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Albert Hoffman smuggling psilocybin pills

I

Ismene

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Jun 17, 2005
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Read a nice story the other day, in the Gordon Wasson archive there's a couple of letters he wrote from america to Albert Hoffman in switzerland in the 70's after psilocybin had been made illegal. He asks Hoffman to send some sandoz psilocybin pills to a "care-of" address in california wrapped in tin-foil to get thru customs. Wasson would then collect them (probably wearing a tin-foil hat to fend off any surveillance) :D
 
Nifty... I comment as I've spent a bunch of time tonight poring over various wiki pages of several fascinating "chemists"

Its interesting to me that these things have been treated with such a general hatred without any effort to understand.

They are essentially the "witchcraft" policies of today. Its a shame.

And to think, they put Tim Leary in a cell across from Manson... Amazing.
 
^ They put him across from Manson? What a nice allegorical juxtaposition of our society today...

Heh, a couple weeks ago I was talking with a friend's uncle.. apparently back in the day his family had let Leary rent their home while they were traveling abroad (back when Leary was still a Harvard prof).. they apparently came back to find the house.. in less than pristine condition, shall we say.
 
delsymfan said:
Nifty... I comment as I've spent a bunch of time tonight poring over various wiki pages of several fascinating "chemists"

Its interesting to me that these things have been treated with such a general hatred without any effort to understand.

They are essentially the "witchcraft" policies of today. Its a shame.

And to think, they put Tim Leary in a cell across from Manson... Amazing.
Click to expand...

Tim Leary ended up as basically a nutter, promoting violence. He was in a cell next to Manson, but I doubt they really spoke as much as is alleged; Charles Manson is and was basicaly incoherent.

I have no sympathy at all for Leary....nice chap, basically got his first wife to kill herself :|
 
I think Leary ended up being like too much of a good drink.

Gives you a couple good thoughts and its a nice item at a party, but a few too many and you need to stop.

And I dont think he knew when to. But at the same time, thats his right as americans. Thats what we're all about.

Course I couldnt honestly say.

Still, his imprisonment was for possession of bud which in my books is very ignorant.
 
^Agreed there (re: jail for pot) but- it was really for a lot more, political reasons then just that. Freedom of speech is all good, but lying isn't.
 
swilow said:
Tim Leary ended up as basically a nutter, promoting violence|
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Well, he once advocated violence against policeman. But that's perfectly understandable if you have had your life destroyed and sentenced to decades in jail over pot. That's enough to drive anyone to advocate violence towards policemen.
 
^ I've been fucked over by plod on many an occasion, Issy. I advocate changing the law rather than battering policemen. Kicking the crap out of a copper helps nobody - just makes things worse and reinforces the negative drug-user stereotype.
 
I admire your forgiveness shambles but I still understand leary's viewpoint.

And all leary did was talk about violence on policemen - he didn't actually commit any violence. The policemen destroyed his life - i think calling for violence is a fair enough response in return.
 
Kicking the crap out of a copper helps nobody - just makes things worse and reinforces the negative drug-user stereotype.
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Exactly. I understand the vitriol over the law itself--I experience a true feeling of visceral disgust when I hear about someone being prosecuted (persecuted) over psychedelics (or weed). But disrespecting police officers is not the way to effect change and only makes things worse, for the user and for the psychedelic movement in general. It simply serves as more ammunition for the bullshit propaganda machine and their claims that psychedelics make people insane, diabolical and prone to random violence.

That and Leary was a fucking douchebag, he set psychedelia and the psychedelic movement back 50 years all because he was an egotistical, self-serving tool who wanted a personality cult.
 
While I don't think Leary helped too much, I don't know about him setting things back 50 years or whatever.

Do you honestly think the government wasn't going to crack down on psychedelics regardless? The "hippie" movement was a scary thing for the government and they were going to shut that shit down no matter what was said or done.

Let's face it, the government was lying and distorting the truth about drugs for its own personal gain LONG before LSD and such things came around. Point in case: marijuana.
 
I think the 8-circuit model was kind of interesting... although I have to admit Robert Anton Wilson seemed to make more sense of it, and one of his speeches was where I heard of it first.
 
Riemann Zeta said:
Exactly. I understand the vitriol over the law itself--I experience a true feeling of visceral disgust when I hear about someone being prosecuted (persecuted) over psychedelics (or weed). But disrespecting police officers is not the way to effect change and only makes things worse, for the user and for the psychedelic movement in general.
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I don't know whether it makes things worse. I think hearing someone get off their knees and say something with a bit of guts does a lot of people a lot of good.

Does staying on your knees saying "Thank you for locking me up officer, I know it's not your fault, you're a wonderful man" really do anyone any good?
 
If a drunk smiles benignly at the local bobby the local bobby probably smiles back witha quizzical expression on his face. If the local drunk calls the local bobby a child shagging paedophile who visits petting zoos for no apparent good reason & says he wishes he was dead the bobby would probably arrest him. Then afterwards the bobby would be prejudiced against all local winos - however Izzy I do have some sympathy with your viewpoint - I think it's one of two valid positions. We tend to take our stances on these matters from personal experience :)
 
mindsurfer said:
Leary said something stupid almost every time he opened his mouth.
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So does Terrance McKenna and people treat him like a whiney voiced psychedelic saint.I don't know whether it makes things worse. I think hearing someone get off their knees and say something with a bit of guts does a lot of people a lot of good.
ismene said:
Does staying on your knees saying "Thank you for locking me up officer, I know it's not your fault, you're a wonderful man" really do anyone any good?
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My girl friend is in prison in the south for selling a guy 5 hits of acid as a favor. She got charged with criminal drug conspiracy, intent to deliver, possesion, and delivery. In fact it has nothing to do with police it's just a life philosophy. Even people that want to change have a hard time changing. Some of the things you think people have never thought about, they have, and just have different view points from you. You will never convince anyone of anything. Especially when you bring an affrontive persona to it. It just justifies their beliefs and dismisses your own, by appearing out of control. Granted , my girl is completely out of place in his southern ultra-max prison. She's a sweet little hippy girl from up north. But they all love her and treat her better than all the other prisoners which is probably because she is the best looking woman there... kind of unfortunately. But all the same the CO's talk to her a lot and she has asked all sorts of them why they are there and the answers vary but she always says, "So you got life then?" She's said a couple have paused like they never actually thought that they were wasting their lives in prison too. Of course plenty of people who become a different type of CO (conscientiticious objector) once they are in the military seem to have never thought of the implications of taking a life or being under constant threat of death. I'm all for discussion, but police in particular play into the power game that drives a far too large part of our society (as all of us druggies know) and they are relatively low in society on all other terms. They see misery, pain, and shitty people everyday and they also look for it so they find it more and sometimes in places (many times) it doesn't exist. I've been pulled over so many times "uhh... you look like a guy that was involved in a crime" and then I ask the next copon the scene "oh your car matches the description of one that was stolen" But does the license plate match? I guess that's what you get at 6'4" with long hair when I'm not in my neighborhood. I had one cop say, "The car looked too nice for you." And you are just fat the pants have nothing to do with it. I always wanted to be a chemist, but it seemed just too risky. I could imagine what prison is and now I've been in a pretty bad one, just visiting, and I guess men's prisons are far worse. I've seen National Geographic.
All the same I think people need to think about what is productive and do it. I'm not sure why anyone raises anyone else up as idols when they're not trying to educate themselves. There's a million hermits with amazing talents and wisdom that we'll never see or hear and I bet they are happier for it, but people that truly crave attention from people with whom they'll never have a close relationship have intimacy issues. I'm a musician so I've seen more than a few sociopaths. Why waste time even thinking about Leary? I guess it could help you understand the current state of affairs and might be interesting, but all the same there is no more weight in his words than any of ours.

Peace,
Pimpy
 
okay, 1. You dont have to insult Mckenna just because u dont agree with him.
2. Violence in itself is the purest primal instinct next to sex, succumbing to primal instincts can be a very beautiful thing IMO. So attacking a police officer IMO is just if he truly is going to steal your freedom for an unjust reason. A wise man once said that most of the technology we're developing is just making our primal instincts more intense i.e. Guns,Porn, Capitalism. I can sort of compare this to the synth's V.S. Naturals argument in psychedelics. We have to choose between accepting our original ways of living and adapt to this world or using these new tools to succumb to our primal instincts without the beauty of being in tune with nature i.e. hunting for fun, sexual simulations, so on. Most of these are conflicting thoughts but take all of this with a grain of salt. To sum up what im trying to say, if these policeman try to steal the thing that makes you human ( freedom) you do whatever it takes to get away or make sure you're not put away. Sure we can evolve, and we can decide not to succumb to primal instincts but dont try to say there is anything inherently wrong with succumbing to primal instincts.
 
The problem isn't the drug users, and it isn't the cops. Its the masses of regular people who don't do anything "wrong," who pay taxes and vote, etc. who don't have any problem with the injustice that's occurring because it doesn't affect them. The cops only fuck with us because everybody allows it to happen, if people started actually giving a shit about each other (in all facets of life) then we wouldn't have the problems we do.
 
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