informis/textfiles
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull Requests Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity

Initial commit

Browse Source
This commit is contained in:
root@procul
2021-04-15 13:31:59 -05:00
commit 278a90f7ce
57951 changed files with 34606208 additions and 0 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files
magazines/INTERZINE/index.gemini
+9
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
# INTERZINE
InterZine (1993)
## FILES
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/INTERZINE/interzine.01 [ 25455] INTERZINE #1 - A Talk with Jagwire X (January 27th, 1993)
=> gemini://informis.land/textfiles/magazines/INTERZINE/interzine.02 [ 15718] INTERZINE #2 - A Take with Peter Meyer (June 11, 1993)
magazines/INTERZINE/interzine.01
+429
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,429 @@
From emv@msen.com Ukn Jan 27 02:28:24 1993
Received: from totalrecall.rs.itd.umich.edu by css.itd.umich.edu (5.67/2.2)
id AA18632; Wed, 27 Jan 93 02:28:22 -0500
Received: from garnet.msen.com by umich.edu (5.65/2.2)
id AA26360; Wed, 27 Jan 93 02:28:04 -0500
Received: by garnet.msen.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.25.1 #25.5)
id <m0nH7BW-001IDYC@garnet.msen.com>; Wed, 27 Jan 93 02:27 WET
Message-Id: <m0nH7BW-001IDYC@garnet.msen.com>
To: billy@cic.net, pauls@umich.edu
Subject: (fwd) INTERZINE #1 - A Talk with Jagwire X
Newsgroups: alt.zines
Organization: Msen, Inc. -- Ann Arbor, Michigan
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 02:27:27 EST
From: Edward Vielmetti <emv@msen.com>
Status: RO
X-Status:
Newsgroups: alt.zines
Path: nigel.msen.com!hela.iti.org!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!fuug!anon
From: an3191@anon.penet.fi
Subject: INTERZINE #1 - A Talk with Jagwire X
Fcc: +answers
Message-ID: <1993Jan23.050116.27097@fuug.fi>
Sender: anon@fuug.fi (The Anon Administrator)
Organization: Anonymous contact service
X-Anonymously-To: alt.zines
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 02:43:37 GMT
Lines: 398
Forwarded message:
>From wixer!cactus.org!lambada.oit.unc.edu!Mitchell.Porter@cs.utexas.edu Wed Jan 20 04:58:54 1993
Message-Id: <9301190613.AA11432@lambada.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: INTERZINE #1 - A Talk with Jagwire X
Fcc: +answers
To: future@nyx.cs.du.edu
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 93 1:13:03 EST
From: Mitchell Porter <wixer!cactus.org!lambada.oit.unc.edu!Mitchell.Porter@cs.utexas.edu>
Cc: autopia@cactus.org
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4dev PL65]
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text
Content-Length: 23650
INTERZINE #1 --- JAGWIRE X (jagwire@wixer.cactus.org)
Interzine is an irregular e-zine devoted to "interviews in cyberspace".
It may be copied and distributed freely.
This is a chat via IRC with Jagwire X, who recently created
the AUtopia mailing list (send subscription requests to
autopia-request@wixer.cactus.org) to discuss the idea of an
autonomous "New Edge" colony on an ocean-going vessel. He can also be
reached at the CyberSpace Institute BBS @ +1.512.469.0447.
/who #AUtopia
Channel Nickname S User@Host (Name)
#AUtopia Velax H daemon@BRADENVILLE.ANDREW.CMU.EDU
(bblk09.edn.gu.edu.au)
#AUtopia Jagwire X G@ anonymous@mickey.cc.utexas.edu (anonymous)
Velax > Jagwire? this is mitch
Jagwire X > Hey.
Velax > I'm just sending you mail but I guess I can abort that
Velax > Where are you physically?
Jagwire X > Austin, Texas, USA
Jagwire X > And you?
Velax > A computer lab, Griffith University, MT Gravatt campus,
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Jagwire X > What time is it? 6.00am or so?
Velax > about 10 or 11 am here, I think..
Velax > So you're in someone's apartment.. your own?.. on a terminal
over a modem, linked to a unix system..
Jagwire X > My apartment. Connect to the University of Texas via. my
modem.
Velax > Right.. I am always curious about the nature of a person's
access to the net, since I suspect that different people "see"
it in very different ways
Jagwire X > Are we interviewing, yet?
