Embedded Files
"Our environment, and I mean our man-made world of machines, artificial constructs, computers, electronic systems, interlinking homeostatic components – all of this is in fact beginning more and more to possess what the earnest psychologists fear the primitive sees in his environment: animation. In a very real sense our environment is becoming alive, or at least quasi-alive, and in ways specifically and fundamentally analogous to ourselves."
"Our environment, and I mean our man-made world of machines, artificial constructs, computers, electronic systems, interlinking homeostatic components – all of this is in fact beginning more and more to possess what the earnest psychologists fear the primitive sees in his environment: animation. In a very real sense our environment is becoming alive, or at least quasi-alive, and in ways specifically and fundamentally analogous to ourselves."
"A group of computer scientists at SRI have offered me an intriguing job. They work under a Department of Defense contract to develop radically new software for what they call the 'augmentation of human intellect.' Rowena had told me about their leader Doug Engelbart, whom she called a genius and an inveterate dreamer.
During my first interview, Doug explained to me how he launched his project: at the end of World War Two, he found himself sitting on the sand of a Pacific island, thinking of all his dead comrades, surveying the smoldering remains of civilization. Why were people engaged in such wanton destruction? he asked. Was technology the root or the tool of war? The atom bomb, the aircraft, the radar, all had been developed to serve the high priests of Mars."
Jacques Vallée, The Heart of the Internet
The Natural Guard was a precursor to the First Earth Battalion, focused on creating an army of "super soldiers" using various New Age techniques. A former case officer in the ST-CIRCUS program (headed by CIA to supply arms and training to Tibetan anti-Communist rebels) started the Natural Guard under the aegis of SANDMAN in the late '60s, inspired by certain esoteric Tibetan Buddhist practices of ego annihilation.
Jocasta Menos was assigned to the Guard in January 1970 by her superior officer at the Army Security Agency. She stayed with the organization for slightly more than a year before being recruited into SANDMAN.
—
GZ, called "Blue Star" in the West, is the code name for the Russians' psychic warfare program. Russian research into psychic phenomenon goes all the way back to the 1930s, but did not really "take off" in earnest until the 1960s, when the KGB officially revived and funded the project. Among those in the know at Project SANDMAN, it is believed that GZ is, to a greater or lesser extent, being aided — perhaps even manipulated — by the kulullû.
Headquartered at the Stanford Research Institute, the remote viewing and psychic research program known as Project SCANATE pre-dates its formal establishment by CIA in 1970, during which time it operated under a variety of names. One of its experimental programs — Operation ISOCLINE — experimented on human subjects in Vietnam, including Mitch Hort.
Related Locations
▤ Stanford Research Institute (SRI)
The Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus (ECV) is a fraternal organization and "secret society" based in the American West that supposedly grew out of the Gold Rush of the 1840s to take care of widows and orphans. It was revived in the 1930s as a historical society with a side of drinking (or a drinking society with a side of history, as their members — called "Clampers" — might say) dedicated to commemorating the weird, lost frontier. They put plaques all over the West, but mostly in California, commemorating bars, brothels, jails, mining camps, and other locations that "official" "polite" historians and historical societies outright ignore. Their No. 1 Lodge, the Yerba Buena Lodge, is based in San Francisco, and their Noble Grand Humbug is John Ritchie.
Related Locations
Mansa was a 13-person Oakland-based psychedelic soul collective named after the medieval emperors of Mali and formerly headed by E.L. Moore. By the summer of 1973 they are touring to support their latest album, Ikenga, after they got onto Soul Train and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert thanks to URIEL's various tendrils in the media and a certain deal Moore made with the Devil. While not selling out large arena venues, they have managed to book several big theaters and smaller minor-league arenas.
Aside from Moore himself, the band's members are Lilian Macy, Loretta Wise, and Deanna Wrentham (vocals); Clive Xasan (tenor sax, percussion, vocals); Ralph Dorty (clarinet, flute, alto sax); Edwin Bryson (trombone, percussion, guitar, vocals); Charlie Nash (organ, vibes, piano, synthesizer, percussion, clavinet, vocals); Bernard Thandeka (bass, acoustic guitar, percussion, vocals, piano); Memphis Harlow (lead guitar, percussion, vocals); Roderick Jones (drums, percussion, vocals); Cordell Miley (vocals, congas, percussion); Tommy Michaels (vocals, drums, kalimba); and Ed Douglas (production).
Related Locations
⇟ Oakland
Discography
Discography
Studio LPs
Studio LPs
Mansa, 1970
A debut album with one foot in the psychedelic '60s and one in the funky '70s, Mansa's self-titled LP from 1970 is a meditation on paradise, fusing American traditions of utopianism going back hundreds of years through the gospel tradition with the by-then curdling dreams of late-'60s revolution.
Song of the Griot, 1971
Mansa's afrocentrism came to the fore on their sophomore release, with more African instrumentation, rhythms, and themes making their way into the psychedelic stew. Minor local Bay Area radio hit with "Open the Cage," the second single, a harder-hitting fuzzed-out funk jam.
Mirrored Sky, 1972
First album to feature cover art from West German surrealist Sebastian Keiner, Columbia famously paid handsomely for reflective material to be used as the titular "mirrored sky" on the cover's surrealist landscape painting on the album's first printing.
Ikenga, 1973
Singles
Singles
"Easy Times" b/w "Treasure," 1970
"A Singing Heart" b/w "Golden Dusk," 1971
"Open the Cage" b/w "The Lioness" 1971
"Khalam Groove" b/w "Balhib's Riddle," 1972
"Ukerewe (Movement 2)" b/w "Muddy Funk," 1973
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse