scrivener
What I originally dubbed as “The History of LSD – 1943-70” has exploded into a huge material with a total of 23 charts. There is much to say about each individual, but I will only make some brief notes and add charts where I find it of particular interest.
LSD Pioneers According to Tom Wolfe
The collection here, apart from Stanislav Grof, the are all found in the book. We will soon come to. Today’s Ram Dass was Richard Alpert, Timothy Leary’s partner in the LSD crime on the East Coast. Harvard University, to be precise.
I neither use nor recommend any kind of drugs, but I think LSD is a very important part of our history. Its influence can be found in art, music, spirituality and many other fields. It is also great to see that LSD and other psychoactive drug are used, or at least tested for use in therapeutic processes. Promising.
Ken Kesey is good example of creative expression of LSD. His name may not be so well-know, but if we mention the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Jack Nicholson we get some more aaah.
The film was based on the book with the same name written by Ken Kesey. He invested most of the income in the Merry Pranksters project documented in Wolfe’s book. It’s a fantastic book!
I can’t say how influential Tom Wolfe’s book was, but since it was published in August 1968 it must have spread the word to late wannabe hippies. Tom Wolfe, on the other hand, has been very influential as an author.
Albert Hofmann discovered LSD in 1943 in a very interesting way. More about that later. As with almost everything on this page.
When we are looking at Stanislav Grof I have mention his book Beyond the Brain which I think is one of the most important books published on the subject of consciousness. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is for sale on both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Here I found an interesting link from Grof going to astrologer Richard Tarnas, a person whom Grof has collaborated with for a long time. Stanislav Grof and Richard Tarnas: The Birth of a New Worldview.
When I read this article I also find the Dane Rudhyar, Liz Green and Robert Hand are mentioned there. Together with Stephen Arroy they are the astrologers I studied most in the first steps on the path where I am today. It is really hard to avoid this chance to add some fuel to the question “Are Astrologers Uranus or Neptune personalities?”
And it is time for yet another detour: Neptunian Astrologers
With his Saturn/Uranus conjunction.opposing Sun/Mercury/Venus Robert Hand is most definitely a Saturn/Uranus astrologer. This is rather descriptive of his blend of astrology of the past and avantgarde techniques. For the unbelievers who don’t like my 12° orb I also added Hand’s Sun/Mars midpoint.
But who was Neal Cassady?? To quote Tom Wolfe in his inimitable prose:
“Who is that?”
“That’s Cassady.”
This strikes me as a marvellous fact. I remember Cassady. Cassady, Neal Cassady, was the hero, “Dean Moriarty,” of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the Denver Kid, a kid who was always racing back and forth across the U.S. by car, chasing, or outrunning, “life,” and here is the same guy, now 40, in the garage, flipping a sledge hammer, rocketing about to his own Joe Cuba and—talking. Cassady never stops talking. But that is a bad way to put it. Cassady is a monologuist, only he doesn’t seem to care whether anyone is listening or not. He just goes off on the monologue, by himself if necessary, although anyone is welcome aboard. He will answer all questions, although not exactly in that order, because we can’t stop here, next rest area 40 miles, you understand, spinning off memories, metaphors, literary, Oriental, hip allusions, all punctuated by the unlikely expression, “you understand—”
