Ayahuasca Tourist

“Ayahuasca is a traditional indigenous sacramental tea primarily made of two plants, Ayahuasca (B. Caapi) - the “vine of the Soul/Dead” - which contains the Monoamine oxydase inhibitors (MAOIs) Harmine & Harmaline, and the admixture Chacruna (P. Viridis) which contains Dimethyltriptamine (DMT) - the first recognized endogenic (meaning naturally produced within the human body) psychoactive substance. MAOIs prevent the digestion of DMT by enzymes in the human body, thereby allowing it to become orally active. The sacrament served in ceremonies with the _______ is prepared according to traditional Amazonian methods.”

Literature is such a bad influence. I used to be a good clean kid. Then I read books.

Then I read Grant Morrison interviews. Then Robert Anton Wilson, and then RAW on Tim Leary. As discussed, I recently read on Dan Pinchbeck’s adventures in shamanism-- 2012 the Return of Quetzalcoatl. And Disinfo Press books on magic-- Generation Hex and the Book of Lies. Lately I’ve been deep in the Archaic Revival by Terence McKenna. P. K. Dick’s VALIS experience. Crowley. Icke. Countless junkie memoirs and esoteric texts through the ages.

So where is the shamanic drug scene inwhich I get to apply this knowledge? How am I to be enlightened already?

Baring occasional and infrequent psilocybin experimentation, I haven’t gone all out. Not yet.

And then I did, and it’s about time.

A few months back H_____ recommended to me a group that performs native South American ceremonies, engaging the powerful ayahuasca psychedelic. I put the information on the back burner and it took a long time to get around to it, and then I read more books and was further inspired; and so I emailed the A_____ B___ group and I committed to a ritual.

Timewave-crunching and I eagerly awaited; I followed the preparatory instructions and spent all week on a healthy lifestyle. I didn’t smoke cigarettes. I already don’t eat meat so the no pork part was easy. I even fasted the day before. I avoided coffee, which was difficult. No sex they said (simple enough for me and my track record lately!), though I also forced myself not to masturbate for five whole days and this was an exceedingly horrendous challenge, but I made it with my balls intact and a surprising amount of free time at my disposal. (All those lonely 3:00 AM’s away from internet porn . . .)

(Yet, as for the alcohol restriction . . . well the night before I found myself at a poetry reading and free wine was available, and I got a tad drunk, and I really was not supposed to do this. It completely escaped my mind. In retrospect, this explains a few things about my reaction. Well, such are life’s challenges and I dealt with it.)

I got a ride all the way to the city of T_____, CA. Through winding dangerous mountainy roads into unincorporated hippie town, and I was worried because I showed up a half-hour late, but once again I shouldn’t have worried about being late because it was still to be many hours before we began.

I made it to the strange address and walked into the house. My ride drove away. Kind smiling faces greeted me; they all wore white, as instructed. (but I don’t own white pants. I wore grey jeans. Jeans are comfortable to me anyways; I sleep in my jeans, and some find that strange). I found a spot on the floor and set up my meager sheets and pillow. Unprepared, I was given another blanket and a sweatshirt for warmth. “Here, take this shirt. It’s made out of bamboo!” “Thank you, what a selling point.”

Such nice happy white folks. With names like Elijah, Satchi, Touch-Eyes, and John. 18 in all to sit around in a circle, 10 guys and 8 girls. And a funny dog wandered about. I had no plans for a ride back home, but I figured I could ask someone later, and sure enough I met C________ and she said she’d drive me to an LA train stop the next day. I sat next to a fellow Israeli M____. D___ was there, glad I recognized a familiar face in, and I talked to her about journalism and Tarot and the coming experience.

A lesson in extreme patience. We waited for hours, in meditation and yoga stretches and taking naps on the floor to the sounds of an Australian dijiridoo. I kept my phone in my backpack in the other room, which was good or otherwise I would check the time incessantly. Here was timelessness.

F______ finally arrived and we were set to begin. Boys and girls were separated. Followed by more patience as he set up the altar and slowly explained the rules for another hour. “Be quiet. No talking. Go to the bathroom slowly and quietly. Make sure you bring a Tupperware container with a lid for your purging.” (I never did throw up, though my stomach would boil over painfully and I wished I did.) “No drinking water for the first hour. Keep your eyes shut. Sit up straight.”

I brought my stack of twenties and paid. I paid a lot more than I reasonably should have, but I paid for the ritual as well as the chemicals. “Any student discount?” I asked. “Starving artist fund scholarship?” “No,” they answered. “Your personal sacrifice is a necessary and important aspect.” Fine, I was willing to part, but it was worth asking.

“There is a good energy here today,” he said. “This is an ancient ritual, passed down through the millennia. Keep your intentions clear.” (I intend to be a good human being),
“and one at a time I will call you up and ask you your tolerance level, and anoint you with oil, and your journey will begin.”

The lights were turned off and in the darkness, led by a candle, I sat before F______. I asked for a medium dosage of medicine as he analyzed my aura and mixed together a concoction, and I drank from the little ceramic cup. Ayahuasca is thick and bittery tea and kind of sweet. My throat burned. I chewed on ginger. My mouth grew dry but I wasn’t allowed to drink water.

I crawled back to my space and sat in a meditation posture and I awaited an effect. I had my little mantra and sat still and breathed in pranayama breath and visualized the Anahata hexagram and attempted to open my heart chakra and all that usual daily junk.

But when it kicked in, I realized, this has nothing to do with Eastern meditation. This is quite something else.

This is not about being still, finding your center, transcendental, nothink, Zazen, or any kind of chackra workout. This is shamanism, and this is a dance.

I rocked back and forth and my neck was wobbly and I opened my eyes and I looked around at all the strange black-and-white heads, and my stomach bubbled, and I listened to the annoying Spanish singing, and I started seeing things.

Everything in extreme contrasts of black and white, my neighbors in charcoal skin. And then the colors, the little Red-Green-Blue pixels like when you look at a TV screen too close, because I’m looking at the universe too close and perceiving something inbetween. Unable to look straight, no focal points, pupils flowing and my vision dripping like water, and everything was fuzzy.

I closed my eyes, and the pictures came.

I grabbed my notebook and I scribbled notes so that I would not forget.

I was confronted with my own superficiality.

The machine-elves that McKenna spoke of, the weavers of reality, they came to me as silly little 80s pop culture references.

Characters flashing before me

Because this is the mythology of my youth.

I weep for this fact.

(On some level I found a new level of letting go; never having cried openly since childhood.)

I saw Ninja Turtles toys and cutesy monsters and video game characters.

I saw the mysterious pyramids of Mario 3 and there was a secret underneath.

I realized that I am a deeply superficial person and this is all nonsense.

These are no more mysteries. I’m too well-read. I know too much. Passion escapes me, reality is intellectualized and questioned and I could interpret this a thousand ways and all that work would be missing the point.

Even if aliens came through the door I wouldn’t care; I would question it, and it would never be real.

The aliens came, and they agreed with me.

I demanded an apology from God, for giving up all the mysteries too easily.

I weeped and weeped. Then I laughed.

I wanted to sleep but F______ made me sit up, which was probably for the best.

I realized that I don’t believe in anything and I will never be passionate, because I just want to think about what I’ll write about later and never live in the moment of the experience.

I wrote this down.

I tried to throw up but I couldn’t.

Ten thousand colors and words banged through my head at once and I couldn’t keep up.

I walked to the pink bathroom and looked at myself naked before the mirror.

I cried and cried.

It was terrifying.

I don’t know why everyone says this is about peace and love and light. It’s not. It’s a horror.

I realized that my path, my contribution to the Great Work, my True Will, will never be about peace and love. I’m not like these Jesus-lookin guys and these smiling white girls. I am here to experience suffering and darkness. I’m here to be scared and confront the bullshit.

“FUCK FUCK FUCK!”

I don’t believe in fear, I am not into that. But I do believe in terror and sometimes you got to embrace your own inner darkness in the process of getting over fear.

You can learn more from a bad trip than a pleasant one.

I listened to the sounds of breathing and gagging as they threw up around me. My stomach was in so much pain and yet I wouldn’t purge.

F______’s singing went from Spanish to English. “We are all children of light, its okay it’s all right.” In Spanish, for me, it was in the background and not entirely unpleasant. His English singing was far too distracting. Luckily, I use earplugs in my own meditations and brought some with me, and that helped.

