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You approach the entrance of the Burnt Ramen, an old warehouse-turned-performance venue near the railroad tracks at 111 Espee Avenue in Richmond, Calif. There is a nervous, excited energy rumbling in your stomach. This is your first Frank Moore performance. You’re intimidated. You’ve heard about this guy and his performances with the Cherotic All-Star Band and you’ve seen the fliers posted around San Francisco, flapping in the wind. You’ve heard about the nudity, the exploration, the lack of political correctness, the delight, the tackiness but you’re still not quite sure what to expect once you cross the threshold into the unknown world. Challenged by curiosity, you grab the handle of the door, about ready to charge in when you notice the following sign is posted: “Warning! Enter at your own risk! This piece may be threatening to your everyday reality. This piece may cause questioning of the common reality. These symptoms may appear days after the piece, without warning… Even during the piece, you may feel as if nothing is happening…or you may even enjoy it. But, the above symptoms may still appear, leading to restlessness and even radical change.”

You take a deep breath, lower your head and walk in. The door slams closed behind you as you enter Moore’s Web of All Possibilities.

Born with cerebral palsy and unable to walk or talk, Moore believes he was born a lucky guy. Until the age of 17, he lived shut out from the rest of the world because he couldn’t communicate and because his negative attitudes and low self-image alienated him. So, at age 17, he invented a head pointer and a board with words and phrases on it. He learned to speak by pointing to the words and phrases on the board. (He still communicates this way today.) It took patience on his part and the part of the listener to have a conversation but, at last, he could communicate!

His next battle was to overcome his low self-image. He was allowing the society’s expectation of what a “crippled” person should be, to shape his reality. Society’s expectation was winning. But not for long.

Around age 28, Moore’s life turned. Something happened that made him look at the way he viewed himself. He couldn’t get laid! Women viewed him as “the nice guy,” the guy who would listen and give advice, but never the guy who they wanted to have sex with. He accepted this because he thought it wasn’t right to burden a girl with his ugly body. Eventually, after one more failed relationship, Moore had had enough. He had identified himself for too long with a reality that thought of him as ugly, unfortunate or “crippled.” He wasn’t happy. He decided he could either accept the “reality” of his ugly body and an asexual role he played or he could change the way he thought about himself. He wanted to be happy and beautiful, and not feel like a burden to anyone. So, he started to believe he was a beautiful human being. He didn’t think of his “crippled” body as a burden; he viewed it as a tool. He viewed it as the mark of a shaman. Historically, the gods marked shamans by their deformities or abnormalities, to set them apart from the rest of the tribe. They would bring back messages for the greater good or to heal those in need.

Physically, Moore could do things with his body that most people can’t. He could bend, move, twist and contort himself. Socially, he could break the norm. The possibilities before him were endless as he was without the fear of living up to any expectations. “I was never under any pressure to be good at anything, to make money, to make it in ‘the real world’, [or] to be polished. I could focus on having fun, on going into taboo areas where magical change can be evoked,” Moore says on his web site, the Web of All Possibilities (www.eroplay.com).

To subvert reality, Moore began creating art in 1965. His first experience was playing with oil paints. Since he was in the business of breaking taboos and pushing limits, nothing was too extreme for him. He’d meet strangers on the street and ask them if he could paint nude pictures of them. Many people agreed and he saw how art allows people to do things that are generally forbidden. There is willingness, he says, to push beyond comfort and safety in art and this openness brings about change.

As he performed the magic of art, more possibilities opened up for him. He began experimenting with different types of theater, performance, and workshops and with shamanism. Shamanistic art includes public and private rituals, audience participation and apprenticeship. It allows people’s dreams to become realities because there are no limits with regards to time or space, no moral guidelines and no rules. With the ideas of normalcy suspended, anything, even magic, can happen. “Frank’s art inspired me and showed me how far it was possible to go in the direction of art as an engulfing experience, and of doing genuine, no-bullshit magic in the modern world,” says Fred Hatt, a visual and performance artist and photographer who has attended many of Moore’s performances and who is also a featured artist on Moore’s web site.

In the mid-1970s, after an unsuccessful all-nude play at California State University, relocating to Santa Fe and New York, and then finally settling in Berkeley, Moore met Linda Mac. Frank rolled into Don Travel, the agency in Calif. where Mac worked. He came right up to her. “The moment I had eye contact with Frank, I ‘saw’ him,” she recalls. He invited her to come to his house because he was casting a play. He wanted her to audition (later, she found out there really was no play). She went to the house, read some of Moore’s writings and she was hooked. “I knew immediately that this is what I had been waiting for,” Mac says. The two have been together, working and playing, for over 25 years.

