Program Notes
Guest speakers: Albert Hofmann, John Lilly, Oscar Janiger, and Terence McKenna
http://astore.amazon.com/matrixmasterscom/detail/1579510388[NOTE: The following quotations are by Dr. John C. Lilly.]
“There is no such thing as drugs. There’s no such thing as illegal drugs. They’re only chemicals. They can change the molecular configurations within the brain itself and hence change who you are and where you’re going and where you come from. This is a profound experience.”
“The drug problem ought to be turned over to the Surgeon General and taken away from the Attorney General.”
“I learned long ago that one is a psychotherapist until one is cured of one’s own diseases.”
[NOTE: The following quotations are by Terence McKenna.]http://astore.amazon.com/matrixmasterscom/detail/0979862221
“Psychology without psychedelics is pissing into the wind.”
“We’re not going to save the monkey unless we can shed the monkey. And the greatest impetus, the greatest inspiration to the expression of our higher selves comes in the confrontation with psyche that occurs in the psychedelic experience.”
[NOTE: The following quotations are by Dr. Albert Hofmann.]
“Of greatest significance to me has been the insight that I obtained as a fundamental understanding from all my LSD experiences that what one commonly takes as the reality by no means it defines anything fixed but represents a thing that’s ambiguous, that there is not only one but there are many realities, each compromising a different consciousness also of the ego.”
“Consciousness defies scientific definition… . All attempts to define consciousness are pathological. Consciousness can only be described as the [unintelligible] and creative spiritual dance of the ego at the very core of what we call ‘I’ “.
“Consciousness remains a mystery, the very central mystery of our existence.”
“The perception of color is a purely psychological and subjective event taking place in the inner space of [unintelligible]. The brightly colored world as we see it does not exist on the outside.”
“The seemingly objective picture of the world surrounding us, that which we call reality, is actually a subjective picture. … We all carry in life our own personal image of reality created by our own private receiver.”
“Just like sound and colors, touch, smell and taste don’t exist objectively. They too represent purely subjective phenomena, occurring only in the inner space of individual humans.”
“Our understanding [born of intense direct experience of alternate realities] makes us aware of the fact that each individual is the creator of his or her own world, for it is in each individual mind and ONLY there, that the world and the abundance of life it contains … that the stars and the sky become real, become human reality. Our real true freedom and responsibility is founded in our ability to create our own individual world.”
“Once I have recognized what part of reality is objectively on the outside and what is subjectively taken place within myself, then I am more aware of what I can change in my life, where I have a choice, and thus what I am responsible for. Conversely, I become aware of what is beyond my will power and has to be accepted as an unalterable fact. This clarification of my potential and my responsibilities can be of invaluable help. I have the ability to choose what I want to receive from the endless, infinite program of ‘the great transmitter’, from creation.
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237 - A Tribute to Albert Hofmann Part 1
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239 - Shamanism, Alchemy, and the 20th Century
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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 with me today, at least virtually, are some fellow salonners who sent us some of their hard-earned cash to help offset some of the expenses here in the salon.
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And those fine people are Garth A. and Rob P., both of whose names you’ve heard several times here before in the salon. And also we received a really nice donation from Ben P.,
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along with a very generous donation from my longtime friend, Paul W.
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And I should point out that it was Paul who is one of my beautiful young gay friends
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who advised me to not let the establishment’s prejudices keep me from naming this little project
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the Psychedelic Salon rather than the Entheogen something or other.
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He based his advice on the fact that the gay community recaptured the use of the word queer,
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and of course we know, listening to Cat Williams and other great black comedians,
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that the black community, at least within itself, has taken back the N-word.
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And as Paul said, if you just change the word,
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they’ll try to take that away from you too.
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So why not just put it out there where they have to deal with it?
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And I still think that was among the best advice I’ve received.
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So thank you very much, Paul.
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And also thank you, Garth, Rob, and Ben
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for helping to keep these podcast fires burning during these summer months
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when a large part of our audience is out in the world having all kinds of great experiences.
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And it turns out that even some of our non-saloner friends may also be getting a taste of the salon,
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because here’s what Ben P. said when he sent in his donation.
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Lorenzo, your podcasts keep me and many passengers company in my taxi company driving the night shift through the streets of Sydney.
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I have given up driving to teach yoga full time now, but would never have got through those grueling hours without you.
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Heartfelt thanks.
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Well, hey, it’s nice of you to say that, Ben, but as we all know, I’m just the carnival barker, and all the actions in the tent were you,
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and also, I guess, your taxi passengers now.
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You guys are all in the center ring.
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My only job is just to tell you there’s something going on in there, and then from there on, it’s up to you.
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And we’re now just about to experience two more excellent talks that may give you something new to think about.
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One is by Dr. John Lilly, and the other by Dr. Albert Hoffman. And we have Renaissance man
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Gary Eisenberg to thanks for sending these talks to me to play for you today. As you know from my
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last podcast, the talks we’re about to hear were recorded at an event that was also titled
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Albert Hoffman in America. And it was to celebrate, among other things, the 50th anniversary of the first synthesis of LSD-25.
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Now, one of our other fellow salonners, Niles Clifton-Smith, was also there,
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and here’s what he posted in the comment sections of last week’s podcast notes.
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My T-shirt from this event is worn to near transparency,
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but still occupies a treasured place in my closet. Looking back, this was one of the most
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formative events for my present life path. I thank you for all the talks you have posted here,
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but for this one most of all, prognostically, Niles. Well, Niles, you and Gary were certainly at one of the most historic psychedelic lecture events of the last century.
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And I’m very pleased that both of you are also with us here in the salon each week.
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It gives me a feeling of continuity in our community in some strange way.
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But enough of my chatter.
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Let’s get back to the events at the Scottish Rite Temple in Los Angeles, California.
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It was the night of November 2, 1988.
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And let’s hear what the leading lights of psychedelic research at the time had to say about how things appeared back then,
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a little over two decades ago now.
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And see if we think that we’ve maybe made a little headway in the struggle to reinstate our sacred medicines back into the culture
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where they once held a very significant place in the lives of us humans.
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And speaking of natural, I now want to introduce a man who it was always my great fear I might someday have to introduce.
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A man who is a legend in his own right.
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A man who speaks across the species line to the denizens of the deep sea
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and across the stellar barrier to the denizens of distant stars.
