[ these notes have been extrapolated and expanded upon, the source is Hakim Bey's writings on the the subject of Raw Vision, Silence and the Critique of the Listener ]

Writing has taken us to the very edge beyond which writing may be impossible. Any texts which could survive the plunge over this edge– into whatever abyss or Abyssinia lies beyond–would have to be virtually self-created… the last screamed messages of a witch or heretic burning at the stake.

“RAW VISION” (notes)

It is meant only for the artist & the artist’s “immediate entourage” (friends family, neighbors, tribe); & it participates only in a “gift” economy of positive reciprocity.

The only fair way (or “beauty way,” as the Hopi say) to treat “outsider” art would seem to be to keep it “secret”–to refuse to define it–to pass it on as a secret, person-to-person, breast-to-breast–rather than pass it thru the paramedium (slick journals, quarterlies, galleries, museums, coffee-table books, MTV, etc.). Or even better:–to become “mad” & “innocent” ourselves–for so Babylon will label us when we neither worship nor criticize it anymore–when we have forgotten it (but not “forgiven” it!), & remembered our own prophetic selves, our bodies, our “true will.”

SILENCE

We hear not the language but the echo.

The organic is secretive–it secretes secrecy like sap. The inorganic is a demonic democracy–everything equal, but equally valueless.

Within the organic (”Nature,” “everyday life”) is embedded a kind of silence which is not just dumbness, an opacity which is not mere ignorance–a secrecy which is also an affirmation–a tact which knows how to act, how to change things, how to breathe into them.

An occultist would ask how to “work” this silence–but we’ d rather ask how to play it, like musicians, or like the playful boy of Heraclitus.

The Wonderful World of Knowledge has turned into some kind of PBS Special from Hell.

There are some things bureaucrats were not meant to know–& so there are some things which even artists should keep secret. This is not self-censorship nor self-ignorance. It is cosmic tact.

We’ll play with the silence & make it ours.

CRITIQUE OF THE LISTENER

To speak too much & not be heard–that’s sickening enough. But to acquire listeners–that could be worse. Listeners think that to listen suffices–as if their true desire were to hear with someone else’s ears, see through someone else’s eyes, feel with someone else’s skin . . . start with your own!!!

Don’t entertained too subtle an idea about magic. The crude truth is perhaps that texts can only change reality when they inspire readers to see & act, rather than merely see. (To know and to not do is to not know.)

Seeing, & the literature of seeing, is too easy. Enlightenment is easy. “It’s easy to be a sufi,” a Persian shaykh once told me. “What’s difficult is to be human.”

…the theories I’ve played with–are just that: theories, visions, ways of seeing.

But even more we would like to purge our lives of everything which obstructs or delays us from setting out… not to escape the world or to rule it–but to open ourselves to difference.

Enlightenment is all we have, & even that we’ve had to rip from the grasp of corrupt gurus & bumbling suicidal intellectuals.

Writing has taken us to the very edge beyond which writing may be impossible. Any texts which could survive the plunge over this edge– into whatever abyss or Abyssinia lies beyond–would have to be virtually self-created, like the miraculous hidden-treasure Dakini-scrolls of Tibet or the tadpole-script spirit-texts of Taoism–& absolutely incandescent, like the last screamed messages of a witch or heretic burning at the stake.

I can sense these texts trembling just beyond the veil.

What if the mood should strike us … to risk the abyss? What if no one followed? So much the better, perhaps– we might find our equals amongst the Hyperboreans. What if we went mad? Well–that’s the risk. What if we were bored? Ah . . .

It’s as if there were angels in the next room beyond thick walls– arguing? fucking? One can’t make out a single word.

Can we retrain ourselves at this late date to become Finders of hidden treasure?

Finally, however, it will become necessary to leave this city which hovers immobile on the edge of a sterile twilight, like Hamelin after all the children were lured away. Perhaps other cities exist, occupying the same space & time, but . . . different. And perhaps there exist jungles where mere enlightenment is outshadowed by the black light of jaguars. I have no idea–& I’m terrified.