Computer Hackers and Witchcraft - Wizards of Technology

Recently I found myself reading up on the early developers of the personal computer and their interests/ associates.

I came across something interesting while reading a book written by a former writer for Wired and Newsweek which I present here;

Hackers - heroes of the computer revolution
Steven Levy
page 224-225

But Les Solomon had more magic to transmit. One of the stories he would tell, stories so outrageous that only a penny pincher of the imagination would complain of their improbability, was of the time he was exploring in pursuit of one of his "hobbies," pre-Columbian archeology. This required much time in jungles, "running around with Indians diging, pitching around in dirt . . . you know, finding things. It was from those Indians, Les Solomon insisted, that he learned the vital principle of vril, a power that allows you to move huge objects with very little force. . . . .

(Perhaps vril was the power that Ed Roberts was talking about when he realized that his Altair would give people the power of ten thousand pyramid-building Egyptians.) According to his story, Solomon met a venerable Brujo and asked if he might learn this power. Could the brujo teach him? And the brujo complied. . . .

Outside of SLAC were huge picnic tables with concrete bases. Solomon had the Homebrew people touch their hands on one of the tables, and he touched i, too. They simply had to think it would rise.

Lee Felsenstein later described the scene: "He'd said, 'Hey let me show you . . .' We were hanging on his every word, we'd do anything. So about six people surrounded the table, put their hands on. He put his hand on top, squinted his eyes and said, 'Let's go.'

And the table raised about a foot.

It rose like a harmonic motion, [as elegant as] a sine wave. It didn't feel heavy. It just happened."

Afterward even the participants, save Solomon, were not sure that it had really happened. . . .

Homebrew Club was sitting atop the power of vril.

Here we have Les Solomon an early writer for Popular Electronics ( en.wikipedia.org... ) who was actively interested in what is termed in modernity, the occult. He was extremely influential in publishing articles concerning critical developments in the personal computing world such as the first publicly available PC with a video terminal named Sol. An interesting factoid about the Sol system was that its development was delayed in an effort to include hexagrams in its display capabilities. The connection of solar symbolism as well as hexagrams is intrinsic to the "occult."

Of note on the Homebrew Club is that Steve Wozniak ( en.wikipedia.org... ) was an early member of the group and later joined the Order of the Eastern Star, a masonic organization accepting both males and females as members. Later he produced the first Apple computer with Steve Jobs whom was very interested in esoteric pursuits.

Lee Felsenstein (en.wikipedia.org... ) was an important developer early in the dawn of the computer revolution and his support of the seemingly supernatural occurrence after a meeting of the Homebrew Club certainly lends support to the notion that something else may have been afoot in the dark corners of the revolution.

The brujo is essentially a South American practitioner of shamanism or witchcraft and can be further investigated here; en.wikipedia.org...

The fact that this writer worked for Newsweek, a publication founded by a member of the Yale senior society Skull and Bones, is telling as well. Skull and Bones members have a long history of holding high positions in the American military industrial complex, the CIA, as well as members like Prescott Bush being exposed for financing the Nazi's. The head of the Nazi party was one Hitler who was a member of the Thule Society which spread the concept on the 'vril.' Further information of the Skull and Bones can be found in the text, Fleshing Out Skull & Bones: Investigations into America's Most Powerful Secret Society by Kris Millegan ( www.amazon.com... ). Their ritual practices and use of symbolism indicates a connection to the Mystery Cults of old which were the western worlds' equivalent of brujos.

Wizards of the computer revolution indeed.
-FBB

Interesting subject. Deserving of delving deeper, imo. I have some material that might fit here, lemme see if I can dig it up.

I wonder if Chester Carlson fits this topic?

Chester Carlson Inventor Xerox Copier

"When one studies the origins of much of modern technology, one inevitable comes across some sort of spirit guidance leading the inventor towards their "great idea". Medical scientist Andrija Puharich,holder of more than 50 patents, gave his opinion about these strange inspirations.

"I am personally convinced that superior beings from other spaces and other times have initiated arenewed dialogue with humanity. While I do not doubt [their existence] ... I do not know what theirgoals are with respect to humankind." [Andrija Puharich, Uri: A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller
(NewYork, 1975), p. 213....

One of the most famous examples of this is Chester Carlson (1906-1968), inventor of the Xeroxphotocopying process, who received guidance for his invention from the spirit world. By the fall of 1938,Carlson's wife had convinced him that his experiments needed to be conducted elsewhere.

He rented aroom on the second floor of a house owned by his mother-in-law at 32-05 37th Street in Astoria,Queens. He hired an assistant, Otto Kornei, an out-of-work Austrian physicist. Chester Carlson devotedlong hours to meditation at the behest of his wife in order to develop his psychic abilities and conversewith the other side. He thoroughly believed that he received the knowledge necessary to create hisbreakthrough photocopying method from the spirit realm!

www.scribd.com...

Bolding emphasis mine.

Here is another computer that fits the bill. Interesting to find this common theme throughout the field from the government levels on down.

'The Witch', The World's Oldest Working Computer, Restored In Britain
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk...

The world's oldest computer has been resurrected and rebuilt.

'The Witch' was first designed in 1949 as part of Britain's atomic energy research effort.

It first ran in 1951, under the name 'Harwell Dekatron' after the valves that it used to store information.

While it was slow - it took around 10 seconds to multiply two numbers - it was able to be used for long periods, often up to 80 hours per week, according to the BBC.

Philosophy, Alchemy, and Science are forever inextricably linked. Philosophy fathered the scientific principle as we all know.

It also seems that the alchemical aspects never fully left the field and we can easily see that by all the "Men Who Stare at Goats" programs that our intel scientists have engaged in.

I've heard it said--though I don't know that it's true--that no one can fully explain how supercomputing works.

They know some, of course, and certainly know the mechanisms needed, but that explaining all the workings gives them some of the same problems encountered by gravity and consciousness. Basically meaning that it works, but some aspects of its workings defy our ability to fully explain them.

I'm ready to be schooled on that statement. But if true, I find it rather fascinating and would certainly fit this thread topic nicely.

Besides your theory of hackers and whitchcraft you can also consider this one.

The New Era Of Warfare: Microwave Missile Test Takes Out Electronic Targets
www.wnd.com...

A pre-programmed cruise missile not too different from a drone has been proven to be capable of blasting out an EMP-type microwave that was able to destroy personal computers and electrical systems inside a building over which it was flying.

The U.S. Air Force and its contractor Boeing have created the High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project, or CHAMP, which was just tested over a Utah desert.

It’s a project of Boeing’s Phantom Works team and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate, along with Raytheon Ktech, which supplied the high power microwave, or HPM.

The action of the high power microwave has the same effect as an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, from either a high-altitude exploded nuclear weapon or a massive solar storm, but not with their intensity. Following the first target, the cruise missile then was guided to six other targets, resulting in knocking out all electronics.
All of this also is similar to another U.S. Air Force-developed weapon based on a type of radar called the active electronically scanned array, or AESA.

Edit to add Nice Thread!

I'm very interested in this, excellent topic and one that I hardly knew about.

I will definitely have to look into this. A research topic indeed.

reply to post by The GUT

Philosophy, Alchemy, and Science are forever inextricably linked. Philosophy fathered the scientific principle as we all know.

I've noticed the connection but didn't considered them link like that, not until now. More great words from The GUT.