The Visionary and Ecstatic Roots of 1960s Rock and Roll

[Ninshub]

Interesting-seeming book that came out late last year, and gotten good reviews. I might get this.

Into the Mystic: The Visionary and Ecstatic Roots of 1960s Rock and Roll

The 1960s were a time of huge transformation, sustained and amplified by the music of that era: Rock and Roll. During the 19th and 20th centuries visionary and esoteric spiritual traditions influenced first literature, then film. In the 1960s they entered the realm of popular music, catalyzing the ecstatic experiences that empowered a generation.

Exploring how 1960s rock and roll music became a school of visionary art, Christopher Hill shows how music raised consciousness on both the individual and collective levels to bring about a transformation of the planet. The author traces how rock and roll rose from the sacred music of the African Diaspora, harnessing its ecstatic power for evoking spiritual experiences through music. He shows how the British Invasion, beginning with the Beatles in the early 1960s, acted as the “detonator” to explode visionary music into the mainstream. He explains how 60s rock and roll made a direct appeal to the imaginations of young people, giving them a larger set of reference points around which to understand life. Exploring the sources 1960s musicians drew upon to evoke the initiatory experience, he reveals the influence of European folk traditions, medieval Troubadours, and a lost American history of ecstatic politics and shows how a revival of the ancient use of psychedelic substances was the strongest agent of change, causing the ecstatic, mythic, and sacred to enter the consciousness of a generation.

The author examines the mythic narratives that underscored the work of the Grateful Dead, the French symbolist poets who inspired Bob Dylan, the hallucinatory England of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper, the tale of the Rolling Stones and the Lord of Misrule, Van Morrison’s astral journeys, and the dark mysticism of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. Evoking the visionary and apocalyptic atmosphere in which the music of the 1960s was received, the author helps each of us to better understand this transformative era and its mystical roots.

The author was interviewed last December on this podcast:

The Visionary RiverAn Interview with Christopher Hill

In this week’s episode Christopher Hill speaks with Joanna about: psychedelics, music and ecstatic change; the spread of esoteric, spiritual knowledge through the music of the sixties; the mysterious spiritual revolution of the troubadours; Walt Whitman, Emerson and the American, progressive ecstatic tradition; the Beatles and the English visionary culture of nature mysticism; “Hey Joe” and the call to the West; Kennedy’s assassination and its effect in Bob Dylan’s music; a broader sense of history about social transformation; the visionary river of collective consciousness; the double vision of art.

Interesting-seeming book that came out late last year, and gotten good reviews. I might get this.

Into the Mystic: The Visionary and Ecstatic Roots of 1960s Rock and Roll


The author was interviewed last December on this podcast:

The Visionary RiverAn Interview with Christopher Hill

Into the Mystic is one of my favourite Van Morrison songs (although I am such a great fan of most of his music). Much to my own regret, I'm not one for listening to song lyrics - the melodies are the attraction - but Van Morrison, like Dylan, has the talent to draw me in with the music and then I start to hear the words. In an interview he once said that he doesn't know where the words come from or even what they mean but there's no doubt in my mind about their mystical origin. Listen to this if there's any doubt:

By the way, the late, great Joe Cocker (from my hometown) has a beautiful version of Into the Mystic: