Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica by Erik Davis

Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica Reviews

• 
  Forrest

  This is another case of a beautifully unclassifiable book; baffling to marketers and bookstore shelvers, a marvelous revelation to those of us whose minds work like an ever-evolving kaleidoscope of ecletctic quirkiness. It would be shameful to pigeon-hole Davis' essays into a bucket or even to imply that each has a definite "subject". That's not to say that they are incoherent, no, quite the contrary! They are just . . . shifty . . . and very, very interesting. Erik Davis' interests are, as the title implies, esoteric. The essays in this volume are adventures in UFOlogy, psychoactive drug use, spiritual deep-dives, strange religions, philosophical explorations, anthropological pieces about Trekkies and Cthulhu-cults, modern poetry, Philip K. Dick, and Gak - yes, the slime toy Gak. If this review seems like an incoherent rambling, well, that's probably a fair assessment. I can't hope to plumb the depths of Davis' thoughts, I can only offer a topographical map of his insights at their highest (and lowest) points. That said, let's adventure!
  
  The volume begins with a confessional: "Teenage Head: Confessions of a High School Stoner". I was immediately thrust under the hypnotic influence of Davis' thoughts. Davis, like myself, was a child of the '80s, although he was a couple of years older than me. Still, we shared a lot of the same experiences, exploring the psychotropic landscape. In his words:
  
  Pot led me into a tangible world of bubbling micro-perceptions, haunted winds, and hilarious malformations of the data-stream. But pot also gave me something that has stuck with me far longer than the urge to bake my brain: a love of slippage, founded in the realization that altering perception alters the claims reality makes on you. The various social agendas of parents, teachers, and the ghost of God could be sidestepped - not only by sullen monosyllables and the worship of unwholesome
  heavy-metal guitarists but by tinkering with consciousness itself. What greater rebellion than rewiring one's experience of the world?
  
  And I'll echo his sentiments. Though I haven't smoked weed for, let's see, 28 years now (haven't drunk alcohol since then, either), I still hold that "love of slippage". It's not played out in drug use, but in other, far less dangerous ways: My bizzare sense of humor; love of art in a variety of forms; love of
  heavy metal,
  punk,
  trippy electronic, and
  modern classical music; the insatiable addiction to
  tabletop roleplaying games; a deep spirituality;
  existential philosophy;
  dark chocolate (milk chocolate is for "normals");
  ginger beer that will clear your sinuses; the desire to take long,
  meaningless (or is it meaningful?) walks just to be alone with my thoughts, cleanse my soul, and
  give me perspective; bizarre,
  off-kilter reading material; and, of course, my writing, which I am told is
  rather strange, at times. All of these, pretty much all the non-people that I love and live for, are a manifestation of that same drive that steered me toward pot (etc. . . .) back in the day. The fact is, I have little use for "normal," except that it keeps me employed and that I love my relatively normal wife. And, yes, she reminds me, often, that I am weird. I wouldn't have it any other way. Our kids swing wildly between normal and weird. People can't quite figure our family out, but society largely seems to like us, so long as they know that our strangeness is all played out with good intent.
  
  But I digress . . . and I'm just blathering on about myself . . . and being indulgent . . .
  
  Which are all things that Davis excels at! Only he's better at it than I am.
  
  Whether it's Burmese Ladyboy-possession cults or Klingon neopagan religion or Gak, Davis is never at a loss for words. He is an able Virgil to your Dante-brain, though you might be confused, from time-to-time, as to which level of hell or heaven you are on, exactly. Somehow, it all makes sense . . . mostly. And Davis' obvious penchant for the study of religious phenomena gives him a voice of authority on such matters. You feel as if you can trust his word throughout, though you might not completely understand everything he throws at you.
  
  For instance, "Snakes and Ladders" is an attempted reconciliation of
  early Christian Gnosticism ("floating," as it were - my word, not his - in the ethereal realms of the spirit) with pagan nature-religions (grounded in the Earth) through
  Manichaeism, while co-opting some pieces of mainstream Buddhism along the way. This is not light reading. And while I have enough of a background in religious studies to "get" the high points, some of the connections were lost on me. But though I couldn't explain all the details, I felt that his argument was succesful enough for me, the ignorant layman, to say that he might just have something there. Something I don't entirely understand, but something that seems to be a passable argument. Unfortunately, I don't have the time, and the
  library doesn't have the institutional patience, to allow me a thorough examination of all the fine points. I'll let professors of religion argue those out. That's what they get paid for, right?
  
  On the other hand, I found "The Paisley Gate" quite open for my examination. It is an interesting song with converging and diverging lines split (and conjoined) along the lines of drug-fueled psychedelic trips and the cosmic enlightenment of tantric Buddhism. The essay is a liminal Mandelbrot Set of simultaneously conflicting and complimentary warpings of perception. My brother is a practicing tantric Buddhist, so I know as much as the uninitiated are allowed to know, and those drug-fueled trips . . . well, I've known that territory . . . very well. Davis does an excellent job of adjusting scope in and out so that the reader can see where lines cross and where they might seem to cross, but don't quite do so.
  
  "Diamond Solitaire" was a piece that really touched me, since I have had several "Diamond Solitaire" experiences myself - brushes with the cosmic whole (not to sound too much like a hippie or new-age crystal-dolphin lover - apologies if you are either) that warp perception (or, if you will, clarify perception) suddenly, without warning, and without the kick-start of psychedelic drugs. These revelations have been some deeply meaningful experiences for me, experiences that I don't really share much because they are, to me, very sacred. It felt good to read about Davis' experience, another shared view on life and our place in the greater whole of the universe.
  
  Davis does well to not just focus on such illuminating experiences. He is also in touch with the banal. Who can go on for four solid pages about the slime toy, Gak, and hold, nay compel the reader's attention, even making his observations of the toy intellectually stimulating? Davis can!
  
  He can also (and did) deliver the best synthesis of of Lovecraft's influence and the confluence of "chaos magic" I have ever read in "Calling Cthulhu". In "Saint Phil," he crafts a nicely written essay about the crazed genius science fiction writer and the fuzzy border between reality, imagination, and insanity. Then, while Davis never claims to crack the code of The Matrix in his essay "Matrixter," his peek behind the curtain of technology (by way of lucid dreaming!) reveals that the Wachowski brothers may have inadvertently cracked the tinted window of reality and exposed us all to the disturbing question: "What is control"? As any great essayist will do, he leaves the answer up to us.
  
  Not every essay was as mindblowing as the ones I've outlined above, but most of them were. If you're blown away by one of his essays, chances are you'll be blown away by at least a couple more. I, for one, will be seeking out
  more of his work. Feel free to tag along. We've got a lot to talk about . . .
• 
  Zach

  This book is hard to classify. The majority of this work is a fantastic collection of essays on fringe experience, esoteric thought, and how one views/classifies ideas about the universe. Much of the rest of the title is a schizophrenic collection of obscure references that left this reader feeling a bit lost. Of course, there were nuggets mined out of the obscurity, but it's as if one must have already been steeped in the same type of intellectual gravy as Davis to fully appreciate those particular works. With material ranging from transvestite spirit mediums and Lovecraftian occultists to sociocultural reviews of Burning Man and Klingon cosplay, Davis seems to enjoy taking individuals on a journey that both mystifies and invites readers to examine the subliminal spaces of human expression and experience.
• 
  flannery

  Erik Davis is a really good writer but then, bam, there it was, an essay on "The Matrix".
• 
  Kate Walker

  These were very cool essays on various sub cultures and obscure musicians and spiritual seekers. I especially enjoyed the reporting on the morphing rave scene in India and the scraggly characters that have stuck around way past their expiration date. Also liked the portrait of a bizarro psycho-surf band, the Sun City Girls, and the method to their madness. The description of Burning Man brought back memories. Don't we all wish we could conjure our travel experiences with such immediacy, precision and style. Snazzy writing and frequently exhilirating topics. Great synthesis of various spiritual paths with lots of references to scholarly religious texts. (Many of which I hope to check out myself at some point.) Cool cover (Fred Tomaselli) but could have used some photos to go with the super charged text. The drawings didn't really measure up to the high quality of the writing. But overall, a very fun and fascninating read.
• 
  B. Rule

  The first piece in this odds-and-sods collection sent me flying back into my youth like a punch to the chest. Davis is a creature of fringe cultures, and that's where I lurked in adolescence. So this collection is like a welcome home. It's all that great stuff that you had in your childhood bedroom: posters of Aleister Crowley, gnostic interpretations of pop culture phenomena, political or technological speculations mediated through PKD and/or RAW, fascination with psychedelic culture, rave culture, drug culture, western appropriation of Buddhism/Vedanta culture, occulture, and just general Freaking Out the Squares™ type stuff. It all rules!
  
  One of Davis' great strengths is his predilection for taking religious thinking seriously, and seeing it everywhere. He's right on about that. He's not as deep or wild of a thinker as his heroes like McKenna or the aforementioned RAW, but I do think he understands the religious/initiatory element of culture better than those guys. There are some decent pieces in this collection that explore religious undercurrents of music, movies, and Burning Man. Some of it is fantastic. Some of it is about The Matrix.
  
