By Nathaniel Allison
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. View more opinions on ScoonTV
“Better still: thanks to the prodigious biological event represented by the discovery of electro-magnetic waves, each individual finds himself henceforth (actively and passively) simultaneously present, over land and sea, in every corner of the earth…. We are faced with a harmonized collectivity of consciousnesses equivalent to a sort of super-consciousness. The idea is that of the earth not only becoming covered by myriads of grains of thought but becoming enclosed in a single thinking envelope so as to form, functionally, no more than a single vast grain of thought on the sidereal scale, the plurality of individual reflections grouping themselves together and reinforcing one another in the act of a single unanimous reflection.”
– Pierre Teilhard De Chardin(The Phenomenon of Man)
The Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin believed the universe was rapidly evolving toward ever-greater complexity and consciousness. Central to his system is what he calls noosphere, a thinking layer of the earth, or membrane of consciousness, that connects all biological life. This noosphere represents the Earth’s “clothing itself with a brain,” a global network of collective minds. Evolution, for Teilhard, becomes self-conscious and self-directing in humanity, culminating in the Omega Point: an ultimate convergence of consciousness into unified, divine love. He spoke of electromagnetic waves rendering individuals “simultaneously present… in every corner of the earth” creating a “technological brain for the world.” The Electric Age has enacted this noospheric implosion. Electric extensions and psychedelic expansion acted as mechanisms of increased planetary consciousness. The Global Village, as Chardin’s noosphere, were the means for creating cybernetic interconnection, a technology oriented for evolutionary self-direction.
As electric technologies and psychedelic substances converged to reshape American culture, the groundwork was being laid for the emergence of a cybernetic geared society. This techno-sorcery centered around the “science of steersmanship,” it was designed to change the way humans see themselves and the world around them. Socio-cybernetics were designed to steer societies through feedback loops, information flow, and adaptive control. Social systems were designed to be autopoietic systems that continuously create and regenerate. Cybernetic principals became crystallized into society at large; the technology was the vehicle for this technological governance.
The electronic communications and emerging technologies of the 1960s turned the world into a global village. Overstimulating environments became all-encompassing. Instant information made video and television as powerful as LSD. As McLuhan said, “One turns on his consciousness through drugs just as he opens up all his senses to a total depth of involvement by turning on the TV dial.” He wrote about how society was shifting away from the old mechanical world, creating “The impulse to use hallucinogens is a kind of empathy with the electric environment.” Beatnik stimulants gave way to Hippie hallucinogens. New forms of film and video were acting as their own kind of “videosphere” where Chardin believed the noosphere became transformed into reality – a symbiosis of machines and humans revealing new unexpected realities. These new technologies were re-configuring humanity’s awareness. New, altered states of consciousness were starting to merge humanity in ways never before seen. Technologies were developed that enabled the connection of entire systems of people interacting, sharing thoughts, emotions, goals, etc. This feedback system can be easily manipulated. Humanity-at-large were beginning to have their thoughts and feelings reshaped like never in history.
Religions were manufactured where Ego Death became a sacrament, and Gurus became Gods, created just for the new “Drop-Out” of society.
CREATING ORDER OUT OF DISCORD
“Many people consider Discordianism a complicated joke disguised as a new religion. I prefer to consider it a new religion disguised as a complicated joke.”
– Robert Anton Wilson
One of the more influential worldviews of the 1960’s was the philosophy of Discordianism. Founded on the notion of the trickster, this “parody religion” was centered on the worship of the ancient Greek goddess of chaos, strife, and discord. This new religion was designed to satirize organized faith and expose the absurdities of the mainstream. Core tenets of the faith were oriented around chaos and absurdity, a kind of positive nihilism where life has no inherent meaning or purpose, just the liberating belief that you can create your own meaning. It focused on blurring the boundary between the sacred and profane, and distorting parody and sincerity. Academic scholars like Hugh Urban link the movement to Chaos Magic, a postmodern occult practice that views belief as a malleable tool.
It was a liquid religion that resists orthodox rules and encourages practitioners to embrace chaos as a tool for personal liberation and creativity. This was a new kind of spirituality; highly fluid, adaptable, and individualized. It emerged amid the social upheavals of the late 1950s, providing a philosophical framework for rejecting Cold War-era conformity, materialism, and authoritarianism. Thus, shaping and reflecting the counterculture. Discordian principles were infused into the Summer of Love, inspiring a mix of anarchy, psychedelics, and Eastern mysticism. Oddly enough, its co-founder, former Marine, Kerry Thornley, was pals with Lee Harvey Oswald. He was even suspected by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison as having involvement in JFK’s assassination.
A cornerstone of Discordian practice was Operation Mindfuck, a systematic campaign of disinformation, pranks, and absurdity designed to disrupt societal consensus on reality and to sow paranoia and madness into culture. On the surface, this guerrilla ontology was designed to force people to question their assumptions about reality, allowing them to break free.
