That’s gotta be what it is, right? Or is this pareidolia?

This quick scene happens immediately after Deb suggests that Dex might have something to “unload.”

In a previous essay (not on this blog), I briefly profiled architect Christopher Alexander and alluded to his magnum opus, the four book Nature of Order. In this essay, I’ll be reviewing the first two books of the set, The Phenomenon of Life (TPoL) and The Process of Creating Life (PoCL). The prominence of the word life highlights the importance of this concept in Alexander’s thinking. For him, life is a quality inherent in all things, not solely a property of plants and animals. This is not a particularly radical belief. It’s a tenet of Buddhism and Taoism, and is beginning to find adherents among some scientists. The thing is, it’s hard to define life in a way that includes creatures like animals and insects, but excludes things like crystals or complex computer programs. Viruses are a good example of the difficulty; are they intricate crystals that self replicate in certain animals, or are they living beings in their own right? Ask a biologist sometime, and see what he says.

In any event, Alexander defines life very broadly, and believes that it exists in the world around us in varying degrees.

So, right away, we find that he is tackling some big questions: What is Life? What is Space? What is the Nature of Order? These are questions that occupy mystics, and there are some who see Alexander that way. I don’t. He is too practical and hardworking, and he is not too concerned with individual spirituality; his focus is on reforming the built environment but, yes, he addresses… spirit.

Spirit is always threatening to disrupt our lives

I wish I could talk about Christopher Alexander without getting into questions about the meaning of life, but it’s no use; the man continually and infuriatingly will point out the 600 pound gorilla in the room that we’re all trying to ignore – humans are spiritual beings, and the world is a spiritual place. We make demands on our buildings that aren’t satisfied by profit and efficiency. That we so successfully avoid this reality so much of the time explains much, Alexander contends, about the often unsatisfactory nature of the world we’ve made for ourselves.

Spirit is always threatening to disrupt our lives; seen in a certain light, the bureaucratization of our society’s large institutions seems designed to prevent such troubling eruptions—see Franz Kafka, Charlie Chaplin, Michael Moore, et al. It is axiomatic that no priest wants a saint in his parish, but then, neither does the mayor, or the factory owner.

Alexander points out that structure, too, can work against human wholeness and spirituality and this seems logical enough. After all, no one leaves nature to get ‘back to the city’ when seeking peace and enlightenment. There are, of course, exceptions. Beautiful gardens or soaring cathedrals can be engines of transcendence. But these are exceptions that prove the rule; generally speaking, the built environment is perceived to repress human wholeness. Why? Why don’t humans create beautiful living structure as readily as do bees, clouds, trees, or termites?

Nature of Order is a work of great detail and great force that attempts to answer this question. That the question of Spirit comes up, implicitly but insistently, is the work’s strength and weakness. The force of Nature of Order is derived from Alexander’s fearless exploration of the structure of the world, and the proper place of humans in that structure. But it also makes his philosophy threatening… a lot of people just want to build a better house, not wrestle with questions about the ontological grain of the universe.

Alexander’s confidence can resemble hubris; and sometimes he seems to rely overmuch on intuition when making his points. To read his books well, one must surrender to them. Not abjectly, and not forever, but a certain suspension of skepticism, while reading, helps enormously when trying to absorb the material.

The Phenomenon of Life
In Book 1, The Phenomenon of Life, Alexander gives his fullest and deepest explanation of his conception of life, and why it is more deeply felt in some places and things than in others.

Early in TPoL, Alexander describes an incident from his teaching career that succinctly captures many of the themes of his work, and the reasons his ideas meet resistance. He asks his students to compare two things: a picture of a 7th century illuminated manuscript (the Durham Gospel fragment) and the wall of the very auditorium in which the lecture was being held. Then he asked a simple question – which of the two had more life?

The question met enormous resistance. Not because it was hard—nearly every student agreed, albeit reluctantly, that the graceful, calm-yet-intricate manuscript held more life than the postmodern, brass-detailed wall. The question itself was what created resistance. Just admitting that one artifact can have more life than another was disturbing. If it is possible to enhance the life of a building, then it is important to do so; but the question of life is not being addressed in today’s architectural curricula—except by Alexander.

Alexander finds this ability in humans consistently, and he also finds that resistance is common. When asked, people agree with amazing uniformity on the relative amount of life imbued in various objects. Although the question seems strange, it has an answer. But this is astonishing, because it tends to destroy the difference between the subjective and the objective. Science stoutly rejects data which cannot be measured. Human opinions, notoriously squishy, cannot be measured by any known instrument… but what if humans, in aggregate, are themselves effective measuring instruments?

There is another, deeper reason for resistance. Lurking beneath Alexander’s simple question is a much thornier question: if humans respond to the life of a place, and if life can be detected and worked with rather simply, how is it that so much of the built world works against life? Suddenly, the work of a developer or a surveyor moves beyond the question of profit, and into the realm of religion. Faced with this, it is much easier to fight against the question, and the person raising it. But this is denial.

Alexander makes his case for pervasive life thoroughly and with great cumulative force. He begins by discussing what he calls centers:

“In using the word center in this way, I am not referring at all to a point center like a center of gravity. I use the word center to identify an organized zone of space – that is to say, a distinct set of points in space, which, because of its organization, because of its internal coherence, and because of its relation to its context, exhibits centeredness, forms a local zone of relative centeredness with respect to the other parts of space. When I use the word center, I am always referring to a physical set, a distinct physical system, which occupies a certain volume in space, and has a special marked coherence.” (TPoL, p. 84)

Redefining a word as basic as ‘center’—or ‘life’—seems willfully inscrutable at first, but the idea is actually quite useful. Consider a pond in a clearing; it is not exactly a whole in itself, because it is part of a larger whole, the clearing, which is in turn part of a forest, and so forth. But the pond is something, and calling it a center does help us to see it as a locus of interest in the midst of a larger whole, a locus that influences that larger whole. And the idea is recursive; the clearing is itself one of many centers in the larger forest and influences that whole, which in turn is one center of a larger regional whole, and so forth.

Like Alexander’s earlier concept of a pattern language the value of the concept lies in its use. Learning to analyze wholes in terms of centers makes it easier to actually see how a whole is formed, and how it can be strengthened or how it is being weakened. It gives those who are trying to analyze space an effective analytical tool.

