20 November 1982: ". . . My knowledge of the Gnostics was extremely superficial: I did not even know the meaning of the word before reading your treatise. However, the precise parraells [sic] with my own lines of thought, independently arrived at, are striking. I feel that the established dogmatic religious systems like Christianity and Islam are not simply inadequate, but basically evil in that they block spiritual emancipation . . . .
". . . The cut-ups were Brion Gysins's idea not mine. He said that writing is fifty years behind painting and applied montage techniques to writing. Life is a cut up. Every time you walk down the street or look out the window you[r] consciousness is cut by random factors. . . . By literally cutting through the prerecordings, we extend the area of awareness and open the door to the unforeseen and the unpredictable . . . ."
3 June 1984: ". . . I have been trained in the use of a lie detector 8 hours a day for six weeks. Most of the ways of beating the machine would be quickly spotted by an experienced operator. . . . Yes I have read all the Don Juan books and I took a seiminar [sic] with Robert Monroe the Journey Out of the Body--man, interesting but inconclusive."
with--Brion Gysin. Group of 9 items to Stephenson, including an 3 ALsS, two TLsS, and Autograph Postcards Signed, mostly on personal topics, but some concerning Borroughs. Together 9 pages, 4to or oblong 12mo. Vp, 1980-83.