The guiding philosophy behind Operation M.F. came from the strategy proposed by physicist John von Neumann in his book, The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Operation M.F. created their own version of absurd guerrilla war-like tactics to dismantle mainstream reality. For example, they would plant fake publications attributed to the Bavarian Illuminati in pop-cultural mediums like Playboy. These pranksters were warriors of cultural mischief.
Discordianism easily converged with psychedelics and the human potential movements. This mindfuckery would sometimes manifest itself as various cults, and especially in the mind-control tactics used by Charles Manson. This worldview helped to birth our dystopian era of fake news and rampant conspiracies.
MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR
“The role of drugs in the exercise of political control is also coming under increasing discussion. Control can be through prohibition or supply. The total or even partial prohibition of drugs gives the government considerable leverage for other types of control. An example would be the selective application of drug laws permitting immediate search, or “no knock” entry, against selected components of the population such as members of certain minority groups or political organizations. But a government could also supply drugs to help control a population. This method, foreseen by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, has the governing element employing drugs selectively to manipulate the governed in various ways”
– Louis Jolyon West (Hallucinations: Behavior, Experience, and Theory)
Drug culture began to emerge into the mainstream. As the cultural significance of the Beatniks waned, the void was filled by the Flower Child. Drugs were a major facilitator in this shift. The Beatniks’ favorite drugs to score were Benzedrine, morphine, and marijuana; the Hippies were more interested in harder hallucinogens like LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, and mescaline. Drug use evolved into a rite of passage that separated the counterculture from the establishment. Substances were meant to disorient and reconfigure the brain, Some real mind-blowing stuff. This process encouraged the opting-out of society to focus on things like self-transformation and mystical unity. Psychedelics blurred the boundary between drugs and electronics, as McLuhan said, these mechanisms extend our nervous systems outward, creating an interconnected, re-tribalized world.
Figures like Margaret Mead, Wilhelm Reich, Alfred Kinsey, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse helped turn the Sexual Revolution into a new cult of hedonism, where repressed desires were used to transform society into a place where traditional Christian values were a breeding ground for an Authoritarian Personality. The counterculture promoted that moral conventions created an anti-authoritarian personality, and Free Love was one of the prescriptions that could cure the sickness.
Many social scientists, like B.F. Skinner saw humans as blank slates, tabula rasas, that needed to be shaped through controlled environments, that he called a Black Box. This black box served as both a literal laboratory and metaphorical concept. The literal Skinner Box was designed as an operant conditioning chamber to study how animals learn through rewards and punishments, the “correct” behavior would be reinforced. The metaphorical version was a kind of Radical Behaviorism where Skinner viewed the human mind itself as a Black Box that should be controlled and manipulated. Cyberneticians like Norbert Wiener saw the world itself as a globally connected Black Box Society, where the hidden automated systems that govern global society are to be completely controlled.
Social Conditioning is a more potent, and long-lasting type of control, than force or violence. Throughout the 60s, movements like the Sexual Revolution became mixed with the revolutionary ideology of the New Left; social justice, civil rights, anti-imperialism, feminism, and environmentalism challenged dominant power structures. The Revolution was geared toward every level of society that held back inhibitions. Unbridled passions are now a form of spiritual liberation. This is how we stick it to the Man!
The decade of MK-Ultra discord continued with even more experimental drug use on non-consenting Americans. Birth control was introduced. Esalen Institute began, mother of the Human Potential movement. The Vietnam war kicked off with the Gulf of Tonkin false flag. The New Left emerged as the anti-Vietnam war protests increased. Radical groups like Students for a Democratic Society, Black Panther Party, and Weather Underground emerge. The CIA and FBI begin targeting American citizens with Operations like CHAOS and COINTELPRO.
PROGRAMMED TO KILL
“A sterile depersonalized murder program.”
– K. Barton Osborn, a former U.S. military intelligence officer, in his 1971 testimony before Congress.
The New Left tried to bring the Vietnam war home, attempting to instigate a domestic revolution with violent anti-war riots of the “Days of Rage,” bringing widespread destruction to Chicago. It wasn’t long until the Charles Manson Murders officially killed the counterculture, ultimately becoming the definitive end to the “Summer of Love.” From The Boston Strangler to the Zodiac Killer, the 1960s were a significant decade for serial murder, and the emergence of some of history’s most notorious figures. One wonders if any of these serial killers were MK-Ultra Manchurian Candidate assassins. Are there any chances some of these killers were Programmed to Kill?
During the Vietnam war, the U.S. ran an assassination program called Operation Phoenix, and some authors allege this was when the Program finally landed on U.S. soil. Douglas Valentine argues that the CIA’s Operation Phoenix served as the blueprint of the modern U.S. Homeland Security apparatus. The program was sold as being focused on neutralizing insurgency, but it was actually geared for extrajudicial killings, torture, and computerized death squads.