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Like myself, an altar boy in his youth,
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a man who has given new meaning
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to the concept d’enfant terrible.
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We can say of him,
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they threw the mold away before they made him.
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No, I love to tease him.
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I love to watch him.
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The Obi-Wan Kenobi of psychedelic research,
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John C. Lilly. Thank you. Dominus Vobiscum.
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Ite Misa Est.
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Go, the Mass is over.
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My psychedelic experience started about age seven
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when I had visions of God
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on His throne,
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angel choir and so on.
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And I told her none about this
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in the Catholic school
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I was attending.
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And she said, oh, but only saints have visions. And she abolished me being a saint, which
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was a good idea. It wasn’t until about 1953, when I was at the National Institute of Mental
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Health, and the LSD pushers got after me, that I heard about LSD. So I was at the National Institute of Mental Health and the LSD pushers got after me
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that I’d heard about LSD.
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So I read all the literature
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and I invented the isolation tank in 1954
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and I was floating around in the tank.
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People wanted me to take LSD
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and experience what that was like in the tank.
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I said, no, I have to get a physiological baseline
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being a proper scientist.
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A physiological baseline on me as an observer
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so I floated around for 10 years
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in spite of the pushers
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on both coasts
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and in 1964 I finally decided
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well, it’s time to take it
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so I came to California, had two trips
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and then got
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Sidney Cohen to give me some.
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And I went to St. Thomas
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in the Virgin Islands and floated in an
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isolation tank there.
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It was an eight-foot cube of seawater.
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I was scared stiff.
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Absolutely terrified.
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And I
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took, injected 300
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micrograms of Dr. Hoffman’s elixir
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intramuscularly
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and floated it in the tank
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and suddenly I was precipitated out
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to the farthest reaches of all the universes that exist
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well, I didn’t
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I didn’t remain human at all. I stayed out there for about six hours,
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and then I was squeezed back into the body that was lying in the tank, and I cried. I
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couldn’t stand it. Why should this happen? Why become so limited as being human? Well,
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since then I’ve spent many years trying to be human and some women think I’m successful
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others do not
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and I’m still trying
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at age 73
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to get my feet on the ground
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and my torso in the bed
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it’s fun. And all I can say is that anybody
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that uses the word drugs ought to have their heart and their soul examined. There’s no
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such thing as drugs. There’s no such thing as illegal drugs. They’re only chemicals.
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There’s no such thing as illegal drugs. They’re only chemicals.
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They can change the molecular configuration
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within the brain itself,
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and hence change who you are and where you’re going
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and where you’ve come from.
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This is a profound experience.
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I’ve written up as much of it as I can in books,
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but I’m wondering if much as could be published
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please speak louder
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we can’t turn the mic up any higher
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he has a boss
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well
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the DEA ought to know about this meeting tonight and Ron Jewell will put you in jail.
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Our Drug Enforcement Agency is staffed by lawyers and ex-judges and so on, and I don’t think they know what the story is.
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Somebody said on TV the other day, the drug problem ought to be turned over to the Surgeon General
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and taken away from the Attorney General.
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I think that the laws ought to be changed in the light of new knowledge,
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of new views, such as all of you have experienced,
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and we ought to pressure these people to get educated in
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what it is to take LSD, what it is to take cocaine, and so on. None of these substances
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have been treated as the way a proper researcher would treat them, working on themselves. I
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was brought up by a student of J.B.S. Haldane, who laid down to his students that if you are going to do experiments on any
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human subject, you must be your first subject.
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So I went through various things like explosive decompression and so on, and I started my
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LSD work alone, and I’ve continued my work with ketamine alone.
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The isolation tank is a marvelous place for the scientific observer to look at the chaos within himself and not attribute it to something else.
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However, I wish to point out also that I’ve experienced intelligence that is far greater
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than mine or any human, and I call them the Earth Coincidence Control Office, ECCO, E-C-C-O. They’re very profound, and they’re monkey around with everybody, and me especially.
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And taught me many, many things, whether I liked it or not.
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For example, when I take ketamine, or have taken ketamine in the past, they take charge.
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And I went to the UCLA Medical Library and read up on the psychotherapeutic use of ketamine,
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a psychedelic anesthetic.
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And there’s a uranium paper, an iranian paper, in which they treated a hundred subjects in
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the hospital, and they all got out of the hospital with one treatment.
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They used what was called anxiety provocation.
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They’d give the person ketamine and then scare him to death.
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And, of course, they abandoned their neuroses, their psychoses, or whatever.
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Well, I read that one afternoon.
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Came home and lay down on a mattress in my living room
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and took 200 milligrams of ketamine, which is a fairly large dose, and suddenly the Earth
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Coincidence Control Office precipitated me into the year 3000 and they removed my penis
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by bloodless methods and handed it to them so I screamed in terror
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and my wife Tony came in from our bedroom
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and said oh it’s still a task
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look
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so I looked up at the ceiling and I said
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who’s in charge up there
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the psychotic kids
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and the answer came back
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no you were over at UCLA they were reading about anxiety provocation in order to Like the psychotic kids? The answer came back, no.
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You were over at UCLA the other day reading about anxiety provocation in order to cure one of the unconscious conflicts.
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That was your unconscious conflict, and we brought it out for you.
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Well, I don’t know why this isn’t being used in psychotherapy
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the way LSD has been
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I suspect it’s because
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psychotherapists don’t like to be scared to death
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or don’t like to see people being
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very badly frightened
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and they also don’t like to see them get well
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because then they lose their income
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I learned long ago then they lose their income.
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I learned long ago that one is a psychotherapist
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until one is cured of one’s own diseases.
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I’m still not cured.
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Well, I must say,
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I want to tell you a story
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that I told this afternoon
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about me and Albert
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Hoffman.
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I first met him in 1977 at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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He gave a night lecture and the students cheered everything he said, including when he said,
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I’m not a guru, I’m a Swiss chemist. After his talk, they had a
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reception.
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And with my knees shaking
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and sweat breaking out of my brow,
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I walked through the line and reached out
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to shake his hand.
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I said, I’m John Lilly. He grabbed my hand
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and both of his and he said, you are?
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I’ve just finished Senator
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Cyclone. And our experiences
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were very parallel.
