DEEP SCRATCH

Author: flyagaric23

  • Marshall Mcluhan and Dr Timothy Leary

    There is no other 1960s intellectual figure whom Timothy Leary came to admire more than Marshall McLuhan. He considered McLuhan’s famous statement – “The medium is the message” — the most important cultural insight of the ‘60s, a decade saturated with insightful and lasting one-liners, some of the most famous coming from Leary’s own brain. Leary has even credited the world’s foremost media theorist with giving him the pep talk that resulted in his own famous mantra: “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.”
    In 1964, when LSD was fast becoming a national issue on a trajectory that eventually made it the most vilified drug of the decade, McLuhan’s treatise Understanding Media became (alongside The Tibetan Book of the Dead) the latest roadmap for Leary’s positioning on the subject that had increasingly preoccupied him since he and Richard Alpert had been forced out of Harvard, where they had been doing groundbreaking research on psilocybin, LSD and DMT during the early 1960s.–http://boingboing.net/2014/06/03/timothy-leary-and-marshall-mcl.html

  • Certain Noble Plays of Japan.

    Title: Certain Noble Plays of Japan
           From The Manuscripts Of Ernest Fenollosa

    Author: Ezra Pound

    Commentator: William Butler Yeats

    “All imaginative art keeps at a distance and this distance once chosen must be firmly held against a pushing world. Verse, ritual, music and dance in association with action require that gesture, costume, facial expression, stage arrangement must help in keeping the door. Our unimaginative arts are content to set a piece of the world as we know it in a place by itself, to put their photographs as it were in a plush or a plain frame, but the arts which interest me, while seeming to separate from the world and us a group of figures, images, symbols, enable us to pass for a few moments into a deep of the mind that had hitherto been too subtle for our habitation. As a deep of the mind can only be approached through what is most human, most delicate, we should distrust bodily distance, mechanism and loud noise–Certain Noble Plays of Japan.
    http://www.gutenberg.org/files/8094/8094-h/8094-h.htm

  • Starseed Transmissions intersection point: July 23

    Starseed Transmission intersection point

    The following are some notes i made while revisiting the RAW high weirdness around the date July 23, 1973, and some of the influences and experiments he mixed together during those weeks.

      

    EXHIBITS

    EXHIBIT: Crowley book 4.
    “It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which a man may attain to the knowledge and conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel; for that is the particular secret of each one of us; a secret not to be told or even divined by any other, whatever his grade. It is the Holy of Holies, whereof each man is his own High Priest, and none knoweth the Name of his brother’s God, or the Rite that invokes Him.–One star in sight, Book 4.
     
    EXHIBIT: Starseed
    “Kohoutek will have a pale blue and yellow tail stretching out for somewhere between 75,000,000 and 100,000,000 miles — the yellow portions of it in the shape of a scimitar. It will first be seen by the naked eye in mid-November and will look dull. But since it will be approaching the Sun at 250,000,000 miles an hour, it will brighten and from mid-December to Dec. 28 the peoples of the world will have the finest Christmas star ever.”
        How about that, Chump? Do you still believe everything out there “just happened by accident.”
        —From a “memo to a friend who is an atheist” in Bob Considine’s September 16 column in the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle. The quoted paragraph is from a release by the American Museum, Hayden Planetarium.–http://www.lycaeum.org/books/books/starseed/starseed.shtml

    EXHIBIT: SUN RA
    Composer, keyboardist and bandleader Sun Ra’s intimate connection with the cosmos is well documented, but it was rare that Ra was given cause for real celestial celebration. That opportunity did come in 1973 however, when Ra and his orchestra played a show in celebration of Kohoutek, a comet whose sighting was billed as the “Comet of the Century.” Though the comet was ultimately a visual disappointment, the concert was an aural success; the Arkestra is in a loose and comfortable realm on Concert for the Comet Kohoutek, whose release only came in the early ’90s before being reissued.–http://www.allaboutjazz.com/concert-for-the-comet-kohoutek-sun-ra-esp-disk-review-by-henry-smith.php#.U4ZioCgUpwF

    EXHIBIT: Enochian
    Enochian magic forms the backbone of both the Crowley and Golden Dawn systems of magic. Latest theories include that John Dee knew of the Slavonic Book of the Secrets of Enoch, as well as the Ethiopic Book of Enoch. Many individual magicians or very small groups prefer Enochian magic to other forms as the ceremonial scale required is smaller than needed for Masonic style ritual work. On the other hand, elaborate equipment is required to perform Enochian magic properly, including correct copies of the various Tablets and diagrams, and other apparatus (see “Enochian Temple Furniture” above).
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enochian_magic

    EXHIBIT: LILLY
    Note that when Lilly writes, “To transcend one’s limiting set, one establishes an open-ended set of beliefs about the unknown,” he doesn’t give any indication of what those open-ended beliefs should be. That’s all up to you. I also find it significant that he suggests a “set of beliefs” rather than “a belief” about the unknown.
    I remember Lee Perry, of the Samadhi Tank Company, telling me that John told them when giving orientations to first time users of the floatation tank to take extreme care to NOT give them any kind of programming or suggestions about HOW to use the tank, what to do or expect in there.– http://oz-mix.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/beliefs-unlimited.html

