The Fixer
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My Philosophy
The Fixer says: "I think a well-done Chilluminati party is part pagan Bacchanalia, part Old Time Religion tent revival, part nineties rave, part circus, and part 23rd century utopian Mars colony."
The Fixer, born in the early sixties, is a student of eastern and western mystical, occult and visionary schools. He lives in the Chicago area with Devorah and has two daughters. He is an IT guy, and has published a book on Indian foreign policy.
High Priest of a south suburban Wiccan coven, and involved with several consciousness and spiritual communities since he was a teen (most influenced by Rosicrucian [AMORC] teachings, Tibetan Buddhism, Taoism, and the emerging life-based thoughts of Gaianism; as well as the metaphysical meanderings of Terence McKenna and Timothy Leary, and panpsychism, and post-humanism, and . . . ), The Fixer went with Devorah to Burning Man in 1998. They came back from Burning Man with a vision: to create and enhance visionary consciousness community in the Midwestern U.S. "Why," we asked, "should we need to go to Nevada to find magic?"
At the same time he came to see serious problems with paganism as a dogmatic, rigid system, and looked for ways to invoke the old pagan energy but in a 21st century expression. Through the nascent Internet, and a series of psychedelic community contacts, the shape of what was coming gradually emerged. The name "Chilluminati" came to him in a dream, but what it would stand for was as yet unknown. In October-November 2004 through a synchronistic set of "accidents", Fixer and Devorah met the rest of the Chilluminati crew and many of our current trancer friends and co-conspirators. The rest is history, the present, and the future.
Fixer's philosophy:
We are not a group of dj's.
We are not a promotion company.
We are a community, both online and physical. We build online community to support physical community. Chilluminati doesn't just happen at our psychedelic parties. It is always on, always connected, always growing.
The Party is an instantiation of Hakim Bey's Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ). It is a transient space for free play of expression and creativity. Quoting Bey, "It is 'epiphanic'- a peak experience on the social as well as individual scale."
The "sell tickets" mentality is Old Think. New Think is to stop thinking of trance parties as one-off music events where people come to be fed music/consumerism by culture producers, old style capitalism. Transform capitalism into participatory community. Learn from Burning Man.
The DJ, deco artist, VJ, promoter and organizer are all just a links in a chain that fails if we dualistically divide ourselves from the dancers and each other. We are not doing this to "entertain people". Get beyond compartmentalization and DJ-audience dichotomy. If any of the links in the chain fail, the party fails.
The DJ, the visual artists, the dancers, the venue, the promotion feed, and the online community comprise a single uninterrupted chain of energy, a participatory community with no beginning or end. Tying this together is The Chilluminati. The psy party is the building block but more important is this whole circular flow of energy/participation/creativity, etc. CHILLUMINATI is a symbol of visionary party excellence, of magic, of an open community that goes beyond turf and boundaries and self-promotion.
As organizers I believe our focus should be on the entire Midwestern U.S., a vast physical territory and completely unlike anything the east or west coast crews have to deal with. Are there any psy party organizers on the planet trying to do what we are doing? I kinda doubt it. Though Brazil seems to have similar challenges.
I believe we must abandon the 2nd millenium model of the hierarchy in favor of the network. Instead of building organizations dominated by alpha male/female figures, we should organize like the Internet organizes: loosely connected nodes of equal connectability. I believe in making decisions on a loose consensus model, respecting the feelings and sensibilities of all organizers and participants. I believe network organizations, if built properly, learn faster, adapt more easily and are more flexible, and have a greater chance of surviving difficulties and handling internal stress and dissent. This is the model I feel is best for the psychedelic organizations of the 21st century.
Follow the Tao of trance. This isn't your parents' psy party.
I am happy with parties of any size, but I feel we could have a community with the scope and spirituality that Australian and South African trancers enjoy. If you want to have large parties in 4 years, parties with the scope that the Australians or South Africans have, we must start with small parties. We will build the party by building community. We build community through our events but we maintain continuity between events through the online community. This is a long-term effort.
I have a vision of a larger community and network of events in 4 years, a conscious community that brings together people of vision and free imagination.
I view The Chilluminati as my spirituality, my church, my religion, but bereft of all the dogma, hierarchy, power trips, and self-righteousness that people often associate with spirituality. I see our parties as the New Bacchanalia, a revival of the ancient festivals of dance, intoxication and divine connection celebrated by the Greeks to honor their old Earth god Bacchus. Bacchus is back, with new technology and a new cultural context.
That's what drives me. Great things lie ahead. Count on it.
