The Occult Timothy Leary

 

The Occult Timothy Leary by Joseph L. Flatley makes a significant contribution to the secondary literature around the illustrious life and times of the always controversial Dr. Timothy Leary. In the popular mind Leary often gets remembered as an evangelist for drug experimentation and one of the  prime instigators of the 1960s counterculture. Like one of his colorful predecessors, Aleister Crowley, much of his profound philosophical research and exploration gets hidden beneath the notoriety and controversy surrounding the man. Flatley intends to alter that perception by focusing on the Hermetic side of Leary culminating in a unique presentation of the eight-circuit neurological model of consciousness as reflected in the subtitle: The Tarot, Magical States, and Post-Terrestrial Evolution. He instantly won me over with a quote from Finnegans Wake before the proceedings began.

The book has two distinct sections. Part 1 provides a biography of Leary's life in approximately one hundred pages. Flatley does an excellent job sketching out all the salient points of his "Many Lives" with a particular emphasis on anything occult. A reader unfamiliar with the good Doctor or only aware of his popular image will find enough information for a balanced portrait of the man. At the other end of the spectrum, readers like myself who have read everything by and about Leary they could find will  discover new interesting facts and anecdotes. As a fan of Leary, I found this compelling reading. I couldn't put the book down except when I got into the shower. Flatley shows meticulous research turning up brilliant gems of stories. 

The primary occult connection explored in the first half of the book concerns Aleister Crowley whom Leary called himself the reincarnation of. People who take that to literally mean the transmigration of Crowley's soul into the body of baby Leary find that beyond baffling given that Timothy came into the world (1920) many years before Crowley enjoyed his Greater Feast (1947). What Leary means by reincarnation is told in the book. A You Tube video can be found where Leary states that "I'm carrying on much of the work he (Crowley) started." We also discover that Crowley wasn't the only famous magician Leary claimed to reincarnate.

I only know of two events that directly ties Leary to Crowley; Flatley examines both of them. The first concerns a synchronicity wherein Tim and his friend Brian Barritt had a powerful psychedelic episode they later found out occurred in the same spot where Crowley and his chela Victor Neuberg scryed the Enochian aethyrs in the desert near Bou Saada, Algeria. This Enochian working was documented in The Vision and the Voice. The book uses Barritt's partner Liz Elliot's account to tell the story. Elliot embellishes the event by claiming that Crowley and Neuberg "took their mescaline" when no evidence exists for that claim. Crowley certainly used peyote, known as anhalonium lewinii at the time, to access the visionary space, but evidently, judging by his diaries, not for those Enochian workings. His diaries go into great detail about how he gained access to those spaces. They appear to have been realized strictly through ceremonial magick and a specific mantra practice; no psychoactive substances. Mescaline was first synthesized from peyote in 1919; this magick occurred in 1909. This doesn't make the synchronicity any less amazing. 

The most obvious parallel between Crowley and Leary concerns their use of psychedelics to expand consciousness. There's no evidence Leary experimented with any Thelemic practices like the rituals of the pentagram and hexagram unlike his partner in crime Robert Anton Wilson, a prominent secondary character in TOTL. The stories with Wilson provide an added bonus to the book. It seems Leary went through a Crowley phase mainly after his escape from prison through to his recapture in Afghanistan and subsequent reimprisonment. 

The second half of the book looks at the eight circuit neurological model of consciousness Leary formulated through the lens of the Tarot. This comes from The Game of Life by Leary with contributions by Robert Anton Wilson originally published by Peace Press in 1979 with a second edition coming out in 1993 by New Falcon. Flatley describes the structure of this model with each circuit having three stages for a total of 24 stages and how Leary assigned the 22 trumps of the Major Arcana to each of the stages while coining two additional Tarot trumps for stages 22 and 24. He begins by giving a brief history of the Tarot before examining each stage through its associated Tarot card and the astrological sign associated with it. For instance, stage 1, bio-survival receptivity is looked at through the lens of the first trump, The Fool and the Zodiac sign Pisces. It should be noted that the correspondences from the Zodiac appear to be entirely Leary's creation and have no relation to the Thoth Tarot or the Tarot of the Golden Dawn. The Zodiac only has 12 signs so only 12 Tarot trumps correspond with the Zodiac in the conventional system. Leary doubles up the Zodiac signs to match his formulation of 24 stages. Pisces corresponds with stage 1 while Pisces 2 corresponds with stage 13 in the model. The logic of this does make sense as we shall see shortly. 

Each stage in TOTL begins with Leary's illustration of the Tarot card as it appears in The Game of Life with a slight modification from Flatley. For instance THE FOOL looks like: 

This appears exactly the same in The Occult Timothy Leary except the top left and bottom right corner Ace of Diamonds signifiers have been replaced by the number 1 to indicate stage 1. This follows for each of the stages with the stage number replacing the playing card signifier Leary has. The Game of Life uses the Ace to 9 of Diamonds then the Jack, Queen and King of Diamonds to represent the 12 stages of the first four circuits which he called terrestrial. The post-terrestrial stages(13 - 24) uses the same playing card numbering but switches to the suit of hearts.

One thing I didn't know until reading this new book is that Leary's tarot correspondences originally appeared in his unpublished book The Periodic Table of Energy the substance of which became The Game of Life. This may or may not account for the slight and largely insignificant discrepancy in the Death card. Flatley maintains that Leary changed the name of the card to DEATH HORSE. In the second edition of The Game of Life this card goes by THE SKELETON HORSE in one place then DEATH-REBIRTH on the following page.

Leary applied the conventional order of the tarot for each successive stage with the exception of switching THE EMPRESS and HIGH PRIESTESS cards for stages 3 and 4.

Flatley does a superb job laying out the connection between the neurological stages and the Tarot trumps. It makes for a nice concise introduction to Leary's model with each section giving Keywords, Traditional meanings (Leary's card interpretations appear decidedly untraditional) and my favorite – Questions to consider in a reading. The latter provokes self examination. For instance, in stage 15 the question gets asked, "Are you finding a balance between indulgence and moderation in your sensory experiences?" 

The final chapter consists of how to use Timothy's tarot for divination. Flatley shows his rigorous research by discovering a tarot reading by Leary found amongst his personal papers housed at the New York Public Library. This building can be seen in the opening shot of Ghostbusters, an extremely esoteric film in its own right, but I digress. What I find very interesting is that Flatley dug up the method Leary devised for a Tarot spread directly related to the neuro-circuits. Like a Robert Anton Wilson book or article on the circuits, The Occult Timothy Leary both provides the information and suggests ways to use it for personal evolution; magick in theory and practice.

Leary's tarot only uses the Major Arcana, the 22 trumps and the two additional cards he made up. Flatley references Robert Anton Wilson to bring in the Minor Arcana, the pip cards and the court cards in the four suits of Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles (or Coins). Each suit corresponds to one of the four elements: Wands = fire, Cups = water, Swords = air, Pentacles = earth. Wilson (incorrectly, in my view) attributes each of the suits to one of the four terrestrial circuits appearing in Prometheus Rising (Hilaritas, p. 118) like this:

Y  fire     wands      CIRCUIT IV

H  water  cups        CIRCUIT  II

V  air      swords     CIRCUIT III

H  earth  pentacles  CIRCUIT I

The letters in the left column, YHVH, represent the four-fold name of God: Yod He Vau He. The attributions look correct EXCEPT for the circuits. Note the out of sequence circuit numbering in the far right column going IV, II, III, I. In my view, circuits I and IV make better sense when switched to make the attributions look like this:

 

Y  fire     wands      CIRCUIT I

H  water  cups        CIRCUIT  II

V  air      swords     CIRCUIT III

H  earth  pentacles  CIRCUIT IV

This has the first circuit corresponding with fire while the fourth circuit corresponds with earth. Circuit IV, the Socio-Sexual, makes a composite of circuits I - III just as earth forms a composite of the three pure elements of fire, water and air.

Interestingly, right below these attributions Wilson provides Carl Jung's attributions from Psychology and Alchemy (PR p. 117) which RAW correctly assigns to the circuits with the first circuit corresponding to fire as it should, in my view.

Note that with the switch the circuits now appear in the same order that they get turned on in the body. In the Game of Life Dr. Tim also correlates the Wands/Fire suit with circuit I. This doesn't mean I'm right and Flatley/Wilson are wrong. As Crowley puts it in The Book of Thoth:

"It seems hardly possible to define these terms in such a way as to make their meaning clear to the student. SHe must discover for hirself by constant practice what they mean to hir. It does not even follow that SHe will arrive at the same ideas. This will not mean that one mind is right and the other wrong, because each one of us has hir own universe all to hirself, and it is not the same as anyone else's universe." (Quotation modified to reflect Leary's use of generalized personal pronouns.)

* * * * * * 

The occult emphasis in the book appears squarely on connections between Leary and Crowley as made crystal clear by the cover illustration showing the good Doctor posing like a famous Aleister Crowley photo in the posture of the Hierophant (see above). However, I would argue that G.I. Gurdjieff had an equal if not stronger influence on Leary's thinking. In his dedication for Info–Psychology (Falcon, 1987) Leary places Gurdjieff at the top. It reads in full:

"This book celebrates all

Evolutionary Agents

And Cyber–punks

On this Planet and Elsewhere

Especially

Georges I. Gurdjieff

           who made us laugh

Aleister Crowley

            who did the English translation

To Israel Regardie

             who kept the Falcon flying high

To Thomas Pynchon

          who gave the American version

To William Gibson

           first of our species to circumnavigate

           the Info-World

           In his novels NEUROMANCER, COUNT ZERO,

           BURNING CHROME, MONA LISA OVERDRIVE

           Gibson has outlined the Cyber-Info

           Society of the near future"

TOTL begins chapter 1 with a story Tim told in his autobiography, Flashbacks (J.P. Tarcher, 1983) about his grandfather telling him at a young age to "Never do anything like anyone else, boy." This is a slightly different iteration of a well-known story Gurdjieff tells near the beginning of Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. In Gurdjieff's earlier version his grandmother lies on her death bed:

  "'Eldest of my grandsons! Listen and always remember my strict injunction to you: In life never do as others do'

    Having said this, she gazed at the bridge of my nose and, evidently noticing my perplexity and my obscure understanding of what she had said, added somewhat angrily and imperiously:

    "Either do nothing – just go to school – or do something nobody else does.'"

She dies immediately after giving Gurdjieff this advice. It seems likely that both stories were fabricated, but they make an important point. I find it funny and a little paradoxical for Leary to tell the same story about being different though arguably he does make it different by changing the source to his grandfather. I believe Leary repeats Gurdjieff's story as a way of aligning himself to the same esoteric lineage. I last saw Leary speak at a club in New York called the Wetlands toward the end of 1990. He introduced his assistant as Gurdjieff's grandson.

I'm very grateful Flatley includes this anecdote: "'He (Leary) told me that the circuits were derived from Gurdjieff,' Rushkoff says." I have always believed that to be true, but would be hard pressed to find a citation for that knowledge. Fortunately I don't have to now. Familiarity with Gurdjieff's Fourth Way system provides a valuable background to understanding Leary's model of the brain circuits. Two primary principles Gurdjieff espoused are the Law of Octaves and the Law of Threes. These are most easily researched in In Search of the Miraculous by P.D. Ouspensky. The Law of Octaves derives from the discovery by Pythagoras of the diatonic musical scale in which the eighth note, called the octave, is exactly twice the frequency of the first note when ascending. Scale comes from the Latin scala which means ladder. The Law of Threes states that all manifested phenomena comprises three forces which he designated as active/affirming, passive/denying, and neutralizing/reconciling. This law resonates with various archetypes and principles related to 3 as for example the Christian trinity, the supernal Sephiroth in Kabbalah and even Ohm's law in electricity which states that V = IR;  voltage V (reconciling) = current I (active) multiplied by resistance R (denying). Flatley compares the 3 stages for each circuit with the Trimurti group of Gods in Hinduism – Brahma the creator, Shiva, the destroyer and Vishnu, the preserver. Following Leary, he also connects them to the three aspects of neural synapses – the microscopic junctions where neurons communicate with each other (TOTL p. 115). 

Leary's 8 circuits do not rigorously follow the musical aspects of the Law of Octaves, but the 3 stages in each circuit closely resemble the Law of Threes. Gurdjieff often described ordinary humans as 3 brained beings. Understanding the nature of each of these brains (also called centrums) can go a long way toward understanding the neurological model based upon them. The first one is the moving or instinctive centrum which handles all the physical functions of the body. I think of it as the physical brain. This corresponds with Leary's circuit 1 the Biosurvival. The second one is the emotional centrum or the Emotional-Territorial of circuit 2. The third brain is the intellectual centrum or the Semantic circuit as TOTL has it. 

It seems a basic initial stepping stone, especially in the area of self-observation, to comprehend the first three circuits as the physical, emotional and intellectual aspects of the nervous system. Gurdjieff didn't clearly formulate a fourth brain but he does have a higher emotional centrum (circuit 6) and a higher intellectual or mental centrum (circuit 7). In CT1 RAW fills in the missing Gurdjieffian centrums as False Personality = circuit 4; the magnetic Centrum = circuit 5; and The Essence as circuit 8. Both Leary and Wilson changed the names of the higher circuits as their research and speculation evolved. Flatley uses Leary's original names as they appeared in Exo-Psychology and this is how they appeared in CT1. The original terminology makes the most sense to me so I agree with Flatley on that point. In the Game of Life, Leary changed the name of circuit 6 from the Neuro-electric to the Neurophysical. (For reasons unknown to me, the inconsistent use of the hyphen reflects both Leary and Wilson's nomenclature.) By the time of Info-Psychology [A Revision of Exo-Psychology] Leary has circuit 6 as "A Neurogenetic ontology" and circuit 7 as "A Neurogenetic teleology." Two pages later he refers to C6 as a Cyberelectronic phase and C7 as a Cybergenetic phase which reflects the original terminology. In Prometheus Rising Wilson calls C6 the Neurogenetic Circuit and C7 the Metaprogramming Circuit. By the time of Quantum Psychology, first published seven years later, RAW no longer calls them "circuits" changing them to "systems." C6  is now the Metaprogramming System with C7 named the Morphogenetic System. I find these differences in nomenclature helpful, not contradictory. They all serve to further the instruction inscribed upon the entrance to the Temple of Apollo (the Sun god) at Delphi: Know Thyself.

Comparing the Gurdjieffian centrums with Leary's circuits as presented by Flatley, we'll see a clear correspondence between the terrestrial and post-terrestrial circuits.

                            Leary                                   Gurdjieff

Terrestrial

Circuit 1              Biosurvival                         Moving

Circuit 2              Emotional-Territorial           Emotional

Circuit 3              Semantic                            Intellectual

Circuit 4              Socio-Sexual                      Personality

Post-Terrestrial

Circuit 5             Neurosomatic                     Magnetic Center

Circuit 6             Neuroelectric                      Higher Emotional

Circuit 7             Neurogenetic                      Higher Intellectual

Circuit 8             Neuroatomic                       The Essence

The most obvious ones are C2 Emotional with C6 Higher Emotional and C3 Intellectual with C7 Higher Intellectual. It appears C2 and 6 represent different modalities of the same system; likewise C3 and 7.

C1 concerns the functioning of the body and takes imprints soon after birth. C5 activation turns on the body's senses. The correspondence between C1 and 5 appears more obvious with Leary (soma means body). C4 and C8 don't show a clear correspondence, but I speculate they may show a similarity with C4 giving a composite of C 1-3; perhaps C8 represents a composite of the post-terrestrial circuits, though maybe not.

C1 represents the body. Trying practices that turns on the body like yoga or martial arts activates C5.

C2 suggests the heart. Opening the heart chakra gets you to C6. 

C3 connects with the mind. Learning to control thoughts (very difficult) and focus the mind gives an approach to C7 ... maybe. I say maybe because I've personally not experienced this circuit. I have experienced some of the psionic attributes grouped within the C6 territory by extensively working to reach the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian an operation that begins in Tiphareth, i.e. the heart.

* * * * * * 

Flatley gives an account of the conditions following Tim's terminal prostrate cancer diagnosis leading up to his death. He leaves out a couple of points, one of which looks very occult. Leary's good friend John Lilly asked Glenn and Lee Perry, owners of the Samadhi Tank Co. to set up a floatation tank for him in his house to help with the transition. They went down to L.A. and set it up and in the process gave him a copy of The American Book of the Dead by E.J. Gold. Leary had written of rituals found inside it in an article years earlier called "Commonsense Alternatives to Involuntary Death" later included in the book Chaos and Cyberculture. Lee Perry related to me that after giving the book to Tim he started playing word games with the text on the back cover.

