"Umbrella" - A New Featured Song in the "Discotheque at the End of the Universe"

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 surface an ocean dappled with continents.

Let me reiterate that this has not been a one-time thing, a unique peak experience, never to be repeated. Because I’ve practiced this so much, I can pretty dependably hit these states and pull this energy in. The Holy Ma rarely lets me down.

Here's an excerpt from my book AP Psychedelics: Going Beyond Set and Setting to Achieve Visionary Virtuosity that describes what that's like.

Backstage, Pa Mercury sips water. The costume master fusses over his outfit. Mercury is in drag; his character, Dr. Shonda Freude, is a Jung Institute-dropout who acts as phonomancer for the Transcendental Disco. During this brief break between songs, he mouths the words of the narration playing on the screens.

Of course you fucked him.

You took him home and you came together like two planets colliding. This beautiful boy somehow knows all your body’s cheat codes. He got all the power-ups and all the extra lives. And you, well…you’re pretty sure you gave him an out-of-body experience. It was so good you’re surprised nobody called 911 for all the screaming.

Shonda Freude wears knee-high white vinyl platform boots, a white mini-skirt, white opera gloves, a white cape, white star-shaped sunglasses, and a white wig. The costume master is rearranging the modest false breasts under Pa Mercury’s white sports bra.

But that doesn’t matter. Maybe later it will, but not now. Right now all that’s important is the way he fell asleep in your arms. Like a little boy. So vulnerable. So trusting. You want to mother him, which is crazy because you’re hardly more than a baby yourself. But there it is.

You don’t sleep at all that night. You stay awake just to keep feeling yourself holding him. ‘You’re safe,’ you whisper to him, over and over. ‘You’re safe. You’re safe.’ You make him silent promises. They sound like this.

BOOM-bap-BOOM-BA-BOOM-bap goes the drum machine. On the video screens appears a sigil that encodes the name Gaia, the ancient Greek personification of Mother Earth. Pa Mercury pushes through the curtain to strut back out on stage. He spits some bars in sync with the rapper Jay-Z. He is feeling good.

One foot propped before the other, he shimmies his hips. Draws graceful figures in the air with his gloved fingertips. He imagines himself as Penny B, lying in bed with her beautiful new man, feeling things she’s never felt before, huge feelings she can only compare to what a mother must feel for her child.

Pa Mercury knows that maternal love tinged with eroticism is an incredibly potent energy to tap. His mouth widens in a blissful smile. He can feel it: something amazing is about to happen.  

Along with Rihanna he sings,

You have my heart, and we’ll never be worlds apart
Maybe in magazines, but you’ll still be my star

The lyrics address a you. Pa Mercury practices his tertiary process thinking. He tells himself, I am that “you.” Rihanna is singing to me. She is telling him she loves him; all he has to is listen, and feel it.

Baby, ‘cause in the dark
You can’t see shiny cars
And that’s when you need me there
With you I’ll always share

When the chorus arrives, the screens show stylized animations of the goddess Ishtar surrounded by worshippers. Pa Mercury soaks it all in, then closes his eyes. The images of the Divine, the feeling of devotion “Umbrella” conveys, the effects of the substantia, and Mercury’s magical consciousness all combine. Under the pressure of his concentration, they combust.

Belief is a concept, “to believe” an action; beliefspace is a state of being. It requires no effort. It’s responding to what is. And what is, in this moment, is that Pa Mercury is suddenly hearing “Umbrella” as a carrier wave for a whole new layer of information. The God/dess is singing. To him.

When the sun shines, we’ll shine together
Told you I’ll be here forever
Said I’ll always be your friend
Took an oath, I’ma stick it out ‘til the end
Now that it’s raining more than ever
Know that we’ll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella

This pop ditty is now an unconditional promise of shelter and succor from the God/dess. At least, that’s how Pa Mercury experiences it. He is exultant. And because the psilocybin mushrooms respond to emotion, his visionary space spontaneously fills with shining noetic symbols. This only reifies the experience. Pa Mercury knows he could never consciously imagine what he is seeing. He can only be brushing up against the Divine.

But that is only step one of the process. He has succeeded in experiencing himself as the object of the God/dess’ attention. Now he will endeavor to experience Her as subject.

As the second verse begins, in his mind he is addressing Roshanna, an ex-girlfriend for whom he still carries a torch. These fancy things will never come in between / You’re part of my entity, here for infinity. He does feel soul-bonded to her. As he relaxes into it, the devotion just keeps opening and opening, a fractal of the God/dess’ overflowing love for creation.

Supercharged with that emotion, now he imagines that he is Gaia, Mother Earth. He supports this effort by visualizing earth goddess images that he’s committed to memory. He wills the lyrics he is singing to express Her most heartfelt pledge of care to all Her children. Goddess, he invokes. I AM. I AM.

There’s risk here. If Pa Mercury’s spirit doesn’t catch fire, if his attempt at a miracle doesn’t work, Resistance, that terrible force in the Unconscious, will try to pull him down into despair. You’re not worthy, It’ll whisper, attacking him right where failure has made him vulnerable. Or it’ll assure him, You’re fooling yourself, or It’s all a lie. But it’s Resistance that’s the liar. Hell is a lie.

All Pa Mercury can do is set up the conditions for success and abide in hope and faith. The God/dess will decide, in Her ineffable way, whether to incarnate in his consciousness.

On this score, Pa Mercury’s attitude is on point. If She doesn’t grace him with Her presence, he will practice modulating his disappointment. He’ll engage Resistance and grow stronger. And if She does…

She does.

During the song’s bridge Rihanna sings,

You can come into my arms
It’s okay don’t be alarmed
Come into me
There’s no distance in between our love

Pa Mercury is a natural baritone, but he’s worked hard to increase his range. He matches Rihanna note-for-note. And then something happens he never imagined he might achieve with a song from the Transcendental Disco: identification.

What that means is in the moment, he is concentrating so intensely he hears Rihanna’s voice as his own. He has neurally remapped his aural experience of the music onto his proprioception of his vocal apparatus. Rihanna’s voice is his voice, and because he is experiencing Rihanna as the God/dess broadcasting on all channels, by the transitive property, he becomes the Goddess.

Go on and let the rain pour
I’ll be all you need and more

It begins as a vision of an Afrofuturist Madonna. He sees a young woman with dark skin, her head framed by a technological halo of innumerable networked suns. She cups her left breast as she suckles the infant cradled in her right arm. Then Mercury is that young woman with the child fiercely attached to her/his nipple, and he feels pleasure so intense it vibrates down his spine to between his legs.

This vibration grows and grows as the scene changes. Now Pa Mercury sees the entire world as a great egg split in two longitudinally and laying on its side. The upper half contains all the planets and constellations, and the lower all the seas and continents daubed with enameled clouds, and two are axially connected by a mountain-dwarfing Tree made of iridescent solid light.

Everyday concrete language cannot capture how sheerly wonderful it is to look within and see the Earth as if designed by Peter Carl Faberge, Walt Disney, and Joseph Campbell, and know it to be a living, breathing thing, the Great Goddess’ (his) beloved Child, nestled in a crib upholstered by the sparkling black velvet of outer space. Pa Mercury doesn’t try to think. He simply marvels. And loves.

There was more, but later, that’s all Pa Mercury will remember. The energy fueling his visions has become overwhelming. Gravity waves are rippling through him, so strong it feels like he’s being torn apart at a molecular level. His body contorts. He hears wailing, someone crying, “Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh!” Realizes it’s him. Doesn’t care. This is an enthusigasm, a miraculous visitation. It’s excruciating, but he never, ever wants it to stop.

Finally he comes out of the crazy standing backbend he’d been doing. “Umbrella” is over. The participants are applauding. His Rhythm Phonomancers are grinning at him from their platforms and throwing the heavy metal horns. His breakthrough was theirs as well. He’s gone to the Other Side and returned with blessings for all.  

Inside Pa Mercury is still screaming in ecstatic adoration like a 13-year-old girl attending the Beatles’ Ed Sullivan Show premiere. He can’t believe what just happened. While the next narration plays he takes a knee and bows his head, trying to regain his composure.

Then a thumping bass guitar and kick drum introduce horn stabs. He looks up and grins. “Best of My Love” by the Emotions is on. It’s time to get back to work.