Full Transcript for Gary Lachman - Touched by the Presence: From Blondie's Bowery and Rock and Roll to Magic and the Occult

00:04:05.960 I was born in fifty five. I came of age, 73 00:04:05.960 --> 00:04:09.680 they say, the very the late sixties, very into early seventies, 74 00:04:09.719 --> 00:04:12.319 and that currency of the sixties. Do your own thing, 75 00:04:12.479 --> 00:04:15.560 don't perform, you know, dance to the beat of a 76 00:04:15.560 --> 00:04:17.680 different drum, and so on and so on, you know, 77 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.720 discover who you are that that still had currency. I 78 00:04:21.800 --> 00:04:24.360 was a teenager, so I sort of follow that sort 79 00:04:24.399 --> 00:04:28.560 of thing. And that's that's a long term kind of thing. 80 00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:30.560 So along with all the persona that you have to 81 00:04:30.600 --> 00:04:33.639 adopt in order to deal with the world, there is 82 00:04:33.639 --> 00:04:37.000 this other that's who you are, you know, and it's 83 00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:40.040 often a long battle and a difficult struggle to maintain 84 00:04:40.120 --> 00:04:42.480 that against having to because most of us kind of 85 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:45.639 fall into the persona I I mean myself as well, 86 00:04:45.720 --> 00:04:48.399 you know, you do you tend to identify with whatever 87 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:52.040 role it may be, this, this, this is the existentialist stuff. 88 00:04:52.079 --> 00:04:54.360 And then okay, well who are you when you're not 89 00:04:54.439 --> 00:04:57.959 any of those roles? And that's something that terrifies some 90 00:04:58.040 --> 00:04:59.839 of us when we have to face that, But when 91 00:05:00.040 --> 00:05:02.800 on the other side of it, it's very liberating. 92 00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:06.360 Very true. And now, what about your interest in this 93 00:05:06.519 --> 00:05:08.199 magic and be a cult and stuff like that? Was 94 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:11.879 this prior to your interests in being a musician? Was 95 00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:13.639 this something you're always had in as a kid? 96 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:18.959 No? Not really. I mean I became interested in all 97 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:23.079 that sort of magic and a cult thing around the 98 00:05:23.079 --> 00:05:26.600 same time and I first started playing music of Blondie. 99 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:30.720 This would have been in summer of nineteen seventy five 100 00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:37.879 up fifty years ago more or less. And when I 101 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:44.759 first started playing with Kristin, Debbie actually was living with them. 102 00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:48.720 And Debbie had a tiny flat in little Italy in 103 00:05:48.759 --> 00:05:52.680 New York on Thompson Street, and I had got, you 104 00:05:52.680 --> 00:05:55.800 know whatever, for the reasons that people can find out 105 00:05:55.839 --> 00:05:57.480 in the book, had to leave my home and all 106 00:05:57.480 --> 00:06:00.920 this sort of thing if I wanted to pursue this career. 107 00:06:01.319 --> 00:06:03.439 And basically she took me in, but then it seemed 108 00:06:03.439 --> 00:06:07.279 to be too crowded, you know, Chris Debbie, myself, her 109 00:06:07.360 --> 00:06:13.000 cats and all the amplify everything crowded into this tiny 110 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:15.199 no it's this tiny time. I think it's one o 111 00:06:15.319 --> 00:06:17.560 five Thompson Street's the address if you want to check 112 00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:19.160 it out from New York. And there used to be 113 00:06:19.199 --> 00:06:22.839 like an Italian social club downstairs with Mustachio's old ladies. 114 00:06:22.879 --> 00:06:25.199 We'll be sitting out, you know, sipping espressos and things 115 00:06:25.240 --> 00:06:29.959 like that. In any case, so we found a bigger 116 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:33.120 space on the Bowery and this became the Blondie Loft. 117 00:06:33.199 --> 00:06:36.720 And this was said just about, you know, the other 118 00:06:36.759 --> 00:06:39.879 side of Houston Street from CBGB's on on the Bowery. 119 00:06:40.519 --> 00:06:45.000 And but the fellow who had the lease on the building, 120 00:06:45.040 --> 00:06:48.000 and so far as there was something like this, there's 121 00:06:48.040 --> 00:06:53.839 this fantastic, flambuoyant wild biker artist named Benton who was 122 00:06:53.839 --> 00:06:56.560 into the Hell's Angels, but he was also into Alistair Crowley, 123 00:06:56.720 --> 00:07:00.000 you know, the notorious dark magician of the twentieth century 124 00:07:00.079 --> 00:07:02.319 and so on and so on. And he used to 125 00:07:02.319 --> 00:07:07.040 give impromptu readings of the Taro Deck Crowley's thought Tarot Deck, 126 00:07:07.079 --> 00:07:09.639 and he would read from his novel Diary of a 127 00:07:09.720 --> 00:07:11.839 drug fiend and all this kind of stuff. And I 128 00:07:11.959 --> 00:07:13.480 was not really interested in that that kind of thing. 129 00:07:13.519 --> 00:07:15.360 I mean, my interest in that sort of was like 130 00:07:15.439 --> 00:07:19.759 from reading HP. Lovecraft, you know, in weird tales, you know, fiction, 131 00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:22.879 or the old horror films from the thirties and forties, 132 00:07:22.959 --> 00:07:25.560 Universal horror films, things like that. But I never took 133 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:28.879 the magic sluff too seriously. But he was you know, 134 00:07:29.160 --> 00:07:31.720 I started getting into it because of this guy, and 135 00:07:31.759 --> 00:07:34.199 then I read some Croley, so I got into reading Crow. 136 00:07:34.439 --> 00:07:36.480 But the book that really got me like doing what 137 00:07:36.519 --> 00:07:40.560 I'm doing now, it was by a British writer named 138 00:07:40.560 --> 00:07:44.600 Colin Wilson, and it just was called The Occult and 139 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:47.879 it had come he came out like in seventy one, 140 00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:51.720 and you'd go to people's places and this kind of 141 00:07:51.759 --> 00:07:57.639 debris from the previous kind of hippie generation. So Carlos

142 00:07:57.680 --> 00:08:01.399 Castaneda and Timothy Leary's books and Eat Shang and stuff 143 00:08:01.439 --> 00:08:04.040 like that, and so I was just started seeing all 144 00:08:04.040 --> 00:08:09.040 this stuff. And I remember borrowing this book Tommy Moround. 145 00:08:09.079 --> 00:08:11.000 He was the drummer from the Ramones at the time, 146 00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:16.360 and it just blew me away. I was all of nineteen, 147 00:08:16.439 --> 00:08:19.199 but it was a page turner, and I didn't know 148 00:08:19.240 --> 00:08:22.120 that Wilson had already had a career writing about existentialism 149 00:08:22.199 --> 00:08:23.920 and things like that, which I had already read some 150 00:08:24.040 --> 00:08:26.240 of I read Sorry, and you know, Nietzsche and stuff 151 00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:29.680 like that. But this book is just he looked at 152 00:08:29.720 --> 00:08:34.320 the occult as you know, through a philosophy of consciousness 153 00:08:34.360 --> 00:08:37.639 and psychology and all this kind of stuff, and it 154 00:08:37.679 --> 00:08:41.360 was just fascinating. And I just became fascinated at that point. 155 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:47.679 And my first foray into anything like that was not 156 00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:51.919 writing anything. Well, I was writing a song, the song 157 00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:54.200 come I'm Always Touched by Your Prisons, Dear, Hence the 158 00:08:54.240 --> 00:08:57.919 title of this memoir, Touched by Your Presence. It refers 159 00:08:57.960 --> 00:09:01.519 to this song, and the song is about when Blondie 160 00:09:01.559 --> 00:09:03.960 we run our first North American tour and we were 161 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:07.480 the support actor Iggy Pop, and this was a resurrected 162 00:09:07.519 --> 00:09:10.039 Iggy Pop, and he was resurrected by David Bowie and 163 00:09:10.399 --> 00:09:13.960 David Bowie's actually in the band. He was incognito playing keyboards. 164 00:09:14.919 --> 00:09:18.240 And this is long before the Internet or mobile phones 165 00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:20.639 or anything like that, so there really was the old 166 00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:24.279 fashioned grape vine, and word got around it. Oh yeah, 167 00:09:24.360 --> 00:09:26.320 he's always playing in the band man you know, always 168 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:29.799 playing back. Strange thing about that tour. We all flew 169 00:09:29.840 --> 00:09:34.000 to the gigs that Bowie never flew. He drove everywhere. 170 00:09:34.679 --> 00:09:38.000 And it's the same chauffeur and car that's in Manolfield 171 00:09:38.120 --> 00:09:40.919 Earth if you know the you know the film any case, 172 00:09:40.919 --> 00:09:45.279 A long tangential remarker. But this was, you know, on 173 00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:49.240 this tour. When ever, I wanted to call my girlfriend 174 00:09:49.240 --> 00:09:51.120 who's in New York, and she wanted to call me. 175 00:09:51.480 --> 00:09:53.799 We both sort of knew it at the same time. 176 00:09:54.559 --> 00:09:57.120 And again this was well before mobile phones or cell 177 00:09:57.120 --> 00:09:58.960 phones or anything like that. You had to be in 178 00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:00.639 a certain place or a certain and time to make 179 00:10:00.679 --> 00:10:03.360 a phone call. And then we had shared dreams and 180 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:05.679 all that. So the song is about that. And that 181 00:10:05.759 --> 00:10:09.720 was really my first kind of you know, as I said, 182 00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:11.840 you know, essay into writing about this sort of thing. 183 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:15.639 And now was this something common like in the rock 184 00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:18.000 and roll scene of people being into Crowley and stuff 185 00:10:18.039 --> 00:10:19.000 during that period. 186 00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:22.639 Not that I knew of. I mean, subsequently I came 187 00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:25.399 to understand there was a kind of you know scene there. 188 00:10:25.559 --> 00:10:27.679 I mean, the Crowley was like the Beatles at him 189 00:10:27.679 --> 00:10:30.519 on the cover of Sergeant Peppers and the Stones are 190 00:10:30.559 --> 00:10:33.360 into him. So this was kind of like the previous generation. 191 00:10:34.480 --> 00:10:38.799 And I mean Chris, Chris and Debbie had a kitchy 192 00:10:39.480 --> 00:10:45.080 kind of you know, half joke, half serious interest in 193 00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:47.440 the kind of stuff, so they would have I mean 194 00:10:47.480 --> 00:10:49.399 in this loft space where we lived, there were like 195 00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:54.320 upside down you know, crosses and pentagrams, and we had 196 00:10:54.360 --> 00:10:56.200 we had a statue of a nun and someone the 197 00:10:56.279 --> 00:10:58.960 you know, put upside down cross on her forehead. And 198 00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:02.200 there were these in Tanka Tanka paintings, you know that 199 00:11:02.320 --> 00:11:06.320 the ton tric Yogis have, And one of them had 200 00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:09.440 a scene of a monk being chopped up and being 201 00:11:09.480 --> 00:11:11.720 in the big pot and being eaten, which is something 202 00:11:11.759 --> 00:11:14.159 that they used to do back in the old days. 203 00:11:14.200 --> 00:11:15.840 I don't think health and safety will let you get 204 00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:18.159 away with it now. But it wasn't something that was 205 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:22.440 kind of shared. At least I was like somebody who 206 00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:24.360 got into it. It wasn't like shared. It wasn't It 207 00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:26.919 was kind of like everybody thought, oh god, guy was 208 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:28.799 into this weird kind of stuff. But you know, it's 209 00:11:28.799 --> 00:11:29.799 all right, it's just fun. 210 00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:34.279 And did you equally or study the Bible and Christianity 211 00:11:34.360 --> 00:11:37.840 and other things like that, as well as Delvin totally 212 00:11:37.960 -->

00:11:38.440 other things. 213 00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:39.879 Well, not at the same time. But I was brought 214 00:11:39.919 --> 00:11:48.639 up Catholic, and when I first went to university, we 215 00:11:48.679 --> 00:11:51.360 did I remember doing good class any I mean, I'm 216 00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:53.639 subsequent there. I read all this sort of stuff. I 217 00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:55.840 wasn't like Satanic or anything like that. It just was 218 00:11:55.879 --> 00:12:00.320 I was more interested in potentials of consciousness. And this 219 00:12:00.399 --> 00:12:02.879 is what Wi Wilson's book brought out. I mean, Crowley 220 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:05.519 was a kind of at first for a nineteen year old, 221 00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:08.279 kind of an impressive figure God. This guy I climbed 222 00:12:08.279 --> 00:12:13.039 to Himalayas and did all this other stuff, and I 223 00:12:13.159 --> 00:12:16.240 was just kind of half baffled and half kind of 224 00:12:16.559 --> 00:12:20.919 fascinated by this book of physical magic and theory and 225 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:24.200 practice which fell into my hands, which he considered his 226 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:26.960 magnum opus. And it was written in think it was 227 00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:31.240 published nineteen twenty nine in Paris. At first, and no, 228 00:12:31.320 --> 00:12:33.879 it's impenetrable if you don't know anything about you know, 229 00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:35.879 the history of magic, which I didn't know at the time, 230 00:12:36.279 --> 00:12:38.600 so I just found you know, it was kind of oh, 231 00:12:38.600 --> 00:12:40.879 what is this all about? Like he talks about Cabba 232 00:12:40.919 --> 00:12:43.399 law and it's spelled qa B, and I thought, oh, 233 00:12:43.399 --> 00:12:45.279 shouldn't it be a U after the que? Isn't it? 234 00:12:45.399 --> 00:12:49.679 You know? And all that, But what does that mean? 235 00:12:50.200 --> 00:12:52.320 And then I say, at the same time, I'm living 236 00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:54.320 on the Bowery and I'm reading this stuff and it's 237 00:12:54.360 --> 00:12:57.000 about so much about Caaba law and the Hebrew alphabet 238 00:12:57.080 --> 00:12:59.279 as part of that. And I'm walking by you know, 239 00:12:59.519 --> 00:13:01.399 Jewish allys and you know, if you know, if you 240 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:04.000 know the Chloe Stide, New York, it's like cats Is 241 00:13:04.039 --> 00:13:06.039 Deli and all this kind of stuff. And I'm looking 242 00:13:06.279 --> 00:13:08.879 at the window, like, you know, the Hebrew alphabet in 243 00:13:08.879 --> 00:13:10.159 the window, thinking what is it? 244 00:13:10.159 --> 00:13:10.320 Oh? 245 00:13:10.399 --> 00:13:13.080 Good, yeah, that is kind of weird. What is stuff? 246 00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:15.200 So it was, you know, like I was nineteen and 247 00:13:15.279 --> 00:13:18.320 you know it was nineteen, just fascinated with it. So this, 248 00:13:18.480 --> 00:13:20.519 I said, this is fifty

years ago. So you know, 249 00:13:20.679 --> 00:13:24.720 subsequent to that initial kind of just introduction, I spent 250 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:27.440 some time, you know, turning it into a kind of 251 00:13:27.480 --> 00:13:31.919 serious understanding of all this sort of stuff's true influence 252 00:13:32.039 --> 00:13:34.240 and place in our culture. 253 00:13:34.879 --> 00:13:36.759 And it's amazing, you know, you took about New York 254 00:13:36.759 --> 00:13:38.559 back and those I was nineteen in New York too, 255 00:13:38.559 --> 00:13:40.919 and all the time a few years after, you you know, 256 00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:44.559 the old Italian ladies with the mustaches down there smoking, drinking, 257 00:13:44.600 --> 00:13:48.639 the experts and like tats Is Delhi, Like what culture 258 00:13:48.679 --> 00:13:52.000 we had been. We're never going to have that again, man, 259 00:13:52.399 --> 00:13:54.360 Like if we would have known at the time how 260 00:13:54.399 --> 00:13:56.080 cool all that stuff was. 261 00:13:57.200 --> 00:13:57.799 But we did. 262 00:13:58.000 --> 00:13:58.159 Well. 263 00:13:58.240 --> 00:14:01.840 I thought people have nostalgia for that time. I mean, 264 00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:04.000 I know one of the things I see all the time, 265 00:14:04.200 --> 00:14:05.720 you know, I go on Facebook. I'm one of these 266 00:14:05.759 --> 00:14:08.480 old fogies. It's a little Facebook, but it's like, well, 267 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:12.200 these New York in nineteen seventies images and oh yeah, no, yeah, 268 00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:13.600 I know, oh yeah, And I lived there, you know, 269 00:14:13.679 --> 00:14:15.080 I know where that was and all that. No, No, 270 00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:18.879 it was fantastic place. It isn't there anymore, you know. Uh, 271 00:14:19.120 --> 00:14:25.399 it's a remarkable golden age. But I lived. I lived 272 00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:31.600 on East tenth between First and the Avenue A, then 273 00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:36.960 later signed to W. Harry Thompson Street, then on the Bowery. 274 00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:40.159 Then my girlfriend Lisa Jane Persky, who was a writer 275 00:14:40.240 --> 00:14:42.799 and a photographer, and it's her presence that I'm in 276 00:14:42.840 --> 00:14:46.279 touch with. In in the song, I wrote the song 277 00:14:46.360 --> 00:14:51.240 for her, and in the book. She lived in Christopher Street. 278 00:14:51.240 --> 00:14:53.240 It was over in the West Village in Grandish Village, 279 00:14:53.320 --> 00:14:56.159 in the gay gay part of town, and so I moved. 280 00:14:56.200 --> 00:14:59.639 She had a tiny, tiny studio flat there. Yokolowna was 281 00:14:59.639 --> 00:15:02.000 the souper intendent of her building, had been in the 282 00:15:02.039 --> 00:15:05.039 early sixties before she met John Lennon. And you know, 283 00:15:05.080 --> 00:15:09.279 her mother used to see Peter poul and Mary you 284 00:15:09.320 --> 00:15:11.679 know if you know the references to the folkies from 285 00:15:12.159 --> 00:15:14.879 from this, you know, next stop Greenwich Village kind of 286 00:15:15.480 --> 00:15:18.320 so that was kind of the milliure. I moved into 287 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:20.559 her with her in her place, say like seventy six, 288 00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:22.720 and that was it was fantastic the walk from that 289 00:15:22.840 --> 00:15:27.279 place to CBGB's because she just took bleaker so it 290 00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:30.360 was like that was straight, you know, from the Greenwich 291 00:15:30.759 --> 00:15:34.320 far West Village down to the east side and you 292 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:36.279 can see the change. It's like, you know, you sort 293 00:15:36.279 --> 00:15:39.000 of hit you know, I don't know, don't forget what 294 00:15:39.039 --> 00:15:40.919 I'm trying to think of a Mercer Street or something 295 00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:43.120 like that, and it kind of little changed. So I'm 296 00:15:43.159 --> 00:15:44.679 going off on memory lane here. 297 00:15:44.799 --> 00:15:47.279 So it's great. I love to hearing this stuff, but 298 00:15:47.679 --> 00:15:49.799 I'm thinking that I could one of my memories of 299 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:52.000 being like a kid in New York City at those times, 300 00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:55.200 it's like no air conditioning, no fresh water to drink. 301 00:15:55.279 --> 00:15:55.480 You know. 302 00:15:55.559 --> 00:15:57.600 I'm walking like could be in like three o'clock in 303 00:15:57.600 --> 00:15:59.639 the morning, and my pants were so heavy from my 304 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:03.039 from the heat the sweat, and I just want to 305 00:16:03.080 --> 00:16:06.679 lie down in the middle of the street. Will never 306 00:16:06.759 --> 00:16:09.240 go back to We'll never have that kind of time again. 307 00:16:09.320 --> 00:16:12.320 It didn't kind of spur a kind of creativity that 308 00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:13.480 we'll just never have again. 309 00:16:14.559 --> 00:16:17.879 Well, I I don't know, I don't well, I mean, 310 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:19.759 I don't know myself. I can't say so. I mean 311 00:16:19.799 --> 00:16:23.000 I'm obviously biased and from particular time, but I mean 312 00:16:23.039 --> 00:16:24.879 it is very different. I mean just in terms of 313 00:16:24.960 --> 00:16:29.080 let's say, I mean the tech that's available now. My son, 314 00:16:30.320 --> 00:16:34.240 who's a classical musician, classical by Luinis, but he also 315 00:16:34.320 --> 00:16:37.480 makes these films, these short films, and he just does 316 00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:40.559 it on his He did one of me actually for 317 00:16:40.679 --> 00:16:44.000 the book that I'll be premiering on my blog at 318 00:16:44.039 --> 00:16:46.039 some point, you know, by the time the book comes out. 319 00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:50.039 But he just does it on his phone. He's had 320 00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:52.679 some other a couple of the cameras, but it's remarkable 321

00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:54.399 what he can do. And I remember back in the 322 00:16:54.519 --> 00:16:57.120 day we had the band if you had a crappy 323 00:16:57.279 --> 00:17:01.039 cassette recorder, yeah you can bring and said, oh yeah, 324 00:17:01.080 --> 00:17:03.960 well we got it. 325 00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:06.960 There's the it's like, oh my god, you know, like 326 00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:09.319 it was just like it's nothing. So I guess I 327 00:17:09.359 --> 00:17:12.160 don't know. I mean, there's certain advantages, but I don't know. 328 00:17:12.200 --> 00:17:13.759 You lose, you lose the kind of edge. 329 00:17:13.799 --> 00:17:17.279 I mean, I'm but I think the interesting thing about 330 00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:20.319 that time for me New York with Blondie and you know, 331 00:17:20.440 --> 00:17:23.839 Patty Smith and the Ramones and talking heads and television 332 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:29.359 and just before in the early seventies, there was a 333 00:17:29.400 --> 00:17:36.039 revival of all the early nineteen fifties do wop kind 334 00:17:36.039 --> 00:17:38.000 of it was kind of nostalgia. Rock went through in 335 00:17:38.079 --> 00:17:41.440 early nostalgia. If you remember Sean or Nah, you know, 336 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:43.200 they were this band in the early seventies who did 337 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:45.720 all the old do wop numbers. And then Chuck Berry 338 00:17:45.799 --> 00:17:49.319 and Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis and others from 339 00:17:49.359 --> 00:17:52.720 that time had had revivals and there was this kind 340 00:17:52.799 --> 00:17:56.240 of returned to the roots of rock. And I think 341 00:17:56.240 --> 00:17:57.839 one of the reasons was that was that it had 342 00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:01.400 become very top heavy with the groups like Yes and 343 00:18:01.559 --> 00:18:04.440 recentlycol and Palmer and King Crimson, who are these remarkable 344 00:18:05.480 --> 00:18:09.599 Richie Rossi Museo bands, you know, incredible prog rock bands, 345 00:18:09.640 --> 00:18:11.680 but you had to go to the Juilliard School of 346 00:18:11.759 --> 00:18:13.519 Music in order to play rock and roll. And I 347 00:18:13.519 --> 00:18:15.119 think one of the things that happened in New York 348 00:18:15.160 --> 00:18:17.319 it was like it was it was a response to that. 349 00:18:17.720 --> 00:18:19.759 And that's what was exciting to me. When I first 350 00:18:19.759 --> 00:18:26.599 saw bands like New York Dolls and who played the simple, 351 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:29.000 stripped down rock. It was just very exciting. You know, 352 00:18:29.079 --> 00:18:30.599 it was just three or four chords and you figure, 353 00:18:30.599 --> 00:18:33.279 oh my god, I could play that. And that's what 354 00:18:33.440 --> 00:18:36.079 was exciting about when I first started playing New York, 355 00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:39.039 going to CBS and seeing all these bands when there 356 00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:41.400 was hardly anybody, you know, in the place. Most of 357 00:18:41.480 --> 00:18:44.759 the audience was other bands that they were writing their 358 00:18:44.799 --> 00:18:46.880 own stuff, and the stuff is, you know, it was 359 00:18:46.920 --> 00:18:49.079 fairly simple to play, but it was good. It was 360 00:18:49.119 --> 00:18:50.839 it was you know, it was it was songs again, 361 00:18:51.480 --> 00:18:55.960 and yeah, so that's that's for me. That was when 362 00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:58.880 again I'm nineteen and playing in a rock band, I'm 363 00:18:59.079 --> 00:19:01.359 writing songs and all that kind of stuff. So it 364 00:19:01.400 --> 00:19:03.000 was remarkable time for me. 365 00:19:03.880 --> 00:19:06.480 So that then it became attracted to this magic in 366 00:19:06.519 --> 00:19:10.839 the occult. Were you seeing actual magic miracles like what described? 367 00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:12.920 Oh no, no, I just was reading on I was reading. 368 00:19:12.960 --> 00:19:15.759 I just was reading. Just I'm an inveterate, you know, 369 00:19:16.359 --> 00:19:18.839 addictive reader. So I just was reading a lot of it. 370 00:19:18.920 --> 00:19:22.000 And it wasn't until I mean, I thinks started happening. 371 00:19:22.039 --> 00:19:25.240 I mean, I said, I was having these shared dream 372 00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:28.440 experiences and telepathic experiences with my girlfriend at the time. 373 00:19:30.039 --> 00:19:37.759 And then later I started writing my dreams down. And 374 00:19:38.279 --> 00:19:41.519 I had read a book called An Experiment with Time 375 00:19:42.079 --> 00:19:44.279 by a fellow NAMJW. Dunne, that had been written in 376 00:19:44.319 --> 00:19:48.640 the nineteen twenties. And Done was an arian article engineer. 377 00:19:48.880 --> 00:19:52.559 But he came to see that bits and pieces of 378 00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:55.519 his own personal future were turning up in his dreams. 379 00:19:55.680 --> 00:19:57.920 It wasn't like Chriswell predicts. It was sort of like 380 00:19:58.240 --> 00:20:00.839 what he read in the newspaper to days later, or 381 00:20:01.599 --> 00:20:04.559 you know, bumped into somebody or heard, you know, overheard 382 00:20:04.559 --> 00:20:08.160 a conversation about So it was as if a film, 383 00:20:08.279 --> 00:20:13.119 but you know, it had been spliced incorrectly. So bits 384 00:20:13.119 --> 00:20:16.880 of the film that should have been later occurring earlier. 385 00:20:18.200 --> 00:20:20.319 And so I just I was intrigued by this. I mean, 386 00:20:20.359 --> 00:20:22.720 I just was reading. I've always been, you know, just 387 00:20:23.319 --> 00:20:28.680 omnivorous readers. I was reading everything constantly, and I started 388 00:20:28.960 --> 00:20:31.920 just writing my dreams down. And I discovered that, my God, 389 00:20:31.920 --> 00:20:34.960 he's right. I discovered that I had bits and pieces 390 00:20:34.960 --> 00:20:37.839 of my own future were turning up in my dream 391 00:20:37.880 -->

00:20:40.160 And many, many years later, I wound up writing a 392 00:20:40.160 --> 00:20:43.960 book about this, called Dreaming Ahead of Time. And I 393 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:50.400 wrote that during the first COVID nineteen lockdown here about 394 00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:52.920 five years ago, in twenty twenty. And this is about 395 00:20:54.319 --> 00:20:58.799 my experiences with precognitive dreams and synchronicities, you know, meaningful coincidences, 396 00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:01.480 but in terms of kind of magic and ceremonial magic. 397 00:21:01.640 --> 00:21:05.799 I got deep, more, more deeper into that per se 398 00:21:06.279 --> 00:21:10.119 when I moved to Los Angeles and I had left 399 00:21:10.119 --> 00:21:14.359 Blondie Uh, and I moved to LA with my girlfriend 400 00:21:14.440 --> 00:21:17.559 Lisa Uh, because she was actress and she was pursuing 401 00:21:17.680 --> 00:21:20.119 film career. She had already had a few things, and 402 00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:22.799 so she figured she she did a lot on in 403 00:21:23.279 --> 00:21:26.880 New York, on Off Broadway theater and stuff like that. 404 00:21:26.920 --> 00:21:28.559 But she wanted, you know, she knew she had to 405 00:21:28.559 --> 00:21:30.640 go to LA she wanted to pursue a film career, 406 00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:34.319 and I decided to go with her. And while I 407 00:21:34.400 --> 00:21:39.519 was there, I memory there used to be a fantastic 408 00:21:39.559 --> 00:21:44.960 old bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard Gilberts that people like David 409 00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:48.319 Bowie and Jimmy Page and the filmmaker Kenneth Anger, who 410 00:21:48.359 --> 00:21:52.359 were all pro league you know, fans, early fans, uh 411 00:21:52.359 --> 00:21:55.000 I used to frequent and I went there once and again. 412 00:21:55.039 --> 00:21:57.960 This is long before the internet. So they had an 413 00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:01.640 old fashioned bulletin board and a notice for a kind 414 00:22:01.680 --> 00:22:04.000 of Crowley group. So I just kind of took down 415 00:22:04.039 --> 00:22:06.359 the information and don't know, well, I've been reading about 416 00:22:06.359 --> 00:22:08.079 this stuff for a long time, you know, I don't know, 417 00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:13.000 but just okay, let's see, I'll get in touch with 418 00:22:13.039 --> 00:22:15.160 these people. And this guy knocks on the door like 419 00:22:15.279 --> 00:22:18.559 a couple of days later and basically ask me if 420 00:22:18.599 --> 00:22:23.359 I'm ready to, you know, commit myself to pursuit of 421 00:22:23.400 --> 00:22:26.319 the knowledging conversation of your Holy Guardian Angel, which is 422 00:22:26.839 --> 00:22:32.599 an actual specific technical magical practice, which is it's not 423 00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:37.480 magic like making things happen and you know, anything like that. 424 00:22:37.559 --> 00:22:44.759 It's a more spiritual, meditative sort of practice. And any case, 425 00:22:44.799 --> 00:22:49.519 long story short, I wound up joining this curly group, 426 00:22:49.559 --> 00:22:52.440 and so this would have been nineteen seventy eight, and 427 00:22:52.519 --> 00:22:56.480 I think I was initiated into it in the ceremony 428 00:22:56.559 --> 00:22:59.279 by a fella named Grady McMurtry, who was somebody who 429 00:22:59.279 --> 00:23:03.799 actually knew crow in his last days, and Crowley was like, 430 00:23:04.359 --> 00:23:07.720 this was someone who was in the US military and 431 00:23:07.839 --> 00:23:09.960 he was stationed in England for a while and he 432 00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:12.160 visited Crole in his last days. Crowley was living in 433 00:23:12.160 --> 00:23:15.359 a place called Netherwood and part of Ingling called Hastings 434 00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:24.480 down by the English Channel, and he revived this society 435 00:23:24.519 --> 00:23:28.880 of this group called the OTO. After Crowley's death, this 436 00:23:28.920 --> 00:23:31.839 fellow came back to California or was in California, and 437 00:23:33.079 --> 00:23:39.119 eventually revived this society that's culled society of Crowley is 438 00:23:39.160 --> 00:23:42.079 called the Ordo Templary orientis the OTO, which is still 439 00:23:42.119 --> 00:23:45.519 around now. I still know some people are involved in 440 00:23:45.559 --> 00:23:49.599 it all that they're very nice, and so I'm pretty 441 00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:52.400 sure this guy again at the time, again, I would 442 00:23:52.440 --> 00:23:54.160 have been about twenty, I don't know, maybe a little 443 00:23:54.160 --> 00:23:56.160 bit more than that, and it was all, you know, 444 00:23:56.279 --> 00:24:00.799 very enthusiastic, and you know, I'm never the the armchair 445 00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:03.559 magician or the armchair whatever, like well let's check it out. 446 00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:08.079 So I'm empirical in that way. And it was interesting. 447 00:24:08.119 --> 00:24:09.960 But after a while I just thought it wasn't for me. 448 00:24:10.680 --> 00:24:14.119 And sadly a lot of the people who get involved 449 00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:16.799 in Crowley, you know, he says, do what that willed, 450 00:24:17.759 --> 00:24:19.599 which is not supposed to me, and do what you like. 451 00:24:19.680 --> 00:24:22.039 But I think a lot of people, you know, don't 452 00:24:22.039 --> 00:24:23.759 know the difference, or at least many of the ones 453 00:24:23.759 --> 00:24:25.960 that I met, at least at that time, and I 454 00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:28.960 just became disabused of it. And it just initially it 455 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:31.279 was just more interesting consciences per se. And this was 456 00:24:32.400 --> 00:24:34.400 one of the things I got from reading Colin Wilson. 457 00:24:34.440 --> 00:24:36.640 So I was reading his books as much as getting 458 00:24:36.680 --> 00:24:39.079 into other forms of you know, magic and stuff like that. 459 00:24:39.119 --> 00:24:41.400 But it's all very

fascinating stuff. I mean, their medical 460 00:24:41.440 --> 00:24:44.240 ordered the Golden Dawn, people like WB Eight's and you know, 461 00:24:44.519 --> 00:24:47.359 some of the Nobel Prize winning poet and all of that, 462 00:24:47.559 --> 00:24:50.720 and so it's a it's a fascinating and it was 463 00:24:50.759 --> 00:24:52.920 a wonderful time to be interested in that kind of 464 00:24:52.920 --> 00:24:56.079 thing because there's a lot of stuff coming out and 465 00:24:57.880 --> 00:24:59.559 there were a lot in La at the time was 466 00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:02.799 a fantas astic book lovers, you know city if you're 467 00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:05.400 someone like myself. So there used to be many, many, 468 00:25:05.440 --> 00:25:08.759 many secondhand bookshops and you can find these, you know books, 469 00:25:08.799 --> 00:25:11.559 and there's also you know a lot of publishers are 470 00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:14.839 putting out new editions of them of stuff in public domain, 471 00:25:15.359 --> 00:25:17.039 you know, so they didn't have to pay royalty, so 472 00:25:17.079 --> 00:25:19.319 it was cheap editions. So yeah, it was all fascinating. 473 00:25:19.359 --> 00:25:21.359 You know, a lot of magic is about books. It's 474 00:25:21.400 --> 00:25:24.039 about reading. I mean, you know, I know there's virtuals 475 00:25:24.039 --> 00:25:26.000 and practices and stuff like that. But a couple. 476 00:25:27.480 --> 00:25:29.720 Because you mentioned that you were initiated into this, was 477 00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:33.359 there an actual ceremony? And when you say it as 478 00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:36.440 thou wilt isn't as people think, then what does it 479 00:25:36.480 --> 00:25:36.960 really mean? 480 00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:41.400 Well, I mean I think, well, I'm just saying the 481 00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:43.559 way Crowley says it, do it that wilt is not 482 00:25:43.720 --> 00:25:46.160 it's your true will. So it's not just what you 483 00:25:46.200 --> 00:25:48.640 want to do. You know, there should be something. It's 484 00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:50.680 you're finding your true will, like I was saying. As 485 00:25:50.680 --> 00:25:52.759 I was saying earlier about you know, we grow up 486 00:25:53.839 --> 00:25:57.799 and there's part of ourselves that's us, but then we 487 00:25:58.119 --> 00:26:01.279 develop different persona in order to deal with the world, 488 00:26:01.400 --> 00:26:03.599 you know, different personalities as you were saying, you know, 489 00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:08.799 and the true will would be okay, who are you 490 00:26:09.519 --> 00:26:14.319 without all that? And in a way, it's more, it's 491 00:26:14.359 --> 00:26:17.119 more if you know the tao it's kind of more Taoistic. 492 00:26:17.119 --> 00:26:20.039 And even Crowley himself refers to this that he uses will, 493 00:26:20.079 --> 00:26:23.400 but it's kind of not I mean, it's not willfulness, 494 00:26:23.559 --> 00:26:25.200 but it's sort of like you have

