This article is excerpted from the Rocky Mountain Pagan Journal. Each issue of the Rocky Mountain Pagan Journal is published by High Plains Arts and Sciences; P.O. Box 620604, Littleton Co., 80123, a Colorado Non-Profit Corporation, under a Public Domain Copyright, which entitles any person or group of persons to reproduce, in any form whatsoever, any material contained therein without restriction, so long as articles are not condensed or abbreviated in any fashion, and credit is given the original author.! ANGEL TECH A Modern Shaman's Guide to Reality Selection; by Antero Alli; published by Vigilantero Press, P.O. Box 7513, Boulder Co. 80306 $17 Retail Reviewed by Deborah Proko, 880 Moorhead Cr. #2L Boulder, CO 80303 Getting lost in the Metaphysics Section of my favorite book store used to be sheer brain pleasure.. an unparalleled delight. This was before the New Age infiltration of selfimprovement books which have, over the past few years, flooded the bookshelfs and shoved out the more obscure, classic gems of psychic technology. No longer can you find the crystal clear paradigms of Higher Learning without bumping into more new age cosmic drivel. Ironically, due to the skyrocketing popularity of Metaphysics in general a pervasive dilution of genuine spiritual information has passed for the real thing. Perhaps it's a sign of the times, who knows? I don't know and quite frankly, I don't want to know. Metaphysics for the Millions just isn't my cup of tea. Bobbing amidst the muddy river of occult literature is ANGEL TECH: A Modern Shaman's Guide to Reality Selection by Antero Alli (a Boulder resident, COLORADO) with a Preface by Robert Anton Wilson of COSMIC TRIGGER fame. Reality Selection, hmmm... that caught my eye. Not exactly a selfhelp book or a metaphysical treatise, ANGEL TECH is (in its own words), "a survival manual for fallen angels who are through with their frozen responses to the nightmares around us." Several sentences later, it instructs us to: "fly higher, plant both feet firmly in the ground... ground." The title is somewhat deceptive, also, because ANGEL TECH isn't about angels per se; at least not the kind painted by artists and described in the bible. To once again quote the text, "An angel is a being of Light. Tech comes from techne, meaning art or skill. ANGEL TECH is the Art of Being Light... We are in essence, beings of light." Alli has taken it upon himself to redefine common termi nology as well as make up words of his own to describe his psychic journey. This journey traverses through the Law of Octaves and Overtones translated into sight evolving functions of One Intelligence. It's destination is the awesome task of Intelligence Increase. The format of the law of eights is as old as the Sufi Mystery Schools and vigorous enough to attract Gurdjieff himself to wrestle with. More recently, the rascal guru Timothy Leary picked it up and wrote his opus, EXO PSYCHOLOGY (also out of print), one of the source books for ANGEL TECH. What sets ANGEL TECH apart from other interpretations of this eightfold system is its comedic brilliance and some hysterically wicked illustrations. Also conspicuously absent is the kind of dogma that almost always accompanies subject matter like this. (The author constantly reminds us that the book is a map and not the territory itself, and that we, the readers, must make our own maps as fast as we absorb information in order to minimize psychic constipation.) This book is not for everybody. Consider the section entitled KARMA MECHANICS which is "a course of study best suited for selfrealizing robots." Who's going to admit to their robot hood? Gurdjieff and his kind certainly did but not without a lot of work. Further into this section is another called MECHANICAL PROBLEMS which, with painstaking detail, explores the symptoms, causes and necessary adjustments for "robots run amok"... in laymen's terms, the process of fixing broken people. Despite the rather dense reading in this section, Alli did manage to pull me through with his humor, which at times, is ruthless. For the uninitiated neophyte, Fred Mertz (remember, from the I love Lucy show?) has resurrected to the spiritual status of Bodhisattva for the purpose of transmitting his compassion through the "neuroelectronic medium of television in the reruns..." If Fred Mertz is a New Age Avatar, then I'm the pope. And in some parallel universe, I probably am. ANGEL TECH is not breeze reading. Its 380 pages outline a comprehensive approach to reprogramming your mind. The only other author I know who has presented such a lucid vision of this worthy task is Dr. John Lilly ( SIMULATIONS OF GOD, CENTER OF THE CYCLONE, etc.). One more thing surprisingly gone from ANGEL TECH are the prodrug endorsements proliferating in books by predecessors like Leary, Wilson and Lilly. Alli's formula for Brain Change comes direct from the human biocomputer itself. Techniques for flexing psychic muscles abound in ANGEL TECH. Research topics include RAPTURE, CHARISMA, RITUAL, DESIGNING A TAROT, ALCHEMY, SYNCHRONICITY, ASTROLOGY, DREAMING RITUALS AND FACTOR X... if only they'd have taught us this stuff when we went to school. And throughout it all, an underlining current called "grounding" connects what is psychic to the earth. That alone, in my opinion, is worth the price of admission. Sometimes, this book rides the edge between redundancy and instructive repetition