Re: Psychedelic singularities (was Test Scores (was Causality))

Hara Ra (harara@shamanics.com)
Sun, 29 Dec 1996 18:33:15 -0800


Lyle Burkhead wrote:

> Then at age 23 I took LSD for the first time. This was a full-fledged
> cosmic acid trip, a journey to the center of time, the sort of thing that
> produces a conversion experience. After that, I *believed in* acid.
> But I still had enough caution not to take too much; I took acid a total
> of about 20 times over the next five years.
>
> I'm just trying to be realistic about what happened to me. I think it is
> possible for most people to recover from acid. But I think it is
> something to be recovered from, not something that gives us strength.
> I don't know of anybody whose test scores went *up* after taking acid.
> I'm not saying this never happens -- all drugs affect different people in
> different ways -- but I never heard of it happening.
>
1. It may be that the LSD has no causal relation here. Many people
gradually realise their conflicts as they grow older. It is also
plausible that the LSD experience made some of this more visible, and
therefore becomes blamed for this.

2. Richard Yensen's masters thesis involved a group of persons given a
full battery of psycholgical and intelligence tests before and after
being given MDA (a hallucinigen closely related to MDMA). The result was
those who had the most and highest doses also showed the best
improvements. All subjects had improved scores.

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| Hara Ra <harara@shamanics.com> |
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