The last two months haven't been easy for Faustin Bray. Bray is a self-proclaimed "profound seeker," and she's recently lost her guide.
For the past 20 years, Bray has been one of many Bay Area supporters and friends of Dr. John Cunningham Lilly, an infamous and often controversial researcher of drugs, dolphins, and what generally gets called "higher consciousness." On Sept. 30, he died of heart failure in Los Angeles, at 86. Until his death, he was arguably the last living high priest of '60s-style drug experimenting and contact with nonhuman intelligence. Though he never cut as familiar a figure as his friend Timothy Leary and his psychedelic travels weren't as well-known as those of the recently deceased Ken Kesey, Lilly had his moments: His dolphin-communication research inspired the film Day of the Dolphin, and his writings about his beloved isolation tanks provided fodder for the popular 1980 film Altered States. His books were once must-reading for the pop-psychology set in the '70s, even though interest in his work today has largely dissipated. But Bray, an earnest and soft-spoken woman who can go on for hours about Lilly's life, has striven to keep Lilly's legacy alive, even in his death.
In the Sacramento Street offices of her company, Sound Photosynthesis, she produces and sells hundreds of videotapes, books, CDs, and tapes related to Lilly's work. For $15.99, you can order a CD of Lilly talking about the Earth Coincidence Control Office, which he believed was the extraterrestrial controller of our everyday lives; 10 bucks gets you a cassette of Lilly talking about his affinity for the mind-altering drug ketamine; and for $455, you can get a complete recording of the "Gilding the Lilly" conference, a five-day marathon celebration of Lilly's life and work that was held in San Francisco last year. The emphasis of the conference was something Lilly called "Cetacean Nation," an idea that whales and dolphins are our key to extrahuman and extraterrestrial intelligence.
It all seems like so much '70s bong-hit philosophy now. But Lilly's ideas attracted a lot of followers, particularly in the Bay Area, and it's Bray's mission to make sure Lilly's name and legacy continue to get exposure. "I have autonomy over everything I've recorded or was given to me by him," Bray says firmly. She's had to explain this, firmly, to people. Bray, like many others who were close to Lilly, is angry about who gets what when it comes to Lilly. Since his death, it seems everybody wants to stake his claim to the high priest of peace and higher consciousness.
[...]
Through the years, a steady stream of followers came to be with him in Hawaii, some of whom he legally adopted, some of whom simply felt they best represented his interests. The result has been a tension between various factions in Lilly's life that seems only poised to grow after his death.
"I don't know what I want to say publicly, but friends seemed closer to him than his actual family," Ellsworth says. Indeed, Lilly died in Los Angeles and not Maui because he was in town to resolve an ongoing family dispute over ownership of property and a trust fund that Lilly was drawing money from. Even among his associates and adopted children, however, battle lines are starting to be drawn over how Lilly's work should be used now, and who has the right to use it. Lee and Glenn Perry, for example, are the current owners of the Samadhi Tank Co., a Grass Valley isolation-tank firm that Lilly helped found in 1972. Since then, they've sold "thousands upon thousands" of tanks all over the world; recently, they've been making trips to the Bay Area to better organize local tank owners since Lilly's death. They also say they have the right to republish all of Lilly's out-of-print books, and they intend to start doing so next year. "He did give us permission to publish all of the books; we have a little videotape of him saying that," Lee Perry says.
Nothing could make Philip Bailey angrier. Bailey, who was Lilly's caretaker and adopted son over the past 11 years, says that he and he alone has the right to decide what books get published and how. Shortly before Lilly's death, he set up a deal with Berkeley-based Ronin Publishing to assemble a book that repurposes Lilly's previous writings into what Bailey calls a more reader-friendly book. Beverly Potter, Ronin's publisher, was eager to take on the project; since Lilly's death, she says, she has seen a spike in interest in Lilly's book The Scientist, which Ronin publishes. It's currently the only Lilly book in print.
To argue his case, Bailey faxed SF Weekly a codicil to Lilly's will, signed on Sept. 10, stating that all of Lilly's literary and intellectual property reverts to a nonprofit called the John C. Lilly Research Institute, which Bailey founded. "I still have to educate some of these folks as to what the universal copyrights are," Bailey says, more than a little bitterness in his voice. "Faustin and Glenn and Lee and their needs to have rights ... they're unfounded somewhat. I worked with John every day for 11 years. I've got the onus of dusting and cleaning the house, finding another place to live, a job. I need a new job now, and I've got these people bothering me about this stuff. God, don't they have anything better to do?"
Faustin Bray has problems with Bailey's book project. She vents for a while about exploitation of Lilly's work and says Lilly never wanted his books to be repurposed, simply republished.
[...]
He did, however, express a final wish on his deathbed. In his last hours at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, he was recovering from surgery shortly before his heart failed. Philip Bailey was keeping watch over him and talking with a pair of doctors about his status. Lilly was lying down and taking in the constant televised drum-beating about Afghanistan and terrorism.
Finally, the man spoke. Angry at all the chatter, the great pioneer of higher consciousness uttered what Bailey remembers as Lilly's last words. "Go take the shop talk somewhere else," Lilly said. "I'm trying to watch TV."
[...more...]
[Need the full story? Read this]
