Program Notes
Guest speaker: Dr. Timothy Leary
[NOTE: All quotations below are by Timothy Leary.]
“The people who were teaching us about consciousness-expanding drugs were people like Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, even Henry Luce, the respectable conservative founder of ‘Time’ magazine. There was a large group of thoughtful people who told us that the doors of perception were going to open and an avalanche of change would happen.”
“Harvard is there to train Ivy Leaguers to go to Washington and Wall Street and keep the wasp establishment going. They’re not supposed to be turning out new Buddhas and a new brand of science fiction neuronaughts.”
“The history of America is the history of those of us that belong to this wonderful brotherhood and sisterhood of avant-garde inner voyagers. We believe that we’re the American tradition. And so we really weren’t that surprised when the thing exploded in the Sixties. That’s what we’d signed up for.”
“I personally now feel that the concept of generation, the generation you belong to, is one of the most important things in your life, because you’re going to be swimming like a school of fish in this school of your own generation.”
“It’s so simple, too. If you want to change, it’s geography, just move to the place different people hang out, and listen.”
“I see very clearly that the age of the people you hang out with determines your age. … Generations are temporal units, and you can jump generations, you can migrate. And how do you migrate from one generation to another? It’s time travel, just hang out with people of different ages.”
“What are humans for? We’re not here to fight Communism. We’re not here to fight for a job. If we don’t do that any more, what are we for? Well the answer to that is, the function of the human being is to evolve, to grow, to become more intelligent, to become a more advanced form of our species.”
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The Timothy Leary Archives
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Transcript
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Greetings from cyberdelic space.
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This is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in the psychedelic salon.
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This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.
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And I have to tell you that as I was getting ready to record this podcast just now,
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I felt like maybe I was Rip Van Winkle or somebody just waking up from a long sleep and discovering that a lot of time has passed without me noticing.
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What I’m talking about is that for the past ten days,
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I’ve more or less ignored the world while I’m in the final stages of recording my audio book.
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And when I poked my head back up and checked my email, I discovered that so many donors had made contributions to the salon that I was sure it must be December already and that it was Christmas time.
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Wait till you hear this list of donors.
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And they are…
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John A., our old friend, a dime short.
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Thanks again, Michael.
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Jason H., SMD Books,
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who I notice happens to be located in Paris,
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so you Parisian salonners now know where to find a few of the others.
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And we also received another donation from my fellow grandfather, Robert O.
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And thank you again for your long-time support, Robert.
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And we also received three generous donations, one from Jared S.,
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one from someone who would rather remain completely anonymous, so thank you, Anon,
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and the third one came from Wiley L., who is a longtime friend that I haven’t seen since we were last together
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in Palenque.
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Wow, you guys have all
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really outdone yourselves this time.
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I simply don’t know what to say.
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And I’d also like
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to thank Steve and Julie and
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you other wonderful salonners for your cool
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cards and notes.
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I wish there was time to send out personal
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thank yous to everyone who sends
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in a donation or a card or email, but I do want you to know that everything any of our salonners
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do to help spread the word about the psychedelic community is greatly appreciated by me and by all
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of our fellow psychonauts around the world. It’s a wonderful community that we are all a part of.
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the world. It’s a wonderful community that we are all a part of. So now that we’ve found some of the others, let’s get to work here and get on with the program. At the end of today’s podcast, I’ll give
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you an update on the archival preservation work that is being done for the Shulgin and Stolarov
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papers, and there is a lot of good news on that front. So, in the spirit of preserving archival material,
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I thought it might be appropriate once again to dip into the Timothy Leary archives
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and pull out another one of his pioneering talks.
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What I’m going to play for us to hear right now is an interview that Dr. Leary gave in 1983.
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And this is from a cassette tape in his archive that was labeled,
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New Dimensions, featuring Tim Leary, recorded in 1983. And thanks to Bruce Dahmer and Dennis Berry,
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the woman who is responsible for this huge archive, all of the audio and video recordings
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that Timothy saved are being digitized and released to the internet via the Internet Archive,
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which you can find at archive.org, and through these podcasts here in the Psychedelic Salon.
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Now, you’re going to find this interview a little different, in that it begins more like what our
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young salonners would call a history lesson, and what grandpas like Robert O. and I think of
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more as a stroll down memory lane.
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But I think that these stories are very important right now
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because we are entering another period of great instability,
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not unlike the 60s, I might add.
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And so if we know what some people did in the past at another time of great cultural upheaval,
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if we know what worked and what didn’t work, well, then it seems to me that
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we have an excellent chance of ratcheting our species up yet another notch on our evolutionary
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climb out of the swamp. At least that’s my rationale for indulging myself by playing what
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I think is a really interesting interview. And now, here is Dr. Timothy Leary back in 1983,
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And now, here is Dr. Timothy Leary back in 1983, when the big news was that Lotus 1-2-3 had just been ported to the then-new IBM PC, and Ronald Reagan had just begun his horrible reign.
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And it was about ten years before we had the World Wide Web.
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You remember those times, don’t you? I think they were called the Dark Ages.
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I’d like to enter a time machine, if we will.
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Go back 20 years, go back to Harvard.
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And if you can put yourself back in that place.
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I’m wondering, at that time, what was your vision of the future?
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What did you see, what you were doing then?
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Did you see it taking… where did you see it going? What was your future idea of its direction, the work you were doing?
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I think that from the very beginning of our psychedelic drug research at Harvard,
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we knew that we were on the verge of something very big.
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We knew that human intelligence and human virtue
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had reached a point where we would be able to learn more about the brain and activate it.
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Of course, those of us at Harvard, Richard Alpert, Baba Ram Dass, Ralph Metzner,
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the large group that assembled there,
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were not the pioneers,
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the people that were teaching us about consciousness,
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expanding drugs,
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were people like Alice Huxley, Alan Watts,
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even Henry Luce,
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the respectable, conservative founder of Time magazine.
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There was a large group of thoughtful people
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who told us that the doors of perception were going to open
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and an avalanche of change would happen.
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So there was never any doubt in our minds
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that we were members of an old profession.
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This happened before.
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It happened in the 1830s.
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It was a transcendental movement,
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which again started at Harvard.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller,
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the first great woman transcendentalist.
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That explosive movement of Brook Farm.
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But, of course, it goes way back.
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If you want to take the time
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tunnel, the
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concepts that we were working with, which is
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altered states,
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consciousness expansion, increased
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intelligence, finding
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divinity and finding illumination,
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revelation within, it goes back
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throughout human history. So we were,
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with the aid of people like Alan Watson
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Alice Huxley we were we were pretty clear that we were uncertain that we were riding a Niagara
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wave what happened with respect to the institution in the sense I mean did you become too successful
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and suddenly it wasn’t appropriate to to be a part of the institution anymore did you or was
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it a somehow somehow become threatening all of a sudden?
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What took place there when Harvard essentially asked you to leave and you departed?
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It became clear to us that the sort of research we were doing,
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which involved radically different ways of approaching the brain and the mind,
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couldn’t and shouldn’t be done in a prestigious respectable highly
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Establishment organization like Harvard University
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so
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actually several weeks before
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Richard and I were fired I had left
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Harvard I turned in my time clock and headed for Mexico, where we’d started a training center.
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We knew that we shouldn’t be at Harvard, and we had no and never have had any grudges about Harvard.
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Goodness, Harvard is there to train Ivy Leaguers to go to Washington and Wall Street
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and keep the WASP establishment going.
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I mean, they’re supposed to be turning out new Buddhas
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and a new brand of science fiction neuronauts.
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So it was just sort of a natural thing.
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Yes, there was a little drama involved in it.
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In flashbacks, I mentioned some of the minor political squabbling.
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There was a professor there named Herbert Kelman who kind of led an attack on us,
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and it turned out later that he was a beneficiary of CIA funding.
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He says he wasn’t winning,
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but that doesn’t make any difference.
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The CIA knew they had a good, sound fellow there
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that should be rewarded.
