psychoceramics: (fwd) Grateful Dead--Covert Social Engineering for Gaia? (fwd)

[acb @ cs.monash.edu.au (Andrew C. Bulhak)]

Conspiracy theory of the day:  the Grateful Dead, the MIT Media Lab,
the WELL, WIRED, etc., are part of a gigantic New World Order conspiracy.

----- Forwarded message from Jamie Cameron -----

From: jcameron @ wibble.ontc.ncb.gov.sg (Jamie Cameron)
To: a--@c--.monash.edu.au
Subject: (fwd) Grateful Dead--Covert Social Engineering for Gaia?
Newsgroups: talk.environment,alt.conspiracy,alt.politics.libertarian
Content-Type: text


The Grateful Dead conspiracy.. from A-albionic of course  :)

From: James Daugherty <jhdaugh @ a-albionic.com>
Newsgroups: talk.environment,alt.conspiracy,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Grateful Dead--Covert Social Engineering for Gaia?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 00:23:20 -0500 (EST)
From: MARK STAHLMAN <newmedia @ MCI.NEWSCORP.COM>
To: owner-p--@c--.aa.msen.com
Subject: Who Are The Grateful Dead, Anyway?

Folks:

The Grateful Dead.  Hmm . . . now what the bithose does that mean? 
Who would be grateful (i.e. thankful, welcome) to be dead.  Stone cold
dead but grateful for the experience?  What a truly bizarre notion -- to
be grateful to be dead.  Oops, it's just the name of a band . . . I forgot.

Well, it's supposed to be a medieval reference -- when, in the last Dark
Age, presumably most souls would have preferred death to life.   You
know, dancing skeletons and ritual daggers stuck in skulls.   With
plagues, endless suffering, and life as a serf, life as a slave, yup, you or I
might even be grateful to be dead.  And, if things were heading towards
a new Dark Age (or so you thought), perhaps it would be a good idea to
champion the cause of death over life.   Oops, don't take any of this too
literally, it's just the name of a band . . . I forgot.

If it seemed that policies which elevated the "eco-sphere" over humanity
(as Bateson insisted), demanded the extermination of, say, 3 billion or so
souls, just to restore the natural "balance" and to protect Mother Earth
from humanity then, perhaps, it would be so much more pleasant if those
who died were grateful for their release.  Attacking economic
development and nation-states implies a fundamental reordering of
human affairs -- towards a new Dark Age.  Working for the "Stewards"
(whose job according to Jaron Lanier is simply to protect Nature from
humanity) to help them harness the "psychopathology" of future-shock is
surely only another step in the direction of mass human carnage.  Oops,
if they were called the "Eco-Fascists" then this might all make sense, but
The Grateful Dead is the name of a different band . . . I forgot.

How about if we just agreed that humanity was literally "information" like
everything else we see around us?  How about if we agreed that this
"information" could someday be extracted -- downloaded -- from our
preserved and frozen flesh?  How about if we agreed that the "born" and
the "made" were inevitably going to merge (WIRED executive editor
Kevin Kelly's theme in "Out of Control") and that a much, much better
world was going to come when this merger was eventually carried out? 
Why not end it all soon, freeze our heads, and wait for a better time
when the future of technology would liberate our "information" into an
immortal cyborg-world?  And, then why not call our movement
"Extropian" and got some publicity as techno-optimists from brother
Lanier.   Oops, who said the "Dead" were optimists at all, it's just the
name of a band . . . I forgot.

But, a very unusual band indeed.  Begun as the house band for the
Merry Pranksters (an intelligence creation spawned by psy-war maestro
Gregory Bateson at the Palo Alto VA hospital's LSD experiments) and
responsible for the earliest public efforts to put LSD in the water supply
(yup, the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests), the band-previously-known-as-
the-Warlocks is not very usual at all.  Yes, Stuart Brand (EFF, Global
Business Network, MIT Media Lab and, of course, the Whole Earth/WELL)
was the publicist for the Pranksters.  Yes, the acid came from the KGB
(the Czechs supplied both the finished product and the Ergot precursors
for Owsley after Sandoz pulled out).  Yes, the band created the largest
group of zombies since the voodoo "night-of-the-living-dead" cults of the
colonial Caribbean.  But, pay no attention to those apparent secret
government tie-ins, these guys were outlaws and it's just the name of a
band . . . I forgot.

Death and LSD?  Any connection?  Does anyone remember what British
Intelligence agent Michael Hollingshead (he was and he wrote "The Man
Who Turned on the World") took to London in the fall of 1965 when he
was preparing the Beatles and the rest of the lads who needed to be
good and  revved up for the "British Invasion" of America?  He took 5000
hits of Czech LSD and a boatload of Tim Leary's "Tibetean Book of the
Dead."  The guide book was no accident.  Re-incarnation is the goal,
isn't it?  Who wouldn't rather come back in a better, even Newer age?  If
you did LSD the right way, the truly religious way, you (psychologically)
died.  Gratefully.  Deadhead.  Dead in the head.  Get it?

Sigmund Freud in his book "Civilization and It's Discontents" spoke of the
struggle between Eros and Thanatos -- Life and Death.  He seems to
have been convinced that Death would eventually win out as civilization
crushed the raging beast within.  His disciple, Wilhelm Reich thought Eros
would win out.  Freud got orthodoxy; Reich got prison.  But, pay no
attention to the apparent connections to other manisfestations of death-
cults, The Grateful Dead is just the name of a band . . . I forgot.

When you consider the issue of whether this technology is leading to
liberty or slavery, remember that it's the same as the question of life or
death (Eros or Thanatos) -- literally and on a mass scale.  And, when you
think about the greatest brandnames of all time, don't forget the Grateful
Dead.  They were a top grossing act that sold a grand and glorious
product -- death.  RIP.  Get your Jerry Garcia ties while they last.

So, who is John Perry Barlow, anyway?  Why he's a famous lyricist for the
Grateful Dead, of course.  Ever actually listen to his lyrics -- in concert or
on the Net?  They'll be very helpful, perhaps even soothing . . .  if you'd
like to die.  Gratefully.

Mark Stahlman
New Media Associates
New York City

Forwarded for Comments and Discussion, Not Necessarily Endorsed by:
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 - Jamie


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