tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post8400214837478518684..comments2024-03-28T09:13:04.373-04:00Comments on KIKO'S HOUSE: Book Review: Michael Pollan's 'How To Change Your Mind,' A Psychedelic OdysseyShaun Mullenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14964214385216513188noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-61352948460989785402018-07-06T14:58:06.361-04:002018-07-06T14:58:06.361-04:00I have respected Michael Pollan's previous wor...I have respected Michael Pollan's previous work and enjoyed his Terry Gross interviews...so I find myself a little perplexed with the attitude toward Leary. I once saw Leary at the Bijou CAfe in Philly. It was called "The Stand-Up Philosophy Tour". Not sure of the year but he was certainly in his 60's by then and there was nothing oldman-ish about him. He paced while he spoke. He has like a big , beautiful wild cat and he was profound. I have also been reading every version I can find of the Tibetan Book of The Dead > His version is called "The Psychedelic Book of The Dead". Make no mistake..Timothy Leary was no lightweight. I see him more like a prophet in the tradition of John the Baptist whom the Establishment feared and attacked. He was a herald of a freedom we are not(still) ready to be comfortable with. I ,personally, found LSD to be the technology I needed to break down the walls a very strict Irish Roman Catholic home life and education. That one-two combo had conditioned my mind to the point where I had no idea what Life was about other than be obedient. In my very first trip, the tool that had been the primary weapon of my Spiritual castration became very clear: fear of Death...AND...the possibility that if one was not careful, of going to Hell. Forever. (See James Joyce's "Portrait of An Artist As A Young Man for the manual). That first trip was incredibly liberating and I am forever grateful to my friend who guided me that day; the veteran tripper: Dan Toomey. I was 25-ish at the time and LSD was like nothing else I had ever experienced, let alone imagined. So as that first wave of mind altering chemical/ electrical affect came on, I am so glad I had him for a guide. We listened to Beethoven' and Bruckner. Dan read aloud from Sri Aurobindo's epic "Savatri". By then, I had acclimated to the experience and the ego that I had brought with me was no longer calling the shots. This event coincided with the birth in me of a lifetime of Yoga and Meditation practice. The experience that you and Pollan refer to , I have found to be the essence of the "work" of those disciplines. When we are tripping we intensely see and feel..the ego does not take agency, it is not an inchoate middleman between us and our direct experience . Thus the Psyhedelicly accessed perceptions, insights and wisdom we receive while tripping..we intuit to be always available. The work I refer to is that final stage in the transformation of the ego from neediness and insecurity, to a powerful tool(not a Master) that gives us the spunk and gumption to keep trying to break through the clouds of illusion to the other side, where the Sun is always shining. It is truly about "growing up". That "I" I reference is that voice , that narrator of the conditioned mind that is akin to the little boy who put in his thumb, pulled out a plum and...you know the rest. That need to be "special" instead of one of billions, quadrillions of spectacular drops in the vast ocean of life...therein lies the root cause of our separateness and all division flows from that Achilles heel. Thanks for your wonderful piece. It touched me and stirred me to revisit... hold on..here comes that Dead lyric: What a long Strange Trip its been". That is Shakespearean in it's Tragic/ Comedic astuteness . Michaleenmickey Omostlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04680902855212842007noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-11194852192464337302018-06-28T04:12:57.248-04:002018-06-28T04:12:57.248-04:00As I seem to recall, Gracie Slick said she intende...As I seem to recall, Gracie Slick said she intended to drop some in the punch bowl at Tricia Nixon’s wedding, having somehow merited an invitation for being a classmate at Finch College. Previewing her plan publicly apparently got her disinvited.<br /> <br />I still fondly recall my first trip in ‘66 in Golden Gate Park, which began as a lovely foursome but a few hours in dissolved into a solo journey. I think I made it from the fuschia garden to the Japanese Tea Garden but then backtracked past the bocce field to a giant boulder, where I alighted in much the same posture as the tea garden’s Buddha sculpture. As sundry day hikers passed me by on the path, I transcended through those great doors of perception, experiencing terror and exhilaration simultaneously and imagining my ego teetering on a knife-edge precipice from which I might tumble to some mad oblivion or will myself back to the material sphere I’d left, now forever transmuted. I found I was greatly relieved that a supreme effort of conscious will let me opt for, then realize the latter.HCCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-70571426204935166222018-06-27T15:45:46.786-04:002018-06-27T15:45:46.786-04:00Hey, Shaun,
I enjoyed this. I'm a little ambi...Hey, Shaun,<br /><br />I enjoyed this. I'm a little ambivalent about my own period of intense psychedelic exploration for two reasons. <br /><br />First, I feel I was seduced by the notion that the next trip (very vaguely paraphrasing the hero's notion in Altered States), would take me to that ineffable timeless center that is no center, but I found myself a bit psychologically off-center, more than I was before I started. As that hero came to be, I became happier with the transitory.<br /><br />The second reason is that during that period I was at times irresponsible and careless about others so that the memory of those times contains a bit of a buzz-kill. <br /><br />Still, I maintain that much of what I experienced was valid, even though I might have shit in the temple, so to speak.PBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-76520806303913425252018-06-27T11:56:22.871-04:002018-06-27T11:56:22.871-04:00Yes.Yes.K.J.Linheinnoreply@blogger.com