|
Post by Thetaloops on Feb 28, 2004 18:08:01 GMT -5
Here is a very good description of this hero of the psychedelic movement. I have read several of Tim Leary's books and find them all full of new ideas with a great sense of humor. Exo-Psychology, my favorite, is a very prophetic and scientific analysis of human psychological developement and evolution. He was and continues to be an inspiration to the exponential thinkers of all ages. TIM LEARY by Malvolio Rutteledge "Like an H-bomb for the soul." --Tim Leary Dr. Timothy Leary is one of my favorite twentieth century figures. Finding his books and tapes were some of the greatest events in my suburban upbringing. It is hard to remember just where I heard his name first. Perhaps as a cultural reference point in some liner notes to an album I bought at a K-mart. In any event, I felt I found a kindred spirit. Most of those who dismiss Leary outright for his prankish social persona have never read any of his published work. Works like "Neuropolitic", "Info-Psychology", "The Politics of Ecstasy" and "Changing My Mind Among Others" are first rate and show a well-informed, innovative mind. I think it was an interview I saw on the Playboy channel with G. Gordon Liddy, and Tim Leary in 1986, was the first time I saw his image. He had just finished writing his autobiography, "Flashbacks". I was amazed at his candid and forthright answers to the interviewer, and decided to find his book at all costs. It took a year, because I left the country, but when I found it, I read it with much zeal. "Flashbacks" was a romp through the countercultural history of the world, with emphasis on Leary's times and doings. A highly engrossing account of the people who shaped modern culture. I recommend it to anyone unfamiliar with Leary and his work. "Part Man Part Myth" Even today, the Tim Leary that first appeared to the American middleclass in the mid-sixties is impossible to believe. Here was a Harvard Professor, still wearing a suit, talking about taking drugs as a means of spiritual liberation. Astounding! He was such a gigantic anomaly that many refused to understand him outright. Leary was an expert at sizing up the middle class, and being Irish made his romance with words and analysis all the more trenchant. It was his keen ability to pinpoint the malaise of middle-class man and woman, the "Silent Majority" that made him so hated and feared. It was middle-class man par excellence, President Richard Milhous Nixon, who dubbed him, "the most dangerous man in America". Think about it! The President of the United States no less, fearful of this PIED PIPER OF DOPE... Is there any academic today that is saying and doing what Leary did at Harvard during the EARLY SIXTIES? Of course not. His whole focus was in the creation and inspiriting the individual. Academia is designed to wear it down and wash it out. Leary was fired from Harvard not long after he started tripping... Chemical Philosophy: "The Politics of Ecstasy" He had revolutionized (if only for a short time) thefield of psychology with the introduction in the late fifties of his concept of "Transactional Psychology", a radical approach towards the humanization of American psychology, based on the idea that personality is arbitrary and a game. Hence, the traditional doctor plays at being a doctor, the white-smocked, sanitary savior; the traditional patient the untouchable weakling. Leary's Transactional Psychology was an attempt to apply the literary-philosophical school of Existentialism, spearheaded by Sartre and Husserel, to the sphere of actual doctor-patient relationships and beyond. The main problem with the idea of debunking identity in society, showing the arbitarity of personality constructs, is that too much money must change hands. Too many privileges up for grabs. No doctor wants to give up his nice parking space to an unwashed pillpopper. f**k that. Don't even think about parking your car here. In fine, Transactional Psychology was really too revolutionary for most domesticated primates, and was consigned to the memory-hole once Leary started making media waves. "Everyone gets the Tim Leary they deserve." --Tim Leary I never met the man in person, and I've heard much gossip about him, as much pro as con. My main interest is not with his cult of personality, flames he seems to have fanned, but his published works and the effects they had on me and the current culture. Leary was a genius as a perusal of his life's work will indicate. His book of miscellenia, "The Politics of Ecstasy" (19?) aptly named, exposed the crux of the modern dilemma: few people relative to the mass of the population ever truly feel divinity. In fact, the very notion is still held to be much too abstruse for modern society to come to grips with. Who gets to turn on? Ecstasy, insofar as it is even noticed, should mean the joy one feels in BUYING something. The adrenaline rush of a purchase well done. Identity in consumer democracy must be indistinguishable from commodity. LSD, Leary felt, could be used as a tool to reintegrate the self, long since divorced from it's real needs. Commodities provided ersatz spiritual togetherness, LSD provided the real thing...so the theory went. To realign society would require, quite frankly, an outright revolution. This proved too utopian an order, a beautiful vision but a bit absurd and, ultimately for Leary, ruinous. He did several years in jail on bogus marijuana charges. Tim Leary was a political prisoner and knew it. His books "Confessions of a Hope Fiend" "Neuropolitic" "Jail Notes" and "What Does Woman Want?" as well as the essay, "Starseed" all describe his life as a political prisoner and scapegoat under President Nixon's "Silent Majority"--the plain folks everywhere who earn their daily bread by obeying orders, and the plain folks who earn theirs by giving orders. Leary's life has not gone unrecognized by those who value modern ideas for the heroic, pioneering, if sometimes opportunistic and quixotic romp that it was. However, in the nineties, most people on the street would not know his name, nor care much for his revolutionary opinions. Congress certainly didn't, and Edward Kennedy, desperate to make a name for himself, lambasted Leary for his heterodox ideas on personal freedom at Senate hearings on LSD where Leary was a key panel witness. The good doctor went unheeded however, and acid was declared illegal American style, October 6, 1966. Ironically, Leary, who broke with elites on keeping LSD a secret, will be now known only to those few keen on self-discovery.
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 1, 2004 12:45:14 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 1, 2004 12:51:43 GMT -5
Exo-Psychology (the 70s)
Technology governs change in human affairs while culture guards continuity. Hence technology is always disruptive and creates a crisis for culture. (Daniel Bell)
The Exo-Psychology phase is a transitional stage between Leary's LSD-phase (the 60s) in which Leary focuses on "inner space," and his computer-phase (the 80s and 90s) in which he focuses on cyberspace. The prefix "exo" in Exo-Psychology indicates that this "new branch of science" created by Leary has to do with things that are outside of ourselves: outer space. Exo-Psychology, which is also the title of one of Leary's books, is concerned with space migration. It is the "psychology of post-terrestrial existence"(Info 1). In the 70s, Leary was convinced that there was a trend in biological evolution on this planet from water, to shoreline, to land, to atmospheric flight. In his Exo-Psychology phase, Leary takes one step away from Eastern Philosophy and a step towards technology (especially computer technology, genetics, and biochemistry). Leary describes his Exo-Psychology theory as "Science-Fiction, Philosophy of Science, PSY PHY." In order to understand what Leary means with this description let us look how he defines the term science fiction. In the introduction to Neurologic (Leary 1996, first published in 1973), Leary explains that, on the one hand, his theories are scientific because they are based on empirical data from physics, physiology, pharmacology, genetics, behaviorist psychology, and neurology. On the other hand, they are fictional in a Wittgensteinian sense that all theories and speculations beyond the mathematical propositions of natural science are subjective (cf. Leary 1996: 7). Leary points out that his Exo-Psychology theory does not give "final answers" but it can give us a lot of pleasure and make us feel free (cf. ibid.). In the 70s, Leary had to spent a lot of time in prison. This period of time - when Leary was cut off from society and unable to change the system that kept him in prison - gave him a different, more pessimistic perspective on life. Life on planet earth did not seem to evolve to higher levels of being like Leary had expected. The 60s revolution was over. Leary realized that it was just not enough to "look within," "return to nature," and assume that "all is one"( cf. Info 68f.). In Leary's opinion the hippies had made an important step in human evolution: They knew how to "accept the rapture of direct sensation" and lead a hedonic life style; they had learned how to control their nervous systems and how to change social imprints and conditioning. But, according to Leary, the ability to change your imprints is useless if you do not know what to re-imprint. In Exo-Psychology, Leary describes the drug culture of the 60s as "wingless butterflies" who were "spaced out", "high", but "with no place to go" (cf. Info 61). What Leary means is that you just cannot go on living in the moment forever. He points out that the hippies had evolved "beyond terrestrial attachments" and "detached themselves from larval symbols" but their problem was that they had no direction in life (cf. Info 67). Where should they go? What should they re-imprint into their nervous systems? In his rather disgruntled state of mind Leary wrote that many of the ex-hippies tried to escape this existential vacuum by "grasping at any transcendental straw - magic, occultism, chanting, witchcraft, telepathy, guru-ism, mystical Christianity [...] the endless variety of oriental charlatanism"(Info 68), but it was all in vain because "inner space is a dead end"(cf. ibid.). According to Leary, the hippies' tragic flaw was that they rejected science and technology. Leary argues that things like psychedelic drugs, the DNA structure, and also new types of technology for space-travel were not discovered by sheer chance. They would show us the way to the next phase in human evolution bringing us one step closer to our final destination, that is, the final destination of life. In his Exo-Psychology works, Leary suggests that the course of evolution of life on this planet is predetermined and that practically all scientific discoveries would indicate that the next step in human evolution is space migration. In The Intelligence Agents (1979, 1996), Leary writes that in the course of history the "genetic frontier" (the best developed culture in terms of technology and intelligence) has moved from the East to the West. East to West means past to future. According to Leary, the East (India, China) was the genetic frontier 3000 years ago. In the sixteenth century, the Enlightenment, Europe was the genetic frontier. In 1976, the West Coast of North America was the genetic frontier (cf. Leary 1996: 177ff.). (Leary calls this area the Sun Belt. The Sun Belt encompasses a crescent of "Migrating Higher Intelligence that stretches from Mountain View, California at the Northwest; through Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico; to Cape Canaveral, Florida at the Southwest.") The West Coast of America would be the last terrestrial frontier; from there we would move to outer space (cf. ibid.). To put it in a nutshell: For Leary, technological innovation means intelligence and independence. West means evolution and change. The "genetic runway" along which gene-pools "accelerate to Escape Velocity" runs from East to West. Now how is the next phase of human evolution going to look like? What is the aim of life? What is our final destination? How do we get there? In his Exo-Psychology theory, Leary gives answers to these questions. He offers us a model of the evolution of humanity and life in general which is supposed show us the way to a better future and (of course) higher levels of consciousness.
