They say that "if you remember the 60s, you were never really there."
Spyrock brought up a point that I have often pondered. He sent me a clipping from A. Hoffman, the developer of L.S.D.
“Dear Mr. Steve Jobs,
Hello from Albert Hofmann. I understand from media accounts that you feel LSD helped you creatively in your development of Apple computers and your personal spiritual quest. I'm interested in learning more about how LSD was useful to you.
I'm writing now, shortly after my 101st birthday, to request that you support Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Peter Gasser's proposed study of LSD-assisted psychotherapy in subjects with anxiety associated with life-threatening illness. This will become the first LSD-assisted psychotherapy study in over 35 years. I hope you will help in the transformation of my problem child into a wonder child.
Sincerely, A. Hofmann”
Spyrock went on to say:
this is the guy who invented lsd in 1939, it was pure, no other ingredients were added.
i'm copying all of this from elsewhere.
until 1967 everything was beautiful then the insanity began.
the cia got into the business of altering human behavior in 1947.
project paperclip brought 1000 nazi specialists to work in the us military and civilian institutions to continue their work on controlling the mind.
the us army got interested in using lsd for interrogation purposes in 1950. from 1956 until 1975 us army intelligence experimented with hallucinogenic drugs.
the cia and army spent over 26 million testing lsd code name ea 1729. contracts went out to 48 different institutions for testing. the cia concealed their participation by contracting to various colleges, hospitals, prisons, mental hospitals, and private foundations.
the lsd i will refer to is the same type of lsd that the cia used because of the similarity of symptoms between their reports and what happened to musicians or hippies after 1967. we shall be speaking of cia-lsd, not pure lsd.
government agents had the ability to cause permanent insanity, identical to schizophrenia, without physician or family knowing what happened to the victim.
when the first reports came out that the cia could administer a tasteless substance into the beverage of one of their most responsible co-workers, and drive that man into a mental institution, or cause him to jump out of a window to his death, all existing cia records were destroyed.
i found this all on the internet looking for the why of your topic.
i've often wondered why so many people went nuts or died after 1967 or turned into the assholes that have irritated ernie for so long. now we know why.
while we all wait for the few former hippies left alive to sue the government. i'll share these words from bd.
while preacher preach of evil fates
teachers teach that knowledge waits
can lead to hundred dollar plates
goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
sometimes must have
to stand naked.
End quote.
Back when I was growing up, I attended college in San Francisco.('63-'64) I had plenty of opportunity to do drugs, but I was particularly un-interested in altering my perception of reality. Remember, I’m the guy that only believes in “reality“. Things that can be hit with a hammer. I didn’t do drugs, and I didn’t drink alcohol. I was raised in the Briceland Bar, and I didn’t see a whole lot of intelligence in the bar scene. Some engaged in a lot of big talk about how smart that they thought that they were, but the smart talk didn’t seem all that real to me. I used to wonder how smart they were in the morning.
My roommate in college sometimes drank too much and he expected sympathy the next morning. I really didn’t care, and went about my noisy clamor. One night he brought home a bottle, sat two shot glasses on the table, poured two shots, one for him and one for me, and said “drink”.
I went about my standard polite refusal. About how I preferred not to drink. He said, “you don’t understand, I said drink. it wasn’t a choice”.
I considered the alternatives, being a country boy, just out of working in the woods, I was I really good shape. So, I considered flat refusing and standing my ground. He was also a country boy, just off a rice farm in Gridley. He was also in very shape… but about twice my size. So I said “here’s too ya”. and bottomed it up.
He poured another, and looked at me. He said “you’ve never been really drunk have you?”
I said: “Nope, I don’t drink. I never really saw the point in drinking. What would it be like if something happened that I needed a clear head to deal with it, and I was all screwed up and drunk?” I though that was a great point. “I don’t believe that there is any God that is going to take care of me. I’m the only one that gives much of a darn about what happens to me, so I take real good care of myself. I don’t push my luck, because when I do, it seems like something always bites me in the rear.”
He said “well your going to find out what a hangover is like.”
I guess that I really didn’t get that drunk, I remember every agonizing moment of it. The place next door had a fire the week before, and I wondered if I could get out of the building if it was on fire. We were on the 4th floor. My girlfriend lived on the 5th floor and I was certain (In my mind) that she would need rescuing. Then, I lived in San Francisco, they have earthquakes! What would happen if there was an earthquake. Can you imagine how tough it would be to rescue your girlfriend off the 5th floor and make your way out of the city to safety, all while being DRUNK!
I’ve seen drunk people in emergencies before. To hear them tell it, they claim; “I just sobered right up when I discovered that there was an emergency”. Maybe in their mind they did, but they were still spinning, and doing everything wrong, and getting in the way of other people. So, the thought of being drunk seriously bothered me.
In the world that I was raised in, alcohol was bad enough, but “drugs” were out of the question. We were told that L.S.D. would fry your brain and that it would make a person think that they were smarter, when outwardly, the things that you did made it apparent that you weren’t smarter.
Then there was the variety of drugs that made you feel better while you accomplish zero. Or the ones that made you scratch your face off, and make your teeth fall out. It occurred to me, early on, that I was not a “altered state of being” type being. I’ve always been real fond of reality. I don’t need drugs or religion lying to me about anything.
I’ve heard a lot of stories about how people have expanded their minds with L.S.D. Eased their pain with painkillers, or plain old Marijuana, or used drugs recreationally. Most people do, it’s just not my bag.
Does anybody think that Steve Jobs invented the Apple computer because he was wacked out on L.S.D. or do you think that he would have been better off without it?
e
Posts
82 comments:
I don’t need drugs or religion lying to me about anything.
The soul can't be inhibited by scorn.
I'm reminded of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous sleuth Sherlock Holms.
Would Holmes exist if Doyle wasn't an opium addict? He was you know.
It was a common condition among many gentlemen in England at the time.
Albert Hoffman called LSD "a medicine for the soul". He knew that for thousands of years our ancestors used etheogens for this effect. Thus he was interested in LSD's use for a cure for alcoholism, schizophrenia, drug addiction, and other maladies of the soul.
From my own personal experience it is a good medicine, but not a very good recreational drug. Of course one needs some insight into the language of the soul e.g. such religious themes as immaculate conception, rapture, ascension, etc to be able to navigate the material that such an intense experience brings to consciousness.
Sadly, many people with no education about etheogens such as LSD except, "it'll fry your brain", make uninformed judgments about it. Most likely not even having bothered to crack a book containing some history on the subject.
YESH
Wild Turkey used to make me smarter but now all it does is make me all warm and fuzzy.
Oregon
I saw what I was told was an “acid flashback”. About 1969, a young lady about twenty years old and her boyfriend had come to Humboldt County from San Francisco. They were in the Laundromat in Redway where I worked at the time. She took off all her clothes while her boyfriend tried to stop her. She said that clothes were evil. When he tried to cover her up, she ran out into the middle of the street and wouldn’t let anyone near her. The C.H.P. office was on Rusk lane at the time. An officer came out, saw what was happening, and he grabbed his raincoat and was trying to get her to put it on. The young lady was one of the prettiest women that I’ve ever seen, not that it made it any less tragic, but she certainly turned a lot of young men’s heads. Finally she jumped in the ditch, in front of the Church and was threatening to crawl into the culvert if anybody touched her. She didn’t want to be touched by anything. She saw anything that touched her as evil.