Velax > :) good question
Velax > I've got "capture" running
Velax > So I guess this is "raw material" at the very least
Jagwire X > Cool... well I'm ready whenever you are. Yeah. I interviewed
Andy Hawks this way (more or less).
Velax > The first thing I always wanted to ask you, was: what *is* a
jagwire?
Jagwire X > Well, it cam about this way: I was driving a rental car while
tripping on acid and I had been reading a bunch of c-punk lit
at the time and I saw a huge billboard for a jaguar (the car).
And I had been thinking about aliases at the time, and I had
been thinking about aliases at the time, and I have always had
an affinity for cats. So I sort of combined, jaguar/hardwired
into a single polychromatic word.
Velax > aha..
Velax > I had thought maybe a "jagwire" was some sort of "phreaker's
phriend", like a "plumber's helper".. some sort of wire you
stick in a machine to get it to do something
Jagwire X > Hey there's an idea. Maybe I'll invent something like that.
Velax > okay, so that's the jagwire part.. what about the "X"? is that
a Malcolm X reference? or something more generic?
Jagwire X > Oh, oh yeah... also jag <which means more or less to be
wired>. The X is sort of an exclamation. Say, to make it more
severe.
Velax > hmm.. I thought it was meant to connote anonymity, like you had
to keep an alias in order to hide yourself from the forces of
law 'n order..I was just curious because both you and Blade X
have that extra 'x' on the end I thought it might be a .. not a
common thing, not a fashionable thing, but still a symbol
understood by a certain group of people, anyhow, aliases aren't
tremendously important.
Jagwire X > Yeah, Blade X got it from me and Menken X (who was cosysop on
my BBS for a long time). To me and Menken X it is symbol, of
what? Probably cynicism and craziness.
Velax > heh
Velax > Your bbs - that was where you interviewed Andy Hawks?
Jagwire X > Right, yeah. He graciously called it long distance.
Velax > Gee, that must have been expensive
Jagwire X > Probably around $15 American.
Velax > So you run a bbs, and you're also creator of the whole AUtopia
enterprise, which I plan to get to in a moment; do you have any
other "enterprises"?
Jagwire X > Um... well, I am going to try once again to publish my 'zine
(SunDog). My girlfriend just bought a photocopier so... it
will be easier. Other than that I would say just general
wreaking havoc on cyberspace... blah blah blah.
Velax > SunDog, yeah.. I had that word written down somewhere, as
something to ask about.. what would distinguish your zine from
the other underground / new edge zines that are already out
there? would it have a net incarnation as well as a hard copy
one, the way scream baby is the net form of screamin' me-me?
Jagwire X > Yeah, it would be published both hardcopy and on the net. And
it will be small, more like rantings from the bowels of
cyberspace. Scream Baby is the net form of Scream N *me*mes
which is also electronic but quarterly (I think, or at least it
was)
Velax > "rantings from the bowels of cyberspace".. *grin*
Jagwire X > SunDog will probably be written by Menken X and I only.
Velax > Is there a particular view or philosophy you would try to
promote?
Jagwire X > Hmm... yeah, I guess there is. I am trying to promote more
substance to the form that is developing. Seems to me that the
whole New Edge movement lacks any real direction. That's what
the whole AUtopia thing is about, really.
Velax > aha, okay
Velax > Well then, what is *your* philosophy? what do you think it's
all about? you said in the Andy Hawks interview you had your
life turned upside down by Wilson and Leary at age 14, or
something like that..
Jagwire X > Yeah, Wilson and Leary pretty much mangled my soft and mushy
grey matter.
Velax > heh
Velax > AUtopia certainly sounds like a goal in which just about the
whole 'new edge' could participate
Jagwire X > As for AUtopia I certainly hope so. I haven't really done much
with it since Thanksgiving, but I now am getting some free
time.
Velax > Where did the idea of an offshore new-edge colony come from?
Hagbard Celine? "Islands in the Net"?
Jagwire X > Well, actually. No. It may have lodged itself in there
sometime on the past. What really brought it on was a
discussion, similar to this, about the New Edge.
Velax > I guess you just have to look at the world around you and ask,
"where can you *go*, physically, and be free?" and all the land
is taken up by the nation-states, so that leaves space, or the
sea..
