When most people think of 60s Psychedelic music, San Francisco usually comes to mind. But as the late Dave McGowan points out in his book "Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon", many of the icons of that movement originally convened in the LA area. Bands like the Doors, the Mamas and the Papas, Frank Zappa and the Mothers, the Byrds, the Beach Boys and so on. But then there was the 13th Floor Elevators, from Austin, Texas - arguably the very first Psychedelic band.
When asked what his definition of psychedelic music was, Erickson replied "That’s where the pyramid meets the eye." [20th Century Rock and Roll Psychedelia, Scott F Belmer]
Much has been said and written about the 13th Floor Elevators, but one curious detail that I find often seems glossed over is their prominent use of the Eye of Providence symbol.
What did the Eye of Providence symbol mean to most people who saw it in the year 1965? Let's remember, this was WAY before people like Jordan Maxwell, Bill Cooper, Art Bell, David Ike, and Alex Jones were sounding the alarm about The Illuminati and the mocking bird media. I don't believe there was this automatic paranoia, fear, excitement or even awareness of an "Illuminati" at that time. What there was, was a yearning for genuine spiritual experiences and "mind expansion." Given that, it is very easy to see how this eye in the pyramid symbol would resonate with that very endeavor. I mean think about it, who wouldn't have wanted the "secret password" to take a spiritual journey 13 floors up to the top of the Giza pyramid and meet the eye of god? You don't have to be a member of a secret society to appreciate the basic gist of the symbol, I'm sure it revealed itself easily enough to the average acid-head.
On that note, there was probably nobody more aware of the EYE's symbolic meaning than a common Freemason, as it appears prominently on their ceremonial aprons and artistic renderings going back to the 1700s, possibly even earlier. How we get from Freemasons to young hippies tripping on acid is an interesting connection to contemplate. Were Freemasons involved in the 60s psychedelic movement? I don't know, but let's take that trip and see where it goes.
"I came up with the Elevators part of the name," he claims. "The next day, after Clementine [Tommy Hall's wife] had slept on it, she came back in the morning with '13th Floor Elevators.'" - John Ike Walton, Austin Chronicle
"Though it's disputed amongst members, Hall said she [Clementine] came up with the band's full name and later added the 13th Floor for her lucky number."
Though the "elevators" part of the name seems to be in dispute, Walton [drummer] and Hall [jug player, lyricist] appear to be in agreement about Clementine adding the "13." But who decided to add the Eye of Providence symbol and how does this relate to what the band was supposedly doing?
“As you go up in levels of abstraction, it has the tendency of leading to one idea. That’s why the pyramid works as a model for consciousness… With the eye, it leads to perception.” - Hall, according to proxymusic.club
[Reverse side of the first 13th Floor Elevators album. Notice that in addition to the 13 layers of bricks, there are 65 individual bricks]
According to the late Manly P Hall [33° Freemason], there are 72 bricks veiled within the 13 level pyramid above, which relates to Jewish Mysticism/Kabballah [see previous blog HERE for more on this topic].
Besides the historical significance of America's original 13 Colonies, 13 is also a significant number within the esoteric context, meaning "many into one." Compare this with the 13 letters composing the latin phrase found above written upon the ribbon held within the eagle's mouth: E PLURIBUS UNUM = From the many, one. What did Tommy Hall say about the pyramid/eye symbol earlier? "As you go up in levels of abstraction, it has the tendency of leading to ONE idea." Sounds like he had a pretty good grasp of the intended messages contained therein by the authors of these symbols.
So what is the significance of the 65 bricks found within the pyramid depicted on the back of the 13th Floor Elevator's album shown earlier? That happens to have Hebrew Kabballistic relavance as well, and is also found on the US $1 bill by way of the stars above the Eagle's head, which are 13 pentacles [5 pointed stars]. 13 x 5 = 65. The eagle also has 33 feathers on one side of it's wingspan, and 32 on the other, which has Scottish Rite Freemasonic significance. 33 + 32 also happens to be 65. I don't think these numbers are accidental, and someone in the Elevators' camp seems to have had a level of awareness regarding all of this occult information. I suspect Tommy Hall was one of them.
