Fresh Greene Blog

Caribbean Civil Groups Urge Haiti Investigation

...organisations from the Caribbean nations of Haiti, St Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Antigua, and Barbados...
recently requested that CARICOM take immediate and effectual steps to actualize its “call” (for an investigation of the recent Haiti coup) by piloting an appropriate resolution in the General Assembly of the United Nations."

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DOGSPOT UK

CIA Renegade Surrenders in Haiti

Professional insurrectionist and convicted murdererJodel Chamblain surrendered to authorities in Port Au Prince. This was proclaimed as "a noble gesture" by Haiti's new Justice Minister Bernard Gousse. It was Gousse's legal team that defended Chamblain and his cohorts in the failed coup attempts of 2000 and 2001.

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DOGSPOT UK

Bad Time for Intelligence Revamp

Now is not the time for a major overhaul of our intelligence services, as George Bush suggested in a press conference Monday. This would set in motion a series of changes that would continue well beyond his term in office.

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DOGSPOT UK

Jean-Bertrand Aristide Must Be Crazy

The name Brian Lattel rarely appears in public: Bob Shacochis mentions him once in The Immaculate Invasion (see previous dogspot) as one of many who have bragged that Arisistide would never return to Haiti.

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DOGSPOT UK

Leaders of Failed 2001 Coup Seek to Try Aristide

The newly installed "minister of justice" in Haiti has an illustrious past as lawyer. Close associates of his have defended perpetrators of failed coup attempts in Haiti. Bernard Gousse has managed to maintain a safe distance from the paramilitaries and outlaws among his clients, including the likes of Louis-Jodel Chamblain They have been able to collect funds for their "program to bring change to Haiti" with help from apparently legitimate organizations such as "The Haitian Resource Development Foundation" whose members share the same social circle with wealthy Miami businessmen - some of whom have financed earlier coupes.

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DOGSPOT UK

Status of Haiti Delays Economic Negotiations

Trinidad and Tobago Express(03-28)
Jamaica Observer (03-28)

"So intense was behind-the-scenes lobbying from Washington, the Sunday Express was reliably informed that while one Prime Minister felt obliged to refuse to take a telephone call from a Bush administration official, another was aggravated enough to respond with expletives when presented with what was viewed as a virtual ultimatum. "

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Interview with Aristide Confirms US Coup

“This is what I call a real coup d’état,” Aristide said. “This is an issue for all African Americans and Africans.”
“It’s like he is in jail, he said. He said he was kidnapped,” Waters said. She said Aristide had been threatened by U.S. diplomats who reportedly told the Haitian leader that if he failed to leave, Guy Phillippe, the rebel leader, would storm the palace and he would be killed.

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Roger Noriega and the Haiti Contras

Dan Carpenter
Indianapolis Star (03-03)

An example of the "...Republican Party's diversity and Hispanic outreach, Roger Noriega was the State Department's chief negotiator in efforts to bring a satisfactory resolution to the unrest that threatened the presidency of Jean-Bertrand Aristide...
...Noriega has a history, and it fits with the entire sordid history of our relations with Haiti. He was chief of staff for then-Sen. Jesse Helms back when Helms was Aristide's most powerful enemy in the world.

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Bush Administration Backed the Ouster of Aristide

Ron Howell
Newsday (03-01)
"The departure of Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a victory for a Bush administration hard-liner who has been long dedicated to Aristide's ouster, U.S. foreign policy analysts say..."
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US Backed Contras in Haiti

A close associate of Chamblain, Emmanuel “Toto” Constant, has admitted its CIA funding and direction. Chamblain was revealed in documents reviewed by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York as one of those present during the planning, with a USA agent, of the assassination of the pro-Aristide minister of justice, Guy Malary, in 1993. The USA refuses to release documents it seized from FRAPH during the 1994 USA invasion - presumably to cover up the CIA ties to FRAPH. Philippe and Chamblain were among those from the Haitian opposition, recognized by the USA - the Convergence - who organized conferences in the Dominican Republic, funded and attended by USA operatives from the International Republican Institute.

Return of the Contras

"Double Game in Haiti" from Crisis Web

Haiti's President Arisitide Faces Overthrow Reversal in US Policy may lead to overthrow of reform leader HAITI PROGRES(02-11) Background Haitiâ's armed opposition launched its most lethal offensive yet last week, creating the civil strife that may be used by the US State Department to justify military intervention. On Feb. 10, State Department officials gave their first public hints that they would favor President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's resignation... Full Story

"I am sitting by the bay in Cienfuegos and the temperature is over ninety, though the sun has been down for an hour. They are showing Marilyn Monroe at the cinema, and there is one boat in the harbor...

Whenever he left Havana he dispatched bad pictures of bad hotels with a cross against one window like the cross in a detective story which indicates where the crime has been cmmitted"

Our Man in Havana
Graham Greene

"Weapons expert Dr David Kelly told of 'many dark actors playing games' in an e-mail to a journalist hours before his suicide, it was reported on Saturday. The words appeared to refer to officials at the Ministry of Defence and UK intelligence agencies with whom he had sparred over interpretations of weapons reports, according to the New York Times
Kelly warned of 'dark actors'
London Times, 19 July 2003

National Security Agency (NSA). On October 24, 1952, President Truman signed National Security Council Directive 6, a seven-page document that eliminated the first attempt at uniting all military signal intelligence (SIGINT) operations, and created the NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland. Directive 6 remains classified to this day.

The CIA recreates a covert action wing, innocuously called the Office of Policy Coordination, led by Wall Street lawyer Frank Wisner. According to its secret charter, its responsibilities include "propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."

From the Newsletter of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies MAPS - Volume 7 Number 1 Winter 1996-97 - pp. 12-17 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Listening for the Logos: a study of reports of audible voices at high doses of psilocybin Horace Beach, Ph.D. Psychological Assistant Kaiser Permanente Medical Center Department of Psychiatry Chemical Dependency Recovery Program Vallejo, California E-mail: Horace.Beach@ncal.kaiperm.org For an updated list of psilocybin studies, click here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are reports that psilocybin mushrooms can engender a dialogue between the one who ingests them and a voice of unknown origin. The objective of the present study was to search for such reports, to look for differences between those who reported having heard a voice with psilocybin use and those who had not, and to characterize the voice. An anonymous questionnaire was distributed among the members of several organizations resulting in a sample of 128 participants. The phenomenon of a perceived voice during psilocybin mushroom use was reported in better than a third of participants. Overall, the results of this study suggest that what made the difference between hearing a voice or not with psilocybin was more about what people did, than who they were. Can it be said that there are boundaries to the human psyche? Psilocybin voice experiences force us to confront our notions of a personal self and a universal Self. For a copy of this thesis contact: UMI Dissertation Services 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 tel: (313) 761-4700 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are a number of verbal and literary reports that psilocybin (or "psilocybian") mushrooms speak to human beings - that is, they can engender or catalyze an auditory dialogue between the one who ingests them and a voice of unknown origin. T. McKenna terms this "interiorized linguistic phenomenon" an experience of the Logos. The Logos is to be understood as a sort of intermediary between what one might consider to be God, the Truth, or the "Suchness" of reality, and human beings. While it is possible to experience directly the Absolute, or noumenon of phenomena, or the Nondual, much of recorded historic experience of what has come to be known as divine inspiration or revelation comes through one of the various manifestations or intermediaries of the Absolute in the form of gods, spirits, angels, or ancestors. The daimon of Socrates is a good case in point; for example, Angeles states that in Plato's Symposium "the daimon communicates to the gods the prayers of humans and reveals to humans the commands of the gods." At times these intermediaries of the Absolute appear to humans, but they also reportedly can be experienced as disembodied voices. The Other While it can be argued that the voice, or voices, may ultimately be "some previously hidden and suddenly autonomous part[s] of one's own psyche" (T. McKenna, 1991b), such discussion can lead one into the philosophical abyss of what is ultimately meant by "one's own psyche" and the concept of self and other. Nonetheless, the voices many times present themselves as quite alien. Persinger's findings Persinger and his colleagues at Laurentian University are looking at "Other," "ego-alien intrusions," or a "sensed presence" phenomena from a neurophysiological perspective. In the search for brain correlates to the experience of "presences," their studies have focused primarily on the deep temporal lobe structures of the brain, the amygdala and hippocampus, which Persinger characterizes as the most electrically unstable structures in the human brain. There are three major points to be gleaned from Persinger's work relevant to the auditory voice phenomena reported by individuals taking high doses of psilocybin. First, the numerous reports studied by Persinger that involve an ego-alien experience or a sensed presence are similar to reports of the otherness or alienness of the experience of the Logos. Second, that the temporal lobes are implicated in Persinger's correlational studies is highly suggestive, as the role of the temporal lobes in normal and so-called hallucinatory audition is well known. Third, Persinger's focus on melatonin is interesting because melatonin production in the pineal gland is accomplished through the conversion of serotonin by the enzyme HIOMT. Thus, any compound that affects the serotonergic system (as psychedelics do), and is reported to elicit a sense of an alien other with auditory voice phenomena, must be explored with an eye toward Persinger's findings. Psilocybin fits the bill on both points. However, while the investigation of neurochemical correlates is a vital piece in the understanding of Logos-like phenomena, it is not true that by describing the neurochemical correlates of any mental activity one has found its explanation. Perhaps the relationship between the brain and its neurochemical correlates to the experience of mind should best be thought of as an interface with, or receiver of, mind (Sheldrake, 1989). Wilber views the brain as an exterior aspect or manifestation of the mind and consciousness. In any case, trying to understand the mental effects of the psilocybin experience solely in terms of physio-chemical factors entirely misses other levels of comprehension. Potency and Dosage Due to species variation, psilocybin mushrooms differ in potency. For example, concentrations of psilocybin in Psilocybe cubensis is about 2 mg/gm, whereas the quite potent Psilocybe semilanceata averages around 12.8 mg/gm in fresh specimens. Potency can also vary between strains of the same species, or even between various mushroom "flushings," or fruitings of the same mycelial organism (mushrooms are the sexual organs, so to speak, of the underground living web organism known as a mycelium). One therefore has to estimate average amounts and percentage concentrations when dealing with mushroom psilocybin and psilocin. Fortunately, there are some general agreements. Most sources cite psilocybin's entheogenic or psychedelic effects in humans as occurring between 5 and 50 milligrams, with the highest reported human dose at 120 milligrams and the "maximum safe dose" around 150 milligrams (Ott, 1993). A consensus of opinion favors a "high" dose of psilocybin to be at least 12 milligrams, or five or more dried grams of well-preserved Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms for a 154-160 pound person. There is some discussion, however, concerning whether mushrooms containing psilocybin differ in their effects from pure synthetic psilocybin, aside from the effects of the synthetic generally lasting a shorter time. In any case, it was understood by the researcher that the amount of psilocybin and psilocin varies between mushroom species, making sheer comparisons of number or weight crude at best, and it was hoped that the species-based psilocybin/psilocin content variation would be randomly distributed throughout the study's sample and therefore not a source of bias. Voices T. McKenna conducted a survey that was highly influential in the development of this study, in that its results suggested that the audible voice phenomenon was dosage-related. He has also stated that for some individuals, as much as 9.5 grams of dried mushrooms are required to elicit a voice, and also that other conditions and techniques may be necessary to hear a voice. Though there are a number of different types of voice experiences, the common thread running through them all is the imparting of information to the listener. This is the crucial importance of voices. In traditional usage, the mushroom voices