Word: lsd
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Aldous Huxley, in his more badly philosophical article, conjectures that under LSD the "deeper self decides which kind of experience will be most advantageous...
...which are neither self-evident nor even consistent. In various places he speaks of the goal of psychedelic therapy as "the freedom from helplessness...the religious experience...the love experience...expansion of consciousness, freedom of the brain from the mind ...survival and peace of mind." Leary explains that the LSD experience frees men from the egotistic frustration of cultural "games". "Anger and anxiety are irrelevant because you see your small game in the context of the great evolutionary game which no one can win and no one can lose...
...obvious question is whether it is necessary to take LSD to gain Leary's insights into culture. Leary's LSD sessions at the Concord state prison apparently helped some convicts to readjust. But this is a fairly specific rehabilitative use of the drug...
What Leary calls the "nongame intuitive insight outlook" is more frankly described by Huston Smith (head of the MIT philosophy department) as religious experience. No less than five of the book's contributors call on William James' Varieties of Religious Experience for a precedent to LSD visions. One writer reports that most LSD subjects receive a "common vision of immortality." They, presumably, have seen through the mortality game. Although both Leary and Huxley insist that LSD is only a means of educating oneself for the normal conscious state, neither really explains why it wouldn't be nicer to spend...
Investigators have noted a close analogy between LSD symptoms and symptoms of psychosis. One psychiatrist suggests the possibility of producing and studying "model psychoses" with LSD. Hopeful research with neurotics indicates that cures result both from the disorienting experience of the drug and increased susceptibility to suggestion from the therapist. On the negative side, certain subjects, especially in unsympathetic surroundings, experience terror and suicidal urges under LSD. Psychotic symptoms have also increased in some subjects...