In 1987 Hakim Bey invited several friends and allies to astrally project to Antarctica for a convention. Afterwords, visitors sent their accounts to Bey and he compiled them into this zine. The Akashic Record of the Astral Convention. This collection was originally sent only to the contributors and has never before been reprinted. It features lost works by: Coil, Hakim Bey, Shirley MacLaine, James Koehnline, Ivan Stang, Feral Faun (aka Apio), Reverand Crowbar (aka Susan Poe) and Trevor Blake.
This is the record of the AAAZ, the Antarctic Astral Autonomous Zone, that occurred on the night of August 31st - September 1st, 1987.
Hakim Bey is the author of Temporary Autonomous Zone. It's a cultural milestone for a wide variety of subversives from anarchists, occultists, vandal artists, and freaky festival people. The main idea of TAZ was to create exactly what it sounds like TAZ is about: creating places that serve as alternative realities to the prevailing system of control. Specific times and spaces designated to let chaos free, and allow psychological and social mechanisms to self regulate and mutate beyond the confines of so-called consensus reality.
The focus is on having individuals find and establish meaning on their own terms. Creating a TAZ requires face to face interaction and dialog, in a sense, creating an art form which is impossible to ever fully record or understand. In the void where stagnancy and boredom once ruled, wild fantasies called real life take root. The elusive genuine article, with no possible televised reenactments.
Before TAZ's thought virus would reach the anti-capitalists and the rave scene as it did in the 90's, many of the people who recognized the value of Bey's work were few and far apart. Mail order culture was the primary mode of communication with the underground for many people in the 80's. The postal world seen within the pages of High Weirdness by Mail by Ivan Stang has now mostly migrated to cyberspace, where many of these fringe cultures have exploded into bonafide phenomenas. In the meantime, the mutants who were plugged into the paper trail of fresh ideas were yearning for an opportunity to encounter a TAZ. This meant finding a 'Zone' which was totally unexpected.
It was decided to meet astrally or in dreams, at a specific sacred space in Antarctica. Bey sent invites out to his network, and arranged for everyone who participated to send him their experiences, which he would then compile and send back out. What you end up with is an compilation of rare works by an all-star cast of individuals who comprised the occulture before there was a word for it. In this instance, the media created here facilitated a syncing up of communal experiences, and was an essential component of the AAAZ, yet not the AAAZ in itself.
The objective reality of astral projection is inconsequential to the AAAZ. What is of importance is the narrative, lives encouraged to be lived mythically, drawing those lives together in the process. Then again, for those who do entertain astral experiences as accepted facets of reality, the AAAZ was most likely one of the earliest documented records of shared lucid dreams and consciousness. It is historically important for occultists, and personally fulfilling for those who got to participate in it.
