Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies
Teaching English Language and Literature for Secondary Schools
Be. Jakub Váša
The Rebirth of Psychedelic Substances in British Literature
Master's Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph. D.
2016
i / declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
Author's signature
2 I would like to thank my supervisor Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. for his advice and help.
3 Table of Contents
Introduction 5
1 The Fourth Force of Psychology 8
1.1 The Holy Trinity 10
1.2 Ostracization 11
1.3 Psilocybin 14
1.4 Mescaline 16
1.5 Lysergic acid diethylamide 19
2 A History of Psychedelic Literature 21
2.2 The Guru and the Freak 25
2.3 The 50s-70s Psychedelic Era in the UK 29
2.4 Huxley's View: Doors of Perception & Island 32
3 Britain's Second Take on Psychedelic Literature 41
3.1 The Past is the Future 43
3.2 Retrospection: Albion Dreaming and Psychedelic Renaissance 46
3.3 New Perception: Erin 50
Conclusion 60
Works Cited 63
English Resume 67
Resume 68
4 Introduction
Psychedelic substances have been part of society for a long time. A state of mind they can induce is a response to one's need for higher truth that would explain the purpose of one's existence. Some of the ancient civilizations used various substances of natural origin such as mescaline or psilocybin but despite their historical and traditional use were banned before it was possible to utilize their potential. Despite various efforts, their harmful effects have not been validated over the course of last eighty years. On the other hand, there is plenty reports both historical and recent that psychedelic substances can actually help human mental health.
Psychedelic substances contributed to development of specific areas of literature, most notably by their potential to extend the mind of the user beyond normal perceptions. There is a considerable number of works in literature that challenge the negative perception psychedelics gained over the years. Such advocates of the use of psychedelic substances as a device enhancing one's imagination through which one can access areas of human psyche unreachable in normal conditions and as such represent the effort to readopt psychedelic substances in the British literature.
The United Kingdom has always played a crucial role in the adoption of psychedelic substances but it has been outshined by the revolution of consciousness in the United States. This caused its contribution to the world of psychedelics has not been properly recognized which is something the British authors attempt to redefine in the
21st century with their production of literary works devoted to psychedelics.
For this reason, this thesis focuses on the representation of psychedelic substances in literature produced in the United Kingdom in the second half of the 20th century and its reception and presentation during the 21st century, with occasional comparison to the development of the similar culture in the United States, mostly during
5 the second half of the 20 century. Its aim is twofold. Firstly, it seeks to validate the beneficial factor and contribution psychedelic substances have made to the culture and society of the selected period. Secondly, it aims to define the cultural and a spiritual dimension of these substances as per the literature analyzed.
The thesis does not focus on the clinical aspect of psychedelics but rather on their recreational use among the human population and its reflection in literature. In other words, it aims to address the free use of such substances, and its fruits, rather than controlled use and experiments within laboratory environment. For this reason, the works analyzed will be mainly those of Aldous Huxley, Hunter S. Thompson, Ben
Sessa, Andy Roberts and Robert Dickins with the help of Stanislav Grof and David
Lenson and Timothy Leary among the others.
The structure of the thesis is chronological. It progresses from the earlier stages of the development of psychedelics and psychedelic sub-culture with respect to the clinical aspects of their nature and effects to provide the reader with necessary background. It further advances to selected authors and analyses of their key works in respect to the effects and use of psychedelic substances.
The first part of the thesis introduces the topic and explains the basic substances that present the basis of psychedelic experience and literature (mescaline, psylocibin and LSD). It also briefly mentions transpersonal psychology which is directly linked to psychedelic experience. The second part then elaborates on the development of psychedelics between 1950s-1970s and features analyses of two works of philosopher and writer Aldous Huxely (1894-1963). These works are Island and Doors of
Perception.
The third part describes the current situation in regard to psychedelics in the UK.
It examines three works by three different authors: Andy Roberts is a historian of
6 psychedelic use in the United Kingdom - his work Albion Dreaming is extremely useful in terms of uncovering the history of psychedelic substances in the UK and defining the context of the psychedelic renaissance. Ben Sessa is a psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist experimenting with various substances (MDMA among others) to cure some of mental illnesses such as PTSD. His work Psychedelic Renaissance presents and interesting insight into the development and potential of psychedelics, the more valuable for his scientific background. Robert Dickins is a journalist and an author of the novel Erin which is analyzed here as well. Erin is important for two reasons:
First, it demonstrates the continuity of the rebirth of British psychedelic literature.
Second, it connects the British literary works to Thompson via a concept called contact high that will be further explained in the thesis.
The thesis raises several questions towards the influence of the psychedelic substances on the selected literary works, most importantly questions in regard to position of such literature within the British literature of the second half of the twentieth century and today. It tries to identify the link between 1960's psychedelic literature and its current renaissance as well as it attempts to define the current situation in regard to the use of psychedelic drugs.
7 1 The Fourth Force of Psychology
Before the respective substances are discussed, it is important to make a couple of points on the subject of transpersonal psychology mainly because it is crucial to the understanding of psychedelic drugs from the perspective of human mind and unconsciousness. The development in the field of transpersonal psychology during the
1960-70s and the era provided a springboard for future research efforts. Moreover, it is heavily involved with the research done on psychedelic drugs and some of its aspects are directly connected with psychedelic literature produced during 1960-1970 as well as with contemporary works. Donald Moss states that according to Abraham Maslow who marked it the "fourth force of psychology" the transpersonal psychology "was inspired by social and political changes happening in the United States during the 1960s" (Moss in Ruzek, 153) which puts it directly in connection with psychedelic substances.
Transpersonal psychology is one of the components of psychology that concerns spiritual aspects in terms of human experience. In its broadest sense it can be said that all the experience acquired via psychedelic drugs is part of this. However, it goes far beyond this simple statement. Transpersonal psychology as developed by Stanislav Grof and Michael Washburn directly draws on the Jungian understanding of collective unconscious, more precisely on Jungian archetypes (Sharma 16-23) which is a concept that echoes through the literature since its beginning.
Transpersonal psychology is therefore crucial for psychedelic literature as the altered states of mind directly link to the archetype of the rite of passage. The rite of passages in literature, as Campbell explains, is usually described as series of events the main hero has to undergo in order to transcend or gain wisdom (A Hero With a
Thousand Faces 23) is no different than what Stanislav and Christina Grof coined as psychospiritual crisis. According to them it is an episode of unusual experience
8 including change of mind and changes of perceptual, emotional, cognitive and psychosomatic functions that extend beyond usual limits of own self (Grof and Grof
24). There are many examples of how the literature interacts with human psyche or precisely, how the psyche is reflected in it. One example is Lewis Carol's Alice in
Wonderland where the underlying theme is already mentioned rite of passage (among others), another can be found, according to Thomas Roberts in the story of "Snow
White and the Seven Dwarves". Roberts observes that the story of Snow White can be accessed as a way of plumbing our mind (T. Roberts 29-45) when he reads the story as one's journey to resolution of a psychospiritual crisis.
Naturally, it is not just this single archetype that the reader should stick to.
Rereading the psychedelic works on the background of transpersonal psychology allows explanation of themes that can occur during the states of altered mind and provides an interesting and valuable explanations on the outcomes of consumption of psychedelic substances and their interpretation. In the literature, however, the rite of passage is indeed a recurring theme. In connection with psychospiritual crisis it answers the question on multiplicity and uniqueness of the experience and the way a psychospiritual crisis is achieved.
Transpersonal psychology is not a study guide to a psychedelic experience. As
Joseph Campbell observes: "If there is a path it is someone else's path and you are not on the adventure" (Campbell 7). Transpersonal psychology merely offers a subtle hint how psychedelic substances interact in wider context of human psyche. In the field of literary analysis, it helps to connect the archetypes to recurring themes and to explain why authors select those themes.
9 1.1 The Holy Trinity
LSD, mescaline and psilocybin are three main substances responsible for genesis of the psychedelic literature in the 20th century. All three substances are represented in the thesis because they are inseparably interwoven in the psychedelic literature, having very similar properties end effects, therefore creating one coherent inspiratory force. For this reason, they are treated as three representatives of the same aspect rather than examined as per their differences that are not relevant to the thesis in any way.
The term psychedelic substances is widely used to include different substances and their effects, and is used in literature as well as film and other areas of cultural activity. The term psychedelic was coined by Humphry Osmond in 1957. Osmond claims that it means "mind manifesting" as to the relation of free and unaffected manifestation of human mind. As stated by Solomon Snyder, this term is also used within the scientific circles to mark "compounds that produce characteristic set of profound and unique changes in human perception, thought and feeling" (Snyder 206).
