Does LSD make you smart?

fair enough, i was just thinking of big names in LSD. I would have loved to hang out with him for a few days though

 

funny thing is that after Timothy stopped being so vocal about drugs and started to get into virtual reality in later life the scientific community started to take some of his ideas seriously and he gained more respect generally speaking.
But yes, I agree it would have been awesome to spend time at Millbrook with him and Richard Alpert in the early 60's. After that is when Leary started to sound like an idiot IMHO.

 

I knew he got into virtual reality, but i dunno much about his later life. that's cool that he figured things out, cause he is an obviously very intellectual person.

I suppose too much of a good thing got the better of him.

 

The time it took place in had a lot to do with it.
America had gotten fat and complacent after WWII, we were starting to get involved in Vietnam when we had no business being there, (damn French), and the civil rights movement was heating up to name just a few.
Leary just allowed himself to get caught up in the revolutionary mind set that was burgeoning at that time and applied it to the world of psychedelics.

If he would have just continued at Harvard doing the research he had started with psylocibin and incorporated LSD into it all would have gone much different. Instead he made the same mistake we see expressed in these forums daily and thought LSD could save mankind.
It can't, it always comes down to the individual.
Granted psychedelics certainly fanned the flames of a lot of political movements of the time, civil rights being one of the biggest, but it still is just a chemical that causes certain responses and effects in the human nervous system.
No more, no less. It is how the individual incorporates such experiences into their life that is key.

We see in these forums alone both the miraculous life changing stories as well as the tragic life destroying ones. It all comes down to the individual.

 

If you are intelligent, but not aware it may wake you up into it. IT may increase an intelligent person's awareness. For those that are supposedly not as naturally smart it still connects them into their own awareness, gives them new thoughts and feelings and can certainly lead them the right way.

 

I wasnt alive at the time, obviously im 21. But im one of the many youngsters that have always been enamoured with the times of the 60s (good and bad) im not idealist thank you very much haha.

However its my understanding of the times that people were fed up with everything. Leary wanted to damn the torpedoes and create a new way of life. Sort of rejecting traditional science or belief systems and embracing the hippie movement.

Maybe what he did was silly, dangerous, or harmful. But, it definitely matched with my vision of the times. I dunno though, you obviously are a better source on the topic.

 

I think it can lead to people becoming *wiser*, not necessarily smarter!

 

it definitely can be a valuable experience

 

For me taking acid is like being reborn. It's always positive in the long run. Even after a couple of hardcore bad trips.. it opened my mind and made me even more aware and my life much greater.

My creativity increased and my want for material things decreased.

 

I don't disagree with Leary's ideas, just his methodology for expressing them. He did more to get LSD declared illegal and all research stopped than any other person. That is why he was an ass in regards to the psychedelic movement.

I was just a youngster during the sixties, but I still have vivid memories of the evening news and seeing the horror that was going on in Vietnam at the time every night, not to mention all the racial riots all over the country.
I do remember going downtown once with my mother when I was about 7-8, we lived outside of Pittsburgh at the time, and the bus we were on got attacked by a mob of blacks and they started throwing bricks and stuff at the bus. Driver floored it and got us out of there, but the memory is still strong.
I also remember a friend my dad worked with saw his dead son on the evening news two days before he received notification of his death from the army. They weren't supposed to let that happen, but it did more than a few times. That has just got to be fucked up beyond words to experience that.

Today they won't even allow the public to see the caskets coming back to the states. Back then you could see a person get blown to bits on the evening news. The Vietnam war was the televised war.

That time was very tumultuous and violent, but necessary and we wouldn't have a black man in office if it weren't for the activism of the '60's, as well as many other things that often are taken for granted now just 40 years later.

 

yeah i think we are definitely on the same page here then.

I know we are getting a little off topic here, but there is still footage of the war to be found. This isnt American troops, but its still a valuable video for people to see. Ive been posting it around the forums. http://collateralmurder.com/ there is the link if youre interested.

It's so strange to think that the tea partiers are becoming the protesting/"counter culture" of today. I think this is in large part because the draft was not enacted in the United States, so the average citizen isnt being called upon to go to war.

Who knows, I think Iraq is very similar to Vietnam, but big brother learned a lot on how to wage unjust wars in Vietnam and how to deal with the general public/keep them focused on celebrities, sports, and video games.

Just to tie this back into the thread, i think thats where we can use psychedelics like LSD to fight back in a Leary type way. Not just by trying to dose everyone, but by using them to learn about ourselves, and what is important in the world. I know after my few experiences I have decided what is important in the world to me, and that I have no powers of control over other people and their actions.

 

OK thankyou, that was a rather disturbing video. What is the most disturbing is the dialogue of the idiots in the choppers.
That is the type of footage that I saw on the news during Vietnam, only often much more up-close and personal.

 

yeah, ive seen a small amount of Vietnam footage. war was hell, now its business.

 

That video created quite the stir. Really fucked up.

 

yeah, and I cant even imagine all the other shit that is happening over there constantly that doesnt get filmed/leaked