The Bear and The Law *continuation of PREVIOUS CONVERSATION with Owsley Stanley*
Hey again,
Sorry, I did not mean to come off like I was playing games. I think about the topic a lot and agree that LSD is simply an amplification of whatever is present in the person already. Some people have more potential than others and I love seeing a friend's brilliance "get louder" like that - brighter eyes, beautiful expression through words or music.
Like you say, too, amplification of certain psychopathologies seems just as possible of a development (like whatever kink, schizm, or knot got so much louder for Charles Manson.) But isn't that potential for LSD to exacerbate preexisting mental illnesses a good reason for careful licensure governing its responsible academic or therapeutic use, like Aldous Huxley recommended?
I do believe in shamans. I don't feel that they have been constructing an elaborate spiritual hoax since the dawn of prehistoric man. That is to say, I DO believe that certain individuals are genetically predisposed to states of heightened perceptual sensitivity. That is, the certain people seem to "see more" and "hear more" than the typical person and, in the modern Western world, this hypersensitivity is often marginalized and stigmatized as schizophrenia, an "illness" to be tranquilized away using Thorazine.
Yet, in traditional cultures, which we call "primitive," this hightened sensitivity, seeing and hearing more, was more often revered. That man was to become a shaman because he had the "vision" and could enter trance and, supposedly, communicate with ancestors. These "primitive" beliefs are universal - existing at the roots of every culture, from China to the Arctic circle. Heh, I don't mean to get on a tangent, I'm just trying to lay some common grounding with which to make my point.
That is, if someone is born genetically predisposed to this hypersensitive perceptual state, which commonly manifests as culturally-universal and scientifically-measured spiritual experiences like possession and out-of-body states, wouldn't LSD similarly amplify THESE parts of self too? That is, assuming that certain people are more spiritual than others, in the same way some people are more musical or intelligent than others, wouldn't it be safe to say this neutral activator, LSD, would make that part "louder" just the same way?
I admit, part of me doesn't like using the word "spiritual" -- likewise soul is a sort of 4 LETTER WORD in academic circles, but at the same time, I truly hate reducing that hypersensitivity to subtle aspects of ones surroundings to laboratory-sterile scientific terms like "latent inhibition," (Carson, 2003) which is a popular term for it in journals nowadays.
The painful truth remains, if one chooses not to believe in the commonly-reported experiences like spiritual possession or scientifically-verified states like OBE's (Tart, 1969), there is no degree of research validity or heartfelt personal account which will convince them otherwise. Yet, that Universal aspect of these occurrences is hard to disregard -- and suggests they are central human experiences, developing and existing at the core of every culture of the world without inter-influence. By consensus alone, this suggests, at very least, that spiritual men have existed. I feel this is a safe assumption.
*continuation of PREVIOUS CONVERSATION with Owsley Stanley*
Hey again,
Sorry, I did not mean to come off like I was playing games. I think about the topic a lot and agree that LSD is simply an amplification of whatever is present in the person already. Some people have more potential than others and I love seeing a friend's brilliance "get louder" like that - brighter eyes, beautiful expression through words or music.
Like you say, too, amplification of certain psychopathologies seems just as possible of a development (like whatever kink, schizm, or knot got so much louder for Charles Manson.) But isn't that potential for LSD to exacerbate preexisting mental illnesses a good reason for careful licensure governing its responsible academic or therapeutic use, like Aldous Huxley recommended?
I do believe in shamans. I don't feel that they have been constructing an elaborate spiritual hoax since the dawn of prehistoric man. That is to say, I DO believe that certain individuals are genetically predisposed to states of heightened perceptual sensitivity. That is, the certain people seem to "see more" and "hear more" than the typical person and, in the modern Western world, this hypersensitivity is often marginalized and stigmatized as schizophrenia, an "illness" to be tranquilized away using Thorazine.
Yet, in traditional cultures, which we call "primitive," this hightened sensitivity, seeing and hearing more, was more often revered. That man was to become a shaman because he had the "vision" and could enter trance and, supposedly, communicate with ancestors. These "primitive" beliefs are universal - existing at the roots of every culture, from China to the Arctic circle. Heh, I don't mean to get on a tangent, I'm just trying to lay some common grounding with which to make my point.
That is, if someone is born genetically predisposed to this hypersensitive perceptual state, which commonly manifests as culturally-universal and scientifically-measured spiritual experiences like possession and out-of-body states, wouldn't LSD similarly amplify THESE parts of self too? That is, assuming that certain people are more spiritual than others, in the same way some people are more musical or intelligent than others, wouldn't it be safe to say this neutral activator, LSD, would make that part "louder" just the same way?
I admit, part of me doesn't like using the word "spiritual" -- likewise soul is a sort of 4 LETTER WORD in academic circles, but at the same time, I truly hate reducing that hypersensitivity to subtle aspects of ones surroundings to laboratory-sterile scientific terms like "latent inhibition," (Carson, 2003) which is a popular term for it in journals nowadays.
The painful truth remains, if one chooses not to believe in the commonly-reported experiences like spiritual possession or scientifically-verified states like OBE's (Tart, 1969), there is no degree of research validity or heartfelt personal account which will convince them otherwise. Yet, that Universal aspect of these occurrences is hard to disregard -- and suggests they are central human experiences, developing and existing at the core of every culture of the world without inter-influence. By consensus alone, this suggests, at very least, that spiritual men have existed. I feel this is a safe assumption.
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