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 1, 2004 12:54:48 GMT -5
S.M.I.²L.E. to fuse with the Higher Intelligence
According to Leary's Exo-Psychology theory, we have come to a point in human evolution where all the "terrestrial goals" - the most important of which are bio-survival, territorial expansion, national security, technological efficiency, and "consumer-cultural television homogeneity" - have more or less been achieved (cf. NP 142). At the same time, centralized civilization has produced various technologies which seem to "point us upwards away from the heavy pull of gravity." Leary suggests that new developments for space-flight as well as the discovery of psychedelic drugs (which would enable us to experience a world where gravity does not exist, thus preparing us for life in outer space) are an indication that there is a trend in biological evolution on this planet from water, to shoreline, to land, to atmospheric flight (outer space, the "new frontier"). In Leary's Exo-Psychology theory, political and cultural phenomena like war, enslavement, or centralization are seen as "necessary preludes" to the next phase in human evolution which is space migration. According to Leary, the nature of human evolution is paradoxical. For example, there is the Centralization Paradox. Although centralization limits our freedom, it would be necessary to link up in centralized collectives if we want to attain "the ultimate freedom of space existence" and "the velocity to escape the planet." Without centralized governments and a "diligent, competent, mechanically efficient middle-class" we would not be able to mobilize the technologies we need for space migration. The same paradox could be found if we look at the phenomenon of war. Leary explains that wars - especially the two World Wars and the Cold War - seem absurd "until we understand that the genetic purpose of the conflict was to stimulate the development of radar, rocketry, synthetic chemistry, atomic fission, [..] and, most important, computers[...]" (NP 141). Leary argues that centralization, wars, and the consumer-cultural TV homogeneity of our post-industrial society are all dead ends. However, they are inevitable steps to get to the next phase in human evolution which is space migration. Anyway, why should we migrate to space at all? According to Leary, the main reason for space migration is not overpopulation, or a shortage of energy. In his Exo-Psychology theory, Leary suggests that somewhere in outer space there is a "Higher Intelligence" which, a long time ago, sent a message to our planet in form of the DNA, the genetic code. He writes, "[L]ife was seeded on this womb-planet in form of amino-acid templates designed to be activated by solar radiation and to unfold in a series of genetic molts and metamorphoses"(Info 16). Now what does that mean? It means that actually all life forms on our planet are "alien immigrants from outer space" and that evolution of the various species unfolds according to the same pre-determined plan. According to Leary's Exo-Psychology theory, life is designed to migrate from the "womb-planet" (Leary speculates that there might be other unknown womb-planets with life on it), seek this Higher Intelligence, and try to fuse with "Hir" again. The tactics in order to achieve this final goal would be S.M.I.²L.E., which means "space migration" (=S.M.), "intelligence increase" (=I.²), and "life extension" (=L.E.) (cf. NP 143-45). (This acronym can be found printed several times on every page of every single book that Leary wrote in the 70s to remind the reader of the purpose of life.) Intelligence increase would be a necessary prerequisite for space migration and life extension. Psychedelic drugs would help us to enhance our intelligence, and it would not take long until scientists are able to decipher the genetic (DNA) code and extend our life spans. In "H.O.M.E.S. A Real Estate Proposal," an essay co-written with cyberneticist George A. Koopman (NP 157-70), Leary suggests the construction of "space H.O.M.E.s" (High Orbital Mini Earths) as "a practical step to explore and activate new resources - internal and external to the nervous system" (NP 159). These space H.O.M.E.s would "open up unexploited territories, new energy sources, and new stimulation for the brain" (ibid.). As far as the "unexploited" territories are concerned, Leary explains that We must not cringe from the word "exploitation." At every stage of information/energy the laws of nature seem to require new and more complex engagements of elements to accelerate the evolutionary process. We must exploit every new level of energy in order to build the structures to reach the next cycle. The embryo ruthlessly exploits the supplies of the maternal body. The derogatory flavor of the word "exploit" has been added by reactionary political groups who wish to slow down the expansion of energy. Rhetoric aside, there has never been an example of a surviving-evolving species which did not use all energies available to it. Nothing can stop the surge towards Space Migration (NP 159). It should be mentioned here that Leary's idea of the construction of a space colony that opens up unexploited territories was inspired by Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill's book The High Frontier and the L-5 Society (cf. NP 157). In The High Frontier, O'Neill calls for the establishment of an orbital colony equidistant between the earth and the moon at a gravitationally stable point known as Larange Point 5. In response to O'Neill's call the L-5 Society was founded (cf. Dery 1996: 36). The members of this society believed that the L-5 colony would help humanity to escape from ecological pollution, resource depletion, poverty, and collectivism (cf. ibid.). The difference between the vision of the L-5 Society and Leary's Exo-Psychology theory is that the L-5 Society was interested only in the social, ecological, and material implications of space migration, whereas Leary saw space migration as a necessary step towards self-realization, enlightenment, immortality, and "fusion with the Higher Intelligence." In Leary's Exo-Psychology theory, the evolution of life and humanity (past, as well as future) is described in terms of the evolution of the nervous system. Now, how did the human nervous system evolve and how is it structured? Leary assumes that our nervous systems consist of eight "potential circuits", or "gears", or "mini-brains" which have evolved in the course of evolution. Leary describes the evolution of the nervous system in his model of the Eight Circuits of Consciousness. Before an outline of Leary's model of the Eight Circuits of Consciousness is given, it is necessary to make a short excursion into the field of conditioning psychology. Leary says that if we want to understand his Exo-psychology theory and the model of the Eight Circuits of Consciousness we first have to understand the concept of imprinting and that there is a crucial difference between the phenomenon of imprinting and other forms of learning, especially conditioning. (The reader already knows that Leary is interested in the biological phenomenon of "neural imprinting" very much, and that he thinks that imprints can be suspended and changed by using certain psychoactive chemicals.)
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 1, 2004 12:58:12 GMT -5
Imprinting and conditioning
The understanding of the concepts of "imprinting" and "conditioning" and the difference between these two phenomena is the crucial point in Leary's Exo-psychology theory. Leary uses these concepts to explain the miserable socio-political situation on our planet, and to back his hypothesis that the only way for a "domesticated middle-class person" to arbitrarily change his or her "reality" is to apply psychedelic drugs.
In Exo-Psychology, Leary explains that it is a well known fact in psychology and ethology (the comparative study of animal behavior) that there are certain brief "critical periods" in a human being's life during which imprints are made. One of these critical periods is the time soon after a baby or animal is born. If the baby does not develop a basic feeling of trust towards his or her mother during this short "critical period" - which in Leary's jargon means that the infant's first circuit is negatively imprinted to his/her mother - he/she will never be able to develop this basic feeling of trust (see Bio-survival circuit). The same applies to animals. If birds are handled by an experimenter during their first few hours of life, they thereafter react to him/her and to other human beings as they normally would to their parents, and they refect their real parents. During this critical period, which is the first of several critical periods in a person's life, a basic attitude of trust or distrust is set up which will ever after trigger approach or avoidance (cf. Info 40). What is the difference between imprinting and conditioning? The three major forms of conditioning are: Classical conditioning (main exponent: Ivan Pavlov), Instrumental conditioning, and Operant conditioning (main exponent: B. F. Skinner). Leary explains that they are forms of learning which are based on repeated reward and punishment. Imprinting, however, is a form of learning which does not require repetition. "The most fascinating aspect of imprinting is this; the original selection of the external stimulus [e.g. mother] which triggers off the pre-designed response [e.g. trust] does not derive from a normal learning process but a short exposure during a brief, specific 'critical period'[...]"(Info 40). In contrast to all other learning processes, imprinting is immediate and - which is even more important - irreversible. As Leary put it: "The imprint requires no repeated reward or punishment. The neural fix is permanent. Only bio-chemical shock [drugs or trauma] can loosen the neuro-umbilical lines. The conditioned association, on the contrary, wanes and disappears with lack of repetition [my italics]" (Info 51). To help his readers to get a better understanding of the primary role of the imprint and the secondary role of the conditioned association Leary mentions Ivan Pavlov's classic study with a dog as an example (everybody knows this experiment): In Pavlov's study the flow of saliva in the dog's mouth is an unconditioned, unlearned response. The imprint hooks an unconditioned response (flow of saliva) to an external stimulus, or releaser mechanism (food placed in the dog's mouth), so that the dog always automatically produces saliva when food is in his mouth. However, the association between the sight of food and the food in the mouth, or between a ringing bell and food, has to be learned by the dog. This is where conditioning comes in. Conditioned stimuli like the ringing bell are associated with the imprinted stimulus which is the food in the dog's mouth. It is important to mention that, according to Leary, conditioning cannot change an imprint. "Trying to recondition an imprint with reward-punishment is like dropping a single grain of sand on a forged steel pattern," as Leary expresses it. By applying psychological conditioning techniques we would be able to temporarily change a person's behavior. However, as soon as the conditioned person is left to his/her own devices he/she would drift back to the "magnetism of the imprint" and to his/her "genetic-robot style" which is determined by the DNA (cf. Info 54). Leary argues that psychedelics can help us to "recast" the different circuits. With psychedelics we can re-imprint new realities and activate new, higher circuits of consciousness. How exactly do the these higher circuits Leary talks about look like?
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 1, 2004 13:00:54 GMT -5
The Eight Circuits of Consciousness Part 1
I have already mentioned that Leary assumes that our nervous systems consist of eight "potential circuits", or "gears", or "mini-brains." Where are these "mini-brains" located and what is their function? According to Leary, four of these "brains" are in the left lobe, which is usually active, and are concerned with our terrestrial survival; four are "extraterrestrial," reside in the 'silent' or inactive right lobe, and are for use in our future evolution (cf. Leary 1988: 88). In his model of the Eight Circuits of Consciousness, which is described in his books Neuropolitics (1977a) and Exo-Psychology (1977b), Leary explains how these circuits, or mini-brains, evolved in the course of evolution. Each of these eight circuits corresponds to one of the eight neurological phases in evolution. In Leary's Exo-Psychology theory the definition of consciousness is the same as in the theory of the Seven Levels of consciousness. Consciousness is defined as "energy received by structure" (in the human being the structures are the neural circuits and their anatomical connections). (The reader will notice that this model of The Eight Circuits of Consciousness is an elaboration of the model of the Seven Levels of Consciousness. Leary reversed the numerical order of the different levels and split up the Mental-social-symbolic Level.) 1. The Bio-Survival Circuit (trust/distrust): In the essay "From Outer World to Inner World to Inner Space to Outer Space" (NP 87-99), written together with philosopher and science fiction writer Robert Anton Wilson, Leary explains this circuit, or brain, which can be found in the most primitive life forms and is the first circuit activated in the newborn baby as follows: This marine or vegetative brain was the first to evolve (billion years ago) and is the first activated at birth. It programs perception onto an either-or grid divided into nurturing-helpful Things (which it approaches) and noxious-dangerous Things (which it flees, or attacks). The imprinting of this circuit sets up the basic attitude of trust or suspicion which will last for life (NP 88). When Leary talks about the new born child, in which the first brain is activated, he puts very much emphasis on the process of imprinting (that is why I have explained this process in a rather detailed way). He points out that the first imprinting process, during which a basic attitude of trust or distrust is set up, will ever after trigger approach or avoidance. If the baby does not develop a basic feeling of trust towards his/her mother during the short critical period during which the first imprint is made, he/she will never be able to develop this basic feeling of trust towards her mother and he/she will never be able to fully trust his/her partner(s) and friends in life either. 2. The Emotional-Territorial Circuit (assertiveness/submissiveness): According to Leary, this second, more advanced "bio-computer" formed when vertebrates appeared and began to compete for territory (perhaps 500,000,000 B.C.). In the individual, this circuit, which corresponds to a bigger "tunnel reality" than the reality of Circuit One, is activated when "the DNA master-tape triggers the metamorphosis from crawling to walking" (cf. NP 88). Leary explains: As every parent knows, the toddler is no longer a passive (bio-vegetative) infant but a mammalian politician, full of physical (and emotional) territorial demands, quick to meddle in family business and decision-making. Again the first imprint on this circuit remains constant for life (unless brainwashed) and identifies the stimuli which automatically trigger dominant, aggressive behavior or submissive, cooperative behavior. When we say a person is behaving emotionally, egoistically or 'like a two-year-old', we mean that SHe [sic] is blindly following one of the robot imprints on this circuit (NP 88f.). In popular speech the second circuit is called "ego." The "ego" is "the second circuit mammalian sense of status (importance-unimportance) in the pack or tribe" (NP 89). Leary points out that politicians live in a second circuit "reality tunnel" because their only goals are territorial expansion and control over others. 