The first episode of The Temple Tapes began with a reading from the book, War, Politics, and Insanity by CS Bluemel, MD. A brief treatise on the psychology of various types of political leaders. Listening in 2016, we hear a voice from 2000 read true words penned 5 decades previous. Military dictators and the leaders of democracies each manifest their particular insanity in their own way. Whether the narcissistic personal desire for complete control or the blind exuberance of a political convention, each embraces and exalts the irrational. Very little has changed in 60 or 16 years.

Bluemel’s analyses do not spare the politicians at work in democracies. His sharp-tongued take down of party conventions as read by my favorite alter ego while holed up in a bunker somewhere in northern Minnesota remains accurate to this day. When the good doctor turns his attention to the “Mentors of Democracy” and points out their constant fawning need for validation by the voting masses, I wonder what Bluemel might have written just 10 years later, when JFK was setting the TV standard for US Presidents and Dick Nixon was not. It is not hard to imagine what he would write in 2016. Mostly because it is pretty much what Okar read to us back in 2000 and repeats now on New Hughes.

These few clips begin to tell another story, as well. A tale of two itinerant pseudoshamans that managed to invent a reality in which the Art Temple Mandala (ATM) shook the US political system to a standstill with Mantras of Confusion in November 2000. Here began a satirical saga of chaos, nonsense, and truthful intent that covered the world to bring this vision to Minneapolis Public Access TV. The first episode of The Temple Tapes was shot in mid-October of 1999. SpitBall was using a linear, tape-to-tape, system back then, so edits took a lot longer. I was not on board yet, but my time was soon to come. Levy and Okar would soon dissolve into the ATM as the struggle with the Bush League became one of attrition, terror, and Trans-Reality TV.

If studying the video archives and personal notebooks have taught me anything, it is to treasure the moments captured in the first 9 episodes of The Temple Tapes because they were created before 9/11/2001. It is not easy to remember the issues that the Global War on Terror (GWOT) displaced from the headlines. The Temple Tapes was ready for the post-9/11 era. Before, we were ahead of our time. Since, we are of it. Time has caught us up.

Stay tuned.


Video List: War, Politics, and Insanity.

  1. Introduction
  2. The Military Dictator
  3. The Mentors of Democracy
  4. Political Conventions