archon corporation is an entertainment company based in paradise , nevada .

the company has owned casinos and water parks .

members of board of directors include state senator sue lowden who was chairwoman of the nevada republican party and state senator bill raggio .

lowden is also executive vice president , secretary and treasurer for the company .

archon corporation

lease dated october 4 , 2002 between archon corporation and dukes casino . ( 13 )
demand note dated february 6 , 2003 in favor of archon corporation . ( 16 )
mercury real estate securities fund , lp and mercury real estate securities offshore limited v . archon corporation
option agreement dated october 8 , 2002 between endeavors north llc and archon corporation . ( 13 )
archon corporation reports fiscal year end financial results ,
pr newswire , december 28 , 2001 .
esplanade has owned shares of archon since 2006 . kravetz said archon is undervalued and has underperformed .
archon corporation reports second fiscal quarter 2005 financial results ,
pr newswire , may 17 , 2005 .
subordinated loan agreement dated october 8 , 2002 between archon corporation and dukes - sparks , llc . ( 13 )
loan agreement dated december 15 , 2003 between colonial bank , archon corporation and sahara las vegas corp . ( 14 )
las vegas - based archon corporation has announced plans to sell the former wet ‘n’ wild waterpark site in las vegas .
patent rights royalty agreement dated as of january 2 , 2002 between archon corporation and david g . lowden . ( 11 )
a boston - based investment management company has proposed a $ 101 . 5 million buyout of laughlin casino operator archon corporation .
in a letter to sue lowden , who is archon’s secretary , kravetz said archon shareholders “deserve” to learn about the offer .
directors of archon corporation private limited are arunkumar kandaswamy ganesan , atul ashok lohar , mandar narayan mangalvedekar , alok sharma and sarjerao ishwara kawade .
amended and restated by - laws of santa fe gaming corporation . ( 12 )
a delaware limited partnership , # lp585 - 87 , into this corporation . tls
11 / 03 / 10 - wynd - wyndstorm corporation . - acceptance of registered agent
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to archon corporations proxy statement on schedule 14a dated may 7 , 2004 and incorporated herein by reference .
esplanade capital , which says it is the second - largest outside shareholder in archon , proposed the buyout offer last month to archon’s board of directors .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to archon corporations report on form 10 - q dated august 20 , 2003 and incorporated herein by reference .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to archon corporations report on form 10 - k dated december 30 , 2002 and incorporated herein by reference .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to archon corporations report on form 8 - k dated january 13 , 2004 and incorporated herein by reference .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to archon corporations report on form 10 - q dated february 14 , 2003 and incorporated herein by reference .
archon sparks management company ; pioneer hotel inc . ; sahara las vegas corp .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to archon corporations report on form 10 - q for the quarter ended march 31 , 2001 and incorporated herein by reference .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to archon corporations report on form 10 - q for the quarter ended june 30 , 2002 and incorporated herein by reference .
spa business - archon to sell former wet ‘n’ wild site in vegas . . .
archon corporation , ( the company or archon ) , is a nevada corporation . the companys primary business operations are conducted through a wholly - owned subsidiary corporation , pioneer hotel inc . ( phi ) , which operates the pioneer hotel & gambling hall ( the pioneer ) in laughlin , nevada . in addition , the company , owns real estate on las vegas boulevard south ( the strip ) in las vegas , nevada , and also owns rental properties in dorchester , massachusetts and gaithersburg , maryland .
still , there has been some adversity in recent years . archon management — the lowdens — has fought bitterly with d . e . shaw , a hedge fund and archon shareholder .
ask a question about working or interviewing at archon . our community is ready to answer .
santa fe gaming corporation announces sale of henderson property ,
pr newswire , november 17 , 1999 .
archon corporation ( archon ) primary business operations are conducted through a wholly owned subsidiary corporation , pioneer hotel inc . ( phi ) , which operates the pioneer in laughlin , nevada . in addition , the company owns real estate on las vegas boulevard south ( the strip ) in las vegas , nevada , and properties in dorchester , massachusetts and gaithersburg , maryland . the company owns , through its wh
archon corporation , ( the company or archon ) , is a nevada corporation . the companys primary business operations are conducted through a wholly - owned subsidiary corporation , pioneer hotel inc . ( phi ) , which operates the pioneer hotel & gambling hall ( the pioneer ) in laughlin , nevada . in addition , the company owns real estate on las vegas boulevard south ( the strip ) in las vegas , nevada ( see land held for development ) , and rental properties in dorchester , massachusetts and gaithersburg , maryland .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to archon corporations report on form 10 - k / a ( amendment no . 1 ) dated january 23 , 2004 and incorporated herein by reference .
santa fe gaming corporation announces 1997 fiscal year end results ,
pr newswire , december 24 , 1997 .
business : archon corporation operates the pioneer hotel and gambling hall in laughlin , nevada and owns property on las vegas boulevard for possible future development , and owns investment properties in dorchester , massachusetts and gaithersburg , maryland .
through its chairman and ceo , paul w . lowden , the archon corporation holds a more than a 20 - year stake in las vegas casino history . formerly known as santa fe corporation and sahara gaming corporation , archon owned and operated the famous sahara and hacienda casino hotels . those properties were sold in 1995 to former circus circus leader william bennett , but the company remains active in nevada ' s casino industry as owner and operator of the pioneer hotel and gambling hall , located in laughlin , nevada . archon also owns commercial office buildings in dorchester , massachusetts , and gaithersburg , maryland , and 27 undeveloped acres on las vegas boulevard south .
1 / 6 / 11 - hboc - hyperbaric oxygenation corporation - amendment - name change to building turbines , inc .
management agreement by and between pioneer hotel and santa fe gaming corporation dated as of december 30 , 1998 . ( 5 )
archon corporation private limited ' s annual general meeting ( agm ) was last held on 30 september 2017 and as per records from ministry of corporate affairs ( mca ) , its balance sheet was last filed on 31 march 2017 .
d . e . shaw , which controls more than 707 , 000 shares of archon’s preferred stock , said its investors would be out $ 1 . 7 million if archon is allowed to proceed with its plan .
2 / 22 / 11 - tycv - tycore ventures , inc . - miscellaneous & amendment & name change to hondo minerals corporation
2 / 9 / 11 - bysd - bayside petroleum company , inc . - amendment & designation - name change to bayside corporation
data as of jul 09 2018 . currency figures normalised to archon corp ' s reporting currency : us dollar usd
20 . for more information regarding an investment in archon’s professionally managed investment portfolios please contact elliot ej paul , cfp ® , president , archon advisory corporation – a registered investment advisor . email : ejpaul @ urltoken direct : ( 856 ) 433 - 6700 fax : ( 856 ) 433 - 8373 suite 110 1926 greentree road , cherry hill , new jersey 08003
lease modification letter dated august 24 , 1995 by and between wet n wild nevada , inc . and sahara corporation . ( 3 )
3 / 7 / 11 - nfon - netfone , inc . - merge in & stock split - name change to itp energy corporation
1 / 18 / 11 - smpn - smsa palestine acquisition corp . - amended & restated articles - name change to asia green agriculture corporation
archon chairman and chief executive officer paul lowden , who controls about 75 percent of archon’s common stock and about 18 percent of the preferred stock , would receive a net benefit of about $ 8 . 7 million , according to the lawsuit .
d . e . shaw sent a blistering letter to lowden and then attached it to a securities and exchange commission filing : “your actions make us wonder whether archon corporation is seeking to be run as a family fief on which minority shareholders remain as serfs . ”
9 / 16 / 11 - muta - mutuloan corporation - name change & merger - survivor - name change to nexus enterprise solutions , inc .
just before the great recession , when las vegas real estate prices were at their peak , archon agreed to sell the property for a stunning $ 618 million . that deal never closed but archon walked away with the nonrefundable deposit of $ 67 million .
during fiscal years 2001 through 2003 , the company purchased an aggregate of $ 0 . 7 million of commercial and residential loans originally funded by central banc mortgage corporation to unaffiliated third parties . the loans were purchased by the company for the principal amount , plus accrued interest , if any . central banc mortgage corporation is owned by lico , which in turn is owned by paul w . lowden . john w . delaney is the president of central banc mortgage corporation . at september 30 , 2008 , the company was owed approximately $ 55 , 000 from central banc mortgage corporation related to these transactions .
archon said the pioneer club’s revenue has declined over the last few years due to competition from american indian casinos in california and arizona .
benston , liz ,
stockholder : archon options unfairly enrich owner ' s family ,
las vegas sun , june 20 , 2005 .
2 / 17 / 11 - daml - darlington mines ltd . - merge in - effective date 3 / 2 / 11 - name change to the pulse beverage corporation
archon was created in the past decade after paul lowden’s former company sold the sahara and the santa fe in northwest las vegas in separate transactions .
kravetz said esplanade’s offer for archon represented a nearly 62 percent premium to the company’s average closing price over the 90 days before the offer’s submission .
archon corporation private limited ' s corporate identification number is ( cin ) u74900pn2014ptc150768 and its registration number is 150768 . its email address is alokssharma4 @ urltoken and its registered address is flno 20 , sno 46 c - 4 , aundh , r maithili patilwadi , bopodi , pune pune mh 411003 in , - , .
d . e . shaw , which bid unsuccessfully to acquire the parent company of the riviera last year , owns about 300 , 000 shares of archon’s common stock . the asset management firm protested about a year ago when archon tried to grant what shareholders believed to be unfair options to family members .
