Heresy

[Ian Livingston]

> Joseph wrote:
>
> I know this is heretical in today's world, but I think LSD was one route to
> spiritual insights that are far more powerful and permanent than the outward
> cultural paraphernalia and fads of the 60's, 70's.


If it's heresy, a number of Buddhist teachers are clearly heretical.
In my tenure as caretaker at a Buddhist retreat I heard several
Tibetan lamas quoted as saying just that:  Acid was a means of
breaking through a barrier to insights that may become enduring if
they are backed up with a practice of mind-training.  Now, I'm no
Buddhist, and my idea of mind training often involves heavy doses of
caffeine in a semi-monastic environment with a keyboard and a few good
books, but I think Joseph and the lamas might be right.  It makes
sense both from objective and subjective perspectives.  Socially,
Western Culture had pretty much reached an impasse in the '50s.  The
Beats had put down the matter of the worn-outness of modernism and
said, "screw it, were just gonna get wasted cause you guys suck."
Then, "along came Mr.Good Trips" and look what happened.  The end of
era signaled the beginning of another, in which a new breadth and
depth of personal engagement in psychological advancement opened up a
new hemisphere of perspectives.  The East came to settle on the shores
of the glum, wild West.  As to the "So what?" of that, well, doesn't
it just remain to be seen.

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 10:23 PM, Page <page at quesnelbc.com> wrote:
> Joseph wrote:
>
> I know this is heretical in today's world, but I think LSD was one route to
> spiritual insights that are far more powerful and permanent than the outward
> cultural paraphernalia and fads of the 60's, 70's.
>
> Page:
>
> It may be heresy, but if that is so, I am a heretic. LSD can lead to
> valuable insights; it is also fun. Post-1960s drugs tend to be about fun
> without any possibility of increasing self-awareness. Of course, many of
> those drugs -- e.g. cocaine, crystal meth, crack, and so on -- are terribly
> damaging. (Alcohol is at the top of the list of drugs that do not provide
> any kind of spiritual insight but cause a great deal of damage.)
>
> Sadly, somewhere along the line, we as a culture (counter?) forgot how
> useful LSD is. And how much fun it can be. Maybe it is because Owsley is
> hanging out in Australia.
>
>
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