Tantra-Induced Delusional Syndrome ("TIDS")

[American Dream]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 36347.html

Man 'high on LSD' tells police he is Jack Bauer from TV show 24 after break-in


David Stolte allegedly placed frozen crab inside a closet, threw cat litter in the sink and stuffed bank cards in a chocolate muffin during a 'bizarre' break-in

HEATHER SAUL Tuesday 18 February 2014


A Seattle man believed he was a secret agent during a bungled and bizarre burglary undertaken while he was allegedly high on LSD.

Stolte allegedly broke into the apartment of neighbour Derek Doerschel and his fiancé Danielle Green, according to Kiro 7, and left the place in a state of disorder.

The couple say they found a frozen crab in the closet, cat litter in the sink, clothes in the bathtub and their apartment covered in mess.

All of Mr Doerschel's bank cards had been removed from his wallet and stuffed into a chocolate muffin, and the peep hole had been removed from the door.

"There was just weird, crazy stuff everywhere" Mr Doerschel said. "The crab from the freezer was just sitting right here on the blanket on the bike."

Stolte was then spotted shortly after the incident in an alley near to the apartment, according to Kiro.



When Mr Doerschel approached him, Stolte reportedly chucked the peephole at him, before telling police who arrived at the scene that he was the counter-terrorism agent Bauer from the popular Fox TV series.

Police said he admitted to having taken the powerful hallucinogenic drug LSD.

Ria Quinton, Stolte's mother, said her son is receiving medication for bipolar disorder and is on a waiting list for therapy.

"It's progressively getting worse," she said, but stressed that while he is "capable of damaging property", he would not hurt anyone else.

Although Stolte has no previous criminal convictions, police have allegedly contacted him before for running around outside naked and climbing on roofs in Seattle centre.

He has been arrested and charged with residential burglary.

[American Dream]

MARXIST MINSTRELS: THE BEATLES WANT TO SEXUALLY HYPNOTIZE YOU INTO COMMUNISM!



If you’re like me, you can’t resist a good piece of moral panic red-baiting propaganda, especially when it’s directed at a social phenomenon that seems so chaste by today’s standards. As luck might have it, I recently came across the 1974 opus, The Marxist Minstrels: A Handbook on Communist Subversion of Music, by the good Reverend David A. Noebel.

Evangelical tracts denouncing rock ‘n’ roll, especially as related to either homosexuality or “race mixing,” aren’t hard to find if you scour antique shops in middle America, but as something of a connoisseur of the genre, I have yet to find a piece of literature that so succinctly combines the collective fears of old, white, crazy, Christian dudes. David Noebel, ordained in 1961, started his illustrious career with the above pamphlet, Communism, Hypnotism, and The Beatles. He saw the rise of Beatlemania as the result of Communist indoctrination via hypnosis (yup, just like the title), a thesis he developed more thoroughly in his 1964 book, Rhythm, Riots, and Revolution: An Analysis of the Communist Use of Music, the Communist Master Music Plan. The book transitioned from The Beatles to folk artists, focusing on Bob Dylan, his colleagues, and their earlier influences. This is at least slightly more understandable, when one considers the political leanings of the folk movement, frequently with explicit anti-racist, pro-labor lyrics.

The Marxist Minstrels: A Handbook on Communist Subversion of Music however, synthesizes all of his previous work, citing children’s records, folk, and rock ‘n’ roll as being part and parcel to some elaborate integrationist, free-love, Communist conspiracy. As a rock ‘n’ roll propaganda collector, I’m used to trudging through a lot of this stuff, and the majority of it is incoherent ramblings—the sort of thing you’d read in a madman’s personal manifesto. Noebel is compelling because he’s intelligent, coherent, and well-researched, despite being absolutely paranoid and utterly mad. Aside from some inconsistent use of the Oxford Comma, he has a clear, if discursive thesis: rock ‘n’ roll is turning kids into gay, Communist, miscegenators.

Some of his “evidence” is fascinating. For example, Alan Freed’s “payola scandal”—who was paying him to play all those rock ‘n’ roll records to unsuspecting teenagers? Communist record companies invade the airwaves by bribery, infecting the youth with music that is ““un-Christian, mentally unsettling, revolutionary and a medium for promiscuity.” He cites psychological studies, sociological statistics, numerology, etc. to scientifically “prove” the moral degradation incited by popular music, causing everything from sky-rocketing “illegitimate” birth rates to sexual rioting. Lots of sexual rioting. The appendices are incredibly dense and well-cited.