7 . why consider archon’s active management style now ? • after the fourth - longest bull market in history , stocks are near all time highs ; • 7 to 20 % + stock market pullbacks are customary ; • at these greedy levels , archon takes profits and reduces risk by repositioning from stocks to lower risk bonds and money market funds ; • after stocks correct , archon repositions back to stocks to take advantage of the next bullish move .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to santa fe gaming corporations report on form 8 - k dated november 15 , 1999 and incorporated herein by reference .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to santa fe gaming corporations report on form 8 - k dated june 12 , 2000 and incorporated herein by reference .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to santa fe gaming corporations report on form 8 - k dated december 29 , 2000 and incorporated herein by reference .
president : bdcm support services corporation , managing member : turning point capital management llc , turning point capital advisors llc and jaguar financial services llc - a licensed insurance agency ; president : archon advisory corporation - a registered investment advisor ; former president : warton archon financial advisors – sec registered investment advisor for 21 years ; former vp and branch manager for stifel nicolaus , member new york stock exchange ; former vp of philadelphia securities association ; past president garden state rotary of cherry hill , nj ; university of pennsylvania – ba economics ; graduated : harvard graduate business school ; college for financial planning – certified financial planner ™ professional ; haddonfield memorial high school graduate .
archon would redeem the stock for about $ 5 . 24 per share ; the plaintiffs believe the shares should be redeemed for $ 8 . 69 . under archon’s plan , the value of preferred stock would be $ 10 . 9 million ; the shareholders believe the stock’s value is $ 18 . 2 million .
esplanade capital president shawn kravetz said monday that the board of archon had not responded to his offer , which is why he made the offer public monday .
archon capital management llc and the logos and marks included on the site that identify archon capital management llc services and products are proprietary materials . the use of such terms and logos and marks without the express written consent of archon capital management llc is strictly prohibited . copyright in the pages and in the screens of the site , and in the information and material therein , is proprietary material owned by archon capital management llc unless otherwise indicated . the unauthorized use of any material on the site may violate numerous statutes , regulations and laws , including , but not limited to , copyright , trademark , trade secret or patent laws .
archon didn’t return phone calls requesting comment on the lawsuit . in addition to lowden , archon’s board members include his wife , former state sen . sue lowden , who is now chairwoman of the state republican party , and veteran state sen . bill raggio , r - reno , who is the senate majority leader .
archon corporation private limited is a private incorporated on 25 february 2014 . it is classified as non - govt company and is registered at registrar of companies , pune . its authorized share capital is rs . 100 , 000 and its paid up capital is rs . 100 , 000 . it is inolved in business activities n . e . c .
on may 11 , 2001 , santa fe gaming corporation changed its name to archon corporation . that same year the company acquired investment properties in dorchester , massachusetts , and gaithersburg , maryland , for a total cost of $ 145 million . the 12 - acre dorchester property consists of several buildings with about 425 , 000 square feet of commercial office space . the 55 - acre gaithersburg property includes one building with about 342 , 000 square feet of office space . the buildings on both properties are leased out under long - term agreements .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to sahara gaming corporations report on form 10 - k for the year ended september 30 , 1995 and incorporated herein by reference .
lowden is a longtime gaming figure who once owned the sahara and hacienda hotel - casinos . his wife , former republican state sen . sue lowden , is an official in the corporation .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to sahara gaming corporations annual report on form 10 - k for the year ended september 30 , 1993 and incorporated herein by reference .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to santa fe gaming corporations report on form 10 - q for the quarter ended march 30 , 1999 and incorporated herein by reference .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to santa fe gaming corporations report on form 10 - q for the quarter ended june 30 , 1999 and incorporated herein by reference .
previously filed with the securities and exchange commission as an exhibit to santa fe gaming corporations report on form 10 - q for the quarter ended june 30 , 2000 and incorporated herein by reference .
on december 22 , 2008 , slvc , a wholly owned subsidiary of archon corporation , entered into an option agreement with las vegas towers , llc ( lvt ) , a delaware limited liability company , in which slvc granted lvt an option to purchase slvcs approximately 27 - acre parcel of land located at 2600 las vegas boulevard south , las vegas , nevada .
archon said its doesn’t plan any investments in its laughlin casino and expects that revenue and expense trends at the pioneer may not change significantly over the next few years .
indeed , they sold the santa fe , and since then , archon appears to be grinding along again with little debt , positioned for the next real estate windfall .
the suing shareholders believe holders of archon’s common stock , which now trades over the counter , would benefit if the company were able to proceed with a preferred stock redemption plan .
we have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of archon corporation and subsidiaries ( the company ) as of september 30 , 2008 and 2007 , and the related consolidated statements of operations , stockholders equity and cash flows for the years then ended . these financial statements are the responsibility of the companys management . our responsibility is to express an opinion on these financial statements based on our audit .
however , archon wants to pay back the stock with 16 percent interest on just the liquidation cost . the shareholders believe the interest should also be applied to the accrued and unpaid dividends .
my typical day at archon corporation was split 60 / 40 . 60 % of my time was spent supporting the ibm as400 , the applications and the users . most of this support was done remotely . the other 40 % of my time was spent supporting corporate management who all worked from home . that support was local and covered the whole gambit of a home office environment and the systems they used .
the licenses held by members of the archon group are not transferable . each issuing agency may at any time revoke , suspend , condition , limit or restrict licenses or approvals to own a beneficial interest in phi for any cause deemed reasonable by such agency . any failure to retain a valid license or approval would have a material adverse effect on all members of the archon group .
archon owns , in addition to the pioneer , two east coast office buildings and 27 acres on the strip at the old wet ’n wild site , once a source of endless speculation about potential resorts . archon would like to be landlord to a developer of a sports and events arena , which would receive favorable tax treatment if the clark county commission revives a mothballed redevelopment zone .
here today , archon tomorrow . the alternately waxing and fortunes of archon corp . secretary - treasurer sue lowden have put the comparable vicissitudes of her company under a microscope . basically , it’s the saga of how a company with a somewhat impressive set of casino holdings — including the sahara and the bygone hacienda — withered into the rinky - dink crony - capitalism outfit that is present - day archon . the depletion of assets and jobs also lends a sting of truth to sen . al franken ‘s paraphrase of a sue lowden tagline , “my job is fighting for your job , unless you happen to work at my husband’s casino . ” or water park . ( speaking of paul lowden , archon’s better investments would not include his helmet - like toupée . )
lowden sits on the board of archon corp . ; her husband paul lowden is chairman and ceo . the company owns the pioneer in laughlin , a working - class casino on the colorado river .
archon advisory corporation is a registered investment advisor based in cherry hill , nj . archon partners with sei to offer 5 professionally managed asset allocation investment portfolios : conservative , conservative to moderate , moderate , moderate to growth and growth . our founder : ( 1 ) managing member : turning point capital management llc ( tpcm ) , turning point capital partner lp’s ( tpcp ) general partner , turning point capital advisors llc , tpcp’s investment advisor and jaguar financial services llc - a licensed insurance agency ; ( 2 ) president : archon advisory corporation - a registered investment advisor ; ( 3 ) former president : warton archon financial advisors – sec registered investment advisor that managed nine mutual fund , stock , bond and option portfolios for 21 years ; ( 4 ) former vp and branch manager for stifel nicolaus , member new york stock exchange ; ( 5 ) former vp of philadelphia securities association ; ( 6 ) past president garden state rotary of cherry hill , nj ; ( 7 ) university of pennsylvania – ba economics ; ( 8 ) graduated : harvard graduate business school ; ( 9 ) college for financial planning – certified financial planner ™ professional ; ( 10 ) haddonfield memorial high school graduate ; ( 11 ) executive member of the philadelphia chamber of commerce and south jersey chamber .
on monday , shares of archon , which are traded on over - the - counter bulletin board , closed at $ 13 a share , up $ 2 . 50 , or 23 . 81 percent .
under the company’s plan , which was detailed in archon’s quarterly report that was filed aug . 20 with the securities and exchange commission , the stock would be redeemed to investors with all accrued and unpaid dividends .
in 2005 , d . e . shaw threatened legal action when archon’s board proposed giving $ 4 million stock windfalls to two employees , david lowden and christopher lowden , brother and son , respectively , of paul lowden .
“as a result of archon’s breaches of the agreement with respect to the preferred shares , lowden is positioned to achieve — personally — a net benefit of more than $ 8 . 5 million , ” the complaint alleges .
however , archon chairman paul lowden , whose family owns more than 85 percent of the company , said monday that he has “no intentions” of selling the business . he said the buyout proposal “wasn’t really a serious” offer .
this entry was posted in archon corp . , current , economy , election , entertainment , environment , laughlin , louisiana , mississippi , movies , politics , station casinos , technology , the strip . bookmark the permalink .
18 . performance please note : the above figures reflect sei’s performance for its mutual fund private client accounts . archon’s use of sei’s private client mutual fund strategies would have yielded higher or lower investment returns than those above .
short answer : he’s neither built nor bought anything since the santa fe in 1991 and his fortunes have been in a long , slow decline for past two decades . wet ‘n wild wasn’t even an archon property : it simply sat on land that archon owned , until the lowdens chased it out in 2004 — a decision of debatable wisdom and one that , in retrospect , contributed greatly to the “slum” atmosphere at the north end of the strip .
the address for paul w . lowden is c / o archon corporation , 4336 losee road , suite 5 , north las vegas , nevada 89030 . the shares owned by each person , or by the group , and the shares included in the total number of shares outstanding have been adjusted , and the percentage owned ( where such percentage exceeds 1 % ) has been computed , in accordance with rule 13d - 3 ( d ) ( 1 ) under the securities exchange act of 1934 .
a group of shareholders sued one - time sahara owner archon corp . in u . s . district court last week , saying the casino operator is undervaluing the redemption price of preferred stock issued by the company 14 years ago .
year on year archon corp had revenues fall - 26 . 61 % from 31 . 97m to 23 . 47m , though the company grew net income from a loss of 1 . 54m to a gain of 1 . 23m .
sales for 2004 were $ 45 . 6 million , down from 2003 , with a loss of $ 3 . 4 million . revenues for the pioneer were down 10 percent from 2003 , due to a decrease in the number of casino patrons , according to archon management . in the first six months of 2005 , this decline continued . revenues from the pioneer slid 13 . 8 percent from the same period in 2004 , and archon reported a loss of $ 2 million .
the lowdens have again clashed with d . e . shaw in an ongoing lawsuit , in which d . e . shaw and other plaintiffs allege that archon has breached a contract by undervaluing preferred shares , to the benefit of the lowdens .
and in an interview jan . 2 , kravetz told the business press he’s committed to pursuing a deal for archon and esplanade is continuing to weigh its next steps . he challenged lowden to explain his goals to shareholders or take the company private .
3 . about our founder : elliot ej paul , cfp® • president : archon advisory corporation - a registered investment advisor ; • managing member : turning point capital management llc , turning point capital advisors llc , and jaguar financial services llc ; • former president : warton archon financial advisors – sec registered investment advisor that managed nine mutual fund , stock , bond and option portfolios for 21 years ; • formervp and branch manager for stifel nicolaus , member newyork stock exchange ; • formervp of philadelphia securities association ; • past president garden state rotary of cherry hill , nj ; • haddonfield memorial high school graduate ; • university of pennsylvania – ba economics - sigma alpha epsilon fraternity ; • graduated : harvard graduate business school ; • college for financial planning – certified financial planner ™ professional ; • executive member of the philadelphia chamber of commerce .
the members of the compensation committee , john w . delaney and william j . raggio , are non - employee directors . mr . delaney has never been an officer of the company or of any of its subsidiaries . mr . delaney is the president of central banc mortgage corporation , a mortgage banking company of which paul w . lowden is a director and sole stockholder . during fiscal 2001 through fiscal 2003 , the company purchased from j & j mortgage an aggregate of $ 0 . 7 million of commercial and residential loans originally funded by central banc mortgage corporation to unaffiliated third parties . see item 13 , certain relationships and related transactions .
archon , which operates the pioneer club in laughlin and is selling the strip land on which the wet ‘n wild water park once stood to a texas developer for $ 475 million , wants to redeem the preferred stock , on which it hasn’t paid dividends for more than a decade .
in its quarterly report , archon said it has entered an option agreement to sell the 27 - acre wet ‘n wild site to a partnership between texas developer christopher milam and australian casino operator publishing and broadcasting ltd . , which is controlled by that country’s richest man , james packer .
it’s impossible to tell what archon and its major stockholder , ceo paul lowden , are thinking . in 2011 , the company performed a nifty financial maneuver — a reverse stock split at 250 - 1 that allowed it to cash out all the holders of fewer than 250 shares . it immediately followed with a 1 - 250 stock split , restoring major holders to their previous positions . the maneuver cut the number of stockholders below the level that required securities and exchange commission filings . archon now communicates directly with shareholders and its website has gone dark , making the company’s dealing opaque .
by accessing the password - protected area of this site , you agree not to invest in any posted investment ( other than investments in which you or your affiliates are already invested , have already been solicited for or are already actively considering an investment in ) for thirty ( 30 ) days after the approval of your application . archon capital management llc reserves the right to terminate , at any time , any registered user ' s account with archon capital management llc ( as well as access to this site ) , without giving notice or a reason for such termination to the user .
the accompanying consolidated financial statements include the accounts of archon and its wholly - owned subsidiaries . amounts representing the companys investment in less than majority - owned companies in which a significant equity ownership interest is held are accounted for on the equity method . all significant intercompany accounts and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation .
the shareholders — nine investment funds — claim in their lawsuit that archon is undervaluing 4 . 4 million shares of preferred stock by more than $ 7 million . the shareholders , the largest of which is new york - based asset management firm d . e . shaw , control about half of the preferred shares .
please forgive me , as my knowledge of archon corp . is kinda slim , but have they ever built anything or created any jobs ? and have they retained jobs ? it seems like all they have done is buy businesses , eliminate jobs and sell at a profit . not the foundation of a strong america .
11 . cost and fees : •no transaction charges or commissions ; •archon’s annual management fee is 1 % over $ 1 million and 1 1 / 2 % under $ 1 million . multiple accounts with family members or in a company plan take advantage of lower fee aggregates over $ 1 million ; •automated fee processing .
in late 2003 , the company ceased to operate duke ' s casino in sparks , nevada , through its archon sparks management company subsidiary . that casino ' s furniture , fixtures , gaming and non - gaming equipment were transferred to the pioneer . in january 2004 , archon purchased the fee ownership of the pioneer for $ 36 million from an affiliate of ge capital . in this deal , the company purchased outright the pioneer ' s real estate , buildings , and equipment . lowden commented in a press release :
we are excited about this asset acquisition , and we will continue our efforts to provide an entertaining experience to our pioneer customers .
archon is banking on gamblers to follow the trail of the pioneer . formerly santa fe gaming , the embattled company owns and operates one casino , the pioneer hotel & gambling hall , in laughlin , nevada . the pioneer features more than 410 guest rooms and gaming operations that consist of approximately 730 slot machines , six blackjack tables , one craps table , one roulette wheel , and five other gaming tables . the hotel includes two restaurants and bars , a special events area , banquet rooms , and a swimming pool and spa . chairman and ceo paul lowden controls the company . archon has been the subject of a number of unsuccessful takeover bids in recent years .
the company and phi ( collectively , the archon group ) are subject to extensive state and local regulation by the nevada gaming commission ( the commission ) , the nevada state gaming control board ( the board ) and in the case of phi , the clark county liquor and gaming licensing board ( collectively the nevada gaming authorities ) .
john w . delaney , 60 , has served as a director of the company since january 1997 . mr . delaney is currently president and chief executive officer of central banc corporation . , a mortgage banking firm , located in bellevue , washington where he has been employed since 1978 . mr . delaneys term as a director of the company expires at the annual meeting of stockholders in 2009 .
10 . archon asset allocation portfolios features and benefits : • portfolios are rebalanced back to target allocations regularly…a disciplined , non - emotional way to buy low , sell high and reduce portfolio risk ; • easy to read , full color quarterly performance statements ; • environmentally friendly monthly e - statements ; • year - end tax letter that summarizes capital gains / losses and income . simply attach it to irs schedule d to minimize paperwork , reduce accounting costs and simplify tax preparation ; • accounts safeguarded and segregated in client name at sei privatetrust ; • income and liquidity options ; • client reviews , economic forecasts , white papers , webinars and special events ; • archon support team at your service .
the company offered $ 17 . 50 per share in a negotiated transaction for all 5 . 8 million shares of archon , which owns the pioneer hotel & gambling hall in laughlin ; a 27 - acre site on the north end of the strip on which the wet ’n’ wild water amusement park once stood ; and office buildings in maryland and suburban boston .
a review of the company’s financial results over two decades shows a pattern : year after year of losses , with an occasional windfall profit after a shrewd real estate deal . archon and its precursor companies have sold the sahara , hacienda and santa fe hotels , as well as land in henderson near the galleria at sunset mall , totaling more than $ 400 million .
