Incunabula Papers
ecra...@my-deja.com
GATEWAY TO THE DIMENSIONS!
A full color brochure for the Institute of Chaos
Studies and the Moorish Science Ashram in Ong's
Hat, New Jersey.
Introductions
You would not be reading this brochure if you had
not already penetrated half-way to the ICS. You
have been searching for us without knowing it,
following oblique references in crudely xeroxed
marginal 'samsidat" publications, crackpot
mystical pamphlets, mail order courses in "Kaos
Magick"- a paper trail and a coded series of
rumors spread at street level through circles
involved in the illicit distribution of certain
controlled substances and the propagation of
certain acts of insurrection against the
Planetary Work Machine and the Consensus Reality -
or perhaps through various obscure mimeographed
technical papers on the edges of "chaos science" -
through pirate computer networks - or even
through pure synchronicity and the pursuit of
dreams. In any case we know something about you,
your interests, deeds and desires, works and
days - and we know your address.
Otherwise...you would not be reading this
brochure.
Background
During the 1970s and '80s, "chaos" began to
emerge as a new scientific paradigm,on a level of
importance with Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
It was born out of the mixing of many different
sciences - weather prediction, Catastrophe
Theory, fractal geometry, and the rapid
development of computer graphics capable of
plunging into the depths of fractals and "strange
attractors; "hydraulics and fluid turbulence,
evolutionary biology, mind/brain studies and
psychopharmacology also played major roles in
forming the new paradigm. The slogan "order out
of chaos" summed up the gist of this science,
whether it studied the weird fractional-
dimensional shapes underlying sworls of cigarette
smoke or the distribution of colors in marbled
paper - or else dealt with "harder" matters such
as heart fibrillation, particle beams or
population vectors. However, by the late '80s it
began to appear as if this "chaos movement" had
split apart into two opposite and hostile world-
views, one placing emphasis on chaos itself, the
other on *order*.
According to the latter sect - the Determinists -
chaos was the enemy, randomness a force to be
overcome or denied. They experienced the new
science as a final vindication of Classical
Newtonian physics, and as a weapon to be used
*against* chaos, a tool to map and predict
reality itself. For them, chaos was death and
disorder, entropy and waste.
The opposing faction however experienced chaos as
something benevolent, the necessary matrix out of
which arises spontaneously an infinity of
variegated forms - a pleroma rather than an
abyss - a principle of continual creation,
unstructured, fecund, beautiful, spirit of
wildness. These scientists saw chaos theory as
vindication of Quantum indeterminacy and Godel's
Proof, promise of an open-ended universe,
Cantorian infinities of potential...chaos as
*health*.
Easy to predict which of these two schools of
thought would receive vast funding and support
from governments, multi-nationals and
intelligence agencies. By the end of the
decade, "Quantum/Chaos" had been forced
underground, virtually censored by prestigious
scientific journals - which published only papers
by Determinists. The dissidents were reduced to
the level of the *margin* - and there they found
themselves part of yet another branch of the
paradigm, the underground of cultural chaos -
the "magicians" - and of political chaos-
extremist anti-authoritarian "mutants".
Unlike Relativity, which deals with the Macrocosm
of outer space, and Quantum, which deals with the
Microcosm of particle physics, chaos science
takes place largely within the Mesosphere -the
world as we experience it in "everyday life,"
from dripping faucets to banners flapping in the
autumn breezes. Precisely for this reason useful
experimental work in chaos can be carried on
without the hideous expense of cyclotrons and
orbital observatories. So even when the leading
theoreticians of Quantum/Chaos began to be fired
from university and corporate positions, they
were still able to pursue certain goals. Even
when they began to suffer political pressures as
well, and sought refuge and space among the
mutants and marginals, still they persevered. By
a paradox of history, their poverty and obscurity
forced them to narrow the scope of their research
to precisely those areas which would ultimately
produce concrete results - pure math, and the
mind - simply because these areas were relatively
inexpensive.
Up until the crash of '87, the "alternative
network" amounted to little more than a nebulous
weave of pen-pals and computer enthusiasts, Whole
Earth nostalgists, futurologists, anarchists,
food cranks, neo-pagans and cultists, self-
publishing punk poets, armchair schizophrenics,
survivalists and mail artists.The Crash however
opened vast but hard-to-see cracks in the social
and economic control structures of America.
