Subtitles
so now this is the whole essence you see 00:00:00
so now this is the whole essence you see of seeing if you really see into this 00:00:04
secret that the world doesn't contain 00:00:14
any serious threats in it because it's 00:00:16
all the basic you running up behind 00:00:19
itself and saying boo to see if you can 00:00:20
get yourself to jump out of your skin if 00:00:26
you see that be cool that's the whole 00:00:33
art of Zen you know is cool Hinduism the 00:00:39
Hindus come on a little strong when as 00:00:42
someone like sri ramakrishna or openly 00:00:45
pretty much openly announces that he is 00:00:47
the Godhead that's a little tough and 00:00:51
when a Sri Ramana accepts the puja of 00:00:54
all the followers and Sri Aurobindo sits 00:00:57
every day for darshan it's coming on a 00:00:59
little strong 00:01:01
well the Zen people feel that that's 00:01:04
just a bit too much and the way they 00:01:08
come on is they they're ordinary and 00:01:14
they say when to Zen masters meet each 00:01:17
other on the road they need no 00:01:19
introduction when thieves meet they 00:01:21
recognize each other instantly 00:01:21
so they don't say anything don't make any claims there's a matter of fact so 00:01:31
far from making claims all good Zen 00:01:35
masters say they don't they have not 00:01:38
attained anything they have nothing to 00:01:40
teach and that's the truth because 00:01:47
anybody who tells you that he is some 00:01:49
way of leading you to spiritual 00:01:52
enlightenment is just like somebody who 00:01:54
picks your pocket and sells you your own 00:01:55
watch course if you didn't know you had 00:02:00
a watch that might be the only way of 00:02:02
getting you to realize 00:02:02
[Music] 00:02:06
now so then if though the people who do by one means or another prepared or 00:02:21
unprepared disciplined or undisciplined 00:02:25
get into this kind of interior secret 00:02:29
about the nature of the universe 00:02:30
and they have hitherto been insecure 00:02:32
about themselves they're going to use 00:02:34
this secret as some way of creating 00:02:37
trouble and of stirring things up and of 00:02:40
boosting their own inadequate character 00:02:42
structure which is the word I prefer to 00:02:44
use in say we go there is trouble 00:02:44
because those people who are out there on the tightrope they're going to get 00:02:52
pretty scared and they're going to call 00:02:58
in the police and say this has got to 00:03:00
stop so then we have a situation right 00:03:07
like that now and I want to make a few 00:03:10
comments about 00:03:10
first of all the major group it seems to me that a crying panic about LSD are 00:03:26
psychoanalysts to then this sort of 00:03:36
thing is extremely threatening the car 00:03:39
psychoanalysis in its theory whether it 00:03:41
be Freudian or whether it be Union it 00:03:45
has a theory of the unconscious which is 00:03:49
not unrelated to the general philosophy 00:03:51
of science of the 19th century which is 00:03:55
that the unconscious called the libido 00:03:58
by the Freudians is totally uncivilized 00:03:59
blind lust for the unions it may be something even more dangerous than that 00:04:13
because they have not settled for the 00:04:18
idea that it's the sexual unconscious it 00:04:21
may be much more sinister than that deep 00:04:25
down there is the spider mother there 00:04:29
are the Screaming Mimi's at the bottom 00:04:31
of that pit and and Esther Harding in 00:04:34
her book psychic energy says that 00:04:35
civilization is a mere veneer over the 00:04:38
abysmal depths of primeval slime which 00:04:42
there are the great serpents and 00:04:43
appalling influences just waiting for a 00:04:46
chance to get up there and raise hell so 00:04:50
if you are psychoanalytically oriented 00:04:52
you are necessarily terrified of the 00:04:54
unconscious but you've learned a trick 00:04:57
is say the old-fashioned Christians they 00:05:00
discipline the unconscious with a club 00:05:02
[Applause] 00:05:03
Bible and Burt's rod see and they 00:05:07
knocked it down Friday and said no this 00:05:10
is a very dangerous creature but you've 00:05:12
got to train it in a different way like 00:05:13
a good horse trainer doesn't use the 00:05:15
whip but lumps of sugar but it's still 00:05:19
the same animal in other words this 00:05:21
whole philosophy of Western man has it 00:05:24
crystallized in the late 18th 19th and 00:05:26
early 20th centuries is that what we 00:05:29
call humanity consciousness spirituality 00:05:32
values is simply a veneer the real thing 00:05:35
underneath the gutsy thing is a terrible 00:05:36
monster and watch out for that so 00:05:39
anything that happens that might let 00:05:41
that creature loose is looked upon by 00:05:43
psychoanalysis as terrible I don't I'm 00:05:47
not going to accuse them of worrying 00:05:48
about LSD because they think you're 00:05:49
going to be put out of a job I don't 00:05:52
think that LSD is an automatic 00:05:55
psychotherapy at all it needs if you're 00:05:59
going to use it for that purpose you 00:06:01
need psychotherapy in the ordinary way 00:06:03
along with it 00:06:04
LSD is simply an exploratory instrument 00:06:07
like a microscope or a telescope except 00:06:09
this one's inside you instead of outside 00:06:10
you and according to your capacity and 00:06:14
knowledge you can use a microscope or a 00:06:16
telescope to advantage so in the same 00:06:18
way according to your capacity and your 00:06:20
knowledge you can use an interior 00:06:21
instrument to your advantage or just for 00:06:25
kicks but when these people you know 00:06:29
really feel threatened by this thing 00:06:32
they start sending around messages and 00:06:35
public utterances which sound exactly as 00:06:38
if they had taken LSD had had a bad trip 00:06:40
with it and were coming on paranoid 00:06:40
and so they are spreading subtle rumors that this substance causes permanent 00:06:50
brain damage 00:06:53
and after destruction of the super-ego 00:06:53
there is a there are people in New York likewise who are spreading around the 00:07:02
idea that you see once this thing has 00:07:06
touched you you were as if you've had a 00:07:09
prefrontal lobotomy you are somebody who 00:07:14
ought to be put in a concentration camp 00:07:16
because you've lost your conscience 00:07:18
you're out of order nothing more can be 00:07:21
done about it now do you see how 00:07:22
alarming that could be in our day and 00:07:24
age think that you know brother your 00:07:27
aunt has got permanent brain damage 00:07:29
I took some LSD you see what the 00:07:32
situation is exactly power you know the 00:07:34
thing that we learn from history is 00:07:35
nobody ever learns from history 00:07:38
consider just go back a few hundred 00:07:41
years to the days of the Inquisition and 00:07:47
realize that the theologians of the 00:07:49
church were in those days accorded the 00:07:53
same kind of respect that we now Accord 00:07:54
to the professor of pathology at the 00:07:56
University of California Medical School 00:07:58
or to the professor of physics at 00:08:01
Caltech we think those people are real 00:08:04
authorities they know it works 00:08:08
they've experimented they have knowledge 00:08:09
they're the wisest people in our society 00:08:12
oh all right few hundred years ago so 00:08:14
with the theologians and they had the 00:08:17
same sense of responsibility towards the 00:08:19
community that our great scientists and 00:08:21
physicians have today and they knew 00:08:24
there was a thing called heresy going 00:08:26
around that was not only capable once 00:08:32
you caught heresy making you damned to 00:08:38
hell forever and ever and ever to the 00:08:40
most unimaginable tortures that would go 00:08:43
on without end but that it was 00:08:46
infectious and one heretic would soon 00:08:49
make other heretics so there was an 00:08:53
entirely humanitarian and merciful 00:08:55
church fathers got together said what 00:08:57
are we gonna do to stop this well now 00:08:59
they knew there is an eternal life 00:09:01
beyond the grave and so perhaps just in 00:09:05
the same way as if you've got a cancer 00:09:07
and that's something terrible because it 00:09:08
might spread and destroy the whole body 00:09:09
cut it out even burn it out if you have 00:09:12
to and a little pain on the part of the 00:09:13
patient in the several months on the end 00:09:15
of tubes won't be too bad for if you get 00:09:17
rid of it 00:09:17
so they said we've got to torture these 00:09:19
people because they might in the middle 00:09:21
of this this extreme experience recant 00:09:24
and if they won't recant we'll burn them 00:09:27
because it's just the chance that in the 00:09:29
agony of burning at the stake they will 00:09:31
say at the end or God forgive me for my 00:09:33
sins and it'll be all right now realize 00:09:39
the absolutely merciful intent behind 00:09:41
the inquisitors perfectly responsible 00:09:44
acting on the best knowledge that they 00:09:46
had in their day don't you see how that 00:09:48
can happen again any time 00:09:48
permanent brain damage people lost their sense of social responsibility utterly 00:09:55
destroyed by taking the wrong kind of 00:09:59
drug now dear friends there is 00:10:02
absolutely no evidence for this kind of 00:10:03
thing whatsoever the only brain damage 00:10:07
that has I've just checked this out with 00:10:09
the most eminent authorities in this 00:10:11
area on the subject that the permanent 00:10:15
damage that's been perpetrated and even 00:10:18
that wasn't permanent was on some cats 00:10:20
who were given doses that would be 00:10:23
equivalent to a human being to over 00:10:25
2,000 micrograms of LSD the normal 00:10:28
dosage for a human being being about a 1 00:10:30
to 200 but give a cap 2000 for a human 00:10:37
being of 2000 micrograms 00:10:39
there will be synaptic defects that are 00:10:44
called acute as distinct from chronic 00:10:46
that means they will disappear after a 00:10:49
little while now this has been worked 00:10:53
out carefully and there is no evidence 00:10:57
whatsoever of any serious neurological 00:11:03
damage to a human being except in cases 00:11:06
where a they may have taken an absurdly 00:11:09
large dose or be taking it in 00:11:12
conjunction with some other form of 00:11:14
drugs and amphetamine a barbiturate or 00:11:19
something like methadone or narcotic 00:11:22
which did indeed cut off the oxygen 00:11:25
supply to the brain and therefore caused 00:11:27
some damage 00:11:27
so this scare talk is simply without foundation but nevertheless there are 00:11:34
certain reasons to be cautious and for 00:11:40
those who understand the operation of 00:11:42
these chemicals to issue certain clear 00:11:45
warnings and this I want to talk about 00:11:48
quite seriously 00:11:48
now this class of psychotropic chemicals which includes LSD mescaline and its 00:11:57
original form peyote psilocybin cannabis 00:12:05
and so on which is a very mild 00:12:07
psychotropic these do not in moderation 00:12:14
and proper use in any way harm the 00:12:17
physical organism nor form such habits 00:12:21
that you can't get rid of them without 00:12:23
unpleasant withdrawal symptoms but if 00:12:28
you take them in absurdly large doses 00:12:31
you are in for trouble 00:12:33
I knew a Methodist minister who was a 00:12:35
very violent tea totalitarian and became 00:12:38
extremely sick from drinking too much 00:12:40
milk so after all if you sit down and 00:12:45
you buy a bottle of whiskey which you 00:12:46
can get at any store anywhere perfectly 00:12:49
legit and you consume the one quart of 00:12:53
whiskey in one hour you can expect 00:12:54
trouble so in the same way if you've got 00:12:58
LSD or something of that kind and you 00:13:00
take a thousand micrograms because some 00:13:02
friend of yours took 500 and you want to 00:13:04
one up in watch out you're being just 00:13:07
stupid furthermore you're being rather 00:13:10
stupid if you buy the kind of LSD that 00:13:14
is currently being circulated in the 00:13:16
black market 00:13:18
because for two reasons you don't know 00:13:22
what else is in it and you don't know 00:13:24
how much is in it there are two sorts of 00:13:28
producers of LSD on black market one is 00:13:31
the enthusiastic graduate student in 00:13:33
chemistry who wants to turn the whole 00:13:35
world on 00:13:35
and his product is apt to be pretty good but excessive in dosage and what says 00:13:42
100 micrograms may well be 300 there is 00:13:50
another kind of producer who wants to 00:13:53
make a good thing out of it oh who wants 00:13:56
to give you a big jazz but he'd mix it 00:13:58
with out and feta means there's another 00:14:01
more sinister kind of producer who 00:14:03
leader cut the amount or mix it with 00:14:05
heroine or anything any other substance 00:14:09
may be a again amphetamines or whatever 00:14:13
will get you hooked on it so you there 00:14:17
is no control of the quality of what is 00:14:20
being circulated none whatever and you 00:14:22
just don't know what you're getting now 00:14:27
this situation is the result of the fact 00:14:32
that the United States never learns from 00:14:35
history this is the same old story of 00:14:38
prohibition ii think the naive notion 00:14:42
that you can control something that 00:14:45
might turn into a social evil by handing 00:14:48
it over to the police now after all who 00:14:52
pays the police you do and if you can't 00:14:58
control yourself heat the police won't 00:15:00
control you either but in lieu of 00:15:02
controlling you they can suppress you 00:15:04
[Applause] 00:15:06
now in all conscience the police have 00:15:09
enough to do not only to control the 00:15:13
traffic which is gets worse every day by 00:15:15
virtue of Parkinson's law but also all 00:15:18
the possibilities of robbery violence 00:15:20
murder and so on and so forth which is a 00:15:22
full-time job 00:15:23
but to ask the police to go and look for 00:15:28
people who have LSD or marijuana or 00:15:31
heroin or opium or whatever or who are 00:15:35
living irregular sex lives or who have a 00:15:37
gambling joint or a whorehouse this is 00:15:40
to ask the police to act as officers of 00:15:42
the state in service of the church 00:15:44
uniformed ministers and that's not their 00:15:49
job 00:15:50
and when the police are asked to do that 00:15:52
they are put by lawmakers into a 00:15:57
position which brings them into public 00:15:58
disrespect as it did in the days of 00:16:01
prohibition it is not fair to the police 00:16:04
because if you send the police to hunt 00:16:07
out LSD it is a far more tough job than 00:16:11
looking for a needle in a haystack LSD 00:16:14
can be disguised as anything whatsoever 00:16:17
it can be mixed with Garman put on an 00:16:19
envelope it can be entirely absorbed 00:16:23
vast quantities of it into a piece of 00:16:25
Kleenex the alcoholic base is then 00:16:27
allowed to evaporate and nobody would 00:16:29
know it from any other dirty piece of 00:16:31
Kleenex that somebody stuck away in his 00:16:32
pocket it can then be reactivated it can 00:16:36
be made into lacquer to coat pins with 00:16:38
anything it can be disguised as peanut 00:16:40
butter orange juice aspirin just sugar 00:16:44
anything you want and it's very 00:16:48
difficult indeed to detect so when you 00:16:52
try to suppress that sort of thing by 00:16:53
law you leave the gates wide open for 00:16:56
every kind of blackmail you want to get 00:16:58
rid of your wife or your unfortunate 00:17:00
business competitor just slip them some 00:17:04
and then arrange by a roundabout way to 00:17:06
tip off the cops the senator you don't 00:17:10
like political rival 00:17:10
you see any law of this nature any law which in the way tries to enforce by the 00:17:18
power of the state private morals or 00:17:23
your own business in looking after your 00:17:26
own nervous system is in fact an 00:17:30
unenforceable law and all unenforceable 00:17:33
laws lead to blackmail and public 00:17:36
demoralization the only way to handle a 00:17:42
thing of this kind is to bring it all 00:17:44
out into the open nothing can be 00:17:49
controlled when it's driven underground 00:17:51
it ought to be controlled just in the 00:17:54
same way as we have learned how to 00:17:55
control automobiles we license people to 00:17:57
drive them so in the same way we don't 00:18:01
sell liquor to minors we expect them to 00:18:05
have some kind of education and grown-up 00:18:07
responsibilities before they go boozing 00:18:08
around so in exactly the same way 00:18:11
society has got to face the fact that 00:18:13
it's going to have to license people for 00:18:17
certain spiritual adventures or perhaps 00:18:20
just plain pleasures if that's what you 00:18:22
want to call it after all you can't even 00:18:25
join some churches without can't join 00:18:27
the Catholic Church without taking a 00:18:29
course of instruction that takes a few 00:18:31
weeks and then they put you through an 00:18:32
initiation and you may say when you get 00:18:36
through that well what was all that 00:18:38
preparation for I didn't feel anything 00:18:38
but so in exactly the same way with this it is completely urgent in other words 00:18:46
that we prevent the occurrence of a very 00:18:54
serious socially destructive criminal 00:18:57
situation created by law 00:19:00
you've heard of yatra genic diseases 00:19:02
that means disease is caused by 00:19:05
physicians there are no more genic 00:19:08
diseases or shall we say no more genic 00:19:10
crimes like somebody said the only 00:19:13
serious side effect of marijuana is that 00:19:15
you may go to jail 00:19:15
this is an amo genic crime in other words it is a ritual crime in exactly 00:19:21
the same way that when the early 00:19:24
Christians refused to burn incense in 00:19:26
front of the Roman gods in whom the 00:19:28
Romans themselves didn't believe they 00:19:31
were guilty of a crime it was a ritual 00:19:33
crime and they refused a reasonable man 00:19:36
like the Emperor Marcus Aurelius said to 00:19:38
the Christians now come off it really do 00:19:40
you have to refuse to burn incense they 00:19:44
said yes we're serious about it 00:19:44
so these are ritual crimes and so in the same way 00:19:54
various ritual crimes exist and our 00:19:59
police poor devils are supposed to 00:20:01
enforce it and if they don't they're 00:20:02
going to get it from the politicians 00:20:03
because the politicians have made all 00:20:05
the old ladies up in Glendale scared and 00:20:09
Pasadena and so on they're all just 00:20:10
terrified about this and so the 00:20:13
politician gets the votes of those old 00:20:15
ladies now the police have to do what 00:20:19
the politician tells them to do and you 00:20:22
know the police 00:20:23
there is people it's a terrible thing to 00:20:29
put the police in a position where 00:20:30
they're going to earn public disrespect 00:20:30
by enforcing or trying to enforce unenforceable laws so I would say in 00:20:38
general to sum up substances like LSD 00:20:50
which give away a secret about the 00:20:58
nature of the social game the human game 00:21:01
and what underlies it are potentially 00:21:07
dangerous of course like any good thing 00:21:11
is electricity is dangerous fire is 00:21:13
dangerous cars are dangerous planes are 00:21:15
dangerous but not so dangerous as 00:21:17
driving on the freeway the only way to 00:21:22
handle danger is to face it if you start 00:21:27
getting frightened of it then you make 00:21:31
it worse 00:21:32
because you project onto it all kinds of 00:21:34
bogeys and threats which don't exist in 00:21:36
it at all so this is also a rule and 00:21:42
please anybody here who's a 00:21:43
psychotherapist if he doesn't know this 00:21:45
already take note if you get someone 00:21:50
thrown on your hands who as a result of 00:21:52
taking any psychotropic drug is in a 00:21:55
psychotic state don't be frightened 00:22:00
because the moment you are afraid your 00:22:03
patient will pick up your fear 00:22:04
by kind of osmosis and get worse the 00:22:11
rule about all terrors going back to 00:22:14
where I started from the dweller on the 00:22:15
threshold the rule for all terrors is 00:22:19
head straight into them when you are 00:22:22
sailing in a storm you don't let a wave 00:22:25
hit your boat on the side you go bow 00:22:28
into the wave and ride it so in the same 00:22:34
way old folklore says this is an old 00:22:37
wives tale with a lot of truth in it 00:22:38
whenever you meet a ghost don't run away 00:22:42
because the ghost will capture the 00:22:45
substance of your fear and materialize 00:22:48
itself out of your own substance and 00:22:50
will kill you eventually because it will 00:22:53
take over all your own vitality so then 00:22:56
whenever confronted with a ghost walk 00:22:59
straight into it and it will disappear 00:23:02
and so in the same way when people stir 00:23:06
up the depths of the unconscious and are 00:23:09
confronted with their own monsters or 00:23:11
with the terrors of discovering that 00:23:12
they're in a relativistic world where 00:23:14
black implies white and white implies 00:23:16
black so who's in charge you know 00:23:18
grandfather's dead father's dead too 00:23:22
this leads me who's the authority 00:23:25
[Music] 00:23:27
see when you get that that sense of 00:23:31
terror go right at it 00:23:34
don't run away explore feel fear as 00:23:39
completely as you can feel it heads 00:23:41
straight Ingrid and just it so happens 00:23:43
that these things give you the property 00:23:44
and the opportunity let me put it that 00:23:47
way the opportunity to go into some of 00:23:50
your very very most closely kept 00:23:53
skeletons and the result of that is 00:23:57
invariably beneficial 00:23:57
[Music] 00:24:01