Sex, Drug & Magick: Tibetan Space-Time-Warp-Star-Nova-Trips
I was obsessed with sex and visionary states long before I ever thought to try psychedelics, or perhaps before it was within the realm of entertaining the idea of actually trying psychedelics myself- I knew it was there, of course. I had experienced what I believed to be rapturous, spiritual sex and witnessed things that should not have been there (and that occasionally made me question my sanity) years before I ingested psilocybin. It should be noted Blake never ingested any psychedelics or anything harder than his nightly "cauldron of porter," as Gilchrist would have it.
The main aftereffects of my first trip were a deeper appreciation of the works of RAW and Alan Moore as well as the dawning revelation that this is it. Psychedelics grounded me; while I continued to question the nature of reality, I also knew that this was decidedly as real as it gets. This was not a test.
A later, more harrowing experience would lead to a different conclusion, but that is a story for another time.
My sexual experiences on psychedelics have never been under the influence of LSD. During one, I found the time compression that Wilson discusses here very real; hours passed in moments. My partners' head also turned into that of a multi-fluorescent ostrich for some time. The second time we were tripping too hard to complete the act. It then took about an hour to find a bathroom and our way back to our tent. Your mileage will vary.
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Stray Thoughts
- I find it intensely curious that Dr. Richard Alpert was the one who conducted the homosexual reprogramming experiments (voluntary experiments, as Wilson points out), as Alpert was a gay man himself. There was even a crude pun made about his holy name, Ram Dass, based on his sexual preferences which Leary reportedly used while discussing his colleague after their paths had split.
- Wilson warns about the increased powers of the government a la the "War on Drugs." Right now, as we are seeing heinous power grabs by the same segment of society that Wilson was discussing decades ago in the United States, I fear for the strides made in the past two decades away from that awful status quo. Advocates of sensible drug policies have warned about the dangerous consequences that could/will follow if a recent proposal to declare fentanyl "a weapon of mass destruction" is made law. While the illegal trade of fentanyl is a menace to human life, declaring it a weapon of mass destruction would entail massive setbacks to harm-reduction policies. Not great!
- In the context of the War on Drugs, Wilson references Mussolini as Italy's "sawdust Caesar." As of last week, Italy has elected a second sawdust Caesar, whose party is the direct descendant of the Fascist Party. Tremble, Europe. Tremble, World.
- I am painfully aware that I owe all of you an apology for the start-and-halt schedule. A week becomes a month as sickness developed into work muddle and redeveloped back into sickness. On top of that, our modem broke on the day I am writing this. I hope to make it to a wi-fi hotspot soon so I can update this post. I am planning on a quicker publication schedule with posts every few days to prevent the morass of life from halting our progress once again so near the ending. Forgive me friends. and please forgive my negligence of your own projects. I am correcting myself.
Olga would have found your ostrich experience interesting. Italy's new prime minister loves Tolkien, and I loved hearing Stephen Colbert warn her not to take Tolkien too seriously. Thank you for undertaking this blog. These projects take a ton of effort, and "Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!" remain a challenge as Melville wrote.
ReplyDeleteOnce again I find myself away from home without this book so will comment on the post. Believe me, I know what it's like to have an overwhelming schedule and get behind on other things. Lately, it takes me nearly a week just to post a comment. Bob Dylan once wrote, " I'll let be in my dream if I can be in yours." I'll forgive you if you forgive me when I go absent.
ReplyDeleteImo, anyone wanting to seriously work with psychedelics, including ganga, and visionary states would be advised, first, to get a thorough knowledge of the subject before embarking by reading books like "Sex, Drugs & Magick" along with the writings of Leary ("High Priest" & others) Lilly ( "Center of the Cyclone" and others) or even the "Against the Day" by Pynchon if one enjoys deciphering the metaphors - there are probably a lot other works I don't know about that could be helpful. Secondly, work on strengthening attention - practicing yoga or martial arts or playing music appear some ways to do that.
I have to finish my comments later. I'll be back, like both General Douglas MacArthur and The Terminator once famously said.
