On the mysteries of life. I was reading an interview with someone who lived through the 60's...?

Question

...he was in his 40's during that period from 65 to 69. He's a writer by the name of Norman Mailer. When asked about LSD use in the 60's he explained that it opened a big highway to the mysteries of life and he was totaly against it's use, and never did used it himself. He said this,

"I felt it was too easy. I have always had this very strong, call it a feeling, call it a prejudice, call it a conviction, that the mysteries are not easily available. You have to earn entrance in to them." he goes on..."the people that were taking it were seeming to become less and less as they took it. They got emptier and more vapid"

What are your thoughts reading this? Can you describe an experience in which you earned into a mystery of life?

I ask this because I have used LSD in the past, but to this day I feel denied by "public conciousness" [as I call it], and it's mysteries. I keep thinking that people are seeing something in me, they don't want to learn or just don't like.

Answer 1

I am an old psychedelic warrior who also lived through the sixties (despite the best efforts of my government to get me killed in Viet Nam.) I am of an opinion diametrically opposed to Mailer's. The so called mysteries are hidden in plain sight. Taking LSD, as Aldous Huxley put it, simply cleanses the "doors of perception".

The down-side of that vision is that it is apparently almost impossible to communicate any but the most rudimentary aspects to those who remain caught in the illusions of "conventional wisdom", popular organized religions and generally in thrall to the "dance of the archetypes". One who has experienced gnosis is necessarily set apart. It can't be helped.

Study the ancient wisdoms and pretty much ignore the "authorities". Attend to the numinous and what is real will resonate with your experience. You will suffer from illusions and vain imaginings, but persevere and remember that the Golden Rule is the pole star of the spiritual odessey. As Thomas' Christ put it, "Let him who seeks not cease seeking until he finds...", and later, "What ye seek has come already but ye see it not." (That is NOT Paul of Tarsus' Christ - that "Christ" is, for the most part, a construct of those same Pharisees whose "righteousness" he despised. )

Namaste

Answer 2

Well I disagree a bit with the authors interpretation, but not with the thought per say. I can't really say that LSD opens the path to anything (I never wanted the "easy" fix), but I really doubt it. But I can tell you why I believe what the author said is true about people becoming less not more if they used this kind of path. And since I don't use drugs I will use a different analogy. A parent struggles through life they were born to a poor or lower middle class family. They work very hard and now can provide their child with things they could never have. So that is what they do. The give them all kinds of fancy toys, and later cars, and pay for college, ... And with this you would think the kid would be so grateful, but instead the kid is a spoiled brat? Why? Because in the effort to give the kid everything the parent didn't have they took away some of the most important things they experienced in life. They learned to work hard, to appreciate what life had to offer. They on the other hand taught their kid to expect the world to give them anything they wanted without doing anything. So even if LSD gave you some great insight, you would still lack the desire to make use of it. That desire is spurred on by the fact that you want something really badly not for someone that thinks everything should just flow to them.

Answer 3

Norman Mailer never tried it, and his friends were vapid anyway. The man is more than prejudices he has become the Old. People like him, who have not experienced something, yet pronounce if something is good or bad are the roots of prejudiced. He can take a hike.
LSD teaches nothing, it takes away ones own biases and prejudices and causes one the examine ones internal structures. It is the rebuilding of ones life by starting over with books, education, and being open to varied life experiences that LSD facilitates. The young can be very conservative, and the mind bending properties of 'acid' can cause previously very stubborn people to realize that there is a lot to learn in this life and being hamstrung by you families, or cultural bias is not the way to assimilate difficult, or at odds with, information. One must have a permanent open mind. It's the wide open spaces of learning that comes into view. That's why the stuff is illegal, one doesn't want to 'join up'. One wants to go explore, and a lot of us did, and we're still around. I went to a war, did 14 countries, lived in 5 different states, went to many schools, and am very happy that I did. The single biggest lesson learned is that in this culture, one must always be on guard for the scam. Being a sucker, one born every minute, the con is always on. Being careful and requiring proof is what I came away with. Worth having.

Answer 4

Insight into a mystery of life is not a gift of LSD. You don't just take it and then know something special. You really need to be interested in transcendence under normal circumstances and then maintain the focus of that goal while under the influence of the drug. Even so, there's nothing that suggests that insights under the influence are related in any way to truth, mystery, enlightenment, etc. One of the effects of drugs is an increased sense of significance, but there's no real reason to think that's not just body chemistry at work. The real beauty of drug use is that under certain circumstances you can break inhibitions that might be keeping you in a state of ignorance, but that's not something everyone experiences, so it's likely not an inherent quality in drugs or their usage. Transendence isn't really a very good reason to do drugs, i suspect it's just an excuse even for the timothy leary types. I don't really understand what you mean by public consciousness, but if you mean that sense that others know something you don't know, rest your weary mind because they don't, thinking that's the result of our ego's desires. if you mean occult knowledge, just make something up and see if it applies to any experience because that's what other people do. if you mean enlightenment, read and think and realize these things: you will not know everything, things will still surprise you and make you change your mind, other people sometimes have interesting and thought provoking things to say but ultimately, if you want an authentic journey towards knowledge, you HAVE to come up with it yourself. if you want someone to tell you what to do, then go to church they're the best at it.

Answer 5

Hey, I survived the 60's too and I never used LSD.
We don't have to take a drug to have a glimpse in to the spiritual or mystical side of the universe
I had a near death experience, where I was traveling quickly consumed by the white light.
My biggest glimps of the mystery of life became more intense when my youngest child died. I am more and more amazed at the awsomeness of the universe. I look at the stars at night and wonder what mysteries my son knows and understands now. Losing him, made me understand how complex the universe was. In fact it made me feel like the more I knew, the more I did't know.
My son sends me messeges ocassionally. My alarm clock will go off when it is set at off. And electrition told me it isn't possible. I used to sometimes set two or three alarms in his room because he never wanted to get up in the morning.
It gives me comfort when that alarm goes off. It makes me feel like he is around. I wonder what he knows about the universe now. It is all so amazing that I fear I can't deal with the awsomness of it all.

Answer 6

Have you seen the documentary type movie called Art Mind?
You need to see it. It's about an artist who took LSD and then created works of art from what he felt and experienced. He did a massively large painting of the universal energy grid. This grid is what is suppose to be the power station of the life force. He received thousands of fan mail concerning this painting. People who had taken mind altering plants and drugs saw the same thing! So could you have visualized things that really does exist?
Natives who took hallucinogenic plants saw visions of a serpent, and the serpent spoke of healings to them. Today, when a scientist showed photos of DNA strands to one of these natives, they yelled out that that was the serpent!
So how did natives know of the properties of healing plants without the use of a microscope for all these hundreds of years? Think about it, because these are things we are not suppose to know. These are things kept from us so we can't advance as a species. If our intellect did advance, we could not be easily controlled by governments and religious power influencer's now could we?

Answer 7

I sort of fell into one.

Several years ago I had an unusual experience concerning an uncle, a distant relative who lived over a thousand miles away.

While driving my car I suddenly felt the unmistakable presence of this relative that I hardly even knew. He was more like someone I had heard about than someone I knew. It was very strange; it felt as though I was momentarily lifted right out of my physical body. I seemed to be suspended somehow beyond space and time, bathed in a love so intense It felt like I could have just disappear into it at any moment if It would have let me. It only lasted for a few seconds, but it seemed to last forever at the same time. I realize how crazy this must sound. The experience was so strong that at first I was afraid I was loosing my grip on reality. I finally managed to chalk it up to an over active imagination.

Three days later I got a call from my aunt telling me that this uncle we are talking about had gone into a coma and died the day I had the experience. It felt like ice water had been poured down my back when she told me this. I had lost any real ideas of God or faith and had become somewhat of an atheist. Needless to say this experience caused me to rethink some of the conclusions I had come to.

I feel blessed to now understand that even in our darkest confusion something loves us so much that it went out of its way to assist me and bring me back to a state of absolute certainty about Gods love for us.
During the experience it seemed like there was a vast amount of information that I was somehow allowed access to. One thing that I came away from this experience understanding beyond any shadow of a doubt was that any Idea that God is unhappy with us or would judge or allow us to be punished for any reason is simply impossible.

I can’t explain the love I felt with words. They simply don’t make words big enough or complete enough to do this. The only way I can begin to convey this love to you is to say that there was simply nothing else there. Nothing but love. No hint of judgment, no displeasure of any sort. It is as though God sees us as being as perfect as we were the day we were created. It is only in our confused idea of ourselves that we seem to have changed.

I hope this is of some help to you. Good luck. Love and blessings.

Your brother don

Answer 8

Wow! The is a ceiling to be cracked before you can get through that door. Some do it through meditation, chanting, magical spells or elixir and tonics, herbs or drugs. But once you've walk through that door of the spirit realm, you unleash supernatural forces upon your soul and enter into the battle of all battles. Enlightenment can be yours but at what price?

Answer 9

There is one thing about experiencing an altered state of conciousness that is not to be trusted, it is an altered, therefore unnatural, state. Whatever you see or experience during it is not to be trusted because you did not experience it in a sober state. There is no telling what the drug was doing to your brain's preceptions.

Answer 10

Read the Doors to Perception, if you haven't all ready.