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- From: mwolfe@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Mike Wolfe)
- Newsgroups: alt.drugs
- Subject: Leary and doubters
- Date: 10 Oct 1993 19:05:12 GMT
- Message-ID: <299md8$2ao@news.acns.nwu.edu>
-
- I thought this would interest some people. I was reading "The Politics of
- Ectasy", an excellent book by Dr. Tim Leary. In one of the sections he
- describes how to deal with doubters of drug use.
-
- "...it's really quite simple. Whenever you hear anyone sounding off on
- internal freedom and conciousness-expanding foods and drugs-whether pro or
- con-check out these questions:
-
- 1. Is your expert talking from direct experience, or simply repeating
- cliches? Theologians and intellectuals often deprecate "experience" in
- favor of fact and concept. This classic debate is falsely labeled. Most
- often it becomes a case of "experience" vs. "inexperience".
-
- 2. Do his words spring from a spiritual or mundane point of view? Is he
- motivated by a dedicated quest for answers to basic questions, or is he
- protecting his own social-psychological position, his own game investment?
- Is he struggling towards sainthood, or is he maintaining his status as a
- hard-boiled scientist or hard-boiled cop?
-
- 3. How would his argument sound if it was heard in a different culture?
- (for example, in an African jungle hut, a ghat on the Ganges, or on another
- planet inhabited by a form of life superior to ours) or in a different time
- (for example, in Periclean Athens, or in a Tibetan monestery, or in a bull
- session led by any one of the great religious leaders - founders -
- messiahs)? Or how would it sound to other species of life on our planet
- today -to the dolphins, to the conciousness of the redwood tree? In other
- words, try to break out of your usual tribal game set and listen with the
- ears of another one of God's creatures.
-
- 4. How would the debate sound to you if you were fatally diseased with a
- week to live, and thus less comitted to mundane issues?...
-
- 5. Is this point of view one which opens up or closes down? Are you being
- urged to explore, experience, or gamble out of spiritual faith, join somone
- who shares your cosmic ignorance on a collaborative voyage of discovery? Or
- are you being pressured to close off, protect your gains, play it safe,
- accept the authoritative voice of someone who knows best?
-
- 6. When we speak, we say little about the subject matter and disclose
- mainly the state of our own mind. Does your psychedelic expert use terms
- which are positive, pro-life, spiritual, inspiring, opening, based on faith
- in the future, faith in your potential or does he betray a mind obsessed by
- danger, material concern, by imaginary terrors, administrative caution or
- essential distrust in your potential? Dear friends, there is nothing in
- life to fear; no spiritual gain can be lost.
-
- 7. If he is against what he calls "artificial methods of illumination," ask
- him what constitutes the natural. Words? Rituals? Tribal customs?
- Alkaloids? Psychedelic vegetables?
-
- 8. If he is against biochemical assistance, where does he draw the line?
- Does he use nicotine? alcohol? penicillin? vitamins? convential sacremental
- substances?
-
- 9. If your advisor is against LSD, what is he for? If he forbids you the
- psychedelic key to revelation, what does he offer you instead?"
-
- _mike
-
-
-