Gradually the marginals and mutants began to fill
up those fissures with the wegs of their own
networking. Bit by bit they created a genuine
black economy, as well as a shifting
insubstantial "autonomous zone", impossible to
map but real enough in its various
manifestations.
The orphaned scientists of Q/C theory fell into
this invisible anti-empire like a catalyst-or
perhaps it was the other way around. In either
case, something crystallized. To explain the
precipitation of this jewel, we must move on to
the specific cases, people and stories.
History
The Moorish Orthodox Church of America is an
offshoot of the Moorish Science Temple, the New
World's first Islamic heretical sect, founded by
a black circus magician named Noble Drew Ali in
Newark, New jersey in 1913. In the 1950s some
white jazz musicians and poets who
held "passports" in the M.S.T. founded the
Moorish Orthodox Church, which also traced its
spiritual ancestry to various "Wandering Bishops"
loosely affiliated with the Old Catholic Church
and schisms of Syrian Orthodoxy. In the '60s the
church acquired a new direction from the
Psychedelic Movement, and for a while maintained
a presence at Timothy Leary's commune in
Millbrook, New York. At the same time the
discovery of sufism led certain of its members to
undertake journeys to the East.
One of these Americans, known by the Moorish name
Wali Fard, traveled for years in India, Perisa,
and Afghanistan, where he collected an impressive
assortment of exotic initiations: Tantra in
Calcutta, from an old member of the Bengali
Terrorist Party; sufism from the Ovayssi Order in
Shiraz, which rejects all human masters and
insists on visionary experience; and finally, in
the remote Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan, he
converted to an archaic form of Ismailism (the so-
called Assassins) blended out of Buddhist Yab-Yum
teachings, indigenous shamanic sorcery and
extremist Shiite revolutionary philosophy-
worshipers of the *Umm al-kitab*, the "Matrix
Book."
Up until the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and
the reactionary orthodox "revolution" in Iran,
Fard carried on trade in carpets and other well-
known Afghan exports. When history forced him to
return to America in 1978, he was able to launder
his savings by purchasing about 200 acres of land
in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Around the turn
of the decade he moved into an old rod & gun club
on the property along with several runaway boys
from Paramus, New Jersey, and an anarchist
lesbian couple from Brooklyn, and founded the
Moorish Science Ashram.
Through the early-to-mid-'80s the commune's
fortunes fluctuated (sometimes nearly flickering
out). Fard self-published a series of
xeroxed "Visionary Recitals" in which he
attempted a synthesis of heretical and antinomian
spirituality, post-Situationist politics, and
chaos science. After the Crash, a number of
destitute Moors and sympathizers began turning up
at the Ashram seeking refuge. Among them were two
young chaos scientists recently fired from
Princeton (on a charge of "seditious nonsense"),
a brother and sister, Frank and Althea Dobbs.
The Dobbs twins spent their early childhood on a
UFO-cult commune in rural Texas, founded by their
father, a retired insurance salesman who was
murdered by rogue disciples during a revival in
California. One might say that the siblings had a
head start in chaos - and the Ashram's modus
vivendi suited them admirably. (The Pine Barrens
have often been called "a perfect place for a UFO
landing.") They settled into an old Airstream
trailer and constructed a crude laboratory in a
rebuilt barn hidden deep in the Pines. Illegal
sources of income were available from
agricultural projects, and the amorphous
community took shape around the startling
breakthroughs made by the Dobbs twins during the
years around the end of the decade.
As undergraduates at the University of Texas the
siblings had produced a series of equations
which, they felt certain, contained the seeds of
a new science they called "cognitive chaos."
Their dismissal from Princeton followed their
attempt to submit these theorems, along with a
theoretical/philosophical system built upon them,
as a joint PhD thesis.
On the assumption that brain activity can be
modeled as a "fractal universe," an outre'
topology interfacing with both random and
determined forces, the twins' theorems showed
that consciousness itself could be presented as a
set of "strange attractors" (or "patterns of
chaos") around which specific neuronal activity
would organize itself. By a bizarre synthesis of
Mandelbrot and Cantor, they "solved the problem"
of n-dimensional attractors, many of which they
were able to generate on Princeton's powerful
computers before their hasty departure. While
realizing the ultimately indeterminate nature of
these "mind maps," they felt that by attaining a
thorough (non- intuitive and intuitive) grasp of
the actual *shapes* of the attractors, one
could "ride with chaos" somewhat as a "lucid
dreamer" learns to contain and direct the process
of REM sleep. Their aborted thesis suggested a
boggling array of benefits which might accrue
from such from such links between cybernetic
processes and awareness itself, including the
exploration of the brain's unused capacities,
awareness of the morphogenetic field and thus
conscious control of autonomic functions, mind-
directed repair of tissue at the cellular/genetic
level (control over most diseases and the aging
process), and even a direct perception of the
Heisenbergian behavior of matter ( a process they
called "surfing the wave function"). Their thesis
advisor told them that even the most modest of
these proposals would suffice for their
expungement from the Graduate Faculty - and if
the whole concept (including theorems) were not
such obvious lunacy, he would have reported them
to the FBI as well.
Two more scientists - already residents of Ong's
Hat - joined with Fard and the twins in founding
the Institute of Chaos studies. By sheer "chance"
their work provided the perfect counterparts to
the Dobbs' research. Harold Acton, an expatriate
British computer (and reality-hacker, had already
linked 64 second-hand personal computers into a
vast ad-hoc system based on his own I Ching
oriented speculations. And Martine Kallikak, a
native of the Barrens from nearby Chatsworth, had
set up a machine shop.
Ironically, Martine's ancestors once provided
guinea pigs for a notorious study in eugenics
carried out in the 1920s at the Vineland NJ State
Home for the Insane. Published as a study
in "heredity and feeblemindness," the work
proclaimed poverty, non-ordinary sexuality,
reluctance to hold a steady job, and enjoyment of
intoxicants as *proofs* of genetic decay - and
thus made a lasting contribution to the legend of
bizarre and lovecraftian Piney backwoodspeople,
incestuous hermits of the bogs. Martine had long
since proven herself a *bricoleuse*, electronics
buff and back-lot inventor of great genius and
artistry. With the arrival of the Dobbs twins,
she discovered her tre metier' in the realization
of various devices for the implementation of
their proposed experiments.
The synergy level at the ICS exceeded all
expectations. Contacts with other underground
experts in various related fields were maintained
by "black modem" as well as personal visits to
the Ashram. The spiritual rhythms permeating the
place proved ideal: periods of dazed lazy
contemplation and applied hedonics alternating
with "peak" bursts of self-overcoming activity
and focused attention. The hodgepodge of "Moorish
Science" (Tantra, sufism, Ismaili esotericism,
alchemy and psychopharmacology, bio-feedback
and "brain machine" meditation techniques, etc.)
seemed to harmonize in unexpectedly fruitful ways
with the "pure" science of the ICS.
Under these conditions progress proved amazingly
swift, stunning even the Institutes founders.
Within a year major advances had been made in all
the fields predicted by the equations. Somewhat
more than three years after founding there
occurred the breakthrough, the discovery which
served to re-orient our entire project in a new
direction: the Gate.
But to explain the Gate we must retrace some
steps, and reveal exactly the purposes and goals
of the ICS and Moorish Science Ashram - the
curriculum upon which our activities are based,
and which constitutes our *raison d'etre.*
The Curriculum
The original and still ultimate concern of our
community is the enhancement of consciousness and
consequent enlargement of mental, emotional and
psychic activities. When the Ashram was founded
by W.Fard the only means available for this work
were the bagful of oriental and occultist
meditational techniques he had learned in Central
Asia, the first-generation "mind machines"
developed during the '80s, and the resources of
exotic pharmacology.
With the first successes of the Dobbs twin's
research, it became obvious to us that the
spiritual knowledge of the Ashramites could be re-
organized into a sort of preparatory course of
training for workers in "Cognitive Chaos." This
does not mean we surrendered our original
purpose - attainment of non-ordinary
consciousness - but simply that ICS work could be
viewed as a prolongation and practical
application of the Ashram work. The theorems
allow us to re-define "self liberation" to
include physical self-renewal and life-extension
as well as the exploration of material reality
which (we maintain) remains *one* with the
reality of consciousness. In this project, the
kind of awareness fostered by meditational
techniques plays a part just as vital as the
*techne'* of machines and the pure mentation of
mathematics.
In this scenario, the theorems - or at least a
philosophical understanding of them - serve the
purpose of an abstract *icon* for contemplation.
Thus the theorems can be absorbed or englobed to
the point where they become part of the inner
structure (or "deep grammar" ) of the mind
itself.
In the first stage, intellectual comprehension of
the theorems parallels spiritual work aimed at
refining the faculty of *attention*. At the same
time a kind of psychic anchor is constructed, a
firm grounding in celebratory body-awareness. The
erotic and sensual for us cannot be ritualized
and aimed at anything "higher" than themselves -
rather, they constitute the very ground on which
our dance is performed, and the atmosphere or
taste which permeates or whole endeavor.
We symbolize this first course of work by the
tripartite Sanskrit term
satchitananda, "Being/consciousness/bliss" - the
ontological level symbolized by the theorems, the
psychological level by the meditation, the level
of joy by our "tantrik" activity. The second
course (which can begin at any time during or
after the first) involves practical instruction
in a variety of "hard sciences", especially
evolutionary biology and genetics, brain
physiology, Quantum Mechanics and computer
hacking. We have no need for these disciplines in
any academic sense - in fact our work has already
overturned many existing paradigms in these
fields and rendered the textbooks useless for our
purposes - so we have tailored these courses
specifically for relevance to our central
concern, and jettisoned everything extraneous.
At this point a Fellow of the ICS is prepared for
work with the device we call the "egg." This
consists of a modified sensory-deprivation
chamber in which attention can be focused on a
computer terminal and screen. Electrodes are
taped to various body parts to provide
physiological data which is fed into the
computer. The explorer now dons a peculiar
helmet, a highly sophisticated fourth-generation
version of the early "brain machines," which can
sonically stimulate brain cells either globally
or locally and in various combinations, thus
directing not only "brain waves" but also highly
specific mental-physical functions. The helmet is
also plugged into the computer and provides
feedback in various programmed ways.
The explorer now undertakes a series of exercises
in which the theorems are used to generate
graphic animations of the "strange attractors"
which map various states of consciousness,
setting up feedback loops between
this "iconography" and the actual states
themselves, which are in turn generated through
the helmet simultaneously with their
representation on the screen. Certain of these
exercises involve the "alchemical" use of mind-
active drugs, including new vasopressin
derivatives, beta-endorphins and hallucinogens
(usually in "threshold" dosages). Some of these
tinctures are simply to provide active-relaxation
and focused-attention states, others are
specifically linked to the requirements
of "Cognitive Chaos" research.
Even in the earliest and crudest stages of the
egg's development the ICS founders quickly
realized that many of the Dobbs twins' PhD thesis
predictions might be considered cautious or
conservative. Enhanced control of autonomous body
functions was attained even in the second-
generation version, and the third provided a kind
of bathysphere capable of "diving "down even to
the cellular level. Certain unexpected side-
effects included phenomena usually classified as
paranormal. We knew we were not hallucinating all
this, quite bluntly, because we obtained concrete
and measurable results, not only in terms
of "yogic powers" (such as suspended
animation, "inner heat," lucid dreaming and the
like) but also in observable benefits to health:
rapid healing, remission of chronic conditions,
absence of disease.
At this point in development of the egg (third
generation) the researchers attempted
to "descend" (like SciFi micronauts) to the
Quantum level.
Perhaps the thorniest of all Quantum paradoxes
involves the "collapse of the wave function" -the
state of Schrodinger's famous cat. When does a
wave "become" a particle? At the moment of
observation? If so does this implicate human
consciousness in the actual Q-structure of
reality itself? By observing do we in
effect "create?" The ICS team's ultimate dream
was to "ride the wave" and actually experience
(rather than merely observe) the function-
collapse. Through "participation" in Q-events, it
was hoped that the observer/observed duality
could be overcome or evaded.
This hope was based on rather "orthodox"
Copenhagian interpretations of Quantum reality.
After some months of intensive work, however, no
one had experienced the sought-for and
expected "moment"...each wave seemed to flow as
far as one cared to ride it, like some perfect
surfer's curl extending to infinity. We began to
suspect that the answer to the question "when?"
might be "never!" This contingency had been
described rigorously in only one interpretation
of Q-reality, that of J.Wheeler - who proved that
the wave function need never collapse provided
that every Q-event gives rise to an "alternating
world" (the Cat is both alive and dead).
To settle this question a fourth generation of
the egg was evolved and tested, while
simultaneously a burst of research was carried
out in the abstruse areas of "Hillbert space" and
the topology of n-dimensional geometry, on the
intuitive assumptions that new "attractors" could
thereby be generated and used to visualize
or "grok" the transitions between alternate
universes.
Again the ICS triumphed...although the immediate
success of the fourth-generation egg provoked a
moment of fear and panic unmatched in the whole
history of "Cognitive Chaos."
The first run-through of the "Cat" program was
undertaken by a young staff-member of great
brilliance (one of the original Paramus runaways)
whose nickname happened to be Kit - and it
happened to take place on the Spring Equinox. At
the precise moment the heavens changed gears, so
to speak, the entire egg vanished from the
laboratory.
Consternation would be a mild term for what
ensued. For about seven minutes the entire ICS
lost its collective cool. At that point however
the egg reappeared with its passenger intact and
beaming...like Alice's Chesire Cat rather than
Schrodinger's poor victim.
He had succeeded in riding the wave to
its "destination" - an alternate universe. He had
observed it and - in his words - "memorized its
address." Instinctively he felt that certain
dimensional universes must act as "strange
attractors" in their own right, and are thus far
easier to access (more "probable") than others.
In practical terms, he had not been dissolved but
had found the way to a "universe next door."
The Gateway had been opened.
Where is Ong's Hat?
According to Piney legend, the village of Ong's
Hat was founded sometime in the 19th century when
a man named Ong threw his hat up in the air,
landed it in a tree and was unable to retrieve it
(we like to think it vanished into another
world). By the 1920s all traces of settlement
other than a few crumbling chimneys had faded
away. But the name appealed so much to
cartographers that some of them retained it - a
dot representing nothing in the midst of the most
isolated flat dark scrub-pines and sandy creeks
in all the vast, empty and perhaps haunted
Barrens. W.Fard's acreage lies in the invisible
suburbs of this invisible town, of which we are
the sole inhabitants. You can find it easily on
old survey maps, even trace out the the old dirt
road leading into the bogs where a little square
represents the decrepit "Ong's Hat Rod & Gun
Club," original residence. However, you might
discover that finding the ICS itself is not so
simple.
If you compare your old survey map with the very
latest, you will note that our area lies
perilously close to the region infamous in recent
years, the South Jersey Nuclear Waste Dump near
Fort Dix. The "accident" that occurred there has
made the Barrens even more empty and unpopular,
as any hard-core Pineys fled the pollution
melting into the state's last untouched
wilderness. The electrified fence shutting off
the deadly zone runs less than a mile above our
enclave.
The Accident occurred while we were in the first
stages of developing the fourth-generation egg,
the Gate. At the time we had no idea of its full
potential. However all of us, except for the very
youngest (who were evacuated), had by then been
trained in elementary self-directed generation. A
few tests proved that with care and effort we
could resist at least the initial onslaught of
radiation sickness. We decided to stick it out,
at least until "the authorities" (rather than the
dump) proved too hot to endure.
Once the Gate was discovered, we realized the
situation had been saved. The opening and actual
interdimensional travel, can only be effected by
a fully trained "cognitive chaote;" so the first
priority was to complete the course for all our
members. A technique for "carrying" young
children was developed (it seems not to work for
adult "non-initiates"), and it was discovered
that all inanimate matter within the egg is also
carried across with the operator.
Little by little we carted our entire
establishment (including most of the buildings)
across the topological abyss.Unlike Baudelaire
who pleaded, "Anywhere! - so long as out of this
world!" we knew where we were going. Ong's Hat
has indeed vanished from New Jersey, except for
the hidden laboratory deep in the backwoods where
the gate "exists."