give healing information. While there are many reports of experiences with psilocybin that do not include the phenomenon of voices, it should be noted that "the Indians recognize that it is not to everyone that they speak" (Munn, 1976). Perhaps they do not speak to one for a number of reasons: poor mental set, the lack of a technique to elicit a voice, poor environmental setting, old or improperly stored mushroom material weakening the psychoactive effects, insufficient dosage, psilocybin mushrooms versus synthetic psilocybin, poor absorption in the stomach, idiosyncratic body chemistry, mental experience, a person's sensory input style, or not enough experiences with psilocybin (use over time may deepen the experience, as with LSD in psychotherapy) (Grof, 1985, 1988). Strange Sounds While not a voice, another reported auditory experience with tryptamine compounds, especially psilocybin, is what has been described as a "buzzing" sensation or sound. Discussion of this peculiar audile phenomenon may not be so far afield from the focus of the present study. Gordon (1993) has suggested that tinnitus (a condition of ringing, buzzing, hissing, or humming in the ears) from any cause can trigger auditory hallucinations of music, or even speech. Biochemical Correlates? There are a few provocative and suggestive findings in the literature. However, these should be examined with the admonition, as previously discussed, that to the detriment of understanding, "it is so easy to replace the word "mind," in our inquiries, with the word "brain" (Alexander Shulgin & Ann Shulgin, 1992). A common denominator in the biochemical research with psychedelics in general, and with tryptamines in particular (psilocybin/psilocin), is that, somehow, the neurotransmitter serotonin is specially involved in the psychedelic experience. Of particular interest to this study is research suggesting that serotonin may have a special role in the perception of inner (subjective) auditory experience (Andorn, Vittorio, & Bellflower, 1989, Hegerl & Juckel, 1993). Psilocybin is an "agonist[ ] or partial agonist[ ] at several subtypes of the serotonin (5HT) receptor: 5HT-2, 5HT-1c, and 5HT-1a" (Strassman, 1992, p. 241), and the chemical structure of psilocybin's metabolite, psilocin, is close in structure to serotonin. While this may suggest a reason for the general psychoactive effects of psilocybin and psilocin, it cannot solely account for the tryptamine, psilocybin-specific auditory voice phenomenon. The reasons for this are many. As already stated, serotonergic neurotransmitters and receptors are strongly involved in the psychoactive effects of many of the psychedelics, including, for example, the phenethylamines; yet reports of voices are absent in one major work on phenethylamine compounds (Alexander Shulgin & Ann Shulgin, 1992). It is also not enough to say that the auditory effects of tryptamines are the result of their having a unique structure in comparison with other psychedelics: for example, it can be pointed out that LSD and other of the ergolines "can [also] be viewed as rigid tetracyclic tryptamines" (Nichols, 1986, p. 338). If tryptamines, particularly psilocybin, are shown to have specific and somewhat unique abilities to stimulate auditory voice phenomena in human beings, their mere similarity to serotonin is not sufficient explanation. However, the serotonergic system is somehow specially involved in auditory experience, as is Brodmann areas 41-42 in the temporal cortex and Broca's area (P. McGuire, Shah, & Murray, 1993). Demographics of the Sample There were several sources of participants for the study: subscribers to the MAPS Newsletter, the membership of The Fane of the Psilocybe Mushroom Association, the subscribership of The Entheogen Review, and the Internet. The final sample consisted of 128 participants who had returned useable questionnaires. Ninety-nine males and 29 females ranging in age from 18 to 75 (M = 40.72, SD = 12.86) made up the study. Judging by postal marks, participants hailed from at least 31 states and 8 foreign countries. Of these individuals, 106 designated Caucasian as their primary ethnicity, followed by Jewish, with six, and one of each for 13 other ethnicities. The average years of education for the group was just over 16, or the equivalent of a Bachelor's degree (M = 16.48, SD = 2.52). Based on the responses to the question of the number of times psilocybin was taken, the study examined approximately 3,427 reported psilocybin experiences (n = 118). Of the total questionnaire responses (N = 128), 35.9% (n = 46) of the participants reported having heard a voice(s) with psilocybin use, while 64.0% (n = 82) of the participants stated that they had not. Based on the responses to the question of the number of times [they] experienced a voice(s) with psilocybin, the study examined approximately 394 experiences of psilocybin-induced voices (n = 40). Each item on the questionnaire was designed to be treated as a separate variable to be compared between groups or correlated within a group. Because of the skewness of some of the distributions, and in some cases due to the type of data collected, all comparative and correlational data for the study were analyzed using nonparametric statistics. Also, exploratory and confirmatory subgroups were utilized. Differences Between the "Yes" and "No" Voice(s) Groups True to T. McKenna's suggestions for how to increase the possibility of voice experiences with psilocybin, the group that reported having heard a voice(s) with psilocybin use (the Yes group), on average, took the mushroom more times, took a larger amount of dried grams of mushrooms per use, and took the mushroom more often in darkness than the No group. In fact, the average reported dried grams of psilocybin mushrooms taken per experience for the No group is less than the average minimum amount of dried grams of psilocybin mushrooms needed to hear a voice(s), as reported by the Yes group. The Yes group also used psilocybin and then tried or intended to hear (evoke) a voice(s) more times than did the No group. Curiously, and not predicted by T. McKenna, the Yes group reported using psilocybin mushrooms grown themselves more often than the No group. One may speculate that the care and attention required by mushroom cultivation might contribute to a greater intention to hear a voice(s), thus leading to a more successful evocation. There were two findings of statistically significant differences between the Yes voice(s) and No voice(s) groups. First, the Yes group reported taking psilocybin more often while alone than the No group. This could have also been predicted by T. McKenna's suggestions of technique. By being alone, talking is eliminated as a distraction. It must be that the phenomenon of a voice(s) is subtle enough, at least initially, as to be missed due to exterior (talking, light) or interior (lack of intention) distractions. Namely, the voice(s) does not present itself to the "bemushroomed" person simply because he or she ingested a certain amount of psilocybin. Although, as many participants suspected (according to comments written on the questionnaires), larger average doses may be one of a number of factors to account for the presence or absence of the voice(s) experience. The second statistically significant difference between the groups was the finding that those in the Yes group endorsed having heard a voice(s), at least once, when using drugs other than psilocybin significantly more often than did the No group. In other words, those participants who heard voices with psilocybin also tended to hear voices while using other drugs. It is interesting to note that the descriptions of