If it seems presumptuous of Alexander to redefine a word for his own use and to propose an entirely new way of analyzing the world, well, that is a valid criticism but it is also pretty much the point of TPoL. Alexander is proposing a new way of perceiving and analyzing space—he is proposing the basis for a new theory of the world’s geometric underpinnings. Whether he succeeds or not is for each reader to decide.

Living wholes, then, are made up of strong centers, and the life of a whole is increased by strengthening and increasing its centers. As I began to get comfortable with this idea, I indeed found it to be a useful way of looking at the world around me, a way to figure out why I like some places more than others. TPoL is copiously illustrated, and the illustrations do help to convey what Alexander is getting at. But ultimately, an interested reader will have to decide for himself how useful the idea is.

Alexander continues his argument by explaining why some centers have more life than others. And here, I think, he presents an idea that is extremely compelling and immediately useful. It amounts to a general theory of aesthetics, and will likely be adopted rather quickly in the field of visual arts.

Alexander proposes that there are 15 fundamental properties—structural features—that appear consistently in things which have life. Let’s just list them:

1) Levels of Scale
2) Strong Centers
3) Boundaries
4) Alternating Repetition
5) Positive Space
6) Good Shape
7) Local Symmetries
Deep Interlock and Ambiguity
9) Contrast
10) Gradients
11) Roughness
12) Echoes
13) The Void
14) Simplicity and Inner Calm
15) Not-Separateness

About a third of TPoL is devoted to a masterful exposition of this idea. The 15 properties are shown and discussed in manmade artifacts and in natural phenomena. The illustrations and text work together and gather force like Ravel’s Boléro, culminating in an essay titled A New View of Nature. Ultimately we realize that Alexander has done an amazing thing; he has made it possible to talk, really talk, about why we like some things and places better than others. Rather than falling back on vapid words like ‘pretty’ or ‘awesome’ we can speak with precision about the qualities that distinguish Yosemite Valley from, say, a gravel quarry, or why we are more moved by a giant sequoia than by a mall. His beliefs and accompanying language legitimize human feeling, validate our intuitive sense of value, and, without hubris or solipsism, make the world personal.

I have barely skipped a stone over the surface of this remarkable book. In 476 exhaustively illustrated and footnoted pages, Alexander rigorously makes the case for his new view of the world, and takes initial steps toward a mathematical statement of that view. It is an intellectual tour-de-force and fully supported by his real world work as a builder and architect. Such seriousness commands respect; dismissing Alexander casually will not do.

The Process of Creating Life
Defining life is a good start for Alexander, but the major theme of his career has been actually getting more life into modern buildings. And to do this, Alexander found, more than a definition is needed; the what of creation is pointless without the how. That is, a living building cannot be designed, then built. The life of a building comes from decisions made during the construction process. Design and construction turn out to be pretty much the same thing.

Alexander begins to talk about this by returning to one of Nature of Order’s fundamental questions: why is it that natural processes automatically create beauty and a feeling of rightness, and human methods so rarely do? What is the difference?

In a series of fascinating examples ranging from a wave breaking to a glass plate shattering to a fetus developing, Alexander shows convincingly that development processes in nature are a series of structure-preserving transformations. Each recognizable phase of development follows naturally from the preceding phase. Put another way, each phase of development preserves and extends the wholeness of the preceding phase—the wholeness is never destroyed, it unfolds into a new wholeness.

Consider the famous sequence of photos of a splashing milk drop. Though discrete phases of the sequence are startlingly different from each other, the changes from moment to moment are gentle and comprehensible. Alexander argues convincingly that this is a feature of all natural development.

Furthermore, the structure-preserving transformations can be analyzed in terms of the 15 fundamental properties introduced in TPoL. As extended here, the 15 properties become 15 transformations. Change that preserves wholeness is shown to be a product of transformation based on one or more of the 15 properties. Each transformation introduces, preserves, or strengthens one or more of the 15 fundamental properties. Again, one of the most useful things Alexander has done here is to provide good language, which makes good analysis possible.

He goes on to argue, with multiple examples, that humans can build in this structure-preserving fashion, but usually don’t. To do this, he juxtaposes traditional (or pre-modern) building processes with modern examples. He is getting at something deep here; humans love old places. We visit New England, or Europe, to see the old buildings, not the modern ones. We have a sense that the old cathedrals, the old city layouts, are somehow richer. Alexander contends that traditional building methods followed the structure-preserving process he finds in nature. For example, he presents a series of plans that show the development of Amsterdam from 1400 to 1800. It is easy to see how the steady development process took previous development into account. Patterns that were latent in 1400 are realized in 1800, building shapes echo each other, the relationship of the town to the water is consistent throughout. There is no sense of planned development—Amsterdam seems to have grown.

The structure-preserving process occurs in the modern world, but more rarely. Beginning about 1900, many forces—changes in banking, in zoning, in planning, in architecture, etc.—began to produce structure-destroying transformations. The wholeness of an existing structure was no longer considered. A classic example would be the extension of a freeway through an existing neighborhood. The freeway is designed and built without reference to its surroundings, and thereby destroys those surroundings. And similar examples can be cited ad infinitum: a skyscraper designed on one continent and built on another, a planned community laid out with equal precision on the drawing board and on the ground, a giant Wal-Mart box seemingly dropped from the sky onto its scraped pad… in every case, the previously existing whole is disregarded and destroyed.

Alexander uses these examples to define two kinds of structure: generated and fabricated. Generated structure creates life, and fabricated structure, nearly always, creates… the opposite of life.

The discussion of generated structure begins with an analogy that struck me very powerfully. Consider a fairly complex origami construction. It is not built to a plan; that is, blueprints of the finished structure are not provided. Instead, a sequence of steps is provided. A plan of the figure would be quite complex—several pages at least. But a sequence—first do that, then do this—is relatively concise. This idea is then applied to the development of an embryo. DNA does not store a blueprint of the exact appearance of a particular animal, it stores a sequence of development which then takes place affected by attendant circumstances. Interestingly, this is proved by recent experiments in biology—cloned animals do not look exactly alike. Same sequence, different circumstances.

Brutally compressed into a nutshell, Alexander’s program for creating living structure is to generate a construction sequence that first, observes the whole, then, makes a change that preserves and enhances the whole while approaching the desired end state, then… repeats as needed. Or, in his more elegant language:

“A living process is any adaptive process which generates living structure, step by step, through structure-preserving transformations.”

