I purchased the Ænima CD—the one with the clear lenticular case that might wiggle the cybernetic album artwork designed by artist Cam de Leon—once I was 12 years previous at a long-forgotten report retailer in Whitewater, Wisconsin, the place I grew up. I used to be, at the moment, on no matter degree of consciousness is related to being in center college and sitting on the lunch desk that hosted Magic: The Gathering video games—“degree one,” I assume. This was a number of years earlier than I stumbled upon a web site known as the Erowid Vault, an attractive relic of the early web the place novice {and professional} psychonauts may weblog about their experiences on medicine. There I’d be taught that should you floor up sufficient morning glory seeds from the gardening retailer, you possibly can, in so many phrases, journey balls, and that should you drank sufficient Robitussin, you possibly can be a part of a small group of people that claimed all of them noticed the identical precise interdimensional being from the identical precise star system. For these in small cities with a dial-up modem and with out entry to eccentric new age gurus, toxic flower seeds and Robotripping had been alternate technique of enlightenment. Whole mentions within the Erowid Vault weblog archives: Drunvalo Melchizedek (1); Magic: The Gathering (9); Software (80+).
In fact, Drunvalo Melchizedek was solely one among numerous religious practitioners working in Los Angeles. By the Nineties, the town hosted a cottage business of psychics, astrologists, oracles, new age publishing homes, numerologists, crystal sellers, and tarot throwers. (Keenan claims an Angeleno psychometry practitioner foresaw the arrival of Justin Chancellor, Software’s new bassist for Ænima). The glut of woo in Los Angeles had established itself slowly through the years, beneath the affect of charismatic leaders and con artists alike, descended from the strains of Nineteenth-century metaphysical teams such because the New Thought motion and the Theosophical Society.
When the movie business arrived in Hollywood within the Nineteen Twenties, it had an alchemical response to the brand new age group. With the attract of fame, folks from throughout America adopted the path west to California to stake their declare—once more. Los Angeles, in spite of everything, was modeled after Arcadia and marketed as a brand new Eden, a sort of coastal suburban utopia that was newly minting international superstars. It was a magical place, as inexplicable as an aura. As Spencer Orey noticed in his dissertation, The Dream Refinery: Psychics, Spirituality and Hollywood in Los Angeles, Hollywood grew to become a sort of international media nexus by way of which new age pondering flowed, buoyed by celebrities and their celeb seers. What higher technique to develop the thoughts, manifest success, and clarify away the fixed rejection of the leisure business than to hunt out divine intervention from a crystal ball, Enochian magic, or a Thirteenth-dimensional being?
Keenan was cautious concerning the transfer to Los Angeles, however in 1990, after a number of false begins in Boston and Grand Rapids—most notably with the art-house new wave act C.A.D.—he packed up a U-Haul and drove throughout the nation, the place he settled right into a tiny condo simply off the Sundown Strip along with his pet zebra finch, Harpo. He fell in with a bunch of musicians that included Rage In opposition to the Machine guitarist Tom Morello and the absurdist rock troupe Inexperienced Jellö. A 12 months later, he shaped Software with drummer Danny Carey, guitarist Adam Jones, and bassist Paul D’Amour, acquired signed to Zoo Leisure, and started working with the uncooked, unformed concepts that will kind their debut EP, Opiate.