In other words, substances that can alter the way how we perceive and feel everyday stimuli. Its distinction from psychoactive substances is that psychedelics mark a group within the family of psychoactive substances, mainly because they produce specific effects which are different from stimulants and hallucinogens. These effects are the main reason that mystery psychedelic substances are still shrouded in as people who underwent the experience involving application of psychedelic substance described it almost exclusively as mind changing and completely different from everything they have ever experienced. (Sessa 3-4)
The thesis uses word psychonautics quite often, it is therefore important to clarify its meaning as well. A psychiatrist Jan Dirk Blom refers to psychonautics in his
Dictionary of Hallucinogens as follows:
10 The term psychonaut comes from the Greek words psyche (life breath, spirit,
soul, mind) and nautes (sailor, navigator). It translates as 'sailor of the mind' or
'navigator of the psyche'. Its origin is commonly attributed to the German author
and expert on psychoactive chemicals Ernst Jiinger (1895-1998). Today
'psychonaut' is used as a generic term for individuals who seek to investigate
their mind using intentionally induced altered states of consciousness. (434)
The term is now widely used throughout the psychedelic literature and functions as an umbrella term for every psychedelic experience and will be used in the thesis in the same manner.
The most important question is what people seek when they use psychedelic substances recreationally. This question, answered by the popular literature, is in fact far more valuable than conclusions provided by medical studies in a perfectly controlled environment. They are records of real-life experience without simulated conditions and measured results and are the most reliable source of data as to the noxiousness or benefit of such substances.
1.2 Ostracization
Psychedelic substances were not always as controversial as they became during
1960s and 1970s. Their introduction was in fact anticipated as they seemed to be potent agents that were expected to help cure a great number of various psychological and psychiatric conditions such as alcoholism or anxiety (Stafford 34-155). Its laboratory use along with its attractivity among public and relative availability enabled them to become a symbol of an era that put exceptional emphasis on intercultural and interpersonal relationship.
11 Artificially created controversy led to a ban on psychedelics in 1966 in Britain and through programmes of U.S politicians, mainly Lyndon. B. Johnson and Richard
Nixon to a ban in the United States. The 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances banned the use of every group of psychoactive substances ranging from amphetamines to psychedelics. That halted not just the consumption and production but naturally psychedelic research as well. Peter Stafford, a writer focusing on psychedelic substances most of his career claims that: "under Nixon, the campaign to stamp out
LSD was carried on to extreme lengths. There was a talk of introducing the death penalty for persons convicted of possession. (Stafford 16) The campaign against psychedelic drugs was led with an exceptional zeal and its fruits had caused the substances to be almost eradicated from the society, being pursued to the very edge of human tolerance and identified as not different from amphetamines or opiates - substances completely different by their nature as well as their implications as to the human body and mind.
Even though current research and more importantly partial lifts of some restrictions imposed on psychedelics during Nixon era prove that conclusion of the
Vienna convention was wrong at least in regard to its part on psychedelics, there is a long way to change the view of psychedelic drugs of something being inherently bad.
At least partial favorable development can be seen in the latest legalizations of marijuana in states of Colorado and Washington in the United States and even though these can be considered just a small victory in terms of reconsideration psychedelic drugs, they may foreshadow the arrival of a more thorough revolution in this field that would enable the recreational use of psychedelics as it has been before 1966 and 1971.
In spite of that, the majority of people still believes it is a long way to go. Biochemist
Alexander Shulgin, one of the most prominent experts in the field explains:
12 The ubiquitous anti-illegal drug propaganda all about us has been prompted
primarily by the two most newsworthy entities cocaine and heroin. But
psychedelics have been caught up in this generality and the public has lumped
them together as being similarly evil. Look at the struggles that the advocates of
medical marijuana are undergoing, all in the face of this relentless Government
noise about drug abuse and related criminality. I am afraid that both the laws and
public opinion will have to change before any responsible corporation offers a
psychedelic drug commercially. And even then, its action will have to have a
description identification without words such as psychedelic, or spiritual, or
visionary, or God in it. (Shulgin)
It is now clear that the ban that has been imposed on every psychedelic substance regardless will be at least looked on as outdated. Current discussion regarding such substances and their experimental use suggest that the Western civilization is still far from drawing a comprehensive plan to utilize psychedelics to its biggest merit.
Psychedelics were swept away by the wave of an international drug panic. This effort made them undistinguished from the like of opiates and others. For the sake of clarity and to ensure the reader is familiar with the basic psychedelics used and referred to, the following three sub-chapters concern a description and a brief history of the most popular psychedelics.
13 1.3 Psilocybin
It is believed that psychedelic drugs must have played a crucial part in human development in terms of human consciousness. M.D. Merlin in his article
"Archaeological Evidence for the Tradition of Psychoactive Plant Use in the Old
World" claims that evidence found during the archaeological analyses all around the world suggest that psychedelic/psychoactive substances had been widely used during the course of past 4,000-5,000 years (295). It is unclear what the driving factor was however La Barre claims that:
as bands of humans spread out into new regions, including new ecological
situations, they carried with them a culturally inspired motivation to find and use
species of plants or fungi that would allow them to transcend their normal
consciousness and enable them to communicate with their ancestors or gods—in
essence, their spirit world" (La Barre in Merlin 296).
Apparently, the use of psychedelic substances in the region of today's Americas by their native tribes dates back to times BC. Stafford claims that: "for millennia, psylocibic mushrooms were used by native Americans, living mainly in Central America but also as far south as Chile" (Stafford 226). Even though Stafford acknowledges that very little records are to be found in respect to the original cultural use of psylocibic mushrooms, he also explains that: "what we know of the Indian rites came from gringos, and most of the relevant mushrooms go by the botanical nomenclature that ends with the name of a non-native investigator. With only fragmentary evidence relating to earlier generations of mushrooms worshippers, we must focus on fairly recent data" (Stafford 226).
For Stafford, a perfect example of this is "Teonanacatl" or "divine" mushroom that made its way to 16th century's Florentine Codex - a compilation of drawings and notes on tribes of Central America by Bernardino de Sahagun. It serves as European
14 representation or re-telling of the indigenous rituals of native inhabitants of Central
America with detailed record of their religious ritual practices, society and general worldview.
Teonanacatl's identity was nearly lost in translation when it was mistaken for the button of peyote by Dr. William E. Safford, was properly identified several years later by R. Gordon Wasson through a ritual with curandera Maria Sabina (Stafford 232)
Wasson claims that the ceremony during which he and his wife consumed the mushrooms resulted in visions of "harmonious colours and geometric patterns that emerged in the dark along with visions of palaces and gardens" (Wasson in Stafford
233). This purely visual experience was however only a part of the mushroom induced state. Wasson further described the state as "what the Greeks called ekstasis - a flight of the soul from the body" (Wasson in Stafford 233). This experiment was probably the first, as Stafford suggests, velada (a healing ceremony/vigil) that was recorded by the representatives of Western culture. As Andy Letcher claims, Wasson's attempt to provide the account of events during the ceremony and to get more publicity for the mushrooms themselves destroyed the relationships within Maria Sabina's own village
(Letcher 97-99) as it was not able to cope with the masses of mushroom seekers coming to the village after the mushrooms were popularized.
Nevertheless, psylocibic fungi found their way into the literature. Whether in the works of Terrence McKenna who nearly idolized their use or more recent Andy
Letcher's Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom.
15 1.4 Mescaline
The same that applies for the use of psylocibic fungi can be said about the use of peyote both in terms of its effects and cultural importance. Mescaline is produced by peyote cactus and some of other members of cacti family and is native to the region of
Central America and Mexico. Its effects can be compared to the ones induced by psylocibic mushrooms; however the overall impression is somehow different to the one of psylocibic mushrooms. Various sources claim it to be clearer and more focused than
LSD, without the drowsiness so inherent to condition induced by psylocibic mushrooms. (Stafford, Sessa). One of the most accurate descriptions of mescaline is provided by Aldous Huxley in Doors and occurs during contemplation on perception of spatial relationships between objects and the spectator:
The really important facts were that spatial relationships had ceased to matter
very much and that my mind perceived the world in terms of other than spatial
categories. At ordinary times the eye concerns itself with such problems as
where? — how far? — how situated in relation to what? In the mescaline
experience the implied questions to which the eye responds are of another order.
Place and distance cease to be of much interest. The mind does its perceiving in
terms of intensity of existence, profundity of significance, relationships within a
pattern (Huxley 7)
By this, Huxley defines the order of importance that concerns objects occurring in one's environment. Three dimensions we perceive our world in are no longer relevant to the user but instead, clarity, intensity and context become the attributes of the utmost importance.
Similarly to psylocibin, mescaline as psychedelic substance has been used for millennia. Historically, it parallels the use of psylocibic mushrooms by the tribes of
16 Central America and Mexico and as well as psilocybin, it has its firm place in their mythology. Stafford claims that the archaeological evidence suggests that the peyote has been used by the native Mesoamerican tribes more than 3,000 years ago (Stafford
103). More recent study by Hesham R. El Seedi from 2005 states that the history of the use of peyote buttons goes back to 8,500 BCE (238) however he points out that the results can be misleading and the remnants of plants found in paraphernalia during the archeological analysis could have been used for different purposes than psychonautics
(239).
