Interesting Dead related site/interviews

[laughingwillow]

I came across this site yesterday. It contained this collection of thoughts concerning the unique, spiritual nature of the dead experience. There are gems of quotes scattered throughout.  I can't help but consider this type of information to be the precursors or even foundation for building a case of entheogenic consumption as a guarenteed right of spiritual practice not to be breached by the U$ gubamit as accorded by our Constitution.

I view Joseph Campbell's comments as a positive take on the dead scene by a disinterested third party who happened to be a learned scholar on the ancient topics at hand.  

lw

http://www.atticsofmylife.com/spirit.htm

The Grateful Dead:
A special quality of energy

June 1995 was the 30th anniversary of the Grateful Dead, a rock and roll band from the San Francisco Bay area. The following excerpts describe the spiritual power of their music.
On August 9, Jerry Garcia, the band's lead guitarist, died. The Internet and print media were swamped with eulogies, reminiscences, and messages of condolence. Some of these are included in the sidebar, "Fare you well, Jerry Garcia,"on p. 26.

The Grateful Dead embody not only the cultic potentials historically inherent in rock 'n' roll, but the entire submerged linkage between rock and religion. . . . The Dead are, in short, the most complete amalgamation of music and mysticism in modern times and, perhaps, of all time. . . .

"Rolling thunder," was what critic Ralph Gleason, an early supporter of San Francisco rock, would call their sound. "A picture window onto the true landscape of the worlds hidden just behind the real one," wrote one reviewer. "Mammoth epiphanies," stammered another. What was obvious immediately about this particular rock 'n' roll band was that it wasn't a rock 'n' roll band. Not really. . . . "The Dead," remarked Musician magazine, "are a living, evolving phenomenon . . . capable of acting as channels for the special quality of energy that can transform an ordinary concert into a transcendent event." --from Stairway to Heaven: The Spiritual Roots of Rock 'n' Roll, David Seay and Mary Neely (New York: Ballatine Books, 1986)

* * * Sandy Troy, attorney: . . . there's a notion that when the Grateful Dead's music is in sync that you feel that you're being transported to a different place or different level of consciousness.

Nicky Scully, involved with the Grateful Dead scene since the 60s: I don't think so much that we're transported but that we expand to include much more of the possibilities and potential of life. After those experiences, one is no longer content with the ordinary or mundane. One wants to learn how to move through life with that level of consciousness, with that awareness that there is more. And my struggle was how to bring that into my ordinary reality. At concerts I would have these incredible, won derful, intense experiences of knowing, of being at one with the whole of creation, of being awakened, of tickling areas of the universe that have never been explored by human consciousness. Now how do I bring that into my daily life? How do I keep from having to be like a yo-yo, struggling with the materialism and the conflicts of day-to-day actions . . . and still maintain the memory of those experiences which are so far from the ordinary?--from One More Saturday Night , Sandy Troy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991)

Mickey Hart, one of two Grateful Dead drummers, on seeing the band for the first time in 1968 and wanting to join: It was magnificent . . . The feeling was incredible. I couldn't tell where they were going; it was so unusual. . . . I thought it had great spiritual content. Whatever hit me at that moment wasn't within the realm of logic or understanding . . . It felt like some kind of force field from another planet, some incredible energy that was driving the band and pulling you in at the same time. This was what music should be like. I knew that it was very special--not your normal entertainment fare.

Show business was no consideration. When you see something good and you know it's good, you don't have to be told in any ways but the ways that you value things.

It was prayer-like music; it wasn't music that was going into the music business.--from Conversations with the Dead , David Gans (New York: Citadel Press, 1991)

* * *

Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead bass player: I've always felt, from the very beginning . . . that we could do something that was, not necessarily extramusical, but something where music would be only the first step. Something maybe even close to religion . . . in the sense of the actual communing. We used to say that every place we play is church.--from Conversations with the Dead , David Gans (New York: Citadel Press, 1991)