Leary originally planned to have his head removed after death and cryogenically frozen then changed his mind, as related in TOTL. However, in a film made by Paul Davids, Timothy Leary's Dead, about his final year leading up to and including his death, we see his head being severed for preservation. It can be viewed for free on Tubi. The final shot in the film before the credits roll shows a close-up of his severed head. This turns out to be a theatrical stunt, but looks very realistic. I thought this absolutely brilliant because of its qabalistic implications illustrating another close affinity with Crowley. The Hebrew letter Resh translates to English as Head and corresponds with The Sun tarot card. The Sun corresponds with Tiphareth. Crowley once stated (in The Confessions of Aleister Crowley) that his primary goal in life involved turning people on to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, an operation beginning in Tiphareth. This appears synonymous with the discovery of one's True Will, i.e. one's life purpose; the answer to the question, why are you here?" Timothy Leary symbolically carried on Crowley's work until the very end. TOTL relates the last word Leary spoke which happens to serve as a keyword for Tiphareth.

* * * * * * 

I only have one major criticism. Leary's three stages for each circuit describes the functions of reception, integration and transmission. For instance, stage 13, the first post-terrestrial stage, indicates the receptive function of the Neurosomatic circuit, stage 14 gives the integration aspect of that circuit with stage 15 communicating from that circuit. Flatley writes, "When considering the tarot, it's probably more helpful and less abstract to think of the three functions of each circuit as feeling-thinking-action (or sensation-mentation-creation)." I completely disagree with this; for me it adds confusion being that they each have a circuit of their own, C2, C3 and C1. But lest we forget, these are merely maps and models so if it works for you to access that territory, it works; it doesn't matter what I think.

I also found a couple of small issues with the copy editing. The timeline gets confusing when the book appears to say the Beatles broke up in 1965 (p. 38). They actually dissolved in 1970. I didn't understand how the timeline jumps from 1965 to 1970 then back to 1966 until I realized the likelihood a mistake occurred. Page 190 under C7 calls stage 1 thinking when it should be feeling according to Flatley's designation. I saw 3 or four typos, but so what? Except for the timeline thing these errors don't interfere with comprehending the material.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and commend the author, a true Evolutionary Agent, for all the hard work and time he devoted to help bring the work of Timothy Leary to a wider and perhaps younger audience. As R.U. Sirius states in the Foreword, "In The Occult Timothy Leary, Joseph L. Flatley gives you the big picture. And what a picture it is!"

                                                

    

 

 

 

Pynchon's Shadow Ticket from a Deleuzean Perspective

The contents of Thomas Pynchon's novels can easily be termed a multiplicity. "A multiplicity is defined not by its elements, nor by a center of unification or comprehension. It is defined by the number of dimensions it has" - A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze & Guattari, p. 249.  The dimensions in Shadow Ticket include: the rise of Fascism and Nazism in America, the Chicago Mafia, music, the paranormal, general history, a transatlantic ocean voyage, a train ride across the midwest and east USA, labor unrest, detective adventures, a submarine adventure, international spying, humor, vampires, a golem, bowling, motorcycle gangs, early flying machines, etc, etc, etc. 

"Since its variations and dimensions are immanent to it, it amounts to the same thing to say that each multiplicity is already composed of heterogeneous terms in symbiosis, and that a multiplicity is continually transforming itself into a string of other multiplicities, according to its thresholds and doors"  - ibid, p. 249 (italics in original). In this case, the thresholds and doors may consist of active readers who see and possibly explore the connections into his other books or the connections to music, films or technology, etc.

The central protagonist in Shadow Ticket, Hicks McTaggart, may have received his surname, in part, from the early 20th Century metaphysician and philosopher J.M.E. McTaggart. McTaggart, an enthusiastic interpreter of Hegel is largely known these days for his self-explanatory essay "The Unreality of Time." James Williams, known as an excellent explainer of Gilles Deleuze, argues that the latter used McTaggart, among other things, as foil to come up with his own theories of Time in Difference and Repetition. Hegel serves as another foil and contrast for Deleuze's philosophy so Williams' argument appears plausible. He makes his case in the presentation "Deleuze's Answer to McTaggart: Series and Disjunctive Syntheses."  Williams also points to similarities between the two philosophers. Unfortunately, the audio sounds pretty terrible so I recommend watching with closed captions for those interested.

As stated previously, reversal appears a motif in Shadow Ticket (ST = 69; see the gunplay reversal technique in chapter 6, etc). I suggest that Hicks McTaggart in various ways reverses the characteristics of J.M.E. McTaggart. For example, the latter McTaggart worked as an academic at Trinity College, Cambridge, England while the former McTaggart works on the street as a P.I. Interestingly, given that Hicks is a fictional character, he seems more human, down to earth and relatable than the analytical J.M.E. Finally, as we shall see, Hicks McTaggart acts more in accordance with Deleuze's theories while J.M.E. seems more opposed to them.

Pynchon name-checks Deleuze and Guattari in Vineland, a novel with evident connections to Shadow Ticket as has been previously shown.  Looking at TP's oeuvre through the Deleuzean lens has precedent though not to any great extent. Stefan Mattessich took a crack at it with Lines of Flight - Discursive Time and Countercultural Desire in the Work of Thomas Pynchon (Duke University Press 2002) which I have mixed feelings about. It often reads as difficult as the most recondite of either Deleuze or Pynchon. Not all of us are scholars. Coming out when it did, Mattessich only reaches Mason & Dixon with his Deleuzean analysis. I will attempt to avoid too much jargon for the Deleuzean newbie.

Hicks McTaggart works at the Unamalgamated Ops detective agency. To amalgamate means to form into "one organization or structure," basically to form a unity of some kind. To operate unamalgamated means the opposite of that. This recalls Deleuze and Guattari's (D&G) concept of the Rhizome where they contrast a set unified structure which they call "arborescent" using the model of a tree with roots, with something like grass which grows like a rhizome. Most of the botanical type of rhizomes that the model is based on grow underground via horizontal stems as opposed to vertically planting roots. This makes their network mobile as opposed to sedentary trees whose horizontal growth and mobility is limited to how far they cast their seeds. Rhizomatic proliferation appears nonlinear, non hierarchical, decentralized and chaotic, not subordinate to an organizing principle or amalgamation into a particular form or structure. Any point in a rhizome can connect with any other point. Thus a rhizome effects a multiplicity of different aspects as opposed to the single entity of an arborescent model. 

D&G's rhizome model appears as the introduction to A Thousand Plateaus (ATP), the second volume of their Capitalism and Schizophrenia series. They both introduce the concept along with the book as a rhizome. Being rhizomatic literature (the chapter and book), thus a multiplicity, it looks at writing from that model therefore providing some insight into the often convoluted and digressive style of Mr. P.  D&G conceive a book as a literary machine with a productive function. "We will never ask what a book means as signified or signifier; we will not look for anything to understand in it" . . . "Writing has nothing to do with signifying. It has to do with surveying, mapping, even realms that are yet to come" (ATP, p. 4 - 5). Of course the central activity in Mason & Dixon concerns surveying and mapping. I postulate that the realms yet to come concern untapped abilities in the largely occult aspects of the human brain and nervous system. This territory or territories shows up in TP's novels as the paranormal or (so-called) supernatural. 

The contrast between arborescent and rhizome doesn't present a strict dichotomy in D&G's schema. An arborescent structure can have rhizomatic offshoots; rhizomatic networks can settle in to a unified organization. As they put it: "There exist root or tree structures in rhizomes; conversely, a tree branch or root division may begin to burgeon into a rhizome. The coordinates are determined not by theoretical analyses implying universals but by a pragmatics composing aggregates of intensities. A new rhizome may form in the heart of a tree, the hollow of a root, the crook of a branch" (ATP, p. 15).

The arborescent plot of Shadow Ticket concerns detective Hicks McTaggart's assignment to locate and bring back home the cheez heiress Daphne Airmont. The novel has any number of rhizomatic digressions having little to do with the plot except tangentially. An obvious one being the subplot of Stuffy Keegan and the adventures of the mysterious submarine that courses throughout the book. Another recurring branch concerns the subject of apport and asport – objects mysteriously disappearing out of thin air (asport) or appearing out of thin air (apport) which we first hear about in chapter 5. Rhizomes produce multiplicities; multiplicities of all kinds abound in Pynchon. D&G will say that a rhizome is "defined solely by a circulation of states." We see a circulation of  ever changing states in all of Pynchon's novels. 

* * * * * * 

"The first theoretical element of importance is the fact that the war machine has many varied meanings, and this is precisely because the war machine has an extremely variable relation to war itself. The war machine is not uniformly defined, and comprises something other than increasing quantities of force."

– ATP, p. 422

Deleuze and Guattari initially conceptualize the war machine as that which resists the State either individually or collectively. The war machine manifests and proliferates outside and against the State. This pole of the war machine doesn't have violent war as its primary objective. It's only when the State appropriates the war machine turning it into a military institution and an army that we see war as we commonly know it. D&G call this total war. 