your own way, 495 00:26:25.279 --> 00:26:28.240 you have your own path, and if you're each on 496 00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:31.000 our own path, you know, you look at he look 497 00:26:31.039 --> 00:26:37.440 at the stars. You know. One of Croley's good aphorisms 498 00:26:37.519 --> 00:26:40.440 is every man in every woman is a star. And 499 00:26:40.519 --> 00:26:42.440 this is the notion. Look at the stars. They move 500 00:26:42.440 --> 00:26:45.400 in their orbits. They don't crash into each other, you know. 501 00:26:45.559 --> 00:26:47.960 So if we are in our own orbit, or true orbit, 502 00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:50.920 then you know, then everything will be fine. We just 503 00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:52.599 have to follow that orbit. So that's the deal with 504 00:26:52.640 --> 00:26:55.920 that will. But in my experience, and if you know 505 00:26:56.000 --> 00:26:58.640 anything about Croley's own life, you know, this was easily 506 00:26:58.759 --> 00:27:01.880 transformed into well, no, you I mean whatever I do 507 00:27:02.039 --> 00:27:04.200 is I orbit. But everybody else if he gets in 508 00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:06.079 their way, oh no, it's their fault. So you know, 509 00:27:06.400 --> 00:27:08.519 he basically did whatever he wanted and sad. I mean, 510 00:27:08.559 --> 00:27:09.920 this is one of the things. I think it was curly. 511 00:27:09.960 --> 00:27:12.440 I think I think he actually had moments of brilliance. 512 00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:15.440 He was intelligent, you know, character, you know, but he 513 00:27:15.599 --> 00:27:19.400 just had this you know, enormous ego and was oblivious 514 00:27:19.400 --> 00:27:22.640 to the people. And basically he was a spoiled, spoiled brat. 515 00:27:22.720 --> 00:27:27.160 You know, he grew up. He inherited an enormous fortune 516 00:27:27.759 --> 00:27:31.519 after you know, he liberated himself from this fundamentalist Christian family, 517 00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.359 but then he you know, he just went through the 518 00:27:35.400 --> 00:27:37.480 fortune pretty quickly, and then the rest of his life 519 00:27:37.480 --> 00:27:41.200 he spent basically spending other people's money. But he was 520 00:27:41.240 --> 00:27:43.640 a good, good, you know, rock on tour, good story 521 00:27:43.640 --> 00:27:46.960 and teller, interesting character to be around. And I think 522 00:27:47.000 --> 00:27:51.279 he did some actual work. And if you're interested in magic, 523 00:27:51.359 --> 00:27:54.640 he did web together kind of Eastern and Western techniques 524 00:27:54.640 --> 00:27:57.200 and he kind of modernized it and things of that sort. 525 00:27:58.799 --> 00:28:00.759 But you know, I just after a while, I just 526 00:28:01.039 --> 00:28:04.160 I just outgrew it, basically. But yeah, there was an 527 00:28:04.200 --> 00:28:07.680 actual ceremony. It was kind of cobaalistic ceremony. I have 528 00:28:07.759 --> 00:28:09.400 to be at certain. I mean, this is a long 529 00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:11.680 time ago this week, and like I said, nineteen seventy eight, 530 00:28:11.799 --> 00:28:14.039 so I mean I'm doing I have a kind of, 531 00:28:15.200 --> 00:28:19.160 you know, kind of image in my head of doing it. 532 00:28:19.599 --> 00:28:23.279 And what I remember. I mean, I remember it must 533 00:28:23.279 --> 00:28:28.319 have been around Christmas time, and it was outside of 534 00:28:28.480 --> 00:28:31.119 la and it must have been near a harbor or 535 00:28:31.160 --> 00:28:34.599 something like that, because I remember boats going by, and 536 00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:37.599 in lights on the boats it said Felice navi dot. 537 00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:42.039 So I mean you might you might think of that 538 00:28:42.079 --> 00:28:45.319 as a synchronicity. This is my my being born, my 539 00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:48.319 birth into my magical life and all that. But you know, 540 00:28:48.359 --> 00:28:50.440 I took the certain kinds of vows you have to take, 541 00:28:50.480 --> 00:28:52.319 and you you you know, and all that sort of thing, 542 00:28:53.440 --> 00:28:57.000 and I attended, you know, some rituals and ceremonies and 543 00:28:57.000 --> 00:28:58.559 things of that sort. But after a while I just 544 00:28:58.640 --> 00:29:00.000 kind of outgrew it more or less. 545 00:29:00.839 --> 00:29:02.559 And wouldn't you be nervous? 546 00:29:02.559 --> 00:29:02.720 Though? 547 00:29:02.720 --> 00:29:04.599 Did you know these people that you trust them enough 548 00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:08.519 to go out there and do this with them? Yeah? 549 00:29:08.519 --> 00:29:10.240 I mean I had met some of them before. I mean, no, 550 00:29:10.319 --> 00:29:13.839 I mean, you know, I mean it's funny because someone 551 00:29:13.880 --> 00:29:16.359 else asked me the same thing. I thought, maybe maybe 552 00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:19.960 maybe I'm part of Fall. Maybe I'm parcelfall, you know, 553 00:29:20.519 --> 00:29:23.039 fools rushing or angel. I don't know. 554 00:29:23.079 --> 00:29:24.920 I just thought, Okay, let's check it out, you know. 555 00:29:25.880 --> 00:29:30.200 I mean, hey, I'm a rock and roller man. Yeah, 556 00:29:30.519 --> 00:29:34.119 you know what I had to do. I can go 557 00:29:34.160 --> 00:29:37.039 handle the ceremony somewhere out in Orange County. 558 00:29:37.240 --> 00:29:37.920 Let me tell you. 559 00:29:39.359 --> 00:29:42.559 And then you mentioned before you would write down your dreams, 560 00:29:42.640 --> 00:29:45.000 and then you would you would you would be able 561 00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.000 to predict your future or what could you change? 562 00:29:49.039 --> 00:29:51.640 No? No, no, no, no, no, no, the same thing. No. 563 00:29:52.079 --> 00:29:55.160 I would find out the next day or two days 564 00:29:55.240 --> 00:29:58.000 later or next week that I wanted something I had 565 00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:01.039 dreamed of. It would have Oh there, oh my god, 566 00:30:01.039 --> 00:30:03.440 I

dreamt that. So it wasn't I woke up and thinking, 567 00:30:03.480 --> 00:30:06.359 oh my god, this is going to happen. There wasn't 568 00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:10.359 no premonition. I just write the dream down and then ah, oh, 569 00:30:10.519 --> 00:30:12.440 I mean the very first one I remember writing down 570 00:30:13.119 --> 00:30:15.880 after reading this book is I dreamt that I was 571 00:30:15.880 --> 00:30:19.559 someplace and someone handed me a red guitar, red stratocaster 572 00:30:19.759 --> 00:30:23.079 Fender stratocaster, and hey said, you know, check this out. 573 00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:25.640 I didn't have one. I didn't know anybody who had one. 574 00:30:25.759 --> 00:30:27.640 And this is This is in the days when I 575 00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:30.680 was a musician, and I remember meeting up with a 576 00:30:30.680 --> 00:30:32.519 friend of mine. We were just walking around and we 577 00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:34.839 go here, and we go there, and we bump into somebody, 578 00:30:34.880 --> 00:30:36.799 we bump into somebody else, and you wind up at 579 00:30:36.799 --> 00:30:41.079 somebody's place I hadn't been before, and you know, oh, hey, Gary, here, 580 00:30:41.160 --> 00:30:43.039 check this out. And he hands me a red stratocaster 581 00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:49.559 and I started strumming. I oh, this is the dream, okay. 582 00:30:49.799 --> 00:30:54.079 And then the next one was I had a dream 583 00:30:54.119 --> 00:30:59.039 about being in an intimate situation with the women at 584 00:30:59.079 --> 00:31:00.880 the time that I would liked to have been but 585 00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:04.440 had not yet and didn't know if there was going 586 00:31:04.519 --> 00:31:07.200 to be any chance of that. And then like the 587 00:31:07.240 --> 00:31:10.400 next day, that's what happened. And I thought that's when 588 00:31:10.440 --> 00:31:12.200 it sold me. And I said, well, this stuff works, 589 00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:16.119 you know, And just so I just kept doing that, 590 00:31:16.440 --> 00:31:20.240 and I just over the years, I just collected them 591 00:31:20.599 --> 00:31:25.240 and what had happened many many years later, like twenty nineteen, 592 00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:32.200 when I was forty years later, really I was I 593 00:31:32.279 --> 00:31:37.039 was here in London. I was giving a talk about hypnagogia, 594 00:31:37.279 --> 00:31:40.519 you know, the in between state sleeping and sleeping and waking. 595 00:31:41.920 --> 00:31:44.079 You know, as we fall asleep at night and as 596 00:31:44.079 --> 00:31:46.759 we wake up in the morning, we go through this 597 00:31:46.880 --> 00:31:51.839 liminal state that's a bit of both. And at the 598 00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:55.519 end of the talk I tagged on some accounts of 599 00:31:55.799 --> 00:32:01.119 precognitive dreams, because that state is often very partial to 600 00:32:01.160 --> 00:32:05.039 those things happening. It's a state in which it often happens. 601 00:32:06.440 --> 00:32:09.759 And I described some mine and then I said, if 602 00:32:09.799 --> 00:32:11.559 you know, check it out, dud what I did, Just 603 00:32:11.599 --> 00:32:14.359 write your dreams down and see what happens. And somebody 604 00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:16.359 tweeted the next day that they had been at the 605 00:32:16.440 --> 00:32:19.039 talk and they did what I said, and they had 606 00:32:19.039 --> 00:32:22.240 a precognitive dream and they explained what it was and 607 00:32:22.279 --> 00:32:25.519 all that. And so I got in touch on my 608 00:32:25.559 --> 00:32:28.400 publisher and I said, well, look, you know, I just 609 00:32:28.440 --> 00:32:30.880 gave this talk. I just I just wondered, you know, 610 00:32:31.480 --> 00:32:33.720 would you be interested in the book about this? And 611 00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:36.319 they said yes. So I spent the sort of spring 612 00:32:37.640 --> 00:32:41.680 early summer of twenty twenty writing it and I had 613 00:32:41.799 --> 00:32:44.759 I mean, I still have them in boxes here stashed 614 00:32:44.759 --> 00:32:47.480 away I've had all these dream journals from the nineteen 615 00:32:47.519 --> 00:32:50.880 eighties and nineties, and you know, well. 616 00:32:50.599 --> 00:32:52.720 Let me ask you this stuff. What is the benefit though? 617 00:32:52.839 --> 00:32:55.119 Like are these things going to happen anyway? Like just 618 00:32:55.119 --> 00:32:57.440 because you write it down? Okay, well now I've proven Okay, 619 00:32:57.480 --> 00:32:59.720 it happened. I dreamed of it, it happened. But if you 620 00:32:59.759 --> 00:33:02.119 did write it down, would that not have happened? Like 621 00:33:02.200 --> 00:33:02.960 what is the benefit? 622 00:33:04.559 --> 00:33:07.440 I mean, I don't do if you any benefit, I'm 623 00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:11.160 I'm you know, it's kind of scientists sort of or naturalistic. Oh, 624 00:33:11.160 --> 00:33:14.720 this is a strange phenomena. This tells us something. This 625 00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:18.880 just happens somehow, bits and pieces of my own future 626 00:33:19.039 --> 00:33:22.240 come to me ahead of time before they should have. 627 00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:26.119 And the ones you know about are what I call 628 00:33:26.200 --> 00:33:28.000 the two d's, and this I talk about in the 629 00:33:28.039 --> 00:33:30.359 book and the talks I've given about that. It's the 630 00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:33.720 two d's. It's the disasters and the Darby as they 631 00:33:33.720 --> 00:33:36.839 call the Derby as they say here. So it's about 632 00:33:37.079 --> 00:33:40.079 horrible disasters like nine to eleven or I don't know 633 00:33:40.119 --> 00:33:42.720 if you know, the Aberfan one in nineteen sixties here 634 00:33:42.720 --> 00:33:45.680 in Wales when there was a huge cold slip went 635 00:33:45.759 --> 00:33:48.960 down the hill and it smothered a school and part 636 00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:54.519 of a town and killed some people. And