Finally Ethel Pass, the C.H.P. secretary at the time came out, told Ed the C.H.P. officer to go to the other side of the street. She introduced herself to the young lady and told her that she had just made some tea, and if she would like some she would enjoy the company. The girl said that she would like the tea. So Ethel told her to just follow her home and she would pour her some. She meekly followed Ethel into the C.H.P. office. And that is the end of the story as I know it.
A few of the guys that watched the whole thing commented that “if that’s what acid does for you, I’m gonna’ get my old lady some”.
But, in reality it was very sad to watch, and her boyfriend was in tears. He said that they had been doing acid the week before and she was having flashbacks. It sure made me decide that I didn’t need any.
I use drugs to dumb down.
i totaly looooooooooooooove acid flashbacks!! and the cewl thing about them is, theyre free.
he grabbed his raincoat and was trying to get her to put it on.
the cop musta been a newcomer if he had a raincoat.
back in the 60's, i was a drummer. i was a natural. both hands. i played spontaneously from nine years of age until the end of highschool. i was very skinny. very hyperactive. i used to drum with pencils and drove my roommate from arizona who smoked a pipe crazy. he moved out to room with another freshman who smoked a pipe. it was also difficult for me to concentrate when i first started college. i started out as a math major but they graded on the curve and there were plenty of nerds getting the a's. so i wound up on academic probation. my buddy yoga bob was a marketing major. so i became a marketing major. but for me, the rope hemp that was available at that time was just what the doctor ordered. i was finally able to concentrate and got a "b" average the very next year. so in my case, it did seem that pot made me smarter.
however, back then, i didn't drink just like ernie. even though all my covelo male relatives did drink whiskey all the time. my mom didn't drink, neither did my dad. it wasn't until i married into an alcholic family when i was 28 that i really started drinking. and that was basically to cope or be part of the family with them.
what is really interesting is that the guy that invented the 12 step program for recovering alcholics gives lsd most of the credit. so i think that with pure lsd, there is beneficial results in treating alcholics and terminally ill patients. the thing is ernie, when they made lsd illegal. no more pure lsd.
i don't recommend that anyone take drugs or anything else basically because you don't know whats really in it.
in honor of alice in wonderland at the show right now. i did stop at the fillmore back in the spring of 66 because one of the keyboard players from school did. we normally went to longshoremans hall back in those days. anyway, i walk up inside the front door and there's this bowl with sugar cubes in it with a sign saying "take one". of course, being a surfer, i did not eat sugar and there was no one there, just a bunch of light show stuff playing all over the walls.
so it just looked boring and i went down to longshoremans and saw creedence clearwater when they were called the gollywogs or something and people were drinking and getting into fights.
so i missed the the "acid test" with the grateful dead that night. but back in the 50's riding with uncle delbert to stinson beach for the summer, there would be oly on ice out in front of the service station on the way up in the heat of the valley. he would be drinkin his while he was driving and asking my seven year old self how i liked mine.
of course, i tried to pretend that it tasted good. even though it seemed bitter as hell. he would just laugh and drive on.
when they made lsd illegal. no more pure lsd.
that's bs. LSD is lsd. There may be some that's 'impure' i'm sure there very likely is, but there's also still plenty that is pure. It's not that hard to make. There have been millions of hits of lsd taken by millions of people, how much are you claiming to be 'impure'? and how in the fuck would or could you know? Urban legend, rumor, bullshistory, whatever, it surely aint the facts and if i'm a gonna mess around with a sacrament in a ritual to the dragnet that is the universe i want, nothing but the facts mammmmmm...
Nonetheless, i agree with you to an extant, it IS a dangerous substance even if it is pure, and if you aren't sure that youre getting the pure stuff than a person is better off using a natural etheogen such as peyote, i'd think it's better anyway, or ayahuasca, that's the one to use now. LSD is a more psychological trip, whereas the plants are more grounding and are easier on the nervous system. Or do it without any substance other than Drumming and dancing all night, that can take you out there...
I can tell you got rhythm Spy the way you write, keep bangin the beat out, i know kerouac would dig your CIA story... i think he thought the bad guy was the commies though =LOL. But in the end i reckon you'd agree, sugar cube or not, it's been a long strange trip, LOL, and i'm not even outa my 20s yet.
singin' one, one dollar,
one dollar fish and chips...
one, one hand
one hand clapping yeah
'_+
I'm going to have to agree that drinking does make people dumb both temporarily and permanently.
As for acid purity, there is "impure" acid out there. I mean, have you ever had some acid where you thought the whole world turned into a cartoon and you were uncontrollably happy being Daffy Duck amongst it all? That would be more or less pure acid. Then there is that acid that makes the whole world just kinna melt twitch around while you can't sleep? That would be the fabled crud made in a ghetto gas chromatography lab. Seriously all they gotta do is run it through again.
There are some things you can't mess up in lab. Mushrooms, for instance. I'd prefer mescaline... if I ever had done any of that stuff, being as straight edge as I am.
Someone with no relation to myself once dosed on a large amount of peyote before an organic chemistry test which they had forgotten was moved up to Friday before getting a call the night before to study. This unrelated person happened to score an A on said test being able to suddenly see those 2d molecular diagrams in 3d with trans and cis popping out of the page. These days I suppose they take the tests in 3d like Avatar or something, I dunno.
Hey mr nice, just wanted you to know that all the Wild Turkey I drank didn't make me dumb enough to use drugs. My thought on it anyway.
Oregon
Jimson weed trip
worlds best drug
e
Psychedelics can be very rough on people who exhibit rigid personalities, have repressed emotions, and/or are afraid to experience beyond the physical.
For these people, were they to want to trip, it would really be neccessary to control the set and setting for a safe and therapeutic experience.
Near the end of the National Geographic special, there is a woman with a terminal condition laying in a bed with uplifting music, eyes closed, and a person close by. Afterwards, she share how valuable it was to feel so connected to life.
The brain, with which most of us are so identified, has the job of filtering out a gazillion sensory perceptions that we are taking in all of the time, so that we are not overwhelmned by all that sensory noise.
So, in this sense, the brain is a reductive organ, it reduces the noise of our senses to what is needed for survival. What the entheogens can do is reduce/remove the filter. Huxeley called this cleansing the doors of perception.
I used to call it blowing out the carbon.
The two hippies tripping on the tv program talked about how it helped them get in the Flow. Kenny Stabler of the Oakland Raiders played well on acid and described the experience. It is not for everyone, though it would make a great cultural initiation ritual if conducted in a sacred manner, breaking the hold of belief in a material only world.
I just had a mental picture of our Ernie swinging a hammer in slow motion going wow as it melts in his hand... "look at all those pores on the back of my hand and those are hairs sticking up, whoa...when i move my fingers like that, this comes up, and that fly is going soooo slowwww and streamers are coming out the ends of my fingers and look when i move one finger this whole area on my palm moves, hey--there is blood going through my veins, there is blood going through-- I can feel it, OhMyAtheistMind, whoa... SUZ WUZ RIGHT!
I didn't intend to sound mean there...that is just a fantasy of a common hallucination that trippers have. Thanks be, 1st responders like Ernie do stay sober for the safety of all of us.
You didn't come across as mean at all. I like, totally got the humor man.
You framed me pretty well. I have a structure that doesn’t allow me to even think about a trip like that. It would scare the crap out of me. My mind may not be much, but I like to live within the present boundaries, and not try to expand them too much. I might really explode. Some would say I have a phobia. I like to think that I just want to stay as normal and functional as I can.
