Mavericks of the Mind: Conversations with Terence McKenna, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, John Lilly, Carolyn Mary Kleefeld, Laura Huxley, Robert Anton Wilson, and others…

by Brown, David Jay

  I'm going to the cryonics center Friday at Riverside--that's ALCOR. I'm going there with Harry Nealson, probably with Ringo Starr, and a group of our friends. We're planning a reunion. We're going to sign up as a group for hibernation, and reanimation, possibly fifty years from now. We're having lunch at the St. James Club Friday with a group of people, and one of the things we're speculating is, we'd like to have lunch again in fifty years. The champagne will be chilled, there's no question of that.

  Now what I'm doing there is I'm introducing a very powerful, comforting notion that cryonics is not you're being frozen like a stiff, like a frozen steak in a freezer, and you're popped out in cellophane, and popped in the microwave. We're talking about groups of people who have enjoyed being together in this first life, who would want to reanimate together. Because I don't want to wake up, frankly, fifty years from now, and not have any of my friends there. I'11 be surrounded by these hot-shot scientists from the twenty-first century, and maybe a few of these scientists from ALCOR, who are nice people, but I don't hang out with them. I want my friends around too.

  This, by the way, is agonizingly or heart-warming reminiscent of the Egyptians. Because when the Egyptians went into their reanimation laboratories, their wives, and then their pets, would join them. When their servants would die, then they'd do them too, and try to preserve them. The Christian archeologists said, well this is a Pagan policy, and they just wanted their servants there to wait on them in the future, the afterlife. But a more humanistic interpretation is that naturally they wanted to share this reanimation option with the people with whom they spent this life.

  RMN: Have you heard about morphic fields?

  TIMOTHY: Yes.

  RMN: Sheldrake theorizes that memory is not even stored in the brain. What do you think of that?

  TIMOTHY: Where is it stored?

  RMN: Well, the idea is that there's access by the brain to these non-material memory fields, through which the brain picks memory up, but does not necessarily store it.

  TIMOTHY: But the brain is a receiving instrument that picks it up? Yes. Well, there's no question. You don't have to say non-material. You're just referring to something we haven't been able to measure yet. See, the air is full of television signals, and to show a primitive person that, they'd think it was magic, or it's immaterial. It's not. It is material. Remember, almost everything that the former primitive religions called spiritual, you can redefine as being immeasurable right now by our level of equipment.

  The planet earth is being bombarded by radio signals from outer space, none of which are comprehensible to us, and part of evolution is the increasing ability to detect information. You see, it's all information, everything is information. Morphogenetic information is information signals that we are now too crude and childish to pick up. I tend to resist strongly this notion that there's a spiritual thing that's outward beyond science, because then we have no options, we're just kind of helpless victims, and someone comes along and does it. So I have no quarrel at all with this notion. My only quarrel is with people who try to limit or moralize about different options.

  DJB: What role do you see computers playing in the evolution of human consciousness, and do you think it's possible to down-load, so to speak, human consciousness or brain software into a computer?

  TIMOTHY: These concepts of computer and down-load are really primitive, and they lock conversation at a certain level. The notion of cyber-space is that we are now creating this enormous universe of digital signals in the form of all the radio programs and television shows that have ever been produced, and all the traffic that's been going around in satellites. That actually there is an ocean. There's literally an ocean of electronic signals up there that's just as tangible as the Atlantic ocean. But before Magellan we couldn't access it. Now we're learning to explore this ocean of cyber-space and electric signals, and create within it. So that down-loading is just not a precise term.

  I'm working with groups now that wear computers. You see, so that every time I move my arm there is a correspondence of movement on the screen. I can actually reach in and move and change things in the screen. And you can be there too--so we can shake hands, or we can dance, or we can even take each other's clothes off, or we can play tennis with each other. You can be the ball for that matter. So it's not a question of down-loading programs. Just as graphic art and books allowed us to communicate better, so too will the realities of digital creativity that we create. So there's no more computer.

  Everything that I can do can be digitized, preserved, and then you can interact with it. It's robotry now because we're always aware that there's a breathing, living, juicy human being who's doing it. On the other hand, my self is stored there, so that a hundred years from now, even though I don't come back in the physical form, my descendants, or anyone who wants to interact with Timothy Leary will be able to do it. We can actually play Frisbee, or we can probably fuck each other digitally on the screen, in years to come. This does not take the place of fleshy, juicy, interactions anymore than books took the place of touching, murmuring, and groping around.

  As a matter of fact, you could argue that literature enriched human behavior. So that people fucked better, if they've read a few books, than if they had not. The same thing is true if you've had a hundred digital love affairs, digital tennis matches, or digital wars on the screen. You're going to be much more sophisticated, sensitive, and wise in your human and physical interactions-instead of being vulgarized, or even condemned, as they are now. The actual touch, like this, is considered this extraordinary, rare, and rich moment.

  It's a high moment because Gosh, you know, we've been on the screen together, and we have been married three times, and you were a boy, and I was a girl, and we were gay, and this and that, and God knows what we've done, and now when we actually touch, we totally sanctify and glorify the rare opportunity of physical interaction, instead of just running around like animals. In the industrial age the concept of a body was of a messy machine. In the cybernetic age, the body is an incredible temple, bristling with sense organs, and information-sending output. So that's the down-load. I out-loaded your down-load.

  RMN: As machines are comprised of earth-based products, Terence McKenna made the suggestion that it could be that through technological advancement the planet is organizing itself into a self-reflective conscious entity. What do you think of this idea?

  TIMOTHY: That's fabulous. I'm a great admirer of Terence McKenna, and what he's doing. I must put a caveat here. All of our language is suspect as we move from a mechanical factory society, which is state-controlled, into a much freer cybernetic society. Now, all of us who grew up in the sixties have a terrible bias against technology, because technology was what was polluting the air, and grinding down the soil, and making a parking lot out of our planet. Much of this understandable contempt for technology has flipped over into a contempt for computers.

  But there's a great difference between mechanical technology, which uses oil, metal, concrete, and is in material form, and the cybernetic technology which is invisible. Within two or three years of the computers, instead of the mainframe's enormous bar and building it will be as small as a cigarette box. So that the basic virtue and ethical goal in the cybernetic society is no longer big is better, and more is better, but smaller. Throughout, the lesson is learned from Hermes Trismagistus: as above, so below, as in the larger, so in the smaller.

  The greatest wisdom is always housed in the smallest package. I think I even said that in the Psychedelic Prayers twenty-eight years ago. Look at the DNA code. The DNA code is invisible, and yet the DNA code has enough information to build you an Amazon rain forest, or build a hundred David Browns. I mean it's there. The point is certainly obvious. We've now learned that the atom is not just a bunch of billiard balls going around Bohr's solar system. The atom, we have every reason to expect, is charged with enormous miniaturized information. The fact that we can't decipher it is not the problem of the atom. That's what
quantum physics demonstrates.

  See, matter and energy are frozen clusters of quarks. Matter is simply information which is frozen, and then it dissolves. So the smaller the information unit, the more efficient, and the more kindly, because you don't have to chop down a forest of trees to build books. It can just be put on tiny little silicon chip. See, we've gone from carbon to silicon, because carbon is much more precious. Carbon is organic, whereas silicon is cybernetic. You want to have the silicon do whatever you can to spare the carbon, because the trees, bees and flowers are carbon based.

  DJB: How do you feel about scientific progress these days, and what do you think is missing?

  TIMOTHY: There's been a wonderful surge of new and imaginative science in the last ten or fifteen years. Prigogine's system theory, for example. Sheldrake's morphogenetic resonance, and the notion of the hundred monkeys. Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis. Terence McKenna. I could go on listing. All of these wonderful intuitions growing out of science have been landmarks. There's just one little slip you have to add to it that makes it all click, and that is that all of these wonderful thinkers and prophets are talking about information. See, another thing I must say is that the key to information theory and quantum philosophy is the notion that there are no laws of the universe. That's such a typical Victorian British Empire piece of shit, because the Judeo God is up there--he's the judge, and he's emitting laws and commandments, of all things.

  DJB: How do you see the process of evolution working?

  TIMOTHY: The way that evolution works at the level of astro-physics, or at the organic level, and even the level of human knowledge, is that it's all based on algorithms. I won't go into the details, but algorithms can be summed up as: if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if--then. So, if the sunlight is such, if the temperature is this, if the water level is this, if the meteorological stuff is this, and if there is enough nitrogen--Click--then it happens in every island around, all the leaves turn green. See, they're programmed that way.

  DJB: Have you thought about Bell's Theorem, how the mechanism of nonlocality occurs?

  TIMOTHY: This notion of the non-locality of cause--Bell's Theorem and all that--seems kind of mysterious, unless it's all information, of course. If you program an algorithm, you don't set laws; you're the program, and if the program is if, if, if, if--then, the same thing's going to happen on the other side of the galaxy if it's going to happen here. That's the non-locality of cause. It's totally comprehensible and inevitable if you understand it's all information chains and codes, and they all pop up if, if, if, if--then. This is not in any way a reductionist perspective. Another one of the problems of a soft philosophy and hard philosophy is reductionism.

  There's no reductionism here because if you've played around with algorithms, like fractals for example, you realize that you never know what's going to happen. They asked Fredkin--who's the great prophet of all this--"Are you saying that God is some crazed computer hacker in the sky, who's writing all these programs for stars, and atoms?" If there are two of you, and one of me, and you're hydrogen, and I'm oxygen, we get water, see? But, if that's the if.

  Fredkin said, "Well, I don't know about trying to identify the intelligence that set these algorithms up; we're too crude right now to speculate, but I'll tell you one thing about it. Whoever he, she, it, or they were who wrote these algorithms, they're surprised as hell every time because—quick—oh my god—look what they're doing now!" If you've ever seen how a fractal program operates, you know that these incredible forms develop, and yet they always come back to the basic forms of cosines, which are like the linings of the esophagus, which are like the clouds.

  See, coastlines and coast-like phenomena are wonderful, because they are a way of miniaturizing information. If you took a coastline and pulled it out, it'd be like ten miles long, but not if you crunch it together, like the DNA code is. It's a way of miniaturizing and packaging. Now, the notion of algorithms account for non-locality of cause. Whether it's Bell's physical experiments, or Sheldrake's hundred monkeys. It's so comforting to know that everyone is right. It's just that we can improve the theories, and make Sheldrake and Bell more precise and comprehensible.

  DJB: Can you tell us about any current projects on which you're working?

  TIMOTHY: Yes, I'm working on a series of educational programs that allow us to convert education into exciting performance. I've recently been appointed a professor at Penn State. You don't teach courses, you coach. The stars in this metaphor of learning, naturally, are the students, just like baseball. The coach or the teacher--he's the one who just tells you how to use your bat. The stars are the players, who we formerly called students. So I'm coaching students at Penn State via computer. I'm also preparing to nationally syndicate a daily five-minute radio commentary and a weekly half-hour television talk show.

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  Why Not Indeed?!

  with Timothy Leary

  It is extremely rare to find a photograph of Timothy Leary in which he isn't smiling broadly. From the moment that Timothy first turned on to psychedelics-- and there was a camera, a microphone, or an audience pointed his way-- he consistently and charismatically radiated cheerful messages of hope, optimism, and courage. His beaming intelligence, hyper-insightful mind, and quick wit held the power to make people think, laugh, and feel good. But his most recent performance, I think, beats them all. His brave and upbeat approach to dying was every bit as instructive, inspiring, and entertaining as his approach to life had always been. He will certainly be remembered as one of the most original and enigmatic philosophers of the Twentieth century.

  On a recent visit to Los Angeles, Robert Anton Wilson remarked to Timothy, "I've met Buckminster Fuller, and I still think you're the most intelligent man that I've ever met. And I've met George Carlin, and I still think you're the funniest man that I've ever met."

  To which Timothy replied, "You're a good judge of character Bob. I've always thought I'm pretty wonderful too." Self-effacing humor was never quite his style.

  When Timothy announced to the world that he was dying of cancer a flurry of media attention flocked his way. Ever the Zen prankster, he told reporters that he was "ecstatic" and "thrilled" to be dying. Hearing these words in the context of death simply delighted me. I wanted to see Timothy again before he crossed over the threshold into the promised land, and ask him a few final questions. So I put everything that I was doing aside, and headed south for Los Angeles.

  There was a beautiful rainbow arching across the sky when Rebecca Novick and I arrived at Timothy's home off Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills on February 26, 1996. We took the rainbow to be a good omen, and the three of us stood in the backyard admiring it for several minutes. Timothy remarked that this was "the clearest day" that he had ever seen since he had lived in the house. The rain had washed some of the smog from the air, and indeed it was a very clear day for Los Angeles, but I suspect that Timothy's sense of clarity was due to other factors. He said that he could make out even the tiniest details of every tree on the neighboring hills, which was more than I could do. "How beautiful... Look how wonderful it is," he said with his youthful eyes widening, leaning forward on his cane, as though every millimeter counted.

  Timothy was using a cane due to that fact that the prostate cancer had spread throughout his pelvic region. As he struggled towards the bedroom, where he was about to get a massage, he leaned onto Rebecca's shoulder for support. Unsure of which direction the bedroom was, Rebecca asked him which way to go.

  "Haven't you ever been here before?" he asked.

  "I've been here," she replied, "just not in the bedroom."

  "Can you prove it?" Timothy laughed with flirtatious twinkling eyes. He continued to joke around and laugh the whole time that we were there.

  There was a Lilly isolation tank in Timothy's bedroom, colorful abstract paintings hung on the walls, and a large tank of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) stood by the closet. Throughout the interview, and for hours afterwa
rds, we passed around large balloons filled with the giggly gas, which added a relaxed sense of expansiveness to the atmosphere.

  Although Timothy looked very skinny, and his body seemed to be wasting away, his mind was as quick, sharp, and clear as ever. His eyes were bright, he was unceasingly animated, and his spirit was as alive as could be. His sense of humor hadn't diminished one bit, and he was as sweet and playful as a child. The exterior shell of his personality seemed to have softened, and he was the most open that I'd ever seen him. He seemed to be deeply appreciating every moment of his existence, especially the massage that our friend Robin Rae was giving him, while I conducted the interview at his bedside.