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diff --git a/timeforms.otx b/timeforms.otx index 3d5d034..5a1d0b8 100644 --- a/timeforms.otx +++ b/timeforms.otx @@ -263,7 +263,6 @@ One specific question that this book raised in my mind was the issue or \dq{read \nonum\chap Prolog -\parskip=0pt Print is a kind of delayed music, playing now words composed in another time, a process in which the reader confers a temporary immortality on the author's once private thoughts and experiences. You have before you the scores of compositions written in the last five years for various occasions and performances. One is never sure it is the best one could have done, and so, perhaps too late, one tries to add a few grace notes. It would please me, as you read these pieces, if you heard the music you remember hearing and enjoying in the past half-decade, beginning just before "hippies" became news, and ending in August, 1971. @@ -277,16 +276,10 @@ But we live in strange times, when nothing is as dead as yesterday's news, and n These are things which everyone knows, except perhaps those so tossed and wrung that they must cling to views no longer adaptive. They are recorded here partly to insure myself against the reader's anger when I stridently demand newer bolder imaginations, and partly to explain the very ordinary circumstances in which this book was composed. For there are two ways to read it, depending on who you are. -\brk - If you are literate, if your primary way of learning is through the printed word, and have sampled the philosophers, the sociologists, the psychoanalysts, etc, that is, if you are an educated academic person, you will probably want to begin with the metalog, \et{On Social Time II}, since, in academic terms, it is the paradigm, or set of hypotheses the other pieces "test". It was written first, and gradually expanded, patched, modified, changed. It will show you what is written between the lines in the pieces that appear before it. -\brk - If on the other hand, you derive your principal education not from books, but from experiences with friends and lovers, and if you are already familiar with the psychedelic experience, you will probably be able to trace my own psychedelic evolution through the chapters. -\brk - In either case, I want to tell you why I have assembled them here, in book form, though each was originally a paper spoken to an audience. I have several reasons. First, it is the first of four books on the nature of time, which I want to do because I believe that time is to us what water is to fish: it is dangerous to ignore. @@ -299,1152 +292,226 @@ Fourth, timidly, I think some of the ideas might be useful to others who, like m Finally, I wrote these words in joy, which I would like to share. -\chap LSD SUBCULTURES: ACIDOXY VERSUS ORTHODOXY +\chap LSD Subcultures: Acidoxy versus Orthodoxy \arabicnumbers +There is no need to document what everyone knows --- there are a lot of young people whose special use of psychedelic substances is part of their special relation to contemporary culture. The special set of values, attitudes, and opinions of this LSD subculture were the focus of my participant observations in London, New York, and San Francisco during the last ten years. "Interviews" with hundreds of users revealed that an acid subculture is comparably to be found in many other world cities, e.g. Copenhagen, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin. -There is no need to document what everyone knows --- there are a -lot of young people whose special use of psychedelic substances is -part of their special relation to contemporary culture. The special -set of values, attitudes, and opinions of this LSD subculture were -the focus of my participant observations in London, New York, -and San Francisco during the last ten years. "Interviews" with -hundreds of users revealed that an acid subculture is comparably to -be found in many other world cities, e.g. Copenhagen, Jerusalem, -Tokyo, Paris, Berlin. - - -Less well known is the fact that there is a growing tension -between the subculture of LSD users and what might be called the -subculture of therapists. The following paragraphs describe some -aspects of this tension, written as much to solicit as to share -insight into a phenomenon which increasingly troubles professionals in the therapeutic community. - - -VALUE CONFLICTS - -In addition to their use of psychedelic substances which -precipitate experiences of a sort radically different from those with -which the midrange of therapeutic personnel are familiar, hippies -(and yippies and many others) are outspokenly antifamilial (drop- -outs), antipsychiatric (pro-paranoid), and anti-bureaucracy (radical -politics). They deplore wealth as alienating (the Digger Free Store), -cleanliness as neuroticism (clean is a hang-up), and prefer free sex -to the marital practices sanctioned by society. They refuse the -counsel of rationality (the bomb is rational, the Pentagon is -rational) and they insist that "doing my thing" is healthier and -saner than going to war or programming computers. They regard -the "trip" as a unique experience, communes as better than +Less well known is the fact that there is a growing tension between the subculture of LSD users and what might be called the subculture of therapists. The following paragraphs describe some aspects of this tension, written as much to solicit as to share insight into a phenomenon which increasingly troubles professionals in the therapeutic community. +\sec Value Conflicts +In addition to their use of psychedelic substances which precipitate experiences of a sort radically different from those with which the midrange of therapeutic personnel are familiar, hippies (and yippies and many others) are outspokenly antifamilial (drop- outs), antipsychiatric (pro-paranoid), and anti-bureaucracy (radical politics). They deplore wealth as alienating (the Digger Free Store), cleanliness as neuroticism (clean is a hang-up), and prefer free sex to the marital practices sanctioned by society. They refuse the counsel of rationality (the bomb is rational, the Pentagon is rational) and they insist that "doing my thing" is healthier and saner than going to war or programming computers. They regard the "trip" as a unique experience, communes as better than traditional family life, and look forward to the replacement of "violence" with "love," and "education" with "ecstasy." -traditional family life, and look forward to the replacement of -"violence" with "love," and "education" with "ecstasy." +They are increasingly regarded as social pariahs, public health menaces, political pests, and as a degenerate generation, labels which are said to earn them the right to "treatment". Yet, treatment programs face a number of very practical problems in addition to the value differences described above when they try to offer service to this population. Few are willing to become patients voluntarily. Even if a given therapist has attempted to manage his countertransferences to a patient who regards him as ignorant of the trip experience, biased in favor of family life, militaristic because he offers therapy instead of politics, an impersonal bureaucrat because he is an agent of an agency, "hung-up on loot" because he works for a living, and a puritan because he's clean, relatively monogamous and heterosexual, a therapist must still confront a number of perplexing problems. For example, in attempting to cope with a patient experiencing a bad trip which may last from 10 to 12 hours, what is to be done about scheduling? When the patient is a 16 year old who has run away from home and does not wish to speak to his or her parents, of what use is family therapy? Or, if one wants to treat the natural group (or social network)\starnote{ I use the term in the sense conveyed by Dr. Ross Speck's work. cf. Family Networks, Ross Speck and Carolyn Attneave, New York, Pantheon, 1973.} of significant others, does one suggest that the whole commune come in? Is a bad trip an "emergency?" Does Thorazine mollify a bad trip? Does Niacinamide? +Faced with these kinds of questions, an increasing number of therapists are reexamining their treatment rationales, so that convictions developed: over long years of experience are now some times regarded as value assumptions which may require modification. -They are increasingly regarded as social pariahs, public health -menaces, political pests, and as a degenerate generation, labels -which are said to earn them the right to "treatment". Yet, -treatment programs face a number of very practical problems in -addition to the value differences described above when they try to -offer service to this population. Few are willing to become patients -voluntarily. Even if a given therapist has attempted to manage his -countertransferences to a patient who regards him as ignorant of -the trip experience, biased in favor of family life, militaristic -because he offers therapy instead of politics, an impersonal bureaucrat because he is an agent of an agency, "hung-up on loot" -because he works for a living, and a puritan because he's clean, -relatively monagamous and heterosexual, a therapist must still -confront a number of perplexing problems. For example, in -attempting to cope with a patient experiencing a bad trip which -may last from 10 to 12 hours, what is to be done about -scheduling? When the patient is a 16 year old who has run away -from home and does not wish to speak to his or her parents, of -what use is family therapy? Or, if one wants to treat the natural -group (or social network)" of significant others, does one suggest -that the whole commune come in? Is a bad trip an "emergency?" -Does Thorazine mollify a bad trip? Does Niacinamide? +In our interviews we explored five areas. We did not structure the interviews, so that often other areas cropped up to the exclusion of our principal concerns. If we could comfortably squeeze a question in, we did. If we couldn't, we didn't. Our interests were: -Faced with these kinds of questions, an increasing number of -therapists are reexamining their treatment rationales, so that convictions developed: over long years of experience are now some -times regarded as value assumptions which may require modification. - - -In our interviews we explored five areas. We did not structure -the interviews, so that often other areas cropped up to the -exclusion of our principal concerns. If we could comfortably - - -*I use the term in the sense conveyed by Dr. Ross Speck's work. cf. Family Networks, -Ross Speck and Carolyn Attneave, New York, Pantheon, 1973. - - - - -squeeze a question in, we did. If we couldn't, we didn't. Our -interests were: - - -1. Subcultural differentiation: we wanted to know what -trippers and therapists thought of each other +\begitems\style n +* \e{Subcultural differentiation:} we wanted to know what trippers and therapists thought of each other +* \e{Status:} we wanted to know whether the avant-garde nature of the acid scene threatened orthodox therapists -2. Status: we wanted to know whether the avant-garde nature of the acid scene threatened orthodox therapists +* \e{Relevant experience:} we wanted to know whether the trip is a unique experience +* \e{Sex:} we wanted to know if traditional family sex and trip sex differed -3, Relevant experience: we wanted to know whether the trip -is a unique experience +* \e{Religion:} we wanted to know whether tripping involved religious experiences +\enditems +\sec Subcultural Differentiation -4. Sex: we wanted to know if traditional family sex and trip -sex differed +With respect to the subcultural differentiation, we found a continuum of attitudes which rendered our dichotomy of trippers- versus-therapists useless. Although we spoke with trippers who regard therapists who have not "dropped" acid as hopelessly "out of it", we also spoke with trippers in therapy with nonusing therapists who felt that the course of therapy contained learning experiences for both parties. However, trippers whose therapists had had an LSD experience were uniformly envied by trippers whose therapists had not.\starnote{Here it is necessary to distinguish, as Leuner does, between psychedelic therapy, which involves massive doses of LSD in one or two breakthrough sessions, and psycholytic therapy, which involves repeated lower dosages at regular intervals as adjuncts to the therapeutic process. It is additionally necessary to distinguish the self-administered from the professionally administered trip, since they may differ markedly.} +Self-administered massive dosages may result in good or bad trips. Good trips induced in this way will ordinarily not send a tripper to a therapist. Bad trips might, if the tripper panics and has no one else to "talk him down." The acid-experienced therapist will know how to talk his patient down, if he has a number of hours available. The acid-inexperienced therapist usually doesn't know that a patient in a bad trip \e{can} be talked down, and may resort to medication (Thorazine, Niacinamide). When he does, in the words of one respondent, "Then you have \e{both} the Thorazine \e{and} the bum trip to handle." A particular danger is the possibility that the bad trip is due not to LSD but to STP, for the combination of STP and Thorazine is believed to be fatal. The role of the inexperienced therapist who fails to make this crucial distinction is not an enviable one. -5. Religion: we wanted to know whether tripping involved -religious experiences +It is not surprising therefore that therapists who have had relevant experiences are preferred by trippers. Like the heroin addicts of yesteryear,\bknote{9} acid "heads" know that there is no sure way of knowing the strength of a "cap" of acid when they buy it (or are given it free). Nor is it surprising that trippers feel confined to their own resources and not a little disdainful of the therapist subculture, which by and large, but especially in the United States, is an acid-inexperienced subculture. +Perhaps the most important finding which emerged from our interviews is the fact that the experienced trippers regard inexperienced trippers who seek help of acid-inexperienced therapists as fools because of the high likelihood that acid-inexperienced therapists are not only not able to help but are not willing to help, due as much to their alleged moralistic alliance with an anti-acid society as to their fear that acid is better than analysis (a fear expressed to us by a number of therapists). More often, therapists said that they'd like to try some but legal concerns prevented them. A few therapists said they were able to learn a good deal about LSD from patients who began treatment with them before they began experimenting with LSD, but felt limited in their ability to empathize with the experience. -SUBCULTURAL DIFFERENTIATION +It should be noted that many of the interviewed protagonists of the LSD experience, both trippers and therapists, do not regard the experience as fitting in neatly with psychoanalytic paradigms, so that, in their view, LSD should not be regarded simply either as a defense dissolver or as an ego builder, because such views are uncomfortably psychologistic. The social nature of the experience has also been noted by many investigators, notably by Becker\bknote{2} and Cheek,\bknote{3} who have shown that social groups selectively define aspects of the drug experience as real and unreal. Our respondents repeatedly referred to the sociopolitical dimensions of the experience, reminding us, in the words of one young girl, that "dropping acid and dropping out are really very similar, because, you know, in an insane world, counterinsanity is saner than plain insanity." Thus, many users inquire more deeply into the therapist's political views than into his therapeutic credo, often believing them to be more intimately related than the therapist himself does. We have interviewed therapists who do this with patients. -With respect to the subcultural differentiation, we found a -continuum of attitudes which rendered our dichotomy of trippers- -versus-therapists useless. Although we spoke with trippers who -regard therapists who have not "dropped" acid as hopelessly "out -of it", we also spoke with trippers in therapy with nonusing- -therapists who felt that the course of therapy contained learning -experiences for both parties. However, trippers whose therapists -had had an LSD experience were uniformly envied by trippers -whose therapists had not.* +\sec Status -Self-administered massive dosages may result in good or bad -trips. Good trips induced in this way will ordinarily not send a -tripper to a therapist. Bad trips might, if the tripper panics and has -no one else to "talk him down." The acid-experienced therapist -will know how to talk his patient down, if he has a number of +With regard to the relative status of the acid subculture, a number of conclusions emerged from our interviews. First, as reported above, many therapists felt that sooner or later they would have to learn more about the LSD experience since they believed the number of, users to be increasing and expected them to need help eventually. Some therapists thought that they would eventually try it, and others (usually the younger ones) eagerly looked forward to the experience. +A paradoxical finding is the following. Before acid, therapists who preferred the organic viewpoint to the psychogenic one were regarded by many as old fashioned. Some smiled knowingly at those who did not employ the then fashionable terms derived from psychoanalytic theory. Now, the shoe seems to be on the other foot. Those who attempt to reduce the acid-induced experience to psychoanalytic terms are regarded as conservatives resisting the new orthodoxy. Terms like "synaesthesia" are in; interpretations like "identifying with the object" are out, at least among those we interviewed, This should not be taken to mean that psychoanalytic investigators are not researching the acid scene, Dr. Dahlberg at the William Alanson White Institute in New York is among those highly regarded, although he is seen as cautious in both method and dosage levels.\bknote{4} -*Here it is necessary to distinguish, as Leuner does, between psychedelic therapy, which -involves massive doses of LSD in one or two breakthrough sessions, and psycholytic -therapy, which involves repeated lower dosages at regular intervals as adjuncts to the -therapeutic process. It is additionally necessary to distinguish the self-administered from the -professionally administered trip, since they may differ markedly. +Some who resort to LSD find their particular pathologies temporarily masked or even alleviated by the experience, but acid is no leveler. In fact, the contrary seems often true, which is recognized by experienced users in their ability to distinguish what is generically due to acid and what is specifically due to idiosyncracies of the individual. Again, we found our initial dichotomy to be naive. The question is not whether acid dethrones orthodox diagnostic categories; the real question seems to be which personality types respond to acid in which ways. The work of Linton and Lang\bknote{5} is particularly instructive in this regard, as is the work of Blum\bknote{6} and his associates. They find different personality patterns at varying dosage levels. +It should be noted that psycholytic therapy is gaining in popularity in Europe as a professionally administered modality. In the United States, in the absence of legal availability, it must be reported that self-administered massive dosages are on the increase, especially now that incidents of chromosome damage have been reported, then contradicted, then re-reported, so that even professionals in touch with the literature state that the controversy has not yet been resolved.\bknote{7} +The status of the LSD subculture is in rapid flux. Hippies in the East Village, in the Haight, in Soho now avoid the harsh glare of publicity because they know that publicity, for them, leads to ridicule and persecution. They resent the commercialization of their way of life, their music, and their art, because it serves as a vehicle for cheap imitation by faddists. Nor do they wish to be put in the mobility race and competed with for status. Many of our respondents were very seriously concerned with freedom, both inner and outer, and would be much happier if they weren't cast in the role of criminal violators of the American way of life; bucolic emigration for those who are is becoming increasingly attractive. +\sec Relevant Experience -hours available. The acid-inexperienced therapist usually doesn't -know that a patient in a bad trip can be talked down, and may -resort to medication (Thorazine, Niacinamide). When he does, in -the words of one respondent, "Then you have both the Thorazine -and the bum trip to handle." A particular danger is the possibility -that the bad trip is due not to LSD but to STP, for the -combination of STP and Thorazine is believed to be fatal. The role -of the inexperienced therapist who fails to make this crucial -distinction is not an enviable one. +From the point of view of relevant experience there is almost uniform agreement --- the trip is unique. This is not to say that LSD is the only psychedelic drug, for there are many. Mescaline and Peyote are favorites, as are Psilocybin and Psilocin. Other psychedelics have been in use for centuries, but they are not ordinarily found in the training experiences of therapists, and there are few if any comparable experiences in the orthodox psychoanalytic encounter. Alcohol is simply not comparable, nor are the tranquilizers, sedatives, depressants, and stimulants found in the psychiatric arsenal. William James' famous experience with nitrous oxide (laughing gas) is well known and his reaction was very much his own. Others find this chemical quite delightful. One of our respondents prefers it to LSD. But acid, like sex, is hard to compare with other experiences. +\sec Sex -It is not surprising therefore that therapists who have had -relevant experiences are preferred by trippers. Like the heroin -addicts of yesteryear,' acid "heads" know that there is no sure -way of knowing the strength of a "cap" of acid when they buy it -(or are given it free). Nor is it surprising that trippers feel confined -to their own resources and not a little disdainful of the therapist -subculture, which by and large, but especially in the United States, -is an acid-inexperienced subculture. +In a much quoted interview in Playboy, Timothy Leary stated that the real secret behind the acid scene was LSD's fantastic aphrodisiacal properties, which, for example, enabled women to have "hundreds" of orgasms during a trip. If one takes the term orgasm literally (that is, biologically), our respondents contradict Leary's assertions. However, if one takes a more metaphorical meaning, our respondents indicate that the statement is true, by which they seem to mean that moment after moment is filled with delights of the most sensuous and rapturous sort, and that, for hours on end, in what seem to be vastly extended spans of time, wholly satisfying releases of ecstatic bliss are attained with magnificent ease. +It has been claimed that LSD is not specifically aphrodisiacal but has that effect because it heightens the exquisiteness of perception across the entire sensorium, so that, if sex is what one is experiencing, it is a heightened and exquisitized sex one will experience under LSD. Our respondents told us that there were three ways in which LSD "heightened" the sexual experience: -Perhaps the most important finding which emerged from our -interviews is the fact that the experienced trippers regard inexperienced trippers who seek help of acid-inexperienced therapists as -fools because of the high likelihood that acid-inexperienced therapists are not only not able to help but are not willing to help, due -as much to their alleged moralistic alliance with an anti-acid -society as to their fear that acid is better than analysis (a fear -expressed to us by a number of therapists). More often, therapists -said that they'd like to try some but legal concerns prevented -them. A few therapists said they were able to learn a good deal -about LSD from patients who began treatment with them before -they began experimenting with LSD, but felt limited in their -ability to empathize with the experience. +\begitems\style n +* It dissolves defensiveness and anxiety, thus enabling one to enter fully into the experience. +* It extends the sensations associated with sex so that stroking and orgasm are spread over large regions of the body. +* It extends experienced time (as opposed to clock time) so that one seems to have more time in which to "luxuriate." Thus, even though the clock is running, one can play at one's own pace. "Since a short time seems to last a long time, it's better," is the way one of our respondents put it. +\enditems +We were also specifically interested in another aspect of psychedelic sexual behavior, namely, what one of our respondents called the "group grope", in which a number of individuals of both sexes participate in what might be termed an orgy. We were told that group sex does not derive its impetus mainly from LSD but from political rejection of the notion of private property and from the practical unattainability of privacy in the urban commune --- that acid only served to disinhibit those who already had the wish to "love together." -It should be noted that many of the interviewed protagonists -of the LSD experience, both trippers and therapists, do not regard -the experience as fitting in neatly with psychoanalytic paradigms, -so that, in their view, LSD should not be regarded simply either as +It is instructive to observe that psychedelic sex differs markedly, however, from the narcotically disinhibited sexuality, since the latter becomes increasingly impossible as dosages climb. Hence, a sharp distinction should be drawn between the psychedelic sex, which is improved, and narcotic sex, which is depressed. Nevertheless, LSD users said that group sex is part of the new political philosophy of community with which they are attempting to replace older political philosophies of proprietary (commodity) sexuality. Actually, we were told that acid and group sex, in combination, are both aspects of a new political philosophy which is emerging in the youthful acid subcultures around the globe, and that proper initiation into this subculture involves far more than acid and group sex. +Of interest to us was the relation between the "communes" in which group sex is often practiced and the "family processes" characteristic of the more permanent of these communes. If, for example, a certain girl functioned as the mother of a given commune, did she also function as a group sex partner? If so, what about incest taboos, and if not, why not? We were told that roles were frequently reallocated within communes, so that this month's mother might be next month's daughter, etc., and that there were major differences to be found among rural versus urban communes, the latter experiencing a more rapid change of personnel. We were further informed that group sex was not the rule but was not precluded by rule either, so that, if the spirit happened to move them on any given occasion, it might occur. The fact is that dyadic pairings are by far the more common occurrence. We were. repeatedly told that LSD was not the sine qua non of group sexuality, One of our informants reminded us that several accounts existed in anthropological literature describing similar practices among adolescents in preliterate societies, and that 'drugs weren't prerequisites there either." +Hypothesizing that there might be some relation between the antifamilial values of the LSD subculture and anticonformist sex roles, we asked dropout users whether they were consciously and deliberately engaging in sexual behaviors that were specifically opposite to the kinds of sex practiced in their families of orientation. Again, we were given responses which accused us of psychologistic reductionism, suggesting that we were hopelessly out of touch with the generational nature of contemporary youthful rebellion, which did not consist exclusively or even principally of an antifamilial revolt but of a rebellion against all the major institutions of urban-industrial societies. We were politely informed that it was not simply with the family that youth was unhappy, but with schools, jobs, wars, governments, businesses, and bureaucracies, indeed, the whole complex of cultural institutions of which urban-industrial societies are comprised. "This", we were forcibly reminded, "is a cultural revolution, not simply an antifamily experiment." In this way, our hypothesis of reaction-formation received its demise. We concluded that the acid subculture may not solely be understood in psychological terms and that newer models for its comprehension need to be devised. -a defense dissolver or as an ego builder, because such views are -uncomfortably psychologistic. The social nature of the experience -has also been noted by many investigators, notably by Becker? and -Cheek?, who have shown that social groups selectively define -aspects of the drug experience as real and unreal. Our respondents -repeatedly referred to the sociopolitical dimensions of the experience, reminding us, in the words of one young girl, that "dropping -acid and dropping out are really very similar, because, you know, -in an insane world, counterinsanity is saner than plain insanity." -Thus, many users inquire more deeply into the therapist's political -views than into his therapeutic credo, often believing them to be -more intimately related than the therapist himself does. We have -interviewed therapists who do this with patients. +\sec Religion +We have already alluded to William James' masterpiece, \bt{The Varities of Religious Experience}. Masters and Huston have written what may be a minor masterpiece, \bt{The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience},\bknote{8} in which they address themselves to the relation of psychedelic and religious experience. Their orientation is exploratory, and they attempt to make sense out of the religious statements made by subjects who report on their LSD sessions. Some of their subjects report theistic experiences, some do not, but many report feelings which they regard as religious. -STATUS +We inquired of our respondents whether they had had religious experiences under LSD. Some responded that they had had experiences which they would call religious if they were religious, but they were not religious. Others said that the trip was the "most profound experience" they had ever had, and, like Masters' and Huston's subjects, described the experience in aesthetic terms. Still others described the experience as one of the "immense unity" and "in touch with All." That Tibetan, Hindu, and other religious vocabularies are widely employed by LSD users is also well known. Such languages describe what Paul Tillich must have had in mind when he spoke of "ultimate concern," or what John Dewey described as a "genuine religious experience." That such experiences were not commonly described by our respondents in theistic terms should thus not be surprising. -With regard to the relative status of the acid subculture, a -number of conclusions emerged from our interviews. First, as -reported above, many therapists felt that sooner or later they -would have to learn more about the LSD experience since they -believed the number of, users to be increasing and expected them -to need help eventually. Some therapists thought that they would -eventually try it, and others (usually the younger ones) eagerly -looked forward to the experience. +We were interested in the extent to which acid serves as a ritual initiation into a subculture, having investigated this hypothesis in the narcotic scene.\bknote{9} In the present study, we wanted to know whether the "profound" nature of the LSD experience might serve as a ritual initiation into what may legitimately be termed a cult, that is, a band of believers united in common observance of religious ritual. It is difficult to classify the responses we were given to the questions we asked in this area. Some respondents pooh-poohed the idea of religious ritual, others said it was "convenient" to share a Tibetan or Hindu language. Others (a Feurbachian proletariat?) said that what was once called religion is "what they were into." We regarded this latter response as the least defensively given, and found no reason to doubt its veracity. +As with narcotics, acid users almost instantly strike up a rapport with each other. It is as if there were a "community of the alienated."\starnote{I am indebted to Prof. H. Silverstein for this phrase.} For example, "heads" who read Laing's \bt{Politics of Experience}\bknote{10} insist that the final chapter, "The Bird of Paradise," is a trip, and that Laing must have dropped some acid to write it. Thus, acid may well serve to initiate members into a mystical cult which promises deliverance from an age gone mad by suggesting that there is a realm of peace above and beyond the falterings of an imperfect civilization. It is not necessary that those to whom such deliverance is given also be required to have an acceptable academic theory of it. -A paradoxical finding is the following. Before acid, therapists -who preferred the organic viewpoint to the psychogenic one were -regarded by many as old fashioned. Some smiled knowingly at -those who did not employ the then fashionable terms derived from -psychoanalytic theory. Now, the shoe seems to be on the other -foot. Those who attempt to reduce the acid-induced experience to -psychoanalytic terms are regarded as conservatives resisting the new -orthodoxy. Terms like "synaesthesia" are in; interpretations like -'Gdentifying with the object" are out, at least among those we -interviewed, This should not be taken to mean that psychoanalytic -investigators are not researching the acid scene, Dr. Dahlberg at the -William Alanson White Institute in New York is among those - - - - -highly regarded, although he is seen as cautious in both method -and dosage levels.* - - -Some who resort to LSD find their particular pathologies -temporarily. masked or even alleviated by the experience, but acid -is no leveler. In fact, the contrary seems often true, which is -recognized by experienced users in their ability to distinguish what -is generically due to acid and what is specifically due to idiosyncracies of the individual. Again, we found our initial dichotomy to -be naive. The question is not whether acid dethrones orthodox -diagnostic categories; the real question seems to be which personality types respond to acid in which ways. The work of Linton and -Lang® is particularly instructive in this regard, as is the work of -Blum® and his associates. They find different personality patterns -at varying dosage levels. - - -It should be noted that psycholytic therapy is gaining in -popularity in Europe as a professionally administered modality. In -the United States, in the absence of legal availability, it must be -reported that self-administered massive dosages are on the increase, -especially now that incidents of chromosome damage have been -reported, then contradicted, then re-reported, so that even professionals in touch with the literature state that the controversy has -not yet been resolved." - - -The. status of the LSD subculture is in rapid flux. Hippies in -the East Village, in the Haight, in Soho now avoid the harsh glare -of publicity because they know that publicity, for them, leads to -ridicule and persecution. They resent the commercialization of -their way of life, their music, and their art, because it serves as a -vehicle for cheap imitation by faddists. Nor do they wish to be put -in the mobility race and competed with for status. Many of our -respondents were very seriously concerned with freedom, both -inner and outer, and would be much happier if they weren't cast -in the role of criminal violators of the American way of life; -bucolic emigration for those who are is becoming increasingly -attractive. - - - - -RELEVANT EXPERIENCE - -From the point of view of relevant experience there is almost -uniform agreement --- the trip is unique. This is not to say that -LSD is the only psychedelic drug, for there are many. Mescaline -and Peyote are favorites, as are Psilocybin and Psilocin. Other -psychedelics have been in use for centuries, but they are not -ordinarily found in the training experiences of therapists, and there -are few if any comparable experiences in the orthodox psychoanalytic encounter. Alcohol is simply not comparable, nor are the -tranquilizers, sedatives, depressants, and stimulants found in the -psychiatric arsenal. William James' famous experience with nitrous -oxide (laughing gas) is well known and his reaction was very much -his own. Others find this chemical quite delightful. One of our -respondents prefers it to LSD. But acid, like sex, is hard to -compare with other experiences. - - -SEX - -In a much quoted interview in Playboy, Timothy Leary stated -that the real secret behind the acid scene was LSD's fantastic -aphrodisiacal properties, which, for example, enabled women to -have "hundreds" of orgasms during a trip. If one takes the term -orgasm literally (that is, biologically), our respondents contradict -Leary's assertions. However, if one takes a more metaphorical -meaning, our respondents indicate that the statement is true, by -which they seem to mean that moment after moment is filled with -delights of the most sensuous and rapturous sort, and that, for -hours on end, in what seem to be vastly extended spans of time, -wholly satisfying releases of ecstatic bliss are attained with magnificent ease. - - -It has been claimed that LSD is not specifically aphrodisiacal -but has that effect because it heightens the exquisiteness of -perception across the entire sensorium, so that, if sex is what one -is experiencing, it is a heightened and exquisitized sex one will -experience under LSD. Our respondents told us that there were -three ways in which LSD "heightened" the sexual experience: 1) It dissolves defensiveness and anxiety, thus enabling one - - - - -to enter fully into the experience. 2) It extends the sensations -associated with sex so that stroking and orgasm are spread over -large regions of the body. 3) It extends experienced time (as -opposed to clock time) so that one seems to have more time in -which to "luxuriate." Thus, even though the clock is running, one -can play at one's own pace. "Since a short time seems to last a -long time, it's better," is the way one of our respondents put it. - -'We were also specifically interested in another aspect of -psychedelic sexual behavior, namely, what one of our respondents -called the "group grope", in which a number of individuals of both -sexes participate in what might be termed an orgy. We were told -that group sex does not derive its impetus mainly from LSD but -from political rejection of the notion of private property and from -the practical unattainability of privacy in the urban commune --- that acid only served to disinhibit those who already had -the wish to "love together." - - -It is instructive to observe that psychedelic sex differs markedly, however, from the narcotically disinhibited sexuality, since -the latter becomes increasingly impossible as dosages climb. Hence, -a sharp distinction should be drawn between the psychedelic sex, -which is improved, and narcotic sex, which is depressed. Nevertheless, LSD users said that group sex is part of the new political -philosophy of community with which they are attempting to -replace older political philosophies of proprietary (commodity) -sexuality. Actually, we were told that acid and group sex, in -combination, are both aspects of a new political philosophy which -is emerging in the youthful acid subcultures around the globe, and - - -that proper initiation into this subculture involves far more than -acid and group sex. - - -Of interest to us was the relation between the "communes" in -which group sex is often practiced and the "family processes" -characteristic of the more permanent of these communes. If, for -example, a certain girl functioned as the mother of a given -commune, did she also function as a group sex partner? If so, what -about incest taboos, and if not, why not? We were told that roles - - - - -were frequently reallocated within communes, so thdt this month's -mother might be next month's daughter, etc., and that there were -major differences to be found among rural versus urban communes, -the latter experiencing a more rapid change of personnel. We were -further informed that group sex was not the rule but was not -precluded by rule either, so that, if the spirit happened to move -them on any given occasion, it might occur. The fact is that dyadic -pairings are by far the more common occurrence. We were. -repeatedly told that LSD was not the sine qua non of group -sexuality, One of our informants reminded us that several accounts -existed in anthropological literature describing similar practices -among adolescents in preliterate societies, and that 'drugs weren't -prerequisites there either." - - -Hypothesizing that there might be some relation between the -antifamilial values of the LSD subculture and anticonformist sex -roles, we asked dropout users whether they were consciously and -deliberately engaging in sexual behaviors that were specifically -opposite to the kinds of sex practiced in their families of -orientation. Again, we were given responses which accused us of -psychologistic reductionism, suggesting that we were hopelessly out -of touch with the generational nature of contemporary youthful -rebellion, which did not consist exclusively or even principally of -an antifamilial revolt but of a rebellion against all the major -institutions of urban-industrial societies. We were politely informed -that it was not simply with the family that youth was unhappy, -but with schools, jobs, wars, governments, businesses, and bureaucracies, indeed, the whole complex of cultural institutions of which -urban-industrial societies are comprised. "This", we were forcibly -reminded, "is a cultural revolution, not simply an antifamily -experiment." In this way, our hypothesis of reaction-formation -received its demise. We concluded that the acid subculture may not -solely be understood in psychological terms and that newer models -for its comprehension need to be devised. - - -RELIGION -We have already alluded to William James' masterpiece, The - - - - -Varities of Religious Experience. Masters and Huston have written -what may be a minor masterpiece, The Varieties of Psychedelic -Experience,® in which they address themselves to the relation of -psychedelic and religious experience. Their orientation is exploratory, and they attempt to make sense out of the religious -statements made by subjects who report on their LSD sessions. -Some of their subjects report theistic experiences, some do not, -but many report feelings which they regard as religious. - - -We inquired of our respondents whether they had had religious experiences under LSD. Some responded that they had had -experiences which they would call religious if they were religious, -but they were not religious. Others said that the trip was the -"most profound experience" they had ever had, and, like Masters' -and Huston's subjects, described the experience in aesthetic terms. -Still others described the experience as one of the "immense -unity" and "in touch with All." That Tibetan, Hindu, and other -religious vocabularies are widely employed by LSD users is also -well known. Such languages describe what Paul Tillich must have -had in mind when he spoke of "ultimate concern," or what John -Dewey described as a "genuine religious experience." That such -experiences were not commonly described by our respondents in -theistic terms should thus not be surprising. - - -We were interested in the extent to which acid serves as a -ritual initiation into a subculture, having investigated this hypothesis in the narcotic scene.® In the present study, we wanted to -know whether the "profound" nature of the LSD experience might -serve as a ritual initiation into what may legitimately be termed a -cult, that is, a band of believers united in common observance of -religious ritual. It is difficult to classify the responses we were -given to the questions we asked in this area. Some respondents -pooh-poohed the idea of religious ritual, others said it was -"convenient" to share a Tibetan or Hindu language. Others (a -Feurbachian proletariat?) said that what was once called religion is -"what they were into." We regarded this latter response as the -least defensively given, and found no reason to doubt its veracity. - - - - -As with narcotics, acid users almost instantly strike up a -rapport with each other. It is as if there were a "community of the -alienated."* For example, "heads" who read Laing's Politics of -Experience'® insist that the final chapter, "The Bird of Paradise," -is a trip, and that Laing must have dropped some acid to write it. -Thus, acid may well serve to initiate members into a mystical cult -which promises deliverance from an age gone mad by suggesting -that there is a realm of peace above and beyond the falterings of -an imperfect civilization. It is not necessary that those to whom -such deliverance is given also be required to have an acceptable -academic theory of it. - - -CONCLUSIONS +\sec Conclusions Our conclusions from this exploratory study were the following: -1. There is an LSD subculture. It is sharply critical of -orthodox therapy, and places itself in a "paranoid" opposition to -it simply because there is a uniqueness to the trip experience with -which many inexperienced therapists nonetheless claim professional -familiarity. Such therapists are often cast, albeit sometimes undeservedly, into the role of middle-class police whose duty it is to -eliminate an allegedly monstrous drug from the scene. Not a few -therapists refuse this role. Others experiment with LSD in both -their private and professional lives, but they are, at present, -especially in the United States, a decided minority. Those therapists who do not regard a bad trip as a moral outrage, do not -quickly reach for tranquilizers when confronting a bad trip, since -they see it as an experience with which they can deal empathetically and, hence, effectively. Among users, professional or not, there -exists a bond of empathy which many regard as a prerequisite for -effective treatment, not of acid, but perhaps, even with it. - -2. LSD-related attitudes represent in many ways only the -surface of a new emergent ideology, and therefore enjoy the status -that all new and promising things are accorded in a world in need -of miracles, It may not be unlikely that in the near future the drug - - -*I am indebted'to Prof. H. Silverstein for this phrase. +\begitems\style n +* There is an LSD subculture. It is sharply critical of orthodox therapy, and places itself in a "paranoid" opposition to it simply because there is a uniqueness to the trip experience with which many inexperienced therapists nonetheless claim professional familiarity. Such therapists are often cast, albeit sometimes undeservedly, into the role of middle-class police whose duty it is to eliminate an allegedly monstrous drug from the scene. Not a few therapists refuse this role. Others experiment with LSD in both their private and professional lives, but they are, at present, especially in the United States, a decided minority. Those therapists who do not regard a bad trip as a moral outrage, do not quickly reach for tranquilizers when confronting a bad trip, since they see it as an experience with which they can deal empathetically and, hence, effectively. Among users, professional or not, there exists a bond of empathy which many regard as a prerequisite for effective treatment, not of acid, but perhaps, even with it. +* LSD-related attitudes represent in many ways only the surface of a new emergent ideology, and therefore enjoy the status that all new and promising things are accorded in a world in need of miracles, It may not be unlikely that in the near future the drug aspects of this ideology will be abandoned (the experience of the Beatles in this regard might have been prophetic). For, in our view, what is new about acid is mot its ideology of the absolute dignity of the individual's experience, nor its conviction that love is the only sane response to a violently destructive world. What is new about acid is its centrality to a generation of people who will not mouth beliefs they do not actually live. With this experience, hopefully, the professional therapist can feel a kinship. +* It was Freud who taught us that sex is not always sex. The LSD subculture seems to be trying to teach us that lesson again, since we seem to have forgotten it. Perhaps polymorphous perversity is an infantile and unsociological creed. Perhaps it is a stage of development which is better transcended. But perhaps, as with play, it incarnates values which are less destructive than wars of another sort, and perhaps, for the young who occasionally experience group sex in experimental communes, it is a necessary experiment seeking new answers to old questions. +* In an age where conscience permits the napalm flames of war to engulf civilian women and children scarcely two decades after millions were burned in ovens throughout Europe, the suspicion that terms such as "neurosis" and "psychosis" may become political weapons cannot be regarded as outrageous. Perhaps, in such an age, some of those who seek some form of ultimacy in mind-changing chemicals deserve neither to be "treated" nor to be subjected to "criminal" processes. +\enditems -aspects of this ideology will be abandoned (the experience of the -Beatles in this regard might have been prophetic). For, in our view, -what is new about acid is mot its ideology of the absolute dignity -of the individual's experience, nor its conviction that love is the -only sane response to a violently destructive world. What is new -about acid is its centrality to a generation of people who will not -mouth beliefs they do not actually live. With this experience, -hopefully, the professional therapist can feel a kinship. -3. It was Freud who taught us that sex is not always sex. The -LSD subculture seems to be trying to teach us that lesson again, -since we seem to have forgotten it. Perhaps polymorphous perversity is an infantile and unsociological creed. Perhaps it is a stage -of development which is better transcended. But perhaps, as with -play, it incarnates values which are less destructive than wars of -another sort, and perhaps, for the young who occasionally experience group sex in experimental communes, it is a necessary -experiment seeking new answers to old questions. +\chap {\caps\rm Groovin' on Time}: Fragments of a Sociology of the Psychedelic Experience -4. In an age where conscience permits the napalm flames of -war to engulf civilian women and children scarcely two decades -after millions were burned in ovens throughout Europe, the -suspicion that terms such as "neurosis" and "psychosis" may -become political weapons cannot be regarded as outrageous. Perhaps, in such an age, some of those who seek some form of -ultimacy in mind-changing chemicals deserve neither to be -"treated" nor to be subjected to "criminal" processes. +\sec Introduction +The task of this essay is to focus the sociological imagination on data derived from participant observation of the psychedelic scene. What is attempted is an examination of processes in society which help to account for the emergence of what many call a drug subculture. It will be argued that the consumption of LSD and related substances is an epiphenomenon, i.e., "symptomatic" of deeper changes occurring in contemporary post-industrial society. The hypothesis uniting the pages that follow is that psychedelics are primitive psychochemical machines by which a new generation seeks to master a range of new societal forces. Thus, the new drug technology is produced by, hence does not by itself produce, a new kind of societal agony. +\sec Prolegomenon on Method -GROOVIN' ON TIME: Fragments of a Sociology of the Psychedelic -Experience +Participant observation is a form of scientific experience which escapes the trap of fragmented overspecialization because it necessarily confronts the full plenum and contextual variety of its chosen subject. It enables the observer to experience the interconnections which controlled experimentation often defines out of the way. It reduces the social distance between subjective and objective data, by defining the observer as less unlike his subjects than laboratory research defines him. It makes it possible for the observer to observe his own experience as well as the experiences of his subjects, creating an empathy which facilitates candid disclosure while reducing the potential of paranoid reaction in the observational field. These and other qualities of the technique of participant observation make it a particularly useful method for one who chooses to focus his attention on the contemporary drug scene. +But participant observation is not without traps of its own. Vivid description is open to the charge of over-identification. Empathy may be construed as loss of objectivity. Generalization becomes more difficult as the number and range of particulars increases. Cooptation and one-dimensionalization become increasingly possible to the extent that the observer penetrates the universe of inquiry. Further, the drug scene creates the danger of arrest for felonious complicity as one more closely "observes" the behavior in question. -INTRODUCTION +\brk -The task of this essay is to focus the sociological imagination on -data derived from participant observation of the psychedelic scene. -What is attempted is an examination of processes in society which -help to account for the emergence of what many call a drug -subculture. It will be argued that the consumption of LSD and -related substances is an epiphenomenon, i.e., "symptomatic" of -deeper changes occurring in contemporary post-industrial society. -The hypothesis uniting the pages that follow is that psychedelics are -primitive psychochemical machines by which a new generation seeks -to master a range of new societal forces. Thus, the new drug -technology is produced by, hence does not by itself produce, a new -kind of societal agony. - - -PROLEGOMENON ON METHOD - -Participant observation is a form of scientific experience which -escapes the trap of fragmented overspecialization because it necessarily confronts the full plenum and contextual variety of its chosen -subject. It enables the observer to experience the interconnections -which controlled experimentation often defines out of the way. It -reduces the social distance between subjective and objective data, by -defining the observer as less unlike his subjects than laboratory -research defines him. It makes it possible for the observer to observe -his own experience as well as the experiences of his subjects, creating -an empathy which facilitates candid disclosure while reducing the -potential of paranoid reaction in the observational field. These and -other qualities of the technique of participant observation make it a - - - - -particularly useful method for one who chooses to focus his -attention on the contemporary drug scene. - - -But participant observation is not without traps of its own. -Vivid description is open to the charge of over-identification. -Empathy may be construed as loss of objectivity. Generalization -becomes more difficult as the number and range of particulars -increases. Cooptation and one-dimensionalization become increasingly possible to the extent that the observer penetrates the universe of -inquiry. Further, the drug scene creates the danger of arrest for -felonious complicity as one more closely "observes" the behavior in -question. - - -Nevertheless, it may be argued that participant observation is -the method of choice when the universe to be observed is not yet -sufficiently defined to warrant the use of those sampling techniques -which lend themselves to more precise and exact statistical quantification. In the absence of a census of drug-related behaviors, -participant observation yields up an array of data which make it a -valuable method, its shortcomings notwithstanding. The datum that -it is the method preferred by the observed adds to the value of its -adoption. The fact that it provides ethnographic concreteness is no -less a value in its favor. - - -One spells out the above criteria in order to confront the -increasingly met criticism that scientific exactitude is especially -needful in the matter of societal problems, an arena laden with -values, biases, and political choices. Agreed. One should confront as -well the critique which holds that we should aspire to no more -exactitude than is genuinely possible, and that if, indeed it is the -experience surrounding psychedelic substances on which we focus -our inquiry, then we should seek no more exactitude than such -experiences warrant. This is especially the case when we focus -sociological attention on the culturdl, social, and personal sources -and outcomes of the psychedelic experience, as in the paragraphs -that follow. - - - - -HISTORY AS INQUIRY - -Being there (Dasein), Heidegger tells us, engenders a feeling of -having been thrown (geworfenbeit), as if one suddenly awakens to -find himself having been deposited in a strange oppressive place, -charged with the task of figuring out, not so much "who threw me -here" as "now what." One feels simultaneously lost and impelled, -driven and trapped. These were the emotions characterizing the -heroin addicts we observed in a study completed a few years ago, and -these were the emotions characterizing the participant observer.' In -those days, heroin was the medication of choice to which many -adolescents looked for the anaesthetic revelation of their desires. We -hypothesized that these young people sought from heroin a -temporary relief from the falterings of an imperfect civilization -which inflicted upon them the impossible task of seeking a forbidden -deliverance from their lower class plight. The situation was relatively -uncomplicated --- one drug, one class, even one principal ethnicity, -making it possible to generalize from the particular turmoil of these -adolescents to the plight of similar adolescents elsewhere. - -Quickly thereafter, a much younger population, no higher in -class but quite different in ethnicity, seized on the inhalation of glue -fumes and similar substances for the relief of their special turmoil, -forcing a modification of prior hypotheses, not solely with regard to -age and ethnicity, but also with regard to the range and scope of -substance choice." But one could still adhere to the view that drug -misuse was the predilection of a relatively small number of young -"deviants" in our society, without risking professional scorn, -although it was becoming increasingly clear that the "problem" was -becoming increasingly serious. - - -Then, as everyone knows, LSD use spread among the middle -class youth of the nation as a fire through a field of hay, spreading -with it an array of substances (marijuana, mescalin, peyote, -psilocybin, et al.) across ages, classes, ethnicities, cities, and -subcultures, The situation came more and more to resemble the -well-stocked bar of the average American home, such that specific -drugs for specific experiences at specific times and places became the -rule, rather than the exception. The drug scene,' like that of its - - - - -parents', produced connoisseurs conversant with a variety of drugs -which induced desired experiences under chosen circumstances, with -degrees of social appropriateness shaded as finely as the gradations of -the Japanese bow. The "problem," it was agreed, had reached -epidemiological proportions. It was occasionally noted, en -passant, that the new drugs had been available and in use by a small -number of cognoscenti for twenty years, and that some had been in -use for literally thousands of years. The question arose, "why are so -many young people now using so many drugs." Parallels drawn to -the use of alcohol, sleeping pills, stimulants, tranquillizers, cigarettes, -aspirin and a veritable horde of socially sanctioned analgesics were -deemed not to the point. This was "different." - - -It was not difficult to assemble "data" from magazines and -newspaper accounts supporting the view that a stratification of drug -taste was in evidence, that lower class youth preferred "body" drugs -(largely heroin-and other morphine derivatives), that upper-lower -youth were beginning to favor "speed" (methamphetamine and other -stimulants), and that the initial sample of LSD users seemed to be -dropouts from a middle class life style their parents were astonished -to find they (the young) were not enjoying to the hilt, and were, in -fact, specifically critical of its alleged crass materialism (i.e., spiritual -vacuum). The out-of-hand rejection of affluence was especially -shocking to those by whom this affluence was newly won, i.e., the -nouveau bourgeois. - -And, some noted, "this' was also international.* Like the jet -set chronicled in the mass media, youth in many world cities were -equally conversant, 'tho differentially supplied, with the whole -panoply of drugs that so concerned their elders. To make matters -worse, it emerged that the therapy industry, to which parents had -been accustomed to turn for the relief of their offsprings' alleged -symptoms, was increasingly regarded with suspicion, distrust, and, -not occasionally, outright disdain by young drug users---partly -because parents assumed that drug use was ipso facto pathognomonic -of emotional disorder, and partly because legislatures decreed that -drug use was ipso facto criminal. In short, the young were told that a -major norm of their subculture was either sick or wrong, although no - - - - -one could dispute their right to a subculture without vitiating his -right to his own. Intellectuals murmured "double bind;" youth -growled "hypocrisy." - - -Into this breach bravely rode the ill-starred "Hippies," whose -philosophy was abhorred by the very media which extolled and -subsequently expropriated their aesthetic. Settling into Haight-Ashbury in California and the East Village in New York, hippies -pronounced, as the Spenglerian Beats of the fifties had pronounced -before them, the imminent demise of western civilization. Unlike the -Beats, however, hippies set about systematically replacing those -institutions of straight society which, they charged, had brutally -alienated them from the joys of their own lives. - - -In July of 1967, at the Dialectics of Liberation conference -convened in London by R.D. Laing, Allen Ginsberg described the -new generation, variously called hippies, flower children, the love -generation, the now generation, and freemen, as having a whole set -of subcultural institutions of their own. For social workers, there -were the diggers; for politicians, provos; for police, Hell's Angels and -other Bikers; religion consisted of an amalgam of Tibetan, Egyptian, -Hindu, Zen and astrological speculation, all facing in a deliberately -mystical direction, drugs and sexual rituals serving as sacraments. For -charismatic leaders, there were Leary, Kesey, and others. Language -was reinvented, as was music. Philosophy, art, morality, justice, truth -and beauty, each received a psychedelic rebirth and transfiguration. -Extensive media coverage of these evénts turned most Americans, -whether they liked it or no, into observers of the psychedelic drug -scene, in varying amounts and degrees of participation. If one wished -now to observe, with some aspiration of scientific method, one had -to abandon hypotheses restricted as to age, drug, or locale, for the -"problem" was manifestly societal in incidence and prevalence, if not -(yet) demonstrably in origin. We set ourselves the task of examining -those societal processes which might help to answer the query heard -now in virtually all quarters --- why indeed were so many young -people using so many drugs in so many ways? - - - - -SOCIOGENESIS - -B.F. Skinner could not have devised a more negative stimulus -for the young people in the East Village who regularly use -psychedelic drugs than the word Bellevue, a hospital on the fringe of -the community which they regard somewhat less positively than a -medieval dungeon replete with chambers of torture. The establishment it is said to represent found itself hoist by its own petard when -its propaganda convinced an already irate citizenry that LSD tumed -sweet-faced youngsters into psychotic monsters, dangerous criminals, irrepressible rapists, and habitual thieves, since the public -turned around and demanded for its safety that these same either be -incarcerated or therapized and preferably both. Though the young -avoided both with nimble and embarrassing alacrity, they were aware -and made no secret among themselves that living in voluntary -poverty, using drugs whose street-calibrated dosages bore little if any -relation to actual content, created psychological, sociological and -medical problems which might benefit from the ministrations of -psychotherapists, physicians and community craftsmen, if only a -"hip" variety of these could be found. A number of helping -institutions soon decided that, ideological differences notwithstanding, there were more young people with more unmet needs than -history had witnessed in a long time, such that ameliorative -intervention could no longer be deliberated. Mountains of bureaucracy shuddered, and hippy projects were founded, the most famous -being Dr. Smith's clinic in Haight-Ashbury. A less famous semi- -counterpart, called the Village Project* attempted to care for some -of the psychosocial ailments of the local young "residents." One -could there "rap" (talk) with groups of young people on topics of -their selection. One of their favorite topics was the subject of this -writing --- Why drugs? Their astonishing widsom as sociologists both -simplifies and complicates my task, since sociologists, like their -therapeutic colleagues, seek 'to understand, not simply accept, the -manifest content of behavior, even (especially?) the behavior called -understanding. - - -"sponsored by Jewish Family Service of New York - - - - -Rap session participants at the Village Project were uniformly -agreed that "dope" is central but not causal (i.e., a necessary but not -sufficient explanation) of their life-style; that getting high, getting -stoned, tripping (via LSD, STP, Mescalin, marijuana, and/or any -desired combination) is like opening a door to other voices and other -rooms, but, after you've opened the door, it's up to you to keep -walking and actually do the trip, during which, if you're up to it, you -will meet all manners of new turned-on experiences which are very -much your own solutions to your very individual plight. Dropping -out of alienated societal roles is said to be a prerequisite to real -tripping, since the ego-trips of which society is said majorly to -consist become visible as cul-de-sacs and blind alleys, to which a -return is unthinkable. A new freedom, the right of phantasy as -self-exploration, is ordinarily proclaimed prior to tripping, and only -subsequently reinforced by good trips. Bum trips are said to be due -to fear of letting go, or to contaminated drugs, not to the substances -themselves. Uptight people are to be avoided during trips since their -fear (and their violence) are said to be as contagious as they are -dangerous. - - -Two convergent trends in society were said to be principally -responsible for the drop-out phenomenon, to which the added -enticement of tripping is secondary. These trends are: 1) Automation: the attainment of an incredibly high level of affluence and -abundance in post-industrial (computerized) society, it is said, -renders the work-for-a-living (Calvinist) ethos a superfluous relic of -the first industrial revolution. Since supermarkets, restaurants and -other food merchants have far more than necessary, simply asking -for the remainder provides enough to live on. This makes it possible -to afford the leisure time needed to engage in self-exploration via -tripping, sexual variety, residential mobility, etc. Parents who -covertly send checks they can easily afford to send now that junior -has left home are not rare. In short, it is said, now that automation -has replaced work, play has assumed its rightfully central role, and, if -you know how, acid (LSD) is a powerful yet pleasant toy. -2) Cybernation: contemporary society has the power to communicate vast amounts of information almost instantly. Just as the first - - - - -generation of mass media (linear print and film) fostered mass -consumption through mass advertising, at the behest of mass -production, so now the second generation of media (electronics --- audio and video tape, computerized pattern recognition) has -created an era of global communication, where nothing is foreign, -nothing remote. In McLuhanesque terms, the content of the electric -media is the former mechanical media, just as the content of the trip -is yesterday's psychology. Once, a psychoanalytic foray was bedrock, -Now, all such forays become the ingredients of emergent psychic -forms called trips. - - -It will be perceived that electricity is common to both of the -societal trends the villagers put forward as explanations of psyche -delia, which support the view that if Hoffman hadn't invented acid, -it would have been necessary to do so, since acid renders the -organism capable of enjoying the information overloads which have -become characteristic of our electrified society. The analogy runs -like this: as water is to fish, so acid is to the children of the age of -electric (global) communication. In the wake of such massive societal -forces, it follows that new social forms must emerge, to handle, as a -trip handles for the individual, the information impact on social -organization. Hence, the retribalization process McLuhan has described is said to be the accommodation youth culture has made to its -electric environment. The commune (be it urban or rural, an -insignificant distinction in an era of total information) is a natural -social response to the age of electronic sociogenesis. - - -The convergence, then, of automation and cybernation, was -offered by east villagers as the explanation for the existence of -psychedelic drugs. These drugs, they say, are simply the psychochemical equivalents of an electric society in which automated energy is -cybernetically processed. - - -Just as there are said to be two fundamental societal processes -at the root of psychedelic culture, so there are two "sick" -institutions which protagonists of psychedelic experience diagnose as -particularly in need of replacement, i.e., war and education. Wars, it is -said, are fought for the preservation of territoriality, which no longer - - - - -matters in an age of planetary communication, by people who have -not yet learned that all violence is self-destructive exactly to the -extent to which it is efficient. Wars which require the young to fight -for the very values of the old they have rejected are thus said to be -doubly unjust in that they enroll pacifists in aggression, and -simultaneously pit young brothers in an emergent planetary culture -against each other. Hence, the young reject what they regard as a -forced choice between suicide and fratricide. Besides, it is added, the -trip experience is as delicate and fragile as it is lovely, to which even -subtle psychological violence is abhorrent and disgusting, not to -mention physical brutality. It is said that trips teach the futility of -violence, wars included. - - -Schools, which claim to teach the heritages of their societies, -are rejected no less vehemently for making that very claim. The -young who proclaim the appropriateness of their electric sensibilities -argue that a school system which attempts to foster industrial values -is engaged in a process of mechanical propaganda no less insidious -than any other form of brainwashing. It is said that schools, and -especially multiversities, are information factories designed to process young people into readiness for alienated roles in the military -industrial complex, from which the young are already in full flight. -Some even argue that universities are worse than battlefields since -they are the training grounds for them without acknowledging that -that is their nature. Universities are said thus to add hypocrisy to -their irrelevance to the electric age. - - -Attending to these themes over and over again, the participant -observer gradually shucks off his surprise that "heads" engage so -earnestly and so solemnly in "raps" on art and media in the same -breaths as they rap about war and education. Their earnest solemnity -is distributed equally over these topics because they are, in their -view, struggling for the very existence of the only culture that gives -meaning to their daily experience. They are literally fighting for their -lives, - -Every culture selects from the range of human potentials, and -molds the organisms that are its raw stuff in its own image. And - - - - -every, culture, by its agreement that some values and behaviors are -central, defines other values and behaviors as peripheral, less central, -"deviant." This is no less true of the participants in the Village -Project, so that, in what follows, the inference that each and every -one of these young people is singlehandedly responsible for the birth -pangs of a new civilization should not be drawn. For every sane -"head" we confront, we met two lost or mad ones. Yet the point lies -deeper --- for if, as it seems, there is a new culture aborning, then for -many the birth process is extremely painful, if not injurious. But not, -we emphasize, for all. - - -Once this is understood, one also understands why the young -will gladly ignore a serious upper-respiratory infection (gained from a -shared pipe) or a piece of glass in a bare foot (acquired on a stroll -together). They are felt to be badges of solidarity incurred in a -collective struggle, in a revolution, they say, with nothing less than -culture itself at stake. - - -UNDERSTANDING UNDERSTANDING MEDIA - -The reader will recall that we set ourselves the task of -understanding why the psychedelic culture understands itself the -way it does, that our inquiry regards the electric metaphor as the -manifest content, which itself requires explanation. In the language -of my discipline, stated explanations are regarded as ideologies, -'themselves requiring explanation. Sociologists refer to this specialty -as the sociology of knowledge, a field heavily indebted to such giants -as Marx, Mannheim, and Marcuse, for their elaboration of the view -that men's situations determine their thoughts far more than their -thoughts determine their situations. Thus armed, we turn our -attentions to the social process which has elevated the electric -metaphor into a believed mythology. - - -It was Marx, correcting Hegel, who first revealed what now is -regarded as a commonplace, although at first it seemed esoteric and -arcane. In the dialectical view, when men reflect on their situation, -they diagnose the injustices of their condition, and then seek to -change it. They attempt to change the world as they find it into the - - - - -world they want it to be, by their work. When, by their work, they -do transform their situation, and then again reflect on it, they, like -God in Genesis, see that the world they have made is good, or, at -least, more just than it was. This process of work changing reflection -and reflection leading to further work is described as the dialectical -relation between social substructure and ideological superstructure. -Thus, the industrial revolution, itself a new mode of changing the -world, transformed the preindustrial (Calvinist) ideology of thrift -into the post-industrial (Veblenist) ideology of progress, i.e., conspicuous consumption. Before it, the devil made work for idle hands; -after it, the popular view was that all work and no play makes Jack a -dull boy. Mobility supplanted class struggle as inevitably as the - - -machine replaced the bicep. -It remained for Marcuse to show that societies' efforts to - - -generate demand even beyond the greedy dreams of conspicuous -customers required them to foster what he called "surplus repression,"> i.e., to get people to believe that it was more important to -repress instinctual eroticism than to develop it, because it was more -important to consume (for society) than to transcend (alter society). -Subsequently, Marcuse revealed that post-industrial society employs -its media to establish an ideology hostile to transcendence itself, such -that citizens are bidden to remain one dimensional men.® Those who -attempt to rise above the one dimension society permits by creating -works of two dimensions (the prototype is the consciously alienated -artist who depicts the new dimension in all its transcendent glory) -will find their works reduced to one dimensionality through mass -media mechanisms --- his work will be mass produced and mass -marketed, and thus made ordinary and routine, if not tawdry and -banal. A case in point was noted above --- the appropriation of -psychedelic art forms by the "plastic" advertising industry. One -por also add long hair, acid rock, "hip" jargon and "freaky" -clothes. - - -The relevance of these theories to our inquiry is the following: Marx envisioned a process that took an hundred years to have -its full impact, and, within that time, Marcuse saw processes take -their toll in less than a generation. A recent N.Y. Times article (in the - - - - -business section) described third and fourth generation computers, -which all came about within a decade.* If we regard computers in -general as the new technological means of production, and information configurations as the new ideological products of that process, -we may calculate that societies now change ten times faster than -Marx' original depiction. If we count each generation of computers -separately, we confront a society which can change the structural -base of its ideology four times within a decade. If ideologies are -formed by reflection on the world we make by our labors, it follows -that we are living in an era of such rapid change that those -accustomed to it will regard even a 5 year old ideology as hopelessly -irrelevant, since it no longer describes the world one confronts. - - -The extremity of this situation may be directly observed in -what sociologists call intergenerational stratification, i.e., the generation gap. In a society which changes so rapidly, the very process' of -socialization by which parents attempt to acculturate their infants, is -doomed since the contents of that socialization will be obsolescent -even before the process is over, even if most of it, as the -psychoanalysts tell us, is accomplished in the first 5 years. Such a -pace of change makes obsolete the very possibility of teaching an - - -ideology which explains the world situation to those in a dissimilar -.world. When the world changes four times in a decade, it had better -invent a way of comprehending itself that changes as fast as -experience does. And that, I argue, is exactly what psychedelics -are --- a psychochemical technology which no longer bothers with the -simple enumeration of the content of processes, but focuses the -inner eye on the exponents of such processes. That, I submit, is the -inner meaning of the term "tripping," which focuses on the rates of -change of a changing experience, not simply on the changing content -of experience. +Nevertheless, it may be argued that participant observation is the method of choice when the universe to be observed is not yet sufficiently defined to warrant the use of those sampling techniques which lend themselves to more precise and exact statistical quantification. In the absence of a census of drug-related behaviors, participant observation yields up an array of data which make it a valuable method, its shortcomings notwithstanding. The datum that it is the method preferred by the observed adds to the value of its adoption. The fact that it provides ethnographic concreteness is no less a value in its favor. +One spells out the above criteria in order to confront the increasingly met criticism that scientific exactitude is especially needful in the matter of societal problems, an arena laden with values, biases, and political choices. Agreed. One should confront as well the critique which holds that we should aspire to no more exactitude than is genuinely possible, and that if, indeed it is the experience surrounding psychedelic substances on which we focus our inquiry, then we should seek no more exactitude than such experiences warrant. This is especially the case when we focus sociological attention on the cultural, social, and personal sources and outcomes of the psychedelic experience, as in the paragraphs that follow. -Bitter conflicts are thus generated between those who trip and -those who do not know what tripping is, who hurl the epithet +\sec History as Inquiry +Being there (\e{Dasein}), Heidegger tells us, engenders a feeling of having been thrown (\e{geworfenbeit}), as if one suddenly awakens to find himself having been deposited in a strange oppressive place, charged with the task of figuring out, not so much "who threw me here" as "now what." One feels simultaneously lost and impelled, driven and trapped. These were the emotions characterizing the heroin addicts we observed in a study completed a few years ago, and these were the emotions characterizing the participant observer.\bknote{1} In those days, heroin was the medication of choice to which many adolescents looked for the anaesthetic revelation of their desires. We hypothesized that these young people sought from heroin a temporary relief from the falterings of an imperfect civilization which inflicted upon them the impossible task of seeking a forbidden deliverance from their lower class plight. The situation was relatively uncomplicated --- one drug, one class, even one principal ethnicity, making it possible to generalize from the particular turmoil of these adolescents to the plight of similar adolescents elsewhere. -"first generation, vacuum tubes; second, transistors; third, integrated (printed) circuits; fourth +Quickly thereafter, a much younger population, no higher in class but quite different in ethnicity, seized on the inhalation of glue fumes and similar substances for the relief of their special turmoil, forcing a modification of prior hypotheses, not solely with regard to age and ethnicity, but also with regard to the range and scope of substance choice.\bknote{2} But one could still adhere to the view that drug misuse was the predilection of a relatively small number of young "deviants" in our society, without risking professional scorn, although it was becoming increasingly clear that the "problem" was becoming increasingly serious. +\brk ---- bioelectrics. +Then, as everyone knows, LSD use spread among the middle class youth of the nation as a fire through a field of hay, spreading with it an array of substances (marijuana, mescalin, peyote, psilocybin, et al.) across ages, classes, ethnicities, cities, and subcultures, The situation came more and more to resemble the well-stocked bar of the average American home, such that specific drugs for specific experiences at specific times and places became the rule, rather than the exception. The drug scene,\bknote{3} like that of its parents', produced connoisseurs conversant with a variety of drugs which induced desired experiences under chosen circumstances, with degrees of social appropriateness shaded as finely as the gradations of the Japanese bow. The "problem," it was agreed, had reached epidemiological proportions. It was occasionally noted, \e{en passant,} that the new drugs had been available and in use by a small number of cognoscenti for twenty years, and that some had been in use for literally thousands of years. The question arose, "why are so many young people now using so many drugs." Parallels drawn to the use of alcohol, sleeping pills, stimulants, tranquillizers, cigarettes, aspirin and a veritable horde of socially sanctioned analgesics were deemed not to the point. This was "different." +\brk +It was not difficult to assemble "data" from magazines and newspaper accounts supporting the view that a stratification of drug taste was in evidence, that lower class youth preferred "body" drugs (largely heroin-and other morphine derivatives), that upper-lower youth were beginning to favor "speed" (methamphetamine and other stimulants), and that the initial sample of LSD users seemed to be dropouts from a middle class life style their parents were astonished to find they (the young) were not enjoying to the hilt, and were, in fact, specifically critical of its alleged crass materialism (i.e., spiritual vacuum). The out-of-hand rejection of affluence was especially shocking to those by whom this affluence was newly won, i.e., the nouveau bourgeois. +And, some noted, "this' was also international.\bknote{4} Like the jet set chronicled in the mass media, youth in many world cities were equally conversant, 'tho differentially supplied, with the whole panoply of drugs that so concerned their elders. To make matters worse, it emerged that the therapy industry, to which parents had been accustomed to turn for the relief of their offsprings' alleged symptoms, was increasingly regarded with suspicion, distrust, and, not occasionally, outright disdain by young drug users---partly because parents assumed that drug use was \e{ipso facto} pathognomonic of emotional disorder, and partly because legislatures decreed that drug use was \e{ipso facto} criminal. In short, the young were told that a major norm of their subculture was either sick or wrong, although no one could dispute their right to a subculture without vitiating his right to his own. Intellectuals murmured "double bind;" youth growled "hypocrisy." -"hedonism", as if that, finally, was that. Other epithets are -employed, ranging all the way from subversion to seduction. -Subcultural confrontations no less acrimonious than "race riots" -have not been rare, and little documentation is needed to remind us -that, but for one rare summer of flower power, relations between -police and the psychedelic community have not always been cordial. -The point is, tripping stratifies the forms of consciousness, giving rise -to behaviors which uninitiates must regard as strange and unfamiliar, -if not as weird, sick, and/or demented. The public media reveal that -this new form of consciousness is the issue. Is it sick, we are asked? -Can it possibly be healthy? +Into this breach bravely rode the ill-starred "Hippies," whose philosophy was abhorred by the very media which extolled and subsequently expropriated their aesthetic. Settling into Haight-Ashbury in California and the East Village in New York, hippies pronounced, as the Spenglerian Beats of the fifties had pronounced before them, the imminent demise of western civilization. Unlike the Beats, however, hippies set about systematically replacing those institutions of straight society which, they charged, had brutally alienated them from the joys of their own lives. +\brk -The science media are uniformly in agreement that psychedelics -alter the time sense of experience. Just as computers can process -billions of bits (binary digits) of information per second, so when -high, can one seem to experience hours and even years in a few -minutes. That is the meaning of the word "high," which describes in -spatial terms an experience in which one seems to be able to scan -vast horizons from above, encompassing thousands of bits of -experience as astronauts take in thousands of miles in a glance. +In July of 1967, at the Dialectics of Liberation conference convened in London by R.D. Laing, Allen Ginsberg described the new generation, variously called hippies, flower children, the love generation, the now generation, and freemen, as having a whole set of subcultural institutions of their own. For social workers, there were the diggers; for politicians, provos; for police, Hell's Angels and other Bikers; religion consisted of an amalgam of Tibetan, Egyptian, Hindu, Zen and astrological speculation, all facing in a deliberately mystical direction, drugs and sexual rituals serving as sacraments. For charismatic leaders, there were Leary, Kesey, and others. Language was reinvented, as was music. Philosophy, art, morality, justice, truth and beauty, each received a psychedelic rebirth and transfiguration. Extensive media coverage of these evénts turned most Americans, whether they liked it or no, into observers of the psychedelic drug scene, in varying amounts and degrees of participation. If one wished now to observe, with some aspiration of scientific method, one had to abandon hypotheses restricted as to age, drug, or locale, for the "problem" was manifestly societal in incidence and prevalence, if not (yet) demonstrably in origin. We set ourselves the task of examining those societal processes which might help to answer the query heard now in virtually all quarters --- why indeed were so many young people using so many drugs in so many ways? +\sec Sociogenesis -But do not be misled by the spatial metaphor, nor by the -electric one, for a more important property of the expanded time -phenomenon is the following --- when you expand time, you give -yourself the ability to pay full emotional attention to events which -in "real" (clock) time would have sped by too rapidly for your -empathy to catch hold. This accounts for the observation frequently -made that a true "head" will "play" with an unknown object while -one more hurried than he will simply not have the time to spend on -it. This property of the psychedelic experience also helps us account -for the alleged aphrodisiacal properties of LSD and related substances, since, when it is not hurried, when one can give one's full -time to the emotional appreciation of each caress, sexual enjoyment -(any enjoyment, for that matter) is materially enhanced. +B.F. Skinner could not have devised a more negative stimulus for the young people in the East Village who regularly use psychedelic drugs than the word Bellevue, a hospital on the fringe of the community which they regard somewhat less positively than a medieval dungeon replete with chambers of torture. The establishment it is said to represent found itself hoist by its own petard when its propaganda convinced an already irate citizenry that LSD tumed sweet-faced youngsters into psychotic monsters, dangerous criminals, irrepressible rapists, and habitual thieves, since the public turned around and demanded for its safety that these same either be incarcerated or therapized and preferably both. Though the young avoided both with nimble and embarrassing alacrity, they were aware and made no secret among themselves that living in voluntary poverty, using drugs whose street-calibrated dosages bore little if any relation to actual content, created psychological, sociological and medical problems which might benefit from the ministrations of psychotherapists, physicians and community craftsmen, if only a "hip" variety of these could be found. A number of helping institutions soon decided that, ideological differences notwithstanding, there were more young people with more unmet needs than history had witnessed in a long time, such that ameliorative intervention could no longer be deliberated. Mountains of bureaucracy shuddered, and hippy projects were founded, the most famous being Dr. Smith's clinic in Haight-Ashbury. A less famous semi- counterpart, called the Village Project\starnote{sponsored by Jewish Family Service of New York} attempted to care for some of the psychosocial ailments of the local young "residents." One could there "rap" (talk) with groups of young people on topics of their selection. One of their favorite topics was the subject of this writing --- Why drugs? Their astonishing widsom as sociologists both simplifies and complicates my task, since sociologists, like their therapeutic colleagues, seek 'to understand, not simply accept, the manifest content of behavior, even (especially?) the behavior called understanding. +Rap session participants at the Village Project were uniformly agreed that "dope" is central but not causal (i.e., a necessary but not sufficient explanation) of their life-style; that getting high, getting stoned, tripping (via LSD, STP, Mescalin, marijuana, and/or any desired combination) is like opening a door to other voices and other rooms, but, after you've opened the door, it's up to you to keep walking and actually \e{do} the trip, during which, if you're up to it, you will meet all manners of new turned-on experiences which are very much your own solutions to your very individual plight. Dropping out of alienated societal roles is said to be a \e{pre}requisite to real tripping, since the ego-trips of which society is said majorly to consist become visible as cul-de-sacs and blind alleys, to which a return is unthinkable. A new freedom, the right of phantasy as self-exploration, is ordinarily proclaimed \e{prior} to tripping, and only subsequently reinforced by good trips. Bum trips are said to be due to fear of letting go, or to contaminated drugs, not to the substances themselves. Uptight people are to be avoided during trips since their fear (and their violence) are said to be as contagious as they are dangerous. -I have alluded to but two of the time changing properties of the -trip --- the ability to appreciate changes in rates of change, and the +Two convergent trends in society were said to be principally responsible for the drop-out phenomenon, to which the added enticement of tripping is secondary. These trends are: +\begitems\style n +* \e{Automation:} the attainment of an incredibly high level of affluence and abundance in post-industrial (computerized) society, it is said, renders the work-for-a-living (Calvinist) ethos a superfluous relic of the first industrial revolution. Since supermarkets, restaurants and other food merchants have far more than necessary, simply asking for the remainder provides enough to live on. This makes it possible to afford the leisure time needed to engage in self-exploration via tripping, sexual variety, residential mobility, etc. Parents who covertly send checks they can easily afford to send now that junior has left home are not rare. In short, it is said, now that automation has replaced work, play has assumed its rightfully central role, and, if you know how, acid (LSD) is a powerful yet pleasant toy. +* \e{Cybernation:} contemporary society has the power to communicate vast amounts of information almost instantly. Just as the first generation of mass media (linear print and film) fostered mass consumption through mass advertising, at the behest of mass production, so now the second generation of media (electronics --- audio and video tape, computerized pattern recognition) has created an era of global communication, where nothing is foreign, nothing remote. In McLuhanesque terms, the content of the electric media is the former mechanical media, just as the content of the trip is yesterday's psychology. Once, a psychoanalytic foray was bedrock, Now, all such forays become the ingredients of emergent psychic forms called trips. +\enditems +It will be perceived that electricity is common to both of the societal trends the villagers put forward as explanations of psyche delia, which support the view that if Hoffman hadn't invented acid, it would have been necessary to do so, since acid renders the organism capable of enjoying the information overloads which have become characteristic of our electrified society. The analogy runs like this: as water is to fish, so acid is to the children of the age of electric (global) communication. In the wake of such massive societal forces, it follows that new social forms must emerge, to handle, as a trip handles for the individual, the information impact on social organization. Hence, the retribalization process McLuhan has described is said to be the accommodation youth culture has made to its electric environment. The commune (be it urban or rural, an insignificant distinction in an era of total information) is a natural social response to the age of electronic sociogenesis. +The convergence, then, of automation and cybernation, was offered by east villagers as the explanation for the existence of psychedelic drugs. These drugs, they say, are simply the psychochemical equivalents of an electric society in which automated energy is cybernetically processed. -ability to dwell on detail. If they seem contradictory, perhaps a bit -of clarification is in order, for we have not yet touched the heart of -the matter. +\brk +Just as there are said to be two fundamental societal processes at the root of psychedelic culture, so there are two "sick" institutions which protagonists of psychedelic experience diagnose as particularly in need of replacement, i.e., war and education. Wars, it is said, are fought for the preservation of territoriality, which no longer matters in an age of planetary communication, by people who have not yet learned that all violence is self-destructive exactly to the extent to which it is efficient. Wars which require the young to fight for the very values of the old they have rejected are thus said to be doubly unjust in that they enroll pacifists in aggression, and simultaneously pit young brothers in an emergent planetary culture against each other. Hence, the young reject what they regard as a forced choice between suicide and fratricide. Besides, it is added, the trip experience is as delicate and fragile as it is lovely, to which even subtle psychological violence is abhorrent and disgusting, not to mention physical brutality. It is said that trips teach the futility of violence, wars included. -It lies in the very nature of generalization that once made it -clarifies particulars. We are all familiar with the experience of -uncertainty when perceiving a vaguely familiar object at a distance. -As we draw nearer and its outlines become sharper, we exclaim --- ah -yes, it's one of those. It is just so in the case before us --- with a slight -variation, for acid, I believe, is only the first of many engines soon to -be constructed, which engenders the ability to generalize and classify -not objects, but tzmes. Thus, the ability to dwell on rates of change -brings with it the ability to more exquisitely dwell on instances of -change. +\brk +Schools, which claim to teach the heritages of their societies, are rejected no less vehemently for making that very claim. The young who proclaim the appropriateness of their electric sensibilities argue that a school system which attempts to foster industrial values is engaged in a process of mechanical propaganda no less insidious than any other form of brainwashing. It is said that schools, and especially multiversities, are information factories designed to process young people into readiness for alienated roles in the military industrial complex, from which the young are already in full flight. Some even argue that universities are worse than battlefields since they are the training grounds for them without acknowledging that that is their nature. Universities are said thus to add hypocrisy to their irrelevance to the electric age. -You see where the argument leads. Just as the automated -(second) industrial revolution generalized the first by dealing with -the informational exponents of energy processing rather than simply -with energy constellations (objects) seriatim, so the psychedelic -(second) chemical revolution generalized the first (anaesthetic) one -by dealing with the temporal exponents of getting high rather than -simply getting stoned (drunk) time after time. +\brk +Attending to these themes over and over again, the participant observer gradually shucks off his surprise that "heads" engage so earnestly and so solemnly in "raps" on art and media in the same breaths as they rap about war and education. Their earnest solemnity is distributed equally over these topics because they are, in their view, struggling for the very existence of the only culture that gives meaning to their daily experience. They are literally fighting for their lives,. -That is why the process of generalization, which we poor -mortals attribute to the power of our intelligences, is a far more -naturalistic process than we often perceive. Generalization, it begins -to emerge, is that natural process whereby instances transcend their -classes of events. Just as galaxies generate stars which expand the -limits of galaxies, as men make worlds which outmode their world -views, so now we are witnessing one of the most far-reaching -revolutions ever to come from human effort, i.e., we are beginning to -pass beyond (depasser, aufbeben) the era of human history which, -impelled by the scarcity of objects, clung to the dream that the -endless production of objects would set us free. Now that the young -can directly experience a world in which cybernetic automation -makes scarcity an obsolete concept, they begin to inhabit another +Every culture selects from the range of human potentials, and molds the organisms that are its raw stuff in its own image. And every, culture, by its agreement that some values and behaviors are central, defines other values and behaviors as peripheral, less central, "deviant." This is no less true of the participants in the Village Project, so that, in what follows, the inference that each and every one of these young people is singlehandedly responsible for the birth pangs of a new civilization should not be drawn. For every sane "head" we confront, we met two lost or mad ones. Yet the point lies deeper --- for if, as it seems, there is a new culture aborning, then for many the birth process is extremely painful, if not injurious. But not, we emphasize, for all. +Once this is understood, one also understands why the young will gladly ignore a serious upper-respiratory infection (gained from a shared pipe) or a piece of glass in a bare foot (acquired on a stroll together). They are felt to be badges of solidarity incurred in a collective struggle, in a revolution, they say, with nothing less than culture itself at stake. +\sec Understanding Understanding Media +The reader will recall that we set ourselves the task of understanding why the psychedelic culture understands itself the way it does, that our inquiry regards the electric metaphor as the manifest content, which \e{itself} requires explanation. In the language of my discipline, stated explanations are regarded as ideologies, themselves requiring explanation. Sociologists refer to this specialty as the sociology of knowledge, a field heavily indebted to such giants as Marx, Mannheim, and Marcuse, for their elaboration of the view that men's situations determine their thoughts far more than their thoughts determine their situations. Thus armed, we turn our attentions to the social process which has elevated the electric metaphor into a believed mythology. -whole realm, the dimension of time, which Einstein brought to earth -after his promethean intellectual trip. +It was Marx, correcting Hegel, who first revealed what now is regarded as a commonplace, although at first it seemed esoteric and arcane. In the dialectical view, when men reflect on their situation, they diagnose the injustices of their condition, and then seek to change it. They attempt to change the world as they find it into the world they want it to be, by their work. When, by their work, they do transform their situation, and then again reflect on it, they, like God in Genesis, see that the world they have made is good, or, at least, more just than it was. This process of work changing reflection and reflection leading to further work is described as the dialectical relation between social substructure and ideological superstructure. Thus, the industrial revolution, itself a new mode of changing the world, transformed the preindustrial (Calvinist) ideology of thrift into the post-industrial (Veblenist) ideology of progress, i.e., conspicuous consumption. Before it, the devil made work for idle hands; after it, the popular view was that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Mobility supplanted class struggle as inevitably as the machine replaced the bicep. +It remained for Marcuse to show that societies' efforts to generate demand even beyond the greedy dreams of conspicuous customers required them to foster what he called "surplus repression,"\bknote{5} i.e., to get people to believe that it was more important to repress instinctual eroticism than to develop it, because it was more important to consume (\e{for} society) than to transcend (\e{alter} society). Subsequently, Marcuse revealed that post-industrial society employs its media to establish an ideology hostile to transcendence itself, such that citizens are bidden to remain one dimensional men.\bknote{6} Those who attempt to rise above the one dimension society permits by creating works of two dimensions (the prototype is the consciously alienated artist who depicts the new dimension in all its transcendent glory) will find their works reduced to one dimensionality through mass media mechanisms --- his work will be mass produced and mass marketed, and thus made ordinary and routine, if not tawdry and banal. A case in point was noted above --- the appropriation of psychedelic art forms by the "plastic" advertising industry. One could also add long hair, acid rock, "hip" jargon and "freaky" clothes. -If we seem wholly supportive of all of the values of young -psychedelists, let us not be misunderstood. Our task here is to -analyze the sociological currents on which psychedelia floats, not to -examine in detail the pathologies of some of its incumbents. It is one -thing to examine the social forces which drive a movement --- it is -another to focus on the plight of those so driven. Entirely another -matter is the question of action---what shall we do for those -damaged by misuse of psychedelic substances. These are tasks for -another writing. +\brk -CONCLUSION +The relevance of these theories to our inquiry is the following: Marx envisioned a process that took an hundred years to have its full impact, and, within that time, Marcuse saw processes take their toll in less than a generation. A recent N.Y. Times article (in the business section) described third and fourth generation computers, which all came about within a decade.\starnote{first generation, vacuum tubes; second, transistors; third, integrated (printed) circuits; fourth --- bioelectrics.} If we regard computers \e{in general} as the new technological means of production, and information configurations as the new ideological products of that process, we may calculate that societies now change ten times faster than Marx' original depiction. If we count each generation of computers separately, we confront a society which can change the structural base of its ideology four times within a decade. If ideologies are formed by reflection on the world we make by our labors, it follows that we are living in an era of such rapid change that those accustomed to it will regard even a 5 year old ideology as hopelessly irrelevant, since it no longer describes the world one confronts. -I hold, then, the view that our culture has so accelerated the -pace of societal change that the simple serial encountering of one -experience after another has become obsolete for its young, who are -trying to dwell exponentially (i.e., to generalize) on what we elders -can only manage arithmetically. They are not only as comfortable in -the realm of time as we are in the realm of space, but they have a -sense of adventure and discovery about time which many of us have -about space. While we build rockets to take us to the stars, they -attempt to build a culture which will take them into temporal -regions of mind which we will fail to comprehend with merely spatial -models. +The extremity of this situation may be directly observed in what sociologists call intergenerational stratification, i.e., the generation gap. In a society which changes so rapidly, the very process' of socialization by which parents attempt to acculturate their infants, is doomed since the contents of that socialization will be obsolescent even before the process is over, even if most of it, as the psychoanalysts tell us, is accomplished in the first 5 years. Such a pace of change makes obsolete the very possibility of teaching an ideology which explains the world situation to those in a dissimilar .world. When the world changes four times in a decade, it had better invent a way of comprehending itself that changes as fast as experience does. And that, I argue, is exactly what psychedelics are --- a psychochemical technology which no longer bothers with the simple enumeration of the \e{content} of processes, but focuses the inner eye on the \e{exponents} of such processes. That, I submit, is the inner meaning of the term "tripping," which focuses on the \e{rates} of change of a changing experience, not simply on the changing content of experience. +Bitter conflicts are thus generated between those who trip and those who do not know what tripping is, who hurl the epithet "hedonism", as if \e{that,} finally, was \e{that.} Other epithets are employed, ranging all the way from subversion to seduction. Subcultural confrontations no less acrimonious than "race riots" have not been rare, and little documentation is needed to remind us that, but for one rare summer of flower power, relations between police and the psychedelic community have not always been cordial. The point is, tripping stratifies the \e{forms} of consciousness, giving rise to behaviors which uninitiates must regard as strange and unfamiliar, if not as weird, sick, and/or demented. The public media reveal that this new form of consciousness is the issue. Is it sick, we are asked? Can it possibly be healthy? -In my view, this adventure, and its corollary misadventures, is -absolutely central to what we are about as a species. The young seek -nothing less than the next step in the evolution of human -consciousness, the transcendance of spatial, linear, one-dimensional -consciousness. +The science media are uniformly in agreement that psychedelics alter the time sense of experience. Just as computers can process billions of bits (binary digits) of information per second, so when high, can one seem to experience hours and even years in a few minutes. That is the meaning of the word "high," which describes in spatial terms an experience in which one seems to be able to scan vast horizons from above, encompassing thousands of bits of experience as astronauts take in thousands of miles in a glance. +But do not be misled by the spatial metaphor, nor by the electric one, for a more important property of the expanded time phenomenon is the following --- when you expand time, you give yourself the ability to pay full emotional attention to events which in "real" (clock) time would have sped by too rapidly for your empathy to catch hold. This accounts for the observation frequently made that a true "head" will "play" with an unknown object while one more hurried than he will simply not have the time to spend on it. This property of the psychedelic experience also helps us account for the alleged aphrodisiacal properties of LSD and related substances, since, when it is not hurried, when one can give one's full time to the emotional appreciation of each caress, sexual enjoyment (any enjoyment, for that matter) is materially enhanced. -It is clear that this is no small undertaking --- that the risks are -terrible, that the likelihood of tragic mistakes is high, that there will -be fatalities and large numbers of casualties. I fervently wish that -they were unnecessary and aim my work to prevent as many as +I have alluded to but two of the time changing properties of the trip --- the ability to appreciate changes in rates of change, and the ability to dwell on detail. If they seem contradictory, perhaps a bit of clarification is in order, for we have not yet touched the heart of the matter. +It lies in the very nature of generalization that once made it clarifies particulars. We are all familiar with the experience of uncertainty when perceiving a vaguely familiar object at a distance. As we draw nearer and its outlines become sharper, we exclaim --- ah yes, it's one of those. It is just so in the case before us --- with a slight variation, for acid, I believe, is only the first of many engines soon to be constructed, which engenders the ability to generalize and classify not objects, but \e{times.} Thus, the ability to dwell on \e{rates} of change brings with it the ability to more exquisitely dwell on instances of change. +You see where the argument leads. Just as the automated (second) industrial revolution generalized the first by dealing with the informational exponents of energy processing rather than simply with energy constellations (objects) \e{seriatim,} so the psychedelic (second) chemical revolution generalized the first (anaesthetic) one by dealing with the temporal exponents of getting high rather than simply getting stoned (drunk) time \e{after} time. +That is why the process of generalization, which we poor mortals attribute to the power of our intelligences, is a far more naturalistic process than we often perceive. Generalization, it begins to emerge, is that natural process whereby instances transcend their classes of events. Just as galaxies generate stars which expand the limits of galaxies, as men make worlds which outmode their world views, so now we are witnessing one of the most far-reaching revolutions ever to come from human effort, i.e., we are beginning to pass beyond (\e{depasser, aufbeben}) the era of human history which, impelled by the scarcity of objects, clung to the dream that the endless production of objects would set us free. Now that the young can directly experience a world in which cybernetic automation makes scarcity an obsolete concept, they begin to inhabit another whole realm, the dimension of time, which Einstein brought to earth after his promethean intellectual trip. -possible, and to assist in the healing of those we fail to prevent. For -it is true that many of those embarked on this adventure are as blind -to its dangers as they are unaware of them, so that they are often -foolish and often injured. +If we seem wholly supportive of all of the values of young psychedelists, let us not be misunderstood. Our task here is to analyze the sociological currents on which psychedelia floats, not to examine in detail the pathologies of some of its incumbents. It is one thing to examine the social forces which drive a movement --- it is another to focus on the plight of those so driven. Entirely another matter is the question of action---what shall we do for those damaged by misuse of psychedelic substances. These are tasks for another writing. +\sec Conclusion -And yet, there are some who know, who hear the music of the -spheres, who accept the deeper challenge to carry history forward. -These will be found, on close examination, when they have removed -some of the outmoded ideological baggage we force them to carry, to -be engaged in founding a new form of temporal consciousness, which -I call "groovin' on time." +I hold, then, the view that our culture has so accelerated the \e{pace} of societal change that the simple serial encountering of one experience after another has become obsolete for its young, who are trying to dwell exponentially (i.e., to generalize) on what we elders can only manage arithmetically. They are not only as comfortable in the realm of time as we are in the realm of space, but they have a sense of adventure and discovery about time which many of us have about space. While we build rockets to take us to the stars, they attempt to build a culture which will take them into temporal regions of mind which we will fail to comprehend with merely spatial models. +In my view, this adventure, and its corollary misadventures, is absolutely central to what we are about as a species. The young seek nothing less than the next step in the evolution of human consciousness, the transcendance of spatial, linear, one-dimensional consciousness. +It is clear that this is no small undertaking --- that the risks are terrible, that the likelihood of tragic mistakes is high, that there will be fatalities and large numbers of casualties. I fervently wish that they were unnecessary and aim my work to prevent as many as possible, and to assist in the healing of those we fail to prevent. For it is true that many of those embarked on this adventure are as blind to its dangers as they are unaware of them, so that they are often foolish and often injured. +And yet, there are some who know, who hear the music of the spheres, who accept the deeper challenge to carry history forward. These will be found, on close examination, when they have removed some of the outmoded ideological baggage we force them to carry, to be engaged in founding a new form of temporal consciousness, which I call "groovin' on time." TIME, PATHOS, AND SYNCHRONY: Accelerating Alienation |