ONG'S HAT:
GATEWAY TO THE DIMENSIONS!
A full color brochure for the Institute of Chaos Studies
and the Moorish Science Ashram in Ong's Hat,New Jersey.


Introductions
------------

You would not be reading this brochure if you had not
already penetrated half-way to the ICS.You have been
searching for us without knowing it, following oblique
references in crudely xeroxed marginal 'samsidat"
publications,crackpot mystical pamphlets,mailorder
courses in "Kaos Magick"-a paper trail and a coded series
of rumors spread at street level through circles involved
in the illicit distribution of certain controlled
substances and the propagation of certain acts of
insurrection against the Planetary Work Machine and the
Consensus Reality-or perhaps through various obscure
mimeographed technical papers on the edges of "chaos
science"-through pirate computer networks-or even
through pure syncronicity and the pursuit of dreams.
In any case we know something about you,your
interests,deeds and desires,works and days-and we know
your address.
Otherwise...you would not be reading this brochure.

Background
----------

During the 1970s and '80s, "chaos" began to emerge as a
new scientific paradigm,on a level of importance with
Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.It was born out of the
mixing of many different sciences-weather
prediction,Catastrophe Theory,fractal geometry, and the
rapid development of computer graphics capable of
plunging into the depths of fractals and "strange
attractors;"hydraulics and fluid turbulence,evolutionary
biology,mind/brain studies and psychopharmacology also
played major roles in forming the new paradigm.
The slogan "order out of chaos" summed up the gist of
this science,whether it studied the weird fractional-
dimensional shapes underlying sworls of cigarette smoke
or the distribution of colors in marbled paper-or else
dealt with "harder" matters such as heart
fibrillation,particle beams or population vectors.
However,by the late '80s it began to appear as if this
"chaos movement" had split apart into two opposite and
hostile world-views,one placing emphasis on chaos
itself,the other on *order*.
According to the latter sect-the Determinists-chaos was
the enemy,randomness a force to be overcome or
denied.They experienced the new science as a final
vindication of Classical Newtonian physics,and as a
weapon to be used *against* chaos,a tool to map and
predict reality itself.For them, chaos was death and
disorder, entropy and waste.
The opposing faction however experienced chaos as
something benevolent, the necessary  matrix out of which
arises spontaneously an infinity of variegated forms-a
pleroma rather than an abyss-a principle of continual
creation, unstructured, fecund, beautiful, spirit of
wildness.These scientists saw chaos theory as
vindication of Quantum indeterminacy and Godel's Proof,
promise of an open-ended universe, Cantorian infinities
of potential...chaos as *health*.
Easy to predict which of these two schools of thought
would recieve vast funding and support from goverments,
multi-nationals and intelligence agencies.By the end of
the decade, "Quantum/Chaos" had been forced
underground, virtually censored by prestigious scientific
journals-which published only papers by Determinists.
The dissidents were reduced to the level of the *margin*-
and there they found themselves part of yet another
branch  of the paradigm,the underground of cultural chaos-
the "magicians"-and of political chaos-extremist anti-
authoritarian "mutants".
Unlike Relativity, which deals with the Macrocosm of
outer space,and Quantum, which deals with the Microcosm
of particle physics, chaos science takes place largely
within the Mesosphere-the world as we experience it in
"everyday life".,from dripping faucets to banners flapping
in the autumn breezes.Precisely for this reason useful
experimental work in chaos can be carried on without the
hideous expense of cyclotrons and orbital observatories.
So even when the leading theoreticians of Quantum/Chaos
began to be fired from university and corporate
positions,they were still able to pursue certain
goals.Even when they began to suffer political pressures
as well, and sought refuge and space among the mutants
and marginals, still they perservered.By a paradox of
history, their poverty and obscurity forced them to
narrow the scope of their research to precisely those
areas which would ultimately produce concrete results-
pure math, and the mind-simply because these areas were
relatively inexpensive.
Up until the crash of '87, the "alternative network"
amounted to little more than a nebulous weave of pen-
pals and computer enthusiasts,Whole Earth nostalgists,
futurologists, anarchists, food cranks, neo-pagans and
cultists, self-publishing punk poets, armchair
schizophrenics, survivalists and mail artists.The Crash
however opened vast but hard-to-see cracks in the social
and economic control structures of America.Gradually the
marginals and mutants began to fill up those fissures
with the wegs of their own networking.Bit by bit they
created a genuine black economy, as well as a shifting
insubstantial"autonomous zone", impossible to map but
real enough in its various manifestations.
The orphaned scientists of Q/C theory fell into this
invisible anti-empire like a catalyst-or perhaps it was
the other way around.In either case, something
crystallized.To explain the precipitation of this jewel,
we must move on to the specific cases, people and
stories.


