VLVL 4: LSD

[pynchonoid]

--- pynchonoid <pynchonoid at yahoo.com> wrote:
[...]
> While it may not carry any weight among a few
> particpants in this forum, LSD is also something
> that
> Pynchon thought worthy of inclusion in _Vineland_,

...and COL49, and GR. I'm not remembering a direct
reference to LSD in M&D although that novel features
plenty of references to marijuana that the '60s
hippies described in Vineland made a staple of Western
culture, and Pynchon describes the experience that 
Peter Redzinger's fall into hops triggers (I think
that's the crop) as a "God-revealing" (MD 358), i.e.
entheogenic (LSD is often classified as an entheogen).

"Entheogen Workshop using mushrooms, LSD and Ketamine"
<http://www.csp.org/nicholas/cocktail.html>

"en·theo·gen [god within; god- or spirit-facilitating]
a psychoactive sacramental; a plant or chemical
substance taken to occasion primary religious
experience. Example: peyote cactus as used in the
Native American Church."
<http://csp.org/practices/entheogens/entheogens.html>

[...] 1980: Entheogen nov. verb.: 'God within us',
those plant substances that, when ingested, give one a
divine experience, in the past commonly called
'hallucinogens', 'psychedelics', 'psychoto-mimetics',
etc etc, to each of which serious objections can be
made. A group headed by the Greek scholar Carl A. P.
Ruck advances 'entheogen' as fully filling the need,
notably catching the rich cultural resonances evoked
by the substances, many of them fungal, over vast
areas of the world in proto- and prehistory.... We
favor the adoption of this word. Early Man, throughout
much of Eurasia and the Americas, discovered the
properties of these substances and regarded them with
profound respect and even awe, hedging them about with
bonds of secrecy. We are now rediscovering the secret
and we should treat the 'entheogens' with the respect
to which they were richly entitled. As we undertake to
explore their rôle in the early history of religions,
we should call them by a name unvulgarized by hippy
abuse.
– R. Gordon Wasson. The Wondrous Mushroom:
Mycolatry in Mesoamerica (NY: McGraw-Hill, 1980),
xiv.[...]
<http://csp.org/practices/entheogens/docs/nomenclature.html>

[...] But hops (Humulus lupulus) and marihuana
(Cannabis sativa) are the only members of the
dioecious family Cannabaceae, the female of which
produces the resins cannabinol and lupulin, both mild
narcotics suspected of producing psychological
dependency. High moral dudgeon has here only a dubious
basis: hop drinker and hippie smoker are
biogenetically brothers under the skin. [...]
<http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy/hallucinations2.html>

"Certain herbal essences in massive influxion, as I
feel it my duty to assure her, have long been known
and commented upon, as occasions of God-revealing,"
says RC the Rev'd. Cherrycoke, in the chapter that
concludes with "a Prairie of desperate Immensity...."
(MD 358)

Then there's that famous rave review of MDMA by
Pynchon that comes up on the P-list now and again.

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From:	"christopher davey" <christopherdavey@[omitted]>

To:	pynchon-l@[omitted] 
Subject: pynchon on ecstasy 
Date:	Thu, 23 Jul 1998 01:19:52 PDT 

"The circuits of the brain which mediate alarm, fear,
fright, fight, 
lust, and territorial paranoia are temporarily
disconnected. You see 
everything with total clarity, undistorted by
animalistic urges.  You 
have reached a state which the ancients have called
nirvana, all seeing 
bliss."
-- Thomas Pynchon on MDMA 

I first read the quote in Douglas Rushkoff's Cyberia
(a tedious book 
about drugs, music and technology), and found it again
at hyperreal's 
MDMA site (http://www.hyperreal.org/drugs/mdma/). 
Does anyone know 
where it came from?  I find it easy to manage Pynchon
stoned, and 
definitely tripping, but on ecstasy?

Apologies if this has already been discussed. 


<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9807&msg=28888&keywords=Rushkoff>
<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0111&msg=62164&keywords=Rushkoff>
<http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0201&msg=64239&keywords=Rushkoff>





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