storming heaven- LSD and the american dream

[kiauma]

Wow, I'll have to put that on my reading list.

Leary did become a radical, unfortunately losing touch with mainstream society.  He was only turning his back on a society which had turned it's back on him, but I think this really worked against the message he was trying to convey.

http://deoxy.org/8_larvals.htm

Personally, I think he was just born a few hundred years too early.  

[Nick]

Thanks for the book recommendation rodentmouse. I do remember Timothy Leary and even heard him speak back in the late 60's while I was living in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. I was a teenager then, and a bunch of us went to something called a "Human Be-In" at Golden Gate Park. Quite extraordinary. Those days were alive with the smells of incense and marijuana. LSD was everywhere. Interesting times.

The culture of "Tune In, Turn On & Drop Out" as espoused by Dr. Leary ran out of steam when students grew a bit older and realized that they needed to make a living. Still, it was quite a remarkable time.


Very best,

[Rob]

Hey,

Cool I'll have to add that to my already long list!
You mentioned Aldrous Huxley's "Doors of Perceptiion" about Mescaline - which I have read, and most of the next part "heaven and hell". Very good and interesting, although I feel that you really need to try mescaline before you understand many of the things he is saying. Mushrooms also will show a lot of what he is saying.

Rob

ps its all there, inside of you....

[rodentmouse]

hello good people

I am currently reading this book by Jay Stevens and thought id  reccomend it here, im really  enjoying it.
It charts  the creation, development, use, philosophy and culture surrounding LSD from the time it was created to the present day.

it began as an experiment by psychologists to  research mental illnesses like schizophrenia,  to hopefully give them a deeper understanding of the human mind.

But  some scientists enjoyed it too much  and began  holding sessions  for there friends and  collegues.

It mentions Aldous Huxley, the author of Island and The doors of perception- an early psychadelic pioneer who  thought that mescaline should be incorporated into the education system  to condition growing children with the kind of spiritual trip the drug will induce.

then it moves onto how Timothy Leary (a harvard proffesor and acidhead) got into it, and how it completely transformed him.  His trips combined with his knowledge on psychology would make him dedicate his life to exploring his consciousness, in order to find greater meaning.

He was living in a mansion with a community of people all linked to Learys  vision, practising yoga, meditation, doing acid and generally trying to highten there consciousness.

He became a bit of a radical because the majority  of his scientific peers scowled upon the idea of drugs being used for spiritual purposes, thinking of his trips as nothing but new-age nonsense, bar a few  who  joined Leary, happily throwing there careers at harvard away.

I think what Leary was about, his ideals and his mission was the heart of this book-  like we all do on the astral pulse we want to  access higher forms of knowledge which we beleive lies within.

I got  frustrated a little  further on because Leary, who was becoming a threat to confortable american life- was hastily  riduculed by the press, and his operation stopped by the authorities when LSD became illegal.

throughout the book,  there  are random people, all somehow linked to Leary or his mission who go off and try and encourage the use of this drug for spiritual purposes,  which i enjoyed-  its a different picure entirely  of the use of  drugs.

i reccomend this book as it looks at the rise and fall of Learys spiritual  community,  the creation of the drug,  the early pioneers of LSD,  how laws were created when it became a threat, the many accounts of the trippers spiritual/hellish insight etc..