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[Sian]

I wouldn't say it was hypocritical but you have to examine the reasons for taking your kids to church.

In my eyes, religion is both good and bad. It is what wars are waged for but it also acts as a certain.....social conscience for people. Without religion some people would be unforgiving and would have no moral conscience at all. Thou shalt not commit adultery is a fine example....we all agree that cheating on a partner is the ultimate betrayal but where did that moral standing come from? The Bible.

In the same sense though, look at wars. The Crusades. The "Troubles" in Ireland. The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. So many more! All in the name of religion!

It is a hypocritical stand that works. We all want our children to grow up to be caring, responsible, independent people. By instilling basic moral values....as set out in the Bible....into our children we think we are doing right.

Without sounding mental Kim...what would you do if one of your kids decided that they wanted to get more involved in their religion? Would you be happy with them getting involved in a organised society that preaches more than it practises. Or on the other hand would you be pleased that they were promoting a belief in something higher than themselves, an understanding that there are more important things than themselves in the world. Its a hard one!

[Ectoplasmic Terrier]

I read Wolfe's EKAAT when I was young and thinking about taking LSD.  I also read Dr. Albert Hoffmann's  LSD: My Problem Child, which I cannot recommend highly (no pun intended) enough.  The others I read at the time were Aldous Huxley's essays "The Doors of Perception" and "Heaven and Hell."

In the end I decided not to take LSD and I never will.  It might be a useful tool for some, but certainly not all.  My psychiatric history is the main reason I refrained.

The other problem with LSD is knowing what it is and where to get it.  I've talked to a lot of kids over the years who did not understand the chemistry and did not understand the Deadhead dealers were selling them crap.  If you hear some kid say, "Yeah, man, I was on like seven hits of acid at the concert, I was groovin,'" you can be sure he was on some pretty weak junk.  If you ingested 1600 mcg of pure LSD-25, you wouldn't be going to no concert.  You wouldn't be going no place...maybe for about three weeks!

Another kid told me you get spinal aches when you take LSD because strychnine (rat poison) is a "natural chemical element of acid."  I said, "No it's not, that dealer is a goddamn liar and you're a fool!"  I don't lecture kids about the dangers of drugs per se, but about the dangers of street drugs, because YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING!

Ken Kesey said something to t the effect of "When you've heard the message, hang up the phone."  In other words, the LSD trip is just one milestone on a spiritual journey.  It's not an end in and of itself no matter how profound it feels at the time.

My anti-Guru is John Cage.  I say "anti-Guru" because he was a Zen Buddhist.  He would not have accepted disciples.  What Cage teaches us is how to find enlightenment in the trivial and mundane world of everyday life.  You cannot stay on LSD all the time.  Some people tried, and they fried!  

TEKAAT depressed me.  The mission was doomed from the start.  It is more of a document on the follies of the hippie movement than about the real nature of LSD.  That's why I recommond Hoffmann's book, if you can find it.  Dr. Hoffmann was a young Swiss chemist working for Sandosz Laboratories in WWII.  He was searching for cold remedies within the chemical make up of Ergot fungus.  He synthesized LSD-25, ingested a bit by accident and the rest is history.  Hoffmann is still alive today at the age of 100!

Trivia: before its prohibition, LSD was commercially available from Sandoz (for professional research purposes, not general consumption) under the trade name Delsyd.

[StareGirl]

Yes.  One only need look at the list of groups at Rick Ross's Website to see that.  Not all groups are cults, but many are.  

Personally, I do not think there is such a thing as this:

If a person is already of the mindset that they should join the so-and-so cult all they need is gentle persuasion in the right direction.

This I disagree with.  I think that a cult will find a weakness, and this is no fault of the person who ends up in the cult.

[Sian]

Yes.  One only need look at the list of groups at Rick Ross's Website to see that.  Not all groups are cults, but many are.  

Personally, I do not think there is such a thing as this:

If a person is already of the mindset that they should join the so-and-so cult all they need is gentle persuasion in the right direction.

