Interview w/GPO extracted from SECONDS magazine. Issue 29.

GENESIS P-ORRIDGE

REVELATIONS
Throbbing, Grisly tales of
GENESIS P. ORRIDGE's exodus.
by ALTHEA MORIN

"OUR AIM IS WAKEFULNESS, OUR ENEMY IS DREAMLESS SLEEP." This motto
is applicable to all the work of GENESIS P-ORRIDGE. Since the
Sixties, he has been at the forefront of controversy and in the
thick of the fight against the power structures that insidiously
eat away at individual freedoms. His work has ranged from the
Avant-Industrial-Noise project Throbbing Gristle, whose influence
has made possible the work of most subsequent Industrial bands, to
Psychic TV, who incorporated dolphin songs, bizarre "Apocalyptic
Folk," and pure Acid House Rave into their music. He's done video,
art exhibitions, spoken word, and collaborations with Timothy
Leary, Pigface, Lab Report, etc., and his book Thee Psychick Bible
has just been published. In order to disseminate his own
subversive, enlightening propaganda, he utilizes the same media
that are used by the power structures he seeks to undermine. His
art investigates government, Pop Music, and religion- testing both
external and self-imposed boundaries.

Genesis has never been a political mouthpiece spouting P.C.
platitudes. His philosophies are deeper than the latest Left Wing
trend. His art is about spiritual transcendence and searching-
without a trace of pseudo-Hippie New Age bullshit. He has been
genuinely extreme- because in order to test boundaries one must be
extreme. He has expressed himself through body modification, Trance
music and video, erotic sex-magick, Psychedelic experience, etc.
His influence has been an integral factor in the modern primitive
resurgence, and his ideas have touched many people.

Genesis' impact was first effected by the network of like-minded
individuals called The Temple of Psychic Youth, a project which he
initiated in 1981 and which spread to become an extended global
tribe. The Temple project ended in 1991, avoiding the trap of
becoming that which it was meant to stand against: dogmatic,
fundamental, resistant to change. A group called T.O.P.Y. still
exists, declaring itself separate, claiming members, and becoming a
"church." But Genesis and his tribe, now known as TOPI, continue.
Genesis' explanation: "These letters do not stand for a series of
four words, as T.O.P.Y. does, rather, they are an integrated whole.
TOPI is one unified word. A place where each unique individual
stands."

But advocating individuality and awareness is not smiled upon by
the status quo, which can recognize a threat when it speaks out
loudly enough. Therefore it's really no surprise that Genesis has
been attacked for his views. While he was working in India as a
volunteer at a soup kitchen for Tibetan refugees, his house in
England was raided, irreplaceable items and information
confiscated, and suddenly his photo was plastered across the
tabloids, in which it was claimed that he was the leader of a
Satanic cult. He has not officially been charged with any crime,
but he, wife Paula, and their two daughters wisely decided not to
return to England. They currently live in California, continuing
their work, and are involved in the project known as The Process,
which is "an interaction, and an alliance of many cultural and
Transmedia groups: artists, writers, videomakers, bands,
philosophers, quantum physicists, pranksters, and even bikers."
Ogre of Skinny Puppy is also intimately involved in this project,
and information is available on the Internet by ftp to
puppy@netcom.com, as well as by SASE to Transmedia Foundation, Box
1034, Occidental, CA 95456. Many musicians and artists attempt to
stand for something larger than just themselves, while trying to
accomplish something meaningful- changing the world. Genesis is one
of the few who have made, and are continuing to make, a real
difference.

SECONDS: When did you move from England to California, and why?

GENESIS: Towards the winter of '90-'91, I was just getting really
fed up with England. But, interestingly enough, we were in a really
strange predicament before we left, which was whilst we were doing
live events- Raves, but more like events in that we'd have
anarchist book shops, lots of alternative information stalls...the
only places we were able to do those events in the end, without
being harassed by the police, was a series of clubs in England that
actually were owned by the Irish people. The myth went that they
were owned by the IRA, and since people didn't want conflict with
the Irish community to inflame the political situation, the police
just didn't go into those clubs. So we found this neutral
diplomatic immune zone, where we could do our events. So we were
doing these very, very overtly psychedelic events where all kinds
of states of consciousness were free to all who were inside, and
there was no trouble because everything was secure...it was getting
so that without any adverts in the papers, with only our mailing
list and word of mouth, we were getting three or four thousand
people. Each time we did one it was in a bigger place with more
people, and yet the distributors and the music press were
completely blacking out our activities- not mentioning us at all,
not admitting these things were happening. All the top DJs were
coming and doing it free. I was actually on the dole before I left
England. I was in a strange position- doing some of the most
successful parties but having no money, because we did them as
near-free as we could. During that last year Mr. Sebastian, who did
all of our piercings and tattoos- he worked in the Gay community,
but from him, we moved it out into the bigger community, and then
when Modern Primitives came out that consolidated the information
for people...about a year before we left, the police raided Mr.
Sebastian's tattoo and piercing studio. They went into his place-
which was completely legal; he had a license from the London
Council- and they went through his appointment book and picked out
fourteen names at random, whilst claiming they were investigating
snuff movies, which, of course, was never mentioned again- that was
just an excuse. One of the names they took was mine. He was
originally charged by this team of detectives, who called
themselves the "Spanner Squad"- their little joke about nuts and
bolt in the human body- on fourteen counts of Grievous Bodily Harm.
Now, no one who had the piercings had complained. They never
interviewed any of the fourteen names, they just took his
appointment book, and the fact that the name was down for a
piercing they considered was proof of Grievous Bodily Harm. In
England, Grievous Bodily Harm is one charge below manslaughter, it
carries a seven-year sentence. And they were trying him on fourteen
counts or near-murder, for doing piercings legally on people who
were happy with them, with a license. Then they dropped my name
from the list, bringing it down to thirteen, which made us
suspicious. We thought, why have they dropped my name? Logic
dictated that it was probably because they had other things in mind
for me and didn't want to spoil one case with another. We were
aware that they knew of my existence, both in connection with Mr.
Sebastian and for my proselytization of Acid House Raves and the
resurgence of Psychedelia, and all the things they're not very
happy about. So to cut a long story short, they accused all these
Gay men who did not know each other of being an S&M torture ring,
and tried them all at once on different charges. So ultimately it
was a lifestyle attack. The case was tried without a jury, only a
High Court Judge, which in England means they're setting a new law-
that it's political. The judges are appointed by the government,
and are usually seventy-year-old men who are completely
conservative in their attitudes. In this particular case, the judge
listened to all the evidence, found everyone guilty, and then
stated that the law was now that it was illegal to actually have a
piercing done, because that was an injury to the body, and to
injure the body was GBH. A piercing or tattoo wounds the skin. He
went further and said it was illegal to give a lover a hickey, and
it was illegal to scratch a lover during sex. Having one ear
pierced is OK, but more than one is GBH. Having your nose pierced
is only legal if you're Asian, because it's religious then. All of
these carry a sentence of seven years. It's insane! It's like Monty
Python! But of course, like all great governments, they only
legislate the people they don't like. It doesn't mean they're
arresting every single person, it means they've criminalized a new
community. A growing, developing community that they feel
threatened by. As a law, it's insanity. He went on to say not only
was that legal, but once the piercing had healed, it was not
illegal, because it was then decorative. All right? You can't get
them, but once you have them, it's OK. Except at no time once
they've healed are you ever allowed to receive or feel any sexual
or sensual erotic pleasure from any of those piercings. Nor must
any piercing in any way be part of sexual activity or sexual
intercourse. So the basic result you have is you can get genital
piercings or nipple piercings, however you must never every again
have an orgasm when it's healed. You must never ever have sex with
anyone, even if you're married. You must never have an erection,
and you must never touch someone and feel pleasure from them. Then
it's OK. But if at any time, even accidentally, you feel pleasure
from them, or they're utilized in any way during sensual pleasure,
that is absolutely illegal in England. He then went on to say it
was illegal to own or have in your house any leather thongs, whips,
belts, handcuffs, masks, ropes, string, or any item that at any
time in any way could be possibly used for sadomasochistic sexual
practices. Which basically means anything. A chair. A bookcase. A
bed. A broken plate. I mean... hot water... milk... matches,
candles.

SECONDS: They can prosecute anyone wherever they want.

GENESIS: Exactly. It was also declared illegal to have any sort of
scarification on your skin, to cut your own skin or have someone
else cut it for you for any kind of pleasure or decorative reason.
GBH to yourself. All of these carry a sentence of seven years plus
fines. Which is pretty significant in terms of a cultural attack!
Now obviously they're not going to run out in vans and arrest every
single person with piercings and tattoos. As a matter of fact there
are more piercing parlors in Britain now than there have ever been,
despite this. But, theoretically, at least, everyone is vulnerable
to being raided at any time, arrested, and literally thrown in
jail. I mean, in England right now it is illegal for me to ever
have an orgasm... my arm is illegal... So that's the background to
where we were when we left. You can see why we were just getting
fed up with it.

SECONDS: Wasn't there also something about them trying to take away
your kids?

GENESIS: Well, this is where I'm getting to. That was the political
and social climate at the time. Mr. Sebastian is still doing
tattooing and piercing. Believe it or not, after the case they said
he could still have his license, and continue. Now you tell me what
that means! But they never gave him back his photo albums. They
took his entire archive of his life's work. And of course, he's
always frightened. Now one thing that was really clear, was that
all the men were Gay men. The Gay community obviously rallied
around and said, "This is an attack on Gay people." Finding a new
excuse to harass and humiliate them. What that led to was that they
wanted to have a test case of some kind involving heterosexuals,
and be able to say, "No, no, no, we hate everyone, not just gays!
We hate all of you weird people!" During that twelve months when
things were relatively quiet after the case, when my name
mysteriously disappeared off the charge sheet while the others
stayed on, the same squad of detectives were investigating me. So
we were the next target. We were involved with anti-apartheid, Gay
rights, animal rights, the Rave movement- which was causing
problems for them- the Temple of Psychic Youth, which was some
mysterious tribal magickal movement which seemed to incorporate all
the things they didn't like: positive sexuality and spirituality
and tribal culture. The next target was bound to be us. Since the
Sixties, I've been involved in all the movements they despise. So
we basically decided we needed to go away and ponder what we wanted
to do next, and whether we even wanted to stay in Britain. During
that year we'd already gone quite a few times to a Tibetan Buddhist
monastery in Scotland, called Samye Ling. The main monk there, Lama
Yeshe- we got on well with him. And we were talking about going to
the Far East, as we'd been to Thailand before, and we were thinking
of going, just to rest and think, absorb all the information and
decide what would be a good thing to do, and he said, "Well, why
don't you go to Nepal as well, to the Himalayas, and you can visit
our monasteries there. We thought, that's good. It's nice to not
just go for yourself, but to go for a reason. So we did a mailout,
and got a huge, huge crate of children's clothes from our mailing
list, we packed that and took it with us, and what was left of our
credit card and royalty money, and locked up the house, with one
person as a caretaker, and went to the Far East. We did Thailand
for a while, then did some work for Panasonic in Tokyo to get more
money so we could stay longer, and then we went to Nepal. And we
did help, every morning we'd get up and go and help with the
kitchen, and feed anywhere from three hundred to eight hundred
Tibetan refugees, lepers, and orphan children. It was actually a
brilliant experience. I wasn't sure if it would seem patronizing,
but from the first smile you get when you hand somebody a good
meal, you just think, "I'm glad I came." It was really one of the
best experiences. We gave all the clothes to be distributed to the
orphan children. So we felt like Psychic TV was actually giving
back something, which is always something we tried to do. And we
visited monasteries and obscure places, and had an amazing time.
And actually discovered that there, walking around with tattoos and
piercings and gold teeth, and my hair, they would just say "Naga
Baba," which means "holy person." All the other holy men would sort
of bless us. It was really quite an affirming experience, to walk
around and suddenly be seen as someone who must be devotional in
their life. Everyone assumed that, since we had the trappings of a
devotional life, and the attitude, in that we were sharing what we
had. The Naga Baba are actually one of the more extreme sects of
Hindu. They're mostly naked, and wander around and are given food.
And they have certain rituals which involve piercing. Genital
piercing, and they have this great big ring through the center of
the ear. It's a seven-year initiation and learning process. At the
end of the seven years, if the guru feels that you're ready, then
you do a whole meditation and ritual and jungle retreat for Shiva,
and then the actual final part of the ceremony is they get a red
hot piece of iron and plunge it through the ear while you're
meditating and focusing on a mantra. You're not allowed to make a
sound or flinch. Some people actually die from the physical trauma
which means that you weren't ready. And some people go mad. But not
often, because it's up to the holy man to be really sure, and by
then they usually know if the person can trance out enough to feel
nothing. A friend of ours, Trilochan, who introduced us to a lot of
people- he's an amazing man- told us about a friend of his who did
the seven years, and asked to do the initiation, and the holy man
said, "No, you're not ready, you've got to do another seven years."
And this man said "No, I want to do it, I am ready." And the holy
man said, "No, I know you're not." And in the end, he said, "If you
don't let me do this I'm just going to kill myself, because I know
I'm ready." So he said, basically, "Well, it's your problem from
now on, but I think it's a terrible mistake." So this man did the
initiation, and when they did the part where they plunge the rod
through his ear, he went insane. Went totally insane. Threw himself
off a bridge and was impaled on a Shiva Lingum, the big penis where
they sacrifice to Shiva. Because he wasn't ready. Heavy stuff.
Scotland Yard wouldn't like it! But on the other hand, you can see
how reassuring for us it was to be in a culture where all of that
was seen as an option- a holy option, as far as understanding life
and existence, and not something to be afraid of. Everyone takes
