Turn off Your Mind

[Dave Monroe]

Lachman, Gary.  Turn off Your Mind: The Mystic
   Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius.
   New York: Disinformation Press, 2003.

How did a decade of love and peace end in Altamont and
the Manson Family bloodbath?

In Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark
Side of the Age of Aquarius [...] author Gary Lachman
explores the sinister dalliance of rock's high rollers
and a new wave of occultists, tying together John
Lennon, Timothy Leary, Mick Jagger, Brian Wilson,
Charles Manson, Anton LaVey, Jim Morrison, L. Ron
Hubbard and many more American cultural icons.

[...]

The 1960s were a time of revolution - political,
social, psychedelic, sexual. But there was another
revolution that many historians forget: the rise of a
powerful current that permeated pop culture and has
been a central influence on it ever since. It was a
magical revolution – a revival of the occult.
Previously rejected and ridiculed beliefs took centre
stage, reaching the Beatles and the Rolling Stones,
saturating the hippies and flower power, hitting the
big screen with Rosemary's Baby and the bookshelves
with Lord of the Rings, the Tarot, I Ching and The
Tibetan Book of the Dead. Astrology, the Kabbalah,
yogis, witchcraft, UFOs, Aleister Crowley and the Yin
Yang now became the common currency they are today.
But the vibes went bad, the auras darkened. Did that
darker undercurrent win out? Gary Lachman here charts
this explosion, its rise and fall, and its enduring
legacy.

[...]

Gary Lachman, as Gary Valentine, was a founder member
of Blondie and wrote the group's early hits. Born in
New Jersey and a long-time resident of both New York
and Los Angeles, he currently lives in London. A
writer and literary critic for Mojo, Fortean Times,
Times Literary Supplement, Literary Review and other
journals, as Gary Valentine he is also the author of
New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation With
Blondie, Iggy Pop and Others, 1974-1981.

http://www.disinfo.com/site/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=15

Yeah, I know it's been mentioned already, but I just
read a review, and this was quoted therein ...

"The potential for violence and madness was there
beneath the tie-dye and beads, and the leftist
liberationist ideology that dominated the decade had a
strong streak of facsist authoritarianism."

And see as well ...

http://www.d-filed.com/garyvalentine.html

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