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And I thought to myself God bless it
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I wish he would have written that up in 1943
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and he would have saved us a lot of trouble Now, we know that if you’ve been doing your homework,
00:15:17 ►
then on average this group has slightly weaker kidneys
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than the normal American population.
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So we are going to call a 20-minute intermission,
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and then we’ll have a musical interlude,
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and then Dr. Hoffman’s keynote address for the evening.
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Will the volunteers who are helping with the event please come up to the stage
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and we’ll meet back here, everybody, in 20 minutes.
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At this time, I’d like to turn it over to Terrence McKenna again, who’s going to encourage
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you to donate freely to our foundation. So here’s Terrence.
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to donate freely to our foundation.
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So here’s Terrence.
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And thank you all very much for being here tonight.
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Oscar.
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Excuse me, I want to introduce very briefly Oscar Janager.
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I got out of order here.
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And I’d like you all to give him a very, very warm welcome.
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He’s got a guidance thread in our efforts to make this foundation a reality.
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I’m sorry.
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Thank you very much.
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I’ve been practicing in the last hour to twinkle.
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Since I heard Andy, wow.
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I don’t know how successful I am,
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but maybe you and Shrunk Rose would let me know later.
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This is the culmination of a long journey for me
00:17:00 ►
which began in April of 1954
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when I first had my encounter as many of you have
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with these extraordinary medicines. And I did many years of research, about ten years,
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and then, as we put it, the troubles began. Not the troubles of everybody, but for some
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of my researchers. So we could not simply simply continue the work that we did before.
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Those following years are too well known
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to bear any repetition for those of you
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who lived through it.
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And what we have now is a memory in the general public
00:17:42 ►
of all the evils and the problems of these drugs that accrued from its use at that time, illegal use of LSD.
00:17:51 ►
Really, very little is known about the work that was done prior to that time by a lot of very serious people who were working very hard to understand this simply extraordinary substance.
00:18:06 ►
And we would like to be able to bring that forth
00:18:09 ►
and to let people know and pierce the obfuscations
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and the fogs of what happened in the latter years
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and begin to see what the basis of further research
00:18:21 ►
on LSD might really entail.
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And in order to do that, we have to collect all that material and put it together and
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codify it and make it available to the public and to researchers and investigators.
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And also, by the way, to future historians who I would like to believe will find this a remarkable
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watershed time in the history of the study of consciousness.
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So in order to do this, we’ve gotten a number of people together, and quite remarkably so
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because in a movement this potent, this cultural movement that was so stirring,
00:19:07 ►
we still have a good number of the people who were part of your original group.
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That’s quite unusual in this compression of cultural time.
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And so what we would like to do is collect all this, have it available, and really give people
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some understanding and some insight and education into the use of these materials.
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And to me, that would be the greatest effort that we can make to legitimately bring this
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back and to use it the prompt way as we would all like to do.
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In order to do that, we sincerely need your help.
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And your response tonight indicates that there is a good deal of enthusiasm and interest in doing this.
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But remember, we have to have education.
00:20:02 ►
We have to have people know what this drug has done and how we have looked at it and the care we’ve given to try to understand it.
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And also I might add that probably the street laboratory was not an entire chaos.
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There’s probably a good amount of data that could be collected on personal accounts and things that happened over those years.
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We’d like to bring those in and also review those as well.
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Keep in mind that when we talk of consciousness, however you want to interpret that,
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the organization will also look at all the other methods.
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We’re not focused on LSD alone.
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LSD was a tool that happened to be placed in our hands fortuitously at this time.
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So we want to use that, the organization as an umbrella,
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for all of these things that are going on and give a further impetus to these studies.
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We need your help, and Terrence is going to tell you all how we can get it.
00:21:06 ►
Thank you very much.
00:21:26 ►
Well, I think you can probably tell for yourselves when you listen to Os Janager talk, that you’re listening to a man discuss his dream.
00:21:31 ►
Os mentioned to me several years ago that he had the notion for an archive of psychedelic material
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and took me on a tour of his house
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to look at the filing cabinets,
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the packing boxes filled with his own immense collection of material
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relating to creativity and LSD. And as we surveyed his library, we talked of the many other libraries
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that researchers like Wasson and Hoffman have gathered together over the years.
00:22:07 ►
This is a priceless informational research repository.
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One of the largest libraries devoted to this kind of material is the Fitzhugh Ludlow Library,
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which currently is in storage in a used store in Santa Rosa.
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Now, this is no place for these kind of collections to languish.
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They should be available to the new generation of graduate students, historians, social commentators,
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historians, social commentators, who will rescue psychedelics from the opprobrium
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that was heaped upon them by a hysterical government
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in a hysterical era.
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Now, thankfully, let us hope, behind us.
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Os is an extremely modest man,
00:23:06 ►
always willing to let somebody else stand in the spotlight.
00:23:11 ►
Well, you know, it’s an old saying that the way to get things done
00:23:15 ►
is to not care about who gets the credit.
00:23:18 ►
So tonight, when I was urging him to stand before you,
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I said, Os, you just have to let the people of this town
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have an opportunity to show you how much they love you.
00:23:31 ►
Well, an Irishman giving advice to a Jewish psychotherapist
00:23:36 ►
doesn’t get very far.
00:23:38 ►
But I want to join with you in saluting Oscar Janneger,
00:23:43 ►
a pioneer and a giant.
00:23:50 ►
We have to move along here. It’s a school night for some of us.
00:23:55 ►
I have a couple of announcements.
00:23:58 ►
Tonight’s program
00:24:00 ►
will be heard
00:24:02 ►
tomorrow night at midnight
00:24:05 ►
on the most intellectually far-reaching
00:24:09 ►
and deep voice in the media,
00:24:13 ►
Roy of Hollywood’s show,
00:24:14 ►
What’s Happening on KPFK.
00:24:18 ►
Roy and Diane are here tonight.
00:24:21 ►
There they are.
00:24:36 ►
Another example of modest,
00:24:40 ►
self-effacing people who know how to get things done and who have an enormous impact on what gets thought in this
00:24:44 ►
town.
00:24:51 ►
I’ve also been asked to say that those of you who are suffering with the heat,
00:24:55 ►
the air conditioning has failed, it isn’t your imagination,
00:24:59 ►
and for that we apologize.