On the other hand, there seems to be little evidence to contradict the theory that psychedelic substances, most notably the ones from buttons of peyote, were not consumed for the spiritual purposes. Again, the best evidence to support the claim that the peyote was widely used at least three millennia BC can be found in Florentine codex that details the rituals during which peyote was used. According to Stafford, the
Spaniards discovered peyote along with two other psychoactive agents - morning glory and psilocybin. (Stafford 104). The Spaniards did not seem to be very fond of the peyote themselves. Stafford claims that the Codex refers to peyote as "Raiz Diabolica" or the devil's root because the Spaniards witnessed bloody sacrifices of Aztecs under the influence of the peyote. According to Sahagun's account of things: "Indians would lose their senses, see visions of terrifying sights like the devil and were able to prophesy the future" (Sahagun in Stafford 104). This suggest that Spaniards had a completely different notion of mescaline than 1960s Americans and British.
Apart from the practice among the Mesoamerican tribes, there is practically no evidence of peyote use occurring outside these circles. Its popularity that peaked in
1960s and 70s however started long before, approximately around year 1880 (Stafford
106). This year witnessed the rise of the new religion that united peyote practices
17 among the Native Americans and is connected with three figures in general. Stafford claims these "roadmen" were John Wilson - a Caddo medicine man, Quanah Parker - one of the last Comanche chiefs and James Mooney - an American ethnographer that spent several years living with the Cherokee (106-114). The religion called Native
American Church most notable for ceremonial use of peyote in blend with Christian practices was, according to Stafford, the first mention of the peyote outside the traditionally inaccessible environment of the Mesoamerican tribes and spread north to the tribes of Native Americans (106-114). Interestingly, the church, remains active today and it is the only exemption to the U.S. law concerning illegal substances in general as they are allowed to carry and use peyote for the religious purposes.
The Native American Church, however, gained only a little attention as to the public interest in peyote and apart from the legal issues, only a small number of people took interest in their practices. As Stafford clarifies: "through the first half of the twentieth century, peyote aroused very little interest in North America among non-
Indians, aside from a few isolated instances" (Stafford 110). All that despite its synthesis in 1919 and subsequent availability in the chemical supply stores.
Stafford asserts that things started to change with Humphry Osmond's six-page study on effects of mescaline used for a treatment of psychosis and schizophrenia
(Stafford 114) but it was Aldous Huxley that became the person who introduced the effects of mescaline to the public. Having tried the effects during an experiment with a dose of mescaline, Huxley recorded the session on the pages of Doors. The book vividly describes his thoughts on the effects of the drug as well as the state one finds oneself in during the session. The literary part of the audience could have taken interest in the parts related to the works of music, literature and paint that are generously mentioned throughout the book; nevertheless, the biggest author's contribution was the
18 one concerning mental conditions, mainly schizophrenia. Huxley asserted the that mescaline induced state is temporary replication of the schizophrenic state without the possibility to regain control based on one's common sense (Huxley 16) something very close to attributes of LSD.
1.5 Lysergic acid diethylamide
Known as abbreviated three-letter word rather than its full name, LSD is the only one psychedelic agent from the three selected than limited record of use by the ancient cultures, mainly because of its inaccessibility as it occurs only as a fungus on species of rye. It was synthesised in 1938 by Albert Hoffman and at first discarded as uninteresting until Hoffman's accidental overdose in 1943. Hoffman's account of the overdose in LSD: My Problem Child was as follows:
I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the
afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, and
combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not
unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated
imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be
unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures,
extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colours. After some two
hours this condition faded away. (Hoffman, Discovery of the Psychic Effects of
LSD)
This short note, which turned out to be the first recorded LSD trip marked the genesis of the whole new chapter of psychedelics. Interestingly, LSD shared the same fate as synthesized psilocybin and mescaline and was not exceptionally popular at the beginning. Apart from a couple of medical experiments, it did not have attracted much
19 attention; however things have changed with Richard Sandison, Timothy Leary and other psychedelic pioneers who introduced LSD to the world.
Being a psychologist himself, Leary popularized the use of LSD nationwide and directly influenced the whole generation of 1960s and 1970s in the United States as well as in the United Kingdom. LSD seemed to be a perfect substance for that period. Its advertised effects on open-mind and a change of human values and thinking were the response for the call of the generation of young people who desperately wanted to change their perception of the world. In other words, an answer to everything. In addition to that, its synthetic origin eliminated the need to go and seek the nearest plant, it was conveniently distributed and could have been synthesized by everyone with the right tools and the right skills - something that enabled its quick adoption within
English culture.
20 2 A History of Psychedelic Literature
English culture has a long tradition of recorded drug use, most notably writing based on direct experience with some mind altering agent. The history goes back as far as Samuel Coleridge and Thomas de Quincey and their use of opium which, at least in case of the latter, connected mind altering substances with the literary work. Michael G.
Cooke claims that:
Coleridge and De Quincey share, and are set apart from their contemporaries by
a plangent sense of isolation and defensiveness; these traits are modulated, not
brought on, by the opium, which should be seen as their mirror and agent. For
them, then, the primary need served by the opium is the need to overcome the
double sense of the inadequacy of life for them and of their own inadequacy to
life. (Cooke 26)
This use of a mind altering agent is the closest the 19th century drug literature gets to the psychedelic writing of the 19th and 21st century. It is true that de Quincey and Coleridge used the substance initially to suppress the pain as the use of opium was quite common in the 19th century. Their inspiration came therefore rather unexpectedly compared to deliberate use of psychedelics.
Before the ban on opium, as Sally Mitchell claims, the drug market was practically unrestricted. That changed under 1914 decision of International Opium
Commission and even earlier in Britain under 1886 Pharmacy Act which marked a close on the chapter of opium eaters and also caused the production of such literary works to flounder. It was not until fifty years later that mind altering drugs found their way to the literature again within the texts of Aldous Huxley.
Many authors focusing on English literature made attempts to find out what impact the drug consumption has, but with little results. In her Opium and Romantic
21 Imagination, Alethea Hayter concludes that it is rather the effect drugs have on the life of the author than on the text itself (Hayter). Even though Hayter focuses on the effects of opium rather than on those of psychedelic substances, there is nothing that would restrict this claim to be applicable to psychedelics as well. According to Dickins, the tradition to elaborate on the relation between mind altering substances and text dates at least back to 1934 to H.M. Abrams' Milk of Paradise (The Birth of Psychedelic
Literature 17) where the imagery used by authors who were at the same time opium users was reviewed.
The effects of opium, even though different from those of psychedelic substances, can be perceived quite similar to effects of mescaline or LSD. As Thomas de Quincey describes in Confessions of an Opium Eater. "The sense of space and in the end the sense of time, were both powerfully affected. Buildings, landscapes, etc., were exhibited in proportions so vast as the bodily eye is not fitted to receive. Space swelled and was amplified to an extent of unutterable infinity" (De Quincey). Similar notion of drug-induced state can be found in the Doors where Huxley asserts that: "Visual impressions are greatly intensified and the eye recovers some of the perceptual innocence of childhood, when the sensum was not immediately and automatically subordinated to the concept. Interest in space is diminished and interest in time falls almost to zero" (Huxley 9). The experience induced by different substances is similar in the notion (or non-existence) of time and the feeling of vastness (or one's atomity) embedded in the mentioned works. At the same time, it supports Hayter's claim above as it allows the author to contemplate on the same topic drawing new conclusions and seeing new relations; experience that was used by every author examined in this thesis.
Despite the fact that all the authors mentioned are exclusively British, the general notion is that the psychedelic tradition - most notably LSD, is associated with
22 the United States. Indeed, reviewing the history of these substances within the respective country's cultural contexts reveals that the United States have far more propagators and advocates of psychedelic substances. This does not mean that such individualities were not present in the United Kingdom at all, but it shows that a lot of credit Britain deserves for contributing to popularization of psychedelics had been dissolved in United States' shadow. Andy Roberts asserts that:
In most people's minds, the history of LSD is inextricably bound up with
America. The drug was first widely used there, initially by the CIA and the
military and later in a psychotherapeutic context. But it was the counter culture
of the Sixties and Seventies, the hippies' flamboyant use of LSD that has been
most visible and which has led to the identification of the drug with America. In
addition, the vast majority of popular literature dealing with the drug has
emanated from America including, of course, the drugs most famous
proselytiser, Timothy Leary. (A. Roberts 34)
This is one of the reasons for the amount of literature concerning the subject of psychedelic drugs varying greatly between these two countries. United States had several prolific authors that focused on popular psychedelic literature starting with
Leary, Thompson, Ginsberg and others. The same search within British authors would not be as fruitful as there was only Aldous Huxley representing psychedelic literature in the same sense as American authors. His works Doors of Perception and Island are subject to analysis further in the thesis. With no apparent competition, these two works are the most prominent representatives of psychedelic literature in the United Kingdom of the second half of the 20th century.
It has been already established that the United States are more associated with psychedelic substances, however closer examination reveals that Britain influenced
23 United States in terms of psychedelics more than it seems. It was not just Huxley who served as an inspiration for prominent authors in the U.S. More thorough study offers a number of names of people that contributed or directly inspired the tip of the iceberg that is perceived today as leaders of the countercultural movement of 1960s and 70s.
Timothy Leary was undoubtedly the one that brought the LSD to the masses but as Roberts explains: "were it not for a mysterious Englishman, it is possible that Leary might not have taken LSD until much later in the Sixties, or taken it in a much weaker form (A. Roberts 101). Roberts further asserts that "American histories of LSD often omit or minimise the role of Leary's British mentor" (A. Roberts 101). In other words, the "enlightment" that came with Timothy Leary was in fact the one coming from within the Europe, where the LSD was born.
The British mentor was Michael Hollingshead, a popular figure among 1960-70s psychedelic London subculture - a man who, after his return from Millbrook estate
(house that has been considered Leary's base of operations in the United States) founded World Psychedelic Centre in London. Roberts claims that: "through the World
Psychedelic Centre Michael Hollingshead sought to formalise LSD use, hoping that
Timothy Leary's approach was transferable to the British LSD subculture" (A. Roberts
134). Nevertheless, this was not possible as, according to Roberts, "1965 London hippie scene had begun to develop its own ways of using LSD" (134) therefore distinguished itself from the American hippie culture.
Even though Hollingshead's efforts were the first to introduce psychedelics to the public, the one who introduced LSD and potentially started the experimentation with psychedelic substances in the 1960s was Dr. Robert Sandisson - a psychiatrist who originally brought LSD to Britain after he visited some of the Swiss hospitals and discussed this new substance with Albert Hoffman (A. Roberts 51). The major problem
24 in Leary-Hollingshead plan was that Leary's Revolution of Consciousness was not applicable to the British context. The British had different goals, different approaches and different perception of psychedelic drugs and as such were unable to adopt the
American ways of psychedelic revolution, being more inclined to clandestine testing and scientific research rather than to full-scale revolution of mind.
Despite this apparent disarray, the literary branch of psychedelics in Britain and the United States followed roughly the same direction. Major works of prominent authors such as Huxley and Leary were written in similar manner, always recollecting on the memories of their psychedelic experience and creating manuals rather than building a literary text around the experience itself - something that was done later by
Hunter S. Thompson.
2.2 The Guru and the Freak
During the peak of the countercultural movement which Thompson was part of, a great number of works popularizing the use of psychedelic substances in the United
States emerged. They use various literary devices; however, it can be said majority of the literature concerning or based on direct experience with psychedelic substances naturally originated in 1960s and 1970s when the countercultural movement was already an integral part of the society.
The works that emerged during this era could be generally divided into two categories: firstly, there is a category of works on psychedelics that aim to instruct people how to achieve the most intensive experience during a psychedelic journey.
Representative of such informative texts is Timothy Leary's Psychedelic Experience which mainly instructs the reader in regards to ideal conditions for a psychedelic journey. Primary function of the Psychedelic Experience is to provide a guide to
25 psychonautics, it does not seek to entertain the reader but rather to become the main text for psychonauts. It draws on direct inspiration with the Tibetan Book of the Dead - a
Buddhist text that is a guide for a death/rebirth process. Leary uses the death/rebirth for the Tibetan Book of the Dead as parallel to ego death/psychospiritual crisis and this apparent fascination with the text is one of the main cultural conflicts one can find within otherwise impeccable theory of spiritual enlightenment. David Lenson's work
On Drugs disputes view of Leary and Huxley for its apparent inconsistency with
Western culture:
their insistence on forcing their insights into a framework which is essentially
Tibetan produces a strained, somewhat artificial effect like the efforts of early
astronomers to force the movements of planets to fit into the Ptolemaean system.
Because these texts determined the popular reception of the family of
psychedelics, it is now difficult to guess how else these drugs might have been
welcomed in Europe and America. (Lenson 143)
By assuming the role of the spiritual leader, Leary devises the doctrine of LSD culture without any further implications as to the nature of the society it is intended for.
Lenson's second question aims at the alternate scenario where the framework for the psychonautics is not the one based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead: "What would have happened if psychedelics had entered directly into the West without a prejudice generated from the scripture of a distant religion? There is a chance that they might have led to that rarest of moments, a purely Western mysticism" (Lenson 143)
Answer to this question lies within the pages of works of another author that popularized consumption of psychedelic substances - a journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
Thompson's writing is the closest one can get to purely Western mysticism produced by the America of the 1960s. Thompson's works, based on experience with psychedelic
26 drugs differ from the ones written by Leary. They are not guides; do not attempt to turn psychedelics into a new kind of religion. Instead, they capture conspicuous consumption that is closer to the Western model than anything Leary has ever written. Reason for this can be found within one of Thompson's crucial works - Hells Angels: The Strange and
Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang:
The Edge. . . There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who
really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others - the living
- are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and
then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came
time to choose between Now and Later. (Thompson 271)
A pure mantra devised by one of the authors that showed there does not necessary have to be some higher principle in the use of psychedelic substances. Instead, he proposed another way to enjoy such experience by removing a religious undertone and replacing it with something more familiar and inherent to Western society of 1960s and 1970s - to get high, to alter the mind with the ability to return with no consequences, leaving only the valuable experience.
Hunter S. Thompson was able to bring this aspect of psychedelics to the very top when he created the whole genre from it. By the definition of literary style, Thompson belongs to the ranks of "New Journalism", at least by its primary distinction. More close examination of his works reveals certain deviation from the definition of the New
Journalism. He coins his own term "Gonzo Journalism" that does not deny its inspiration with "New Journalism" however at the same time shows the reader how such genre can be extended and pursued to its very limits.
27 The "New Journalism" was developed by Tom Wolfe - a journalist and the first writer to use approach and devices that later became the whole new genre. In regard to the "New Journalism" Wolfe explains:
It was that-plus. It was the discovery that it was possible in non-fiction, in
journalism, to use any literary device, from the traditional dialogisms of the
essay to stream-of-consciousness, and to use many different kinds of
simultaneously, or within a relatively short space [...] to excite the reader both
intellectually and emotionally. (Wolfe 15)
This approach enabled Thompson to develop his own style that drew on the "New
Journalism" but in its essence was more raw and direct than Wolfe's texts.
Thompson often uses context of psychedelic drug-induced state to comment on the aspects of American society, culture and the representation of American dream.
Psychedelic drugs are a looking glass through which he would see the things they really are, amplified beyond the possibilities of a regular person. "Gonzo journalism" is a result of these attempts which mixes all the above aspects into the new form. Bruce-
Novoa observes that: "Gonzo writing is quite similar to stream-of-consciousness.
Thoughts and descriptions flow together, moving rapidly from one subject to another, direction often determined by word association. The free flow allows for constant digression, one of Thompson's central techniques" (41).
For Hunter S. Thompson, this new genre seems to be a perfect opportunity to unleash his creativity and to express his opinions concerning the social image of the US because it provides absolute freedom and the possibility to exaggerate things for the purpose of maintaining reader's curiosity which is the feature that is abundantly represented in Thompson works.
28 Direct inspiration with the works of Thompson is palpable in the Robert
Dickins' novel Erin that is one of the representatives of the reborn psychedelic literature in the United Kingdom. Notwithstanding, it is important to add that at the time of the publication of Thompson's works, there was nothing to compare it with in the United
Kingdom. The genre of psychedelic literary fiction was practically non-existent and it remained exclusively American until the 21st century.
2.3 The 50s-70s Psychedelic Era in the UK
The development of the cultural notion and propagation of psychedelic substances in the UK took a different path from the one seen in United States even though the public outcome was the same. Despite the lack literary works devoted to this topic psychedelics blossomed within more dynamic forms of artistic expressions, mainly music.
In addition to apparent manifestations of psychedelics in music the UK government has been testing them secretly. Roberts explains that the British military carried out several experiments with LSD on the military personnel - voluntary and involuntary in Porton Down during the years 1953 - 1954, all strictly clandestine (A.
Roberts 70-90). As Roberts points out: "the existence of the Porton Down LSD tests was hidden from the British public until 2002. The government's obsession with secrecy for its own sake led at first to a complete denial the test had ever taken place, a denial that was only withdrawn when legal pressure was brought to bear" (A. Roberts
76). The scientific research activity in Britain was lasted until the 1966. Ben Sessa observes that there were "thousands of books and papers written but then it all went silent [...] almost as if there has been some active demonization" (Sessa in Roberts
29 312). And makes an obvious connection to the ban that has been imposed on LSD in
1966.
From the cultural perspective, literature had its productive counterpart in music.
Edward Macan in his Rocking the Classics divides British psychedelic music to three wings: first is Cream and Yardbirds, second Traffic and Colosseum and third Pink
Floyd and Procol Harum. (19-21) with the last one being directly influenced by the
Beatles (Macan 20). Macan mentions Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as crucial work for the future years of British psychedelic music (20). Beatles reference psychedelic substances quite often in their songs either in lyrics or in the music itself.
