Marshall Prepares For The Grove

1. MutantsMichael — 8/12/24, 5:49 AM

   @Inverarity @Rob MacD @Madness Dossier

2. MutantsMichael — 8/12/24, 6:08 AM

   So! Before we get to the Reagan bits. My mind was racing all night and when waking up this morning to try and consider who could possibly extend a "guest" invitation to this year's Cremation of Care to Archie and Marshall. It wouldn't do to go through the captains of industry, I don't think; that's not either Archie or Marshall's strict milieu and might attract undue attention. It would have to be through a celebrity, or what the Bohemians call "associate" or "professional" members, the legacy of Sterling and London et al. wanting there to be "Bohemians" in the club. The "associates" are professionals who don't rise to the level of CEOs and politicians: mid-level executives and bourgeoisie without the kind of lineage or power of most of the full members of the Club (think of this as the probationary "bench" for future full members), and performing artists who help put on the Jinks and Cremation ceremonies and also entertain the Owls while at the Grove. Plenty of possibilities here: Archie's old business partner Jack Ogilvie could be one, and Marshall could have co-opted any number of this kind of member at the Mission. But of course I want to think bigger and continue our game's history of using actual people for scenes and sequences like this. The "professional" members that the Club's by-laws dictate must comprise 100 of the membership are your actual celebrities. They don't put on the shows, but they are expected to give the camp a sense of, well, Hollywood glamour. Now, Marshall's celebrity contacts are WAY too hip for this room, because the Grove really loves middle-of-the-road entertainers, as you can see here in this passage from Domhoff. So this kind of entertainer is absolutely the domain of Archie. My first thought was that Archie could hit up his old "boss" at KTLA, none other than Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry himself, for more meta-Rob fun, but sadly I cannot confirm that he was ever a Bohemian (he was one of the "Rancheros Visitadores" which is another old boys' club of the West but they meet on a ranch in Santa Barbara and center the "Western" experience in their little playground). But someone Archie would know professionally who is a "professional" Bohemian, a fellow member of a brotherhood much much more ancient and revered than any petty Bohemian Club, is right in front of our noses as you can see in the Domhoff passage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Bergen I can't imagine Archie's relationship with Edgar, such as it might have existed through the late '50s and '60s, is anything but filled with awe and respect given the old man's stature among the ventriloquil brotherhood, but Archie's new entertainment tendrils will give him a leg up on approaching him.

   Edgar Bergen

   Edgar John Bergen (born Edgar John Berggren; February 16, 1903 – September 30, 1978) was an American ventriloquist, comedian, actor, vaudevillian and radio performer. He was best known for his characters Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. Bergen pioneered modern-day ventriloquism and has been described by puppetry organization UNIMA as the “qu...

3. [6:09 AM]

   Anyway, chew on that while I work today and tomorrow on the Reagan stuff.

4. MutantsMichael — 8/12/24, 8:11 AM

   Reagan mentions from Mission 9: Merrick:

   West says that's where Westbrook came in the idea that they were going to use drugs and conditioning to bring criminals, career criminals like DeFreeze, into a place where they could be reintegrated into society; again just standard sort of bleeding edge, CIA Phoenix Program-type stuff. Now Westbrook has this Black Pride thing he tried to get to instill in DeFreeze and other prisoners, with the Black Cultural Association, so West told me that his working theory is that the seven-headed serpent and all of the SLA garbage—not the maoism but the possibly tainted stuff, he thinks that came from one of the kids, one of the Maoist kids, the Peking House ones. So the whole time I could tell he was obfuscating, lying, being very evasive; he gave me these little dribs and drabs of information, so I said I would want to have a follow-up interview today. West said he was going out of town for a speaking engagement, for law enforcement. He didn't give me many more details than that, so today I went back to the office, hypnotized his secretary and went into the office to check out his files. I didn't buy any of it so I wanted to get more information. I've got some documents that I xeroxed—I felt a little bit like Daniel Ellsberg—but I'm going to telefax them up to you because my particular expertise doesn't stretch to the stuff I found in the files, but I've kind of put it into three quick bullet points for your perusal." The Violence Center that he has been planning, the one that the uproar ended up scuttling. West envisioned it not really as a reconditioning center but a data processing clearinghouse. So in other words he would bring people in, interview them, quantify them, use the Math to basically you know put together a huge database of Black crime—or American crime, what have you. Now I've got some of the documents here and it's obvious—and this is where I can't help—he's got computers working on this stuff and there's a lot of technical jargon in here I don't understand so I will telefax this up to you. Like I said, some elements are esmological but most of them have to do with using computers to predict crime. He was obfuscating on who worked on these volunteers up in Vacaville. He said drugs and conditioning were involved. I find out that he has brought two—and this was in the underground press, but they didn't get it quite right—he brought on two Boston-based psychosurgeons to work on these volunteers up in Vacaville. Their names are Vernon Mark and Frank Ervin, they've written books—I''ll send you all the bibliographical information you can check it out—but Jolly brought Ervin out to UCLA in '72 (possibly as a reward for this work or a means for him to work more intensely with these subjects) so Ervin's in town. I went through his correspondence. Jolly is very very good friends with three men who have promised to save his program if the feds cut funding. Do you want to guess who those three men are? "No," says Marshall. "Tell me." "Ronald Reagan, Reagan's Chief of Staff Ed Meese, and California's Health and Welfare secretary Earl Brian. All three of these men want to use the Violence Center in California, avoid all federal entanglements, and it's clear from these letters that they are willing to do this secretly. They really believe that West and his team can reprogram Black criminals that West and his team of psychosurgeons can do that."

   https://www.san-narciso.com/scenes/7wzuray2id2dzuwy2bskuqfjoqdukv

   Operation URIEL

   Flyin’ East, Man? — Operation URIEL

   Marshall and Sophie pay a visit to a certain Colston Westbrook and learn more about the CWG’s various pet projects.

5. [8:12 AM]

   Sophie, Esmology CRIT:

   And for the record, after her Esmology crit, Sophie doesn't think that Control and the Owls are nominally the same entity. Sophie thinks the Testament of Carl Wheat was an accurate, if jumbled, reflection of how things work: SANDMAN's predecessors came about post-1906 quake as the Owls' "police force" for handling the Kings. Using the governor's catspaws and lending them SANDMAN tech to orchestrate a false-flag insurgency seems like too many steps to Sophie if Control and the Owls were the same thing. "Let's theorize that the Owls are everyone's bosses. The President, Control, the military-industrial complex, the intelligence agencies. Christ, that makes me sound like a right loony. But yes, if you want a place of power in the Owls' hierarchy, you have to prove yourself. It all depends on what subsidiary organization you belong to. 'Go on,' they say to Reagan and Meese, 'show us you've got the balls to do what needs to be done to stop widespread social disorder, which you and we both abhor. Here's a sleeper agent and the remote control, leased from one of our other subsidiaries, to get him to do what you need to.'"

   https://www.san-narciso.com/scenes/revelations (edited)

   Operation URIEL

   Revelations — Operation URIEL

   The C Suite convenes.

6. [8:18 AM]

   May 1974:

   Journalists such as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post, Seymour Hersh of the Times, and Paul Avery and Tim Findley of The San Francisco Chronicle have published stories in the past weeks alleging direct CIA involvement in Watergate, domestic spying upon American citizens, and the involvement of California state officials—aided by CIA-connected researchers—in prison experimentation upon the late Donald "Cinque" DeFreeze of the Symbionese Liberation Army, respectively. These investigations were cited by Senators Mansfield and Church as having directly inspired Senate Democratic leadership in bringing this new select committee to a speedy vote.

   ⁠intermission-nine⁠

7. MutantsMichael — 8/12/24, 8:38 AM

   Throughout the rest of May and into early June, the scandal around the experiments at Vacaville continues on a slow, low simmer at the Chronicle. Paul Avery, who made his bones on the Zodiac killings beat, and Tim Findley, a reporter for the Chronicle and sometime Rolling Stone scribe who covered the Alcatraz Indian uprising, the Hells Angels, and went into prison at Soledad to report on conditions there, have been using the Woodward/Bernstein paradigm of putting out a slow set of leaks about what Reagan and Meese and Brian have been up to at Vacaville to ratchet up the pressure. The CIA has been mentioned, as has our old friend Colton Westbrook, and of course Jolly West. A fairly big "Where Is Louis Joylon West" story broke in the Chron right before Memorial Day; Jolly has been missing since the DeFreeze/Smith/Calvert killings. Speaking of the DeFreeze/Smith/Calvert setup in the desert that Marshall pulled off to perfection, the trail leading back to the governor's office has not been ignored by Avery and Findley. They've been digging into Smith and Calvert's lives as well as Westbrook and West's Vacaville careers. Reagan and Meese have been stonewalling; there have been little hints here and there in the press that they might be ready to throw Brian to the wolves as a sacrificial lamb, kinda like Nixon did with Ehrlichman and Haldeman back in spring '73. There have been protests in Sacramento and San Francisco and LA over the past month demanding a full investigation, but they've been surprisingly sparse and low-energy; on first glance it might be because of all the confusion among the protesters around whether the SLA were revolutionaries or just CIA/FBI patsies. Plus, we need to remember, the Nixon resignation/new Ford regime/Church Committee rumblings have been taking up a lot of headline energy nationally. The State legislature, Republican-controlled unlike Congress, has been stonewalling for the Gipper who is not running for re-election anyway. There's just no stomach for a "what happened at Vacaville" special commission in Sacramento. Ronnie probably thinks he can just wait all this out, take a year or two in the wilderness, and come back in '76, maybe for the Presidency, with no worries; all will be forgotten. (You guys want to bring stuff like Psychology, Politics, Intelligence Analysis, Esmology, Expert Skill (Memetics) to bear on all this information, please be my guest; there are also lots of avenues vis-a-vis Contacts or Savoir-Faire as well.) (Findley info below; he's a really interesting, cool cat. And you know about Avery from Zodiac of course.) https://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/2010/dec/31/a-newsmans-flair-for-the-underdog/ https://www.rollingstone.com/author/tim-findley/