I accidentally posted these comments to the wrong post, so I'm going to fix that by posting them here.
ReplyDelete"Psychedelics grounded me; while I continued to question the nature of reality, I also knew that this was decidedly as real as it gets. This was not a test." Those are great sentences!
The ostrich head bit was pretty funny, considering RAW's obsession with ostriches late in life.
RAW writes, "If the Beatles had appeared when they did, but had sported crew cuts and played cool jazz, all the drug-kulch crowd would have been into short hair and jazz then, most likely. Such charismatic heroes play a larger role in creating fads than any drug ever can."
Raw usually seems pretty sharp when talking about culture, but I have to strongly disagree. The Beatles had their impact because they were so talented, but also because rock music had reached a stage when it was ready to be exploited (notice how many other top rock bands appeared at about the same time.) I think Bach appeared at the right time to take advantage of the development of Baroque music, Mozart exploited the rise of the classical period, etc. Perhaps there is no really dominant modern classical composer because the form is somewhat played out?
On the other hand, RAW is perceptive in noticing that football had become more popular than baseball; that seems more true than ever, and it is interesting RAW noticed, given that he seldom showed much interest in sports.
I don't believe I've ever heard of David Cole Gordon other than in this book, but he sounds interesting. Nothing on Wikipedia, I see. In fact, not much on the internet, although he wrote quite a few books.
The bit at the end about "America's sagging heterosexuality quotient" makes me wonder if the current "gay panic" on the right is nothing new.
@Eric I imagine, Olga was there, as an emanation of Tahuti. Thank you for the Melville and directing me towards that clip. Like Crowley, Tolkien wasn't perfect and had many imperialist views, but he wasn't a goddamned fascist.
ReplyDelete@Oz- Thank you, and I promise that I will make some comments this week and they will try to live up to being worth-the-wait. I absolutely think that reading "Against the Day," "Mason & Dixon," and "The Crying of Lot 49" before trying marijuana were helpful experiences. Hell, I read "Inherit Vice" before toking. I appreciated it a lot more afterward.
@Tom I completely agree regarding The Beatles. Having a "The Beatles weren't that great" or blathering about how they overshadowed better bands is always a great way to get me to stop taking your musical opinions seriously. How trite, passe and utterly wrong of an assessment. Don't get me wrong, I love The Kinks and The Stones, but The Beatles were...well, The Beatles.
There is a doctor mentioned earlier in the book, hopefully I'll be able to find the name who I have a similar feeling about as you express towards David Cole Gordon.
@Tom & Rarebit, I also agree that The Beatles reacted to cultural trends rather than set them. Dylan turned them on to weed relatively late compared to American musicians and the Beats who had been using it for years. Even RAW tried marijuana long before The Beatles. According to John Lennon on Dick Cavett, "Dylan and other songwriters" completely changed the way he wrote songs. He said he considered the early songs more like his day job than his art. That changed around the time of Revolver. They got into their serious psychedelic period after the Grateful Dead flew to England and gave them a load of Owsley acid.
ReplyDeleteThe Beatles along with George Martin and their engineer, Geoff Emerick in particular, revolutionized the way pop/rock music was recorded introducing techniques that have become standard to this day. Emerick did this in response to what The Beatles were asking with their sound.
The Beatles basically got The Rolling Stones off the ground. There was a memorable night when all The Beatles went to see The Stones at the small club they played. The two groups ended up forming a fast friendship and hanging out literally all night listening to music at the apartment where Jagger, Richards and Jones lived. That one night set the Stones on their course to stardom according to Bill Wyman's autobiography. Lennon & McCartney gave the Stones the song that became their second single, I Wanna Be Your Man. They fleshed out the song from a sketch of an idea with the Stones in the studio. Jagger and Richards said that gave them a greater understanding of how to write a song. The so-called rivalry between them and the contrast between their images was a PR facade dreamed up by the Stones manager. Both bands abandoned psychedelic music excess and returned to their roots (The White Album & Beggars Banquet) inspired by Dylan and the Band in their Basement Tapes Woodstock period. George Harrison visited and hung out with Dylan there.
Although I consider the solar Beatles to have the edge on musical invocations in their day than the lunar Stones, I consider the Stones equally as important for a couple of reasons: their longevity and the fact they turned Americans on to their own music, the Blues. They basically revived the careers of legends like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf who were struggling after rock-n-roll became dominant with Chuck Berry. The blues and r&b - Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, etc got another huge mainstream boost later on with the release of The Blues Brothers movie. Belushi and Ackroyd were devotees of the Stones.
The Stones released some emotionally uplifting, very well produced live videos in the early weeks of the 2020 lockdown that seemed to provide much needed cultural first aid at the time. But I've rambled enough. I blame the edible.
A bit late to this party, so just a couple of things that got my attention in this chapter, which I really enjoyed overall.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering who RAW is thinking of when talking about "Russian parapsychologists" on page 77. But then I got even more curious on the same page regarding the claim that NASA has "set up a test in which an astronaut on the moon attempted to send mental messages to four sensitives on the earth." Where does this come from, anyone knows?
Regarding David Cole Gordon's book Self-Love on masturbation (which I have not read), I find its inclusion here a gentle way to bridge towards modern approach to sex Tantra in western societies. It has now become common to consider it perfectly valid to practice it in settings that might be homosexuals, bisexuals, include more than two partners, or indeed only one person, as well as connecting with the BDSM scenes. On the other hand, sex magic might appear at least on paper a bit too heterocentric to appeal to modern sensibilities. I'm sure it must have evolved as well in some places, though.
Regarding homosexuality, I felt uneasy to say the least reading the last part of the chapter. Even though RAW insist that the subject wanted to do that, I would still question why he would want that. If at least he'd aspire to bisexuality, I would totally get it, but as it stands it sounds too much to me like trying to conform, but what do I know about this person's motivations. That being said, the psychedelic therapy described there I found interesting. It reminded me a bit of Paul Stamets describing deconditioning himself from stammering while on mushrooms.
Great choice of music as always, even though what with both RAW and Oz recommendations on how to navigate the psychedelic spaces, I might just have gone with the classic Can You Travel In The Dark Alone?
No matter the frequency, thank you for holding this reading group. Maybe it seems fitting, in regard to the time compression theme of this chapter, that as you say "a week becomes a month".
@Oz Fritz I temporarily forgot I was opening my mouth in the presence of a sound engineer. Thank you for your "ramble," I found it quite interesting. I agree that there is an Apollonian/Dionysian divide that fits the Beatles/Stones quite nicely. It would be hard to personally pinpoint which band affected my youth more. The Beatles were the soundtrack of my pre-adolescent years, while the Stones (and Bowie) were the background of my adolescence-proper. The sunset-golden sensation of listening to "Rocks Off" one evening after a memorable sexual encounter is a fond memory of the end of my high school career. I also hold the heretical preference for Their Satanic Majesties Request over Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band.
ReplyDelete@Spookah, I have no idea about the particularities of the Russian parapsychologists/NASA references. It's kinda humorous to me that I just kinda glossed over those while other little references catch my attention. I do feel like a lot of books dealing with strangeness at the time would reference the spooky and revolutionary experiments conducted by mysterious Soviet parapsychologists. Another version of "They say..."
I've read and encountered people who have updated and personalized the hetero-focused sex magic of the turn of the 20th for a wider audience, as it were. Crowley might have laid some of the groundwork with the oft-debated Eleventh Degree Ritual of the OTO. I agree that most, if not all, of the classical sex magic texts are very heterocentric and emphasize the union of male and female over all else.
The section on the acid conversion therapy is regrettable and I also agree that the early Sixties weren't a time/place where we could honestly say that someone would have had all the information/freedom necessary to make a choice completely of their own free will. But perhaps I'm taking away that persons autonomy. All we can work with is what we have. I hope that isn't too trite.
Great suggestion! I'll include that in the post. I'm glad we have some similar musical tastes. "Me About You" has a lot of personal significance ever since an October evening when it came on right as I was inoculating some mushroom colonies.