The Kennedy Pages / ~ Look for the link later.
In the book Dark Mission the authors revisit (with their apologies) the issue of the ‘Kennedy Assassination’. Their perspective is that “about half” of all Americans still believe the “lone-nut gunman” theory; the other half probably believe in some sort of “cover-up” or “conspiracy”. They may be right in this perspective.
After nearly forty-five years of coincident history, investigation, and revelations (or alleged revelations) little has changed in the consciousness of many Americans; the messages that were conveyed on that day in late November of 1963 and over the next several days, weeks, and months became the mantra of the event. This mantra states that there was no conspiracy, there was no cover-up worthy of note, the nation and its system continues in tact (although there was a deep, universal, and understandable “sorrow”).
There have always been “conspiracy theories”, conspirorists, and conspiracy theorists. It goes back centuries, even thousands of years. The story of Adam & Eve and the apple is a conspiracy theory (or reality if it really happened). The point is that if people believe one way, they act that way; if they believe another way, they act another way. America would probably change fundamentally if most Americans were brought to believe that Kennedy was killed by the process of an organized and planned conspiracy.
The Kennedy murder was the catalytic event for the “Boomer” generation just as Pearl Harbor was for the GI and Silent generations and as the “Challenger Explosion” was for the X’er and Millennial generations. For those that have come to believe that the Kennedy Assassination was a conspiracy much of the rest of history has changed. In this changed view history seems to be punctuated by planning and planned events, secret and hidden from the public in their details, that appear to be “one thing” and in fact are almost always something else. Most of these perceived (or seen) “conspiracies” involve violence or death or often “violent death”. The pattern is that one death often leads to other and ever more and greater death(s). To say that the whole idea revolves around the simple notion of “A conspiracy of death” would not miss the point.
There are of course conspiracies that do not result in death, or do not at least result in immediate or obvious death. The easiest one to illustrate is the conspiracy of “duplicity”. Duplicity is “the lie”; the ability to look one way while acting another; to say one thing while doing another. Duplicity involves the ability to cry in pain or agony when one is really happy, to laugh when one is feeling murderous, to smile when one is seething with rage. Duplicity is the “art” of insincerity; the ability to fool others; the talent of the spy, the traitor, and any successful deceiver.
The old saw suggests that one can never “fool an honest man” (or woman I might add). The problem is that so few people have the courage to be totally honest, everyone is corrupt a certain bit. This fact gives quarter to the lies that conspirorists coagulate. But it is these hardened lies that are most susceptible to cracking, that are most revealing in their form; from which “truth” may be vivisected or resurrected.
As a culture Americans �play� with truth, most do not believe in it fully. Americans love the clever �con man�, revel in the actor or actress that �can�t act�, rejoice in giving to unworthy and unrepentant charities and other politicians. �Everyone� loves a mystery, the Titanic going down; few pause to point a finger of blame or reproach at the perpetrator; the culture prefers to identify with and play the victim; �Could be me,� is often said (or thought). In plays this is often the message; fooling all the people all of the time, proposing plots that leave everyone guessing and confused until the very end. �Who done it.�
�Shakespeare� (another conspiracy theory) was said to write �all the world�s a stage�. Most American�s are inclined to believe that. A movie or a novel may be the �virtual� reality or the virtual reality may be everything other than the movie or the novel. Which one has the better or more interesting �script�? I think the Kennedy script is most compelling, very real, nothing virtual to it. There are real dead bodies, real dead. There are a host of suspects. There are a host of reasons and motives. Somewhere there is a simple truth, or many simple truths; �the facts, mame�. I�d like to see the end of this �movie� in my time, curtains down, �Fin� in lights upon the screen.
So much has already been written, rewritten, written again. I think I�ll begin with that. Do a little reading, a little writing, rearrange the facts a bit, integrate the old with the new (a lot like all my other posts). This time however I�ll do it a little differently; maybe a new post site; dedicated just to Kennedy, no statues, no 50 cent pieces, just the facts with sources (everything necessary). It�ll be just for me of course, for my peace (or from my piece) of mind (at large, perhaps). You can read along though, maybe comment this time. It might be interesting.
