THREE

The "Paul is Dead" mytho-conspiracy rabbit hole, indeed a wholly holy hole, leads us down very quickly into the depths of classic High Strangeness.  Predating the contemporary forms of what we now call "conspiracy theory", in certain respects it's a paradigm of that mode of thinking but has taken on a new life in the internet era, as these things do. [1]  The story goes that, at the height of the Beatles' success, Paul McCartney was killed in a car accident, midway through the band's creative metamorphosis that began with their retirement from live performance in August 1966 and ended with the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in June 1967.  For reasons occult in every sense, Paul was replaced by lookalike - who, remarkably enough, was every bit as talented the "original" Paul McCartney - a fact the three remaining Beatles chose to keep a secret, referring only in the most oblique ways to the truth through clues hidden in album artwork, backmasked and otherwise obscured messages hidden in the tracks of their records.  But it goes much, much deeper than that...

How believable all this may be is actually the least interesting thing about it.  Some bloggers - and not just bloggers! - have gone to great lengths to prove it but (and here there is a link with more prominent "conspiracy theories") as fun as that is, tend to miss the point. [2]  "P.I.D." is not so much a theory as an unending, collaborative, synchromystic, revisionist, esoteric, holographic game - and, rather like Jorge Luis Borges' Lottery in Babylon, it's a game everyone is playing, whether they're aware of it or not.  (Which, if you really must call it a conspiracy theory, is as good as saying that it's true.  (Which, if it is a game, is as good as saying that it's not (a game))).  The Beatles are so integral to our collective (pop-)cultural consciousness that 1962-70 is as much of an "era" or an "age" as any war, revolution, or months between the release of one iPhone and the next iPhone.  The era within that era, namely 1966-68, acts as a kind of focal point for the interpretation of our ever more intangible world; and is a time to which we must return, time and time again.

The term "conspiracy theory" isn't much more now than a brush with which to tar any off-kilter or eccentric idea, however (im)plausible; and as with all tar-brushings, is just as likely to tar the baby as feather the bathwater. As with "science" and "pseudo-science", the line of demarcation almost certainly isn't where we tend to think it is. Terence Mckenna called conspiracy theories "epistemological cartoons", and course he was largely right but then compared to reality and its increasingly unstable rules, is a cartoon not just as solid?

Raoul Vaneigem's Traité de savoir-vivre à l'usage des jeunes générations (originally published in 1967 and known as The Revolution of Everyday Life in English translation) begins:

"The history of our time calls to mind those Walt Disney characters who rush madly over the edge of a cliff without seeing it: the power of their imagination keeps them suspended in mid-air, but as soon as they look down and see where they are, they fall".  

This text, with Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle, provides the philosophical background to what was going on across Europe and America in the mid-late 60s. [3]  This was the first time politics and pop fused at a globally significant level and nearly 50 years later, just as Zhou Enlai said of 1968, or possibly 1789, as for what it all means, "it's too early to say".

Nothing is real...

Were the Beatles real?  Revolution 9 is their longest recorded excursion into the avant garde and the subject of much speculation but its companion piece, Revolution 1, warrants equal attention.  In fact, both tracks were originally part of a single piece - Revolution 9 coming from an extended coda/jam at the end of the recording session for Revolution.  Their being split into two separate tracks, and the original song being re-recorded as a more radio-friendly version, then appearing on the B-side of Hey Jude, is indicative both of the splintering apart of the Beatles themselves in 1968 - captured on the "White Album" - and the wider context of the transition from the exuberance of 1967 into the chaos of 1968.  Inside of that, we can also note John Lennon's ambiguity in the use of "count me in" or "count me out" across the different recordings Revolution.

As for the number 9, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince's The Stargate Conspiracy tells the story of the Council of Nine, a mysterious, possibly extraterrestrial group of unknown purpose or power but which have connections with everything from Edgar Cayce, L. Ron Hubbard, Gene Roddenberry and Uri Geller, to the Pyramids and sacred mushroom cults, to Timothy Leary, Gordon Wasson, Yoko Ono and, of course, Aleister Crowley.  There's also a passing reference to The Fool and their work with...the Beatles. [4]  It becomes difficult even to get started.

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All links at #ISODT-THREE