    EXHIBIT: Beliefs Unlimited
    “This exercise is useful when one attempts to move beyond one’s current belief structures. Record the the following in a soothing and authoritative manner five times into a tape recorder.
    (start of belief unlimited tape)
    In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true within certain limits, to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are beliefs to be transcended.
    Hidden from one’s self is a covert set of beliefs that control one’s thinking, one’s actions, and one’s feeling.
    The covert set of hidden beliefs is the limiting set of beliefs to be transcended.
    To transcend one’s limiting set, one establishes an open ended set of beliefs about the unknown.
    The unknown exists in one’s goals for changing one’s self, in the means for changing, in the use of others for the change, in one’s capacity to change, in one’s orientation towards change, in one’s elimination of hindrances to change, in one’s assimilation of the aids to change, in one’s use of the impulse to change, in one’s need for changing, in the possibilities of change, in the form of change itself, and in the substance of change and of changing.
    There are unknowns in my goals towards changing.There are unknowns in my means of changing. There are unknowns in my relations with others in changing. There are unknowns in my capacity for changing. There are unknowns in my orientation towards changing. There are unknowns in my assimilation of changes. There are unknowns in my needs for changing. There are unknowns in my possibilities of me changing. There are unknowns in the forms into which changing will put me. There are unknowns in the substance of the changes that I will undergo, in my substance after changes.
    My disbelief in all these unknowns is a limiting belief, preventing my transcending my limits. My disbelief in all these unknowns is a belief, a limiting belief, preventing my transcending my limits.
    By allowing, there are no limits; no limits to thinking, no limits to feeling, no limits to movement. By allowing, there are no limits. There are no limits to thinking, no limits to feeling, no limits to movement.
    That which is not allowed is forbidden. That which is allowed exists. In allowing no limits, there are no limits. That which is forbidden is not allowed. That which is not allowed forbidden. That which exists is allowed. That which is allowed, exists. In allowing no limits, there are no limits. That which is not allowed is forbidden. That which is forbidden is not allowed. That which is allowed, exists. That which exists is allowed. To allow no limits, there are no limits. No limits allowed, no limits exist.
    In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true. In the province of the mind there are no limits. In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true. There are no limits.
    (end of Belief Unlimited tape)
    (from The centre of the cyclone an autobiography of inner space by John C. Lilly,M.D.)
    When listening to the tape, lie in a comfortable position on the floor with the lights very dim and just allow the words and meaning enter you without any resistance. DO IT SOON, DO IT REGULARLY.
    http://metaprogrammers.tribe.net/thread/62170597-3051-4625-b925-8068b67a5671

    EXHIBIT: RAW GUARDIAN LSD LILLY ANGEL ZEN
    Robert Anton Wilson shares his thoughts about the experience of what seems like contact of a profound nature with some kind of external intelligence. His experience began after taking LSD and listening to a tape recording of John Lilly’s Beliefs Unlimited, followed by Aleister Crowley’s Liber Samekh, which is a version of the Bornless Ritual used to invoke the Holy Guardian Angel. Wilson followed this initial experiment with the performance of additional rituals and sex magick, also including the previously mentioned tape recordings, but without the LSD.

        “On June 6, 1973, the Neurologician took a programmed trip on something an underground Alchemist told him was LSD. The program was in two parts, basically: I remained in a dark room, eyes closed, lying on a bed, during most of it. Part one was the playing back, on a tape recorder, of Dr. John Lilly’s “Beliefs Unlimited” hypnosis-tape; this was repeated several times during the first three hours of the experiment. During hours 4 to 5, a tape of Aleister Crowley’s Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel was played.
        …
        The next day, and in the following weeks, my yoga meditations were vastly enriched, and I occasionally went for days on end conscious of the two minds thinking, my mind and the “hornless” Mind, or, as Suzuki Roshi used to say, Little Mind and Big Mind.
        On July 22, 1973-six weeks after the trip-the Wizard was ready to try again, without the supposed LSD.
        This time, I used the Lilly tape and the Crowley invocation again, without drugs, but with prolonged and holy rituals or Tantric sex-trance involving the cooperation of the Most Beautiful Woman in the Galaxy.
        (pg.83-86 Cosmic Trigger)
    http://www.blastedtower.com/robert-anton-wilson-on-conversation-with-the-holy-guardian-angel/
     Relevant link:
    A biography of Suzuki, titled Crooked Cucumber, was written by David Chadwick in 1999. —http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunryu_Suzuki
    Relevant link:
    http://www.erowid.org/entheogens/writings/entheogens_writing1.shtml

    EXHIBIT: Timothy Leary on Starseed
    “Einstein’s equations. Nuclear energy. The revelation of DNA code as literally a code to be deciphered. Neurological imprinting. Anti-matter. Mankind clings to the old myths, avoiding the new truths. It happened before.
        “Towards the end of the sixteenth century, Giordano Bruno aroused the groggy world, asking it to fling its mind far beyond the planets. He speculated that the cosmos extended to infinity.
        “This in itself was not so shocking; but Bruno went considerably further—he postulated a multiplicity of world: suns and planets with life, unseen companions for the race of man. He toyed with man’s conception of himself; for this, and for magical claims and political entanglements, he was burned in 1600.” The Discovery of Our Galaxy, Charles Whitney.
    http://www.lycaeum.org/books/books/starseed/starseed.shtml

    EXHIBIT: Liber Samekh

    “The Word that goeth from
    (A) Free Breath
    (U) through Willed Breath
    (M) and stopped Breath
    (GN) to Continuous Breath,
    thus symbolizing the whole course of spiritual life. A is the formless Zero; U is the six-fold solar sound of physical life, the triangle of Soul being entwined with that of Body; M is the silence of “death”; GN is the nasal sound of generation and knowledge.
    —http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/crowley/liber/libers/liber800a.pdf

    being the Ritual employed by the Beast 666 for the Attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel during the Semester of His performance of the Operation of the Sacred Magick of ABRAMELIN THE MAGE.
    http://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib800.html

    EXHIBIT: Guardian Angel
    The Bornless Rite takes about half an hour to perform start to finish, and it involves a certain amount of visualisation, statements of intent, and a whole lot of resonating ‘barbarous names’ (i.e. words which don’t mean anything but which help you focus or meditate on the energy you are trying to evoke).  If you want to read Crowley’s text about how to go about the rite you can read it here.  However, as with most text by Crowley it isn’t always as clear as it might be.
    Performing it the first time I wasn’t terribly competent – there’s a lot going on, a lot to remember, and frankly barbarous names are a pain in the backside.  Just exactly how are you supposed to pronounce AR-O-GO-GO-RU-ABRAO without feeling slightly self conscious?  But it rapidly became apparent there was something to this – if the goal of a magickal ritual is to shift the consciousness of the magickian, then this worked a treat.  By the end of it I felt like I was buzzing with energy, and I did, indeed, feel a certain ‘divine authority’ had come upon me.  Cool, I thought, this is something to do again.
    The history of the Bornless rite is pretty interesting.  First of all, the title seems to be a mistranslation – it should be the Headless Rite.  But that sounds a lot less cool.  There’s an argument to suggest it means head as in the beginning or start, therefore headless means without beginning, and Bornless might be a reasonable parallel for that concept.
    http://www.weirdshitnotbullshit.com/getting-to-know-your-holy-guardian-angel-the-bornless-riteliber-samekh/

    Exhibit: from wikipedia: July 23, 1973 (Monday)

        A member of the Japanese Red Army and four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijack Japan Air Lines Flight 404, a Boeing 747-246B with 140 other people on board, shortly after it takes off from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in the Netherlands for a flight to Anchorage, Alaska, en route a final destination of Tokyo International Airport, Tokyo, Japan. One of the PFLP members is killed when her hand grenade explodes during the hijacking, also injuring the airliner’s chief purser. The surviving hijackers force the plane to fly to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates; after a long stay there, they force it to fly to Damascus, Syria, and Benghazi, Libya, where they release the passengers and crew 89 hours after the hijacking began and blow up the airliner.
        Ozark Air Lines Flight 809, a Fairchild Hiller FH-227, encounters windshear in a thunderstorm and crashes at Normandy, Missouri, while on approach to land at St. Louis International Airport in St. Louis, Missouri, killing 38 of the 44 people on board.
        The Avianca Building in Bogotá, Colombia, suffers a serious fire.
    —http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_1973#July_23.2C_1973_.28Monday.29

    Exhibit 2: From wikipedia:
    1829 – In the United States, William Austin Burt patents the typographer, a precursor to the typewriter.– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_23

    EXHIBIT: Book 4, One star in sight.
    Liber 185 need not be quoted at length. It is needful only to say that the Aspirant is trained systematically and comprehensively in the various technical practices which form the basis of Our Work. One may become expert in any or all of these without necessarily making any real progress, just as a man might be first-rate at grammar, syntax, and prosody without being able to write a single line of good poetry, although the greatest poet in soul is unable to express himself without the aid of those three elements of literary composition. —http://hermetic.com/crowley/book-4/app2.html

    EXHIBIT: Secret Chiefs
    Several 19th and 20th century occultists claimed to belong to or to have contacted these Secret Chiefs and made these communications known to others, including H.P. Blavatsky (who called them the “Tibetan Masters” or Mahatmas), C.W. Leadbeater and Alice A. Bailey (who called them Masters of the Ancient Wisdom), Guy Ballard and Elizabeth Clare Prophet (who called them Ascended Masters), Aleister Crowley (who used the term to refer to members of the upper three grades of his order, A∴A∴ ), Dion Fortune (who called them the “esoteric order”), and Max Heindel (who called them the “Elder Brothers”).
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Chiefs

    The Enochian Calls or Keys (the angels refer to them by both titles) are 48 spirit evocations delivered to Dee and Kelley in the Enochian language and then translated into English word for word by the angels. The overt purpose of the Keys, the angels declared, was to enable Dee to establish ritual communication with the spirits of the 30 Aethers or Airs who rule over the tutelary spirits of the nations of the earth. There are actually 49 Keys, but the first, the angels said, is too sacred and mysterious to be voiced. The first eighteen explicit Keys are completely different in their wording; the last 30 are similar save for the name of the Aether inserted in the first line. The angel Raphael declares the expressed purpose the Keys to Dee: —http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/bb/bluebook418.htm

    Pull my ring:

    Back in the mid to late 1990’s while reading the first ‘Cosmic Trigger’ by RAW, i was struck by a perceived synchronicity when reading the section about Dr Timothy Leary and the starseed transmissions, due to my recent encounter with Sun Ra and the concert for comet Kahoutek, which is the same comet that Dr Timothy Leary mentions in his starseed transmissions, as the cosmic trigger, in some sense a literal cosmic trigger from the skies, perhaps you could say. I would say, and i picked up on this synchronicity and made an early association between, RAW synchronicity cluster fucks from his book Cosmic Trigger,and my own feelings about special kinds of free jazz, out there experimental jazz, the later works of Coltrane, the strange worlds of Sun Ra, and of course my own experiments with altered states of awareness, a little Yoga, some Magick and strange drugs, mostly of the organic and local variety.

    Almost 20 years ago i turned on to what was happening and within only a few short years i was lucky to be immersed in channeling interests based around RAW and his tribes that unfold from his books. A memorable moment that tipped me into a slightly more receptive state to mystical happenings, or strange synchronicity, was when the tripper was reading the book ‘Design for Dying’ by Dr Timothy Leary and R.U Sirius (Ken Goffman), and listening to to ‘the bottle’ by Gil Scot Heron, when the music and text synced up together upon the word ‘John Coltrane’, Leary was using his music as a metaphor to describe the sub-atomic world of quantum mechanics, clouds of probabilities.

     I like the idea of a constellation’ of harmonic vibrations, cohering to the individual mind-body conduit making it all happen, with luck on behalf of all the tribe, the global epic, in this case the music of John Coltrane and/or Sun Ra. ‘Cosmic’ in the best sense of that word. And, it was comet Kahoutek that first struck me with a strong enough synchronicity to break me out from my conditioned rigid reality constructs into a new world, with my own spirit, off and out billions of light years away, entering chapel penniless.

    New ideas flew out from my head and a few others around me, and a rising tide of terrible popular assimilation’s and degradations of everything and anything that could be purchased, thanks, in the most part to the Thatcher/Reagan invasion, and move toward an unrestricted global finance capitalism, a true monster that swallowed up anything original, churning out cheap imitations and co-opting the signals, signs, music and culture of rebellion to simply extend the universal brands. Enough moaning.

    Getting back to today, i just returned from a Sun Ra centennial celebration concert with the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen, held at the Barbican theater. I was fortunate to be the guest of poet John Sinclair, who performed with the Ra esque, out jazz cats Flounder Effect, reading a freshly composed ode to Sun Ra, and introducing the Arkestra itself. I met Marshall after the show briefly, shook his hand, said ‘beautiful, thankyou’ and saw his friendly spirited greetings and loving vibes for John.
    The plot thickens a little more when you consider that John Sinclair introduced me to the great Michael Ray (Galactic tone scientist) and driving force of the Sun Ra Arkestra and formations since 1978. Michael kindly managed to slip into the studio in Amsterdam while visiting with Kool and the Gang, and incredibly improvise a special language for trumpet, to fit snug with Johns 23 poems all taken from his great work in verse dedicated to Thelonious Monk: I mean you.

