The Universal Plan : Peter Valentine
$125
In stock
Description
Hand lettered flyer designed and distributed by late Cambridge artist and eccentric Peter Valentine (1942 – 2022) for an I-Ching inspired divination device.
[Valentine, Peter] The Universal Plan. Dynamite Designs. Cambridge, MA. [c. 1971].
An original hand lettered promotional card designed and distributed by the late Cambridge artist and eccentric Peter Valentine (1942 – 2022) for the purchase of an I-Ching inspired divination device of his own creation.
A colorful local figure for decades, Valentine rose to fame in 1991 when the building in which he rented (the listed 55 Blanche) was sold to MIT for demolition and he refused to leave due to the “electromagnetic psychic defense system” he’d built over decades. Gaining prominence and public support he was allowed to purchase the building for $1 and have it moved to another location where he continued to live and work through the end of his life in August 2022, teaching “electromagnetic kung fu” and transforming the house into the noted folk art “Cosmic Moose and Grizzly Bear’s Ville”.
Valentine’s teaching style, evangelism, and name for his esoteric systems changed numerous times over the years, including the distribution of literature from specially crafted slots in the fence of his home. This flyer stems from some of his earliest public outreach promoting a spinning fortune telling device inspired by the I-Ching and astrology described in a front page story for the September 7, 1971 issue of The Boston Globe entitled “Government of the Universe: Spin The Dial For Your Fate”.
Per James Grauerholz, William Burroughs’ bibliographer and literary executor, Burroughs was one of Valentine’s admirers and students.
Single sided envelope sized broadside leaflet. Toned with age. Some signs of adhesive on verso. Very good.
If you liked this you might also enjoy this occult zine from “anarchist necromancer” Patrick Geoffrois or this first edition of Ananias or The False Artist by Walter Pach