Jagwire X > Right, exactly. Where can I go to be free to pursue a life
without being policed by immature children playing with guns.
Velax > And you were saying..? that there was no direction, or no
common goal? [in that discussion, that is]
Jagwire X > In that discussion. Yeah, there seems to be a lack of 'hard'
ideas to work toward, or even 'soft' ideas for that matter.
Velax > Okay, so assuming that at some point in the future theres no
kids with guns around to bother the would-be new-edge
explorers.. what sort of directions are you interested in?
in the last AUtopia draft I saw you had everything from
nanotech to nootropics as topics of research
Jagwire X > Well, yeah, I am interested in technology and how it can be
used to improve the human condition. I am a big fan of
Buckminster Fuller. I agree with him that all life is
technology, and with the possibilities of nanotech and
geneering it will be possible..to actually control the
technology of life. I just want to live long enough for this
to be able to happen. Wilson and Leary convinced me (at 14)
that I wanted to live forever (more or less, or at least until
I get bored).
Velax > Have you ever read fm2030 [fm esfandiary?] are you on the
extropians list?
Jagwire X > I haven't read that. I am on the Extropian essay list.
Velax > But not the extropian general discussion list. Very high
traffic, there.
Velax > esfandiary is another "transhumanist" philosopher
Velax > So.. ideally, AUtopia could be a spawning ground for the
technologies and ways of life in the fuller-wilson-leary sort
of future, where the limits on the human condition are those of
imagination rather than biology?
Jagwire X > Yeah, exactly. A mecca for creation. A veritable cauldron of
technological fertility.
Velax > Well, I hope it happens. So far there's a mailing list and an
irc channel..
Jagwire X > Yeah, me too. The mailing list is somewhat slow these days,
but that will change soon, I hope.
Velax > How do things look to you as far as the logistics
of actually acquiring an old destroyer, or something like that,
& fitting it out with all the communications tech, etc, that
you're after?
Jagwire X > Well, right now they look bleak. I am certain that will
change, I need to spend sometime coordinating with people and
see what's out there. Right now, we are still mulling over the
possibilities. There should be another FAQ out any time now
with more...ideas, possibilities and philosophy attached to it.
Velax > Version 4.0?
Jagwire X > Yeah. 4.0 Maybe even some sketches in GIF format will be
available soon too.
Velax > Have you contacted Pat Salsbury about his "Oceana" proposal at
all? I seem to recall that going out over exi-essay.
Jagwire X > Actually, I was contacted. I have yet to get back to him, but
I am anticipating a mutual exchange of information.
Velax > Yeah.. I only skimmed his proposal, but it was full of the
countercultural technosocial ideas, like Wilson's "trade aids"
also at one time on the main extropians list there was a thread
about "ocean colonization" but I don't know what came of that.
you could ask someone who's a subscriber to check their
archives for that thread.
Jagwire X > It looks more thought out than mine, I'd say. But soon I think
we will be on par. Yeah, I been meaning to subscribe to it
myself
Velax > hmm. I think you had more details about what might be going on,
on board.
Velax > Did you know that R A Wilson in Cosmic Trigger II says that
when he was a young anarchist he was interested in setting up
anarchist colonies in international waters? maybe you should
contact *him* too & see if he has any references or contacts or
ideas that could be relevant.
Jagwire X > Cool, I haven't read Cosmic Trigger II yet.
Velax > The book's actually dedicated to Buckminster Fuller
Jagwire X > Heh, cool, not surprising though.
Velax > So what else specifically does the AUtopia project need now?
apart from subscribers to the mailing list.
Jagwire X > People, who are interested in working on it, gathering info,
coordinating various aspects. Mostly organizational stuff at
this point. Later it will need people (the same ones
hopefully) who want to do physical work.
Velax > So you'd hope to soon reach the point where there is
effectively a specialization amongst the interested people? I
mean, one looking at legal stuff, another at onboard comm tech,
and so on..
Jagwire X > Yeah, I'd like to see different working groups that can get
down to the nitty gritty of various aspects of the project.
Once that happens things will get rolling.
Velax > The previous AUtopia "position papers" or drafts describing the
concept had a neat listing of relevant topics & so on, would
that be how the working groups would come about? if someone
says, 'okay, I'll address section 3a..' and so on..
Jagwire X > In a way. Yeah. In the next version I should, hopefully, have
it broken up into different sections (for each working group).