* * *

Bob Weir, Grateful Dead rhythm guitarist: With the Dead onstage there are those moments of electricity . . . and the audience is very much a part of those moments . . . it's maybe even beyond electricity . . . just moments when everybody hears the same thing instantaneously and it becomes something very transcendental. It goes beyond emotion or intellect at that point . . . actually it's a marriage between emotion and intellect. I liken it to the Divine--really, a moment of divineness. It's real inspirational, real palpable inspiration . . . with us we strive for that moment a lot onstage. --from The Aquarian magazine, April 1978

* * *

Jerry Garcia: When we get onstage, what we really want to happen is, we want to be transformed from ordinary players into extraordinary ones, like forces of a larger consciousness. And the audi ence wants to be transformed from whatever ordinary reality they may be in to something that enlarges them. So maybe it's that notion of transformation, a seat-of-the-pants shamanism, that has something to do with why the Grateful Dead keep pulling them in. --from Rolling Stone magazine

* * *

David Gans, radio producer: All the other bands just turned into bands. . . . This one turned into something else . . .

Who can stop what must arrive now?
Something new is waiting to be born.

--Grateful Dead lyric by Robert Hunter

Tony Serra, attorney (model for the James Woods character in the film True Believer): The Dead are still paving new paths. That's the beauty of them. . . . Some of the riffs are musical genius, obviously. I could get into that and that would be sufficient and that would last forever. But what they are doing is something much bigger than that. What I like most is about halfway through the second set where they'll get into what I'll call non-representational content, abstract sounds, space sounds, metaphysical sounds, and I like that most of all. That's open-ended. . . . I'm totally in awe, a lost pilgrim of metaphysical realms. They guide you where you need guidance. You are taking your consciousness and handing it over, and it's shattered, like a thousand feathers and it's floating there, little pieces of your mind, feelings, sensations, and understanding. And whatever crystallizes, explodes, and it carries back to some linear form and you remember where you are, who you are, and what you are.

They are still space traveling, on the hot lip of creation in terms of musical awareness. They're doing something that no one has done before. You get the feeling that you're going into areas with them, what I would call non-representational sound, metaphoric noise, cacophony which is open in harmony. You're traveling with them and going new ways and on new paths. That's what I like.

I enjoy the sentiment and the old familiar refrains; they bring tears to your eyes, you think about old places you've been, all the people you've known, and things you've done in instant flashback. I love that, and that would be enough, but the point to be made is why they're enduring, why they're vital, why they're significant, why they're growing, why greater honors are being bestowed on them. It's because they are still paving the future direction of music . . . That's what really draws my consciousness in.--from One More Saturday Night , Sandy Troy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991)
Jerry Garcia on consciousness

The change has already happened, and it's a matter of swirling out . . . unfortunately, it's very slow, amazingly slow and amazingly difficult . . . although it's going faster now than it has ever before . . . That is to say that the news that there has been a change of consciousness on the planet and that everybody is going to get into it eventually, is slow in getting out. That's essentially it. It's still trying to get out . . . it's getting out, just here and there, just real slow.--from Garcia: A Signpost to New Space, Charles Reich and Jann Wenner (San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1972)

* * *

There are bigger and better things as far as human consciousness is concerned. There's someplace to go, something to look for. I think of our audience as people who are out looking for something. We've sort of gamely stuck to those initial possibilities and maybe they pick up on that and it gives us some kind of validity . . .--from New West magazine, December 1979

My way is music. Music is me being me and trying to get higher. I've been into music so long that I'm dripping with it . . . music is a yoga, something you really do when you're doing it. Thinking about what it means comes after the fact and isn't very interesting. Truth is something you stumble into when you think you're going someplace else, like those moments when you're playing and the whole room becomes one being, precious moments, man.-- Ibid.

* * * David Gans: . . . [This] brings to mind the book Altered States [by Paddy Chayefsky]. . . . the book was much more involved than the movie in the union of theology and science. It raises the possibility that there is much information about our history encoded in our genes.

