--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "hugheshugo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > I agree with Curtis and with others who said that > > the trouble with LSD was the "recreationalization" > > of the drug. It was a sacrament, and used as one, > > could lead to valuable insights -- about the world, > > about the self, and about Self. Like him, I never > > had anything but the most positive, uplifting > > experiences during the period that I experimented > > with LSD, and have the greatest respect for it. > > I liken its "cheapening" as something to party > > down with to some callous youth finding a 200-year- > > old bottle of the finest cognac and seeing it only > > as a way to get drunk. > > I always wondered what the therapeutic use might be, > it always seemed so confusing and so much never-the-same > thing-twice, perhaps it was the mind expanding sense of > greater reality that helped put things into perspective > for people. I sure never looked at the world the > same way.
I'm sure Cary didn't, either. I don't know any of the particulars of who his shrink might have been and whether he was successful using LSD in his practice with a large number of patients. But I can certainly see it as being possible. The phenomenon of "putting things into perspec- tive" alone would be invaluable to many people whose perspective had gotten skewed enough that they sought psychiatric counseling. On the other hand, I would suspect that the shrink in question had to be very, very careful about whom it was appropriate to use this kind of therapy *with*. I'm thinking it would be possibly appropriate with patients who were dealing with neuroses and problems in their daily lives, and hideously inappropriate with someone dealing with psychosis. > But more likely the dose was smaller than you'd take > at one of Leary or Keseys' (or my) acid parties. Actually, it wasn't so much the dosage but the purity. 125 micrograms of real Sandoz acid was far more powerful than "1000 mics" of street acid. Kesey's parties (I only attended one of them) "served" Sandoz acid at the start, and later Owsley stuff, so they were pretty fun parties. :-) > I would like to have tried it in that context but I can't > see our recreational use as cheapening it, we had real God > consciousness experiences, and the music helps, in fact > it's designed to take you as far as you can go. Please forgive my overly harsh condemnation of "party acid" earlier. I was definitely includ- ing myself as one of the targets of that rant. Some friends of mine and I ran a light show and concert promotion business back in 1966-7, and heck, we *worked* stoned on acid. :-) I was also known to party down on acid more than once during that period...uh...often in fact. Mea culpa. :-) It's just that in retrospect (the last time I took LSD was in 1967) I lament pissing away on a party what I could have used in the silence of the desert or a forest. But hey!, as you say, the parties were fun, too. And the music just rocked. > We all ended up kidding ourselves it was the "real" > reality that would somehow lead us to the promised land. > Didn't work of course, not for anyone. But you have to > follow every lead in my view. The problem comes, as it > does with all drugs, when you start taking it too seriously > and mistake the signpost for the destination. Or using it to > escape rather than arrive, That must be what Albert saw and > worried about. I did the same thing. Unlike many who started TM at the same time I did, I didn't have to wait 15 days. :-) I had stopped using psychedelics of any kind some months before, and had already been experimenting with other forms of meditation. Stopping was a cultural thing more than a spiritual or health thing for me. I had literally been through the Summer Of Love in L.A. and San Francisco, and had seen the whole Hippie thing go down the toilet as soon as the media got ahold of it. And I had seen what the street drugs were doing to people, and didn't want to be around it any more. > It did make a good party great, you could save the analysis > for when you got home. I analyzed even at the parties. I think that acid was one of my first self-taught experiences of mindfulness. > Which we did, the best times > tripping are when you're with people you like in cosy > surroundings, good music etc. Best of all on a summer day > out in the country on magic mushrooms, got a real connection > with nature, it's like the same movie but with different > cinemaphotography. Good metaphor. Did you see the film "What Dreams May Come?" That's the first acid-like cinematography that popped into my mind when you mentioned it, but now that I think about it, Antonioni's "Blow-up" might have been more acid. > It made me wonder that there was some greater power > connecting everything together for a tiny little piece > of fungus to have that sort of effect on you. I've seen > clouds turn into the most beautiful living statues > of Greek Gods and dragons coiled round the moon, > battalions of tigers chasing across the sky at sunset. > I could go on but I'm sure you get the general idea. Yup. > Cheapening or not, it was the best of times. I'm not convinced it was the best of times. Now is pretty smokin' in my book. But the late Sixties were certainly a trip. > Perhaps the true sacrament is the mind and hallucinogenics > just one of the keys to unlock it. That's my theory. The LSD or psylocibin or shrooms didn't create the experience. They just allowed us to notice something that had always already been present. Kinda the same way that meditation does, and better, because you don't get twenty years in a Federal prison for simple possession of a mantra. :-) This is a fascinating topic, and I'd love to keep rapping about it, but I think that this is my 49th post of the week, so forgive me if I can't follow up. I'd love to, but etiquette is etiquette.