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So that they were…
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They were political issues,
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but they’re secondary.
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They’re kind of gossipy,
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but we didn’t belong at Harvard,
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and we set up our own institutions. Throughout history that’s been true. You know,
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Freud couldn’t get a job in a Viennese hospital and Socrates got put in the last cell in the
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back row of death row and Voltaire had to head it on the lamb. We were pretty much aware,
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headed on the lam,
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the long,
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we were pretty much aware,
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I think all of us at the Harvard Psychological Group,
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and that included about 35 of us,
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people like Professor Walter Clark,
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who was a very distinguished,
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gray,
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ultra-respectable theologian.
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The younger psychologists, too,
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they knew they were risking their careers.
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They knew that they were maybe
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going to put themselves out a little too far
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and never be able to get back.
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But we always had a sense of history.
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Allen Ginsberg, I have a chapter in flashbacks about Allen Ginsberg coming to Harvard.
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And Allen and people like Kerouac and Burroughs taught us a great deal, too.
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They had the street wisdom that we lacked being Ivy League Harvard professors.
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And Allen Ginsberg, whatever you think of his poetry, is a very effective literary social worker.
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He’s like a cosmic defense attorney for beatniks and romantics and bohemians and hippies and hipsters,
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no matter what name you give them the the the group in every culture throughout history that have carried on the message of
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individuality look within irreverence to authority question authority uh try something new ginsbury
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was uh very aware ginsburg told me and i i’ve i’ve thought about it almost every week since then, that we were part of the Bohemian tradition
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or the avant-garde tradition that always existed.
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And he felt that our group included Gary Snyder,
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it included Ken Kesey.
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He saw us as important historically
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as Plato, Aristotle, Socrates.
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And we’re a young country,
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and we’ve only been going 200 years
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and I think
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when the history of our times is written
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you’re never going to hear the names of
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Nixon or Kissinger
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or MacArthur
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you may make some mention of Roosevelt
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maybe Kennedy
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because of the assassination of the Romans
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but Alan told us
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and I believe him
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and I’ll repeat it today,
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that I think that the history of America is going to be the history of people like Emerson, Thoreau,
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Jefferson as a philosopher, Edgar Allan Poe, my God, that poor man was, you know, was
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savaged by the media and pushed around by the establishment, Mark Twain, who was a tremendous
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outcast, even though he was very popular.
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The history of America is the history of those of us
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that belong to this wonderful brotherhood and sisterhood
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of avant-garde inner voyagers
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that we believe that were the American tradition.
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And so we weren’t really that surprised
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when the thing exploded in the 60s.
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That’s what we had signed up for.
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I recall something in the book you mentioned about Aldous Huxley.
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I believe there was somebody else, his name I can’t recall,
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and Aldous was saying that he thought you were a little too conservative in your approach.
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Yes, that Humphrey Osmond.
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That’s it, Humphrey Osmond.
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A brilliant British psychiatrist who invented the word psychedelic
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had been conspiring with Huxley, and the two of them came to Harvard,
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and they kind of checked me out,
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and they were hoping that we would do pretty much what we did.
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I think we probably carried a little too far,
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or events carried all of us farther than we expected.
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But Huxley and Osmond, after the dinner with me, went,
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well, he’s a nice guy, but he’s a little too straight, and maybe we can loosen him up.
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And you mentioned Allen Ginsberg.
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He had this idea of traipsing off to New York on weekends
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and turning on as many of his associates and friends as possible.
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There were some fascinating stories that you related in the book about those experiences.
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Well, as I say, Allen has always been a politician a cosmic politician he was the first person to point
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out to me the uh insanity and cruelty of the drug laws treating uh people as criminals for
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trying to alter their conscience he was a tremendous crusader and always has been anytime
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anyone was in jail god knows how many times Alan bailed me out
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or got signatures and petitions to help me out of the various dungeons
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that the establishment put me in.
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So Alan said that our strategy should be one of turning on important people
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in literature and poetry, art, music.
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So he had, I remember, it was about 21 years ago today,
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in my dining room, he pulled out his battered leather address book,
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and there in his tiny little Ginsberg scrawl,
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he had the names and addresses and phone numbers
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of the who’s who of American art.
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And then he’d give me a ring in the middle of the week
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and I’d go down
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from Logan Airport on the Boston
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to the New York shuttle
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with my little bag full of psilocybin pills
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and Peter Luskinel and I
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would go around New York
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turning on famous, distinguished,
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successful people in the arts.
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The idea was that if we turned them on,
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they could tell us what they experienced,
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because we were novices.
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They could, in turn, teach other people about this,
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and we thought that the movement would grow that way,
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and it certainly did.
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Timothy, if you were back in the 60s now,
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would you do anything differently than you did then?
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Oh, Michael, that’s, of course, the big if question.
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Wouldn’t we all do it differently if we could do it, you know, if you go back to your senior prom?
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I’ve given this a great deal of thought and I’ve been asked that question many times.
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given this a great deal of thought and I’ve been asked that question many times.
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Basically, we were out there doing our best
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on a frontier that had never been
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explored before.
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Our hearts were pure and we,
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I think we, on the big issues,
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we always did the right thing.
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One thing I kind of regret is that
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we were a little blind.
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I didn’t understand the importance of the new generation.
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I didn’t realize demography that there were 76 million kids born between the years 46,
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that’s post-Hiroshima, and 1964, double the birth rate.
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40 million more than we expected.
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Now, the impact of doubling a birth rate in
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a country like America is simply enormous. And, of course, this generation was not only
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different in size, it was different in their basic reality imprints as parents of this
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generation. You know, it was Dr. Spock. It was demand feeding. It was treat them equals.
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Treat them as individuals. Don’t force them into a room. That had never been done before to kids. That’s almost unheard
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of. And when the right-wing reactionary and left-wing reactionary people later on blamed
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Dr. Spock, you know, they were right. It was, of course, Dr. Spock was simply a vehicle,
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an instrument for genetic history unfolding. But we hot shots at Harvard and
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we philosophy PhDs really didn’t understand that this generation was going to sweep through
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American culture like a tsunami wave, changing everything, including us. And it just swept
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us right out of Harvard and it swept us right out of any illusions we might have had of slow change.
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I think that if we caught on to this quicker, we probably would have warned people in the
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late 60s that the LSD they were getting was not pure and that there was a deliberate government
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conspiracy to kind of cloud up and put out really dangerous drugs.
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I think that we didn’t understand the enormity of implications of the baby boom.
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And I personally now feel that the concept of generation, the generation you belong to,
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is one of the most important things in your life because you’re going to be swimming like
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a school of fish in this things in your life because you’re going to be swimming like a school of fish
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in this school of your own generation.
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And the kids that came up in the 60s,
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hit high school and college in the 60s and early 70s,
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share basic reality imprints
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that are entirely different from Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill
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and even Teddy Kennedy.
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And the reason that the importance of generation,
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generational demographics, generational psychology,
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the reason we didn’t understand it
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was because there had never in history been
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such a quick generational change of that import
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and that numbers in the baby womb.
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So in hindsight, if I knew then what I know now,
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I probably would have done something differently, but you can’t…
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What about your perception of the establishment?
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I mean, in some sense, in talking about being out on the edge,
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you were out on the farthest edge.
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Have you ever thought that perhaps you took the rap for a lot of other people,
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since, I mean, you got nailed and many other people didn’t?
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Well, I was very aware of that
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and I think most thoughtful people were aware of that
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after Nixon came into power in 1968.
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It’s obvious he couldn’t do anything about young people
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and counterculture and drugs,
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but one thing he could do would be,
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and he said it in so many words, we can imprison the spokesman. So I knew that I was like a
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lightning rod. I knew that I was like a symbol. And I accepted this. It’s reality. And you can’t
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complain about it or you can’t cry foul. That’s the way the ballgame is played. And that’s why
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I’ve never felt any resentment or bitterness.
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As a matter of fact, I’m rather honored.
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You know, I was put in the penalty box
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in the great cosmic hockey game
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for four years. Well,
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they put in the penalty box the people they think are
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most dangerous to them, in the sense that
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it’s flattering.
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Do you think, in reflecting on that
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experience, that the establishment learned anything from their experience with you?
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And if so, what?
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No, the establishment never learns anything.
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They start Vietnam again, as they’re trying to do in Central America.
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Vietnam was, of course, the Korean War.
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They never learned anything.
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They were always fighting the last war
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because you can’t learn.
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Once you’ve been imprinted in adolescence,
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unless you deliberately try to re-imprint and change,
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you can’t learn.
00:20:17 ►
You’re simply going to repeat the same reactions
00:20:21 ►
because you’re living in the same reality.
00:20:23 ►
Tip O’Neill in Ronald ronald reagan’s uh… sixties was teddy roosevelt running
00:20:28 ►
around storming cuba and running down with a big stick in the caribbean and
00:20:32 ►
shaking his fist at nicaragua and
00:20:34 ►
stealing the
00:20:36 ►
panama canal away from from the country of columbia
00:20:39 ►
so that uh… no they they they still see the world in those terms and uh…
00:20:43 ►
the uh… they can’t be expected to change.
00:20:47 ►
And I’m not being hostile here.
00:20:49 ►
It’s a straight neurological fact we’re talking about.
00:20:51 ►
What allows some people to re-imprint and change and others not?
00:20:57 ►
Well, that’s a good question.
00:20:58 ►
I think where you hang out is very important.
00:21:04 ►
I think the people that you associate with…
00:21:06 ►
The problem with Ronald Reagan right now
00:21:08 ►
is that he probably spends less than 2% or 3% of his time
00:21:13 ►
with kids under the age of 18.
00:21:15 ►
He simply never hangs out with them.
00:21:17 ►
And if he does, there’s not any sense of learning from him.
00:21:21 ►
So it’s really zero.
00:21:22 ►
He’s getting no input from the whiz kids.
00:21:26 ►
I think he spends almost no time with baby boomers,
00:21:28 ►
those now between the age of 18 and 36.
00:21:31 ►
He may see them occasionally,
00:21:33 ►
but it’s to give a speech at an organization.
00:21:38 ►
But to really sit down, hang up, listen, absorb, learn,
00:21:42 ►
exchange, interface, you know, get it on with, and that’s the only way you can learn.
00:21:47 ►
These people don’t, and they get trapped in their realities.
00:21:52 ►
And, of course, it’s true of the Soviet people that run the Soviet Union and China, too.
00:21:56 ►
Look at their faces.
00:21:58 ►
It’s so simple, too, if you want to change.
00:22:02 ►
It’s just geography.
00:22:04 ►
Just move to the place where
00:22:06 ►
different people hang out and listen and uh right now i spend um i spend about uh oh
00:22:15 ►
60 of my time with with people between the ages of 18 and 36 my wife comes from this group and
00:22:21 ►
most of our friends are i I spend about 20%, maybe
00:22:25 ►
25% of my time with kids born after 64. This is my 9-year-old son, my 10-year-old granddaughter,
00:22:31 ►
my 11-year-old grandson. I hang out, you know, listening to them, playing computers with
00:22:37 ►
them, and I spend less than 10% of my time with people of my own generation, I can play, I see very clearly that the age
00:22:51 ►
of the people you hang out with determines your age.
00:22:54 ►
And it’s possible just as we, you have geographical units like continents like Asia and Africa
00:23:00 ►
and Ireland.
00:23:01 ►
Generations are temporal units and you can jump generations.
00:23:05 ►
You can migrate.
00:23:06 ►
And how do you migrate from one generation to another?
00:23:09 ►
It’s time travel.
00:23:10 ►
Just hang out with people of different ages.
00:23:13 ►
And I like to take trips way back to the 1920s.
00:23:18 ►
I can talk World War II.
00:23:19 ►
I can talk alcohol prohibition with the old-timers, and I love to do it,
00:23:23 ►
but not more than 10% of the time.
00:23:23 ►
I can talk alcohol prohibition with the old-timers, and I love to do it,
00:23:24 ►
but not more than 10% of the time.
00:23:33 ►
You know, we heard about the 60s being the revolutionary generation,
00:23:37 ►
the revolutionary decade, and the 70s being the me decade.
00:23:40 ►
What do you think is the legacy of the 60s?
00:23:42 ►
Because most of that really is media hype. I mean, it’s really not an accurate
00:23:45 ►
reflection of what happened. Well, I think it’s a mistake to focus on the decade. You
00:23:55 ►
must keep your eye on that generation, the baby boom generation, those born between the
00:23:59 ►
years 1946 and 64. The late 60s and early 70s was their adolescence. So it was romantic, idealistic,
00:24:06 ►
they wanted to shake up and change sexual mores, music, art, lifestyle, you name it.
00:24:15 ►
Anything in the broad spectrum of American culture was changed by these kids then. Now
00:24:20 ►
the 70s was a period when they were settling down into graduate school, they were getting,
00:24:24 ►
Now, the 70s was a period when they were settling down into graduate school.
00:24:26 ►
They were settling down to careers.
00:24:28 ►
They were having families.
00:24:36 ►
The 80s are the period when this group is getting to a position where they’re going to take over.
00:24:39 ►
You see, in 1988, there’ll be an election.
00:24:46 ►
Then, I hope, the baby boomers, 76 million of them, will be between the ages of 24 and 42.
00:24:51 ►
So we’re talking here about this generation is basically a 21st century generation.
00:24:58 ►
And instead of using the term baby boom, I sometimes prefer to use the concept the 21st century generation.
00:25:04 ►
Because at the turn of the century, the baby boomers are between the ages of 36 and 54. They’ll have the…
00:25:05 ►
It’s their generations. It’s their
00:25:07 ►
century. They’re not really of
00:25:09 ►
this century. So they’re going to…
00:25:12 ►
In the future, step by step, they’re going to
00:25:13 ►
take over. And I tell you, they are different and they’re going to
00:25:15 ►
make America a different
00:25:17 ►
and a much
00:25:19 ►
better country.
00:25:21 ►
Do you think psychedelics are necessary for change?
00:25:24 ►
For people to change, to
00:25:25 ►
re-imprint, as it were?
00:25:33 ►
Yes, I
00:25:34 ►
think that
00:25:37 ►
now
00:25:39 ►
this period,
00:25:43 ►
I would
00:25:43 ►
be amazed if anyone would explain to me
00:25:46 ►
how they can really change
00:25:48 ►
the neurological imprint
00:25:49 ►
without using
00:25:50 ►
the organic chemicals that are…
00:25:57 ►
See, a drug that changes your brain
00:25:59 ►
is an access code,
00:26:01 ►
like those circuits of your computer.
00:26:04 ►
The drugs interface or interconnect or unlock receptor sites in the brain.
00:26:11 ►
Now, there are other ways of doing this.
00:26:14 ►
Dr. Patterson apparently has developed this electrical way of setting up vibrations
00:26:19 ►
to set off endorphins and so forth.
00:26:23 ►
I’m sure that in the future we will have other ways of doing this.
00:26:31 ►
Well, the Buddhists would say they have other ways of doing it, for example.
00:26:34 ►
Good for them, good for them.
00:26:36 ►
There’s really no cause for debate here.
00:26:41 ►
Anyone who really…
00:26:42 ►
Think of the end points that you want to get to,
00:26:44 ►
and then anything that will get you
00:26:46 ►
there is
00:26:46 ►
your style and your way of doing it.
00:26:51 ►
In some sense
00:26:52 ►
if one looks at other cultures and other
00:26:53 ►
societies, particularly
00:26:56 ►
more
00:26:57 ►
societies that would fit the definition
00:27:00 ►
of primitive
00:27:01 ►
or perhaps
00:27:04 ►
using the word primal
00:27:05 ►
and not using primitive in the sense that it’s ordinarily used
00:27:08 ►
as being backwards or not civilized or whatever.
00:27:12 ►
But if one looks at primitive societies,
00:27:14 ►
one notices that frequently they have ritualized events in their lives
00:27:20 ►
where they use natural drugs to change their consciousness in order to deal
00:27:26 ►
with various aspects of their life.
00:27:30 ►
And in this society, we don’t seem to have any such ritual other than perhaps the stand-up
00:27:35 ►
cocktail party, and not much more than that.
00:27:38 ►
Well, it is interesting how alcohol has got so much ritual.
00:27:41 ►
You know, you walk into a bar room at 5 o’clock or 6 o’clock in the afternoon,
00:27:47 ►
it’s like a cathedral with the glass and the bottles and the lights
00:27:48 ►
and the priest is the bartender
00:27:50 ►
in his white uniform and the clinks
00:27:52 ►
and the laughter and the merriment of people
00:27:56 ►
who have just gotten off work
00:27:56 ►
and want to flirt or want to relax.
00:27:58 ►
It’s an incredibly powerful ritual
00:28:00 ►
that has nothing to do with alcohol.
00:28:03 ►
I hesitated when you asked me about
00:28:05 ►
did I think drugs were necessary
00:28:08 ►
and kind of
00:28:09 ►
pause for this reason.
00:28:14 ►
You have to
00:28:15 ►
ask about
00:28:17 ►
any consciousness altering
00:28:19 ►
technique, what’s the goal?
00:28:21 ►
Instead of talking about this form of meditation
00:28:24 ►
or that, this drug or that, what are you trying to Instead of talking about this form of meditation or that, this
00:28:25 ►
drug or that, what are you trying to get? What is the end state? Because after all,
00:28:30 ►
it’s not the drug or the technique. Although we quarrel and imprison each other and divide
00:28:35 ►
up and debate over the technique issue, the basic issue is where do we want to get? And
00:28:42 ►
I don’t think we can discuss consciousness or drugs
00:28:45 ►
at this moment in world history
00:28:48 ►
without realizing that we are changing
00:28:50 ►
from an industrial society to an information society
00:28:53 ►
and the awesome implications of this.
00:28:57 ►
And obviously, the use of drugs,
00:29:01 ►
the fact that, you know, in America today,
00:29:03 ►
$90 billion is spent on illegal drugs alone.
00:29:07 ►
$90 billion.
00:29:08 ►
That’s like 20 times more than the entire output of Hollywood in a year.
00:29:15 ►
And that’s just illegal drugs.
00:29:17 ►
That doesn’t include the illegal drugs like alcohol and nicotine and prescription drugs.
00:29:24 ►
The reason for this is not that society is going to hell
00:29:27 ►
or that it’s for the Roman Empire.
00:29:29 ►
It’s we’re moving into an information society
00:29:32 ►
when communication and when neurological input-output
00:29:36 ►
and expansion of receptors and better techniques
00:29:42 ►
of storing and transmitting information.
00:29:47 ►
These are the real issues.
00:29:51 ►
And naturally, drugs which alter consciousness,
00:29:54 ►
which change your processing of information,
00:29:58 ►
are going to be more a part of life than in an industrial society. In an industrial society, you couldn’t possibly have a big drug movement
00:30:03 ►
which involved individual search or individual
00:30:06 ►
personal development why because everyone had to be there at the factory at eight o’clock when that
00:30:10 ►
whistle went off and you had to work right on your job until five and you had to punch that
00:30:15 ►
clock and you had to be dependable reliable replaceable conforming now you couldn’t have
00:30:21 ►
a personal growth internal introspection, meditation,
00:30:26 ►
psychedelic type movement in an industrial society.
00:30:31 ►
So what we call the 60s and the me generation,
00:30:34 ►
the self-development, personal growth movement of the 70s,
00:30:39 ►
and to me, the 80s are kind of like
00:30:42 ►
the really hip, sophisticated, hipster generation.
00:30:46 ►
I think I do a lot of lecturing, Michael, at colleges.
00:30:49 ►
I talk to young people.
00:30:50 ►
I listen to them.
00:30:52 ►
They’re not conservative.
00:30:54 ►
They’re basically realistic.
00:30:56 ►
I think they’re very sophisticated.
00:30:57 ►
And I think they understand the 60s.
00:30:59 ►
They understand the 70s.
00:31:00 ►
And they’re not waving flags but I think that they’re basically and they’ve got a certain cynical tolerant amuse wisdom here that I think is going
00:31:16 ►
to be quite appropriate for the information society that we’re
00:31:21 ►
generating and I must say at this point that the use of brain-change drugs
00:31:26 ►
or of conscious-altering techniques
00:31:27 ►
has got to be tied in to the use of computers.
00:31:32 ►
I’ve been working with and around computers
00:31:34 ►
and computer people for the last two years.
00:31:38 ►
And I’m not the first person to say this.
00:31:41 ►
It’s almost a cliché, but computers are the 80s,
00:31:44 ►
what brain-change drugs were in the 60s and early 70s.
00:31:48 ►
And, you know, you talk to people and they say,
00:31:49 ►
well, I use a computer because it saves time
00:31:52 ►
or because it’s more efficient.
00:31:53 ►
That’s not the issue.
00:31:54 ►
A computer is an extension of the human brain,
00:31:57 ►
and you can program computers.
00:31:58 ►
I’m working now with a group that are programming computers
00:32:03 ►
to think like selves.
00:32:05 ►
You’d have a program which would have a personality,
00:32:08 ►
and we’re trying to program computers to evolve and to grow.
00:32:12 ►
And if we can train a computer to do that,
00:32:14 ►
then, of course, it’s going to be a lot more respectable
00:32:19 ►
and a lot easier for the whole society to accept these concepts
00:32:23 ►
of personal growth and development.
00:32:27 ►
And program computers so that we don’t need ourselves anymore.
00:32:30 ►
That’s the question.
00:32:31 ►
See, the use of humanauts, that’s advanced artificial intelligence, computers, and robots,
00:32:38 ►
raises the question, you know, we don’t need human beings to work anymore.
00:32:42 ►
Matter of fact, work should be stricken from our vocabulary.
00:32:47 ►
In a sense, work is slavery.
00:32:48 ►
Work is something that you have to do.
00:32:51 ►
Now, any work that you have to do that can be done better by a machine, of course, is humiliating.
00:32:55 ►
But the question is, if computers and robots can help us evolve and grow, what do we need?
00:33:00 ►
What are humans for?
00:33:01 ►
Isn’t that wonderful?
00:33:02 ►
Finally, we’re not here to fight communism.
00:33:06 ►
We’re not here to fight for a job.
00:33:09 ►
We don’t do that anymore.
00:33:09 ►
What are we for?
00:33:11 ►
Well, the answer to that is
00:33:12 ►
the function of the human being is to evolve,
00:33:14 ►
to grow, to become more intelligent,
00:33:16 ►
to become a more advanced form of our species.
00:33:23 ►
And it’s exactly that moment
00:33:24 ►
when computers and robots
00:33:26 ►
are teaching us,
00:33:28 ►
are acting as catalysts
00:33:30 ►
to stimulate us
00:33:33 ►
to make the next evolutionary move.
00:33:35 ►
I go around now
00:33:36 ►
and I watch everything’s being done by human beings.
00:33:39 ►
Could this be done better
00:33:40 ►
by an artificial intelligent robot?
00:33:43 ►
And the embarrassing answer is 90% of the times you’re having some trouble with a clerk
00:33:50 ►
or a reservations clerk or whatever it is, the job could be done more efficiently.
00:33:55 ►
That leads me to a question I’d like to ask you, Timothy,
00:33:58 ►
particularly with the emergence of the computer in the 80s
00:34:02 ►
and the technology that allows us to have this incredible abundance of information.
00:34:09 ►
We have this paradox of this abundant information and informational sources,
00:34:14 ►
and we have this shortage of wisdom.
