The Office of Levitation Permits
Abbie Hoffman “asked for a permit to levitate the Pentagon 300 feet off the ground, explaining that by chanting ancient Aramaic exorcism rites while standing in a circle around the building, they could get it to rise into the air, turn orange and vibrate until all evil emissions had fled. The war would end forthwith.”
A General Services Administrator generously gave permission to Hoffman to “raise the building a maximum of ten feet.”
Hand-written guidebook from 1976.
A perhaps unnecessary caveat: while I think it’s a mistake to allow “mechanism” to serve as a generalizable or all-purpose model for natural systems (a model that continues to linger in popular and social scientific imaginations), it would be foolish to deny that many assemblages function with a degree of regularity and repetition characteristic of machines. So, while Bergson and other philosophers of Becoming are right to draw attention to the creative element in evolution or to the capacity of physical systems to self-arrange in ways that defy prediction, I don’t want to overstate the freedom, mobility, or fragility of the working groups that form in nature and culture.
Psychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason is an analysis of the physical mechanisms of hallucination, shamanic ritual, and expanded states of consciousness. By deconstructing systems of perception and memory, Psychedelic Information Theory quantifies the limits of expanded consciousness and describes the methods by which psychedelics alter consciousness, create new information, and affect human culture. By presenting these methods in physical terms, Psychedelic Information Theory offers a rational and objective model for shamanic transformation and therapy in modern clinical practice. Written by James L. Kent.