So, yeah.
Velax > It seems to me that a really vital thing now is coming up with
at least a hypothetical scenario whereby an actual
geographic location is found and actual hardware is procured.
otherwise it will remain just a fantasy. in this regard,
I seem to recall that future culture carried some discussion of
where you might buy old destroyers from [was it eastern
European countries selling off their navies?], and the
extropians thread on ocean colonization discussed whereabouts
in international waters you might have the least chance of
being harassed.. I think one of the optimum locations was off
some small southeast Asian nation.
Jagwire X > Yeah. Ideally, I would like to see a ship that can actually
move about. If it was stationary I would think that a
southeast Asian nation would be a suitable locale.
Velax > hmm.. the question of mobility is related to the question of
size, basically, I think. you need to know what sort of vessels
are available - submarines? destroyers? crude oil carriers? etc
etc. heh just had an idea. maybe you could learn from L Ron
Hubbard's "sea org", he had a private flotilla of yachts or
something like that.
Jagwire X > Getting the hardware is going to be the most difficult part.
And it will require some preparation on the part of the people
involved. It will take some time to accomplish (at best).
Even so if it does not come to fruition, it still is an
excellent... mental exercise for the parties involved.
Velax > hmm. if, say, AUtopia foundered in its present form, for one
reason or another, then the thought which had gone into the
social and technical aspects might prove useful to future
attempts to design new edge communities, but.. nonetheless
there are a lot of issues specifically relating to the idea of
a new-edge colony *at sea*. and they are the most difficult
ones, as far as actually achieving this goes.
Jagwire X > True.
Velax > but it's hard to see where else a new-edge colony could go, in
the near future. I used to think about having some sort of
research community in the Australian outback, but most of that
land is either barren or belongs to mineral companies or
aboriginal tribes. Applies to the American desert.
Velax > I was musing about other possible locations.. the point I was
getting around to was that at sea seems to be the best possible
location for a generic new-edge colony at present. the only
other place I can imagine would be in a ghetto somewhere, or
maybe sibe
Jagwire X > Well, in orbit would be nice, but unlikely. I certainly
wouldn't mind living in space.
Velax > Siberia that is.. since the Russian government wants to develop
its eastern regions & wants foreign investment too, or
something like that well, I presume that the new edge will get
into orbit eventually, but the AUtopia timescale seems to be
more like late 90's early 21st century.
Jagwire X > Somehow I don't think they would want us there. Yeah, the
ocean is the most likely candidate.
Velax > All this relates back to what you said about, even if AUtopia
doesn't come to fruition anything that gets thrashed out here
can still help future enterprises like this..
Velax > The point is that if it's ever going to happen at all,
anywhere, it looks as though it will have to start at sea.
Jagwire X > Yeop.
Velax > So even the specifically "nautical" considerations that will be
discussed on AUtopia will be of future relevance, not just the
generic contemplation of new-edge autonomous communities.
Velax > [does that make sense?]
Jagwire X > Yeah, I think so. Like even for non New Edge ocean
colonization.
Velax > Another thing that has occured to me. on leri-l someone talked
once about setting up a bot on irc channel #leri and automating
a process whereby all conversation on the channel would get
sent to the mailing list. maybe you could do that with AUtopia
too. [concerning non New Edge ocean col.] yes, that too. do you
know how often people visit #AUtopia?
Jagwire X > Nope. I have no idea. I am often not around as I am still
await the full INTERnet connection at my base of operations.
Velax > Is that wixer.cactus.org?
Jagwire X > Yeah. That's the place. Home of AUtopia, Scream Baby and
FringeWare.
Velax > Yeah, I'm very curious about it. does you or Blade X or Paco
work for wixer or cactus or whatever organization this is?
Jagwire X > Blade X, Pacoid and I are the big three freaks there. No none
of us do. It's run by George Wenzel and frankly I don't know
much about it. 'Better, Faster and Cheaper' is their motto (I
think), but don't quote me on that.
Velax > heh, ok
Velax > I remember on fut-cult a while back there was a discussion
about which city is more cyberpunkish or new-edgey, and I
remember someone saying that Austin was one of the best places
to be, to be connected to the techno-underground
Jagwire X > Yeah, it definitely is. The amount of New Edge per capita has
got to be higher than anywhere else. Plus there's a whole lot
of high-tech industry here. The University of Texas, more
BBS's than you can shake a stick at. Members of the Legion of
Doom. A local chapter of EFF. Plenty of Raves (if your into
that). Tons of live music. etc. etc. etc.