History
-------

The Moorish Orthodox Church of America is an offshoot of
the Moorish Science Temple, the New World's first
Islamic heretical sect, founded by a black circus
magicain named Noble Drew Ali in Newark, New jersey in
1913.In the 1950s some white jazz musicians and poets
who held "passports" in the M.S.T. founded the Moorish
Orthodox Church, which also traced its spiritual ancestry
to various "Wandering Bishops" loosely affiliated with
the Old Catholic Church and schisms of Syrian Orthodoxy.
In the '60s the church acquired a new direction from the
Psychedelic Movement, and for a while maintained a
presence at T.Leary's commune in Millbrook, New York.At
the same time the discovery of sufism led certain of its
members to undertake journeys to the East.
One of these Americans, known by the Moorish name Wali
Fard, travelled for years in India, Perisa, and
Afghanistan, where he collected an impressive
assortment of exotic initiations:Tantra in Calcutta, from
an old member of the Bengali Terrorist Party;sufism from
the Ovayssi Order in Shiraz, which rejects all human
masters and insists on visionary experience; and finally,
in the remote Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan, he
converted to an archaic form of Ismailism (the so-called
Assassins) blended out of Buddhist Yab-Yum teachings,
indigenous shamanic sorcery and extremist Shiite
revolutionary philosophy-worshippers of the *Umm al-
kitab*,the "Matrix Book."
Up until the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the
reactionary orthodox "revolution" in Iran,Fard carried on
trade in carpets and other well-known Afghan
exports.When history forced him to return to America in
1978, he was able to launder his savings by purchasing
about 200 acres of land in the New Jersey Pine
Barrens.Around the turn of the decade he moved into an
old rod & gun club on the property along with several
runaway boys from Paramus,New Jersey, and an anarchist
lesbian couple from Brooklyn, and founded the Moorish
Science Ashram.
Through the early-to-mid-'80s the commune's fortunes
fluctuated (sometimes nearly flickering out).Fard self-
published a series of xeroxed "Visionary Recitals" in
which he attempted a synthesis of heretical and
antinomian spirituality,post-Situationist politics, and
chaos science.After the Crash, a number of destitute
Moors and synpathizers began turning up at the Ashram
seeking refuge.Among them were two young chaos
scientists recently fired from Princeton (on a charge of
"seditious nonesense"), a brother and sister,Frank and
Althea Dobbs.
The Dobbs twins spent their early childhood on a UFO-cult
commune in rural Texas,founded by their father, a retired
insurance salesman who was murdered by rogue disciples
during a revival in California.One might say that the
siblings had a head start in chaos-and the Ashram's
modus vivendi suited them admirably.(The Pine Barrens
have often been called "a perfect place for a UFO
landing.")They settled into an old Airstream trailer and
constructed a crude laboratory in a rebuilt barn hidden
deep in the Pines.Illegal sources of income were available
from agricultural projects, and the amorphous community
took shape around the startling breakthroughs made by
the Dobbs twins during the years around the end of the
decade.
As undergraduates at the University of Texas the siblings
had produced a series of equations which, they felt
certain, contained the seeds of a new science they called
"cognitive chaos."Their dimissal from Princeton followed
their attempt to submit these theorems, along with a
theoretical/philosphical system built upon them, as a
joint PhD thesis.
On the assumption that brain activity can be modeled as a
"fractal universe," an outre' topology interfacing with
both random and determined forces, the twins' theorems
showed that consciousness itself could be presented as a
set of "starnge attractors" (or "patterns of chaos") around
which specific neuronal activity would organize itself.By
a bizzare synthesis of mandelbrot and Cantor, they
"solved the problem" of n-dimensional attractors, many
of which they were able to generate on Princeton's
powerful computers before their hasty departure.While
realizing the ultimately indeterminate nature of these
"mind maps," they felt that by attaining a thorough (non-
intuitive and intuitive) grasp of the actual *shapes* of
the attractors, one could "ride with chaos" somewhat as a
"lucid dreamer" learns to contain and direct the process
of REM sleep.Their aborted thesis suggested a boggling
array of benefits which might accrue from such from
such links between cybernetic processes and awareness
itself, includiing the exploration of the brain's unused
capacities, awareness of the morphogentic field and thus
conscious control of autonomic functions, mind-directed
repair of tissue at the cellular/genetic level (control
over most diseases and the aging process), and even a
direct perception of the Heisenbergian behavior of matter
( a process they called "surfing the wave function").Their
thesis advisor told them that even the most modest of
these proposals would suffice for their expungement
from the Graduate Faculty-and if the whole concept
(including theorems) were not such obvious lunacy, he
would have reported them to the FBI as well.
Two more scientists-already residents of Ong's Hat-
joined with Fard and the twins in founding the Institute
of Chaos studies.By sheer "chance" their work provided
the perfect counterparts to the Dobbs' research.Harold
Acton, an expatriate British computer-(and reality-
)hacker, had already linked 64 second-hand personal
computers into a vast ad-hoc system based on his own _I_
Ching_ oriented speculations.And Martine Kallikak, a
native of the Barrens from nearby Chatsworth, had set up
a machine shop.
Ironically, Martine's ancestors once provided guinea pigs
for a notorious studt in eugenics carried out in the 1920s
at the Vineland NJ State Home for the Insane.Published as
a study in "heredity and feeblemindness," the work
proclaimed poverty, non-ordinary sexuality, reluctance to
hold a steady job, and enjoyment of intoxicants as
*proofs* of genetic decay-and thus made a lasting
contribution to the legend of bizarre and lovecraftian
Piney backwoodspeople, incestuous hermits of the bogs.
Martine had long since proven herself a *bricoleuse*,
electronics buff and back-lot inventor of great genius and
artistry.With the arrival of the Dobbs twins, she
discovered her tre metier' in the realization of various
devices for the implementation of their proposed
experiments.
The synergy levelat the ICS exceeded all
expectations.Contacts with other underground experts in
various related fields were maintained by "black modem"
as well as personal visits to the Ashram. The spiritual
rhythms permeating the place proved ideal:periods of
dazed lazy contemplation and applied hedonics
alternating with "peak" bursts of self-overcoming
activity and focused attention.The hodgepodge of "Moorish
Science" (Tntra,sufism,Ismaili esotericism,alchemy and
psychopharmacology,bio-feedback and "brai machine"
meditation techniques,etc.) seemed to harmonize in
unexpectedly fruitful ways with the "pure" science of the
ICS.
Under these conditions progress proved amazingly swift,
stunning even the Institutes founders.Within a year major
advances had been made in all the fields predicted by the
equations.Somewhat more than three years after founding
there occurred *the* breakthrough, the discovery which
served to re-orient our entire project in a new
direction:the Gate.
But to explain the Gate we must retrace some step, and
reveal exactly the purposes and goals of the ICS and
Moorish Science Ashram-the curriculum upon which our
activities are based, and which constitutes our *raison
d'etre.*