These sequences can also be called patterns, harking back to Alexander’s early book, A Pattern Language. Here, they emerge as part of a comprehensive program for reforming human construction methods. As argued, the case for reform is convincing and ultimately hopeful. After all, the remaining remnants of traditionally built structure are good evidence that humans can build in a living fashion. As a species we have been unconsciously competent, are now unconsciously incompetent, but are beginning to notice deficiencies—to be consciously incompetent. It certainly seems possible that the human capacity for self-observation must eventually lead to conscious competence, and to a beautiful living world.

PoCL is a massive book, totaling 635 pages with appendices and notes. The illustrations are copious and superbly complement arguments put forth. I have, therefore, presented barely a skeletal outline of the book’s full force, but I hope I have adequately suggested that it is forceful.

In some ways, Alexander is the living human I most admire. He has, after all, come by his ideas the old-fashioned way… he’s earned them. He has poured his life into his writing and philosophizing and then he has done something harder. He has, for decades, tested his philosophy, often in difficult conditions in the poorest regions of the planet. He is, simultaneously, an idealistic ivory tower dreamer and a pragmatic contractor; that dirt under his nails is a mix of grit and ink and it’s been there for decades. When a man so rigorously tests his ideas in the real world, over such a span of time, and then adjusts his ideas to accord with the practical knowledge gained… well, he deserves a hearing.

Even before George R.R. Martin‘s seriously excellent series A Song of Ice and Fire (of which Game of Thrones is the first book) was turned into an equally excellent HBO show, it was already a big deal among fantasy readers. And it’s gratifying—to those of us who have been fans for years—that word is now getting out to a larger audience. But there is one critic’s trope that I find grating, and that’s the contention that Martin is ‘The American Tolkien.’ In fact, the comparison is not fair to either writer. For one thing, they’re not really working in the same genre; Tolkien wrote what I would call High Fantasy, a sort of conscious myth creation, and Martin is writing what has been aptly called ‘Realpolitik Fantasy,’ where plot and characters are driven by all-too-human motivations. Simply put, it’s hard to imagine anyone in Lord of the Rings actually having sex, and in ASOF readers are always aware of this, and other, ever-present basic urges.

Moreover, there is a far better comparison to be made, between ASOIAF and Jack Vance’s Lyonesse, a cult classic if ever there was such a thing.

Lyonesse is everything that ASOIAF is, writ slightly smaller. It too is set in a fantasy world something like our own. Like Westeros, Lyonesse is human-centric, with fantasy elements (like magick and dragons) that are compelling but not the whole story. Characters lust for power, money, and sex, and in them we easily see our neighbors, lovers, and bosses. Of the two series, Martin’s is clearly the greater: it’s bigger in every way, explores larger themes, and rises above genre to become great literature by any reckoning. But Lyonesse is, mayhaps, the sprightlier read and I, for one, love it no less.

All of which is by way of saying—if you like anything about Game of Thrones, be sure to give Lyonesse a try. Or anything by Vance; he was astonishingly prolific, and once you have read him you will see his influence everywhere.

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When asked about my faith I am wont to reply, cheerfully, that I’m a godless heathen but that felt like rather an unsatisfactory thing to be, a few years ago, while listening to a breathtakingly fine local production of Handel’s Messiah. The music washed over me like waves of pure spirit, alternately exalting and humbling, leaving me breathless, expanded, teary-eyed… the whole bit. For minutes at a time I even felt religious, which never happens, and at one moment in particular I was quite ready to fall to my knees and offer praise to the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Thankfully the feeling passed and I reverted to my usual state of introverted cynicism, wondering what had just happened. Clearly the power and majesty of this particular piece of music depends entirely on its devotion to a particular religious view—it would be ridiculous to assume that a work of equivalent power could be dedicated to, say, the taste of a ripe tomato in mid-Summer, still warm from the garden, though that, too, is divine. And yet, the religious ideas being expressed are also ridiculous—even at the height of my musical swoon I would not have agreed that the creator of all-that-is makes special provisions in the afterlife for those lucky enough to have decoded his preferred form of devotion. And my pompous ruminations on faith and religion are probably the most ridiculous thing of all—who am I to take the measure of another’s faith?

It seems to me that faith itself is holy

The one thing that wasn’t ridiculous was the performance itself; in fact, it was sublime. And isn’t that always the way? We silly humans, we careless naked primates, working with the rough asymmetries we have at hand are, fairly often, able to call forth beauty that approaches perfection: how?

Could it be faith? I attended the Messiah at the invitation of a friend, and it was during her solo that I was most vulnerable to the Lord. The purity of her devotion, the expression of faith without one particle of hypocrisy, was a moment of such intense beauty that I am happy to call it divine; indeed, I don’t know what else to call it. And not incidentally, her inexplicable faith in my miserable self was the only reason I was there at all.

It seems to me that faith itself is holy, and not necessarily the objects of faith. If beauty is to manifest at all, ever, it must necessarily make use of the imperfect materials offered: to call forth that beauty requires faith, which is to say, it requires a disregard for imperfection, an ability to see the divine even in this sad world: glory be to God for dappled things.

If faith is a blindness to flaws, and if faith is required to call forth beauty, then perhaps I am a man of faith after all. For I too see the Lord lurking everywhere, cloaked in the tawdry imperfections of religion and culture. And when He chooses to drop the disguise, to flash forth beautifully and radiantly, I am as moved as any man, and as happy to be in His presence. And, when the occasion calls for it, I am very happy to sing, “Hallelujah!”

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In fact, it’s pretty simple—more fun and less louche than I imagined. Here are some do’s and one don’t:

Look for this sign.

• Do just walk in. They’re not private clubs, they’re not secretive, and you don’t need to know a secret handshake or anything. Ordering is as easy as stepping up to the counter, consulting a menu, and placing your order. In my experience, English was always spoken. Prices are reasonable, and all the pot and hash my companion and I smoked was superb—the hash, especially, was very strong. Per the Internet, Amsterdam marijuana is supposed to be way stronger than the stuff we Americans smoke, but I didn’t find this to be the case. It’s very good, but not remarkably better than the best stuff available here. I was not able to distinguish one strain from another, and at least one local suggested that the menus are a bit deceptive. But my lovely companion was able to distinguish each from each, so your mileage may vary.