"The fear of LSD is a fear of reality, the fear that there is more to reality than you have confronted."
Ken Kesey
Kenny Stabler of the Oakland Raiders played well on acid and described the experience.
-not that it means much or proves anything but another interesting antidote is that Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates, June 12 1970 --he was on lsd.
I was going to stay out of this one, but how can I? I'm too stupid, I guess. Or maybe I just find it too interesting. Or both.
Anyway, I drank an awful lot when I was in the military. It was legal, and easy enough to get, and I often had fun. Not always, though.
After the military, I was introduced to the sacred weed and I must admit, I preferred it to alcohol. It didn't make me sick, for one thing, and for another, my experience with alcohol made me aggressive along with my innate stupidity. That led to other problems which I'd rather forget.
MJ had a mellowing affect on me, which I'm sure is no surprise to anyone. I believe it made me more open to a lot of ideas. Like Spyrock, I studied mathematics and I attended more than one class while quite stoned. I can't say for sure that I was better off for it, but it seems like certain things were clearer to me. I mean, when you get into some graduate level Group Theory, some clarity is a big thing.
I was not under the influence very often in class, but I will never claim that it inhibited my ability to learn when I was. I subsequently read an article published after Carl Sagan's death that said he had highly innovative thoughts while stoned and on at least one occasion wrote an equation that came into his head with a bar of soap on his shower wall while taking a shower with his wife. Talk about romance!
I also have something more in common with Ernie. I was and am to this day, very afraid of acid. A friend of mine once described a trip much like N. Theogen's statement above and raved about having been up for 12 or so hours. That scares the hell out of me. I don't think I want to do that. But that's just me. I have no problem with anyone doing it that can handle it.
Dave
Apparently both Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his made up detective Sherlock Holmes were drug users.
From wikipedia: “Holmes occasionally uses addictive drugs, especially when lacking stimulating cases. He is a habitual user of cocaine, which he injects in a seven-per-cent-solution using a special syringe that he keeps in a leather case. Holmes is also an occasional user of morphine, but expressed strong disapproval on visiting an opium den. The 2002 movie Sherlock: Case of Evil depicts him using heroin, though that never appears in the original stories. All these drugs were legal in late-19th-century England. Both Watson and Holmes are serial tobacco users, including cigarettes, cigars and pipes. Indeed, Holmes is expert at identifying tobacco ash residues, having penned a monograph on the subject.
Dr. Watson strongly disapproves of his friend's cocaine habit, describing it as the detective's "only vice," and expressing concern over its possible effect on Holmes' mental health and superior intellect. In later stories, Watson claims to have "weaned" Holmes off drugs. Even so, according to his doctor friend, Holmes remains an addict whose habit is "not dead, but merely sleeping."
in the early 1950s, the cia and the army had contacted sandoz requesting several kilograms of lsd for use in the test program. dr hofmann and sandoz refused this request, so director dulles persuaded the indianapolis-based pharmaceutical luminary eli lilly, the later pioneer of prozac to synthesize the drug contrary to existing international patent accords, making the us government and lilly the first illegal domestic manufacturerers and distributors of lsd.
dr. sidney gottlieb, the cia's expert on lethal poisons, (who reputedly was the inspiration for director stanley kubrick's bizarre dr. strangelove) headed up the operation as director of the chemical division of the technical services staff and via a front organization called "the society for human ecology," distributed $25 million in drug research grants to Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley and other institutions.
the sugar cube i was looking at by the front door of the grateful dead acid test at the fillmore in the spring of 66 was made by a guy named owsley stanley. Stanley developed a method of LSD synthesis which left the LSD 99.9 percent free of impurities. some of his more famous batches were "white lightning" "monterey purple" "blue wedge" etc.
a guy i body surfed at ocean beach with, tommy, crazy carols boyfriend, lived in the same house as owsley and my friend christopher worked for alembic, a sound company founded by owsley. owsley was also the sound man for the grateful dead and currently lives in austrailia.
i can only speak from my own experience. owsleys was the best.
i never did go to a thunderpussy restaurant in noe valley. the only thing i can remember over there was a sufi book store, a coffee shop where poets hung out and an ice cream store right around 1970 as well.
in 1954, gerald heard gave a lecture at the sequoia seminars near ben lomand about mind expansion describing the effects of certain mind altering drugs with myron stolaroff and willis harman of stanford in attendance.
heard was a close friend of aldous huxley and h g wells. in the 1950s, heard tried lsd and felt that, used properly, it had strong potential to enlarge man's mind by allowing a person to see beyond his ego.
in late august 1956, alcoholics anonymous founder bill wilson first took lsd under heard's guidance and with the officiating presence of dr sidney cohen, a psychiatrist then with the california veterans administration hospital. according to wilson, the session allowed him to re-experience a spontaneous spiritual experience he had had years before, which had enabled him to overcome his own alcoholism.
"Do drugs make you smarter?"
In the late '50's my family was poor and splitting up, my mom becoming a single parent and our household did not have music or good books or much of anything in the way of "culture". I didn't like school, was bored most of the time, one of those students who was constantly looking out the window wishing to be out there. I doodled constantly, was a minor class clown, got into trouble with teachers constantly, only got good grades (A's) when I like the teacher (a rarity). I graduated high school with a C+ average. I really was interested from seven years on in anthropology but college looked out of my league. But being a determined person I took tests in Algebra, History, and Chemistry, and passed them well enough to get into U.C. Berkeley. This was 1961 and shortly thereafter the crowd of intellectuals and musicians I was hanging out with discovered marijuana and hallucinogens. I believe I was the first person to bring peyote in quantity to fellow U.C. college students. I found I didn't like U.C.B anymore than high school and I dropped out along with several of my college friends to delve into creative art work. Having a student chemist among us we were sometimes guinea pigs for his experiments in how to make hallucinogens like mescaline, psylocybin, dmt-like something or other, several weirder ones, maybe ibogain, I don't recall their names. I did do LSD several times, Sandoz pure LSD, but a "normal" dose, 200 mics, sent me into stimulus overload bigtime, very bad experiences where hallucinations were so overwhelming I literally couldn't see things--like the Man with the X-Ray Eyes, everything seen in so many multiple dimensions as to be unrecognizable. Pot was mild and good all the time and it was the only drug I became fond of and at 66 years have been a pothead since age 17 with a year or two here and there clean and sober. Never liked alcohol. What's the point of this?
Well, around 1964, after I went back to LACC to make up my grade point after dropping out of UCB I took another IQ test for our psychology 101 or whatever class. My IQ was at the top of the test reading which stopped measurement at 145. Did drugs make me smarter? I think so. That and going from a culturally deprived childhood into a great infusion of culture in my late teens.
I really appreciate all of the open opinion on drug use on this blog. It seems that some think that they were made smarter, opened up, or released by some drugs.
I’ve seen with my own eyes the dangers of heroin, and meth. I personally recommend that no one EVER try them. I’ve had a few people in the past recommend that Datura, or Jimson is not worth the trip that it puts you on, and nothing positive has ever come out of it.
Some people seem comfortable with L.S.D., but like Spyrock points out, you can’t always trust your supplier. I’ve heard tales of people thinking that they were taking one thing, when it was actually something else. I guess that will always be true with getting drugs on the street. The people that I know personally that used L.S.D. either changed their whole personality, or it didn’t change them at all. They will bear that out as their own witness. Taking L.S.D. is a crap shoot at best. I think that it would be foolish to try it, but few people see any wisdom in my advice.
One thing that I would always recommend, is to make sure that you have a few sober friends that you trust around you to help you if you get in trouble. In almost every drug death that I’ve personally seen, it was a person doing drugs alone.
Spy,
O. Stanley designed The Dead's lightning bolt/skull logo & was inspiration for quite a few things they did. He supplied the LSD for K. Kesey's acid test (maybe you already said that) & was known as "Bear". You can look at some of his latest art work at www.bear.org.
I had the good fortune of having Sandoz in Chicago when Kubler Ross was giving it to dying patients. It was wonderful to do say 75 mikes or 30 or occasionally 300. but as Ram Dass said, when you get the message you hang up the phone. It was a very very good thing in my life. I'm wider angle smarter now.
What if the blond chicks hear about this?
Oregon
One thing I do know about taking drugs to change your consciousness. Without a change in consciousness one cannot see one's own sets of cultural biases. It takes an alternative consciousness to "see" around the sides of your normal consciousness blinders.
when you get the message you hang up the phone
-no offense to Rum Dose but i would modify that to --when you get the message via phone that a god is in your kitchen, you realize that you no longer need the phone to get more messages. And, if you haven't digested your breakfast message, it's not yet time for lunch.
be where you are when you're there
As i said above, one way to know what youre getting is to use natural entheogens such as peyote, or one can use non substance methods such as meditation, drumming, etc. to have the mystical experience that's often obtained through the use of entheogens. There are many ways, sometimes people have a mystical (life changing) experience through near death experience. One way or another, if it's meant to happen the phone rings and ...
Stephen's too much stimulus experience is familiar to me, i prefer to do it in total darkness and silence because the sensory deprivation opens up the inner senses, there's no interference from the outside. If you sit in darkness and silence and smoke a joint you can learn a lot more then (than?) you can laughing and gabbing with friends.
For me the heart of the experience has most often been an out of body journey -- my consciousness leaves my body and goes to 'other realms'. When there i have absolutely no experience of being in a body, bodily sensation is absent and there is just consciousness, and at a certain point a feeling of peace that is beyond description. While there i receive knowledge that i then bring back to this world. When returning i usually experience an odd somewhat disturbing sensation in the back of the top of my head and then i'm back --with the knowledge or info intact. It's difficult to describe to one who hasn't taken similar out of body journeys. The 'place' i have traveled to i can only describe as being 'out of time' or 'aside from time'. Yet it's not that much separated from every day experience, the subtlety that is realized is that there is only a thin membrane that divides this world from that. And i would say that a part of all of us are there (unconsciously) all the time. So Ernie and everyone else has been there too, it's just that there are those like myself who have been there consciously. I don't want to sound like i'm bragging, it's no big deal, saving a life, putting out a fire, etc, that's something really heroic, these trips that i've taken are merely out of body trips, much like we all do every night in sleep, the difference being that i'm awake when i go there. I have also gone to these realms without ingesting any substance at all, the first of these out of body experiences i've had were as a young child before i had ever taken any "drugs".
So, can drugs make you smarter?
"Total abstinence is so excellent a thing that it cannot be carried to too great an extent. In my passion for it I even carry it so far as to totally abstain from total abstinence itself."
Mark Twain
wow, that was a very good post by susie two blahs on this topic. actually, i don't remember reading a more concise, comunnicable transmission.
all the way from the dreamlands, the paralell worlds of the indigini. and this includes everyone and everything i have read about this topic.
so i will share a secret just as susie has shared. when the pipe smoking freshman from arizona who always wore his pipe smoking jacket moved out i had already translated my constant drumming onto the schools cafeteria grand piano with great sound. there was no schedule to play, just when the bench was vacant. the keyboard player who led me to the acid test at the fillmore was perhaps the best piano player at school. so i started out playing boogie woogie chords but in drumlike cadence which was very repetitive sort of like the hip hop music we have nowadays. so from 65 to about 74, this was the way i played. by then, friends had even bought me a magic upright piano with great sound for my birthday. it was then that yoga bob and his wife, between gurus, decided to drop in on me and my wife. and while i was at work on the night shift supporting us all, they decided to go on as three as many did in those days. so i was left alone out there in the country to sing along with my piano drumming. not knowing what to sing and still shy about that, i picked up inyat khan's book on music and basically started chanting vowels. a e i o u and of course the super vowel om. easy so far?
well, that piano was indeed magic because after a bit of piano drumming i began hearing these people singing along with me. sort of like what you can imagine a choir of angels to sound like. so every night for two months i sang with the angels. this is something i still do once in a blue moon. but way back then after recovering from that first broken heart, i decided that i was on this world to learn its lessons, so thats what i did knowing that there are an infinite number of worlds out there waiting for me when i get through this one. so since then, no more drugs, just modelo, dos equis and cabernet. and diet pepsi of course.
I have tinnitus and when I get pretty stoned on pot my tinnitus high pitched buzzing sounds turn any outside drone noise like refrigerator humming or rain on the roof into music, most often choral singing but it can be any instrument or even orchestras. Like visual hallucinations under the influence of psychedelics which far surpass anything type of artwork in the real world, (imagine Avatar times 10 with more brilliant colors and far more realistic 3D), some of the music I've heard as auditory hallucinations is quite fantastically good. I wish I knew how to write music so I could reproduce what I've heard but I've found that trying even to hum the score of what I hear at the time makes it go away. There is a great field of new music and new art that awaits us in the future when we can access sights and sounds directly from the human brain. (See the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet for their Krell machine that reproduces what people are thinking and visualizing-I want one). One of the big reasons I don't do much art is due to the fact that what I can paint is so lacking in accuracy to what I see behind my eyes that what's the point? I mean this painting of mine Ariel Lome
looks pretty impressive but to me it's like comparing an 1860's Matthew Brady black and white photograph with Avatar, the difference is so great between my painting and what I saw in psychedelic visions.
to put it another way, this is from arnold mindell, phd's earth based psychology.
(my mother and grandmother were both born in the indian reservation hospital at covelo which was yuki land.)
"the oceanfront in oregon and northern california is often foggy; the native americans of these particular areas speak of gods emerging from these foggy fields. the yuki people of the west coast spoke of a creator called 'solitude walker'--or in the wintu language, 'taiko-mol'. he was a world creator, and his story shows how fields can create the world.
according to the story and there are various versions, in the beginning there was only water and over it was a fog,. on the water was foam, nothingness moved round and round and from it, in the water came a voice, (awareness was present at the beginning in a kind of vacuum.) something came up quickly in the water, and it was called taiko-mol, pathwalker. he floated on the water and sang. in some versions of this story, he stood in the foam and dissolved the foam. taiko-mol was constantly talking to himself. he said, 'let's do it this way! no lets do it that way!' the pathwalker established the earth and its directions. that is how the world came about, out a field of water and fog according to the yukis."
so i am just repeating here what the original 'locals' of your area up there did for all you 'newcomers'. like indigini all over the world, they sang the world into being.
that's a really really good Yuki story, and true, from my experience at least --that's the way it happened. One thing i'd like to add is that in my vision Pathwalker was both human and animal. And the indecision part was really really funny and super hyper-fast, thisway-thatway-no-thisway-no-thatway- and Pathwalker is walking backnforth backnforth, really crazy and funny.
The story is describing both a microcosm and a macrocosm. The important and practical thing is is the microcosm, to find your own personal first direction of the four, and then create the (your) world from there. The first direction is your true name, God's name. If you listen long enough to the angel's music you will hear it.
Thanks, Suzy, Spy, Stephen, Ben and others. I always wondered what the attraction was. I'm getting a small idea.
I’m really enjoying this vicarious trip, knowing full well that I’ll never go there.
Periodically, I get “visions”, like people describe that they get before a migraine headache. My vision gets “holes” in it. Where I’m what I’m looking at, sometimes disappears. Soon, bright colors form patterns in my periphery. At first it scared the hell out of me, then after I found that migraine sufferers sometimes saw the same thing, I just take a break from what I’m doing, close my eyes and watch the pretty colors. All the colors of the rainbow, and every pattern that you might imagine appear. Circles, squares, stars, balls, and really wild stuff. I watch intently, wondering if I might be able to paint the scene that I’m experiencing. One of the patterns that I notice the most, is a psychedelically colored zig-zag pattern. Similar to what the Indian people carved on rocks, less the color. Some people say that the Indians did use color in their rock carvings. If they really did, it explains a lot to me.
Keep them coming.
stoned on pot my tinnitus high pitched buzzing sounds turn any outside drone noise like refrigerator humming or rain on the roof into music,
that's cool, i've seen fairys and heard and watched them play music while on mushrooms... i was on the shrooms not them lol, and the music was like you say =hard to bring back into this world. It was absolutely incredible!!! And i heard it and saw them by listening to the sounds that the wind and the trees in the wind make, if you listen close you can hear the branches, little twigs clicking against each other in the gentle breeze, knock knocking out a rhythm, then the strings come in, and other instruments, and i looked up to see Wow! the fairys, with their little instruments, flutes, violins, and some instruments that i've never seen before, or since, there they were, about 3inches tall, sitting in the branches of the tan oak trees, and being the source of the music. They didn't seem to notice me, so it seemed and so i thought, but then, just at the precise moment that i had that thought, one of them looked right at me and winked, then they went back to their music and rhythms, oblivious to my attentions.
-careful Ernie those colored visions might drive you to insanity, i've heard somewhere that van Gogh had migraines and visions. Listen to Suzy's advice, don't go cutting off your ears or anything.
-one more bit of advice Ernie, when youre watching the beautiful, colorful, and very real lightning bolt vision behind your closed eyelids... don't try to hit it with a hammer.
These are the migraine symptoms that I experience:
“Migraine with aura is characterized by a neurological phenomenon (aura) that is experienced 10 to 30 minutes before the headache. Most auras are visual and are described as bright shimmering lights around objects or at the edges of the field of vision (called scintillating scotomas) or zigzag lines, castles (teichopsia), wavy images, or hallucinations. Others experience temporary vision loss. Nonvisual auras include motor weakness, speech or language abnormalities, dizziness, vertigo, and tingling or numbness (parasthesia) of the face, tongue, or extremities.
Headache-free migraine is characterized by the presence of aura without headache. This occurs in patients with a history of migraine with aura.”
I’m one of the lucky ones that does not get a headache along with the free (and totally organic) light show. It’s hard to describe, but it sounds close to an acid trip. I don’t seem to experience any confusion, but I don’t see well and have to hole up for the half hour that it takes to go away. They never seem to happen at a convenient time.
I’ve only had about four to five of them in my whole lifetime. By the time that I was going to see the doctor, the first one went away. I remembered reading about “Migraine visions” and looked them up. It described perfectly what happened to me, and I decided to save the Doctor bill. The visions are really a quite beautiful way to spend about a half hour.
I was told that Lewis Carol was inspired to write “Alice In Wonderland” from a migraine vision.
Sound and light are the wings of the soul. Outside word small, inside world BIG.
I enjoyed all the testimonies, especially Suzy's.
So Ernie, does this mean that when you get a migraine free headache all we get is an earthquake?
Oregon
I've found nothing finer than 72% cacao chocolate bars. The high is like being in love. The health food stores must be on to something with their plethora of combinations of quality chocolate bars. But...please, I beg of you...do not use the Paul Newman bars. And you know, even a Hershey Bar, like Early Times Whiskey or Lucky Lager beer can produce the desired effect.
Heeyyyyyyyyy!!!!!! What if we forgoe the marijuana stuggles and concentrate on manufacturing Grade-A Chocolate bars.....yes, boutique strains with local huckleberries!
I was told that Lewis Carol was inspired to write “Alice In Wonderland” from a migraine vision.
The difference between you and someone like Carroll is that you don't attribute any meaning to your visions. But without meaning the soul is as good as dead. Pretty colored visions without meaning are like pretty clothes in the wardrobe with no living person to wear them, such a waste. And such a shame because the visionary experience has not really been integrated in a way that might change your agnostic viewpoint, and so you are still left, much like the innocent and naive child Alice, to negotiate life (which is observed by anyone who is paying attention as being irrational, unjust, and amoral) by will and reason alone.
L.S.D is on Nat Geo T.V. right now!!!
They talked about a lot of things, but only came to the conclusion that L.S.D. has not been assessed fairly. More government interference etc.
What I got out of it, is that L.S.D. is a mind amplifier. If you are crazy, chances are you will be crazier. If you have tendencies toward schizophrenia, it may push you into long term mental problems. On the good side, it may help you find a way around obstacles in your mental process that will release the way you think, and help you solve problems. If you just wanna' have fun, it can help that too.
It mentioned the many things that was said about it in the '60s. Birth defects, Charles Manson type insanity, flashbacks and long term mental problems. They didn't point out what were lies and what was truth. The program led me to believe that a possibly powerful drug was left on the table.
Oh one other thing, L.S.D. cures cluster headaches, along with Psilocybin Mushrooms.
One more thing. Does anybody, that has tried LSD, seen the Psychedelic zig-zag lines in your periphery?
well, i don't get national geographic tv but i was trying to access some info about the relationship of willis harman of stanford and lsd and tried to print it out and over 100 pages of lsd history from somewhere came out with it until my printer ran out of ink.
in spite of what i have copied in relation to your topic, you and susie still haven't understood the point it was making. "it was also well within cia policy to randomly distribute lsd laced with the lethal poison strychnine so as to create 'horror stories' useful as propaganda. dr. hofmann himself chemically confirmed the presence of pure strychnine in several random street samples of lsd."
"in 1969 due to the scarcity of its key ingredient, ergotamine tartrate, ron hadley stark, a cia operative fluent in five languages with access to unlimited public funds and numerous high-level contacts in business and government thoughout the world--facilitated the mass production and distribution via a group called the brotherhood in laguna beach and other groups of an even more powerful strain of lsd nicnamed 'orange sunshine' stark claimed that he was going to use lsd as an offensive weapon to cia-backed tibetan rebels fighting the chinese occupation.
stark was also a close friend of the los angeles founders of a small breakaway scientology sect called 'the process church of the final judgement' regular attendees of the process church included members of the beach boys, the rolling stones, other prominent pop performers as well as an ex-convict and wannabe rock musician named charles manson. manson and his followers became heavy users of orange sunshine- the trademark 'bad acid' of the day- which they were all on when on manson's orders, they carried out the brutal august 1969 tate-labianca murders.
when stark who is believed to have distributed an estimated 50 million doses of lsd during his agency career was arrested for drug trafficking in italy in 1975the italian magistrate ordered his release on the grounds that he had been a cia agent since 1960. in 1968, the fbi and cia merged to form 'operation chaos', an operation against prominent persons, political dissidents and restless youth. according to researcher mae brussell, the manson murders were part of operation chaos. it was well known that charles manson had served as a police informant for years and in prison manson was introduced to both guitar and scientology (mind control). it was less well known that right before being let out into the summer of love, he met with(rfk assassin/patsy) sirhan sirhan's lawyer and was given a black volkswagon bus and a credit card (perhaps even some cia-made lsd) in what looks like an exchange for a promise to asociate the black panthers and or the beatles with murder and terror.
"They talked about a lot of things, but only came to the conclusion that L.S.D. has not been assessed fairly. More government interference etc."
well, there you go, maybe you did listen after all. it sounds like a lot of dr. strangelove coldwar insanity to me. who let the dogs out!!!
you may wonder why i give a crap about this. well, except for the grace of god, there go i.
in 1968, there was great surf at kellys and i was going every day. the street sewer drains used to empty out through a pier right where we used to catch waves. i had gotten an ear infection and both my ears were plugged up. except for being off balance, i was a very healthy blue eyed, very tan, very skinny, wild blond haired boy. i was walking up clayton street about ten yards from haight when a very short white man with short black hair turned the corner like it was already planned and started yelling at me calling me a short haired bushwazee pig and just went on and on about how straight i was. the guy was so little and i was so fit, i really wasn't afraid of him and i remember thinking about hitting him right in the face but i was reading "siddartha" by herman hesse at the time and had just read some words that told me "not to resist evil and it will go away." so that's what i did, i was only on my way to the liqour store to buy surfer magazine and a pepsi anyway. after a few minutes he got tired of yelling, turned to the crowd that had gathered and said, "i was just messing with that guy".
back in those days, people on haight street really didn't care much for politics and except asking for spare change, no one had ever bothered me, much less even talked to me and i had been going there every day since the fall of 1965 when it was still a normal neighborhood. even the politcos from berkeley had never bothered me that way or said anything directly to me. i was later to learn that the little man had been 'institutionalized, or was acting like a person who had spent time in prison. he was different than even the most radical political groups in berkeley but it was obvious to me that he was trying to act like he was one of them. much to my surprise, in late 1969, there he was on tv with an x on his head acting like he was some kind of guru who had murdered sharon tate.
sharon tate was probably the most beautiful woman i had seen in those days. and except for the grace of god, there go i.
Spy
I've been hearing you, and I agree with you. Back in the 60's LSD really was pretty spooky stuff, mostly because of U.S. “government interference”. The part that maybe upsets you, that I really don't understand is why would the government poison LSD? However, I know that they did. They used it indiscriminately on our own soldiers. They also provided extremely powerful stuff on the street, stuff so powerful that it would change your whole personality. The government was trying to develop it as a weapon, indeed they even used it a few times with very mixed results. I personally think that they decided that it was to uncontrollable to use as a weapon, and they dropped the testing.
Our druggies today, that sing the praises of acid, didn't have to run the gauntlet of unsafe drugs that were available on the street back in the 60's. Using drugs back then really wasn't safe. Seeing people on “Bad Acid' trips scared the hell out of me for life. I think that you and I were extremely lucky to not have gotten caught up in acid in “the early days”. But, from what I see, acid is being used again recreationally.
I think that Suzy must have misunderstood what you were talking about when you mentioned "pure acid" as compared to acid tainted with strychnine, or "hot" doses. There is a lot of things that our government does that I'll never understand. Maybe it's just a handful of evil people that do these things just because they can.
Ernie thanks for hosting this thought-fest on our hippie good ole daze.
Spyrock, great reading of your experiences and info.
Ernie, may I suggest that government is more about power and control than real leadership? There are certainly more examples of the former to point to.
My last full dose acid trip occurred decades ago when I let my friends talk me into going to my first Jerry Garcia concert south of Santa Cruz, at Laguna Seco(?).
Of course we went in a VW van. Because I am such a lightweight, I pleaded for a tiny dose and watched as my friend used tiny little scissors to cut out just the eye from a little blotter picture of a Horus hawk head.
Just the eye made for a slight overdose, by the time we had walked into the place I was gone.
I remember the large crowd writhing in a dustcloud to music that seemed to loop and glide. My friends all made for the dancing, but you could not have paid me to go there. The crowd looked like thousands of psychedelic brightly garbed version of the Peanuts character pigpen (not the band-member), dust and colorful streamers flying everywhere, writhing en masse.
A small tree about 50 yards off to the side of the event looked like a haven, and indeed, I spent the whole concert day there...sitting in lotus position trying to hang on/wait out the ride. People started laying offerings at my feet, and one told me I looked beautific like the Buddha. I was just trying to get through the buzz, but looked good doing it, apparently.
Somehow my friends found me and drove me home.
Did psychedelics make me into a god? From that day on I took on the shape of the Buddha, but somewhere along the road, lost the beautitude.
People started laying offerings at my feet,
LOL!!! -did u get any patchuli?
I think that Suzy must have misunderstood what you were talking about
no, i understood what he said, but i have no reason to believe there's much truth to it --there's a lot of paranoid conspiracy theories out there folks, most of which contradict each other. Much like the pot growing scene here, there's nobody being upfront about it, what you have is a lot of secrets, lies, snitches, infiltrators, etc.
My take on the 60s scene is that there were some acidhead powertrippers like Leary, Manson, Owsley, the Dead, Steven Gasken, Peter Coyote, etc. who saw "the light" ie how easily it was to take advantage of the naive kids on the street and in the universities, who foolishly followed them, eyes glazed and hanging on every word that they said. It seems to me that no one was thinking for themselves back then. People were looking for answers but they were looking in the wrong direction, everyone (except the straight people like Ernie) was conforming to the stereotype hippie model and being led like sheep to the slaughter... all in the name of "higher consciousness".
"Acidhead powertrippers"!
Thank you for that, Suzy.
"If you have tendencies toward schizophrenia, it may push you into long term mental problems."
Ask my brother-in law. The doctors believe LSD sent him over the edge and he has yet to return. Now, your taxes care of him.
I have dealt with more psychotropic "drug casualties" in my life than I care to chronicle.
Like Suzy articulated, you get the most out of psychedelics by remembering that they are just the finger pointing at the moon, and BEyond.
I was fortunate to have a father who taught a philosophy of education to his students that espoused following your own natural bent. The human growth potential in psychology was teaching "individuation", and "self-realization". "Dancing to a different drummer" was an understood meme of the counter culture, and rebellion against authority was our mindful and mindless passion.
It seems to be a human trait to gather round and give up power to charismatic leaders. It was a huge disappointment to me personally to watch the most powerful or magnetic ego's rule and ruin many a communal experiment. Why do we organize hierarchically so easily?
Why are there sheep?
I feel that the back to the land movement was the best offspring of the '60's.
After smoking marijuana a few times in his teens my nephew began having hallucinations, his school grades deteriorated and he began thinking that people were talking behind his back. He became overwhelmed by paranoid fears and persecution by voices. After several years of bizarre behavior his family had him committed to a psychiatric unit. There are over 300 published papers linking cannabis use to schizophrenia. These studies have shown that cannabis use increases the risk of psychosis in people by 700%. Growing use of cannabis has caused it to now be one of the biggest problems on in-patient psychiatric wards. Evidence suggests that the damage that is done to the brain by smoking marijuana may develop into schizophrenia up to 15 years after its use.
Suzy
It's far more than conspiracy “theories”. The government was deeply involved in drug experimentation on unsuspecting and innocent people. Especially in the sixties. Had you been there you would know. It was obvious.
Also, I saw many of my friends “tune in, turn on, and drop out”. Dr. Timothy Leary was one that I would say was really screwed up on LSD. What he was advocating was insane.
Leary quote:”Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present — turn on, tune in, drop out.”
”
Leary later explained in his 1983 autobiography "Flashbacks". Trying to explain the unexplainable.
”'Turn on' meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. 'Tune in' meant interact harmoniously with the world around you - externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. Drop out suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. 'Drop Out' meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity'.”
What Leary advocated with reckless abandon, screwed up many of my friends. They dropped out, and most never reached their full potential. Most, however still sing the praises of LSD. Like saying “thank God for LSD, it opened the doors to happiness for me”.
Leary spouted physco-babble bullshit, and the naive sucked it up. They thought that they were thinking great thoughts, but in reality they were pondering things like, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Who gives a damn? It doesn't pass the hammer test.
Why are there sheep?
-way too few of us coyotes.
Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God.
-beautiful!
whatever you believe may or may not have happened in the 60s, the purity/impurity question is a good reason to legalize LSD, same goes for heroin, meth, MDMA, cocaine, and other common street drugs. If they were legal you'd know that what you were getting was pure. Then the responsibility would lie with the adult individual, it does anyway but what i mean is then you couldn't cop out and blame the gov'ment, or the cia, or the Hells Angels, or the commies, etc, for your bad trip. Of course the cia could still always come around incognito and sneak something into your coffee at the cafe one morning, what makes you think things are so much different now than they were then? --be careful and keep your eyes peeled. Men dressed in black are especially suspicious. My dude Kerouac was convinced that LSD was a communist plot to bring down the USA. hey, who knows? Word on the street is that all the acid is now being made in China ;) It's a powerful thing.
-but what about the space aliens? do any of you think they take LSD? I've seen saucers up close and the designs and lights suggest that they do. And peyote too, there's been a lot of sightings over the peyote fields in southern New Mexico and Texas. Why would they be interested in that particular dry desert area?
Evidence suggests that the damage that is done to the brain by smoking marijuana may develop into schizophrenia up to 15 years after its use.
oh oh, i'm thinkin' i might be in really really deep doo-doo now folks.. but wait a sec, i dont havta worry, not me, it's Suzy, my other personality, she's the one, she'll go skizo, but not me, i'll escape somehow... maybe in a ufo :) or on the wings of the soul, LOL..
does the government have some kind of magic that makes a day longer by changing the time?
yeah, we been talkin about it.
if it wasn't for the cia using us as genie pigs, it would still be the 50's.
i imagine that people who know absolutely nothing about something except what they hear from others are going to describe a million different parallel worlds.
i graduated 7th in my class in high school and went to college four blocks from haight street in 1965. i graduated 4 years later in the spring of 1969 with a bachelor of science in business administration with a major in marketing. my bank was on haight street. i got haircuts on haight street for rotc. and my store was on haight street. there were no hippies there, no flower children, nobody was even selling patchuli oil in the fall of 65.
my main love in those days was going to the beach which i did everyday of the 10 years i lived up there.
to me the people susie listed are just ordinary people. if you ever met manson in person you would laugh at what a wee man he is. the only thing leary ever really said that anyone paid attention to was "turn on, tune in, and drop out" at the polo grounds in 67 and he almost fell off the stage he was so stoned. nobody ever knew who owsley was. he kept a very low profile for obvious reasons. if you ever saw "revenge of the nerds" then you know what the greatful dead looked like when they were young. jerry garcia had more zits on his face than anyone i ever saw. i actually gave him a ride home one night from the avalon along with several other people. he was on such an ego trip about his success. but not in a bad way. just like a kid being really happy that everything was going his way.
i only saw peter coyote a couple of times hanging around the san francisco mime troup. basically he was a digger and all he ever did was give all the people who came to san francisco with no money, free food, free clothes, and sometimes a place to stay. most people don't know that steve gaskin dropped out of high school to join the marines and fight in korea. he was among the first soldiers to land on the beach and saw plenty of his buddies get blown up. he was a professor at san francisco state after going to school on the g i bill. he started giving a monday night class at various places in san francisco because at that time even at my school they had developed an alternative type of education to compliment the standard courses they were offering. he was an older school beatnik type guy and somebody dosed him with lsd at one of his classes. he later took most of the good people that were still living in the city to tennesee to their farm. but living on a 20 lb sack of brown rice didn't appeal to me nor to a lot of people i knew, some of whom went with them and later left the farm.
i saw them when they came back from their caravan around the united states and heard them decide to go back to tennesee. that was around 1970. just like the back to the landers up your way. i hear they own 4000 contiguous acres these days. steve gaskin is an excellent teacher. but you are entitled to your own opinion.
the bottom line is, i never went to san francisco to be a hippie. i went there to get an education. and that i did. the one at school and the one everywhere else. i would never trade that experience for anything in the world. i remember at the time thinking, this is the most fun that i am ever going to have in my life.
i got my degree and i had a blast.
but go ahead and think what you want. and thanks for the forum to share a few of my observations from those days.
steve gaskin is an excellent teacher. but you are entitled to your own opinion.
gee thanks soooo much, and my opinion is that he's a terrible teacher, a spiritual phony, an enemy of the soul, an enemy of free thinking, on a power trip in a major way, won't tolerate anyone who's viewpoint doesn't match his, has a bunch of brainwashed clones surrounding him and propping him up, -he's a total asshole in all ways, i wouldn't doubt if he works for the CIA.
I went to the Farm a few years ago and stayed for a week to take a mid-wifery class. Met Stephen, ate beans with him and talked with him, smoked herb with him and drank wine with him. I even sat on the jerks lap. ew, never again. If thats any indication of the peace and love vibe that the 60s Haight was about then i am sooooo glad i wasn't there.
that's hilarious, bad guru. i'm not from ernie or river's generation so i don't feel qualified to comment. but isn't there something they say about old marines that would explain the way he is. way too many rules for me too.
i was comparing him with the teachers i had at school. he is a competent, university level teacher.
he wasn't doing that my way or the highway stuff back then.
there were several people who enjoyed disrupting his monday night class. my favorite was a guy named patrick. patrick would dress up in a white sheet and eat cotton candy in both hands in front of all those vegetarians. the only commune that i lived in was called the freaky dude ranch. our linda lu was from kentucky and she had a crush on patrick. our house was full of guys who came back from nam and didn't go home. only a couple of people worked, i was one of them, and that's why it didn't last. but it was fun while it lasted.
one of our houses was a mash unit out of lettermen's hospital. they were still medics in the army drawing blood every day. their house was like an army surplus store. i think they were the ones who started using those surgical tweasers to hold a joint. which reminds me about gaskin. he used to bogart the joints he was passing around and it seemed like every time it was my turn he would keep talking until it went out and then he would light it back up and pass it in a different direction. what an asshole.
my friend paul who worked at night at the post office in those days was a jewish guy from the bronx. pretty soon, all these jewish guys from new york started moving in, jan, bruce, etc. we would have a family meeting and afterwards go to the fillmore west down on market on tuesday nights for a $1. great santana, van morrison. we didn't have too many rules that i remember. maybe don't bring anybody home that has crabs. these city jewish guys were hilarious when we started going back to the land or camping. we had an old logging cabin near rattlesnake creek in mendocino national forest. about 40 of us used to go camping up there. some of those guys had never seen a cow before. dennis used to write a comic strip for the san francisco city college paper about us called the freaky dude ranch. we lived in swami satchinanda's old ashram on balboa and 13th. just about every one of those people turned christian. jews for jesus. i go see paul and he still quotes scripture to me. go figure. some of them actually took me to jim jones's church down in the fillmore. i had all these big black ladies hugging me, trying to offer me some holy kool aid. a few months later all those people were dead. so good girl susie, you can't be too careful when it comes to your freedom.
that was a good book that ina mae gaskin wrote about midwifery though. i gave it to a lady friend of mine back in the 70's and about 10 ladies started their own midwife club using my book. all their kids were born natural and when her kids started going to high school, she finally gave me that book back.
Some great laughs there spy- thanks for the stories.
RE: Ina Mae -- i liked her a lot.
I suffer from multiple blog personality disorder and consider drugs to be the cause.
What drugs will do is make one question the intelligence of "authorities", and in a very large sense, and that is often a smart thing to do. Much of the drummed up hysteria about marijuana is no doubt tied to its unfettering the mind from some of its cultural restraints as taught by our demented old school Prussian education system, and parents.
To the extent that drugs teach you intelligence is not limited to the rational mind, they make you smarter.
This guy goes o the doctor and says: "Doc, I want some of them smart pills." The doctor says: "What do you mean smart pills?" The guy says: "I know you got 'em doc and I want some". The doc says: "OK just a minute".. He goes in the back room and comes out with a bottle of pills. "Hey, thanks doc", The guy says ad walks out.
A week later he comes back in a rage and yells: "Doc, those weren't pills, they were rabbit pellets!"
The doctor said: "See, they worked."
Great summation, Ben!
There seems, outwardly, to be a certain amount of equality in use, function, and results, between rabbit pils and drugs.
What drugs will do is make one question the intelligence of
"authorities", and in a very large sense, and that is often a smart
thing to do.
-i have to agree that it's important to point out alternatives to the entrenched system but unfortunately what happens is that a new authority quickly replaces the old, so that what we observe looking back at the 60s and 70s is the hippie who questioned the old fear/war based system only to be entranced by a very simplistic and naive peace/love dogma. Nothing could be more dangerous! This wish for love to replace fear is just as distorted a lens to view our world through as Ernie's hammer test. (it's not real if ya can't hit it with hammer). In the first instance one is looking through rose tinted granny glasses, (imho we all have an obligation to keep an eye on the truth, not just believe what sounds nice or what we wish were true) and in the latter, one is blinded by and lost in consciousness and rationality which is equally as dangerous as it means the loss of soul.
As usual, I agree with most of what Suzy says. But, in my “Real World” there is a need for fear, a time for war, a need for peace, and a yearning for love.
As some might have guessed, my hammer test isn’t an absolute test for reality. If I swing my hammer at a bell and it rings, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a real bell, but the chances are better that it‘s real. If it thuds, it still might be real, but I’m not one to accept anything at the presented value. I’ve been lied to before. I liked Regan’s “Trust but verify.” That doesn’t mean I like that he gave America’s electronics industry to Japan, who in turn lost it Korea, then China. But, there I go again.
I just like things that I can trust are real. Love is real and tangible in my world. Surprised? Acid trips are still out to the hammer test.
-my bad, i guesss i got that backassword, i thought hammers were out to the acid test..
there is a need for fear, a time for war, a need for peace, and a yearning for love.
OK Ok, you dont have two go laying Old Testament scripture on me,
Hammer Love that's all i want, thats all i need!
i keep on hearing about your love of the hammer. and i'm thinking that maybe you are a viking and it's thor's hammer you love. and i'm a viking too. from harold "bluetooth", the one who brought christianity to the norse.
so there are infintie games to play and choices to make. personally, i don't care what choice you make. or what parallel world you choose to exist in. because that is the nature of reality. there are many roads to follow and each of them is worthy. not every one wants to get through the maze quick. some take their time. knock yourself out. it's hammer time. can't touch this.
The rabbit pellet joke was from my Hoosier uncle Boob who just loved a good joke and a beer. Insulin was his drug of choice.
there are many roads to follow and each of them is worthy.
= if you're onna road you're lost.
not every one wants to get through the maze quick.
i don't think there's any way to get through 'the maze' quick. If you try it's no longer the maze... it's a hammer knockin' at your door LOL!
... my Hoosier uncle
-who's your uncle? '_)
Now we are treadin' a little close to home. Not many are aware of the origins of the word Hoosier, and Suz has come remarkably close.
Back inna day when forests covered the midwest there were many bands of gypsies traveling the trails and primitive roads. Often they couldn't tell if they were on the road or not.
Because these traveling tribelets were matrilineal it was a custom to call out to any approaching individuals or groups...."whose your mama?"...and that is how white Indianians got the name Hoosiers.
This is pretty much, almost entirely, the oral version, and therefore, the complete truth, or my name is not Oregon.
Now gabby, drink your coffee.
Spyrock- you nailed it with Ernie having some Thor blood mixed in there with his fine Irish genes. No genieologist, but I think the Thorians were the newcomers of the day in the British Isles...hmmm.
i been using the hammer test on 60 foot of your mendocino boards or the chinee are putting a mendo name on theirs. pretty good boards though. i cherry picked through a brand new pallet.
joseph simmerely, my 4g grandfather was married to rachel drennen whose family went back quite a ways in irish history. on another side, the nyes were from harold blautland or "bluetooth". his teeth were stained from eating blueberries all the time. there is a stone monument to him in jelling, denmark. i met some danish kids this august. they all felt like kin. yes the vikings invaded the british isles. my ex was norwegian. i used to date a red head who claimed to be of the eric line. and my daughter's partner is a 6'5" viking.
and i like "hammer time." can't touch this.
I wonder what happens when you have a "free" flashback from LSD and you are driving a motor vehicle on a public roadway? Maybe somebody will be enlightened, most likely the victim in the other vehicle.
Someone who isn't me, let's call him Mr. Bad, has consumed psychedelic substances hundreds upon hundreds of times and never experienced a flashback. What a ripoff.
Oh, and certain varieties of Jimson Weed in controlled doses are very good when combined with mescaline cactus. Apparently, the truth serum alkaloids potentiate the effect. Jimson Weed by itself is shit. Or so I've been told.
jewish guys from the bronx? My dad was probably one of them. Jerome aka Moe. He was in the lower haight in 67 on Buchanan and Haight He ended up moving up to Mt Tam and was pretty well known in the scene. Was part owner of pepperland and winterland and did promotions as well as other stuff
My name is Jill Vanderwood. I am the co-author of Drugs Make You Un-Smarter. My granddaughter Savanna, my co-author has grown up around drugs and alcohol, with a father in prison for drug related crimes. We wrote this book to tell people that drugs are no way to happiness. I know first hand through the experience of living with an alcoholic ex-husband and the drug abuse of my daughter.
Don't let drugs and alcohol hold you back from your dreams. If you are addicted, please get help! There are 12 Step programs in every city, at any time of the day.
Even though I don't believe in happiness from drugs and alcohol, I do believe in God.
Thanks for your post.
Post a Comment