Seminar: Big Sur; LSD and human potentiality, part two

So the big router always turned around after coming through this experience. Certainly this is a question with one this weekend or ever. Another common illusion is that. The LSD experience often seems to leave one with the feeling that there's still a little bit that hasn't been touched that is going that way up there and the world didn't quite get the picture. But the next time one would get it

and the next time one does indeed go further. But there's still a little piece that hasn't been gotten and where I wonder is whether this is not a phenomenon which in me. It was a characteristic of the thing that never will get all the way even though one has lost one so completely one has dissolved into the surrounding universe one no longer has any sense of being me can complete dissolution and a feeling that there's still something else beyond beyond that

this is a common thing that I've heard people relate to me and I wonder whether some of you have experienced it or contrariwise whether you feel that in one such experience you have really gone as far as any human being ever could that you've seen. Been to the final place and this is indeed IT. Now let me stop here and ask you when it is too advanced and I got going too fast too far because a lot of this may sound very puzzling. Frustrating to some of you if the if what I'm saying doesn't make much sense at all. Is this all right. Hell I backtracked alright. Another

another observation that may be about takers of the dregs of the store is that there tends to be a hierarchy among this hour. And that is the phenomenon of the last couple of years and might last two years. If you were only taken on 100 gamma you're not quite in the same category as the fellow who's had 300 micrograms. So now you are one. You're one down on them and then there's the guy who's had 600 and the feral lambs took fifteen hundred micrograms me is right up there on top except for the fact that I once heard of a 3000. Where do you get the

picture. There's a little snobbishness creeping into the room. And it's sort of interesting. It's not big but it's interesting as a matter of fact my own impression is that the thing plateaus saw that there was an increasing intensity not linear but curvilinear from as little as 25 might grams which some people definitely feel. As a sort of threshold up through perhaps for 500 micrograms when you get beyond that the curve flattens out and although the effect may be prolonged the the

intensity of the fact doesn't increase too much I suspect. We don't have a right in pharmacology is a curve effect or a dose effect relationship curve. But this is Rize suspect happens that there is this rise and then a sort of flattening off with the higher dosage levels so that when somebody run one up you were saying well I took a thousand and get annoying about LSD you only had 175 you're probably you may know a good deal more or as much heat. And the question is how. How should one go. What sort of a risk is optimum. Well

there is of course no optimal those. There are people who get enormous affection for the 75 micrograms and others require more. If the purpose for which drugs taken which of course makes all the difference in the druggist's taken. Either with a therapist or without two rep at one's self and one's problem then perhaps the smaller dosages are preferable. The Course run still maintains a sharp scrutiny if one is taking the drug to cease wrapped out into the areas. Not me. Nothingness. You know that the

loss of self then of course a higher dosages are necessary for most but not for all interestingly enough. Ur. Right you should ride when people take LSD. This is of course a very important question and. One has to use a certain value judgement in order to to to answer it.

It would seem to me that there are good and bad reasons for taking LSD and I recognize that I may be very much culture bound that my values may be very may not be your values but let me name a few good and a few bad reasons. Taking a drug like Alex I would think that. The aforementioned use of the drug to examine one's self examined run life style and problem areas to have a good look at what is going on underneath is a rather desirable reason for taking a drug like LSD.

Rather this can be done without a question. Some people I think can do it for others. And prayer over same thing fences that they use in the 9:00 hour of the state to repress do not I extinguish the. Keep the essential nature of their of their troubles below the level of awareness so that it often takes a therapist's assistant to help you all. Push aside the fences because they still may exist. I think a good The reason for taking LSD is to know you this day.

So then I think some people knowing it. As I said before bring back with them a knowledge that there is something out there and this may provide great. Solace in their lives that may bring meaning to their existence. And if it does that I think is a good thing. I think it's a good thing for people working with mentally ill individuals to know the LSP state because then the illusions and the hallucination

of the just mentally disturbed are the go to the parents more helpful to know what the patient is going through than to read about it for an interview the patient related. It just doesn't have the veracity realness to it. I'm not going to go into the research uses of the will as a good thing will. We can set those aside for the moment. I think that there are classes of people who might pop out of blue you encounter the LSD state. I'm thinking for example of Lee

theological student if he wishes it would seem to me that under desirable conditions that should be made available to him or her I'm thinking of the in the end of the Native American Church who with the help of coyote is able to guide. It there seemed to me there seems to be no harm in any of this. Well what about the no good aspects of our city. I think that when adding drug including LSD is taken to where I would. Like perspiration the encounter with lies

to do Larry. Who are those chemical Harai. I don't think this has any much goodness in it. I think that the infinitely repeated use of the frequently. In an effort to magically produce a new character structure is going to fail. Now I am not against your happiness but I think that that there are more mature ways of achieving that sort of thing than by. The use of power and misses an arguable point if anyone wishes to argue the other side very well.

Well this brings us I think. If you are white about the current. Use of the very young people are people still in high school junior college should this be condemned should it be condoned Is it alright. From what I've seen of it and I must admit I see the seamy side of things I see

that the in the accidents that happen to be. I'm real dubious about this sort of going on. I don't think it's a party thing I think. Well it is a terribly potent drug and that is it. It's a real shaker upper and that it shouldn't be casually taken. I think to turn someone on without us is a real responsibility. Not as great a responsibility as turning someone on to heroin but how do you know that this drug may not be more like

a fragile personality. This is a responsibility. This has happened and it's happened often enough to make it worthwhile here and now. I wonder whether anybody has anything to say. I will be glad to go on but I don't want to make a monologue out of this especially if there's disagreement because this is where we will learn. And the mere fact that I'm sitting here

about one foot higher than you doesn't mean that I am any smarter than you and I want to learn what you think and I want to react to it. And this is what I am here for. Yeah sure. There are. Yes I think if chemicals can be proven to have to produce supernormal state

that this is a valid therapeutic objective and I think that LSD could be one such chemical. I've already indicated my feelings along these lines. I agree with you that many therapists ran to her and the person back to address them and this word just didn't get along. This isn't quite enough. I think that one should. Illness route ever potential one has to do most in this is if LSD does that. Let's use it for this purpose. The stone in the beginning was there not a question better.

Yes the first time I took a day it was it was a mistake. It was about a dozen years ago and I was interested in the real state the state of confusion because I couldn't he is now one of the reliable way to will produce them in a laboratory and so that I could study them. And we had a few dragons that now and then but nothing that it reliably is for Parliament is one such. In fact there are now being used by some folks that produce the lower IOM which is us. So what things do Fred. I thought that from what I had read of our study producing a mild psychosis that

this is the drug I wanted to produce delirium. Well I took it because one of the Know what I was going to be giving my patients a subject subject really. And of course I immediately realized this was not delirium because there was retention of clarity of awareness. This is the difference between how loose an Atlantic state or the psychedelic state and the delirious now I've taken LSD stents in various dosages from 25 micrograms to about around I really can test this because this puts me down to a two hundred fifty microgram with very intense affects from that hundred and fifty microgram experience. It occurred in in a condition of sensory deprivation. So forgive me if I am not him in the upper brackets but I have taken to explore these various dosages.

I hope you're not going to ask me if it did me any grad rare for my guy. My answer to that one is how can you really or how do you know what you would or how you would would have turned out if you hadn't taken the advice in this sort of thing. I can't. It's such a subtle thing you can't ever I can't without. Knowing or measuring how I would have been if I had never known this. Let's say six or seven times the way 12 years. Yes yes I'd like to very much. I have heard the same thing that said this was the

turning point of my life and already I can say is it may have it may have been indeed and I think I have seen such instances. Where example. Occasionally I have given less to a person who has been in psychoanalysis for many years and the psychoanalyst comes to me so very few will do this. But there are a few who come to me and said I know a good deal about this person he or she is not moving in treatment to achieve a certain level and I feel that is an extraordinary as I feel that there's more to be done her about the into position of an LSD experience. With

me there to further explore psychoanalysis in search of instances these analysts have told me of late her that in important advances were made in a single or two experiences. This has also happened outside the context of therapy. On the other hand. The LSD state is such a stupendous one that sometimes we think it's so enormous that it's crap to change my life therefore it has changed my life. So we have to be careful. If we're going to be or if we're going to sort out the sense from the nonsense about this and look for the wedding

because that's where the proof lies as a right what happened to that person after that great encounter if indeed there was a marked change that we would call for the good news is that you know the word crime if if and if not it was an illusion. And we know from reading the stories of spontaneous religious experiences we must even be more impressive than LSD experiences because they happen you know out of them for no reason for no apparent reason. We know that haven't necessarily because but many have not.

And I would say the same is true of the. Right. You're right. Yes I think I would

have used your words exactly the point you made two points here Ron. That the holy man who expresses his notions he owes may well land in jail or become a messiah depending upon where and when he says this thing to a rock think not so much Ralph. Iraq depends on what happens after the LSD state whether it's rare that whether this change is really radical or rather it's punished. If there are three riders then indeed if you see if you try and live and goodness in the east state and you resolve from now on I'm not going to be miserable. Rats go out for the Rock

and Roll good life to helping you. And if you start there and back and if you get credit for the bad weather many of you are in the back you go your way you were and this is what this has been seminar big surf featuring this week a discussion by Dr Sidney Cohen on LSD and the human potential. Dr Cohen is chief of psychiatric services at the Wadsworth Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles and author of the Beyond within an authoritative survey of LSD research. Next week Dr. Abraham messa low professor of psychology at Brandeis University will discuss self actualisation and the peak experience. This series is produced by Radio Station K x K x FM in San Francisco in cooperation with the Institute of Big Sur

California. This program was distributed by national educational radio. This is the national educational radio network.