Related concepts include nomadology, and the difference between smooth and striated space. Nomads are in constant flux and movement; they are fluid having no fixed address. Historically, Eskimos, Mongols, and Bedouins lived nomadically moving as their environment changed. Touring musicians live as nomads. D&G expand the definition to include figurative as well as literal nomads. Anyone flexible in their thinking, so-called "free-thinkers" not rigidly bound to dogmas, ideologies and belief systems operate as nomads. Deleuze himself famously disliked traveling living most of his adult life in the same area of Paris yet nomadically travelled far in his thinking, intellectual expression and his own philosophy characterized by coming up with different nomenclature for looking at similar ideas in a different way. For example, smooth space describes a body without organs, aka the plane of consistency, aka the intense egg, etc. Nomads oppose fixed identity.

Striated space includes any space (mentally or physically) with a grid over it. For instance, roadways, traffic lights and street signs striate a space indicating where and when one can or cannot go. Oceans, deserts or steppes mark a smooth space. Any kind of meditation can mentally induce one into a smooth space. Smooth spaces typically go in between striated spaces. "But more generally, we have seen that the war machine was the invention of the nomad, because it is in its essence the constitutive element of smooth space . . ." (ATP p.417).

Back in the day, the protests against the Vietnam War functioned as a war machine. Hippies lived nomadically sometimes entering a smooth space via psychedelics and other consciousness raising technologies. Now we have the No Kings protest movement as a war machine against the State. Individually, anyone fighting against their complacency or working to break out of fixed, limiting beliefs constructs a kind of internal war machine for doing so. The Gurdjieffians describe a "war against sleep" as a fight against automatic, mechanical behavior. The Book of the Law provides instructions for the construction of a war machine at the beginning of its 3rd chapter. 

The war machine has a presence throughout Vineland with its opposition to State Fascism and its war against drugs best exemplified by the macho Brock Vond and his cohorts. The war machine appears far more subtle and occult in Shadow Ticket. 

"It would seem that the war machine is projected into an abstract knowledge formally different from the one that doubles the State apparatus." – ATP, p. 362. I've outlined some of the coded "abstract knowledge" that can go towards resisting fascism in the first post of this series. TP alludes to this kind of abstract knowledge in the opening Bela Lugosi quote: "Supernatural perhaps. Baloney . . . perhaps not." We're talking about knowledge that leads one to Initiation which from one viewpoint means becoming more yourself; connecting with your real purpose in life or at least a path toward discovering what that might be. Resisting the fascism of someone telling you how to live or what you should be doing. 

Much of the "supernatural" knowledge presents itself allegorically, metaphorically or in code. Some of it may be possible to individuals motivated toward sensitizing their nervous systems to receiving energy normally filtered out. The various instances of telepathy throughout Shadow Ticket give an example of that. The novel may hint at how to develop more extraordinary abilities, but it doesn't directly provide techniques. It does paint scenarios illustrating such abilities recalling an old occult formula: first it exists in IMAGINATION then in WILL then in REALITY. Hicks's initials form a cypher that = WILL. 

Some of this abstract knowledge seems impossible to put into practice, or if possible, a long way off for the average person. The ability to asport or apport objects that Thessalie tells Hicks about in chapter 5 comes quite easily to some of the characters later on. Maybe this is baloney, maybe it's in the future? Thessalie also introduces Hicks to the science of psychometry in the same chapter. This art can be attempted by anyone. Meditate on an object and try to receive impressions from it. Not every object will be what they call a reading object, i.e. give off impressions. Trying this at a museum that displays antiquities may help. These are just some examples. There seems a great deal of nomadic abstract knowledge in Shadow Ticket, much of it coded. Digging it out requires paying close attention.

How to receive useful abstract knowledge gets shown in chapter 15 when Hicks gets his fortune from penny scales that seems to be trying to tell him something important. "By now Hicks is used to this sort of thing, a network of penny scales all over town plus Chicago that can recognize him personally even blocks away. Must be done with radio waves somehow." In this case the information is trying to save his life. This provides an illustration of one way the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel communicates. Some organization (a State of some kind) appears to be trying to kill him. Whatever intelligence coming through the penny scale seems to be trying to save his life. Eventually Hicks listens and dodges a bullet. 

Most of the main characters appear to live a largely nomadic existence. Hicks seems to get involuntarily thrown further into one after getting drugged in Harlem and waking up on an ocean liner bound for Europe. He spends the rest of the novel in various places in eastern Europe finding residence nowhere; always on the move nomadically. Daphne Airmont runs away with a clarinet player on tour before ditching him. Some of the action takes place on the Trans-Trianon 2000 motorcycle tour which encompasses a 2000 km circuit. 

"The nomad has a territory; he follows customary paths; he goes from one point to another; . . . A path is always between two points, but the in-between has taken on all the consistency and enjoys both an autonomy and a direction of its own. The life of the nomad is the intermezzo. Even the elements of his dwelling are conceived in terms of the trajectory that is forever mobilizing them"  - ibid, p. 380 (emphasis added). 

Generally speaking, an intermezzo consists of an interlude between two substantial aspects like a brief musical passage between two larger movements. In this context I would say the intermezzo of the nomad goes in between two fixed identities. Hicks starts out as a gumshoe in Milwaukee. He ends up in Hungary with a new girlfriend and considers leaving the detective business to get into espionage or something else. The intermezzo also recalls the Bardo, the between lives state, a space which exists between the death of one identity and the birth of another. Death and the Bardo have a significant presence throughout Shadow Ticket.

D&G talk about two poles of the war machine. One pole shows State sponsored war; what's going on in Iran and the Middle East as I write this. The other pole consists of what Pynchon writes of as a subtext in Shadow Ticket and his other novels: "it is when the war machine, with infinitely lower "quantities," has as its object not war but the drawing of a creative line of flight, the composition of a smooth space and of the movement of people in that space." . . . "War machines take shape against the apparatuses that appropriate the machine and make war their affair and their object: they bring connections to bear against the great conjunction of the apparatuses of capture or domination."

Shadow Ticket Part II

 " . . . some rare authors, such as Dante and Chaucer, share Virgil's comprehensive vision and arrive at the richest idea of the development of the labyrinth by blending labyrinthine fact and fiction, structure and story, objective pattern and subjective fact." 

– The Idea of the Labyrinth, by Penelope Reed Doob

Illustration of the mythical labyrinth in Crete

Thomas Pynchon's works form a maze or labyrinth for the reader to solve, some more labyrinthine than others; not a new idea in his secondary literature. David Seed wrote The Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon (1988) that apparently explores the subject (I haven't read it). Others have made the same comparison of his writings to a labyrinth. Gravity's Rainbow seems inordinately puzzling just trying understand what goes on in the various scenes. Writers that have strongly influenced TP wrote labyrinthine classics: Joyce, Burroughs, Borges, Wilson, for instance. Nietzsche wrote about the inner life and deep self as a labyrinth with its various complex layers and depths to be explored. The prototype for the labyrinth model comes from the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur. The solution in this myth lies in following Ariadne's thread through it. Some interpretations of Nietzsche suggest that his concept, "will to power" can serve as thread through the maze of life. This doesn't mean a will to have power over anything else other than yourself; it means the will to do, to act rather than react; closely related, perhaps synonymous with Big Al's "do what thou wilt."

Shadow Ticket has many puzzling, maze-like aspects, but also a clear thread in Hicks McTaggert whose initials in Gematria = 54 = Thelema = Will. Attempting to thread the labyrinth of this text reflexively puts the interested reader in a proactive position of having to fully engage with solving the puzzle.

Every detective story seems like a puzzle to solve. The last post suggests that the reader play the part of a detective, with the assignment or ticket being the Shadow. When Hicks is given his ticket to locate Daphne Airmont his boss asks him "what's this expression on your face?" and he answers "Close attention, I think" (p. 4); perhaps a clue to pay close attention to the information given. The idea this book may be coded gets alluded to with a twist on a real historical character, Gleb Bokii portrayed here as Stalin's "chief cryptology genius" (p. 167). The real Gleb Bokii (1879 - 1937) was a Soviet revolutionary and a paranormal investigator. 

The subject of Death recurs in Shadow Ticket. Investigating the shadow appears synonymous with attempting to solve the maze of the underworld. "An underworld where the dead live in shadow was common to beliefs in the ancient Near East" (Wikipedia). The most well known example from the Bible appears in the 4th line of Psalm 23: "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Pynchon's twist on this comes with the character of Daphne Airmont, the cheez princess. Daphne = 145 = "The Staff of GOD." The simplest way to describe the plot of Shadow Ticket: rescue the princess. The rod and staff suggests the phallic magick wand = WILL. Blending a phallic image with a principle female character appears suggestive of a solution to the unbalanced male energy spoken of earlier.  