exhibit no . description of exhibit - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10 . 47 master lease agreement by and between videotronics , inc . and santa fe hotel , inc . dated april 15 , 1996 . ( 14 ) 10 . 48 guaranty of lease by santa fe gaming corporation dated april 15 , 1996 . ( 14 ) 10 . 49 notice , consent and acknowledgment of assignment by and between videotronics , inc . ( lessor ) , santa fe hotel , inc . ( lessee ) , pds financial corporation and the buyers dated may 9 , 1996 . ( 14 ) 10 . 50 master lease agreement by and between pds financial corporation and santa fe hotel , inc . dated may 30 , 1996 . ( 15 ) 10 . 51 lease schedule no . 1 by and between pds financial corporation and santa fe hotel , inc . dated may 30 , 1996 . ( 15 ) 10 . 52 purchase / renewal option by and between pds financial corporation and santa fe hotel , inc . dated may 30 , 1996 . ( 15 ) 10 . 53 amended and restated hacienda adventure club acquisition and assignment agreement by and among hacienda hotel inc . , resorts marketing international alpine - oasis membership , l . l . c . and brett torino dated july 18 , 1996 . ( 15 ) 10 . 54 guaranty of payment and performance ( sahara gaming corporation ) dated july 18 , 1996 . ( 15 ) 10 . 55 guaranty of payment and performance ( oasis las vegas motor coach park , l . p . ) dated july 24 , 1996 . ( 15 ) 10 . 56 master lease agreement by and between cj ' s classics , inc . and santa fe hotel , inc . dated august 15 , 1996 . ( 16 ) 10 . 57 lease schedule no . 1 by and between cj ' s classics , inc . and santa fe hotel , inc . dated august 15 , 1996 . ( 16 ) 10 . 58 purchase / renewal option by and between cj ' s classics , inc . and santa fe hotel , inc . dated august 15 , 1996 . ( 16 ) 10 . 59 master lease agreement by and between cj ' s classics , inc . and pioneer hotel , inc . dated august 15 , 1996 . ( 16 ) 10 . 60 lease schedule no . 1 by and between cj ' s classics , inc . and pioneer hotel , inc . dated august 15 , 1996 . ( 16 )
exhibit no . description of exhibit - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10 . 61 purchase / renewal option by and between cj ' s classics , inc . and pioneer hotel , inc . dated august 15 , 1996 . ( 16 ) 10 . 62 option agreement by and between santa fe gaming corporation and pat clark dated november 13 , 1996 . ( 16 ) 10 . 63 master lease agreement by and between videotronics , inc . and santa fe hotel inc . dated september 16 , 1996 . ( 16 ) 10 . 64 lease schedule no 1 by and between videotronics , inc . and santa fe hotel inc . dated september 16 , 1996 . ( 16 ) 10 . 65 purchase / renewal option by and between videotronics , inc . and santa fe hotel inc . dated september 16 , 1996 . ( 16 ) 10 . 66 guaranty of lease ( santa fe gaming corporation ) dated september 16 , 1996 . ( 16 ) 10 . 67 notice , consent and acknowledgment of assignment by and between videotronics , inc . ( lessor ) , santa fe hotel , inc . ( lessee ) and pds financial corporation ( assignee ) dated september 16 , 1996 . ( 16 ) 10 . 68 amendment to note purchase agreement by and among santa fe gaming corporation , sahara las vegas corp . and sunamerica life insurance company dated as of december 27 , 1996 . ( 16 ) 10 . 69 employment agreement by and between santa fe gaming corporation and thomas k . land dated october 1 , 1996 . ( 17 ) 10 . 70 sahara las vegas corp . tranche a note due december 15 , 1999 , dated july 31 , 1997 ( 18 ) 10 . 71 casino properties guaranty dated july 29 , 1997 ( 18 ) 10 . 72 sahara resorts guaranty dated july 29 , 1997 ( 18 ) 10 . 73 hacienda hawaiian guaranty dated july 29 , 1997 ( 18 ) 10 . 74 first amendment to company security agreement dated july 29 , 1997 ( 18 ) 10 . 75 sahara resorts pledge agreement dated july 29 , 1997 ( 18 ) 10 . 76 company pledge agreement dated july 29 , 1997 ( 18 )
the driver is esplanade capital llc , a boston - based investment fund that has been trying to buy the company for almost two years . it first offered to buy all of archon’s outstanding shares in march 2013 , for $ 17 . 50 a share . it raised the offer to $ 18 . 50 , then $ 19 . 25 and , last august , to $ 21 . 65 per share .
sales for 2001 were considerably lower , by almost 63 percent , than for 2000 because of the sale of the santa fe hotel and the resulting loss of its gambling revenues . the $ 48 million in sales for the year , however , was augmented by the profit from the hotel sale , giving archon a net profit for the year of $ 87 . 2 million . the company showed a loss of $ 9 . 3 million in 2002 . much of the loss was due to a decrease in gambling revenues at the pioneer . archon management blamed this revenue decline on the growth of native american casinos in southern california , arizona , and new mexico , which was hurting the laughlin casino business generally . the year 2003 saw a further decline in revenues to $ 46 . 1 million and a net loss of $ 8 . 9 million .
19 . adv parttwo • adv parttwo - our “brochure” is the required submission to the securities and exchange commission ( sec ) by professional investment advisors that specify the investment style , assets under management and key officers of the firm . the form must be updated annually and be made available as public record for companies managing in excess of $ 25 million ; • archon delivers adv parttwo to all prospective clients and offers clients annual updates .
at first blush , there doesn’t seem to be much happening . the company has its headquarters in laughlin where it manages the pioneer , a casino and 414 - room hotel . the company has acknowledged the pioneer’s market is in slow decline and the prospects aren’t great . archon owns some investment property in las vegas and in dorchester , mass . it recently sold an investment property in gaithersburg , md . , for $ 76 . 3 million .
certain transactions . none of the archon group may make a public offering of its securities without the approval of the commission if the proceeds therefrom are intended to be used to construct , acquire or finance gaming facilities in nevada , or retire or extend obligations incurred for such purposes . such approval , if given , will not constitute a recommendation or approval of the investment merits of the securities offered . any public offering requires the approval of the commission .
6 . we let “mr . market”tell us whatto do • archon doesn’t predict the future . • we use an objective , proven , proprietary set of fundamental and technical rules that tell us when and how to allocate your investments . • we monitor financial markets in real time . • we have the nerve to pull the trigger when it’s time to buy and sell . • trading by a set of disciplined rules takes hope , fear and greed out of our decision making process .
prior to fiscal 2007 , the company had loaned approximately $ 1 . 4 million to dukes  sparks ( dukes ) , a nevada limited - liability company . the company , through its wholly - owned subsidiary , archon sparks management company , operated dukes casino . christopher lowden , son of paul w . lowden , was a limited partner in the company that was a managing member of dukes . the company also acquired a $ 100 , 000 class b member interest in dukes . in december 2003 , dukes closed its casino operations .
given the slap - happy way in which mrs . lowden’s campaign finances have been handled — it prematurely spent $ 18k in general - election funds and her personal - finance report to the senate ethics committee is having to be redone after nearly 20 material omissions were uncovered — it’s hardly any surprise that archon and its shareholders are frequently at each others’ throats . as the ex - president of what’s now santa fe station , if mrs . lowden makes it through to november , we’ll be treated to the interesting experiment of a casino boss running for national office .
exhibit no . description of exhibit - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10 . 22 second amendment to lease agreement , made as of december 27 , 1993 , by sahara parkville , inc . and the city of parkville , missouri ( 8 ) 10 . 23 landlord ' s consent , estoppel certificate and third amendment to lease agreement , entered into on december 27 , 1993 , by and between the city of parkville , missouri , sahara parkville , inc . , ibj schroeder bank & trust company , and santa fe hotel inc . ( 8 ) 10 . 24 fourth amendment to lease agreement , made as of january 18 , 1994 by sahara parkville , inc and the city of parkville , missouri ( 8 ) 10 . 25 fifth amendment to lease agreement , made as of january 18 , 1994 , by sahara parkville , inc . and the city of parkville , missouri ( 8 ) 10 . 26 sixth amendment to lease agreement dated june 30 , 1995 by sahara parkville , inc . , and the city of parkville , missouri . ( 11 ) 10 . 27 development agreement by sahara parkville , inc . and the city of parkville , missouri ( 8 ) 10 . 28 amendment to development agreement , dated january 18 , 1994 , by sahara parkville , inc . and the city of parkville , missouri ( 8 ) 10 . 29 second amendment to development agreement , dated october 28 , 1994 , by sahara parkville , inc . and the city of parkville , missouri ( 8 ) 10 . 30 third amendment to development agreements dated june 30 , 1995 by sahara parkville , inc . and the city of parkville , missouri . ( 11 ) 10 . 31 agreement for purchase and sale dated as of january 10 , 1995 by and among hacienda hotel inc . , sahara gaming corporation , as guarantor , and william g . bennett . ( 9 ) 10 . 32 letter of modification and clarification by and between hacienda hotel inc . , sahara gaming corporation , as guarantor , and william g . bennett dated march 3 , 1995 . ( 10 ) 10 . 33 assignment and consent to assignment of agreement for purchase and sale dated january 10 , 1995 by and among hacienda hotel inc . , sahara gaming corporation , as guarantor , and william g . gennett to circus circus enterprises , inc . dated march 5 , 1995 . ( 10 ) 10 . 34 sale and purchase contract dated november 7 , 1995 by and between sahara gaming corporation and argasy gaming company . ( 12 )
commencing december 15 , 2003 , sfhi , llc , owned by sfhi , inc . , a wholly owned subsidiary of the company , and avalon bay communities , inc . a maryland corporation ( avalon bay ) , entered into various agreements wherein the parties jointly sought certain approvals and consents from the city of gaithersburg , maryland ( the city ) , of plans to develop a 51 - acre parcel of land ( the property ) located within the city and now owned by the company . the preliminary agreements stated that if the company and avalon bay were successful in obtaining the necessary developmental approvals and consents , the company would then sell the property to avalon bay . while preliminary discussions with the city have not been successful and the required approvals have not been obtained , efforts continue in this regard .
