Kevin:
You wrote:
"As for the conflict between drug-taking and non-drug-taking mystics, I
think one may be increasing their state of being by different degrees of
Dynamicism. I don't see how anyone can call another's Dynamic experience
fake because it was induced by drugs. Perhaps Aldous Huxley was correct in
his book, Island, when he described drug-illumination as a feast and
non-drug-illumination as a necessary and rountine meal. I don't know enough
to comment more informatively.
: ---What are its means, what are its ends?"
I have wrangled with problems like this before. Being a former
experimenter with LSD, Mushrooms, Peyote and the like I eventually came to
a point where I wondered how close the experiences I was having were to
"mystical" experiences. One day I found this passage by Joseph Campbell
which seemed to sound about right, its from his book entitled "Myths to
Live by." I thought maybe it could add to your discussion if nobody has
mentioned it yet:
"The LSD phenomenon, on the other hand, is- to me at least more
interesting. It is an intentionally achieved schizophrenia, with the
expectation of a spontaneous remission-which, however, does not always
follow. Yoga, too, is an intentional schizophrenia: one breaks away from
the world, plunging inward, and the ranges of vision expereinced are in
fact the same as those of a psychosis. But what, then, is the difference?
What is the difference between a psychotic or LSD experience and yogic, or
a mystical? The plunges are all into the same deep inward sea; of that
there can be no doubt. The symbolic figures encountered are in many cases
identical. But there is an important difference. The difference-to put it
sharply-is equivalent simply to that between a diver who can swim and one
who cannot. The mystic, endowed with native talents for this sort of thing
and following, stage by stage, the instruction of a master, enters the
waters and finds he can swim; whereas the schizophrenic, unprepared,
unguided, and ungifted, has fallen or has intentionally plunged, and is
drowning."
I personally think this is a little bit of a simplification of the problem.
ANd I'm not quite sure that LSD trips and schizophrenia are as indentical
as he suggests. But I still found this line of reason very persuasive.
it's all GOOD,
Rick
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