these voices were not so different from the descriptions of voices heard while using psilocybin. These results tend not to uphold the theory that psilocybin is somehow unique in its ability to catalyze or elicit voice phenomena, and yet a majority of the participants who reported hearing a voice(s) through psilocybin and other drugs or means indicated that they first heard a voice(s) with psilocybin. Perhaps for those individuals, psilocybin acted as a catalyst that opened a door to the subtle experience of the voices, which then allowed them to experience the voices by other means. Also it should be noted that, by far, the most popular answer as to which drugs other than psilocybin also catalyzed voices was LSD, followed by DMT and mescaline. LSD and DMT are similar to psilocybin in that they can be classified as serotonin-like-and even though mescaline can be classified as catecholamine-like, its psychedelic effects can probably be represented in terms of changes in serotonergic neurotransmission. Thus, the suggestive connection between drug-catalyzed voice(s) phenomena and serotonergic neurotransmission, discussed earlier in this article, appears again. Of T. McKenna's technical suggestions for eliciting a voice(s), only two were not supported: First, the admonition not to eat a full meal within the six hours before taking psilocybin (in fact, the No group, on average, did this less often). The second is his suggestion that cannabis may aid the hearing of voices. In only 17.4% of total voice(s) experiences with psilocybin (n = 34) was it reported that it was helpful to take any other drug(s) with psilocybin to hear a voice(s) - but, in agreement with T. McKenna, of the few who responded in the affirmative, cannabis was the most popular choice. A number of crude measurements of personality were attempted in this study. An examination was made of introverted and extraverted attitudes, remembering dreams, having lucid dreams, meditating, "Type A personalty," and "repressive coping style." However, the groups were not found to differ significantly on any of these facts. Also, a number of personal beliefs were examined: religious belief, belief in spirits, belief in precognition, belief in life after death, and personal health assessment. On none of these beliefs was this study able to show a repeatable, statistically significant, difference between the Yes and No groups. A number of possible sex differences were also examined and none were discovered. It seems that men were not experiencing significantly more male voices than women, and women were not experiencing significantly more female voices than the men. Overall, the results of this study suggest that what made the difference between hearing a voice or not with psilocybin was more about what people did, than who they were. Better than one third of participants' reported experiences with a voice(s) and psilocybin involved some form of evocation. That evocation was not reported to occur 100% of the time prior to hearing a voice(s) may indicate that evocation was not always necessary, or that perhaps after a participant evoked the voice(s) in some way in his/her early experiences, it was no longer always necessary to do so with later voice(s) experiences. Voice(s) Characteristics It was not reported very often that there was more than a single voice heard during an experience. Additionally, it was found that the voice experience cannot be maintained for long periods of time (average reported length of time was about 19 minutes). A look at those characteristics endorsed as occurring, on average, in more than 50% of reported total experiences with a voice(s) and psilocybin, may also help to describe trends that characterize the voice(s). The experience of the voice(s) is generally reported as positive, insightful, and useful. Though evidently a subtle phenomenon, the voice(s) is reported most of the time as clear-sounding and sensible. The experiences of being able to communicate with the voice(s), and gain information, were also reported to occur in over half of the episodes. These facts tend to lend credence to the theory that the voice(s) may be experiences of a Logos-like phenomenon. Concerning the more specific characteristic tendencies of the voice(s), those who have experienced the phenomenon describe the following features as occurring in most of their experiences: First, the voice(s) usually sounded old. This is consistent with the findings of at least one other source (Oss & Oeric, 1991). Second, the voice(s) usually sounded male. Third, the voice(s) was usually described as low-pitched (bass-like), slow paced, and of low volume. It is interesting to note that at least one other tryptamine compound has been found to alter (lower) the perceived pitch of externally-generated voices and music, DIPT, or, N,N-diisopropyltryptamine (Alexander Shulgin, personal communication, January 25, 1996). One additional point: in a little less than half of reported experiences, participants stated that the voice(s) expressed emotion; compassion, anger, love, calm, humor, fear, and sadness were most often reported. Other features of the voice(s) Emphasis of the "otherness" of the voice(s) pervades the phenomenological descriptions given by many of the participants, and is also borne out by some of the statistical data. In just under half of reported experiences, participants had the sensation that the voice(s) came from outside of their heads. A majority of participants also stated that the voice(s) was not familiar when they first heard it with psilocybin. A few participants even commented that although it was their own voice they heard, the "information" was not from them. Finally, in just under half of reported experiences, participants said that the voice spoke in first person. Interestingly, this occurrence was highly correlated with the participants receiving insight from the voice(s). It may be that the experience with an other who is an I (who witnesses, reflects, communicates, shares) facilitates insight, much as in psychotherapy (Frank, 1989). One of the most interesting findings of this study is that in over 45% of participants' total experiences with a voice(s) and psilocybin, sounds other than voices were present. Notice should be given to the words used by a number of the participants: high pitch, high tone, humming, buzzing, whirring, ringing, rustling, rushing water, howling, vibrations, whooshing, crinkling, insect-like, drumming, whirling-circular. These reports are similar to observations made by T. McKenna and D. McKenna (1993), Strassman, Qualls, Uhlenhuth, & Kellner (1994) and Weil (1980). It may very well be that, as Gordon (1993) concluded, a condition of ringing, buzzing, hissing, or humming in the ears, from any cause, can trigger auditory hallucinations of music, or even speech. For example, one participant reported that he heard voices when a motor (lawn mower) was running. An interesting side note: use of Heimia salicifolia (sinicuiche), a plant that contains the alkaloid cryogenine or vertine (Ott, 1993), has been reported to cause a ringing in the ears that then turns into orchestrated music. The many reports of the Yes voice(s) group hearing other sounds are consistent with a theory that these sounds may be involved in the hearing of a voice(s). It may be that the Logos (as Mind) superimposes itself on, and utilizes, the formless white-noise of internal (tinnitus, for example) or external (drumming, rattles, motors, running water, glossolalia) stimuli, to create a voice(s), and then, entering the individual's faculty of audition, speaks. Meaning (form) is superimposed on the formless. So what does it mean? My study lends credence to the theory that psilocybin inspired voices are expressions of the Logos. Beyond that, what the Logos is, well, that depends on how "Eastern" your world view is. That is, when people ask me what I think these voices may be, whether part of us or not, I have to first ask them what the mean by "us." The question of what is self and what is other then takes prominence. Is there anything that we can say is truly alien? Though in our experiences we may encounter a "Wholly Other," from an Eastern perspective (or in the ancient West, a Plato-Plotinian one) all of the Cosmos is interior to us. Can it be said that there are boundaries to the human psyche? Psilocybin voice experiences force us to confront our notions of a personal self and a universal Self. Acknowledgments This article is based upon my Clinical Psychology doctoral dissertation entitled, "Listening for the Logos: A study of reports of audible voices at high doses of psilocybin," which was produced at The California School of Professional Psychology at Alameda. I wish to acknowledge my chairperson, Fred Leavitt, Ph.D., and my committee members Norm Livson, Ph.D., and Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin, Ph.D. Special thanks to Sylvia Thyssen, Networks Coordinator for MAPS, and Rick Doblin, MAPS President, who were the first to agree to distribute my questionnaire - and to the MAPS members who participated. References Andorn, A., Vittorio, J., & Bellflower, J. (1989). 3H-Spiroperidol binding in human temporal cortex (Brodmann areas 41-42) occurs at multiple high affinity states with serotonergic selectivity. 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Author's Note & Second Chapter from the book: PROGRAMMING AND METAPROGRAMMING IN THE HUMAN BIOCOMPUTER written in 1967, 1968 by John Lilly, M.D. Published by The Julian Press, Inc., a member of the Crown Publishing Group, distributed by Crown Publishers, Inc., 225 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003 and represented in Canada by the Canadian MANDA Group. Library of Congress Catalog Number 72-189950 ISBN 0-517-52757-X 1987 Edition John C. Lilly, M.D., has studied and conducted research in the fields of biophysics, neurophysiology, electronics, and neuroanatomy. Best known for his groundbreaking work in human-dolphin relations, Dr. Lilly is the United States's leading authority on the states of solitude, isolation, and confinement and their psychological effects on the human mind. Author's Note This work has a curious history. It was written as a final summary report to a government agency (National Institute of Mental Health) concerning five years of my life work. (The agency paid my salary for the five years.) It was conceived from a space rarer these days than it was then: the laws suspending scientific interest, research, involvement and decisions about d-lysergic acid di-ethyl amide tartrate were passed just as this particular work was completed; the researchers were inadequately consulted (put down, in fact). The legislators composed laws in an atmosphere of desperation. The national negative program on LSD was launched; LSD was the big scare, on a par with War, Pestilence, and Famine as the destroyer of young brains, minds and fetuses. In this atmosphere (1966-1967) Programming and Metaprogramming in The Human Biocomputer was written. The work and its notes are dated from 1964 to 1966. The conception was formed in 1949, when I was first exposed to computer design ideas by Britton Chance. I coupled these ideas back to my own software through the atmosphere of my neurophysiological research on cerebral cortex. It was more fully elaborated in the tank isolation solitude and confinement work at NIMH from 1953 to 1958, run in parallel with the neurophysiological research on the rewarding and punishing systems in the brain. The dolphin research was similarly born in the tank, with brain electrode results as parents in the further conceptions. While I was writing this work, I was a bit too fearful to express candidly in writing the direct experience, uninterpreted. I felt that a group of thirty persons' salaries, a large research budget, a whole Institute's life depended on me and what I wrote. If I wrote the data up straight, I would have rocked the boats of several lives (colleagues and family) beyond my own stabilizer effectiveness threshold, I hypothesized. Despite my precautionary attitude, the circulation in 1967 of this work contributed to the withdrawal of research funds in 1968 from the research program on dolphins by one government agency. I heard several negative stories regarding my brain and mind, altered by LSD. At this point I closed the Institute and went to the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center to resume LSD research under government auspices. I introduced the ideas in work to the MPRC researchers and I left for the Esalen Institute in 1969. At Esalen my involvement in direct human gut-to-gut communication and lack of involvement in administrative responsibility brought my courage to the sticking place. Meanwhile, Stewart Brand of the Whole Earth Truck Catalog (Menlo Park, Calif.) reviewed the work in the Whole Earth Catalog from a mimeographed copy I had given W.W. Harmon of Stanford for his Sufic purposes. Stewart wrote me asking for copies to sell. I had 300 printed photo-offset from the typed copy. He sold them in a few weeks and asked permission to reprint on newsprint an enlarged version at a lower price. Sceptical about salability, I agreed. Book People, Berkeley, arranged the reprinting. Several thousand copies were sold. I had written the report in such a way that its basic messages were hidden behind a heavy long introduction designed to stop the usual reader. Apparently once word got out, this device no longer stalled the interested readers. Somehow the basic messages were important enough to enough readers so that the work acquired an unexpected viability. Thus it seems appropriate to reprint it in full. On several different occassions, I have been asked to rewrite this work. One such start at rewrite ended up as another book. (The Center of the Cyclone, The Julian Press, Inc., New York, 1972.) Another start is evolving into my book number five (Simulations of God: A Science of Belief). It seems as if this older work is a seminating source for other works and solidly resists revision. To me it is a thing separate from me, a record from a past space, a doorway into new spaces through which I passed and cannot return. J.C.L. February 1972 Los Angeles, California -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'All human beings, all persons who reach adulthood in the world today are programmed biocomputers. No one of us can escape our own nature as programmable entities. Literally, each of us may be our programs, nothing more, nothing less.' Chapter 2. SUMMARY OF EXPERIMENTS IN SELF-METAPROGRAMMING WITH LSD-25 In order to test the validity of some of the basic assumptions implicit in the theory of the human computer, a series of experiments were designed and carried out in the LSD-25 state, in physical isolation, and solitude. One point of primary interest during these experiments was to find out what level of intensity of belief in a set of assumptions could be achieved. The assumptions tested in this set of experiments are not those of current science: they are not in the conscious working repertory of this scientist; nor were they consciously acceptable to him. In this short account it is not intended to give all of the details of either the self-metaprogramming language that was used or the details of the elicited phenomena. The account is purposely sparse, condensed, and compressed. Abstracted from the complexity of the totality of the experiments and their results are only those formal descriptions which may serve as guide posts to others attempting to reproduce these or similar experiments. It is not intended to complicate this account with the personal aspects of the metaprogramming, the elicited phenomena, or difficulties encountered. For those researchers who are interested in this work's reproduction in themselves, these assumptions (or similar ones) and these results can be translated into their own metaprogramming language and such workers can obtain their unique results. To claim validity of details beyond myself is not my aim. There probably are those men who are prepared well enough to attempt reproducing what has been done here in themselves. The descriptions are given so that the sources of the human computer theory are available to professionals. This particular set of existence theorems is selected for experiment for a number of reasons. There are a number of persons (Blum, 1964) who experimented with the LSD-25 state who write as if they believe implicitly in the objective reality of causes outside themselves for certain kinds of experiences undergone with these particular beliefs. I do not think it wise to espouse either the existence or the non-existence theorem for this set of basic supra-self-metaprograms (Fig. 1). To become impartial, dispassionate, and general purpose, objective, and open-ended, one must test and adjust the level of credence in each of his sets of beliefs. If ever Man is to be faced with real organisms with greater wisdom, greater intellect, greater minds than any single man has, then we must be open, unbiased, sensitive, general purpose, and dispassionate. Our needs for phantasies must have been analyzed and seen for what they are and are not or we will be in even graver troubles than we are today. Our search for mentally healthy paths to human progress in the innermost realities depends upon progress in this area. Many men have floundered in this area of belief: I hope this work can help to find a way through one of our stickiest intellectual-emotional regions. Most of these beliefs are ones which have been abandoned in the fields of endeavor called science. Such beliefs continue to be found in the field known as religion. Some of these beliefs are labeled in modern psychiatric medicine and anthropology as superstitions, psychotic beliefs, etc. Other persons present these beliefs in the writings called science fiction. This set of basic postulates (or beliefs) is conceived and used to program several sessions with LSD-25 plus physical isolation in solitude. Above all these metaprograms to be experimented upon is one metaprogram of value to this subject: his overall policy is the intent to explore, to observe, to analyze. Hence there is an important additional basic metaprogram: analyze self to understand one's thinking and true motives more thoroughly. This is the conscious motivational strategy. At times this metaprogram dominates the scene, at times others do. The resolve exists, however, to generate a net effect with this instruction uppermost in the computer hierarchy. EXPERIMENTS ON BASIC METAPROGRAMS OF EXISTENCE Preliminary to the experiments in changing basic beliefs, many experiments with the profound physical isolation and solitude situation were carried out over a period of several years. These experiences were followed by combining the LSD-25 state and the physical isolation state in a second period of several years. The minimum time between experiments was thirty days, the maximum time several months. [Tables 1, 7 and 8] Basic Belief No. 1 Basic Belief No. 1 was made possible by the early isolation results: Assume that the subject's body and brain can operate comfortably isolated without him paying any attention to it. This belief expresses the faith that one has in one's experience in the isolation situation, that one can consciously ignore the necessities of breathing and other bodily functions, and that they will take care of themselves automatically without detailed attention on the part of one's self. This result allowed existence metaprograms to be made in relative safety. Succesful leaving of body and parking it in isolation for periods of twenty minutes to two hours were succesful in sixteen different experiments. This success, in turn, allowed other basic beliefs to be experimented upon. The basic belief that one could leave the body and explore new universes was succesfully programmed in the first eight different experiments lasting from five minutes to forty minutes; the later eight experiments were on the cognitional multidimensional space without the leaving the body metaprogram (see previous section on Projection for the cognition space phenomenon). Basic Belief No. 2 The subject sought beings other than himself, not human, in whom he existed and who control him and other human beings. Thus the subject found whole new universes containing great varieties of beings, some greater than himself, some equal to himself, and some lesser than himself. Those greater than himself were a set which was so huge in space-time as to make the subject feel as a mere mote in their sunbeam, a single microflash of energy in their time scale, my forty-five years are but an instant in their lifetime, a single thought in their vast computer, a mere particle in their assemblages of living cognitive units. He felt he was in the absolute unconscious of these beings. He experienced many more sets all so much greater than himself that they were almost inconceivable in their complexity, size and time scales. Those beings which were close to the subject in complexity-size-time were dichotomized into the evil ones and good ones. The evil ones (subject said) were busy with purposes so foreign to his own that he had many near-misses and almost fatal accidents in encounters with them; they were almost totally unaware of his existence and hence almost wiped him out, apparently without knowing it. The subject says that the good ones thought good thoughts to him, through him, and to one another. They were at least conceivably human and humane. He interpreted them as alien yet friendly. They were not so alien as to be completely removed from human beings in regard to their purposes and activities. Some of these beings (the subject reported) are programming us in the long term. They nurture us. They experiment on us. They control the probability of our discovering and exploiting new science. He reports that discoveries such as nuclear energy, LSD-25, RNA-DNA, etc., are under probability control by these beings. Further, humans are tested by some of these beings and cared for by others. Some of them have programs which include our survival and progress. Others have programs which include oppositions to these good programs and include our ultimate demise as a species. Thus the subject interpreted the evil ones as willing to sacrifice us in their experiments; hence they are alien and removed from us. The subject reported with this set of beliefs that only limited choices are still available to us as a species. We are an ant colony in their laboratory. Basic Belief No. 3 The subject assumed the existence of beings in whom humans exist and who directly control humans. This is a tighter control program than the previous one and assumes continuous day and night, second to second, control, as if each human being were a cell in a larger organism. Such beings insist upon activities in each human being totally under the control of the organism of which each human being is a part. In this state there is no free will and no freedom for an individual. This supra-self-metaprogram