My theory is this. Kennedy and the assassination seems to be at �the tipping point� of things in America, or in modern America. He was at the point of generational transitions (pre-GI to GI in leadership (the torch); Boomer to X�er among the �new generations�). There is only Silent silence in the middle, meaning much however. If (meaning �I believe�) the riddle can be solved then America can move forward �peacefully� as Kennedy would say until the end. I believe the effort is worth a try, another try, now that Oliver Stone is out of the picture. We might bring back �A New Frontier�; wherever that might be or go; or wherever it might have left us. �There is a new mantle, for a new generation, the torch is past, a new light will shine upon this land.�
Stay tuned.
Post Script:
Today at the “library sale” I picked up a copy of Four Days (published in early 1964), a copy of the Official Warren Commission Report (Earl Warren signed my mother’s Masters of History diploma from UC Berkeley when he was Governor of California), and the book by Seymour Hersh on Kennedy (The Dark Side of Camelot) (1997) in mint condition. I’ve never been a “Kennedy Conspiracy buff”, but I’ve had a few ideas over the years, watched the A&E (History Channel) episodes, may order them from Amazon. Have a few random books that touch on the subject I suppose. The whole ‘project’ as described will cost about $36 dollars (35 would leave it at Kennedy, 36 takes me into Johnson, 37 to Nixon). Spent a dollar buying a copy of, “in time of EMERGENCY, a citizen’s handbook on NUCLEAR ATTACK” (March 1968; Department of Defense, Office of Civil Defense). The good news is that in 1968 the DOD assured America at least a “Probable 5 minute warning” before the nukes would hit; I am heartened already.
The connection of course is how much can really change, can really happen in 5 minutes. Four Days discusses very clearly a five minute period of transition in Dallas and across America on November 22, 1963.
[2008.01.12 / Saturday -Â The Kennedy Pages]
Hail Eris! Hail Crockpots!: An Interview with Adam Gorightly / Adam Gorightly is a writer on conspiracies and high weirdness and the author of The Shadow over Santa Susana as well as The Prankster and the Conspiracy, the only biography of the late, Discordian co-founder and alternative-culture innovator, Kerry Thornley. A self-described �crackpot historian,� Gorightly also hosts of the popular podcast Untamed Dimensions.
I recently had the opportunity to interview him via e-mail to discuss the life of a crackpot historian, lucid dreaming, the legacy of Kerry Thornley and many other subjects.
***
You describe yourself as a “crackpot historian.” That can certainly be taken in one of several ways. It seems to me anyone designating himself as such isn’t a proselytizer out there trying to make converts or take himself too seriously. Could you elaborate on what being a “crackpot historian” means to you?
Well, youâ��ve sort of answered the question yourself! When I first came up with that “Crackpot Historian” title, I didn’t really give it much thought, as these are the types of phrases that sometimes just pop into my head…But what I think I intended to convey was that I enjoy writing about strange and colorful characters–what some would term “crackpots”–and that I also fit that category myself, at times. And yes, as you noted, I donâ��t take myself too seriously–so donâ��t you, either!
Perhaps the funniest anecdote I have regarding this �Crackpot Historian� business occurred at the 2006 Retro UFO Convention. I had a table set up there with Greg Bishop, author of Project Beta and Weird California. And I made a couple name tags for us. Greg�s read: �Greg Bishop�U-fool-ologist�. Of course, I asked him if he minded being jokingly referred to in such a manner and he just laughed. And, of course, my name tag said: �Adam Gorightly�Crackpot Historian.� Anyway, at one point a fellow approached me who started going on about crockpots. I just nodded my head, not knowing how to respond. So I guess now I�m a �crockpot historian�, as well! Hail Eris!
You mentioned in another interview that some of your interest in the realms of high weirdness stemmed from youthful experimentation with lucid dreaming. Describe what attracted you to the possibilities of lucid dreaming and what you learned from it.
Actually, my early episodes of lucid dreaming just happened really without me understanding what was going on. It was only later, in the last decade or so, that I got deeper into lucid dreaming, actually trying to do it. And at times, I’ve been able to consciously get into the dreaming state where you take control, pulling the strings of your dreams, in essence creating your own reality.
But lucidity goes in phases, at least for me, and it depends on where your head is at, at any given time. So I really haven’t lucid dreamed probably in a couple years now, and I’m not really sure why that is, why the experience waxes and wanes. But, to answer your question, what I’ve learned from these experiences is that the mind is a vast untapped reservoir of all kinds of possibilities that can be accessed in a number of manners, including psychedelics, meditation, etc. And that, if we really wish to push the limits of what it means to be human, then we need to boldly venture into these realms, to see how far we can evolve the human state.
You also mention some UFO experiences as being formative in your fascination with the fringes of accepted realities. What were those experiences and what was going on for you at the time they occurred to make them a catalyst? Certainly lots of folks see things they can’t explain, but very few use those experiences to forge on into deeper explorations of those topics, much less a writing and media career.
My experiences into these realms had a significant impact in terms of prompting me to question consensus reality and forming my world-view. Perhaps these experiences are there for everyone, but not everyone is ready for them? Perhaps…
My most pivotal was a UFO experience (on LSD!) which I shared with a friend of mine in the late 1970’s. You can learn all about this if you listen to my Untamed Dimensions podcast entitled “UFO’s, LSD and Me”…This was like what comedian Bill Hicks experienced on shrooms a decade or so later, that so thoroughly blew his mind and opened his eyes to the fact that “things are not the way they seem.” And so this UFO/LSD experience influenced the way I looked at everything, not only the reality constructs erected all around us, but also how they influence conspiracy politics, and how they affect everything we perceive, how we all play a part in creating our own perceptions of ourselves and the universe.
You dedicated your 2003 biography of Kerry Thornley, The Prankster and the Conspiracy, to Jim Keith and Ron Bonds. For those who aren’t already old-hat rabbit-hole explorers, who were these two guys and how did they inspire/influence you?
Jim Keith wrote a number of popular conspiracy books. [He] was perhaps the most popular author in the field at the time, but he also kept a perspective and sense of humor through it all, which has certainly left an impression on the way I go about business. I corresponded with Jim on many occasions over the years. We sort of used each to bounce ideas off of [the other]…
Jim lost his life in a most curious manner. While attending the Burning Man festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert in September of 1999, he fell off a stage there and fucked up his knee. Then a day or so later, while having surgery on his knee, a blood clot was released which went into his lung and killed him.
Jim Keith’s main publisher was Ron Bonds of the groundbreaking IllumiNet Press, who was also Kerry Thornley’s publisher. Bonds was another guy who I stayed in touch with over the years. Like Keith, he was very generous with his time and sharing information, and kept a humorous perspective, which one needs to do, as I mentioned, when delving into the arcane waters of conspiracies and assorted high weirdness. It was interesting to note that Jim Keith told me right before he died that his role at IllumiNet had been expanded and he now was almost a partner in the business, helping Ron do a lot of editing and searching for new material.
Less than a couple years after Keith’s death, Ron Bonds died under similar strange circumstances, of a rare form of food poisoning, and many suggested that he and Keith were victims of a conspiracy aimed at shutting down the whole IllumiNet enterprise. And remember Kerry Thornley was a very important member of the IllumiNet family. In fact, IllumiNet was Kerry’s sole publisher and was preparing to finally publish his long awaited Kennedy assassination conspiracy tome before Kerry died in 1998. So over the course of less than four years, all the principles of IllumiNet had died: Thornley, Keith and Bonds.
Hell of a coincidence. You describe in the introduction to The Prankster and the Conspiracy that at one point you became so obsessed with the Kennedy assassination that it became a form of mental masturbation, a “perverse form of entertainment masquerading as an intellectual pursuit.” You said that discovering Kerry Thornley’s JFK intimations brought you back from that. Is there a relationship between Kerry’s influence and the humor you infuse your work with staying away from circle jerkery? Do you see any danger or stupidity to conspiracy research that turns into obsessional entertainment? In these days of Spectacle, how can you really avoid being reduced to mere entertainment?
Well, when I first started looking into the Kennedy Assassination, I soon became a righteous believer in the JFK Assassination conspiracy angle, a proselytizer, have you, for obvious reasons, as anybody who’s looked into the assassination becomes quickly aware that Oswald couldn’t have pulled off the whole thing by himself. And so, to a certain degree, I became one of those obsessed “conspiracy nuts” who go a bit overboard trying to convert others to the startling evidence of a CONSPIRACY!
But the deeper I looked into it all, I soon realized that the JFK Assassination was an endless rabbit hole with numerous tangential tunnels running off in myriad directions and also littered with red herrings (deliberate disinformation) to lead researchers off track. Just one big muddled mess with no definitive answer in sight. So soon my passionate zeal for bringing the murderers of our beloved president to justice transformed into a form of entertainment, as you noted, and I just started getting into the Kennedy Assassination for entertainment value–for “kicks,” as the kids say. I became a connoisseur, have you, of some of the more ridiculous theories, presented by the likes of George Thomson or Bernard Bain.
But to answer your question, I don’t necessarily see a great danger in people using conspiracy and paranormal research as a form of entertainment. However, when it goes the lengths of, say, the Alien Autopsy film, you have to start asking yourself: is any of this is real? Is it all real? And where do the X-Files begin and where do they really end? Also, popularizing conspiracy theory may also tend to mineralize the legitimate researchers out there, so that’s a concern. But since I’m an “illegitimate conspiracy researcher,” why worry?
Kerry Thornley served briefly in the Marines with Oswald in Japan. Later he went on to write a book with a hero based on Oswald, The Idle Warriors, which he shopped around before the Kennedy assassination. After JFK was shot, Kerry guessed that Oswald had been the person arrested for the murder and ended up as a suspect to conspiracy, accused in the stand-up of Mort Sahl of all people. He was also suspected of collaborating in conspiracy by Jim Garrison, who received corroboration from all sorts of weird and shady characters, including a New Orleans witch who may have had a one-time affair with Garrison earlier in his life. In later years, Kerry started remembering all sorts of strange personal encounters and came to believe he had been involved in the assassination conspiracy. It’s easy to think he simply snapped after being hounded and accused for so long, but there’s lots of ambiguous stuff there. Could you describe for us some of that ambiguity and what you personally make of it?
I think Kerry was a psychic savant of sorts, who tapped into a lot of things that “normal” people aren’t aware of, such as the realm of synchronicities that exist all around us. It’s like how psychics tune into different waves and frequencies. Kerry, as well, it seems, tapped into some higher or alternate realm of consciousness. Or, to quote Charles Manson, “Paranoia is a higher form of awareness.” And that seems to be the state of mind Kerry entered into. And so he became ware, for instance, of odd occurrences related to the Kennedy Assassination that intersected with his own life, and his possible involvement therein. However difficult to conclusively prove, all of this certainly pointed to the possibility that he and Oswald had been manipulated, and that Kerry might have indeed been a second Oswald, a fall-back patsy who could have been propped up to take Oswald’s place if somehow the Oswald set-up hadn’t worked out. Of course, that’s one theory…
Garrison’s theory contended that Kerry was a CIA operative, and was one of the notorious Oswald doubles seen in New Orleans, Dallas and Mexico prior to the assassination. This is outlined in Richard Popkin’s book, The Second Oswald, which demonstrates that these Oswald imposters were running around trying to portray Oswald as a crazed commie lone nut wacko. And interestingly enough, Kerry’s timeline for being in these various places coincided with the Oswald double sightings. But perhaps I should back up a bit…
In the late 1950’s, Thornley had served in the Marines with Oswald and, as you noted, was in fact writing a book based on Oswald prior to the Kennedy assassination entitled Idle Warriors (later published by IllumiNet). After the Marines, Kerry moved to New Orlean’s French Quarter during the same time frame that Oswald lived there, though Kerry claimed he never came into contact with Oswald at this time, though others claimed to have seen them together. After the assassination, Kerry testified before the Warren Commission as to his association with Oswald, and provided testimony which Garrison claimed intentionally portrayed Oswald as a commie sympathizer. Afterwards, Kerry had his first book published, Oswald, chronicling his association with Oswald in the Marines. It wasn’t until 1967 that Garrison made national news with his probe into the Kennedy Assassination, and from there, the story gets progressively weirder, which I discuss in The Prankster and the Conspiracy, just a whole series of weird coincidences, synchronicities, propinquities–whatever you want to call them, that seemed to link Kerry to the Kennedy Assassination. Nonetheless, no hard evidence was ever uncovered conclusively tying Kerry to the assassination. However, Kerry later claimed that he was indeed involved in the assassination, but some write this off to paranoid delusions Kerry experienced later in life, and that he imagined the whole thing. Kerry claimed he had been a victim of mind control, and that these assassination-related memories, which had been blocked, were later recovered, and that’s when he discovered that he had been used as a dupe. It’s another rabbit hole that you can dig into forever, and the deeper you dig, the more questions arise, and so you end up more confused than when you started. Such is the chronicle of Kerry Thornley and his possible involvement in the Kennedy Assassination.
Kerry Thornley, through the co-founding of the Discordian Society [an alleged “parody religion” that worships Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos] and the correspondence with and influence he had on Robert Anton Wilson, is possibly the most influential counter-cultural figure most people have never heard of. What makes him still relevant and important?
Kerry was a signpost, taking the lead into places where many others would eventually follow. Let’s take a look at all the different things Kerry was involved in. First, the whole Discordian Movement, that he and Greg Hill either created or discovered or channeled. This alone makes Kerry relevant, because the mad Goddess’s religion continues to grow and flourish in its own chaotic fashion to this day. In particular with the advent of the Internet, Discordianism has found a whole new generation of Eris worshippers. Robert Anton Wilson, of course, was a proponent of Discordianism and, as you noted, was certainly influenced by some of Kerry’s endeavors, not only with Discordianism, but also his early involvement with the Libertarian Movement, which is how Wilson and Thornley first met. At the time, the early 1960’s, Kerry was editing the first Libertarian magazine in the country, and this is the period that he and Wilson first started corresponding. And while initially Kerry fancied himself a more conservative Libertarian type, these views began to change with his introduction to the youth culture of the period and experimentation with psychedelics.
This evolved into Anarcho-Libertarianism, and Kerry soon envisioned bringing together left-leaning Anarchists with more conservative Libertarian types, to try to bridge the gap between the two ideologies, because he saw how much of their ideologies were similar. So many people point to this as the beginning of the whole Anarcho-Libertarian movement, and during this period Kerry would throw parties at his house that brought a wide range of people together, from all out hippies and leftist radicals, to more conservative Libertarian types, and even the more fringe elements of the right, such as people involved with the Minutemen. And Kerry would have these great parties, with all these diverse elements there, as if he was attempting to perform some type of alchemical experiment by bringing all these different philosophies and ideologies together to see what would come out of the other end.
Meanwhile, Kerry was involved in organizing the early Griffith Park Be-Ins as well as becoming involved with a group into mate swapping at the onset of the whole free love movement. So he was into all this stuff, as well as eastern religion, forming his own philosophy that was a mix of Zen and Anarchy, known as Zenarchy.
Kerry was also one of the first people who got involved in the zine movement, in the early 1970’s, long before it became all the rage in the late 1980’s prior to the explosion of the Internet. And it was during the late 1980’s zine scene that I first became aware of Thornley, a he was a major player in that scene as well. So you have all these things Kerry was involved in not to mention his place as one of the most wild conspiracy theorists ever. So Kerry was just into a lot of stuff that was groundbreaking at the time, which later became part of popular culture, or at least an important part of different subcultures that nowadays one can discover surfing the Internet.
[T]he guy was way ahead of the curve and had he been in a different place at a different time, he might have become a household name, on a scale with a Leary or Abbie Hoffman, but I don’t think that was ever Kerry’s desire.
Do you think Kerry inadvertently conjured up the madness about him through the workings of Operation Mindfuck and the Discordians? Was he, without knowing it, a victim of wreckless magical workings he was unaware of undertaking? Or was Kerry just the unfortunate victim of a genetic disposition to schizophrenia and being in a lot of strange places at the wrong time?
I suspect that Kerry was indeed a victim of magical working that he had no idea he was actually performing. Through is teenage invocation of the Goddess Eris in a Southern California bowling alley, he may have unintentionally opened the door for all the assorted high weirdness that unfolded in his life in years to come, which included all the strange synchronicities that surrounded himself, Oswald and the Kennedy Assassination. Perhaps, his later mental problems were a result of these forces he unwittingly unleashed.
In his later conspiratorial rants, Kerry talked about CIA-Nazi controllers talking in Cant Language, [a special insider slang-language], which he’d begun to decode. This sounds strangely similar to claims made by the late James Shelby Downard. Like Thornley, he made some pretty wild claims that seem to have ambiguous provenance to them. Any reason to think the two were aware of each other?