4 . why archon ? while most successful people could become accomplished investors , it takes a substantial commitment of time , energy and experience to achieve superior risk adjusted results : • experience : mr . paul has 25 + years experience managing stock , bond and option portfolios ; • perspective : ability to weed out market noise from important information ; • trading by disciplined , proven fundamental and technical trading rules ; • alignment of interests : competitve management fees with no commissions ; • opportunity to benefit from rising and falling markets taking profits / reducing risk in overbought market tops and buying back in after the markets show signs of strength ; • risk management controls ; • unemotional buying and selling decisions ; • active monitoring of portfolio positions and markets to take advantage of market opportunities .
in 1995 , lowden retrenched his operations . his first step was to sell off the hacienda for $ 80 million to former circus circus chairman and ceo william bennett . by june 1995 , lowden and bennett had struck a new deal . bennett bought the sahara for $ 193 million ; under terms of the deal , lowden took possession of an undeveloped , 27 - acre parcel on the vegas strip . by the time bennett imploded the hacienda on new year ' s eve 1996 , in order to make room for an $ 800 million hotel - casino megacomplex , lowden had renamed his company to reflect its new focus . the stripped - down company , now named santa fe gaming corporation , completed its first year of operations with revenues of $ 148 . 4 million . a $ 40 million gain from the sahara sale helped the company achieve its first profitable year , with a profit of $ 9 . 7 million , of the decade .
the company issued the preferred stock when it was known as sahara gaming corp . in addition to the pioneer , the company owned the sahara and santa fe casinos . the sahara was sold to late gaming pioneer william bennett in 1995 and the santa fe was sold to station casinos in 2000 .
d . e . shaw spokeswoman darcy bradbury said the company couldn’t comment on the lawsuit .
exhale nevada ceo pete findley talks about the one year anniversary of the legalization of recreational marijuana in nevada . ( k . m . cannon / las vegas review - journal )
financial advisors talk about saving trends among young adults . ( bailey schulz / las vegas review - journal )
president donald trump made his fortune in real estate , but by slapping tariffs on imports from close allies , developers in las vegas and other cities could get hit hard .
barry yost , co - owner of precision tube laser , llc , places a metal pipe into the trulaser tube 5000 laser cutting machine on wednesday , june 20 , 2018 , in las vegas . bizuayehu tesfaye / las vegas review - journal @ bizutesfaye
the director of the nevada film office discusses its revamped locations database and how it will affect local businesses . ( bailey schulz / las vegas review - journal )
unlike most house flippers , the company aims to make money from transaction costs rather than from selling homes for more than their purchase price .
gondolier marciano sings a the classic italian song
volare
as he leads guests through the canals of the venetian in las vegas . ( k . m . cannon / las vegas review - journal )
texas homebuilder d . r . horton bought 43 lots in rural logandale . ( eli segall / las vegas review - journal )
experts discuss nevada ' s indoor farming industry . ( bailey schulz / las vegas review - journal )
months after developer steve witkoff bought the fontainebleau last summer , he unveiled plans to turn the mothballed hotel into a marriott - managed resort called the drew . but if richard “boz” bosworth’s plans didn’t fall through , the north las vegas strip tower could have become a waldorf astoria with several floors of timeshare units . ( eli segall / las vegas review - journal )
rossi ralenkotter , ceo of the lvcva , on tuesday confirmed a las vegas review - journal report that he is preparing to retire . richard n . velotta / las vegas review - journal
cousins maine lobster food truck company will open inside las vegas’ two newest smith’s at skye canyon park drive and u . s . highway 95 , and at warm springs road and durango drive . cousins currently sells outside some las vegas smith’s stores and at fremont street and las vegas boulevard . ( k . m . cannon / las vegas review - journal )
lawrence yun , chief economist at the national association of realtors , gives homebuyers a pulse on the las vegas housing market . ( eli segall / las vegas review - journal )
the company is planning to add six solar projects in nevada , along with the state ' s first major battery energy storage capacity . bailey schulz / las vegas review - journal


operation mindfuck or om is an important practice in the discordian religion .

the concept was developed by kerry thornley and robert anton wilson in 1968 and given its name by wilson and robert shea in the illuminatus ! trilogy .

it is most often manifested as a decentralized campaign of civil disobedience , activism , art movements , especially performance art and guerrilla art , culture jamming , graffiti and other vandalism , practical jokes , hoaxes , reality hacking , chaos magic , words of power , and anything else that is believed to bring about social change through disrupting paradigms and thus forcing the victim to question the parameters of his or her reality tunnel .

operation mindfuck

operation mindfuck was too successful — r . u . sirius interviewed by douglas rushkoff ( part 1 )
@ bogusmagus the right basically stole operation mindfuck from us , weaponised postmodernism . the discordian response is evolving…
om stands for operation mindfuck . it is an ongoing discordian project to challenge existing assumptions and provoke critical and creative thought .
r . u . sirius : yeah , i’m sorry i blew up consensus reality , man . operation mindfuck was too successful . ( laughter )
wilson was a leading figure in the counterculture project known as operation mindfuck . this was a form of western zen . seeding our culture with confusion , contradiction and mischief , it was thought , would jolt people out of their illusions . operation mindfuck kicked off in the 1970s and has never really stopped .
the rise of the alt - right , with their use of meme magic , conspiracies and disinformation , led to left - leaning discordians thinking that operation mindfuck had been weaponised against them .
re : operation mindfuck what is the op even talking about ? everyone knows our leader is and always has been l ron hubbard . eric bauman was just a pseudonym . : lrhtalking :
operation mindfuck , like the discordian religion which embraced it , was typically politically neutral , or at least clear that the ideologies of both the left and right were equally valid targets . however , the ideas behind operation mindfuck have since become a tool for those with a lust for political power , most blatantly putin’s advisor vladislav surkov , as explained in this short film by adam curtis .
re : operation mindfuck you are saying the thetan ( spirit ) of l . ron hubbard is really the leader of anonymous ? ? ! ! ! ! 1 * head asplodes * : rage :
re : operation mindfuck yea , that would be a good episode to show people when they get out of co $ and are actually allowed to watch critical materials . south park furthers the lull potential here .
i am rereading it , after several years after i read it for the first time , and new stuff pops out . one of the most important bits ( for me ) is operation mindfuck and its principles .
let & apos ; s donate some books to the jail where your uncle & apos ; s locked up and sneak in
principia discordia
. give him some ideas for his own operation mindfuck on the guards .
this magical psiop combines ce5 , sigil magic and memetic lulz warefare , drawing influence from the discordian operation mindfuck , the dkmu linking sigil , anonymous ethersec and project mayhem 2012 and the first earth battalion ' s
evolutionary tactics
.
greetings fellow mutants , rebels , vagabonds , activists , ragamuffins and neerdowells and welcome to your initiation into discordianism and operation mindfuck . soon you too will know the pleasures of raping your own mind and wallow in the knowledge that everything is true .
you don’t need me to tell you that this is currently grim as all hell . but if you take the long term , pragmatic view , it could be that the use of operation mindfuck techniques in this way are , essentially , a trap .
after adopting his discordian persona of creepy the inexcusable , our man floyd anderson wasted no time reviving operation mindfuck ( om ) by way of the bavarian illuminati letterhead provided here free of charge at historiadiscordia . com , your full service discordian mischief provider . …
in the illuminatus ! trilogy the concept of operation mindfuck ( om ) was introduced and in many ways illuminatus ! itself was an act of om , which included the discordians high - jacking the bavarian illuminati mythos and making it their own . the method to …
omgasm stands for operation : mindfuck - golden apple seed missions . it ' s a call to action for discordians and any friend of the free - thinking lunatic fringe . it works to get people involved in various fringe projects both on and off the internet .
what is the way forward ? readers of robert anton wilson are a useful group to look at here because they have already processed chapel perilous and , judging by the ones i’ve met , there is something interesting happening . it is too soon to definitively label and define , but the designer amoeba has coined the temporarily - useful name operation mindfix . as he says , operation mindfuck is over for discordians because it is unnecessary in the post - 2016 world . from now on , the ongoing work can be considered part of operation mindfix .
now the fun really begins . as a discordian you are part of operation mindfuck , a decentralized , individual driven movement of social change and mockery with the express purpose of shocking or confusing the masses out of the hold they have on themselves . there is no chosen method or doctrine when it comes to the operation , though causing physical injury to others is looked down on . a discordian has no laws and is unbound by what is considered socially exceptionable so do whatever you want .
this magical psiop combines ce5 , sigil magic and memetic lulz warefare , drawing influence from the [ [ discordian | discordianism ] ] [ [ operation mindfuck ] ] , the [ [ dkmu ] ] [ [ linking sigil ] ] , anonymous ethersec and [ [ project mayhem 2012 ] ] and the first earth battalion ' s
evolutionary tactics
.
this magical psiop combines ce5 , sigil magic and memetic lulz warefare , drawing influence from the [ [ discordianism | discordian ] ] [ [ operation mindfuck ] ] , the [ [ dkmu ] ] [ [ linking sigil ] ] , anonymous ethersec and [ [ project mayhem 2012 ] ] and the first earth battalion ' s
evolutionary tactics
.
re : operation mindfuck this idea not only has aids , it has super aids . the kind that gets transmitted through visual contact . all this would do is make us look stupid and piss off any freezoners who decided to step up to the plate . it ' s good that you ' re brainstorming , but this one ' s a sinker .
and i don’t mean to pin it all on the russians . the contingency of truth — or the multiplicity of realities — is a great way to understand things existentially or ideologically , but it’s impinged too deeply into the area of actual news versus fake news and science denial . that’s probably what i mean when i say operation mindfuck has been too successful .
i have a suspicion that , when we moved from being hierarchical people of the book to networked people of the screen , all this became inevitable . which is not to say that operation mindfuck or the illuminatus ! trilogy were unnecessary . they were , in many ways , a training manual for both understanding this particular point in time , and in getting through it .
re : operation mindfuck i think that this being the first really heavy infowar afaik , that there is a theme emerging . that we have the truth and they have lies . i think there are some important people interested in seeing which is the better weapon . and we ' re proving that in the right hands the truth can be more devastating than an atomic bomb , metaphorically speaking .
re : operation mindfuck you are focusing on religious beliefs and trying to fuck with them - dont do that . itd be tantamount to claiming that the christians are wrong - jesus didnt come back thousands of years ago , hes actually wbm . there is no way to take that other than being total jackasses who hate a religion . as a morbidly obese man once said
stay on target !
in the last thc before we start the thc plus shows , everyone ' s favorite crackpot historian joins me to talk about his new book , historia discordia , the origins of the discordian society , operation mindfuck , and some of the famous enlightened trouble makers who have embodied the trickster archetype : robert anton wilson , timothy leary , terence mckenna , hunter s . thompson , and more ! it ' s a good time !
