Posted by pancho (148.244.221.166) on January 25, 2002 at 11:38:10:
In Reply to: how old is this argument? posted by Alli on January 24, 2002 at 22:13:27:
I can personally vouch for the wonders of psychedelics...though magic mushrooms were my all time favorite. Took fourteen hits of Owlsley´s best Strawberry Barrels one night, got just where you´d expect...on the corner of Haight and Ashbury...drove around for two daze in a friends Austin Healey, top down, gorgeous ladyfriend...the Bay Area never looked so lovely and weird.
Acid and the rest of them were misunderstood by most people, who have a "cocktail" percption...they figured you pop Drugs like a drink after work, to relax. NEVER. Anyone who dropped with me lived to regret it. I couldn´t sit and listen to music...it was up and to the beach or mountaintops and desserts, bonfires and long rambling walks and talks all through the night till morning when we´d strip and splash in the cold surf and the rest is private.
But the most amazing thing about that whole scene was that...you just stopped doing what was normal. That was the real schock,,,to find yourself just standing still on a street corner and watching...watching...watching, and really seeing for the first time...and how weird it felt to step off what seemed like a giant conveyor belt taking you where IT wanted you to go...and people would stare at you and pretty soon YOU got to feeling strange for doing such a simple thing as pausing and looking around you. And it was like seeing people and what they do for the first time...and it was all so damn silly...and it WAS!
Most people made the mistake of thinking the magic was in the pill...it wasn´t. Like God (for Stella)...it was in you all along, you just had to STOP what you had been told you WANTED to do, and MUST do...and watch...watch...watch. After that first gift...the rest was up to you.
Most people never made that transition...they still believed the magic was in the pill and after that wore off they went looking for more magic in more pills and more pills and then heroin and the rest and they never understood.
You can do it all without the psychedelics...of course...but not if they´ve crapped in your head since birth.