What follows his strange assessment of rock ‘n’ roll is an (actually, semi-accurate) account of the American Left, including some background of the American Communist Party and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Then of course, Noebel posits that folk artists were inspiring the youth to instigate a race war. He believed acoustic musicians like Malvina Reynolds (her “Little Boxes” is the theme music to Weeds) and Pete Seeger were instructing white students to join with “radical groups of Negro racists” so that they might revolt and achieve racial dominance in America. The weirdest part of all this is that by 1974, integration was (at least, on paper) complete. The folk artists who were most explicitly leftist or Communist weren’t a particular focus of pop culture, The Beatles had already long been broken up, and he never quite explains how these two very distinct fanbases are somehow connected (except that they’re obviously both very Communist). One can only imagine the lovely psychosis that The MC5 would have brought him.

Noebel is still living today, and I recommend checking out his extensive collection of YouTube videos and blog, if you’re looking for a laugh. These days, he’s much more on the “Obama’s a Socialist” train and decrying “Warmism” (Noebel’s evocative name for climate change) than he is into denouncing rock ‘n’ roll. Hell, even Paul Ryan loves Rage Against the Machine. Still, his older words bring an odd comfort, when we read his treatise on rock ‘n’ roll, comparing it to a children’s record that supposedly contained subliminal messages only audible when the record is played in reverse; “the noise that many of our youth call music is analogous to the story tape played backwards. It is invigorating, vulgarizing, and orgiastic. It is destroying our youth’s ability to relax, reflect, study, pray, and meditate, and is in fact preparing them for riot, civil disobedience, and revolution.” Dear god, I hope so.

"Communism, Hypnotism and The Beatles are all instruments of (...wait for it...) THE DEVIL. Evil incarnate! Satan! Lucifer! Beelzebub! The Beast! There are subliminal messages in rock music, especially in the music of the Beatles. Play this one backwards...hear it? "Paul is dead! Paul is dead!" With their atrocious long hair, loose morals and hidden messages, the Beatles are turning God fearing clean cut American youth into Godless communists! It's true: they do it with mind control. And once our best and brightest minds have been taken over, who knows what Satan might bid them do? One moment our children are homecoming queens, football players, All-American types fixing meatloaf for the church potluck, and the next thing you know, they are eating garbage with their hands. Communally! Like communists! And even worse, the garbage will be...gasp...VEGETARIAN."

http://www.flashbackbooks.com/

[American Dream]

[American Dream]

Guru hit by sex-slave suit

Stories of drugs, orgies on Free John's Fiji isle

San Francisco Examiner/April 3, 1985

By Don Lattin

A lawsuit by a former San Francisco Symphony flutist says she was forced into sex orgies during her seven years as a disciple of American guru Da Free John in California and on a tropical isle in Fiji.

Former top-level members of the sect have also told The Examiner that the guru has nine wives, including a Playboy centerfold model, and that his inner circle privately partook in drunken sex orgies while publicly preaching the value of a meditative, highly disciplined lifestyle.

The $5 million suit filed in Marin County Superior Court by Beverly O'Mahony, former wife of one of Da Free John's top aides, alleges false imprisonment, sexual abuse, assault, brainwashing, involuntary servitude, and clergy malpractice.

Da Free John, named Franklin Jones at birth and formerly known as Bubba Free John, is the spiritual leader of a 13-year-old religious sect called the Johannine Daist Communion. JDC is headquartered in San Rafael, where it operates the Dawn Horse Bookstore.

Da Free John's 1,100 devotees are concentrated in Marin County, on an 800-acre ranch in Lake County, at a retreat center in Hawaii and on a 1,800-acre Fijian island purchased from actor Raymond Burr in September 1983.

Beverly O'Mahony, the estranged wife of JDC President Brian O'Mahony, said in an amended complaint filed yesterday that she was "compelled, over a prolonged period of time, to accept physical and sexual abuses, confinement, degrading acts, inadequate diet and the surrendering of her children" to Free John and other sect leaders.

Da Free John, 45, and his followers "were able through subtle sophisticated suggestion, trust and coercion to control her every thought and move," the lawsuit states.

Beverly O'Mahony said she was "forced to consume alcohol...and was required to partake in various sexual acts commanded by "the Master," defendant Franklin Jones."

Beverly O'Mahony, who belonged to the sect from 1976 to 1984, said the incidents took place in both California and Fiji. She married Brian O'Mahony in April 1977.

Brian O'Mahony, who joined the sect in 1975 and is one of nine defendants named in the 33-page complaint, denied the allegations yesterday in an interview with The Examiner. Da Free John is living a "reclusive" life on their Fijian isle of Naitauba, O'Mahoney said, and was unavailable to respond.

"Da Free John is not a public figure," O'Mahony said. "He lives a secluded and contemplative life (and) restricts his activity to writing and living a life of contemplation and prayer."

Several top-level defectors have told The Examiner, however, that the guru and his inner circle privately partook in drunken sex orgies while publicly preaching the value of a meditative, highly disciplined lifestyle.

Brian O'Mahony conceded the guru's rules were significantly relaxed when the group "experimented with various lifestyles" between 1974 and 1976.

"We freely used alcohol and cigarettes during particular periods of the year when we would have quite a lot of parties," Brian O'Mahony said. "There was a fairly liberal attitude toward sex. ...We were a lot looser then than we are now."

Marijuana was used by some members "for a brief period in 1976," he said, adding that "since that time we've had very strict rules."

According to former devotee Mark Miller, however, the wild parties and extravagant lifestyles among the leaders were continuing when he left the sect two years ago, in 1983.

"We were told that the books are for the public, but when you're with Bubba, it's different," said Miller. "It's all done under the guise of spiritual teaching."

Miller, now a 28-year-old biochemistry student at the University of California at Berkeley, said he and his girlfriend, Julie Anderson, joined the group in 1976. His girlfriend, then 19, had just appeared as "Playmate of the Month," in the September 1976 issue of Playboy magazine under the name Whitney Kane.

Anderson has stayed in the sect and is now one of nine wives living in Fiji with Da Free John, Miller said.

Asked about the guru's alleged polygamy, Brian O'Mahony said, "We choose not to make a public comment on his private life."

Beverly O'Mahony's suit also alleged that her husband "violently struck" her "Many times over a prolonged period of time, concluding in June 1984." Divorce proceedings are under way.

Her husband conceded that he "cuffed" his wife a half-dozen times "in the first couple years of our marriage."

"It wasn't a very heavy slap," he said. "I absolutely deny that I beat her."

Miller, who once served as the director of the sect's Laughing Man Institute, said Beverly O'Mahony's account "is just one example of abusive behavior among years of abusive behavior."

"People are brainwashed into believing that these events occur as the guru's way of teaching," he said. "With that logic, anything goes."

Another former high-ranking JDC official, who left the group in late 1983 and asked that his named not be used, agreed with Miller.

"People who get abused are longstanding members, especially women," he said. "People come to Fiji to do the work, from laundry to grounds work, from security guards to construction. Some of the women who come with them, or come by themselves, get picked off by Jones, especially if they're attractive.

"They get paid by being allowed to be around the teacher. That's the greatest wealth and status you can achieve in a spiritual community."

Beverly O'Mahony's suit said she was beaten "with the support and backing" of other communal members of her Da Free John household. She alleges that, under the teachings of the guru, women in the commune were regarded as "servant or slave, compelled to follow the opinions or decisions of the men."

The damages she seeks are based, in part, on being "induced to forgo a career as a promising musician" and having "lost eight years of her life."

Josh Baran, the founder of Berkeley counseling center that helps those leaving religious cults, said he has dealt with around 50 "profoundly disillusioned" former devotees of Da Free John.

"Their principal focus is devotion to him as God incarnate," said Baran. "It creates followers who are like dependent children."

Baran said some of Da Free John's early books were incisive critiques of other East-meets-West religious movements. Over the years, however, "it became more and more based on him."

"They have the right to their beliefs, but when any man proclaims his Godhood, the possible excesses of abuses of power are enormous -- especially when they isolate themselves on an island in the middle of the ocean. ...We saw that in Jonestown," Baran said.

Brian O'Mahony said many people, including members of the church, misunderstand Da Free John's references to his divine nature.

"He is not God exclusively, but represents someone who has realized God," he said. Brian O'Mahony added that members of the group "profoundly respect" Da Free John and "revere him as a great spiritual teacher and honor him as such."

Brian O'Mahony said an Australian businessman, whom he wouldn't name, contributed the $2.1 million to buy the island, which contains a cattle and coconut farm, 16 staff houses, a school, a church and a dairy, in addition to Raymond Burr's previous home.

About 40 devotees live on the island, O'Mahony said, along with about 75 Fijians.

Most of the guru's followers live in rented communal homes in Marin County and on the sect's spread in Lake County. There are pockets of followers in New York, Europe, Australia and Hawaii, where Da Free John lived before the Fijian island was purchased.

JDC is a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation. Its other divisions include the Crazy Wisdom Fellowship, the Free Communion Church, the Advaitayana Buddhist Order and the Free Renunciate Order.

It has published 40 of Da Free John's books, along with a monthly magazine called "Crazy Wisdom" and a quarterly publication called "Laughing Man Magazine."

The lawsuit, filed by Sausalito attorney David Cunningham, alleges that JDC's non-profit corporate status is "a mere sham and shell organized as the alter ego of the individual defendant, Franklin Jones, for his personal benefit and advantage."

Brian O'Mahony also denied that allegation. "Da Free John lives in a one-bedroom beach cottage," he said. "He lives a very simple lifestyle."

He characterized his estranged wife's lawsuit as an "attempt to extend our divorce proceedings to the institution and the leadership of the church."

Other defendants named are sect members William and Patrician Tsiknas and Lynn Closser, who are alleged to have "formed a common plan and scheme to unlawfully hold and imprison" Beverly O'Mahony on the Fijian island for eight days in March 1984.

Brian O'Mahony, who said he was responding to the allegations for all the defendants, said his wife "could have left by boat at any time."

Also named in the suit are Vincent Goddard, Larry Hastings and John Andrews, who along with Brian O'Mahony are named as members of the JDC board of directors. They are accused of breach of directors fiduciary duty.

Lastly, the suit accuses Da Free John, a native of New York and former student of the late Swami Muktananda Paramhansa, of "clergy malpractice."

It states that the guru's writings "are directed at people seeking a new awareness or enlightenment, and geared to initiate an indoctrination" into the sect.

Once they are intitiated, the suit states, "the trap is sprung and ideological remodeling or thought reform begins to take place."

Brian O'Mahony said the group doesn't engage in any proselytizing. "We have never sought publicity," he said. "We have found that the more private we are, it serves our way of life."

[American Dream]

Overcoming Ego

Seven steps for overcoming ego’s hold on you

1. Stop being offended

2. Let go of your need to win

3. Let go of your need to be right

4. Let go of your need to be superior

5. Let go of your need to have more

6. Let go of identifying yourself on the basis of your achievements

7. Let go of your reputation

Ego is the source of a lot of conflict and dissension because it pushes you in the direction of making other people wrong.

http://dirrtyflowerchild.tumblr.com/pos ... coming-ego

[American Dream]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/24/ ... nd-demons/

Of Drugs and Demons

by DAVID MACARAY

Take these two divergent scenarios. In Scenario A, we have an Hispanic or African-American needle addict, who lives in a cheap flophouse in Los Angeles, and has been addicted to drugs most of his adult life. For brevity sake, we shall call him “Juan.” If a carload of college-educated, middle-class white people were to cruise Skid Row, and see Juan crouched in an alley, shooting up heroin, what would they say?

Again, these are educated white people, so they would definitely have an opinion. They might say, “Oh, my God, look at that guy.” Or: “Holy Christ! Let’s get out of here!” Or: “Why aren’t there any police around?” Or, if from the Westside: “Wow, this neighborhood has really deteriorated.” But one thing is certain: There’s not a chance in hell anyone in that car is going to allude to Juan’s existential crisis or “personal demons.”

In Scenario B, we have a famous actor, regarded not only as a movie star, but as a movie “artist,” who makes lots of money and lives in Manhattan. He has been addicted to drugs most of his adult life. We shall call him “Philip Seymour Hoffman.” If people were to see (or hear of) Hoffman injecting himself with heroin, or nodding off in a opiate-induced stupor, they would instantly (and empathetically) speculate about the “personal demons” this man must be fighting.

In short, if you’re a rich, successful artist who happens to be a dope fiend, people will invest your addiction with all sorts of existential import, as if the chemistry and addictive capacity of a celebrity’s brain were qualitatively different from those of a street person’s brain. If you’re Phil Hoffman, your addiction comes equipped with its own narrative, and it’s a tale of interior anguish and unimaginable demons. But if you’re Juan, you’re a congenital fuck-up who, more or less, just likes to get stoned.

Some years ago, as a labor union rep, I took a class dealing with the basic elements of substance addiction. Although the class wasn’t taught by a medical doctor or chemistry professor, the instructor (a clinical psychologist) did discuss the role of dopamine, neurotransmitters, and the brain’s “pleasure centers.” What really struck me were her observations regarding “individual differences in physiology.”

Using alcohol as the potentially addictive substance, she noted that if you took twenty (20) random men and women, and had each of them consume six (6) shots of vodka, you would get two sets of reactions, one “common,” and one individually “different.” As for the common set, because they are all human beings and alcohol has a “common” effect on human physiology, they would all be legally intoxicated. Some would be “drunker” than others, but they would all be drunk.

But it was the individual differences that were disturbing. Of the twenty people, there would be maybe two or three (she offered no specific percentage) who not only felt intense pleasure at being under the influence of alcohol, but who looked forward to recapture that feeling. And if they seek to recapture it (“chase the high”) enough times, they will begin to actually alter their brain chemistry, turning a quest for pleasure into a debilitating physical illness.

There were no personal demons in her presentation. Indeed, the only “demons” that Juan and Phil Hoffman could be said to be fighting were the biological demons of brain chemistry, the demons that, after showing these two wildly disparate men how amazingly good it felt to get high, caused them to want to stay high for the rest of their lives—Phil in the swanky confines of Manhattan, Juan on the mean streets of LA.

I knew a woman, the wife of a friend, who had never taken so much as one drink of alcohol—not a single beer, not a single glass of wine. Her reason? Because alcoholism ran in her family, she feared that she was already one of those “two or three” people waiting to become addicted and have her life ruined, and didn’t want to take that chance.

David Macaray is an LA playwright and author (“It’s Never Been Easy: Essays on Modern Labor”).

[American Dream]

http://drgabormate.com/preview/in-the-r ... roduction/

In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts – Introduction

Hungry Ghosts: The Realm of Addiction


Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

The mandala, the Buddhist Wheel of Life, revolves through six realms. Each realm is populated by characters representing aspects of human existence—our various ways of being. In the Beast Realm we are driven by basic survival instincts and appetites such as physical hunger and sexuality, what Freud called the Id. The denizens of the Hell Realm are trapped in states of unbearable rage and anxiety. In the God Realm we transcend our troubles and our egos through sensual, aesthetic or religious experience, but only temporarily and in ignorance of spiritual truth. Even this enviable state is tinged with loss and suffering.

The inhabitants of the Hungry Ghost Realm are depicted as creatures with scrawny necks, small mouths, emaciated limbs and large, bloated, empty bellies. This is the domain of addiction, where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment. The aching emptiness is perpetual because the substances, objects or pursuits we hope will soothe it are not what we really need. We don’t know what we need, and so long as we stay in the hungry ghost mode, we’ll never know. We haunt our lives without being fully present.

Some people dwell much of their lives in one realm or another. Many of us move back and forth between them, perhaps through all of them in the course of a single day.

My medical work with drug addicts in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has given me a unique opportunity to know human beings who spend almost all their time as hungry ghosts. It’s their attempt, I believe, to escape the Hell Realm of overwhelming fear, rage and despair. The painful longing in their hearts reflects something of the emptiness that may also be experienced by people with apparently happier lives. Those whom we dismiss as “junkies” are not creatures from a different world, only men and women mired at the extreme end of a continuum on which, here or there, all of us might well locate ourselves. I can personally attest to that. “You slink around your life with a hungry look,” someone close once said to me. Facing the harmful compulsions of my patients, I have had to encounter my own.

No society can understand itself without looking at its shadow side. I believe there is one addiction process, whether it is manifested in the lethal substance dependencies of my Downtown Eastside patients; the frantic self-soothing of overeaters or shopaholics; the obsessions of gamblers, sexaholics and compulsive Internet users; or the socially acceptable and even admired behaviours of the workaholic. Drug addicts are often dismissed and discounted as unworthy of empathy and respect. In telling their stories my intent is twofold: to help their voices to be heard and to shed light on the origins and nature of their ill-fated struggle to overcome suffering through substance abuse. They have much in common with the society that ostracizes them. If they seem to have chosen a path to nowhere, they still have much to teach the rest of us. In the dark mirror of their lives, we can trace outlines of our own.

There is a host of questions to be considered. Among them:

What are the causes of addictions?
What is the nature of the addiction-prone personality?
What happens physiologically in the brains of addicted people?
How much choice does the addict really have?
Why is the “War on Drugs” a failure and what might be a humane, evidence-based approach to the treatment of severe drug addiction?
What are some of the paths for redeeming addicted minds not dependent on powerful substances—that is, how do we approach the healing of the many behaviour addictions fostered by our culture?

The narrative passages in this book are based on my experience as a medical doctor in Vancouver’s drug ghetto and on extensive interviews with my patients—more than I could cite. Many of them volunteered in the generous hope that their life histories might be of assistance to others who struggle with addiction problems or that they could help enlighten society regarding the experience of addiction. I also present information, reflections and insights distilled from many other sources, including my own addictive patterns. And finally, I provide a synthesis of what we can learn from the research literature on addiction and the development of the human brain and personality.

Although the closing chapters offer thoughts and suggestions concerning the healing of the addicted mind, this book is not a prescription. I can say only what I have learned as a person and describe what I have seen and understood as a physician. Not every story has a happy ending, as the reader will find out, but the discoveries of science, the teachings of the heart and the revelations of the soul all assure us that no human being is ever beyond redemption. The possibility of renewal exists so long as life exists. How to support that possibility in others and in ourselves is the ultimate question.

I dedicate this work to all my fellow hungry ghosts, be they inner-city street dwellers with HIV, inmates of prisons or their more fortunate counterparts with homes, families, jobs and successful careers. May we all find peace.

[American Dream]

[American Dream]

Gonkar Gyatsom “Dissecting Buddha” (2013)

A mass of stickers and cut collage forms the outline of the Buddha at the moment of enlightenment. Airplanes, rockets, and other vehicles travel out through the space of his massive halo. From a purely Buddhist standpoint, the myriad surrounding figures could be referencing the attack of Mara, who rules over the realm of illusion and the endless cycle of rebirth. At the moment of enlightenment, it was Mara who sent his army to stop the Buddha by tempting him with material desires, lust, and passions, all of which ultimately took the form of violence. The Buddha himself is made up of a bright, textually dense mass of imagery that in its entirety defies comprehension, but one is seductively drawn in all the same and rewarded with a rich tapestry of familiar and appealing forms as well as a collage of whimsical texts and captions questioning the political status quo: a swarm of minutiae that demands (and deserves) the viewer’s careful attention but in the process rapidly distracts from the whole. This is the key to Gyatso’s making us experience losing sight of the Buddha amid the irrelevant but glittering fragments of mass-produced consumer media.

[American Dream]

James Oroc neglects to mention Sasha Shulgin's alleged role in secretly eleasing the full formula for DOM (aka STP) to Owsley and company, resulting in the "Peace Pills" which so many freaked out on with mind bending overdoses:


The Second Psychedelic Revolution Part Two: Alexander ‘Sasha’ Shulgin, The Psychedelic Godfather

by James Oroc

At a testimonial dinner for the Shulgins in 2010 at the MAPS conference in San Jose, CA, the underground chemist Nick Sand (who had only recently been released from jail), and who (along with Tim Scully, who was Owsley’s chemist) is often credited with the ‘invention’ of Orange Sunshine LSD, revealed that in 1966, after LSD had been made illegal in California thanks to the newly elected Governor Ronald Reagan, the precursors required for creating LSD under the methods of the day dried up, and for a short time LSD actually disappeared and much like would happen some twenty four years later in 2000, it appeared as if there could be ‘an End to Acid’.

According to the historical record, Sand and Scully then started manufacturing DOM (street name STP), an extraordinarily powerful psychedelic phenethylamine invented by Shulgin in 1964. Five thousand ‘doses’ of this new compound were given away at the first Human Be-In in San Francisco (Jan 14th, 1967) in an effort to promote the new drug as a ‘replacement’ to LSD, but unfortunately they (Sand and Scully) had apparently developed a tolerance to DOM, and reputedly made the dosages too high. This combined with the fact that the onset of DOM was much slower than LSD, with many people reportedly making the mistake of taking a second hit after an hour or so with little effect, caused numerous users to overdose and sent scores of ‘tripping hippies’ to the city’s emergency rooms. The press then further demonized LSD by reporting that this was the compound responsible.

Perhaps due to the aftermath of the Human Be-In debacle, Nick Sand and Tim Scully were then given a formula for a new method of manufacturing LSD that got around the constraints of the old method; they were told that it was from a ‘friend’, an ally who believed in what they were doing, but couldn’t be revealed at that time. At the MAPS testimonial dinner for the Shulgins in 2010, in a startling revelation whose importance somewhat slipped by most of the gathered audience and as far as I know has never been reported, Nick Sand identified that mysterious ‘friend’ as Sasha.

Assuming this is true—and obviously Nick Sand would have no reason to make up a story like that—this means that along with popularizing MDMA, and inventing literally hundreds of psychedelic and empathogenic compounds that have surfaced with increasing regularity in the 21st century, Alexander Shulgin was also the inventor of Orange Sunshine LSD, which was by far the most commonly manufactured LSD from the late 1960’s onward (Orange Sunshine is estimated to have been over 75% of the worlds LSD). Or to put it another way, while Albert Hoffman invented LSD, it can now be said that it was thanks to Sasha (and the bravery of Nick Sand, Tim Scully, and the Brotherhood of Eternal Love) that it was available from 1967 on!

[American Dream]

http://earthrites.tumblr.com/post/77049252481

[American Dream]

http://gorightly.wordpress.com/2010/04/ ... ex-images/

More great alien sex images

[American Dream]

[American Dream]

PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA

http://bit.ly/BeautyandTruthLab

On one epiphanic occasion, an eight-lane highway at rush hour turned into a temporary Beauty and Truth Lab. It was just a few days after my return from the Burning Man festival where the dream of the Lab had hatched. I was driving on 101, the artery that bisects Marin County.

As I cruised at 65 mph between Larkspur and Corte Madera, a blonde in a Jaguar convertible with the top down passed me on the right. Perhaps distracted by the chat she was enjoying on her cell phone, she suddenly zipped in front of me. After hitting my brakes to avoid rear-ending her, I honked my horn to express my annoyance. In response, she careened over to the left lane, then slowed down and waited for me to catch up. I avoided eye contact at first, but finally looked over. Quaking with agitation, she was flashing me a middle-finger salute and a mad face as fierce as a Tibetan demon. Her car was veering closer to mine. Might she actually crash into me on purpose?

I was quaking with agitation myself. My adrenaline surged, threatening to explode to mushroom cloud proportions. Curses were rising from my gut to throat. At the same time, I resisted it all. I didn't want to be possessed by stupid rage because of the carelessness of a bad driver. Such a trivial eruption of my fight-or-flight instinct was against my religion.

Then a miracle happened. As if through divine intervention, without any prompting from my will, fond memories of Burning Man surged into my imagination. I was back there on the ancient lake bed with my stack of baby wipes, intimately conversing with the Goddess of the sun. I could hear the thump of music in the distance and feel the desert breeze on my cheeks.

The stabbing rage that had filled my abdomen dissipated. In its place, a whirlpool of warmth spiraled around my heart. It was a luxurious, sensual feeling, almost erotic. Then came a prick like a needle popping a water balloon, followed by a gush of sweet release. A heart orgasm? I was suffused with a sense of well-being. All was right with the world, and I felt a cheerful affection for everything, even the mad woman in the Jaguar.

As urgent as my wrath had been just a few moments before, so now was my tenderness. I felt triumphant. For the first time in my life, I had conquered an adrenaline rush of anger as it was happening. In comparable situations in the past, I had always needed a cooling-off period before I could soften my heart.
It was as if I had succeeded at a difficult game that required all my macho prowess, only the prowess in this case was demonstrated through love instead of strength and cleverness.

I looked over at the crazed monster in the car that was on the verge of sideswiping mine. She was still glaring at me as if transfixed. Her demeanor had not lost any of its obscene savagery. Had she even glanced at the road in front of her recently?
I rolled down my window and leaned my head out. Less than ten feet now separated our faces. She looked as if she were about to leap out of her seat and pounce on me. Just in time, I smiled and blew her three kisses. Then, summoning my ample powers of vocal projection, I boomed out the words, half-singing, "I love you. I have always loved you. And I will love you until the end of time." I put my hands together in the gesture of prayer, using my knees to steady the steering wheel, and bowed my head in her direction.

I was utterly sincere. There was not a speck of sarcasm or irony in the mix. At that moment, I was a bodhisattva linked directly to the undulating love of the Goddess. I had no doubt that a radiant beam of divine sweetness was emanating from me, bathing the mad woman in a palpable ray of lusty compassion. She had to be feeling it.

There was one more gift I longed to deliver: the talisman I kept on my dashboard. It was a spectacular piece, meticulously constructed by my friend Calley, who was an adept in a Qabalistic mystery school as well as an expert in origami, the Japanese art of paper-folding. She had taken eight one hundred-dollar bills -- real legal tender -- and folded them into the shape of an eight-pointed star. Golden threads, small rubies, fragments of a meteorite, and the 400 million-year-old fossilized penis of a daddy longlegs were the other essential elements. Everything was mounted on a circular disk of gold, six inches in diameter.

I treasured the piece. Calley had made it for me at a time in my life when I was purging myself of old, ingrained desires that were no longer in harmony with my evolving ideals. The kind of fame that I had coveted in my early years of being a rock musician, for instance, no longer interested me. Nor did my former fascination with having an endless variety of sexual partners. Calley invoked her sophisticated understanding of Qabalistic and astrological principles to design the talisman so that it would supercharge my ability to change my life in accordance with my will.

This was the gift I wanted to bequeath to my former adversary, Jaguar Woman. Her convertible top was down and our cars were nearly touching, so the risk of missing my target was small. Taking my beloved power object in my right hand, I reached out the window and flung it. She swerved away but not out of range. It fell into the front seat of her car.

I returned my gaze to the road ahead, checking to see if the divine guidance that had been pouring through me had extended to keeping my car on track. It had. A few seconds later, I returned my gaze to Jaguar Woman. She was holding up the talisman as she stared at me. Her face had turned innocent and awed, almost reverent, as if she had seen the Ghost of Christmas Future arm-in-arm with a long-lost loved one. I guessed that her demons had withdrawn.

After that her car slowed, quickly falling behind my pace. In my rearview mirror, I observed her making her way to the far right lane. She drove carefully, using her turn signal. She got off at the next exit.

In the midst of my exuberant oneness with all of creation, a tinge of sadness crept in. I mused on how I'd never know if my victory over the angry devil within me would produce any lasting effect on Jaguar Woman. Would she fully appreciate the love I invoked in response to her attack? If nothing else, surely the gift of the talisman would change her life forever, right?

As I sped toward the Golden Gate Bridge, I remembered a quote I'd once heard attributed to basketball coach John Wooden: "You can't have a perfect day without doing something for someone who'll never be able to repay you." I mused on the fact that while this was a relatively selfless approach to giving gifts, it was still imperfect: Maybe the recipient of your largesse couldn't literally pay you back, but he or she could think wonderful thoughts about you; your ego would benefit. No, a more ultimate expression of generosity, an improvement on Wooden's formulation, would be to give anonymously to someone who couldn't repay you.

Which was what I had just done. Rather than bemoaning the fact that I'd never know whether or how Jaguar Woman would benefit from my gift, I realized I should celebrate.

At this point in my impromptu Beauty and Truth Lab experiment, I had settled into full meditation mode. Though I was barreling along a crowded freeway at high velocity, my brain was enjoying an expansive perspective made possible by an abundance of alpha waves. I embodied the definition of meditation offered by the Hindu sage Patanjali: "an unbroken flow of knowledge on a particular object."

My stream of consciousness flowed on to the next clue, advice I'd once heard articulated by the Dalai Lama. He said you should work as hard as you can to fight for justice and reduce suffering -- even as you accept with equanimity that all of your efforts may come to absolutely nothing in the end. My translation: Give your best beauty and live your highest truth without expecting any rewards.

My unbroken flow of knowledge glided on to the next thought, this one planted in me by the author Rachel Pollack. "We cannot predict the results of healing, either our own or the world around us," she said. "We need to act for the sake of a redemption that will be a mystery until it unfolds before us."

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(excerpted from the revised and expanded edition of Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia)

[American Dream]

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