Jerry Garcia: That's one of the things I'm interested in . . . there's been an interesting book by Michael Murphy, the Esalen guy. Jacob Atabet has to do with . . . you know how yogis are reputed to have control over their nervous system? That idea is expanded to where you have control over your whole physical shape, and that is the next moment in evolution, or whatever: that consciousness wants to be able to freely make decisions about your body. It's interesting.--from Conversations with the Dead , David Gans (New York: Citadel Press, 1991)
Fare you well, Jerry Garcia:
Friends and fans remember

The magic was real. I've gone to about 50 or 60 shows in the past eight years and watched, listened, and felt the forces which held us all together in awe. . . . Besides peace, love, and unity, the Grateful Dead stood for higher consciousness. Something Jerry taught us through the music was that there exists a higher consciousness, and his music used to bring us closer to this.--Mark Guzzardo

Favorite memory. March, 1983. The old Compton Terrace, outdoors in Tempe Arizona. The sky had been cloudy all day, and as showtime approached, a light mist began to fall, threatening to grow. The band came out, Jerry stepped up to the mike, looked at the sky, and said, "I don't know whether we're gonna get wet or not, but we're gonna try this anyway." With the first chords, the sky began to clear rapidlytill only a single cloud was left, shaped like a question mark, with the full moon as the dot. . . . We looked at that cloud, and we looked at one another, and the goose bumps raised, and we knew we were in the presence of a power. It turned out to be one of the most powerful nights of our lives.--Michael Bartlett

He could play an audience, I can tell you that for nothing. He could get all those souls rippling like waves and for a moment, a slice of heaven, we were all one. We all knew love as one, and as a million different souls. For me it was love at first . . . connection.--Les Abernathy

What Jerry knew throughout his life, and expressed through his music, is that there is a tangible, joyful, subtle, electrical energy behind this physical world that we can listen to if we try . . . This large, wonderful, gray-haired, black-shirted man in a rock-n-roll band has always been to me some one who has constantly listened to and tried to imitate in this limited world a higher "astral" music a music full of "iridescent joy" and "liquid peace."--Michael Coombs

If some part of that music
is heard in deepest dream,
or on some breeze of summer
a snatch of golden theme,
we'll know you live inside us
with love that never parts
our good old Jack O' Diamonds
become the King of Hearts.

from "An Elegy for Jerry," by Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter.
______________________

A quote from Joseph Campbell regarding his first Dead show:

"The Deadheads are doing the dance of life

and this I would say,

is the answer to the atom bomb."

" I had a marvelous experience two nights ago. I was invited to a rock concert. ( laughter in the audience) I'd never seen one. This was a big hall in Berkeley and the rock group were the Grateful Dead, whose name, by the way, is from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. And these are very sophisticated boys. This was news to me.

Rock Music has never seemed that interesting to me. It's very simple and the beat is the same old thing. But when you see a room with 8000 young people for five hours going through it to the beat of these boys ... The genius of these musicians- these three guitars and two wild drummers in the back... The central guitar, Bob Weir, just controls this crowd and when you see 8000 kids all going up in the air together... Listen, this is powerful stuff ! And what is it ? The first thing I thought of was the Dionysian festivals, of course. This energy and these terrific instruments with electric things that zoom in... This is more than music. It turns something on in here (the heart?). And what it turns on is life energy. This is Dionysus talking through these kids. Now I' ve seen similar manifestations, but nothing as innocent as what I saw with this bunch. This was sheer innocence. And when the great beam of light would go over the crowd you' d see these marvelous young faces in sheer rapture- for five hours ! Packed together like sardines! Eight thousand of them ! Then there was an opening in the back with a series of panel windows and you look out and there's a whole bunch in another hall, dancing crazy. This is a wonderful fervent loss of self in the larger self of a homogeneous community. This is what it is all about !

It reminded me of Russian Easter. Down in New York we have a big Russian Cathedral. You go there on Russian Easter at midnight and you hear Kristos anesti ! Christ is Risen ! Christ is Risen ! It's almost as good as a rock concert. (laughter) It has the same kind of life feel. When I was in Mexico City at the Cathedral of the Virgin of Guadeloupe, there it was again. In India, in Puri, at the temple of the Jagannath- that means the lord of the Moving World- the same damn thing again. It doesn't matter what the name of the God is, or whether its a rock group or a clergy. It's somehow hitting that chord of realization of the unity of God in you all, that's a terrific thing and it just blows the rest away."


Deadisticism
The Magic and Mysticism of the Grateful Dead

by Matthew Rick

"They're a band beyond description,
like Jehovah's favorite choir.
People join in hand in hand while the music plays the band
Lord, they're setting us on fire"

-- "The Music Never Stopped" by John Barlow and Bob Weir

Centuries from now, if someone were to dig through the pages of rock 'n' roll history it is doubtful that they would find a 20th century musical act that would generate more mystery, curiosity and misconception than the bizarre entity known as the Grateful Dead, with its tie-dyed legions of the faithful, the Deadheads. Believed by many to be the musical "keepers of the flame" of the elusive "spirit of the Sixties," the Dead were also, consciously and unconsciously, involved in the creation and continual reinvention of a living, growing mythical universe, filled with images, archetypes and references ranging from the mundane to the arcane.

Since their inception in 1965, the Grateful Dead had always been associated with magic, mysticism, and folklore. Even the band's former name, The Warlocks, meant a group of male wizards. Through the years, from their legacy as the House Band at the Merry Prankster's Acid Tests to their disbandment following the death of singer / guitarist and reluctant frontman Jerry Garcia, magic remained a vital ingredient in the Grateful Dead experience.

According to Deadhead lore, Jerry Garcia drew the band's name from a 1955 Funk and Wagnall's New Practical Standard Dictionary of the English Language. The definition was as follows:

grateful dead - The motif of a cycle of folk tales which begin with the hero's coming upon a group of people ill-treating or refusing to bury the corpse of a man who had died without paying his debts. He gives his last penny, either to pay the man's debts or to give him a decent burial. Within a few hours he meets with a travelling companion who aids him in some impossible task, gets him a fortune, saves his life, etc. The story ends with the companion's disclosing himself as the man whose corpse the other had befriended. 1.

This definition of the Grateful Dead gives an image of the band that is closely linked to karmic retribution (or, in the more vernacular, "what goes around comes around.") Such sentiments were evident everywhere at Grateful Dead shows, from lyrics such as "whichever way your pleasure tends, if you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind" to the gifting of "miracle tickets" (free tickets handed out -- often by complete strangers -- to ticketless heads in the lot.)

But what's in a name? After all, Garcia merely drew the name at random from a dictionary and liked it for its weird appeal. He apparently had no knowledge that the curious moniker had roots which may date back to a passage from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The passage, included in part on the cover of the band's first album, today graces the walls of many head shops across the nation. It reads:

Amidst the sullen Darkness there shown a solitary Lite
For it is known 'Neath the Sands of the Pharoahs
That deep in the Land of Nite,
The Ship of the Sun is drawn by The Grateful Dead.2.

Alone, a name associated with cryptic references is not enough to account for the mystique surrounding the Dead, though. There was no mistaking that they were not America's standard Top 40 pop music fare. Even during the anti-war '60's, the Dead gave little lip service to the protest movements. Their early lyrics, most often the work of Robert Hunter, were more likely to sound like zen koans than New Left political rhetoric, and the music had a style that was too erratic to be easily packaged into commercial radio.

Much of this was due to their bizarre heritage. Coming from backgrounds in a diverse range of musical training and interests ranging from roots music, folk, jazz, classical, bluegrass and blues, The Dead went from being an amateur jug band to plugging in and becoming rock 'n' rollers. With the additional perspective lent by the infusion of LSD, and a creative space to improvise and explore new musical terrain, provided by the Merry Pranksters, an iconoclastic cadre of Beat inspired psychedelicists, the Dead began what Garcia would later describe as a thirty year "psychopharmamusicalogical experiment." The result was a band that was much more interested in exploring their musical potential than in cutting singles.

In describing how the Warlock/GD performances at the Pranksters' Acid Tests would change to suit the moods of the audience and venue on a particular night, Prankster Ken Kesey said, "They weren't just playing what was on the music sheets, they were playing what was in the air. That means that the band [had] to be supple."3.

