dr Robert Anton Wilson.
http://www.amazon.ca/Mavericks-Roundtable-Discussions-Kleefeld-ebook/dp/B00BE86ZRO
Steven James Pratt a.k.a Fly Agaric 23.