Velax > So you have high-tech industry [computers? genetics?
aerospace?] connected to utexas, plus drugs, raves, mind
machines, hackers..
Jagwire X > Plus it's has some of the strictest environmental initiatives
in the US, clean air, and it's a sprawl even (size wise if not
population). High-tech industry includes all that you
mentioned.
Velax > how organized is the techno-undeground, do you think? I guess
this relates to what you were saying before, about the lack of
overarching visions. it seems to me that the most organized
people would be groups like LOD. at the level of the new edge
as a whole, there's no organization, there's only zines and
other info outlets like the mailing lists which provide an
overview of what exists,. but don't actually coordinate
anything.
Jagwire X > How organized. Here it seems to be more organized than most
places. EFF-Austin is a contributor to that.
Velax > Isn't the EFF basically a civil rights watchdog? officially? I
mean, I imagine that at CyberDawg get-togethers, or whatever
they're called, people might talk about all sorts of other
things, but I'm sure the EFF charter [eg] doesn't say 'we're
here to put the nootropics researchers, in touch with the
computer underground, in touch with..'
Jagwire X > Yeah, that's right. The CyberDawgs present an opportunity for
the people to meet face2face. What they do after that is up to
them.
Velax > hmm. on the topic of the eff, while you were gone I started
checking my email and there's a whole heap of messages with
subject lines like 'the EFF is over' and 'shakeup at the eff'.
do you know what this is about.
Jagwire X > Not really. There was a post about EFF National's changes.
The rest was all just opinions and hype. Apparently some people
are not pleased with what they are doing. Me I don't have much
of an opinion about it.
Velax > Well, just viewing one long message, which I think is the post
about the national changes, it says something about not forming
local chapters. where would that leave EFF-Austin, any idea?
Jagwire X > Well, EFF-Austin is an incorporated entity unto itself. It is
not actually a subdivision of EFF-National.
Velax > okay, so this would really appear to be just an organizational
change, not a change of goals or anything. however, to relate
this back to what I was saying before, the EFF is an
organization which concentrates on the future of
the net, or cyberspace, & in particular on civil liberties in
cyberspace. That's only part of the new edge. for example,
nanotech, nootropics & other forms of R&D on the one hand, &
raves, mudding & other on-line _culture_ on the other, are part
of it too. what I was trying to get at is that there is nothing
concerned with the whole new edge, as far as I can see, apart
from zines like Mondo 2000 etc.
Jagwire X > Yes. That's right. As far as I know it does not promote any
of the other aspects of the New Edge. Yeah, in the sense that
any magazine is a discussion of a subject. I would say that
M2k and bOING-bOING do quite a good job of blending various
aspects together.
Velax > And they are more reporting on the scene rather than trying to
involve it all in some common enterprise, as AUtopia would.
So there would seem to be a need for 2 things, that I can think
of: i] a group with an "EFF-like" approach to the whole issue
of technoculture, and ii] trying to create the space - a "TAZ"
- where new edge activities can be pursued. this is where
AUtopia fits in, I guess.
Jagwire X > You got it.
Velax > I've never seen bOING bOING here in oz, unfortunately
Jagwire X > I am probably going to have to go for good RSN.
Velax > Yeah, I guess it might be about time. it must be about midnight
there by now?
Jagwire X > No, 8:30 pm. I just have some stuff I have to do b4 it get's
late. I've enjoyed it and thanks for the opportunity!
Velax > Yes, its bee fun & quite interesting. Maybe someday I'll be
able to interview you at jagwire@autopia.com
Jagwire X > Heh. Hopefully! Feel free to e-mail me if you have any further
questions. BCNUL8R
Velax > Sure. well, I'll probably see you on future culture, AUtopia or
leri, anyhow. Ok, see you..
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi.