   A newsman's flair for the underdog

   Rolling Stone

   Tim Findley

8. @MutantsMichael

   So! Before we get to the Reagan bits. My mind was racing all night and when waking up this morning to try and consider who could possibly extend a "guest" invitation to this year's Cremation of Care to Archie and Marshall. It wouldn't do to go through the captains of industry, I don't think; that's not either Archie or Marshall's strict milieu and might attract undue attention. It would have to be through a celebrity, or what the Bohemians call "associate" or "professional" members, the legacy of Sterling and London et al. wanting there to be "Bohemians" in the club. The "associates" are professionals who don't rise to the level of CEOs and politicians: mid-level executives and bourgeoisie without the kind of lineage or power of most of the full members of the Club (think of this as the probationary "bench" for future full members), and performing artists who help put on the Jinks and Cremation ceremonies and also entertain the Owls while at the Grove. Plenty of possibilities here: Archie's old business partner Jack Ogilvie could be one, and Marshall could have co-opted any number of this kind of member at the Mission. But of course I want to think bigger and continue our game's history of using actual people for scenes and sequences like this. The "professional" members that the Club's by-laws dictate must comprise 100 of the membership are your actual celebrities. They don't put on the shows, but they are expected to give the camp a sense of, well, Hollywood glamour. Now, Marshall's celebrity contacts are WAY too hip for this room, because the Grove really loves middle-of-the-road entertainers, as you can see here in this passage from Domhoff. So this kind of entertainer is absolutely the domain of Archie. My first thought was that Archie could hit up his old "boss" at KTLA, none other than Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry himself, for more meta-Rob fun, but sadly I cannot confirm that he was ever a Bohemian (he was one of the "Rancheros Visitadores" which is another old boys' club of the West but they meet on a ranch in Santa Barbara and center the "Western" experience in their little playground). But someone Archie would know professionally who is a "professional" Bohemian, a fellow member of a brotherhood much much more ancient and revered than any petty Bohemian Club, is right in front of our noses as you can see in the Domhoff passage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Bergen I can't imagine Archie's relationship with Edgar, such as it might have existed through the late '50s and '60s, is anything but filled with awe and respect given the old man's stature among the ventriloquil brotherhood, but Archie's new entertainment tendrils will give him a leg up on approaching him.

   Rob MacD — 8/12/24, 8:43 AM

9. MutantsMichael — 8/12/24, 8:45 AM

   I mean... yeah. And Marshall probably knows Candy. Remember, she was close to the whole Dennis Wilson/Terry Melchert/Manson thing back in '68, '69. (edited)

10. [8:46 AM]

    But yes. Edgar was not a great guy, which makes him as an entré to the Owls even richer.

11. [8:50 AM]

    Dig that urban legend about Charlie McCarthy saving the world from Orson's War of the Worlds, too (edited)

12. [8:50 AM]

    [citation needed]

13. Inverarity — 8/12/24, 9:06 AM

    Quick idea for getting into the Bohemian Grove: could we use Mitch’s Serendipity to get Marshall and Archie in?

14. MutantsMichael — 8/12/24, 9:12 AM

    Only caveat there is that Mitch would need to be directly involved. Also the way Serendipity is worded, it puts you at the right place at the right time, even at the "implausible" level. So we're talking something like, the security at the gate looking away at just the right time so that Archie and Marshall's (and Mitch's) driver could just go right into the campsite. So the quick answer is yes, but it puts y'all in a weirder, more tentative place than if you get extended an invite. Plus, Mitch would be there for the duration and around that many trees, it could be a fire hazard.

15. Inverarity — 8/12/24, 9:30 AM

    Hm, Mitch is too valuable to risk in that way. Mostly I’m noodling over how one gets into a hyper-exclusive party under legitimate cover where the party is hosted at worst, infiltrated at best, by people who don’t necessarily want you there and will be suspicious of your presence absent a reasonably legitimate explanation. So in terms of Serendipity, could it be a thing where like, Mitch somehow mistakenly receives two invitations that were intended for other people? Or … hm, gonna keep thinking. (edited)

16. MutantsMichael — 8/12/24, 9:39 AM

    Yeah, like Bohemian etiquette-wise (and Savoir-Faire would give Archie and Marshall this information), it is extremely poor form for someone like Archie to actively approach someone like Edgar Bergen or Bing Crosby or Tennessee Ernie Ford to see if he and his colleague can be a +2 to the Grove. However Archie has a new business now, a legit enterprise that he's looking to network with the Very Best and Brightest in telecommunications about. Plus you both have NLP and could easily smooth out the crabby old vibes of a Bergen/Crosby type.

17. Inverarity — 8/12/24, 9:43 AM

    Like presumably not EVERY member of the Bohemian Grove set is an Owl. Presumably some number of the “core” club are just wealthy and powerful dupes who may have suspicions but don’t really care, or are just in it for purely mundane reasons. Those people are a viable entry route for Arch and Marshall — if an Owl is like, “WTF are you two doing here?” a response of, “So-and-so legitimate members invited us, why? Is that a problem?” works well. Alternately, if Archie and Marshall are nominally “following up” on a History B or CWG lead and it “brings them” to the Grove, that works too — their response to any inquiry about their presence would just be, “We’re doing our job and it led here.” The crux of the problem rn is how to set that up. Mitch’s Serendipity might help with that but not sure how yet.

18. MutantsMichael — 8/12/24, 9:46 AM

    Rob might have some ideas if the Edgar Bergen connection doesn't vibe with him, but yeah, Archie probably has more natural "ins" with the Bohemian crowd. I wouldn't mind going back to Jack Ogilvie if we wanted someone less famous as our invite. Remember, even people like Nixon and Reagan weren't "members," they were just invited to attend and speak because a Brother Bohemian vouched for them. The Domhoff book seems to indicate that the Grove was fairly full of guests for the 16 days of the retreat, but the main thing is they have to be, like, "worthy" of inclusion.

19. Inverarity — 8/12/24, 5:58 PM

    OK, so I have an idea on how Marshall can get himself invited to the Grove. On paper he is sort of an ideal guest: he comes from an espionage family, is known in the intelligence community (Reputation: NoCal Military Intelligence +1), he's famous-ish (Reputation: Americans +1), and he's an "entertainer" (i.e., a "guru"). So to solve the problem of, "how do you get yourself invited to something without asking?" could he design a subliminal message meme (MD42) that he spends May and June disseminating among the attendees at his lectures and to his contacts in the intelligence community that, one it connects with the right person, "prompts" them to think, "Hm, this Marshall guy would be a good invite to the Grove"? Because he kind of is, just naturally, based on my reading today about the Grove's attendees. It may result in Marshall getting a lot of invites to things he doesn't want to go to and will probably have to decline, but Marshall would focus the meme on a small community and would design it to have a short fuse -- just an idea, really, that either takes or it doesn't and then sort of evaporates. (edited)

20. [5:59 PM]

    Meanwhile, another possibility for Archie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Kennedy_(politician)

    David M. Kennedy (politician)

    David Matthew Kennedy (July 21, 1905 – May 1, 1996) was an American politician and businessman. He served as the 60th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and later as the 8th U.S. Ambassador to NATO, both under U.S. President Richard Nixon. He was Chief Executive and Chairman of the Board of Continental Illinois during the 1950s and 1960s.

21. [6:00 PM]

    According to this he was a member of the hyper-exclusive and lux Mandalay camp and was, famously, Mormon. https://isgp-studies.com/bohemian-grove-historical-membership-list-plus-biographies

    Bohemian Grove: Historical Membership List plus Biographies

    List of 550 individuals who visited the Bohemian Grove in the past, plus basic biographies on each visitor.

22. [6:01 PM]

    Tempting to just try to sneak a dirty bomb in there and blow the whole scene up but haha that would be crazy.

    1

    1

23. MutantsMichael — 8/12/24, 6:04 PM

    Love both these ideas. When I am less brain-foggy tomorrow I will post some more thoughts, but, while it is on my mind re: Mormonism... I know I posted that link a while back about the 19th century Mormon President who died after attending an event in his honor at the Bohemian Club... none of us have confirmed or denied whether The Quorum is opposed to the Bohemian Club and I wonder if Archie would know the Wilford Woodruff story. Regardless, it is clear there are a share of Mormons in the Bohemian Club just as they are lousy in both the FBI and CIA, how many of those Mormons are just ordinary folks and how many have a secret allegiance to the Quorum and Weird Clued-In Mormonism is, as much with the Quorum right now, an open question to be resolved in Act III.

24. [6:05 PM]

    So, color me embarrassed I forgot to mention the Quorum in the agenda for last night. Although I suppose with all the American prehistory/"History I" stuff still lurking around the edges from Mission 8, it's on our minds with a little different perspective after what we discovered in Mission 9 with the Owls. (edited)

25. @Inverarity

    According to this he was a member of the hyper-exclusive and lux Mandalay camp and was, famously, Mormon. https://isgp-studies.com/bohemian-grove-historical-membership-list-plus-biographies

    MutantsMichael — 8/12/24, 6:08 PM

    Also, thank you Brant, I was looking for this on Domhoff's site and forgot it was at the ISGP.

26. August 13, 2024

27. MutantsMichael — 8/13/24, 6:01 AM

    Okay, YES. First off, Marshall using memetics at the Mission, sending it out there to target-seek a likely Bohemian, is a fantastic idea. Design: Your audience evaluation roll is definitely Current Affairs (Celebrity Culture)-16, and Propaganda-17 to craft the meme. We'll average out the MoS's here to get the meme's initial Power on paper. Deployment: DEFINITELY Public Speaking-24, your usual 22 with a +2 for Marshall's highest Reputation (among Celebs, but this will also cover the +1 you get with NorCal Intel and just generally Americans too). And this will affect the meme's effective Power: a success gets you a +1, a crit a +2. (BTW, how is Corruption not available for Public Speaking??!!! That seems BIZARRE to me.)

28. [6:02 AM]

    (Weirdly, Corruption is available for both the Current Affairs and Propaganda rolls though)

29. [6:04 AM]

    Archie's invite, again, I offer an opportunity to RP/roll an influence roll on Edgar Bergen and any of the people who look likely on the Membership list above, @Rob MacD. I think it is good if each of you have your own separate cover/invite to tamp down on suspiciousness, although if we're assuming the Owls know a hell of a lot about the two of you it might be moot. Still, the idea of Marshall and Archie being in different "camps" at the Grove with different vibes, peeing against different trees, sounds fun to me.

30. @Inverarity

    Tempting to just try to sneak a dirty bomb in there and blow the whole scene up but haha that would be crazy.

    MutantsMichael — 8/13/24, 7:11 AM

    Also, a theoretical "dirty bomb" doesn't need to like, be one that spreads radiation per se...