The Curriculum
--------------


The original and still ultimate concern of our community
is the enhancement of consciousness and consequent
enlargement of mental, emotional and psychic
activities.When the Ashram was founded by W.Fard the
only means available for this work were the bagful of
oriental and occultist meditational techniques he had
learned in Central Asia, the first-generation "mind
machines" developed during the '80s, and the resources of
exotic pharmacology.
With the first successes of the Dobbs twin's research, it
became obvious to us that the spiritual knowledge of the
Ashramites could be re-organized into a sort of
prearatory course of training for workers in "Cognitive
Chaos."This does not mean we surrendered our original
purpose-attainmeny of non-ordinary consciousness-but
simply that ICS work could be viewed as a prolongation
and practical application of the Ashram work.The
theorems allow us to re-define "self liberation" to
include physical self-renewal and life-extension as well
as the exploration of material reality which (we
maintain) remains *one* with the reality of
consciousness.In this project, the kind of awareness
fostered by meditational techniques plays a part just as
vital as the *techne'* of machines and the pure mentation
of mathematics.
In this scenario, the theorems-or at least a philosophical
understanding of them-serve the purpose of an abstract
*icon* for contemplation.Thus the theorems camn be
absorbed or englobed to the point where they become part
of the inner structure (or "deep grammar" ) of the mind
itself.
In the first stage, intellectual comprehension of the
theorems parallels spiritual work aimed at refining the
faculty of *attention*.At the same time a kind of psychic
anchor is constructed, a firm grounding in celebratory
body-awareness.The erotic and sensual for us cannot be
ritualized and aimed at anything "higher" than themselves-
rather, they constitute the very *ground* on which our
dance is performed, and the atmosphere oor *taste*
which permeates or whole endeavor.
We symbolize this first course of work by the tripartite
Sanskrit term *satchitananda*,
"Being/consciousness/bliss"-the ontological level
symbolized by the theorems, the psychological level by
the meditation, the level of joy by our "tantrik" activity.
The second course (which can begin at any time during or
after the first) involves practiacl instruction in a variety
of "hard sciences", especially evolutionary biology and
genetics, brain physiology, Quantum Mechanics and
computer hacking.We have no need for these disciplines in
any academic sense-in fact our work has already
overturned many existing paradigms in these fields and
rendered the textbooks useless for our purposes-so we
have tailored these courses specifically for relevance to
our central concern, and jettisoned everything
extraneous.
At this point a Fellow of the ICS is prepared for woork
with the device we call the "egg."This consists of a
modified sensory-deprivation  chamber in which
attention can be focused on a computer terminal and
screen.Electrodes are taped to various body parts to
provide physiological data which is fed into the
computer.The explorere now dons a peculiar helmet, a
highly sophisticated fourth-generation version of the
early "brain machines," which can sonically stimulate
brain cells either globally or locally and in various
combinations, thus directing not only "brain waves" but
also highly specific menatl-physical functions.The
helmet is also plugged into the computer and provides
feedback in various programmed ways.
The explorer now undertakes a series of exercises in
which the theorems are used to generate graphic
animations of the "strange attractors" which map various
states of consciousness, setting up feedback loops
between this "iconography" and the actual states
themselves, which are in turn generated through the
helmet simultaneously with their representation on the
screen.Certain of these exercises involve the
"alchemical" use of mind-active drugs, including new
vasopressin derivatives, beta-endorphins and
hallucinogens (usually in "threshold" dosages).Some of
these tinctures are simply to provide active-relaxation
and focused-attention states, others are specifically
linked to the requirments of "Cognitive Chaos" research.
Even in the earliest and crudest stages of the egg's
development the ICS founders quickly realized that many
of the Dobbs twins' PhD thesis predictions might be
considered cautious oor conservative.Enhanced control of
autonomous body functions was attained even in the
second-generation version, and the third provided a kind
of bathysphere capable of "diving "down  even to the
cellular level.Certain unexpected side-effects included
phenomena usually classified as paranormal.We knew we
were not hallucinating all this, quite bluntly, because we
obtained concrete and measurable results, not only in
terms of "yogic powers" (such as suspended
animation,"inner hear,"lucid dreaming and the like) but
also in observable benefits to health:rapid
healing,remission of chronic conditions, *absence of
disease*.
At this point in development of the egg (third generation)
the researchers attempted to "descend" (like SciFi
micronauts) to the Quantum level.
Perhaps the thorniest of all Quantum paradoxes involves
the "collapse of the wave function"-the state of
Schrodinger's famous cat.When does a wave "become" a
particle? At the moment of observation? If so< does this
implicate human consciousness in the actual Q-structure
of reality itself? By observing do we in effect
"create?"The ICS team's ultimate dream was to "ride the
wave" and actually experience (rather than merely
observe) the function-collapse.Through "participation" in
Q-events, it was hoped that the observer/observed
duality could be overcome or evaded.
This hope was based on rather "orthodox" Copenhagian
interpetations of Quantum reality.After some months of
intensive work, however, no one had experienced the
sought-for and expected "moment"...each wave seemed to
flow as far as one cared to ride it, like some perfect
surfer's curl extending to infinity.We began to ssuspect
that the answer to the question"when?" might be "never!"
This contingency had been described rigorously in only
one interpretation of Q-reality, that of J.Wheeler-who
proved that the wave function need never collapse
provided that every Q-event gives rise to an "alternating
world"(the Cat is both alive and dead).
To settle this question a fourth generation of the egg was
evolved and tested, while simultaneously a burst of
research was carried out in the abstruse areas of
"Hillbert space" and the topology of n-dimensional
geometry, on the intuituve assumptions that new
"attractors" could thereby be generated and used to
visualize or "grok" the transitions between alternate
universes.
Again the ICS triumphed...although the immediate success
of the fourth-generation  egg provoked a moment of fear
and panic unmatched in the whole history of "Cognitive
Chaos."
The first run-through of the "Cat" program was
undertaken by a young staff-member of great brilliance
(one of the original Paramus runaways) whose nickname
happened to be Kit-and it happened to take place on the
Spring Equinox.At the precise moment the heavens
changed gears, so to speak, the entire egg vanished from
the laboratory.
Consternation would be a mild term for what ensued.For
about seven minutes the entire ICS lost its collective
cool.At that point however the egg reappeared with its
passenger intact and beaming...like Alice's Chesire Cat
rather than Schrodinger's poor victim.
He had succeeded in riding the wave to its "destination"-
an alternate universe.He had observed it and- in his words-
 "memorized its address." Instinctively he felt that
certain dimensional universes must act as "starnge
attractors" in their own right, and are thus far easier to
access (more "probable") than others.In practical terms,
he had not been dissolved but had found the way to a
"universe next door."
The Gateway had been opened.


Where is Ong's Hat?
-----------------

According to Piney legend, the village of Ong's Hat was
founded sometime in the 19th century whena man named
Ong threw his hat up in the air, landed it in a tree and
was unable to retrieve it (we like to think it vanished
into another world).By the 1920s all traces of settlement
other than a few crumbling chimneys had faded away.But
the name appealed so much to cartographers that some of
them retained it-a dot representing nothing in the midst
of the most isolated flat dark scrub-pines and sandy
creeks in all the vast, empty and perhaps haunted Barrens.
W.Fard's acreage lies in the invisible suburbs of this
invisible town, of which we are the sole inhabitants.You
can find it easily on old survey maps,even trace out the
the old dirt road leading into the bogs where a little
square represents the decrepit "Ong's Hat Rod & Gun Club,"
original residence.However, you might discover that
finding the ICS itself is not so simple.
If you compare your old survey map with the very latest,
you will note that our area lies perilously cl;ose to the
region infamous in recent years, the South Jersey Nuclear
Waste Dump near Fort Dix.The "accident" that occurred
there has made the Barrens even more mepty and
unpopular, as any hard-core Pineys fled the pollution
melting into the state's last untouched wilderness.The
electrified fence shutting off the deadly zone runs less
than a mile above our enclave.
The Accident occurred while we were in the first stages
of developing the fourth-generation egg,the Gate.At the
time we had no idea of its full potential.However all of us
,except for the very youngest (who were evacuated), had
by then been trained in elementary self-directed
generation.A few tests proved that with care and effort
we could resist at least the initial onslaught of radiation
sickness.We decided to stick it out, at least until "the
authorities" (rather than the dump) proved too hot to
endure.
Once the Gate was discovered, we realized the situation
had been saved.The opening and actual interdimensional
travel, can only be effected by a fully trained "cognitive
chaote;" so the first priority was to complete the course
for all our members.A technique for "carrying" young
children was developed (it seems not to work for adult
"non-initiates"), and it was discovered that all inanimate
matter within the egg is also carried across with the
operator.
Little by little we carted our entire establishment
(including most of the buildings) across the topological
abyss.Unlike Baudelaire who pleaded, "Anywhere!-so long
as out of this world!" we knew where we were going.Ong's
Hat has indeed vanished from New Jersey,except for the
hidden laboratory deep in the backwoods where the gate
"exists."
On the other side of the Gate we found a Pine Barrens
similar to ours but in a world which apparently never
developed human life.Of course we have since visited  a
number of other worlds, but we decided to colonize this
one, our first newfoundland.we still live in the same
scattering of weather-gray shacks,Airstream
trailers,recycled chicken coops, and mail-order yurts,
only a bit more spread out-and considerably more
relaxed.We're still dependent on your world for many
things-from coffee to books to computers-and in fact we
have no inclination of cutting ourselves off like
anchorites and merely scampering into a dreamworld.We
intend to spread the word.
The colonization of new worlds-even an infinity of them-
can never act as a panacea for the ills of Consensus
Reality-only as a palliative.we have always taken our
diseases with us to each new frontier...everywhere we go
we exterminate aborigines and battle with our weapons
of law and order against the chaos of reality.
But this time, we believe, the affair will go differently-
because this time the journey outward can only be made
simultaneously with the journey inward-and because this
bootstrap-trick can only be attained by a consciousness
which, to a significant degree, has overcome itself,
liberated itself from self-sickness-and "realized itself."
Not that we think ourselves saints, or try to behave
morally, or imagine ourselves a super-race, absolved
from good and evil.Simply, we like to consider ourselves
awake when we're awake, sleeping when we sleep.we
enjoy good health.We have learned that desire demands
the *other* just as it demands the self.We see no end to
growth while life lasts, no cessation of unfolding, of
continual outpouring of form from chaos.We're moving on,
nomads or monads of the dimensions.Sometimes we feel
almost satisfied...at other times, terrified.
Meanwhile our agents of chaos remain behind to set up
ICS courses,distribute Moorish Orthodox literature ( a
major mask for our propaganda) to subvert and evade our
enemies...We haven't spoken yet of our enemies.Indeed
there remains much we have not said.This text, diguised
as a sort of New Age vacation brochure, must fall silent
at this point, satisfied that it has embedded within itself
enough clues for its intended readers (who are already
halfway to Ong's hat in any case) but not enough for those
with little faith to follow.
CHAOS NEVER DIED!


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

For further research in this area refer to:

incunabula-  gopher.well.sf.ca.us

"Advances in Skin Science" Joseph Matheny interviews
Nick Herbert about Quantum Tantra.     bOING-bOING #11
Oct,1993.
