Psychedelic culture is full of wisdom and creative figures that show us just how boring the world would be if the recreational use of mind-altering substances did not exist.
As aggressive as the War on Drugs has been throughout the years, it has been no match for geniuses who have smoked and tripped their way over to the other side.
Why is marijuana against the law?
It grows naturally upon our planet.
Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?
If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant…….
And if this world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution
Then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise.
Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed.
Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use.
– Jimmy Carter
They lie about marijuana.
Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated.
Lie!
When you’re high, you can do everything you normally do just as well — you just realize that it’s not worth the fucking effort.
00:10 – Doug Stanhope 05:07 – Joe Rogan 07:56 – Bill Hicks 13:22 – George Carlin 15:34 – Duncan Trussell
Comedians are good at describing stories in vivid, interesting ways. That’s what makes listening to these world-class comics share their psychedelic experiences so cool.
Featuring Doug Stanhope, Joe Rogan, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, and Duncan Trussell, Comedians on Psychedelics attempts to aid us in piercing the veil behind our illusory reality.
These are real people attempting to give their own piece of the experiential puzzle with as little distortion as the limits of language and memory allow. It’s not perfect, but besides first-hand psychedelic experience, it’s the best we’ve got.
Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important – creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.
LSD burst over the dreary domain of the constipated bourgeoisie like the angelic herald of a new psychedelic millennium. We have never been the same since, nor will we ever be, for LSD demonstrated, even to skeptics, that the mansions of heaven and gardens of paradise lie within each and all of us.
‘Young man on acid, thought he could fly, jumped out of a building. What a tragedy.’ What a dick! Fuck him, he’s an idiot. If he thought he could fly, why didn’t he take off on the ground first?
Check it out. You don’t see ducks lined up to catch elevators to fly south – they fly from the ground, ya moron, quit ruining it for everybody. He’s a moron, he’s dead—good, we lost a moron, fuckin’ celebrate. Wow, I just felt the world get lighter. We lost a moron! I don’t mean to sound cold, or cruel, or vicious, but I am, so that’s the way it comes out.Professional help is being sought.
How about a positive LSD story? Wouldn’t that be news-worthy, just the once? To base your decision on information rather than scare tactics and superstition and lies? I think it would be news-worthy.
‘Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we’re the imagination of ourselves’ . . . ‘Here’s Tom with the weather.’
Ken Kesey
I believe that with the advent of acid, we discovered a new way to think, and it has to do with piecing together new thoughts in your mind. Why is it that people think it’s so evil? What is it about it that scares people so deeply, even the guy that invented it, what is it?
Because they’re afraid that there’s more to reality than they have confronted. That there are doors that they’re afraid to go in, and they don’t want us to go in there either, because if we go in we might learn something that they don’t know. And that makes us a little out of their control. – Quoted in the BBC documentary, ‘The Beyond Within: The Rise and Fall of LSD,’ 1987
Alexander Shulgin
I don’t know if you realize this, but there are some researchers – doctors – who are giving this kind of drug to volunteers, to see what the effects are, and they’re doing it the proper scientific way, in clean white hospital rooms, away from trees and flowers and the wind, and they’re surprised at how many of the experiments turn sour.
They’ve never taken any sort of psychedelic themselves, needless to say.
Their volunteers – they’re called ‘subjects,’ of course – are given mescaline or LSD and they’re all opened up to their surroundings, very sensitive to color and light and other people’s emotions, and what are they given to react to? Metal bed-frames and plaster walls, and an occasional white coat carrying a clipboard. Sterility. Most of them say afterward that they’ll never do it again. – Pikhal: A Chemical Love Story, 1991
‘Turn on’ meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end.
‘Tune in’ meant interact harmoniously with the world around you—externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. Drop out suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments.
‘Drop Out’ meant self-reliance, a discovery of one’s singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean ‘Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.’ – Flashbacks, 1983
That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America selling ‘consicousness expansion’ without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously . . . All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours, too.
What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create . . . a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody—or at least some force—is tending the Light at the end of the tunnel. – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1971
Albert Hofmann
Of greatest significance to me has been the insight that I attained as a fundamental understanding from all of my LSD experiments: what one commonly takes as ‘the reality,’ including the reality of one’s own individual person, by no means signifies something fixed, but rather something that is ambiguous—that there is not only one, but that there are many realities, each comprising also a different consciousness of the ego.
One can also arrive at this insight through scientific reflections. The problem of reality is and has been from time immemorial a central concern of philosophy. It is, however, a fundamental distinction, whether one approaches the problem of reality rationally, with the logical methods of philosophy, or if one obtrudes upon this problem emotionally, through an existential experience.
The first planned LSD experiment was therefore so deeply moving and alarming, because everyday reality and the ego experiencing it, which I had until then considered to be the only reality, dissolved, and an unfamiliar ego experienced another, unfamiliar reality. The problem concerning the innermost self also appeared, which, itself unmoved, was able to record these external and internal transformations.
