Althouse: Headline at the UK Independent: "Guy spends 2 days taking LSD and watching The Simpsons, documents his revelations."

October 20, 2015

Headline at the UK Independent: "Guy spends 2 days taking LSD and watching The Simpsons, documents his revelations."

Okay... but isn't this one of those things where the perceptions seem like "revelations" but when you come down you find that what you saw is the same thing you could have arrived at drug-free?

I'm not saying there are no special visions and insights to be gained from psychedelic drugs. I think there are. I'm just saying that in this case, the perceptions are in the normal range. "The Simpsons is the story of all of us... We are all Bart... We are all Lisa...," etc.

27 comments:

Caligula said...: The literature on/of drug-induced revelations hit its peak with the publication of Huxley's "Doors of Perception," and has been headed downhill ever since?; 10/20/15, 1:48 PM
Will Cate said...: Well, that's college life for ya....; 10/20/15, 1:59 PM
Nonapod said...: One time I was swallowed by the burning eye of a dead god after drinking an ayahuasca brew then listening to the Sunn O))) Monoliths and Dimensions album. Now I can smell thousands of years into the future.; 10/20/15, 2:00 PM
Etienne said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/20/15, 2:11 PM
Quaestor said...: Althouse wrote: I'm not saying there are no special visions and insights to be gained from psychedelic drugs. I think there are.

There's no getting over the Sixties for some people, is there?; 10/20/15, 2:29 PM
George Grady said...: I'm not saying there are no special visions and insights to be gained from psychedelic drugs. I think there are.

Okay, I'll bite. For example...?; 10/20/15, 2:44 PM
mikee said...: My 1970s drug abusing friends, some of whom are still alive, used to say that LSD changed your entire address, while coke and pot took you out of the house for a short trip. But coke was the one drug they all said they'd never say "No" to, if offered it for free.

I'm so glad to have left that idiocy of youth behind me, and those idiots, too.; 10/20/15, 3:13 PM
Just asking questions (Jaq) said...: As long as he got paid, I guess the experience wasn't as big a waste of time for him as it was for me reading about it.

The Simpsons was funny a long time ago before it got to hectoring us every week on the finer points of liberal morality. What you say? Women are the ones behind buying big SUVs? Not men? Order up the "Canyonero!" episode to gently explain to Marge that she should be driving a Prius!

A morality play every week. Who can watch it?; 10/20/15, 3:32 PM
Fernandinande said...: George Grady said...
Okay, I'll bite. For example...?

That religious and mystical experiences might feel real and seem important (at the time), but they're really just amusing and rather meaningless.; 10/20/15, 4:05 PM
The Godfather said...: When I was in college in the early 60's, Timothy Leary was legally experimenting with LSD (legal because it was so new that the Mass. legislature hadn't gotten around to making it illegal). One of Leary's grad students was brought in to a small section in the Soc Rel ("social relations", I think) class I was taking to explain and describe the insights that he'd gained from LSD. It was clear from the first 5 minutes that his brain was fried; he made no sense at all. I was always thankful for that experience. Perhaps the young Althouse gained insights and so forth from pyschedelics. I know people who think they've gained insight from Bourbon and Branch. I'll stick with the insights that a functioning brain provides. That means I'm doomed never to be a poet, but I can live with that.; 10/20/15, 4:23 PM
F said...: The guy in the room next to mine in my freshman year was a sophomore. He had a roommate during his freshman year who experimented (legally) with LSD and ended up taking his life in the dorm room. His roommate (my neighbor the following year) found him. I believe they both suffered life-altering trauma from the one guy's LSD trips.

Some of us tried marijuana around that time -- early sixties -- and got a buzz like a couple of cans of beer. Now I am told the level of THC in modern marijuana is greatly increased and the high is what -- higher? More freaky? I'm glad I avoided that whole scene.; 10/20/15, 4:45 PM
MisterBuddwing said...: I recall something that critic Stanley Kauffmann said about Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey": "Some have said that this picture cannot be truly appreciated unless one is high on pot. I assume that pot might make it more enjoyable, but then pot would also improve 'Dr. Dolittle' [sic]."; 10/20/15, 5:24 PM
William said...: I knew a woman who was so relentlessly banal that when she was on LSD, she cleaned and rearranged her apartment. That was her vision of Nirvana. A clean apartment with the couch facing the kitchen and no dishes in the sink.; 10/20/15, 5:25 PM
jr565 said...: I'm sure whatever relevations he has are a lot more profound to him, than they will be to us.; 10/20/15, 6:18 PM
jr565 said...: Mister Buddwing wrote:
I recall something that critic Stanley Kauffmann said about Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey": "Some have said that this picture cannot be truly appreciated unless one is high on pot. I assume that pot might make it more enjoyable, but then pot would also improve 'Dr. Dolittle' [sic]."

What did the Dead head say when he went to see the Grateful dead in concert and didn't get stoned?
"this music sucks!"; 10/20/15, 6:19 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: "Some have said that this picture cannot be truly appreciated unless one is high on pot."

They must have been talking about the 20 minutes of colors. I remember watching it in college and everyone sitting there dutifully for a while until someone asked how much longer that was going to go on. Whoever had the remote started fast-forwarding and everyone was amazed at how much longer it went.; 10/20/15, 6:21 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Sort of like CG action scenes now that go on and on, and the viewer wonders how much more of these guys' fake-real computer drawings they're going to have to watch.; 10/20/15, 6:23 PM
jr565 said...: I never saw 2001 stoned. That is one monstronsity of a movie. And I generally enjoy Kubrick movies (he does tend to enjoy doing long shots of nothing though); 10/20/15, 6:24 PM
Roughcoat said...: The visions and insights that can indeed be gained from LSD are too much for many people to handle.

Consider Exodus 33:12-34:8, one of the most stunning passages in the Bible. In conversation with God, Moses asks to meet face-to-face with God, to gave upon his countenance. "Show me Your glory," is how Moses puts it.

The Lord offers to grant Moses's wish only in part, saying, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

"But you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

"Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”

So the Lord passes by, trailing glory, which is all Moses is allowed to see.

I think the visions and insights LSD can have a similar effect. Certainly it did on some people I knew.; 10/20/15, 7:05 PM
Heartless Aztec said...: Kinda' boring without Quicksilver Messenger Service and a light show. Happy Trails indeed.; 10/20/15, 7:26 PM
Paddy O said...: "I think the visions and insights LSD can have a similar effect."

Leading a huge amount of people through very difficult terrain to a new place to establish their religion and society, a people that have persisted over 4000 years or so?; 10/20/15, 7:56 PM
Paddy O said...: Magic journeys... special places.; 10/20/15, 7:58 PM
Quaestor said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/20/15, 9:21 PM
Quaestor said...: They must have been talking about the 20 minutes of colors.

Typically known today as the "star gate" sequence.

I saw the 161 minute Cinerama cut with my mother of all people. I was undergoing treatment for allergies at the time. (I seemed to be allergic to everything I loved, which made me quite a difficult and extremely frustrated child for a few years) Every few months I had to be examined by the specialist at his clinic, which meant sitting for hours in his waiting room, then about another hour of idleness dressed in an open-backed hospital gown in one of the very chilly examination rooms waiting for my doctor to actually conduct his check-up. This clinic visit was particularly unpleasant because I was to have a repeat of my initial allergen test -- about thirty syringes full of dilute allergens injected into the skin of my back and thighs. It was like getting stung by as many bees -- the pain of the injection followed by maddening itching which could under no circumstances be scratched.

At the end of the torture session my mother offered a treat: We may do whatever you want to do with the remains of the day, Little Quaestor. Immediately I asked to see 2001: A Space Odyssey at the nearby Cinerama theatre.

I sat in that half-empty theater mesmerized, enthralled, and bemused. My mother sat beside me doing an excellent job of simulated enjoyment. Perhaps it was the after-effects of my allergen test, but I absorbed every second in a mood of exultant, mystical apotheosis, and came out of the theater into the fading afternoon light a newly-minted junior Existentialist.; 10/21/15, 12:01 AM
Unknown said...: Saw his post on Reddit when it first appeared. It was quite charming in that context.; 10/21/15, 12:17 AM
BN said...: "There's no getting over the Sixties for some people, is there?"

Drops the fuckin' mike!; 10/21/15, 12:31 AM
tomaig said...: "Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience" is a good read for those who decline the actual ingestion of psychedelics. Writings from Huxley describing his experiences, correspondence with Humphry Osmond, who is credited with coining the term "psychedelic" (mind-manifesting), and Osmond's description of dosing Huxley (per his request) on his deathbed.; 10/21/15, 7:13 AM