I never heard Kerry mention Downard, or vice versa. Currently, I’m working on a book about Downard, and I certainly see many parallels between the two. There’s a YouTube video of a “confession” Kerry made on the tabloid “news” show A Current Affair in the early 90’s about the Kennedy assassination. You talk about this appearance towards the end of your book (including the fact that the show sent him a check that bounced!). Tell us more about this fiasco. Were Kerry and A Current Affair using each other?
Yes, they were using each other, no doubt. Kerry was trying to generate national interest in his Kennedy Assassination theories, and A Current Affair, of course, was trying to sell tabloid sleaze… a perfect marriage. And of course, Sondra London played a large part in the whole Current Affair episode, as she was the one (from what I understand) who arranged the interview. During this period, London was promoting Kerry’s Kennedy Assassination tome, Confession to a Conspiracy, parts of which London posted on her website. London, of course, is infamous for being a girlfriend to serial killers such as Danny Rolling, who she helped get published. In the mid 1990’s she latched on to Kerry, both romantically and as a means of self promotion, I would guess, to help promote Confessions to a Conspiracy, just as she had previously promoted the works of serial killers.
The YouTube clip you mentioned was posted by Sondra London, I believe, who perhaps has designs of doing something with the footage she filmed of Kerry during this period. This is footage separate from the Current Affair stuff, but dealing with the same subject: Kerry’s role, or perceived role, in the Kennedy Assassination.
You’ve also written about the Manson mythos and the Process Church. What’s your particular take on the intersection between the Manson family, the Process, the intelligence community and mind control/magick?
Well, it was Ed Sander’s book, The Family, that first turned me on to this alleged Process/ Manson Family connection. and I really get deep into this murky miasma in The Shadow Over Santa Susana: Black Magic, Mind Control and the Manson Family Mythos, not to mention another slim volume I wrote entitled Death Cults. I would direct people there if they really want to delve deep into these connections. Frankly, it’s hard to form a concise answer around your question when I’ve already written in great length on the subject in those aformentioned books. How’s that for a cop-out? And a plug for the books at the same time!
With all that being said, this whole area of inquiry is a vast rabbit hole with so many strange threads and dots to connect that it can boggle the mind.
You host your own highly enjoyable internet radio show, Untamed Dimensions, where you’ve spoken with folks like Adam Parfrey, Chica Bruce, Louise Lacey of the Discordian and Ty Brown. What’s the most rewarding thing for you in doing the show and what is the common denominator between the guests?
Well, my initial intent when I started Untamed Dimensions was to gather material for a book I’m going to write one of these days by the same name, which will document my own experiences in the realms of high weirdness, but to also explore common themes which have occurred to those I’ve had the opportunity to interview, such as Chica Bruce for instance, and her own UFO encounters, which, like myself, led her to question consensus realy, and say “what the fuck?”
Perhaps the most rewarding thing is just getting a chance to talk to people you’ve always admired, and also to conduct ongoing research at the same time, to connect with people I might not have necessarily connected with had I not been doing the show.
You’re also an honorary member of the Discordian Society. Do you see yourself as furthering the good work of Eris?
Yeah, and verily. Hail Eris!
Are there any further books/articles you have in the works for the New Year?
Well, there are a number of things I’m working on. One, the book I mentioned on James Shelby Downard, which is probably about 90 percent complete. However, I still need to do some fieldwork on this, so I really don’t see it being completed until 2009.
Also, I’ve started work on a Mothman book in cahoots with Andy Colvin, who has a number of Mothman encounters over the years. I’m also kicking around the idea of doing an update of my Manson book to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the murders. As for articles, I’ll have a piece, co-written with Douglas Hawes, appearing in the next Paranoia Magazine entitled “The Tuesday Weld Psychedelic Illuminati Conspiracy.”
Is there anything else you’d like to add before we end this interview?
Sounds like an opportunity for a plug! So yeah, go check out my blog at www.gorightly.wordpress.com to find the latest goings on in the Gorightly multimedia empire. And, of course, if you want to check out my web radio show Untamed Dimensions, navigate to the archives at: www.gorightly.podomatic.com.
Last but not least, if you’re interested in my books, go to www.adamgorightly.com
Thanks for providing me with this forum!
Thank you, Adam! It’s been a pleasure!
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