Day 3
-----> R. Metzner --- Meaning of the psychedelic experience
If you get lost on your psychedelic
journey, remember:
intention - Why are you here, why did you do this?
light - The goodness and love within you
and without you
ancestors - Those that love you and will take care of you. If you believe that
death is only a transformation,
your ancestors can help you in your journey in the same way that you would help your children.
earth - remember your connection
to the earth. Remember the sacredness of all species. Extinction is forever. Feeling that we can dominate the earth is hubris.
We can not survive if we destroy the home we are dependent upon.
---> Günter Amendt, no drugs no future
Prohibition
is nothing more than the biggest support program for organized crime than the world has ever seen.
Political parties
are afraid to deal with this issue for two reasons. One is that drugs cause fear and fear is political capital. Politicians
would rather use fear than reason to get power. The other reason is that those that benefit from drug prohibition are major
contributors to political candidates.
I am in favor of a ban of advertising on all psychoactive substances, including
alcohol and cigarettes. This is to protect the youth.
On the home front we punish users and dealers and on the supply
side we have a "drink of tea" with the global drug lords.
We need to allow EU member countries to decide for themselves
whether to legalize cannabis, rather than having one rule for the entire EU.
After legalization, there should be only
"defensive marketing" (harm reduction) and no direct/positive marketing. This should be for all drugs, whether they are recreational
or medicinal. The direct marketing of prescription drugs in the USA is causing addiction.
-----> Christian Raich,
LSD as a sacred substance
From the point of view of cultural anthropology, what I see in front of me is an exampel
of a decentralized anarchistic culture.
The center of the culture is to use the LSD molecule to find something that
will tell us what we are exactly and allow us to communicate with others.
From a linguistic culture, I am told that
we have people from 44 countries and all continents. There is a different language spoken here... the language of the heart,
of love, the thirst for knowledge.
There are few cultures in the world that share these important cultural values.
How do we find each other? In the beginning of the conference, it was said that there are two official langues: english
and german. There are 44 actual languages here. Nevertheless, we all have common language to talk about what philosophers
have discussed since the beginning of time... the meaning of life.
As an anthropologist I know why we are here...
not just to celebrate the birthday of the oldest member of our tribe... we are here to support one another in a world that
has become the madhouse of the universe.
If I speak to someone outside of this room about LSD, I know that after the
first exchange of sentences whether it makes sense to continue or not. Unfortunately, it only makes sense to talk about these
things when you know about them.
This means that each of us has a piece of cultural or personal history that helps
us to transcend the borderlines of race, nation, or culture, because we share the common bound of the unspeakable, the secret
of Eleysis (the secret of Basel)... the secret of the decentralized group of anarchists. We are here because we are not alone...
we come from different walks of life, ways of thinking, moral values... to arrange ourselves with each other such that a kiss,
smile, embrace, applause, we can express that we are acknowledging one another... as a cultural anthropologist, I've never
met a group of people as more homogenious as you here.
The people in this room trust that the molecule LSD will contribute
towards making a world that is more comfortable for all us to live in. We are engaged in a culture-making process. We are
engaged in the creation of a better culture based on a miracle drug we have all come to love.
We all share love, acceptance,
interest, curiosity, openness, and sympathy.
There are no people in the world that I could sum up with words like
this other than the people in this auditorium. We are continuing the use of a sacred molecule that increases social consciousness
and social cohesion.
I am part of this group and I am also an observer... as an anthropologist, I am so glad that
this decentralized group exists, and that we are able to have this pow wow together. I am so glad that people are opening
their hearts and minds to new things... things that sound familiar, because we all share the knowledge given by LSD.
The
use of this substance can be handed down to the next generation so that they will have less trouble dealing with those people
that make the earth a madhouse.
I think that it would be a good idea not to believe that we have to import shamans...
we can trust ourselves in this way... our (LSD) culture must learn to trust our parents and grandparents to pass down this
knowledge. I gave my 6 year younger brother an 18th birthday present... a LSD trip. This is a tradition that we should maintain
within our families.
-----> Ron Steckel - Freedom and hedonism - the way of the west
So much has changed
in society since world war 2 that we have to re-think every aspect of culture.
There is a growing number of enlightened
men and women that seem to come from the future due to the schizoid 20th century full of its wars and insanity.
We
are facing the "philosophy of hate" once more... before it was the SS and Nazis, now it is terrorism. Since the beginning
of the 20th century there has been a mutation of consciousness, a peak of experience, but some of these peaks are downward...
We are being subject to a spiritual earthquake... there is both a new madness (world wars) and a new enlightenment
(brought with psychedelics).
We've been given a magical Strativarious violin... but who is playing it... happy people
or sad people... love for one another is a question of nerves.
Today we live in occupied countries... not by militaries...
but spooky occupants, people that threaten our freedom, our respect for one another... who has occupied the human country
that lives in every soul, poisioning it.
------> Claudia Müller-Ebeling, PhD - LSD and creativity
Its strange
that you can't admit your personal use of LSD as a professional... you wouldn't invite a heart surgeon that had never performed
a surgery to speak at a conference.
It doesn't make sense to talk about psychedelic art... that would be like talking
about vegetarian art... it makes more sense to use terms like visionary or spiritual art... but even that is a difficult label
to use in the art market.
If someone says that they get their creativity from looking at nature, from meditation,
from talking to people from other cultures, they aren't stigmatized... why are they stigmatized for taking a drug? This hurts
people's appreciation for art.
I wish that people wouldn't be concerned whether art was inspired by lsd or psilocybin,
but whether the art speaks to them. If an artist says that they do lsd, they won't be shown in museums and galleries... they'll
be shown only in specialty boutiques (head shops).
----> Dr. R. Verres, lsd, meditation, and music
It has
always been said that music is an essential part of LSD therapy because it creates powerful emotions, can be calming... the
flow of music helps give up defense mechanisms, to open up to a new experience.
It can also be important to have some
kind of continuity in the consciousness-raising steps.
On psychedelic if someone touches you... its a very intense
touch... at the same time their is an inner voice which tells you what kind of contacts to allow and disallow... what is safe
for you.
A psychedelic experience has a beginning, a climax, possibly a breakthrough, and then a fadeout. Each phase
requires the right kind of music.
As a doctor, I also speak of side effects... there was a talk about "dangerous music"
at a conference... music in combination with drugs can have importance for cultural addiction. We know that LSD is not addictive
but all of the subcultures which deal with psychoactive drugs can be described as an addictive culture... or it can be used
as a cultural healing, depending on what kind of music it is.
-----------------------------
Afternoon panorama
----> Jeremy Nanby, PhD, future of human consciousness
Just what "human" means depends on what culture
you are a part of.
We've learned recently that many of our traits are shared by other animals. The scientific evidence
is making us step down from the pedestal... we're mammals, predators, conscious, knowing, intelligent creatures... we don't
have the right to dominate the world, but instead need to learn how to live in balance with it.
Humans have long-considered
psychoactive plants to be teachers and healers. However, many modern societies outlaw them. True they have a shadow side and
approaching them without respect is dangerous, but the indiginous cultures understand that they allow us to have a dialog
with the rest of nature. This dialog helps us to understand our relationship with nature and our selves.
We consider
ourselves a free society and yet we are not even allowed to have soveriegnty over our own mind. "I'm less free than a cro
magnon... it kind of pisses me off. The concept of an illegal plant is the strangest concept that we have ever come up.
With
all of this talk of neurons I hear very little of wavelengths. Albert Hofmann says that psychoactive chemicals change the
wavelength setting of the receiving self.
Combining the old shamanic knowledge with the new scientific knowledge is
essential for the survival of our species.
-------> Ralph Metzner, PhD Psychedelics and a new Paradigm -- Self
responsibility and independence
In the shamanic tradition, looking into the future and the past is considered to be
exactly the same.
In altered states, time and space are different. We know this from dreams. In a dream, you can go
anywhere instantly. If you think of your grandmother, you can be there with her instantly. it is the love that brings you
there... its emotional closeness.
Psychedelics provide the same ability. As remembering is to the past so is visioning
to the future.
Psychiatrists only look into the past... they have the misconception that you can't change the future.
Its a confusion between predicting and visioning. The one difference between the past and the future is that the past is determined.
The basis of therapy is to change the way you think about the past. The future is different; its all a range of probabilities.
The past is behind, and the future is ahead. Until it has happened it is probability; when it happens it is certainty. VIsioning
is not predicting.
