Novel explores new counterculture

Published: Monday, November 30, 1998

Monday, November 30, 1998

BOOK: Author examines drug use, cult practices of '90s social movement

By Howard Ho

Daily Bruin Contributor

Everyone knows that the counterculture in the 1960s was nothing more than a harmless rebellion against the status quo of the rigid, repressive conservatism of the 1950s. Protesters thought they could change society into accepting more liberal-minded tenets. Eventually countercultural hippies became a cultural fad and passed away into the history books.

At least we hoped they had.

In his new novel, "Ecstasy Club," Douglas Rushkoff describes modern-day counterculturalism. The difference this time is that the counterculturalists are not really interested in changing society. Isolating themselves from "the social set," they seek to create their own society through esoteric philosophical talk, massive rave parties and hallucinogenic drugs.

The story is told by Zachary Levi, a Jewish SAT tutor who becomes the right-hand-man of Duncan, a Brit who is the de facto leader of a cult.

The cult acquires an abandoned piano factory, which they turn into a site for "an ongoing pagan mass." There they hold parties with a different theme every night, such as gay, Goth-Industrial and rave.

The Piano Factory which, due to copyright violation, adopts the name of The Ecstasy Club, is the new counterculture, intriguing to the conformist bourgeoisie because they can explore the taboo. They seek freedom to transcend space and time, to deprogram the social set, to reprogram themselves with the cult's ideas and to empower others to direct their own mutation to accelerate evolution.

Rushkoff describes strange practices by which the cult seeks to achieve these ends. For example, drugs, such as LSD and Ecstasy are taken prolifically by cult members, often producing profound visions.

Members also indulge in hefty philosophical discourse that sounds like Quentin Tarantino if he had graduated from Harvard. Duncan does most of this, saying things like, "The mind-control propaganda machine of the historically evil Malthusian empire has gotten so effective that it is now working against its own controlling agenda." These talks show how well-educated these cult members are, while at the same time revealing their inherent paranoia.

Another method by which the cult seeks to accelerate evolution is a curious machine known as the Virtual Reality Visionquest Amplification Circuit. The machine feeds its subject's neural activity back into his own brain, like two mirrors facing each other that reflect back and forth infinitely. This becomes the cornerstone of the story as a conspiracy unfolds. Soon the members start to believe that larger forces are trying to shut them down, because they possess this device, which they later learn is a secret government instrument for an experiment that reaches as far as the missing and exploited children labels on the sides of milk cartons.

Only Zach is able to see through all this and find solace in conformity.

Rushkoff is very at home with this subject matter, and shows his comfort by exploring several avenues.

The novel is very diverse in its subject matter, delving into Eastern Philosophy, chaos mathematics, economics and politics.

Some scenes in the novel, such as that of an asexual hermaphrodite and a graphic depiction of an orgy, are a bit too intense for the squeamish, but, of course, that is the novel's charm.

Rushkoff's novel is like porn, base and perverse, but also captivating.

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