    I had previously seen Michael Ray in the context of his Kosmic Krewe when living in new Orleans 2004, and his band often criss-crossed with the touring band ‘Garaj Mahal’ who i was fortunate to ‘jam’ with between 2000-2005 across the U.S. I have a fond memory of seeing his band at the Blue Nile in 2004 at the rather strange time of 2.00 P.M on a mid-week afternoon. The new language of responsive improvisation struck me at that gig, the outness of some parts, and then leading into loverly swinging epic masterpieces.
    That was a decade ago, today, i sit at the kitchen table with John Sinclair, Tuesday 3rd June, 2014. Only a few hours ago John recorded his new poem dedicated to Sun Ra here in Blackheath studios, London, thanks to Caleb Selah. Who knows what will conjure itself up from this collaboration, but it will be certain to lift a few Whigs and air out a few earlugs, not least illuminate with the condensed special language of poetry deployed by John Sinclair.

    The other piece to this puzzle, and perhaps the main driving force that led me to write this blog-post, whathaveyou, is my recent role as musical director for the ‘Cosmic Trigger’ stage play.

    Compiled by Steve Fly

  • Cosmic Trigger, steve fly agaric 23 and acrillic figa

    Hi,
    In 2009 Eric Wagner crafted an stimulating on-line class, hosted by the Maybe Logic Academy and titled ‘Chapel Perilous’ The class was based around the book ‘Cosmic Trigger’ by Robert Anton Wilson, and during the class i contributed a number of posts and items. One of which i will reproduce here for the purpose of describing my own cosmic coincidences when encountering this text. Enjoy.

    Steve Fly
    Cosmic Trigger Play: Musical Director

     