31. Inverarity used

    roll

    Dice GolemAPP — 8/13/24, 8:19 AM

    @Inverarity rolled 3d6 Current Affairs: (4+6+6) = 16

32. Inverarity used

    roll

    Dice GolemAPP — 8/13/24, 8:19 AM

    @Inverarity rolled 3d6 Propaganda : (2+1+4) = 7

33. Inverarity used

    roll

    Dice GolemAPP — 8/13/24, 8:19 AM

    @Inverarity rolled 3d6 Public Speaking: (1+4+4) = 9

34. Inverarity — 8/13/24, 8:21 AM

    (Marshall’s marginal success on Current Affairs is emblematic of his being really busy in his new role as head of URIEL-SF and needing to have pop culture stuff summarized for him by the Special Ones)

    1

35. MutantsMichael — 8/13/24, 8:21 AM

    That will put the Power of the meme at 6: 5 from the design (0 + 10 / 2) and an extra 1 for your good Public Speaking at the Mission. And that will cost 5 Corruption to deploy.

36. Inverarity — 8/13/24, 8:22 AM

    5 Corruption well spent, presumably, maybe, we’ll see.

37. MutantsMichael — 8/13/24, 8:23 AM

    (This reminds me I need to do some more work on the Memes page for the wiki; I'll make that and I9 live sesh my wiki priorities between now and M10S1)

38. August 15, 2024

39. MutantsMichael — 8/15/24, 3:12 PM

    There are so many Bohemians to choose from who are the right age in this period to have been "freaky" enough to have attended the Mission. I got some real interesting possibilities bubbling thanks to that list you posted, Brant.

40. [3:13 PM]

    I think I've decided but I might actually have two people fall victim to the meme and end up fighting over Marshall

41. MutantsMichael — 8/15/24, 5:33 PM

    BOHEMIAN CLUB INVITE NUMBER 1 Summertime is always a busy time at the Mission. The third anniversary of the Mission's establishment has come and gone, with a special weekend full of guest lecturers and important guests. Marshall has been keeping up a busy Mission schedule in May and June, spending less and less time at Kearny Street and leaving esmological and memetic analysis of the fallout of the SLA op largely to Merrick. The usual waves of seminar attendees—hipper folks in San Francisco finance and industry, young curiosity-seekers and wanderers, and a few old heads who have wandered up and down the California coast the past half-century and attended lectures by everyone from Krishnamurti at Ojai to Watts in Sausalito and the usual crowd at Esalen—have been filing through the Sonoma vineyards the past few weeks, and Marshall and his staff dutifully take the time to heal their souls and pamper their bodies. In the third week of June, a couple of weeks after Marshall has released his "invite me to the Grove" meme through the last few VIP cohorts to move through the Mission's weekend retreats and weekday lectures, Sunshine presents him with the morning correspondence. She always prioritizes the important stuff—requests for private audiences or instruction from the rich and famous, calls for traveling lectures or book chapters (most of which Marshall declines gracefully, but it's important esmological data to see who's doing what in the fields of spirituality and metaphysics), and so on. One of the letters shuffled into this morning's top correspondence is as such:

    1

    2

    1

42. [5:34 PM]

    Bohemian Club Invite Number 2 to follow tomorrow morning, it's.... going to arrive a bit differently

43. Inverarity — 8/15/24, 6:55 PM

    actually lol

44. MutantsMichael — 8/15/24, 6:56 PM

    The future is being born in California, y'all

45. [6:58 PM]

    I looked for the hippest man on the Bohemian list appropriate to this time period and Don came in at number 2

46. August 16, 2024

47. MutantsMichael — 8/16/24, 7:52 AM

    Anyway, before I get started with Bachelor No. 2, here is Don Fisher's wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Fisher

    Donald Fisher

    Donald George Fisher (September 3, 1928 – September 27, 2009) was an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He co-founded The Gap Inc. clothing stores with his wife Doris F. Fisher.

48. MutantsMichael — 8/16/24, 8:15 AM

    As Marshall is wrapping up reading the rest of the correspondence (no other gilded invitations to any "little gatherings in Monte Rio" are in evidence as of yet) Sunshine buzzes him directly. "Excuse me, Marshall?" (I figure Sunshine gets first-name familiarity for at least its social effect in front of guests, but you can correct me. If not, this is a little slip-up due to the circumstances I'm about to reveal.) "The front gate has said that Dr. Shulgin is here, unannounced. He's... he's apparently quite agitated." Dr. Alexander Shulgin. The Hermit of the Tarot of makers of psychoactive compounds in the Bay Area. Pesticide-maker at Dow until he tried acid in the late '50s and began to realize his work was poisoning the planet (even though the patent that made his fortune, "Zectran," a.k.a. mexacarbate, is purportedly "biodegradable"). In fact, Marshall probably first met Shulgin during this period when he was doing post-doc work at Berkeley while affiliated with Dow. Sometime guest and colleague of Marshall's here at the Mission (and of the federal government as an "independent researcher" for the old Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and the new Nixon-mandated Drug Enforcement Agency). A more... mature and more scientifically-rigorous version of that know-it-all kid Terence McKenna. Marshall's had him for tea quite a few times since moving up here in '71... he's lectured a few times to interested psychopharmacologists, but he keeps his own counsel. He's never even told Marshall where his home/lab, "the Farm," is located. It's likely he doesn't know that Marshall himself is ex-Agency or he might actually treat him with a little more trust. The hippies worship Dr. Shulgin but Marshall knows deep down he has a streak of Establishment running through him, like Leary. Nevertheless he vibes with Marshall on the whole idea of personal spiritual development and enlightenment; while he does align himself with the Man quite frequently, the hippie generation is, in large part, Dr. Shulgin's children. He doesn't work in distribution like Owsley Stanley or any of the other big names in psychoactive compounds; his personal mission and mandate is pure research. Making the recipes and testing them on himself. Other people can do the cooking, if they want. (edited)

49. Inverarity — 8/16/24, 10:01 AM

    “Thanks Sunshine. You can bring him to me at the East Rotunda.” The East Rotunda is an outdoor, faux Greco-Roman structure — fairly small, think the Parkman Bandstand at Boston Common — that Marshall sometimes holds meditation worships workshops in. (edited)

50. August 17, 2024

51. MutantsMichael — 8/17/24, 6:33 AM

    Escorting Dr. Shulgin into the Rotunda, Sunshine is assisted by an attendant, probably a Special One, who brings in a teapot with matcha to sit on a tray next to the chairs arranged for the two psychopharmacologists. Shulgin does indeed look a bit manic to Marshall's penetrating clinical gaze; he doesn't look under the influence of anything chemical per se, but instead looks like a man who has perhaps seen too much. His hair is unkempt, his beard longer than the last time Marshall saw him, and wilder; he looks like an Old Testament prophet or one of those old wild-eyed Russian monks. The overall effect is disconcerting but powerful; Marshall fancies he can practically see this man's aura, soaring like a white dove a few feet above his crown chakra. Shulgin is energized in a frantic, aggrandizing way, before he even gets word one out. Shulgin visibly and obviously calms himself as he sees Marshall enter the Rotunda, breathing deeply; he rises to greet Marshall with gratitude in his eyes. "I know I didn't have an appointment to see you, Doctor, but I'm..." he looks at Sunshine and the Special One as they head back to the main building, seemingly waiting for them to depart, "I'm the bearer of incredible news, news that I feel must come to you first for several reasons." He fumbles around in an interior pocket of his battered, out-of-fashion sportscoat and puts a tiny stoppered vial on the table next to the green tea. Inside the vial is about, by eye, about a tenth of a gram of a chunky white powder. (I have more that can follow this immediately but I'll leave space for Marshall to respond, make rolls, etc.)

52. Inverarity — 8/17/24, 8:51 AM

    (Go ahead)

53. MutantsMichael — 8/17/24, 9:27 AM

    "This compound is a phenethylamine with methoxy groups ortho to the amine and a para bromine atom. I have been working on a series of these '2C' compounds at the Farm. And this one..." Shulgin closes his eyes, resets himself. "As you know, I do much of the initial testing myself. This substance demanded repeated experimentation." "At lower doses, a sense of bodily peace and pleasurable hypersensitivity emerges. Multicolored aurorae around people, animals, and plants can be detected. At medium doses, full visual hallucinations incur: geometric patterns akin to LSD-25 hallucinations or DMT experiencing: a sense of, shall we say, 'peeking behind the curtain' of reality. Living beings and even inanimate objects begin to 'strip off their masks,' demonstrate their sentience to human understanding. I had a lad who took this at the Farm and spoke with a tree for two hours and reported back both sides of the conversation... as best he could. At higher doses, ecstatic sensations akin to orgasm have been reported, ensuing with a sense of oneness and unity with the planet and universe, all living and non-living things." "Peak of the experience happens at plus-120 minutes, with effects winding down between three and six hours after ingestion, depending on dose administration method and dosage. Hangover essentially nil. And most importantly, lucidity is maintained throughout the experience, as my colleague with the tree can attest to. There is no surrender of the will, no cognitive incapacitation. Everything in the experience is comprehensible simultaneously on both ontological levels with no inherent contradictions that would ordinarily produce cognitive dissonance or, shall we say, credulous mysticism." "You're probably wondering why I bothered to rush here to report on a new compound that merely seems like a balanced and sensuous union of LSD, DMT, and the other phenethylamines. I decided to take a strong dose one day while in the City; knowing what I knew about how it would reveal the true reality and unity of all things, I wanted to experience this amongst the throngs of humanity there." "I entered what can only be described as Teilhard de Chardin's noösphere: a Platonic realm of pure ideas where every object and every person was comprehensible as a stream of data, numbers and letters both comprehensible and alien, data which I could nevertheless read and understand! The effect was overwhelming and pushed the boundaries of the lucidity I reported earlier... but I managed to maintain my investigative mind throughout. I sensed bypassers' thoughts and dreams and secret desires; the advertisements on billboards revealed their makers' true motivations; conversations in cafés betrayed the emotional subtext the speakers could not admit consciously. Trees, sidewalks, traffic lights, all inhabited by their own peculiar animae made of those flowing glyphs. And, amidst all these millions of streams of data, I found one that had, I believed, been sent directly to me, for me." "It told me, 'You should invite Dr. Redgrave to the Bohemian Grove gathering in July.'" "It entered my mind like it was a telegram being delivered directly to my door. Once the effects had worn off, the suggestion remained in my mind as all the other phenomena triggered by the 2C-B faded. And to be honest, my membership in the Bohemian Club is not something I've actively engaged with in quite a few years; the Club was about the furthest from my mind at the time this data entered my mind. Call it evidence, call it a hunch of my subconscious awakened by the drug, call it a true message I received during my experience... I return this missive to you, and heed its urgent demand." Dr. Shulgin holds his hands out in supplication. "Perhaps your therapeutic skills and mystical attunement can explain where this foreign idea came from." (edited)

54. Inverarity — 8/17/24, 12:47 PM

    “Fascinating,” Marshall says, with the practiced tone of someone who is decidedly not fascinated but who can fake it well. He reaches out for the baggie as if Shulgin had offered it to him, even if he hadn’t.

