Peter Lamborn Wilson, RIP
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It has been brought to my attention that Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey) has passed away. Some of you may know that PLW acknowledged me several times in his two final books which were released only a few months ago. PLW and I began corresponding through an intermediary and friend of his beginning in 2014 after he reached out to me while I was living in Berlin, Germany, since he did not own a computer and did things the old fashioned way. Inspired by some of my writings and translations of Bayānī texts, in 2019 PLW formally requested to enter the Bayān and was simultaneously made an honorary member of the Fatimiya Sufi Order.
I first encountered PLW's writings in 1990 as an undergraduate freshman at the University of New Mexico. Already having become a disciple to the writings of Henry Corbin (d. 1978) when I first came across PLW's SCANDAL: Essays in Islamic Heresy (1988), more than any other work this book sparked my genuine interest in the IsmāꜤīlīs and especially the Alāmūtī concept of the Imām-of-ones-being.
In 1995 I briefly met PLW at the annual gathering of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society in Berkeley, California, where he gave a presentation that would later form the first essay of his SHOWER OF STARS: The Initiatic Dream in Sufism and Taoism (1996). That book resonated with me because of a few of my own initiatic experiences in the Imaginal World of the Dreaming. His notion of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) and Ontological Anarchy has also gone a long way in helping me formulate my own political theory of Theophanocracy.
While there was a lot I agreed with PLW about, there were also some features to his writing and overall work which I profoundly disagreed with, esp. his advocacy on behalf of NAMBLA, although I am of the mind that this latter feature may have possibly been a qalandarī and malāmatī form of warding off people and preventing himself from becoming a guru and unnecessary focus of adoration by bringing blame upon himself as an initiatic act: adoration which has sometimes corrupted even the best and erected turbid veils due to the cultivation of the base ego.
Nevertheless, for whatever of his faults, lapses, omissions and commissions, in my 'Book' Peter Lamborn Wilson left a positive legacy to this world and leaves this life as a 'believer' (mu'min) in the Light of the Bayān, the Primal Point, His Letters of the Living and Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, which he acknowledges in his two final books published this year.
Although I am not a PLWilsonian, in a sense I feel his acknowledgement of myself, the Bayān and the FSO was a sort of passing of the mantle. I would have liked to see PLW live longer and write and publish some more, but the Lord of All-Being and Mistress of All-Life opened a new chapter for him in the Book of Destiny in the afterlife. Peter was 77 years old, i.e. the abjad numerical value of Yā Allāh (يا الله), and he was considered by me a Letter of the NUR.
The Light of the All-High be upon him in every moment, before every moment and after every moment!
https://wahidazal303.blogspot.com/
إنّا لله وإنّا إليه راجعون
He also wrote a fantastic novel "Crowstone". And he wrote some great poems. RIP PLW.
ReplyDeleteHe was a friend of many years.
ReplyDeleteThough there was a falling out over certain issues. I remember and honor our years of friendship before that.
Reminds me of a eulogy I gave for a radio co-worker. This at the same station Pete and i were with. In his last few years with us that co-worker had changed. Became hostile. The staff on the whole turned against him.
I said of him that yes "...he was very difficult towards the end. However remember. He was our friend for the previous 20 years." That closed the circle. We were able to let him go in peace. So long Pete we'll meet again.
No! This is terrible! Now I shall never meet him.
ReplyDeleteMy copy of Crowstone has largely fallen apart, loved to death. I must give it a little restorative bookbinding.
I want a look at those last two books, too.
Z
I will miss him.
ReplyDelete