The above image of Tommy Hall appears in the 2020 publication "13th Floor Elevators: A Visual History." I think anyone can see that this was not some quickly captured candid moment, as Hall is clearly posing for the camera here. What do you suppose this means, and why would he want it included in the book? There may be a perfectly innocent explanation or perhaps it was just done randomly without much thought. But if one simply takes it at face value, the occult suggestion is quite obvious.
Harpocratic Eros, terracotta figurine made in Myrina, Greece, c. 100–50 B.C. (Louvre)
[Ptolemaic bronze Harpocrates]
[Aleister Crowley utilized Harpocrites mythology and symbolism heavily in his occult "magick" rituals (I believe that is an eye within a pyramid printed on his forehead BTW). Here he is making the same pose Tommy Hall is above. George Martin, of Beatles fame, also does this spontaneously in an interview when he was asked about whether the Beatles really played/wrote certain parts of their recordings.]
[Harpo Marx got his name from playing the Harp, apparently. I'm sure his silence had nothing to do with Harpocrates...]
Harpocrates (Ancient Greek: Ἁρποκράτης, Phoenician: 𐤇𐤓𐤐𐤊𐤓𐤈,[1] romanized: ḥrpkrṭ, Coptic: ϩⲁⲣⲡⲟⲕⲣⲁⲧⲏⲥ harpokratēs) is the god of silence, secrets and confidentiality in the Hellenistic religion developed in Ptolemaic Alexandria (and also an embodiment of hope, according to Plutarch). Greeks adapted Harpocrates from the Egyptian child-god Horus, who represented the newborn sun, rising each day at dawn. The name "Harpocrates" originated as a Hellenization of the Egyptian Har-pa-khered or Heru-pa-khered, meaning "Horus the Child". Depictions showed Horus as a naked boy with his finger to his mouth, a realisation of the hieroglyph for "child" (𓀔). Misunderstanding this gesture, later Greeks and Roman poets made Harpocrates the god of silence and of secrecy. - wikipedia
So what am I trying to say here, that Tommy Hall was/is an occultist just because he put his finger to his mouth in a photo? Well no, but consider this bit of dialogue found at freemasonry.bcy.ca:
Allan Vorda: Who came up with the logo of the pyramid with the eye? The pyramid and eye logo comes from the back side of a one dollar bill which states "Annuit Coeptis" and has exactly thirteen layers of bricks in the pyramid.
Powell St. John: It was one of those arcane symbols of which Tommy was so fond and so vague in explaining. Maybe it had something to do with Scientology. Tommy was very big on Scientology.
Now these names, Allan Vorda and Powell St. John - these are credible individuals historically and were either involved with the band directly or indirectly at various points in time. So these words carry some weight. And Tommy's involvment with Scientology is no secret, nor is his fascination with the esoteric. But why was this information found on a website for the Freemasonic Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon? Why do Freemasons care about the logo of some 60s psychedelic band?
The above interview exerpt seems to be on a page dedicated to "anti-Freemasonry." Anti-Freemasonry is a name Freemasons have given to any ideas/concepts regarding Freemasonry that they either don't want the public commonly knowing about, or that they feel is untrue and must be corrected for the record. But oddly, the page doesn't seem to be attempting to "debunk" anything. On the contrary, it hints that Tommy Hall may have had more of a connection to the Eye of Providence symbol than he let on - leaving almost any possibility on the table. I doubt it had much to do with Scientology, but I suppose it is possible.
