Date: Sun, 9 Apr 1995 17:13:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: Richard Powers <vintage@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: Rave history

I love the incoming wave analogy, which sees the rave scene as another wave emanating from the same source as the late-60s wave. But there were other waves before that, and you might find their timing interesting:

1910-1914 (with echoes into the '20s): An entirely new lifestyle "for the 20th century" introduced, with a new prototype for relationships, both

1844-1850s: The flowering (and public acceptance) of the Romantic Era, introduced by a few free thinking pioneers in the 1830s. This was accompanied by a huge dance craze.

Note: I happen to think of the 50s beat-to-rock era as an early form of the late-60s counterculture, but together comprising one era. You might disagree.

So this is what you see when you plot all of this over time:

      xXXXxx                   xxXXxxxx          xXXxxXXx     xxXX
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
30  40  50  60  70  80    1900  10  20  30  40  50  60  70  80  90

... more or less. Increasing frequency of the oncoming waves.

Probably not a full generation 'till the next one. When they finally connect, seque together, without the droughts in between, is this the Hundredth Monkey?

Richard Powers

Thanks to those sending feedback to my rave history posting. For those speculating on the next wave, let me offer my two cents worth here.

If you have no interest in rave history/future speculation, that's fine with me. Simply skip on to the next posting.

My original posting proposed that the
positive energy of the current rave scene just might be part of an ongoing series of new waves. IF this pattern continues for another cycle, it is due in 2010-15.

The future cannot be extrapolated from any ongoing patterns, of course. But this MIGHT just happen in a BIG way in 2010 because of a concurrence with another, unrelated, dynamic:

This is the pattern is found in the years 1410, 1510, (skips once to 1750 for sociopolitical reasons), 1810, 1910, and...?

(1810 was not the major change of the century, not compared to 1844, but the Regency Era was nevertheless a significant ripple of fresh energy, accompanied by, yes, a new dance craze that included the introduction of the waltz to many countries.)

This pattern is that of a Coming New Century, with accompanying expectations for Great Change. Of course, the expectations are not based on anything more real than an arbitrary calendar, and thus should carry no real influence, UNLESS you have an entire population BELIEVING that a change is due. Then it becomes real.

The changes do not occur on the exact century mark, because a numeral is not a true catalyst for change. But after a few years, people become disappointed that the expected changes did not occur, restless for something fresh, and much more open (or less resistant) to new ideas. This delayed fuse usually takes about one decade to ignite change.

You might say that people will accept ANY change ten years into a century, not necessarily because it has great merit, but simply because the time is right. Ragtime-music-to-early-jazz, tango, blues, etc. became mainstream for this century because they happened to be the newest music and dance in 1910? Some of us think they were great, others say it was just the timing.

Back to the first pattern, the lifestyle-change waves that hit in the 1840s-50s, 1910s-20s, 1950s-60s and now:

If these waves of positive, creative, transcendental energy are indeed arriving in a regular, accelerating pattern, with the next one due in 2010, I think there is a very good chance that it will catch and ride on the OTHER 2010 wave, the new-century one.

Resulting in a tsunami?

We'll soon see.

Richard

Hi Allen:
I love your time wave posts...
It comes down to facination is more important than fact.

Yeah, and I have a concern along that line about these speculations (the 2010 vision).

Remember Jose Arguelles' _Transformative_ Vision_? He came up with a prediction of a different kind, published it, and found that it was picked up bigtime by the new age set, who almost turned it into some sort of spiritual Second Coming, which they called the Harmonic Convergence. Right?

Arguelles played along with it as it mutated through the pre-HC hype, as the prediction date neared, then it turned out to be a fizzle. A FUN fizzle for those who gathered on mountaintops at sunrise, but it knocked the credibility of the new age movement down half a notch.

So did Arguelles place fascination over fact, or did his readers? Or did he let his following draw himself into the hype?

Fascination is fine. The possibility of these incoming waves of enlightenment finally taking root before dissolving is more than fascinating! ...which makes me all the more careful about the tendency to believe what we want to believe, replacing our simply (and directly) being right with what is happening now and nourishing it on to the next step ...the direct nonanalylitical experience that is an essence of raving.

Hope to cross paths some day.

Richard