someone who 637 00:33:54.680 --> 00:33:57.759 was dealing with the post traumatic stress wasn't called that, 638 00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:02.119 but you know of people who you know were involved 639 00:34:02.119 --> 00:34:05.559 in this, was interested in dreams and all that, and 640 00:34:05.640 --> 00:34:08.039 he got one of the newspapers to put in a 641 00:34:08.159 --> 00:34:11.599 notice saying, if anyone had any dreams about this happening beforehand, 642 00:34:11.599 --> 00:34:14.239 get in touch. And many, many, many, many, many many 643 00:34:14.280 --> 00:34:18.440 people did, and including sadly tragically, a little girl who 644 00:34:18.480 --> 00:34:22.800 told her mum that that morning when she went off 645 00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:24.519 to school, I had this strange dream about all this 646 00:34:24.559 --> 00:34:26.760 black stuff coming down the hill and all that. So 647 00:34:28.679 --> 00:34:32.400 and then there's all there were many, many, much evidence of, 648 00:34:32.800 --> 00:34:35.039 you know, a pre echo of nine to eleven in 649 00:34:35.079 --> 00:34:37.599 a variety of different There's a painter who painted series 650 00:34:37.599 --> 00:34:40.239 of paintings about it. It was like an album covers 651 00:34:40.280 --> 00:34:41.960 and news. I mean, there's a lot. The thing is, 652 00:34:41.960 --> 00:34:45.880 there's lots of scientific evidence, statistical evidence for a precognitive effect, 653 00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:47.679 and it's this kind of thing. If it was about 654 00:34:47.719 --> 00:34:51.159 anything else, that wouldn't be any debate about it. But 655 00:34:51.239 --> 00:34:55.599 the fact that it's about something we considered paranormal it 656 00:34:55.719 --> 00:34:58.159 still is in this hazy land. But I mean, i'm, I'm, 657 00:34:58.239 --> 00:35:01.000 I'm that's fine in the but I'll tell you the truth. 658 00:35:01.039 --> 00:35:04.239 I mean, to me, the anecdotal material is much more convincing. 659 00:35:04.320 --> 00:35:08.320 And that's you know, it just happens. So I've had 660 00:35:08.360 --> 00:35:12.000 some dreams which have personally have helped me where I 661 00:35:12.360 --> 00:35:15.280 realize in the midst of some situations, oh my god, 662 00:35:15.280 --> 00:35:18.199 I dreamt this and I was able to, you know, 663 00:35:18.559 --> 00:35:22.280 keep it from escalating, as we say, or something like that. 664 00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:26.280 So I mean, that's but I mean, or the other 665 00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:28.960 one is they said, we know is the dreams that people, 666 00:35:29.079 --> 00:35:32.199 you know, the dream winners at the races, stuff like that. 667 00:35:32.360 --> 00:35:34.880 So these are the ones we hear about. But ninety 668 00:35:35.079 --> 00:35:38.679 five percent of accounts of precognitive dreams are about things 669 00:35:38.719 --> 00:35:44.199 that we would consider inconsequential, let's say, or trivial or 670 00:35:44.239 --> 00:35:46.760 every day I mean,

I don't want to say trivial 671 00:35:46.800 --> 00:35:49.400 or it's inconsequential, because the youngian will argue, oh, no, 672 00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:51.400 nothing is in consequential dream. But I just mean there'll 673 00:35:51.400 --> 00:35:53.880 be about everyday sorts of things, and you would wonder, oh, 674 00:35:53.920 --> 00:35:57.840 why did I have a precognitive dream about that? So 675 00:35:57.960 --> 00:36:02.119 there is a strange character to them, where what's interesting 676 00:36:02.159 --> 00:36:04.280 about them is the fact that the precognitive if the 677 00:36:04.360 --> 00:36:07.320 dreams weren't in themselves, they wouldn't be particular, they wouldn't 678 00:36:07.360 --> 00:36:10.519 particularly stand out. And it's not something I look for. 679 00:36:10.800 --> 00:36:12.719 I've just I've just kept this practice up. So I 680 00:36:13.400 --> 00:36:18.400 still wrote my dreams down and at different times I'll have, 681 00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:21.239 you know, a few, Oh yeah, okay, that seems like one, 682 00:36:21.320 --> 00:36:24.719 and I fairly stringent, you know, criteria if it decided, 683 00:36:24.760 --> 00:36:26.920 you know, whether I would consider that. And one of 684 00:36:26.920 --> 00:36:32.400 the other things is people often say, oh, you think 685 00:36:32.400 --> 00:36:37.280 it's precognitive, but it's it's that deja vous effect. But 686 00:36:37.639 --> 00:36:40.719 in my experience that they're they're very the phenomenology of 687 00:36:40.719 --> 00:36:44.840 deja vous or pre what I call the precognitive tingle, 688 00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:48.119 it is very, very different. Dejavou is always an element 689 00:36:48.159 --> 00:36:53.159 of uncertainty. Did this happen before? There's always that hmm. 690 00:36:53.199 --> 00:36:57.920 But when I find myself in a situation in real 691 00:36:57.960 --> 00:37:01.159 life that I had dreamt of that day or two 692 00:37:01.239 --> 00:37:04.159 days or whatever before, what happens? This is what I say, 693 00:37:04.159 --> 00:37:07.519 the precognitive tingle. Yeah, this is it. So I'm I'm 694 00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:10.239 it's there's no uncertainty about it. For me, this is 695 00:37:10.360 --> 00:37:12.119 my own, my own experience of it. So it's a 696 00:37:12.119 --> 00:37:12.960 different sort of thing. 697 00:37:13.320 --> 00:37:17.480 What about that that DejaVu experience often in dreams, very 698 00:37:17.599 --> 00:37:20.360 vivid dreams where you your memory, you have a memory 699 00:37:20.400 --> 00:37:22.599 of something that happened in your life and it's so 700 00:37:22.840 --> 00:37:25.559 freaking vivid. Do you think that's like another timeline perhaps 701 00:37:25.679 --> 00:37:27.639 or something like that, because it doesn't there's a time 702 00:37:27.719 --> 00:37:32.760 element to this, this recognitive dream. You know, what do you. 703 00:37:32.679 --> 00:37:35.400 Make of it? Well, that's that's one of the things 704 00:37:35.239 --> 00:37:38.039 in the book Dreaming Half the time I did devote 705 00:37:38.079 --> 00:37:39.920 it's half devoted the dreams as we're in half to 706 00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:41.719 vote at the time, because that's the other that's the 707 00:37:41.880 --> 00:37:44.880 dreams in themselves are mystery enough. But then mean you 708 00:37:44.920 --> 00:37:48.000 have the precognitive dreams, it's mysteries involved. So it's a 709 00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:50.119 mystery of time. So yeah, it's it's like how could 710 00:37:50.119 --> 00:37:54.199 that happen? And you know you also, I mean not 711 00:37:54.320 --> 00:37:58.199 the opposite, but let's say the polar of the precognitive 712 00:37:58.280 --> 00:38:00.800 dreams is, like you say, your dream of past event 713 00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:04.519 that comes back to you or even in your own life, 714 00:38:04.559 --> 00:38:07.280 your everyday life, every waking life, you have. Suddenly your 715 00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:11.480 memory comes and it's like, well, I think again, I 716 00:38:11.480 --> 00:38:13.719 think this is week these there potentials of conscious This 717 00:38:13.760 --> 00:38:15.559 is the kind of stuff that I became fascinated with. 718 00:38:15.679 --> 00:38:20.000 It's one of the things Colin Wilson talked about in 719 00:38:20.079 --> 00:38:23.119 this book of his The Occult, and which I subsequently 720 00:38:24.960 --> 00:38:27.519 became very influenced by night and I talk about it 721 00:38:27.559 --> 00:38:29.960 in my own book, Touched by the Presences. This this 722 00:38:30.079 --> 00:38:33.719 kind of peculiar power or certain kind of memory where 723 00:38:34.199 --> 00:38:38.199 it's not you know, the facts, but it's the memory 724 00:38:38.199 --> 00:38:40.119 comes back and it's not just the factual that, oh 725 00:38:40.119 --> 00:38:42.199 I know I did that. It's like, oh my god. 726 00:38:42.360 --> 00:38:45.639 Then the famous example, if you know, the novel Boy 727 00:38:45.679 --> 00:38:50.119 Marcel Prus Remembrance of things past, that begins with the 728 00:38:50.239 --> 00:38:54.400 character he's he tastes a bit of this kind of 729 00:38:54.400 --> 00:38:58.360 French like pastrycla madeleine, and he dips it into like 730 00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:01.599 an herbal tea, and he tastes it and he suddenly 731 00:39:01.639 --> 00:39:03.880 has this feeling of being outside of time and he 732 00:39:03.920 --> 00:39:05.920 doesn't know what it is, and my god, and then 733 00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:08.079 he realizes, oh, yes, when I was a young boy, 734 00:39:09.159 --> 00:39:13.639 my holidays, my aunt used to give me a taste 735 00:39:13.639 --> 00:39:16.960 of her Madeleine dipped in this kind of tea and 736 00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:21.920 he knew that factually, but the reality of it came 737 00:39:21.960 --> 00:39:24.239 back to him. And it's not nostalgia. It's not like 738 00:39:24.280 --> 00:39:26.639 you're nostalgic for it and you're pining for it.