[Roky Erickson and the Aliens, circa 1978-1981]
Bill Miller [the Aliens]: In Austin the whole scene was centered around 1 thing, which was the Elevators. And all the other bands were sort of patterned after the Elevators…the Elevators were designed from day 1, before anyone had ever heard them, when they were still rehearsing and planning the whole thing. In the very early planning stages the Elevators were designed to be a cult item. And they invested the Cult item. - from Demon Angel: A Day and Night in the Life of Roky Erickson
Why does Bill Miller seem to be going out of his way in the above quote to drive home the contrived nature of the Elevators? Perhaps there was a faction within the group that was wildly organic, namely the Roky Erickson component. But the Tommy Hall factor seems to me where the contrived part comes in, and it's probably fair to say that the band would never have existed without those 2 components coming together. While Erickson tends to get most of the press, I believe Tommy Hall's angle has been far less understood. His is usually explored from the perspective of glorifying his obsession with "spiritual endeavors," allowing it all to comfortably settle somewhere in the middle of Psychedelic hippy history, never to be quite understood or explained completely.
He [Hall] was a pharmacology major at that time he was in college and uh…interested in what drugs do to people. And he became more and more interested in that. And eventually came to the point where that was really all he was interested in, except music. - Sandy Lockett, Soundman
...I think he had a Master’s degree he was teaching the UT English department. You know he was a very dogmatic fella you know, wore a suit and was kinda chubby… - Spencer Perskin, Shiva's Head Band
[Ken Kesey "began writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1960 after completing a graduate fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University; the novel was an immediate commercial and critical success when published two years later. During this period, Kesey participated in CIA-financed studies involving hallucinogenic drugs (including mescaline and LSD) to supplement his income]
["The Acid Tests were a series of parties held by author Ken Kesey primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area during the mid-1960s, centered on the use of and advocacy for the psychedelic drug LSD, commonly known as "acid". LSD was not made illegal in California until October 6, 1966...27 November; Soquel, California: The first Acid Test was a party at Ken Babbs' house on 27 November 1965" - wiki]
[Owsley Stanley III aka "Bear," aka "Acid King."..."Stanley was the first known private individual to manufacture mass quantities of LSD...By his own account, between 1965 and 1967, Stanley produced at least 500 grams of LSD, amounting to a little more than five million doses...In 1963, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became involved in the psychoactive drug scene. He dropped out after a semester, took a technical job at KGO-TV, and began producing LSD in a small lab located in the bathroom of a house near campus..He used his Berkeley lab to buy 500 grams of lysergic acid monohydrate, the basis for LSD. His first shipment arrived on March 30, 1965, and he produced 300,000 hits (270 micrograms each) of LSD by May 1965]
"He (Stanley) was the guy that whipped up the acid…at Berkeley, at the 3rd or 4th floor of the chem lab. On Campus, man! That’s the only place they could make LSD from scratch. Where they had the actual equipment." - Hank Harrison
Let's not forget that history seems to indicate that the rather sudden injection of L.S.D. into 60s American "counter-culture" seemed to involve College Universities [as well as the C.I.A.] Stanford, in the case of Ken Kesey. Berkeley in the case of Stanley. What was Tommy Hall up to at the University of Texas, where he was literally studying how drugs affect living organisms?
Tommy wanted to create this utopia in his own mind. You know, what drugs to take, when to take em…mescaline in the morning LSD at night… - Mikel Erickson
...it got to where the drugs were a problem for the other fellows. And…they were always putting pressure on me to get high with them…I just got to the point where I got tired being bugged about it…I saw the kinda consciousness that it was bringing about and it was paranoia. I tried to get Stacy to stop but they’d just argue with me…Roky’s 2nd acid trip….hurt him. Hurt me too. Tommy gave us too much. I had a real bad trip and so did he, but he didn’t admit that he had a real bad trip he kept on taking the acid thinking everything would get better. I quit! I didn’t want another one of those experiences…I was scared. But Stacy and Tommy and Roky were NOT scared. Consequently, they got in all kinds of trouble. - John Ike Walton [drummer for 13FE]
Now while you are sitting there contemplating all of these tabs of L.S.D. and how it coincided with the dawn of the 60's Psychedelic Revolution, ponder this: The first C.I.A. sponsored Acid Test occurred in November of 1965. Members of the Warlocks [later known as The Grateful Dead] were present. The 13th Floor Elevators were formed the following month in Austin, Texas in December of 1965. Where and how was Tommy getting his acid, and how crucial a role did this play in the formation of the Elevators?
