Home > Work > The Politics of Ecstasy
1 " At the sensory level I am the divine receiving station...a two-legged, trembling-tissue, Jodrell Bank radar telescope, dancing, grumbling, sniffling Geiger counter""But there's an added feature. Each generation, I...return. Each time carried onstage, blinking, puking, bawling, bewildered by the bizarre novelty of each new drama, untutored in the language of the new script (did she say her name was Mommie?) "
― Timothy Leary , The Politics of Ecstasy
2 " Emotions are the lowest form of consciousness. Emotional actions are the most contracted, narrowing, dangerous form of behavior.The romantic poetry and fiction of the last 200 years has quite blinded us to the fact that emotions are an active and harmful form of stupor.Any peasant can tell you that. Beware of emotions. Any child can tell you that. Watch out for the emotional person. He is a lurching lunatic.Emotions are caused by biochemical secretions in the body to serve during the state of acute emergency. An emotional person is a blind, crazed maniac. Emotions are addictive and narcotic and stupefacient.Do not trust anyone who comes on emotional.What are the emotions? In a book entitled Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality, written when I was a psychologist, I presented classifications of emotions and detailed descriptions of their moderate and extreme manifestations. Emotions are all based on fear. [...]The emotional person cannot think; he cannot perform any effective game action (except in acts of physical aggression and strength). The emotional person is turned off sensually. His body is a churning robot. [...]The only state in which we can learn, harmonize, grow, merge, join, understand is the absence of emotion. This is called bliss or ecstasy, attained through centering the emotions. [...]Conscious love is not an emotion; it is serene merging with yourself, with other people, with other forms of energy. Love cannot exist in an emotional state. [...]The great kick of the mystic experience, the exultant, ecstatic hit, is the sudden relief from emotional pressure.Did you imagine that there could be emotions in heaven? Emotions are closely tied to ego games. Check your emotions at the door to paradise. "
3 " Close your eyes and listen... and learn that it's the oldest message of love and peace and laughter, and trust in God and don't worry, trust in the future, and don't fight; and trust in your kids, and don't worry because it's all beautiful and right. "
4 " a man--venerable, with a white beard, or on a cross, or as a baby, or a sage seated in the full lotus position. Are these not limiting incarnations, temporary housings, of the great energy process? "
5 " So Harry Haller, the Steppenwolf, had his psychedelic session, discovered instead of one reality, infinite realities within the brain. He is admitted into the select group of those who have passed through the verbal curtain into other modes of consciousness. He has joined the elite brotherhood of the illuminati.And then what... Throughout the ages mystical groups have formed to provide social structure and support for transcendence. The magic circle. Often secret, always persecuted by the sleepwalking majority, these cults move quietly in the background shadows of history. The problem is, of course, the amount of structure surrounding the mystic spark. To much to soon, and you have a priesthood ritual on your hands. And the flame is gone. To little, and the function is lost; the interpersonal unity drifts into gaseous anarchy. The bohemians. The beats. The lonely arrogates. "
6 " Holger Hyden discovers that the brain cells of educated rats contain a third more RNA the those of uneducated rats. University of California psychologists pass on learning from one rat to another by injecting RNA from trained rats.Neurologists are "wiring up" the brains of animals and men and altering consciousness by pressing buttons. Press a button - make him hungry. Press a button - make him horny. Press a button - make him angry. Press a button - make him happy.The psychedelic chemicals flood out of the laboratories. Into the hands of the two familiar groups; those who want to do something to others for power and control; those who want to do something to themselves for fun and love. "