No, 739 00:39:26.760 --> 00:39:29.280 it's it's like and it's our brain has that. I mean, 740 00:39:29.320 --> 00:39:32.079 there's a famous story in the Thames nineteen fifties. There's 741 00:39:33.719 --> 00:39:37.559 maybe a bit earlier, but the neurologist called Walter Penfield 742 00:39:38.079 --> 00:39:41.639 and he was operating on someone the brain operation and 743 00:39:41.679 --> 00:39:45.880 the brain doesn't feel any pain. So strangely enough, you 744 00:39:45.880 --> 00:39:49.719 don't have to be anesthetized if you could, if someone's 745 00:39:49.719 --> 00:39:51.360 going to operate in your brain, you can stay awake 746 00:39:51.760 --> 00:39:55.400 basically because there's no pain. So in any case, but 747 00:39:55.519 --> 00:40:00.159 he accidentally touched some bit of the brain and the 748 00:40:00.199 --> 00:40:03.039 patient suddenly was sent back to an earlier time. But 749 00:40:03.119 --> 00:40:06.239 a complete three D HD, you know, more vivid than 750 00:40:06.679 --> 00:40:09.000 any of our attempts to you know, recreate reality in 751 00:40:09.079 --> 00:40:13.559 our in our high tech stuff. So we have potential, 752 00:40:13.639 --> 00:40:18.280 the brain is potential to have stored everything that's ever happened, 753 00:40:18.480 --> 00:40:20.920 but we don't in practical sense, as you say, what 754 00:40:21.039 --> 00:40:23.119 use of it. We don't need to have that. We 755 00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:27.280 if all those memories kept. You know, there's a wonderful 756 00:40:27.280 --> 00:40:34.320 story by jorgege Luis Borges called Funs the Memorious, and 757 00:40:34.360 --> 00:40:36.880 it's about a character who knows everything that's going on 758 00:40:37.039 --> 00:40:41.760 everywhere in the world, members everything, remembers everything that ever happens, 759 00:40:41.800 --> 00:40:44.199 and he's completely passive and can't do anything. He's like, 760 00:40:44.559 --> 00:40:52.320 you know, but so luckily there's an editing, uh you know, 761 00:40:53.039 --> 00:40:57.760 app that edits a doubt but one of the things 762 00:40:57.760 --> 00:40:59.719 that Wilson would say, and other people say, yes, we 763 00:40:59.719 --> 00:41:02.000 need but sometimes it works too well, and it edits 764 00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:03.679 out lots of stuff that would be good for us 765 00:41:03.679 --> 00:41:05.679 to know about. So you know, it's like, you know, 766 00:41:05.719 --> 00:41:07.920 there's all the useful, practical stuff we need to do. 767 00:41:08.119 --> 00:41:09.400 This is I don't know if you know this book, 768 00:41:10.079 --> 00:41:13.840 The Master and his Emissary by this Fello I mc gilchrist. 769 00:41:13.920 --> 00:41:21.519 He's a neuroscientist, but he's also an English scholar, you know, 770 00:41:21.679 --> 00:41:24.559 writes you know, criticism about poetry and all that. But 771 00:41:24.639 --> 00:41:27.760 he rebooted the whole Left and Right brain kind of 772 00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:32.840 story which had kind of got sidelined. Uh. And but 773 00:41:32.920 --> 00:41:35.480 the thing is is that Okay. The left brain is 774 00:41:36.639 --> 00:41:39.639 geared towards survival. It's geared to a dealing. It's practical, 775 00:41:39.679 --> 00:41:42.840 it's utilitarian, it's functional. You know what, what what do 776 00:41:42.880 --> 00:41:45.239 we need to know about in order to survive? And 777 00:41:45.280 --> 00:41:48.840 it's it's wonderfully successful at that. That's why we're the 778 00:41:48.840 --> 00:41:53.320 dominant species on the planet, you know. Which whether that's 779 00:41:53.320 --> 00:41:55.719 a good thing or not, that's another story. But the 780 00:41:55.800 --> 00:41:58.239 right brain is not interested in that. It's not interested 781 00:41:58.239 --> 00:42:00.760 in practical things, but it's interested in just the isness, 782 00:42:00.840 --> 00:42:03.199 we might say of things. There's a wonderful word, a 783 00:42:03.320 --> 00:42:07.079 German word, istakite, which we don't have it in English, 784 00:42:07.440 --> 00:42:11.440 and it goes back to the German, the fifteenth century 785 00:42:11.480 --> 00:42:13.920 mystic mister Eckhart, and he said istic kite is this 786 00:42:14.039 --> 00:42:16.480 is this sheer factness of things. So the left brain 787 00:42:16.559 --> 00:42:19.360 is interested in what something is, to classify it and 788 00:42:19.519 --> 00:42:21.679 order it and you know, put it, put it in 789 00:42:21.760 --> 00:42:24.519 some kind of system so that it can maneuver around things. 790 00:42:25.400 --> 00:42:27.559 But the right brain is like just that it is. 791 00:42:28.639 --> 00:42:33.880 And so the over efficient left brain cutting out all 792 00:42:33.920 --> 00:42:37.280 of that isness, you know, in order to deal with things, 793 00:42:37.440 --> 00:42:40.519 it makes it, you know, we're very good at maneuvering 794 00:42:40.559 --> 00:42:42.760 through the world and navigating through it and surviving. But 795 00:42:43.199 --> 00:42:45.440 we seem to be living in a kind of meaningless world, 796 00:42:45.880 --> 00:42:48.239 you know, scientists telling us, you know, it's meaningless, and 797 00:42:48.239 --> 00:42:50.639 philosophers saying it's meaningless and all that kind of stuff. 798 00:42:50.679 --> 00:42:53.039 And then but then every now and then we know 799 00:42:53.159 --> 00:42:55.760 it isn't because you know, you get caught looking, you 800 00:42:55.800 --> 00:42:58.480 see the sun coming through the leaves, you know, or 801 00:42:58.960 --> 00:43:01.400 some other something like that, and suddenly you feel this 802 00:43:01.519 --> 00:43:05.760 kind of and that's all the stuff that one side 803 00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:07.679 of the brain is editing out most of the time. 804 00:43:08.760 --> 00:43:11.519 So I mean, that's a real quick kind of thumb 805 00:43:11.639 --> 00:43:14.119 nail sketch of all this. But that's the sort of 806 00:43:14.119 -->

00:43:18.280 stuff I became fascinated with, you know, because I've had 807 00:43:18.320 --> 00:43:20.880 moments like that. They're not big mystical moments, but their 808 00:43:20.880 --> 00:43:24.039 moments was suddenly and it's usually something that you know 809 00:43:24.159 --> 00:43:27.480 about already and you take for granted, and suddenly you 810 00:43:27.519 --> 00:43:30.400 see in it in a different way, and there's a 811 00:43:30.440 --> 00:43:37.480 wonderful phrase by there's a poet and a blake scholar 812 00:43:37.519 --> 00:43:41.320 an essays Kathleen Rayne, who she died about twenty years ago. 813 00:43:41.360 --> 00:43:44.639 But I had the great opportunity of meeting a few 814 00:43:44.639 --> 00:43:47.000 times in talking and a book of mine called Lost 815 00:43:47.039 --> 00:43:49.599 Knowledge of the Imaginations dedicated to her, which because it's 816 00:43:49.599 --> 00:43:53.519 wonderful phrase. She says, imagination doesn't see different things. That 817 00:43:53.559 --> 00:43:57.159 sees things differently, and that's that's I think that's the 818 00:43:57.199 --> 00:43:58.880 whole cue. And that's the kind of thing I just 819 00:43:58.880 --> 00:43:59.800 became fascinated with. 820 00:44:01.079 --> 00:44:04.400 Now, what about like the use of like psychedelics LSD 821 00:44:04.639 --> 00:44:07.679 or mushrooms, paodi at ayahuasca, these things. Did you also 822 00:44:07.679 --> 00:44:09.039 go down those pads. 823 00:44:10.800 --> 00:44:15.360 I've taken LSD, I've taken mushrooms, smoke marijuana and stuff 824 00:44:15.360 --> 00:44:17.440 of that sort, and tried other things. I mean, there 825 00:44:17.440 --> 00:44:21.639 are other less salubrious drugs that were, you know, popular 826 00:44:21.719 --> 00:44:24.159 back in the rock and roller days and all that. 827 00:44:25.719 --> 00:44:27.760 But I mean, you know, you got interesting effects and 828 00:44:27.840 --> 00:44:30.280 all that, you know, And but I wasn't someone who 829 00:44:30.880 --> 00:44:33.440 sort of went that way. I mean, I have friends 830 00:44:33.480 --> 00:44:36.480 of mine who kind of in that either the antheo 831 00:44:36.559 --> 00:44:40.760 jin kind of path, and or I have a very 832 00:44:40.800 --> 00:44:43.559 good friend of mine here in London, a phone named 833 00:44:43.559 --> 00:44:47.559 Mike Jay who's written many books. He's he's I guess 834 00:44:47.559 --> 00:44:50.159 you could call him authority on the history of the 835 00:44:50.239 --> 00:44:54.360 history of drug use and in different cultures. And he's 836 00:44:54.360 --> 00:44:57.519 written very interesting books about you know, particular drugs like 837 00:44:57.559 --> 00:45:02.719 mescaline or drugs about or histories of different self experimenters 838 00:45:02.719 --> 00:45:06.679 in the early days, like the American psychologist William James 839 00:45:06.679 --> 00:45:09.760 and experimented the nitros oxide and stuff like that. But 840 00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:12.039 I mean, I have an interesting effection that And in 841 00:45:12.079 --> 00:45:14.599 the book that Touched by Your Presence, I talked about 842 00:45:14.639 --> 00:45:19.440 in my early experience of smoking marijuana and taking taking 843 00:45:19.559 --> 00:45:22.239 LSD when I was all of fifteen, so it was 844 00:45:22.280 --> 00:45:24.039 a bit early to know me too. 845 00:45:24.119 --> 00:45:27.320 Yeah, I guess, yeah, So I don't know, and you know, 846 00:45:27.599 --> 00:45:29.519 it's setting so if nothing else. 847 00:45:30.039 --> 00:45:33.000 Timothy Larey, whom whom I actually met on a couple occasions, 848 00:45:33.400 --> 00:45:37.079 he was right about that. So, you know, wandering around 849 00:45:37.239 --> 00:45:39.920 and you know where I grew up in New Jersey 850 00:45:40.199 --> 00:45:43.159 on some high octane you know, loucin agenda late at 851 00:45:43.239 --> 00:45:45.239 night might not have been the best introduction to it. 852 00:45:45.280 --> 00:45:49.880 But you know, catches, catch can take what opportunities are available. 853 00:45:50.159 --> 00:45:52.159 But I mean I read all that stuff, the Castanada 854 00:45:52.199 --> 00:45:55.400 stuff and all that. I though all that again, that 855 00:45:55.480 --> 00:45:57.559 was like there was all that kind of literature. So 856 00:45:57.559 --> 00:46:00.760 it was the drug literature and poetry, and I mean 857 00:46:00.800 --> 00:46:02.280 I grew up. I think, I don't know if it's 858 00:46:02.280 --> 00:46:08.280 the case. Again I'm biased in my generation, but reading 859 00:46:08.400 --> 00:46:10.719 was still a thing. So I had my teens like 860 00:46:10.760 --> 00:46:15.079 people got Kstin a Hermann Hesse and Alan Watts and 861 00:46:15.159 --> 00:46:17.719 the Beats and Kera Whac and all that kind of stuff. 862 00:46:17.760 --> 00:46:21.079 So I mean I was all of that was the millieure, 863 00:46:21.079 --> 00:46:23.559 and I was like, you know, coming of age. And 864 00:46:24.039 --> 00:46:26.599 I can remember there was a TV show we went 865 00:46:26.639 --> 00:46:30.119 in nineteen sixty nine called Then Came Bronson, and it 866 00:46:30.239 --> 00:46:34.639 was about a disaffected journalist who quits his job and 867 00:46:34.679 --> 00:46:37.480 he gets a not a Harley, I think it's a 868 00:46:37.480 --> 00:46:40.639 Honda or Kuwasaki or something like that, and he just 869 00:46:40.760 --> 00:46:43.039 rides across the country in search of America. You know, 870 00:46:43.199 --> 00:46:45.000 I mean people were in search of Remember there was 871 00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:47.159 that Simon and Gofunkle song about that. So it was 872 00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:50.000 this whole kind of people seeking out to go find themselves. 873 00:46:51.440 --> 00:46:53.960 So there was, you know, all that kind of sensibility. 874 00:46:53.960 --> 00:46:57.639 And I came of age during what about this a lot? 875 00:46:57.719 --> 00:47:00.639 It's very popular now, this

theory of manifest station. We 876 00:47:00.800 --> 00:47:03.960 can manifest things into your life. And when when two 877 00:47:04.039 --> 00:47:06.199 or more people are agreeing on it, I'm manifesting the 878 00:47:06.239 --> 00:47:09.360 same thing. What have you studied that kind of thing? 879 00:47:11.039 --> 00:47:19.000 Not in the sense of for my own use, but well, 880 00:47:19.039 --> 00:47:20.559 I'll have to bring him up. But I did do 881 00:47:20.760 --> 00:47:28.039 a book a few years back called Dark Star Rising Trump, 882 00:47:28.760 --> 00:47:33.760 and that does come into it because Trump himself. I 883 00:47:33.760 --> 00:47:36.199 don't know if it's still the case, but I would 884 00:47:36.199 --> 00:47:38.599 think it is. He's a devotee of what's known as 885 00:47:38.639 --> 00:47:42.880 the positive thinking, the power positive thinking. Norman Vincent Peale, 886 00:47:43.760 --> 00:47:50.159 who was very very popular pastor it's going to religious 887 00:47:50.159 --> 00:47:52.639 speaker in the in the fifties, and I forget exactly 888 00:47:52.679 --> 00:48:00.480 when you're doing. But Trump used to go to his sermons. 889 00:48:01.320 --> 00:48:04.800 He gave sermons in a church on Fifthy Avenue in 890 00:48:04.840 --> 00:48:07.760 New York twenty ninth Street, and he did this book 891 00:48:07.800 --> 00:48:10.039 All the Power Positive Thinking. It's a kind of Christianized 892 00:48:10.119 --> 00:48:14.280 version of something like manifestation. It's sort of, you know, 893 00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:19.599 thinking about something fervently and devoting a lot of you know, 894 00:48:20.039 --> 00:48:22.519 will and that kind and that that kind of will 895 00:48:22.559 --> 00:48:25.199 and that kind of willfulness to it. Like really thinking 896 00:48:25.239 --> 00:48:27.599 about that kind of thing sends this message out and 897 00:48:27.639 --> 00:48:29.519 the idea of the thoughts of things, the idea that 898 00:48:29.599 --> 00:48:32.880 thoughts can affect reality. But one of the things I 899 00:48:32.920 --> 00:48:36.719 think with Norm, Vincent Peel and Trump is like the 900 00:48:36.920 --> 00:48:40.159 Peel quotes the line from psychologists actually call Menager who 901 00:48:40.199 --> 00:48:43.800 says that facts don't matter. It's the interpretation of facts, 902 00:48:43.800 --> 00:48:46.159 of what you think about the facts that matter. And certainly, 903 00:48:46.239 --> 00:48:48.960 I mean when my book came out twenty eighteen, so 904 00:48:49.039 --> 00:48:51.760 it's about seven years ago right now, but the whole 905 00:48:51.800 --> 00:48:54.760 idea of you know, alternative facts and post truth, this 906 00:48:54.920 --> 00:49:01.159 was like the beginning of the dismantling of reality and 907 00:49:01.199 --> 00:49:04.639 the whole idea of you know, manifestations like reality is malleable. 908 00:49:05.199 --> 00:49:08.960 We have reality is basically you can change reality just 909 00:49:09.000 -->

00:49:10.960 by thinking a certain way. Although to tell you the 910 00:49:10.960 --> 00:49:14.639 truth is this manifestation, it's also comes. I think it's 911 00:49:15.280 --> 00:49:17.800 talked about as a law of attraction, right like you 912 00:49:18.280 --> 00:49:21.199 attrack this stuff to us. But that's actually a misunderstanding 913 00:49:22.000 --> 00:49:30.679 of the Swedish scientists and also religious mystic Emanual Swedenborg. 914 00:49:30.880 --> 00:49:34.440 Because Swedenborg started out as a scientist. Then in his 915 00:49:34.480 --> 00:49:37.440 mid fifties he's had this complete kind of psychological change 916 00:49:37.639 --> 00:49:40.480 and he became a religious mystic, and he had talked 917 00:49:40.480 --> 00:49:42.880 about being taken to heaven and hell by the angels 918 00:49:42.920 --> 00:49:45.599 and visiting other planets and all this kind of stuff. 919 00:49:46.480 --> 00:49:50.199 But he talked about when you die. When we die, 920 00:49:51.199 --> 00:49:54.280 we first go to this intermediary realm that he called 921 00:49:54.280 --> 00:49:59.239 the spirit world, and it's while you're there that what 922 00:49:59.320 --> 00:50:02.519 he calls your true affections. Well, this will date me even, 923 00:50:02.599 --> 00:50:05.440 you know, badly. But with the spice girls used to say, 924 00:50:05.440 --> 00:50:11.000 what you really really want that comes that comes out, 925 00:50:11.079 --> 00:50:15.039 that that that becomes apparent, and then you are attracted 926 00:50:15.039 --> 00:50:17.039 are either to Heaven or Hell. So it's rather than 927 00:50:17.159 --> 00:50:19.639 you attract things to yourself, you are attracted to one 928 00:50:19.639 --> 00:50:21.519 of the others. But this has been turned around, but 929 00:50:21.639 --> 00:50:25.039 still but it is this kind of utilitarian, practical, kind 930 00:50:25.079 --> 00:50:29.159 of way of using these you know, potentials of consciousness. 931 00:50:29.159 --> 00:50:30.679 And one of the things I say in the book 932 00:50:30.800 --> 00:50:35.159 is not that different from what we call chaos magic 933 00:50:35.480 --> 00:50:37.719 large is to kind of do it yourself punk kind 934 00:50:37.719 --> 00:50:41.360 of magic that started up in the seventies where they said, 935 00:50:41.360 --> 00:50:43.199 well we don't need to, you know, use all the 936 00:50:43.239 --> 00:50:47.840 old magical you know, the symbols, the circle and the candle, 937 00:50:47.920 --> 00:50:49.519 and all that kind of stuff. We can use whatever's 938 00:50:49.519 --> 00:50:51.639 at hand. It's sort of like I'm Jay True and 939 00:50:52.440 --> 00:50:54.639 you know found art. You know, you pick something up 940 00:50:54.679 --> 00:50:56.840 in the gutter, you bring it home, you put it 941 00:50:56.880 --> 00:50:59.000 on the mantelpiece. It was junk, and that it's art. 942 00:50:59.360 --> 00:50:59.920 I mean when. 943 00:50:59.800 --> 00:51:02.000 I was living in New York,

that's happened all the time. 944 00:51:02.199 --> 00:51:06.599 Chris Stain used to bring up all this stuff I found. 945 00:51:06.840 --> 00:51:10.639 It's like a pe chair of a chair whatever. It's 946 00:51:10.679 --> 00:51:13.280 just some crap and you bring it back and you 947 00:51:13.320 --> 00:51:15.719 put it someplaces. Oh yeah, that's yeah, I see, maybe 948 00:51:15.880 --> 00:51:16.360 that's hard. 949 00:51:16.679 --> 00:51:19.480 So I mean, but the chaos magic sort of like that. 950 00:51:19.519 --> 00:51:24.440 It's kind of you use what's at hand. And but 951 00:51:24.480 --> 00:51:28.840 it's it's similarly, it's it's results based. There's a positive 952 00:51:28.880 --> 00:51:32.320 thinking and there's something what is it. I forget there's 953 00:51:32.320 --> 00:51:36.119 something an achievable, achievable wish, and I forget what the 954 00:51:36.119 --> 00:51:38.480 other one is. There's something a possible reality. But it's 955 00:51:38.480 --> 00:51:41.239 the kind of thing what you wish for or what 956 00:51:41.280 --> 00:51:44.920 you try to make happen. It can't be something that is, 957 00:51:45.360 --> 00:51:47.679 you know, weird, that couldn't possibly happen. It's something it 958 00:51:47.719 --> 00:51:50.679 should be something that could happen, but you're having problems 959 00:51:50.760 --> 00:51:53.239 making it happen, and you just need a little nudge 960 00:51:54.039 --> 00:51:57.280 to so an achievable wish, you know, a possible reality. 961 00:51:57.800 --> 00:51:59.719 And it's very similar. I mean, they use very very 962 00:51:59.719 --> 00:52:02.119 different and techniques, but the whole idea of some results 963 00:52:02.119 --> 00:52:04.239 based magic. So this is the opposite of what I 964 00:52:04.239 --> 00:52:07.199 said earlier. This you know, knowledge and conversation of the 965 00:52:07.199 --> 00:52:09.760 Holy Guardian Angel, which is not about making things happen. 966 00:52:10.280 --> 00:52:13.280 It's about having contact with sorry, having contact with this 967 00:52:13.440 --> 00:52:17.440 bile yourself in some way, you know, some some angelic 968 00:52:17.639 --> 00:52:20.960 kind of high your mind, in yourself which put you 969 00:52:21.039 --> 00:52:24.639 beyond the desire to make things happen. But these chaos 970 00:52:24.679 --> 00:52:26.880 magicians said, you know, screw that. You know, let's I 971 00:52:27.400 --> 00:52:31.000 want stuff. You know, I want to make things take place, 972 00:52:31.159 --> 00:52:34.599 and so it's real or it's not. And and my 973 00:52:34.760 --> 00:52:36.960 definition of that kind of magic is what I would 974 00:52:37.039 --> 00:52:42.199 call induced synchronicity. So, if you know, synchronicity is Yung's 975 00:52:42.599 --> 00:52:47.480 term for meaningful coincidence. So something that's happening in your head, 976 00:52:47.679 --> 00:52:51.519 in your mind, and something in the outside world or 977 00:52:51.559 --> 00:52:57.079 so obviously and indubitably connected, and that you can't help 978 00:52:57.119 --> 00:52:59.960 but think you know, someone or something knows that I'm 979 00:53:00.119 --> 00:53:03.719 thinking and somehow arranged this. You know, it's it's it's 980 00:53:03.760 --> 00:53:09.239 it's it's too it's just too too meaningful. So can 981 00:53:09.320 --> 00:53:14.239 you make those things happen? And it's a long story, 982 00:53:14.280 --> 00:53:15.559 but one of the things I talked about in the 983 00:53:15.559 --> 00:53:18.519 book is this story of how if you remember the 984 00:53:18.559 --> 00:53:21.880 old right, I mean not around anymore, Richard Spencer, all 985 00:53:21.920 --> 00:53:23.840 those guys, I wonder what they think, what's going on? 986 00:53:26.599 --> 00:53:28.880 They claim to have used the Internet to help Trump 987 00:53:28.960 --> 00:53:33.159 win his first election by again, I can't get into this, 988 00:53:33.159 --> 00:53:36.360 it's too long of a story, but sort of weaponizing 989 00:53:36.400 --> 00:53:40.639 this cartoon figure, Peppi the Frog, and somehow turning that 990 00:53:40.840 --> 00:53:44.119 character into a talisman, which is a magical kind of 991 00:53:44.400 --> 00:53:49.760 emblem that that you infuse with with magical intent and powers. 992 00:53:49.920 --> 00:53:54.079 And and that's somehow flooding the Internet with all those 993 00:53:54.119 --> 00:53:58.639 images of Trump and Peppi, and Peppi is Trump looking 994 00:53:58.679 --> 00:54:00.800 over the you know, the mex Can Ball and all 995 00:54:00.800 --> 00:54:05.800 this kind of stuff somehow bled from the Internet into reality. 996 00:54:05.960 --> 00:54:08.599 So this is what they called synchronisticism, which is just 997 00:54:08.719 --> 00:54:12.559 basically an upgraded notion of synchronicity. So if you think 998 00:54:12.559 --> 00:54:14.400 as I do, as the Internet is a kind of 999 00:54:14.440 --> 00:54:21.599 externalized imagination. So the idea that somehow, if you're able 1000 00:54:21.639 --> 00:54:29.280 to nudge or imprint on the Internet something enough times 1001 00:54:29.360 --> 00:54:33.159 or in the right ways, it will carry over into reality. 1002 00:54:33.039 --> 00:54:35.679 Then then then what about like in music, can you 1003 00:54:35.920 --> 00:54:41.039 plant these kind of ideas or intentions into lyrics and 1004 00:54:41.079 --> 00:54:41.800 into music? 1005 00:54:41.920 --> 00:54:45.519 And I guess I mean, well, I mean again, this 1006 00:54:45.559 --> 00:54:47.320 is what I said. You know, the magic goes back 1007 00:54:47.320 --> 00:54:50.639 to books and writing and cells, and music is certainly 1008 00:54:50.639 --> 00:54:54.599 something that's close to magic. And when you're really working, 1009 00:54:54.639 --> 00:54:57.840 and they when they really work, they reach below your 1010 00:54:57.960 --> 00:55:00.280 conscious mind, they reach below your critical mind. Make it 1011 00:55:00.360 --> 00:55:05.639

