What Leary did was very dangerous because he was advocating LSD use to random people, without considering how the drug might affect them. Nonmilitary, serious research with carefully selected individuals could have yielded knowledge about psychedelics. I never took anything stronger than hashish or poppers because I felt there was a lot in my mind that I was not ready to just let loose. Too much traumata that might give me an ugly trip. Yet, I've had my own "psychedelic" types of experiences, including the dissolution of ego at concerts, the blazing expanding geometrics of silent migraines, and experiences from strong marijuana and loading doses of gabapentin. I like having my consciousness raised slowly as I can deal with each layer safely as the revelations occur. To me, the physical world can be extremely colorful and beautiful and I always visualize things from what I read or from songs I hear. What I visualize is very vivid. I am contented with this.
To be fair to Tim Leary, for a long time he had tried to find a haven to do much the same sort of thing that modern "psychedelic retreats" are doing today. No one would let him do it in the Caribbean. No one let him do that in Mexico. And eventually he threw caution to the wind and called on every 14-year old in the country to try LSD, because "kids are holier" than adults, or at least those adults of various Establishment Institutions that he had run with in the 1950s. That was terribly irresponsible advice. Tim was not coming from a sound place. I could unpack his flaws all day, but someone had to do it.
But his detractors were unhinged too, in their own way. I don't know the 50s from experience, but I have studied it. It's my impression that Mad Men gets a lot right about the era. A world of people who didn't even recognize cigarettes and gin as "drugs." The parental generation didn't even consider benzos, barbiturates, or amphetamines to be "drugs". At least, not in the sense of Dope. That's pretty somnambulistic. Functionally altered, while still imagining that there are only three real mind states: asleep, awake, of Drunk. Psychedelics clear up that mistaken impression in a hurry. Grass- I mean, cannabis- shows a wider realm of possibility for consciousness, too. Not that you can't overdo it. I recommend using as little cannabis as it makes sense to use. Keep what you learned for afterward, being straight and productive.
Fantastic review of what might have been had the psychedelic river changed course.
What Leary did was very dangerous because he was advocating LSD use to random people, without considering how the drug might affect them. Nonmilitary, serious research with carefully selected individuals could have yielded knowledge about psychedelics. I never took anything stronger than hashish or poppers because I felt there was a lot in my mind that I was not ready to just let loose. Too much traumata that might give me an ugly trip. Yet, I've had my own "psychedelic" types of experiences, including the dissolution of ego at concerts, the blazing expanding geometrics of silent migraines, and experiences from strong marijuana and loading doses of gabapentin. I like having my consciousness raised slowly as I can deal with each layer safely as the revelations occur. To me, the physical world can be extremely colorful and beautiful and I always visualize things from what I read or from songs I hear. What I visualize is very vivid. I am contented with this.
To be fair to Tim Leary, for a long time he had tried to find a haven to do much the same sort of thing that modern "psychedelic retreats" are doing today. No one would let him do it in the Caribbean. No one let him do that in Mexico. And eventually he threw caution to the wind and called on every 14-year old in the country to try LSD, because "kids are holier" than adults, or at least those adults of various Establishment Institutions that he had run with in the 1950s. That was terribly irresponsible advice. Tim was not coming from a sound place. I could unpack his flaws all day, but someone had to do it.
But his detractors were unhinged too, in their own way. I don't know the 50s from experience, but I have studied it. It's my impression that Mad Men gets a lot right about the era. A world of people who didn't even recognize cigarettes and gin as "drugs." The parental generation didn't even consider benzos, barbiturates, or amphetamines to be "drugs". At least, not in the sense of Dope. That's pretty somnambulistic. Functionally altered, while still imagining that there are only three real mind states: asleep, awake, of Drunk. Psychedelics clear up that mistaken impression in a hurry. Grass- I mean, cannabis- shows a wider realm of possibility for consciousness, too. Not that you can't overdo it. I recommend using as little cannabis as it makes sense to use. Keep what you learned for afterward, being straight and productive.