Erik Davis (Twitter portrait)
Erik Davis, who wrote about Robert Anton Wilson in his excellent book High Weirdness, has posted "PKD's Divine Interference" in his Substack newsletter, substantial excerpts from his long essay on what happened to Philip K. Dick about 50 years ago, "when Philip K. Dick glimpsed a delivery woman’s Christian fish necklace and launched into the extraordinary series of bizarre experiences and events that the author referred to as '2/3/74'.”
Also, this announcement from Mr. Davis: "Come study "The Psychedelic Universe" with me and my PhD crony Christian Greer at the University of Amsterdam this summer: a two-week in-person immersion seminar on 'Global Perspectives on Higher Consciousness'." More details here.
My question
Separate from the above, I recently located and transcribed an article by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, "Come Back Lyndon," for the Robert Shea collection I am working on. It was published in in the July 1971 issue of The Organ, an underground newspaper in California I mentioned recently.
The piece, which draws on the "Illuminati Mythos" in Illuminatus!, has this last sentence: "Do not, O Illuminati, leave us out here in the twilight with no more for host than a sincere Coca Cola machine." I don't understand the sentence. Am I reading it wrong? Is there a wrong word or a missing one? Or do I just have poor reading comprehension skills?
4 comments:
It's always possible there's a typo in the passage, but it reads as a solid surrealist line to me :)))
The key word being "host," most likely as in the Catholic Eucharist, and/or etymologically as the sacrificial victim.
The sincere Coca Cola machine is something profane replacing what is meant to be sacred, thus making the cultural ritual ineffective.
Or as Charles Schultz might put it, Christmas is becoming too commercial!
Or at least that's one reading!
Possibly a reference to the Coca-Cola machine that plays a pivotal role in Doctor Strangelove.
Erik Davis also has an upcoming book, Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium. Official publication date is April 2.
https://www.burningshore.com/p/on-the-road
If my memory serves me well (LOL, it doesnt), Come Back Lyndon also ended up in another publication, but that's realy and RMJon23 question.
https://rawilsonfans.org/come-back-lyndon/
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