re : operation mindfuck anonymous rejects the rpf and physical punishment , which were instituted by hubbard in person . anonymous rejects the disconnection and fair game policies , which were written and implemented by hubbard in person . anonymous rejects the brainwashing and personality - displacement , which were specifically designed by hubbard in person . and you want to say that anonymous is hubbard ' s secret weapon ? puh - leeze . you owe us internets and cake . lots .
announcing operation mindfuck . in the grand old tradition of very weird and / or subversive lives of such luminaries as kerry thornley and greg hill , and with inspiration from people such as robert anton wilson , buckminster fuller and aleister crowley , i have undertaken to join the fray and started my very own attempt to jolt people out of their everyday existence in a way that — just maybe — might bring about some shred of enlightenment into their dull , padded minds .
in the late 1960s , the group launched a project dubbed operation mindfuck . one prominent discordian , the novelist robert anton wilson , later explained that they wanted to be a
cosmic giggle factor .
they would create
so many alternative paranoias that everybody could pick a favorite , if they were inclined that way .
he added ,
i also hoped that some less gullible souls , overwhelmed by this embarrassment of riches , might see through the whole paranoia game .
following the tactic of anonymous , ethersec and project mayhem , operation intruder was first anounced in a pastebin post . the original pastebin has been lost , but a version with various typos corrected , and social media links added can be found here :
r . u . sirius : probably , yeah . if you follow some of the ideological discourse from people who are really influential in russia , it’s postmodernism and operation mindfuck in the service of amoral raw power and political strategy . i know secondhand that there are people in putin’s mindtrust who have read their leary and their discordianism and so forth and they are following a chaos strategy for disrupting the american consensus… or however you want to phrase the collapsing neoliberal order . and not collapsing towards a good end .
i don ' t think it ' s a great idea to engage in any type of mindfuck , and here ' s why : the leaders of the cult will see it for exactly what it is . scientology is a means of control exercised by the leaders of scientology over it ' s adherents . the only people you would be mindfucking are the people anonymous has stated we have no issue with . you can ' t mindfuck the leadership - they are the only ones in the co $ that
the discordians created characters —
ho chi zen
and others had pasts and personalities of their own . and they engaged in a haphazard kind of worldbuilding , outlining a constellation of competing conspiracies . two discordians , wilson and robert shea , eventually turned that world into a science - fiction trilogy , illuminatus ! , that was published in 1975 and still has a devoted cult following . illuminatus ! was not the summation of operation mindfuck so much as a gateway to it . indeed , it included an appendix that more or less urged the reader to join in .
peration mindfuck was a free - form art project–cum–prank–cum–political protest of the sixties and seventies , designed to sow the culture with paranoia . the key figures behind it were kerry thornley , co - founder of a satiric religion called discordianism , and robert anton wilson , a discordian staffer at
the discordians ' second descendant is a kind of absurdist prankster politics . they did not invent the politically charged hoax , of course , nor were they the only anti - authoritarian pranksters of the ' 60s . operation mindfuck began at about the same time that abbie hoffman , jerry rubin , paul krassner , and the other radicals known as the yippies were doing a somewhat similar set of stunts . ( there was some overlap between the discordians and the yippies , and there was some tension too : wilson was close friends with krassner , but he found hoffman
nasty and mean .
)
so , first off , our blogging is going to increase . â by a lot . â secondly , our writers are each going to concentrate on a particular sphere of interest , in addition to using the blog to write about whatever they feel . â so , for example , we will have writers here concentrating on the law of fives and how the brain works , on the art of pranking and operation mindfuck , some idiot dealing with politics and warfare , a guy investigating online subcultures , someone keeping a close eye on the world of religion , someone who can help you prepare for any situation , a guy interested in how maps do not correspond to reality , a biology expert and much , much more .
mindfuck : is the dream world actually separate from so called reality ? there was a website ( ceased to exist ) which claimed dreams where a program for
gods in training
. in those lucid dreams you can create thing out of thin air , those guys claimed it was possible to draw those elements from dream states into what we commonly perceive as reality .
re : operation mindfuck let ' s , please , leave rumors and innuendo to the asshats in osa . it ' s obvious that strategy is one giant bucket of fail . it ' s burning their ass everywhere it ' s been countered with truth and facts anyone who cares to can reference . i find it hilarious that their own doctrine chains them to a course of action ( lying / slandering ) that will eventually be their downfall . no personal attack meant by this , but fail idea is fail . you don ' t counter bullshit with more bullshit . you counter it with overwhelming truth . bullshit is * easy * to produce . get to work producing factual , well thought out arguments against the bs the cos pumps out . take the high road .
adam gorightly ' s new book is hardcore . the most battle - hardened historian would blanch at writing a history of discordian society . as you can imagine with a society whose major contribution to world culture was a conspiracy called operation mindfuck , telling accurate stories of their origin was not their thing . discordians thought it was far more useful and enlightening to make stuff up . that this book exists is , frankly , something of a miracle . but it was clear from his earlier biography of kerry thornley that if anyone was going to pull this off , it would be adam gorightly . this is a large - sized , coffee table book full of reproductions of original discordian society documents , the holy grail of which is a complete reproduction of the long assumed lost first edition of the principia discordia . only five copies of this were ever made , ironically on the photocopier of new orleans district attorney jim garrison , who would later suspect co - author kerry thornley of involvement in the …
it is my opinion that chick tracts are the project of some secret discordian cabal ( which is really special ; most discordian cabals can’t keep their fucking mouths shut about their activities to save their nutty little lives ) intended to discredit fundamentalist christianity in the minds of almost everyone but the people handing them out . i can think of no resource more likely to turn someone away from fundamentalism than the paranoid ramblings of jack chick . they provoke in me not anger or even indignation , but , at their “best” moments , outright uncontrollable laughter . this is the exact opposite of what the individuals who distribute them ( assuming they’re on the level and not part of the discordian plot ) want . laughter is far worse than a complaint or a lawsuit . in any case , even if chick tracts are not directly related to operation mindfuck , they serve the purposes of our lady anyway . there is so much aneristic constipation inherent in one of those little comics that it blows out its own asshole and splatters eristic glee about the cosmos . her ways are mysterious , and a little annoying . or something .
it ' s quite the mindfuck , this inevitably leads me to ask : how the hell can i guarantee that everything which apparently is not me ( people , stuff , animals , minerals and all that ) is not just some kind of intense dream state ? you know like when you go to sleep and you would swear the damn thing felt so real despite some things being off , like when you dream about places and people you ' ve been to and met before and some details are different than so called reality . . . why on earth does it feel so real ?
re : operation mindfuck or we could not be complete dorks and - we don ' t need to come up with extravagant lies about $ cientology and their wacky beliefs - it ' s already wacky enough . non - $ cientologist need to be told the truth about that fraud , l . ron hubbard , the lying co $ and the corrupt david miscavige - not to mention the abuses of the rpf , disconnection and how their campaign against psychiatry is actually destroying lives ( as seen in the lisa macpherson case ) people actually in $ cientology wouldn ' t be affected at all by such a ruse , mainly because they won ' t ever see it . you keep thinking they have as much access to the internet and the truth as you do . . . they don ' t . they are trapped in a brain - washing cult and their every thought - not to mention every penny they have - is being controlled by their handlers / auditors . all this
plan
would really accomplish is confirming what co $ ' goon squad , the osa , have been saying along . . . that the co $ ' detractors are nothing but a bunch of annoying , lying cyberpunk brats . this idea is full of fail . no offense .
extremely subtle , confusing changes ; funny . extremely large , confusing changes ; possibly funny , if done with a high level of forethought . i like to plant products in people’s houses , and do shit like replace their half - used jug of milk with a half - used jug of different milk , or put a handful of mayonnaise packets in their butter compartment , just because it’s subtle enough to make them question their own realities . adding magazines to their bedside table or stuffing a pair of socks under the blanket at the foot of the bed , or adding a pair of shoes in their size to their closet , are also good . you can choose things which really do fuck with people’s minds , making it a mindfuck and not just an irritating obvious prank .
html public
- / / w3c / / dtd xhtml 1 . 0 transitional / / en
urltoken
. through every means available , wilson explained in a memo laying out the plan , the mindfuckers intended to “attribute all national calamities , assassinations , or conspiracies” to the illuminati and other hidden hands .
so they planted stories about the illuminati in the underground press . they slipped mysterious classified ads into the libertarian journal innovator and the new left newspaper rogerspark . they cooked up a letter about the illuminati that wilson then ran in “the playboy advisor . ” when a new orleans jury refused to convict one of the men who the conspiracy - hunting district attorney jim garrison blamed for the jfk killing , garrison’s booster art kunkin , of the los angeles free press , got a note revealing that the jurors were all illuminati initiates . the telltale sign : none of them had a left nipple .
“what if there really is an illuminati ? ” wilson asked thornley one pot - fogged night in 1968 . “maybe they’ll find out about us and be pissed . ”
“i doubt if there is , ” thornley answered . “and if there by some chance is , they would probably be very happy to have wildass fools like us covering up for them by spreading bizarre theories . ”
one of the more curious characters ( and when i say character , i mean , yeah , this guy was definitely a character ) to emerge from the oswald / thornley / garrison rabbit hole was a oddball named a . edward horsey , who somehow finagled his way into …
thanks to charles faris for inviting me take the helm for this week’s cosmic trigger reading . i ended up writing a lot more than i’d initially intended… but sometimes that happens ! ( i blame it on the dog days . ) we pick …
on page 557 of illuminatus ! we are introduced to hassan i sabbah x , a character who—it appears—was first conceptualized by kerry thornley in this august 1968 letter to fellow discordian louise lacey ( aka lady l . , f . a . b . ) , all of this part …
an excerpt from my latest book caught in the crossfire : kerry thornley , lee oswald and the garrison investigation , available at feral house and amazon . among jim garrison’s more colorful unofficial investigators ( otherwise known as the “irregulars” ) was allan chapman who …
guest post by steven adkins prepare yourself ( s ) for an amazing interview with a largely unknown ( until now ! ) discordian named hope springs ( real name mary wheeler ) conducted by steven adkins of the law of silence blog . mary—as you’ll soon discover—found herself …
writer , editor , occasional talk show host & vocalist / lyricist . steal this singularity , mondo 2000 , open source party , r . u . sirius shows , mondo vanilli…
“sartre said hell is other people . now , hell is other people’s tweets or posts . they just irritate the crap out of all of us . the feeling is mutual . ”
on april 5 , i was on douglas rushkoff’s team human radio show . we agreed to get the interview transcribed for possible publication somewhere .
i’ve decided that rather than trying to edit a truncated version to pitch to more popular websites , i’m just going to keep it conversational and run it here . maybe less people will see it , but that’s ok . i get to say what i want .
i’ve added to my own spew as i edited . we hope you enjoy .
douglas rushkoff : i came in contact with your work for the first time at a psychedelics conference in los angeles . albert hoffman and laura huxley [ aldous huxley’s wife ] were there . timothy was there , and i think ram das and ralph metzner . it was the original psychedelics crowd .
and there were a bunch of issues of your first magazine , high frontiers . and to me it was like a calling card from the future .
i was in my early 20’s , and your magazine was an amalgamation of everything that i had been interested in yet had never seen connected before : cultural , scientific , biological , cosmic , spiritual , and pharmacological advances , all in one place . how did physics and math and drugs and music and culture and transgender and cultural alchemy all end up considered part of the same strand of cultural information ? how did you come up with that ?
r . u . sirius : in a way , it just came together in my head . i assumed that there were other people out there like me . sort of like what paul krassner said about starting the realist at the start of the ’60s . he put it out to meet the other aliens…
and to me , the generational aspect of it was important . and the cultural aspect of it was important . because even though i was from a generation that had a lot of hippies and deadheads and so on , we were also the people who created the cultures of punk and new wave . i was in my mid - twenties when all that came along and it was a refreshing blast to my pot - soaked mind .
so i was adapted for a very speedy , hyper , futuristic mentality by that , as well as by scientific ideas and psychedelic ideas and so forth .
and by the time we were doing high frontiers in the mid - 80s , one could clearly see the so - called digital revolution coming on , and one could be fairly optimistic about it… actually , radically over - optimistic . ( laughter ) so all these things just felt like the makings of a truly contemporary magazine .
douglas rushkoff : high frontiers really ran the full gamut of hallucinatory experiences . it was a flag in the sand . leary had said , “find the others . ” and this was saying to a new generation , “yes , there are others . these are our experiences . ”
but then , you turned it into reality hackers and eventually mondo 2000 . it became the voice of this 21st century post - television , designer - reality society .
r . u . sirius : yeah , the jetsons on dmt , as mark dery snarkily labeled it .
douglas rushkoff : and then , by the early 1990’s , cyberdelic scene spawned a new cultural phenomenon … the early rave - club - kids . and that helped give it an aesthetic that was more pleasing to young people than the old haight - ashbury world of wavy gravy and tie - dye t - shirts .
r . u . sirius : that’s true . but i have to say that’s where i was a bit of a crusty old rocker myself . i was never that enamored of the musical style , and i would always be the one leaving the rave at four in the morning rather than staying ’til dawn . but sure , it was an incredible flowering of a new kind of hedonic optimism that was very reminiscent of late ’60s hippie optimism .
douglas rushkoff : i always blamed wired magazine and the investment ethos for changing the internet from an anything - can - happen , new human - potential movement that was represented so well by mondo 2000 , into the same old expansion of capital through ipos and digital companies . i hate to even term it like this , but what went wrong ? why didn’t we get the whole everything changing at once for the human better that we were all imagining up in the berkeley hills in the mondo 2000 living room ?
r . u . sirius : i thought material abundance would come faster . the plan — such as it was — was that ideas and content could be replicated infinitely and therefor couldn’t be hoarded and had to be shared… and this would be matched by molecular technology that would turn matter into data that also could be infinitely replicated . i think that was the underlying utopian narrative . so aside from the ideology of the market , which we didn’t necessarily share with wired , there was the excess of techno - optimism . i have to say that there was always a dark undercurrent with mondo though . critics quote the first editorial that was very woo - woo , but after that , ambiguity and tongue - in - chic were watchwords .
anyway , the logic was that replicability would lead to a collapse of the barriers — of the turnstiles — around what people want and need . and we would have a post scarcity society that would liberate people and allow them to be playful and creative and friendly . i mean , that was the hippieish or post - hippieish aspect of mondo — “the machines of loving grace . ” there was definitely an underestimation of the tenacity of greed and power baked in to the early issues . there was this buckminster fuller notion that the technology changes the situation materially and that humans would response rationally to that . that’s sort of a marxist view too… or an element of it . so the technology failed , the people failed , and the system failed to live up to these fever dreams .
r . u . sirius : there was this vibe among people in the cyberculture of the ’90s that things would change very fast . some of it was inchoate . some of it was… ummm… less inchoate .
a lot of these emerging technological potentials like nanotechnology — we didn’t examine the timelines and the realities as closely as we might have . somebody who spent some time with al gore while he was vice president told me he worried that the singularity was going to happen during his presidency ! obviously , neither of those things happened… but that was the sort of thing that was going around in technoculture . and capitalism was there and figured out how and when this online world could be useful and made it more banal . it turned things to crap and also performed some useful services . and that’s the conundrum that we’re stuck with now .
douglas rushkoff : it feels as if capitalism is much more suited for the net than humans or culture are . you know , capitalism is abstract . of the three factors of production — land , labor , and capital — capital is the only one that can expand infinitely . it’s not real .
r . u . sirius : yeah . we don’t even need to have any humans left for the stock market to go through the roof . it can all be done by ais .
if you look at that famous wired magazine issue about the so - called long boom — this idea in the late ’90s that it was all uphill from here — the greatest emphasis is on how the market … the stock market… nasdaq and so forth would grow to these unthinkably awesome numbers . improvements in the lives of humans were almost a footnote .
i almost got sold . if wealth became vast enough , it would actually trickle - down . most everything would be given away for free to everybody . you’d somehow manage to buy a few dollars worth of stock and it’d explode into abundance — or at least that was the sort of capitalist theory of post - scarcity . that theory is certainly still out there , albeit far less popular .
douglas rushkoff : the problem with capitalism is that we didn’t own these networks , so they started extracting more value than they were giving us . so do you think the main problem was capitalism taking over the net or were we not really ready culturally — or did we not have the consciousness — to do what the net was suggesting , to really connect with other people on this new level ?
r . u . sirius : it has as much to do with people as it does with capitalism . the masses , so to speak , came online . and the coming together of the global mind — or whatever idealistic metaphor from the cyber - 90s we might use — did not prove to be as delightful as john perry barlow or whomever might have hoped . what we realized is that – - within the terrain of disembodied minds — familiarity breeds contempt . and lots of death threats ! i don’t want to know most people’s thoughts ! sartre said hell is other people . now , hell is other people’s tweets or posts . they just irritate the crap out of all of us . the feeling is mutual .
douglas rushkoff : i know . it’s almost as if internet users should have had some kind of a psychedelic training before they went online so they would be better prepared for this level of social interaction .
r . u . sirius : it could help , although there are certainly plenty of intolerant psychedelic users online as well .
that’s a whole other area where i’ve become more critical… that whole thing about psychedelic people believing in bizarre stuff . i found it benign and amusing in the past , but it’s one of the consequences of the psychedelic revolution that i find far more irritating and consequential now .
hippie culture is a folk culture . it’s pre - scientific and memes spread and take over fast . suddenly everybody knows that the rothchilds own everything and that there’s a magical hugging lady on tour .
douglas rushkoff : i remember you and i bonded again 20 years later , shortly after 9 / 11 , when some of the more extreme conspiracy theories were going around . we both took a lot of heat for not buying into them . i wrote a piece where i was arguing these were disinformants spreading these stories because they’re trying to keep us from seeing the simple basic truth of what had happened , which is horrible enough .
and it feels like 9 / 11 and the acceleration of conspiracy theory that it spawned , combined with the internet and the ability to connect anything to anything else , has yielded this bizarre world of ontological relativism that we’re in today where people can be so easily manipulated and drawn into these rabbit holes of false truths .
like what you read ? give r . u . sirius a round of applause .
from a quick cheer to a standing ovation , clap to show how much you enjoyed this story .
never miss a story from r . u . sirius , when you sign up for medium . learn more
they would create
so many alternative paranoias that everybody could pick a favorite , if they were inclined that way .
he added ,
i also hoped that some less gullible souls , overwhelmed by this embarrassment of riches , might see through the whole paranoia game .
over fifty years ago , a group of pranksters founded a satiric religion devoted to creating conspiracy theories so insane that nobody would ever believe uncritically in conspiracies again . they called themselves the discordians . and their weird ideas are still influencing us today .
history does not record robert welch ' s reaction when he received a letter on bavarian illuminati stationery in 1970 . welch was the founder of the john birch society , a conservative group with a paranoid bent , mostly focused on communist conspiracies but also willing to expand its gallery of villains to include other secret cabals . the illuminati are an 18th - century secret society whose alleged efforts to control the world were regularly decried by groups like , well , the john birch society .