On the other side of the Gate we found a Pine
Barrens similar to ours but in a world which
apparently never developed human life. Of course
we have since visited a number of other worlds,
but we decided to colonize this one, our first
newfoundland. We still live in the same
scattering of weather-gray shacks, Airstream
trailers, recycled chicken coops, and mail-order
yurts, only a bit more spread out - and
considerably more relaxed. We're still dependent
on your world for many things - from coffee to
books to computers - and in fact we have no
inclination of cutting ourselves off like
anchorites and merely scampering into a
dreamworld.We intend to spread the word.
The colonization of new worlds - even an infinity
of them - can never act as a panacea for the ills
of Consensus Reality - only as a palliative. We
have always taken our diseases with us to each
new frontier...everywhere we go we exterminate
aborigines and battle with our weapons of law and
order against the chaos of reality.
But this time, we believe, the affair will go
differently- because this time the journey
outward can only be made simultaneously with the
journey inward - and because this bootstrap-trick
can only be attained by a consciousness which, to
a significant degree, has overcome itself,
liberated itself from self-sickness -
and "realized itself." Not that we think
ourselves saints, or try to behave morally, or
imagine ourselves a super-race, absolved from
good and evil. Simply, we like to consider
ourselves awake when we're awake, sleeping when
we sleep. We enjoy good health. We have learned
that desire demands the *other* just as it
demands the self. We see no end to growth while
life lasts, no cessation of unfolding, of
continual outpouring of form from chaos. We're
moving on, nomads or monads of the dimensions.
Sometimes we feel almost satisfied...at other
times, terrified.
Meanwhile our agents of chaos remain behind to
set up ICS courses, distribute Moorish Orthodox
literature (a major mask for our propaganda) to
subvert and evade our enemies...We haven't spoken
yet of our enemies. Indeed there remains much we
have not said. This text, disguised as a sort of
New Age vacation brochure, must fall silent at
this point, satisfied that it has embedded within
itself enough clues for its intended readers (who
are already halfway to Ong's hat in any case) but
not enough for those with little faith to follow.
CHAOS NEVER DIED!
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Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
ecra...@my-deja.com
weird fractional-dimensional shapes underlying sworls of cigarette
smoke or the distribution of colors in marbled paper - or else dealt
with "harder" matters such as heart fibrillation, particle beams or
population vectors. However, by the late '80s it began to appear as if
this "chaos movement" had split apart into two opposite and hostile
world-views, one placing emphasis on chaos itself, the other on
*order*.
and cultists, self-publishing punk poets, armchair schizophrenics,
other well-known Afghan exports. When history forced him to return to
functions, mind-directed repair of tissue at the cellular/genetic level
re-organized into a sort of preparatory course of training for workers
the "alchemical" use of mind-active drugs, including new vasopressin
derivatives, beta-endorphins and hallucinogens (usually in "threshold"
dosages). Some of these tinctures are simply to provide active-
relaxation and focused-attention states, others are specifically linked
to the requirements of "Cognitive Chaos" research.
Even in the earliest and crudest stages of the egg's development the
ICS founders quickly realized that many of the Dobbs twins' PhD thesis
predictions might be considered cautious or conservative. Enhanced
control of autonomous body functions was attained even in the second-
generation version, and the third provided a kind of bathysphere
capable of "diving "down even to the cellular level. Certain unexpected
side-effects included phenomena usually classified as paranormal. We
knew we were not hallucinating all this, quite bluntly, because we
obtained concrete and measurable results, not only in terms of "yogic
powers" (such as suspended animation, "inner heat," lucid dreaming and
the like) but also in observable benefits to health: rapid healing,
remission of chronic conditions, absence of disease.
At this point in development of the egg (third generation) the
researchers attempted to "descend" (like SciFi micronauts) to the
Quantum level.
Perhaps the thorniest of all Quantum paradoxes involves the "collapse
of the wave function" -the state of Schrodinger's famous cat. When does
a wave "become" a particle? At the moment of observation? If so does
this implicate human consciousness in the actual Q-structure of reality
itself? By observing do we in effect "create?" The ICS team's ultimate
dream was to "ride the wave" and actually experience (rather than
merely observe) the function-collapse. Through "participation" in Q-
events, it was hoped that the observer/observed duality could be
overcome or evaded.
liberated itself from self-sickness -and "realized itself." Not that we