It was 70 years ago this month ... LSD in literature

[Jeff Sunbury]

Furthermore, synthetic hallucinogens such as LSD have similar
pharmacological effects as organic "entheogens" used by shamans in American
Indian cultures so you might consider Zuni Folk
Tales<http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/zuni/zft/> collected
by Frank Hamilton Cushing as inspired by hallucinogens. I highly recommend
the book Spirit Circle by Hal Zina
Bennett<http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Circle-Adventure-Shamanic-Revelation/dp/0965605639>
as
a modern account of shamanic revelation.


On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Jeff Sunbury <jsunbury at gmail.com> wrote:

> Correction: "commonly associated with crative" s/b "creative writers"
>
>
> On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 12:24 PM, Jeff Sunbury <jsunbury at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Not prior to 1952 but Criterion Collection's April 2013 release of David
>> Cronenberg's 1991 film Naked Lunch prompted me to revisit the book with
>> restored text by Barry Miles and James Grauerholz and also the excellent
>> audiobook narrated by Mark Bramhall. One of the DVD extras was a clip of
>> William Burroughs expounding from personal experience on the use of drugs
>> he had used and the effects on writing while under the influence. He highly
>> praised the use of the full array of hallucinogenics including LSD for
>> stimulating the imagination. He probably used LSD as early as the mid
>> 1950s. Speculatively, it's possible that pharmacodynamic effects on
>> dopamine receptor, adrenoreceptor and serotonin receptor subtypes might be
>> present organically in some types of mental illness such as bipolar
>> disorder (formerly known as manic depression) in many writers e.g. Lord
>> Byron and possibly Robert Walser. Is alcoholism commonly associated with
>> crative an attempt to self-medicate for the same mental disorder? "One
>> never knows. DO one?" - Fats Waller
>>
>>
>> On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 11:15 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
>> lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://carlabrahamsson.blogspot.se/2013/01/ernst-junger-master-in-making.html
>>>
>>>  "I can here be a bit shameless in announcing that they’re not alone in
>>> this noble pursuit. Edda Publishing <http://www.edda.se/> will release
>>> an edition of Jünger’s strange and superb *Besuch auf Godenholm*(1952), translated into English by Annabel Moynihan-Lee and illustrated by Fredrik
>>> Söderberg <http://www.fredriksoderberg.org/>, in the spring/summer of
>>> 2013. That, my friends, will be an edition to savour!"****
>>>
>>>
>>> On 19.04.2013 15:49, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.titanic-magazin.de/postkarten/karte/drogengott-ernst-juenger-feiert-100-jahre-ecstasy-495-2048/
>>>
>>> This is satire on occasion of Jünger's 100th birthday, --- but then
>>> again Ernst Jünger (1895-1998) used a lot of drugs. Opium, cocaine and
>>> cannabis in the 1920s, psychedelics after WW II. He was a close friend of
>>> Albert Hofmann, and the two were tripping together several times. Jünger's
>>> short novel (or: long story) *Besuch auf Godenholm* from 1952 is, as
>>> far as I know, the first Acid story in fictional literature. Like most of
>>> Jünger's work not translated into English. But of his large essay *Annährungen.
>>> Drogen und Rausch* (1970), in which EJ minted the term "Psychonautik",
>>> a small sample was published under the title  'Drugs and Ecstasy' in: Myths
>>> and Symbols. Studies in Honor of Mircea Eliade. Edited by Joseph M.
>>> Kitagawa and Charles H. Long. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago
>>> Press (1969), pp. 327-42. Both, the narration and the essay, I can
>>> wholeheartedly recommend. In Hofmann's* LSD --- mein Sorgenkind*there's a chapter on Jünger:
>>>
>>> http://www.psychedelic-library.org/child7.htm
>>>
>>> Here's the sample from *Besuch auf Godenholm*, giving a fine
>>> description how things start to get weird:
>>>
>>> "Schwarzenberg burned an incense stick, as he sometimes did, to clear
>>> the air. A blue plume ascended from the tip of the stick. Moltner looked at
>>> it first with astonishment, then with delight, as if a new power of the
>>> eyes had come to him. It revealed itself in the play of this fragrant
>>> smoke, which ascended from the slender stick and then branched out into a
>>> delicate crown. It was as if his imagination had created it-a pallid web of
>>> sea lilies in the depths, that scarcely trembled from the beat of the surf.
>>> Time was active in this creation-it had circled it, whirled about it,
>>> wreathed it, as if imaginary coins rapidly piled up one on top of another.
>>> The abundance of space revealed itself in the fiber work, the nerves, which
>>> stretched and unfolded in the height, in a vast number of filaments.
>>>     Now a breath of air affected the vision, and softly twisted it about
>>> the shaft like a dancer. Moltner uttered a shout of surprise. The beams and
>>> lattices of the wondrous flower wheeled around in new planes, in new
>>> fields. Myriads of molecules observed the harmony. Here the laws no longer
>>> acted under the veil of appearance; matter was so delicate and weightless
>>> that it clearly reflected them. How simple and cogent everything was. The
>>> numbers, masses and weights stood out from matter. They cast off the
>>> raiments. No goddess could inform the initiates more boldly and freely. The
>>> pyramids with their weight did not reach up to this revelation. That was
>>> Pythagorean luster. No spectacle had ever affected him with such a magic
>>> spell."
>>>
>>> Does anybody know a fictional text about (or inspired by) Acid prior to
>>> 1952?
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Love-The-Works-Of-Ernst-Junger/2889672
>>> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Besuch_auf_Godenholm
>>> http://www.mj67.de/ej/ej1970cm.jpg
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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