00:25:03 ►
It must be something about Switzerland.
00:25:05 ►
I don’t know how many of you know who Brother Klaus is,
00:25:08 ►
probably not more than a half a dozen.
00:25:11 ►
Carl Jung wrote about the visions of Brother Klaus.
00:25:15 ►
Carl Jung was another Switzer with a deep love of country.
00:25:21 ►
Paracelsus, the great 16th century alchemist, was born in Switzerland. has given us in the 20th century, in the late 20th century,
00:25:47 ►
the heir to Carl Jung, the heir to Paracelsus, the heir to Brother Klaus.
00:25:53 ►
Albert Hoffman, alchemist, philosopher, chemist, human being.
00:26:03 ►
chemist, human being,
00:26:06 ►
a man of whom it might be said,
00:26:12 ►
as was said of Giordano Bruno and Galileo in the 16th century, they brought astronomy of age.
00:26:16 ►
What the telescope was to astronomy in the 16th century,
00:26:22 ►
the psychedelic compounds that Dr. Hoffman has discovered
00:26:26 ►
could be, should be,
00:26:29 ►
to 20th century psychology.
00:26:32 ►
Psychology without psychedelics
00:26:35 ►
is pissing into the wind.
00:26:42 ►
And I think we’ve had quite enough of it.
00:26:47 ►
It’s time for a deep, serious revisioning
00:26:52 ►
of what notions like human potential,
00:26:56 ►
consciousness expansion,
00:26:58 ►
contact with the world soul,
00:27:01 ►
time for a deep revisioning
00:27:03 ►
of what these concepts can mean for us.
00:27:08 ►
You know, it was a great French sociologist, Jacques Ellul, who said, there are no political
00:27:16 ►
solutions, only technological ones.
00:27:20 ►
The rest is propaganda. And if you include in the definition of technology a revivifying of
00:27:29 ►
the ancient technology of shamanic ecstasy through the use of psychedelic compounds,
00:27:35 ►
then I think you will have to agree, and Andy hinted at this, we are not going to save the monkey unless we can shed the monkey.
00:27:46 ►
And the greatest impetus, the greatest inspiration to the expression of our higher selves
00:27:54 ►
comes in the confrontation with psyche that occurs in the psychedelic experience.
00:28:01 ►
psychedelic experience.
00:28:02 ►
Ladies and gentlemen,
00:28:05 ►
meet the man who made the 20th century
00:28:07 ►
that we all know
00:28:09 ►
can be a model
00:28:10 ►
for all future time.
00:28:12 ►
Here from Basel, Switzerland,
00:28:15 ►
Dr. Albert Hoffman,
00:28:16 ►
the father of psilocybin and LSD.
00:28:18 ►
Thank you. I am deeply impressed by the warm reception which I received here in California.
00:29:02 ►
I thank you so much.
00:29:10 ►
I am sorry I must apologize that I must rely my talk on my paper, speak in a foreign language.
00:29:29 ►
The announced topic of this meeting embarrasses me to some extent. First, because it puts me too much in the center of the event, the inauguration of a library dedicated to preserve and make available the legacy of consciousness research of the last 50 years.
00:29:47 ►
Through this research, I made only a substantial contribution.
00:29:54 ►
Substantial is the true sense of this word, namely in the form of two substances,
00:30:01 ►
which became influential.
00:30:05 ►
two substances, which became influential.
00:30:10 ►
Second, I am embarrassed because you may expect from me a survey of 50 years of research in consciousness.
00:30:20 ►
But this research is a domain of psychologists, psychiatrists, and philosophers. Being a chemist, I am not competent to present such a survey. What I can tell you are only my personal experiences and ideas.
00:30:43 ►
experiences and ideas.
00:30:52 ►
Precisely 50 years ago, in 1938, I synthesized a substance which had an unexpected influence on my life
00:31:01 ►
and which later influenced and changed the life of many others. I mean
00:31:07 ►
the lysergic acid di-acrylamide known as LSD-25 or just LSD. Its preparation and
00:31:18 ►
the discovery of its astonishing effects on the psyche, have been described and published already so many times
00:31:28 ►
that they need not be repeated here.
00:31:31 ►
And in addition, Dr. Krippner has presented to you
00:31:36 ►
the whole story this evening.
00:31:40 ►
I am often asked what has made the deepest impression
00:31:44 ►
upon me in my LSD experiments,
00:31:47 ►
and whether I have arrived at new understandings through these experiences.
00:31:54 ►
Of greatest significance to me has been the insight that I attained as a fundamental understanding from all my LST experiences, that what one
00:32:08 ►
commonly takes as the reality by no means signifies something fixed, but rather something
00:32:18 ►
that is ambiguous. That there is not only one, but there are many realities, each compromising a different consciousness of the ego. at this insight through scientific reflection. The problem of reality is and has been
00:32:47 ►
from time immemorial a central concern of philosophy.
00:32:54 ►
There is, however, a fundamental distinction
00:32:58 ►
whether one approaches the problem of reality rationally
00:33:02 ►
or if one obs from this problem emotionally through
00:33:08 ►
an existential experience.
00:33:13 ►
The first planned LSD experience was therefore
00:33:16 ►
so deeply moving and alarming because everyday
00:33:21 ►
reality, which had until then been considered to be the only one reality, dissolved,
00:33:30 ►
and the unfamiliar ego experienced another unfamiliar reality.
00:33:38 ►
Another problem also appeared, that concerning the innermost self, which itself, anew, was able to record these external and internal transformations.
00:33:54 ►
How could such strange changes in the experience of reality be explained?
00:34:10 ►
of reality be explained. Evidently, the outer, objective, material world did not change during the time I was under the influence of LSD. Therefore, something inside me, in the experiencing subject must have been altered.
00:34:27 ►
These reflections led me to conceive reality as the product of a transmitter,
00:34:35 ►
the material exterior world, and the receiver, our consciousness, the inner, spiritual center of a human individual.
00:34:51 ►
In order to describe the mechanism by which reality comes into being through the interaction of these two factors, transmitter and receiver, one can use the makeover of TV broadcasting.
00:35:10 ►
Evidently, both, transmitter and receiver, are needed to produce TV picture.