While talking about turmoil in the 1970s, conspiracy researcher Mae Brussell said “What we are now experiencing is the importation of the dreaded “Operation Phoenix” program into the United States… Through various created and manipulated acts of violence, the only solution to chaos, anarchy, and senseless violent acts will be a police state… we can expect the planned terrorization of the U.S. population to escalate rapidly.” William Colby, who oversaw Operation Gladio in the 1950’s, and the Phoenix program during the Vietnam war, officially brought Operation Phoenix to America in 1973 when he was appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The Institute for Policy Studies (ISP) was a pioneering progressive think-tank that publicly amplified the New Left and anti-war activism, while supposedly leveraging its establishment connections for influence. It was a hub for the emerging anti-war movement and New Left activism, linking social theory with social action and experiment, creating a social technology of rebellion. As a result, bridging radicalism and the liberal establishment, serving as “the intellectual arsenal of the New Left” and its “first respectable offspring.” This was a place for speaking truth to power! The think tank was a bridge between radicalism and the liberal establishment. It aided groups like the Students for Democratic Society and Black Panthers. The ISP was funded by prominent American banker James Warburg, the son of Federal Reserve architect Paul Warburg. The Institute for Policy Studies was set up with funding from the Ford Foundation and Carnegie Corporation. The Tavistock Institute was also funded by the Rockefeller foundation, to study organizational behavior. The controversial author, John Coleman, believes both were a part of a central hub for globally designed social engineering.
VISIONS FROM THE VOID
“If organized religion is the opium of the masses, then disorganized religion is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe.”
― Kerry Thornley
The Harvard psychologist, MHCHAOS agent, and LSD evangelist, Timothy Leary, framed psychedelics as tools for “rearranging mental imprinting.” Drug-induced insights allowed users to escape societal conditioning and reach a higher level of consciousness. Marshall McLuhan described Timothy Leary as the “Ulysses of the inner trip” and “Homer of the Electric Age.” Leary actually modeled much of his persona on Aleister Crowley. Confessing in an interview with Late Night American on PBS, he said that he’s a Crowleyite, “carrying on much of the work that he started over 100 years ago.”
When Leary was testifying at the U.S. Senate Hearings on psychedelic drugs, he met with McLuhan to talk about moving LSD into popular culture – the origin for his popular motto “Tune in, turn on, drop out.” During their meeting, McLuhan told Leary that “drugs that accelerate the brain won’t be accepted until the population is geared to computers” and that the best way to do this would be by emphasizing that the drug will help the user “Find the God within.”
From hippie gatherings like Acid Tests, Be-Ins, Love-Ins, psychedelic “happenings,” evolved an anti-language centered around a shared code of rebellion against mainstream society, a blend of Eastern mysticism with Western rebellion. The psychedelic lexicon helped foster a more communal experience and exclude outsiders. The sacralized discourse helped distinguish the enlightened “heads” from the squares. Semantic terms like groovy, far out, and outta-sight transformed everyday communication into ritualistic exchange separating users from conventional society. Everyday objects and experiences were reframed through psychedelic perception. Much of this rhythmic language and experience in the counterculture echoed tribal rites that carried an apocalyptic edge. Fostering communal experience that creates group mind in real time, creating a parallel social structure of communes, festivals, and underground networks. This lexicon, or speech community, centered on a kind of performed identity. Casual talk turned into sacred ritual, communitas into live practice, and linguistic difference into ontological separation. This language was just one vehicle for building an alternative society. As the hippie would ask… “What’s your trip?”
The perceptual distortion induced by psychedelic drugs fostered the creation of new forms of communication, mirroring the trippy, mind-bending experience. This ethos focused on the blurring of self, and ego dissolution, that would lead to feelings of unity, awe, and interconnectedness, creating trance-like states that mimic shamanic induction. These spaces of holistic happenings were where visuals, threads, sounds, and ritual converged – distinguishing the sacred from the profane in every perceptual channel.
Psychedelic experiences formed around total experiential environments. This perpetual expansion focused on the multi-sensory; visual distortion, brighter colors, melting boundaries, Kaleidoscopic patterns, warped soundscapes. A sartorial bricolage, sonic synesthesia, and collective sensory engulfment created perpetual expansion. Environments of lights, music, day-glo paint, hidden speakers, and shared LSD that dissolved ego boundaries and hierarchies. Swirling visuals in posters and tie-dyed and bohemian chic clothing conveyed surrealism and nonconformity, turning homemade ordinary garments into something subversive.
Perception itself became a means of resistance. Music that focused on nonconformity became the anthem of dissent. Albums attempted to create altered states through the sonic experience, using warped sounds and visuals to mimic LSD trips. Communal trips, like Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, were ego-dissolving gatherings, that were participatory environments designed to engulf the user in lights, music, and shared LSD; a sensory blending of collective identity, overwhelming the participants in a newsreel of dreams. This multi-sensory bombardment produced identity fusion and collective effervescence, where individual boundaries melted into the sensory blending of collective identity. These elements did not just reflect the counterculture, they forged it, one melted boundary, funky riff, and way-out gathering at a time. This legacy echoes in later festival cultures, where similar extrasensory rituals sustain the sacred burn against everyday rust.
This is where you get really funky and way-out, dude! As Neil Young said, this is where it’s “better to burn out than it is to rust.”
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