Dave Swanson's article focusing on Beatles' psychedelic songs identifies ten songs that were confirmed by the band members as psychedelic-inspired (Swanson). The overall impression however consists of more elements. As Macan explains: "the surrealism of the lyrics and the album cover art, even the elaborate light shows at concerts, can be understood to stem directly from the psychedelic Zeitgeist of the period, particularly from the impact of hallucinogenic drugs" (Macan 13). Pink Floyd took this concept even further when they, it was the whole band sound and the way their shows were organized, mainly as visual and aural scenery accompanying the music itself had only purpose - attempt to induce altered state of mind or at least disrupt the boundaries between spiritual and material world. Macan explains:
By late 1966, however, when the band had hired a student named Joe Gannon
from London's Hornsey College of Art, their light show had become much more
sophisticated: "Flashing lights, slide projection, thunderous atmospheric sounds
and incense were the essence of the psychedelic Pink Floyd concerts... on either
side [of the band], sets of filtered spots sprayed various colours over the stage
whilst modern art slides were projected behind. (62)
30 These attempts to accommodate the stage so it can fit in the psychedelic context of the music contributed to the idea of psychedelics as holistic experience and to certain extent parallels Huxley's experience in Doors, mainly in terms of being one with everything.
Music and literature were undisputedly the two main cultural drivers of the revolution that took place in 1960s Britain however there was much more to it in socio- cultural context than art. In the 1960, the conscription in Britain has been cancelled which contributed to a fast changing personality of a British teenager. This was a perfect environment for psychedelic substances. Roberts explains:
The first six years of the 1960s had seen recreational use of LSD in Britain
develop and spread. What once had been an obscure and hard to find drug, the
province of a few thrill seeking jazz musicians and beatniks, was now available
to anyone with the will to look. People were still taking it for the thrills but a
growing number considered it a holy sacrament and a catalyst for consciousness
expansion. (A. Roberts 131)
At this point, LSD was still legal to use and distribute among the public which contributed even more to its relaxed and free use among the British. This situation changed in 1966. Roberts explains: "form early 1966 onwards the British and American media regularly featured lurid stories and exposes about the social use of LSD. Though
LSD has caused no fatalities and there had been a surprisingly low number of episodes of mental illness, for the media LSD had become a social panic (A. Roberts 67). That marked the end of the psychedelic era and psychedelics were declared illegal in 1966.
Ben Sessa, upon exhausting review of British psychedelic culture concludes: "Rather than listen to the views of many academic and spiritual leaders at the time, who proposed a system of control that would allow for the safe use of the drug, the authorities, in their wisdom, made LSD illegal" (Sessa 72). Despite this event, majority
31 of people who were using the LSD recreationally accepted the Huxlean notion of psychedelics, that is, mind expanding drug that should be used in a deeper context of one's spirituality as a definition to live by. In terms of popular works, Aldous Huxley is the only representative of psychedelic writers of the 20th century UK. Except for his works, there were no other authors that would be recognized creating similar output.
2.4 Huxley's View: Doors of Perception & Island
Aldous Huxley published the Doors of Perception in 1954, the Island was published twelve years later. Although both books are far from each other in terms of genre, they both became a staple of psychedelic literature. This is natural in case of
Doors as the work itself is philosophical essay about Huxley's recollection of a mescaline trip and subsequent insights on qualities of the experience, whether aesthetic or spiritual but it is not that obvious in case of the Island. Both works differ in terms of literary style, focus and in the way they convey the message to the reader, despite the fact that the message is quite similar in both cases.
Doors feature Huxley's mescaline trip on the May 3rd 1953. Respective components of the trip include contemplation on a single subject of vase of flowers as well as on various art forms - painting (Botticelli, Van Gogh and Vermeer are mentioned) and music (Mozart and Gesulado) however none of them is really touched in depth. Instead, Huxley focuses on an underlying idea of difference between active and contemplative life which becomes a central question of the whole book. As Huxley observes, the altered state "gives access to contemplation but contemplation that is incompatible with action and even with the will to action, the very thought of action"
{Doors 18).
32 One of the most interesting parts of Doors is the beginning of the psychedelic experience. The reader is aware that this is author's first encounter with such substance which adds an element of expectation to the text. When mescaline starts to work,
Huxley notices that the biggest change is happening in the realm of objective fact
{Doors 5) which is demonstrated on the aforementioned vase of flowers. Huxley recalls his memory from the morning as being struck by the dissonance of the colours (Doors
5) but the he sees the universal relations going beyond the point of mere subjective perception reflecting on the very existence of the vase and the flowers. Huxley explains:
"I was not looking now at an unusual flower arrangement. I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence" (Doors 5). What Huxley refers to is looking beyond the object itself as the authors perception is not fixed to the object but rather on the existence of the object as such.
From the flowers, Huxley turns his attention towards books in his study (Doors
6) . In case of books, Huxley surprisingly refrains from a thorough elaboration and focuses solely on the objects and their colours rather than perceiving books as symbols as reader would expect. After describing the books briefly, Huxley mentions his perception of furniture: "A small typing table stood in the center of the room; beyond it, from my point of view, was a wicker chair and beyond that a desk. The three pieces formed an intricate pattern of horizontals, uprights and diagonals—a pattern all the more interesting for not being interpreted in terms of spatial relationships" (Doors 7).
Again, the author contemplates on his own relation to these items and he draws the same conclusion as in the case of the flowers: "I was back where I had been when I was looking at the flowers-back in a world where everything shone with the Inner Light, and was infinite in its significance" (Doors 8). The infinity of significance has a direct
33 connection with the distorted perception of space and time. As Huxley often refers to an infinity as one of the inherent qualities of things, it is clear that space and time do not have any significance to him. This is interesting mainly because it shows that author does not distinguish between animate and inanimate objects. To Huxley, once both are freed form the spatial and temporal relations they have, their persistence is infinite, therefore equally important.
Experience recorded in Doors is quite close to what has been propagated by
Leary as revolution of mind when speaking of psychedelics. He recalls the experience as something that expands the perception itself, makes one more fascinated with the way ordinary things are, as can be seen on Huxley's contemplation on the vase of flowers as well as the understanding of various concepts of spiritual enlightenment such as Satchitananda: Hinduistic concept of existence, consciousness and bliss {Doors 6).
This corresponds with the lines from William Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell that gave the work its name: "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern" (Blake). For Huxley, the cleansing is done via the psychedelic experience, Huxley often refers to a brain as to a valve that holds back oneself from being fully aware which is for the sake of our own survival. He claims that: "To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funnelled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this Particular planet" {Doors 8). A philosopher CD. Broad mentioned in
Doors asserts that: "if we have to accept the occurrence of various paranormal cognition, we ought to extend the verification principle to cover the possibility of propositions which are validated or invalidated by other kinds of cognitive experience
34 besides those generally admitted (Broad 23). When this is employed in the context of
Doors, it shows that Huxley refers to ineffability of psychedelic experience via normal means of communication.
Psychedelic experience that opens the valve and cleanses the doors, has yet another quality for Huxley. Huxley shares the similar perception with Leary on the subject of love. Leary claims that: Conscious love is not an emotion; it is serene merging with yourself, with other people, with other forms of energy. Love cannot exist in an emotional state {Politics of Ecstasy 39). Neither of them assert that the psychedelic experience is the only correct one and that it cannot be achieved via other means but for
Huxley it is also a way of life, correct behaviour, alertness and most importantly love.
In his letters to Humhpry Osmond, Huxley observes:
What came through the open door was the realization - not the knowledge, for
this was not verbal or abstract - but the direct total awareness. From the inside,
so to say, of Love as the primary and fundamental cosmic fact. What emerges as
a general conclusion is the confirmation of the fact that mescaline does
genuinely open the door, and that everything including the Unknown in its
purest, most comprehensive form can go through. (Huxley in Beauchamp 60)
Love is For Huxley the acknowledgment of the infinite everlasting that connects all the infinite objects around us.
Another aspect connected with the altered state of consciousness that is examined in the book is the difference between the mind of a sane person and those who suffer from mental illnesses. One can assume that Huxley was well aware of
Sidney Cohen's attempts to validate LSD as a potent agent for psychotherapy since
Huxley's own notes on the subject of understanding of the people with mental disorders suggest that:
35 In certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even non•
existent. The mind is its own place, and the Places inhabited by the insane and
the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and
women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a
basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to
enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually
exclusive realms of experience. {Doors 3)
Here Huxley distinguishes mentally ill from healthy people but interestingly enough does not claim the former to be defunct in any way. Instead he compares them to the ones being genius {Doors 3). For Huxley there is no difference between mentally ill and exceptionally gifted as both would have problems with communication mostly because their inner worlds being different. It is proposed, though indirectly, that psychedelic substances could be in fact the means to achieve that common ground for normal people, not by curing the mentally ill but replicate mental conditions they suffer from and find the means of communication.
Unlike Doors, Island follows a different path of the same subject. The story is fictional and take place in the Utopian society of the kingdom of Pala. It features a story of William Farnaby - a journalist who deliberately crashes his boat on the shores of
Pala Island in order to persuade the queen of the island to provide access to vast oil fields. It functions as a reversed version of Brave New World - one of Huxley's previous novels featuring dystopian society. In this work, Huxley does not assume the role of psychonaut as in Doors and leaves that to the main protagonist. Instead, Huxley uses the benefit of the fiction to elaborate on the perfect society and the means through which it is achieved.
36 One of the greatest themes reader finds within the Island is the author's reference to spiritual enlightment and rejection of being dependent on material things.
As already mentioned, the ways of Pala completely differ from the notion of the
Western world represented by Farnaby, as Robert McPhail explains to him:
"Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence - those are the three pillars of
Western prosperity. If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you'd collapse.
And while you people are over consuming the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster" {Island 111). The author rejects the overconsumption of the Western civilization confronting it with the ideal picture of Pala, where they selectively use only the technology that would not lead to overproduction and also shows that the ideal use of technology should be used specifically for medical and nutritional purposes rather than to destroy.
The part that reflects Huxley's opinion on psychedelics as means of transcendence is almost at the end of the book. Towards the end of Island, Will is finally admitted to try moksha - a substance Pala use to transcend their mind. The experience as described in the book is similar to what Huxley recorded on the pages of
Doors mainly the infinity of all. Will calls it luminous bliss {Island 325) but it is the same concept as in case of Doors touching upon the ineffability of the experience:
this timeless and yet ever-changing Event—was something that words could
only caricature and diminish, never convey. It was not only bliss, it was also
understanding. Understanding of everything, but without knowledge of anything.
Knowledge involved a knower and all the infinite diversity of known and
knowable things {Island 326)
At this moment, Will simply becomes Huxely's embodiment and a recall on the mescaline trip featured in Doors.
37 Similarly to Doors, the experience is aural as well. Will listens to Bach's
"Fourth Brandenburg Concerto", the one he claims he "knows by heart" {Island 329). In the context of psychedelic experience; however, he perceives it as a different piece of music. By this, Huxley refers to psychedelic experience as a means of transcending to a different level of consciousness. This part demonstrates author's belief that once one's mind has been elevated, all the old memories and experience are seen differently, drawing new conclusions in the light one being them.
Will's psychedelic journey at the end of the book represents the rite of passage which links the literature to transpersonal psychology and the tradition of psychonautics. In Island, it is a representative of Western culture undergoing spiritual adventure to become a better person, to see the world in different context which eventually happens. Interpersonal psychology is represented by Will's empiric approach to such state, the psychonautic tradition by Pala's tradition and literature by the book itself.
As Gorman Beauchamp claims, Huxley's aim was to write a story about a society in which real efforts are made to realize human potentialities (Beauchamp 59).
The means for making this possible led obviously through the mystical experiences and spiritual enlightenment. In Island this is represented by moksha and it is no surprise that the same name in Hindu refers to various forms of liberation and emancipation being one of the four crucial aspects of one's life. As Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan explains,
"Moksha or spiritual freedom is the aim of all human life. It is the destiny of man to reach the summits of spirit and attain immortality [...] and is the ideal towards which humanity has to move. All life is set to the music of this ideal. (Radhakrishnan, 6-7).
The substance as described in Island is in sharp contracts with the one introduced on the pages of Brave New World - soma: ""Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant"
38 (Huxley). These attributes are abused and exploited as soma serves to suppress human independence making it means of control and distraction from the slavish lives of the inhabitants of the World State.
Huxley's own experiments with psychedelics certainly served as an inspiration for this model of Utopian society. The urge to develop more conscious and enlightened self can be tracked back to Huxley's effort on the pages Doors and Island. What Huxley refers to, however, is pure awareness, something Huxley examines quite closely within the pages of Island and Doors, with the latter elaborating on the subject of awareness, or more precisely on the lack of it:
To formulate and express the contents of this reduced awareness, man has
invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit
philosophies which we call languages. Every individual is at once the
beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he or she has
been born — the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to he
accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it
confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it
be-devils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for
data, his words for actual things. {Doors 9)
Pure awareness refers to the spiritual dimension which is beyond the systems above crystalizes in Island and the use of moksha as a part of the Pala's sociocultural context and tradition, something that distinguishes them for the Western civilization and which
Huxley perceives as the correct way of synchronizing the Western and the Eastern philosophies of spiritual enlightment.
Huxley's attempts on psychedelic writing were successful. Both works delineated what later emerged in the works of Thompson and Dickins even though in
39 more direct representation. Despite their apparent differences both Island and Doors carry he same idea, which is hope that psychedelics can help achieve better world through transcendence of an individual.
40 3 Britain's Second Take on Psychedelic Literature
One is tempted to say that the notion of psychedelic substances at the beginning of the 21st century has not changed. At first glimpse, there is little progress on the subject in terms of public display of any serious effort to change the way how psychedelic substances are perceived. There is no obvious revolution going on and there are seldom any news about ground-breaking discoveries being made in this field. Closer inquiry into the psychedelic subculture however uncovers vast resources and works devoted to this subject. This all thanks to the World Wide Web which allows the knowledge on respective substances and texts to amass beyond the imaginable.
Ben Sessa in his Psychedelic Renaissance features two psychedelic eras that have already occurred: from 1880 to 1930 and from 1938 to 1976. (Sessa 53-54) The end of the second era is surprisingly not marked by the ban on the distribution in 1966 but probably by Operation Julie - a police investigation during 1976-1977 that led to a breakup of two biggest LSD manufacturing groups in the UK.
At the same time the culture in the UK changed. Roberts explains that the decline of LSD was largely because of the fast changing drug scene. He asserts that "the advent of punk in the late Seventies was the beginning of the end for clearly defined drug user groups [... ]they still existed but all kinds of drugs were so widespread by the
Eighties that the barriers between tribal groupings and their chemical predilections began to merge" (A. Roberts 288). The nature of punk and new wave music that emerged during the Seventies and redefined the British subcultures more or less until the end of the millennium. Roberts observes that many of the users were taking the LSD during these years "more for the sheer weirdness of its effects rather than for spiritual insights" (A. Roberts 288). The cultural change happened hand in hand with different substances that became popular during Seventies and Eighties - amphetamine, ecstasy
41 that were more suitable for the rapid beat electronica environment than contemplative ways of psychedelics.
The years 1976-2000 indeed signify the biggest silence in the history of psychedelics in Britain from the literary perspective. However, the psychedelic authors emerging after 2000 such as Ben Sessa, Andy Roberts, Robert Dickins, Andy Letcher and others confirm that Britain was in fact just preparing to assume its rightful place on the map of psychedelic literature. The entrée has been foreshadowed by the efforts worldwide efforts to establish international bodies that would centre the psychedelic research. Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in 1986 and
Erowid - educational organization that focuses on psychoactive plants and chemicals founded in 1995. Both organizations originated from U.S. however their nature is worldwide, connecting the people all around the globe, which makes them applicable for the UK as for any other country.
"Psychedelic Renaissance" as Sessa labels it is therefore fuelled not only by international association but also its own development on the field of psychiatry/psychology and subsequently in arts as well. In the interview, Dickins asserts that: "The renaissance refers to an increase in scientific research, and not to the culture that surrounds these substances, which has never gone away and has indeed - through alchemy and other endeavours - kept the psychedelic flame going in the meantime"
(Dickins). This can be most accurately seen on the example of Breaking Convention that has been first Britain's public effort for the dialogue on psychedelics.
Being very recent activity, Breaking Convention was first held in 2011 (Sessa
147). Its activity backs up the rising interest form the academic sphere to reopen the theme of psychedelics in the UK. Sessa claims that:
42 meeting gathered over 600 delegates and speakers from 29 different countries
and a broad range of topics was debated, which reflected the multidisciplinary
backgrounds of the organisers. We covered subjects from ethno-cultural-botany
and sociology to binaural beats, receptor profiles, clinical innovations and
historical accounts of experiential moments in psychedelic history (Sessa 148)
The event's periodicity (2011, 2013, and 2015) suggest that it is something that receives constant support from the public, making the first event of its kind in the UK.
The 21st century looks interesting for psychedelics in the UK. The recent progress in the literary field suggests that there is an effort to readdress psychedelic substance in the socio-cultural context. Along with other ways to spread the knowledge of psychedelics like Breaking Convention Britain shows that it aims to contribute to the development in the filed both academic and popular actively.
3.1 The Past is the Future
The British psychedelic literature of the 21st century can be divided into two groups. Both emerge from the psychedelic tradition laid out by Huxley, Leary and
Thompson however the way they appeal to the reader varies greatly.
