The Expensive Journal/ASCII Edition Volume III, Issue 1 Copyright 1993 The Partnership for a Free America (Individual articles copyright by author) Editor-in-Chief: Sameer Parekh (zane@ddsw1.mcs.com) This is the Free Journal. Submissions are welcome. Some characters have the high bit set. Distribute at will; cite authors. (Or editors if no author is given.) This is not meant to be an electronic newsletter. This is meant to be an example of on-paper underground newspapers to educate the people about freedom and similar issues. _______________________________________________________________________________ -- Thoughts on LSD -- Having done my share of LSD, I s'pose I should add my two bits to the heap. I have had over half a dozen sessions with acid, ranging over about 5 years. I have ingested roughly 10 blotter hits in this time. The last time I dropped was Dec 15 (or Friday, whichever the date was), and second last was Dec 30 1987. Most recently, I started with 1 blotter at 7:39 am, took a second at 8:45, and a third at 4:00 pm. By 9:00 am the liquid skin disease had kicked in, and the metallic sweats came and there were indications of activity. By 10 am mental activities were real white-waterish, if ya know what I mean. It was very pleasant. By noon I was really riding high. After the 4:00 booster, the effect was even more profound. By this time I had taken just below 3 blotter units. Acid insights galore, along with the laughter caused by profoundly realized revelations and humorous social-cultural reflections. Asleep by 3 am, my girlfriend and I had a delightful, close, "bonding" evening such as the effects were so wonderful. With me, the acid can make me devilishly-mischievous, meditatively reflective, probing, thoughtful, reflective, serene, joyful, intensely happy, radiant of love.J.J.J.it tends to enhance my understanding of the cosmos. It is a way to travel to reality-prime, where things are not exactly as they appear, and things are really eternal and ordered, assuring. It is a soulful drug, a mind/spirit/soul amplifier of perception, not a body drug like the legals. It allows "the doors of perception" to be cleansed, it reminds you you are eternal. I once feared LSD 'cause I thought it would take "me" away, it would destroy "me". Now I know personality is indestructible, at least for those who have found "identification." While everything changes, "I" will remain. Those who have done LSD suspect it is illegal because is causes thought processes that may threaten consensus reality power, it does not promote their "authority." LSD is a long strange journey where you walk with yourself and get to know who you really are. I've had some really wonderful trips, and have learned quite a lot from this chemical. Its perspective cannot be wrong, just different. How many times has it been said or implied LSD drives you crazy? Are the Beatles crazy? They have done more, and better, LSD than I ever will. Didn't Rock Hudson (or was it Cary Grant?) use it? [It was Cary Grant, who claimed that he was incapable of love before his first LSD experience. --SP] Didn't the CIA? Why must scare tactics be used to squash anything the government/power-structure doesn't like? Informed, intelligent adults should have the powers of choice, including choice of chemicals. This current prohibition will be no more successful than the last one, in its stated purpose. It has been very successful in its real purpose. Freedoms must be taken if the War on Drugs is to work, and the typical person is too afraid to stand up and question or comment. Places like [the Internet] are indispensable resources for dissemination of the real truth, and the real news. I thank NetGod that I need not depend upon the TV for news, or our local slanted rag. While I admit a slight possibility of having a "bad trip" on acid, this has never happened to me. I do see how one could have a displeasureable encounter with LSD if 1) in a bad environment, 2) with "bad" people, or 3) afraid of self, or 4) unable to laugh and enjoy a good humor mood. But I think all the crap about emergency room bad trips is exaggerated, dark-age hyperbole. And last time I dropped I looked out my 4 story window, not jumped. LSD's LD50 [lethal dosage] is evidence that it is no more or less harmful to the body than legal, non-prescription drugs are. It is beneficial to the mind and soul when used properly. It simply changes your perspective, shifts your dimensions a bit. Like Alice down the rabbit hole, its a strange, but fun and stimulating adventure. It's not like I do it everyday. It's been YEARS since I did it before just recently. And that's fine with me. I was celebrating a 4.00 average for this term in school, and that's for Comp Sci, Math, University Honors, and some history courses, not basket weaving. My Cumulative's up to 3.54 so I am sitting pretty at school, and work for those who would assume otherwise. Which goes to point out the ole "amotivational syndrome" is a load of myth also. Probably the worst thing about this latest War on Drugs is that it is at best, a hypocritical witch-hunt based on misinformation and one-sided propaganda. It is against information, and informed-formation. It would crush those who would exercise their legal rights in the name of the law. It is put the Law over the Individual, a corrupt and unjust law. It demands uniformity of posture and mind, rather than unity in diversity. The Drug Warriors assume Judgement as their own, rather than taking stock in tolerance and freedom. As with the American flag, the symbol has become far more important than that which it represents. And this is a mistake, a grave and fatal error plaguing democracy -- that the citizenry will be "taken care of", and then controlled. Legislation can never produce moral change, or anything like meaningful growth. Only personal experience can teach the lessons of life; laws cannot make one good regardless of number, severity, or penalty. Heaven must be something like a self-governed anarchy, [Anarchy meaning "The absence of political government" not "Chaos" --SP] with no laws carved in stone, except "to thine own self be true", and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Tolerance IS necessary for growth, laws should be to protect the responsible from the animal-people, not to restrict free movement of freewill citizens. Intolerance is indicative of narrowness, and prejudice. Ignorance and prejudice stand in the way of growth, they are a system of positive, helpful laws, the Law of Love. When you love every other person so you can love yourself, and when you seek to do good to them and to do good for them, you will see that this is the best rule to run your life by. Laws (rules of behavior or patterns of response) are every person's duty to legislate for himself. Make the real rules for yourself; find your own moral code and live by it, and be true to yourself. If you find yourself fully self-accountable, you need not fear the trials or the scrutiny of tyranny. A truly self-assured soul need not fear worldly troubles, for the citadel of spirit is ever strong. Drugs or not, find yourself and be yourself, and be yourself fully and unrelentingly, certain of the Truth you increasingly live.