Then there was the Cassady factor. Through the influence of Neal Cassady, the infamous Dean Moriarty of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, and, later, the madman who comandeered the Prankster bus FURTHUR from coast to coast, the Grateful Dead became, in many respects, the spiritual legatees of the Beats. Similarly, the Deadheads were the natural descendants of the Dharma Bums, carrying on the rucksack revolution where Kerouac's little St. Theresa bum left off.

During and after the Acid Tests as the band continued to play off one another's strengths and weaknesses, they developed a sense of "misfit power" and found their analogues not in music history texts but in the pages of science fiction novels. A particular favorite was Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human, in which the main characters comprise an entity that is collectively more powerful than its component parts.

At live performances, the band discovered that this organism was made up not only of themselves, but of the audience as well. In time, a reciprocal agreement developed between them and their audience. At their best, energy was exchanged, raised to higher and higher plateaus, reach a peak or crescendo, and then taper, allowing for a safe re-entry into the trials and tribulations of everyday life, often providing new insights brought about by a change of perspective.

Although unwilling to interpret their role as a vehicle for personal transformation, the band acknowledged that they were interested in utilizing the music as a vehicle for something than extended beyond recreation.

As Jerry Garcia would later say, "I think basically the Grateful Dead is not for cranking out rock and roll, it's not for going out and doing concerts or any of that stuff. I think it's to get high. To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe. And I think every human being should be a conscious tool of the universe." 4.

Some nights the band and audience were capable of achieving this lift-off. Other nights they were not. But year after year, this band beyond description would tour the country, playing more sold-out concerts than any other band in the known history of the universe.

Dead Tour became the natural heir of West Coast bohemianism. The passing of the torch from the Beats to the psychedelicists, through the being of Neal Cassady, is well documented in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. When the Haight-Ashbury district became crippled by floods of homeless children and too many wolves in sheep's clothing, the Dead moved north to Marin and Mendocino counties and the "scene" continued to thrive where it began -- on the road. The road was the central spiritual metaphor that ran throughout the Grateful Dead universe. The band and fans would criss-cross the country two and three times a year, and Dead Tour became the archetypal Fool's Journey of the Saint of the Circumstance on the Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion.

As many a Tour Head will attest, the magic of the Grateful Dead was in being present -- witnessing that moment when one of the band's legendary space jams would open up and the music would lift off into the unknown. These moments also brought with them experiences of personal revelation and a sense of connectedness, a feeling of being part of a larger whole, not unlike being cells that make up an organism.

Once these feelings began to be articulated, heads began to discover that they were not alone in these sensations and subsequently they developed a language to talk about these shared experiences. Perhaps the most common and easily accessible term was "the groupmind -- the collective identity or gestalt created at Deadshows."5.

With The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, in many ways the definitive book on West Coast psychedelia, Tom Wolfe tried to capture the mojo, the groupmind gestalt, shared between the Merry Pranksters, and, by extension, the people who attended the Acid Tests by describing it in terms of sacred geometry. The phenomena was The Unspoken Thing, which occasionally gave way to kairos -- the supreme moment -- a time when temporal time intersected with universal time to bring about -- COSMO! -- a lightning flash of illumination. Zen master satori!

"Every once in a while you get shown the light
In the strangest of places if you look at it right."

Nevertheless, there was no way to force the mojo. The supreme moment could be coaxed along by band and audience, but there were never any guarantees.

"We can raise the sail, but we can't make the wind come. 'Raising the sail' is preparing to be moved. Spirit is the wind, the sense of musical well-being, of being together. This is a unanimous process." 6. -- Mickey Hart

Magical references abound in the Grateful Dead universe, and heads frequently consult oracles and use synchronicity as signposts. In recalling his earliest travels with Neal Cassady, singer/ guitarist Bob Weir speaks of "Radio I Ching" and the words on the radio corresponding to the spontaneous raps pouring from Cassady's mouth. In time, the Deadheads began to recognize a similar phenomena as Radio I Ching -- hearing the band sing thoughts that mirrored their own consciousness. Or the outer world, as in the case where the Dead played their crowd pleaser "Fire on the Mountain" in Portland, Oregon, at about the same time that Mount St. Helens erupted for the second time in three weeks.7.