    1

55. MutantsMichael — 8/17/24, 1:54 PM

    "By all means," Shulgin says as Marshall takes the vial. "That's 100 milligrams. Five base-level doses or the equivalent of one of the strong doses I took in San Francisco. There are other compounds in the same family but none had the balance of sensual and cerebral effects. Efficacy is depressed on repeated usage within 2-5 days." "I hesitate to make grand statements, like I've discovered Huxley's soma finally—God knows how many people have made pronouncements like that over the past few decades. But I've never experienced the insertion of alien information into my mind like this and been able to identify it as such. And for that information to involve the 'Owl Club,' well... doubly strange." Probably not a bad time for a pair of rolls for Marshall: Pharmacy (Synthetic)-16 and Hidden Lore (History B)-15.

56. Inverarity used

    roll

    Dice GolemAPP — 8/17/24, 2:29 PM

    @Inverarity rolled 3d6 Pharm-16: (6+3+5) = 14

57. Inverarity used

    roll

    Dice GolemAPP — 8/17/24, 2:29 PM

    @Inverarity rolled 3d6 History B-15: (1+2+4) = 7

58. MutantsMichael — 8/17/24, 2:51 PM

    All right. Marshall's been around enough consciousness modalities—going all the way back to medical school and his studies in neuropsychology and pharmacology, to Southeast Asia and his embrace of Hinduism and study of Buddhism, to his first SANDMAN missions' turning his perceptions and ontology inside-out, to being assigned to URIEL with its Illuminated and Psychometrics and Astral Travelers, not to mention the use of psychotropics among those very same URIEL teammates—that allow people to see what they believe is The True Fabric of Existence. Shulgin finding a new compound that lets ordinary folks peek 'round the corners of reality, while realizing that all beings dwell in the mind of the Universal, is admittedly nothing earth-shattering (insert mordant chuckle here). But Marshall's also pretty sure he heard "Sasha" in his story describe perceiving a meme as it existed out there in the noösphere, and perceiving it infect him, which is not necessarily a modality of perception that Marshall has encountered before. Closest thing? Charley's brief and fragmentary reports of what she called the "Inner Astral," where she could see the "elemental particles" of memes and spirits and other entities contrived and birthed by humanity's collective unconscious as they emanate into lower realms. Even Jocasta has had to deal with the spirits on their terms, as, for instance, the story of the Underwater Panther as it came down to her. Jo was never able to peer behind that mask to see the raw linguistic source code underneath. At the very least, this 2C-B could be a technology that allows the untrained to perceive memeplexes as they exist non-substantially: whether they're tree spirits, secret messages left in advertising, or source code-powered memetic infections. Moreover, it allowed Shulgin to hone in on a meme designed by Marshall to infect him, a Bohemian Club member, as it was whirling around there waiting in the collective unconscious for a new victim. An untrained psychonaut perhaps wouldn't have had that acuity, but Shulgin, with his constant self-testing of phenethylamines, did. It gave him no especial resistance to Marshall's meme, but it made him aware enough that he had been infected.

59. Inverarity — 8/17/24, 3:33 PM

    Marshall examines the contents of the baggie for a moment before putting it in a pocket. “Impressive, Dr. Shulgin. Really impressive. Namaste.” He bows his head in a display of respect. “It is funny that this message came to you, as I received an invitation — recently — to the Grove, for next month. It must have … been in the air.” He smiles. (Marshall doesn’t have anything else to do in this scene but has obviously clocked the significance of the drug, which he now plans to take with him to the Grove for use. He’s going to accept Don’s invitation, though, because that is better cover — if people ask why Shulgin came and brought Marshall, I can’t have him telling them any version of this story. So his “I already accepted another invitation” is intended to be a gentle let-down.)

    1

60. MutantsMichael — 8/17/24, 3:34 PM

    (Perfect.)

61. [3:34 PM]

    (And, of course, Shulgin is available as a Contact if you wish to invest.)

62. Inverarity — 8/17/24, 3:35 PM

    (I’m gonna have Marshall test out the drug at the Grove first. If it really does work the way Shulgin said/Marshall discerned, he probably will “acquire” Shulgin because this is useful useful shit to have around and Marshall will want more — or all of it.) (edited)

    1

63. MutantsMichael — 8/17/24, 3:44 PM

    (Shulgin's camp at the Grove is "Tunerville," which is the ghetto for the folks who came to the Club through performing arts... Shulgin's story about how he joined the Grove and came to know all these VIPs, left the Club, then rejoined them once he started hanging around with narcs and finks, is lightly fictionalized in PIHKAL:)

    1

64. Inverarity — 8/17/24, 4:08 PM

    (What camp is Don?)

65. MutantsMichael — 8/17/24, 4:09 PM

    Hill Billies. https://rwcn-idwiki-2.restaurantwarecollectors.com/content/bohemian-grove-hill-billies/

    Restaurant Ware Collectors Network

    Leontiev

    Bohemian Grove Hill Billies < Restaurant Ware Collectors Network

    Manufacturer: Shenango China User: Bohemian Grove Hill Billies Date of plate: 1979 Notes: The Bohemian Grove is a 2,700 acre redwood forest, located in Monte Rio, CA. It contains accommodations for 2,000 people to "camp" in luxury and is owned by the Bohemian Club. The Bohemian Club is a private, all male club, which is...

66. [4:10 PM]

    Marshall, you're bunking with William F. Buckley and George H.W. Bush

67. [4:11 PM]

    (Hill Billies are thought of as one of the less prestigious camps at the Grove)

68. [4:15 PM]

    The members stay in different camps at the Grove, which have varying status levels. Members & frequent guests of the most prestigious camp (Mandalay) include: Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, S. D. Bechtel, Jr., Thomas Watson Jr. (IBM), Phillip Hawley (B of A), William Casey (CIA). and Ralph Bailey (Dupont). George Bush resides in a less prestigious camp (Hillbillies) with A. W. Clausen (World Bank), Walter Cronkite, and William F. Buckley.

69. Inverarity — 8/17/24, 4:18 PM

    That’s actually perfect. If we can get Archie into Mandalay somehow, we’ll have the two poles covered.

70. MutantsMichael — 8/17/24, 4:19 PM

    Edgar Bergen's camp, should Archie press him for an invite, is Dragon. Fairly prestigious.

71. [4:22 PM]

    Basically the West Coast bankers and oilmen

72. [4:22 PM]

    Very "California-y"

73. [4:23 PM]

    Amadeo Giannini, the founder of Bank of America, was a Dragon

74. [4:24 PM]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeo_Giannini

    Amadeo Giannini

    Amadeo Pietro Giannini (Italian pronunciation: [amaˈdɛːo ˈpjɛːtro dʒanˈniːni]), also known as Amadeo Peter Giannini or A. P. Giannini (May 6, 1870 – June 3, 1949) was an American banker who founded the Bank of Italy, which eventually became Bank of America. Giannini is credited as the inventor of many modern banking practices. Most notably, Gian...

75. [4:25 PM]

    I mean

    Giannini helped nurture the motion picture and wine industries in California. He loaned Walt Disney the funds to produce Snow White, the first full-length, animated motion picture to be made in the US. During the Great Depression, he bought the bonds that financed the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. During World War II, he bankrolled industrialist Henry Kaiser and his enterprises supporting the war effort. After the war, he visited Italy and arranged for loans to help rebuild the war-torn Fiat factories. Giannini also provided capital to William Hewlett and David Packard to help form Hewlett-Packard.

76. [4:25 PM]

    hahahahahaha of course

    Transamerica Corporation Giannini founded another company, Transamerica Corporation, as a holding company for his various interests, including Occidental Life Insurance Company. At one time, Transamerica was the controlling shareholder in Bank of America. They were separated by legislation enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1956, with the passage of the Bank Holding Company Act, which prohibited bank holding companies' involvement in industrial activities.[13]

77. [4:25 PM]

78. Inverarity — 8/17/24, 4:40 PM

    I think Marshall is intrigued enough by this substance — and he’s a drug addict — that he’d test it out before the Grove. So that night, Marshall has himself driven to Union Square, and he’ll take a dose and see what happens.

79. MutantsMichael — 8/17/24, 4:42 PM

    The small dose, like 15-20 mg, right?

80. Inverarity — 8/17/24, 4:42 PM

    Yeah.

81. MutantsMichael — 8/17/24, 4:42 PM

    Cool, maybe I'll set this up tomorrow.

    1

82. [4:46 PM]

    Also we must remember to circle back to the Reagan stuff before Mission 10 kickoff. But this Bohemian skullduggery is admittedly too much fun

83. @MutantsMichael

    Edgar Bergen's camp, should Archie press him for an invite, is Dragon. Fairly prestigious.

    Rob MacD — 8/17/24, 10:21 PM

    Yes, is there some way Archie can angle for an invite from Bergen? (Ha - now what would be a really good trick would be if Charlie McCarthy (hmm, 'Charlie') told Bergen to invite Archie ) (edited)

84. MutantsMichael — 8/17/24, 10:22 PM

    .......is Ventriloquism a Corruption skill?

85. [10:24 PM]

    Honestly, contriving to get Archie in a room with Bergen and McCarthy shouldn't really be a problem given the new Mass Media Contacts and then all it takes is a Ventriloquism roll, maybe an Enthrallment roll, lmao

86. August 18, 2024

87. @Inverarity

    I think Marshall is intrigued enough by this substance — and he’s a drug addict — that he’d test it out before the Grove. So that night, Marshall has himself driven to Union Square, and he’ll take a dose and see what happens.

    MutantsMichael — 8/18/24, 6:58 AM

    Okay, Dave takes Marshall into Union Square and Marshall sets himself down on a park bench right across from the good old St. Francis Hotel. The area is, as most nights, alive with people out for dinner, or shopping, or going to go catch a movie, lots of foot traffic, the well-manicured trees and flower beds lit up by the early evening summer sun, and looming above it all is the Dewey Monument, surmounted by the statue of victorious Nike, celebrating America's victory at the Battle of Manila Bay in the Spanish-American War. Magic hour is coming. Marshall shakes out a tiny key envelope and palms the 20 mg tablet he compressed earlier today and swallows it. Sasha said the real come-up could take as long as an hour, so Marshall people-watches while he's waiting for the effects to kick in. As the dying sun's rays peek through the skyscrapers down Post and Geary Streets, the promised pastel auras and trails in orange and coral and electric blue begin to surround Marshall, limning the tops of the heads of the families out in the Square, the young lovers on dates, the dogs being walked, even the pines, rose beds, and palm trees. So let's do the physiological response to the 2C-B first, roll HT-8, please (edited)

88. Inverarity used

    roll

    Dice GolemAPP — 8/18/24, 8:38 AM

    @Inverarity rolled 3d6 HT-8: (2+3+5) = 10

89. MutantsMichael — 8/18/24, 9:01 AM

    (That's a two-hour trip. Skill rolls for the next two hours will require a Will roll: "On a success, you merely suffer 2d seconds of disorientation. This gives -2 on success rolls. On a failure, you actually hallucinate for 1d minutes.") As the drug comes up and magic hour slowly and inexorably shifts to a purple-skied midsummer evening, the lights lining the Union Square park grounds snap on, one after in the other. In the haloes of their golden sodium light, Marshall can see faint curlicues of light, trailing off into seeming infinity, each tendril of soft light becoming more and more fractally distinct, down to the level of photons. Marshall can see the electricity powering the lights, showers of electromagnetic energy falling on the young couples canoodling and eating ice cream, the trails of underground power lines leading back to the fossil fuels being burned to power them. Between the human beings in the park Marshall can see the connections of fate linking them all visualized as a pucker in reality, slightly fainter yet still present between total strangers, stronger and weirder and more potent between friends and lovers, but all beings connected in a humming web of love and life. Marshall feels a sense of primal arousal that comes from deep in his lower chakras, a sense of knowledge and power that reinforces his long-held belief that he is The Eye At The Center of the World... but then, so it seems, is every living thing in this park, down to the miniscule ants in the dust and grass. A flash of radiant Eyes of Horus/Eyes of Providence peeking from every living thing and a few of the resonantly-powerful inanimate objects comes unbidden into Marshall's vision. What Sasha described, the feeling of linking oneself in a sensuous union of life and love, topped with a near-sexual frisson of energy and power, is there. How Marshall's psyche responds or surrenders to this radical libidinal openness is, I suppose, a matter of his own personal psychology. Pushing in at the very edges of the trip is a deeper layer that Marshall can only haltingly see, and it seems centered on two loci in and near Union Square: the tall phallic column representing the U.S. victory in the Philippines under President McKinley, and the St. Francis itself. The pillar with Nike atop it seems pregnant with possibility and energy, as if it wants to say something to him. As for the hotel, Marshall can see the residual ontological uncertainty around the hotel, a combination of its stolid History A symbolic identity, and the lingering patina of the History B ziggurat (which, recall, Marshall never saw from the neighboring rooftop last June; only Andy did) and its History-Krane identity, the cultural mission of Atlantis to the Free City of Yerba Buena (which Marshall only has seen in the person of the plaque that Jocasta removed and now resides at Livermore). But in all three identities of the St. Francis, Marshall can sense an emotional-sensual aura of danger, of secrets, but mostly of happiness, community, the satisfaction of a gathering which marked the high point of "our" lives. Who exactly "our" is, Marshall's phenethylamine-addled mind can't quite narrow down.

90. MutantsMichael — 8/18/24, 9:18 AM

    (hah, holy shit, April 30, Walpurgisnacht again, same night Nixon-A announced his resignation) (edited)

91. Inverarity — 8/18/24, 9:39 AM

    Ever the Jungian, Marshall heeds Nike’s call and approaches. To the extent he can keep any of his wits about him, he is trying to keep his mind quiet and receptive, an antenna for whatever pure information drifts his way.

92. MutantsMichael — 8/18/24, 10:02 AM

    It is indeed Nike who is the most powerful center of energy at the Dewey Memorial, although for a few moments Marshall's mind does fall into the Roman lettering on the pillar's pedestal, considering the nexus of the American military's global power, McKinley's death at the hands of Ambrose Bierce's well-chosen words and Hearst's newspapers, and the implications of both with respect to the current investigation of the Owls. But Nike is where Marshall's drug-aided sight can tell the vast majority of the symbolic energy resides, and he gravitates to her like a moth to flame. Unlike the living auras in the park, which swirl in golden-pink Fibonacci curlicues, the wingèd goddess of victory's aura matches her bronze patina in color, and recedes in a set of recursive right-angled polygons, seemingly into another barely perceptible dimension stretching into the night sky. Marshall's eye naturally wanders to this intriguing recursion, like seeing oneself sitting between two mirrors at a barbershop, but then he is interrupted by the purring, self-assured voice of Nike Victorious. It isn't a victorious clarion shout, but instead a sensual, soothing, confident, somewhat deep, voice. The goddess sounds just like Jocasta. What comes from her mouth is Attic Greek. Which Marshall somehow understands. "πολύ ἐθέλεις νικᾶν, οὐχί;" she asks Marshall. ["You very much want to win, don't you?"] She follows this quickly with, "Μὴ φθέγγεσθε. Ἐνδέχεται γλῶσσαν ἰαχῆσαι." ["You need not speak aloud. A loose tongue/mind in your state may instead scream."]

93. [10:02 AM]

    Fright Check, rule of 14.

94. Inverarity used

    roll

    Dice GolemAPP — 8/18/24, 10:22 AM

    @Inverarity rolled 3d6 fright!: (4+3+1) = 8

95. MutantsMichael — 8/18/24, 10:24 AM

    Marshall neither falters nor falls to obeisance in the awe-ful presence of the goddess.

96. Inverarity — 8/18/24, 10:50 AM

    Marshall speaks aloud regardless, drawing glances from passers-by and drunk businessmen. "And why should I not? 'We men are wretched things, and the gods, who have no cares themselves, have woven sorrow into the very pattern of our lives.' This life was thrust upon me and I did not ask for it. I did not ask to wear the chains of karma ... to play this silly game, so that Brahman can feel. If the gods are bored then I will thrill them in my way. 'Always your pleasure, whenever my back is turned, to settle things in your grand clandestine way. You never deign, do you, freely and frankly, to share your plots with me – never, not a word!' I will take what I want and I will supplant them." (edited)

    1

97. MutantsMichael — 8/18/24, 10:58 AM

    (I am gonna need some time on this one, Brant. Like, those dual quotes from the Iliad scored a crit success with me at least, and departing Jung for the moment I have a Freudian interpretation of Marshall's set of declamations that Nike herself may make mention of in a reply... but for now, I think it's time for a roll as Odysseus Marshall attempts to fast-talk the Goddess of Victory herself. Fast-Talk-26 (18 + 2 for Voice—thank goodness you said you were speaking aloud like a common schizophrenic, +2 for Charisma, +4 for your RP, no penalty for your trippin' mind because you're leaning into the hallucination/passed the Fright and Awe Check. Corruption to avoid a chance crit fail is available for this skill check.)

    1

98. Inverarity — 8/18/24, 10:59 AM

    (No rush as always)

99. Inverarity used

    roll

    Dice GolemAPP — 8/18/24, 10:59 AM

    @Inverarity rolled 3d6 label: (3+1+2) = 6

    2

100. Inverarity — 8/18/24, 10:59 AM

     (lol success by 20)

101. MutantsMichael — 8/18/24, 10:59 AM

     (I gotta drive J to Les Mis in a bit but I am gonna be turning over the genius of this pair of references endlessly on the drive into Boston)

102. [10:59 AM]

     (that is a crit success)

103. [11:00 AM]

     (get back atcha this afternoon)

104. @Inverarity

     Marshall speaks aloud regardless, drawing glances from passers-by and drunk businessmen. "And why should I not? 'We men are wretched things, and the gods, who have no cares themselves, have woven sorrow into the very pattern of our lives.' This life was thrust upon me and I did not ask for it. I did not ask to wear the chains of karma ... to play this silly game, so that Brahman can feel. If the gods are bored then I will thrill them in my way. 'Always your pleasure, whenever my back is turned, to settle things in your grand clandestine way. You never deign, do you, freely and frankly, to share your plots with me – never, not a word!' I will take what I want and I will supplant them." (edited)

     MutantsMichael — 8/18/24, 12:30 PM

     Nike smiles; a blessing upon this devious, cunning man of words. She plays idly with the giant Wreath of Victory in her right hand, as if deciding whether to place it upon Marshall's brow. "Οὕτως ἦν ἀεί. Υἱοὶ πατέρας καταστρέφουσιν. Τιτανομαχία. Ἀλλ᾿ ἐναντίον θεῶν ὀργίζῃ;" She levels a gaze at Marshall. "ἢ τοῖς γονεῦσιν, οἵτινες σὲ ἐν τῷ Στύγῳ ἐμβάπτισαν;" ["Thus has it been always. Sons overthrow fathers [render them unto catastrophe]. Titanomachia. But is it the gods you [oppose/provoke/rage against]?" Pause. "Or is it the [insolence/arrogance/hubris] of the parents who [baptized/dipped] you in the River Styx?"] Opposed Will-18 roll please.