was entered twice by the subject; each time he had to leave it; for him it was too anxiety-provoking. In the first case he became a part of a vast computer in which he was one element. In the second case he was a thought in a much larger mind: being modified rapidly, flexibly and plastically. All of the above experiments were done looking upward in Fig. 1 from the self-programmer to the supra-self-metaprograms. A converse set of experiments was done in which the self-metaprogrammer looked downward towards the metaprograms, the programs and the lower levels of Fig. 1. Basic Belief No. 4 One set of basic beliefs can be subsumed under the directions seek those beings whom we control and who exist in us. With this program the subject found old models in himself (old programs, old metaprograms, implanted by others, implanted by self, injected by parents, by teachers, etc.) He found that these were disparate and separate autonomous beings in himself. He described them as noisy group. His incorporated parents, his siblings, his own offspring, his teachers, his wife seemed to be a disorganized crowd within him, each running and arguing a program with him and in him. While he watched, battles took place between these models during the experiment. He settled many disparate and nonintegrated points between these beings and gradually incorporated more of them into the self-metaprogram. After many weeks of self-analysis outside the experimental milieu (and some help with his former analyst), it was seen that these beings within the self were also those other beings outside self of the other experiments. The subject described the projected as-if-outside beings to be cognitional carnivores attempting to eat up his self-metaprogram and wrest control from him. As the various levels of metaprograms became straightened out in the subject, he was able to categorize and begin to control the various levels as they were presented during these experiments. As his apparently unconscious needs for credence in these beliefs were attenuated with analytic work, his freedom to move from one set of basic beliefs to another was increased and the anxiety associated with this kind of movement gradually disappeared. A basic overall metaprogram was finally generated: For his own intellectual satisfaction the subject found that he best assume that all of the phenomena that took place existed only in his own brain and in his own mind. Other assumptions about the existence of these beings had become subjects suitable for research rather than subjects for blind (unconscious, conscious) belief for this person. Basic Belief No. 5 Experiments also were done upon movements of self forward and back in space-time. The results showed that when attempting to go forward into the future the subject began to realize his own goals for that future, and imagine wishful thinking solutions to current problems. When he put in the metaprogram for going back into his own childhood, real and phantasy memories were evoked and integrated. When he pushed back through to the in utero situation, he found an early nightmare which was reinvoked and solved. Relying on his scientific knowledge, he pushed the program back through previous generations, prehuman primates, carnivores, fish and protozoa. He experienced a sperm-egg explosion on the way through this past reinvocation of imaginary experience. The last set of experiments (see Use of Projection section) was made possible by the results of the previous set. Progress in controlling the projection metaprogram resulted from the other universes experiments. Finally the subject understood and had become familiar with his need for phantasied other universes. Analytic work allowed him to bypass this need and penetrate into the cognitional multidimensional projection spaces. Experiments in programming in this innermost space showed results quite satisfying to a high degree of credence in the belief that all experiments in the series showed inner happenings without needing the participation of outer causes. The need for the constant use of outer causes was found to be a projected outward metaprogram to avoid taking personal responsibility for portions of the contents of his own mind. His dislike for certain kinds of his own nonsensical programs caused him to project them and thus avoid admitting they were his. In summation, the subjectively apparent results of the experiments were to straighten out a good deal of the "nonsense" in this subject's computer. Through these experiments he was able to examine some warded-off beliefs and defensive structures accumulated throughout his life. The net result was a feeling of greater integration of self and a feeling of positive affect for the current structure of himself, combined with an improved skepticism of the validity of subjective judging of events in self. Some objective testing of these essentially subjective judgments have been initiated through cooperation with other persons. Such objective testing is very difficult; this area needs a great deal of future research work. We need better investigative techniques, combining subjective and behavioral (verbal) techniques. The major feeling that one has after such experiences and experiments is that the fluidity and plasticity of one's computer has certain limits to it, and that those limits have been enlarged somewhat by the experiments. How long such enlargement lasts and to what extent are still not known of course. A certain amount of continued critical skepticism about and in the self-metaprogram (and it its felt changes) is very necessary for a scientist exploring these areas. METAPROGRAMMATIC RESULTS OF BELIEF EXPERIMENTS The metatheoretical consideration of these experiments and the the results are as follows: One supra-metaprogrammatic assumption about these experiments is the formalistic view of the origins of mathematics and of thinking. As was said in the preface, at one extreme of the organization of human thinking is the formal logical basic assumption set of metatheories. These experiments were done with this view in mind and the results were interpreted from this point of view. Obviously this point of view does not test the "objective" validity of the experiences. It merely assumes that, if one plugs the proper beliefs into the metaprogrammatic levels of the computer that, the computer will then construct (from the myriads of elements in memory) those possible experiences that fit this particular set of rules. Those programs will be run off and those displays made, which are appropriate to the basic assumptions and their stored programming. Another way of looking at the results and at the metaprogramming is that we start out with a basic set of beliefs, believe them to be "objectively" valid (not just "formally" valid) and do the experiments and interpret them with this point of view. If one proceeds along these lines, one can quickly reach the end of one's ability to interpret the results. One finds that one cannot grasp conceptually the phenomena that ensue. With this metatheory, this type of experience is not just the computer operating in isolation, confinement and solitude on preprogrammed material being elicited from memory, but is really in communication with other beings, and the influence on one's self by them is real. Thus in this case one is assuming the existence theorem in regard to the basic assumptions, i.e., there is objective validity to them quite outside of self and one's making the assumptions. This epistemological position can also be investigated by these methods. This is somewhat the position that was taken by Aldous Huxley and by various other groups. For example, pursuit of