In healing you go into the past, remember a painful experience, and integrate it into your present.
You say "OK I'm the person that had this painful experience, it effected me this way, but now I'm able to move on". Otherwise
it becomes an obsession... in the same way when you have a vision you have to integrate it... this is "realizing"... this
all occurs in the present.
The present world is a whole... you're aware of your past and how you got here, and the
future posibilities. The present moment is where you have choice and can take responsibility... you have freedom and power.
William James says that the mind is at every stage a theatre of simultaneous possibilities. So please in a psychedelic
experience (or any experience) enjoy the theatre of your simultaneous possibilities.
---------> Sasha Shulgin on
the effects of new psychedelics
I learned quite a bit from Ralph's talk, and now I'm going to have to change my talk.
Ralph says that if you know what is active in the future, you know it now... so I can only tell you what is active now and
predict what we may have in the future.
5-meo-dalt... di-alio-tryptamine... first synthesized a while ago... had a
request from Murple "what are you working on now"... I said that I just wrote an article on 5-meo-dalt for the new book, and
sent it tom him.
He put it on his web site... I didn't know... Murple said "I put it on my web site and thought it
wasn't very cool so I took it off." Three weeks after he took it off of his web site it was made in China, and sent into the
USA by way of Holland.
It was only on the web for one week, someone picked up the article, manufactured it, and imported
into the US.
It is an interesting aspect of the present and future that I find very interesting. There was no paper
or anything, but it was made available.
Another example is the -FLY compounds... they were made in Dave Nichols...
they are 2C- and 3C- compounds with a ring on each.
The material was 2CB-Fly, published a few years ago by Dr. Nichols...
explored up to 10mg. Short lived, very pleasant, quite erotic, very satisfactory.
Is it a compound of the future or
the present?
What is not known now but will be known in the future? I'm now working on the 5-ETO-compounds... 5-ethyl-oxy-tryptamine
(2 carbon chain, not one compound). They have never been made... he is in the middle of making them, but not done yet. I have
every confidence that they will be active, but I can't tell you what their activity is because I haven't made them yet.
If
I make them, do I publish them? Of course, but do I it as a paper or a book like PiKHAL/TiKHAL. If I do that, it is "fiction"
since I can't claim to have made it. Someone came up with me and told me about how to make a compound much more potent, but
the person said that I couldn't identify them. Therefore, it becomes "fiction" since I can't properly document its origins.
Changing the methyl to an ethyl will change the activity and potency.
------------> Carlo Zimstein, MD,
neo-shamanism
I tried to get my kids to watch the classic Heidi, and they were so bored... they waited until I'd fall
asleep, and then leave the room. When the new Heidi came out, my kids were really excited to see it. They put it on and I
fell asleep...the cuts were so fast and the action so fast that it put me to sleep.
Since the 1950s things have sped
up so much in consciousness.
When I play my drum it upsets some people... it frighens them... so I ask them, what
happens when they go on a train and they hear the repetitive sounds. They say that they chew gum and read a magazine and things
like that... they are living in multiple dimensions... they have a hard time doing just one thing,
Celtic Neo-shaman
John O'donohan writes... "Every one of us is an artist... when we open our mouth we utter sounds from beneath our selves.
All the time we speak... sometimes softly, sometimes loudly in rooms. The sound of words keep that what we call the world
available to us. Every day language keeps the world together. The TV also keeps the world together but the utterence of the
word shows us that we are creating reality. We are all artists."
I'm inviting you to flood this auditorium and sit
down in front of the river of your lives. Look how the water flows in the river of your life, and how time and everything
else stands still.
The power to create is the strongest power that there is... it is the power to heal.
------>
Dr. Albert Hofmann, the meaning of LSD from the discoverer/s point of view
There have always been sacred plants...
they were protected.... they would be used as part of rituals; they had to be used carefully because they change consciousness
and consciousness needs to be changed with care.
Consciousness is the core of human personality. Coscionsuess is god's
gift to humankind. This is why the use of such drugs which can c hange consciousness was restricted to ceremonies. This is
the big difficulty today because we do not have a ceremonlal framework.
It is the difficulty really to find a place
where these substances can be used in the appropriate setting. That is something we don't have.
A chemist who is not
a mystic is not a chemist. God speaks to us though our creativity.