    Cosmic Trigger, fly agaric 23 and acrillic figa. (01/01/10)
    The DJ fly agaric 23 thinks a new extended introduction, describing just a small fraction, a tiny part  concerning the incalculable influence that the 1977 book – Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson – has been on him, and, the writer thinks it would be a great chance to share some of his experiences since reading Cosmic Trigger and journeying into Chapel Perilous (USA), to discover the Author of the book – such was the impact the DJ felt that the work was having on his life and those around him – what the researcher discovered there, in the new world led him here today! Trying to figure out why page 109 of the book Email to the Universe requires two entire years of study….
    In retrospect the sceptic seems humble and reserved, the Pratt feel slightly naive and somewhat foolish re-telling the tales as they happened, due to them happening, in some sense to DJ Fly agaric 23 – an avatar and aka the DJ manifested, with some help from a drunk or two, in his local community when he first created an avatar for the new internet email explosion – F.A 23 was the perfect being to work with. DJ fly wanted to spread some of the ideas he discovered in Cosmic Trigger to his friends and his family, as he felt the wisdom to be so profound, “right-on dude” and optimistic for a blossoming post-millennium future for humanity. How can thw world awake to language and reality without Dr. Wilson’s great wisdom and healing knowledge perpetuated throughout the worlds culture. Fly made this a part of his brand. The DJ was in his early 20s and as the writer mentioned – very naive – but this foolishness led the DJ to try new things, read more books and journals to find out for himself if this stuff he was spouting as second-hand wisdom snippets and bites of RAW had a relationship to DJ culture, acid jazz, hip hop and graffiti art? The inquisitive DJ wanted to sample soundbites of RAW and perpetuate that wisdom into the dancefloors and raves he was a part of locally (Stourbridge, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Dudley) around 1996-2000.
    Millennium trip to Mordor.
    Triggered by a house fire four six before new years day, the 23 year old DJ fly agaric 23 felt like a great adventure, and doing something heroic, something nobody he knew had ever done, and something he decided to do all by himself, for once – take a trip to the Prophets Conference Santa Fe to witness the author of Cosmic Trigger give a lecture titled “The Universe contains a maybe” and check to see if he was what he wrote about he was, the event was synchronisticali’ taking place on the DJ’s 24th Birthday (15/04) so fly figured he should go to see Dr. Wilson on the last day of his twenty third year as the Prattfool. The DJ’s turntables were sold, the tickets were booked, Terence Mckenna passed on (4th Aprill 6000 AL,) and the intrepid dj fly agaric flew to NYC, greyhounded to Santa Fe, smoked a bowl, met two RAW heads from New Orleans who weirdly also shared the 15th of April with the fly agaric as the day they were born out from the mothers womb, wow, the student of RAW synchronicity said to himself, the two brothers of mine were also smokers and had books by Dr. John Lilly that they were speaking highly of to the intrepid tripper.
    Reasonably stoned, and tucked away at the back right had side of the James L. Little Theatre – Santa Fe – the fly agaric 23 sat awaiting the Dr…. suddenly bamboozulu’d by news that Dr. Wilson will NOT be appearing at the conference due to illness! But before he could lift a hand to his mouth in astonishment – everyone – in the theatre, comprising over 500 or so unknown American souls, looked at fly agaric 23 and applauded due to an announcement made to them highlighting my long distance travel from Birmingham; England. 
    The Pratt felt a fool, but humanity and strange forces reached out and influenced the 24 year old young man to continue up the west coast of America – on an adventure into the unknown territory of the DJ’s rave-trip-paradise – the bay area, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, and the journeyman spent the next two months in the Bay Area, California – wondering through an utterly unbelievable universe inhabited by critters from out of Cosmic Trigger, no, i mean some of the real human beings RAW was writing with and about roughly 25 years ago and more in Cosmic Trigger! 
    The most relative part of my first 2 months living in the Bay Area, Berkeley in fact, just off of Telegraph Avenue (a location mentioned in the Sufi-clown tale from Cosmic Trigger), seems to the researcher looking into Chapel Perilous to be – the interview with physicist Saul Paul Sirag, which took place in the kitchen of Dr. Jack Sarfatti, 27th MAY 2000 E.V – Nine years ago (2009). The interview was captured onto a mini-disc, and lay unheard of, or translated for seven years until the DJ  managed to find and translate the wonderfully erudite wisdom of Saul Paul Sirag. Here is part of that days recording, and a little insight into what the Pratt was also thinking of, with the questions concerning superstring theory, cabbala and Dr. Wilson.
    Guilding the Lilly
    The volunteer was invited to a week long symposium honouring the life and work of Dr. John Lilly, where he met and exchanged some very brief ideas with Saul Paul, Brian Wallace, Jack Sarfatti, Kurt Von Meir, Jean Millay, Captain Clearlight, Faustin Brey, Creon Levitt, Amanita Von Meir, and Dr. John Lilly himself – but not more than five words of thanks and greetings, and a signed book – the Dyadic Cyclone. The stunned DJ fly agaric 23 floated for the first time in a Samahadi tank only 20 ft. From the inventor himself. The DJ met other DJ’s, volunteers, beautiful minds, techies’, sound editors and engineers. The editor would like to add that he was a part of a mediation, visualization experiment conducted by Jean Millay, including Saul Paul Sirag, John Lilly and others at the symposium, and the impressions the DJ received were unmistakable and were reported back to Jean “ I saw a group of lizards wearing what appeared to be yellow swimming hats” 
    The DJ found a little more volunteer work at another conference, this time in the Presidio – Planetworkers 2000 A.D – featuring a transcending disembodied Terence Mckenna, Bruce Sterling, Mark Pesce, Peter Russel… and hundreds of information technology meets global ecology masterminds and think tanks meeting to headline the new GREEN revolution in sustainable and alternative, and energy and ideas – the best most mind blowing ideas the DJ had ever heard of, mixed up with DJ Vaja, David Rothenberg and Kai Eckhardt and others contributing music to the conference, encouraging dancing and inter-comingling, yeah the DJ thought, breakbeats and green-beats, global ecology and information technology, the Pratt thought… an intelligent businessman might put some investment into some of these ideas back in Dudley, maybe that would help the poor fuckers back home who have no idea of the possibilities and wonderful new technologies that await us all, all humanity, now, and the skeptic added – NOW – we need to invest now. The writer looks back in astonishment at the amount of criss-crossed material oozing out of Cosmic Trigger into the conferences as seen through the eye of the man with the movie camera working – as a volunteer for Soundphotosynthchess. The metaprogrammer was beginning to wonder what he had invoked over the last three years before coming to America.
    The DJ attended the Howeird 420 street fair, the Terence Mckenna Wake at 1015 Folsom st. And met Dennis Mckenna, and rubbed dance shoes with Erik Davis, Dusty, Mark Pesce, hippies, freaks, scientists, and crystal shrines in memory of the great Terence – whom the DJ dedicated a DJ-mix to 6 days before he left England called “RA HOTEP RECONFRENCE” audio-parts of which are available – with another brief telling of this tale –  at the maybelogic quarterly network. The Fly was smoking bowls, talking about RAW material, entertaining wonderful beautiful people, and couch-surfing upon the crest of good heartedness of Bay Area folk, the half-irish blooded Englishman often felt like a very special human being, treated kindly and with an instant loving warmth and friendship than he was used to from strangers, especially strangers in another strange country so far away from home. 
    The 4 and 20 year old cosmic kid went flying back to lime land with a hell of a story, and also news about internet and stuff and things, hard to put into words, – remember the internet? – well the skeptic heard conversations about wireless-power, dude, and the weed will bake your ideas perfect, thought the dealer. Some of his friends listened for a few hours, but then, the DJ thinks – not having read Cosmic Trigger – how could these tales bear much significance to them? after a while the tourist realized he had better learn to write again, at least if he was to present his travel tales and experiences to the people he most loved and cared for, humanity as a whole, his family and his friends, in a way which they might take seriously, or at least my effort to communicate in a neutral way –  seriously.  
    RAW Springs 2000 A.D.
    Although the dedicated illuminati journalist had failed to see Dr. Wilson in the flesh, the journey had inspired many remarkable meetings with remarkable men and women, an interview, some gigs – as DJ Fly agaric 23, and some links with like minded people on the other side of the Atlantic ocean to which the Pratt was born. Even in 2000 A.D the fool had not yet read the entire Illuminatus Trilogy only part I in awkward situations. The independent researcher felt mostly ignored, which he has come to expect now – by most of those people in his community and the greater external government  who happen to be ignoring what RAW has written, and going so far as to act upon it, as fly agaric 23 has done. Here the tale turns really wild and fanciful beyond the DJ’s headonistic dreams.
    Having helped a painter – a little bit – by setting up his second Graffiti art exhibition in Birmingham, recording new material with his classically trained – Saurang player – Surrinder, and pressing up 200 limited edition 10” vinyl records, using a Princes Trust business grant of 200 Pounds, that was intended to show, after time, the good sense and predictive ability of the business idea and then maybe land some doe to maybe buy some real equipment and make better recordings and manufacture more records, start a record label? This was the lifelong goal of the DJ, the writer thinks. And reading more and more literature on Lilly, Post Quantum Physics, Alan Watts, Saul Paul Sirag, Erik Davis, Hakim Bey and more he still has visions of the DJ vinyl tool he dreamed of…
    One day around October 2000 E.V – the DJ guesstimates – he received an email from the Prophets Conference that said words to the effect of: Get yourself to the Prophets Conference Palm Springs, and get your own lodging and you can be the volunteer P.C helper who assists Dr. Robert Anton Wilson about the conference in his wheel-chair.