Synchronicity, or presence of "meaningful coincidences" abounds in the Deadhead cosmology. There is even an example of one such "meaningful coincidence" in a popular translation of the I Ching text. The fifty-sixth hexagram, Fire on the Mountain, is described "The image of the Wanderer." As noted in the previous paragraph, "Fire on the Mountain" is a highly popular Dead tune. What could better describe a Deadhead than "the image of the wanderer"?

Similarly, references to Deadisticism appear in other obscure texts. The term Dead Head for example: "In the alchemical process there was a phase called the 'Caput Mortuum,' or 'Dead Head,' -- the 'Nigredo' or 'Blackening' that was said to occur before the precepitation of the philosopher's stone."8. If taken to its natural conclusion, this would seem to imply that the Deadhead phenomena, on a universal scale, is an alchemical phase (the Nigredo perhaps describing the prevalence of self-destructive hedonism on Dead Tour?) necessary before the precipitation of universal enlightenment. (Or simply "furthur" proof of what Prankster Wavy Gravy refers to as "the Cosmic Giggle"?)

On the band's side of the laminated curtain there are plenty of references to magical symbolism as well. In the early Seventies, band members and extended family began a company to do extensive tinkering with experimental sound equipment (producing such results as their legendary Wall of Sound). For the name of the company, Bear, the band's resident alchemist, chose Alembic, an alchemical vessel wherein gold is distilled from the dross. In a 1973 Deadheads newsletter, St. Dilbert, the patron saint of Hypnocracy, used Uroborous, the ancient mystical symbol of a serpent swallowing its tail, to describe the bands viscious circle of More Gigs - Larger Halls - More Equipment - Bigger Organization - Larger Overhead - More Gigs... ad infinitum. (If the poor saint only knew how Uroborous' hunger would grow in twenty years to follow...)

According to the largely unpopular book The Dead by Hank Harrison, Harrison claims that during this period he was making regular trips to the Warburg Institute, home of one of the world's most extensive libraries of hermetic literature, and bringing back mystic volumes that the Dead were reading voraciously.

In addition, there is evidence that individual members of the band, to varying degrees, were interested in actively exploring and utilizing techniques that have come to be called "magical." Though reluctant to speak of such things, fearing (perhaps quite wisely) that Tour Heads will mistakenly give unwanted weight and misunderstanding to their words, the Dead venture into specifics on occasion.

Lyrcist Robert Hunter is a poet in the manner described by Robert Graves in The White Goddess. When Hunter speaks of "invoking the muse" to produce his finest works, he insists "the muse is not a trope."9.

"I've got this one spirit that's laying roses on me. Roses, roses -- can't get enough of those bloody roses. (The spirit) gives me a lot of other good lines too, but if I don't put the roses in, it goes away for a while. It's the most prominent image, as far as I'm concerned, in the human brain. Beauty, delicacy, short-livedness... There is no better allegory for -- dare I say it? -- life, than roses. It never fails. When you put a rose somewhere, it'll do what it's supposed to do. Same way with certain jewels -- I like a diamond here, a ruby there, a rose, certain kinds of buildings, vehicles, gems. These things are real, and the word evokes the thing. That's what we're working with, evocation."10.

Apparently a similar muse was visiting Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse when they first discovered the "Skull 'n' Roses," one of the most prominent Grateful Dead symbols. Skull 'n' Roses (or Skullfuck as the band likes to refer to it) was originally an illustration by Edmund J. Sullivan in The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a Persian spiritual text. The design was utilized by Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse as the center piece of an Avalon Ballroom poster for the band in 1968. "We had been looking for something to use for the Grateful Dead. Kelley and I just looked at each other and said, ' There it is, the perfect picture.' And so we designed a poster around that picture. We knew when it was finished that it was really hot because it felt right. It just fit so good with the name. The skeleton that symbolized death and the roses that symbolized rebirth and love. It just said Grateful Dead."11.