THE MAGIC BUS
[Original bus taken by the "Merry Pranksters" who toured across the country promoting L.S.D. and other drugs in the name of "mind expansion" or something]
[Inside the bus]
[Larry McMurty befriended Ken Kesey when he attended Stanford University during the 1960–1961 academic year...In 1964, Kesey and his Merry Pranksters conducted their noted cross-country trip, stopping at McMurtry's home in Houston.]
"Texas was no stranger to LSD at the time of the Houston Acid Test in March 1967. In fact, it could be argued that along with California, Texas was the pioneering US state for a non-academic psychedelic culture. Experiments with peyote and morning glory seeds began among college students in the early 1960s, and in 1965 use of marijuana and early batches of non-pharmaceutical LSD was common in hip circles. Even obscure drugs like DMT could be obtained. All the elements of an underground culture were in place, the main difference to the west coast was that the early psychedelic phase in Texas was concentrated to one specific spot - the University Of Texas (UT) in Austin... Out of this bohemian college scene came artists and performers like Janis Joplin and Gilbert Shelton, and a foundation was laid for famous music venues like the Vulcan Gas Co and the Armadillo World Headquarters in the late 1960s and early 1970s."
"The UT and Austin also gave birth to what is generally considered the first psychedelic rock group, the 13th Floor Elevators who formed in December 1965 and had an LSD-oriented agenda from day one. With the help of the Elevators and reasonably open-minded scenemakers like writer Jim Langdon and radio station owner Bill Josey in Austin, writer/promoter Scott Holtzman and TV show host Larry Kane in Houston, the Texans were ahead even of the S F Bay Area with regards to "psychedelic" music. Holtzman wrote a newspaper column in July 1966 on how psychedelia was all the rage among teenagers in Houston, while it would be several months before the rest of the US caught on in larger numbers." - lysergia.com/MerryPranksters/lamaMerryPranksters.htm (via Wayback Machine)
"We played about 3 months before we went to California. And we came back to Austin after California and recorded our first album...They [Grateful Dead] were taking dope together but they weren’t making music together on the dope, if you see what I mean. Only later, after they were allowed to by Tommy and his bunch." - John Ike Walton
It seems the Texas psychedelic culture began with Ken Kesey's C.I.A.-sponsored Merry Pranksters stopping off at his friend Larry McMurty's house in 1964, then culminated into a full blown Acid Test at Rice University in Houston in 1967, which was apparently the last one. In between is where the psychedelic culture was cultivated, and centered around The University of Texas (UT), where Tommy Hall was studying how drugs affect people! And to quote the above article, "The UT and Austin also gave birth to what is generally considered the first psychedelic rock group, the 13th Floor Elevators."
Take note of Walton's quote above, where he states the Grateful Dead weren't making music "on dope" when the Elevators first arrived to the Bay Area 3 months after forming. It was later, when they were "allowed to by Tommy and his bunch." Now that is some very interesting wording, because he seems to be referring to a group of people Tommy was affiliated with that were SEPERATE from the band. And they apparently had control of who took the drugs, and it sounds like they literally gave the Dead permission to do so! This is backed up somewhat by Billy Gibbons [ZZ-Top] in the documentary "You're Gonna Miss Me" where he basically states that all the Bay Area bands were soft and folksy until the Elevators blew through town.
You might also be interested in reading my blog on Kraftwerk
This blog was researched, written, and continues to be maintained by 1 person. If you enjoyed it and would like to encourage more of them, donations can be made by clicking the button below.
SOURCES:
SOURCES:
Wikipedia
Archive.org
Lama Workshop - by Patrick "The Lama" Lundborg
Demon Angel: A Day in the Life of Roky Erickson
13th Floor Elevators - You’re Gonna Miss Me: Psychedelic Reprise, by Claude Mathews
theragblog.blogspot.com
austinchronicle.com
The MHMR tapes, filmed 1986 Austin State Hospital
Freemasonry.bcy.ca
You're Gonna Miss Me - A Film About Roky Erickson (2007)
F.O.I.A.