The Divine Comedy by Dante provides a foundational pillar in the canon of Western and Near Eastern literature. It poetically describes a journey through death and the underworld. The influence of this opus on modern and postmodern writers has been profound. You'll find it in James Joyce (Finnegans Wake), Ezra Pound (The Cantos), Robert Anton Wilson (Illuminatus! and others), Malcolm Lowery (Under the Volcano) to name a few. 

Shadow Ticket shows some parallels with The Divine Comedy. In the final chapter Hicks realizes he's not going back to Milwaukee, his girlfriend has married a gangster, Don Peppino Infernacci. This suggests Inferno, the first book of The Divine Comedy. Hicks laments that he doesn't know the language here, but then "Terike zooms in," a new romantic interest, offering to teach him starting with the Hungarian word for tomato, paradicsom, recalling the third book of The Divine Comedy, Paradisio, with Terike playing the role of Beatrice, Dante's former love and guide there. Analysis of "tomato" supports that: to + ma + to; ma = the Mother archetype; the first "to" could mean he's going to her as Dante did with Beatrice; the second "to" = 79 = "Conjunction, meeting, union" Dante's Paradisio culminates with the union of the human will with Divine will; one interpretation of Crowley's "Do what thou wilt."

Shadow Ticket begins with imagery reminiscent of a contemporary Inferno.  A loud explosion occurs on page 1. Flashing back to Hicks's time as a strikebreaker we find him regularly getting into violent skirmishes; in one instance he almost kills someone. We first hear about Don Peppino Infernacci described as "a lord of the underworld."  The transition from Inferno to Purgatorio occurs gradually in Shadow Ticket as it also does in The Divine Comedy. I would place the beginning of it when Hicks leaves April at Union Station in Chicago to take the train to New York. 

Purgatorio "Canto XII" has the lines:

"How different were these entryways from those 

of Hell! For here it is with song one enters;

down there, it is with savage lamentations."

On the train to New York, a porter, McKinley Gibbs, brings a stack of records for sale and a Victrola. Gibbs gives Hicks a disc without a label which turns out to have April singing. He heard April singing it live before but never on a record. Hicks listens to it a few times then falls asleep. The lyrics are in the book (p. 124 - 125). When he wakes up, he looks for the porter, but no one has ever heard of him. He seems to have been a phantom. I suggest that this song marks his entry into the Purgatory section which goes for most of the rest of the novel. In the first Canto of Purgatorio Dante conceives of it as a journey to freedom and liberty which I see as a subtext of Shadow Ticket. Another interpretation of this territory holds it to be partially an allegory for the training of the will in this life.

Shades is the term Dante calls the souls of the deceased. He also frequently refers to them as ombra, Italian for shadow. We see a reference to a dead Italian on the first page of Shadow Ticket. Chapter 2 has "IMOPIO job, no question." IMOPIO stands for "Infernal Machine Of Presumed Italian Origin."

  

Hicks gets confronted with death in his previous job as a strikebreaker when he gets so mad at someone that he reaches for the weapon in his pocket to throttle the guy and finds it inexplicably gone. He realizes he would have killed him had not some supernatural agency temporarily removed the weapon. This event profoundly changes his life leading him to change course and get a job as a detective. The shock of being confronted with death by nearly killing someone proves transformational. 

Last post I brought up the Death tarot card in chapter 13 when Bruno thinks about it. The implication is  that he's knocking off rivals in the cheez industry. Two chapters later, 15, starts with Hicks having a sense that he's targeted. This is the Christmas Day chapter where he gets a deadly gift. On the Stupendica ocean liner in chapter 20 it seems Hicks gets killed, but he doesn't, a trick on the reader. Later, when the action shifts to Hungary we see a short bit about "Death's penis" an image that ties in with the aggressively male energy  brought up last post with Fascism. There seems nothing more fascist than killing someone solely because the murderer has aggressive dick energy. Down the line, in Vladboy (fascist) territory in Hungary we see a sign on a club that translates to Wall of Death.

Stuffy Keegan is the fellow whose truck got bombed at the top of the story. It seems he escaped the blast, but it's left ambiguous.  "Maybe I'm a ghost now and I'm haunting you" (p. 57). He ends up going aboard an old WWI submarine that seems equally mysterious. The sub appears able to travel across parallel worlds at the end of the story. That sub is known as U-13. As mentioned earlier, 13 is the key number for Nun (Hebrew) and all its correspondences which include the Death card. U-13 = you dead. 

Nun means "fish." In Kabbalah, nun/fish symbolizes "heir to the throne" among other things. In medieval texts a final nun (last letter) was used as an abbreviation for "son of." The final phrase of the first paragraph in the book reads" "where it seldom gets more serious than somebody stole somebody's fish." Looking at it through the Kabbalah lens it becomes ". . . somebody stole somebody's heir." This encapsulates the plot though Pynchon has reversed the gender and made her an heiress. Vineland begins with Zoyd Wheeler, the son of Skeet Wheeler, having to reverse his gender by dressing in drag in order to collect his benefits.

* * * * * *

To be in the world but not of it describes a Sufi maxim that appears to apply to a subtextual directive proscribing a way of action in Shadow Ticket. I hazard to say that the hermetic/mystical coding found herein does not intend to teach a path toward personal enlightenment, but rather to a way of service intended to make the world a better place. In Qabalistic terms, in this instance we don't climb the Tree of Life to ascend to the lofty immaterial realm of Kether and hang out there, but rather to learn a transformational function that brings the life force and vitality of Kether down to the material world of Malkuth. We aren't "another one of those metaphysical detectives, out looking for Revelation" as Lew Basnight puts it in chapter 6.

Two names in the story serve to illustrate this  perspective. I'll discuss Bruno's formerly right hand man and fixer, Ace Lomax first. Ace naturally suggests the Aces in the tarot especially since we find tarot encounters in the book. Lomax = Low (Malkuth) + maximum. Lon Milo Duquette's Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot provides an excellent description of the aces. Crowley says the aces aren't the four elements themselves, but rather the seeds of the elements comparing that to Kether and its relationship to the manifestation of the rest of the Tree. Duquette writes that all the lesser arcana (Court and small cards) of the Tarot live inside each of the aces's respective suit. He connects the seed quality of aces with subatomic particles that "aren't matter at all, but can only be described as nonmaterial 'tendencies'" (UACTT, p, 163). I hope you enjoy the qabalistic pun with Malkuth-10. 

Crowley writes that the aces form a link between the Princesses and the small cards. The Princesses correspond with Earth. Bruno Airmont attempts to rehire Ace Lomax at the end of the novel offering him a top position in his enterprise. He also teases him with the prospect of becoming romantically involved with his daughter, Daphne, the cheez princess. Lomax turns him down. He gets many other job offers the last one being to escort Jews to safety from the fascists. Ace expresses guilt over antisemitic actions he's taken previously; this new job reverses that giving him a chance to expiate his past. This connects with the territory of Purgatory and the theme of Liberty for the Jews he rescues. Ace Lomax's initials = AL as in Big AL or Liber Al. 

The second name illustrating the idea of vitalizing the material world: Bela Lugosi.

Lugosi can break down to: low (Malkuth)  + go + see. Bela Lugosi was Hungarian. Much of the second part of the book occurs in Hungary. In old Hungarian Bela = heart or insides. Bela Lugosi =  heart low go see.

The nature of producing this elan vital (Bergson) or what Gilles Deleuze calls "sense" can be found in the Crowley material herein. Previously we saw Bruno pass on the inner secrets of the International Cheese Syndicate (= 78 = the Tarot = to initiate = Ra Hoor Khuit, etc. etc. see Sepher Sephiroth). Like elan vital we find that cheese is alive: "'Cheese, oh to be sure, cheese is alive. Self aware, actually, maybe not exactly the way we are, but still more than some clever simulation. We're at a pivot point here in the history of food science, a strange new form of life that was deliberately invented like Dr. Frankenstein or something –'" (ST p.83) 

Note the "c + s" combination which relates both to elan vital and food science. The story of Frankenstein can represent an alchemical allegory for self-actualization in the higher dimensions. Another contemporary iteration of that allegory comes in the form of Bob Dylan's "My Own Version of You" from Rough and Rowdy Ways:

"I'll take a Scarface Pacino and a Godfather Brando

Mix it up in a tank and get a robot commando

If I do it up right and put the head on straight

I'll be saved by the creature I create."

Bruno Airmont, the Al Capone of Cheez, passes on his esoteric secrets to his daughter Daphne in chapter 37. Another allusion to passing on Big Al's (Aleister Crowley) material comes from Skeet Wheeler. Skeet, who wishes to become an apprentice detective idolizes Al Capone. He carries a photo of him in his wallet with the inscription. "To my old goombah Skeet, who taught me everything I know, regards and tanti auguri (happy birthday in Italian), always, Al" (p. 7). Another reversal here with the teacher (Big Al) learning everything from the apprentice (Skeet). The book ends with a letter to Hicks telling him he's moving to California simply signed "Skeet," the last word in the book. 

Skeet = 99 = "The pangs of childbirth" (as in happy birthday);   

                      "The Vault of Heaven; an inner chamber; wedlock; nupital." 

We may assume that Skeet gets married to his new girl Zin as it seems their child is Zoyd Wheeler from Vineland - also connecting with childbirth.

Also 99 = "Clay of Death, Infernal Abode of Geburah;

                 Cognition, knowledge"

Skeet's name qabalistically connects with both Inferno and Paradisio.

Daphne's name also connects with Paradisio. In Greek mythology Daphne was pursued aggressively by Apollo. She prayed for help to her father, the river god Peneus who transformed her into a laurel tree to escape his erotic advances. Apollo designated the laurel his sacred tree. This myth is referred to twice in Paradisio Canto I. Daphne has since come to represent victory, honor, achievement and immortality. Victors were crowned with a laurel wreath in the ancient Olympics; see also poet laureate. 

                  

* * * * * * 

The clearest influence of James Joyce that I see comes from the circular nature of subjects at the end of the book matching those at the top. The book starts and ends with mention of the railroad which gets associated with trouble at the top; happiness and the promise of new life at the end. A phrase on page 2: "happiness twins are back on the train again" suggests the happy couple, Skeet and Zin about to board the train at the very end. The explosion on page 1 gets referenced on the last page.

Something else at both the end and beginning of the novel is the word "breeze" – "breeze machine" at the end, "comes breezing up here to Milwaukee" in the first paragraph.  Both are slang for traveling in these contexts. Breeze or a variation thereof easily appears one of the most frequently used verbs in the book coming with inordinate frequency. I don't know the significance of this, if any. It does remind me of his alternate spelling for cheese - cheez, which also sees frequent use. 

A cryptographer looking for patterns would notice that "breeze" and "cheez" have the letter sequence "eez" in common; eez = 17 = The Star (tarot). Perhaps this quote from Purgatorio Canto XVII appears mere coincidence:

"So said my guide; and toward a stairway, he 

and I together turned; and just as soon

as I was at the first step, I sensed something

  much like the motion of a wing, and wind

that beat against my face, and words 'Beati 

pacifica, those free of evil anger!'

    Above us now the final rays before

the fall of night were raised to such a height

that we could see the stars on every side."

This quote shows Dante feeling a breeze possibly from a bird or Angel just before the shadow of the Earth brings night with the stars becoming visible. Beati pacifica refers to the a Bible phrase" "Blessed are the peacemakers." Duquette writes: "Traditionally the Star is the card of hope – the promise of things unseen" (UACTT p. 145). 

Purgatorio Canto XXVIII connects breeze with hope:

 "A gentle breeze, which did not seem to vary

within itself, was striking at my brow

but with no greater force than a kind wind's,

    a wind that made the trembling boughs – they all

bent eagerly – incline in the direction

of morning shadows from the holy mountain;

   but they were not deflected with such force

as to disturb the little birds upon

the branches in the practice of their arts;

  for to the leaves, with song, birds welcomed those

first hours of the morning joyously,

and leaves supplied the burden to their rhymes –"

A gentle breeze, "which did not seem to vary within itself" suggests Will. Birds practicing their arts suggests Magick. It also recalls the Sufi classic, The Conference of the Birds. Joyce used "leaves" as a pun to symbolize death (as in leaves the body) in Finnegans Wake.

This breeze comes near the beginning of the Canto (line 7), a canto that marks an inflection point as Dante nears the end of his journey through Purgatorio and prepares to transition into Paradisio. This canto introduces the poet to the Garden Eden aka the Earthly Paradise.

I don't know if TP intended this association with the multiplicity of "breeze," but it does appear to fit with the project of attempting to make our world a little less inferno-like and more of a paradise. Or perhaps to focus and tune our perceptions in that direction. The postulate of Shadow Ticket as a magick grimoire, an agent of change, would have the Invocation go beyond the author's conscious intentions. In other words, this reading appears valid whether Pynchon meant it or not.

The next installment includes a Deleuzean perspective of Shadow Ticket. Stay tuned for Part III.

Magic Realism in Pynchon's Shadow Ticket

 "On the one hand, one would be a fool to think that reading a book about magical initiation is sufficient to constitute initiation. On the other hand, there are books where the text itself is the secret ... Texts can wind their import down twisted paths of verbal subterfuge such that to experience the course of their proceedings and the intensity and inner resonances of their content is to be brought to an experience on one's own terrain of what the author would lead one on to. " - Charles Stein, The Occult Harry Smith.

"Yet conscience must find ways to go on operating inside history." - Shadow Ticket, p. 279

This post will inevitably contain spoilers.

Common knowledge in the Pynchon universe holds that his historical novels include some subtext on the present time. Shadow Ticket is set mostly in 1932 when Fascism appeared in the ascendent around the world including the United States. Fascism plays a dominating role in the novel both in the macro geopolitical aspect and with the individual experiences and encounters by the characters. The story's timeline finishes around Christmas 1932. Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in January, 1933. The Hitler movement in the U. S. first comes into the picture at the start of chapter 4. Hitler gets blended with Charlie Chaplin's humorous caricature of him from The Dictator followed by a serious portrayal that seems accurate until he's described as someone who "says whatever comes into his head." The real Hitler did not have that trait, he never went off script in his meticulously crafted speeches. This kind of verbal diarrhea clearly fits a contemporary American politician. I see at least one other parallel to the same politician with an episode that flashes back on Bruno Airmont's sexual attraction to his then teenage daughter Daphne.

Magic realism appears self defining – elements of magic blending in with so-called "reality." Shadow Ticket constantly walks a fine line between the paranormal, events difficult to explain by the rules of known physics, and the "real." Pynchon articulates this fine line in the opening quote before the title page that's attributed to Bela Lugosi from The Black Cat (1934). "Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney . . . perhaps not." I recently saw this film and recommend it for getting into the mood of the book. The film is set in Hungary where a fair amount of Shadow Ticket takes place in the second half. Lugosi's character's name is Vitus Werdegast thus aligning to Pynchon's great propensity for using the letter V; done here with high frequency. Werdegast is a German name; the W has a V sound. I expand the sense of magic with a Hermetic definition: causing Change to occur in conformity with Will. 

Shadow Ticket (ST) starts out as a detective story then slowly morphs into something closer to espionage and spycraft. The protagonist, Hicks McTaggert, works for the Unamalgamated Ops detective agency. He gets the assignment to locate and bring back Daphne Airmont, the heiress to a cheese conglomerate owned by her father, Bruno, who has apparent ties to organized crime.  He's known as the Al Capone of Cheez (as it's frequently spelled). Assignments from the agency are known as tickets. When asked to go on other assignments by different people he invariable defers by saying Unamalgamated would have to open a ticket on that. Shadow Ticket can thus be seen as the reader's assignment to act as a detective in a particular way. In post modern offerings the idea of suggesting the reader put in the effort to decipher the literature like a detective turns up in novels by Robert Anton Wilson and Vladimir Nabokov with a reference to the archetypal detective Sherlock Holmes. Shadow Ticket gives the nod to Holmes on page 8 in the words of the young Skeet Wheeler who aspires to be a detective. 

So let's begin to unlock this occult transmission. I have previously outlined some of the elements and sources Pynchon's uses in his lexicon of symbolism and allusions in the recent Vineland reading group held over at rawillumination.net. Themes and characters from Pynchon's novels connect and bleed into each other, perhaps none more so than Shadow Ticket.  The two most obvious, blatantly obvious examples in this novel being Vineland (Vin) and Against the Day (AtD). I also see less obvious allusions to Gravity's Rainbow and Mason & Dixon. It turns out the aforementioned Skeet Wheeler appears the father of Zoyd Wheeler from Vineland.  Looking for something else in a Reddit group I came across this from user sylvester_stencil:

"He is 100% Zoyd's father. At the end of the novel Skeet tells Hicks he's moving to California with a girl he's fallen for named Zin. Skeet's real name is Floyd. Zin + Floyd = Zoyd." 

