The cover of Oracle #9 was these infinity billiard balls by Bruce Conner.
ON PROGRAMMING THE PSYCHEDELIC EXPERIENCE
In the article On Programming the Psychedelic Experience, Drs. Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner convey their notion of the most prudent way to engage in the LSD experience. Their findings were based on their scientific experiments at Harvard, and on researches into eastern meditation practices, and a great deal of personal experience. They advise taking LSD as an exploration of visionary consciousness while accompanied by an experienced guide. The explorer and the guide should prepare a safe and aesthetically pleasurable environment or be in a beautiful natural environment. This is called the "setting." They also suggest that explorers be in a normal frame of mind unencumbered by anxiety or grief, and that they be prepared for the various stages of the journey by the guide. This is called the "set." Many people took LSD in this ritual manner, but many also took it as a wild, free form adventure amidst the ordinary and extraordinary circumstances of life as was advised and practiced by Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters.
IN MEMORIAM - BY ALLEN COHEN
In Memoriam for Superspade and John Carter is an article I wrote on the occasion of the murders of these two dope dealers. This was a turning point, a signal that flower power might be wilting, and old fashioned power and greed supplanting it. The illustration is by Daingerfield Ashton. The article declares,
"All energy and thought forms devoted to commercial dope game and increasing fear and paranoid actions produce hell lives and bad trips...Let's disengage ourselves from the commercialization and the bottomless desire for more dope. That will devalue dope. Organized business and crime and government would murder for bat shit... if someone would convince them of its value, just as we have created the illusion of the value of dope.
GIVE YOUR DOPE AWAY -- DO NOT BUY OR SELL."
FLOWERS FROM THE STREET - BY RICHARD HONIGMAN
Flowers From the Street by Richard Honigman is a journey down Haight street during the Summer of Love. The collage and the photos are by Ralph Ackerman. Honigman writes,
"The street can be a classroom, a zoo, a stage, an asphalt padded cell, a whorehouse, a folksong, or the traverse of Scorpio. They leave jobs, armies, schools to turn their lives and psyches inside out."
POETRY - PAMELA MILLWARD AND BILL DODD
One of our poetry pages with poems by Pamela Millward and Bill Dodd includes Aaron M., April, 1967 by Dodd. The page was designed by John Thompson. Aaron Mitchell was the first man executed in many years in California and it was on the watch of Governor Ronald Reagan. Bill Dodd prophecies,
"Reagan himself killing
Communists by the millions in his head,
but who knows what awaits to slay him,
of the living or Aaron,
or any of 59 others,
the dead in their graves.?"
ART - ALICE IN WONDERLAND
This evocative drawing of Alice in Wonderland, was done by a fellow named Owen who brought it to the Oracle office unannounced. He said he was a janitor and he wanted us to have this drawing.
CENTERFOLD #9 - POISONED WHEAT - BY MICHAEL McCLURE
The centerfold of Oracle #9 was Michael McClure's anti-war poem, Poisoned Wheat illustrated by Billy Jahrmarkt. McClure incants,
"There is death in Vietnam!
There is death in Vietnam!
There is death in Vietnam!
And our bodies are mad with the forgotten
memory that we are creatures!
Blue black skull rose lust boot!
Withdrawal from information is Escapism
Escape from the ears that hear the
bombers pass?
Evangelism - whether it be of art or religion is Escapism."
NOTES FROM THE GENETIC JOURNAL - BY STEPHEN LEVINE
Notes From the Genetic Journal by Stephen Levine was a regular column usually reflecting on the relation of mind to nature. The design was by Bob Simmons. Levine has since become well known for his work with people facing death and his writing on the transition between life and death.
"Suspended between supernova and atomic dervish, I am Man, center of the universe, disproving Copernicus after all, cosmic acrobat trapezing on the tendency toward rebirth. Poised between whirring mass at either end of infinity."
BACK COVER - ART - KALI BY BOB BRANAMAN
The back cover, Kali, the Hindu Goddess, was by Bob Branaman, another of the school of backwoods hermit Big Sur Artists.
