Chapter 3 No.3

The experiments (done at the U.C. Medical Center in SF) were plagued by very intriguing synchronicities, such as the words "by jung." While Alan Vaughn was trying to influence (presumably by psychokenesis) the quantum source into typing out meaningful expressions associated with pre-selected target words. The "by jung" did not fit the target word but it seemed like-well, a Jungian, synchronicity. "Where did that come from?" we all asked, and a passing lab technician pulled out a copy of The Portable Jung from her lab-coat pocket, and said calmly, "maybe from here?"

For the next step in metaphase research, they proposed building quantum-driven communicators that were more consciousness-friendly than radioactive sources, devices more similar in size, operation and energy to the (purportedly) quantum synapses in human nervous systems. These devices, called "Eccles Gates" after Nobel laureate Sir John Eccles, one of the chief champions of quantum consciousness, would be composed of an array of quantum-uncertain silicon switches as much like the meat-based synaptic switches in our brains. (Update: In 2014, IBM announced a chip similar in design to this proposal).

Bob and later Nick Herbert were filling my head with these tales around 1989 through 1993, and the MPT stories started to excite some ideas I already had regarding Third Mind type experiments I was conducting in private. Using the work of William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin as my starting point and merging that thinking with ideas such as the ritual origins of games and mathematical game theory, I was attempting to work out some sort of mechanism by which to pull seemingly random ideas out of the ether. I know that sounds rather crackpot, but remember I was influenced by avant garde art theory as well as science and magick. I've since moved on to work primarily with avant garde and scientific ideas, but I want to inform you of where my thinking was coming from at the time.

In the MPT experiments, I saw a model I could apply to the "mechanism" I was envisioning, a construct that would produce what I called a "living book". Later, I would refine this meta-mechanism and name it the Metamachine. I plan on reissuing my book, Game Over? in which I outline more detail of the origins, functionality and intricacies of the mechanisms I was employing. So for now, I will defer doing a deep dive into the Metamachine theories.

An early iteration of the Metamachine mechanism, circa 1998

Bob and I saw an element that the MPT had been missing: namely, the strong human interface. My own experiments into "living book" production had shown me that a connection to the collective unconscious through a human medium was a powerful catalyst. Synchronicities also seem to emerge, multiply, and in fact lead the experiencer through the otherwise "random" data that comes out of these kinds of experiments. I have witnessed this multiple times in my own experiments. (Remember Saul-Paul Sirag's account of the MPT experiment?) Also, with the outline and results of the MPT experiment, I had methods, proofs, and failures to refine my own models, which I was using as the framework for my Living Book experiment. These early experiments were much later to be adapted into the storytelling methods now known as alternate reality gaming and Transmedia, as well as being the basis for a few patents. But I digress. As I said earlier, I feel that the methods and history of the evolution of Living Book and Metamachine thinking should be documented and in that interest I will be updating and expanding Game Over? for a reissue under a different title.

To get back to our story: One day in my apartment, Bob and I were smoking hash while deliberating the connections between various quantum models for consciousness and a particular passage in James Joyce's Ulysses. Bob interrupted my stoned soliloquy by pulling out a sheaf of Xeroxed papers from his bag.

"Ever see these before?" he asked.

I picked up the papers and looked them over. "No, " I replied. "Where did you get them?"

"Someone sent them to Felicia, anonymously, " he replied. Felicia was a media producer friend of ours from Marin County.

I looked them over. Upon first glance it appeared to be a fringe science catalog, selling books. I pointed to my bookshelves.

"I have tons of this kind of stuff. I've been collecting fringe science pamphlets and booklets for years."

I then went to my bookshelf and pulled out a newly acquired copy of High Weirdness by Mail. I threw it down on the table.

"Look, someone even did a compendium of all the weird shit you can send away for, " I said. "Collecting this kind of stuff is a fairly popular wacko pastime."

He snickered in the strange way that he had when he was being cryptically funny. "So Joe, the fact that you have an index and vast collection of this stuff on your bookshelf makes you one of the Alpha wackos?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I guess so!"

He pointed back to the catalog on the table. "Nick Herbert is implicated in this. It says he wrote some book that was suppressed. He told me he doesn't remember writing it until he read about it in here, but now he's beginning to question if he did."

We both stood comfortably silent, as only the stoned can, and stared at the catalog for a while.

A few days later, I was at a party at the Soundmotion Garden studios and I cornered Felicia, partly because I was genuinely interested in the origin of the catalog and partly because I thought Felicia was a total "hotty" (Californian for "very attractive").