Come Say Hi to the Archons With Me (Patreon)

It is my unbelievable pleasure to announce this year's Astro Gnosis Conference, in which I will be speaking at! The conference is a labor of love on the part of author & Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio Show Miguel Conner and so many others. Besides myself, this year's speakers include Aeon Byte co-host Vance Socci; philosopher and author James True; author and The Alchemist podcast host Sarah Elkhaldy; philosopher and author Richard Smoley; author and Rice University professor April DeConick; author Mitch Horowitz; and author and Secret Sun Institute dean Christopher Knowles.

It probably goes without saying, but I couldn't be more excited to be sharing the stage with this guy. For me, this is like being tapped to open up for Led Zeppelin. I'm just hoping I don't disappoint. 

Here's a rundown of what I'll be discussing: 

1974 was quite a year and we've been feeling the reverberations from it ever since. For a while now, there's been some awareness of its significance. Ronald Brownstein's New York Times bestseller Rock Me on the Water 1974: The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics is probably the most thorough account of the year's cultural significance.

But for those of us who deal in high weirdness and synchro-mysticism, 1974 holds a certain kind of significance. In many ways, it's the bookend to the equally occulted 1947. The earlier date witnessed the Black Dahlia murder; the death of Aleister Crowley; the Kenneth Arnold & Roswell incidents (and thus, the beginning of the modern UFO era); the recovery of the Nag Hammadi library and so much more.  

1974 was arguably even more turbulent politically. It witnessed Nixon's resignation and the conclusion of the Watergate scandal; the end of the highly contested Zebra murders; the Symbionese Liberation Army's epic shootout with police; the CIA "family jewel" reveal; and so much more. Many Americans would never view their country the same way after 1974. The various tensions that had been building throughout the 1960s and early 1970s finally climaxed in a orgy of corruption and violence. For one brief moment, the veil of the American Empire was lifted back. No one who glimpsed beyond it was ever recovered. 

And that's just what was happening at a geopolitical level. On the spiritual plane, things were getting equally unsettled. Julius Evola, for better or worse the most influential occultist since Crowley, shed his mortal coil, providing another bookend. But even more significant were the revelations, often coming in the form of what some termed a "download." 

Two particular gentlemen had such a moment in '74: Philip K. Dick and Robert Anton Wilson. They certainly weren't the first and they were hardly the last. But they had the skills to influence culture in a way past recipients hadn't. 

But it would be a few more years before their revelations were known to the general public. What did come out in '74 was The Nine, curiosity of Andrija Puharich's Uri. This alleged biography of stage magician/intelligence asset Uri Gellar is more about wondering around the Holy Land on schrooms while searching for Spectra.

The Nine had been around for some time by then. But this was the first time the public at large really got a glimpse at this thing. Allegedly, they were advanced beings that now existed as pure consciousness, possibly contained within some type of computer. Both the encounters and works of Dick and RAW appear to echo this notion. 

What might have seemed incredible in 1974 has an increasing inevitability about it in an age where notions like the noosphere, Accelerationism, extended intelligence and simulation theory are all but mainstream. Did a series of events that began in 1974 guide us to the point in history? 

And more intriguingly, is this one of many possible futures we could be marching toward? There seems to be an urgency, even a desperation, to guide humanity towards this future. Are there other players vying for a different outcome? And has this struggle begun to have a noticeable (Mandela) effect here on meatspace?

Come join us at Astro Gnosis and find out. The festivities are unfolding on June 23rd and 24th at the Theosophical Society in Wheaton, Il, just outside of Chicago. An early bird special is currently available till the end of March, so don't delay. Tickets and the discount are available here.