So hoist up the John Dee sail

Craig Davis commented that when I talk about John Dee, it always makes him think of the Jimmy Buffett song "Ellis Dee (He Ain't Free)." For me, the song it always puts in my head is "Sloop John B" as sung by the Beach Boys on Pet Sounds.

See how the mainsail sets

Thinking about this led me to the Wikipedia article for "Pet Sounds" because I had a hunch that it might have been released on April 27. It wasn't, but I did find this:

"Run, James, Run" was the working title for the instrumental "Pet Sounds", the suggestion being that it would be offered for use in a James Bond movie.

The reader will recall that the current sync-storm began when I heard someone compare James Bond to John Dee (supposedly "the original 007").

I also found this:

In April, after consuming a full dose of LSD, Wilson had what he considered to be "a very religious experience" and claimed to have seen God.

This caught my attention because the first time I heard about Dee's whale experience, it was presented as a vision of God: "And at one point they even meet God, and God is not an old man with a white beard up in the clouds. God is a whale covered with eyes." And Dee's experience was also in April -- specifically, on April 27, 1584.

Trying to find more details about the precise date and content of Wilson's experience, I searched for brian wilson lsd vision of god and found this carefully constructed timeline. Lo and behold:

April 26 or 27, 1966

This webpage contends that Brian Wilson drops acid for the third time on the beach located in Lake Arrowhead, California. Brian contemplates the riddle and finds the answer to the riddle he was presented with in December. It is the ultimate religious experience ("...this trip was the ultimate in LSD joyrides--everything it was supposed to be, four hours of enlightenment and spirituality") from which a new "reborn" Brian Wilson emerges. Part of the enlightening spiritual experience is the conceiving of the Beach Boys' next album and single.

April 26 is the date of my own dream about a many-eyed whale, which I posted about the next day, April 27, which is also the date of Dee and Kelley's similar vision.

Wilson's April 26 or 27 acid vision was experienced as "the answer to the riddle he was presented with in December." Here, according to the same website, is the riddle.

Several days before Christmas 1965

Brian suffers what he considers an acid flashback in the Pickwick Bookstore. It is a totally unexpected experience.

"I couldn't even remember why I'd gone to the store. It was spooky. I walked into the store anyway. The clerk, who knew me, said hello and mentioned that he was crazy about "Barbara Ann," which was all over the radio. Moving slowly into the aisles, I concentrated on reading the book titles and their authors....I paged through books... I stared at the pages, tried to read, but the letters all vibrated on the pages and I couldn't make sense of anything. Then I saw the books melting down the shelves, dripping like wax down the side of a candle. The room began to spin. I was in the center of a giant spinning top. Turning, turning, turning. The moment was completely surreal.

"As the buzz subsided into a manageable burned-out sensation, I remembered Loren [Schwartz] once explaining that hallucinations were comparable to Zen riddles, mysteries full of meaning. What had mine meant? I had driven to the bookstore, looking for what? Inspiration? Instead, I'd seen books melting, unable to grasp the knowledge contained in them. If that was a riddle, I wanted to know the solution."

"Hallucinations were comparable to Zen riddles, mysteries full of meaning." That's how I feel about the whale vision. It seems like it ought to mean something, but I have not yet found the solution.