* -- James Price -- The Bear -- The following is an excerpt from _Conversations with the Dead_ by David Gans, published September '91 by Citadel Press. As far as I know it is the only interview Owsley has ever granted and allowed to be published. BEAR (Owsley Stanley) - Oakland, California, January 13, 1991 Bear: [LSD] seemed to give me access to my head in some way. I can't exactly explain it. It's not something I've ever been able to put into words. I got involved with it because the first time I did it I realized it opened a door. And it was a place I wanted to explore. [. . .] Q: What was different about what [Ken] Kesey was doing with it? Bear: Well, it was magic. It took you into a place that was like the descriptions in the books by the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons. It made sense of all the different occult things that I'd read. It was the introduction to magic. It was a pathway to another place, and it seemed to give you access to mental powers that were written about and talked about, amongst the Hindus and amongst the ancient alchemists and magicians. And direct: it seemed to go direct and give you access to those things. It was like a tool, like a tool to work on the consciousness. The material always gave me great visions, incredible visions. I'm sure that it's the root source of the art that I do, even today. I'm sure it was the root source of my ability to manipulate sound - which I looked at as an art form. I never looked at myself as an engineer, any more than I looked at myself as a chemist or anything else. . . One of the earliest things that happened to me with regard to psychedelics was that the universe became even more three-dimensional. It seemed to have more dimension and depth and space to it. Colors and things seemed very intense. At one of the Acid Tests - I don't know which one it was, it might have been Watts [February 11, 1966] - it was a very strange experience where all of a sudden I was looking at sound coming out of the speakers. This happened on several occasions. It also happened at the house we were staying in in Watts, where I actually saw sound coming out of the speakers. . . . What's that called, synesthesia. I've never talked to anyone else who's actually had that experience, but I actually had that experience. And it was funny because I'm looking at this sound, I'm really out there, and all kinds of other things are going on, and I was thinking, you know, that doesn't look the way I thought sound. . . . [. . .] Kesey was the kind of guy that reached out, took your knobs, and tweaked them all the way to 10. All of them. And the whole scene was running at 10 all the time. It was almost as sudden, and as different, as discovering psychedelics themselves for the first time, at another level. [. . .] None of the people in Kesey's scene had any roots in the shamanistic rituals at all. That was the other group of people that I'd run into every so often, that were more into those things. The Millbrook guys, [Oscar] Janiger [now head of the Albert Hofmann Foundation], all those guys. . . [. . .] It attracted a lot of social concern, because a lot of people were experimenting with radically different social matrices which were frightening to our cultural leaders and societal leaders. The police and the legislatures and the business community - basically the people who were concerned with maintaining a stable society - saw this as a very threatening and frightening phenomenon. A lot of people acting very weird and doing things that just didn't fit. They passed a lot of laws against it and tried to suppress it in various ways. [. . .] I didn't advocate it; I never told anybody to go out and take it, or anything else, but I knew I wanted to. I knew it was important to me. And I didn't want to poison myself, I didn't like Russian roulette with chemicals. I didn't think it was appropriate. Q: I would say, then, that what you were doing was essentially taking responsibility for it, for yourself and for your partners. Bear: You might say. It's one way of looking at it. It was all a matter of consent at that point. But the fact is that out in the culture as a whole, all kinds of bizarre things were happening. In fact, it bothered me. I didn't know for a long time whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. Eventually I realized that the psychedelic itself was neither good nor bad, any more than a very sharp knife is good or bad. You can use a knife to whittle a sculpture, you can use it to trim your nails, you can use it to cut up your food, or you can use it to stab somebody. The knife itself is not the operative thing there, but it took me a long time, because of the fact that it's so powerful and it changes consciousness so much.* -- ElevationStation... -- Took some [LSD] about an hour ago.....here comes that deep Love rumble, like a seismic tremor off in the distance, getting closer, closer, cl... Listen to Love, Feel Love, Show Love, Give Love, Free Love, Swim in Love, Breathe Love, Touch Love, Unchain Love, Release Love, Fly with Love, Realize Love, Live Love, Flower Love, Grow Love, Share Love, Know Love, Accept Love, Heal Love, Respect Love, Work Love, Be Love. Just Love. All Love Needs Is You, Albert.* ________________________________________________________________ Note the name change. We barely have enough funds for this issue. To continue we need more memberships. (Hence the included form.) 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