Here is an excerpt from Politics of Ecstasy by Timothy Leary :
…it’s really quite simple. Whenever you hear anyone sounding off on internal freedom and conciousness-expanding foods and drugs, whether pro or con, check out these questions:
- Is your expert talking from direct experience, or simply repeating cliches? Theologians and intellectuals often deprecate “experience” in favor of fact and concept. This classic debate is falsely labeled. Most often it becomes a case of “experience” vs. “inexperience”.
- Do his words spring from a spiritual or mundane point of view? Is he motivated by a dedicated quest for answers to basic questions, or is he protecting his own social-psychological position, his own game investment? Is he struggling towards sainthood, or is he maintaining his status as a hard-boiled scientist or hard-boiled cop?
- How would his argument sound if it was heard in a different culture? (for example, in an African jungle hut, a ghat on the Ganges, or on another planet inhabited by a form of life superior to ours) or in a different time (for example, in Periclean Athens, or in a Tibetan monestery, or in a bull session led by any one of the great religious leaders – founders – messiahs)? Or how would it sound to other species of life on our planet today – to the dolphins, to the conciousness of the redwood tree? In other words, try to break out of your usual tribal game set and listen with the ears of another one of God’s creatures.
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