00:34:16 ►
As you just pointed out in the fact that frequently we have human beings,
00:34:20 ►
perhaps their jobs could be better done by robots,
00:34:22 ►
mostly because there isn’t an appropriate application of wisdom in the process of interacting with people.
00:34:29 ►
What about that paradox?
00:34:30 ►
Are computers going to give us wisdom?
00:34:33 ►
Yeah.
00:34:35 ►
You can buy a, probably within five years, three years, maybe two years, you’ll be able
00:34:40 ►
to buy a wisdom program.
00:34:43 ►
It’s like Pac-Man.
00:34:44 ►
It probably costs 39.
00:34:46 ►
It’ll be the wisdom program.
00:34:47 ►
Teach you how to be wise.
00:34:48 ►
And it would stimulate you, and you could play games with it.
00:34:53 ►
And any time you slid off and started to be unwise, the computer would say,
00:34:58 ►
Oh, no, no, no, come on now.
00:34:59 ►
You’re supposed to be wise.
00:35:01 ►
Oh, yeah.
00:35:03 ►
There is this paradox, but I think we must be
00:35:05 ►
very kind to each other.
00:35:06 ►
We are involved in such
00:35:08 ►
an accelerated rate
00:35:09 ►
of revolution right now,
00:35:10 ►
and things are happening
00:35:11 ►
so quickly.
00:35:11 ►
My goodness,
00:35:12 ►
every five years
00:35:13 ►
there’s almost a new wave
00:35:14 ►
of innovation that’s happening.
00:35:17 ►
Five years is more like
00:35:18 ►
five weeks.
00:35:19 ►
I agree.
00:35:20 ►
Aid at the truth.
00:35:21 ►
I know.
00:35:22 ►
So that, now,
00:35:23 ►
the problem is, of course,
00:35:24 ►
that the men, and I use the male gender here quite precisely,
00:35:29 ►
the men who are running America go back.
00:35:32 ►
They’re the coal warriors.
00:35:34 ►
They’re the hawks.
00:35:34 ►
They’re the people who were imprinted before 1946.
00:35:38 ►
They still believe in American Legion.
00:35:39 ►
They still believe in empire.
00:35:41 ►
They still believe in guns.
00:35:43 ►
Peace through strength, I think.
00:35:44 ►
Yeah, that’s the idea.
00:35:46 ►
They are still in charge and will remain in charge for the next two or perhaps six years.
00:35:52 ►
And the last thing in the world they’re interested in is an increase in intelligence or increase
00:35:56 ►
in wisdom.
00:35:58 ►
But they’ll be phasing out very quickly.
00:36:00 ►
And I may be overly optimistic, but I believe that the younger generation,
00:36:08 ►
those now born between 46 and 64, are going to make a difference. They do think differently.
00:36:15 ►
And if I’m optimistic and if I’m wrong, I’m going to go around the country and I’m going
00:36:18 ►
to talk to several million people in the next two or three years saying exactly this message.
00:36:23 ►
in the next two or three years saying exactly this message,
00:36:25 ►
76 million of you, you’ve got to be different.
00:36:29 ►
You simply have the numerical power,
00:36:31 ►
and I’m going to make it happen.
00:36:36 ►
We’re fond of saying around here that optimism is a biological necessity.
00:36:37 ►
Oh, boy, yeah.
00:36:39 ►
The word optimism, very interesting,
00:36:41 ►
it comes from the Latin optimus, which means, you know, the best.
00:36:44 ►
And pessimus comes from the Latin word
00:36:47 ►
pessimis, which means worst.
00:36:51 ►
And so we’ve simply got to demand
00:36:55 ►
the best from ourselves and from each other.
00:37:01 ►
Timothy, I’d be interested in your perception
00:37:03 ►
of what you see taking place now.
00:37:06 ►
It seems that we’re living in highly reactionary times,
00:37:10 ►
and it’s almost as if there’s this headlong rush to return to the past.
00:37:19 ►
There’s a popularity of nostalgia, and it should be like the 50s again.
00:37:27 ►
What about that? What do you think is going on?
00:37:31 ►
Well, I think that anything you say about humanity at this point
00:37:38 ►
should precisely indicate the age group and the geographical location.
00:37:48 ►
It is true that in places like Washington, D.C.,
00:37:52 ►
there’s a great deal of looking backward on the part of both the Republicans
00:37:56 ►
who want to take us back to a real glorious, wonderful war,
00:38:01 ►
or the Democrats who want to somehow get back to the New Deal.
00:38:04 ►
wonderful war or the Democrats who want to somehow get back to the New Deal and and there’s on the other hand there’s an enormous amount of a fresh new
00:38:14 ►
futuristic thinking in this country my travels have convinced me that Michael I
00:38:21 ►
think they’re 20 maybe 30 million maybe even more Americans who are reasonably enlightened.
00:38:29 ►
Now, they’re not Buddhas, but they basically understand multiple reality.
00:38:31 ►
They basically have a sense of history.
00:38:33 ►
They have a sense of, they’re basically tolerant.
00:38:36 ►
They basically understand what not to do.
00:38:39 ►
And they’re waiting for something that will harness, Maybe I’m concerned, maybe…
00:38:46 ►
Well, SRI would agree with you.
00:38:48 ►
They’ve identified 21% of the American population
00:38:51 ►
as being interdirected.
00:38:52 ►
Yeah, yeah.
00:38:53 ►
33 million adults.
00:38:55 ►
Yeah, the Yankovic poll, too,
00:38:57 ►
suggested that as high as 80%
00:39:00 ►
were partially involved in lifestyle and personal growth.
00:39:05 ►
But the popularity of movies like E.T. and War Games,
00:39:10 ►
which are totally disrespectful of authority,
00:39:14 ►
and young people’s movies just irreverent to the old ways.
00:39:20 ►
The computer movement, which the personal computer,
00:39:24 ►
the ability to have in your own home something that you can program, reprogram, means that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, both of whom are, you know, acid heads or 60s kids, have given us, they wrenched away from the mainline IBM people, this powerful tool, and made it available in the old days most of those hated computers
00:39:45 ►
because we were being spindled and mutilated and cataloged and pushed around by them but that’s no
00:39:50 ►
longer possible indeed even ibm the the great vatican of uh of computerese has given in now
00:39:59 ►
and is leading the way to uh personal computers this is important as a development by Gutenberg of the printing press,
00:40:06 ►
which was a personal book.
00:40:07 ►
Before Gutenberg,
00:40:09 ►
there was one mainframe book in any town
00:40:11 ►
owned by the cardinal or the duke.
00:40:13 ►
It was the Bible.
00:40:14 ►
And nobody could use it
00:40:15 ►
except the clerks or the hackers or the monks.
00:40:19 ►
So when Gutenberg allowed us
00:40:20 ►
to have a personal book,
00:40:22 ►
that meant we could, in our home,
00:40:23 ►
in our own home, we could read.
00:40:25 ►
And then we could start writing. We could start writing personal books and even recreational books.
00:40:27 ►
So the same thing was true with drugs in the 60s.
00:40:29 ►
The establishment had drugs and then the idea of personal drugs and recreational drugs
00:40:33 ►
that you could take home and do what you wanted to.
00:40:36 ►
The computer is a continuation of this evolutionary history, something that frees the individual to program
00:40:51 ►
and reprogram and to get ahead of the system.
00:40:55 ►
So I’m citing here many reasons why I am optimistic, although I must agree that the Reagan administration represents an iron triangle of the military,
00:41:09 ►
the Republican Party, and the big industrial, particularly the weapons makers,
00:41:14 ►
who definitely run things, no question of it.
00:41:18 ►
Time, life, and Coca-Cola control Hollywood.
00:41:22 ►
They control the country.
00:41:24 ►
They even knocked out Mar-a-Bell,
00:41:26 ►
we always thought Mar-a-Bell owned this,
00:41:27 ►
but it turns out it’s Lifetime and Coca-Cola.
00:41:32 ►
So I have no illusions about the,
00:41:34 ►
I feel the men in this Iron Triangle,
00:41:36 ►
the Republican Party,
00:41:37 ►
the military and the weapons people,
00:41:40 ►
they belong to the Puritan strain.
00:41:44 ►
It came over in the first wave
00:41:46 ►
of, from England.
00:41:48 ►
These men are tough-minded.
00:41:49 ►
They don’t believe in life. They’re
00:41:51 ►
predestinationists. Basically, they think that the world
00:41:53 ►
is a terrible place, and there is an
00:41:55 ►
elect, and you have to belong to that
00:41:57 ►
and they don’t care about the country.
00:42:00 ►
They don’t care about humanity. They don’t believe
00:42:01 ►
in evolution, basically. And they’re
00:42:03 ►
mean, nasty. They hate play, they hate fun,
00:42:06 ►
they hate the idea of individual freedom.
00:42:10 ►
No, I have no illusions.
00:42:11 ►
I’m not just preaching marshmallow fluff here
00:42:13 ►
and take a joint and everything’s going to be great.
00:42:17 ►
I think we have to be incredibly smart
00:42:19 ►
and we have to be incredibly effective in communicating.
00:42:22 ►
I’m communicating to more people,
00:42:24 ►
I think more effectively now than I was
00:42:25 ►
in the late 60s and 70s. I’ve got
00:42:28 ►
this book coming out. I think it’s going to
00:42:29 ►
be a bestseller. God,
00:42:32 ►
it’s very clear the establishment hate
00:42:34 ►
my book. See, if
00:42:35 ►
Time magazine
00:42:37 ►
wouldn’t review my book, and they said they would
00:42:40 ►
but they wouldn’t. Now, that’s really amazing.
00:42:42 ►
You see the stuff they review.
00:42:44 ►
And I finally understood why.
00:42:45 ►
They couldn’t review that book because it’s a good book about a good period, about a lot of good people
00:42:49 ►
doing a lot of good things, and if they were to say anything about that book,
00:42:53 ►
you know, they want people to think that I’m brain damaged, and I’m crazy, and then my toasted head, and
00:43:00 ►
blah blah blah. If they had to admit that the book was well written and it’s about important events in human history,
00:43:08 ►
their whole edifice, their whole structure,
00:43:10 ►
their whole reality would have to change.
00:43:12 ►
And, of course, they’re not about to let that happen.
00:43:14 ►
So I have no illusions about the power
00:43:18 ►
of the men who are running things.
00:43:20 ►
And the Democrats, I’m giving hell to the Republicans here,
00:43:23 ►
but the Democrats are no help either.
00:43:24 ►
They haven’t come out with any new ideas.
00:43:27 ►
But I think it’s this collective intelligence that those who went through the 60s and 70s
00:43:32 ►
share.
00:43:34 ►
There’s no easy answer and I’m not here to, I’m not selling anything except individual
00:43:38 ►
intelligence collectively shared, the ability to really look at each other in the eye and
00:43:43 ►
we’re not going to be fooled again, as Peter Townsend sang.
00:43:46 ►
We’re not going to follow leaders.
00:43:48 ►
We’re going to watch our parking meters, as Dylan sang.
00:43:51 ►
There’s a tremendous heritage of intelligence
00:43:53 ►
and a tremendous confidence that we that went through the 60s and 70s share.
00:43:58 ►
And when the time comes, I don’t think there’s going to be a leader either.
00:44:02 ►
We’re beyond hierarchies and messiahs.
00:44:05 ►
There’s not going to be a swami or a holy person.
00:44:07 ►
God help us.
00:44:09 ►
It’s going to be networks.
00:44:10 ►
It’s going to be local groups.
00:44:11 ►
It’s going to be communications.
00:44:13 ►
It’s going to be computer linkages.
00:44:14 ►
It’s going to be the interfaces that a communication society can set up.
00:44:19 ►
It’s going to be intelligence expressed and shared.
00:44:22 ►
We’re going to see that our task is to activate
00:44:25 ►
and stimulate each other to grow and change and it’s going to require a lot of intelligence.
00:44:31 ►
It’s not going to require work and struggle and those old political notions. It’s going
00:44:35 ►
to require sharp, sparkling-eyed link-up and I believe it’s going to happen.
00:44:42 ►
link up and I believe it’s going to happen
00:44:43 ►
So you think we’re going to survive
00:44:48 ►
the nuclear era
00:44:50 ►
where we have this incredible
00:44:52 ►
proliferation of nuclear weapons
00:44:53 ►
you think we’re going to come through it unscathed?
00:44:57 ►
Well
00:44:58 ►
who knows, I don’t know anymore
00:45:00 ►
than anyone else
00:45:02 ►
I have my own scenario
00:45:04 ►
number one I believe that you’ve got to think positively
00:45:07 ►
and you’ve got to do everything in your power
00:45:09 ►
to stop a nuclear.
00:45:11 ►
So I believe in nuclear activism.
00:45:13 ►
I believe in the freeze movement.
00:45:15 ►
I think that we should all vote this year.
00:45:18 ►
I haven’t voted in years.
00:45:19 ►
I’m going to register, and my wife Barbara and I are going to vote.
00:45:21 ►
We’re encouraging young people to vote
00:45:22 ►
because, God, 76 million of you, you’ve got the power.
00:45:28 ►
Yes, I’m basically realistically and scientifically optimistic.
00:45:32 ►
I think if we can hold on until 1988, the baby boom generation will elect officers in administration who shall be realistic.
00:45:42 ►
And we’ll simply say to the rest of the world, listen, we don’t want to have the Cold War anymore. It’s unrealistic to do that.
00:45:46 ►
And we’ll do everything in our power
00:45:48 ►
to make the Soviet Union feel
00:45:50 ►
secure without, of course, disarming
00:45:52 ►
ourselves. We’ll keep the concept of spaceship
00:45:54 ►
America or fortress America.
00:45:56 ►
I’ll even buy that. But we’re not
00:45:58 ►
going to pull back. We’re not going to fight you in
00:46:00 ►
Afghanistan. We’re not going to surround you with all those…
00:46:02 ►
We’re going to do everything in our power
00:46:03 ►
realistically to make Russians feel secure. And’re not going to surround you with all those. We’re going to do everything in our power realistically to make Russians feel secure. And we’re going to tell the rest
00:46:08 ►
of the world we simply aren’t going to go on with this insanity because the Cold War,
00:46:12 ►
the men that are running it, Reagan and Weinberger and Haig and Kissinger, you know, they are
00:46:19 ►
certifiably lunatic. They really have taken leave of their senses. They’re out of touch
00:46:24 ►
with reality. They’re playing out boys’ locker room games in their head
00:46:28 ►
that may have worked in World War II,
00:46:30 ►
but they’re simply out of touch.
00:46:32 ►
And I think that a positive, tough-minded, realistic administration
00:46:37 ►
of young Americans that say to the rest of the world,
00:46:39 ►
we’re not going to do that anymore,
00:46:41 ►
we’re not going to be patsies, we’re not going to disarm,
00:46:45 ►
but I think that would be such a refreshing voice to make the rest of the world waiting for America.
00:46:50 ►
Because most, you know, I’ve been around the world quite a bit since I got paroled and since I was able to leave the country.
00:46:59 ►
I’ve talked to a lot of European and Asian and African journalists.
00:47:03 ►
And I tell you, you ask them flat out,
00:47:06 ►
is there any hope from Europe or Asia or Africa?
00:47:08 ►
And they’ll say, hell no.
00:47:09 ►
The only hope in the world is still America
00:47:11 ►
because it’s the only place where freedom
00:47:13 ►
and intelligence and individualism
00:47:15 ►
and immigration, we invite the smart people to come here.
00:47:20 ►
It’s the only place that’s happening.
00:47:21 ►
It’s not happening anyplace else.
00:47:23 ►
So, yeah, these are my reasons for optimism.
00:47:26 ►
But I’m an activist optimist.
00:47:28 ►
And I’m out there sending this signal out to, as I say, millions of people.
00:47:34 ►
That’s why I wrote this book.
00:47:36 ►
I’m going to write other books.
00:47:37 ►
I’m writing movies.
00:47:38 ►
It’s very possible transmitting a message of intelligent scientific activist optimism.
00:47:47 ►
Boy, that’s a handful of big words, isn’t it?
00:47:53 ►
You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon,
00:47:56 ►
where people are changing their lives one thought at a time.
00:48:01 ►
Well, as far as being able to forecast the political landscape here in the States,
00:48:07 ►
I’m afraid that poor Timothy was far too optimistic.
00:48:11 ►
And even today, with young Mr. Obama in the White House,
00:48:14 ►
we see that the political enlightenment Dr. Leary so optimistically predicted just hasn’t come to pass.
00:48:22 ►
But that says more about the system than it does about the people who bubble to its top.
00:48:27 ►
However, politics aside,
00:48:29 ►
I think the rest of his forecasting
00:48:30 ►
was right on the money.
00:48:33 ►
I know that you are aware of this,
00:48:34 ►
but I have to say it.
00:48:36 ►
Wasn’t his rap near the end just now
00:48:38 ►
when he was going on about the future importance
00:48:41 ►
of personal computers and networking,
00:48:44 ►
wasn’t that amazing when you think of when he said it?
00:48:47 ►
That was back in 1983 when the IBM PC was just one year old
00:48:51 ►
and the web was still nine years away.
00:48:55 ►
When you go back and listen to it again, try to keep that in mind.
00:48:59 ►
And I think you’ll agree that Dr. Timothy Leary, if nothing else,
00:49:03 ►
was surely a good prophet, or futurist in today’s lingo.
00:49:09 ►
By the way, if you want another take on the stories surrounding Leary’s departure from Harvard,
00:49:15 ►
you might want to listen to one of my interviews with Myron Stolaroff.
00:49:19 ►
I think it was in Podcast 92, the last of the Lone Pine Stories programs,
00:49:25 ►
where he tells about being the person who actually broke the news
00:49:29 ►
about the imminent departure from Harvard to Leary’s staff over dinner one night.
00:49:34 ►
It certainly puts another gloss on a tale that has as many facets as there were people involved.
00:49:41 ►
Also, in a couple of my interviews with Gary Fisher,
00:49:44 ►
he tells some interesting stories about his adventures with the good Dr. Leary Also, in a couple of my interviews with Gary Fisher,
00:49:49 ►
he tells some interesting stories about his adventures with the good Dr. Leary and his merry little band as they were first kicked out of Mexico
00:49:52 ►
and then out of two Caribbean countries before winding up at Millbrook.
00:49:57 ►
And if you are interested in going back to one of those talks,
00:50:00 ►
just go to our blog at psychedelicsalon.org
00:50:04 ►
and click on the Gary
00:50:05 ►
Fisher category or do a search for him and Dr. Leary. And of course, the same goes for finding
00:50:12 ►
other bits and pieces of these 180 plus podcasts that I’ve documented on that blog.
00:50:19 ►
Another interesting story about Dr. Leary can be heard on one of Douglas Rushkoff’s recent radio programs.
00:50:26 ►
I might have missed this myself, but thankfully Ulysses S. sent me the information
00:50:31 ►
and a link to a conversation that Douglas had with counterculture heroine-slash-outcast
00:50:38 ►
Joanna Harcourt Smith on his radio show, The Media Squat.
00:50:43 ►
And I’ll try to remember to put a link to it in the program notes for today’s podcast.
00:50:48 ►
But what makes this interview so intriguing is that
00:50:51 ►
Joanna candidly talks about her and Leary’s role in becoming informants for the government,
00:50:57 ►
all in the context of Timothy’s imprisonment and the Bush-style torture of him
00:51:02 ►
during the time he was being held a captive in Afghanistan.
00:51:06 ►
As Douglas says, there’s some new material in here as well as a new perspective on a
00:51:12 ►
particularly dark moment.
00:51:14 ►
So, if, like me, you are interested in these things, you might want to surf over to Douglas’
00:51:20 ►
website and take a listen.
00:51:23 ►
Another website I’d like to plug is that of the uber-geek and graphic artist Stephen Rook.
00:51:30 ►
Now, if you have a copy of my book, The Spirit of the Internet,
00:51:33 ►
you already have a copy of one of Stephen’s works of art,
00:51:37 ►
because I used it on the cover.
00:51:39 ►
I don’t have time right now to go into the methodology involved in creating this art,
00:51:44 ►
but it’s very
00:51:45 ►
intriguing. And for a little bit of tribal history, I might add that there was a magical night years
00:51:51 ►
ago when a hundred or so of us were in Palenque, and Stephen projected images of his work through a
00:51:58 ►
35 millimeter slide projector and onto the naked bodies of dozens of dancers. It was a spectacular show and one I hope to experience one day again.
00:52:08 ►
But if you do visit Stephen’s website, be sure to read about how he created this art,
00:52:14 ►
or more accurately, how an artificial intelligence did it.
00:52:19 ►
And while I’m in the plugging mood, I want to point you to a couple of podcasts
00:52:24 ►
that I haven’t mentioned for a while,
00:52:25 ►
which are two of my favorites.
00:52:28 ►
One is the return appearance of the musical programs from Queer Ninja over on the Cannabis Podcast Network at dopefiend.co.uk.
00:52:38 ►
I’ve listened to his latest world music program at least three times now and plan on listening again.
00:52:44 ►
It’s really great to have you back in cyberdelic space, Ninja.
00:52:49 ►
And thanks for getting back in the groove again.
00:52:51 ►
We all missed you.
00:52:53 ►
And then there is Bebe’s Bungalow, which you will also find at dopedean.co.uk.
00:52:59 ►
The other day I was cooking dinner, having a bag of vape, and listening to her 420 show, and I got to
00:53:05 ►
thinking about how nice it was to be able to enjoy sort of virtually hanging around
00:53:10 ►
her bungalow and listening to music and the conversation between her, SEB, and Queer Ninja.
00:53:16 ►
It really made me feel as if I wasn’t celebrating 420 alone.
00:53:21 ►
And then, of course, I realized that it was already May, and I was listening to her podcast
00:53:27 ►
a couple of weeks late. And so I had two 420 celebrations this year. Another thing I’d like to
00:53:35 ►
point out about that particular program of BB’s, I think it’s number 20, is that it gave me the
00:53:40 ►
impression that SEB, the Ninja, and BB were all sitting in the same room and having a conversation,
00:53:47 ►
when the fact was that BB was in Australia and her two companions were quite literally on the other side of the world,
00:53:54 ►
because they were both in the UK.
00:53:57 ►
Now, even though we all seem to take things like this for granted today,
00:54:01 ►
just think back only, say, five years ago,
00:54:04 ►
and you’ll remember that
00:54:05 ►
only big corporations with huge budgets could have pulled something like that off.
00:54:10 ►
Without paying much attention to it, our tech is rapidly changing the world.
00:54:15 ►
And I mean that quite literally.
00:54:17 ►
And you, my dear friend, are most definitely on the leading edge of this wave.
00:54:22 ►
So thanks for being a part of this continual unfolding
00:54:25 ►
of consciousness here in cyberdelic space.
00:54:29 ►
Finally, I’d like to pass along some news
00:54:32 ►
about the ongoing efforts to preserve
00:54:34 ►
as much of the historical record of our tribe as possible.
00:54:38 ►
To begin with, a fellow salonner, William Rafty,
00:54:41 ►
has posted a six-part interview with the Shulbgens on YouTube. This is a recent interview that took place in Anne and Sasha’s home and
00:54:50 ►
is very much worth watching. So hey thanks for doing that William, your work
00:54:54 ►
is very much appreciated. And the good news about the Shulgen and Stolarov
00:54:59 ►
archives comes from John Hanna who is one of the people deeply involved in
00:55:03 ►
these projects.