105. Inverarity used

     roll

     Dice GolemAPP — 8/18/24, 12:40 PM

     @Inverarity rolled 3d6 Will-18: (4+6+1) = 11

106. MutantsMichael — 8/18/24, 1:04 PM

     Marshall can feel the drug pulling at his most primal associations, and its tugging at his memories and deeply-buried emotions about his parents is about par for the course for an empathogen/entactogen* like the one Shulgin has concocted. Any other clinician babysitting someone on a trip like this would observe this set of subconscious associations clearly for what it was; an attempt on the part of Marshall's subconscious to grapple with his "karma," Marshall's ending up a 'clandestine' agent whose parents, themselves agents, 'never deign[ed]... freely and frankly, to share their plots with [him].' As above, so below. Marshall, indeed, did not ask for this life. Nike wants to crown Marshall, to give him the fleet feet, the stalwart heart, the true strike of the victorious. But for now she yet stands upon the pedestal of the current victors: the men of the Owl Club, the men who start wars, who arrange life-destinies like President McKinley's... or Stanley Marshall Redgrave's, for that matter. If Marshall wishes to win her wreath, to supplant these old gods, he will need to first remove and confront the blocks placed on him of old. Does Marshall remember the day he found out about his parents being intelligence agents? That day in March 1959, during the time he was being trained by the Agency at The Farm? Marshall's conscience laughs at Sasha Shulgin calling his clandestine lab "the Farm," just like the Agency's bucolic nickname for Camp Peary. The dream of his parents in the Rosenbergs' electric chairs in the interrogation room in Vietnam rises to his 2C-B-infused mind, but the actual memories of that day in 1959 are vague, fuzzy, faint. *these terms haven't been invented yet in 1974 but Marshall's liminal state allows him to conceptualize them

107. Inverarity — 8/18/24, 3:03 PM

     Marshall, previously staring wide-eyed up at the statue, snaps his eyes, predator-like, at two kids — well, not kids; they’re probably in their early 20s — who had been sitting on a nearby bench and were now attempting to walk casually away from the strangely dressed man who is talking to himself. “Parents! Right? Always the parents. 𒀄 [run away/flee/go away],” he says to the kids, with the Voice. But why Sumerian? He brushes the thought away. “Victory! What is this wisdom you impart? ‘You never yet prophesied smooth things concerning me, but have ever loved to foretell that which was evil.’ Now you offer grad school psychoanalysis? You tell me: victory but only when you excavate the subconscious and the forgotten, expose the wounds to the healing light of day? I know my masters have sealed away things I should not know. Do you think I have not suspected my parents are fowl, fowl as the men I hunt? The only thing I know is that I know nothing.” Marshall turns abruptly and heads in the direction of the St. Francis. He’s trying to sense memes — any meme, whatever he can pick up. “This must be what Mitch has to deal with all the time,” he grumbles, lighting a cigarette, to a young lady at the crosswalk. “Sorry, he says,” he says. (edited)

     1

108. MutantsMichael — 8/18/24, 3:14 PM

     (Cool, I have a St. Francis Thing to do if you're interested and it could help with your Hunt For Memes. Feeling a little overwhelmed atm but maybe tomorrow sometime when I'm at the café in JP?)

     1

109. Inverarity — 8/18/24, 3:15 PM

     (You never need to clear availability with me!! It’s good! You’re not in trouble!)

     1

110. August 19, 2024

111. MutantsMichael — 8/19/24, 8:41 AM

     Marshall strides away from Victory and towards the lobby of the St. Francis. I'm sure Marshall's been inside plenty in his nearly four decades of life; with his parents as a lad, for conferences and such, maybe even with Merrick in the aftermath of the WesterCon op. The lobby is bustling as usual, and Marshall sifts through the human auras in the lobby to answer the clarion call of the... presence he sensed here. It's not the History B patina, it's not the Andrew Krane Atlantis Rising bullshit, it's a powerful memetic signature, long baked into the walls and floors and air of an area just off the lobby near the hotel bar, an area which Marshall recognizes from the URIEL 73.4 after-action reports. "Meet me at the clock." Marshall ambles very slowly over to the cunningly-wrought replica that follow-up SANDMAN teams installed in the wake of Roger and Mitch and Jocasta's "off-site repair team" who toted the Magneta master clock off the premises a year ago. The replacement clock has no vibes to it; it's a fake, a product solely of History A horological artisans working round-the-clock over the course of the first week of July. But the meme "Meet me at the clock" is still here, running strong. Marshall sees with his 2C-B vision that it's a simple meme; it's where the "community gathering" (and some of the "danger and secrets," probably all the people who've had affairs here over the years, Marshall's abstract can't-be-loosened-by-the-drug psychosexuality brain figures) vibes Marshall sensed outside come from. The meme outlasts and exists independently of the latent reality shard, Marshall realizes. It's long-lasting, it's powerful, and it's simple. It's not, like, sentient or conscious enough for Marshall to druggily-interface with like Nike. Marshall checks the little museum placard hung near the "Magneta" clock and reads all the information he internalized about the clock back in June of last year, except one thing that kind of knocks him on his synchronicity-attuned ass: "The iconic timepiece—built in Vienna in 1856—made the journey by steamer ship all the way around Cape Horn to San Francisco, to arrive in time for the hotel’s reopening November 30, 1907 (after the devastating 1906 earthquake), to take its place in the hotel’s lobby." Sidling over to Marshall as he kind of glassily gazes at the clock is a man in his early 30s, with big wild hair and a handlebar mustache. He wears a white shirt and blue jeans, a little underdressed for the St. Francis even in this era, and speaks with a mid-South twang. His manner and accent remind Marshall ineluctably of Mitch, just like Nike's voice reminded him of Jocasta. The mustachio'd man has a big, bold aura, stretching out to the hotel lobby and out the door to all of the City outside. "Hell of a thing, eh? Controlled the time for all the clocks in San Francisco by the time it was installed." The mustachio'd man stands beside Marshall, like a fellow spy on a park bench, expectantly, just gazing placidly at the clock awaiting Marshall's response, if there is one.

112. Inverarity — 8/19/24, 9:19 AM

     "All the clocks in San Francisco?" Marshall says, eyeing the man somewhat suspiciously.

113. MutantsMichael — 8/19/24, 9:22 AM

     "Weeell, I s'pose that's a bit of an exaggeration, a tall tale. But all the telegraph clocks, the railway ones, sure, they did. That's the heartbeat that this new world goes off of, so... that's Time by definition, ain't it?" "Sam." The young man extends his hand for a friendly shake.

114. Inverarity — 8/19/24, 9:28 AM

     "Mark," Marshall lies, shaking his hand. "You remind me of someone. Do you know a man, goes by MJ?"

115. MutantsMichael — 8/19/24, 9:35 AM

     Marshall goes to shake Sam's hand and Marshall's hand goes right through him. Sam looks briefly abashed and apologetic. "'Scuse me." He doesn't address the MJ query in the moment but instead asks, "Hey, what say we head to the bar over there and jaw a bit over a drink? Best way to get to know a body, I find, is over a sip of something strong."

116. Inverarity — 8/19/24, 9:36 AM

     "Lead the way."

117. MutantsMichael — 8/19/24, 9:37 AM

     (more to come once I'm home)

118. MutantsMichael — 8/19/24, 1:38 PM

     "Whiskey sour, Joe." The bartender, amazingly, seems to hear Sam as he puts in his order. "You know how I like it." Bartender replies to Sam, "You got it," as he grabs J&B, sour mix, Angostura bitters, and shakes it all up, pours, and presents with a slice of lemon and a swizzle stick. "Hell of a nice place, this St. Francis," Sam says to Marshall as Joe works on building his Scotch sour. "I believe it was Saint Francis of Assisi himself who said, 'Saints can work miracles, but not many of them can keep a hotel.'" After Marshall orders his drink (to a slightly quizzical look from Joe, reacting like he'd already just taken Marshall's order), Sam says the two of them should grab a table in a nice shadowy corner of the bar. "So, you had a discussion with the lady across the way? She's a crafty one. Got those... those flashing eyes." Sam puts his hands up beside his eyes and opens them with a flick. "You came away kind of cold from her counsel, eh?"

119. Inverarity — 8/19/24, 4:10 PM

     "And you are, exactly?" Marshall says, thanking the bartender for his tequila-soda. "I don't see how you could know about my conversation with ... with her, if you weren't there. Unless you're just a projection, something my mind is making up. Anyway," Marshall sips his drink and grimaces when he realizes it's a whiskey sour, "not so much cold as -- as uninspired, I guess you could say." (edited)

120. Inverarity — 8/19/24, 4:40 PM

     Marshall gets up, a little unsteadily, to follow Sam to the shadowy corner of the bar. Before he goes he throws some money on the bar and says to Joe, in a conspiratorial tone: "Of course, he," he waggles his drink towards Sam, "might just be here because they know I react poorly to a certain kind of woman -- everyone thinks I'm queer but I actually do get along very well, in an authentic way, with women. Is that fair to say? Anyway, maybe that's my subconscious at work: I have to tell you something, oops, the bitch with the trident didn't work, lets roll out Sam."

     1

121. @Inverarity

     "And you are, exactly?" Marshall says, thanking the bartender for his tequila-soda. "I don't see how you could know about my conversation with ... with her, if you weren't there. Unless you're just a projection, something my mind is making up. Anyway," Marshall sips his drink and grimaces when he realizes it's a whiskey sour, "not so much cold as -- as uninspired, I guess you could say." (edited)

     MutantsMichael — 8/19/24, 4:42 PM

     (put this first, then I'll respond to the next one) "Well, she wanted to give you advice on how to win, but you're clearly not playing the same game she might'a pictured you were," Sam says, sipping the Scotch sour, pursing his lips in appreciation, and letting out a little subvocal, "mmm." "As for me, I'm only a sort of thing in your dream. You peeked here, you sought us out, to see if we exist. We don't, but we're here. Up a level. Like a song you can't get out of your head."

122. @MutantsMichael

     (put this first, then I'll respond to the next one) "Well, she wanted to give you advice on how to win, but you're clearly not playing the same game she might'a pictured you were," Sam says, sipping the Scotch sour, pursing his lips in appreciation, and letting out a little subvocal, "mmm." "As for me, I'm only a sort of thing in your dream. You peeked here, you sought us out, to see if we exist. We don't, but we're here. Up a level. Like a song you can't get out of your head."

     Inverarity — 8/19/24, 4:42 PM

     "Now you're playing my song, man."

123. @Inverarity

     Marshall gets up, a little unsteadily, to follow Sam to the shadowy corner of the bar. Before he goes he throws some money on the bar and says to Joe, in a conspiratorial tone: "Of course, he," he waggles his drink towards Sam, "might just be here because they know I react poorly to a certain kind of woman -- everyone thinks I'm queer but I actually do get along very well, in an authentic way, with women. Is that fair to say? Anyway, maybe that's my subconscious at work: I have to tell you something, oops, the bitch with the trident didn't work, lets roll out Sam."

     MutantsMichael — 8/19/24, 5:09 PM

     As if picking up Joe's end of the conversation at the bar about women and queerness (time and causality seem to be shuffling like a deck of cards now, Marshall notes for his psychopharmacological report later), Sam says, "Aha, now we're getting somewhere, by God. All right. Let's tell a story about a lady, while you're here in my territory. It's one you may already know—you're the native son here in Yerba Buena, not me—but let's tell it anyway." "Once upon a time there was an island kingdom. No, wait... it was a queendom, more prop'rly. There was a race of Amazons who lived there: big, bold, bloodthirsty... Black. They loved their paradise island, and they loved their Queen, gal by the name o' Calafia." "This Mohammedan fella comes to Calafia's realm, he's been knockin' on the door of the dirty, filthy, dung-worshipping Christians at Constantinople for near onto a generation now, and his army needs some support. The warrior-women of this land are fabled to be the finest fighters in all the world, and Radiaro, the Mohammedan, kneels at Calafia's feet, begs her to lend her she-armies to the cause." "Calafia gathers those Amazons, dresses them in gold armor studded with all kinds of multicolored gems—gold and gems are so common in this queendom, they can afford to make armor of it!—they drag their griffons out of their nest-stables, and they sail and fly all the way around the world to join the Saracen horde in Asia Minor. 'Watch me go, boys,' she says to Radiaro at the last gates of the Roman Empire. The griffins dive into the city, start picking up those hapless Greeks, dropping them on spires like they're meat on a spit. But the griffins? They can't tell Christian from Mooslim, and they're hungry after the long journey. So they just start tearin' through those besieging Mooslims too; crosses and crescents mean nothing to them." "Now we already said Calafia is proud—the proudest monarch in all the world, really; after all she is Queen of Paradise—so when this catastrophe happens, she says she has to prove herself in single combat against these sickly white devils. She sends her emissary to call out Amadis, the King of Constantinople, and the lady comes back and says, 'My sister-queen, you need to watch out. The son of Amadis, Esplandián, is far fairer and more beautiful than any of your woman-lovers, you will fall in love with him and not be able to land the killing blow on him.' Calafia thinks this is griffinshit, so she says, 'We'll see who's tougher' and puts on her golden gem-studded mantle and her 2,000 toughest she-devils to parlay with the Christian king and his son. "Turns out, the son is the most gorgeous thing Queen Calafia ever laid eyes on. The next day she and Radiaro lose to Amadis and Esplandián, handily. Like, it's not even close. Queen Calafia gets thrown in the dungeons and when she comes out, thanks to some expert Brain Hacking, she's a devout Christian. Also thanks to the Brain Hacking, she realizes because she's Black she's not worthy to marry Esplandián and so she picks some grunt from the Greek armies to marry instead. They go back to California and establish a right-thinking Christian nation. They all lived happily ever after." "Terrible story, but that's the Spanish for you." An arch eyebrow and another sip of the whiskey sour.

124. Inverarity — 8/19/24, 5:21 PM

     “Well, I’m sure I’ll puzzle over that parable for a good long while.” Marshall sips his drink and looks around, pondering. “So is this it? I don’t mean that derogatorily — I mean is this it, the noosphere? The collective unconscious? And you’re like … an expression of that unconscious?” He pauses again. “Is this the fifth dimension?”

125. MutantsMichael — 8/19/24, 5:45 PM

     Sam looks the slightest bit crestfallen. "It ain't a puzzle, son. It's memetics." "Yeah, yeah, just a little bit further up there," Sam points to the bar's ceiling, which Marshall sees is a tesselated set of those metallic rectilinear shapes he saw trailing into the sky above Nike, "is your boy Jung's fabled spiritus mundi, but you all create it, every day. Not us. You pump your worries and neuroses and politics and media and hatreds and fears up there and set us up just like wind-up toys in a doll's house. Then you see us like shadows on the wall and generate new fears and neuroses and such out of those." "It's not another dimension! It's the beliefs that keep you little inchworms going from job to home to wife to sleep to job to church and over again, keeps you all from slitting your wrists at the meaninglessness of it all! What kind of stories have you been telling down on your level, I wonder. Telling others... telling yourself. I didn't compellingly and arrestingly and charmingly tell you the origin of California in my authentic frontier dialect for a lark." "Some drunken dago with a guilty Catholic hard-on for Black women wrote that nasty little story back in 1510 as the Spanish ships were sailing west and the right people read it at just the right time. Or, or, had it read to them. And then Cortez—a huge fan of knightly romances by the way; his son became a famed writer of them—and his boys, they went and slaughtered every native they could get their hands on, and who they didn't kill, the germs did. Cortez supposedly 'converted' twenty Aztec women to 'Christianity.' Give you two guesses what 'converted' meant." Sam sighs. "I'm not trying to be didactic, that's not in my nature. I prefer to let my stories speak for themselves. Believe me, I'm used to tendentious and moralistic readings of my stuff. You don't need my help understanding what this is all about, what the problems are. There's a lot of bad ideas up there!" He points up boldly like the Magician on the Tarot card. "A lot of them were put there by the Griffins, but not all of them." (edited)

126. Inverarity — 8/19/24, 9:15 PM

     “It is a puzzle,” Marshall says suddenly, wiping his forehead. “Every meme is a puzzle. Every meme was made for a reason. Puzzle out why, and you’re halfway to solving it. People,” Marshall extends a hand to the various guests, “are so quick to take things at face value. They think the message is the message. That’s why you’re insisting on telling me this story: the message wants to be heard. But I don’t care about the message, Sam,” Marshall gulps down the rest of his drink, “I care about the medium. The medium is the message — otherwise you’re just hearing what you, what they, want you to hear. Anyway, if all you and yours can provide is a reason for everyone to go to work and not cut their wrists in a fit of ennui, I’d venture to say humanity needs better ideas working for it.” (edited)

     1

127. August 20, 2024

128. MutantsMichael — 8/20/24, 7:11 AM

     “Anyway, if all you and yours can provide is a reason for everyone to go to work and not cut their wrists in a fit of ennui, I’d venture to say humanity needs better ideas working for it.”

     Sam offers Marshall a green handkerchief he's produced from his jeans pocket to wipe his phenethylamine-sweated brow. "Well yeah, that's what I'm after here! Like I said, we can't do anything up there, we just get born, keep warm... get blessed, try to be a success. We can't rearrange the furniture, kick out freeloaders, put up new wallpaper. Only you can do that." "Listen. You don't need me to tell you you're special. Author only made a few main characters, to strut and fret their hour upon the stage. You think people thought Huck was worth a whole book? Sometimes the characters tell you who's worth following. You are Special." He says this brief three-word sentence in Marshall's Voice, the one he uses at the Mission at seminars of VIPs. "I know about San Francisco, see. I'm the newspaperman, the tall tale teller, the ex-riverboat boy, the Emperor Norton's hype man. Over in Connecticut? There's an older me, the one who was a comfortable American institution, with a house full o' gadgets. We don't know each other. San Francisco doesn't care about the white-haired gentryman, She cares about the dude who came out here lookin' for gold and writin' about the characters who populated Her. San Francisco knows me, and I know Her." "Sometimes we're just simple messages, like 'Meet me at the clock,' 'Invite me to the Bohemian Grove,' 'Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.' Then every now and again things start... attachin' to us, like the ice crystals surrounding the piece of grit in a snowflake. Then maybe you got a simple story structure, a narrative, like them Sumerian folks started putting on clay tablets about Gilgamesh and Enkidu. And then, eventually, these aggregates get you goddesses like Haughty Victoria Athena across the way there." "You're almost near the finish line, Stanley. Just a little further, just one more push." (edited)

129. Inverarity — 8/20/24, 10:39 AM

     "You could say the same thing about us, Sam, I mean, honestly, I'd say you need to think differently but what would be the point? Maybe I should be telling people: question everything. Not just what you think but how. "We," Marshall taps his chest, "people, we are puppets to unconscious forces. We think we're in control of our actions, our behavior, but what did Freud say? The ego is not even the master of its own house! Everything we do is a post-hoc rationalization. We swing and twitch on unconscious strings and then tell ourselves stories about how it's all a beautiful dance. Here I am a guru and an analyst. I have nothing in common with the 'me' who went to Columbia instead of Stanford, who stayed in New York and teaches Winnicot to grad students. But is that just the story I'm telling myself?" Marshall gulps down the rest of the tequila-soda. "I'll tell you what I think the problem is, one of the problems, at least. It's that you and your kind think you have no agency, just like we think we do. But neither is totally true. If we're going to win this fucking game, both sides need to wake up to that reality." He pauses and stares into the middle distance for a beat. "And maybe I'm the one who has to wake you up."

130. MutantsMichael — 8/20/24, 10:50 AM

     I'd like Marshall to give me a snap meme-crafting set of rolls. Because what Marshall just said is a meme. Let me just kind of brainstorm this with you before we roll any dice and I would love your input; we also gotta remember to see if the trip messes Marshall up as well before you roll. DESIGN: I feel like the evaluation roll for the "audience," i.e. the noösphere, has to be Psychology here because the meme is coming out of this, like, impromptu set of holistic and cyclical therapeutic realizations made between Marshall and Sam. And crafting is usually Propaganda but that somehow feels wrong here. Maybe Dreaming?? That will give us the Power rating and then delivering it is, well, the Public Speaking you've already been doing, in public, to no one. It occurs to me this meme won't just spread through Sam into the noösphere but also through anyone eavesdropping on this weird one-sided conversation down here in Malkuth. Aren't you glad Viv got you that weird French book on capitalism and schizophrenia now? (edited)

131. Inverarity — 8/20/24, 10:56 AM

     Those seem to be the most apropos skills, so sure.

132. Inverarity used

     roll

     Dice GolemAPP — 8/20/24, 10:57 AM

     @Inverarity rolled 3d6 Psych-18: (4+5+1) = 10

133. Inverarity used

     roll

     Dice GolemAPP — 8/20/24, 10:57 AM

     @Inverarity rolled 3d6 Dreaming-18: (3+1+1) = 5

134. Inverarity used

     roll

     Dice GolemAPP — 8/20/24, 10:57 AM

     @Inverarity rolled 3d6 Public Speaking-22: (2+5+2) = 9

135. MutantsMichael — 8/20/24, 10:57 AM

     Whoof.

136. [10:59 AM]

     Effective Power is 21/2 or 10 plus 1 for the delivery or 11.

137. [10:59 AM]

     That Dreaming crit should give you some extra oomph as well

138. MutantsMichael — 8/20/24, 11:12 AM

     Marshall's body begins suddenly to open up. He looks down to see it happening and is not filled with fear. There is a sort of aching pain, but it feels natural, long-awaited, like his Jungian anima was made to do this. Underneath Marshall's skin are these flashing lights, like the whirring wheels of the chakras, or the full and plentiful vessels of the Sephiroth, suspended in an enormous ultraviolet matrix Marshall fancies to be his brain cells; he can see the wounds there from the Gambit, a red web of wounds, healed but scarred. The glowing spheres are more like... four-dimensional hyperspheres, spinning like ball bearings, grinding audibly. Sam puts his hands out to receive the delivery. Instead of what Sasha sensed on the drug, a meme being implanted into him, Marshall is instead sensing his mind and soul, his ātman, opening up and giving birth to a meme. The delivery is smooth and rapid; the words Marshall spoke, the thoughts that formed them, the inchoate urgings of his Higher Self who conceptualized them, they all slip out of Marshall's glowing chest sinuously as the meme floats into Sam's hands. Sam receives it, and Marshall can see the multiplicity of what's beneath the mask of Sam for a moment—a flurry of text: encyclopedia entries, yellowed 1860s newspaper articles, a watercolor of men in red overalls at a gold mine campsite, an image of Sam and the Emperor Norton in a comic book—as the meme sinks into Sam's self like a long-awaited rain suffusing a dying meadow. Marshall feels post-orgasmic. He sits back in the real world, wide-eyed and stunned. Sam is gone, the filmy membrane of the close-by noösphere is no longer sensible. There is still a vague glow to the bar's metal ceiling, to the bright yellow-orange residue on the inside of the whiskey sour cup and the silvery-gold remnants of the tequila-soda, to the other bar patrons who seem less scandalized than intrigued by the semi-famous guru expositing on existence and reality. Joe looks over with concern. Clutched extremely tightly in Marshall's hand is the green handkerchief, real as everything else in the bar. Its fabric is embossed at one of its corners with a light, cursive signature: "Stan."

139. Inverarity — 8/20/24, 11:47 AM

     (I thought about a button here but I think that's as good as anything I'd come up with, we can say Marshall has the front desk person call David and come pick him up, etc.)

140. [11:49 AM]

     (But of course Marshall is obsessed with this drug now and will go to considerable lengths to obtain a steady and sufficient supply. I still have 15 XP to spend so how would I spend that to get Marshall ready-ish access to the 2C-B compound?)

     1

141. MutantsMichael — 8/20/24, 12:08 PM

     (I've definitely got some thoughts on that, mostly around taking Sasha as a Contact or Ally... I want to finish the Reagan plans before you make any final decisions because there may be XP considerations there as well, but I'll think about Shulgin's skill and point levels today.)

142. August 21, 2024

143. MutantsMichael — 8/21/24, 6:57 AM

     Reagan! What's the plan, Stan (and Arch)

144. Inverarity — 8/21/24, 7:53 AM

     the plan is for sophie to provide me with a dossier overview of the reagan campaign and the people around him, as well as any esmologically significant partisans

     1

145. MutantsMichael — 8/21/24, 7:54 AM

     Nice. Will repackage all that Mission 9 stuff for you today hopefully

146. MutantsMichael — 8/21/24, 5:17 PM

     Probably more like tomorrow, the k hit especially hard today

147. August 22, 2024

148. MutantsMichael — 8/22/24, 1:24 PM

     Okay, I'm going to go ahead and repost the Reagan stuff from upthread.

149. [1:24 PM]

     Reagan mentions from Mission 9: Merrick:

     West says that's where Westbrook came in the idea that they were going to use drugs and conditioning to bring criminals, career criminals like DeFreeze, into a place where they could be reintegrated into society; again just standard sort of bleeding edge, CIA Phoenix Program-type stuff. Now Westbrook has this Black Pride thing he tried to get to instill in DeFreeze and other prisoners, with the Black Cultural Association, so West told me that his working theory is that the seven-headed serpent and all of the SLA garbage—not the maoism but the possibly tainted stuff, he thinks that came from one of the kids, one of the Maoist kids, the Peking House ones. So the whole time I could tell he was obfuscating, lying, being very evasive; he gave me these little dribs and drabs of information, so I said I would want to have a follow-up interview today. West said he was going out of town for a speaking engagement, for law enforcement. He didn't give me many more details than that, so today I went back to the office, hypnotized his secretary and went into the office to check out his files. I didn't buy any of it so I wanted to get more information. I've got some documents that I xeroxed—I felt a little bit like Daniel Ellsberg—but I'm going to telefax them up to you because my particular expertise doesn't stretch to the stuff I found in the files, but I've kind of put it into three quick bullet points for your perusal." The Violence Center that he has been planning, the one that the uproar ended up scuttling. West envisioned it not really as a reconditioning center but a data processing clearinghouse. So in other words he would bring people in, interview them, quantify them, use the Math to basically you know put together a huge database of Black crime—or American crime, what have you. Now I've got some of the documents here and it's obvious—and this is where I can't help—he's got computers working on this stuff and there's a lot of technical jargon in here I don't understand so I will telefax this up to you. Like I said, some elements are esmological but most of them have to do with using computers to predict crime. He was obfuscating on who worked on these volunteers up in Vacaville. He said drugs and conditioning were involved. I find out that he has brought two—and this was in the underground press, but they didn't get it quite right—he brought on two Boston-based psychosurgeons to work on these volunteers up in Vacaville. Their names are Vernon Mark and Frank Ervin, they've written books—I''ll send you all the bibliographical information you can check it out—but Jolly brought Ervin out to UCLA in '72 (possibly as a reward for this work or a means for him to work more intensely with these subjects) so Ervin's in town. I went through his correspondence. Jolly is very very good friends with three men who have promised to save his program if the feds cut funding. Do you want to guess who those three men are? "No," says Marshall. "Tell me." "Ronald Reagan, Reagan's Chief of Staff Ed Meese, and California's Health and Welfare secretary Earl Brian. All three of these men want to use the Violence Center in California, avoid all federal entanglements, and it's clear from these letters that they are willing to do this secretly. They really believe that West and his team can reprogram Black criminals that West and his team of psychosurgeons can do that."

     https://www.san-narciso.com/scenes/7wzuray2id2dzuwy2bskuqfjoqdukv

150. [1:24 PM]

     Sophie, Esmology CRIT:

     And for the record, after her Esmology crit, Sophie doesn't think that Control and the Owls are nominally the same entity. Sophie thinks the Testament of Carl Wheat was an accurate, if jumbled, reflection of how things work: SANDMAN's predecessors came about post-1906 quake as the Owls' "police force" for handling the Kings. Using the governor's catspaws and lending them SANDMAN tech to orchestrate a false-flag insurgency seems like too many steps to Sophie if Control and the Owls were the same thing. "Let's theorize that the Owls are everyone's bosses. The President, Control, the military-industrial complex, the intelligence agencies. Christ, that makes me sound like a right loony. But yes, if you want a place of power in the Owls' hierarchy, you have to prove yourself. It all depends on what subsidiary organization you belong to. 'Go on,' they say to Reagan and Meese, 'show us you've got the balls to do what needs to be done to stop widespread social disorder, which you and we both abhor. Here's a sleeper agent and the remote control, leased from one of our other subsidiaries, to get him to do what you need to.'"

     https://www.san-narciso.com/scenes/revelations

151. [1:25 PM]

     May 1974:

     Journalists such as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post, Seymour Hersh of the Times, and Paul Avery and Tim Findley of The San Francisco Chronicle have published stories in the past weeks alleging direct CIA involvement in Watergate, domestic spying upon American citizens, and the involvement of California state officials—aided by CIA-connected researchers—in prison experimentation upon the late Donald "Cinque" DeFreeze of the Symbionese Liberation Army, respectively. These investigations were cited by Senators Mansfield and Church as having directly inspired Senate Democratic leadership in bringing this new select committee to a speedy vote.

     ⁠intermission-nine⁠

152. [1:25 PM]

     Throughout the rest of May and into early June, the scandal around the experiments at Vacaville continues on a slow, low simmer at the Chronicle. Paul Avery, who made his bones on the Zodiac killings beat, and Tim Findley, a reporter for the Chronicle and sometime Rolling Stone scribe who covered the Alcatraz Indian uprising, the Hells Angels, and went into prison at Soledad to report on conditions there, have been using the Woodward/Bernstein paradigm of putting out a slow set of leaks about what Reagan and Meese and Brian have been up to at Vacaville to ratchet up the pressure. The CIA has been mentioned, as has our old friend Colton Westbrook, and of course Jolly West. A fairly big "Where Is Louis Joylon West" story broke in the Chron right before Memorial Day; Jolly has been missing since the DeFreeze/Smith/Calvert killings. Speaking of the DeFreeze/Smith/Calvert setup in the desert that Marshall pulled off to perfection, the trail leading back to the governor's office has not been ignored by Avery and Findley. They've been digging into Smith and Calvert's lives as well as Westbrook and West's Vacaville careers. Reagan and Meese have been stonewalling; there have been little hints here and there in the press that they might be ready to throw Brian to the wolves as a sacrificial lamb, kinda like Nixon did with Ehrlichman and Haldeman back in spring '73. There have been protests in Sacramento and San Francisco and LA over the past month demanding a full investigation, but they've been surprisingly sparse and low-energy; on first glance it might be because of all the confusion among the protesters around whether the SLA were revolutionaries or just CIA/FBI patsies. Plus, we need to remember, the Nixon resignation/new Ford regime/Church Committee rumblings have been taking up a lot of headline energy nationally. The State legislature, Republican-controlled unlike Congress, has been stonewalling for the Gipper who is not running for re-election anyway. There's just no stomach for a "what happened at Vacaville" special commission in Sacramento. Ronnie probably thinks he can just wait all this out, take a year or two in the wilderness, and come back in '76, maybe for the Presidency, with no worries; all will be forgotten. (You guys want to bring stuff like Psychology, Politics, Intelligence Analysis, Esmology, Expert Skill (Memetics) to bear on all this information, please be my guest; there are also lots of avenues vis-a-vis Contacts or Savoir-Faire as well.) (Findley info below; he's a really interesting, cool cat. And you know about Avery from Zodiac of course.) https://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/2010/dec/31/a-newsmans-flair-for-the-underdog/ https://www.rollingstone.com/author/tim-findley/

153. MutantsMichael — 8/22/24, 1:34 PM

     To my mind and Sophie's esmology, Colston Westbrook, Jolly West, and Earl Brian seem like the keystones to getting intel on Reagan (and Meese)'s intentions when it comes to the Vacaville/DeFreeze ops. Colston obviously is CIA but not SANDMAN, Jolly is both, and Brian is neither (confirmed by Granite Peak and Langley; he's just an ex-Vietnam military doctor stooge). Brian actually just lost the U.S. Senate primary to gun rights one-issue Republican/Bircher H.L. Richardson back in early June; proximity to the Reagan/Vacaville axis probably didn't help Brian's chances. As of now he's unemployed and waiting for some Republican shill corporate firm to pick up his dinner tab. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_United_States_Senate_election_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Brian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Richardson Sophie still thinks, a couple months after her Esmology crit, that the SLA op was an "audition" for Reagan to join the Owls; now that Marshall has made progress in getting his invite to the Grove, it seems clear that Reagan's gonna be there, but whether he'll be getting a hand up from the Owls or a backhand smack for messing up the SLA op is uncertain.