Psilocybin has proved very valuable to us for a number of years. For a year now we have had similar good results with the psilocybin derivative, CZ74.... Thus, we now have a well-rounded repertoire of three psychotomimetic substances at our disposal, assuring us more control of the therapeutic process.... The short but overwhelming and ecstatic sessions with CZ74, in high dosages within the frame of psycholytic therapy, have been particularly useful in penetrating overly rational and compulsive individuals, often leading to a quickening of the entire therapy.... Psilocybin stands in the middle, while LSD is the strongest and most imposing drug, sometimes made undesirable by overtiring the patient with its slow, torturous decline....
I don't believe that I am being melodramatic, in suggesting that what our research may discover may carry with it even more serious implications than the awful, in both senses of the word, achievements of the atomic physicists. Let us not find ourselves in their position of being caught foolishly surprised, naively perplexed, and touchingly full of publicly displayed guilt at what they had wrought.
When I say, "Let's see, how do I look at the world, and how do I look at myself," I observe that much of my present viewpoint is the result of memories of drug experiences which I have forgotten are drug experiences. I mean by that, that thoughts which I have had while using LSD have become amalgamated more Or less into what I consider my normal experience.The psychedelics bring about the vision of a world that is colorful, adventuresome, decent, open, prismatic, gentle, sweet, stimulatingin short, a sort of fairy tale come alive. It is therefore not surprising that the souvenirs brought back by LSD travelers are accepted as validif accepted at allby many who would not themselves consider taking LSD. Success stories have always carried their own appeal, and the injection of some of the LSD experients' spiritual and Dionysian intuitions into America's largely Apollonian society is revitalizing. The upshot is diversified, but the developing "psychedelic style" is bringing a new reverence for life, a kind of humanistic pantheism and a renaissance of belief in the essential goodness in man.
It is now very unclear to me exactly how I've gotten my present valueshow I see out of my eye. Ordinarily, for instance, time has a certain, identifiable effect upon the actions of human beings. But suppose as a result of using LSD, time no longer registers for you in the same way it does for other people? You can't say that what you have learned from the psychedelics is better or superior than the pre-LSD experiences, just that it seems more enjoyable and complete. You simply have to accept your new life in a world more acutely sensed than the everyday world.
In one sentence, I suppose what I am saying is that you must accept the fact that your drug experience and your daily experience will become fused, and that your future perception of reality will be affected by your drug consciousness, and not only in ways which you have control of. This may be better, or it may be worse, but you must accept it. It will happen. It's a terrifying thing, it's absolutely terrifying, to think that a pill you swallow will influence you for the rest of your life. Taking psychedelics is a transforming experience, like getting educated, changing jobs, moving to another country, or falling in love.
Perhaps the men of genius are the only true men. In all the history of the race there have been only a few thousand real men. And the rest of uswhat are we? Teachable animals. Without the help of the real men, we should have found out almost nothing at all. Almost all the ideas with which we are familiar could never have occurred to minds like ours. Plant the seeds there and they will grow; but our minds could never spontaneously have generated them.But we are also becoming aware that creative abilities can be nurtured, that under auspicious conditions they may flourish, and that deliberate cultivation of creativity pays off handsomely in hardheaded commercial terms.
There have been whole nations of dogs... whole epochs in which no Man was born. From the dull Egyptians the Greeks took crude experience and rules of thumb and made sciences. More than a thousand years passed before Archimedes had a comparable successor. There has been only one Buddha, one Jesus, only one Bach that we know of, one Michelangelo.
I think that the most important part of what has happened to me since the experiment is that I seem to be able to get a good deal more work done.... When painting it generally takes me an hour and a half to two hours to really get into the painting and three or four hours to really hit a peak. Tuesday I hit a peak in less than a half hour....The impact of the psychedelics upon society depends less in the long run upon the number of users and the nature of their value shifts than it does upon whether or not the highly creative and the highly specialized users learn the advantages of reevaluating their work through an LSD lens. It is significant, therefore, that Progressive Architecture, a journal subscribed to by some 47,000 architects and designers, presented in its August, 1966, issue four lengthy testimonials to the architectural magic of LSD and followed it the next month with another LSD article, "Expanding Architecture." As time passes and the basic principles of session programming become commonplace, other professions may follow suit.
Sunday afternoon I did about six hours work in two hours time. I did not worry about what I was doingI just did it. Three or four times I wanted a particular color pencil or a triangle and would go directly to it, lift up three or four pieces of paper and pull it out. Never thought of where it wasjust knew I wanted it and picked it up. This of course amazed me but I just relied on itfound things immediately. My wife was a little annoyed at me on Sunday afternoon because I was so happy, but I would not be dissuaded.[10]
STANLEY C. KRIPPNER, PH.D. |