Science looks at what can be measured and seen
objectively. What chemistry shows is true... if anything is wrong we can find out. In chemistry there are things which have
been defined... it is the material laws of god's creation. The laws are not defined by chemists... they are defined by god...
only chemists can discover god's laws. We can look at the structure of carbon and understand it, but not know how it got there...
we can just look at it and be amazed.
Chemists can not invent anything... they can only discover it and define it.
Natural science doesn't explain, it describes... the other day I found a CD on Einstein...he said publically... he said that
the most profound thing that a person can experience in their life is the feeling of the secret or the mystical. The mystical
is the ultimate. Ultimately a psysicist will become a mystic... if you don't become a mystic, you will just remain a superficial
person.
LSD is something like the interface between mind and matter. Our consciousness is always fed and renewed every
millisecond... our consciousness is not what it was half an hour ago... it is always the now. It is fed by matter or energy.
Inside a building our consciousness is different when we are outside. The smallest particle from the outside world
that comes in... a little grain of LSD... changes our consciousness entirely. It is possible to bridge the gap between outside
and inside by a grain of a little substance.
I did not set out to find LSD... it found me. I had given it to pharmacologist
years ago and nothing happened... but something told me to make it again... and I had an amazing experience... LSD came to
me because *it* felt that this was the time to appear... it had to ring somebody's doorbell and it did. <<applause>>
I took a quantity of LSD so small such that even if it was the most potent posion it wouldn't do anything... the first
quantity I took was 250ug, and that was 4 times too much... and this produced the first conscious LSD trip. The first unconscious
LSD trip was wonderful because the dose was right (the molecule knew how much he should take),
You shouldn't be too
finiky and too neat when you work... if I hadn't been just a little sloppy I would have never discovered LSD.
Its
part of the basic problem of getting away from nature... in nature you never worry about getting your hands dirty... in the
artificial world we always want to be clean.
At Sandoz we tested this on ourselves in order to turn it into a scientifically
generated substance. I participated in the testing. They asked us questions for the scientific stufy... this was such a torture...
I thought the machines and the people there made just a crazy world... I felt so uncomfortable, I decided I would do LSD in
another environment.
We made everything beautiful... we had flowers, we were alone in the living room... no machines,
not in a factory, not other observers... just me and my good friend. I took 50, and so did my friend.
It was very
special, this first LSD trip in a beautiful setting. My friend told me that he had seen a pyramid made of human skulls, and
his head was at the top.
----> Dr. Hofmann, what is the secret of your high age? Have you been able to preserve
natural curiosity and your intellectual power? Can you still marvel at nature?
It is really the marvelling of a child
that I feel when I walk through the forest. My book starts with me talking about how I walked through the forest as a child
and I got zapped... uplifted... a powerful feeling of being uplifted... I didn't tell anyone... I couldn't describe it...
or I thought that maybe this is the secret that adults have and never tell the children. <<laughter>>
---->
Was this experience there always or did it only come back when you did LSD?
I had it 2-3 times... once when I was
a child, I was picking flowers. I was in Baden in castle ruins. Once I was playing there there were flowers... it imprinted
itself upon me. I never thought that my professional career would have anything to do with that, but I love nature so much
that I wanted to understand it... its not something you can read in a text book... I want to research the mystery of matter;
the mystery of nature.
I can truly say that it has truly satisfied me. My teachers were amazed... I was quite good
at languages, but here I was going to study science.
----> Looking back on 100 years, what was the essence of your
life?
I think... no, I know... if I look at science, if our concept of the world is composed of matter and electronic
radition, then these are our components of the world... these are all tricks that our creator used to put our world together.
This is what a psysisct and chemist can verify... apart from the matter and energy, everything else that we can know is a
personal experience, that we can each discover.
Sometimes I think that children truly live in paradise. A lot of people
think that a lot of decisions led me to discover LSD. Because I am the eldest of all of my family, all of my brothers and
sisters died a long time ago... there are no old people in my family... I did not know my grandparents... they did not live
very long.
I would like to tell everyone that the awareness of the miracle of creation is opened up to them...because
there has to be a creator... that spirit of creation that we call god created in us... i would hope that each and every one
of you could learn to understand the language of creation... god does not speak in words... he speaks in the language of creation...
to understand god, we must understand the nature of his creation.
