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

  So I said, like Hofmann, I’ll be conservative and take a cc. I backed myself up to the wall until I could go no further so (laughter) I had to inject myself in the rear. And from then on -- Man, I was in a strange place, the strangest. I was in a world that was like being inside of a pinball machine. The only thing like it, oddly enough, was in a movie called Zardoz, where a man is trapped inside of a crystal. It was angular, electronic, filled with all kinds of strange over-beats and electronic circuits, flashes and movements. It looked like an ultra souped-up disco, where lights are coming from every direction. Just extra- ordinary. Then I’d go unconscious, the observer was knocked out.

  Then the observer would come back intermittently, then go back out. I had a sense of terror because each time I blacked out it was like dying. I went through this dance of the molecules and electrons inside of my head and I, for all the world, felt like a television set looks when on between pictures. Finally I lay on the floor, time seemed endless. Then it lightened up and I looked at my watch. It had been 45 minutes. I’d thought I had been in that place for 200 years. I think what I was looking at was the archetonics of the brain itself. We learned later that that was an enormous a dose. Just smoking a fraction of this would give you a profound effect. So in that dose range I think I just busted every- thing up. (laughter) Parry came back the next day, and he said, "Well, let’s try some." I said, "I got to the North Pole ahead of you."

  DJB: That took a lot of courage.

  OSCAR: Well, it was fool-hardiness.

  DJB: I hear you’ve been doing some interesting work with dolphins and Olympic swimmers. Perhaps you could tell us a little about this project.

  OSCAR: Albert Stevens, Matt Biondi and I, got the idea several years ago that we might find an innovative way of approaching wild dolphins, by using Olympic swimmers - the best in the world. It is difficult to study wild dolphins because they are free-ranging and peripetetic. We went to where the dolphins were reported to be, fifty miles off the coast of Grand Bahamma Island. We waited. When they came we jumped in with them, and did sa great deal of underwater filming. We studied the film to try to find out how the dolphins behave, and we’re still in the process of doing that now. We did it for three years and developed a good working relationship with these dolphins whom we were now able to identify. Dolphins are strange and beguiling creatures. Their language seems totally incomprehensible, as we know our own language to be nothing like it whatsoever. It appears to be a different order of communication. What stories the dolphins could bring back from their alien world of water if we could only communicate with them.

  DJB: The final question. Could you tell us about the Albert Hofmann Foundation and any other current projects that you’re working on?

  OSCAR: Well, I co-founded the Albert Hofmann Foundation about three years ago. I was involved in LSD research from 1954 to 1962. During that time I accumulated a large store of books, art-work, papers, correspondence, tape-recordings, news-clippings, research reports and memorabilia which probably represented a fair sample of what went on in the psychedelic history of Los Angeles and elsewhere. I was aware that there is a great deal of this kind of information that is scattered and isolated and in dager of being lost or destroyed. Collected and organized this would provide an extremely valuable resource for future research and historians.

  I was approached by several people who were committed to preserving these unique records. We formed a non-profit organization that we felt was fitting to be named in honour of the man who discovered LSD and psilocybin - Albert Hofmann. He was most gracious in his acceptance and pledged his whole-hearted support. It is based in Los Angeles and functions soley as a library, archive and information center at this time. We have collected a great deal of relevant material from the poineers of psychedelic research; eg. Laura Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, Stan Grof, Humphrey Osmond and many others. I got back an enthusiastic response from most of the leaders of this movement.

  The foundation provides the only open forum for the legitimate discussion of these issues. It offers a place where people can discuss ideas about their own experiences under these various agents. I was surprised to learn how many people out there are closet psychedelic graduates. I’ve talked to people who I thought that never in a million years would understand what I was talking about. "Oh my, It was a wonderful experience!" said a sixty-five year old professor of Medieval French, and I couldn’t believe that she had said that. There’s plenty of them out there, so we’re bringing them together and many of them have become members in our organization. Other projects? I’ve been working in several non-profit organizations that have some concern for the ecological welfare of the Earth.

  One is called, "Eyes on Earth", and another is called, "Earth Anthem". Eyes on Earth involves a scientific visualization of the Earth and it’s resources. It is the only true cloud-free picture of the Earth, projected electronically onto a huge globe. It was painstakingly assembled by the photographs of the Earth without clouds taken by satellite and it depicts how different resources are dwindling and being depleted. Earth Anthem is a contest for people throughout the world, to find an anthem that represents the earth. This project will culminate in a program designed to celebrate the finalists of this contest. We want to find a song that is representative of the earth, one that we could sing if the Martians come. (laughter) In addition, my new book - A Different Kind of Healing - is in publication by Putnam and is to be released shortly. So that’s what I’m up to, and I keep moving. I think Einstein said it, "Keep moving!"

