Not Drugs The Anatomy of Melville's Melancholy (Thoreau: "when men are prepared for it")

[Michael Bailey]

Robin Landseadel wrote:

>I don't think the insights gained by Doc during his Acid trips make him a fool,
>though what he's learning indicates what fools we've all been
>while pursuing mindless pleasures of our very own.

Behind acid, Doc achieves a vision of Shasta and her
whereabouts that it's hard to imagine him getting any other way.
So, yeah, but how about the Ouija board episode where it's
stipulated that he is not helped by any drug?  - whoops - that
one was a bum steer, wasn't it?  So, yeah, harumph, maybe
you're onto something.  Although the location did come in handy later...

The reason it's important to me to believe that drug insights are
a specific case of a general principle of Grace, is that I'm one of those
people to whom Frank Zappa's quote about drugs on Saturday Night Live
(when accosted by a hippie claiming fellow-craftship, assuming Zappa's
stonerhood by, among other things, the lyrics to "call on any vegetable"
- ya musta been stoned when ya wrote that, man...), "I don't like the way
*certain people* get when they take them..." applies.