illbrook by Art Kleps
A Narrative of the Early Years of American Psychedelianism
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
It is, of course, a thing which ought to be settled, and I am not going to
have anything particular to do next winter anyway.
A WORD OF EXPLANATION
1968: Timothy Leary threatens to “go over to Tommy’s side” if he doesn’t
get Maynard Ferguson’s furniture back from the Buddha of the Future.
Chapter 1
CAMELOT
1963: JFK is assassinated. William and Thomas
Mellon Hitchcock finance and promote Psychedelianism on their
2,500-acre estate at Millbrook, New York. Teenage queens fail to
behave in a manner to which the author has become accustomed.
Chapter 2
KING ARTHUR’S COURT
1960: Patchogue, Long Island. The author, in his fifth year as a
school and clinical psychologist, takes half a gram of mescaline
sulfate, with the usual consequences.
Chapter 3
KNIGHTS OF THE TABLE ROUND
1963: First visit to the Mellon Hitchcock estate. IFIF. The Castalia
Foundation. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Drs. Leary, Metzner
and Alpert, and the supporting cast of the early days. A professor of
art from Cornell loses track of which side is which.
Chapter 4
SIR DINADAN THE HUMORIST
1964: Cambridge. IFIF. Lisa Bieberman. The Psychedelic
Review. A eulogy for Aldous Huxley. The author gets stoned and
loaded with Alan Watts.
Chapter 5
AN INSPIRATION
Easter vacation at Millbrook. Lost in a meditation closet.
Chapter 6
THE ECLIPSE
Solipsism and synchronicity. Enlightenment is a gas. Ideas of
reference are where it’s at.
Chapter 7
MERLIN’S TOWER
Dick Alpert’s photos of co-educational shit-ins. A trip with Tim
aborted by Susans who think I’m bananas. Did Herman Hesse smoke
edelweiss or what?
Chapter 8
THE BOSS
A candle explodes, threatening universal urination. The Zmms; Snazzm, Fazzm and
McPozzm are introduced and defined. William Mellon Hitchcock hopes to use LSD to make more
money on the stock market. Tim says the author is having a bad trip.
Chapter 9
THE TOURNAMENT
Fired by a Person person. The hidden hand at work. A visit from the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. A refusal to love shit, despite Tim’s
glowing recommendation.
Chapter 10
BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION
Morning Glory Lodge on Cranberry Lake. The Neo-American Church, foundation and former
and present doctrines and practices of. Peyote to the people.
Chapter 11
THE YANKEE IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURE
Millbrook. Tim’s in Nepal with a Swedish model of aristocratic
lineage. The author finds it hard to believe that “Poughkeepsie”
means “Place of Overflowing Shitholes” in the language of the
Iroquois. Hollingshead twirls. Ralph pulls out joints. The author
reads a sermon on digestion to paying visitors in bed sheets. A
Psychedelian PTA meeting.
Chapter 12
SLOW TORTURE
Millbrook. Bombed with 1,000 mics. The Kundalini experience.
Chapter 13
FREEMEN!
1965-66: Summer at Cranberry Lake. Winter in Miami. Back to the
lake. Visitors, including Jack Kerouac, appear for sugar cubes and
conversation. In Texas, a Sado-Judeo-Paulinian (these people are not “Christians”)
punishment freak sentences Tim to thirty years in prison because hemp
was discovered in his daughter’s pants.
Chapter 14
“DEFEND THEE, LORD!”
Fun and games in the palaces of the ruling Sado-Judeo-Paulinian serial
killers and mass murderers of Washington, D.C. A territorial dispute
with a hireling of the American Medical Association, who has a point,
sort of.
Chapter 15
SANDY’S TALE
Meat Hook Baird, M.D., tells the Senate of the United States that acid
heads are skinny, bespectacled, hedonistic runts with covert and overt
homosexual conflicts, pugnacious noses, receding chins and marked
“gratification complexes.” The author, front page news, causes Bobby
Kennedy to foam at the mouth.
Chapter 16
MORGAN LE FAY
Stabbed in the back on the home front.
Chapter 17
A ROYAL BANQUET
Marijuana goddesses galore. Bill Haines and the Sri Ram Ashrama are
introduced to Timothy Leary and the League for Spiritual Discovery.
Hired by a funny farm in New Jersey, but there are blackbirds on the
left.
Chapter 18
IN THE QUEEN’S DUNGEONS
Really stabbed in the back on the home front. Billy Hitchcock tries to
help, but Tim thinks I should go to Alabama.
Chapter 19
KNIGHT-ERRANTRY AS A TRADE
The author, a cockeyed optimist, finds something good to say about delirium tremens.
Chapter 20
THE OGRE’S CASTLE
How not to live over a white-lightning run. Jailed in Florida. Back to
Millbrook. You’re as good a man as I am, Bali Ram.
Chapter 21
THE PILGRIMS
January, 1967: Tim’s in California. Haines is in charge of the Big
House. All present are accounted for. The author recovers.
Chapter 22
THE HOLY FOUNTAIN
Under the benign tyranny of William Haines, a.k.a. “Sri Sankara,” a
fun time is had in the Big House by Leaguers and Ashramites alike.
Chapter 23
RESTORATION OF THE FOUNTAIN
Bob Ross, goat lover vs. the author and Otto H. Baron von Albenesius, sheep herders.
Chapter 24
A RIVAL MAGICIAN
A crazed dentist disgraces the Neo-American Church on the West Coast, but the author
excommunicates the rotten bastard. A sociable trip in the Meditation House.
Chapter 25
A COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION
Tim decides to return, despite a deal he made with the despots of the
Place of Overflowing Shitholes to never do so. He demands that we
evict Rudy and Jackie first.
Chapter 26
THE FIRST NEWSPAPER
They are driven forth and the author gets their room. The
Bombardment and Annihilation of the Planet Saturn and Divine Toad
Sweat: Bloated House Organ of the Church.
The Mysterium Tremendum on $5 a day.
Chapter 27
THE YANKEE AND THE KING TRAVEL INCOGNITO
The view from that room was lovely when snow was falling, a hushed
surround both brilliant and subdued, which, for all its detail, gave
little hint of what century or country we were in.
Chapter 28
DRILLING THE KING
Barefoot Michael Green, Bill Haines and the author are invited to the
Bungalow for drinks. Then Bali Ram (shod in gold slippers), Bill
Haines and the author are invited to the Bungalow for a trip.
Chapter 29
THE SMALLPOX HUT
Suzanne and Aurora are fixing the drinks?
Chapter 30
THE TRAGEDY OF THE MANOR HOUSE
“The needle leaked. Tee hee.” Oh well, in for a dime, in for a dollar.
Chapter 31
MARCO
Holy shit!
Chapter 32
DOWLEY’S HUMILIATION
“What do you think this is, Sham? The Calcutta bazaar?” Wendy’s offer
to strip is accepted, on a trial basis.
Chapter 33
SIXTH-CENTURY POLITICAL ECONOMY
Tim returns, but too late. Things have changed. Is “Victory Over
Horseshit!” a “gentle love message”? Does Tim have enough clout with
the Hitchcocks to evict the Ashram? No, to both questions.
Chapter 34
THE YANKEE AND THE KING SOLD AS SLAVES
Peggy Hitchcock throws a “psychedelic seder” at her town house in New
York. Bill Haines and author prepare the punch for this celebration of
mass racist infanticide. An Episcopal priest sees the light. The
Neo-American Church gets the Gatehouse.
Chapter 35
A PITIFUL INCIDENT
The Kriya Press of the Sri Ram Ashrama prints 2,000 copies of the
Neo-American Church Catechism and Handbook. Tim’s “review”
thereof. Moonlight madness and the Mellon millions.
Chapter 36
AN ENCOUNTER IN THE DARK
Billy Hitchcock and the author, now boon companions, do not entirely
succeed in resisting the artful wiles of ruthless adventuresses who
seek to enmesh our souls in the toils of carnality.
Chapter 37
AN AWFUL PREDICAMENT
Egalitarian primitivists are all over the place. Tord moves in. The
author appears on the Alan Burke Show. It becomes clear Tim
would rather rule in Hell than share Heaven with the likes of us.
Chapter 38
SIR LAUNCELOT AND KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE
The great Fourth of July party of 1967. Champagne Charlie Rumsey, Joe
Gross, M.D., Huntington Hartford and daughter, Cathy, dedicated
missionary bee hee. A fast forward to a contrasting, occultist kind of
party in California in ’68. Tim evicts an East Village, freeloading,
female freak from the Bungalow.
Chapter 39
THE YANKEE’S FIGHT WITH THE KNIGHTS
The author is the sanest person on the property? According to Tim and
a public poll, yes. Tim pronounces himself a charlatan. Susan is
upset, but a Virginian Mellon of Pennsylvania, or vice versa, is
delighted to hear it. Capitalism in action.
Chapter 40
THREE YEARS LATER
An editor pockets an editorial without reading it. Back to 1967. Wendy
and author tie the knot. So do Howie and Betsy, with Pat O’Neill
dancing naked on the Big House roof at the reception. The repetition
compulsion is bad news.
Chapter 41
THE INTERDICT
The Sado-Judeo-Paulinian Voodoo-Papist gang lords of the Place of
Overflowing Shitholes order their minions to assault us, women and
children first.
Chapter 42
WAR!
Tommy deeds territory to all three persecuted sects. Tim invites the
author to take over the Big House.
Chapter 43
THE BATTLE OF THE SAND BELT
Little Billy takes Orange Sunshine. Suzanne is accused of indecent
exposure. The author barfs on a limo, and other mopping-up operations.
Chapter 44
A POSTSCRIPT BY CLARENCE
The author claims to have loved every minute of it, even when he was
barfing on the limo.
FINAL P.S. BY M.T.
Have some solipsistic nihilism with a little Snazzm, Fazzm and McPozzm
on the side.