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  From here to Alternity and Beyond

  with John C. Lilly

  How does one briefly describe a man as complex as John Lilly? Whole books barely provide an overview of this man's extraordinary existence, amazing accomplishments, and contributions to the world. His list of scientific achievements covers a full page in Who's Who in America. John C. Lilly, M.D. is perhaps best known as the man behind the fictional scientists dramatized in the films Altered states and The Day of the Dolphin. He pioneered the original neuroscientific work In electrical brain stimulation, mapping out the pleasure and pain pathways in the brain. He frontiered work in inter-species communication research with dolphins and whales. He invented the isolation tank and did significant research in the area of sensory deprivation.

  Educated at CalTech, Dartmouth Medical School, and the University of Pennsylvania, he did a large part of his scientific research at the National Institute of Mental Health and built his own dolphin-communication research lab in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. After experimenting with LSD in the sensory deprivation flotation tank, he left the academic world in pursuit of ever higher states of consciousness. From the Esalen Institute to Chile to ketamine-induced extraterrestrial contacts in other realities, this man's life is more far-out than any science fiction. Always following the scientific tradition that carved his name into history, John Lilly systematically and courageously explored the states of consciousness produced by LSD and ketamine while in the isolation tank. His autobiographies The Center of the Cyclone, The Dyadic Cyclone (with Toni Lilly), and The Scientist, provide mind-boggling overviews of his amazing adventure of a life. His philosophy on how to reprogram one's own brain is best summarized in Programming and Metaprogramming the Human Biocomputer, and Simulations of God.

  Rebecca McClen and I interviewed John at his house in Malibu on the night of February 16, 1991. It was a magically enchanting evening. John was like a Zen master, with sparkling extraterrestrial eyes, in top form, more brilliant than ever at 76, laughing, creating and bursting realities like soap bubbles. John is very direct and ruthlessly compassionate, more knowledgeable than a library of encyclopedias yet as innocent and curious as a small child. The interview lasted over four hours. John spoke enthusiastically to us about how his early scientific research influenced his latter explorations in consciousness, from dolphins to extraterrest
rials. He spoke to us about the distinction between insanity and outsanity, and about ECCO-- the Earth Coincidence Control Office. We discussed and shared our ketamine experiences together. He discussed his ideas about how ketamine makes the brain sensitive to micro-waves, so that it can directly pick up television and radio signals. From electrical brain stimulation to interspecies communication to sensory deprivation to psychedelic exploration, John Lilly is a pure delight to be around

  DJB

  DJB: John, what was it that originally inspired your interest in neuroscience and the nature of reality?

  JOHN: At age sixteen, in my prep school, I wrote an article for the school paper called "Reality," and that laid out the trip for the rest of my life--thought versus brain activity and brain structure. I went to CalTech to study the biological sciences, and there I took my first course in neuroanatomy. Later I went on to Dartmouth Medical School where I took another course in neuroanatomy, and at the University of Pennsylvania I studied the brain even further. So I learned more about the brain than I can tell you.

  RMN: In what ways do you think your Catholic background influenced your mystical experiences?

  JOHN: At Catholic school I learned about tough boys and beautiful girls. I fell in love with Margaret Vance, never told her, though, and it was incredible. I didn't understand about sex so I visualized exchanging urine with her. My father had one of these exercise machines with a belt worn around your belly or rump and a powerful electric motor to make the belt vibrate. I was on this machine and all the vibration stimulated my erogenous zones. Suddenly my body fell apart and my whole being was enraptured. It was incredible.

  I went to confession the following morning and the priest said, "Do you jack off!." I didn't know what he meant, then suddenly I did and I said, "No." He called it a mortal sin. I left the church thinking, "If they're going to call a gift from God a mortal sin, then to hell with them. That isn't my God, they're just trying to control people."

  RMN: What is your personal understanding of God?

  JOHN: When I was Seven years old I had a vision alone in a Catholic church. Suddenly I saw God on his throne: an old man with a white beard and white hair surrounded by angels and the saints parading around with a lot of music. I made the mistake of asking a nun about the vision and she said, "Only saints have visions!" I assumed that she thought I wasn't a saint.

  So I kept that memory, and on my first acid trip I relived it completely to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. And suddenly I realized that the little boy had constructed this to explain the experience he had. I realized that one has to project onto an experience if one is going to talk about it because the experience itself can't be said in words. But if you are going to talk about it you choose words which you feel are most appropriate. I understood that, as a seven year old I had done that. I saw an old man with white hair because the pre-programming was there. It wasn't physiology; it was something inside, the inner reality.

  RMN: Has your understanding or idea of God evolved over time as a result of your changing experiences?

  JOHN: Well, when I started going out on the universe with LSD in the tank, I'd come to a certain group of entities and I'd say, "Are you God?" And they'd say, "Well, we say that to some people but God is way up there somewhere with the angels." And it turned out no matter how big they were, God is bigger. So finally I got to the Starmaker. But as Olaf Stapledon says in his book, it's impossible to describe the Starmaker in human terms. He was well aware of the bullshit of language.