00:35:17 ►
If either of one is lacking, the TV screen will remain blank, and there will be no sound. Correspondingly,
00:35:30 ►
if only the material world existed without conscious humans, or vice versa, no human reality would exist.
00:35:53 ►
Let us now examine what we know about what comprises human reality,
00:35:56 ►
still using the transmitter-receiver metaphor.
00:36:06 ►
First, what is the fundamental difference between transmitter and receiver?
00:36:13 ►
Whereas there is only one transmitter, one outer material world, there are as many receivers as there are human beings.
00:36:19 ►
And whereas the outer material world exists objectively, human consciousness is a subjective, spiritual
00:36:29 ►
entity. All that we know objectively about the exterior world, about the transmitter, has been revealed by a scientific research.
00:36:54 ►
All that can be discerned objectively in the exterior world is matter and energy.
00:37:02 ►
Matter occurring in innumerable inorganic forms, the stars, the earth, with its oceans and mountains, with its organisms of the plant
00:37:10 ►
and animal kingdoms, with the products of human creativity, cities, objects of our daily
00:37:18 ►
life and of arts, we are surrounded with matter and are matter ourselves with our bodily existence.
00:37:31 ►
The science which is involved with be objectified is energy.
00:37:49 ►
Energy occurring as radiation, heat, and kinetic energy.
00:37:57 ►
So much for the transmitter.
00:38:01 ►
Now, what do we know about the receiver, about human consciousness?
00:38:13 ►
Consciousness defies scientific definition, for it is what I need to contemplate what consciousness is. Our inability to grasp the very nature
00:38:31 ►
of consciousness can be illustrated by this metaphor. You can’t pull yourself into the air by touching on your own head.
00:38:50 ►
All attempts to define consciousness are cultological.
00:38:58 ►
Consciousness can only be described as the receptive and creative spiritual center of the ego,
00:39:04 ►
as the very core of what we call I.
00:39:12 ►
Consciousness remains a mystery, it’s a very central mystery of our existence.
00:39:20 ►
This becomes even more evident if we examine its role as receiver in the production of reality.
00:39:49 ►
The antenna for optical images, the eye, is capable of receiving electromagnetic waves and projecting a picture onto the retina that coincides with the object from which those waves emanate.
00:40:11 ►
waves emanate. It is 0.7 thousand millimeter.
00:40:30 ►
Within this small section, our eyes and the receiver, our consciousness,
00:40:36 ►
are capable of differentiating between different wavelengths
00:40:44 ►
and recording them as different colors.
00:40:49 ►
In connection with our reflections on reality, it is important to note that colors do not exist in the exterior world.
00:41:10 ►
world. Mostly we are not aware of this basic fact, even though it can be looked at in every textbook on physiology. All that actually objectively exists in the outer world is matter,
00:41:22 ►
matter transmitting energy, transmitting electromagnetic oscillations
00:41:28 ►
of varying wavelength. If an object reflects or transmits electromagnetic waves with a
00:41:37 ►
length of 0.4 thousandths of a millimeter, saying we see that it is blue.
00:41:53 ►
If it transmits waves with a length of 0.7 thousandths millimeter, we describe the object as being red.
00:41:56 ►
This means that the perception of color is a purely psychological and subjective event
00:42:03 ►
taking place in the inner space of an individual.
00:42:09 ►
The brightly colored world as we see it does not exist on the outside. It exists only on inside every individual of every individual.
00:42:35 ►
Regarding the acoustic world, there is a similar relationship between transmitter and receiver.
00:42:49 ►
The antenna for acoustic signals, the ear, displays a similar limited breadth of reception in its function as part of the receiver.
00:42:56 ►
And like colors, sounds do not exist objectively.
00:43:02 ►
What does exist objectively are, once again, waves,
00:43:09 ►
waves like compressions and expansions of the air, which are received by the ear, registered by the tympanic membrane, and transformed into the sensation of sound
00:43:19 ►
in the hearing center of the brain. Also the other aspects of reality,
00:43:27 ►
which are made accessible by the remaining three senses,
00:43:32 ►
souls of taste, smell, and touch,
00:43:36 ►
are created by the interaction of transmitters in the outer world
00:43:42 ►
and receivers in the inner world. Just like sound and colors,
00:43:51 ►
touch, smell, and taste don’t exist objectively. They, too, represent purely subjective phenomena occurring only in the inner space of individual humans, the
00:44:09 ►
metaphor of reality as the product of transmitter and receiver clearly illustrates that the
00:44:19 ►
seemingly objective picture of the world surrounding us,
00:44:25 ►
that which we call reality, is actually a subjective picture.
00:44:32 ►
This basic fact signifies that the screen is not outside
00:44:39 ►
but inside of every human being. We all carry inside our own personal image of reality,
00:44:51 ►
created by our own private receiver.
00:44:59 ►
Understanding reality as a product of transmitter and receiver
00:45:03 ►
takes on an especially important meaning which
00:45:10 ►
could existentially alter our daily life when we consider the part that each receiver, each individual human plays in the role of the formation of reality. We become fully aware
00:45:32 ►
of the world-creating power vested in every human being. Our understanding makes us aware of the fact that each individual is the creator of his or her own world. For
00:45:51 ►
it is in each individual mind and only there that the world and the abundance of life it contains, that the stars and the sky become real, become human reality.
00:46:12 ►
Our real, true freedom and responsibility is formed in our ability to create our own
00:46:23 ►
individual world.
00:46:27 ►
Once I have recognized what part of reality
00:46:33 ►
is objectively on the outside and what is subjectively
00:46:37 ►
taking place within myself, then I
00:46:41 ►
am more aware of what I can change in my life.
00:46:46 ►
There I have a choice and thus what I am responsible for.
00:46:53 ►
Conversely, I become aware of what is beyond my willpower
00:46:57 ►
and has to be accepted as an unalterable fact.
00:47:04 ►
This clarification of my potential and my responsibility can
00:47:09 ►
be of invaluable help. I have the ability to choose what I want to receive from the
00:47:18 ►
endless infinite program of the great transmitter from creation. That means that I can let those aspects of creation of the cosmos
00:47:29 ►
that make me happy enter into my consciousness
00:47:33 ►
and thus imbue them with reality.
00:47:37 ►
Or I can let in other aspects,
00:47:41 ►
those that depress me.
00:47:43 ►
those that depress me.