Throughout their career, the band ventured into numerous unorthodox waters, always pushing the outer limits of what it meant to be a rock 'n' roll band. While never espousing a particular philosophy or belief system, they took pleasure in playing "power spots," often on auspicious dates like solstices and equinoxes. In 1987 during the much publicized Harmonic Convergence, the Dead played Telluride, Colorado, following a set by Babatunde Olatunji. And, of course, the band played historic concerts in Egypt in 1978, where some members of the band's extended family were even allowed access to see the Ship of the Sun.

Very few, if any, people on the Grateful Dead Tour would admit to believing that they thought Jerry Garcia was God, but the widespread belief that the Deadheads were a personality cult who worshipped Garcia persisted. This was most evident in the rumors and mystery surrounding The Spinners (more formally, The Family of Unlimited Devotion). The Spinners were a communal group of young people in peasant dresses and other austere clothing who would twirl in the hallways of Deadshows and were often seen prostrate on the floor of the venues after Garcia would finish songs.

When asked about the Spinners, Garcia replied, "They're kind of like our Sufis. I think it's really great that there's a place where they can be comfortable enough to do something with such abandon. It's nice to provide that. That's one of the things I'm proud of the Grateful Dead for. It's like free turf."12.

When asked how he felt about the Jerry is God phenomena, Garcia responded with characteristic humor, "Anybody who thinks I'm God should talk to my kids." Did he mind being the focal point of a religious group? "Well, I'll put up with it until they come for me with the cross and the nails."13.

Caroline Rago, formerly a core member of the Family of Unlimited Devotion, said that the idea that they believed Jerry was God was a misconception. In the Spinner cosmology, she likened him more to an avatar -- describing a role similar in many respects to the one attributed to Bob Marley by Rastafarians. "He was the cosmic minstrel who provided the channel," she said.14.

Well into his eighties, the prominent mythologist Joseph Campbell discovered the Grateful Dead. Not usually a fan of rock 'n' roll, Campbell's interest was piqued by the Dead's myth making capacity. After attending a concert and seeing the audiences interest and enthusiasm, he claimed that they were "the antidote to the atom bomb."15.

Expressing and appreciating love and humor are perhaps the most crucial keys to understanding Deadisticism. Any attempt to describe the spiritual or transcendent qualities of the Grateful Dead without mention of the humor present on all levels, is sorely lacking. Humor is, in fact, the single most vital element in the Grateful Dead, perhaps even more crucial than the music itself. The Dead's roots are in Prankster antics, and it is this sense of benign mischief that has been the social glue holding band and fans together through many a difficult year. "When you lose your sense of humor, it just isn't funny anymore," Mr. Gravy reminds.

Why has the Grateful Dead become one of the most cherished myth making faculties in the last half of the twentieth century? Perhaps because they have never tried to impose meaning or belief systems on any of their listeners. Perhaps because they recognized early on that the whole was more powerful than its component parts.

Through it all, very few people in the band's nucleus or immediate family, were willing to offer definitive statements. If the Dead were dogmatic about anything, it was a dogmatic avoidance of dogma. Perhaps John Barlow summed up the phenomenon best. "[Deadheads] have what I consider to be one of the most positive developments in the history of spirituality: a religion without beliefs."16.

[judih]

rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes

encore

[TooStonedToType]

And she shall have music wherever she goes


----------


I might print this out for my attorney.

[JRL]

I am pretty sure Aurobindo came down hard against acid back in the day. I know Satchitdanda(sp?) did.

Garcia said once  that the Dead were like hookers and bad architecture: stick around long enough you become legit.

[laughingwillow]

LOL Read some of the quotes, JRL. More than one person was of the opinion that you had the entertainment bidness and then there was the Dead, operating outside the established parameters.

David Gans said, all the other bands turned into bands while the dead turned into something else.

I'm guessing you were too busy making music to really get involved enough in their scene to grasp what was really going on.

And no, it wasn't just the band. As many snippets above attest, the bands fans are who really made the circle complete.  It wasn't just about the musicians on stage; that's entertainment. This is deeper than that. Maybe even deeper than Jerry knew, as he became pretty cloistered from the scene on the street as the years passed.