• Do buy something. It doesn’t have to be pot; this is the most important thing I can pass on to you. Most shops sell a gram as a minimum amount (though they’ll often sell a half gram if you ask) and that’s probably more than you want to smoke at one sitting. So if you buy a gram every time you stop in, you’ll end up with a lot of excess weed at the end of your trip and you’ll be tempted to bring it back with you. Fortunately, most coffeeshops don’t care if you smoke weed that you bring in yourself. They’ll even provide smoking materials if you ask—more on this below. But don’t be a dick and just use the place without recognizing that they are a business; buy something. A lighter makes for a good souvenir. I can recommend the hot chocolate, which is usually made with steamed milk and Nestle’s Quik and is delicious. Coffee, fruit juices, candy bars, and other munchies are also available. Sadly, you can’t get any of Amsterdam’s delicious beer at the same place you get Amsterdam’s strong, tasty marijuana—the licenses are kept separate. Humanity will be truly civilized when this does become possible.

Do ask for a bong

• Do ask for a bong. Most of the residents smoke their dope in the form of large, cone-shaped joints, and that’s why you’re handed a packet of small, stiff pieces of cardboard along with your weed purchase; they’re rolled up and used as filters/mouthpieces at the end of the large joints so you don’t need a roach clip. Watching a local roll a four-inch doobie is a treat but frankly I found them a little intimidating. Instead, my companion and I learned to ask for one of the loaner bongs, which are kept behind the counter (once we were asked for a passport to be held as a deposit, but we were never charged). One will be produced, cleaned, and filled with fresh water. The best bongs had large chambers that held ice. One inhalation fills the ice-filled chamber with thick water-cooled smoke, and a second inhalation pulls that large amount of super-chill smoke deep into your grateful lungs. It’s marvelous.

• Do say hello to others, if it seems appropriate. Apply the same discretion you’d apply in your favorite bar; some people and groups will be doing just fine without the addition of your wonderful tourist self, but others are happy to chat and you’ll meet cool people. We once spent an hour or so chatting with an Egyptian belly dance instructor—conversations like that are the best reason to travel.

I was so baked when this was taken.

• Don’t smoke in the street. It’s illegal, uncommon, and it’s rude. Unlike San Francisco, where I often smell pot in the street, I never once smelled it in Amsterdam. Respect their ways.

Finally, should you smoke pot in Amsterdam? Well, I recommend it. As mentioned above, it’s a great city to be stoned in—there’s a reason it’s pot-friendly. As described above, it’s easy and fun. Also, even if you haven’t smoked marijuana since high school, you’re likely to enjoy the relaxed, non-paranoid atmosphere. And, do you really want to visit Amsterdam and not try the coffeehouses?

A great place to smoke pot.

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This rant was inspired by all the gloom and doom about lately, and by a ridiculous article making the rounds. For the record, if Douglas Copland really believes this, he’s a useless asshole. All of the following was pulled out of my ass and written down in five minutes. People who actually know what they’re talking about have even more cause for optimism.

• Cheap Energy: I can name a half dozen plausible technologies, including concentrated solar power, fusion, cold fusion and clean nuclear, that could come online soon and make energy cheap and clean. In a world with an oversupply of energy, what can’t be created?

• Ubiquitous Supercomputing: Two about-to-happen technologies, quantum computing and molecular computing, can give humans the ability to design infrastructure with God-like skill, and build intelligence into nearly everything manufactured – I’m talking things like paint. When intelligence is everywhere, aren’t we likely to do smarter stuff?

• Nanotech: It’s been knocking on the door for decades, and we’re gonna let it in sometime. A world of functional nanotech is a world where you can pour goop in a vat and extrude iPods, antique wood furniture, car parts, a molecularly perfect Van Gogh, etc. Who cares about wealth polarization? In a world where anyone can have anything, it’s going to be people with taste, not people with money, who live well. Oh, and nano works the other direction, too: all the toxic sludge and other trash we make can go in one end of the hopper and come out as compost, or Deadwood DVDs. A clean abundant world, what’s not to like?

• Facilitated Social Change: Sure, you’re tired of hearing that social networking is changing everything, is making the world a smaller place, that humans are forming the neural network of a global mind, etc. Doesn’t mean it’s not true. What it means is that social structures that now seem entrenched, like government, the economy, bigotry, war, religion, and you-name-it are now global thoughts that humanity is becoming conscious of. And what’s easier to change than a mind? In an interlinked world, there is a new capacity for rapid, massive change. Think good thoughts, people, and talk to your friends on FB, twitter, LinkedIn, and of course your local pub. We can literally create exactly the world we envision. Indeed, we pretty much HAVE TO create the world we envision, so envision well.

• Biotech: Cloning gets a lot of attention, and genetics and new wonder drugs. Those are all cool. But I think the real promise is in agriculture. We haven’t got it right yet (I’m looking at you Monsanto) but shit, we will. And then we’ll have abundant, organic, fresh, tasty, cruelty-free meats and vegetables. Yay us.

• Rapid Adoption of New Technology: Remember how fast cellphones became ubiquitous? REMEMBER? They were bulky, expensive, cranky oddities for, like, a week or two and then EVERYONE had them in their pockets. Same with laptops and PDAs, and the internet and DVRs and, you name it. We humans obviously have no issues making use of the next great thing, which amplifies all the above trends. And there’s more, lots more, things that aren’t even glimmers in somebody’s brain yet, but will arrive overnight BECAUSE HUMANS ARE GOOD AT HAVING GREAT IDEAS AND IMPLEMENTING THEM!

Humans are awesome, and the universe is safe, abundant and friendly. Enjoy your lives, people, and get ready to live in paradise.

cheers,
Angus

Cave exploration is not for everyone, in fact it is for very few. Just reading about it can make a claustrophobe cringe. But for those few, those strong, fit, physically narrow and psychologically hardy few, an entrance to an immense world, almost a different planet, is available in Central Kentucky. The massive limestone stratum that underlies that region has been carved by the waters of the Green River Basin, and the mapped stretches of labyrinth in what is now known officially as the Mammoth Cave System total more than 360 miles, making it the world’s longest by a factor of three. It is a wonder of the world as impressive as any mountain, glacier, or ocean but but photographs can only capture slices of it and few humans will ever grasp it as anything like a whole.