Reality is inconceivable without an experiencing subject, without an ego. It is the product of the exterior world, of the sender and of a receiver, an ego in whose deepest self the emanations of the exterior world, registered by the antennae of the sense organs, become conscious. If one of the two is lacking, no reality happens, no radio music plays, the picture screen remains blank. –LSD: My Problem Child, 1980
In one of his last interviews, Carl Sagan warned the public about questioning government officials who had no skill or capacity to lead a growing society.
Carl Sagan was highly respected for bringing the wonder of the cosmos to a mainstream audience. He balanced aspirations of human evolution with guiding advice about potential dangers to our existence.
Politics Are Obsolete
We live in an age based on science and technology with formidable technological power. And if we don’t understand it, and by we I mean the general public, if it’s a ‘oh I’m not good at that and I don’t know anything about it’. Then who is making all of the decisions about science and technology that will determine the kind of future our children live in, just some member of congress? There are only a handful of members of congress who have any background in science at all.
There’s two kinds of dangers, One is what I just talked about that we’ve arranged a society on science and technology in which no one understands a thing about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is sooner or later going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people do not know anything about it?
We Must Question Everything
And the second reason I’m worried about this is science is more than a body of knowledge, it’s a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility, if we are not able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate those who tell us something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan political, religious who comes along.
It’s a thing Jefferson laid great stress on, it wasn’t enough he said to enshrine some rights in a constitution or bill of rights, the people had to be educated and had to practice their skepticism and their education otherwise we don’t run government, government runs us.
Comedian George Carlin explains how money and religion have taken a big shit on human potential:
The Wrong Turn
I realized that I really didn’t care about the outcome on this planet, I didn’t care what happened to the human species. This is a species that was given great gifts and had great potential and squandered them. I think this species squandered them.
I think it choose poor ways of organizing itself, socially and politically. I think it made a wrong turn when it came to buying the okidoke that the spiritual leaders gave, the high priest. We turned it over to the high priest and the traitors.
It’s commerce and religion that have ruined and spoiled the potential of this species. And in this country the same two things are true, but this country is the leader in the decay of the soul.. if you will.. I use that metaphorically, I just don’t care what happens to this country.
Hypnosis of False Promises
Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do.
And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time.
But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money. That kinda shit is very limiting. It’s very limiting for this brain we have.
George Carlin makes fun of the ten commandments and gives the list a needed revision in this clip from his stand up comedy special When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops (2004)
George Carlin – Ten Commandments Transcript
I have a problem with the Ten Commandments. Here it is: Why are there ten? We don’t need that many. I think the list of commandments was deliberately and artificially inflated to get it up to ten. It’s clearly a padded list.
Here’s how it happened: About five thousand years ago, a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together to figure out how they could control people and keep them in line. They knew people were basically stupid and would believe anything they were told, so these guys announced that God— God personally—had given one of them a list of Ten Commandments that he wanted everyone to follow. They claimed the whole thing took place on a mountaintop, when no one else was around.
But let me ask you something: When these guys were sittin’ around the tent makin’ all this up, why did they pick ten? Why ten? Why not nine, or eleven? I’ll tell you why. Because ten sounds important. Ten sounds official. They knew if they tried eleven, people wouldn’t take them seriously. People would say, “What’re you kiddin’ me? The Eleven Commandments? Get the fuck outta here!”
But ten! Ten sounds important. Ten is the basis for the decimal system; it’s a decade. It’s a psychologically satisfying number: the top ten; the ten most wanted; the ten best-dressed. So deciding on Ten Commandments was clearly a marketing decision. And it’s obviously a bullshit list. In truth, it’s a politic; document, artificially inflated to sell better.
I’m going to show you how you can reduce the number of commandments and come up with a list that’s a bit more logical and realistic. We’ll start with the first three, and I’ll use the Roman Catholic version because those are the ones I was fed as a little boy.
I AM THE LORD THY GOD, THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME.
THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN.
THOU SHALT KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH.
Okay, right off the bat, the first three commandments—pure bullshit “Sabbath day,” “Lord’s name,” “strange gods.” Spooky language. Spooky language designed to scare and control primitive people. In no way does superstitious mumbo jumbo like this apply to the lives of intelligent, civilized human in the twenty-first century. You throw out the first three commandments, am you’re down to seven.
HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER.
This commandment is about obedience and respect for authority; in other words it’s simply a device for controlling people. The truth is, obedience and respect should not be granted automatically. They should be earned. They should be based on the parents’ (or the authority figure’s) performance. Some parents deserve respect. Most of them don’t. Period. We’re down to six.
Now, in the interest of logic—something religion has a really hard time with—I’m going to skip around the list a little bit:
THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.
THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS.
Stealing and lying. Actually, when you think about it, these two commandments cover the same sort of behavior: dishonesty. Stealing and lying. So we don’t need two of them. Instead, we combine these two and call it “Thou shalt not be dishonest.” Suddenly we’re down to five.
And as long as we’re combining commandments I have two others that belong together:
THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY.
THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR’S WIFE.
Once again, these two prohibit the same sort of behavior; in this case, marital infidelity. The difference between them is that coveting takes place in the mind. And I don’t think you should outlaw fantasizing about someone else’s wife, otherwise what’s a guy gonna think about when he’s flogging his dong?
But marital fidelity is a good idea, so I suggest we keep the idea and call this commandment “Thou shalt not be unfaithful.” Suddenly we’re down to four.
And when you think about it further, honesty and fidelity are actually parts of the same overall value. So, in truth, we could combine the two honesty commandments with the two fidelity commandments, and, using positive language instead of negative, call the whole thing “Thou shalt always be honest and faithful.” And now we’re down to three.
THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR’S GOODS.
This one is just plain stupid. Coveting your neighbor’s goods is what keeps the economy going: Your neighbor gets a vibrator that plays “O Come All Ye Faithful,” you want to get one, too. Coveting creates jobs. Leave it alone.
You throw out coveting and you’re down to two now: the big, combined honesty/fidelity commandment, and the one we haven’t mentioned yet:
THOU SHALT NOT KILL.
Murder. The Fifth Commandment. But, if you give it a little thought, you realize that religion has never really had a problem with murder. Not really. More people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason.
To cite a few examples, just think about Irish history, the Middle East, the Crusades, the Inquisition, our own abortion-doctor killings and, yes, the World Trade Center to see how seriously religious people take Thou Shalt Not Kill. Apparently, to religious folks—especially the truly devout—murder is negotiable. It just depends on who’s doing the killing and who’s getting killed.
And so, with all of this in mind, folks, I offer you my revised list of the Two Commandments:
First:
THOU SHALT ALWAYS BE HONEST AND FAITHFUL, ESPECIALLY TO THE PROVIDER OF THY NOOKIE.
And second:
THOU SHALT TRY REAL HARD NOT TO KILL ANYONE, UNLESS, OF COURSE, THEY PRAY TO A DIFFERENT INVISIBLE AVENGER THAN THE ONE YOU PRAY TO.
Two is all you need, folks. Moses could have carried them down the hill in his pocket. And if we had a list like that, I wouldn’t mind that brilliant judge in Alabama displaying it prominently in his courthouse lobby. As long he included one additional commandment:
George Carlin talks about a point in his comedy career where he was directing his message to the wrong people. The close minded and uptight war generation didn’t want to hear him, but the children of the 60s embraced his declarations of peace, love, and change.
Hallucinogens are value changers, so is marijuana. Like it or not, it changes your values.
It opens up your windows, doors of perceptions was what Aldous Huxley called them.
You see things differently and I suddenly was able to see my place and realize I was in the wrong place.
George Carlin and Jacque Fresco discuss the dangers of feeding bullshit to the impressionable minds of children.
A Mind Without Questions is a Slave
Bullshit is the glue, that binds us as a nation. Where would we be without our safe, familiar, American bullshit? Land of the free, home of the brave, the American dream, all men are equal, justice is blind, the press is free, your vote counts, business is honest, the good guys win, the police are on your side, god is watching you, your standard of living will never decline… and everything is going to be just fine— The official national bullshit story.
I call it the American okie doke. Every one, every one of those items is provably untrue at one level or another, but we believe them because they’re pounded into our heads from the time we’re children. That’s what they do with that kind of thing—pound it into the heads of kids, ‘cause they know the children are much too young to be able to muster an intellectual defense against a sophisticated idea like that, and they know that up to a certain age children believe everything their parents tell them.
And as a result, they never learn to question things. Children should be taught to question everything. Children should taught to question everything they read, everything they hear. Children should be taught to question authority.
Older Isn’t Always Wiser
When I was a young man growing up in New York City, I refused to pledge allegiance to the flag. Of course I was sent to the principal’s office. And he asked me, ‘Why don’t you want to pledge allegiance? Everybody does!’
I said, ‘Everybody once believed the Earth was flat but that doesn’t make it so.’ I explained that America owed everything it has to other cultures and other nations. and that I would rather pledge allegiance to the Earth and everyone on it.
The Game is Corrupt
Then came the crash of 1929, which began what we now call “The Great Depression”. I found it difficult to understand why millions were out of work, homeless, starving while all the factories were sitting there. The resources were unchanged.
It was then that I realized that the rules of the economic game were inherently invalid.
Shortly after, came World War II where various nations took turns systematically destroying each other. I later calculated that all the destruction and wasted resources spent on that war could have easily provided for every human need on the planet.
