An Experiment with the Third Mind

After reading The Third Mind by Brion Gysin and William Burroughs I thought I’d try my hand at it. The technique uses cut-ups and involves taking texts, cutting the pages, and then rearranging and combining the pieces to form new narratives. I used some of my own spontaneous prose which I cut up and made this.

Doors flower here, my secret parents told me a long time ago.

I was standing outside the driftwood gate near the rusting letter box.

Yes, the one where the letters you sent me didn’t arrive.

Heart trip blue, harbouring despair – smoke symbol outside the drift wood gate near the mountain top.

A show of innocence, Earth moments, Venus breaths and Martian chaos.

A smoke journey, a curling language, a wording made of clip clap foot steps and sacred sighs …

Sadness in the sky, blue Trumpet Justice.

Into the losing night light

he raised the candle

tattooed snow

cobra fish moon mind and my moon vision.

2 Responses to An Experiment with the Third Mind

  1. William Georgopoulos says:

    This plays out like a surrealist melodrama. You may have unwittingly exposed the technique of the great surrealist artists.

  2. stavr0s says:

    A surrealist melodrama! Love it.

    I’ve got lots of other pieces I’ve written incorporating the principles of the Third Mind with insertions of Tarot & I Ching readings. Just playing with different mind set configurations. I love mucking around like this. I may post some of these as well. I’m getting to that stage in my life where I figure that having stuff in notebooks in drawers gathering dust is rather stupid. So, why not bring it out into the “sunlight”?

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