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LSIQ: The Contact Hi

-

neo-Freudianism,can

be

Gone in

other ways, given sufficient knowl-

edge of the mec hani sms involved.

Howard

Junker

was first synthesized

hall wenty years ago, national

as to the effects of psy-

did not occur until the Har-

of 1962-63. University

use

of

begun

1960 by Professors TimothyLeary

Rlchard Alpert. Forced to leave

ellow Ralph Metzner, began

irst ttempting to found

in Newton,

in

Mexico, the n n

a

sland,inally at ehe

oundation in Mdlbrook,

. Y whereLeary ives and works

a small

group

devoted to the ex-

g drugs. ,On he way, a great deal of

evangehsm has been gen-

for the experience in scores of

and discussions, as well aS 1n

The PsychedeZzc

..and a

book,

The Psychedehc,

Books

1964 ,

on The

Book

of

the Dead (Further

als-on scienstific, therapeutlc

aesthetic inodels-are promised 1

?Ihe dpuble-edged promise of psy-

exstasis- sychosis/enlight-

earsome to

ny potential voyagers fro m

a

trip.

Thedanger of flipping

osing touch with

ity-1s qui te eal,althoughcasu-

ty, rates on psychedelic experiences

hard to come by, and erhaps

1n 10,000 experiences

m astingmentaldamage.

LSD has been used

w+th

varying

of success, in psychotherapy,

well as in the training of psychia-

. is

what psydhotics feel

. . .Ihe reatment of alcohol-

and

sthe reduction

of

anxiety in

cancerpatients.Further, as

Huxley p ut t, #todays aspi-

g mystic would be foolish to try

He should, Huxley advised,

thechemicalconditions o

. . . turn for

echnicd help

to

the specialists,

- ~

.

So far

LSD;

psilocybin, mescaline,

heiresearchrogramswith

DrugAdministration

(psychedelics,which are ot addic-

ive,o not come underarcotic

uly

5,

3985

I

codes), ,bu t he drugsare 1lQt hard

to obtam from local connections And

now that mariJuana, which s a mild

psychedelic, is acknowledged kid stuff,

the use of wonderdrugs can be ex-

pected Ito increasedramatically

For

all the talk.estimonials and

debate, however, there ave s et

been

n o

public sessions-after all the

drugsre Illegal, and who wanmts

gaswkers anyway But how to trans-

lat e bhe experience int o terms he un-

inltieted an nderstand by subjec-

tive, reports? scientific analyses? how-

to

lessons? humble question-and-an-

swer sessions?None of these strata-

,

gems do the lob, since,ltimately,

either you have

or

havent taken a

tri,p yourself.

Lucluly, ar t i,mitates ife, an d lec-

t~es-cum-demons~~,a t ions

ere intro-

,

duced his spring ,et the Village Van-

guard

in

New

York

A series of Mon-

day n ight sessions, opened June 14

at:

the New Theatre,154

East

54thSt,

The lean,anned, Giobto-sainthke

Learycalmlyannounced

on

thefirst

night that in the past

s1x

montrhq the

psychedelic revolution had been, won.

Thereare nowavailable ( 1 ) the

ac-

counts

of

explorers, spokesmen and

publici,sts, (2)manualsnd maps

for hehip;and

( 3 )

materials to go

ulp on.

Aqd tonight, Leary continued,

lcwe are gomg to run a session for

you. We are going to try to turn you

on

But short of

a

real drug-dole, how,

i f the experience really

is

Something

Else, canherdinaryudio-visual

techniques pmoduce a rip?The

,key

to the posslbdity of

a

psychedelic the-

atresheotion of thecontact

high-an experiehce ttained solely

by being mth -tuning into-someone

who , 8 i sup on hedrug. F,urther, it

seems toe possible, even though

chemical races

of

LSD

do not inger

in thebrain , to lapse nto or recap-

ture psychedelic

intoxicationong

after he actual experience.

William S Burroughs, todays De

Quincey, who attributesmanyscenes.

in Nak e d L um l z to psychedelics, tells

of a Proustian reactivation of the ex-

periencewhen the precise array of

stimuli music,ictures, odors,

tastesencountered during Ithe ex-

perience are duplicatedAnything

that can be done chemically, says

Burroughs,perhapspresaging

a

neo-

\

Th e psychedelic theat re +ttem ?ts

to stimulatemultiple levels

of

c p

sciousness by audio-visual bornbard-

Nment. Its creators, a Woodstock, N.Y.,

lmio publicly known as PSCO, cpm-

prised

of

.former Playboy correspon-

dentnd poet Gerd Stern, ex-Pop

artist Steve Durkee, andlectronic

technxlan Michael Callahan, call

thehbarrag e of films,slides,kinetic

sculpture, strobe lights, tapes and live

actorsamulti-channelmedia mix.

These fancyerms aTe part ly a

Ntrxbu,te

to

the University of Torontos

,cornmumcationsommentator

Mar-

sha ll MscLuhan, who akes a promi-

nent phce in h e philosophical back-

gl-oundf the psychedelic Itheatre.

supplyingcontemporary echnic@ in-

sights to

balance

the Oriental

mysti-

cmn of such figuresas Meher Baba.

who

in

ancient

times

was

called

Jesus th e Christ, Gotama the Bvddha,

Khnshna the Lover andRamahe

King.

McLuhanargues thatmedia study

shouldconcentrate

o n

ahe effects of

the technolo,q on the nvironm ent,

on

so,cial

organization ndhought,

not

on the programmatic content he

media ransmit Themedium

is the

message, says McLuhan, ,who recalls

how

themvention of

movable

type

provided udversal access to the word

and led to secular earning, ndividu-

alism, nationdlsmand he

assembly

line. These form s, or MoLuhan, are

based on the model of the linedof-type.

which is linear, equential a n d bi-

r

One Year, $10

I

I TEE NATION

I

333

Sixth

Ave., New

York

10014

7 5 85

I

I

Two Years, 18

I

6

Mdnths,

6

I

Bi.11 {Me

[7

Payment Endosed

I Fordgn

and Canadian

P O B h K e

I

I NAME ....._....l.....l.... ... .. ~ -..

IA D D R E S S ........

I

1

a yenr extra)

I

I

ISTATE .l l l n l r ll ..... %IPNO. -

5

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dimensional. Sn thelectronicge,

however, th e model is circuitry, which

offersmultiple,simultaneousconnec-

tlons, as m the analog computer, Tel-

s tarand worldgovernment.

In

other words, explains ;the U8CO

$roup, while th e .old-fashioned, single-

*

screen movie with%tsequenhal,

frame-after-frame progression,

worked

once,e now needimultaneous,

lnulltlple imag es. More th an ha t, we

need

a

new theatre that will provide

a

totalart, a grandcombmation of

media

At the Ne,w Theatre the medi a are.

a half dozen %l'm a nd ,slide projectors

whichanderndlendmages

over a huge creenwhich dls the

prosceniumarch , wo "analmog projec-

tors" whic h re forms of h m ia or

color-ocgans developedy%Richard

Aldcroit, f our diffrac$ion hexes

which

are boxes in 8w.hich 8re vok e hex ago nal

flguressluddedwith dlf4ractiongrat-

ings (they break up the li ght ike a

prlsm)

two NO-NOW+OW iboxos

which flaslh those comlbmations of

letterswithmuchclicking, as

m

a n

electronicrain,ne presenttation

oscilloscope hhe size

of,

a TV set,

a

strobe lighmt w h c h danced ibehind Ithe

screen;several

sound

channelsrang-

ing

from

the Eeatles 'to erotic breath-

ing;as wellas a 11v.e drummerand,

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