Heresy

[Keith]

> On Sep 13, 2009, at 3:28 PM, Page wrote:
>
>> Discussing experiences on LSD falls into the philosophers'  
>> category of
>> non-propositional knowledge. That is, knowledge that cannot be  
>> passed on
>> verbally.

Thinking about that a bit, and getting Alice's lovely poem, I  
realized that
your statement is not accurate. Non-propositional knowledge is knowledge
that cannot be passed on propositionally. There are ways of passing on
knowledge verbally that do not require declarative or literal  
verbalizations.
It does require the listener to have a certain openness, unless one  
is gifted
enough to use language in a rather forceful manner. Pynchon actually  
is, if
you open yourself to it, and many here are.

And, with all due respect to the other-ness of the LSD experience,  
there are
ways of getting way outside ordinary consciousness that do not  
require ingestion
of anything. I was tripping as a youngster using what I now would  
call thought
experiments. And, with apologies for indulging in condescension, I've  
always thought,
"Jesus Christ, if you need psychedelics, you aren't paying close  
enough attention."

I know that last sentence will evoke ire, but that's what I meant by  
my assertion,

"You don't know what I'm not missing."

But, it's true. Hesse has a beautiful assertion of this in his  
autobiographical writings.
Might be online somewhere, let me check.

Not anywhere I can find. It's on page 142 of my old copy of  
Autobiographical Writings, in the essay, 'A Guest at the Spa.' It'll  
piss many off, too. So, don't read it, and yell at me. But, while I'm  
intelligent enough to know that I can't say anything about the acid  
experience without taking acid. Neither can anyone assert that I am  
missing something because I haven't taken it. It is possible that I  
have entered psychedelic states without it. And have spent the better  
part of a half century studying everything I can get my hands on to  
understand what those experiences were/are and how they could be  
triggered by certain intense trains of thought. The first time I  
smoked hash it blew my mind. It took me right to the place I'd been  
visiting since childhood. The thought of taking anything more  
powerfully psychedelic seemed unnecessary, and, yes, frightening.  
Maybe when I'm told I'm going to die shortly, I'll drop some acid and  
see what it does to where I've already been.

You can warp the apparatus without taking a damned thing.