The Zoo 4: Stomachs/The Zoo 4 - Stomachs (Disk 2 of 2).adf/Edited_Articles/LearyFar1.ade

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*!EOM
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1218Y00F04ruby12Y00C2NTimothy Leary:
1201NThe Far Gone Interview
1201N
1201NPart 1 of 2
1201N
1201Nby Todd Brendan Fahey
1206Y00C1N
0814Y00F05prime08NI was driving in traffic along West Temple on a hot Summer afternoon, when I
0801Nfelt the marquis outside of the Zephyr Club grinning down at me like some
0801Nkind of self-satisfied voyeur--an unsettling experience that I hoped might
0801N "flashbacks" I'd always heard about, but which hadfinally be one of the
0801Nnever seemed to manifest in my own body chemistry.  The sign announced an
0801Nupcoming visit with none other than Timothy Leary; and having just spent a
0801Nmad weekend on Ken Kesey's farm the previous month, I wasn't about to trifle
0801Nwith the Lords of Karma: I was riding a lucky streak. I also owned Leary's
0801Nphone number from a 1990 interview I had done with the Mad Doktor. Leary
0801Nremembered that phone conversation and agreed immediately to dinner.
0801N
0801NFrom an elevator inside Salt Lake City's historic Peery Hotel, Leary emerged
0801Nlooking like some kind of harlequin jester. The shockingly bright
0801Ncheckerboard shirt under a purple vest, which bore the insignia "Anarchic,"
0801Nmust have been a calculated media ploy, I reasoned. He was tanned to the
0801Npoint of sunburn and wore, as always, a thousand-watt smile and a pair of
0801Nwhite, high-top tennis shoes. Between quick, nervous puffs on his Benson &
0801NHedges, we discussed the new face of electronic stimulation, the novel as an
0801Narchaic art form--the possibility of fucking giving way to the sperm bank--
0801Nrevealing why the graying Pied Piper of the Sixties is still very much in
0801Ndemand in the Nineties.
0801N
0801N
0801NINTERVIEW (Salt Lake City, Utah, September 28, 1992)
0801N
0801NFahey: What have you been doing these days? What's your schedule?
0801N
0801NLeary: Well, I give about ten to fifteen radio and television interviews and
0801Npress interviews a week, and I give, oh, five or six performances a month.
0801NI'm involved with helping develop methods of electronic communications, which
0801NI will demonstrate tonight at the Zephyr Club--brain activating techniques
0801Nusing electrons--and I'm developing computer programs that allow you to
0801Ndesign your own hallucinations and to operate your own brain. And I spend
0801Nmost of my time hanging out with the most interesting people in the world,
0801Nfrom whom I learn things.
0801N
0801NFahey: Who do you see as the most important neuronauts of the last 50 years?
0801N
0801NLeary: What do you mean by the word "neuronauts"?
0801N
0801NFahey: Well, people who have been involved in the consciousness-expanding
0801Nfrontier in the last 50 years.
0801N
0801NLeary: Oh, that's a good question. The 20th century has been, historically,
0801Nhas been the century in which the basic philosophic and scientific principles
0801Nwhich run the universe--which is quantum physics--have been popularized,
0801Nhumanized, disseminated, domesticated, so that people can learn how to
0801Ncommunicate with their brains, and not just with status symbols.  And learn
0801Nhow to operate their brains. All this comes directly from the principles of
0801NEinstein and Heisenberg, who said, `the observer creates the universe that he
0801Nor she interacts with.' So, I say the great neuronauts would be Einstein and
0801NHeisenberg and Bohr, and people like that--the people that have applied
0801Nbrain-change techniques.
0801N
0801NYou start with, of course, the modern artists, the surrealists who totally
0801Ndestroyed reality. It's all an attempt to...the 20th century, and the
0801Nneurological task of our species is to somehow be able to get out of your
0801Nleft brain, out of your mind, precisely, under control, and access the rest
0801Nof your brain; and then, of course, to be able to go right back to your left
0801Nbrain any time you want to. So, the modern artists did this; they were able
0801Nto put incredible hallucinations on canvas and still operate very
0801Nsuccessfully.
0801N
0801NThe literature of the 20th century that I prize has been totally right-brain,
0801Nthat is fuzzing up literate grammar; of course, we'll start with James Joyce,
0801Nand then with William Burroughs and Brion Gyson who cut the word line and
0801Ndestroyed grammar; I would include people like Thomas Pynchon and William
0801NGibson in the current generation.  Certainly, music of the 20th century is
0801Nquantum physics, emphasizing innovation and improvisation, and, of course,
0801Njazz.  And rock music--definitely out to destroy left-brain mind focus and to
0801Nexpand consciousness.
0801N
0801NThe philosophy of the 20th century--again, its language, linguistic--is based
0801Nupon quantum physics. The psychology of the 20th century, starting in the
0801N1960s is, again, designed to activate brains and to allow us to operate our
0801Nbrain, both the left brain and the right brain.
0801N
0801NThat covers it: we have science, linguistics, philosophy, art, music,
0801Nliterature [laughs]. Excuse me [heads off to find a match].
0801N
0801NFahey: To what extent do the psychedelics factor into this equation?
0801N
0801NLeary: [Laughs] Well, of course, one thing I omitted in my litany of
0801Nbrain-changing techniques is the use of drugs, which became popularized in
0801Nthe Sixties, but they trace back to the early 20th century [sic]. It's the
0801Nsocialization and popularization of the notion that you can change your
0801Nbrain, change your mind, change your mood, boot up, turn on, turn off, drop
0801Nout, turn in, drop in [trademark Leary grin]. It is interesting that I
0801Nomitted psychedelic drugs in that list of...
0801N
0801NFahey: Maybe that shows where you've evolved at this certain state in your
0801Nlife.
0801N
0801NLeary: Well, no, I just take that for granted. I think we have to give a lot
0801Nof credit to the pharmacologists and the psychedelic philosophers like Alan
0801NWatts, Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, our wonderful group at Harvard, and the
0801Ndedicated LSD wizards like Stanislav Grof and Sasha Shulgin--the great
0801Ndesigner drug wizard from Berkeley...
0801N
0801NFahey: Abram Hoffer.
0801N
0801NLeary: And, of course, Hoffer. And the group around Al Hubbard, who was the
0801Ngreat, enigmatic triple-agent.
0801N
0801NFahey: We could talk about the Sixties all day long, but it wouldn't serve
0801Nmuch of a purpose. To what extent, within this "reality smashing"...
0801N
0801NLeary: Well, the word "reality smashing" is very tricky.  What is real is
0801Nwhat your neurons are processing. And hallucinations are just as real as
0801Nanything on the outside. There's an external reality and internal reality.
0801NInner reality is certainly more important than the outer reality. It is the
0801Nouter reality that we have to talk about, agree upon, fight over and organize
0801Nin order to survive.  But this notion that the outer, for example that the
0801Nforeign policy of the Reagan and Bush is somehow reality, more real than, uhh
0801N[fades off]. It's very complicated, and I object to anyone grabbing the term
0801N"reality"...
0801N
0801NFahey: What I was getting at was, to what extent are the psychedelics today
0801Neven a part of any movement to get beyond what we know as our day-to-day
0801Nsense? Are psychedelics minor, compared to the computer applications that are
0801Ngoing on today? Were psychedelics a launching point? Are they a thing of the
0801Npast?
0801N
0801NLeary: We're talking about the brain. And unless you have some way of really
0801Nactivating the brain, people are going to use electrons as simply as external
0801Ndevices for power, control and money. So, yes, unless someone has had
0801Npsychedelic experiences, they simply don't understand how to operate or use
0801Nelectronic devices except for materialistic reasons. It's no accident that
0801Nthe people who popularized the personal computer were Steve Jobs and Steve
0801NWozniak, both barefoot, longhaired acid-freaks. It's no accident that most of
0801Nthe people in the software computer industry have had very thoughtful, very
0801Nprofitable and creative psychedelic experiences.  Bill Gates, rumor has it,
0801Nwas a very active psychedelic proponent when he was at Harvard, before he,
0801Nuhh...
0801N
0801NFahey: Founded Microsoft.
0801N
0801NLeary: Yeah. So, you could go right down the line of the people who are
0801Nthe...it's well-known that the software, not the hardware, but the software
0801Nso-called industry is saturated with people who have been turned on
0801Nprofitably, respectably and creatively by LSD.
0801N
0801N *              *             *
0801N
0801NFahey: Is there any future for the psychedelics, in either medical research
0801Nor social applications? Or do you see any in the future?
0801N
0801NLeary: Well, I think the medical profession, we all know that, is totally
0801Ncorrupt. Every doctor now is a corporation. And medical research in this
0801Ncountry is government-sponsored and government-funded or funded by large drug
0801Ncompanies. I think that government corporations should fucking keep their
0801Nhands off the brain-change substances.  The idea of a government-sponsored,
0801Nauthorized, doctor giving LSD to mess around with people's brains is the
0801Nultimate Orwellian nightmare. The operational access to and use of your own
0801Nmind and brain is a highly individual choice.  Just as the right-wing
0801Ngovernment and politician's religions want to control women's reproductive
0801Norgans, they want to control brains. The key, here, is that...the adult
0801NAmerican should be able to do with their mind or their body what she wants
0801Nto.
0801N
0801NSo, I'm bored with discussions of the social, because it's highly
0801Nindividual--it's not just individuals, it's individuals in small groups.
0801NBecause individuals, by themselves, taking psychedelics are alienated, lost,
0801Nfucked up; you've got to do it in small groups. That's the basic shamanic
0801N[pause], which Socrates taught us, and which Aldous Huxley taught us at
0801NHarvard. Small groups.
0801N
0801N *                 *                   *
0801N
0801NContinued in part 2
*!EOF