their devotional life to whatever point they want. Most people
devote their entire life to the most extreme rituals. So there we
are in this amazing culture- the most integrated spiritual,
physical culture I've ever seen. It felt very psychically clean,
balanced, that everything was seen as part of an integrated whole.
The simplest event and the most dramatic event were all equal. They
have a word for that, agori. That means "the path of no
distinction." That there is implicitly no better or worse way to
view something, that everyone's idea of what is pleasant or good is
based on an imprint that we choose. It wasn't good in advance. A
rose is not more beautiful than a weed. They're both equally
beautiful. Or they're both equally uninteresting. But nothing is
better than the other. It's human beings that put these value
systems on them. Then they build moral systems. And the moral
systems build legal systems, and those build policing systems which
build oppressive systems, which build political systems which breed
misery, hypocrisy, and bigotry. So their way of analyzing that is
to say "agori," the path of no distinction. You make all your
decisions based on your own path. And the things in your
environment, everything around you is just around you and it
functions that way. We should try not to have moral, aesthetic
opinions about it. So there's maybe six, maybe eight Agori Babas in
the whole of India and Nepal. They live the life of the Agori,
which is the most difficult of all the Sadhus, the holy men. We met
the chief Agori Baba. We were at this place outside of Katmandu
called Pasparti. We were with Trilochan, looking around. There's
this whole area that no one except the very holy people are allowed
to go, even other Hindus and Asians. And we saw this guy with long
gray dreadlocks who stood behind us, just appeared out of nowhere
and said, "Ah, Trilochan, come with me and bring your friends." And
invited us into the most sacred chamber, the most secret part. They
even have military police guarding it, so no one goes in by
mistake. His chamber is right next to the burning gas where they
burn the human bodies, so there's the smell of burning flesh all
the time inside this chamber, which is carved out of the rock.
Inside he has all these beautiful flowers, all around his altar, so
there's the scent of the most beautifully scented flowers of Nepal,
and the scent of burning flesh all the time, which is the agori-
they're both the same. His discipline is that they smell the same,
beautiful or unpleasant, none is better than the other. And in that
room there's a fire burning that they known has been burning
without ever going out for over a thousand years. It's the fire of
Shiva. And he anointed us with the ash from this fire, which is one
of the most powerful blessings anyone could ever get. It was as if
he knew something was going to happen, because he was giving us all
these blessings and sort of saying, "I want to give you all this
extra power," and he gave us a little jar with ash from the fire,
and said, "Take this to America." Well, it's like, "OK." And we
went back to the hotel, and the next day we got a fax, and it said,
"Phone home, no one's died, but there's trouble." So we borrowed
the phone, rang up, and they said, "Your house was raided by
Scotland Yard this morning at six a.m." Twenty-three detectives,
which is funny. It would be, wouldn't it? It was the only funny
bit, really. What had happened, it turned out, was, we had
originally booked our flights back for the day before. We would
have got back on Friday night and at six a.m. on Saturday morning,
we'd have been back with the children, jet lagged and asleep-
that's when they'd've raided the house. So they had been looking at
the air flights. What happened was- we were just getting ready to
pack, and then Paula said to me, "You don't want to go back, do
you?" And I said "No, not really, I like it here." And she said,
"Yeah, I can tell. Let's just stay as long as we can." And I said
yeah. What's going to be at home? There's going to be bills and
post and we'll be on the dole again... why rush back? Let's stay as
long as we can, just be really frugal and see what happens." So it
was because of her saying that that we weren't on the plane. We
just didn't bother to go to the plane. That's what changed
everything. What happened was our friends that ran Temple Press for
us three doors down the street were just walking along, walking
their dog in the morning, and saw a policeman with a sledgehammer
about to smash the front door of our house. They said, "Why are you
doing that?" They said, "We've got a search warrant." They said,
"Well, why don't you ring the bell? There's someone living
downstairs, looking after the house." They had a video camera, and
they were setting up the camera angle so they could film the door
being smashed in. So they didn't really want to ring the bell, they
wanted it to be very dramatic- it was a propaganda thing. You don't
take video crews every time you go to someone's house. You don't
take twenty-three detectives. So, very begrudgingly, they rang the
bell, and this friend of ours, Alice, came and let them in, and was
completely terrified. They spent all day in there. They took away
two tons of my archive. Video, photo documentation of my
performance artwork. Coum Transmissions, unpublished films by Derek
Jarman of William Burroughs in London, the only copy of the print,
videos of Bryon Gysin, whom I interviewed... irreplaceable stuff,
going way back to 1970-69. All the photos of the children growing
up, the videos of the children being born, everything that was
film, video, or photographs. Visual material. Also they took all
the Tibetan artifacts. Tibetan trunks, museum pieces that I'd spent
years gradually acquiring.

SECONDS: What are art objects supposed to be evidence of?

GENESIS: Well, we still don't know! That was Saturday. On Sunday,
The Observer newspaper published an article saying, "Finally,
Absolute Proof That Satanic Ritual Abuse and Murders Really Do Take
Place," with our logo, the Psychic TV skull and cross. And it said,
"The police and other groups have finally proved that ritual
murders, forced abortions, rapes, human sacrifices, and all these
things that have been said to be born-again Christian myths, are
actually real, and this group led by Genesis P. Orridge are the
people in England doing it. They are the proof that Satan really is
on the planet!" On Monday, all the gutter press- tabloid
newspapers- come out with stories. They were obviously all ready
and prepared, with big pictures of me, saying "This Man is the Most
Evil Man in Britain," and all this. Then on Tuesday, the
documentary was on Channel 4.

SECONDS: Was the documentary on you, or on Satanism?

GENESIS: The whole thing. With bits of our videos cut in, with the
voice-over changed, and also they claimed to have two women who
were ex-members of our "cult" who had been forced to have abortions
and ritual sex, and then eat their own babies, whose faces were
blurred out and voices altered "to protect them." They made these
big confessions about what happened in the "cult," in the basement
of our house. So that's what happened while we were in Katmandu
doing soup kitchens for refugees! To this day, no one has mentioned
what we were actually doing! Now, in the documentary, luckily for
use, one journalist who worked for the Daily Mirror noticed that
when they talked about the secret leader of this Satanic cult that
the image that was flashed was actually Derek Jarman, the Gay
filmmaker. And they thought, "That's a bit strange." So they went
to Derek's house- this was when he was really ill with AIDS, and
dying- at two in the morning there's all these journalists on the
doorstep demanding interviews with the leader of the Satanic cult.
To his credit, Derek, who was a very brave, wonderful man- I knew
him since '68-'69- he said to them, "Why don't you go do some real
research and just grow up? How could you be so ridiculous? Go take
a look and you'll realize it's a complete fabrication. Those video
clips used on Channel 4 were actually made eleven years ago,
commissioned by Channel 4 for an arts program that Genesis did for
them about William Burroughs. Bryon Gysin, and his own work with
video, and he was asked to show ways that people think they see
things that are not there, and the power of video editing to
mislead people. Don't you think that's ironic?" And he said, "I was
actually in it as the figure of a politician, to show that
politicians will say anything if it represents the people in power.
So just go look at it now and try again." Now, to recap on your
question about the children, there'd been a history of two or three
years with this Satanic ritual abuse scare, and it had got to the
point where if anybody phoned up the police or Social Services,
didn't give their name, rang from a call box once, and said, "I
think that George Petros is a Satanist," and he had children,
they'd take the children into care for two years. Based on one
anonymous phone accusation. With no evidence. So if the children
had been there with us, they would have automatically taken them
into care based on that precedent. Which is outrageous! So we were
just really, really blessed that we stayed in Nepal. We went to see
the Tibetan Rinpoche. We said, "Guess what? We're exiles too now!
We're refugees!." And they gave us a free room in a hotel, they
gave us food, and they started taking care of us. So that's where
we were in England. Just in the last few weeks they got a
university professor to do a government report, and the bottom line
was that she said, quite categorically, there is not, and never has
been any ritual Satanic abuse, it's a complete myth, it was
invented by the Christian Right as psychological warfare against
people and groups they don't like. It never did exist. It's a
complete fabrication. This was partly a result of what's happened
to us. To this day we've been charged with nothing. Because we
haven't don anything! Then gradually journalists, starting to check
things through, found the two women "witnesses," and what
transpired, briefly, is that a group of evangelical Christians,
financed by evangelical Christians in America, wanted to set up the
same sort of scare tactics and social attacks that they've had over
here, so they gave them lots of money. Now the TV company that was
commissioned to make the documentary was never a TV company, it was
just these Christians. The person at Channel 4 who commissioned it
was also an evangelical Christian. So he lied in the paperwork,
pretending this was a bona fide TV company. It wasn't. An
evangelical Christian attorney in Liverpool illegally went through
mental hospital documents and found these two women, who had
already had breakdowns over having abortions or having their
babies adopted when they were young. They then took them to a
born-again Christian evangelical house in the north of England and
held them for two days without sleep, harangued them, and accused
them of being possessed by demons and having done all these things
until in the end, just to get out, they confessed. And that was
when they filmed them. Not one of these people has ever been
charged with anything, accused of anything, questioned about
anything... not even an apology to us or a statement to the papers
that accused us of everything except The Daily Mirror. All the
others pretended that they didn't know it was all untrue. To this
day. So the myth still persists.

SECONDS: So these women were never involved in any kind of cult?

GENESIS: No. They didn't even know my name, or the name of TOPI.
They called it something else. They made up a name when they were
asked, called it "The Satanic Coven of something-or-other." They
were just two unstable, unhappy women who were exploited. It wasn't
their fault. If they hadn't done it they'd've got actresses to do
it. So a lot of really illegal stuff went on. It took a lot of
money, and a lot of political power to set that up. To this day, we
can't sue them, because we have no money. We lost our house in
England, which was worth $200,000. We lost our car, we lost...
everything, financially. I mean. I just got a letter saying I owe
the bank in England $43,000. I haven't even got a thousand dollars!
So it was a very calculated attempt to completely destroy our
social and political base. Actually, I contacted a friend not long
after we arrived in the U.S. to try to see through their contacts
in the intelligence community, and they said it was actually
orchestrated by MIC, which is like your CIA, that they were
involved, and it was all political. It wasn't that they personally
hated me, so much as the scenario involving us was perfect for
their social control...

SECONDS: There was T.O.P.Y., which they didn't know much about, so
I'd imagine they'd find that unknown quantity threatening.

GENESIS: Yeah. I've been questioning and challenging their status
quo since '65, so it's like, "This is someone who won't go away,
so..." From their point of view, you can see how it all makes
sense, if they had an agenda of that type. I know for a fact
they've kept a massive file on me since the Sixties, way back when
I was doing underground newspapers. I was in Gay Lib street
theater, I helped set up prisoners' rights organizations. I would
inevitably be drawn toward those controversial places, because
they'd be the most exciting! So it was my turn, I guess. So we're
at a point now where they still have two tons of our archive, all
the photographs and everything, and it's two years later. We've
been charged with nothing. The police have admitted on television
that they knew there was no Satanic involvement of any kind
whatsoever but that they have to investigate it if there's an
accusation. Meanwhile they've got all the stuff. Timothy Leary's
theory is that that's what they wanted all along. They wanted the
archive. They didn't really care about all the rest, that was just
smoke clouds they could just dismiss later and go, "Oh, sorry about
that. Made a mistake. But, you know, we do have to check if someone
accuses you of something."

SECONDS: Now they have information on other people as well.

GENESIS: Exactly. They've got this nice big archive of all of my
collection, and the collection and investigation of lots of people
I know into social control, the media, cut-ups, and how
governments and private power cabals operate. That's what my
archive was- that was the topic. How do they do it? How does the
media do it, and what might they do next? So Timothy Leary is
pretty adamant that that's what they wanted. Because when they
attacked him, they took his archive. It was the first thing they
were looking for. They didn't get it all, because friends hid a lot
of it, but that was the thing they kept asking him, "Where's the
archive?" So he says there's a certain precedent, that's what they
do sometimes, go for the information whilst making a lot of noise
about the individual. So we went back to our Tibetan friends, and
said, "What do you think we should do?" And the most holy of the
Tibetans, after the Dalai Lama said, "Go to California." Which we
though was interesting, seeing as the Hindu agori had said, "Go to
America." So we said, "OK." So people in America sent us tickets.
Because we had no money by then, we'd spent it all on the soup
kitchen! So we came to California, and Michael Horovitz and his
partner Cindy let us live at their house. Michael was actually the
person that hid and kept safe Timothy Leary's archive, one of those
funny little ironies! So he was very aware of the implications, and
really, they were so amazing. They let us just live in their house
until we could sort things out, find somewhere to rent. Then we met
Timothy Leary, and he said, "Come down and stay with me., I know
what it's like." It turned out in the end to have a really positive
effect, in terms of networking on a more global level. It did get
us out of the claustrophobia of England and that sort of parochial
idea that everything that happens in Britain is the most
important...it's not. So that's how we got here!

SECONDS: Since you've been in America, what have you been doing?

GENESIS: Well, we ended up in the Bay Area, and one of the first
things we started doing was working with Timothy Leary and doing
video and audio mixing when he did his lectures and talks. I'd also
talk in the Question and Answer section, and kind of pass the mike
back and forth. I'd talk about the implications of what was
happening with us, and he gave us a really good platform. I still
see Timothy whenever I can- he was really helpful. And we also met
the Rave community, they heard we were in California, found out
where we were, came to see us, put on a benefit Rave to raise money
for us to rent somewhere. People were incredibly supportive. That
was very gratifying, to realize that what we'd been doing all these
years had made enough sense to people over here that the
underground community was prepared to actually do something
practical to help us! So we did some stuff with Raves, and through
that we met lots of computer people. Somebody gave me a computer
with a modem, and I got more involved with what's become known as
cyberspace. Right now, in terms of interesting projects, I got
asked to be in Pigface! Through Pigface I met Ogre and Skinny Puppy
and other musicians, so I connected with the musical community that
way.

SECONDS: Are you on the Pigface recordings?

GENESIS: Yeah, I'm on the live one, called The Truth Without, and
there's a new studio one called Notes From thee Underground, with
two songs I do with Ogre, and one of mine. I found that I got on
really well with Ogre, we just became really good friends, so when
Skinny Puppy was signed to American Records, he asked me to get
involved in the project because he wanted it to also be about
computers, and the Internet, and the possibilities for social
control inherent in a blanket of computer information. Because
whilst you can all contact each other, you can also all be watched,
and located. We'll deal with all those issues- the moral,
political, and sociological, even the spiritual issues of what does
it mean when everyone's part of this larger brain?

SECONDS: How do you think this emphasis on technology connects with
music, and when the music becomes very technological, how does it
tie in with the spiritual and psychological aspects of music?

GENESIS: That's a very interesting question. When people look back,
this will be the Computer Age, the Digital Age. I'm only beginning
to see that it needs to be speculated on, so I don't have a fully
formed picture. But what I want to do working with Skinny Puppy,
Media Chaos, and other people is to sit down with a think tank and
look at exactly that question. I think that is one of the most
important questions we can ask at the moment. And the implications
having to do with anything concerning cyberspace, technology, and
people. One of the great advantages of modern technology to people
who are making music is that for the very first time, every sound
of everything that was ever recorded is theoretically, and probably
soon, practically available to everyone else. And as they start to
fill up databanks with audio sounds, people will continue to
preserve with DATs all over the world in a kind of data glut-
anything and everything that's ever been made recordable. We all
have access to everything, we can assemble and change everything.
Everything can be manipulated, so we're at this rather strange
point in history where nothing is real in a way. It really has
become like the Buddhist interpretation that it's all illusion. Any
sound, any image that can be recorded can also be manipulated and
altered, or reassembled in a way that didn't exist before, and so
on ad infinitum. I don't think any of us really know what that
means. I think it's such a big thought that it's going to take
awhile to come to terms with that, and what it's going to do to how
we perceive reality. But I think it is going to change that
permanently. I think there's going to be a psychological and
behavioral mutation based on that. It could be quite radical. We
can now travel anywhere we want in history, in time, without
leaving the room. We really can. And we'll be able to do so in more
and more of a real way as more and more information is loaded into
databanks and Gopher sites.

SECONDS: Why did you get involved with computers?

GENESIS: I think it's just "hot spots." I've always had a natural
inclination to move toward anything that seems like a hot spot in
the culture to see what's really there and what the implications
are. Because to maintain any sense of personal freedom, you have to
know what the enemy is. I've always had a very strong sense that
maintaining one's personal freedom and intellectual survival are
really to be treasured, and that one of the most exciting and
interesting parts of culture are those people- artists, thinkers,
writers, creative minds that maintain some kind of balance between
totalitarian ways. So far, unfortunately, our species seems to very
relentlessly move toward its own suppression. It's more and more
efficient and effective at controlling itself. Which I find a very
puzzling phenomenon! Yet within that there's always been an
alchemical underground that challenges and speculates and sometimes
makes the most important breakthroughs in terms of thinking that
then become adopted by the powers that be- and then the alchemical
underground has to go on. So there's this ongoing tension between
two camps, which so far seems to characterize the development of
the human species. I don't really know why that should be. I wonder
if it's in the DNA program, maybe it didn't even come from us. Maybe
we were really seeded through DNA and nanotechnology to build some
structure, eventually, for some other intelligence. Maybe the
Internet is actually our final project, and when the Internet is
built, it will manifest separately as an alien intelligence. Maybe
that was always the whole point and we were only here to do that,
no matter how long it took, and the suffering and deaths and wars
and speculations and affiliations- that was just our own ego.
Actually we were programmed ants sent to make a machine for someone
else. It's possible!

SECONDS: What will people trying to connect in cyberspace do to
people connecting on the personal, without-any-technology level?

GENESIS: I think we're going to have a haves and have-nots
situation. I've started writing a short story about it, where there
comes a point in time where almost everyone, like worker ants, are
all plugged in. Everyone's all home, plugged into their computer
terminals, and there's ultimate surveillance as well as ultimate
communication. And a sign of status is to have a vocatomy, to have
your vocal cords cut out, because you no longer need to speak, you
can do everything through cyberspace. And in the middle class it's
a symbol of having enough money to not have to speak. They prove it
by the scar on their neck proving they don't have to speak anymore.
But the incredibly rich and powerful, of course, continue to speak,
but only for social interaction. And also, because speech is the
only way to avoid surveillance. There's no need to have
surveillance on the spoken word anymore. Therefore you would end
up, I speculate, with some sort of guerrilla tribe or group that
would actually have false scars on their necks, but who would talk
in public places in order to conspire to overthrow the system,
because that's the one safe place. And while this is only a
speculation, and it's very science fiction, the implication of
what's going to happen is there. And also, you'll have the people
who have no access to computers. Not just the poor, but the
absolutely disenfranchised. They will not have communication, no
way to purchase. And we're going to split into two species,
basically. It's always been the job of the artist and the creative
thinker and the innately rebellious person to really speculate on
these issues and find ways to expose them and actually use them in
such a way that they're exciting and positive again. To make the
issue itself the art. That's what we've always been here for. So
you can't run from it, you have to find ways to play with it that
are anarchic, challenging, and also entertaining and pleasurable,
so that people hear the story you're telling them, the dangers and
the potential. It's not inherently a dangerous scenario, but
unfortunately the powers that be are inherently callous. They
always have been. I see no change in that. It's our job to expose
that, to comment on it, and to challenge it, and to undermine it
forever, whatever new form it takes.

SECONDS: Do you think the urge toward artistic body modification
that's called "Primitive" is also connected to this?

GENESIS: I think that's a response to a deeper sense of alienation.
And also it's part of an instinctive move toward the link of the
outside and the inside, the passage. An opening. I always think of
a cut in the skin as being a doorway that lets my consciousness
out, and also I can access back into my body. The surface of our
bodies is being more defined as a boundary between certain means of
communication and others. That's why it's becoming significant.
It's a nonverbal appreciation of the problem of where we exist. Are
we just inside our minds, or are we in our bodies, are we outside
the environment? And the skin is the boundary between that, so
working with that skin is discussing that scenario, "Where am I,
and how real can I feel? Am I just an illusion on the TV set, am I
in the media, am I just in cyberspace, am I one tiny molecule of
this amorphous, despicable immoral society, what am I, and how do I
feel, even for a second, that I have some power and control over my
physical sense of being?" I certainly feel it that way. I feel it
more as an affirmation that I exist and feel alive than I do as a
decorative thing. It's not so much a display as a need to feel
alive. And that's actually very healthy, I think, because I think
it does connect us with older traditions and older lineage that's
been hidden for awhile in our society. I think it's a hopeful sign,
a sign of a breakthrough, of a newly mutated and appreciated
attitude of life. That's very spiritual!

SECONDS: How does the link with the erotic energy tie in?

GENESIS: That's another reclamation. To use an example of what's
happening to us, if society is now legislating that you do not own
your own skin, which is what's being done, and no right on any
level, to own their own sexual activity, then the reassertion and
the reclamation of those very powerful, magickal aspects of our
life becomes more and more significant. And people are not drawn
toward piercing and tattooing and so on unless it makes sense to
them. Some people may just feel that it's fashionable, but one part
of them still feels a resonance that's important with it. Whether
some people want to be skeptical about that, I really feel that no
one does it purely and utterly for a fashionable or status reason,
even if they think they do!

SECONDS: So why some people and not other people?

GENESIS: Why did some people take acid in the Sixties and some
didn't? I think it's just an aspect of human society, the ratio of
people that are prepared to live on the edge and explore what
happens, that have an innate need to discover, what it is to be
alive, and what that means, and what sexuality means, and I think
we've all been really lucky that we've been in a time where,
despite all the problems, we do have the chance to discuss more and
more aspects of what culture can be, and what our own human body
and mind can be within that culture. There's no question in my mind
that one of the most important traditions in human history that's
worked in terms of that power is sexual magick in various forms.
It's taken a long time for the Christian Church to erode it enough,
in real terms, for some of the old traditions to resurface. They
never disappeared. I think that despite the burning times, when so
many women were destroyed and their children destroyed, in order to
eradicate the pagan nature religions of the West, by the Church,
and by politicians, that those secrets were buried within our
society.

SECONDS: How do drugs figure in your scene?

GENESIS: Well, the most significant thing about psychedelic drugs
is that for the very first time, in the last fifty years, at least
technically, every human being has the ability to experience some
form of religious, shamanic vision. I think that anything that
breaks down the walls of control is healthy. Being anarchist by
nature!