UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FICTION · HISTORY
Peter Lamborn Wilson
Also known as: Hakim Bey, Bey/Hakim
Peter Lamborn Wilson (October 20, 1945 – May 22, 2022) was an American anarchist author, philosopher, poet, translator, and essayist. He is primarily known for his concept of Temporary Autonomous Zones, short-lived spaces that elude formal structures of control. During the 1970s, Wilson lived in the Middle East and worked at the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy under the guidance of Iranian philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr, where he explored Sufism, mysticism, and Persian literature. Starting in the 1980s, he wrote numerous political and countercultural texts under the pen name Hakim Bey, developing ideas such as "ontological anarchy", "poetic terrorism", and "immediatism". His work circulated through small presses, zine networks, anarchist milieus, radio, rave culture, and later academic discussions of post-anarchism, cyberculture, and radical protest.
I'd always lived a fairly blameless life.
— from Angels
Most acclaimed
Open city
"A magic decade of Italian writing followed the fall of Mussolini's Fascists and the liberation of Rome in 1944. Ignazio Silone, author of one of the great novels of the 1930s, Bread and Wine, returned from exile. Alberto Moravia, who helped define the modern conscience with his novel, The Time of Indifference, left the mountains outside Rome where he had been hiding from the Germans. Rome filled with veterans of the partisan war, of the underground, of the anonymity and silence of the Italian police state. The suffering of the war, the bold hopes which blossomed after Fascism's overthrow, were described in a torrent of films, stories and novels, bringing a kind of climax to one of the great national literatures of the twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET. "American William Weaver also arrived in Rome in the late 1940s. Open City is an anthology of the writers Weaver admired most, and they all come to life in the pages of his long introductory memoir."--BOOK JACKET.
Angels
From the Publisher: The Book of Genesis depicts them as doing strange things-mating with the daughters of men to spawn giants, for example, and wrestling with Jacob for no apparent reason. In It's a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra spun a tale of one as a bumbling helper of humans; in Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders told of one who wished to be human. They are angels, of course, and they have fascinated us since recorded history began. In Angels, David Albert Jones provides a crisp, broad-ranging survey of angels in theology, philosophy, and popular culture. Focusing on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, he examines how angels have been imagined and explained, and why they continue to captivate us. Jones explores the classical discussion-what they are made of, when they came to be, how many there are, and whether anyone ever did ask how many could dance on the head of a pin. He names the archangels, surveys the different hierarchies, and examines how they have changed over time. Jones explains, for example, how cherubim became cherubs, and why angels in the Hebrew Bible are typically male, but in later art became androgynous, or even female by the twentieth century. The book explores the idea that Satan was a fallen angel (a belief not shared by Islam), and looks at demons and exorcism. But Jones concentrates on good angels, in their roles as messengers, guardians, or helpers. He looks at why the idea of angels remains so attractive, and so potent in modern culture-even among nonbelievers. From scripture to cinema, Jones offers a sweeping, accessible introduction to this remarkable phenomenon. Whether we believe in angels or not, he argues, the study of their role in cultures past and present can teach us much about humanity.
"Shower of stars" dream & book
1996
A tradition of intentional and initiatic dreaming connects the sufism of Ibn Arabi and the Owaysi Order, medieval Kabbala, Taoist scriptures, Afro-Brazilian spirit-cults, Siberian shamanism, and early Christian "angel alphabets." This book deals with specific methods for inducing prophetic or "veridical" dreams, because this book has a purpose: the experimental achievement of non-ordinary consciousness through autonomous openings ("Initiations") to the world of the imagination.