The Summer Of Love - The Psychedelic Experience

I'm going to talk to you this evening on the subject of the spectrum of love.

We know that from time to time there arise among human beings people who seem to exude love as naturally as the sun gives out heat.

We would like to be like that, and by and large, man's religions are attempts to cultivate that same power in ordinary people.

But unfortunately, they normally go about this task as one would attempt to make the tail wag the dog.

However, I remember when I was a small boy in school, I was enormously interested in being able to do my schoolwork properly.

And everybody told me that I didn't work hard enough and that I ought to work.

I had an intense desire to do this, but when I asked, how do you work, everybody shut up like a clam.

So I was extremely puzzled, but there were teachers who apparently knew how to work and had attained considerable heights of scholarship,

and I admired them very much for their attainments.

And so I thought that maybe I could learn the secret by copying their mannerisms.

I would imitate the style of handwriting that they used.

I would use the same kind of pen.

I would affect the same mannerisms of speech and gesture, and insofar as I could get around the school uniform, even of clothing.

I must assure you this, of course, was a private school in England, not a public school in America.

But none of this revealed the secret, because I was, as it were, copying the outward symptoms,

and knew nothing of the inner fountain of being able to work.

And exactly the same thing is true in the case of people who love.

When we study the behavior of people who have the power of love within them,

we can catalog how they behave in various situations,

and out of this catalog formulate some rules.

One of the peculiar things we notice about people who have this astonishing universal love

is that they are apt, but not always so, but they are apt very often

to play rather cool on sexual love.

The reason for this is, generally speaking, unknown to preachers,

but it is because an erotic relationship with the external world

operates so far as they are concerned between that world and every single nerve ending.

Their whole organism, in all its aspects, physical, psychological, and spiritual,

is an erogenous zone, and therefore their flow of love

is not specialized or canalized so exclusively in the genital system

as it is with most other people,

especially in a culture such as ours,

where, for so many centuries,

that particular expression of erotic love

has been so marvelously repressed

as to make it seem

the most desirable kind of love that there is,

and so, er, we have, as a result

of two thousand years

of Christianity, er,

sex on the brain.

Which isn't always the right place for it.

Of course, also,

people who exude love

are apt to give things away.

Er, they are, er, in every way,

like rivers, they stream.

And so, when they collect possessions

and things that they like,

they are apt to give them to other people.

Because, er, when you,

have you ever noticed

that when you start giving things away,

you keep getting more.

In the same way as you empty, er, out,

er, you create a vacuum,

nature abhors a vacuum,

and more flows in.

So, noticing this,

the codifiers of loving behavior

write down

that you, er, should give, er,

so much money

to, er,

tax-deductible institutions,

and, er,

to the poor,

and, er,

that you should, er,

be nice to people,

that you should act,

er, towards your relatives,

and your friends,

and indeed, even your enemies,

as if you love them,

even if you don't.

And, of course,

for Christians, and Jews,

and believers in God,

there is a peculiarly

difficult task enjoined upon us,

namely,

that thou shalt love the Lord thy God,

and not only here,

going through the motions of it externally,

but with all your heart,

with all your soul,

and with all your mind.

And that is, of course,

very demanding indeed.

But you see what is happening.

It is as if, for example,

we admired the music

of a certain composer,

and having studied

his style

very thoroughly,

we draw up

rules of musical composition

based on the behavior

of this composer.

We then go to,

send our children

to music school

where they learn these rules

in the hope

that if they apply them,

they also will turn

into first-class musicians,

which they usually fail to do.

Because,

what might be called

the technique of music,

as well as the technique of morals,

as well as, say,

the technique of speech,

of language,

is very valuable

because it gives you

something to express

if,

and I repeat,

if you have anything to express.

But if you don't,

if you don't have anything to say,

not even the greatest mastery

of English

will stand you in good stead,

unless you can manage

to fool your listeners

by talking beautiful nonsense

and make it sound profound.

Now,

so the question

and the puzzle remains,

you cannot imitate this thing,

there is no way

of getting it,

and yet it is absolutely essential

that we have it.

Because, obviously,

the human race

is not going to

flourish harmoniously,

unless we are

unable to love each other.

But,

the question is,

how do you get it?

Is it something you simply

have to contract

like measles?

Or is,

as theologians say,

is it a gift

of divine grace

which somehow

is dished out to some

but not to others?

And,

if there is no way

of getting divine grace

by anything you do,

as the Calvinists aver,

then we better just sit around

and wait until something happens.

Although Calvinists

never did that.

They were almost

depressingly energetic.

But,

surely,

we can't be left

in that kind of a

hopeless situation.

There must be some way

of getting the grace

or getting divine charity

or love,

some sort of wangle,

some sort of way

in which we can,

as it were,

open ourselves

so as to become

conduit pipes

for the flow.

And,

so,

the more subtle preachers

try

to see

if we can open ourselves

and teach

methods of meditation

and spiritual discipline

in the hope

that we can contact

this power.

The less subtle preachers

simply say,

you don't have enough faith,

you don't have enough guts,

you don't have enough willpower,

if you only put your wheel,

I mean,

your shoulder to the wheel

and shoved,

you would be,

of course,

an exemplar

and a saint.

Actually,

you will only be

an extremely clever hypocrite.

The whole history of religion

is a history

of the failure

of preaching.

Preaching

is

moral violence.

If you,

you know,

when you

deal with the so-called

practical world

and people don't behave

as you would wish they would,

you get out the army

or the police force

or the big stick

and if

those

strike you

as somewhat crude

you resort

to giving lectures.

And I mean lectures

in the sense

of a pie jaw,

a solemn

adjuration

and exhortation

to behave better

next time.

Now,

let us look

at some of the

practical consequences

of adjuring people

and commanding people

to love.

Many,

a parent

says to the child

nice children

love their mothers

and,

of course,

I'm sure

you're a nice child

you ought to love

your mother

but not because

I,

your mother,

say so

but because

you really want

to do so.

Because one of the

difficulties is

none of us

in our heart of hearts

respect love

which is not

freely given.

If,

for example,

you are an ailing parent

and you need

to be looked after

and you have a son

or daughter

who feels

dutifully

that they should

look after you

because after all

you've done

so much for them

but this somehow

you're living

with your father

or mother

prevents you

from having a home

and a life

of your own

naturally

you resent

this duty

and your parent

is well aware

that you resent it

even if they

pretend to ignore it.

They therefore

feel guilty

that they have

imposed upon

your loyalty

and you

in turn

can't really

disclose from

yourself the fact

that you hate

them for getting

sick

even though they

couldn't help it

and therefore

nobody enjoys

the relationship.

It is a painful

duty carried out

and the same thing

would naturally

happen

if after a number

of years

having at the altar

made a solemn

and terrible promise

that you would

love your wife

and husband

come what may

forever and ever

till death

you part

and then suddenly

you find you

really haven't

at the heart

in you

to do it

anymore

then you feel

guilty

and that you

ought to love

your wife

family or whatever

and naturally

this is a sort

of fiasco

as would be

obvious

if you were

to ask your wife

do you really

love me

and she were

to reply

I'm trying

very hard

to do so.

You see

the difficulty

of it is this

you cannot teach

a selfish person

to be unselfish

by any means

that is to say

whatever a selfish

person does

whether it be

giving his body

to be burned

or giving all

that he possesses

to the poor

he will still do it

in a selfish way

of feeling

and he will

be able to do

this with extreme

cunning

and marvellous

self-deception

and deception

of others besides

but the consequences

of fake love

are almost invariably

destructive

because they build

up resentment

on the part

of the person

who does the

fake loving

as well as

on the part

of those

who are its

recipients

this is why

the foreign aid

program has been

such a dismal failure

now of course

you may say

that I'm talking

in a very impractical

way

because you

you would say

well do we just

have to sit around

and wait

until we become

inwardly converted

and learn

through the grace

of God

or some sort

of magic

how to love

and in the meantime

do nothing about it

and conduct ourselves

as selfishly

as we feel

there is as a matter

of fact

something to be said

for that

because

the first

problem

in the whole

of this

is honesty

and the reason

why the Lord God

says at the beginning

of things

thou shalt love

the Lord thy God

with all thy heart

and with all thy soul

and with all thy mind

is not because

the Lord God

is stupid

but because

he's very clever

that which appears

to be a commandment

is actually

a challenge

or what in

Zen Buddhism

would be called

a koan

a spiritual problem

because if you

exercise yourself

resolutely

in trying to love

God

and or your neighbor

you will find

that you get

more and more

tangled up

you will realize

increasingly

that the reason

why you are

attempting to obey

this as a commandment

is that you want

to be

the right kind

of person

and obviously

you want to be

the right kind

of person

for your own reasons

and so if

you do

in the first place

feel selfish

and come to the conclusion

as a result

of trying various

experiments with love

that you love yourself

more than anybody else

the proper thing

to do

is to investigate

your self-love

to find out

why you love yourself

and what you mean

by yourself

when you say

you love yourself

for the reason

is this

love is not something

that is a sort

of rare commodity

everybody has it

existence is love

but it's like

water flowing

through a hose

it depends

in which direction

you point it

so everybody

has the force

running

and maybe

the way

in which you find

the force of love

operating in you

is that you have

a passionate like

of booze

or ice cream

or automobiles

or good looking

members of the opposite

sex

or even the same sex

but there is love

operating

and people

of course

tend to distinguish

between the various

kinds of love

there are good kinds

such as divine charity

and allegedly bad kinds

such as

in quotes

animal lust

but it should be understood

I think

that they are all

forms of the same thing

but they differ

in rather the same way

that the colors of light

of white light

divide

into the spectrum

when passed through a prism

so we might say

that the red end

of the spectrum

of love

is Dr. Freud's libido

and the violet end

of the spectrum

of love

is agape

the

what is called

divine love

or divine charity

and that in the middle

the various yellows

blues and greens

are friendship

human endearment

consideration

and all that sort

of fellow feeling

but it's all

the same thing

and so

the thing is

first of all

to get it moving

to follow

whatever kind of love

you have

in the first place

because

you cannot control love

until you have some

to control

until you have it running

you've got to get

your car running

before you can learn

how to drive it

you will not

become a skillful driver

by sitting

at a still car

in a garage

any more

than you will become

a skilled dancer

if you

simply never

move your arms

and legs

and so

the first thing

then is to discover

what indeed

you do love

if anything

and you will find

there is something

and then

go into the nature

of that

now it's said

that selfish people

love themselves

I would say

that that is really

a misunderstanding

of the whole thing

because

yourself

is something

that is really

impossible to love

there are various

reasons for this

but

one obvious reason

is

that

loving oneself

is as difficult

as kissing

your own lips

oneself

when you try

to focus on it

to love it

or to know it

is oddly

elusive

it always slips

away

like

the pursued

tale

of a dog

who is trying

to get hold

of his own

tale

so to pursue

your own end

has some

difficulties

about it

if you explore

what you love

when you say

you love

yourself

you will make

the startling

discovery

that everything

you love

is something

which you thought

was other

than yourself

even if it be

very ordinary

things

such as ice cream

or

booze

in the conventional

sense

booze is not you

nor is ice cream

it certainly

it turns into you

in a manner of speaking

when you consume it

but then

you don't have it

anymore

and so

you look around

for more

in order to love

it once again

but

so long as

you love it

you see

it's never you

when you love

people

however selfishly

you love them

because of the

pleasant sensations

they give to you

still

it is somebody else

that you love

and as you

inquire into this

as you

follow honestly

your own selfishness

many interesting

transformations

begin to come

about in you

one of the most

interesting transformations

of being

directly and honestly

selfish

in the same way

that for example

cats are

is that

you stop

deceiving people

a great deal

of damage

is done

in practical

human relations

by saying

that you love

people

when what you

mean is that

you ought to

and you don't

really

you give the

wrong impression

and people

begin to expect

things of you

which you are

never going to

come through

with

we have been

taught for example

that we ought

to love our

enemies

now

we don't

really understand

what it means

to love our

enemies

we think it

means

to

be charitable

towards them

in the hope

that we will

convert them

and so that

they will cease

to be our

enemies

the real

reason for

loving enemies

is that one

needs enemies

they are terribly

important to you

for example

I think that

some

of you here

feel that you

belong

to a nice

set of people

it may be

an ordinary

kind of bourgeois

coterie

of pleasant

squares

or it may be

a church group

of some kind

a club

or a special

cult

or

just a group

of friendly

drinkers

but at any

rate you feel

that

by virtue

of membership

in this society

you belong

to a special

in-group

of nice

or saved

people

now

when you consider

what nice

people

talk about

when they sit

around the

dinner table

and have an

opportunity to

nurture their

collective ego

you will find

that the most

fascinating topic

of conversation

is the nasty

people

how awful

they are

what dreadful

things they do

and what is it

all coming

to

and this

very very

satisfactory

condemnatory

conversation

nurtures your

ego

but people

who do that

don't seem

to realize

that they

thereby depend

on the nasty

people

in order to

know that

they're nice

they are as a

matter of fact

highly indebted

to them

on the other

side of the

picture

the nasty

people

nurture their

collective ego

by blasting

the bourgeoisie

the squares

the wasps

the know-nothings

or whoever

they may be

and so

for the collective

ego

of the non-squares

the squares

are extremely

necessary

if they were to

disappear tomorrow

many of us

would lose a

cause

now

the minute you

begin to become

aware of this

it's rather

embarrassing

it's of course

humorous

and I'm glad

that you see

this

because at once

you begin to

realize

how much you

depend on an

enemy

or an outsider

or a group of

damned people

is distinct from

your own group

of saved people

and so you

begin to realize

that if your

collective ego

or yourself

depends on

your being

on the in

but you can only

be on the in

with relation

to something

that is out

and since the in

and the out

are inseparable

if there is to be

any in

or any out

you suddenly

discover that

yourself

is bigger

than you thought

it was

it

includes

the other

and you

can't do

without it

you this

brings about

a fundamental

change

in the

understanding

of the

meaning

and nature

of self

and

there upon

there become

a change

of attitude

to other

people

even if

you

continue

with some

formal

opposition

to them

and

disapproval

of them

when

then

you

are honestly

clear with

yourself

what you

like

and what

you dislike

and then

at the same

time

yourself

begins

more and

more

to include

things

that were

hitherto

defined

as being

not

yourself

your

love

which is

what you

are

begins

to express

itself

quite

naturally

and

unaffectedly

in a

wider

way

now

to trust

oneself

to be

capable

of love

to bring

up love

in other

words

to

function

in a

sociable

way

and in

a creative

way

is to

take a

risk

it's a

gamble

because

you may

not come

through

with it

and in

the same

way

when you

fall

in love

with

somebody

else

or you

form

an

association

with

somebody

else

and you

trust

them

they may

as a

matter

of fact

not

fulfill

your

expectations

but

that

risk

has

to

be

taken

the

alternative

to

taking

that

risk

is

much

worse

than

trusting

and being

deceived

words

to

live

together

you

have

to

take

risks

there

will

be

disappointments

and failures

and disasters

as a result

of taking

these risks

but

in the

long run

it will

work out

my point

is that

if you

don't

take

them

the

results

will

be

so

much

worse

than

any

kind

of

wild

anarchy

that

could

be

conceived

you

see

here

we

are

now

as

a

highly

disciplined

human

race

with

all

kinds

of

rules

and

to

do

blow

ourselves

completely

to

pieces

is

this

was

this

all

a

good

gamble

because

you

see

in

tying

up

love

in

knots

and

becoming

incapable

of it

you

can't

destroy

this

energy

you