Skeet, appears an adolescent somewhere in his mid to late teens, I believe, so the timeline matches up. ST ends with the young Wheeler writing a letter to Hicks. Skeet is the last word in the novel. Zoyd Wheeler enters in the second phrase of Vin. Like DL Chastain in Vin, Hicks goes through some Oriental training that changes his mindset. ST mentions the word "prairie" in its usual sense maybe four times; the first time it's directly connected with "winter surf" (opposite of Vin's summer surf) and a booming foghorn. Fog appears a number of times in both novels. Fog seems a kind of shadow. Horn = the Hierophant who communicates the secrets so a booming foghorn indicates a strong communication from the Temple which I consider Vineland to be.   

 The theme of freedom v fascism occurs in both books though the balance appears reversed; more explicit freedom in Vin; far more fascism in ST, very little, if any explicit freedom though we'll see an allusion to a path toward life, love liberty and light.    

Lew Basnight works as a detective in both ST and AtD. The ocean liner Stupendica also shows up in both novels. A main theme, resistance to the invocation, evident in the title Against the Day, finds ample expression in ST beginning with the first sentence: "When trouble comes to town, it usually takes the North Shore Line." AtD has some strong parallels with the spiritual crisis known as Crossing the Abyss. Represented on the Tree of Life, it doesn't seem too far out to describe this crossing as a north shore line since it can traverse from Tiphareth to the Supernal Triad. 

Speaking of Qabalah, like many of his novels Pynchon gives some obvious correspondences as if to say look in that direction. ST = 69 which often indicates a reversal of some kind. Both the freedom v fascism theme and the Skeet/Zoyd connection fits this. The obvious example comes in chapter 6 when Basnight shows Hicks a gunhand maneuver that involves handing over your gun to your adversary butt first then:  ". . . you can spin the sucker around and shoot whoever's trying to take it away from you." Chapter 6 might be the shortest in the book and consists mostly of this trick though we do find another reversal. Basnight tells Hicks: "Just so long as you ain't another one of those metaphysical detectives out looking for Revelation." In AtD Lew Basnight operates as a psychical detective. Of course, any reader trying to figure out this or any other multilevel, multifaceted piece of literature works as a metaphysical detective if only because I consider language itself as metaphysical. I suspect most people do not because language appears so ingrained as a representation of physical reality. The notion of language as metaphysical gets greatly elaborated in Gilles Deleuze's Logic of Sense – where I started looking at language in this way. However, the point of the hermetic, esoteric data given in this book appears decidedly NOT to be personal enlightenment or revelation, but that my occur as a side effect. Lew qualifies it when he poo poos working as a metaphysical detective. 

Another blatant correspondence occurs in chapter 13 which has a lot of back story on Bruno Airmont  and his Cheese empire. In an interesting encounter a drunk or stoned Bruno, introduces himself as the Al Capone of Cheez to the real Al Capone. I won't spoil the rest of the joke. Al Capone is the first human in the novel, introduced as "Big Al" in the second sentence. Here, TP calls him "Big Fella." Both monikers were really nicknames for Capone. "Big" seems a significant indicator of esoteric functioning elaborated upon not too far ahead. Al calls Bruno a card. Bruno on his road of excess with a likely psychoactive drink thinks of the card numbered XIII, the Death card in the Tarot. That tells us that the chapter number, 13 in this case, may hold some Qabalah. I would argue that the page number can too. The theme of Death plays throughout most if not all of TP's ouevre. I'll get to more references later. One interpretation of the title Shadow Ticket: a detective assignment to piece together an experiential model of Death given that shadow connects with the Bardo. This connection gets made explicit at the bottom of page 60. The connection with the bardo, shadow and fog has precedence in Dante's Inferno Canto XXXI. 

* * * * * *     

In the early 90's after questioning Robert Anton Wilson he suggested I go to E. J. Gold's School, "but get out before it's too late." At a dinner with Bill Laswell in NY Peter Lamborn Wilson told me he thought Gold was the only one giving genuine Sufi instruction; he put down both Idries Shah and Gurdjieff for putting too much of their own thing into Sufi teachings which I disagreed with. Thomas Pynchon worked with Gold some time in the late 60's or early 70's in LA. Unfortunately, I don't know any details. But it really stands out to me in his work, especially Shadow Ticket. I suggest that a strong connection and transmission from an inner School can be seen here. I would argue TP's entire body of work constitutes an inner mystery school in itself if seen, decoded, assimilated and acted upon.

I suspect Pynchon refers to Gold here: "Kelly flips one switch and it's all lit up like Dearborn and Randolph. More dazzling as the night advances" p. 113. This is an intersection in downtown in Chicago. Randolph suggests Randolph St. Cosmo, the leader of the Chums of Chance from Against the Day a character obviously based on Gold. He manages to repeat this intersection at the top of chapter 25 referring to its quality of brightness at night while comparing it to an intersection in Budapest.

More importantly, Pynchon alludes, multiple times, to one of Gold's foundational disciplines known as the Popcorn Exercise. It's the initial exercise from his book Practical Work On Self. The kernel of corn to be popped becomes a metaphor for activating the emotional centrum; turning on and opening up the heart chakra. It's an operation in Tiphareth-6, thus showing a parallel to Crowley's Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. This initially occurs in ST when Hicks takes his girlfriend April to see the film Dracula starring Bela Lugosi on Valentine's Day in Chicago. By the time the film finishes "she'd eaten six cubic feet of popcorn." A cube has 6 sides; the two 6s side suggests 6 x 6 = 36 – coming up later.  Seventeen pages ahead we see the phrase "popcorn by the bucketful." By Notarikon (adding the initials of a sentence or phrase), p + b + t + b = 93. Then, on page 93, "sack of movie popcorn." The Notarikon appears relevant there as well, but I'm not going that deep into it. 93 represents the Thelemic current because 93 corresponds to both Love and Will. In chapter 28 after the story has shifted to Eastern Europe, Bruno and Daphne go see a film and have a brief discussion about the way they serve popcorn there that easily applies to the metaphor of Gold's exercise: "... through a mouthful of giant exploded kernels fiery with erös paprika ..."

Hicks has a hatmaker named Vito Cubanelli. Vito = vital; Cube = 6; hat+maker, hat = Kether thus maker of Kether through the vital cube; pretty strong clue there. There's mention made of "mercury fumes." Mercury corresponds with Hod-8. Thus we see Tiphareth-6 along with Hod-8 giving us the magic number 68 of which I've talked so much about previously. 68 seems most usually represented with the SC letter combination; we see that combo here in the hatmaker bit. Elsewhere, we find another connection with Vineland where Prairie makes her special "Spinach Casserole." Page 28 has Hick's uncle making a "Surprise Casserole."

On the way to Dracula Hicks recalls the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre that happened 4 years before in Chicago in which 7 mobsters were brutally murdered by another gang. It's also mentioned one time before that alluding to the idea of strong resistance to the invocation of opening the heart. A historical character, Max Valentiner, comes into the picture in chapter 37 in relation to the backstory of the skipper of the freelance liberty submarine (resonant with Illuminatus!) that runs throughout the plot. Max Valentiner's name suggests maximum heart but something corrupted him as he torpedoed a boat full of civilians in WWI  – another example showing resistance to the day. Valentiner is also mentioned in Against the Day. Yet another image of trying to block Tiphareth occurs with the attempted murder of Hicks on Christmas Day.

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Pynchon not only illustrates the rise of Fascism in this era, both political and personal, he suggests an underlying energetic cause for it, i.e. unbalanced and out of control male or yang energy. This theme carries over from Vineland. One moment of brilliance in Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, loosely based on Vineland, blatantly connects this raw, male, destructive energy with the Brock Vond-like character the first time we see him. ST begins to emphasize the letter O in the paragraph before the section break on page 2 that bring's up Otto's Oasis and Oriental Drugs. Page 6 has the head of the detective agency, Boynt Crosstown giving the "O-O" to Skeet. That comes up again a little later. O-O stands for observation operation though we're not told that in the book. The letter O corresponds to The Devil in the Tarot, a symbol, in a less favorable aspect, for unbalanced male energy. Later, we hear about the real historical fact that immigrants were given a welcoming gift of Jell-O when being processed through Ellis Island. Pynchon adds something about a Jell-O mold in the shape of the Statue of Liberty and Hicks wonders where you would start eating it, the head? Head corresponds to the Sun therefore also with Tiphareth so eating the head of the symbol of immigration suggests eating the heart of immigrants which seems precisely aligned with the brutal mass deportation of immigrants currently going on.

