In last night's performance of the FCDB's Discotheque at the End of the Universe, we introduced a new song to work out with: "Umbrella," by Rihanna. I've been working with this song in a ceremonial context for a long time. For purposes of phonomancy, it's incredible. It delivers a spectacular visionary experience that comes on in stages. When the song starts, and Jay Z raps, I am myself—a 53 year-old guy, in drag, doing a show. But by the time the first chorus hits, my egoic identification has slipped away. More accurately, aspects of my consciousness have constellated in a way that makes me a kind of receiver for the energies of the Holy Ma. Sometimes I see the World Tree, the axis mundi, towering as high as Everest over an endless savannah, sheltering us beneath her branches from a storm that threatens to blow us away. Other times I am the Goddess Herself, cradling the world in her arms—not a globe, exactly, but an egg, cut in half longitudinally, its flat s...
A role-playing game about a psychedelic religion of the science fictional future.