V-2nd, Chap 7

[Robin Landseadel]

Well, okay.

It's the "Doors of Perception" thing, the awareness that consensus  
reality is a reducing valve, tweaked so that our survival mechanisms  
are always "On", a life devoted to ignoring that man behind the  
curtain. Once you're out of Kansas and into "The Zone", well -- you  
can see that man behind the curtain. Who turns out to be a Woman. If  
nothing else, you see as Mucho Maas did that everything is connected,  
that the interconnected consciousness of the Multiverses is the thing,  
and apparently immortal. Leastways that's what Wendell sez, can't  
claim to disagree with him. Of course, being as young Pynchon appears  
to be hyper-aware of heresies in a general way -- 19th century  
American Literary Romanticism or William Pynchon, you be the judge! --  
it's only a matter of time before the young T.W.I.T. starts playing  
with the Tarot cards, checking into Jung's Archetype hotel, getting  
A.E. Waite's indispensable book of Black Magic, usw . . .

Probably the best of all the books in displaying "The Pan-Shamanic  
Empire" is "Against the Day." There is a link between the psychedelic/ 
entheogenic and "Helpers", deities called upon as aides in rituals.  
This is also in Wicca -- a made up, 20th century religion, essentially  
"The Hippie Religion" of "what's yer sign" taken just a few steps  
further.

Would you like your palm red?

In any case, the use of Peyote in AtD is about as good a  
representation of the entheogenic experience as any.

Are you experienced?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogen

Seems like that's a particular Rubicon in Pynchon.

On Sep 28, 2010, at 6:36 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> C'mon...just a quick precis?....no Huxley around at the moment....