  I call God ECCO now. The Earth Coincidence Control Office. It's much more satisfying to call it that. A lot of people accept this and they don't know that they're just talking about God. I finally found a God that was big enough. As the astronomer said to the Minister, "My God's astronomical." The Minister said, "How can you relate to something so big?" The astronomer said, "Well, that isn't the problem, your God's too small!"

  DJB: Do you think that the concept of objectivity is valuable, or do you think that separating the experimenter from the experiment is impossible?

  JOHN: Objectivity and subjectivity were traps that people fell into. I prefer the terms "insanity" and "outsanity." Insanity is your life inside yourself. It's very private and you don't allow anybody in there because it's so crazy. Every so often I find somebody that I can talk to about it. When you go into the isolation tank outsanity is gone. Now, outsanity is what we're doing now, it's exchanging thoughts and so on. I'm not talking about my insanity and you're not talking about yours. Now, if our insanities overlap then we can be friends.

  DJB: How would you define what a hallucination is?

  JOHN: That's a word I never use because it's very disconcerting, part of the explanatory principle and hence not useful. Richard Feynmen, the physicist, went into the tank here twelve times. He did three hours each time and when he finished he sent me one of his physics books in which he had inscribed, "Thanks for the hallucinations."

  So I called him up and I said, "Look, Dick, you're not being a scientist. What you experience you must describe and not throw into the wastebasket called "hallucination." That's a psychiatric misnomer; none of that is unreal that you experienced." For instance he talks: about his nose when he was in the tank. His nose migrated down to his buttonhole, and finally he decided that he didn't need a buttonhole or a nose so he took off into outer space.

  DJB: And he called that a hallucination because he couldn't develop a model to explain it?

  JOHN: But you don't have to explain it, you see. You just describe it. Explanations are: worthless in this area.

  RMN: How do you feel about the role that discipline has to play in the process of self-discovery?

  JOHN: It's absolutely essential. I had thirty-five years of school, eight years of psychoanalysis before even going into the tank. So I was freer than I would have been had I not had all that. Everybody could say, "Well, that was dissonant," and I would say, "Yes, but I learned what I don't have to know." I learned all the bullshit that's put out in the academic world and I would bullshit too. This bullshit is an insurance that I don't remember the bullshit that the professor says, except that which is really worthwhile and interesting.

  RMN: What guidelines do you use when traveling through innerspace?

  JOHN: My major guideline when I go in the tank is, for God's sake don't preprogram, don't have a purpose, let it happen. With ketamine and LSD I did the same thing; I slowly let go of controlling the experience. You know some people lie in the tank for an hour trying to experience what I experienced. Finally I wrote an introduction to The Deep Self, and said, if you really want to experience what it is to be in the tank, don't read any of my books, don't listen to me, just go in there and be.

  RMN: So you don't ever try and go in with a mission or an idea of what you want to accomplish?

  JOHN: Why should I? I'd only have gotten more ridiculous. Every time I took acid in the tank in St. Thomas it was entirely different. I think that I couldn't even begin to describe it. I only got 1/10 of 1% of it and I wrote that in books. The universe prevents you from programming and when they take you out, they tear you wholly loose and you realize that these are massive intellects, far greater than any human. Then you really get humble. When you come back here you say, "Oh well, here I am, back in this damn body again, and I'm not as intelligent as when I was out there with them."

  I took an acid trip in the Carlisle Hotel in Washington, near the FBI building. I turned on the tape recorder and I just lay down on the bed. I was a tight person but it was an incredible trip. They look me out and showed me the luminous colossus, and then the Big Bang that they created three times. And they said, "Man appears here and disappears there." And I said, "That's awful. What happens to them'!" And they said, "That's us." I went into a deep depression because I didn't identify with that. Then, about a week later, I suddenly realized they're also talking about me. You see all this in the introduction to The Center of the Cyclone.

  DJB: John, let me ask you, how did your earlier i
nter-species communication research with marine mammals influence your later work where you experienced contact with extra-terrestrial or inter-dimensional beings on your psychedelic travels?

  JOHN: Let me say how I got to work with dolphins first. I was floating in the tank for a year and wondering, who floats around twenty-four hours a day'? I went to Pete Shoreliner and he says, "Dolphins. They're available. Go down to the Marine Studios in Florida." So I did, and I immediately fell in love with them. Then we killed a couple of dolphins to get the brains, and when we saw them we said, "Oh boy! This is it. This is a brain bigger than ours!" And I thought, this is what I want to do.

  Well, I didn't kill any more dolphins. I studied their behavior and interactions. I was working alone at Marine Studios and I had a brain electrode in one dolphin, which I regret immeasurably. Anyway, when I would stimulate the positive reinforcement system he would just quietly push the lever and work like mad, and if I stopped he would vocalize immediately. I knew monkeys wouldn't do that. And if we stimulated the negative system he would push the lever, shut it off, and then he'd scold us. See? Then he broke the switch and just jabbered away.