The problem of Fascism is given, but we also find solutions for dealing with it on a personal level. How to cope when the world goes to Hell. Humor provides a solution. Like any TP book, ST has an abundance of jokes, some quite obvious, others very subtle. Charlie Chaplin gets mentioned the two times Hitler makes an appearance. W.C. Fields comes through a phone line in a non-sequitur on page 128. We find at least a couple of sly references to the Marx Brothers and the old vaudeville comedy team of Gallagher and Shean is mentioned. Al Shean was the uncle of the Marx Brothers and an early mentor and supporter. Music appears as another way to live through times of Fascism. We find an abundance of musical references and a few songs in the novel. The jazz band with Daphne's boyfriend lands in the camp of the fascist group known as the Vladboys and survive by playing music and entertaining them. The publishers even went so far as to release a playlist for ST – thank-you Bobby Campbell for that.

An initiated hermetic solution reveals itself in the central character's name,

Hicks McTaggart. H + M + T =54

54 = Thelema (Book of Lies ch. 54) = Will and love under Will.

Looking at his last name: Mc + Tag + g + art.

Mc = master of ceremonies; also = 48 = work hard (ch. 48 Book of Lies).

tag = to tag someone with a responsibility or get tagged with a responsibility. The example given in ST occurs when Hicks inadvertently gives Daphne a lift on his boat helping her escape from a psychiatric hospital. He delivers her to some Objibwe Native Americans. Daphne feels that Hicks saved her and mentions the Objibwe belief that if you interfere with someone's life you'll be responsible for them forever. Hicks has been tagged with saving the cheez princesses life when he's later given the ticket to find her and bring her home.

g = gimel = the path that runs across the abyss from Tiphareth to Kether; corresponds to the High Priestess (tarot). There's a joke made by Daphne to Hicks about "Abyssinia."

art = art in the normal sense of the word. Many artists feel tagged with the responsibility to create things. Playing music, painting, writing etc., doing anything creative as a way of coping and counteracting fascism.

art also = 210, a very significant number for mystical work. The two becomes one then the opposite polarities cancel to become nothing. We find this in Latin at the climax of the Star Sapphire ritual (Book of Lies ch. 36): "OMNIA IN DUOS: DUO IN UNUM: UNUS IN NIHIL.

Another Thelemic word or formula relating to art = 210 is ABRAHADABRA said to be the key to the new Aeon; it also represents the "Great Work completed. Abrahadabra has 11 letters. That number holds much significance in this School since 11 = Magick - energy tending to change. Also from The Book of the Law: "My number is 11, as all their numbers who are of us" (I:60), spoken by Nuit, who represents the goddess archetype. The first phrase of chapter 11 in ST: "On days of low winter light . . ." = 210 affirming the connection between art = 210 and 11 and Abrahadadbra = the key to the new Aeon. In this cosmology the new Aeon is ruled by Horus, a god of war. Like the two in one idea, Horus has two aspects, Ra Hoor Kuit (male; energy projected out) and Hoor Pa Kraat (female; silence). Integrating the two provides balance and prepares for the next aeon that of Maat (female; Justice and hopefully peace).

The influence of Herman Melville on Pynchon has been established elsewhere. McTaggart sounds close to Claggart a character from Billy Budd, Sailor a novella by Melville. Billy Budd, the character, appears a model of the Rosicrucian ideal. In fact, the novella was found on Melville's desk after he died along with some poem fragments one of which was "The New Rosicrucians." Billy Budd was hired on as a foretopman on the ship the H.M.S. Indomitable where some of his fellow crew members called him Baby Budd because of his youth. Billy (William) Budd reversed = bud Will, a concept Crowley elaborated as part of the Initiate's development. John Claggart was the master of arms, i.e. chief law enforcement on the Indomitable. He falsely accused Billy Budd of fomenting mutiny; metaphorically illustrating resistance to the invocation or initiation. When confronted by this accusation in front of the Captain, Billy made the mistake of punching Claggart. The blow killed him leaving the Captain no choice but to have him executed. In that case, the resistance worked to stop the invocation as it does in many instances.

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A main theme of ST can be summed up as Pass It On. Skeet Wheeler, the kid who enters near the beginning and closes the story wants to be Hicks's apprentice. Lew Basnight mentors Hicks. Page 26 has a paragraph about musicians that ends with a hopeful kid waiting in back of the veteran musicians for his turn in the spotlight. In chapter 10 at the Nazi bowling alley, Hicks runs into Ooly Shaufel, a guard there. Ooly was Hicks's mentor when they both were strikebreakers. Page 69 has an exchange where Hicks asks his Uncle Lefty if what he's saying has anything to do with Al Capone, called the "Big Guy" here. Lefty replies, "I hear things. Sometimes I pass it on, sometimes I don't." This foreshadows the ending where Bruno wishes to pass on the secrets of the International Cheese Syndicate to Daphne; we're getting to that. Passing it on definitely seems like something an elderly author who has a great deal of arcane and esoteric information would hope to do.

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In 2007 E.J. Gold asked me to make a copy of a cd featuring old recordings of Aleister Crowley's voice. He told me not label it with Crowleys name, but rather use the name "Big Al" so it wouldn't be obvious who it featured. Then he gave me an enigmatic look. At the time, this seemed ridiculous, to me. Upon first reading Shadow Ticket I was stunned to see "Big Al" in the second sentence and immediately remembered the "Big Al" cd. I thought Gold could have remote viewed across time and that Pynchon connected Big Al with Crowley. Apart from using Capone's initials, AC once, I saw nothing to support this supposition until nearly the end of the book in chapter 37 when Bruno Airmont, the Al Capone of Cheez, wishes to pass on his fortune and other things to his daughter and heir Daphne Airmont. Daphne says she doesn't want his money but he says he wants to pass on everything he knows about the International Cheese Syndicate which he abbreviates InChSyn. I + Ch + S = 78 which corresponds to many things in the Sepher Sephiroth including: the Tarot; the Angel of Ra Hoor Khuit; and "to initiate." 78 is prefigured much earlier in the book on page 26 with the name checking of "Count" Basie. Pynchon puts those quotation marks around Count like usually never done except when referring to his full name, William James "Count" Basie. When a Qabalah teacher emphasizes the word "count" it can mean to add up and pay attention to Gematria ahead. Adding "Basie" gives us 78. Basie suggests base.

 

I postulate that Thelema provides a solution to Fascism with its projection of love under will facilitated by an activated emotional centrum and connected to 210 and Abrahadabra.  Whether one goes all mystical or not Thelema on its most basic level appears a philosophy and practice that advocates personal liberty.

InChSyn suggests inches and syn an allusion to the male problem. It can also be seen as IC (I see) Syndicate (sin + dick + ate = eating up the problem). And I + CS. CS indicates an active function connected to 210 and Abrahadabra. Practicing this function expands one's more subtle morphology, one's being, as it were. So the idea of calling Crowley Big Al has some veracity. Capone is called Large Alphonse on p. 93.

It also occurred to me that Big Al could refer to Liber Al vel Legis, The Book of the Law. Chapter 3 starts with: "Abrahadabra; the reward of Ra Hoor Khut" (3:1). The short sequence with Hicks and his new girlfriend Terike near the end reminds me of verse I:62: "I am uplifted in they heart and the kisses of the stars rain hard upon the body." I was also reminded of the Abbey of Thelema with a couple of references to Palermo near the beginning, the name of the closest city to the Abbey in Sicily located in the village of Cefalu. In chapter 38 following the reveal in 37, a character named Chazz gets recruited into an "anti-Fascist guerilla force" in Sicily. Thelema could also be called an anti-Fascist force.

Back in chapter 37 (37 = Jechidah, the highest unity of the soul) Bruno Airmont (Bruno suggests Giordano Bruno, a spiritual predecessor of Aleister Crowley) tells Daphne that he has enough dirt on InChSyn "to send the whole business up in one giant fondoozical cataclysm."

fondoozical = fondo (found) + oz + ic (I see) + al (Crowley or Liber Al vel Legis).

oz likely refers to Liber Oz, a one page document aka the "Declaration of the Rights of Man" or as Robert Anton Wilson and I put it, the Rights of WoMan, after Leary. In Britain's darkest hour during WWII when it looked like the Nazis might take the island Crowley wrote Liber Oz and sent it to every dignitary he had an address for as a magical gesture against Facism. Coincidentally, 10 days after he sent them out the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor bringing the U.S. into the war eventually turning the tide. Shea and Wilson put Liber Oz in Illuminatus!

To be continued . . .