welch may have been a nut but he wasn ' t a fool , and he was probably pretty sure someone was pulling his leg by the time he saw that the note had been written by
ho chi zen , cong king of gorilla warfare .
but i like to imagine that curiosity compelled him to read on .
we have been meaning to write you for some time ,
the message began . they claimed they had held off until harper ' s magazine—which , the letter assured him , the illuminati controlled—had interviewed welch in its august issue . it continued :
all this is in keeping with our new policy of allowing alert and sophisticated persons such as yourself and your followers and associates a more comprehensive review of our activities . for with 96 . 5 % of the entire world now under our collective thumb , we just no longer see any point in sneaking around behind the scenes all the time .
the letter went on to give welch a list of high - ranking members of the illuminati , among them uncle remus ,
rabbi koan ,
and one of the birch society ' s star writers , gary allen .
this prank was the brainchild of kerry thornley ( aka ho chi zen ) , co - founder of the satiric religion discordianism . in theory , discordians are devoted to eris , the greek goddess of chaos . in practice , they ' re devoted to a worldview that mixes anarchistic politics , a general disdain for dogma , and an interest in the illusions that emerge when the mind tries to find order in a disorderly world . they are especially intrigued by the mind ' s capacity to imagine vast conspiracies , which helps explain their fascination with the illuminati .
besides letters like the one sent to welch , they planted pieces in the media—including one in a teen magazine and another in playboy —blaming the illuminati for everything from the assassination of john f . kennedy to the career of bob hope . they concocted ads for the illuminati too , including one that began ,
how was adolph hitler able to take over a whole country , starting out with only five followers ? ( have you ever tried to take over even a single city block ? it isn ' t easy ! )
both the welch letter and the hitler ad appear in historia discordia , an entertaining new omnibus of discordian detritus edited by adam gorightly . gorightly , whose other books include a biography of thornley , fills in the details on who the discordians were and how their history progressed , but mostly he lets the documents speak for themselves . what emerges isn ' t just a frequently funny collection of put - ons and self - published manifestos . the group also had an earnest desire to break down the boundaries between the real world and fiction .
in these ways , the discordians helped set the stage for two important elements of our pop culture today . one is a wave of stories that refuse to stay on the screen or page , leaking into the outside world in unpredictable ways . this has long been a part of the genre - fiction world .
no weird story can truly produce terror ,
h . p . lovecraft once claimed ,
unless it is devised with all the care and verisimilitude of an actual hoax .
but it has exploded in the internet age .
the most obvious examples are alternate reality games ( args ) . people have been known not just to mistake elements of an arg for the real world , but to mistake artifacts of the real world for an arg . the online horror genre called creepypasta , similarly , appears
in a deeply social environment , getting shared , remixed , embedded , commented upon , edited , and spread around again ,
writes bryan alexander , author of the new digital storytelling .
there are no clear boundaries around the tale , as there would be for , say , a hollywood movie or a novel , making the mythos more mysterious .
that ' s one reason some people have managed to convince themselves that slender man actually exists .
kembrew mcleod ' s recent book pranksters locates both the discordians and the yippies in a tradition that stretches at least as far back as the early 17th century , when the rosicrucian pamphlets excited european intellectuals by claiming to describe an order secretly working to usher in a new age of enlightenment . the modern manifestations of prankster politics span the political spectrum , from james o ' keefe ' s right - wing provocations to the anti - corporate hoaxes of the yes men .
some of these hoaxers , obviously , are closer in spirit to the discordians than others . the most mindfuckesque efforts are the ones that try to make a subversive point by disorienting people in a playful way . take the barbie liberation organization , which made a media splash during the christmas shopping season in 1993 . in mcleod ' s words , the blo
purchased multiple barbie and g . i . joe dolls , switched their voice boxes , and ' reverse shoplifted ' them back into stores . holiday shoppers brought home barbies that grunted , ' dead men tell no lies , ' while gender - bending g . i . joes gushed , ' i like to go shopping with you ! '
eris must have approved .
robert welch didn ' t live to see the blo ' s infiltration of america ' s malls , but he did have at least one more encounter with the discordians . shortly after his letter from thornley arrived , he received another letter , this one written by robert anton wilson and signed
george washington ix .
it too is reproduced in historia discordia .
pay no attention to the recent letter from ho chi zen ,
it began , and then it threatened welch with a libel suit if he dared to quote or reproduce the earlier letter . it concluded by confusing welch with the manufacturer of welch ' s chocolate covered fudge bars :
your fudge is quite good with hashish , but even then it sticks to my teeth . any suggestions ?
jesse walker ( jwalker @ reason . com ) is the author of the united states of paranoia , which includes a chapter on the discordians and their brood .
kinja is in read - only mode . we are working to restore service .
his books ( and in particular , the illuminatus ! trilogy he co - wrote with robert shea ) depict a bewildering world of conspiracies , half - truths , lies , fake news , incompetence and our inability to find anything resembling objective truth . or to put it another way , it describes the world as it is now , ten years after his death .
’ world . it is not so much that the fake news is disturbing . the real gut - kick is when people confidently proclaim that we should return to the pre - post - truth world , and then think about how to do that , and slowly realise that not only is it impossible but that there was no pre - post - truth world in the first place . think of hillsborough , or iraq’s imaginary wmds . what has actually changed is that it is no longer possible to comfortably fall for our earlier illusions . as the saying goes , if you want to be certain , buy an encyclopaedia . if you want to be uncertain , buy two encyclopaedias . our culture has bought a second encyclopaedia .
robert anton wilson talks about the psychological state where you have no way of making sense of what is happening , where all your maps have run out , and where you have no fixed point with which to orient yourself by . he called this place chapel perilous . this is where we are now as a culture .
there are only two outcomes from a visit to chapel perilous , wilson tells us : paranoia or agnosticism .
agnosticism – and here wilson means not just doubt about god , but doubt about everything - requires an acceptance that you are not the only right - thinking person on the planet , and that it is not true everyone else should agree with you . it requires a recognition that you are statistically just as full of shit as everyone else . there are over 7 billion people on the planet and you will never find someone else who shares your views exactly . our reality tunnels are all different because they are shaped by our own unique experiences . none of us know what we don’t know . we need all the help we can get , including science and other people’s perspective , in order to get by . the ultimate goal of the agnostic is not to become right , but to become less wrong .
agnosticism , then , involves humility . it was humility – and an extraordinary act of forgiveness - that rescued wilson from his own stay in chapel perilous . wilson was ultimately able to make a good life for himself with no need for certainty .
but the alt - right don’t do humility . they like strength , and decisiveness , and have a psychological need for certainty . how will they exit chapel perilous with those values ? they may have grabbed the ring of power , but are trapped in the postmodern post - truth world , the one place they will never find the certainty and strength they seek . they are like brer rabbit and the tar baby . the more they attack , the more stuck they become . they aren’t going anywhere .
it’s no secret that populist far - right movements never end well . there are no examples in history of them being a good idea . how desperate for a fixed , certain ideology would you have to be to hitch your identity and worldview to one ? this is clearly a dangerous time . but look again at the alt - right in chapel perilous , lashing out in all directions , owning the news cycle as they do . see how their contradictions enrage those around them , who react with great energy , which keeps the system running ? now imagine those people who feed them gradually finding their own way out of chapel perilous . see how the non - humble flounder and turn in on themselves when their victims move on and there is no - one else left to fight ? they are stuck in postmodern , post - truth quicksand from which they are the only ones who can never escape . without humility , chapel perilous is a nightmare jail for the cruel .
all this is happening away from the boxing matches of social media . it needs the coming together of people in the real world , because empathy is rarely found online . there is magical thinking involved , but then , when is there not ? it chimes with academic talk about the move from postmodernism to metamodernism , where sincerity and belief are returned to our world not as pillars of identity but as tools for personal use , to be used and discarded as circumstances demand . there are echoes of it in the theatre director daisy campbell ’s attempt “to create a narrative so utterly complex and so thoroughly self - referential that it becomes to all intents and purposes alive . ”
it understands that social media can be used for finding those who chime with us but that there is no point in using it to shout at the different . it comes from a recognition that being a consumer and a critic are not enough , and that we won’t be fulfilled until we step up and contribute in our own individual way . it involves the virtuous circle of people being inspired by people being inspired . it centres of the understanding that meaning exists , but it needs to be self - generated .
it’s the dawning realisation that , by supporting friends and being supported by them , and by taking a leap of faith , every one of us can evolve our own souls .
none of this is a solution to our immediate political problems , of course . near - future politics will be chaos as technology takes our jobs , walls replace bridges and climate change and population demographics start to bite . great change is coming and it is going to be messy . no , this is a larger project : the act of evolving into twenty - first century humans .
the reason for the daily mail ' s continued growth is simple . for every story it runs it asks itself ,
how can i present this story in manner that will generate a feeling of disgust in the reader ?
the paper is , by now , phenomenally good at presenting news stories so that they always do generate that emotion of disgust . from that , all else follows . should you think that this is an over - simplification , it would be worth pausing to look again at any edition of the paper with this idea in mind . disgust is not just one of our many emotions . it is bedded deep in the foundations of our psychology . it is largely generated by part of the brain known as the anterior insula . freud linked it to our initial oral stage , and leary & wilson to what they called the first circuit of their eight circuit model . it is not something that is learnt , like higher emotions . all mammals are born with the hard - wired ability to feel disgust , along with its opposite , attraction . newborns feel attr…
html public
- / / w3c / / dtd xhtml 1 . 0 strict / / en
urltoken