    The magician left the library – where he checked his email – and his only steady link with the Cosmic Trigger worlds out there, since getting back from the dreamspace – in a state of high high beyond description. The DJ’s ego had been inflated to the size of a planet – it was true – the magic works, the journey has just begun, the proto-novelist thought – and on the 15th December the independent journalist flew to Chicago, heard John Coltrane in the airport, and connected to Palm Springs airport and literally walked out the airport door with a bag of vinyl records, some cloths and a small box of magic mushrooms hand picked that year from Wychbury Hill, near Stourbridge where the Pratt grew up (Dr. Wilson very politely refused the mushrooms when the Pratt offered them to him in his room two days later) The DJ found a cheap room at 35 Dollars a night, but with only 150 on me person, times were already tight, which leads me to a dinner tale spent with uncle Bob the Pratt shall never forget.
    On the night before RAW’s lecture cunningly titled “The Universe contains a maybe” me and BOB had dinner together at the hotel restaurant – the helper recalls that Bob had crab cakes for starters and a dish called “Snakes in the grass” for his main course. The mood was fine and respectful until the Pratt decided to throw a question concerning some neurotic detail about pancakes or my musical ideas – oh lord. The kicker came when it emerged, after i had left after desert to go to my dish-washing PAID job at the rather quaint Cheecky Monkey Pub, in Palm Springs – so as to be able to stay another two nights, but due to my ignorance the Pratt had left Dr. Wilson with the Bill (which the DJ assumed was on the house, conference tab) and also, though, the task of getting himself back to his room – he of course did not mention this to me as i was leaving and assured me he would make it back in fine form. The writer and independent journalist regrets leaving Dr. Wilson that evening, and will never forget the feeling of every glass, dish, cup and saucer washed that evening, and the next day…     
    A Manhattan with lunch
     The following day included another early lunch with the genius duo of Paul Krassner and his wife Nancy, together we dined and the researcher mostly listened – to incredible dialogue; perpetual jokes and cutting critique upon new age psychobabble. Nancy snapped the now legendary picture of RAW holding up the Manhatten that he had with his lunch, and also a picture of me and RAW together, one of only a few rare pictures of my times in the USA, not having a Digital or other camera most of the time. RAW even had time for an interview with a TV news crew, in which he spiced up the language with his freshly loosened Tongue Fu, warmed up by lunch with Paul. 
    The stoner often wishes he could remember more of what was said that day, the DJ recoded in Bob’s room with permission, but the reporter does recall that Bob repeated his optimism and interest in getting third-world countries on-line, connected through internet.
    Some other Rascals speaking at the Confernece were Steven Greer, Jean Houston, Greg Braden, Edgar Mitchell, and others i forget… but for me RAW clinched the show when launching into the hilarious KING KONG outburst during a panel Q & A session concerning Annunuki E.T.’s.  The journalist did get his private interview with Robert Anton Wilson, in his room on that same evening, and stoned, the Pratt talked mostly of pancakes which RAW expertly turned into koans before my ears. We were interrupted only by the kindred folks from Disinformation.com – Richard Metzger, Brian Jones and another Brian who’s name i forget – and they pulled out the 2000 A.D Cannabis Cup winning Sativa called Williams Wonder – and we all smoked a pipe and once again, the writer wishes he had a better faculty for remembering times such as these. Maybe in the future it will come, but for now i have the transcript of that short interview between us – at the Prophets Con. 2000 A.D.
    DJ Fly to San Francisco
    The DJ left Palm Springs with friends the reporter met in San Francisco, who, were also at the P. Conference – with a keen interest in Steven Greer and the Disclosure project. I spent New Years eve on the back of the Vallejo houseboat (where Kerouac once lived) while tripping acid with a strangely small crowd – and listening to the track “How to disappear completely” by Radiohead on repeat all of that morning. Entering into 2001 – the DJ felt as if the world was opening beneath his feet, he was on RAW’s email list, living in San Francisco and had a new job at a record label called Cosmic Flux – situated on Haight and Fillmore street S.F. and was in love with a Nepali poet and translator, the writer would like to add. 
    The DJ was also playing live shows with some of the best jazz funk and world music – musicians in the world, Kai Eckhardt (bs) Alan Hertz (drs) Fareed Haque (gtr) Tal Morris (Gtr) Liam Hanrahan (bs) Gregory James (gtr) Eric Levy (kys) Ray White (vcl) and many others over the course of the next 5 years, but the band Garaj Mahal and Kai Eckhardt were the heart of the fantastic opportunity t musically express some of the experiences the DJ was having in America, with other musical artists who had between them played with such greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Zappa, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Billy Cobham, Nigel Kennedy.
    DJ fly was invited, and sometimes paid to contribute sounds, soundbites and turntablism to the Garaj  Mahal performances and the first 2 studio albums. (Mondo Garaj 2001 and Blueberry Cave 2005 Harmonized Records). The cosmic theme continues with the tune “Cosmic Elevator” taken from the Blueberry Cave album. The DJ only  wd/ also like to add that he once jammed with Paul Godwin and Kai Eckhardt, only to discover Paul has an electronic project called simply – DOGON! 
    2001 somebody tried to blow up America, who?
    The DJ turned 25 years old in San Francisco  – 2001 – and saw RAW twice more giving lectures at “Pantheon Con 2001” and “The learning Annex, in a class on writing science fiction” which the technician helped video record for Soundphotosynthesis, but alas does not have a copy of… The researcher flew home August 2001, to link with his family and friends and pass on more of the wonderful discoveries the investigative journalist had made and some artefacts the prover’ could manifest as proof. Some audio tapes and video’s, contact cards, flyers and CD’s of musicians, artists, physicists, poets and lovers the swimmer had met on his journey into Chapel Perilous, information technologists and global ecologists, virtuoso musicians, and to top it all an interview with Dr. Wilson himself, the unified field of humanitarian intelligence pulling all the other material together – being the magnet that pulled me into the Chapel, and also the guide by which the writer figured he would have to study so as to report back the information gathered in a humanitarian language, without bias, and rid of unnecessary words devoid of meaning, to condense, simplify and balance. 
    By September 10th 2001 the DJ felt ready to launch a revolution in the minds of the European people, to his tiny mind he imagined a new bridge between artists, writers, poets, painters, designers, philosophers, physicists, anthropologists, neuro-scientists, musicians – all getting together to launch the 21st century based upon the emerging free spirit of communication using internet and growing individual communications devices – how could they stop the millions of people around the world bringing the spirit of new community and a new  electronic world to every-people by sharing information and  investing in art and ecology furnished businesses – generally moving away from the private financial interests driving the emerging electronic culture and economy? What could they do the poet thought, while writing about, among other things – an Israli Suicide bomber, on the evening of September 10th 2001. 
    The cynical DJ watched his dreams and ambitions fall down that day, and for weeks afterwards wondered what the hell he was goning to do now, now the Bush administration had struck off a new war on terrorism surely the revolution i imagined would get disrupted, somewhat pulled into the mayhem and chaos of bodies, wires, and cement that highlighted the descent into Bush 2.0 republicanism and patriotic CIA Nazi US foreign policy at its most virulent, and more worryingly with a total and unwavering support by the British government and culture – rejecting the 10’s of millions of people opposed to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq as a minority report. 
    The skeptic and conspiricist were both shocked by operation shock and awe – which saw a new global force taking on roughly 2 billion people in the Islamic world with the worst kind of worded religiously motivated military crusade against the sacred centres of the middle East imaginable, Neither side or national leaders looked like they could be trusted to the researcher, Saddam Hussain, George Bush, Osama Bin Laden and Tony Blair seemed all equally stupid, malicious, dangerous and untrustworthy. Voices started to say to the DJ, come on now, you have been in training to make sense of these kinds of disinformation programs, do it, do the work and sideline the music, become the independent journalist once more, pursue the greatest conspiracy of the 21stcentury (The Bush 2.0 administration) and get back into the work, your country and family and community needs you to do this, go, go and find out what the hell is going on. You may never get this chance again.
    Four more years
    Switching gears again the 25 year old investigative DJ flew back to San Francisco, with roughly 50 pounds and another bag of 12” records, and managed to stay in the U.S under the radar, without the proper papers for four long years, way into the  next criminal BUSH era – post November 2004 – another depressing blow to the optimists vision of America, Europe and the rest of the world returning to  the states of relationships in 1999, just before the new wars and the new banking crash and the uprising of surveillance culture en masse crawled out into the world’s streets and neighbourhoods where good people were assaulted and abducted by religious ideology and viral marketing ploys and gimmicks combined to form the war on some terror.
    During the 5 years spent in the United States of America, the – DJ/writer/swimmer – came into orbit with many remarkable people, and the maybelogician has Dr. Robert Anton Wilson and the book Cosmic Trigger to thank/blame for initiating this journey into Chapel Perilous and out again – into Chapel Penniless – and out again, in, out, in, out of various Challenging environments – a labyrinth of experiences – and thousands of synchronicities and seemingly fortunate incidents – the reach of the RAW net…. the non-simultaneously interacting universe of connectivity, communication and hilaritas engine – thought the Pratt.  The egoist wanted to just list some of the people he learned from, and communicated with while in the USA, in no particular order:

    Michael Bowen (painter) Alexander and Sasha Shulgin (pharmacologists), Henry Dakin (philanthropist), Brian Wallace (Musician), George Brooks (musician), Bob Weir (musician), Joe Firmage (scientist, entrapeneur), Buzzy Lindheart (musician), Abigail Lewis (researcher), Tsering Maya (Artist, writer), Carlos Washington (musician), Brian Jordan (musician), Bob Tesch (researcher), Sameer Gupta (Musician), Creon Levitt (scientist), David Ulansey (Philosopher), Jack Sarfatti (physicist), Saul Paul Sirag (physicist), Jack Perla (musician), Fire and Earth Errowid (pharmacologists), Fareed Haque (musican), Dennis Mckenna (pharmacologist), Kai Eckhardt (musician), Benny Reitveld (musician), Herbie Lewis (Musician), Bernie Worrell (Musician), Nicki Skully (Esotericist), Dava  (musician, Artist) James and Sally Redfield (writers), Jim Wilson (Musician), Paul Krassner (Philosopher, Comedian), Robert Anton Wilson (Scientific Philosopher), Cody and Robin Johnson (Reasearchers), Mark Pesce (Technologist), Erik Davis (Writer, teacher) R.U. Sirius (writer), Kurt Von Meir (scientist), Captain Clearlight (pharmacologist), John Babcock (Toxicologist), One Wolf (Shaman), Mike Crowley (Scientist),  Zakkir Hussain (Musician), Dave Holland (Musician), Jerry Goodman (Musician),  Chet Helms (Concert promoter), John Lilly (Scientist), Ray White (Musician), Mountain Girl (Philanthropist), Bobby Vega (Musician), Tom Waits (Musician), Luke Vibert, DJ Logic, Q-Bert, Kid Koala (DJ’s) Jean Millay (scientist), David Boyce (Musician), Micheal Franti (Musician), Gregory James (Musician), and many more the DJ has forgot… the thousands of freaks who came out to support our shows across the U.S.A and all critters the writer has come to know and collaborate with at the marvellous Maybelogic Academy. Cosmic Trigger seems responsible for initiating this entire journey, and for that spark of inspiration the fool will be forever indebted to said book and author – Dr. Robert Anton Wilson. The fly was hooked, line and sinker and has been digesting – ever since returning from the U.S.A, processing the wonderfully strange meetings he had and re-presenting the out-of-this-world experiences.
    Cosmic Trigger 2009 redux.
    The writer started again in England, back home in Stourbridge, started building a basis for communicating this massive reality labyrinth connected with Dr. Wilson, and soon found the challenges tougher than he first thought, having booked the local town hall for the European premier of Maybelogic: The lives and ideas of Robert Anton Wilson – confident all his friends would come out and support him plus others eager to find out the final secret of the Illuminati! The Pratt’s optimism got the better of him, and the show had to be cancelled and moved to a local pub called “The Birch Tree”, here the DJ felt comfortable and liked the Birch – fly agaric symbolism, and so for 20 Pounds the DJ launched maybelogic – the movie – in great Britain, on the 21stDecember 2005. Unfortunately only 3 people watched the movie, two of them already at the pub who seemed interested in the DJ setting up turntables next to an apple laptop for the – after party – which got cooking after we smoked some joints outside and got a few pints of bitter into the DJ engine room.
    Woodstock Europa
    After the movie launch in the Black Country, the DJ met with Lance in London during the audio recordings of Illuminatus Trilogy, and continued work on his first book – of collected writings from the U.S.A and some new work from England titled World Piss: The spore of the woids. (due for a summer 2009 edit) The drummer had a small collection for Pope Bob and was joined by his friend Emily on bass, in his home town centre of Stourbridge, jamming for money to help Bob pay his medical bills, having raised only about 8 Pounds, the unemployed DJ, who was living at his mum and dad’s house – went down to the local pub and continued the drumming and prayer in hope that somehow, the vibrations wd/ reach Bob and help to heal him. 
    Bob passed on the 11th of January 1/11 and the stoner didn’t get the news until the 12th of January (incidentally the day that Alice Coltrane passed over), and quickly started planning a local event to pay tribute to Dr. Robert Anton Wilson, and once more launch the memes into the environment the best and only way the DJ, drummer knew. The day of the Stourbridge tribute to Bob was a mixed success, once again a low turn out led to a lack of interest in the movie playing, the music and the CD’s i had produced with texts and  images as a homage to Bob. Still, those who were there had a fun time, in the skatepark, and the DJ managed to video record some of the event. This event took place on the same day as the London RAW memorial, keeping the Midlands and the North represented, somewhat. The writer also set up a myspace Rawmemorial website, which links up various raw memorial events and footage
    Coldcut and Alan Moore tribute to RAW   
    The DJ’s ego was inflated to the size of a Zeppelin when he heard Matt Black of Coldcut giving him props for helping to put the Coldcut Raw memorial event together, in the small but important capacity of encouraging Ninjatune and Coldcut to link maybelogic, and through the DVD movie Maybelogic, I managed to make a small part of a dream of mine come true, to be a part of a collaboration between Robert Anton Wilson and Ninjatune (in 1999 both of these were the DJ’s favourite things); the movie was released July 23rd2003 – and the associate producer travelled from New Orleans (11thJuly – 23rd) with his friend Ben all the way to Santa Cruz for the premier, the last time i ever saw Bob, in classic fashion getting into a jaguar and speeding off from the theatre, we were outside smoking and met him briefly upon his leaving… The scene actually reminds the DJ of the short video released of Dr. Wilson leaving in a car – shortly after he passed.
    In March 2007 Coldcut and Mixmaster Morris were to produce a giant, experimental multimedia celebration of Bob, including Bill Drummond, Alan Moore, and once again, the genius of Ken Campbell, in a full blown 2 and a half hour tribute. Many from the MLA and the unemployed DJ were present and were all thrilled by the performance featuring a 20 ft. Talking Bob head, manipulated by VJ DJ manipulations accompanied by a phalanx of ambient sounds-escape, soothing beats and intelligence lounge-core. The DJ was impressed and knocked out, in particular by Alan Moores’ poem for BOB, the ginni was on the loose. The DJ attempted to promote the video of the extravaganza with mixed success, eventually finding a web-host after a long drawn out process, but the DVD project still lingers in the air…The DJ still has incredible dreams about putting it all together.
    The day after the London Coldcut memorial the DJ flew to Amsterdam, to meet with the band Galactic who were performing at the great Melkweg’ – musicians he knew from New Orleans, and after only a week living in Amsterdam the DJ had landed a job as a dishwasher at n Irish themed pub, which allowed him to stay a little longer, rent an apartment and build up a better resume’ 2 and a half years later the DJ/drummer is still in Amsterdam, studying…working on some ambitious projects, the long poem: “Shannanigums Wave” and experimental game-novel-screenplay: “OUR HISTORIES BACK” Both experiments of lifting the “The Tale of the Tribe” into a new creative arena and creating a new framework to explore some of the Idea’s and clue’s Dr. Wilson left us to chew over for the next 1000 years…
    Steven (Fly Agaric) Pratt. (01/01/10) 