to this, you know. So yeah, I mean, you know, 1012 00:55:05.719 --> 00:55:07.840 you probably don't even need to being implanted. You just 1013 00:55:07.880 --> 00:55:11.480 probably need to have a good tune. Yeah, so you 1014 00:55:11.639 --> 00:55:14.920 just get you and you know, everybody loves a good anthem. 1015 00:55:15.239 --> 00:55:15.440 You know. 1016 00:55:17.599 --> 00:55:19.480 I would encourage you audience to go back and listen 1017 00:55:19.519 --> 00:55:22.880 to our first interview Dark Starrizing Magic and Power in 1018 00:55:22.960 --> 00:55:25.000 the Age of Trump. We really get into a lot 1019 00:55:25.039 --> 00:55:27.519 of this kind of stuff. But today we've been talking 1020 00:55:27.559 --> 00:55:31.039 about a touch by the presence from Blondie's Bowery and 1021 00:55:31.199 --> 00:55:32.840 Rock and roll to magic and their cult. And I 1022 00:55:32.840 --> 00:55:35.079 almost wish that someone else was asking this questions because 1023 00:55:35.079 --> 00:55:36.599 so much of this is just so much beyond me. 1024 00:55:37.280 --> 00:55:40.280 But I'm fascinated by this. Let me ask you a 1025 00:55:40.400 --> 00:55:44.880 last question, because we are out of time now. The afterlife. Okay, now, 1026 00:55:44.920 --> 00:55:47.679 since we've been on the show last I was dying. 1027 00:55:47.800 --> 00:55:48.400 I was dying. 1028 00:55:48.400 --> 00:55:51.440 I was going bro I was gonna die. Oh my heart, 1029 00:55:51.519 --> 00:55:53.199 my heart. I had flew around my heart, I had 1030 00:55:53.199 --> 00:55:55.079 at launched heart. And only in the last six months 1031 00:55:55.079 --> 00:55:58.559 and my back to normal. So I was, oh, no, Well, 1032 00:55:58.800 --> 00:56:00.920 I feel great now, but there's rble at the time. 1033 00:56:01.239 --> 00:56:04.000 But now I spend so much time focusing on my 1034 00:56:04.039 --> 00:56:08.360 immortality the afterlife. What do What does Gary Lockman think 1035 00:56:08.440 --> 00:56:09.599 happens in the afterlife? 1036 00:56:10.599 --> 00:56:15.119 Mm hmm, what's funny you should ask? I've just been 1037 00:56:15.119 --> 00:56:19.159 putting together a PowerPoint presentation for a talk about reincarnation 1038 00:56:19.360 --> 00:56:27.559 I'll be giving next month. Well, I mean, I guess 1039 00:56:27.599 --> 00:56:31.960 part of me, my my the bit the residue of 1040 00:56:32.079 --> 00:56:35.079 Catholic upbringing. I still have the idea of purgatory, you know, 1041 00:56:35.320 --> 00:56:38.320 so uh, and you find similar things like that in 1042 00:56:38.320 --> 00:56:40.599 in the Bard, you know. And then the Tibetan Book 1043 00:56:40.599 --> 00:56:44.719 of the Dead, or Rudolph Steiner talks about it as well. 1044 00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:50.719 So again I mentioned Spoedenborg, this spirit world. So some 1045 00:56:50.800 --> 00:56:53.320 part of me thinks, Okay, you go through that, this 1046 00:56:53.480 --> 00:56:57.400 kind of purging. You know, you're you've shown variety of 1047 00:56:57.400 --> 00:56:59.800 things where you know you did this, this happened. One 1048 00:56:59.840 --> 00:57:02.800 of the things Steiner says, which I suspect is probably 1049 00:57:02.840 --> 00:57:05.079 something that quite something to go through, is where you're 1050 00:57:05.119 --> 00:57:08.840 shown all the effects the consequences of your actions that 1051 00:57:09.079 --> 00:57:12.039 you're not aware of. You're not aware of the consequences 1052 00:57:12.039 --> 00:57:15.719 of these actions, but you did acts, whatever you did, 1053 00:57:15.719 --> 00:57:19.440 you bumped into that person, stuff like that. So but 1054 00:57:19.480 --> 00:57:23.880 then you learn and you come back. So I don't know. 1055 00:57:23.920 --> 00:57:31.400 I tend to think that well. One of the things 1056 00:57:31.440 --> 00:57:35.119 I always say is I used to infuriate people when 1057 00:57:35.159 --> 00:57:37.400 I for a while I worked at this New age 1058 00:57:37.400 --> 00:57:40.440 bookshop in Los Angeles called the Bodi Tree. It's not 1059 00:57:40.480 --> 00:57:44.119 there anymore, but in the eighties, nineties, and you know, 1060 00:57:44.159 --> 00:57:46.519 into the early two thousands, it was like, you know, 1061 00:57:46.559 --> 00:57:50.559 the biggest metaphysical bookshop west of the Rockies. It was very, 1062 00:57:50.679 --> 00:57:53.079 very famous. Shirley Maclain put it on the map with 1063 00:57:53.400 --> 00:57:55.599 this books she wrote about her past lives and things 1064 00:57:55.639 --> 00:57:58.639 like that. But a lot of Buddhists are working there, 1065 00:57:58.719 --> 00:58:01.800 you know, and it's all you know. And I always 1066 00:58:01.840 --> 00:58:04.639 say that I had this certain you know, crediliction for 1067 00:58:04.960 --> 00:58:09.360 this notion of the eternal recurrence. When you don't, you 1068 00:58:09.480 --> 00:58:12.800 come back, but it's to exactly the same life you've had, 1069 00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:15.960 so sort of like that film groundhog Day, it keeps 1070 00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:18.519 coming back to the same day. But this should come 1071 00:58:18.519 --> 00:58:21.079 back to your same life. And the philosopher Nietzsche had 1072 00:58:21.079 --> 00:58:24.119 an idea that another person who's informed influenced me a 1073 00:58:24.159 --> 00:58:26.679 great deal of this is Russian philosopher empdu Spensk. And 1074 00:58:27.280 --> 00:58:29.320 but you know, it's nothing you could ever prove one 1075 00:58:29.320 --> 00:58:32.280 way or the other. But I mean, I don't know. 1076 00:58:32.400 --> 00:58:34.880 I tend to think, you know, you learn something on 1077 00:58:34.880 --> 00:58:39.400 this level here, you go back, or you go up 1078 00:58:39.519 --> 00:58:45.239 or wherever, to some less material realm than this one, 1079 00:58:46.000 --> 00:58:49.119 and you learn some things, you see some things, you say, 1080 00:58:49.280 --> 00:58:52.519 you made some mistakes, and then you you know, you 1081 00:58:52.559 --> 00:58:54.639 figure out what regiment you're going to get in you're 1082 00:58:54.639 --> 00:58:58.559 sent back. Because I think this is where the action is. 1083 00:58:58.760 --> 00:59:01.440 I think this in the sense that I think there's 1084 00:59:01.480 --> 00:59:07.119 some I always thinking about the great cosmic battle between 1085 00:59:07.119 --> 00:59:10.639 stupidity and intelligence, and I think it's being thought here. 1086 00:59:11.440 --> 00:59:14.920 So I think we need to come back and incrementally, 1087 00:59:15.079 --> 00:59:17.599 you know, gain a little more ground for intelligence. So 1088 00:59:18.000 --> 00:59:19.000 that's what I think. 1089 00:59:19.519 --> 00:59:23.519 Gary Locke, when I enjoyed this so much, touch pleasure, no, no, 1090 00:59:23.639 --> 00:59:26.079 thank you man, and the audience loves you to They 1091 00:59:26.079 --> 00:59:30.039 always say half Gary Locke can come back. But I'm 1092 00:59:30.039 --> 00:59:33.639 barely I'm sweating through this one, touched by the presence 1093 00:59:33.840 --> 00:59:37.079 from Blondie's Bowery and rock and roll to Magic in 1094 00:59:37.199 --> 00:59:39.679 the Occult that it's nine even out yet November eighteen, 1095 00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:42.199 twenty twenty five, but you can pre order it now. 1096 00:59:42.800 --> 00:59:44.920 And once again we had them on previously about the 1097 00:59:45.159 --> 00:59:48.199 dark Star rising, magic of the power of the Age 1098 00:59:48.199 --> 00:59:48.599 of Trump. 1099 00:59:48.800 --> 00:59:52.920 But what's this other about dreams? Oh, dreaming, dreaming ahead 1100 00:59:52.920 --> 00:59:55.400 of time, not in the head of it's been out 1101 00:59:55.400 --> 00:59:57.760 for a couple of years, dream ahead of time, experiences 1102 00:59:57.800 --> 01:00:03.559 with precognitive dreams, Symproni, these and coincidences all incredible stuff. 1103 01:00:03.599 --> 01:00:05.360 Gary Lackman, thank you so much. 1104 01:00:06.239 --> 01:00:08.239 All right, thank you, good night, So take care