The phenomenal powers of LSD to intensify and change the mind. A good or an ill? Pharmaceuticals that change and maintain human personality at any desired level…
Since earliest times people have felt the impulse to rise above the everyday self and achieve either some higher insight or some release from mundane concerns, or both. Something to break through the limits or push the boundaries of the known. Western saints and Eastern mystics have subjected themselves to strenuous spiritual exercises; others, less dedicated, have resorted to chemical aids, from the ceremonial wine of the ancients and the opiates of the Orient to the sacramental peyotl plant of the Aztec tribes and the social stimulants today.
—In contrast to Dr. Leary’s advocacy of drug use, Dr. Cohen told the students: ”Man has the capacity to be more than a flower-picking primate. We need more thinking, not less, and a society that does not value trained intelligence is doomed.” Concern Over Abuse
As an author he also gained wide attention, especially with his book, ”The Beyond Within: The LSD Story” in 1964, which examined the growing debate over the drug.—click image for source…
From the dawn of modernism, from Baudelaire to Berlioz to William James and Aldous Huxley, plus other students of perception there has been a non-stop trial and error of experimental drugs in an effort to induce states that would lend extraordinary lucidity and light to the mind’s unconscious and creative process- possibly even assistance to these. One of the most potent of these was Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, or LSD which exploded into the mainstream to such a extent that a research industry developed in close proximity to deal with the questions as to their effects and proper use.
The negators of LSD termed them “mind destroying” drugs that possessed therapeutic values at best uneven and unproven, easily abused and capable of badly upsetting a normal person. The proponents called them “consciousness changing” agents, with the argument that with individuals of strong mental and creative powers, LSD would widen the window on the world, and themselves as well. The question is always whether a person should put such a potentially dangerous substance into their system? After all, it is claimed for LSD that it is far less toxic than alcohol, tobacco, or caffeine. Again, the question arises whether trance-like insight produced by chemicals can be a source of higher wisdom and creativity as a form of instant Zen? To this day it remains unproven, since most coming back from LSD experiences could only describe their experiences as being indescribable.
Can a drug back up the claim of stimulating mystical insight? The anti-hallucinogenic advocates assert it is not hre proper way to stimulate mystical insight, even if it had such a property. That is, the healthy path being to go from strength to strength, not by artificial stimulants, with a place only if it is necessary for physical health, the emphasis being on utilizing natural capacities, which if done fully, will not require the added dose of artificial stimulants. But others have always disagreed. ( to be continued)…
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…After being discharged with a bonus of 15,000 shekels (about $4,300) after three years of compulsory military service, an estimated 20,000 former Israeli soldiers travel to India. About 90 percent take drugs and 2000 of the Israeli ex-soldiers living in India ‘flip out’ each year. This documentary’s introductory scenes of soldiers breaking into Palestinian homes land and non-directive interviews with these soldiers and professionals trying to help them suggest that the military service has damaged them resulting in post-traumatic stress disorders. Yet as distinct from the fate of U.S. soldiers coming back form Afghanistan and Iraqi with similar mental problems and cannot get adequate help from official agencies. Israeli public and private organizations take responsibility for the problems the army service created.
In India the ex-soldiers live in small communal settings and hotels segregated from the Indian population, in locations, they identify as Kasol sin or crime city. The winter months are spend in Himalayan mountain areas and for the summer months the Israelis migrate to Goa to continue enjoying a lifestyle of large parties, use of virtually all drugs, including to marihuana, cocaine, LSD, ecstasy and other hard drugs. Relations between Indians and Israelis are pragmatic but not friendly. As one Israeli points out, the Indians are like Arabs. Conversely Indians consider the Israelis to be noisy, drug addicted and out of control. Yet with an a
ge income of $500 per year they depend on the funds provided by the Israeli expatriates.From the perspective of one former soldiers who has been living in India for more than six years and served as a commander of an Israeli elite unit there is a fine line between sanity and madness, a borderline condition that can be discerned in the portraits of this documentary. There is a frenzied look of people, incoherent statements suspending the reality context and rapid motion activities. Yet at the same time others seem to be in a state of drug induced bliss, totally cooled out, and regressed to childlike states The former commander suggests that, military service destroyed the identity and meaning of life, and that staying on drugs rehabilitates former soldiers by getting ‘the crap’ out of their system. In the army he faced disgraceful things and his hand caused death and destruction. Yoav Shamir presents none of the female ex-soldiers who live in Israeli communities in India and also take drugs and seems to imply that females adapt better to the stress of military service.
… This work is carried out by former army officer, Hilik Magnus whose task is to bring back to Israel those soldiers who have suffered from psychotic and other violent breakdowns. He suggests that many of the ex soldiers living there have no center, are dislocated, and alienated and that drugs provide only a temporary respite.
One telling encounter in FLIPPING OUT is the meeting between the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Eli Ishay and former soldiers. One female soldier tells him that she is on her second trip to India and that “…here one can feel normal again .no bombings, no corruption, none of that pressure [faced] back in Israel…. one comes here and feels normal again”. Another soldier hopes not to return Israel soon; he does not belong to that country any more and considers having an Israeli passport to be a problem since he feels more at home in India.
Isahy considers these as sad stories but emphasizes that Israeli has to fund efforts such as the Warm House, since “…these former soldiers are our children, our boys and girls… thousands come here and come home mentally devastated” thus placing the onus on the experience in India rather than on the military service. Read More:http://www.jewishpost.com/culture/Former-Israeli-Soldiers-Flipping-Out-in-India.html
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