Into the Mystic

Explores the visionary, mystical, and ecstatic traditions that influenced the music of the 1960s

• Examines the visionary, spiritual, and mystical influences on the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, the Incredible String Band, the Left Banke, Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, and others

• Shows how the British Invasion acted as the "detonator" to explode visionary music into the mainstream

• Explains how 1960s rock and roll music transformed consciousness on both the individual and collective levels

The 1960s were a time of huge transformation, sustained and amplified by the music of that era: Rock and Roll. During the 19th and 20th centuries visionary and esoteric spiritual traditions influenced first literature, then film. In the 1960s they entered the realm of popular music, catalyzing the ecstatic experiences that empowered a generation.

Exploring how 1960s rock and roll music became a school of visionary art, Christopher Hill shows how music raised consciousness on both the individual and collective levels to bring about a transformation of the planet. The author traces how rock and roll rose from the sacred music of the African Diaspora, harnessing its ecstatic power for evoking spiritual experiences through music. He shows how the British Invasion, beginning with the Beatles in the early 1960s, acted as the "detonator" to explode visionary music into the mainstream. He explains how 60s rock and roll made a direct appeal to the imaginations of young people, giving them a larger set of reference points around which to understand life. Exploring the sources 1960s musicians drew upon to evoke the initiatory experience, he reveals the influence of European folk traditions, medieval Troubadours, and a lost American history of ecstatic politics and shows how a revival of the ancient use of psychedelic substances was the strongest agent of change, causing the ecstatic, mythic, and sacred to enter the consciousness of a generation.

The author examines the mythic narratives that underscored the work of the Grateful Dead, the French symbolist poets who inspired Bob Dylan, the hallucinatory England of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper, the tale of the Rolling Stones and the Lord of Misrule, Van Morrison's astral journeys, and the dark mysticism of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. Evoking the visionary and apocalyptic atmosphere in which the music of the 1960s was received, the author helps each of us to better understand this transformative era and its mystical roots.

Autorentext

Christopher Hill has written about rock and roll music in the pages of Spin, Record Magazine, International Musician, Chicago Magazine, Downbeat, Deep Roots Magazine, and other national and regional publications. His work has been anthologized in The Rolling Stone Record Review, and he is the author of Holidays and Holy Nights. Currently a contributing editor at Deep Roots Magazine, he lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments

**INTRODUCTION
**A School of Vision

1 An Experience of Power
The Unsuspected Immigrant and the Invisible Institution

2 The Isle Is Full of Noises
The Meaning of the British Invasion

3 The Western Rim
Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the California Apocalypse

4 The Chimes of Freedom
Bob Dylan, Folk-Rock, and Deep America

5 The Vision of the Beloved
Troubadours, Love Songs, and the Pretty Ballerina

6 Earthquake Country
The Grateful Dead, Acid, and the Mythic Life

7 Saving England
The Beatles and the World of Sgt. Pepper

8 My Name Is Called Disturbance
The Rolling Stones and the Lord of Misrule

9 The Sorrowful Mysteries
Van Morrison and Astral Weeks

10 The Proverbs of Hell
The Journey of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground

11 The Vision of Childhood
The Incredible String Band and British Psychedelia

12 An Experience of Power
Zenta New Year, 1968, the Grande Ballroom, Detroit

**Afterword

Notes

Bibliography

Index