    Steven James Pratt

  • Please listen and share my album together with John Sinclair: Mohawk.

    https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2936016367/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/transparent=true/

    John Sinclair – “Mohawk” cd
    Released Monday 24th March 2014 by Iron Man Records

    Big Chief: Getting High With John Sinclair And The Fly

    by Steven James Pratt et al.

    Link: http://a.co/czUbrSA

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  • Pull the Cosmic Trigger. Pull It. Pull It.

    Matt Black – Cosmic Trigger crowdcapering appeal by Complexity Productions

    Jim Broadbent – Cosmic Trigger crowdcapering appeal by Complexity Productions Douglas Rushkoff – Cosmic Trigger crowdcapering appeal by Complexity Productions The Cosmic Trigger Play – A taste of Alan Moore by Complexity Productions Cosmic Trigger Play Indigogo Crowdfund https://www.indiegogo.com/project/cosmic-trigger-play/embedded

    Steven James Pratt

  • Press play. Go. Pull it. The Cosmic Trigger Play.

    http://cosmictriggerplay.com/

    Daisy Eris Campbell and a merry band of Discordians (including Steve Fly) are on a mission to stage Robert Anton Wilson’s auto-biographical musings “Cosmic Trigger” as an original theatre production.

  • W.B Yeats and tinctures within tales

    A smidge of insight into W. B Yeats, and a part of his work which resonates with the other great thinkers from  the tale of the tribe. Here we can imagine both taoism and quantum mechanics entangled with the tinctures in Robert Anton Wilson’s Kitchen.
    x
    fly

    Yeats states that the ‘whole system is founded upon the belief that the ultimate reality, symbolised as the Sphere, falls in human consciousness, as Nicholas of Cusa was the first to demonstrate, into a series of antinomies’ (AV B 187) and refers later to ‘a phaseless sphere that becomes phasal in our thought, Nicholas of Cusa’s undivided reality which human experience divides into opposites’ (AV B 247). Elsewhere Yeats refers to the ‘antinomy of the One and the Many that Plato thought in hisParmenides insoluble’ (VPl 935), and he preserves this Platonic opposition in his duality, though expanding it by association to include, the objective and the subjective, Love and Strife or Concord and Discord, the Solar and the Lunar, and asserts the constant conflict of the two opposites. —http://www.yeatsvision.com/Tinctures.html#Prim

  • Ed Sanders: FUG YOU

    Ed Sanders, author of “Fug You: An Informal History of the Peace Eye Bookstore, the Fuck You Press, the Fugs, and Counterculture in the Lower East Side” (Da Capo Press) reading at St Marks Bookshop NYC on May 28 2012.

    http://www.stmarksbookshop.com/event/…
    http://www.carahoffman.com
    http://www.elizabethhand.com/

    Steven James Pratt

  • Multi Model Agnostic Geometry: MMAG by Steve Fly Agaric 23

    His philosophy was one of multiple model agnosticism – not just simply about the existence of God but agnosticism about everything. With MMA, there is no point getting hung up on the models themselves because that’s all they are – models.—John Higgs, KLF. pg. 258.

     

    Multi Model Agnostic Geometry.

    by Steven James Pratt

    Flyting: Selected Writings

    by Steven James Pratt

    Link: http://a.co/f5pSkqP


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