Hunter S. Thompson wrote:
We're all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the sixties. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling consciousness expansion, without ever giving a thought to the grim meathook realities that were lying in wait for all those people who took him seriously. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy peace and understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss, and failure, is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole lifestyle that he helped create. A generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old mystic fallacy of the acid culture. The desperate assumption that somebody, or at least some force, is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.
But there is a way around this problem. A way to resolve this fallacy and replace it with valid reasoning.
What is the reason the atomic theory of Democritus is the one that turned out to be true? The usual assumption is that the truth was already there, already present, before science "proved" him right. But this is mere illusion, and can be likened to Plato's assumption that ideas are stored on some metaphysical plane as essences of the things materialized in the world. I am not saying Democritus isn't "right". I am saying he is only "right" following Parmenides' Doxa. Let us follow his Aletheia.
But let us heed Parmenides' advice that there is nothing but the present, and in the present, Evolution is also "right", which dismantles Plato's essentialism.
Let us investigate the hypothesis that the "truth" of the nature of the universe is already present before it is discovered or proven. We may refer to it as "posit A"
If this hypothesis is correct, we humans have only an empirical task, for we can simply observe this nature and describe it, thus documenting "truth".
But if this is so, whence does disagreement come from? Is it merely a result of fallible measurement?
What, then, is a paradigm shift? The proof being discovered of mass delusion? Then how do we know that we ourselves are not deluded?
If this hypothesis is incorrect, then this truth must be somehow created through the process of inventing, discovering and proving. This is "posit B"
But how, then, does truth come about?
Is truth perhaps merely that of which most people are convinced?
Is the truth that which men hold on to with greatest resolve? That which is most deeply-rooted? The things "on which we agree"?
Let us examine the first hypothesis.
If it is true, how, then, do new ideas come about? If it were true, there would be no reason ever to change one's mind,
because the idea would always correspond to the truth. There are clusters of people who have different paradigms, but what is it that persuades men to assume a
different paradigm? Is it some external force? By Occam's Razor, we should discredit that idea.
If it is false and posit B is true, then either the second hypothesis or some other explanation are true.
Let us then examine the second hypothesis. This is posit X.
If it is true, then the conviction of men is the measure of things. And I am willing to stake anything that my conviction that LSD is the way into the future is stronger than anything any rhetorician can throw at me.
If it is false, then I am wrong.
If posit x is correct, than the light at the end of the tunnel is indeed tended to... By those who are yet to come. Everyone who trips now, reading Leary's and other trips, is the tender. We are gods watched over by gods yet to come. Like Nietzsche points out: man is both creature and creator.
What are the practical consequences?
Well, it's quite simple. The people who trip write history. Literally.
Tripping is the refined form of something present throughout history: creativity. The mushrooms and other psychedelics have been
the reason of progression of ideas the physical embodiment of creativity. The psychedelics let ideas "evolve", and idea precedes reality. Leary didn't bother to explain things,
because he thought people would piece this together by themselves. He didn't understand they wouldn't be able to if he fed it to kids...?
But of course, the kids are a lot more easily convinced of the merits. I see it a bit like this:
All men have piles of assumptions, their maya, their illusion, and the longer they stay wrapped in it, the more difficult it becomes to break it down.
So it is easier for children to be made free of maya. But that isn't necessarily good... Because a child free of maya might forget the necessity of it.
More maya means growth, intellectual and spiritual.
V
o--------------------------------------
----x
The line is maya, and the V is the individual, travelling from no maya to overcomplication, only to collapse and return to no maya.
The maya you internalize during this cycle feeds the next. Using LSD will return you to no maya instantly.
And that is how I use it. I soak up information like a sponge, internalize it, go back to an enlightened state so I may rearrange it into the truth of the future,
then start over again.
The universe is thought-like. It folds in upon itself and creates links between different places in space-time. Through the bi-lateral flow of ideas between these two places, creativity arises. The exchange gives each more than they had before.
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crazy
chipper
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curious