Hakim Bey

Hakim Bey

Hakim Bey (born Peter Lamborn Wilson, 1945), is an American political writer, essayist, and poet, known for first proposing the concept of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ), based on a historical review of pirate utopias.

Life and work

Bey's early work is described in the translator's biography of one of his earliest works:

After studying at Columbia University, he did extensive traveling in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. He studied Tantra in West Bengal and visited many Sufi shrines and masters. In 1971 he undertook research on the Ni'matullahi funded by the Marsden Foundation of New York.^[1]

This research was the basis of Bey's book Kings of Love. The biography continues:

During 1974 and 1975 he was consultant in London and Tehran for the World of Islam Festival. In 1974 he became director of English language publications at the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy in Tehran under Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and he studied, worked with, and published books by Nasr, Toshihiko Izutsu, Henry Corbin and others. He was editor of Sophia Perennis, the Journal of the IIAP.

Bey left Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In the 1980s, his ideas evolved from a kind of Guénonist neo-traditionalism to a synthesis of anarchism and Situationist ideas with heterodox Sufism and Neopaganism, describing his ideas as "anarchist ontology" or "immediatism". In the past he has worked with the not-for-profit publishing project Autonomedia, in Brooklyn, New York.

In addition to his writings on anarchism and Temporary Autonomous Zones, Bey has written essays on such diverse topics as Tong traditions, the utopian Charles Fourier, the fascist Gabriele D'Annunzio, the connections between Sufism and ancient Celtic culture, sacred pederasty in the Sufi tradition^[2], technology and Luddism, and Amanita muscaria use in ancient Ireland.

Bey's poetic texts and poems have appeared in: P.A.N.; Panthology One, Two, and Three; Ganymede; Exquisite Corpse; and the various Acolyte Reader paperbacks. Many of these poems, including the 'Sandburg' series, are collected in the as-yet unpublished DogStar volume. Currently his works can be found regularly in publications like Fifth Estate and the NYC-based First of the Month.

He has also published at least one novel, The Chronicles of Qamar: Crowstone.^[3]

Bey, especially because of his TAZ work, has often been embraced by Rave culture. Ravers have identified the experience and occasion of raves as part of the tradition of "Temporary Autonomous Zones" that Bey outlines, particularly the "free party" or Teknival scene. Bey has been 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."^[4]

Criticism

Wilson is a controversial figure within the anarchist milieu. Many social anarchists denounce his ideas as "lifestyle anarchism", seeing his ideas as a kind of extreme individualist anarchism that is ultimately apolitical.^{[citation needed]} In Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm, Murray Bookchin criticised the perceived tendency toward mysticism, occultism, and irrationalism in what he called "Lifestyle Anarchism," a category in which he included Wilson's work.^[5]

Books

• The Winter Calligraphy of Ustad Selim, & Other Poems (1975) (Ipswich, England) ISBN 0-903880-05-9
• Science and Technology in Islam (1976) (with Leonard Harrow)
• Traditional Modes of Contemplation & Action (1977) (editor, with Yusuf Ibish)
• Nasir-I Khusraw: 40 Poems from the Divan (1977) (translator and editor, with Gholam Reza Aavani) ISBN 0-87773-730-4
• DIVAN (1978) (poems, London/Tehran)
• Kings of Love: The Poetry and History of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order of Iran (1978) (translator and editor, with Nasrollah Pourjavady; Tehran)
• Angels (1980, 1994) ISBN 0-500-11017-4 (abridged edition: ISBN 0-500-81044-3)
• Weaver of Tales: Persian Picture Rugs (1980) (with Karl Schlamminger)
• Loving Boys: Semiotext(e) Special (1980) (editor as Hakim Bey; Semiotext(e) (New York))
• Divine Flashes (1982) (by Fakhruddin 'Iraqi, translated and introduced with William C. Chittick; Paulist Press (Mahwah, New Jersey)) ISBN 0-8091-2372-X
• Crowstone: The Chronicles of Qamar (1983) (as Hakim Bey)
• CHAOS: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism (1985) (as Hakim Bey; Grim Reaper Press (Weehawken, New Jersey))
• Semiotext(e) USA (1987) (co-editor, with Jim Fleming)
• Scandal: Essays in Islamic Heresy (1988) (Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York)) ISBN 0-936756-15-2
• The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry (1988) (translator and editor, with Nasrollah Pourjavady) ISBN 0-933999-65-8
• Semiotext(e) SF (1989) (co-editor, with Rudy Rucker and Robert Anton Wilson)
• TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism (1991) (as Hakim Bey; incorporates full text of CHAOS) ISBN 0-936756-76-4
• The Universe: A Mirror of Itself (1992?) (Xexoxial Editions (La Farge, Wisconsin))
• Immediatism (1992, 1994) (as Hakim Bey; originally published as Radio Sermonettes) ISBN 1-873176-42-2
• Aimless Wandering: Chuang Tzu's Chaos Linguistics (1993) (as Hakim Bey; Xexoxial Editions (La Farge, Wisconsin))
• Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam (1993) (City Lights Books (San Francisco)) ISBN 0-87286-275-5
• The Little Book of Angel Wisdom (1993, 1997) ISBN 1-85230-436-7 ISBN 1-86204-048-6
• O Tribe That Loves Boys: The Poetry of Abu Nuwas (1993) (translator and editor, as Hakim Bey) ISBN 90-800857-3-1
• Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs and European Renegadoes (1995, 2003) (Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York)) ISBN 1-57027-158-5
• Millennium (1996) (as Hakim Bey; Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York) and Garden of Delight (Dublin, Ireland)) ISBN 1-57027-045-7
• "Shower of Stars" Dream & Book: The Initiatic Dream in Sufism and Taoism (1996) (Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York)) ISBN 1-57027-036-8
• Escape from the Nineteenth Century and Other Essays (1998) (Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York)) ISBN 1-57027-073-2
• Wild Children (1998) (co-editor, with Dave Mandl)
• Avant Gardening: Ecological Struggle in the City & the World (1999) (co-editor, with Bill Weinberg) ISBN 1-57027-092-9
• Ploughing the Clouds: The Search for Irish Soma (1999) ISBN 0-87286-326-3
• TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, Second Edition (2003) (as Hakim Bey; incorporates full text of CHAOS and Aimless Wanderings; Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York)) ISBN 1-57027-151-8
• Orgies Of The Hemp Eaters (2004) (co-editor as Hakim Bey with Abel Zug) ISBN 1-57027-143-7
• rain queer (2005) (Farfalla Press (Brooklyn, New York)) ISBN 0-9766341-1-2
• Gothick Institutions (2005) ISBN 0-9770049-0-2
• Green Hermeticism: Alchemy and Ecology; (with Christopher Bamford and Kevin Townley, Lindisfarne (2007)) ISBN 1-5842004-9-9
• Black Fez Manifesto (2008) ISBN 978-1-57027-187-8

References

External links

Philosophy portal

• The Writings of Hakim Bey A considerable collection of his articles are available online here.
• July 2004 interview from the Brooklyn Rail
• January 2006 Affinity Project Interview Part One, On Islam
• How many times do we have to educate these fucking fools?" — An interview by Alexandre Miltsov (spring 2005) part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4
• Audio of 1993 talk featuring Hakim Bey
• Roots of Rebellion audio interview with Hakim Bey
• Obituary of Robert Anton Wilson from Fifth Estate by Lamborn Wilson.
• Peter Lamborn Wilson's blog on Reality Sandwich