turn

it

when

you

won't

love

and

you

won't

let

it

out

the

thing

comes

out

in

the

form

of

loving

yourself

properly

you

will

be

compelled

instead

to

destroy

yourself

because

you

see

in

tying

up

love

in

knots

and

becoming

incapable

of it

you

can't

destroy

this

energy

you

turn

it

when

you

won't

love

and

you

won't

let

it

out

the

thing

comes

out

in

the

you

will

be

compelled

instead

to

destroy

yourself

so

which

would

you

rather

have

would

you

rather

have

a

human

race

which

isn't

always

very

well

controlled

and

sometimes

runs

amok

a

little

bit

but

on

the

whole

continues

to

exist

with

a

good

deal

of

honesty

and

delight

when

delight

is

available

or

would

you

rather

have

the

whole

human

race

blown

to

pieces

and

cleaned

off

the

planet

reducing

the

whole

thing

to

a

nice

scoured

rock

with

no

dirty

disease

on

it

called

life

but

I

repeat

the

point

that

is

necessary

to

understand

this

whole

thing

that

love

is

a

spectrum

there

is

not

as

it

these

are

all

forms

of

the

same

energy

and

you

have

to

take

it

and

let

it

grow

where

you

find

it

if

you

find

that

only

one

of

these

forms

exist

in

you

if

at

least

you

will

water

it

the

rest

of

the

plant

will

blossom

as

well

but

the

essential

prerequisite

from

the

who

as

a

result

of

listening

to

these

talks

was

wondering

if

I

could

help

her

to

regain

an

experience

which

she

had

while

undergoing

a

surgical

operation

as

is

generally

known

anesthetics

sometimes

induce

peculiarly

vivid

and unusual

states

of

specific

and

particular

experience

which

is

of

the

utmost

fascination

it's

the

kind

of

experience

which

I

suppose

we

would

ordinarily

call

mystical

or

spiritual

and

which

while

it

lasts

carries

the

most

powerful

sensation

of

understanding

with

complete

clarity

and

certainty

what

is

the

mystery

and

meaning

of

the

world

this

occurs

sufficiently

often

to

have

been

made

a

subject

of

experimentation

perhaps

you know

the story

of the

investigator

who

took

doses

of

anesthetic

for this

purpose

and

equipped

himself

with

pencil

and

paper

to

record

at the

moment

of

awakening

what

ever

revelation

might have

been

given

to

experience

took

place

and

for

a

brief

period

the

investigator

had

the

vivid

conviction

of

complete

comprehension

of this

universe

of life

and

death

he

regained

waking

consciousness

with the

tail end

of the

sensation

still

upon

him

faded. After several minutes, during which his mind returned to its normal

state, he looked at what he had written, and there upon the paper was the

following immensely profound observation. Everything in this universe is the

smell of burnt almonds. I suppose that all sensible and hard-headed people would

agree that this is just the sort of inanity to which all these mystical

revelations ultimately boiled down. In the clear, cold light of rational

consciousness, the seemingly inspired and utter convincing knowledge of dreams, of

drug delusions, and of mystical experiences comes down to just this sort of

idiotic anticlimax. Masked in the poetic or exotic obscurantism of such phrases as

all is Brahman or the divine unity beneath the multiplicity of the world, it may

sound for a moment as if it meant something. But the essential nonsense of

these feelings and the purely subjective character of the sense of insight which

they involve at once becomes obvious when Brahman or the divine unity is

replaced by the smell of burnt almonds. We might settle for this conclusion if some

of us had not had the same sensation, not under drugs or hypnosis, but when very

wide awake. And I, for one, will not quarrel with the smell of burnt almonds as the key to the mystery.

I like it much better and feel it makes much more sense than Brahman or the divine unity,

for its very banality, its very consequential silliness, brings out the real significance of the

experience in question. For the importance of the mystical revelation does not lie in the precise nature

of what everything in this universe is. It can be God, or Brahman, or burnt almonds, or applesauce,

or anything you like. Its importance lies rather in the simple sensation of wholeness,

in the part of the sentence which runs, everything in this universe is, no matter what. For the conviction

which has come to the experiencer is that his habitual sensation of isolation from his environment,

from the rest of the world, is an illusion, and that as a corollary,

his own deeds and misdeeds, fortunes and misfortunes, are the same process as the changing seasons

and the circling stars, and unreasonable as it may seem. This gives him the sensation that his whole life,

past, present and future, is somehow perfectly natural and in order, and that he himself is not just the mind

enclosed in the skull, but the total process of the world. The significance of this experience

does not, I think, lie in any consequences or conclusions which might be drawn from it. It is not an important

experience in the sense that it is useful for some other purpose. It's simply like playing or listening

to music, which is obviously phony in the very moment that we do it for some ulterior motive such as to appear cultured or

to convey an ideological message. Its significance for human beings is not like that of, say, the second law of

thermodynamics, but like that of the Mozart sonatas or the arabesques on a Persian rug. The significance of useful knowledge,

like the second law of thermodynamics, is precisely that by applying it, human beings may be enabled

to go on experiencing such things as music, or love, or mystical insight. But what could I say to the woman,

who under anaesthetic had once had this experience, and wanted it again more than anything else in the world?

Go and have another operation? Get yourself some ether, or mescaline, or lysergic acid, or take up yoga,

or get thee to a nunnery? There are still other, and much too pat, answers to this question,

as that she is failing to revive the experience by the very act of seeking for it,

as well tell a starving man, that his very hunger is what prevents him from finding food. For once a

person has had an experience of this kind, he is gone. It's easier to get rid of an addiction to

heroin, or to choose something more natural, to get rid of the love of the opposite sex. No, I could better

say something like this. The answer is in the very experience which you have had. Didn't you know then,

for certain, with utter clarity, that your whole life, past, present, and future, was somehow, as you

yourself put it, part and parcel of that universal harmony, which the Chinese call the Tao. I feel

sometimes that phrases like universal harmony are so hackneyed, so almost slushy and sentimental,

that it's terribly difficult to begin to find the right word for this kind of thing without sounding

like Voltaire's Mr Pangloss, without sort of jumping on this best-of-all-possible-worlds business,

because the thing isn't like that at all. It's very, very much stronger than the feeling that this is

the best-of-all-possible-worlds. And the curious thing about it isn't that it glosses over anything,

but it makes the most awful things seem that way too, without at the same time making them cease to

seem terrible. It's very peculiar. Well, she had seen then, for certain, at the time of that experience,

seen with total clarity, that her whole past, present, and future life was in some way part and parcel

of what we are perforce driven to call the universal harmony of the Tao. But what one doesn't seem to

understand, then, is that this still remains true of what one is today. You are in the stream

when seeking for what you have lost and when feeling perfectly ordinary no less than when you were in

ecstasy. You are not feeling the experience, and you are striving to regain it, is, as a matter of fact,

the very future which you saw to be in such perfect accord with the process. Let me remind you of a

celebrated tale that was told by Sri Ramakrishna. The story of one of his disciples, who had learned from

the Master, that all the multiplicity of this world is the illusory outward form of the one eternal, divine,

Brahman, underlying the entire process. And having sat and listened to this exposition, the disciple

got up and went his way, and in passing down a rather narrow street, he saw an elephant coming towards

him, and a mahout riding on top of the elephant. Well, the mahout saw the disciple wandering down the

centre of the road and shouted at him, Hey you, get out of the way! This elephant isn't very nice. But the

disciple thought, Now the Master, Ramakrishna, has told me that I am Brahman, and that everything is Brahman,

and therefore the elephant is Brahman, and therefore it will be perfectly all right if I walk straight

along. The elephant will do me no harm, since I realize this to be true. So he ignored the warning

of the mahout, and approached the elephant, and the elephant swung his trunk and swatted that disciple

hard and threw him into the ditch where he was scratched with the brambles. Well, he was very upset,

and he came crawling back to Sri Ramakrishna, and said, Master, you have deceived me. I understood that

everything is Brahman, that I am Brahman, and all other creatures. Is that not so, Master? And the

Master said, Yes, it is so. Well, he said, I was walking out in the road, and I saw this elephant coming

towards me, and it didn't seem to me to be necessary to get out of the way when the mahout riding the

elephant warned me to do so, because I figured that I was Brahman, and the elephant was Brahman,

and I could come to no harm. You stupid man, said Sri Ramakrishna, you didn't realize that the

voice of the mahout was also Brahman, and you should have heeded that too. So also in this case,

the one who is trying to regain the vision is the disciple, and the vision they are trying to regain

is the elephant. But the way you are actually feeling now, and which you are ignoring because of your

eagerness to feel some other way, that is the voice of the mahout, and that too is Brahman.

Nine times out of ten, an observation of this kind will mean nothing, and will fall as flat as being

told that everything in this universe is the smell of burnt almonds. But the tenth time it will dawn

upon you as a statement of total and luminous clarity. I do not think we need have any fear

that this tenth time will never come, for in other circumstances it has come again and again.

Think back to school days,

think back to school days, when with the utmost care your teacher explained over and over the mysteries

of percentage or sentence structure or daylight saving time,

and you consistently failed to see the point. And then suddenly something clicked in your mind,

and the principle became clear. There is a Chinese poem which says,

words do not make a man understand. It takes the man to understand the words.

Now today, we are living in an age which is quite peculiar. Because in the world of science,

there are no longer any secrets. Because the method of science requires that all scientists be in

communication with each other. And therefore, that every scientist, as soon as he has discovered

something, or got a good idea, he rushes into print. And it is important for him to do so,

because some other scientist somewhere else in the world might be thinking about something on the same

lines and would be stimulated in his work by this man's speculations, even if not by discoveries.

And so the whole scientific world tries to remain in communication. And for this reason,

it was absolutely impossible to keep atomic energy a secret. In former ages, that might have been

managed. Because there were many secrets once upon a time. And people were not admitted to these secrets

unless they were in some way tested and found capable of handling them without running amok.

We live in such a dangerous age because all the secrets are out in the open and anybody can run amok

with them. And that's just the situation we have to face and that is just the situation we have to

handle. It is too late to stop it because that would be, as they say, locking the door after the

horse has bolted. The vice president of an extremely important corporation in the United States, very

progressive and very vital, a few months ago said, there are two major forces operating in the world

today for good or for evil. One is red china, the other is LSD. And there is a certain reason why such a thing as

a certain chemical which is capable of opening people's minds in a certain way should be something extremely

disturbing. Because this particular chemical, in common with a number of others that have been known for

centuries, but have been rather played cool through those centuries, is capable of doing something which

simply cannot be tolerated. That is to say, capable of letting properly prepared individuals or sometimes improperly prepared

individuals in on a secret which is very closely guarded and which is as a matter of fact the deepest and most

fundamental of all our social taboos. I have just finished writing a book which I have had, with a sort of tongue-in-cheek

attitude, had the temerity to call the book. And it is subtitled, the book, you see, on the taboo against

knowing who you are. Because that is really the thing that cannot be let out. Sex is not really a serious taboo in our

culture. If you are initiating a young person into life and you realize that your son or daughter is going

to college and that you ought therefore to have a serious talk with them, they'll laugh at you and say,

all this thing you're telling us about sex we knew years ago and we know more about it than you do.

So that is not a subject for a serious initiation talk to a young person. So we have to think again

and try and find out, think deeply, what is fundamentally taboo in this culture and perhaps in other cultures as well.

What, uh, would, what information, in other words, would really let out, let the cat out of the bag

and give away the show? Quest around a bit. Ask yourself this, for what reason would a person be

considered hopelessly insane. What, uh, sort of claims must a person simply not make? Well, there is one,

and that is, if anybody claims that he is God. That simply isn't done. Certainly not in our culture,

although it's very frequent in India. But in our culture, that is simply, uh, not allowed because

we, uh, most of us from a Christian background and if not that from a Jewish background and there's a

great deal in common. Because both Christians and Jews are deeply concerned about somebody called Jesus

Christ. Both Christians and Jews are in a way followers of Jesus Christ in different ways. He is a

problem to both. Because he was the man who came out and discovered he was God. And, uh, that simply is

impermissible. The Jews handled it in one way. The Christians handled it quite as effectively in another way.

The Christians handled Jesus perfectly, even more tactfully than the Jews, by putting him on a pedestal

and saying, this was the only man who ever was God, and nobody else was really so before, and certainly

nobody can be so afterwards. Stop right there! Put him on the altar, bow down to him, worship him,

so that everything he had to say will be null and void. And it works beautifully. But you see,

the trouble about deep secrets is they can't be repressed indefinitely. Now here's the problem,

you see, that there are certain processes, some of which are what you might call spiritual exercises,

others are simply chemicals, others are just horse scents, whereby one comes to see very clearly indeed,

that black goes with white and self goes with other. And as this becomes clear to you,

you, it's rather shaking. Because look, if what you define as you is inseparable from everything

which you define as not you, just as front is inseparable from back, then you realize that deep

down between self and other, there is some sort of conspiracy. If these things always occur in

combination and look very different from each other and feel quite different, nevertheless,

the feeling of difference between them allows each one to exist. And so underneath the opposition

or the polarity between self and other, or between any other pair of opposites you can think of,

there is something in common, as there is, for example, between figure and background.

You can't see a figure without a background. You can't have an organism without an environment.

Equally, you can't have a background without a figure, or an environment without organisms in it,

or without things in it. You can't have space which is unoccupied by any solid. You cannot have solids

not occupying some space. This is absolutely elementary, and yet we don't realize it.

Because, for example, the average person thinks that space is nothing. It is just a sort of not

there-ness in which there are things. And we are slightly afraid that not there-ness, that nothingness,

that darkness, that the negative poles of all these oppositions will win. That they will eventually

swallow up every kind of being and every kind of there-ness. But when you catch on to the game,

you realize that that won't happen. Because what is called not existing is quite incapable of being

there without the contrast of something called existing. It's like the crest and the trough of a

wave. You can't have a wave that is all trough and no crest, just as you can't have a wave which

is all crest and no trough. Such a thing has never been manifested in the physical universe. They go

together. And that is the secret. There really is no other secret than that. But it is thoroughly

repressed. And therefore we are all educated to feel that we've got to fight for the white

because the black might win. We've got to survive. You must survive. That's the great thing we're all

working under and pounding it out day after day in anxiety. Because this is a description of anxiety.

Anxiety is the fear that one of a pair of opposites might cancel the other. Forever. And if by any

chance, by any means, you find out that that is not so, you have an entirely new attitude to what

human beings are doing, which may be very creative, but which also may be very dangerous. You see through

the game. The game called white must win. Because you know that neither black nor white are going to win

because they belong to each other. So one of the problems of the various chemicals which can change

the human mind in certain ways so that it becomes apparent that inside and outside go together is that

they do rather give the show away. And people who take these chemicals and see through the human game

cannot be trusted. They may decide to be good sports and go back into the game and play it as if it were

for real. Or they may not. And if they don't, what's going to happen? Now, you see, what has led me

to do? Let me speak specifically for a moment. I said the subject of this is LSD. LSD is one such chemical

that does produce this curious effect of making you aware of the polarity of things. It does lots of other

things. It does lots of rather unessential and trivial things. And these, of course, in all the publicity

in the various national magazines about LSD get thoroughly emphasized. In other words, when somebody

says something's real psychedelic, they mean bizarre. And when the national magazines try to illustrate

the effect of these chemicals with various photographs, they come on with blurred photographs of all sorts of

things higgledy-piggledy-piggledy messed together. Naked girls seen through prisms. Well, that's absolutely

nothing to do with it. If you wanted some sort of appropriate illustration for a Life magazine article

on the effects of LSD, you would have one very simple solution. You would publish the most gorgeous

colour reproductions of Persian miniatures and of Moorish arabesques and of the illuminations of

Celtic manuscripts. That would give you the story so far as changes in human sensation are concerned.

But there would be one thing very difficult to put across in pictures because the people who looked at

them, if they didn't get the point of view, wouldn't see it. And that is what I will call

the sensation as well as the intellectual understanding of polarity. That is to say,

that the inside and the outside, the subjective and the objective, the self and the other, go together.

In other words, there is a harmony, an unbreakable harmony. When I'm using the word harmony,

I don't necessarily mean something sweet. I mean absolute concordant relationship

between what goes on inside your skin and what goes on outside your skin. It isn't that what goes

on outside is so powerful that it pushes around and controls what goes on inside, equally so. It isn't

that what goes on inside is so strong that it often succeeds in pushing around what goes on outside.

It is very simply that the two processes, the two behaviors are one. What you do is what the universe

does. And what the universe does is also what you do. Not you in the sense of your superficial ego,

which is a very small little tiny area of your conscious sensitivity, but you in the sense of your total

physical, psycho-physical organism conscious.

Consciousness.

as well as unconscious. This is not something that arrived in the world from somewhere else

altogether, that confronts an alien reality. What you are is the universe, in fact, the

works, what there is, and always has been, and always will be forever and ever, performing

an act called John Doe. And this is such a subversion of common sense. But as a matter

of fact, something, if you stop to think about it, that is completely obvious. Only everything

conspires to prevent you from seeing that obvious thing. Because when you were babies,

practically, all your parents and your teachers and your aunts and uncles and your older brothers

and sisters got together and they told you who you were. They defined you as Johnny, who

is just Johnny. And don't you come on too strong, Johnny, because, no, you've got elders

and betters around here. But you're responsible. You're a free agent. You'd better be.

And so, when you are told, from childhood, that you are expected and commanded to behave

in a way that will be acceptable only if you do it voluntarily. You remain permanently mixed up.

That, if anything, is permanent brain damage. So, but that's the idea, you see, because that's the

game we're playing. You started it. I didn't. See? That's the game we're playing. And we can make

all kinds of complexities out of that. And really, in a way, have enormous fun. But once anybody sees

through that, well, we're frightened. Once you get this sense of polarity, of your inside being the same

process as your outside, and your ego being one and the same process as the whole universe going on,

then we're afraid that people may say, well, good equals bad. And we can do anything we like.

And we didn't in any way be further subject to the ordinary rules of human conduct.

And we can wear what clothes we like or no clothes at all. We can have what sexual life we like.

We can do anything. And we are going to generally, because the world is being rather oppressive

towards us, challenge the whole thing and run amok. And a lot of people are doing just exactly that.

So I want to introduce into this whole problem some ancient wisdom. I have really two things to talk

about. How cultures, which always did know in some way, or among whom a large number of people always

did know this secret, handled it. And then I want to make some observations about how we are trying to

handle it and how it's not going to work. Among the Hindus and among the Buddhists, this view of the

real identity of a human being has always been known, at least by a very influential minority.

The central doctrine of the Hindu way of life, I call it that rather than a religion,

religion, is in Sanskrit, Tatva Masi. You're it. To put it in a kind of colloquial way. You're it.

And it is the witch than which there is no witcher, which they call the Brahman, or the Atman with a

capital A meaning the self. You are only just kidding that you're just poor little me. See, the function of a

guru, that is to say, a spiritual teacher in India, is to give you a funny look in the eye.

Because you come to him and say, Mr. Guru, I have problems. I suffer, and it's a mess, and I can't

control my mind, and I'm miserable and depressed, and so on. And he gives you a funny look. And you

feel a bit nervous about the way he looks at you. Because, you know, he's reading your thoughts.

And this man is a great magician. He can read everything that's in you. He knows right down

into your unconscious, and you know all the dreadful things you've thought, and all the awful

desires you have. And you are rather embarrassed that this man looks right through you and sees them

all. But that's not what he's looking at. He's giving you a funny look for quite another reason

altogether. Because he sees in you the Brahman, the Godhead, just claiming it's poor little me.

And he's going to eventually, by all sorts of subtle techniques that are called in Sanskrit,

Upaya, that in politics means chicanery, and in spiritual education means skillful pedagogy,

He is going to try and kid you back into realizing who you really are. That's why he gives you a funny

look. And why he seems to see right through you. As if to say, Shiva, old boy, don't kid me.

I know who you are, but you're coming on beautifully in this act, that you're somebody else altogether.

And I congratulate you, you're doing a wonderful job playing this part, which you call the person,

my person. You know, a person is a fake. The word means a mask. So if you read books on how to be a

real person, you're reading books on how to be a genuine fake. The word persona, as you know, means

a mask, worn in a Greek or Roman drama. So if you come on to the guru and say, well, he asks you who you

are, Sri Ramana Maharshi. When anybody came to him and they said to him, as people do, who was I in my

last incarnation? Or will I be reincarnated again? He always replied, who's asking the question?

And everybody was irritated because he wouldn't give them answers about what they were in their

former lives. He just said, who are you? And he looked at you. Have you looked at photographs of

this man? I keep a photograph of him, you know, close by because of the humor in his eyes.

They're looking at you with a dancing twinkle, saying, come off it.

Now then, in these Asiatic traditions, it is well recognized that people who get the knowledge that

you're it may very well run amok. And therefore they always couple any method of gaining this,

whether it is yoga, whether it is smoking something or drinking something or whatever is the method,

they always couple it with a discipline. Now I know the word discipline isn't very popular these days.

And I would like to have a new word for it. Because most people who teach disciplines don't

teach them very well. They teach it with a kind of violence, as if a discipline was something that

is going to be extremely unpleasant and that you're going to have to put up with. But that's not the

real secret of discipline. I would prefer to use the word skill. Discipline is a way of expression.

Say you want to express your feelings in stone. Now stone doesn't give way very easily. It's tough stuff.

And so you have to learn the skill or the discipline of the sculptor in order to express yourself in

stone. And so in every other way, whatever you do, you require a skill. And it's enormously important,

especially for American people, to understand that there is absolutely no possibility of having

any pleasure in life at all without skill. Money doesn't buy pleasure, ever. Look, if you want to

get stoned drunk and go out and get a bottle of bourbon and down it, you can't do that except for

people who have practiced the distiller's art. You can't even make love without art. Where I live in

Sausalito, we have a harbor full of ever so many pleasure craft. Motor cruisers, sailing boats,

all kinds of things. And they never leave the dock. All that happens with them is their owners have

cocktail parties there on Saturdays and Sundays. Because they discovered, having bought these things,

that the discipline of sailing is difficult to learn and takes a lot of time. And they didn't have time

for it. So they just bought the thing as a status symbol. So in other words, you can't have pleasure

in life without skill. But it isn't an unpleasant task to learn a skill. If the teacher, in the first

place, gets you fascinated with it. There is immense pleasure in learning how to do anything skillfully.

To make carpentry things, to cook, to write, to calculate, anything you want. It can be immensely

pleasurable to learn the discipline. And it is completely indispensable. Because look, you may be a very

inspired musician. I'm not a musical technologist, you see, and I regret it. But I'm a word technologist.

But I can hear in my head all kinds of symphonies and all kinds of marvelous compositions. But I don't

have the technique to write them down on paper and share them with somebody else. Too bad. Maybe next

time around. But you see, so far as words are concerned, I can express ideas because I have studied

language. And I've worked very hard. Not that I didn't like it. I intensely enjoy the work of

writing a book. Although it is difficult. But it's fascinating. To say what can never possibly be said.

So, you see what's happening. What you have to do, you have inspiration. But then you have to have

technique to incarnate, to express your inspiration. That is to say, to bring Heaven down to Earth.

And to express Heaven in terms of Earth. Of course, they are really one behind the scenes. But there's

no way of pointing it out unless you do something skillful. You see, we are all at the moment,

absolutely in the midst of the beatific vision. We are all one with the Divine or some... I don't

like that sort of wishy-washy language. But we are all there. But we are so much there that we're

like fish in water. They don't know they're in water. Like the birds don't know they're in the air

because it's all around them. And in the same way, we don't know what the color of our eyes is. I don't

mean whether you've got blue or brown eyes, but the color of the lens of your eye. You call that

transparent. No color. See, because you can't see it. But it's basic to being able to see anything.

So in order to find out where you are, there has to be some way of drawing attention to it.

And that involves skill. Upaya in Sanskrit. Skillful means. So, it's all very well. Anybody can have

ecstasy. Anybody, as a matter of fact, can become aware that he is one with the eternal

ground of the universe. But since that's what you are anyway, I'm going to ask, so what?

When a hero goes on an adventure and he leaves his people and is going to a strange land,

he can go away and just hide himself around the corner in an obscure house and then appear a year

later and say, I've been on a heroic journey and tell all sorts of tales. And they say, prove it.

Because they expect him to bring back something. Something which nobody has seen before. Then they

believe, you've been on the journey. And so in the same way exactly, anybody who goes on a spiritual

journey must bring something back. Because if you just say, oh man, it was a gas. Anyone can say that.

Now this is why in the doctrines of Buddhism, there is a differentiation between two kinds of

enlightened beings. They are both forms of Buddha, which is to say, the word Buddha means somebody

who has awakened, who has discovered the secret behind all this. In other words, all this thing

we call life with its frantic concerns is a big act, which you, in your unconscious death,

are deliberately setting up. So you can do one of two things when you discover this.

You can become what's called a Pratyeka Buddha. That means a private Buddha. Doesn't tell anything.

Or you can become a Bodhisattva. A Pratyeka Buddha goes off into his ecstasy and never is seen again.

Bodhisattva is one who comes back and appears in the everyday world and plays the game of the

everyday world by the rules of the everyday world. But he brings with him upaya. He brings with him

some way of showing that he's been on the journey, that he's come back, and he's going to let you in

on the secret too. If you, if, if, if, you'll play it cool and also come back to join in the everyday life

of everyday people. Because this is the rule. If the world is dramatic, if the world, as the Hindus

say, is a big act put on by the divine self, one of the rules of coming on stage is that you don't

come on as yourself. You come on as the part that you're going to play. It's very bad form if an actor

always acts the same way. That's what's called a star as distinct from an actor.

A real actor can become anything. And so, but in private life, well, he's just Mr. Jones. And,

but he doesn't come on the stage that way. So in the same way, if you know that behind the scenes,

in the depths, fundamentally, you are it, you don't come on that way.

It always comes on as something else. That's the rule of the stage. Because without that,

there wouldn't be a play. It would only be reality. No illusion. And the whole point of life is illusion.

From the word Latin, ludery, to play. Showbiz. The show must go on. So don't give it away.

But the truth has a way of leaking. It gets out. But then the important thing is, you see,

when the truth gets out, those who catch hold of it must find a way of staying in contact with what

society calls reality. That is to say, if you have a radio, you don't only need an antenna, you also

need a ground. So what happens in the world of mysticism, of psychedelic visions, and so on,

needs to be grounded. So then, there are always two directions in which such a discipline works.

One, preparatory. In other words, those who taught disciplines for awakening in the Orient were always

careful to screen, first of all to screen those who applied, and then after screening them, to make

them sensible. So that they knew how to handle the game of ordinary human existence and play it by the

ordinary human rules. In other words, that they had strength of character. And were not the sort of

people who would be wiped out because they had no strength of character by an overwhelming experience.

Then they let them in. But there are certain disciplines, such as Zen, where you get into

the essential secret very early on in the discipline. And after that, they are concerned with much more

training in showing you how to use it. How to use the power to use the vision which you have acquired.

And so it is with the current, what we will call, LSD scene that is raging through the United States.

It unfortunately lacks discipline. And I'm not trying to say this in a kind of severe,

authoritarian, paternalistic way. But only that it would be so much more fun if it had it.

In other words, when people try to express what they have seen in this kind of changed state of

consciousness, they show five movies going on at once, projected upon torn bedsheets,

with stroboscopic lights going as fast as possible at the same time, and 11 jazz bands playing.

And they're going to blow their minds, baby. And everybody else who hasn't seen this thing look

around and say, well, it's a mess. I don't like the looks of it. Let's suppose that while you were

very, very high on LSD, you looked into a filthy ashtray, and you saw the beatific vision. Which is,

of course, the case, because wherever you look, if your eyes are open, you will see the face of the

divine. Then you come out of your ecstasy with the dirty ashtray and say to everybody, here it is.

No. There is a possibility, if you are an extraordinarily skillful painter, or even photographer,

of presenting the dirty ashtray so that everybody else will see almost what you saw in it.

But you will have to have a technique which will translate every grain of ash into a jewel,

because that's what you actually saw. But that requires mastery of an art. And I'm afraid people

think that all it's necessary to do is just throw out any old thing, because under that transformed

state of consciousness, any old thing is the works. But nobody else can see it, if they haven't shared

that point of view. So then, this becomes, for us in the United States, an extremely important social

problem. The cat is out of the bag. We are living in a scientific world where secrets cannot be kept.

And anyone, anytime, can pick up something which will short circuit all the ancient religious

techniques, yoga practice, meditation, etc., etc., this is all very embarrassing. But it will happen,

not for everybody, but for a lot of people. And they will see what all those sages and buddhas and yogis

and prophets saw in ancient times. And it will be very clear. So what? So you see, you can say,

look at all these people who haven't seen it. This is a temptation. Look at them all going about their

business, earning money, and grinding it out at the bank or the insurance office or whatever it is

every day, and how serious they look all about it, and they don't really know it's a game.

And you can cultivate a certain contempt for people like that. But it's very, very bad to do that.

Because, of course, don't forget they have a certain contempt for you. You see, always the nice people in town,

who live in the best residences,

they know that they're nice, because there are some people on the other side of the tracks who are not nice.

And so at their cocktail parties, they have a lot to say about the people who are not nice,

because that boosts their collective ego. There would be no other way of doing it. You don't know

that you're a law-abiding citizen, unless there are some people who aren't. And if it's important to

you to congratulate yourself on being law-abiding, you therefore have to have some criminal classes,

outside the pale, of course, of your immediate associates.

On the other hand, the people who are not nice, they have their parties. And they boost their

collective ego by saying that they're the people who are really in. Whereas these poor squares,

who deliver the mail faithfully, and who carry on what you call responsible jobs, they're just dupes.

Or when they earn their money, all they do is buy toy rocket ships with it, and go roaring around,

and so on. And that's, they think that's pleasure. So the people who are not nice boost their collective

ego in that way. Neither of them realizing that they need the other just as much as a flower needs

a bee and a bee needs a flower. So you, when you see the people who you think are not in on the secret,

you, if you really understand, you have to revise your opinion completely and say that the squares

are the people who are really far out. Because they don't even know where they started.

See, an enlightened Hindu or Buddhist looks at the ignorant people of this world

and says, my respects. Because here I see the divine essence, having altogether forgotten what it is,

and playing the most far out game of being completely lost. Congratulations, how far out can you get?

So if you understand that, you don't start a war with people you might say are square.

Don't challenge them. Don't bug them. Don't frighten them. The reason is not because they are

immature. Because they are babies and you mustn't scare babies. It's nothing to do with that. You mustn't

frighten them because they are doing a very far out act. They're walking on a tightrope miles up.

And they've got to do that balancing act. And if you shout, they may lose their nerve.

See, that's what we call the responsible people of the world are doing. It is an act. It's a game,

just like the tightrope walker. But it's a risky one. And you can get ulcers from it. And all sorts of

troubles. But you must respect it. And say, congratulations on being so far out. So now,

this is the whole essence, you see, of seeing, if you really see into the secret that the world

doesn't contain any serious threats in it because it's all the basic you running up behind itself and

saying boo to see if you can get yourself to jump out of your skin. If you see that, be cool.

That's the whole art of Zen, you know, is cool Hinduism.

The Hindus come on a little strong when someone like Sri Ramakrishna or openly, pretty much openly

announces that he's the Godhead. That's a little tough. And when Sri Ramana accepts the puja of all

the followers and Sri Aurobindo sits every day for Darshan, it's coming on a little strong.

Well, the Zen people feel that that's just a bit too much. And the way they come on is they're

ordinary. And they say, when two Zen masters meet each other on the road, they need no introduction.

When thieves meet, they recognize each other instantly. So they don't say anything, don't make

any claims. As a matter of fact, so far from making claims, all good Zen masters say they have not

attained anything, they have nothing to teach. And that's the truth. Because anybody who tells you

that he is some way of leading you to spiritual enlightenment is just like somebody who picks

your pocket and sells you your own watch. Of course, if you didn't know you had a watch,

that might be the only way of getting you to realize it. So then, though the people who do,

by one means or another, prepared or unprepared, disciplined or undisciplined,

get into this kind of interior secret about the nature of the universe,

and they have hitherto been insecure about themselves. And they're going to use this secret

as some way of creating trouble, and of stirring things up, and of boosting their own

inadequate character structure, which is a word I prefer to use instead of ego. Then there's trouble,

because those people who are out there on the tightrope are going to get pretty scared,

and they're going to call in the police and say, this has got to stop. So then we have a situation

right like that now. And I want to make a few comments about it. First of all, the major group,

it seems to me that a crying panic about LSD are psychoanalysts. To them, this sort of thing is

extremely threatening, because psychoanalysis in its theory, whether it be Freudian or whether it be

Jungian, has a theory of the unconscious, which is not unrelated to the general philosophy of science

science of the 19th century, which is that the unconscious, called the libido by the Freudians,

is

Totally uncivilized, blind lust.

For the Jungians, it may be something even more dangerous than that.

Because they have not settled for the idea that it's a sexual unconscious.

It may be much more sinister than that.

Deep down, there is the spider mother.

There are the screaming memes at the bottom of that pit.

And Esther Harding, in her book, Psychic Energy, says that civilization is a mere veneer over the abysmal depths of primeval slime.

In which there are the great serpents and appalling influences, just waiting for a chance to get up there and raise hell.

So, if you are psychoanalytically oriented, you are necessarily terrified of the unconscious.

But you've learned a trick.

Let's say the old-fashioned Christians, they discipline the unconscious with a club.

Bible and birch rod.

See?

And they knocked it down.

The Freudians said, no.

This is a very dangerous creature.

But you've got to train it in a different way.

Like a good horse trainer.

Doesn't use the whip, but lumps of sugar.

But it's still the same animal.

In other words, this whole philosophy of Western man, as it crystallized in the late 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries,

is that what we call humanity, consciousness, spirituality, values, is simply a veneer.

The real thing underneath, the gutsy thing, is a terrible monster.

And watch out for that.

So anything that happens that might let that creature loose is looked upon by psychoanalysis as terrible.

I don't, I'm not going to accuse them of worrying about LSD because they think you're going to be put out of a job.

I don't think that LSD is an automatic psychotherapy at all.

It needs, if you're going to use it for that purpose, you need psychotherapy in the ordinary way along with it.

LSD is simply an exploratory instrument, like a microscope or a telescope, except this one's inside you instead of outside you.

And according to your capacity and knowledge, you can use a microscope or a telescope to advantage.

So in the same way, according to your capacity and your knowledge, you can use an interior instrument to your advantage.

Or just for kicks.

But when these people, you know, really feel threatened by this thing, they start sending around messages and public utterances which sound exactly as if they had taken LSD, had had a bad trip with it, and were coming on paranoid.

And so they are spreading subtle rumors that this substance causes permanent brain damage and utter destruction of the superego.

Now, there is a, there are people in New York, likewise, who are spreading around the idea that, you see, once this thing has touched you, you are as if you've had a prefrontal lobotomy.

You are somebody who ought to be put in a concentration camp because you've lost your conscience.

You're out of order.

Nothing more can be done about it.

Now, do you see how alarming that could be in our day and age?

Think that your brother, your aunt, has got permanent brain damage?

He took some LSD.

You see, the situation is exactly parallel.

You know, the thing that we learn from history is nobody ever learns from history.

Consider, just go back a few hundred years to the days of the Inquisition and realize that the theologians of the church were in those days accorded the same kind of respect that we now accord to the professor of pathology at the University of California Medical School.

Or to the professor of physics at Caltech.

We think those people are real authorities.

They know.

It works.

They've experimented.

They have knowledge.

They're the wisest people in our society.

All right.

A few hundred years ago, so were the theologians.

And they had the same sense of responsibility towards the community that our great scientists and physicians have today.

And they knew there was a thing called heresy going around.

That was not only capable, once you caught heresy, of making you damned to hell forever and ever and ever to the most unimaginable tortures that would go on without end, but that it was infectious.

And one heretic would soon make other heretics.

So those entirely humanitarian and merciful church fathers got together and said, what are we going to do to stop this?

Well, now they knew there is an eternal life beyond the grave.

And so perhaps, just in the same way as if you've got a cancer, and that's something terrible because it might spread and destroy the whole body, cut it out.

Even burn it out if you have to.

And a little pain on the part of the patient in several months on the end of tubes won't be too bad if you get rid of it.

So they said, we've got to torture these people.

Because they might, in the middle of this extreme experience, recant.

And if they won't recant, we'll burn them.

Because there's just the chance that in the agony of burning at the stake, they will say at the end, oh God, forgive me for my sins and it'll be alright.

Now realize the absolutely merciful intent behind the inquisitors.

Perfectly responsible, acting on the best knowledge that they had in their day.

Don't you see how that can happen again anytime?

Permanent brain damage.

People lost their sense of social responsibility, utterly destroyed by taking the wrong kind of drug.

Now, dear friends, there is absolutely no evidence for this kind of thing whatsoever.

The only brain damage that is, I've just checked this out with the most eminent authorities in this area on the subject,

that the only permanent damage that's been perpetrated, and even that wasn't permanent, was on some cats

who were given doses that would be equivalent to a human being to over 2,000 micrograms of LSD.

The normal dosage for a human being being about 1 to 200.

But give a cat the equivalent for a human being of 2,000 micrograms.

There will be synaptic defects that are called acute, as distinct from chronic.

That means they will disappear after a little while.

Now this has been worked out carefully.

And there is no evidence whatsoever of any serious neurological damage to a human being,

except in cases where, A, they may have taken an absurdly large dose,

or, B, taken it in conjunction with some other form of drug,

an amphetamine, a barbiturate, or something like methadone, a narcotic,

which did indeed cut off the oxygen supply to the brain and therefore cause some damage.

So, this scare talk is simply without foundation.

But nevertheless, there are certain reasons to be cautious and for those who understand the operation of these chemicals

to issue certain clear warnings.

And this I want to talk about, quite seriously.

Now, this class of psychotropic chemicals, which includes LSD, mescaline,

and its original form, peyote, psilocybin, cannabis, and so on,

which is a very mild psychotropic,

these do not, in moderation and proper use, in any way, harm the physical organism,

nor form such habits that you can't get rid of them without unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.

If you take them in absurdly large doses, you are in for trouble.

I knew a Methodist minister who was a very violent tea totalitarian

and became extremely sick from drinking too much milk.

So, after all, if you sit down and you buy a bottle of whiskey,

which you can get at any store, anywhere,

perfectly legit,

and you consume the one quart of whiskey in one hour,

you can expect trouble.

So, in the same way, if you've got LSD,

or something of that kind,

and you take a thousand micrograms,

because some friend of yours took five hundred,

and you want to one-up him,

watch out, you're being just stupid.

Furthermore, you're being rather stupid

if you buy the kind of LSD

that is currently being circulated in the black market,

because, for two reasons,

you don't know what else is in it,

and you don't know how much is in it.

There are two sorts of producers of LSD on the black market.

One is the enthusiastic graduate student in chemistry

who wants to turn the whole world on.

And his product is apt to be pretty good,

but excessive in dosage.

And what says a hundred micrograms may well be three hundred.

There is another kind of producer

who wants to make a good thing out of it,

or who wants to give you a big jazz,

but he'll mix it with amphetamines.

There's another more sinister kind of producer

who'll either cut the amount,

or mix it with heroin,

or anything, any other substance,

maybe, again, amphetamines, or whatever,

who'll get you hooked on it.

So there is no control of the quality

of what is being circulated.

None whatever.

And you just don't know what you're getting.

Now this situation

is the result

of the fact that the United States

never learns from history.

It is the same old story of prohibition.

To think the naive notion

that you can control

something that might turn into a social evil

by handing it over to the police.

Now after all,

who pays the police?

You do.

And if you can't control yourself,

the police won't control you either.

But in lieu of controlling you,

they can suppress you.

Now in all conscience,

the police have enough to do.

Not only to control the traffic,

which gets worse every day

by virtue of Parkinson's law,

but also all the possibilities

of robbery, violence, murder,

and so on and so forth,

which is a full-time job.

But to ask the police

to go and look for people

who have LSD or marijuana

or heroin or opium or whatever,

or who are living irregular sex lives

or who have a gambling joint

or a whorehouse,

this is to ask the police

to act as officers of the state

in service of the church,

uniformed ministers.

And that's not their job.

And when the police are asked to do that,

they are put by lawmakers

into a position

which brings them into public disrespect

as it did in the days of prohibition.

It is not fair to the police

because if you send the police

to hunt out LSD,

it is a far more tough job

than looking for a needle

in a haystack.

LSD can be disguised

as anything whatsoever.

It can be mixed with gum

and put on an envelope.

It can be entirely absorbed,

vast quantities of it,

into a piece of Kleenex.

The alcoholic base

is then allowed to evaporate

and nobody would know it

from any other dirty piece of Kleenex

that somebody stuck away

in his pocket.

It can then be reactivated.

It can be made into lacquer

to coat pins with.

Anything.

It can be disguised

as peanut butter,

orange juice,

aspirin,

just sugar,

anything you want.

And it's very difficult

indeed to detect.

So when you try to suppress

that sort of thing by law,

you leave the gates wide open

for every kind of blackmail.

You want to get rid of your wife

or your unfortunate

business competitor?

Just slip them some

and then arrange

by a roundabout way

to tip off the cops.

The senator you don't like?

Political rival?

You see,

any law of this nature,

any law which in a way

tries to enforce

by the power of the state

private morals

or your own business

in looking after

your own nervous system,

is in effect

an unenforceable law.

And all unenforceable laws

lead to blackmail

and to public demoralization.

The only way to handle

a thing of this kind

is to bring it all

out into the open.

Nothing can be controlled

when it's driven underground.

It ought to be controlled.

Just in the same way

as we have learned

how to control automobiles,

we license people

to drive them.

So in the same way,

we don't sell

liquor to minors.

We expect them

to have some kind

of education

and grown-up responsibility

before they go

boozing around.

So in exactly the same way,

society has got to face

the fact

that it's going to have

to license people

for certain

spiritual adventures

or perhaps

just plain pleasures,

if that's what

you want to call it.

After all,

you can't even join

some churches

without,

you can't join

the Catholic Church

without taking

a course of instruction.

That takes a few weeks

and then they put you

through an initiation.

And you may say

when you get through that,

well,

what was all that

preparation for?

I didn't feel anything.

But so in exactly

the same way with this,

it is completely urgent,

in other words,

that we prevent

the occurrence

of a very serious,

socially destructive,

criminal situation

created by law.

You've heard of

iatrogenic diseases.

That means diseases

caused by physicians.

There are

nomogenic diseases,

or shall we say

nomogenic crimes.

Like somebody said,

the only serious

side effect of marijuana

is that you may

go to jail.

This is a

nomogenic crime.

In other words,

it is a ritual crime.

In exactly the same way

that when the early

Christians refused

to burn incense

in front of the Roman gods,

in whom the Romans

themselves didn't believe,

they were guilty

of a crime.

It was a ritual crime.

And they refused.

A reasonable man

like the Emperor

Marcus Aurelius

said to the Christians,

now come off it.

Really?

Do you have to

refuse to burn incense?

They said, yes.

We're serious about it.

So these are

ritual crimes.

And so in the same way,

various ritual crimes exist,

and our police,

poor devils,

are supposed to enforce it.

And if they don't,

they're going to get it

from the politicians.

Because the politicians

have made all the old ladies,

up in Glendale,

scared in Pasadena,

and so on,

they're all just terrified

about this.

And so the politician

gets the votes

of those old ladies.

And the police

have to do

what the politician

tells them to do.

And you know,

the police,

they're just people.

It's a terrible thing

to put the police

in a position

where they're going

to earn public disrespect

by enforcing

or trying to enforce

unenforceable laws.

So I would say,

in general,

to sum up,

substances like LSD

which give away

a secret

about

the nature

of the social game,

the human game,

and what underlies it.

Potentially dangerous,

of course.

Like any good thing is,

electricity is dangerous,

fire is dangerous,

cars are dangerous,

planes are dangerous,

but not so dangerous

as driving on the freeway.

The only way

to handle danger

is to face it.

If you start

getting frightened of it,

then you make it worse.

Because you project onto it

all kinds of bogeys

and threats

which don't exist

in it at all.

So this is also a rule.

And please,

anybody here

who's a psychotherapist,

if he doesn't know this already,

take note.

If you get someone

thrown on your hands

who,

as a result of taking

any psychotropic drug,

is in a psychotic state,

don't be frightened.

Because the moment

you're afraid,

your patient

will pick up your fear

by a kind of osmosis

and get worse.

The rule

about all terrors,

going back

to where I started from,

the dweller

on the threshold,

the rule

for all terrors

is head straight

into them.

When you are

sailing in a storm,

you don't let a wave

hit your boat

on the side.

You go

bow into the wave

and ride it.

So in the same way,

old folklore says,

this is an old wife's tale

with a lot of truth in it,

whenever you meet a ghost,

don't run away.

Because the ghost

will capture

the substance

of your fear

and materialize itself

out of your own substance

and will kill you eventually

because it will take over

all your own vitality.

So then,

whenever confronted

with a ghost,

walk straight into it

and it will disappear.

And so in the same way,

when people

stir up the depths

of the unconscious

and are confronted

with their own monster,

or with the terrors

of discovering

that they're in

a relativistic world

where black implies white

and white implies black

so who's in charge.

You know,

grandfather's dead,

father's dead too,

this leaves me.

Ooh,

who's the authority?

See?

When you get that,

that sense of terror,

go right at it.

Don't run away.

Explore,

feel fear

as completely

as you can feel it.

Head straight into it.

And just,

it so happens

that these things

give you the property

and the opportunity,

let me put it that way,

the opportunity

to go into

some of your

very, very

most closely kept

skeletons.

and the result

of that

is invariably

beneficial.

Thank you.