3. The Dexterity-Symbolism Circuit (cleverness/clumsiness): Leary writes that this brain was formed when "hominoid types began to differentiate from other primate stock" (circa 4-5 million years ago). It is activated in the individual when the older child begins "handling artifacts and sending/receiving laryngeal signals (human speech units)"(NP 89). This circuit discloses the symbolic, conceptual and linguistic world. Leary writes, "If the environment is stimulating to the third circuit, the child takes a 'bright' imprint and becomes dextrous and articulate; if the environment is made of deliberately stupid people, the child takes a 'dump' imprint, i.e. remains more or less at a stage of symbol-blindness"(ibid.). This circuit determines our "normal modes of artifact-manufacture" and conceptual thought. It is made for understanding and using language and thinking logically-scientifically. As Leary puts it, "The third brain or 'mind' is hooked into human culture and deals with life through a matrix of human made gadgets and human-created symbolism"(ibid.). According to Leary, it is the Third Brain that created the mechanical civilization which began in the Neolithic and climaxed in Henry Ford's assembly line. The Third Brain also produced Behaviorist psychology (not Humanistic psychology!), and Newtonian mechanistic 'visible' physics (not Einsteinian concepts!). By pointing out the limitations of the Third Brain's mechanistic-Behavioristic way of thinking, Leary wants to show that a person who lives in a Third Circuit "tunnel reality" will never be able to understand how to change basic imprints, that is, to change a his/her "reality." According to Leary, the "crowning philosophy of the Third Circuit society" is Operant conditioning, or "Skinnerism," as Leary calls it (B. F. Skinner is the founder of the school of Operant conditioning) . Leary defines Operant conditioning as "the final philosophic statement of the puritanical protestant-ethic manipulators who dominated the world for 400 years up to Hiroshima"(Info 49). Leary defines two main groups of technocrats who are trying to use "Third Circuit conditioning techniques" to change the behavior of their fellow citizens: "Right-wing punitive coercers" and "liberal rewarders". According to Leary, the attempts of both of these groups of bureaucrats are futile because they attempt to re-condition rather than re-imprint: Punitive coercion [the method applied by right-wing punitive coercers] works only as long as the threat remains and thus requires a police state. The liberal social psychologists [liberal rewarders] believe that they can change behavior by democratic, supportive, egalitarian education methods. Head-start programs. Peace Corps. [...] Tutoring. Scholarship payments. Insight therapies. Mental health methods. These liberal approaches fail to effect change and serve only to support the "humanist" welfare bureaucracy (Info 51f.). Leary argues that a regime based on social conditioning can only work if the government psychologists have total control over the citizenry and if the method of conditioning is a government secret. Such a "social conditioning regime" would not be possible in a democracy where minority groups can campaign against and publicly discuss the techniques being used (cf. Info 53f.). 4. The Socio-Sexual Circuit This circuit determines what in a specific culture is considered to be sexually normal and morally right. Leary describes how it evolved: The fourth brain was formed when hominid packs evolved into societies and programmed specific sex-roles for their members (circa 30,000 B. C.). In the individual it is activated at puberty when the DNA signals trigger the glandular release of sexual neurochemicals and the metamorphosis to adulthood begins.[...] The fourth brain, dealing with the transmission of tribal or ethnic culture across generations, introduces the fourth dimension, time - binding cultures (NP 89-91). As far as sex-roles are concerned, Leary holds that our first sexual experiences imprint a characteristic sex-role which, again, is bio-chemically bonded and remains constant for life (unless brain-washing or chemical re-imprinting is accomplished). The sex role imprinted in a person's brain does not always coincide with that which is accepted by society. Leary points out that perversions, fetishes, and other eccentric sexual imprints are usually defined as "sinful" by the local tribe (cf. NP 90).
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 1, 2004 13:03:05 GMT -5
The Eight Circuits of Consciousness Part 2 In most people these four circuits are the only networks of the brain that are activated. Leary notes that this is the reason why their way of thinking is rather inflexible. Their logic follows the primitive either/or binary structures of the four circuits: forward/backward = trust/distrust, up/down = assertiveness/submissiveness, clever/clumsy, good/evil. Leary calls these circuits "terrestrial" because "they have evolved on, and have been shaped by, the gravitational, climatic and energy conditions determining survival and reproduction of gene-pools on a planet like ours." (Leary hypothesizes that there might be more intelligent individuals evolving in space who would definitely develop circuits different from our "inflexibly Euclidean" ones.) According to Leary, each of the first four circuits can be arbitrarily activated by a certain type of drug (first circuit drug: opiates; second circuit drug: alcohol; third circuit drug: coffee, fourth circuit drug: sexual hormones produdced by adolescents in puberty). Leary calls these drugs "terrestrial drugs." Leary explains that none of these "terrestrial drugs" can change basic biochemical imprints. They can only trigger behavioral patterns and thought patterns that were wired into the nervous system during the first stages of imprint vulnerability. Let us now look at the four "extraterrestrial circuits" and the "extraterrestrial drugs" that can activate them. The extraterrestrial circuits are levels of reality beyond the socially conditioned. Leary notes that the experience of these extraterrestrial circuits/realities normally causes confusion and fear among people who have never before transcended the four basic larval reality-tunnels, because they are not designed to be understood by "larval psychology" (cf. Info 60). What are the four extraterrestrial circuits? 5. The Neurosomatic Circuit: Leary explains this circuit as follows: When this fifth "body-brain" is activated, flat Euclidiean figure-ground configurations explode multi-dimensionally. Gestalt shift, in McLuhan's terms, from linear visual space to all-encompassing sensory space. A hedonic turn-on occurs. [...] This fifth brain began to appear about 4,000 years ago in the first leisure-class civilization and has been increasing statistically in recent centuries (even before the Drug Revolution), a fact demonstrated by the hedonic art of India, China, Rome and other affluent societies. [...] The opening and imprinting of this circuit has been the preoccupation of "technicians of the occult" - Tantric shamans and hatha yogis. While the fifth tunnel-reality can be achieved by sensory deprivation, social isolation, physiological stress or severe shock (ceremonial terror tactics, as practiced by such rascal-gurus as Don Juan Matus [described in Carlos Castaneda's books] or Aleister Crowley), it has traditionally been reserved to the educated aristocracy of leisure societies who have solved the four terrestrial survival problems. About 20,000 years ago, the specific fifth brain neurotransmitter was discovered by shamans [...]. It is, of course, cannabis (NP 90). As far as the evolutionary aspect of this circuit is concerned, Leary points out that it is no accident that people who use cannabis (the drug that opens up the Fifth Circuit) refer to their neural states as "high" or "spaced out." For Leary, the transcendence of gravitational, linear, either-or, Euclidean, planetary orientations (circuits 1-4), experienced with the help of cannabis, is part of our neurological preparation for the inevitable migration off our home planet. According to Leary, the West Coast of the US (California, the last terrestrial frontier) is the area with the highest percentage of people living in a Fifth Circuit post-political, hedonistic reality (cf. Leary 1996: 176-79). However, this hedonistic level of consciousness is just a transitional stage which prepares us for the next circuit which is exclusively designed for post terrestrial existence. 6. The Neuroelectric-Metaprogramming Circuit: This is the level of consciousness on which the nervous system becomes aware of itself, apart from the "gravitational reality-maps" (circuits 1-4) and from circuit-five-body-rapture. Leary calls this state of consciousness "consciousness of abstracting" (a term borrowed from the semanticist Alfred Korzybski), or "meta-programming," that is, awareness of programming one's programming (this term was coined by John Lilly in Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Bio-Computer). When we activate this circuit we become aware that what we accepted as reality is actually just a program 'fed' into our bio-computers (brains). The person who activates this "Einsteinian, relativistic" circuit realizes that the Euclidian, Newtonian, Aristotelian reality-maps are just three among billions of possible programs or models of experience (cf. NP 93). On this level of consciousness "mammalian politics", which have to do power struggles among "terrestrial humanity" are seen as static and artificial. Leary explains that the nervous system is constructed in a way that it is capable of self-reflection. That is why it is capable of understanding and controlling its own functioning. What this means is that everybody can create his/her own realities if he/she knows how the nervous system works. As far as Leary is concerned, it is no longer necessary to describe the opening of this circuit with the paradoxical terms used in Eastern philosophy - "Non-Self," "No-Mind," or "White Light of the Void." The Einstein revolution in physics, discoveries in neurology and pharmacology, and computer linguistics would allow us to describe the Sixth Circuit functioning in operational and functional terms as the nervous system metaprogramming the nervous system or serially re-imprinting itself (cf. NP 94). What exactly happens when we access the Neuroelectric Circuit? When the Sixth Circuit is activated, the nervous system "real-izes" that it is a "transceiver" (transmitter and receiver) for bio-electric frequencies (electromagnetic signals). Leary says that the use of the Neuroelectric Circuit had to await the development of electronic and atomic technology to provide the language and models that allow us to understand and activate it (cf. Info 112). Only now that we begin to understand and use invisible electromagnetic processes could we learn how to operate our own circuitry. The evolutionary function of the Sixth Circuit would be communication - not normal (Third Circuit) speech or symbols on paper, but communication on the electromagnetic level, at the speed of light, between two or more "contelligences" operating at the Sixth Circuit. (Leary uses the term "contelligence," a combination of consciousness-intelligence, to describe people who are on a higher level of consciousness.) Since Circuit-Six-communication is electronic, it demands that we are able to use computers. Leary explains that this mode of communication, which will enable us to connect our nervous systems with computers, will be necessary for our interstellar existence: "Electro-magnetic-gravitational processes are the meat and potatoes of galactic life. The vibratory-transceiver nature of the brain, useless to the larval , is very necessary in space. Telepathy, Brain-computer links. Brain-radio connections" (Info 113). Leary points out that one of the most important characteristics of Circuit-Six-communication is that it (necessarily) is erotic. Leary explains: "[Six-Circuit-communication] is Brain-Intercourse. Electronic sexuality. Reception and transmission of thought waves. The erotics of resonance. The entire universe is gently, rhythmically, joyously vibrating. Cosmic intercourse"(NP 121). Only if we take the crucial step from "larval earth-life" to the next stage (Circuit Six) would we be able to experience what "Higher Love" means, namely the "electronic connection of nervous systems, making love to each other over galactic distances of neurological time [sich einander liebend über galaktische Distanzen neurologischer Zeit]"(translated back into English from the German version of Leary's Neurologic, which was first published in 1973; Leary 1996: 42). Is there a specific drug that can open the Neuroelectric Circuit? Yes, the drug that makes us aware that the things that normally seem to be solid are actually electromagnetic vibrations is LSD. However, Leary warns us that Neuro-electric drugs like LSD are not designed for terrestrial life and are rightly considered dangerous by larval moralists. The Sixth Circuit is designed for extra-terrestrial life - and its activation by drugs at the present time is in preparation for migration. Neurophysical drugs can be used by neurologicians to "cure" ineffective childhood imprints. LSD-type drugs used for treatment or for pre-flight training should be administered by knowledgeable experts who understand the principles of re-imprinting and who have experiential control of their own nervous system. The hedonic "party" use of LSD is a risky business [my italics]"(Info 114). (This quotation shows that in the 70s Leary apparently realized that LSD is a dangerous drug.)
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 1, 2004 13:03:49 GMT -5
The Eight Circuits of Consciousness Part 3
7. The Neurogenetic Circuit: By activating the sixth circuit we escape the narrow reality-tunnels of the four terrestrial circuits. However, the sixth circuit does not enable us to receive signals from within the individual neuron where the DNA is located. In order to be able to read the DNA code we would have to activate the Neurogenetic Circuit. Leary believes that the first people who were able to receive signals from the DNA were yogis (Hindus, Sufis, etc) who spoke of re-experiencing past lives, reincarnation, and immortality. According to Leary's Exo-Psychology theory, the DNA memory contains information about the whole evolution (our past lives as well as the future of evolution). What is the function of the DNA? According to Leary, the growth and function of the nervous system as well as the rest of the body is predetermined by the DNA code: "DNA designs and constructs the nervous system and maintains supervisory and re-constructive communication with somatic cells and neurons mediated by RNA"(Info 120). Leary considers the DNA code to be something which is immortal because it is the only thing that has survived in the long chain of evolution. The goal of life, in Leary's Exo-psychology theory, is immortality or fusion with the Higher Intelligence. Leary argues that immortality is attained through control of the DNA. Psychedelic drugs like LSD would enable the nervous system to decipher the genetic code. By identifying with this "genetic intelligence", which means that we imprint the DNA reality in our nervous system, we would be able to become immortal (cf. Info 122). 8. The Neuroatomic Circuit: The "genetic intelligence"(seventh circuit) is "the immortal, invisible soul that outlives the body," writes Leary. But where does the DNA come from? Who created the DNA? Leary admits that he does not have a final answer to this question. He speculates that the answer to this question could be found if we go further on into the microscopic physical world. In Exo-Psycholgy, he suggests that sub-nuclear events inside each atom determine the elemental processes of life: On the basis of the scientific evidence now at hand, the best answer to the Higher Intelligence Creator question comes from the frontiers of nuclear physics and quantum mechanics. The basic energies, the meta-physiological contelligence is probably located within the nucleus of the atom. [...] Physicists are currently studying the sub-nuclear realm to identify the high-velocity particles which make up the language of energy. [...] Exo-psychology seeks to provide the concepts which allow nuclear physicists to personalize sub-nuclear events [by activating the Eighth Circuit] so that they can be experienced"(Info 126). In order to back his speculations Leary quotes physicist and philosopher Nick Herbert who argues that the sub-atomic world must be "non-local", which means that it does not obey the laws of space and time and that in this world the speed of light barrier is transcended (cf. Info 130f.). (The interested reader is referred to "Bell's theorem," a principle of quantum physics, which is used by to back the idea of "non-locality"(see Capra 1982)). In Exo-Psychology, Leary explains that at the Neuroatomic level the basic energies which comprise all structure in the universe are available for management: "The metaphysiological contelligence constructs atoms, DNA chains, molecules, neurons; sculpts, designs, architects all forms of matter by manipulating nuclear particles and gravitational force fields"(Info 129). The "Neuroatomic Contelligence" no longer needs bodies, neurons, and DNA designs. It is a "metaphysiological brain." According to Leary, this metaphysiological contelligence is the Higher Intelligence (God?) which created life and the DNA. It is the entire "cosmic brain" (just as the DNA helix is the local brain guiding planetary evolution). It is "ourselves-in-the-future" (cf. NP 98). According to Leary, science (nuclear physics, genetics) and technology (computers, psychedelics, thechnology for space travel) will help us to reach this final stage of evolution, but we have still a long way to go.
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 1, 2004 13:06:04 GMT -5
Neuropolitics: Representative government replaced by an "electronic nervous system"
In Leary's Exo-Psychology theory, in which the evolution of the nervous system from its terrestrial-mechanical stages to its post-terrestrial-individualistic stages is described, technology plays an important role. The function of technology is that it aids our evolution. It helps us to activate the higher circuits of the nervous system. Leary puts much emphasis on the sixth stage of evolution, in which the Neuroelectric Circuit is activated. I have already mentioned that the function of the sixth circuit is communication - not normal speech or symbols on paper, but communication on the electromagnetic level between two or more people operating at the sixth circuit. According to Leary's Exo-Psychology theory, electronic-communication technology (telephone, TV, computer networks, etc) can help us to activate the Neuroelectric Circuit. In Neuropolitics, we find to interesting essays which deal with the political implications of electronic-communication-techology. The essays are titled "The Fall of Representative Government"(NP 45f.) and "The Return of Individual Sovereignty"(NP 47-49) (both written in 1973 when Leary was in prison). In "The Fall of Representative Government," Leary, who has always been against governments, argues that with the emergence of electronic-communication-technology any form of representative government (one person is selected to represent others) becomes outmoded. As Leary put it: "Representative government as practiced today is a brief and now outmoded historical phase designed to bridge the period between the rise of industrial states and the emergence of globe-linking electrical-electronic communication"(NP 45). According to Leary, the process of selecting representatives to govern is a relic of the horse-drawn slave-holding culture which produced the American Constitution. Leary argues that the articles in the American Constitution which set up the mechanics of government are dangerously archaic: Senators elected every six years to represent two million people? A president elected every four years to represent 140 million people? This slow, cumbersome system was necessary when it took two weeks for the news to travel from New Orleans to Boston. Representative government by strangers and political party partisanship is outdated. Most Americans have never met their representative - indeed do not know his name. Government by law is an unworkable bureaucratic cliche(NP 46). Leary tries to make us aware that we have all been "robot-trained" - with the help of history books which are self-serving and the print media which are used by political leaders to manipulate us - to believe that elective democracy is something sacred. He wants us to realize that the times of centralized governments, when politicians were able to control people with the help of technology, are over. Politicians are no longer be able to keep the methods they apply secret from the people. Technology can be used to reduce individual freedom and to enhance the power of politicians controlling centralized governments, but only if the people do not know the methods applied by authoritarian technocrats. One dissident electronic-media expert, however, would be able to "jam the system"(cf. NP 47). Leary argues that more and more people are learning to use the electronic media for their personal empowerment. As more and more people are learning to use electronic technology to govern themselves according to the laws of information, competitive politics are dying (cf. NP 49). Instead of the "outdated and cumbersome" American political system in which one president elected every four years represented 140 million people, Leary suggests a new political model: The political model should be based on the nervous system: 140 billion neurons each hooked to an electric network. Electronic communication makes possible direct participatory democracy. Every citizen has a voting card which he or she inserts in voting machine and central computer registers and harmonize the messages from every component part. Neurological politics eliminates parties, politicians, campaigns, campaign expenditures. The citizen votes like a neuron fires when it has a signal to communicate. The voices of the citizenry continually inform civil service technicians who carry out the will, not of the majority (a vicious and suicidal elevation of the mediocrity) but of each citizen (NP 46). Leary's model of an "electronic nervous system" is based on the assumption that every citizen has a personal computer which is connected to a worldwide electronic network (cf. ibid.). This worldwide electronic network in which every individual can express his or her opinion would help us to create a new governmental structure which "gets the country alive and laughing again"(cf. NP 49). However, Leary does not explain in detail how this governmental system without parties and politicians is supposed to function. As far as the idea of a global "electronic nervous system" is concerned, it has to mentioned that Leary seems to have been influenced by Global Village prophet Marshall McLuhan very much. It was already in the early 60s when McLuhan came up with the idea that electric circuitry is an extension of the human nervous system (McLuhan 1964: 1). This idea is based on the concept that "all media [i.e. technologies] are extensions of some human faculty - psychic or physical"(McLuhan 1967) . For example, the photo is an extension of the eye, the wheel an extension of the foot, etc. "With electricity [radio, television, computers, etc] we extend our nervous systems globally, instantly interrelating every human experience"(ibid.). McLuhan predicted that electronic technology would reshape and restructure patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal lives. By involving us in other people's actions and thoughts, electronic technology would end psychic, social, economic, and political self-centeredness (cf. ibid.). A new form of "politics" would be emerging because "the living room has become a voting booth"(ibid.) "In the electric age, when our nervous system is technologically extended to involve us in the whole of mankind and to incorporate the whole of mankind in us, we necessarily participate, in depth, in the consequences of our every action," writes McLuhan in Understanding Media(McLuhan 1964: 4). According to McLuhan, every new medium introduces a change of human perception (focus-shift from one sense to other), association and action. This means that our ways of thinking and perceiving the world are always determined by the medium we use. McLuhan coined the phrase "the medium is the message" which expresses his idea that it is the medium, not the content, that changes people's world views. Leary does not mention McLuhan in his two essays that deal with the effects that electronic technology has on society and the individual. However, he uses McLuhan's famous phrase in a slightly different form: "The medium is the evolutionary message"(NP 49). How did people in the 1970s react to Leary's early projections about computers and networking? His ideas about a global electronic network that connects people throughout the world elicited only ridicule. "He was literally laughed off the sets of TV news shows in the 1970s for predicting that most human beings would some day be sending one another 'messages through their word processors' and that the world would be linked together through a new 'electronic nervous system'," writes Douglas Rushkoff, writer and friend of Leary's (Rushkoff, Douglas. E-mail to the author. 11 Sep 1997) . As far as Leary's advocacy for personal computers and the Internet in the 80s and 90s is concerned, many people in the cyber-movement (discussed in the next main chapter) and kids at rave-parties (Leary gave lectures on rave-parties) considered Leary to be only "jumping on their bandwagon" even though he was one of the first advocates of computers (cf. Rushkoff "Loved by Leary." Psychedelic Island Views. Vol. 2, Issue 2, (1996) p. 47.). They did not know that Leary began talking about computers as a means of culture-crossing communication already in the early 70s. (I want to make the reader aware that this was even before Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak marketed the first personal computer in 1976.)
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 1, 2004 13:07:45 GMT -5
Better living through technology/ The impact of Leary's Exo-Psychology theory Part 1
In the late 70s and early 80s, Leary's model of the Eight Levels of Consciousness and his vision of a post-terrestrial existence free from all limits (free from social and political limitations, as well as the limits of space, time, and the body) influenced quite a few "psychedelic philosophers"(discussed below) and a considerable number of young people interested in altered states of consciousness. Many young people in the early 80s, however, were not only interested in the drug-aspect of Leary's theory. They felt that Leary, by including technology into his vision of the future, helped them to define the new generation they were part of. Leary's Exo-Psychology theory offered these people who had decided to "leave the flower-power 60s behind" a new way to live with technology, to make it theirs. In the eyes of these people, Leary resolved the dichotomy between spirituality (the "inner quest") and science/technology (the "outer quest"). In Exo-Psychology and Neuropolitics, he shows that technology is not intrinsically evil; it can have a liberating effect as well. In The Intelligence Agents, Leary suggests that we should look westward for change because the East is stagnating. Leary was the one who made young psychedelic trippers and anti-technology-oriented (ex-) hippies aware of the fact that drugs were only a part of the continuing evolution of the human species towards enlightenment, and that the evolutionary purpose of technology was to help us on our "spiritual path" towards freedom, enlightenment, and immortality. As far as psychedelic philosophers who were inspired by Leary's Eight Circuit model are concerned, there are at least two writers that have to be mentioned here: Robert Anton Wilson and Antero Alli. Both of these writers are not mainstream writers. Like Leary's books, their books could be placed somewhere between science fiction, psychology, sociology, philosophy, New Age and "underground." Robert Anton Wilson - who was a longtime collaborator with Leary and, like Leary, is a spokesman for the psychedelic culture - talks about Leary's model of the Eight Circuits of Consciousness in several of his books, for example in Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (Wilson 1997, first published in 1977) and Quantum Psychology (Wilson 1996). He even wrote one book, Prometheus Rising (Wilson 1983), that deals exclusively with Leary's Eight Circuit model. By relating it to a great number of theories from the fields of psychology, philosophy, and atomic physics and adding new ideas about how to increase one's intelligence, Wilson develops Leary's model further. Leary claims that Robert Anton Wilson has interpreted his theories better than anybody else (cf. Stafford 1992: III-30). Wilson