Accurate surveying of the cave system began in 1908, when a young German mining engineer named Max Kaemper came to the area, intending to visit for two weeks. He ended up staying several months and produced an accurate map of many miles of cave passage, including several new discoveries. He set a precedent that has endured; exploration, discovery, and surveying are nearly synonymous in this sector of the planet, more closely entwined than in any other human endeavor. Disorientation underground is the default state; it has even been said that a sense of direction underground is something of a handicap, because the circuitous passages so often double back on themselves. When exploring new passages, cavers will sometimes stumble into a known section and reel with vertigo as they reorient themselves. Explorers can push on a bit from known regions, looking backwards often, and find their way back. But only careful surveying and mapping make it possible to have a sense of the cave as a system, locate new passages, explore them, and return safely. Without maps, far fewer miles of cave passage would now be known.

Beginning about the 1950s, it became apparent that careful surveying and mapping were also the key to connecting cave systems, a goal of exploration that is unique to caving and which attained its fullest expression on September 9th, 1972. That’s when a party of six cavers, led by John Wilcox, then Chief Cartographer of the Cave Research Foundation (the body that has organized Flint Ridge exploration for several decades), entered the Austin Entrance of the Flint Ridge Cave System and left through the Elevator Exit of the Mammoth Cave System, thus connecting the two and conquering what had become known as the “Everest of Speleology”. One team member, a small, tough woman named Pat Crowther, compared the experience to giving birth.

At the time, the Flint Ridge System was already the world’s longest known cave system, with 86.5 miles of mapped cave passage. The Mammoth Cave System was not too far behind at 57.9 miles of mapped cave. Between them was a deep valley that seemed to sever the most promising passages. Connecting the two was an awesome event in speleology, much like finding a way to stack Mt. Everest on top of K2 to create the new world’s tallest mountain – some even called it the ‘Holy Grail’.

The actual moment of connection could hardly have been more definite, or more dramatic. A series of remote Flint Ridge ‘leads’ – promising new passages 10 hours or more from cave entrances – had been systematically explored for several months. One expedition had even found scratched initials of early Mammoth Cave explorers, suggesting strongly that a connection was at hand. But the actual route remained frustratingly elusive, and optimistic parties would often return the way they came, crawling and wriggling for hours at a time rather than walking out the easy way. Wilcox’s party faced a particularly heart sinking moment; after nearly a day of work, they knew from survey data that they were within a few hundred feet of the Mammoth Cave System… but they appeared to be blocked by a ‘siphon’, a section of river with no airspace. Wilcox decided to take a closer look, and found that in fact he could duck carefully through the worst section. When he pushed on he saw, up ahead… a straight line?… could it be… a railing?! It was, and Wilcox turned back to shout to his companions, “I see a tourist trail!” – the words became immortal among cavers. Wilcox later wrote, “My memory of the next few moments is indistinct. Victory is a feeling of vastness inside the skull. In this case, it is doubly sweet because it seemed so far way only moments before.”

This awesome moment would not have happened without the careful, cumulative work of hundreds of cavers over several decades. In particular, meticulous surveys were essential. Intuitively, it would seem that surveying would come after the pathfinders pushed new routes and came back to tell the tale. Alternately, it seems that cave exploration might follow the ‘base camp’ model of mountain expeditions, with a few individuals pushing deep into the cave for days at a time, supported by ‘porters’ schlepping in food and other supplies. But neither approach held up to the realities of Flint Ridge caving. Without surveys, pathfinders had no way of knowing where they were in the vastness of the cave system, and no way of telling others how to follow and build on their lead. Of course, some cavers like that aspect of caving – the thrill of having miles of cave forever to oneself – but under the aegis of the Cave Research Foundation, Flint Ridge exploration was remarkably cooperative, with most of the teams involved contributing to the gradually accreting knowledge of the system. Conversely, the base camp system didn’t work, at least in Flint Ridge, because it was terribly inefficient. Resupplying and sleeping underground took enormous amounts of energy. ‘Blitzkriegs’ with occasional cat naps turned out to be the right formula.

The system eventually settled on worked for team players and individuals, and is probably the single factor most responsible for the great successes of Central Kentucky caving. Caving parties of (typically) four would strike out on long expeditions, sometimes lasting 24 hours or more. Support crews on the surface stood ready to assist. The underground teams would go to the furthest limits of explored cave and begin surveying, so that surveying and exploration happened more or less simultaneously. There were variations. On occasion, a party would explore several hundred feet (a very long distance in the twisty, narrow passages) and then survey back to known areas. But this method was frowned on; too often the surveys were left ‘hanging’ – not connected – and were useless. A better system was when two parties surveyed together, leapfrogging each other and moving relatively quickly.

The resulting maps were maintained obsessively; reading histories of Flint Ridge caving suggests that donating rooms – or whole houses – to the maps was a good way to become president of the Cave Research Foundation and perusing ‘map walls’ was an occupation nearly as absorbing to veteran explorers as actual caving. The maps definitely took on a life of their own, and even have an application outside the Mammoth Cave System. Portions of the maps were used as a template for the early (and groundbreaking) computer game “Adventure”, and aficionados have been known to recognize rooms and passages solely from game descriptions.

Equipment used was (and is) sparse compared to modern surveying; it resembled colonial surveying. The use of tripods, total stations and prisms was literally impossible in some passages, due to bulk, and merely impractical in most of the cave. Survey equipment had to be small and light. So Flint Ridge cavers relied on tapes and compasses with built in inclinometers for their surveys, a minimalist set of equipment that has been in use for hundreds of years. In ‘stand up’ passages, the procedure is straightforward: the compass is used to determine direction, inclinometers measure vertical angle, and the tape is used to measure distance. A good survey will also include sketches of the passage cross section, to give a sense of volume. Simple. But doing the same thing in tight tubes or watery channels is difficult and tedious; in some constricted areas, cavers have to back out of a passage after taking a reading so they can move their hands enough to take notes. Keeping the field book dry is a constant consideration. And sometimes progress is painfully slow – in difficult areas, sight lines of just a few feet are common meaning that it takes dozens of readings to get through short passages. To do this kind of work many hours from a cave entrance, with the prospect of a difficult return journey, seems superhuman… and perhaps it is. Certainly there are very few who attempt it. But the work has been done, and done well; the overall mapping error is believed to be within about 0.3%.

The connection of the Flint Ridge and Mammoth Cave Systems was as momentous as any achievement in the history of exploration. It built on several decades of difficult work by hundreds of individuals. It’s curious that cave exploration isn’t as closely followed as, say, mountaineering – perhaps it’s because one can’t see a cave, not in the way a mountain or ocean can be seen. But the physical work involved, and the privation, loneliness and danger, make cave exploration one of the most difficult of sports. The achievements in Central Kentucky, though underground, are one summit of human endeavor.

