hyperpeople

Bob –

Hopefully this comes just in time. Or long before.

We've met, once before, nearly seven years ago, in the Green Room at DISINFOCON ("Find The Others", they suggested), shared a smoke, and had a chat. None of which would distinguish me from the tens of thousands of others you've met over the years. Nor did I, in that conversation, distinguish myself. I was too gob-smacked. For there you were, in the flesh, some unheimlich genetic mixture of Santa Claus and Mephistopheles. Heaven and Hell, all together in one package. Fair did one's head in, it did. Well, that, and the extremely potent smoke.

But all of that is just ephemera. What is permanent begins during the peak of my very first acid trip, back on Christmas Eve 1980, when, by some strange coincidence, I was also reading the climax of Illuminatus! Imprinting? What imprinting? Suffice it to say that your words (and Bob Shea's) left an impression.

But that was just the beginning. Because that's when I went through your catalog, reading every one of your books I could lay my hands on. And that's how I was introduced to some other thinkers who fundamentally shaped my consciousness: Reich, Korzybski, Lilly, the brothers McKenna, a host of ancient sages such as Heraclitus, Lao Tzu, Hermes Trismegistus, Scotus Erigena, and so many more.

You have been history to me, and philosophy, and, always, always, always entertaining. And if I took anything from your work (I reckon that a examination will demonstrate even to the casual observer that yes, I have), I only hope that I have been to others, in some small part, what you have been to me. A teacher. A guide. A sense-maker and a bullshit-caller.

We are all masters of our own destinies; we are each our own High Priests. But even so, it's good to know that there are stars out there, by which we can steer our barque, as we sail the shoals toward an unknown shore. Every man and every woman is a Star. But yours, like Sirius, shines bright and true.

So thank you, Bob, for more than you will ever know, and more than I can ever hope to repay.

Just a few more things: When you get to Heaven, can you find those missing appendices to Illuminatus! and send them back to us via some willing trance medium? We'd all be much obliged.

And finally, I have a suggestion for a future career, once you get promoted upstairs. I reckon you should be an impresario, arranging public entertainments for the edification of the angels. First up: Wilhelm Reich vs. Adam Weishaupt, debating the Nature of Reality. In German. G. W. F Hegel will referee. Now, wouldn't that be something to look forward to?

You are not afraid, Bob, and I find that simultaneously amazing and perfectly in keeping. "All things that are, are lights." You taught me that. There is no darkness, anywhere. So stay, or go, in love & light. Everywhere.

With Love, Trust & Understanding,

Mark Pesce