Autorentext
Paul Wyld is a singer-songwriter, artist, poet, and author with a liberal arts degree in history. He lives in Santa Monica, California.

Klappentext

A journey into the mystical and spiritual side of the famed Doors front man

• Reveals Jim Morrison as a shamanic initiate and esoteric teacher who used his role as a rock singer to promote the adventure of the spirit and express the power of inner experience

• Examines Morrison’s deep occult and artistic influences, including Kurt Seligmann’s The Mirror of Magic, Colin Wilson’s The Outsider, and the works of Jack Kerouac

• Draws on Morrison’s lyrics and poems, his intimate writings, and the recollections of friends like photographer Paul Ferrara and Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek

The groundbreaking 1960s band The Doors, named for Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, achieved incredible acclaim and influence, ultimately serving as a key group in the development of psychedelic and progressive rock. At the center of it all was front man Jim Morrison, who died in 1971 at age 27. Yet, as author Paul Wyld reveals, despite Morrison’s reputation as a lewd, drunken performer, he was a full-fledged mystical, shamanic figure, a secret teacher of the occult who was not merely central to the development of rock music, but also to the growth of the Western esoteric tradition as a whole.

Wyld looks at the mystical works that inspired Morrison, including Kurt Seligmann’s The Mirror of Magic, Colin Wilson’s The Outsider, and the writings of Nietzsche and Jack Kerouac. Drawing on Morrison’s lyrics and poems, his intimate writings, and the recollections of friends like photographer Paul Ferrara and Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek, the author makes the case that Morrison was not simply a superficial dabbler in the occult but an actual secret teacher transmitting knowledge through the golden thread stretching back to Egypt and Thoth-Hermes.

Explaining how Morrison sought to use his role as a rock singer to express the power of inner experience, Wyld shows how praxis was at the heart of Morrison’s approach, revealed in his journey through the arduous ordeals of shamanic initiation. He was a shaman, mystic, and sage—and an essential part of a great spiritual awakening to which he gave himself over fully.

Inhalt

PREFACE
1717

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION
This Is the Strangest Life I’ve Ever Known

PART I
Into This House, We’re Born

1 It’s Not a Ghost Story

2 Faculty X

3 A Spiritual Awakening

4 The Secret of Mind-Change Reality

5 This Is The Land Where the Pharaoh Died

PART II
**Thoughts in Time & Out of Season

6** There’s Danger on the Edge of Town

7 Lessons of the Ancient War

8 Right Back Where I Came

PART III
Specialize In Having Fun

9 Testing the Bounds of Reality

10 A Funny Sense of Fun

11 I’ll Never Look into Your Eyes Again

PART IV
The Time to Hesitate Is Through

12 The Path of the Sun

13 A Vast, Radiant Beach

14 Who Are Our Friends?

15 An Intense Visitation of Energy

16 The Call of the Wild

17 And We’re on Our Way

PART V
This Ancient & Insane Theater

18 Paradise Now

19 There’s a Killer on the Road

20 Death Makes Angels of Us All

EPILOGUE
Retire Now to Your Tents & to Your Dreams

Notes

Bibliography

Index