  I'm torn between my deep simpatico with Davis' general project, and a feeling that he could be better. There's this faint scent of over-exertion about him: all of his florid raps and riffs ultimately can't shake off a self-conscious performativity and a desperate mimesis of the god of gonzo journalism. And for all his grandiose talk about infinite weirdness, his interests turn out to be pretty parochial. Any given piece is built on the same scaffolding of Deleuze and Guattari, Burning Man, the San Francisco Zen Center, gnosticism by way of Dick's 2-3-74, consciousness boosterism, and hipster technofetishism. If you listen to his podcast, he's still talking about the same stuff decades later. There's a whiff of cultural appropriation to a significant quadrant of his interests, even if he tries to parry the charge with talk about orientalismo (the apotropaic hep-cat pun that somehow absolves him and his buddies of real Orientalism).
  
  He's a great explicator, but he's not really an excavator. He beautifully champions the stuff he digs, but I don't get the sense he's out there himself uncovering the really new. Some of the most obscure things he talks about (religious cult festivals in Myanmar, deep-cut world music) seem to have come directly from recommendations by the Sun City Girls guys. I will give him credit that the piece about trickster figures predates Lewis Hyde's work on the same (although I found Hyde more eloquent).
  
  I think Davis' real strength is taste, and a willingness to give a platform to weirdos with specific interests. Lots of these pieces involve conversations with pretty fascinating oddballs. Davis is always sympathetic but maintains a sense of reserve. Kind of an epochē of the esoteric epoch. It's a good and reasonable approach, but maybe a little too reasonable? There's no real sense of danger, which sets people like Dick, McKenna, RAW, et al. on a slightly higher plane than Davis: the sense that they might be truly insane. I don't think Davis is ever gonna lose the plot, but I also don't think he's gonna drive it. A fun collection that's a little dated (although surprisingly prescient at times), I'd recommend reading this only after exhausting Davis' other major works. 3.5/5
• 
  Chris Estey

  Maybe my favorite book of the year. Davis did the Zep 33 1/3, has written for Arthur, Salon, etc., and actually can discuss music, fandom, spirituality, sexuality, drugs, and politics all equally well (and tied together). Yeti following up their Luc Sante compilation with this is like saying, "Estey, just start mailing us checks every month for being the most ace publisher." I'll be living off the glow from this till the Ellen Willis anthology comes out next year, and further blows my mind.
• 
  John Ohno

  After finishing this book, I had a minor existential crisis: my sense of self-worth is based largely on the idea that I have a unique combination of interests, and therefore, can create unique syntheses, but here was Erik Davis demonstrating that not only is he into everything I'm into, but he has also done scholarly-level research into all of those things, performed risky direct experiments with them, and (to top it all off) he can write about them with both flair and lucidity! And then, here he is digging deep into things I've never heard of.
  
  This book is an excellent, informative, and joyful way to make yourself feel inadequate as an intellectual and as a weirdo. I highly recommend it.
• 
  Seamusin

  Struggled with giving the whole collection a high mark... Really it does vary, but some sections really stood out, particular Inner Spaces. Especially in this section, the guy weaves a mad brain basket of religious, spiritual and existential matters. Like no writing I've come across before; a really strangely refreshing point of view on matters of the mind. It does appear a bit pretentious at points, but he's self-aware and just stating his vocabutastic case as it is.
• 
  Clivemichael

  Uneven, entertaining and mind stretching with lol moments
• 
  Shane

  This book is a compilation of essays by a modern-day, less (though by no means un-) drug-addled Hunter S. Thompson. If you've read HST you'd probably like Mr. Davis. The book covers a wide range of topics, from Klingons to Burning Man, by way of H.P. Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick. If you know seven things about all four of those, I'd guess you'll like this book. If you know zero to one thing about them, I'd guess maybe not.
  
  Like Thompson, Davis's prose is best read quickly, almost in a contest to get to the next page while still thinking about what you've read. Doing it this way gets each concept to build on the last until you get to the ending in a certain frenzied state that helps comprehension. At least that's what I've found.
• 
  Dean Mermell

  Erik Davis (who I must disclose is a friend) writes about modern culture from the perspective of the way too intelligent stoner, but he's never snobby or inaccessible. His travel stories in this book as a globetrotting roving eyeball show a world in the throes of a rapid evolution, summoning the ancient rites of a lost culture within the deep beats of a beach party on Goa. Google him... he is a great voice.
• 
  Derek Fenner

  A decent collection of Erik Davis ephemera. Good stuff on West Coast assemblage and some Spicer/Duncan musings. I still prefer VISIONARY STATE, but rambled through this pretty quickly.