was influenced by Leary's Eight Circuit model very much. Now that Leary is dead Wilson continues to spread Leary's ideas. At the TRANSCENDANCE-conference in Brithton/England, in 1997, for example, Wilson spent half of his 90-minute talk on explaining Leary's Eight Circuit model. Angel Tech - A modern Shaman's Guide to Reality Selection (Alli 1990), written by Anterro Alli, is also based on Leary's Eight Circuit model and offers the reader a great variety of ways to expand one's consciousness (not only the chemical solution that Leary suggests). The aim of the books I have mentioned in the last two paragraphs is basically the same as Leary's, namely to enable the individual to create his or her own realities. It is hard to say how many young people were influenced by Leary's Eight Circuit model in the 1970s. Of course, there were some of the (ex-)hippies who still read Leary's books from the 60s. However, from the fact that Leary was not released from prison before 1976 and that his Exo-psychology works did not appear before 1977 it could be concluded that not many people knew what Leary was doing in the early 70s at all. Furthermore, the "LSD-boom" was over, so there was no need for an LSD-guru any more. But what about the late 70s when Leary went on lecture tours again? In Fried Shoes, Cooked Diamonds (Mystic Fire Video 1978), a documentary on the Beat poets, we can see that there was a considerable number of artists, students and people who were in some way associated with the Beat poets, who read Leary's Exo-Psychology books. After his release from prison Leary spent a lot of time with the Beat poets. Whenever they gave seminars, the "Evolutionary Agent" Leary was also there lecturing on space migration, intelligence increase, and life extension. Fried Shoes, Cooked Diamonds (Mystic Fire Video 1978) shows one of these seminars with Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, and other Beat poets. In the 80s and 90s, Leary did not talk about his Exo-Psychology theory much any more . However, in the 80s and 90s many young people became interested in this theory because they felt that Leary, by reconciling spirituality with science and technology, helped them to define the new techno-generation they were part of. In Chaos & Cyberculture, Leary calls these people who grew up using computers to communicate and create their own digital realities "cyberpunks," or the "New Breed." (I will discuss the general characteristics of this new generation in the last main chapter of this paper.) I now want to talk about two prominent spokespeople of the cyberpunk counterculture who have been influenced by Leary's Exo-Psychology. One important spokesman of cyberculture who was inspired by Leary's Exo-Psychology theory is R. U. Sirius (a.k.a. Ken Gofmann), the cofounder and original editor-in-chief of the first cyberculture magazine Mondo 2000, who has been called "a head on the Mt. Rushmore of cyberculture"(DD 241). (Since R. U. Sirius will also play an important role in the last main chapter of my paper I want to talk a little bit about his background here.) In contrast to most of the people in the psychedelic movement of the 60s and 70s, Sirius has never been a technophobe. According to Sirius, there have always been two strands in the psychedelic counterculture. Sirius explains: "A majority strand of people felt overwhelmed by the ugliness of Western civilization and wanted to get as much distance from it as possible. But about ten percent always consisted of 'sci-fi' types. For instance, Digger manifestoes of '67 and '68 anticipated 'machines of loving grace' that would usher in a post-scarcity culture"(quoted in Stafford 1992: III - 46). In the 70s, Sirius felt that he rather belonged to the sci-fi types than to the technophobes. In a Washington Post interview in 1992, Sirius recalled, "We wanted to believe in this cybernetic vision, that the machines would do it for us. And I maintained that vision, somewhere in the back of my head" (quoted in Dery 1996: 35). In 1980, Sirius had a revealing LSD-experience which assured him that his intuition was right. This experience caused him to change his life. Cultural critic Mark Dery describes Sirius' "metamorphosis": A fateful acid trip in 1980, days after John Lennon's death, somehow assured him of "the all-rightness of everything" - a revelation that spurred him to leave the sixties behind and catch up with the emerging computer culture around him. Delving into Scientific American, he soon concluded that the Diggers' anarchist utopia of universal leisure and infinite abundance lay within reach; the revolution, if it happened, would be brought about not by political radicals but by the high-tech breakthroughs of capitalist visionaries. But why settle for a cybernetic Eden when the promise of prosthetic godhood lay somewhere over the rainbow? Inspired by Timothy Leary's premonitions in the seventies of "space migration" to off-world colonies, Sirius incorporated a high-tech take on the human potential movement into his vision of robotopia [my italics]" (ibid.). It was Leary's Exo-Psychology theory that convinced Sirius that technology would not only help us to create a society where work is obsolete and all of us are watched over by "machines of loving grace," but also enable us to attain enlightenment, to free ourselves from the limits of space, time, and the body. In 1984, Sirius founded a psychedelic magazine that later became Mondo 2000. Subtitled A Space Age Newspaper of Psychedelics, Science, Human Potential, Irreverence and Modern Art, it was called High Frontiers. High Frontiers is a name borrowed from O'Neill's book The High Frontier, which deals with the construction of a space colony. High Frontiers evolved into Reality Hackers, which evolved into Mondo 2000. In the course of time the magazine became more and more high-tech. The focus of the magazine shifted from the coverage of psychedelics, in High Frontiers, to the coverage of cyberculture, in Mondo 2000. (Leary was one of the contributing editors of this magazine.) In Mondo 2000 we find articles about smart drugs (legal drugs that are supposed to enhance your intelligence), virtual reality, cyberpunk, interactive media, aphrodisiacs, artificial life, nanotechnology , brain implants, life extension, etc. According to Sirius, now, in the 90s, scientists are developing technologies (e.g., nanotechnology) that help us to understand and "real-ize" Leary's Eight Circuit model. In Design for Dying (Leary's last book which he wrote together with Sirius), Sirius argues that most of Leary's predictions in his Eight Circuit model about future scientific/technological and cultural developments have actually become true:
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 1, 2004 13:08:28 GMT -5
Better living through technology/ The impact of Leary's Exo-Psychology theory Part 2 During his later days, he [Leary] didn't talk about it [the Eight Circuit model] much. I think as he embraced "chaos", he wanted to distance himself from the tidiness of the model. After all, did any of us live perfect, smooth, Circuit-Six, psychedelic, yogic lives? Or did we not, occasionally, get drunk[...] But when I think about it, I'm impressed, particularly with how the evolution of the technoculture since the 1970s matches his predictions of future evolution. In a clear gelatin capsule: Circuit Six, the neuroelectric circuit, is already a pop culture phenomenon, otherwise known as cyberculture, wired, the Web, the Net, cyberspace, etc. The notion of living in electricity is with us. More important, it surprised our culture by preceding Circuit Seven, the neurogenetic circuit - biotechnology as a popular phenomenon, which is just slowly coming into its own. When you hear about garage gene hacking, you'll know we've arrived. And who would have guessed that nanotechnology mainman Eric Drexler would come along and begin mapping Circuit Eight, the neuroatomic level, human empowerment on the molecular/atomic level (Leary 1997: 91)? I think now it becomes clear why in Mondo 2000 Leary (along with Global village prophet McLuhan and science fiction writer William Gibson) is portrayed as one of the most important pioneers of cyberspace (see Mondo 2000, issues 1 and 4). In his Exo-Psychology theory Leary laid the ideological foundation for the cyber-movement of the 80s and 90s. There is another prominent spokesperson of cyberculture who has been influenced by Leary's Exo-Psychology. His name is Bruce Eisner. Eisner is the founder of a "psychedelic-cybernetic organization" called Island Foundation and the author of Ecstasy: The MDMA Story. The Island Foundation www.island.org is an organization of individuals dedicated to the creation of a psychedelic culture. The group is named after English novelist Aldous Huxley's last novel, Island, about a utopian island, "an imaginary place that nurtured and supported the psychedelic vision"(ibid.). Island Foundation's mission is to "foster the creation of a new culture based on the visions and ideals catalyzed by the psychedelic experience"(ibid.). Island Foundation seeks as its members those who have gained a vision of a more sensible and peaceful way of living together through the use of psychedelic and other min-altering substances, as well as other methods of altering consciousness, like computers and the Internet. It was Leary's The Intelligence Agents (and Huxley's novel Island) that inspired Eisner to form the Island Foundation www.island.org/BRUCE/story.html. Leary also made Eisner aware of the promising possibilities of computers and the striking similarity between the psychedelic experience, during which one feels that he/she leaves his/her narrow reality tunnel and enters a multi-choice reality labyrinth, and the hypertext universe of the Internet, which gives one the same feeling (Eisner, Bruce. Psychedelic Island Views Vol. 2, Issue 2, 1996: p.4). I think it is worth mentioning here that a psilocybin-trip in October 1977 was the trigger that allowed Eisner to "perceive new connections." On this psychedelic trip Eisner realized that Leary was right: "East means stagnation. West means evolution and change." Psychedelics and technology can help us to make the world a better place to live in. This discovery lead him to found the Island Foundation (cf. ibid.). (Notice the striking similarity between Eisner's and Sirius' life-changing experiences. It was the psychedelic experience that changed their lives.) The Island Group expresses its opinions and policies in a magazine called Psychedelic Island Views, edited by Bruce Eisner. We only have to take a look at the second issue of Psychedelic Island Views, which is dedicated to Timothy Leary (this issue was published soon after Leary died), and we see that Leary plays an important role in this organization. This issue features several articles about Leary. Just like R.U. Sirius, Bruce Eisner, who wrote two of these articles, praises Leary as the psychedelic and cybernetic pioneer nonpareil (cf. Eisner, Bruce. Psychedelic Island Views. Vol.2, Issue 2, 1996: 5-9). As a final comment on this chapter I would like to point out that both Mondo 2000 and the Island Group have their origins in California. (The Island Foundation has its headquaters in Santa Cruz; Mondo 2000 is based in Berkeley) Why is that so? Is California really the "genetic frontier"?
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 1, 2004 13:09:27 GMT -5
Chaos and The Cyberculture
Since the early 70s Leary has been fascinated by the idea that the brain functions like a computer and that we can change the programs in our "bio-computers" (brains) if we know the language in which these programs are written (the code). There is one book, written by psychoanalyst and LSD researcher John Lilly, in 1967, which Leary repeatedly mentions in several of his works and which seems to have sparked this fascination with the computer-brain metaphor. This book is titled Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Bio-Computer (Lilly 1967). It was not until 1983 that Leary bought his first personal computer and discovered how computers really worked - that the language of computers is based on the principle of 0 and 1 (the transistors in a computer can be switched ON or OFF, representing 1 and 0 in the logical sequence). When Leary learned that in a computer every program and every piece of information is stored in zeros and ones and that theoretically any kind of information - be it a sound, picture, word, etc - can be translated into the digital language of 0 and 1, he felt that a "new world" with seemingly endless possibilities was revealed to him. Leary called this world the "Info world" or "Quantum world" (I will explain the term "Quantum world" when I talk about Leary's Quantum-Psychology). He began spending around five hours a day in this new world on the other side of the screen translating his thoughts to digital codes and screen images (cf. CC 3). It did not take long until Leary felt he was able to "pilot his brain" through the newly discovered "digital spaces" and that the exercises in translating his thoughts to digital codes actually helped him to understand how his brain works. In Chaos & Cyberculture, Leary writes that computers taught him that the human mind (i.e., processes in the brain) could be perfectly explained with this principle of 0 and 1, and that computers helped him to control the processes in his brain and create his own digital realities (cf. ibid.). Leary discovered that computers were actually very similar to LSD. More than that, in an interview with P. Johnston in 1986, Leary said that the computer is a technology for brain change that is even more effective than LSD: "Computers are the most subversive thing I've ever done. [...] Computers are more addictive than heroin. [...] People need some way to activate, boot up, and change disks in their minds. In the 60s we needed LSD to expand reality and examine our stereotypes. With computers as our mirrors LSD might not be necessary now" (quoted in Bukatman 1993: 139). This discovery led Leary to proclaim that "The PC is the LSD of the 90s" (CC cover-page). Leary found out that his experiences with this new medium were far from being unique and original but seemed to be part of an enormous cultural metamorphoses. As a result of personal computers, millions of people, especially the young generation, would no longer be satisfied "to peer like passive infants through the Terrarium wall [TV screen] into ScreenLand [sic] filled with cyberstars like Bill and Hillary and Boris and Sadam and Madonna and Beavis and Butt-Head"(CC 4). People would begin to learn how to "enter and navigate in this world behind the screen" and avoid television dictatorship. Computers would change the young generation's appreciation for their own intrinsic worth and ability to alter reality. Leary had a vision of the emergence of a "new humanism" based on questioning authority, independent thinking, and the empowerment of computers and other technologies. A new global "cybernetic culture" would be emerging, creating a post-political society based on individual freedom. These discoveries had a profound impact on Leary's theories of the 80s and 90s in which Leary takes his idea of the brain as computer even one step further. In Chaos & Cyberculture, which is a collection of Leary's most important essays about the effects of computers and drugs on the individual and society, he suggests that the whole universe consists of "zeros and ones, bits of off/on information." Matter is "frozen information"(cf. CC 7). The computer would help the individual to dissolve, or deconstruct, all rigid thought systems/structures (political, social, and philosophical) into zeros and ones, and create new structures/systems with the freed elements - structures that are more fun than the old ones. Furthermore, we would be beginning to "understand ourselves as information processes," and in the near future there would be technologies available that allow us to manipulate matter as information, which means that we can exist without our blood-and-flesh bodies and become immortal. Leary tries to back these ideas with a bold interpretation of quantum physics and defines a new branch of science called Quantum Psychology (human thought and behavior described in terms of the language of computers). Quantum Psychology would help us to understand the basic nature of the universe and how our brains operate. However, we would not able to apply the principles of quantum physics without computers, which Leary sees as extensions of our brains which help us to navigate through the meaningless, disordered, chaotic universe and to design ourselves individual realities. As far as the correlation of personal computers and personal freedom is concerned, Leary says that freedom in any country could be measured perfectly by the percentage of personal computers in the hands of individuals (cf. CC 84). In Chaos & Cyberculture, Leary also presents a theory on the evolution of countercultures from the 50s to the 90s (the Beat Generation, the hippies, etc) and defines a new counterculture - Leary is even talking about a new species which constitutes a new gene pool - called the "cyberpunks," or "new breed." As far as the political implications of the use of personal computers and electronic media (especially TV and the Internet) is concerned, Leary gives various examples that demonstrate that these new technologies have introduced profound changes in our society. Leary argues that personal computers, TV, and the Internet encouraged young people from all over the world to think for themselves, question authority, and start a freedom revolution which lead to the fall of various political regimes in the late 80s (fall of the Berlin Wall, Czech hard-line regime toppled, etc). According to Leary, this "digital freedom revolution" is still going on. Leary was very optimistic as far as the liberating effect of electronic technology and the future of this freedom movement is concerned. In the near future we would all find ourselves living in a post-political society that functions according to the cybernetic principles of self-organization - a society where the person who automatically obeys and never questions authority will be the "problem person" and the intelligent person who knows how to live in symbiosis with technology and who thinks for him-/herself (the cyberpunk) will be the norm. Furthermore, we would soon be able to "download" our mind/brain into a computer, which means that we do not need our bodies to survive any more and that we can become immortal. Before I describe the basic principles of Quantum Psychology, I want to shortly comment on the language Leary uses (so the reader will not be confused when I start talking about things like the "info-starved tri-brain amphibian"). The language Leary uses in Chaos & Cyberculture is a mixture of computer-language (e.g. to boot up a computer), psychedelic metaphors (which he uses to describe the experience of cyberspace), and neologisms like "tri-brain" (which I will explain later), or "electronic haiku" (movie trailer). (Keep in mind that we are dealing here not with a scientific theory based on objective facts, but with a theory that is based on the assumption that "the limits of our reality are determined by the limits of our imagination.")
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 1, 2004 13:16:19 GMT -5
This last post, Cyberpunks and Chaos, give a clear indication on why The Rave Culture was beat up sp heavily by TPTB. Leary was not one to BS around about evolution. He knew the new revolutionaries and counter-culture would be the Ravers/Cyberpunks. Hence the "Rave Act"section of The PAtriot Act, authored by Joe Biden.
|
|
|
Post by Mech on Mar 13, 2004 1:41:50 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Swamp Gas on Mar 15, 2004 12:44:41 GMT -5
The Two Irish Bards!! They both were very scientific in their approach to conciousness expansion. They both believed The Rave and Cyberpunk Culture was the Way to the Future. Sometimes you wonder about their strange cancers they got. Enemies of the State if you will. Nixon called Leary, "The Most Dangerous Man in America". Coming from The Old Dick, that's a compliment.
|
|