This I disagree with.  I think that a cult will find a weakness, and this is no fault of the person who ends up in the cult.

I don't think you get what I'm saying. If you take someone with an unhealthy interest in dark pratises of Satanism, show them a group of people who share that interest, chances are they will join them.

Or take me. I thought at one time that Catholicism was great. All it took for me to start attending the masses was my friend agreeing with me. 6 months later the hypocrisy was doing my head in and I stopped going, yet in 10 months time I will be strolling up the aisle of a catholic church to take my wedding vows because I believe that holy matrimony is important. For a reason I can't quite explain I feel the need to get married in the eyes of God. My mum and I hate registry office weddings because it lacks the religious perspective. (We know, its supposed to!) I am actually confused as to whether the church is a good or a bad thing!

What I'm saying is people are not always snatched and bullied into joining cults. People don't always need forcing. Someone that wants to join a group will do it. I'm not talking exclusively about "Bad, Evil Cults" either, I'm including the church and so many other "innocent" looking organisations.

I also respect that there are people that are snatched and bullied into staying.

[Lyric]

Okay, I have to step in, and ask that we leave churches and religion OUT of this.
To discuss the CULT MIND, is one thing.  And how a CULT can sway the minds of the impressionable.

But no more on churches.  We can discuss religions and how they can possibly effect ones mental health later, just not here.


Back to EKAAT;  We are in agreeance that a group of women can sync with one another, and so can a group of men..  (men have PMS and other hormonal cycles too)
We also are agreeing toward, the notion that a close knit group of people can develop a group consciousness, as to what works and what does not work within their group.

We have also touched on the Cult mind (not the religious mind), and how there is a certain amount of brainwashing in this.  


So... are we coming to the conclusion, that Kesey wasn't all wrong in his thought process that without LSD a group could indeed experience this?

But, by the time he brought his 'sober' thoughts to the fore, so many people who were into LSD..  just couldn't grasp the sober reality because the trip was.... what...  too consuming?



ET touched on the dangers of this drug, and all of it's varying street values.  I am also going to caution people with this.  Chemicals available on the street now, is NOT the chemical we are talking about.  
EKAAT- was a pharmaceutical grade of LSD.  Which was used to expirement on people to see the effects of these drugs on the public.  Which is how Kesey got ahold of it in the first place.

LSD, was NOT cut down with strychnine, draino, pine-sol and other garbage until greed came into the picture, and people were trying to stretch the amount of pharm grade LSD to make money.



Back to religions. Its not that I don't want to talk about it, however, I would like to keep separate the religious churches and the fanatics that create cults.
We can talk about how cult leaders often bend religions to their own definition to govern/create their cult, since they use scriptural text as a means of comforting the weak and luring them with something familiar.

So... please... try to keep standard religion out of this.  




Trivia-  The Double Helix that is used to represent the DNA chain...  was a vision that was seen in an LSD trip.

[Kadee]

So... are we coming to the conclusion, that Kesey wasn't all wrong in his thought process that without LSD a group could indeed experience this?

But, by the time he brought his 'sober' thoughts to the fore, so many people who were into LSD..  just couldn't grasp the sober reality because the trip was.... what...  too consuming?





Trivia-  The Double Helix that is used to represent the DNA chain...  was a vision that was seen in an LSD trip.

I  would agree totaly that he was not wrong with the whole group thought process without LSD, as I have stated  before that I think that we choose the people in our lives because they think and tend to act like this, hence we surround ourselves with the  same mentality for comfort sake anyways.  

I am curious, ( I didn't research like I said I would  :oops: ) how long did these experiments go on for, how addicting is LSD in its pure state, what is the physical outcome of taking LSD over  a short period of time versus a long period of time, because that to me would be why the experiment failed to bring into light his expectations.  These people would have ended up  to "fried" to grasp any concept given to them if this went on for a long  period of time right?   But how quickly can this drug wreck your mind?

Interesting fact on the DNA chain Lyric- I love a good trivia answer to store away for future use :wink:

[Lyric]

I will have to go back and do some research on it again.

I do know that EKAAT, was written over the course of a year.
We also know that the SanFrancisco, Free Love environment only lasted a few years.

SO... we can say hypthetically...  a grand total of 5 years, give or take a couple years.

You bring up good points..  How many of these people tripped constantly?; coming down, only to go up again; effectively making 'sober' reality too hard to really deal with.

As to how quickly.....  that may depend on the health of your mind to begin with.  I am sure (as I believe it is true with ANY drug), that use only exacerbates underlying problems.

[Kadee]

Holy Crap, I just looked up Ken Kesey, and I found this a little disturbing, he really messed with peoples minds.  Here is a discription of what went on at his ranch I found at one particular web site:

WITH THE COMMERCIAL success of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey bought property in La Honda and moved his wife and children and assorted Merry Pranksters to the mountains outside of San Francisco. There they began throwing parties Kesey called Acid Tests, where revelers would ingest LSD, sometimes without their knowledge, and attempt to survive the often harrowing night. Kesey believed that one's personal fears should be confronted under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. The surrounding woods, with trees painted day-glo colors, dissonant music blasting from hidden speakers, and the very odd invited guests­including members of the Hell's Angels­made the parties an experience that not all endured without physical and psychological consequences. Kesey constantly pushed the limits with his own experimentations and eventually moved the Acid Tests into public places such as the Longshoreman's Hall, Muir Beach, or musical events at Bill Graham's Fillmore West.

If that is how he conducted his experiment no wonder he couldn't keep control of the outcome he intended with the group mind set without the use of LSD.   It looks to me like he didn't have much control from the get go.  I'm going to have to read the  Electric Kool-Aid  book now, this is really interesting.

[Lyric]

Scary ain't it.

I'm sure that some of that is true, and I am sure some of it is fabrication. Since Ken Kesey didn't have many fans who weren't "on the bus"
And, the Feds were after him for the use and distribution of the chemical.

The Greatful Dead must sound better when loaded, because I can't stand them sober....lol


When you look at who some of the Merry Pranksters were and who some of the associates of Kesey.  It's kind of amazing how many of them later shaped businesses and even the literary end of our history at that point.

Companies like Delphi, Oracle, Apple all had users who started these businesses, and were part of the Acid Tests.



"Saw a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac......" hmmmm

[Kadee]

It is a little scary, but I found myself reading whatever I could yesterday despite the fact that it is a little freaky and a bit before my time since I was born on the tail end of 1969.   Very interesting how smart many of these people were.  It is an interesting era anyway the 60's but this aspect of it is just fascinating an dsomething I never really looked into.

What first blew me away, was the fact that One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest was his work.  It is one of my husband and my all time favorite movies and I didn't realize untill yesterday that he wrote it :shock:   Sometimes I swear I live under a rock.


And the Grateful Dead- never got their following or liked their music, probably cause I didn't get stoned :roll:

[Dr Sketch]

Here, this might help start the ball rolling...

http://www.pranksterweb.org

That will give you a lot more info...  I've already learned a lot!  Man, once they got old they started looking.... normal.  ~shudder~  Hope that never happens to me!

[Kadee]

OOH Thank you kindly Dr, I reading I shall go......

I'm never going to get "old"- I will fight it to the bitter end   :lol:

[Dr Sketch]

If I have to age, I wanna age like Wavy Gravy, not like Ken Kesey...  I don't wanna grow up "normal", I don't want to lose who I am.  As long as I have my stethescope and mask, I should be ok (they're the source of my powers!).

I have to thank Lyric for bringing this up: I never would have started looking into all of this if you hadn't started this subject!  I've learned a lot (and understand things that I knew even better!), and that is never a bad thing!

[Lyric]

I'm glad you all like this one.
I try to give you guys topics to make you all think, and challenge your own perceptions about things.
Not because you don't do that on your own, but, because it is something we thinkers do.

[Dr Sketch]

Nah, you just like to troll!  :wink: