Peter Lamborn Wilson  

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"In the 1980s and 90s, Situationist ideas were taken up by 'second wave' anarchists. These theorists, such as Bob Black, Hakim Bey, Fredy Perlman and John Zerzan developed the Situationist International's (SI) ideas in various directions, but all attempted to remove the perspectives and proposed practices of the SI from a Marxist theoretical context. These theorists were predominantly associated with the magazines Fifth Estate, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed and Green Anarchy, in which they developed these perspectives. Some hacker related e-zines, which like samizdat were distributed via email and FTP over early internet links and BBS quoted and developed ideas coming from SI. A few of them were N0 Way, N0 Route, UHF, in France; and early Phrack, CDC in the US. More recently, writers such as Thomas de Zengotita in Mediated (2005) wrote something which holds the spirit of situationism, describing the society of the "roaring zeroes" (i.e. 2000-)."--Sholem Stein

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Peter Lamborn Wilson (1945 – May 22, 2022, also known as Hakim Bey) was an American anarchist author and poet, primarily known for his concept of Temporary Autonomous Zones, short-lived spaces which elude formal structures of control. He coined the term pirate utopia, released books such as Immediatism (1994) and recorded with Bill Laswell on the album T.A.Z. (1994).

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Overview

During the 1970s, Wilson lived in the Middle East, where he explored mysticism and translated Persian texts. Starting from the 1980s he wrote (under the pen name of Hakim Bey) numerous political writings, illustrating his theory of "ontological anarchy". His style of anarchism has drawn criticism for its emphasis on individualism and mysticism, as did some of his writings where he defended pederasty.

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Life

While undertaking a classics major at Columbia University, Wilson met Warren Tartaglia, then introducing Islam to students as the leader of a group called the Noble Moors. Attracted by the philosophy, Wilson was initiated into the group, but later joined a group of breakaway members who founded the Moorish Orthodox Church. The Church maintained a presence at the League for Spiritual Discovery, the group established by Timothy Leary.

Appalled by the social and political climate, Wilson had also decided to leave the United States, and shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968 he flew to Lebanon, eventually reaching India with the intention of studying Sufism, but became fascinated by Tantra, tracking down Ganesh Baba. He spent a month in a Kathmandu missionary hospital being treated for hepatitis, and practised meditation techniques in a cave above the east bank of the Ganges. He also allegedly ingested significant quantities of cannabis.

Wilson travelled on to Pakistan. There he lived in several places, mixing with princes, Sufis, and gutter dwellers, and moving from teahouses to opium dens. In Quetta he found "a total disregard of all government", with people reliant on family, clans or tribes, which appealed to him.

Wilson then moved to Iran. It was here that he developed his scholarship. He translated classical Persian texts with French scholar Henry Corbin, and also worked as a journalist at the Tehran Journal. In 1974, Farah Pahlavi Empress of Iran commissioned her personal secretary, scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr, to establish the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy. Nasr offered Wilson the position of director of its English language publications, and editorship of its journal Sophia Perennis. This Wilson edited from 1975 until 1978.

Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Wilson lived in New York City, sharing a brownstone townhouse with William Burroughs, with whom he bonded over their shared interests. Burroughs acknowledged Wilson for providing material on Hassan-i Sabbah which he used for his novel The Western Lands.

Wilson lived in upstate New York. A family trust fund enabled him to live in a state he termed "independently poor". He has been described as "a subcultural monument".

In 2020, in a personal letter to Wahid Azal of the Fatimiya Sufi Order, Wilson requested and was accepted as a Bayānī or Azali, a fact which he obliquely alluded to in his two final books published in early 2022.

Wilson died on May 22, 2022 in Saugerties, New York.

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Hakim Bey

Wilson took an interest in the 'zines' subculture flourishing in Manhattan in the early 1980s, 'zines' being tiny hand-made photocopied magazines published in small quantities concerning whatever the publishers found compelling. "He began writing essays, communiqués as he liked to call them, under the pen name Hakim Bey, which he mailed to friends and publishers of the 'zines' he liked.... His mailouts were immediately popular, and regarded as copyright-free syndicated columns ready for anyone to paste into their photocopied 'zines'..."

Wilson's occasional pen name of Hakim Bey is derived from il-Hakim, the alchemist-king, with 'Bey' a further nod to Moorish Science. Wilson's two personas, as himself and Bey, are facilitated by his publishers who provide separate author biographies even when both appear in the same publication.

His Temporary Autonomous Zones work has been referenced in comparison to the "free party" or teknival scene of the rave subculture. Wilson was supportive of the rave connection, while remarking in an interview, "The ravers were among my biggest readers ... I wish they would rethink all this techno stuff — they didn't get that part of my writing."

More recently, he has commented on the Occupy Movement in an interview with David Levi Strauss of The Brooklyn Rail:

I was beginning to feel that there would never be another American uprising, that the energy was gone, and I have some reasons to think that might be true. I like to point out that the crime rate in America has been declining for a long time, and in my opinion it's because Americans don't even have enough gumption to commit crimes anymore: the creative aspect of crime has fallen into decay. As for the uprising that takes a principled stand against violence, hats off to them, I admire the idealism, but I don't think it's going to accomplish much.

In another interview with David Levi Strauss and Christopher Bamford in The Brooklyn Rail, Bey has discussed his views on what he calls "Green Hermeticism":

We all agreed that there is not a sufficient spiritual focus for the environmental movement. And without a spiritual focus, a movement like this doesn't generate the kind of emotional energy that it needs to battle against global capitalism—that for which there is no other reality, according to most people. It should be a rallying call of the spirit for the environmental movement, or for as many parts of that movement as could be open to it.
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Notable theories

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Ontological anarchy

In the compilation of essays called Immediatism (1994) Wilson explains his particular conception of anarchism and anarchy which he calls "ontological anarchy". In the same compilation he deals with his view of the relationships of individuals with the exterior world as perceived by the senses and a theory of liberation which he calls "immediatism".

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Temporary autonomous zones

Wilson penned articles on three different types of what he called temporary autonomous zones (TAZ). Regarding his concept of TAZ, he said the following in an interview:

... the real genesis was my connection to the communal movement in America, my experiences in the 1960s in places like Timothy Leary's commune in Millbrook ... Usually only the religious ones last longer than a generation—and usually at the expense of becoming quite authoritarian, and probably dismal and boring as well. I've noticed that the exciting ones tend to disappear, and as I began to further study this phenomenon, I found that they tend to disappear in a year or a year and a half.

In an article on obsessive love, Wilson posited a utopia based on generosity as well as obsession and wrote:

I have dreamed this (I remember it suddenly, as if it were literally a dream) — and it has taken on a tantalizing reality and filtered into my life—in certain Temporary Autonomous Zones—an "impossible" time and space ... and on this brief hint, all my theory is based.

As such, it may be said that it is part of the eternal vision of an arcadia where desires are fulfilled without reference to the world, and the search for a means of realising it.

The concept of TAZ was presented in a long elaboration in the book TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism.

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Criticism and controversy

Murray Bookchin included Wilson's work (as Bey) in what he called "lifestyle anarchism", which he criticized Wilson's writing for tendencies towards mysticism, occultism, and irrationalism. Wilson did not respond publicly. Bob Black wrote a rejoinder to Bookchin in Anarchy after Leftism.

Some writers have been troubled by Bey's endorsement of adults having sex with children. Michael Muhammad Knight, a novelist and former friend of Wilson, stated that "writing for NAMBLA amounts to activism in real life. As Hakim Bey, Peter creates a child molester's liberation theology and then publishes it for an audience of potential offenders"

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Linking in at time of death

Abu Nuwas, Albert Street Autonomous Zone, Amour fou, Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche, Anarchism in Germany, Anarchism in Iran, Anarchism in the United States, Anarchist schools of thought, Antero Alli, Autonomedia, Bart Plantenga, Ben-Ishmael Tribe, Bill Laswell discography, Bill Weinberg, Bob Black, Brad Will, Bryan Mantia, Buckethead discography, Buckethead, Cabinet Magazine, Charles Fourier, Charles Fourier, Church of the SubGenius, Claire Pentecost, CyberPsychos AOD, Dave Stitch, David Levi Strauss, Deaths in 2022, Democratic confederalism, Egoist anarchism, Electronic civil disobedience, Émile Armand, Enrico Arrigoni, Evil eye, Faversham, Gholamreza Aavani, Glossary of anarchism, Gnosis (magazine), History of socialism, Index of social and political philosophy articles, Index of social and political philosophy articles, Index of sociopolitical thinkers, Individualism, Individualist anarchism in Europe, Individualist anarchism in the United States, Individualist anarchism, Influence and reception of Friedrich Nietzsche, Ira Cohen, Issues in anarchism, Jack Ward, James Koehnline, Jan Janszoon, John Dunn Hunter, John Moore (anarchist), Konrad Becker, Lamborn, Leigh Blackmore, Libertarian socialism, Libertarianism, Libertatia, List of books about anarchism, List of English-language poets, List of musical supergroups, List of occult writers, List of poets from the United States, List of poets, Metatron (Praxis album), Michael Muhammad Knight, Mold (album), Monochrom, Moorish Orthodox Church of America, Nancy Peters, Nasrollah Pourjavady, Nazar ila'l-murd, Ni'matullāhī, Open City (magazine), Open Siddur Project, Outline of anarchism, Peter Wilson, Phong Bui, Pirate haven, Pirate utopia, Praxis (band), Profanation (Preparation for a Coming Darkness), Psychical nomadism, Quantum Reality, Reboot.fm, Republic of Salé, Robert Anton Wilson, Ron Kolm, Sacrifist, Salé Rovers, Semiotext(e) SF, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Shah Nimatullah Wali, Situationist International, Socialism, Songs of the Week, Stewart Home, Teknival, Temporary Autonomous Zone, Tennessee 2004, The Brooklyn Rail, The Ego and Its Own, The End of Law, The Taqwacores, Thomas Morton (colonist), Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis), Transmutation Live, Union of egoists, William Chittick, William S. Burroughs, World-Information.Org, Zymen Danseker

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Works

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See also


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