And the buzz went down, and I had an experience and I’m still here and life goes one. I wanted a second dose. But I was too eager, the second batch was too small, and I didn’t go deep enough.

I was on the threshold of experiencing something real, but I limited myself and couldn’t make it far enough. It was too physically painful. It was easier to think about cartoons and the sad loss of Western intellectualizations. Perhaps the remnants of alcohol in my system ruined it. My heart was never opened, just my head.

I napped until sunrise, as they sang and danced and sat. I don’t know what’s so special about ayahuasca. It was extreme, but it wasn’t that terribly different than my marginal experiences with mushrooms or even just getting real real high via pot. Drugs never seem to work on me correctly.

I think the ritual was more important than the actual chemicals. And this is what makes me uncomfortable.

Afterwards he ended the ritual with conspiracy theory talk, “sovereigns don’t have to pay taxes or follow laws according to the Constitution” (so I’ve heard but never seen proved) “America is dangerous and the dark powers taking over is just around the corner.” Again with NWO/Illuminati meme.

Apparently F______ is moving to South America tomorrow to start his own temple. Honestly, I worry that he has the makings of a cult leader. He has much wisdom, to be sure, much to be learned from and very trained in these arts. But all idealistic movements present extreme dangers when too organized.

Many a legitimate religious experience has devolved into just another control mechanism, and I do not wish to be a part of it.

Spiritualists who demand that everything be cosmic light goodness, “we are all beings of light,” and tell us to follow their rules and eat right and be good people and avoid suffering . . . they are too positive and ignore the nature of immune systematics. Bad things are good for you too. Bad things tear you down so you can be rebuilt stronger.

I must reject all idealism. Nobody should tell you how it should be. Because it already is what it is. The universe is already perfect, only our attitudes need to change.

Yet I still try, ceaselessly, to be a good person. I think I do. I usually fail. I self-sabotage. But I believe I try. Just let it be a personal quest, please, let me go up and down and figure it out for myself. Don’t make me join your movement.

And the ritual ended with the morning’s beautiful bright down. I awoke recharged, as I always do after terrifying trips. But I wish I went deeper. Perhaps another time.

They all spoke of lightness and happiness, and I kept my darkness to myself.

I exchanged a few emails and perhaps made friends, at some fruit and homemade chocolate, goodbyes, and I left with C_______. She was very nice and we had a good conversation sharing our experiences. We all have our own issues to deal with, but she seemed to be more optimistic than me. Hungry and weak I was dropped off at the Temple/2nd stop in downtown. I walked the two stops over to the 7th/Metro Center train stop, so I wouldn’t have to pay for the transfer, and I absorbed the energies of the weekend Broadway Mexican markets of the city. I walked with my pillow and sheets in hand, as if I was homeless. I forgot my sunglasses and had to bare the sun with no shielding. Perhaps this is a metaphor.

I have had time to reflect, and I am left with no proof. Aside from the occasional synchronicity, I have experienced little evidence that a spirit world exists. I am left with an atheist attitude and I only have other people’s that assures them of an other side. How do I find this for myself? How do I know anything exists outside of our own heads?

I mean, I paid all this money for an extreme traditional psychedelic trip and I still haven’t seen God. What more can I do?

That’s fine, mystical atheism can work too.

Skeptical psychedelia has its benefits.

Anyways, I prefer Discordia and Chaoism to your pseudo-religious rules.

Westerners experimenting with other cultures. So condescending. Always worth a try.

And still I weep, for there is no more mystery worth finding.

I’ll continue my journey another time.

-------------------------------

I’d like to share what I’ve been able to gather from my notebook, my scribbles in the darkness:



ALL these
sounds of breathing

Average

sit up straight

site: sharp black on whites

Don’t like eyes closed



I have drunken the bitter
and it
by ginger

thick tasty ayahuasca
burns my throat. followed

I sit. One hour as yet.

no drink. No effect

And Inner Child anointment

Be the best human you can be.

toilet rules:

sit rules : :



I weep for the
mythology of my people

NINJA TURTLES
and thats what it be



I started crying
is superficial and
I
WRITE!!!!

boo hooo you faggot whine

Anyways, Its strange

the Mario 3
pyramids.



Some enemy of my childhood!
Don’t let me forget!

Inbetween all these
sorta video game lil memories....
and Zigzagging !!!..