00:55:08 ►
We’ve exchanged a whole series of emails about this work when I asked him what they still needed in the way of resources to complete their project.
00:55:13 ►
And so, right now I’d like to read a few things he had to say.
00:55:18 ►
We don’t have a minimum donation set up for the Stolarov Collection
00:55:21 ►
because we realized that any amount could really help with that project from a large number of folks.
00:55:28 ►
With the Shulgin collection, we did set a minimum donation. I think it was $500.
00:55:33 ►
And I am happy to say that enough money was raised to hire Paul to help Sasha working half-time for a year.
00:55:40 ►
So we are much less focused on raising money for that project at the moment and would prefer to plug funding for the Stolarov collection work.
00:55:48 ►
And he goes on to say,
00:55:50 ►
I’ve already spent a bunch of time on the project on Arrowwood’s dime
00:55:54 ►
without any real funding having come in yet for the work.
00:55:58 ►
Of course, they want to get it done,
00:55:59 ►
but unless we can generate some cash, the going will be quite slow.
00:56:04 ►
And then he sent me a URL where they’ve posted some information about this project, Unless we can generate some cash, the going will be quite slow.
00:56:09 ►
And then he sent me a URL where they’ve posted some information about this project,
00:56:12 ►
and I’ll put that along with the program notes for this podcast.
00:56:15 ►
But here is some of what you’ll find there.
00:56:30 ►
In 1961, Myron Stolaroff founded the International Foundation for Advanced Study in Menlo Park, conducting clinical investigations administering carbagin, LSD, or mescaline to hundreds of subjects.
00:56:37 ►
In 1965, the FDA began to revoke permits for human studies with psychedelics,
00:56:40 ►
forcing the conclusion of this research.
00:56:47 ►
Between 1970 and 1986, Myron conducted additional personal studies using unscheduled compounds. However, this work was stopped too with the passage of the Controlled Substance
00:56:53 ►
Analog Act of 1986. Arrowood has just begun the process of sorting and cataloging Myron’s
00:57:01 ►
vast treasure trove of letters, writings, and ephemera related to his research
00:57:06 ►
into the effects of psychoactive drugs on human consciousness
00:57:09 ►
in order to prepare them for digitizing and publication online.
00:57:15 ►
But we need targeted funding to continue working on this archive,
00:57:19 ►
so please consider making a contribution to the Stolarov Collection Project.
00:57:23 ►
We are seeking 15,000 for this project in 2009
00:57:28 ►
to cover scanning and processing costs.
00:57:32 ►
Contributions made to support the Stolaroff Collection
00:57:35 ►
are earmarked for this project
00:57:37 ►
and are not used for the general support of Arrowood.
00:57:40 ►
Donations are 100% tax deductible in the United States.
00:57:49 ►
Now, if you’ve been with us here in the salon for a while you have no doubt heard my interviews with Myron
00:57:52 ►
as well as the talk he gave on the occasion of
00:57:55 ►
Albert Hoffman’s 100th birthday celebration
00:57:57 ►
sadly due to Myron’s battle with dementia
00:58:01 ►
there won’t be any more interviews with this important figure in our tribe’s history,
00:58:07 ►
and so it seems to me that it is more important than ever
00:58:09 ►
that we preserve as much of his work as possible.
00:58:13 ►
Now, I’ve personally gone through quite a bit of this material,
00:58:16 ►
and I’m here to tell you that it is simply priceless.
00:58:21 ►
Granted, the thousand or so highly detailed experience reports
00:58:24 ►
about dozens and dozens of compounds
00:58:27 ►
are something that researchers today will find priceless.
00:58:30 ►
But to me, it’s the personal correspondence
00:58:33 ►
between the Stolarovs, Shulgens, and the other pioneers back in the day
00:58:37 ►
that future historians are going to find invaluable
00:58:40 ►
in filling out the personal details of the lives
00:58:43 ►
of these pioneers of consciousness
00:58:45 ►
research. And by the way, John Hanna has already written one beautiful piece for the next issue of
00:58:52 ►
Arrowhead Extracts, which is Arrowhead’s membership magazine. And in it, he describes the recent trip
00:58:59 ►
that he took with Sasha and Ann Shulgin to visit the Stoller office and to collect the materials.
00:59:04 ►
and Ann Shulgin to visit the Stroller Office and to collect the materials.
00:59:10 ►
Now, I understand that issue of extracts will be mailed out to the Arrowwood members in June,
00:59:14 ►
and the details of this trip he relates are really fascinating,
00:59:16 ►
along with some of the pictures he’s included.
00:59:19 ►
As most of our fellow salonners already know,
00:59:24 ►
this Arrowwood extracts publication only comes out about twice a year,
00:59:27 ►
but I find it more than worth the $30 donation,
00:59:30 ►
which of course goes to keeping the Arrowwood site online.
00:59:35 ►
Now here are a few more thoughts from John Hanna, who says,
00:59:40 ►
In any case, you might suggest that people donate whatever they can,
00:59:45 ►
but that donations of $25 or more will really help to get some hours clocked on the project.
00:59:46 ►
We also already have the first small fruit from the collection posted online, a few DMT
00:59:52 ►
trip reports from Al Hubbard circa 1961.
00:59:57 ►
And during May, those reports can be located from the Arrowhead homepage at arrowhead.org,
01:00:02 ►
that’s E-R-O-W-I-D dot org, simply by clicking on the Arrowid
01:00:07 ►
monthly link.
01:00:10 ►
Ultimately, it is going to take about $10,000 to complete the scanning aspect of archiving
01:00:15 ►
the Stolarov collection.
01:00:18 ►
And while every donation of any amount helps, and a lot of small donations of 25
01:00:24 ►
will add up.
01:00:26 ►
We can really get the project rolling if a few people gave somewhat larger donations.
01:00:31 ►
And by the way, if you follow the link I put on the program notes, you’ll go to the page
01:00:36 ►
where the Stolaroff collection is posted, and you can make a donation, tax-deductible
01:00:40 ►
donation right there.
01:00:43 ►
Now, since this is a new call for help,
01:00:46 ►
and since we have received so many donations to the salon this past week,
01:00:50 ►
I feel like I should let all of our donors know that
01:00:53 ►
if you would like for me to send all or part of your donations to the salon
01:00:57 ►
on to the Stolaroff Project, I’ll be more than happy to do so.
01:01:01 ►
After all, we’re all in this together, you know.
01:01:06 ►
But the real bottom line here is that after spending the past several years working with Myron’s family
01:01:11 ►
to try and preserve his records, that I am overjoyed at the progress that John and all
01:01:17 ►
of the other people involved in this project are making. And one day, a few centuries from
01:01:22 ►
now, my guess is that there will probably be more people
01:01:26 ►
reading through the papers of the Shulgens, Stolarovs,
01:01:29 ►
and other psychedelic pioneers
01:01:31 ►
than there are people going through the records
01:01:33 ►
in any of the presidential libraries.
01:01:37 ►
This is really important work that the Arrowwood team has undertaken,
01:01:40 ►
and the fruits of their labors are going to be available
01:01:43 ►
on the Internet for all the world to share. So thanks in advance for whatever help you can give. And hey, I realize
01:01:51 ►
that most of our fellow salonners aren’t in a position to help financially right now, but just
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by surfing over to arrowwood.org and looking through some of these interesting records lets
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us know that this work is not in vain. So don’t feel bad if you can’t send a few bucks their way,
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just send some more people their way instead.
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It all helps.
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And now I guess it would help if I would just quit talking.
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So I’ll close today’s podcast by reminding you once again
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that this and all of the podcasts from the Psychedelic Salon
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are freely available for you to use in your own audio projects under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 3.0 license.
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And if you have any questions about that, just click the Creative Commons link at the bottom of the Psychedelic Salon webpage, which you can find at psychedelicsalon.org.
01:02:42 ►
And that’s also where you’ll find the program notes for these
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podcasts. And for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from cyberdelic space. Be well, my friends.