The above was drawn largely from The Longest Cave by Roger W. Brucker and Richard A. Watson. It is a splendid book, one of the great classics of adventure writing. If the above has piqued your interest even slightly, you will thoroughly enjoy reading this superb tale, told by two veteran cavers. Additional information, and a much appreciated review, was provided by Bill and Sarah Bishop who were elite members of the Cave Research Foundation during the connection era – Sarah is a past president of the Foundation.

Whitewater at the Top of the World: Craig Childs presents the story of the first ever passage of Tibet’s Salween River

Craig Childs is an extreme traveler, NPR commentator, winner of the Galen Rowell Art of Adventure Award, and author of House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest and The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild. In September 2007, Childs joined a 16-person expedition for the first ever descent of the upper Salween River in Tibet. At the time, the Salween was one of the world’s longest, highest, and most remote unexplored rivers, and it promised world class whitewater. After many months of preparation and travel, the expedition arrived in Tibet during record rainfalls, and the Salween was dangerously flooded. Since the river is remote and winds through unknown canyons, embarking was an irrevocable decision to face unknown perils. Childs, a famously compelling speaker, tells the thrilling tale of the Salween expedition with breathtaking images and exclusive video footage.

Fans of Into Thin Air, Touching the Void, and other tales of first-person adventure will want to meet the man of whom the New York Times says, “Childs’s feats of asceticism are nothing if not awe inspiring: he’s a modern-day desert father.”

Thursday, October 15th, 7:00 p.m. at KoKo Cocktails, 1060 Geary Street (at Van Ness), San Francisco

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So I was shopping at Wal-Mart the other day, with that sinking feeling I get whenever I betray humanity, when the words of writer, farmer and secular saint Wendell Berry came to mind. One of his themes is the human cost of loss of community and one compelling example he cites is insurance. Berry points out that citizens in an average small town—say, for example, my beloved Paonia—annually pay out far more in health, home and car insurance than it would actually cost to care for our own sick, repair our own cars, rebuild our own homes and pass the hat as needed. In other words, a community made up of people willing to help each other would wind up expending far less time, energy and money than is now required to pay for our various insurances. In other other words, because we don’t work together we all pay the middleman, and the middleman grows fat on our dollars.

But who is the middleman? Typically it’s a corporation preying on many communities, collecting dollars and grudgingly dispensing a bare minimum of mediocre service in return.

we all pay the middleman, and the middleman grows fat on our dollars

I don’t have a solution for this, but it’s worth pointing out that in this area and in many others, corporations and communities are necessarily opposed; corporations thrive when communities are made up of scared, paranoid, alienated individuals, and communities thrive when they are composed of trusting, generous, openhearted humans. So corporations are, by their nature, always and inevitably engaged in a sort of clandestine propaganda war against community. Using the TV stations, radio and other media they own outright, and also using the governments they control indirectly, corporations present the world as dangerous, and portray our fellow humans as greedy, deceitful and violent. In fact, the opposite is far more true: this planet we live on is astonishingly abundant, and humans are generally, in my experience anyway, generous, brave and kind. It’s corporations that can be described as dangerous, deceitful, greedy and violent – not always, of course, but that’s certainly the way to bet. As Wendell Berry says, “Rats and roaches [and I would add corporations to this list] live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.”

Berry has also said that “To be sane in a mad time is bad for the body and worse for the soul.” and the word on the street is that we do live in mad times. But we are not doomed to live in a world governed by corporate fascists. Solutions are close at hand everywhere, in your own neighborhood and hometown. Support your neighbors, your community radio, your local art center, the library and all the other blessings to be found in a healthy community. Be generous and trusting. Not only will you instantly improve your own life and the life of your region, you’ll also be starving the corporations into submission and irritating the Walton family.

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Remember, Be Here Now, by Ram Dass

Even on the increasingly rare occasions that Timothy Leary’s LSD-popularizing antics are really discussed, the man known then as Richard Alpert appears as little more than a sidekick—Robin, to Leary’s Dark Knight—and his book, Be Here Now, a mere punch line to a forgotten 60s joke. But in the decades since, with Leary’s needle stuck at ‘groovy’ right up until his relatively early death, Alpert’s fully disclosed spiritual struggles, his open record of extreme growth and change, and of course his transformation into America’s own guru, Ram Dass, have left him, perhaps, the greater figure. By any reckoning, he is a scarred and worthy chronicler of a numinous time, and an interesting living experiment that still unfolds.

I had the good fortune to be handed Be Here Now in the midst of one of my very first acid trips, when I was still convinced that there was meaning beneath all the fireworks. I puzzled over it quite happily for hours, imprinted on it, and it has affected my subsequent spiritual life as surely as childhood religious instruction; and like childhood religious instruction, the influence has not always been positive and shaped me by my resistance at least as much as by my acquiescence. For example I, for far too many years, accorded Hindu-flavored spirituality far more respect than I now feel it deserves.

It is a concise classic of drug writing, a genre that deserves more respect than it gets

Be Here Now is actually three books in one. The introduction is Alpert’s tale of the years with Leary, his travels in India, and the encounters with the fabulous guru, Neem Karoli Baba, that remade Alpert as Ram Dass. It is a concise classic of drug writing, a genre that deserves more respect than it gets. The middle, longest, section is a hand lettered and illuminated attempt to convey, experientially, certain verities of the psychedelic experience. It is strange, strangely powerful, and I am not able to capture it in a net of mere words—take strong hallucinogens (or, if you prefer, entheogens) and read it for yourself. And finally, the book concludes with an adequate primer of the aforementioned Hindu-flavored spirituality—meditation, yoga, veganism, etc.—the efficacy of which is demonstrated by the easy competence with which India governs herself and cares for her people. Am I too cynical? Very well, paw through this section yourself and carry away the bits you find shiny… that’s certainly what I did, and I can’t say I regret it.

Separately, none of these parts is indispensable, but like the disparate, ridiculous books of the Bible (have you ever read the Book of Jonah?) when gathered together (along with an excellent bibliography) they amount to scripture. And, like scripture, they can remake your world to the extent you let them.

Alpert/Dass is, it must be said, a substantial spiritual fuck up, but I will always love him for this book, and for the way he once compared the way he figuratively fell on his face over and over to a man making his way to a holy city by means of continual prostrations—it was too apt a description of my own life to ever forget.

Promethea, by Alan Moore

Alan Moore is a literary titan whose medium happens to be comic books: deal with it. The fact is, Moore is positively Joycean in the way he packs layers of meaning into words and, unlike Joyce—or Pynchon, or Wallace—he has the whole playground of image to play with as well.

The substantial success Moore attained with his scripts for Watchmen, From Hell, V for Vendetta, and other titles—and the substantial disappointments he suffered as those graphic masterpieces were translated to the screen—both allowed him and drove him to focus on more insular, idiosyncratic work… one can almost hear him muttering, ‘make a movie of this you effing bastards,’ as he completed his pornographic masterwork Lost Girls, or the swirl of Cabala, sex magick, metaphysics, and superhero mythology comprising the work I extol here, Promethea.

Available in five volumes that collect the original comics, the spine of Promethea is conventional for the costumed vigilante genre: a young lady, Sophia Bangs (pay attention to those names, reader) finds herself blessed/cursed with the ability to transform herself into the curvaceous superheroine Promethea, who is able to fly, shoot beams of force from her caduceus, and so forth. In coming to terms with her new powers, she meets and beats assorted villains, and ushers in the end of the world.

Wait; what was that last part? End of the world? It’s hardly a spoiler to tell you so—from early on in Book One it’s clear that Promethea’s world faces the end of history.

But not by nuclear annihilation, as in Watchmen, but by Armageddon, Kali Yuga, Ragnarök, or some other name drawn from the end time theologies so often found in human spiritual systems. In her quest to understand her role as Destroyer, Sophie/Promethea thoroughly explores the Western esoteric tradition.

In his personal life, Moore is an accomplished ceremonial magickian and here, like Philip Pullman in His Dark Materials, he uses an exciting, bawdy, page-turning tale to sugarcoat serious philosophical instruction. The attentive reader will come away from Promethea with a useful grounding in tarot, cabala and the tree of life, Crowleyan ritual, and will even get an intriguing and accurate glimpse of Goetic demonology.

More importantly, by reading this book and letting it’s glorious graphics seduce you, you will imbibe a certain mindset and realize at gut level that what we are pleased to call reality is merely an insubstantial scrim imperfectly concealing the actual nature of existence. And as Sophie—and her entire world—are forced to acknowledge, confronting an unveiled all-that-is is both terrifying… and thrilling.

Travels, by Michael Crichton

I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but the fact is, I like Michael Crichton’s novels and have read most of them. And of course, I’m not alone in that—Crichton’s books have sold 150 million copies worldwide. But relatively few have read Travels, which makes sense because it’s pretty much the opposite of a ‘Crichton book’. It’s short not long, it’s a memoir not thriller fiction, and it’s written in a graceful, unaffected voice, not the thudding, heart-pounding! thriller prose that Crichton mastered long before writers like Dan Brown or David Baldacci began to hammer readers over the head with it. I think he missed his audience with this one; Travels is not for the average thriller reader.

As you might guess from the title, Crichton is here writing a travel memoir but, crucially, he includes inner journeys as well. Beginning with his experiences as a 6’9” medical student who put himself through medical school writing potboilers—and the The Andromeda Strain—and continuing with multiple world trips, and his experiences meditating, directing movies, learning to see auras, tripping intensely, bending spoons, diving with sharks, etc. etc. His clear exposition of the events experienced and of his own mental state while they unfolded is what makes Travels remarkable. Also, his motivation for writing Travels is unimpeachable; he certainly didn’t need the money, and must have known that this book wouldn’t make him much anyway. Nor would it exactly burnish his reputation… the questing, skeptical-but-believing Michael Crichton on display in Travels is not the Michael Crichton he would want Hollywood agents to negotiate with.

So ultimately, Travels is immensely credible. Crichton tells me that he learned to bend spoons one evening, and I believe him. He tells me that a weekend workshop gave him the gift of seeing auras, and I start looking for such a workshop to attend myself…

And thus is reality undermined.

His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman

Just to get it out of the way, yes, these are Young Adult novels. And they’re based on Milton’s Paradise Lost… or so I’m told. But so what?—we must take wisdom where we find it, and in the three books of His Dark Materials—The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass—Pullman is not only wise, but brave, taking on, as he does, conventional religious thinking in general and the Catholic Church in particular. Most reviews of His Dark Materials focus on daemons, the animal-guised, familiar-like soul analogues that Pullman brilliantly fishes up from exceedingly deep archetypal waters and, yes, daemons are cool but for my money even more attention should be paid to his frankly anti-church agenda; read at the cusp of adolescence, these books will effectively immunize against excessive religiosity. I read them when I was struggling with my own religious addictions—I’m a recovering fundamentalist—and they were the kick in the ass I needed to actually change.

None of this would matter if Pullman was preachy or didactic, but fortunately—and unlike myself—he is neither. Instead, he couches his serious life lessons in a compulsively readable coming-of-age tale, set against a backdrop of witches, armored bears, dirigibles, and passages between worlds. As you are pulled from page to page, you will also be reordering your views on spiritual expression… so read with care.

My Life With the Spirits, by Lon Milo Duquette

Though I have cast spells, performed sex magick rituals, and worshipped my patron goddess Ostara under a full moon at Summer Solstice, the fact is I am a dilettante, not a practicing magickian. But even an armchair magickian must read astonishing quantities of written material, for surely it is the wordiest of hobbies, with tome after tome devoted to the arcana of divination, cabala, Crowleyan ritual, chaos magick, Enochian scrying, and so forth and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. And in all this vast, mostly fascinating, swamp of literature there is one writer, Lon Milo Duquette, who stands apart because he sees himself with without illusion, and because he writes with exceptional clarity, self-deprecation, and humor.

His Chicken Qabalah is a useful and lucid explication of how and why a non-Jew might explore Cabala for spiritual purposes, Angels, Demons & Gods of the New Millennium is a perfectly acceptable primer for those interested in Western ceremonial magick, and should you decide to flirt with high strangeness and engage the Beast directly, you can have no better Virgil than Duquette in his books, Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot, The Magick of Aleister Crowley: A Handbook of the Rituals of Thelema, and Aleister Crowley’s Illustrated Goetia: Sexual Evocation.

But before you read any of these (and even if you have no intention to read these, or any, books on magick) read My Life With The Spirits: The Adventures of a Modern Magician. Like three other books on this list, it is a memoir of alternative spirituality. Conventionally autobiographical, My Life With The Spirits follows Duquette from early childhood through delightfully rock-and-roll-and-magick infused hippie years, and into an adulthood as a sober and respected bishop of the Ordo Templi Orientis. Like all my favorite people, Duquette has a zest for direct experience and he exuberantly dives into yoga, communal life, magickal ritual, and whatever else captures his interest. And he writes up his experiences with the brio and humility that I associate with truth telling. His tales of Goetic evocation, for example, are masterpieces of immersion journalism: accurate, frightening, and funny.

Duquette’s writings undermine my grasp on conventional reality because they have the ring of truth. Based on my own (relatively trivial) magickal experimentation and his clear reporting, I am forced to accept that demons (and angels) are real and can act on our plane, that Enochian calls effectively summon visions of another world, and that a dead kitten can, under the influence of the right prana master, be restored to life.

Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of Duquette’s oeuvre is his attitude of, if you will, ‘dogmatic agnosticism’. He doesn’t insist that you believe him, doesn’t attempt to convert, and freely concedes that everything unusual that he experiences may well be ‘all in his head’. “But,” he continues (a little dogmatically), “you have no idea how big your head is!”

Living With Joy, by Sanaya Roman

I didn’t set out to become a fan of channeled material, and I can’t tell you how I came across Living with Joy: Keys to Personal Power and Spiritual Transformation, but in the six or so years that have passed since I abandoned fundamentalist Christianity no genre of literature has affected me more profoundly. Seth, I confess, is too intellectual for me, but Abraham and sometimes Kryon move me profoundly. And though he has a relatively small following—bad PR?—the entity who styles himself Oren, channeled by Sanaya Roman, has gradually and completely upended my world view, and Living with Joy is my bedside scripture.

There may be more to this world view than I am able to express, or I may be distorting it—I’ve been forced to admit in recent years that I am able to grasp only a small fraction of the data presented to me—but here is some of what I have gleaned:

• The all-that-is actively engages with individuals, reshaping itself to conform to an individual’s basic beliefs and expectations about reality. The all-that-is is like a nervous new lover, eager to conform to the beloved’s illusions.

• Our basic beliefs and expectations about reality are entirely within our control. Which is to say, the suite of beliefs we use to order and understand the all-that-is are choices, not understandings or deductions or inevitabilities. Likewise, we are free to expect whatever we like. Note: this is not to say that we control the all-that-is. It is more as if the all-that-is is an agreeable maestro, presenting itself in a way that is consonant with the observer’s disposition. But even so, certain verities persist, which is why day-to-day reality does not shift instantly to accommodate our fancies, as in a lucid dream.

• This being the case, it makes sense to deliberately choose our beliefs and shape our expectations so that we gradually create the most enjoyable life possible. We can also, incidentally, change our pasts by deliberately reinterpreting our memories.

• There are myriad techniques that accomplish this restructuring: prayer, spells, visualizations, drugs, ritual, are just a few effective examples. Different entities tend to focus on different techniques.

• You can start now.

By dipping into Living with Joy regularly, my thinking has gradually taken on this world view. I now pay attention to the tenor of my thoughts, state my goals in positive language, assume responsibility for my circumstances, etc., etc. And consequently, reality is now different for me. Delightful synchronicities abound, I live in freedom, experience joy, and no longer feel that I am a victim in a hostile environment. My fundamental belief about the way the world works is that the all-that-is is a wish granting machine, and that it dances with me every day.

Cosmic Trigger, Robert Anton Wilson

I didn’t realize until compiling this list that I have read a lot of spiritual memoirs, and have been largely remade in their image. None have affected me more profoundly than Robert Anton Wilson’s (PBUH) Cosmic Trigger I : Final Secret of the Illuminati, the essential first volume of his three volume autobiography.

For me it has always been books, not teachers, that appeared when I was ready, and Cosmic Trigger showed up when I first decided in my heart—where it mattered—that I could no longer abide the fundamentalist Christian cult I had faithfully espoused for the first 17 years of my adult life. I knew others who had left what I was then pleased to call, “The Truth.” Some were always sad or bitter, some fairly groveled in their efforts to reinstate themselves, some gave themselves over to unattractive dissipation, and at least one—a smart fellow, like me—was dead of suicide. I didn’t know of any, at the time, who had made a success of their heresy and infidelity, none who had attained the happy, creative heathenism that I so craved.

Cosmic Trigger broke me open like a thunderbolt, like the divine bolt of lightning that is seen in the tarot’s Tower card, redefining an individual existence. It was Wilson’s contention that we all live in “reality tunnels,” self-manufactured existences made up of our beliefs, hopes, and fears about the way things ‘really’ are. Had he said only this, it would have been enough, for just the phrase and his explication gave me a way to understand and work with the morbid eschatology I had lived within for so long.

But Wilson went further, describing his experiments with “rapid brain change.” In his efforts to overcome a “normal” Catholic upbringing (and parenthetically, I have always found it fascinating that so many interesting writers have Catholic school in their past—might the need to assert themselves early against an ancient propaganda set them on the road to literature?) Wilson deliberately made use of the brutal shocks to consciousness available via psychedelic drugs, taboo violation, ceremonial (especially Crowleyan) magick, the books of James Joyce, Sufi exercises, and the like. And by writing constantly and surrounding himself with a good wife and good friends, he managed to integrate the inrush of change that resulted and ended up—at least by his own estimation—a happier and saner man.

I copied him. I ingested LSD and psilocybin and salvia divinorum and lots of pot, I donned ceremonial garb and performed pagan rites, and I attended Sufi dances. And I found my own way, as well; since the cult to which I had formerly been faithful especially reviled tobacco and tarot, I bought myself some fine cigars and learned to smoke them while laying out a Celtic cross, and since I had so repetitiously heard that the Boss of all-that-is hates extramarital sex I made sure to have some ASAP. And I’ve done other things, too, meditations and visualizations, group sex and odd sex, sought out strange places and strange companions, and through it all I wrote constantly and surrounded myself with good friends… the wives came and went. And of course I had the guidance of Wilson himself, via his many books, and I have to say that at the end of it all I am—by my own estimation—a happier and saner man.

Cosmic Trigger is, of course, more than an extreme self help program. Wilson’s thoughts on personas, for example, are revelatory and his insights into the writer’s life remain a guide for me. Most of all, he tells his tales of an interesting life and philosophy in the whiskey-warmed, unpretentious voice of an ideal barstool companion.

Buy it, read it, live it. You have nothing to lose but all your illusions.

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