I want the
box on my head
like a good jew



I cry I wish
I was loved.

I’m not
I’m not very

good at being a

I’m sorry.. I wanna be a boy



I want you
to apologize God!

Because there’s no
more mystery and I’ve
overthought it.

2012: Future or Present?

The 2012 meme--epitomized by Hollywood’s 2012 Conference on Saturday March 1st--holds a mixed bag. Like all forms of spiritualism, it pools of murky waters with which challenges you to judge “truth” from “goddamn nonsense.” It might be as valid a form of knowledge-seeking as any other path, or it can turn into one more damn movement-religion to tell people how to think.

If this is a ‘movement’, it’s not exactly an organized one. But the 2012 meme has certainly a new focal point for New Agey scenesters to gobble up the next batch of promises.

I hate to be so cynical. I’m desperately looking for that SOMETHING myself, and it’s this endless quest that brought me to this Hollywood event four years, nine months, and twenty days before Singularity point. But, as Jordan Maxwell told us: “Don’t ever trust anyone who knows the truth. Trust those that are looking for the truth.” Sage advice. Yet, that goes for him too.

It was quite the immersion of ideas, and I’m glad I attended. And hell, for me, it was free. Amongst these wayward souls, brought up on apocalyptic memeagry, waiting for that crisis to bring us together (and if there is environmental catastrophe any time soon, y’know, the West Coast is probably the absolute worst place to be). Here in Hollywood, the very substance of holly-wood representing the wand of the magician you see . . .

I woke up with little sleep at 6:00 AM (on most nights this would be my bedtime), with a plan to begin my two-hour public trans early and make it there by 9 AM. My LA route: Long Beach bus to Blue line South Central train to Red line Hollywood train. It’s a ridiculous lifestyle in LA County with no car, but I make do. Except when I don’t; I’m lazy in the mornings and I ran late, missing every damn bus and train connection and didn’t arrive until 10:00. I cursed myself in the 7^th Street/Downtown Metro connecting station as I read my Pinchbeck book and wished time wasn’t against me. But I needn’t have worried, after I got off the train at Hollywood and Vine I was greeted at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre with long lines and total chaos. They started over an hour late. I’m glad I didn’t go early; Eastern Spiritualist or not I am easily bored, impatient, and hate arriving anywhere too early.

After a complex web of figuring out who it is I talk to for the volunteering gig, I snuck inside and talked to an organizer Karin--who I’d only corresponded with via email so far, and then I got a free tshirt. I still get to keep the shirt to this day. Time to kill until my shift, and I wandered. Surrounding the indoor theatre-area were New Agey types with everything for sale. Mediums and healers, teas, expensive chocolate, and various figures peddling their books. Republic magazine was for sale, plastered with images of Ron Paul. Very interesting how these circles overlap, when New Age extreme leftists join hands with paleo-conservative-libertarians-conspiracists. (Later at the end of the night a speaker would mention Ron Paul and the crowd clapped in an uproar, this writer included.)

My usher shift didn’t start until 1:00 and so I grabbed the first downstairs orchestra empty seat I found and watched this Timewave 2013 documentary film, an apparent sequel to 2012: the Odyssey (which I haven’t seen). Personally presented by the filmmaker Sharon Rose, it detailed her experiences in Peru with Native shamans, interpolated interviews with Daniel Pinchbeck and others, and of course recordings of Terence McKenna. (“Scientists can’t even explain the birth of the universe. The Big Bang theory is preposterous. It’s as if they are saying ‘just give us this one free miracle’ and we’ll explain the rest. But why must a miracle Singularity happen at the beginning of time, why not the end?”) Then, as if by synchronous providence, at the very line: “I learned to enjoy the moment,” the film cut off! Computer error, or too much energy to short-circuit the fusage, or somesuch, and the projector turned black. Sharon Rose was a pro of a presenter and came on stage ready for filler-speech. “AHHHH,” all hundreds of us sang during the meditation exercises. They never got the movie to work.

Next was anthropologist Dr. Alberto Villoldo who brought with him a native shaman of Peru. They prayed for us, and extolled the virtues of shamanism, and why everyone is going to love each other, and Western materialism’s “cult of death” is going to go away, and all that nice positive futurism that’s been going around. Just wait a few years for the Galactic Alignment and all will be well! A constant theme . . .

Meanwhile I noticed Daniel Pinchbeck sitting nearby me from across the aisle, recognizing the writer from online footage and photographs. I took out the library book from my bag and wondered a good time to approach. The keynote speaker I was on the lookout for, the very name that caught my eye when I first saw the advertising poster walking past the Montalban Theatre a month back and vowed to attend this conference. Daniel Pinchbeck is the esteemed author of 2012: the Return of Quatzelcoatl. I’ve been eagerly reading it lately, though I must confess I’m only halfway through, and it details Daniel’s quest as a New York journalist researching shamanistic traditions and experimenting with all manners of psychedelics. The book delves into a thousand subjects, jumping from African tribes to crop circles to new age healing seminars to Burning Man, overall a mix of memoir with extended quotations/summaries from Daniel’s eclectic reading mix. A bit unfocused, but a fascinating journey.

He stepped out and I rushed to follow. “Daniel Pinchbeck! Would you sign my book?” “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not my book, it’s a library book. How cool would it be to sign it to your future anonymous readers?” He autographed away, and drew a cute snake (Quetzelcoatl as Saturday morning cartoon). Then he hurried away, eager to see Dr. Villoldo’s presentation and get away from me.

I find myself kind of annoying when I approach my favorite minor celebrities in real-life. (It’s usually authors who are my greatest idols--I have yet to care about meeting some movie star. But writers aren’t usually too famous in the grand scheme and have no need to be snobby.) Be it at a book signing, comic convention, or comedy club (not including rock stars--I might see the occasional famous musician in real-life but they’re usually vastly separated by stage), when I meet someone whose work I respect I can’t help but take the opportunity to ask them as many questions as I can fit. At a convention or wherever, they’re usually busy and there are many others demanding attention. yet I pester and pester; asking what they’re interested in, the backstory on their art, and most of all what advice they’d offer me as a writer. Hit or miss, I always try, and every so often perceived as annoying.

Daniel Pinchbeck, according to his wikipedia birthdate, is in his early forties. He comes across as if in his twenties, and doesn’t act as a scholar but another hip young soul with long hair. A quiet sort of voice, articulate and intelligent, but not overly confident. He’s tall, he slouches--according to his book he suffers from moderate scoliosis. Bad teeth.

A perfect vision of what I imagine all the new intellectuals need to be. A philosophical countercultural writer, knee-deep in the quest for knowledge as it takes him to all the weird places in the world, but very much at home in the big-city’s depravity. To write thick well-bibliographed academic tomes about taking drugs, and getting away with it.

Listening to his speeches about these shamanic subjects and how they relate to the future of human evolution via 2012, I get the sense Daniel takes it with a grain of salt. Sure he spoke with passion about crop circles, but as audience members asked him questions about aliens and Infinite One-ness he tended to shrug them off as irrelevant. “I don’t know,” he admitted. Just trying to figure it out. On the subject of conspiriology, he described the NOW/Illuminati theories as interesting but “off-putting”, and endorses Obama so he can’t that distraught with the System; and when Jordan Maxwell in the ending group panel session stated that the world and government is controlled by “very dark forces which have been controlling this world for six thousand years,” Daniel coldly retorted with: “You can live in that movie if you want to, but I don’t want to live in that movie. That’s a terrible movie.” I appreciate his skepticism, his ill-at-ease (at least, his relative skepticism when compared to this lot), his perspective.

I asked a question during the back-and-forth audience session, about the subject of currencies. He mentioned the nature of currencies as part of the problems of the world, local currencies might be coming to play and in medieval times negative-interest currencies had an impact as unhoardable. “Are you familiar with Neal Stephenson?” I asked. Only one person clapped. “I don’t have time to read fiction anymore,” Daniel answered. “Well,” I said, “Neal Stephenson’s brand of futurist science fiction, Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, has a pervading theme that the internet can change society and collapse government by bringing about multiple competing currencies that exist online. Maybe that’s how we’ll escape from the hold of the Federal Reserve.” “I don’t know about that,” he said, “why do they have to the competing, why not collaborative currencies? Next question.” I was cut off. Not his subject of expertise.