with the hopes of driving its point home. This point seems to be selfresponsibility and the need to define oneself or be defined by others. Alli takes for granted that readers already understand that they create their own reality, so there's not much schooling on this (read the SETH books). It is, perhaps, for this reason that the audience for ANGEL TECH will remain limited to those currently designing their own program. In this way, ANGEL TECH is even elitist. It refuses to try and reach everybody. However, the people it will touch will be richer for it due to Alli's lack of compromise. It's not an entirely inaccessible book yet it's based on a rather radical assumption. It fails to recognize the split between Lower and Higher Selves that most metaphysical books all but deify. My guess is that Alli is something of an anarchist who found his way into the system. His passion for annihilating hierarchy for the purpose of demystifying communications is hard to ignore. What I found to be the most compelling part of ANGEL TECH was that the section called CHAPEL PERILOUS, which could've been expanded on and rewritten as another book altogether. For those acquainted with Robert Anton Wilson's COSMIC TRIGGER, the mention of Chapel Perilous should ring hell's bells. According to Alli, the Chapel is a "place where souls go after being catapulted out of their bodies, groping aimlessly for their other half... while their bodies remain alive, on automatic, walking the planet" (paraphrased). This section of the book explores the process of "Initiation as creative response to the shock of the unknown." It is presented dramatically as Eight Sermons told to a congregation of lost souls by a priest that is vaguely reminiscent of the Sermons of the Dead in the back of Carl Jung's book, MEMORIES, DREAMS and REFLECTIONS. Sermon titles include: Fatal Romantics, Suicide and Free Will, Heaven and Hell, The Crucifixion... among others. Chapel Perilous is not a pretty place to be and Alli looks through its stained glass, darkly. ANGEL TECH is book one of a trilogy called the FIELD OPERATORS REFERENCE MANUAL. The other two books, ALL RITES REVERSED and THE AKASHIC RECORD PLAYER are forthcoming. Until then, I recommend this irreverent, mindblowing journey of a book, ANGEL TECH, and look forward to more from Alli. HERCULANEUM, Italy's Buried Treasure (updated revised edition) Joseph Jay Deiss; Harper & Row, hard, $22.95 reviewed by Katherine M. Gray Recently I was able to join the History Book Club with the added plus of purchasing several really beautiful books on archaeology and history at very reduced prices, among them Deiss' Herculaneum. It quickly became one of my favorites. The book is a sharply focused telescopic view back to the everyday lives of the inhabitants of the ancient Roman city, Herculaneum, which was destroyed at the same time as Pompeii in the latter part of August A.D. 79. It begins, after one forward and two prefaces, with a wonderfully concise chronology of the period of Herculaneum. Well illustrated, this volume is unabashed in its honest portrayal of the ancient Romans, treating their humanity with humor as if the author were fond of them. That is not to say that he in any way has glorified their behavior. The book is filled with not only scientific observations on the wealth and economic practices of the inhabitants of Herculaneum but also with the graffiti and lusty frescoes that decorated the walls of the town. "Portumnus loves Amphianda Januarius loves Veneria We pray Venus That you should hold us in mind This only we ask you." Interestingly enough, Deiss tells the reader, what was to be con sidered as pornographic by the religious cultures which followed the Rome of Herculaneum, was considered quite natural by most Romans. "Their point of view was one of easy going naturalism. The erect phallus was a potent charm, and it appeared and reappeared everywhere: on shop signs, on equipment, on jewelry, in paintings, and on statues. ...At the doors of shops and private houses, the handle of the bell pull was frequently a phallus." Even the god Priapus, whom Deiss considers fortunate for having been condemned to perpetual erection was depicted on the wall of a snack bar on one of the main streets. It seems that even the Gods were not above being used for advertising. Deiss tells the reader in well crafted prose of the discovery of Herculaneum, the continued research on the city, and also of the preservation of artifacts and skeletons found at the site. Apparently physical remains at that time which had not been destroyed have been hard to come by. Urns with cremated remains were relatively easy to acquire, but buried remains were nonexistent, so when the first ancient Roman skeletons were unearthed, there was a great deal of excitement. The average height of the men was approx. 5 feet 7 inches, while the women measured up at about 5 feet 1 inch. They had excellent teeth and their nutrition was relatively good. a fascinating find. For those of you who enjoy armchair or active archaeology, Herculaneum is a book which will keep your interest from start to finish. Since it is not written in technical terms, but more as entertaining documentation, anyone with an interest in people of different times and cul tures will find their guided tour through the pages of Herculaneum well worth their time. I highly recommend it. ______KMG .......from R.M.P.J. 8/86