Due to the double-blind system, any replies to this message will be anonymized,
and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned.
magazines/INTERZINE/interzine.02
+294
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,294 @@
>From: aleph1@stein.u.washington.edu (Mitch)
Subject: INTERZINE #2: Peter Meyer
Date: 11 Jun 1993 06:24:53 GMT
_______________________________________________________________________
| Not copyright
|
| May be freely copied and reproduced
|
| n t e r z i n e
_______________________________________________________________________
{ Issue #2 : Peter Meyer }
_______________________________________________________________________
Peter Meyer is best known as the developer of the MS-DOS software
_Timewave Zero_, which demonstrates Terence McKenna's fractal model of
time and history. In the "About the Authors" section of the software
documentation, we learn:
Peter Meyer received the first double honors Bachelor of Arts degree
awarded by Monash University, Melbourne, majoring both in Philosophy
and in Pure Mathematics. His mathematical research has been published
in _Discrete Mathematics_. He has travelled extensively, and spent
several years studying Tibetan Buddhism in India and Nepal. Peter is
an experienced software developer and has worked internationally as a
computer consultant. His interests include history, travel, cryptology,
geopolitics, anthropology, religion and psychedelic research. In
addition to _Timewave Zero_ he has written and published three C
function libraries, a Maya calendar program and a data encryption
software package. His DMT research has been published in _Psychedelic
Monographs and Essays_ and in the _Yearbook of Ethnomedicine and
Consciousness research_. His exploration of little-known areas of
consciousness has confirmed for him both the reality of other
dimensions of existence and of the Eckhartian/Buddhist undifferentiated
unity underlying all phenomena. He hopes to be present at the end of
history in 2012, 5125 years after its beginning.
- some questions and answers -
Q1. When you got your double honors degree in Philosophy and Pure
Mathematics at Monash University, what did you foresee yourself doing
in life?
A1. When I finished my five-year course of studies at Monash
University I was still somewhat naive and idealistic. During those
years I seemed to have access to some intuitive source of metaphysical
knowledge which apparently I have now lost - or perhaps it is more
accurate to say that I am now less inclined to accept what I imagine
to be the case as actually being the case (without confirming
evidence). As a university student I felt (probably like many
university students, at least in the 60s) that there were realms of
knowledge waiting to be explored, and deep truths waiting to be
discovered. This was why I studied Philosophy and Mathematics (having
switched over from earlier undergraduate studies in natural science),
searching for deep truths.
When I graduated I had no clear idea of what I was going to do in
life, beyond the general aim of continuing this search for deep
truths. I gave little thought to a career, or to the question of
earning a living. I had seriously considered doing graduate work in
AI with John McCarthy at Stanford University, but my interest in
psychology (especially that of Jung and of Piaget) won out. I had
inherited some property following my mother's death in 1970, and upon
graduating I sold this and left Australia to travel to Europe via
Asia, which I did.
Q2. What was the nature of the research you have had published in
"Discrete Mathematics"?
This was a paper entitled "On the Structure of Orthomodular Posets",
in the 1974 volume. It was my final-year undergraduate thesis in
mathematics, which I wrote in 1970. It is exceedingly abstract. In
it I prove a number of theorems about the construction of orthomodular
posets of various kinds from sets of sets satisfying certain mathematical
conditions. As far as I know no mathematician ever extended this line
of research any further. It was a path I went down that none cared to
follow.
Q3. What motivated you to study Tibetan Buddhism? Where in India and
Nepal did you go to, and who did you study with?
A3. As a first-year university student at the age of 18 I inclined to
atheism and agnosticism, but I then read Christmas Humphreys' book
"Buddhism", and immediately felt that this was a philosophy/religion
that made sense to me. However, I still cannot quite accept what
to some is the first principle of Buddhism, that this life is an
unmitigated realm of suffering. I prefer to see all sentient life as
an expression of a divine creativity, a viewpoint somewhat more akin
to the Hindu view of the world as divine play (illusion though it
ultimately may be).
I was, like many people, first attracted to Tibetan Buddhism when
I discovered Tibetan art, especially the thanka paintings of the
tantric deities. This was around the time, in 1967, when I began
doing acid, which really opened me up to metaphysical and religious
dimensions. In the late 1960s I (with many others) read the works of
Lama Anagarika Govinda and of John Blofeld, and I came to believe that
the deepest truths were surely to be found in Tibetan Buddhism.
I had some first-hand contact with the Tibetan tradition during my
first visit to India in 1971. I continued on to Europe to study
Jungian psychology, then returned to Australia in 1972 to do some
graduate work in Kantian philosophy. I returned to Europe in 1974,
where I met H. H. Sakya Trizin, the head of the Sakyapa Order of
Tibetan Buddhism. I expressed to him my wish to study Tibetan
Buddhism more deeply, and he suggested I return to North India (Dehra
Dun) to study with him, which I did. I spent most of 1975-1979
studying with, and in the service of, this lama (who spoke good
English). I also received teachings from another lama, H. H. Chogye
Trichen Rimpoche, head of the Tsharpa branch of the Sakyapa tradition,
and abbot of the Tibetan monastery at Lumbini in Nepal.
Q4. As a software developer and computer consultant, have you always
been freelance, or did you ever work for large corporations? I am
also curious about the nature of the "three C function libraries" and
the data encryption software package.
A4. I learned to program in FORTRAN IV in 1965, while working for a
year with the Post Office in Melbourne. I did no programming during
the 70s. In the early 80s I was a freelance software developer in
California, and developed software for the Apple // which was
published. Since then I have sometimes been employed at small or
medium-sized corporations and sometimes have been a freelance
consultant or developer. In the mid-80s I got into MS-DOS software
development and during the last five years I have programmed mainly in C.
In late 1989 I found myself in California, having just returned from
18 months in Europe, and was broke. The idea of getting a job and
being a wage-slave for the rest of my life did not appeal to me.
Instead I resolved to develop and publish software for a living. I
managed to eke out a a bare existence while developing software on
others' PCs, and during 1989-92 I created four C function libraries
(these are tools useful to C programmers) and three application
programs: a Maya calendrical conversion program, Timewave Zero
(illustrating Terence McKenna's theory of time and history) and some
data encryption software. The last incorporates an encryption method
which I developed during 1990-92.
Q5. What are "Psychedelic Monographs and Essays" and the "Yearbook of
Ethnomedicine and Consciousness Research"? Who puts them out? What
is their audience? Their content?
A5. "Psychedelic Monographs and Essays" (published by Thomas Lyttle,
first issued in 1985) evolved from the "Psychozoic Press" (published
by Elvin D. Smith, first issued in 1982). Both were/are collections
of essays and informative material dealing with all aspects of
psychedelics and psychoactive plants and fungi, with occasional
articles about psychedelic researchers and their work. The latest
volume of Psychedelic Monographs and Essays is #6, and has articles
classified under the headings of Spirituality, Psychotherapy,
Literature, Parapsychology and Pharmacology. It is available from
PM&E Publishing, P.O. Box 4465, Boynton Beach, FL 33424, for $20.00
postpaid within the U.S., $27.00 outside the U.S.
The "Yearbook of Ethnomedicine and Consciousness Research" is similar.
It is edited by the German anthropologist Dr. Christian Raetsch and
contains some articles in English and some in German. The first
volume was published in late 1992. It is available from the publisher,
Amand Aglaster, VWB, Postfach 11 03 68, 1000 Berlin 61, Germany.
Q6. How did you get into psychedelic research? DMT research?
A6. My initial awareness of the existence of psychedelics came from
reading Aldous Huxley's "Doors of Perception" in 1966. I knew
immediately that this was a field of research I wished to explore. My
opportunity came a few months later when an artist friend in Melbourne
informed me that some LSD had shown up. It was probably synthesized
locally, and was quite impure, but blew me away. Life has never been
the same since.
I know of nothing more interesting and worthy of study than the
multitude of conscious states available through the use of psychedelics.
Had psychedelic research not been made illegal (this is itself a crime
against humanity) I would presumably have pursued my biochemical/-
psychological/philosophical studies under the auspices of academia.
Instead I abandoned the academic world for the study of Tibetan
Buddhism in India and later got into software development in the U.S.
and in Europe. But I have never ceased to do psychedelics occasionally,
and sometimes frequently, garnering such information and understanding
as I can under the circumstances.
A couple of years after I began doing acid I discovered the delights
of marijuana and hashish, which subject I researched enthusiastically
in Asia beginning in 1971 (when the hash shops in Kathmandu were still
open and legal, before they were closed down at the insistence of the
U.S. Government). Morning glory seeds in 1974. In 1978 I discovered
psilocybin mushrooms at Palenque in Mexico. In 1983 MDMA in Berkeley.
In 1987 DMT in Hawaii. In 1988 Ketamine in Switzerland. In 1990
5-MeO-DMT in Berkeley.
My interest in DMT arose from hearing Terence McKenna speak of it in
some of his taped talks (especially his "Tryptamine Hallucinogens and
Consciousness"). My first experience with it was pretty strange; on
my second I thought I was dying. My initial encounter on DMT with the
alien entities did not come until two years later. As Terence has
said, and which I can confirm, the DMT experience is the weirdest
thing you can experience this side of the grave. The rational mind
retreats in utter disbelief when confronted with it. Thus I resolved
to research the topic, which I did during 1990-91 in Berkeley, where I
had access to the Biosciences Library at U.C. Berkeley. I gathered
reports from those few people I knew who had smoked it, and the
article which resulted appeared simultaneously in each of the journals
mentioned above.
- the blurb for Timewave Zero -
This software illustrates Terence McKenna's theory of time,
history and the end of history as first described in the book
"The Invisible Landscape" by him and his brother Dennis, and more
recently in his "The Archaic Revival" (HarperSanFrancisco, 1992)
The theory of Timewave Zero was revealed to Terence by an alien
intelligence following a bizarre, quasi-psychedelic experiment
conducted in the Amazon jungle in Colombia in 1971. Inspired by
this influence Terence was instructed in certain transformations
of numbers derived from the King Wen sequence of I Ching hexagrams.
This led eventually to a rigorous mathematical description of
what Terence calls the timewave, which correlates time and
history with the ebb and flow of novelty, which is intrinsic to
the structure of time and hence of the temporal universe. A
peculiarity of this correlation is that at a certain point a
singularity is reached which is the end of history - or at least
is a transition to a supra-historical order in which our ordinary
conceptions of our world will be radically transformed. The
best current estimate for the date of this point is December 21,
2012 CE, the winter solstice of that year and also the end of the
current era in the Maya calendar.
The primary function of the software is to display any portion of
the timewave (up to seven billion years) as a graph of the
timewave related to the Western calendar (either Gregorian or
Julian). You can display the wave for the entire 4.5-billion-year
history of the Earth, note the peculiarities of the wave at such
points as the time of the extinction of the dinosaurs (65 million
years ago) and inspect parts of the wave as small as 92 minutes.
The software provides several ways of manipulating the wave display,
including the ability to zoom in on a target date or to step back
to get the larger picture.
A remarkable quality of the timewave is that it is a fractal.
Once a part of the wave is displayed the software allows you to
expand any smaller part (down to 92 minutes). This usually
reveals a complexity of structure which persists however much the
wave is magnified, a property typical of fractals. The idea that
time has a fractal structure (in contrast to the Newtonian
conception of time as pure, unstructured duration) is a major
departure from the common view of the nature of time and physical
reality. That time is a fractal may be the reason why fractals
occur in Nature.
The documentation describes the origin, construction and
philosophical significance of the timewave, the use of the
software, the mathematical definition of the timewave (with
proofs of some related mathematical theorems) and certain curious
numerical properties.
An interesting part of the theory is the assertion of historical
periods "in resonance" with each other. Resonantly we have (in
1993) emerged from the fall of the Roman empire and are well into
the transitional period known historically as the Dark Ages. The
software permits graphical display of different regions of the
timewave that are in resonance with each other. This allows the
period 1945 - 2012 to be interpreted as a resonance of the period
2293 BC - 2012 CE. New in this version is the ability to graph
trigrammatic resonances in addition to the major resonances, and
to construct a sequential set of eleven trigrammatic resonances.
There is a new appendix concerning some recent mathematical results.
The Timewave Zero software at last permits a scientific examination
of Terence's long-standing claim to have discovered the root cause
of the ups and downs of historical vicissitude. If his theory is
confirmed then we can look forward to a rough, but very interesting,
ride in the twenty years leading up to the climactic end-point of
history in 2012. During this time the events of the period from
745 CE are expected to recur (albeit in modern form).
Timewave Zero 4.12 requires MS-DOS (2.10 or later) and runs on
IBM PC compatibles with and without a graphics adaptor.
- a final note -
Timewave Zero is currently published by Fringeware Inc., P. O. Box 49921,
Austin, TX 78765, USA, and should also be available from Sound
Photosynthesis in Mill Valley, CA and from Nightbloomers in Berkeley, CA;
or from AO Corporation, 134 Granada Dr, Corte Madera, CA 94925.
Fringeware has a mailing list:
fringeware-request@wixer.cactus.org