Well, I tried. If the central banks are the problem, if that’s your cause, if that’s your revolution, might I suggest Kongbucks and New Yen and Metaversal capitalism to replace the hollow Federal Reserve notes we now use? Neal’s meme I wanted to spread to these people, but I don’t know if they cared. Anyways, what fascinates me about Neal Stephenson’s work is not that he wants a cause to change the world, no marches holding up signs that demand global anarcho-capitalism; but that the patterns of the world do what they do on their own. Meme infestation or not, if it occurs it will occur naturally.

I certainly sensed an impatience on the part of Pinchbeck during mine and others’ questions. I don’t blame him. Hundreds of people throwing out ideas, many of them quite crazy, and he’s only one man to keep up. When I last saw him smoking outdoors, I apologized, “I know you’re busy Mr. Pinchbeck, but one last thing. I’m an aspiring writer. I wonder if you would read this short story I wrote, it’s about occult themes, a 411 operator out to destroy the world with Burroughs technology.” (411, an old story of mine I recently rewrote for a new round of submissions) “No,” he said, “I don’t have time. Email me.” I held out the printout and pleaded, “But wouldn’t you prefer a hard copy if you’re really going to read it? Just take it, humor me, and if you throw it away I won’t even know.” “Fine.” Yay, I won, and he took my story. Though annoying as I might be, I’m glad I didn’t accept no, at least this leaves a chance for correspondence. I’d be grateful for input, though I’m realistic and the guy is fairly overwhelmingly busy (and did I make a good impression?), but it’s always worth it try.

And other speakers: John Major Jenkins’ Power Point presentation was most factual in decoding the Mayan pyramids and expressing the numerology thereof, though honestly his speech was one I saw the least of, and then I went out to eat for lunch Baja Fresh on Sunset.

Jay Weidner, husband to Sharon Rose, runs Sacred Mysteries DVDs and gave an interesting take about his personal journey from atheist to seeker. I respected that he pleaded ignorance on just what specifically will occur in 2012. Audience members wanted to ask about terrorism and global government and Illuministic anxiety, but he wasn’t interested in spreading fear because “nobody knows what’s going to happen.” Let’s just do our best to evolve, and interpret that 2012 as an empowering event. And I learned, according to him at least, that 26 is an important number--Sun takes 26,000 year rotation. Here comes Chapel Perilous and these silly thoughts: Hmm, I turn 26 this month, and on Easter Sunday . . .

Yogi Harijiwan Khalsa impressed me greatly. An LA local, I wasn’t aware of his work until the event. White guy in a turban and robe, with a Brooklyn-ish sort of big city accent. “Kundalini Yoga is my business,” he told me. He started out with gong music and mantra, “OM,” and told of another ancient mantra invented in this region: “whatever.” What a sense of humor, a hilarious guy. Though certainly a spiritualist, a different mindset than the New Agey othersa as he mocked global warming and Al Gore and even referenced David Icke’s work. Aware of the Illuminati, and happy to mock them. “A guy told me to get a bunker and hoard food and gold for 2012. He said to me a very wise thing: save the ketchup.” You can’t worry about these things, you just have to do your best to expand your consciousness and individually evolve. When he spoke of the coming consciousness shift as expressed through generation gaps through recent cultural history, he cited the Sex Pistols. Quite impressed, I talked to him afterwards in the halls, and got a card, and I will have to make the time to attend one of his yoga classes when I get the chance.

I worked as usher through the mid-day presentations. Very simple work; given a seating chart and flashlight keychain and standing next to the door and telling people (some of them speakers themselves) not to block the doorway. No flash photography.

The cheaper seats were the upstairs mezzanine, and many tried to steal downstairs orchestra seats. I didn’t care, as long as they didn’t sit where someone else’s seat was. (And earlier I met with some friends--Herwig actually knows Daniel Pinchbeck and took the backcover photo in the book. He got in free through contacts and I looked the other way as he stole orchestra seats!) There were other rules that I wasn’t interested in enforcing, such as not to bring drinks into the theatre. Overall I did a decent job of it I suppose, but I’m not getting paid here and I wasn’t trying to let any petty power go to my head.

The sun set and it grew dark outdoors, and then came the ending group panel questionnaire. Pinchbeck and Jay Weidner and Sharon Rose and others were joined by a late Jordan Maxwell--the arch conspiriologist recently made more famous by the viral Zeitgeist film so popular online nowadays. Many of the questions delved into NWO/Illuminati theories, “I know Secret Service agents and they tell me World War II is scheduled soon!” quite pessimistic (maybe true, maybe not. Who knows anymore?), and the speakers struggled to combine optimism with environmental catastrophe and/or Illuminati takeover. One very poignant statement by Pinchbeck: “The military have families too, and they don’t want this future,” which very much deserved a clap.

One point of interest to me: West-bashing. I’m tired of it. One kid asked why “people of color vibrate at a higher frequency, and why the European male is so devolved.” Come on, is that a necessary question? Most of the panelists were ‘European males’ anyways. Firstly, what does “vibrating at higher frequency” specifically mean? What constitutes low frequencies to be bad? Or is this yet another meaningless New Agey term tirelessly thrown out? “The West is inherently materialist,” they said, “and the East has had more practice, but we’re catching up.”

All cultures of the Earth are yin and yang and contain positive and negative within the whole. ALL. African slavers that sold their people to European slavers are not spiritual. Mayans are hip now, but the Aztecs that sacrificed 250,000 people a year were not spiritual. Communist Chinese who are the greatest human rights abusers in the history of the world don’t display very Taoist tendencies in my opinion. Zen or not, Samurai feudalism or WWII Imperialist or modern poppy, Japanese culture seems to be fairly good at materialism from what I can tell.

The crimes of Western Civilization and the Christian religion have been very well-documented, and is not up for debate. But our own traditions of the Bible and Hermeticism and such still contain much philosophical truth. Cross-refference Qabbalah with yogic chackras, or go to a Wiccan meeting, or whatever your interest is. But to disregard all of the West as decedent is juvenile and unnecessary. The world is what it is, history already happened, and let us make the most of today without wallowing in lost idealistic nostalgias. In this writer’s opinion, at least, cross-cultural pollination is the key to memetic evolution and to dwell in anti-West sentiments is not going to be helpful. Sorry. We are individuals who have a grand palette of mystical traditions to grow upon. We are not bound by racial Karma. We are all flawed humans. Let’s move on.

Most of these questions were terribly long and drawn-out, the stoner kids droning on and on and on until they got to the point: “What do you want me to do in 2012?” These Indigo kids want so much to believe in something. And therein lies the danger. It’s much harder to figure out for yourself how you’re going to make the world a better place; it’s much easier to find a guru to tell you what to do. And this is what makes me pessimistic, not because of the speakers, but because of the New Agey audience who are trying so hard to find a religion to believe in. Maybe that’s not the point. Maybe this so-called “movement” should stay unorganized. This emerging subculture . . . Burners and techno-hippies and cyber-spiritualists . . . kids that smoke pot right on Hollywood Blvd beneath the forgotten sidewalk stars and hook themselves up to Tesla machines and can’t wait to camp out in the Black Rock desert for the summer. On the one hand it’s a beautiful group, on the other hand it can be so naïve. Mysticism as I understand it, by way of RA Wilson and Crowley, should contain a healthy dose of skepticism.

Years and years of esoteric research and I still don’t know what to believe. I don’t even feel like I’m close to any subjective or objective “Truths.” Like Mr. Wilson says, through Chapel Perilous you emerge with a choice of paranoia or extreme agnosticism. The Chaoist approach to playing with beliefs appeals to me. The pseudo-religious approach of believing everything channeled through this psychic, or whatever, does not.

Immersed in ideaspace, burnt out on conjecture, and what the hell am I to do with it all? I am interested in metaprogramming. I am interested in DNA shamanism. I am interested in interpreting the universe with new states of consciousness, in archetypes and gnosis and psychedelia and magic and new philosophies that come with any and every path. I’m very open to learning something new. But until I’m proven wrong with direct experience, I don’t think I believe in any of this shit.

So what will happen on December 21st? Biosphere damaged beyond repair? Galactic equatorial alignment causing pole shift and an end of civilization? UFOs come crashing down and only the Reptilian Illuminati can save us? Singularity and then a complete end of time? Well, I guess my point is: I don’t bloody know. Repeating one speaker, “Hopefully it’ll be a nice day.”

And so, without securing a floor to crash on in the city, I took back the long train ride alone late into midnight, read my books, didn’t pay for the transfer and got away with it, and went home, went to sleep. Long day.