00:47:50 ►
It is I who creates the bright and the dark picture of the world. It is I who invests the objects that are only shaped matter in the outer world,
00:47:58 ►
not only with their color, but with my affection and my love, also with their meaning. This applies not
00:48:09 ►
only to my inanimate surroundings, but also to the living beings, to the plants, the animals,
00:48:17 ►
and to my fellow humans. With this insight, the full creative power of love becomes evident.
00:48:26 ►
Just as I am the receiver for messages from my fellow man, I am in turn a transmitter for him.
00:48:42 ►
located in his outer world,
00:48:46 ►
I can only convey my messages,
00:48:48 ►
my desires,
00:48:51 ►
even if they are purely spiritual,
00:48:53 ►
an idea,
00:48:55 ►
or my love,
00:48:59 ►
only through that which arises the transmitter, namely via matter and energy,
00:49:04 ►
understanding, expressed by a dance, namely via matter and energy understanding
00:49:06 ►
expressed by a dance
00:49:09 ►
or a light touch
00:49:11 ►
Even this can only be conveyed by material fingers
00:49:16 ►
material eyes
00:49:18 ►
by the material bodies of a learning couple
00:49:23 ►
This shows that communication would not
00:49:27 ►
be possible without matter and energy.
00:49:32 ►
The transmit-receiver metaphor for reality
00:49:35 ►
reveals another basic fact, the fact that reality is not
00:49:41 ►
a fixed state.
00:49:44 ►
Rather, it is the result of a continuous input
00:49:49 ►
of material and energetic signals from the outer world
00:49:56 ►
and the continuous decoding and transformation
00:50:00 ►
into inner conscious experience.
00:50:03 ►
Into inner conscious experience. Into inner conscious experience.
00:50:06 ►
This demonstrates that reality is a dynamic process
00:50:11 ►
being created anew at each moment.
00:50:16 ►
Actual reality exists in the here and now.
00:50:21 ►
In the moment.
00:50:22 ►
This explains why a child living in the given moment much more extensively
00:50:30 ►
than an adult perceives a real image of the world. It lives in a world permeated with
00:50:38 ►
more reality, more truth than that of the adult.
00:50:42 ►
more truth than that of the adult.
00:50:49 ►
To experience true reality in the moment is one of the main concerns of mysticism.
00:50:54 ►
That is where childlike mystical experiences meet.
00:51:01 ►
If reality were not the result of continuous changes but a stationary condition, there would not be no experience of the moment, there would not be even any time.
00:51:28 ►
sensation of time is only possible through the perception of change. The dynamic character of reality creates time. The transmitter is the evil concept of reality also imparts
00:51:37 ►
an insight into the essence of time. This metaphor of reality would appear to correspond to a dualistic concept of the
00:51:52 ►
world. External space, internal space, objective transmit, subjective receiver. But reality, everyday reality, can be experienced and imagined only as a totality of transmitter and receiver.
00:52:12 ►
There would be no picture or sound on the TV screen if either one were missing.
00:52:30 ►
they’re missing. This example makes it evident that transmitter and receiver are nothing other than constructs of our intellect, useful, valuable, even necessary means for a rational understanding of the mechanisms by which human reality exists.
00:52:48 ►
Dualism is but a construct of our intelligence, which leads us to believe that the so-called
00:52:57 ►
objective exterior world stands in opposition to our inner subjective spiritual world. The failure to grasp that there is
00:53:08 ►
no dualism is one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, for the tragic, catastrophic
00:53:17 ►
developments in our world. This dualistic worldview, so dominant in Western culture today, has its roots in Greek pre-Socratic
00:53:31 ►
philosophy and in the Judeo-Christian belief, makes earth your servant.
00:53:40 ►
The experience of the world as matter, as an object to which man stands opposed,
00:53:46 ►
provides the philosophical basis for the development of modern natural sciences and technology.
00:53:55 ►
With this science and technology, man has changed the world, has subdued nature.
00:54:06 ►
Its wealth has been exploited in a manner that may be characterized as plundering.
00:54:13 ►
And the sublime accomplishment of technological civilization,
00:54:18 ►
the comfort of Western industrial society,
00:54:22 ►
stands face to face with the catastrophic destruction of the environment.
00:54:28 ►
Our objective intellect has progressed
00:54:32 ►
even to the heart of the matter,
00:54:36 ►
to the nucleus of the atom and its flicking,
00:54:39 ►
and has unleashed energies that threaten all life
00:54:44 ►
on our planet.
00:54:46 ►
This misuse of this knowledge could not have emerged from a consciousness of reality
00:54:54 ►
in which human beings perceive themselves as an integral part of living nature and the universe.
00:55:10 ►
integral part of living nature and the universe. All of today’s attempt to make eminence for the damage by adopting environmentally protective measures will remain futile or superficial touch work if no change of the dualistic worldview ensues
00:55:28 ►
until it is replaced by an existential experience of a deeper reality.
00:55:36 ►
The experience of such an all-encompassing reality is impeded in an environment rendered dead by human hands,
00:55:51 ►
such as we find in our great cities and industrial districts.
00:55:57 ►
Here the contrast between self and outer world becomes especially evident.
00:56:09 ►
outer world becomes especially evident. It is these sensations that impress themselves
00:56:16 ►
on everyday consciousness in Western industrial society and everywhere where technological civilization extends. It is also these morbid sensations that strongly influence modern art and literature.
00:56:28 ►
In a natural environment, there is less danger that a split reality experience will arise.
00:56:38 ►
In fields and forests, and in the animal world shelters therein,
00:56:49 ►
and forest, and in the animal world shelter serene. Indeed, in every garden a reality is perceptible that is infinitely more real, older, deeper, and more wondrous than everything
00:56:59 ►
made by man—a reality that will endure long after the inanimate mechanical and concrete world
00:57:08 ►
has vanished, become rusted and fallen into ruin.
00:57:13 ►
In the sprouting, growth, blooming, fruiting, death and regeneration of plants in their relationship with the sun, whose light they
00:57:27 ►
are able to convert into chemically bound energy in the form of organic compounds,
00:57:36 ►
out of which all that lives on our earth is built, in the being of plants, the mysterious, inexhaustible, eternal life
00:57:49 ►
energy is evident, the same that has brought us forth and takes us back into its womb and
00:57:58 ►
in which we are sheltered and united with all living things.
