The Sixties, Psychedelics & Sobriety

I grew up around New Paltz, New York. For years, the best LSD, east of Berkeley, was made there. All the Seventies & Eighties Grateful Dead acid was made there.

My last LSD trip was a hit of blotter at a Robert Fripp concert. It ruined the show for me.

I'm glad I don't do that shit anymore. I'd rather be strapped to a torture rack for eight hours than do that shit.

There's nothing to be learned from that shit. It's a false sense of awareness. It's actually a hindering of the process of becoming a full and complete human.

And that shit will turn and bite. When it does, that shit is never the same for you.

When I began studying Yoga (Intermediate Student) and Tai Chi (beginner) and when George Kinney told me about Chinese medicine I put it all together.

Yoga sees the *person* as a relationship between mind/body that energy runs through. The energy has seven "portals" in the body called Chakras. The Seventh Chakra is the Third Eye of Awareness.

Yoga is a series of breathing exercises and spinal twists to improve circulation and the ability of the spine to carry information to and from the brain. This is getting the body ready to have that spiritual experience.

Chinese medicine sees the body as a system that energy runs through. It has seven energy centers as well connected by energy highways called Meridians. Tai Chi is a series of exercises to stimulate various Meridians.

When I found this out I freaked because this proved to me that there was an esoteric body of knowledge. Both India and China come up with, essentially, the same thing thousands of miles apart? This blew my mind.

People abuse drugs and alcohol because they are seeking a spiritual experience that they are lacking in their everyday lives. The *high* mimics the spiritual experience they crave. This is according to the founder of analytical psychology: Carl Gustav Jung. This is why AA is a spiritual program.

I just love the argument that because peyote and mushrooms and pot are natural that they are somehow *good* and OK to take.

Look, some of the most powerful toxins to humans occur naturally. The toxins in the "deathcap" toadstool are fatal to humans, even in tiny doses. It destroys the liver- quickly.

Some frog venom is the most powerful natural poison. Native just use a touch on a dart.

You've all heard of the lionfish right?

How about deadly nightshade? This is a close relative of tomatoes but eat those purple berries and die quick.

So I guess these things are *OK* to eat too? It's a fucking joke.

I go along with Jung, that people abuse drugs and alcohol because they are seeking a spiritual experience.

The late Frank Zappa said (talking about drugs) that if people want to *learn* they should suck it up and go to the fucking library. Quit looking for a shortcut.

All of the early hallucinogens proselytizers, whom I have heard quoted at the times and read about, talked about LSD as some sort of *shortcut* to enlightenment. In my opinion, these people didn't want to do the work needed for true enlightenment. They didn't want to learn meditation techniques. They didn't want to become a master of Kung Fu. They didn't want to do years and years of yoga. They didn't want to study. They didn't want to work. They wanted to take a pill. That's the COMPLETE Western Attitude too. They were some of the worst offenders.

Then, of course, because it is a DRUG, it led to abuse, which led to dependence, which led to abusing other drugs.

Sure, the sixties wouldn't have happened without LSD but I don't think that the Timothy Learys, Tommy Halls, Richard Alperts, Ken Keseys, et al... KNEW SHIT. I think that they were looking for a short-cut, to get laid, to have fun,... I think that they were thinking like typical Western fucks. Sure, the LSD changed them. Was that a good thing?

Their most damaging legacy was that they influenced hundreds of thousands of others to take the same path. They caused a lot of damage in people's lives.

Look at Roky Erickson. Look at Syd Barrett. Look at Skip Spence. There are still acid causalities walking around homeless. Our institutions have them too. This shit damaged people.

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