Moore’s performance experimentation eventually led to the creation of a joyful community based on freedom and closeness. The community was an alternative to the way society isolates people. With an entourage of 30 people – friends, performers and students, Moore and Mac began doing workshops and private performances “just for fun.” These experiences created intimate relationships and altered states among everyone involved. Silliness, hidden fantasy, child’s playfulness and creativity became a part of their normal lives. Public performance pieces evolved from the workshops and private performances. One of the first public performances was a costume parade through the streets of Berkeley. The performers were dressed in elaborate costumes of brightly colored skin paintings and risqué outfits made from net and lace.

In the late ‘70s, Moore and his gang, which had now been together for four years, started doing longer ritualistic performances. He created a rock-and-roll cabaret-style show, called the Outrageous Beauty Revue, which ran every Saturday night for 3 years at the Mabuhay Garden Nightclub and various colleges and clubs in San Francisco. Moore describes the O.B.R. as “an unpolished show that flaunted nudity, eroticism and gore in a silly, child-like playfulness -- an ever-changing show with pregnant sex symbols, nude girls, crippled rock stars, men as women and women as men without any sexual meaning.” It was outrageous, shocking, and different. On the surface, the performances appeared to be entertainment laced with a kind of shock value. But Moore describes the shows as having a much deeper meaning than just shocking entertainment. They were, in fact, another way in which Moore fought against the societal “norms” of the time.

The community that performed with Moore eventually broke up. He realized, after they tried to incorporate sex into their lives that it was not the answer to the physical connectedness they were searching for. Moore continued to focus on the energy that resulted from the intense, playful, physical involvement he had with them and from this, an important physical aspect to Moore’s work began to evolve. He coined this element “eroplay”. Moore describes eroplay as “intense physical touch and play among adults that is not sexual but has no limits.”

Today, Moore incorporates eroplay in many of his performances. In creating this alternative reality, Moore tries to expand and break down the way sex is viewed in our culture. Says Mac: “Eroplay is a way of having a depth of interaction with someone that is fun. The whole social structure is set up to keep people feeling like they are not free. With eroplay, one has a direct visceral experience of that not being true.” She says eroplay is not about sex, but about people connecting with one another on a very deep level and that it gives people hope. “It feels wonderful to be a part of!” says Teresa Cochran, a performer in the Cherotic All-Star Band and a student of The University of Possibilities, Moore’s shamanistic performance school.

Cochran, who first met Moore at a block party five years ago, remembers the magic she felt the first time that she met him. She told Moore and Mac that she wanted to play music. Of course, they invited her to a jam session! The jam was very improvisational and free form and, while playing, Cochran realized the dynamics between the audience and the performers. There was no distinction between the two. Playing with them and feeling the freedom of expression liberated her. “My stage fright totally disappeared when I saw Frank doing exactly what he wanted to do,” she says. “If he can do whatever he wants to do, I can do whatever I want to do.”

“I saw Frank right away and said ‘This guy knows how to live,” says Michael LaBash who met Moore in 1988. At the time they met, LaBash says he was a yuppie, well-dressed, freshly combed hair and not one you’d expect to be open to Moore’s reality. He played in a band called Mr. Dog (which later became the Counting Crows). At one particular performance he met a woman named Leigh Gates who happened to be one of Moore’s apprentices. After talking with Gates for some time after the show, she invited him to read some of Moore’s writings. He said when he read them “the floor feel out from under my world.” A few weeks later, LaBash attended a small gig of Moore’s at Rather Ripped Records in Berkeley. “I sat there with my mouth open the whole time. I had never seen anything like it. Nude bodies, Frank singing, saran wrap. It was wild,” he says. Not much later after the record store gig he attended a 12-hour performance and also got to meet with Moore. After a few meetings, LaBash decided to quit Mr.Dog. He realized that it wasn’t fulfilling to him. Soon after, Moore asked him to be an apprentice at the University of Possibilities. Now, 13 years later, Moore, Mac and LaBash live together as partners in San Francisco.

Moore averages about two public performances (rituals, music gigs, poetry readings, etc.) a month. The shows are mostly free form and when the Cherotic All-Stars have a performance, they don’t even rehearse. They just show up and play! When Moore performs, anything goes. Sometimes there are nude men and women, sometimes they sing and dance, sometimes rock and touch, sometimes all of it happens and sometimes none of it happens.

The performances allow you to step outside of what is generally accepted in order to explore, question, test and evolve by pushing you to the limit, by making you uncomfortable and by showing you a reality that is usually very different from what you are used to. You as the audience and performers, who are one and the same once the door closes and the performance begins, are exposed to a show that can become whatever your dreams will allow. Audience members watch, some deliciously, hanging onto every movement, every noise, delighted and turned on. Others turn away, not wanting to watch, sickened to their stomachs, ready to leave. Some people feel vulnerable, some challenged; others are bored and even angered.

“People have very intense responses and reactions. A lot of times people cry”, says Alexi Malenky, another performer and apprentice of Moore’s. “I’ve never noticed anyone not be affected at all by it,” he adds. He explains that sometimes people get up and leave in the middle of a show. He says that it’s easy to think they are leaving because they don’t like what they see. But Moore says that when people leave a show early, it’s because they’ve gotten as much as they want from that performance or they’ve reached a personal threshold they don’t want to go past.

While Moore’s performances change some people’s lives and challenge them to seek authenticity, others are unmoved and disinterested. William Mandel, an activist and author of “Saying No to Power” (Creative Arts, Berkeley, 1999), has known Moore for about 2 years. “I haven’t attended Frank’s performances because his videos don’t turn me on to them. I don’t think the people are particularly talented. I’m not impressed by the music,” he says.

Since no two performances are ever the same, you never know what the night has in store. Sometimes the performers will take part in all night ritual performances and sacred ceremonies, sometimes music jams, or sometimes more traditional, “scripted” plays. In each instance, it is a different experience because Moore allows the shows to evolve in their own. The magic is different each time depending on who is there, who participates, how the audience feels and how the performers interact with each other.

In 1994, Moore directed and produced a scripted play called “No Tongue Will Live To Speak, No Ears Will Yearn To Hear,” written by Native American chief, Distant Eagle. Dorothy Jesse Beagle, a poet and artist who saw the show recalls what it felt like to see the piece. “Much of the play was played nude but was never erotic nor seemed anything but totally natural, spiritual with great lines and acting. No one would think, let alone say, ‘hey guys I’m watching nudes.’ It wasn’t about nudity but about a primitive tribe and we all felt we were part of the play.”

Moore’s ritualistic approach to his performances gives them a sort of secrecy. Mac explains a secret cave ritual that is sometimes performed. She leads you, blindfolded, to the door of a cave that has been constructed out of painted backdrops. There, she gives you a drink called somala. The drink looks and tastes like water but what it really is, is up to you to decide. Mac tells you that the drink is a drug of dreams and dying. It does not have any side effects and won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. It does, however, make it easier for you to do whatever you do want to do. From there, Mac leads you into the cave. Mac won’t give details about what goes on in the cave and she says you have to come to a performance and find out for yourself.

Hatt attended a five-hour show of Moore’s called “Journey to Lila” in New York City in 1989. He agrees with Mac about the secrecy of the performances. “You need to experience one of these full ritual performances yourself, and the experience will be fuller if you don’t know what to expect,” he says.

Moore does not separate his art from his private life or his public life. It is all the same to him. This is why he spends so much time building relationships, adding dimensions, subverting reality and breaking the norms and taboos of society. Malenky says that in blending all parts of his life, Moore is “creating a life in which people live fully and joyfully in closeness with each other and the world around them.”

Corey Nicholl found this lack of separation hard to become used to when he first met Moore ten years ago. Nicholl who is an apprentice of Moore’s says it wasn’t easy to remain open to the reality that Moore presents. “If you want to keep such a control over things and have this part of reality over here and this part over there, you’re going to work really hard to do that. Everything is struggling against you,” he says. But, he explains, if you surrender and give up trying to control things, you’ll see how life bleeds and melts together, that there are no boxes. You form those boxes yourself.

Moore’s work doesn’t rub everyone the right way. In 1991, Senator Jesse Helms labeled Moore’s art, and a group of other artists’ art, as “obscene.” Because many of these artists had received funding from the National Endowment of Arts, the General Accounting Office investigated and several of them lost their NEA funding. Moore was not one of them that lost funding but he was more or less blacklisted by Helms. He was forbidden to perform at places that received money from the NEA. If he did perform, the venues were at risk of losing their funding.

In a letter that Moore sent to Helms, he asks, “Why are you closing channels of expression and of funding to me without due process of law?” He continues, “It is a political and cultural blacklist under the cover of obscenity. Extortion and blacklists are against the American ideals and spirit.” Moore says because of Helms’ threats, his work became even hotter. It got him more opportunities for gigs. And more gigs meant more magic.

Regardless of who does or doesn’t like his work, Moore continues. His newest call to freedom is a web-cast Internet radio station called Love Underground Vision Radio or LUVeR for short (www.luver.com). LUVeR brings almost all of his art, his philosophy of life and his reality together. Launched on Valentine’s Day of 1999, LUVeR has become a forum for all different types of art and various people. “LUVeR is probably the most eclectic of radio stations, Internet or otherwise,” says Beagle who has her own show on LUVeR called Jesse’s Full Pantry. Weekly, there are alternative news shows and current events shows on politics, oppression and survival. There is erotica, philosophy, lecture programming and satirical and political humor. Original music from experimental musicians, punk rock, folk, bluegrass, and classical musicians are broadcast. There are daily newscasts by a news team, weekly interviews that cover artists and other interesting people and video coverage of live events and news conferences. LUVeR is a playground of totally uncensored, nonprofit, noncommercial expression. Hatt says that Moore is “proudly underground” and has never made any concession to try to be commercial, to fit into any respectable art scene or to be acceptable to any institution.

Moore’s work may not be considered art by some. His performances might scare you and even want to make you run the other way. The bottom line is that his work is an inspiration to people. For those people that it touches, their lives are forever changed. They look at things a little differently and probably a little more clearly. Moore’s work changed me. Call me what you will — naïve, weird or strange. I now believe in the possibilities of life. I now have a fuller understanding of a life without limitations and expectations. I am filled with a deep sense of joy just by knowing Moore. I was looking for Moore and I found exactly what I had hoped.

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Comments so out of line to what is being said

They don’t know him like I do

Ignorant comments meant to cut deep

And I get angrier and angrier

And then he speaks and the room melts

No anger, no hate

An understanding that only he can comprehend

And he laughs at their cruel jokes

And tops them with his own

And he is laughing at them

He is reveling in their ignorance

And he teaches them

And he teaches me

Security is not supplied from forces outside the circle

It’s formed inside the circle

From within the soul

And he quiets them and they listen

Not to his voice, but to his heart

And to his mind

That has had years to form, while his body didn’t

And as I sit and listen to his words

I look inside my self

And the anger subsides

His words speak a wisdom of pain

Pain turned to power and power

Turned to love

For my ignorance is turned to knowledge

And if ignorance is, bliss

He is a master of making people blissless

For he will not let you remain ignorant

He will speak no matter if we listen

But we can not listen without learning

And this is his role

Not to save us

But to allow us to save ourselves

To be rid the ignorance that binds us to blind hate

To be rid the ignorance that holds us back

To transmute our disabilities

To the realm of all possibilities

--Tim Wozny

September, 1998

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Takes one to know one!!! Love, Elizabeth

From Frank, Nov 08, 1999
ah, yep!

Funny about the subject of your show … because I was just talking about how people confuse human extinction [a possibility bordering on a probability] with the extinction of life … which ain’t going to happen within a couple of billion years. We are taking a lot of species with us as we go out! But people don’t realize that 95% of ALL LIFE has been wiped out at least twice in the course of the earth’s history. Although we are trying hard, we’ll be lucky to reach 75% tops before we exit!

And people don’t understand that the world’s climate has been much hotter and much colder than it is now. Our “fucking up the environment” does have negative effects. But there WILL BE global warming. Adapt, cope! Move away from “the coasts” when the ocean rises. Move with nature … or exit!

From Elizabeth, Nov 9, 1999
Yeh, the real thing that you’re about and I hope I’m about is to help people stop whipping themselves. Guilt, great gobs of glorious guilt seems to be what lots of humans love.

In the meantime, thanks for listening. I had a call from a listener in San Leandro today.

Do you know Lorenzo Milam or any of his books?? I wondered what you thought of the books – or him – beware he’s an old friend of mine!

Love, Elizabeth

From Frank, May 28, 2001
Subject: Elizabeth News
(Elizabeth Gips passed away on March 27, 2001)

I first met elizabeth in the summer of 1969. I was a college kid in San Bernardino. There was a neat “hippie commune” [that was how my hippie friends described it … they were crashing there uninvited by louise who owned the property and was out of town]. I was sunbathing nude [a new experience] beside the pool … being held in the sitting position by a nude female college friend [another new experience]. A very impressive somewhat older hip woman came by and asked for louise … whom neither the girl or I knew! The woman was elizabeth.

When louise took me into her extended family, I started getting to know elizabeth … from afar … like an aunt … hearing stories about her … like she was who “lives on love street” in the door’s songs, etc. that was in the early 70’s.

I lost contact with her until the early 90’s when I discovered that she did her radio show [CHANGES] in santa cruz. She had me on CHANGES … a great interview! It will be one of the shows we will play tomorrow [Tuesday] night on http://www.luver.com in honor of her.

I ain’t no fool. When I started luver, I asked if luver could play CHANGES. Even during her death preparations, she sent tapes … and $10 a month. That’s commitment!

I’m hoping to continue getting and webcasting CHANGES!

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We have added three more Collections to the archive. Here are all of the work-in-progress Collections so far:

Books by Frank Moore
https://archive-it.org/collections/23870
This will eventually be a complete collection of Frank’s books (in PDF format) that have been published to date. Only one book missing!

Frank Moore’s Web of All Possibilities
https://archive-it.org/collections/21616
This is the archive of Frank’s web site eroplay.com.

Frank Moore - Frankly Speaking on Substack
https://archive-it.org/collections/21976
This is the complete collection of Frank’s writings that we have posted on the Frankly Speaking Substack to the end of 2025.

The Frank Moore Archive - eroplay.org
https://archive-it.org/collections/23856
This is the complete collection of blog posts that we have posted on The Frank Moore Archives Substack through 2025.

Frank Moore Paintings
https://archive-it.org/collections/30003
This is the archive of Frank’s painting web site frankmoorepaintings.com.

Frank Moore Photo Archive
https://archive-it.org/collections/30878
We have just started working on this collection. Eventually it will be the complete collection of 35mm slides, photographic prints and digital photographs which includes performance and daily life documentation.

Frank Moore Archiving Updates
https://archive-it.org/collections/30299
The complete collection of the monthly email archiving updates we send out to donors.

See these other posts for more information about how to access the collections via the Wayback Machine:

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FOR WHOM: Those who are engaged in some form of counseling, who want to step back from their special focus to gain a new excitement and freshness to take back into their particular form.

LENGTH: Three months, beginning early in October; three hours per week.

COST: $200. Scholarships are available.

INSTRUCTOR: Frank Moore.

COURSE OUTLINE

FIRST MEETING: The role of the counselor or the art of kicking ass.

SECOND MEETING: Using and risking yourself.
Using yourself and your life as a symbol.
How and why to break taboos.

THIRD MEETING: Sex.
There is no such thing as a “sex drive.”
There are no such things as hetero-, homo- or bi-sexuality.
Exploding sex myths.

FOURTH MEETING: Dynamics of committed relationships and personal growth.
There is no Mr. Right and no Sleeping Beauty.
How to use the counseling process as an ideal symbol for all relationships.
Demanding within a commitment.
Inter-dependence vs. “independence.”
Commitment, self-trust, and growth.

FIFTH MEETING: The secrets of the magic in counseling.
How to achieve and maintain intensity within the process.
Act like a superstar.
Intimacy and closeness.
Keep everything personal and concrete.

SIXTH MEETING: Common issues.
Choosing what kind of person you want to be.
After choosing, no choice.
Reactions (anger, jealousy, resentment, etc.) are not real.
How to assume vulnerable control.
Healthy hard times or shit can be fun.
Dropping reactions.

SEVENTH MEETING: Glamor and romance.
How to use the “peer” counseling technique.
How to explode the illusion of being special.
There are no “special” problems; e.g., no gay problem, no crip problem, no womens’
problem in relationship counseling.
How to explode roles: lovers, parents, my baby, my man, my woman.
People are people.
Who is willing to get close?

EIGHT MEETING: Techniques.
Breaking taboos as a technique.
Using intimacy.
Primal and spiritual/growth junkies.
How to get these “growth junkies” off their dope.
Sex counseling: replace sex with closeness and play as goals.

NINTH MEETING: Creative imagination.
How to put a person into the inner state of imagination.
Exploring the past, using this state.
Solving problems, using this state.
A look at est, Silva Mind Control and Fischer-Hoffmann.
How to build a self-destruct feature into all techniques, methods to avoid creating
new problems.
The psychic as a technique.

TENTH MEETING: Handling the glamor of being crazy.
The choice of becoming crazy.
Working with someone who has chosen being crazy ain’t fun.
How and when to call his bluff.
How and when to take on his illusions to lead him back.
Suicide.
Drugs.

ELEVENTH MEETING: The class will do some exercises to experience “melting”.

TWELFTH MEETING: Counseling as an art.
Be totally selfish, not half-assed selfish.
Laugh a lot.
How to be outrageous.
Don’t take yourself seriously.

Frank Moore, founder of Inter-relations, Inc., has worked with over 200 people on their relationships within the last two years in the Bay Area. He currently sees over 30 clients on a regular basis. Mr. Moore has developed several different counseling modes. Most of his regular clients are in the weekly group Workshop which Mr. Moore leads in his Berkeley store front. Most of these people have been in the Workshop for over a year, recommitting themselves every four months. Out of the Workshop, which is focused on experiencing closeness and intimacy, there has developed a close-knit community.

Frank also sees people, individuals or couples or in household groupings, weekly to work on the issues and problems of relationships and/or personal growth. These sessions have a free-wheeling, unpredictable quality because Mr. Moore has no fixed format; rather he responds to every situation, every problem with “fast footwork”. It never gets boring in these sessions.

Mr. Moore also leads people through an eleven-week process, designed by Mr. Moore to remove emotional blocks which have been taken on during their childhood.

The Whole Earth Company store of Berkeley and Eureka Valley Contractors have used Mr. Moore as an outside advisor in labor relations to explore how to get human closeness as a focus among their employees. Mr. Moore has also spoken to training classes for Sex and Disability at the University of California Medical Center.

Mr. Moore is presently giving a three-month class in which he teaches the art of giving psychic readings: he calls this class “Marx Brothers Zen”. He also holds a drop-in class which is based on a 300-page manuscript which was channeled through Mr. Moore from a spirit named Reed over a two-year period.

Mr. Moore is also the founder and the director of the Theater of Human Melting, which has produced four original plays in Berkeley. Mr. Moore has also directed plays in New York City and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Mr. Moore has a Master’s degree in Psychology.

RELATED POST:
A Con man who just wants to communicate in the SF Examiner in 1977.

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But we had to get this clip that we just discovered by accident up right away … an excerpt from Barb Golden’s Crack’O’Dawn, December 4, 1997, on KPFA Berkeley with guests Frank Moore, Linda Mac and Mikee LaBash.

Listen to the full show here:
https://archive.org/details/kpfa-crack-o-dawn-12-04-1997

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Religion & Ethics RT
Category 29, Topic 8
Message 10 Sun Aug 23, 1992
F.MOORE7 [shaman] at 04:45 EDT

I have been thinking long and hard about this issue. It may take me several posts to clearly state it … it isn’t a simple black/white issue. I think 95% of “sex magic” can be performed without intercourse, and about 70% can be done without orgasms. Of course, these percentages are meaningless, but they help me say what I need to. I think that most of the focus in “sex magic” on intercourse, orgasm, semen is a detour from the real magical dynamics. But there is the 5% which does require intercourse in some fashion, and we don’t know what is the operating factor which makes the ritual work … for example, skin rubbing skin inside of the body might be the operating factor … in which case, rubbers would get in between and prevent the magical dynamic. I quickly suggest these rituals should not be done casually … all the people involved should be fully aware of and fully accept the risks and dangers involved in a ritual before they do that ritual.

I had an apprentice who had AIDS. This didn’t present a problem in the eroplay rituals … because there is no intercourse or orgasm in eroplay. But at one point, they thought he had TB. I could change the eroplay ritual from the woman rubbing his body, arousing him, to rubbing her own body, arousing her body, and transferring the chero to his body psychically. But when I had sessions with him, they had us wear masks. I soon realized the masks were blocking important magical channels. I took the masks off.

--------------

Item 3308238 92/09/03 00:45
From: F.MOORE Frank Moore
To: P.HUBBARD Philip R. Hubbard
cc: LINTERAH Linda L. Whitten
PUCK Scott M. Baron
H.GARCIA3 Bert Garcia
C.FINK4 Carl I. Fink
R.ASH2 Robert A. Ash
CONNOR Jack Winglewick
F.MOORE7 Frank Moore

Sub: Lux replies to Lady Khallie

Reply: Item #0329884 from P.HUBBARD on 92/09/02 at 20:28

Tanpan eats his meal in slow enjoyment, but he leaves half of the food uneaten … this food remains strangely hot.

“Captain”, Tanpan says in a smooth voice which sounds like two voices –one man, one woman—talking in duet, “if you’d give me a bone, I’d carve something truly beautiful for you. Lux and Lady Khallie, I deeply intend to be very good friends with you. But as for the god of war, I have no time for him.”

With this, Tanpan gets up from the table with his hot food and goes to the sailors. He gives each sailor an equal portion of food. Then he squats besides the injured sailor, and starts nursing him.

TALKING SHOP

Item: 3294755 92/09/02 01:31
From: F.MOORE7 Frank Moore
To: K.GRIFFITH3 Earl K. Griffith
cc: F.MOORE7 Frank Moore
STAVROS Stavros Krysiak
J.AUDLIN James. D. Audlin
Sub: Who is FM?

Luna,
I’ll ramble nonlinearly. What I say should be kept in the context /spirit/reality of the work I’m doing. I think it’d be unwise to talk about it in relationship or in comparison to/with other magical systems. It’s better to talk about the magical dynamics within this magical context … and let the people within the other magical contexts say/think “oh yes, that is like this thing I’ve done” for themselves … like the way Jim and I are talking.

Shamanism at its core is not a religion … any more than being an artist at its core is not a religion … even if it can be turned into one … even though most, if not all, religions came out of shamanistic practices to fulfil totally different needs/purposes than shamanism. For example, religion’s function is to create and maintain a certain social/moral/emotional/spiritual order. Shamanism is the going outside the “normal” order/reality … which sometimes reinforces the “NORMAL” order, sometimes shakes it, sometimes breaks it. Religion is tradition … priests are trained in the traditions to perform the duty of enforcing and handing down the traditions. Shamanism, on the other hand, is experiential, personal [but not individual], and dynamically active. Priests are selected and trained and ordained. Shamans are born, guided, tricked, called. Shamanism is not a social role/mask, but an aspect of the personality. So, it isn’t something to switch on and off, to be sometimes and not be other times. If you are a shaman, you simply are a shaman. Because shamanism is personal, the “tools” are within the personal body, the tools are different for each and every shaman. Because of this, it would be a mistake to focus on the tools stored in my body. It is much more important to focus on how to use the tools … or, more correctly, how to surrender to the tools.

Before I move on, I should address the church status. The work can be defined as a church only within the current legal definition which brings certain benefits. But on the levels we are talking, what we are doing is not a church or a religion … which raises a question for Jim … before whitey came, did the N.A. tribes have the concept of “church”?

I will not know for years how much of the work I do is actually training shamans. It’s clear that much we do is doing magic which is nonlinearly focused on effecting humane change in the outer world. Another main aspect is living/creating/teaching a tribal lifestyle in which the people are melted into a living being in which their personalities are heightened and released within this tribal being. I think this aspect of what we are is what is most threatening to the “normal” reality. Tina is seeing this when Kent keeps telling her she as a woman should become a leader in Cal-Act … implying she is not now a “leader” in her style!

This tribal lifestyle/being is what the people who say they felt a pre-recognition of this are really talking about.

The cave is a physical symbol of the ritualistic intent of the people to create a magic bubble in which taboos of the “normal” reality can be performed. This intent is the real magical circle. The physical symbol just focuses the intent, densifying the magical reality. The cave should not be seen as a retreat from the normal reality, but as an extension of that reality in which rituals can be performed and the results(?) can be transferred back into the normal reality.

The ritual lifts the acts out of “soap opera” linear dynamics of the normal world. This means the shaman who is doing a “sex magic ritual” is not a lover or a threat to take the person away from his/her mate [provided that everything is on the up-and-up] … just like actors doing a love scene in a movie. This is not to say magical rituals do not affect relationships outside the rituals. They do. They strengthen strong ones and shake weak ones. And it has very little to do with the “sexual” content of rituals. Many women have gotten jealous when their men had relationships with me … and pull them out of this. In truth, what they are jealous of, threatened by, is the level of intimacy and vulnerability that the men experienced in the work with me. I can’t think of any cases of this in the reverse roles … except when the woman was in the phase of committing herself into this. In reality, the actual physical play …be it eroplay, tanplay, tansex, or tanpan … is only rarely a point of freakout … and the pre-thinking-worrying about such play is only slightly more an occasion for freaking out within the apprenticeship. [By the way, I do not “create” or do rituals for some linear result or effect.] The mundane things like being on time and putting the magic in the center of one’s life, and living within the tribal being are, in reality, much more dangerously charged than any “sex magic” rituals.

But what can happen is morality and the false specialness of “sex” are brought into the magical reality as tools of judgement. When this happens, the shaman is placed in a very painful, very dangerous position. In this position, the shaman cannot deny the judgement or take any defensive action because any denial or defense only reinforces the judgement which decays into disrespect … the only hope is to take the judgement on as a positive, but this is a last-ditch effort and the situation usually completely decays. This situation is modern. In tribal times, it was a given that morality should not be brought into the ritual reality, and that “sex” was simply one of the tools of magic.

CENSORSHIP

Item: 5753157 92/09/04 03:39
From: FMOORE7 Frank Moore
To: STAVROS Stavros Krysiak
cc: K.GRIFFITH3 Earl K. Griffith
J.AUDLIN James D. Audlin
F.MOORE7 Frank Moore

Sub: Who is FM?

Reply: Item #8757947 from STAVROS on 92/09/03 at 10:35

It looks like we’ll get a 5% cut …and Mike’s work continues to be almost non-existent … but magically we are doing fine moneywise. But I always think of the people who don’t have tribal magic … and I hear on the news the Feds MAY raise SSI … which may offset Linda’s cut.

You’re right, Kyle. We’re too radical for CAL-ACT. Tina and Alexi have been trying to get CAL-ACT to upgrade the picket of Blockbuster Video to boycott and to hand out a list of the local video stores as alternatives to Blockbuster Video. [Jim and Stavros, about ten months ago, I gave Alexi the magical assignment of picketing BV. He has spent hundreds of hours picketing alone … amazing things have happened … changing his whole life. When he joined CAL-ACT as a part of his Chero work, CAL-ACT took the picket on … but it’s still mainly Alexi’s and Tina’s bodies out there.]

They voted to do the boycott and the list. But now Bobbie gets cold feet, fearing BV will sue CAL-ACT for the boycott, [it’d be incredibly stupid for BV to sue the unknown CAL-ACT!] She froze the boycott … even the list … trying to find a lawyer to tell her if it is safe for CAL-ACT to boycott [not what are all the possible results of our boycott]. She told Alexi and Tina that, in the climate of censorship, it is wise to be careful and self-censor. If this is the head state in which we are operating, the censorship has already won. It would be like not doing the last performance because I might be arrested for corrupting the morals of minors … may be reasonable fear … but totally self-defeating.

PERFORMANCE

Religion and Ethics RT
Category 2, Topic 30
Message 137 Wed Sep 07, 1992
F.MOORE7 [shaman] at 23:44 EDT

Ah yes, Stavros, the post-performance bath ritual. But body paint is easy to get off compared to glitter … and just think of the guts and catsup of the “meat act”!

It was a great performance, a great cast, great audience … average age of which I’d say was punky 15 … they are very open at that age.

Speaking of post-performance bath rituals … a few years back, after a performance in Denver, a woman came up disappointed … she had been looking forward to the ritual … but arrived just after the ritual had ended due to a crisis with her kid. I suggested she and I could do a ritual right then. There was a big old-fashioned tub in the back room of the gallery. In the light of many candles, as her husband and others watched and chanted, she and I took an eroplay bath. In many ways, this was much more magical than the formal ritual.

BTW, look in today’s S.F. Chronicle’s food section for a rave review of Alexi’s [my apprentice] cooking at SMOKEY JOES’ CAFÉ.

Oma, I’m 46, in a wheelchair, spastic … and I’m a sex symbol! In fact, Annie Sprinkle just suggested I could hustle my bod [I’d get bored]. So, don’t fall for the lie that THEY are pushing for beauty.

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It took us 11 years, but today the last batch of materials shipped off to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley! After the paper archives shipped off this time last year, we have spent this past year scanning approximately the 4,000 slides and 7,000 prints in our photo binders. This also involved going through all of the binders, removing any duplicates and creating new binders to hold the duplicates (that we will keep.) We also organized by year 14,000+ photos that only exist in digital form and copied them to a hard drive that was included in the shipment.

Next up we will be actively pursuing places to preserve Frank’s oil paintings and films and all of the LUVeR audio tapes and CDs.

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Photos from the “Freedom To Be Human Ball” at Burnt Ramen, Richmond, California, May 4, 2002.

Frank as Extreme Elvis at the Stork Club, Oakland, California, June 7, 2002.

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