00:58:06 ►
and united with all living things. We are not leading to a sentimental enthusiasm
00:58:09 ►
for nature, to in sense.
00:58:16 ►
That romantic movementic in nature, which can also be understood as a reaction to humans’ kind feeling of separation from nature.
00:58:49 ►
today is a fundamental existential experience of the oneness of all living things, of an all-encompassing reality.
00:59:11 ►
But this happens less and less as the primordial flora and fauna of Mother Earth must yield to a dead technological environment.
00:59:14 ►
The experience of reality as the ego opposed to the outer world had already begun to form itself during Greek antiquity. As I mentioned
00:59:28 ►
before, no doubt at that time people already knew the suffering connected with the dualistic
00:59:38 ►
consciousness of reality. The Greek genius tried to cure this disease by supplementing the objective Apollonian worldview with the Dionysian world of experience, in which the split was abolished in ecstatic inebriation.
01:00:10 ►
It is remarkable what the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about this in his book Die Geburts der Tragönie, The Birth of Tragedy. We can read there,
01:00:16 ►
It is either through the influence of narcotic potions, of which all primitive peoples and races speak in hymns, all through the
01:00:28 ►
powerful approach of spring, penetrating with joy all of nature, that those Dionysian stirrings
01:00:37 ►
arise, which in their intensification leads the individual to forget himself completely. Not only does the bond
01:00:49 ►
between man and man become to be forced once again by the magic of the Dionysian rite,
01:00:58 ►
but alienated, hostile, and subjugated nature again celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal son,
01:01:09 ►
this man. So far, Nietzsche.
01:01:19 ►
The Dionysian cult was closely connected with the mysteries of Eleusis, the most important mysteries of the antique world, which were celebrated annually in the fall over a span of about 2,000 years.
01:01:50 ►
These mysteries were established by the goddess of agriculture and grain, Demeter, as thanks for the recovery of her daughter Persephone, whom Hades, the god of the underworld, had
01:01:58 ►
abducted. A first offering of thanks was the ear of grain, which was presented to Triptolemus, the first high priest of Eleusis.
01:02:14 ►
The cultivation of grain was then disseminated of the whole world.
01:02:21 ►
Tersephone, however, was not allowed to always remain with her mother.
01:02:28 ►
She had to return for a part of the year to the underworld.
01:02:35 ►
During this time it was winter on earth.
01:02:38 ►
The plants died and withdrew into the ground, only to awaken to new life early in the year with Persephone’s
01:02:48 ►
journey back to earth.
01:02:53 ►
The myth of Timothy, Persephone, and Hades formed, however, only the external framework
01:03:00 ►
for the events at the mysteries.
01:03:08 ►
for the events at the Mysteries. The climax of the ceremonies, which began with the procession from Athens to Eleusis lasting several days, was a concluding ceremony of initiation. The
01:03:18 ►
initiates were forbidden by penalty of death to divulge what they had learned and beheld in the innermost
01:03:27 ►
holiest chamber of the temple, the terestrium. Not one of the multitude that were initiated
01:03:36 ►
ever divulged. Pausanias, Plato, Roman emperors like Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, and many others known figures of
01:03:47 ►
antiquity were part of this initiation.
01:03:53 ►
It must have been an illumination, a visionary glimpse of a deeper reality, an insight into
01:04:01 ►
the true basis of the universe.
01:04:05 ►
an insight into the true basis of the universe. We can deduce this from the initiates’ own statements
01:04:10 ►
about the value and the importance of the vision.
01:04:15 ►
For example, it is reported in a Homeric hymn, Blissful is among men on earth who has beheld that
01:04:27 ►
he who has not been initiated into the holy mysteries
01:04:31 ►
remains a corpse in gloomy darkness.
01:04:37 ►
Pindar speaks of the Elysist, the Eucharist, the Eucharist, the Eucharist, also a famous initiate, said about the splendor that fell upon his life from
01:05:09 ►
Eleusis,
01:05:11 ►
Not only have we received the reason there that we may live in joy, but also besides
01:05:20 ►
that we may die with better hopes.
01:05:23 ►
that we may die with better hopes.
01:05:29 ►
How could the mythological representation of such an obvious occurrence,
01:05:32 ►
which runs its course annually before our eyes,
01:05:37 ►
the seed grain that is dropped into the earth,
01:05:42 ►
dies there,
01:05:44 ►
prove to be such a deep, comforting experience that is dropped into the earth, diced there,
01:05:49 ►
proved to be such a deep, comforting experience as that attested by the cited reports.
01:05:54 ►
It is traditional knowledge that the initiates
01:05:58 ►
were furnished with a potion, the kykeon,
01:06:02 ►
for the final ceremony.
01:06:10 ►
the cocheon for the final ceremony. It is also known that barley extract and mint were ingredients of the cocheon. Scholars of mythology like Karl Kereny are of the opinion that the Kikion was mixed with the hallucinogenic drug.
01:06:30 ►
I was associated with Karenje in the 60s,
01:06:34 ►
doing research on this mysterious potion,
01:06:40 ►
an investigation as to what kind of hallucinogen could have been contained in the Kikion.
01:06:44 ►
A reference of this collaboration is made in Karin’s book,
01:06:49 ►
Eusis, which was published in 1977 in New York.
01:06:54 ►
And it is from that text that the preceding statements
01:07:00 ►
on the Elusive Mysteries were taken.
01:07:03 ►
Later in the 70s, I was again engaged in the investigation
01:07:10 ►
of the hallucinogen in the Q-cheon.
01:07:14 ►
This time I worked in collaboration with Gordon Wasson,
01:07:19 ►
the famous ethnomicologist with whom I had worked
01:07:28 ►
in the research of magic plants, Mexican plants,
01:07:32 ►
the psilocybe mushroom and alluque,
01:07:36 ►
and Karl Röck, professor at Boston University, who was a classical scholar specialized in Greek ethnobotany.
01:07:48 ►
scholar specialized in Greek ethnobotany. We published the results of our studies in the book entitled The Road to Eleusis, which was published in 1978. In that publication,
01:07:59 ►
we put forth the hypothesis that the Kierkegaard effect could have been due to an LSD-like preparation
01:08:09 ►
of ergot.