certain non-Western philosophies as the Ultimate Truth was generated by these persons. One cannot take sides on these two widely diverse epistemological bases. On the one hand we have the basic assumptions of the modern scientists and on the other hand the basic assumptions of those interested in the religious aspect of existence. If one is to remain philosophic and objective in this field, one must dispassionately survey both of these extreme metatheoretical positions. One basic lesson learned from these experiments is that, in general, one's preferences for various kinds of metatheoretical positions are dictated by considerations other than one's ideals of impartiality, objectivity, and a dispassionate view. The metatheoretical position held by scientists in general is espoused for purposes of defining the truth, for purposes of understanding in their particular compartment of science, for acceptance among other scientists and for each one's own internal security operations with respect to his own unconscious programs. It is to be expected that anxiety is engendered in some scientists by making the above assumptions as if true (even temporarily) in an experimental framework. One can easily be panicked by the invasion of the self-metaprograms by automatic existence programs from below the level of one's awareness, programs which may strike at the existence of self, at the control of self, at the origins of self, at the destinations of self, and of the relations of self to a known external reality. Possibly one of the safest positions to take with regard to all of these phenomena is that given in this paper, i.e., the formalistic view in which one makes the assumption that the computer itself generates all of the phenomena experienced. This is an acceptable assumption of modern science. This is the so-called common sense assumption. This is the assumption acceptable to one's colleagues in science. Such considerations, of course, do not touch upon nor prove the validity of invalidity of the assumptions nor of the results of the experiments. In order to leave this theory open-ended and to allow for the presence of the unknown, it is necessary to take the ontological and epistemological position that one cannot know as a result of this kind of solitudinous experiment whether or not the phenomena are explicable only by non-biocomputer interventions or only by happenings within the computer itself, or both. I wish to emphasize that there is a necessity not to espouse a truth because it is safe. Being driven to a set of assumptions because one is afraid of another set and their consequences is the most passionate and nonobjective kind of philosophy. Too many intellectuals and scientists (almost unconsciously) use basic assumptions as defences against their fears of other assumptions and their consequences. Until we can train ourselves to be dispassionate and accept both the assumptions and the results of making them without arrogance, without pride, without misplaced enthusiasm, without fear, without panic, whithout anger, hence without emotional involvement in the results or in the theories, we cannot advance this inner science of Man very far. Those who wish to embrace the truth of an alternative set of assumptions as an escape from the basic assumptions of modern science are equally at fault. Those who must find a communication with other beings in this kind of experiment will apparently find it. One must be aware that there are (as in the child) needs within one's self for finding certain kinds of phenomena and espousing them as the ultimate truth. Such childlike needs needs dictate their own metaprograms. I am not agreeing with any extreme group in interpreting these results. It is convenient for me to assume, as of this time, that these phenomena all occurred within the biocomputer. I tend to assume that ESP cannot have played a role. At the moment this is the position which I find to be most tenable in a logical sense. I do not wish to be dogmatic about this. I wish to indicate that this is where I stand as of the writing describing this particular stage of the work. I await demonstrations of the validity of alternative existence theorems. If ever good, hard-nosed, common sense, unequivocal evidence for the existence of currently unaccepted assumptions is presented by those who have thoroughly attenuated their childish needs for particular beliefs, I hope I am prepared to examine it dispassionately and thoroughly. The pitfalls of group interlock are quite as insidious as the pitfalls of one's own phantasizing. Group acceptance of undemonstrated existence theorems and of seductive beliefs adds no more validity to the theorems and to the beliefs than one's own phantasizing can add. Anaclitic group behavior is no better than solitudinous phantasies of the truth. Where agreed-upon truth can exist in the science of the innermost realities is not and cannot yet be settled. Beginnings have been made by many men, satisfying proofs by one. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FIGURE 1. SCHEMA OF THE LEVELS OF THE FUNCTIONAL ORGANIZATION OF THE HUMAN BIOCOMPUTER LEVELS XI UNKNOWN (above and in Biocomputer) X SUPRA-SPECIES-METAPROGRAM (beyond metaprogramming) IX SUPRA-SELF-METAPROGRAMS (to be metaprogrammed) VIII SELF-METAPROGRAM - awareness (to metaprogram) VII METAPROGRAMS METAPROGRAM STORAGE (to program set of programs) VI PROGRAMS PROGRAM STORAGE (detailed instructions) V SUBROUTINES SUBROUTINE STORAGE (details of instruction) IV BIOCHEMICAL ACTIVITY NEURAL ACTIVITY GLIAL ACTIVITY VASCULAR ACTIVITY (signs of activity) III BIOCHEMICAL BRAIN NEURAL BRAIN GLIAL BRAIN VASCULAR BRAIN (brain) II BIOCHEMICAL BODY SENSORY BODY MOTOR BODY VASCULAR BODY (brain) I BIOCHEMICAL CHEMICAL PHYSICAL... ...EXTERNAL REALITY (external reality) Each part of each level has feedback-control relations with each part, indicated by the connecting lines. Each level has feedback-control with each other level. For the sake of schematic simplicity, many of these feedback connections are not shown. One example is an important connection between Levels VI through IX and X; some built-in, survival programs have a representative at the Supra-Self-metaprogram Level as follows: "These programs are necessary for survival; do not attenuate or excite them to extreme values; such extremes lead to non-computed actions, penalties, illness, or death." After construction, such a Metaprogram is transferred by the Self-metaprogram to the Supra-selfmetaprograms and to the Supra-species- metaprograms for future control purposes. The boundaries between the body and the external reality are between Levels I and II; certain energies and materials pass this boundary in special places (heat, light, sound, food, secretions, feces). Boundaries between body and brain are between Levels II and III; special structures pass this boundary (blood vessels, nerve fibers, cerebro-spinal fluid). Levels IV through XI are in the brain circuitry and are the software of the Biocomputer. Levels above Level X are labeled "Unknown" for the following purposes: (1) to maintain the openness of the system, (2) to motivate future scientific research, (3) to emphasize the necessity for unknown factors at all levels, (4) to point out the heuristic nature of this schema, (5) to emphasize unwillingness to subscribe to any dogmatic belief without testable reproducible data, and (6) to encourage creative courageous imaginative investigation of unknwon influences on and in human realities, inner and outer. Home * What's New * Feedback * Icon legend * Search The Sputnik Drug Information Zone http://www.nepenthes.xo.com/

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