Patrick K. Kroupa
Encyclopedia
Patrick Karel Kroupa is an American writer, hacker
and activist. Kroupa was a member of the legendary Legion of Doom
hacker group and co-founded MindVox
in 1991, with Bruce Fancher
. He was a heroin addict from age 14 to 30 and got clean through the use of the hallucinogenic drug ibogaine
.
, Czechoslovakia
, after the Soviet invasion in 1968. His parents were divorce
d when Kroupa was six, and he relocated to New York City, where he was raised by his mother. He is the nephew of Czech opera singer Zdeněk Kroupa
(b. 1921, d. 1999).
Patrick Kroupa was part of the first generation to grow up with home computers and network access. In numerous interviews he has repeatedly listed two events which were important in shaping the course of his later years.
The first was being exposed to one of the first two Cray
supercomputers that were ever built, which was located at NCAR (the National Center for Atmospheric Research
) where his father was a physicist, who took him through the labs and taught him to program in Fortran and feed the Cray using punched cards. This happened during the same year that Woody Allen
was filming Sleeper
, using NCAR in many of the futuristic background scenes that appeared in the movie. Kroupa got an Apple II
computer for his own use around the time he was seven or eight years old.
The second event was being part of the last days of Abbie Hoffman
's YIPL/TAP
(Youth International Party Lines/Technological Assistance Program) counter-culture/Yippie meetings that were taking place in New York City's Lower East Side
, during the early 1980s. Kroupa again lists this event, repeatedly in interviews, as opening many new doors for him and changing his perceptions about technology.
TAP was the original hacker
and phone phreak publication which predated 2600 by decades (at the time of the last TAP meetings, 2600 magazine was just starting to publish its first issues). Kroupa met many people there who would become part of his life in the years to come. Three of the main characters would be his future partner and life-long friend, Bruce Fancher; Yippie/Medical Marijuana activist Dana Beal
(The Theoretician), who was part of the John Draper
(Cap'n Crunch) /Abbie Hoffman, technologically-inclined branch of the counter-culture and perhaps most important: Herbert Huncke
, who introduced Kroupa to heroin at age 14.
With the exception of the counter-cultural and hard-drug elements, the preceding history made Kroupa part of a small group, composed of a few hundred kids who were either wealthy enough to afford home computers in the late 70's, or had technologically-savvy families who understood the potentials of what the machines could do. The Internet as it is today did not exist, only a small percentage of the population had home computers and out of those who did, even fewer had online access through the use of modems.
During his time in the computer underground Kroupa was a member of the first Pirate
/Cracking
crew to ever exist for the Apple II computer: The Apple Mafia as well as various phreaking
/hacking
groups, the most high-profile being the Knights of Shadow. When KOS fell apart after a series of arrests, many of the surviving members were absorbed into Kroupa's final group affiliation: the Legion of Doom (LoD/H).
Kroupa started publishing some of his hacking techniques when he would have been around 12 or 13. There is a significant progression through years of text, which captures Kroupa's early evolution and skills, culminating in an extensive, programmable phone phreaking and hacking toolkit for the Apple II
computer, called Phantom Access
(which is where the name Phantom Access Technologies, the parent corporation behind MindVox, would later come from).
In the late 80s and early 90s, the computer underground had suffered through a series of protracted raids by the Secret Service
and FBI
, called Operation Sundevil
and Operation Redux. Many Legion of Doom members were raided and charged. This happened against the backdrop of the first and largest gang war that ever took place in cyberspace
, the Great Hacker War
between LOD and their rival gang MOD (Masters of Deception).
Considering Kroupa and Fancher's backgrounds and the fact that MindVox employed a motley collection of convicted felons like security expert Len Rose
and the infamous Phiber Optik (Mark Abene) who was awaiting a Manhattan
grand jury
indictment
, these were very real issues at the time.
This is the environment in which Patrick Kroupa and Bruce Fancher, launched MindVox
. In the words of Bruce Fancher:
This is also the time during which Patrick Kroupa wrote, Voices in my Head, MindVox: The Overture. Kroupa wrote about the cultural forces that were at play in the hacker underground during the decade that pre-dated the launch of MindVox, considered by some the "Golden Age
" of cyberspace.
In the process of writing and releasing Voices, Patrick Kroupa stepped out from behind Lord Digital. Instead of status in the hacker underground and notoriety in a sub-culture, Kroupa was being written about as the Jim Morrison
of cyberspace and receiving accolades from the mainstream press.
Voices helped define what MindVox became, a counter-cultural media darling meriting full-length features in magazines and newspapers such as Rolling Stone
, Forbes
, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times
and The New Yorker
. Voices in my Head was the spark that propelled Kroupa out of obscurity and into the mainstream.
There is no single article that captures this as well as Sassy
magazine's effusive coverage of MindVox. The long strange trip that began in the hardcore hacker underground, had landed in the middle of a glossy mainstream magazine targeted at an audience of teenage girls, with Kroupa and Fancher displacing that issue's "Cute boy band alert!" with the "Cute cyberpunk
alert!".
and other psychedelic drugs was no big secret. The darker side of his life — that he regularly lost weeks of time injecting speedballs
, was in and out of detoxes and rehabs, and suffered from bipolar disorder
— were not publicized or mentioned until nearly a decade later.
Kroupa wrote with great honesty and passion about a variety of topics, but he very carefully danced around his own increasing dependence on heroin. Everybody knew that Kroupa occasionally used heroin, cocaine and dozens of other drugs, but not the extent.
By 1996, MindVox was at the absolute height of its powers, yet it was disintegrating. Bruce Fancher was suddenly part of two or three other start-ups, system repairs that should have taken hours, dragged on for weeks. While the user-base kept growing, the previously high level of intelligent discourse within the internal conferences had suffered, and while MindVox was getting more press than ever, all of it read like the same story being retold for the umpteenth time.
Sometime in early to mid 1996, Kroupa simply vanished. Freedom of choice, gave way to the downward spiral of hardcore heroin addiction and dysfunction. In his 2005 book, Hip: The History, New York Times reporter and former Details
editor John Leland
would write:
Kroupa's exact whereabouts and activities from early 1996 until December 1999, remain unknown. He has acknowledged that he travelled throughout North America and spent time living in Mexico
, Belize, Puerto Rico
, the Czech Republic
and eventually Bangkok
, Thailand.
The dot.com
success story that began with MindVox, eventually hit rock bottom when Patrick Kroupa turned thirty incarcerated
, "doin' Cold turkey
on cement, in The Tombs
". Several months after this arrest, Kroupa finally kicked heroin through the use of the hallucinogenic drug, ibogaine
. He was detoxed
for the last time in the West Indies, on the Caribbean
island of St. Kitts
by Dr. Deborah Mash
in late 1999.
He subsequently spent four months living at the controversial Buddhist temple, Wat Tham Krabok
(which has since been shut down by the Thai
government and wrapped in concertina wire
, on suspicion of being an international heroin smuggling conduit).
's Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine
.
During the next several years Kroupa appeared in a series of ibogaine-related news reports which aired on television, radio and print media. The most famous example probably being San Francisco's KRON news-report, which aired in 2004 and features Kroupa and Mash in a ten-minute long pro-ibogaine story.
Kroupa is regularly a featured speaker at psychedelics and harm reduction
conferences. He seems to have a penchant for appearing at speaking engagements with multiple cups of coffee lined up in front of him, sometimes chain-smoking cigarettes through hour-long presentations. Whatever ibogaine
has done for his other addictions, it seems to have had no effect on his nicotine
and caffeine
dependence.
, Dana Beal
, Robert Altman
, Grace Slick
, Stew Albert
, Dennis Peron
, Ed Rosenthal
, Jack Hoffman, Steven Conliff and Hunter S. Thompson
, and went on tour during 2003-2004, the line-up featured the surprising inclusion of former Black Panther Party
leader Dhoruba bin Wahad, and Patrick Kroupa, who wasn't born when the Yippies first became a cultural force in the United States, and was 2-3 generations younger than his closest compatriot. It is unknown whether the YSB remains active; it went on hiatus in 2005 with the deaths of Stew Albert, Steven Conliff, and suicide of Hunter S. Thompson.
On November 15, 2007, he spoke at the University Philosophical Society (Trinity College, Dublin)
, discussing ibogaine, the worldwide War on Drugs
, and advocating the legalisation of all narcotics. The following Monday (November 19, 2007) Kroupa appeared on Ireland's national television station TV3's
Ireland AM
talk show, calling the War on Drugs:
Kroupa is High Priest in the Eastern European based Sacrament of Transition
(a religious organization whose initiation rituals involve the sacramental use of ibogaine
), and a member of Cult of the Dead Cow
.
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
and activist. Kroupa was a member of the legendary Legion of Doom
Legion of Doom (hacking)
The Legion of Doom was a hacker group active from the 1980s to the late 1990s and early 2000. Their name appears to be a reference to the antagonists of Challenge of the Superfriends...
hacker group and co-founded MindVox
MindVox
MindVox was a famed early Internet Service Provider in New York City. A controversial sometime media darling — the service was referred to as "the Hells Angels of Cyberspace" — it was founded in 1991 by Bruce Fancher and Patrick Kroupa , two former members of the legendary Legion of Doom hacker...
in 1991, with Bruce Fancher
Bruce Fancher
Bruce Fancher is a computer hacker, a former member of the legendary Legion of Doom hacker group. He co-founded MindVox in 1991 with Patrick K. Kroupa.-Early years:Bruce Fancher grew up in New York City...
. He was a heroin addict from age 14 to 30 and got clean through the use of the hallucinogenic drug ibogaine
Ibogaine
Ibogaine is a naturally occurring psychoactive substance found in a number of plants, principally in a member of the Apocynaceae family known as Iboga . A hallucinogen with both psychedelic and dissociative properties, the substance is banned in some countries; in other countries it is being used...
.
Early years
Kroupa was born in Los Angeles, California, of Czech parents who left PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, after the Soviet invasion in 1968. His parents were divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
d when Kroupa was six, and he relocated to New York City, where he was raised by his mother. He is the nephew of Czech opera singer Zdeněk Kroupa
Zdeněk Kroupa
Zdeněk Kroupa was a Czech opera singer. His wife became lifelong soloist of the National Theatre in Mira Figarova.-Life:...
(b. 1921, d. 1999).
Patrick Kroupa was part of the first generation to grow up with home computers and network access. In numerous interviews he has repeatedly listed two events which were important in shaping the course of his later years.
The first was being exposed to one of the first two Cray
Cray
Cray Inc. is an American supercomputer manufacturer based in Seattle, Washington. The company's predecessor, Cray Research, Inc. , was founded in 1972 by computer designer Seymour Cray. Seymour Cray went on to form the spin-off Cray Computer Corporation , in 1989, which went bankrupt in 1995,...
supercomputers that were ever built, which was located at NCAR (the National Center for Atmospheric Research
National Center for Atmospheric Research
The National Center for Atmospheric Research has multiple facilities, including the I. M. Pei-designed Mesa Laboratory headquarters in Boulder, Colorado. NCAR is managed by the nonprofit University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and sponsored by the National Science Foundation...
) where his father was a physicist, who took him through the labs and taught him to program in Fortran and feed the Cray using punched cards. This happened during the same year that Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
was filming Sleeper
Sleeper (film)
Sleeper is a 1973 futuristic science fiction comedy film, written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, and directed by Allen. The plot involves the adventures of the owner of a Greenwich Village, NY health food store played by Woody Allen who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200...
, using NCAR in many of the futuristic background scenes that appeared in the movie. Kroupa got an Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
computer for his own use around the time he was seven or eight years old.
The second event was being part of the last days of Abbie Hoffman
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....
's YIPL/TAP
Youth International Party
The Youth International Party, whose members were commonly called Yippies, was a radically youth-oriented and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the 1960s. It was founded on Dec. 31, 1967...
(Youth International Party Lines/Technological Assistance Program) counter-culture/Yippie meetings that were taking place in New York City's Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
, during the early 1980s. Kroupa again lists this event, repeatedly in interviews, as opening many new doors for him and changing his perceptions about technology.
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
and phone phreak publication which predated 2600 by decades (at the time of the last TAP meetings, 2600 magazine was just starting to publish its first issues). Kroupa met many people there who would become part of his life in the years to come. Three of the main characters would be his future partner and life-long friend, Bruce Fancher; Yippie/Medical Marijuana activist Dana Beal
Dana Beal
Irvin Dana Beal is an American social and political activist, best known for his efforts to legalize marijuana...
(The Theoretician), who was part of the John Draper
John Draper
John Thomas Draper , also known as Captain Crunch, Crunch or Crunchman , is an American computer programmer and former phone phreak. He is a legendary figure within the computer programming world.- Background :Draper is the son of a U.S...
(Cap'n Crunch) /Abbie Hoffman, technologically-inclined branch of the counter-culture and perhaps most important: Herbert Huncke
Herbert Huncke
Herbert Edwin Huncke was a writer and poet, and active participant in a number of emerging cultural, social and aesthetic movements of the 20th century in America...
, who introduced Kroupa to heroin at age 14.
With the exception of the counter-cultural and hard-drug elements, the preceding history made Kroupa part of a small group, composed of a few hundred kids who were either wealthy enough to afford home computers in the late 70's, or had technologically-savvy families who understood the potentials of what the machines could do. The Internet as it is today did not exist, only a small percentage of the population had home computers and out of those who did, even fewer had online access through the use of modems.
During his time in the computer underground Kroupa was a member of the first Pirate
Warez
Warez refers primarily to copyrighted works distributed without fees or royalties, and may be traded, in general violation of copyright law. The term generally refers to unauthorized releases by organized groups, as opposed to file sharing between friends or large groups of people with similar...
/Cracking
Software cracking
Software cracking is the modification of software to remove or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the software, usually related to protection methods: copy protection, trial/demo version, serial number, hardware key, date checks, CD check or software annoyances...
crew to ever exist for the Apple II computer: The Apple Mafia as well as various phreaking
Phreaking
Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a culture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, such as equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. As telephone networks have become computerized, phreaking has become closely...
/hacking
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
groups, the most high-profile being the Knights of Shadow. When KOS fell apart after a series of arrests, many of the surviving members were absorbed into Kroupa's final group affiliation: the Legion of Doom (LoD/H).
Kroupa started publishing some of his hacking techniques when he would have been around 12 or 13. There is a significant progression through years of text, which captures Kroupa's early evolution and skills, culminating in an extensive, programmable phone phreaking and hacking toolkit for the Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
computer, called Phantom Access
Phantom Access
Phantom Access was the name given to a series of hacking programs written by Patrick Kroupa of LOD. The programs were worked on during the early to mid 80s , and designed to run on the Apple II computer and Apple-Cat modem....
(which is where the name Phantom Access Technologies, the parent corporation behind MindVox, would later come from).
Voices in my Head (1991–1996)
|
In the late 80s and early 90s, the computer underground had suffered through a series of protracted raids by the Secret Service
United States Secret Service
The United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States...
and FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
, called Operation Sundevil
Operation Sundevil
Operation Sundevil was a 1990 nation-wide United States Secret Service crackdown on "illegal computer hacking activities." It involved raids in approximately fifteen different cities and resulted in three arrests and the confiscation of computers, the contents of electronic bulletin board systems ,...
and Operation Redux. Many Legion of Doom members were raided and charged. This happened against the backdrop of the first and largest gang war that ever took place in cyberspace
Cyberspace
Cyberspace is the electronic medium of computer networks, in which online communication takes place.The term "cyberspace" was first used by the cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson, though the concept was described somewhat earlier, for example in the Vernor Vinge short story "True...
, the Great Hacker War
Great Hacker War
The Great Hacker War was a purported 1990–1991 conflict between the Masters of Deception and an unsanctioned splinter faction of the older guard hacker group Legion of Doom , and some smaller subsidiary groups...
between LOD and their rival gang MOD (Masters of Deception).
Considering Kroupa and Fancher's backgrounds and the fact that MindVox employed a motley collection of convicted felons like security expert Len Rose
Leonard Rose (Hacker)
Leonard Rose was in 1991 convicted of illicit use of proprietary software owned by AT&T. More specifically the U.S. Attorney's Office in Baltimore stated that he stole Unix source code from AT&T and distributed two Trojan Horse programs designed to allow for unauthorized access to computer systems...
and the infamous Phiber Optik (Mark Abene) who was awaiting a Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
indictment
Indictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
, these were very real issues at the time.
This is the environment in which Patrick Kroupa and Bruce Fancher, launched MindVox
MindVox
MindVox was a famed early Internet Service Provider in New York City. A controversial sometime media darling — the service was referred to as "the Hells Angels of Cyberspace" — it was founded in 1991 by Bruce Fancher and Patrick Kroupa , two former members of the legendary Legion of Doom hacker...
. In the words of Bruce Fancher:
This is also the time during which Patrick Kroupa wrote, Voices in my Head, MindVox: The Overture. Kroupa wrote about the cultural forces that were at play in the hacker underground during the decade that pre-dated the launch of MindVox, considered by some the "Golden Age
Golden Age (metaphor)
A golden age is a period in a field of endeavour when great tasks were accomplished. The term originated from early Greek and Roman poets who used to refer to a time when mankind lived in a better time and was pure .-Golden Age in society:...
" of cyberspace.
In the process of writing and releasing Voices, Patrick Kroupa stepped out from behind Lord Digital. Instead of status in the hacker underground and notoriety in a sub-culture, Kroupa was being written about as the Jim Morrison
Jim Morrison
James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American musician, singer, and poet, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band The Doors...
of cyberspace and receiving accolades from the mainstream press.
Voices helped define what MindVox became, a counter-cultural media darling meriting full-length features in magazines and newspapers such as Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
. Voices in my Head was the spark that propelled Kroupa out of obscurity and into the mainstream.
There is no single article that captures this as well as Sassy
Sassy Magazine
Sassy magazine is a defunct teen magazine, aimed at teenage female fans of alternative and indie rock music. It was founded in March 1988 by an Australian feminist, Sandra Yates, CEO of Matilda Publications, who based it on the teen magazine Dolly, which is still in publication in...
magazine's effusive coverage of MindVox. The long strange trip that began in the hardcore hacker underground, had landed in the middle of a glossy mainstream magazine targeted at an audience of teenage girls, with Kroupa and Fancher displacing that issue's "Cute boy band alert!" with the "Cute cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
alert!".
MIA / DOA (1996–2000)
A running theme through nearly all of Kroupa's writing is his drug use. He was a very vocal proponent of self-selecting one's own state of consciousness and freely wrote and talked about his own drug experimentation. The caveat being, some of his drug use was open and public. The fact that he was an advocate of LSDLSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
and other psychedelic drugs was no big secret. The darker side of his life — that he regularly lost weeks of time injecting speedballs
Speedball (drug)
Speedball is a term commonly referring to the hazardous intravenous use of heroin or morphine and cocaine together in the same syringe. The speedball can also be taken by insufflation. The original speedball used cocaine hydrochloride mixed with morphine sulfate, as opposed to heroin...
, was in and out of detoxes and rehabs, and suffered from bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
— were not publicized or mentioned until nearly a decade later.
Kroupa wrote with great honesty and passion about a variety of topics, but he very carefully danced around his own increasing dependence on heroin. Everybody knew that Kroupa occasionally used heroin, cocaine and dozens of other drugs, but not the extent.
Sometime in early to mid 1996, Kroupa simply vanished. Freedom of choice, gave way to the downward spiral of hardcore heroin addiction and dysfunction. In his 2005 book, Hip: The History, New York Times reporter and former Details
Details (magazine)
Details is an American monthly men's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications, founded in 1982. Though primarily a magazine devoted to fashion and lifestyle, Details also features reports on relevant social and political issues.-History:...
editor John Leland
John Leland (journalist)
John Leland is an author and has been a New York Times journalist since 2000. During a stint in 1994, he was editor in chief of Details magazine...
would write:
Kroupa's exact whereabouts and activities from early 1996 until December 1999, remain unknown. He has acknowledged that he travelled throughout North America and spent time living in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Belize, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
, the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
and eventually Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
, Thailand.
The dot.com
Dot-com company
A dot-com company, or simply a dot-com , is a company that does most of its business on the Internet, usually through a website that uses the popular top-level domain, ".com" .While the term can refer to present-day companies, it is also used specifically to refer to companies with...
success story that began with MindVox, eventually hit rock bottom when Patrick Kroupa turned thirty incarcerated
Incarceration
Incarceration is the detention of a person in prison, typically as punishment for a crime .People are most commonly incarcerated upon suspicion or conviction of committing a crime, and different jurisdictions have differing laws governing the function of incarceration within a larger system of...
, "doin' Cold turkey
Cold turkey
"Cold turkey" describes the actions of a person who abruptly gives up a habit or addiction rather than gradually easing the process through gradual reduction or by using replacement medication....
on cement, in The Tombs
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
". Several months after this arrest, Kroupa finally kicked heroin through the use of the hallucinogenic drug, ibogaine
Ibogaine
Ibogaine is a naturally occurring psychoactive substance found in a number of plants, principally in a member of the Apocynaceae family known as Iboga . A hallucinogen with both psychedelic and dissociative properties, the substance is banned in some countries; in other countries it is being used...
. He was detoxed
Drug detoxification
Drug detoxification is a collective of interventions directed at controlling acute drug intoxication and drug withdrawal. It refers to a purging from the body of the substances to which a patient is addicted and acutely under the influence...
for the last time in the West Indies, on the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
island of St. Kitts
Saint Kitts
Saint Kitts Saint Kitts Saint Kitts (also known more formally as Saint Christopher Island (Saint-Christophe in French) is an island in the West Indies. The west side of the island borders the Caribbean Sea, and the eastern coast faces the Atlantic Ocean...
by Dr. Deborah Mash
Deborah Mash
Deborah Mash is an American professor of neurology and of molecular and cellular pharmacology at the University of Miami School of Medicine and director of the university's Brain Endowment Bank. She is one of the world's foremost scientific experts on the hallucinogenic drug ibogaine.Dr...
in late 1999.
He subsequently spent four months living at the controversial Buddhist temple, Wat Tham Krabok
Wat Tham Krabok
Wat Tham Krabok is a Buddhist temple in Thailand, located in the Phra Phutthabat district of Saraburi Province.The temple was first established as a monastery in 1958 by the Buddhist nun Mae Chee Boonruen. It was upgraded to temple status 17 years later, in 1975...
(which has since been shut down by the Thai
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
government and wrapped in concertina wire
Concertina wire
Concertina wire or Dannert Wire is a type of barbed wire or razor wire that is formed in large coils which can be expanded like a concertina. In conjunction with plain barbed wire and steel pickets, it is used to form military wire obstacles....
, on suspicion of being an international heroin smuggling conduit).
21st century
A heroin-free Kroupa returned to the United States from Thailand in 2000, and became CTO of Dr. Deborah Mash's Ibogaine Research Project at the University of MiamiUniversity of Miami
The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...
's Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine
Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine
The University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine is the school of medical education of the University of Miami. The main medical campus is located in the Civic Center, Miami, Florida within the UM/Jackson Memorial Medical Center complex...
.
During the next several years Kroupa appeared in a series of ibogaine-related news reports which aired on television, radio and print media. The most famous example probably being San Francisco's KRON news-report, which aired in 2004 and features Kroupa and Mash in a ten-minute long pro-ibogaine story.
Kroupa is regularly a featured speaker at psychedelics and harm reduction
Harm reduction
Harm reduction refers to a range of public health policies designed to reduce the harmful consequences associated with recreational drug use and other high risk activities...
conferences. He seems to have a penchant for appearing at speaking engagements with multiple cups of coffee lined up in front of him, sometimes chain-smoking cigarettes through hour-long presentations. Whatever ibogaine
Ibogaine
Ibogaine is a naturally occurring psychoactive substance found in a number of plants, principally in a member of the Apocynaceae family known as Iboga . A hallucinogen with both psychedelic and dissociative properties, the substance is banned in some countries; in other countries it is being used...
has done for his other addictions, it seems to have had no effect on his nicotine
Nicotine
Nicotine is an alkaloid found in the nightshade family of plants that constitutes approximately 0.6–3.0% of the dry weight of tobacco, with biosynthesis taking place in the roots and accumulation occurring in the leaves...
and caffeine
Caffeine
Caffeine is a bitter, white crystalline xanthine alkaloid that acts as a stimulant drug. Caffeine is found in varying quantities in the seeds, leaves, and fruit of some plants, where it acts as a natural pesticide that paralyzes and kills certain insects feeding on the plants...
dependence.
Yippies and the counterculture
While Kroupa's past history with the Yippies began at around age 13 or 14, when the Yippies formalized a Yippie Speakers Bureau in 2003, consisting of: Paul KrassnerPaul Krassner
Paul Krassner is an author, journalist, stand-up comedian, and the founder, editor and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958...
, Dana Beal
Dana Beal
Irvin Dana Beal is an American social and political activist, best known for his efforts to legalize marijuana...
, Robert Altman
Robert Altman (photographer)
Robert Mark Altman is an American photographer. Altman attended Hunter College at the City University of New York. After graduation, Altman was taught photography by Ansel Adams....
, Grace Slick
Grace Slick
Grace Slick is an American singer and songwriter, who was one of the lead singers of the rock groups The Great Society, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship, and was a solo artist, for nearly three decades, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s...
, Stew Albert
Stew Albert
Stewart Edward "Stew" Albert was an early member of the Yippies, an anti-Vietnam War political activist, and an important figure in the New Left movement of the 1960s....
, Dennis Peron
Dennis Peron
Dennis Peron is an openly gay American medical marijuana and LGBT activist and businessman who was the figurehead for the legality of cannabis throughout the 1990s influencing many in California and thus changing the political debate of marijuana in the United States...
, Ed Rosenthal
Ed Rosenthal
Ed Rosenthal is a California horticulturist, author, publisher, and Cannabis grower known for his advocacy for the legalization of marijuana use. He served as a columnist for High Times Magazine during the 80's and 90's...
, Jack Hoffman, Steven Conliff and Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...
, and went on tour during 2003-2004, the line-up featured the surprising inclusion of former Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
leader Dhoruba bin Wahad, and Patrick Kroupa, who wasn't born when the Yippies first became a cultural force in the United States, and was 2-3 generations younger than his closest compatriot. It is unknown whether the YSB remains active; it went on hiatus in 2005 with the deaths of Stew Albert, Steven Conliff, and suicide of Hunter S. Thompson.
On November 15, 2007, he spoke at the University Philosophical Society (Trinity College, Dublin)
University Philosophical Society (Trinity College, Dublin)
The University Philosophical Society, commonly known as The Phil, is a student paper-reading and debating society in Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. It is one of the two debating societies in the university...
, discussing ibogaine, the worldwide War on Drugs
War on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
, and advocating the legalisation of all narcotics. The following Monday (November 19, 2007) Kroupa appeared on Ireland's national television station TV3's
TV3 Ireland
TV3 is a free-to-air commercial television network in the Republic of Ireland. Launched on 20 September 1998 it was Ireland's first commercial broadcaster. The channel is owned by TV3 Group a subsidiary of Doughty Hanson & Co.-The TV3 Group:...
Ireland AM
Ireland AM
Ireland AM is Ireland's only breakfast television programme. The show is broadcast live every weekday morning by TV3 and 3e.- Early years :...
talk show, calling the War on Drugs:
Kroupa is High Priest in the Eastern European based Sacrament of Transition
Sacrament of Transition
Sacrament of Transition is a new religion based in Slovenia, based on and promoting the sacramental use of the psychoactive plant Tabernanthe iboga and its derivatives, including ibogaine. The founder of Sacrament of Transition is Marko Resinovic...
(a religious organization whose initiation rituals involve the sacramental use of ibogaine
Ibogaine
Ibogaine is a naturally occurring psychoactive substance found in a number of plants, principally in a member of the Apocynaceae family known as Iboga . A hallucinogen with both psychedelic and dissociative properties, the substance is banned in some countries; in other countries it is being used...
), and a member of Cult of the Dead Cow
Cult of the Dead Cow
Cult of the Dead Cow, also known as cDc or cDc Communications, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. The group maintains a weblog on its site, also titled "Cult of the Dead Cow"...
.
Essays
- Voices In My Head MindVox: The Overture (1992), Patrick K. Kroupa. http://www.etext.org/CuD/Papers/mindvox, http://www.phantom.com/staticpage/Akashic/Voices.html, http://wiretap.area.com/Gopher/Library/Cyber/mindvox.txt
Magazines
- The Akashic Records of Cyberspace (1993), Patrick K. Kroupa. Mondo 2000.
- Memoirs of a Cybernaut (1993), Patrick K. Kroupa. Wired.
- Agr1pPa - A Book of The Mentally Disturbed (1993), Patrick K. Kroupa. Mondo 2000. http://www.eff.org/Misc/Publications/William_Gibson/agr1ppa.parody, http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/agr1ppa.html
- The Secret Service is Neither (1994), Patrick K. Kroupa. Mondo 2000.
- Heroin Times: Ibogaine Series (2000–2003), Patrick K. Kroupa. Heroin Times.
Medical journals
- Ibogaine: Treatment Outcomes and Observations (2003), Hattie Wells (Epoptica) & Patrick K. Kroupa (Junk the Magic Dragon), MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic StudiesMultidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic StudiesThe Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies is a membership-based 501 non-profit research and educational organization working to develop psychedelics and marijuana into legal prescription drugs...
, Volume XIII, Number 2). - Ibogaine in the 21st Century: Boosters, Tune-ups and Maintenance (2005), Patrick K. Kroupa & Hattie Wells. MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, Volume XV, Number 1).
Books
- Rudy RuckerRudy RuckerRudolf von Bitter Rucker is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and philosopher, and is one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known for the novels in the Ware Tetralogy, the first two of...
& R. U. SiriusR. U. SiriusR. U. Sirius is an American writer, editor, talk show host, musician and cyberculture celebrity. He is best known as co-founder and original Editor-In-Chief of Mondo 2000 magazine from 1989–1993. Sirius was also chairman and candidate in the 2000 U.S. presidential election for The Revolution Party...
, (1992) User's Guide to the New Edge (ISBN 0-06-096928-8) - Bruce SterlingBruce SterlingMichael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.-Writings:...
, (1993) The Hacker Crackdown: Law And Disorder On The Electronic Frontier (ISBN 0-553-56370-X) - Philip Bacweksi, Tod Foley, and Billy Barron (1994) Tricks of the Internet Gurus (ISBN 0-672-30599-2)
- Frank Biocca, Mark R. Levy, (1994) Communication in the Age of Virtual Reality (ISBN 0-8058-1550-3)
- J C Herz, (1995) Surfing on the Internet (ISBN 0-316-36009-0)
- St. Jude (Jude MilhonJude MilhonJude Milhon , in Anderson, Indiana, best known by her pseudonym St. Jude, was a hacker and author in the San Francisco Bay Area....
), (1995) The Real Cyberpunk Fakebook (ISBN 0-679-76230-2) - Jeff GoodellJeff GoodellJeff Goodell is an American author and contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine. Goodell's recent writings focus on energy and environmental issues. In 2006 he published his most popular book to date Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future...
, (1996) The Cyberthief and the Samurai (ISBN 0-440-22205-2) - Charles PlattCharles Platt (science-fiction author)Charles Platt is an author, journalist and computer programmer. He relocated from England to the United States in 1970, is a naturalized U.S. citizen and has one daughter, Rose Fox...
, (1997) Anarchy Online (ISBN 0-06-100990-3) - Melanie McGrath, (1998) Hard, Soft & Wet (ISBN 0-00-654849-0)
- Richard Power, (2000) Tangled Web: Tales of Digital Crime from the Shadows of Cyberspace (ISBN 0-7897-2443-X)
- Rebecca Gurley Bace, (2000) Intrusion Detection (ISBN 1-57870-185-6)
- John BiggsJohn BiggsJohn Biggs is a Labour Party politician and member of the London Assembly representing the City and East constituency. He is a former leader of Tower Hamlets Borough Council....
, (2004) Black Hat (ISBN 1-59059-379-0) - Joseph M. Kizza, (2005) Computer Network Security (ISBN 0387204733)
- John LelandJohn Leland (journalist)John Leland is an author and has been a New York Times journalist since 2000. During a stint in 1994, he was editor in chief of Details magazine...
, (2005) Hip: The History (ISBN 0-06-052817-6)
Magazines and newspapers
- ForbesForbesForbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
, William Flanagan (1992), The Playground Bullies Have Learned to Type - Mondo 2000Mondo 2000Mondo 2000 was a glossy cyberculture magazine published in California during the 1980s and 1990s. It covered cyberpunk topics such as virtual reality and smart drugs. It was a more anarchic and subversive prototype for the later-founded Wired magazine....
, Andrew Hawkins (1992), There's A Party in my Mind... MindVox! - Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, Frank Bajak (1993), Wiring the Planet: MindVox! - The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
(1993), CyberHero - Wired Magazine, Charles PlattCharles Platt (science-fiction author)Charles Platt is an author, journalist and computer programmer. He relocated from England to the United States in 1970, is a naturalized U.S. citizen and has one daughter, Rose Fox...
(November 1993), MindVox: Urban Attitude Online - Sassy MagazineSassy MagazineSassy magazine is a defunct teen magazine, aimed at teenage female fans of alternative and indie rock music. It was founded in March 1988 by an Australian feminist, Sandra Yates, CEO of Matilda Publications, who based it on the teen magazine Dolly, which is still in publication in...
, Margie Ingall (1993), Hi Girlz, See You in Cyberspace! - New York Magazine, Jeff Goodell (1994), Boot Up and See Me Sometime
- NY Times, John Leland (May 1, 2003), Yippies' Answer to Smoke-Filled Rooms
- Ocean DriveOcean Drive (magazine)Ocean Drive is a magazine that reports on fashion, society, entertainment and celebrities in Miami Beach, Florida, in the United States. The magazine has been referred to as "the Bible of South Beach" due to its coverage of nightlife and VIPs. Suzy Buckley is the Editor in Chief. The magazine's...
, Tristram Korten (2006), A Cure for Addiction? - Radar, Tristram Korten (October/November 2008), The Electric Acid Kool-aid Cure
Medical journals
- Brian Vastag, Addiction Treatment Strives for Legitimacy JAMAJournal of the American Medical AssociationThe Journal of the American Medical Association is a weekly, peer-reviewed, medical journal, published by the American Medical Association. Beginning in July 2011, the editor in chief will be Howard C. Bauchner, vice chairman of pediatrics at Boston University’s School of Medicine, replacing ...
(Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 288 No. 24, December 25, 2002)
Public Access U.S. government documents
- United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, (1996). Security in Cyberspace: Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Fourth Congress, Second Session, May 22, June 5, 25, and July 16, 1996
- Available from U.S. G.P.O., Supt. of Docs., Congressional Sales Office. (ISBN 0-16-053913-7)
Film
- Benjamin De Loenen (2005) Ibogaine: Rite of Passage. LunArt Productions iMDB
Television
- KRON (2004). Hallucinogen May Cure Drug Addiction http://ibogaine.mindvox.com/Media/KRON-Ibogaine.html
Radio
- KNX 1070 News Radio (2005). Ibogaine
External links
- Personal homepage
- Phantom Access Exhibit
- "Wonderful Things" – War On Drugs essay
- Textfiles List of Losers, 1984