01:08:12 ►
From investigations in the Sandor’s research laboratories on all the various species of
01:08:19 ►
ergot fungus, I knew that ergot growing on the wild grass Paspalum distichum, which is widespread in the Mediterranean region, contains the same alkaloids that we have found in the ancient Mexican drug oloducree, namely lysergic acid amide and lysergic acid hydroxyamide, closely related
01:08:50 ►
to lysergic acid diosinamide, to LSD.
01:08:54 ►
The high priest of a youth had access to this hallucinogen just in front of the temple. They just had to collect the infected grains
01:09:05 ►
of P. palondisticum,
01:09:07 ►
grow them there, grind them,
01:09:10 ►
and put the powder into the cacao
01:09:12 ►
in order to have a perfect hallucinogenic potion.
01:09:18 ►
If they really did so,
01:09:20 ►
of course, there must remain a hypothesis.
01:09:24 ►
But the hypothesis with a high degree of probability.
01:09:29 ►
And Demeter was the goddess of grain.
01:09:35 ►
The culturally historical meaning of the mysteries of the uses, their influence on European intellectual and spiritual history can scarcely be overestimated.
01:09:49 ►
The hallucinogen of the Kikion may link these mysteries with the role of LSD in our time.
01:10:10 ►
What we urgently need now is evidently the same as was already needed during antiquity,
01:10:30 ►
namely to be freed from an experience of reality in which the individual feels himself to be separate from the outer world. We need to be healed from dualism, which had and still has such catastrophic consequences as expounded in the preceding reflections.
01:10:40 ►
Insights into the essence of reality, which I tried to provide using the transmitter-receiver metaphor, could help us to overcome this dualistic worldview.
01:11:04 ►
Insights that are solely the result of rational reflections are not effective enough to become decisive factors in our lives.
01:11:12 ►
Only when accompanied by an existential, emotional experience
01:11:19 ►
do they grow strong enough to be able to influence an older view of life.
01:11:28 ►
Such an emotional confirmation of an insight of the truth can be achieved through meditation.
01:11:51 ►
is the true importance of LSD, the QQ of our time, in its ability to provide a pharmacological aid to meditation, aimed at the experience of a deeper, all-encompassing reality, a reality in which the outer material and the inner spiritual worlds, transmitter
01:12:07 ►
and receiver, are experienced as one.
01:12:13 ►
I thank you for your attention. Thank you.
01:12:31 ►
Thank you.
01:12:31 ►
Thank you.
01:12:31 ►
Thank you.
01:12:31 ►
Thank you.
01:12:32 ►
Thank you.
01:12:33 ►
Thank you.
01:12:37 ►
Thank you so much.
01:12:39 ►
Thank you.
01:12:41 ►
Thank you.
01:12:42 ►
Thank you.
01:12:42 ►
Thank you.
01:12:43 ►
Thank you.
01:12:43 ►
Thank you.
01:12:44 ►
Thank you.
01:12:44 ►
Thank you.
01:12:44 ►
Thank you.
01:12:44 ►
Thank you.
01:12:44 ►
Thank you.
01:12:44 ►
Thank you.
01:12:44 ►
Thank you.
01:12:44 ►
Thank you.
01:12:44 ►
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon,
01:12:50 ►
where people are changing their lives one thought at a time.
01:12:56 ►
Well, what can I say after that?
01:12:59 ►
Other than I think that I’ll go back yet one more time
01:13:02 ►
and re-listen to Dr. Hoffman’s words of wisdom.
01:13:05 ►
Just now on my second listen, I heard him say a couple of things that I missed the first time
01:13:09 ►
because probably I was thinking about what he just said
01:13:12 ►
and didn’t keep up with the next thought he was sending our way.
01:13:16 ►
I think there may be a lot more in this talk than a single listen can provide.
01:13:21 ►
Also, I’d hoped to post a picture of the flyer that was used for this event, but the only
01:13:26 ►
place I could find that had a copy was in the Allen Ginsberg Papers at Stanford, where Flat
01:13:33 ►
Box 6, Folder 2 allegedly holds a poster that’s labeled Albert Hoffman in America, poster 1988,
01:13:40 ►
October 2nd. So now we have yet another date, October 2nd. We’ve had November 2nd,
01:13:46 ►
November 4th, and in a minute I’ll tell you yet one more date. So anyway, if you happen to be in
01:13:53 ►
the Stanford neighborhood, maybe you can take a look for yourself someday and let us know what
01:13:57 ►
it looks like. Also, there was one other recording that Gary sent me, but I’m not going to play it
01:14:03 ►
here in the salon because I’m not quite sure about the copyright on it.
01:14:06 ►
But what it is is a recording of a radio interview that Dr. Halfman gave on KCRW, I think a day or so before the talk we just heard.
01:14:16 ►
At least I think it was recorded in November, although the file name on it says April 1988.
01:14:22 ►
So all we know for sure is all these talks took place in 1988 sometime.
01:14:27 ►
But in any event, it’s really an interesting recording because Dr. Hoffman has heard answering questions from the interviewer without having to read his lecture notes,
01:14:36 ►
and so he’s much more spontaneous and just sounds great.
01:14:41 ►
So should you want to listen to it, I’ve posted it with the program notes for this podcast,
01:14:45 ►
and you can download it directly from there if you want to hear it,
01:14:48 ►
and I’ll leave it up there until somebody says I can’t have it and have to take it down.
01:14:53 ►
Well, that’s going to have to do it for today,
01:14:56 ►
and so I’ll close today’s podcast again by reminding you that this and most of the podcasts from the Psychedelic Salon
01:15:02 ►
are freely available for you to use in your own audio projects
01:15:05 ►
under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike 3.0 license.
01:15:10 ►
And if you have any questions about that,
01:15:11 ►
just click the Creative Commons link at the bottom of the Psychedelic Salon webpage,
01:15:15 ►
which you can find at psychedelicsalon.org.
01:15:18 ►
And if you’re interested in the philosophy behind the salon,
01:15:21 ►
you can hear all about it in my novel, The Genesis Generation, which is available as an audiobook that you can download at genesisgeneration.us.
01:15:31 ►
And for now, this is Lorenzo, signing off from cyberdelic space. Be well, my friends. It is the impossible become possible
01:15:46 ►
And yet remaining impossible