Neuro evolution will go on! classless Kulla on Timothy Leary’s model of the nervous system and its past and future development. A psychology that does without the concept of neurosis? An evolution in which for the nervous system the best is still to come? Leary is wrongly remembered merely as the “LSD pope”. This talk will introduce his scientific work and some of his philosophical models. http://www.classless.org/2009/12/23/the-future-c-base-dec-29-2009/ http://www.classless.org/2010/01/09/nachlese-zu-the-future-c-base/

1. classless Kulla
Neuro evolution will go on!
Timothy Leary's model of the nervous system
and its past and future development

2. Predecessors
Traditional:
ca. 15th century, Indus valley, Northern Italy
water – cream – cheese – worms – humans – gods
Scientific:
Alfred Russell Wallace, 19th century theory of evolution,
but: „designed“ spiritual capacities

3. Leary's Participant Psychology
Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality, 1956
focus on relations, social „games“
understanding behavior by environment & circumstances
The Existential Transaction, 1957
real-life situations, personal involvement
patient and psychologist form research group

4. Psilocybin
"...mentally travelled back through the aeons..."
putting things into perspective
patient and psychologist take the same „medicine“
(quotes from „I Have America Surrounded“ by John Higgs)

5. Leary's approach before LSD
instead of narrowing down human psychology to a
certain role considered obligatory for everyone in
society:
a) relativize this: different games with different rules
and for different reasons
b) expand horizon & put things into perspective ( by
administering psychedelic mushrooms)

6. The difference
Psilocybin
4 to 5 hours
agonist of serotonin
alters (sense of) reality
LSD
12 to 16 hours
agonist of serotonin and dopamin
alters (sense of) reality
directly connects nervous system & emotions to altered reality

7. The Marsh Chapel experiment

8. The right tool for the job
LSD combined both of Leary's requirements for
his new approach in psychological research:
it created the common ground like psilocybin
(widening the perspective, individual self-
awareness of one's place in evolution)
also interrelated this with the functioning of the
own nervous system & the own emotions

9. Social impact of LSD
did not cause „The 60s“
„lit a fire“ under new ideas & movements
influenced many key figures of „The 60s“
anticipation of the desired world
encouragement to bring it about

10. Leary hysteria

11. Neuro evolution
human nervous system as ensemble of up to 8
autonomous neural circuits
circuits develop both over the course of natural
evolution and during each individual's life
increase complexity of interaction with the outside
world and with oneself

12. The terrestial circuits
1) bio-survival
pleasure – anxiety, attraction – distraction
early animals, early infant life, Freud's „oral phase“
2) territorial
domination – submission, attack – retreat
predators, Freud's „anal phase“
3) symbolic
tools, language, negotiation
apes, ants, humans
4) socio-sexual
rules and (sexual) taboos, social order
animals in tribes and states

13. The extra-terrestial circuits
5) neuro-somatic
intensity and quality, transcending the first 4 circuits
only some humans but fast growing number
THC, „getting high“
6) metaprogramming
willful recombination and reimprinting of all circuits
LSD, „taking a trip“
7/8) neurogenetic, neuroatomic, quantum
super-purpose, cosmic reunion, „Starseed“
„returning home“

14. Ash Ra Tempel & Timothy Leary
„Seven Up“
A-Side: „Space“
„Downtown“

15. Ash Ra Tempel & Timothy Leary
„Seven Up“
A-Side: „Space“
„Power Drive“

16. Ash Ra Tempel & Timothy Leary
„Seven Up“
A-Side: „Space“
„Right Hand Lover“

17. Ash Ra Tempel & Timothy Leary
„Seven Up“
B-Side: „Time“

18. Stoned Ape Theories
"...only 0.01 per cent of the original dose enters the brain, where it
remains for only 20 minutes. (...) drug itself seems to have left the
brain before the psychological effects start.“ (Lee/Shlain: Acid
Dreams)
„Any attempts to explain this, such as the drug acting as a 'trigger'
for an unknown natural biochemical state, or creating a role for the
body in relation to consciousness, just seems whacky and
unacceptable to the scientific community." (Higgs)
a) McKenna: mushrooms in the savannah, coevolution
b) DMT: sleep/waking barrier

19. Chaos & Cyber Culture
The first e-commerce transaction took place in
the early 1970s, on the ARPAnet network,
which later evolved into the Internet. This was
a drug deal. Students of MIT used the network
to arrange the sale of some marijuana with
students of Stanford.

20. Weary of Leary
advocated free market survival of the highest
actively and knowingly brainwashed many people
including his wife Joanna
never accepted responsibility for the millions of
unprepared trips
used metaprogramming as an excuse for Verrat
(1970)
„Now that wealth and beauty surrounded him, the economic
struggle of the common man didn't trouble [Leary] too greatly.
Indeed, just months after pledging 'eternal solidarity' to the
Brazilian Marxists who had escaped from jail and fled to Algiers,
he found himself drinking with the Brazilian autocrats who jailed
them in the first place.“

21. Neuro evolution will go on!
currently arrested development
caught between repression and commodification
necessary compensation drowns experiments
drugs rather used for adapting to the requirements
of market, office and factory
can the world become (like) a good trip?