Btw, I'm not sure acid was ever mentioned in the articles above. Although I could give a rats ass what any guru, pastor or politician has to say about entheogenic use in a spiritual context. hehe

lw

[JRL]

Not sure what you mean LW. I think I was actually part of the first wave of folks that thought they were more than just a band. Going to see the Dead certainly felt like high church to me in 1970.  I always attributed Coltrane size spirit to Garcia. And I certainly understand that they were someting other than entertainment.

I just thought it was curious that Aurobindo's site has dead related stuff.

But isn't music supposed to be that, something real, not just diversion. Ain't it supposed to transform the soul and change lives?

[laughingwillow]

Well, you saw them in '70 for the first time. And how many times did you see them after that? (I think you previously said you caught 3 dead shows.) Anyway, the point is, once I caught the band, I couldn't stay away. Nothing compared. Not any act I'd caught up to that time or since. By my third dead show, I was ready to pick up and move across country 'cause I needed more.

"The Grateful dead aren't the best at what they do, they are the only ones doing it." - Bill Graham -

lw

[senorsalvia]

quote="JRL"]           Going to see the Dead certainly felt like high church to me in 1970.  I always attributed Coltrane size spirit to Garcia.

But isn't music supposed to be that, something real, not just diversion. Ain't it supposed to transform the soul and change lives?[/quote]-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                        Bruttha, 'ya sure have been chiming in with an abundance of great lines lately......    Been writing any lyrics of late??        (inquiring minions of the metaphysical wanna know :wink: )------------------  sal

[JRL]

First time was November 69 Cal Expo Building A. Up till that point I didn't get it, but my friends always told me. Man, I knew something was happening, tell you what.

But the hook was set that New Years Eve. My buddy showed up with an advance copy of Live-Dead and a couple tabs.

So I saw em when I could. 3 Winterland shows, including the retirement show in the movie. Saw em once at Sac Memorial. U of N Reno in 75. And maybe 4 Cal Expo shows. I guess about 10 times, wish it could have been more.

But man, I think I get the picture. I would have been a DH on tour if anyone had thought of it back then.

But I truely do see them from both sides of the stage. Having said that, let me say I love them more than words can tell and owe a big chunck of my great life to what they showed me about music, life, love and the universe.

[JRL]

Oh yeah, Senor. Thanks for the appreciation, wish you could be at a show cause your energy would surely inspire.

I have been writing a bit, after being totally dry for more than a couple years. Comes slow, or maybe I am lazy(no maybe to it)

Got 2 finished and 2 real good starts since spring.

What I have been doing is helping my Israeli songwriter friend hone his lyrics for the recordings we are doing. One bad line can really sink a great song, so songwriters are smart to bounce of off other people.

Yogi's not a native English speaker but he watches American TV and hangs out with Sistah Judih. He comes up with great lines, and occasionally ones that makes no sense at all. so we have been tuning up a line here a word here, usually in the car on the way to the studio.

The 3 tunes we have started are shaping up nice, Yogi is a true talent.

[laughingwillow]

I guess the bigest problem I have with most other acts would be the crowd. There are very few situations in which I feel comfortable enough to let go and do the cosmic freak in the midst of 10, 000 people. Or really any number for that matter.

After reading up on Bear, its apparent that he had an interest in alchemy. A little digging into the arcane leads to a sound system developed for the band called the alembic system. Turns out that an alembic is apparently a closed system in which an alchemist works to turn lead into gold. I've come to view dead shows as an alembic on another level. I view the scene as a closed system in which an alchemist works on the facilitation of a group mind.  And I see the members of the band as the medium through which the music flows in this closed system, connecting audience to stage. Anything goes when they turn up the heat under such a tight seal.

I see a cosmic alchemist taking comman men and women, subjecting them to the fire and freeing those peeps to polish their/our hearts to a burnished gold.

Then I read in the text above that....... ""In the alchemical process there was a phase called the 'Caput Mortuum,' or 'Dead Head,' -- the 'Nigredo' or 'Blackening' that was said to occur before the precepitation of the philosopher's stone."8. If taken to its natural conclusion, this would seem to imply that the Deadhead phenomena, ............is an alchemical phase..... necessary before the precipitation of universal enlightenment.

*************

And that's where this band diverges from all others, imo.

lw