The first group is non-fiction. It analyses the history of LSD and use of psychedelic substances in general. It tries to dissect the history and via retrospective looks and provide the reader with the sound understanding of the role Britain has played in the psychedelic movement. Authors such as Ben Sessa and Andy Roberts provide the reader with every detail to support and spread the assumption that psychedelic substances deserve a second chance. There are also attempts try to clarify the legends that gathered around psychedelics during several decades of repressions and clandestine experimentation, some of them being products of advocates of psychedelics as well.
43 One of many examples of such work is Andy Letcher's book Shrooms which attempts to provide a clear report on the use and effects of psylocibic mushrooms, even for the cost of tearing down fables devised by their most famous propagator Terrence
McKenna.
The attempt to readdress the subject that has gained quite negative connotations during the past decades is similar to efforts of Huxley, Leary and other pioneers of psychedelic literature. The biggest difference, however, is that the new authors have the history to back their claims with. What makes it valuable is the commitment to stick to the facts, to avoid the transcendental element that impedes the reader's understanding which is exactly the opposite the authors of 60s and 70s did.
In the foreword to Sessa's Psychedelic Renaissance, Rick Doblin, founder of
MAPS, states that Sessa looks dispassionately at the excesses and mistakes and irrational backlash of the 1960s psychedelic movement (Sessa). This description is far from accurate and the same applies for Andy Roberts as well. Their attempts are neither dispassionate nor unbiased as the authors are or were the users of psychedelic substances. As already mentioned in the thesis, psychedelic experience can hardly leave you unbiased and this is only for the best as the experience and belief that psychedelic were not dealt with correctly is the force that can prompt change of the opinion of public via such works. The thing they have in common is passion to help the public to distinguish psychedelics from the rest of the drugs.
The second group of psychedelic literature - fiction exists for the very same reason and it is equally important to the psychedelic literature. Robert Dickins represent the most recent way the British psychedelic novel is going. Dickins' work shows what seems to be the continuation of the legacy of Hunter S. Thompson as Dickins' novel
Erin employs similar strategies and resembles Thompson's most famous works.
44 The importance of psychedelic fiction lies in the way it conveys the message to the reader. Non-fiction that maps the history of psychedelic substances as in case of
Albion Dreaming is undoubtedly important for psychedelics to be reconsidered nevertheless fiction can achieve a better connection with the reader. This dichotomy has parallel in Huxlean dilemma between the ways of Mary and Martha (Doors 18), between active and contemplative. The former may not attract the reader to such extents as it presents a product of an academic mind - something that laymen may consider out of their reach. The identification is therefore more difficult at best when not impossible and may, even though not in its exact sense, suppress the function of literature that is, as
Umberto Eco puts it, to be "read for its own sake, for humanity's own enjoyment [...] for pleasure, spiritual edification, broadening of knowledge, or maybe just to pass time without anyone forcing us to read" (Eco 1). Nevertheless, for those genuinely interested it can serve as a great starting point to launch their own psychedelic inquiry through concept labelled "contact high". Contact high is according to Shulgin "unintentional joining into the spirit of a group interaction without the use of any drug that might have been used by the others" (Shulgin). As the next two sub-chapters demonstrate, the contact high is better transferred through the genre of novel, mainly because its fluid and dynamic form.
45 3.2 Retrospection: Albion Dreaming and Psychedelic Renaissance
As it has been already mentioned in the introductory chapter, Sessa and Roberts are authors who try to achieve the public enlightment in regard to psychedelic substances. They are both advocates of psychedelic substances as to their legalization but there is quite large gap between what does that mean for each of them. That is quite palpable when one compares Albion Dreaming and Psychedelic Renaissance. The only thing the two works have in common is that they appreciate it has been an error to ban psychedelic substances/research. Apart from this the two authors disagree greatly on how the following years of advocacy of psychedelics should look like.
Albion Dreaming's main goal is to inform the reader on the historical repression psychedelics and the users of psychedelic had to undergo. This is most notable in the chapter titled "LSD: A Cure for Common Cold?" which elaborates on the experiments
British government sanctioned in order to asses potential of LSD in combat (A.Roberts
70-91). The book introduces several people that were in the military that participated - willingly and unwillingly, on the experiments with LSD. It also maps the background of those experiments. Roberts uses all the information extracted as a supporting argument to show that the government was the first one to incorporate the use of LSD and what more, sometimes without the people's consent. Roberts asserts that even though LSD might have caused complications for some individuals, it is always better to know what is happening with you than otherwise (A. Roberts 71-90) which is also the main theme of the chapter.
The chapter indirectly asks why would someone who forces people to take the substance without their consent have to make decision on its legality. In the interview with Psychedelic Press Roberts answers:
46 In the mid-sixties Britain was only twenty years on from World War Two and
was a very staid and reactionary country. People were expected to know their
place and follow the tried and tested route of birth/school/work/death. Britain
was booming, individuality and deviance from the norm was frowned on and
people were basically expected to be good little consumers and, basically, to
work themselves to death. (A. Roberts)
This is notion contrast markedly with what would be going on should psychedelics spread across the UK. In the interview Roberts associates the shift in this stereotype to a changes LSD signified when he further clarifies: "it wasn't until the advent of LSD that large numbers of people began to actively reject consumerism and to think about how their lives could be different, how the psychedelic experience could be brought into day to day life" (A. Roberts). Attributing a change of the social thinking to such thing is a bold move. LSD certainly has the qualities to influence the masses, however it is at least disputable as Roberts puts it.
While Roberts tends to express a classical view point of the LSD advocate, a view that implies that LSD ban was a result of the government being afraid of people quitting their jobs and a wider cultural and social revolution, Sessa takes a different path. Psychedelic Renaissance reflects authors' scientific background above anything else. Unlike Albion Dreaming, Sessa's work deals with the topic of psychedelics in much wider context. In the chapter "The Prehistory and Ancient History of
Hallucinogens" Sessa's sticks to findings which he uses to extrapolate the opinion on the benefit/noxiousness of psychedelic substances. The chapter provides an account of certain psychedelic potions such as Vedic soma or Greek kykeon used in the past and that are mentioned in the sacred texts of respective religions. Sessa claims that "despite the relatively very recent influence of Christianity's attempt to eradicate psychedelic
47 spirituality [...] it really has never gone away and entheogenic spirituality still plays a part in today's multi-faith secular society" (83).
The chapter introduces many cases where psychedelics substances could have been responsible for the spiritual nature of given religion (Sessa 76-88). It links the historical events and well-known pictures from history to the usage of psychedelic substances which further reinforces the underlying idea of the book which is that the psychedelics are not something invented by the people and that have been on Earth millennia before the people as we know emerged therefore there should not be any logical reason to reject or restrict them from use.
One of the examples of this is a part on witch hunts where Sessa asserts that the behaviour of all executed was actually caused by an ergot poisoning, substance used to synthesize LSD (89). Sessa uses this example to demonstrate its modern counterpart in
War on Drugs. He explains that it "is our version of the Middle Age witch-hunts, albeit in a far less extreme form [...] which has as much scientific validity as the Middle Ages' persecution of witches. Punishments are metered out arbitrarily according to the whims and fancies of the local authorities, media driven mob takes control" (Sessa 89). This parallel seems to be extreme at least nevertheless the resemblance as Sessa proposes is striking.
Another important part of Psychedelic Renaissance connects the artistic use of psychedelics and the potential to cure people suffering from mental disorders, two arguments in favour of psychedelic research. Here, Sessa bases his findings on the research in the field of psychiatry and neurology.
The supposed ability of psychedelics to cure or at least mitigate some mental disorders is one of Sessa's main arguments for the legalization of psychedelic substances. Sessa uses interesting approach to support this claim. Firstly, he introduces
48 the recent status on supposed relation of left and right hemisphere of human brain. (118)
He explains that the experiments suggest that psychedelics are responsible for the part of the brain that draws relationships between emotions and specific knowledge (118)
The chapter further proceeds with a couple of examples on how the LSD was measured to influence creativity of an artists. As an evidence, Sessa uses examples form 1960-
1970 experiments with artist from the United States and Germany. As Sessa suggests, all the experiments concluded that the artist's work has been better in all aspects under the influence of psychedelics (120). The chapter extends beyond works of art, Sessa takes examples from various fields such as architecture, advertising and others. The enhanced creativity as a result of aforementioned processes is subsequently used in the last part of the chapter that concern treatment of patients with autism (122), linking the two together.
It is obvious that Roberts' and Sessa's efforts have the same aim. What distinguishes them is the way the notion of psychedelics is conveyed to the reader.
Roberts's attempt is to martyrize psychedelics. Albion Dreaming's main argument is based on the idea that psychedelics deserve their place in the society because they were ostracized for so long, apparently without justification and serious research. Sessa's approach is different. He agrees that psychedelics should be reintroduced to society, however he tries to support it with as many evidence as possible, drawing on a number of research and scientific breakthroughs of the last decade as well as from 1960s and
1970s and highlighting their benefits.
49 3.3 New Perception: Erin
Different from the works of Sessa and Roberts, Erin is what connects the
American literary tradition embodied by Hunter S. Thompson and the British genre of psychedelic writing as there was no such work in the British psychedelic literature before. Thompson and Dickins are connected by the fact that they were writing on the direct experience not only with psychedelics but also by the events they are describing - both being journalists. Even though Dickins' work diverts from certain aspects of
Gonzo Journalism mainly in terms leaving out the questions and assumptions on politics, it is still similar to what has been introduce in The Fear and Loathing in Las
Vegas. This chapter aims to analyse the respective features of Erin and to draw the possible connections to Thompson's work.
Sticking to the author's familiar ground, Erin takes place during Solpsycle
Gathering - a music festival in Somerset. In the interview with Jeremy Johnson, Dickins explains:
The old adage is that you write about what you know. I spent the best part of a
decade reviewing music and arts festivals for various publications - the good,
the bad, and the darn right weird. My reviews always attempted to answer the
question of 'what have I been thrown into?' and unpicking the carnivalesque and
psychedelic atmospheres, ones I found myself bejewelled in the middle of, gave
me the opportunity to re-create what I hope is a very trippy pastiche of
occasions.(Dickins)
The scene is muddy field with an imminent downpour that commences right after Elijah
Baillie's (Lije) and his friends arrive at the site (Dickins 17). To a certain extent it is similar to Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas where the main protagonist gets
50 caught up in an artificial sandstorm (Thompson 35-40), interestingly enough, both end up in a tent that saves them from being devoured by the calamity.
There is apparent connection with Glastonbury festival that is quite famous for its muddy conditions, something that is addressed on the festival radio channel as
"messy mud den in some parts of the site and swimming conditions on the main campsite" (Dickins 14). Mud in this case serves as a parallel to main protagonist Lije's mental state, where he is later referenced as stuck with his memories of a trauma connected with a death of his friend, a girl named Erin.
The book opens with the main protagonist Lije awakening next to Erin (then unknown) who claims to be a psychonaut. Upon recollecting the night before, Erin explains to Lije, who cannot remember even his name: "I remember the space getting smaller as our night wore on together, I remember whispering in your ear and our space opening again [...] then you took me on a wander round the stars, deep into the great fires that burn in the heart of universe (Dickins 10). This foreshadows Lije's future/past journey through the four days of the festival as he sets of on the journey to get in terms with his own self, consuming motley assortment of psychedelic substances along the way. Erin is not omnipresent throughout the story, her presence grows and diminishes as Lije experiences various stages of his psychospiritual crisis.
The psychospiritual crisis as stated in chapter 1 occurs when an individual experiences that extends beyond our usual perceptions of reality. In Lije's case it is his repressed reconciliation with the death of Erin after he blocked the memory completely.
As one of his friends - Jon remarks to Lije: "Have you not noticed not mentioning her name in a year? Not even a reference? We all thought you blocked her completely, as if that night had never happened" (Dickins 68). Ironically, it is exactly the opposite as,
Erin interacts with Lije quite frequently during the festival days and it is accepting her
51 as part of self what is Lije's main quest for identity. In the interview, Dickins claims the character of Erin is:
a memory, a phantasm, a guide, a pathology, and a love. [...] she is the
ambiguity and chaos of one's personal life, out of which the web of wyrd will
arise. In the novel she is the anchor that connects fast-paced sensual
bombardment, and to my mind she represents the quintessence of the
psychedelic experience that cannot be straightforwardly formulated in words,
but which deeply pervades all the moments of the psychospiritual and hedonistic
mixed-media-mash-up. (Dickins)
This idea matches with a concept in psychology and literature that corresponds to this notion. It is concept of anima coined by Carl Gustav Jung. According to Jung's
Development of Personality, the anima is one of the underlying concepts of man's psyche, something that, if approached correctly provides a good communication between one's conscious and unconscious self (197-200). This is applicable to Erin as
Lije's journey is a struggle to unite with this aspect of his psyche and make peace with it. Lije eventually comes to terms with this aspect of his unconscious mind through a death - rebirth at the end of the book: "A voiced followed my thoughts, telling me I could no longer return, telling me that now I had been finally found, I was dead"
(Dickins 96). Death/Rebirth theme is present here, main protagonist dies only so he can transcend and overcome the psychospiritual crisis. This corresponds with Grof s notion of this theme as he describes it in his Beyond the Gates of Consciousness as an experience that can help to a better mental state (25). Lije's struggle at the end of the book is so vivid the reader feels as if the struggle is their own which is the biggest contribution of such genre.
52 The connection with the reader is achieved by the story of Erin being told in the first person narrative. Similar to Thompson, the text is often confusing and brings up several seemingly unrelated concepts together (fractals, time) with frequent time shifts.
As Dickins observes: "the first person narrative is very good at jumbling up the T of narrator and T of reader, and if the text is fluid enough then it provides a really thorough passageway to be enthralled by (Dickins). Because the psychedelic experience is already extremely difficult to explain in plain language, as Huxley, Grof and others confirm, it is difficult to imagine any other narrative to be successfully employed to transfer the meaning in the clearest way possible. In addition, Dickins explains:
I think there's a question of empathy here, a literary contact-high if you like.
People have attempted, in a whole manner of ways, to put the psychedelic
experience across on paper, and it's notably tough (which hasn't been helped by
the early adoption of mystical discourse - ineffability is not a great friend to the
prose writer!). (Dickins)
It is correct to assume that the psychedelic literature of this sort would be only connected with the first person narrative as its failure is inevitable should it use a different narrative. The role of an independent observer works for the informative works like those of Albion Dreaming however it can never achieve the quality of a psychedelic text that is created by someone directly involved.
A stream of consciousness approach that is also employed throughout the book accompanies the first person narrative and further supports its function as described in previous paragraph. Again, the author uses a similar strategy as the ones employed by
Thompson in terms of conveying message and feelings to the reader, one of the examples the passages describing the peak of psychedelic experience:
53 A flower appeared before my eyes and began to blossom. It blossomed in
fractals, geometrically, as petals beget petals beget petals beget petals; the speed
up turning of a planetary arch. Reds, blues and greens merged as organic tendrils
that spread outwards at an unfathomable speed. Simultaneously, that which was
entering my awareness, giving it form, was deforming my comprehension of self
[...] my body was fleeting tower; a seed grown, blossomed, withered; sown,
blossomed, withered. (Erin 33)
Similar description lies within the Fear when Raoul Duke describes the same: my legs felt rubbery, the woman's face changing, swelling, pulsing . . . horrible green jowls and fangs jutting out, the face of Moray Eel (Fear 24). Even though Dickins is more practical and positive about the effects of psychedelics, both are using style to provide the reader with the most direct experience of the condition.
The style is what contributes to reader's confusion as well. The stream of consciousness allows the author to jump in time almost recklessly - an approach that requires multiple readings to establish the true meaning of some passages. This seemingly counterproductive approach serves its main purpose which is to draw the reader to the psychedelic-induced state of mind as much as possible. It is the best representation of what is going on in one's head, how the ideas and thoughts are formed and how the connections are drawn only to dissolve in the rush of the new stimuli.
Psychedelic substances that are almost exclusively responsible for the above demonstration of variability of Lije's psyche range from marijuana to LSD and draw yet another parallel with Thompson's: "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... (Thompson 4). Lije takes them all starting with LSD through salvia, psylocibic mushrooms and MDMA
54 confirming the Thompson's claim that "once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can" (Thompson 4)
There is however a difference between how psychedelics are portrayed by
Thompson and Dickins. It would be naive to think that Dickins' main protagonist uses the substances in order to transcend his mind; it rather happens by accident. Unlike
Thompson's Raoul Duke who takes copious amounts of various substances "to push it as far as you can", Lije has no intention of going on a rampage around the town. His time on the festival is limited by those four days after which he needs to get back to reality and he knows it when contemplation about "million possibilities of Monday"
(Dickins 93) towards the end of the book. This is something that Thompson omits completely.
The idea of limited time on the festival has a parallel on the fence that separates the festival grounds from the rest of the Somerset, making it isolated from the outer world. As Tobes, one of the characters, remarks:
All the music, the talks, the workshops and the fire shows, they're literally
fenced in. It's as if we've been segmented from the rest of the society, like
children being told they can only behave like monkeys they are in a playground,
where it's safe. As if we've been assigned a tight space to live our life's
potential in. We are limited, Lije, when fractured into a mere four day spark;
easily ignited but quickly stomped out. (Dickins 90)
This notion of limited time sharply contrast with the countercultural ideas of free consumption of psychedelic and it expresses author's disapproval with such practice.
There is an apparent dichotomy in the subject of merging the two worlds (festive and normal) in the part where Lije and Anna go to a shopping alley where all sort of festival souvenirs and items are sold. Lije expresses his contempt with those sellers
55 when contemplates about their nature: "grotesque post hippy caricatures are enticing me into their booths, trying to sell me sprawling colourful hats and baggy shawls [...] but they want me to vanish as well; vanish into a cloudy, indistinguishable mass. But this is impossible, I lost and this is who I am" (Dickins 43). Again, there is a similar scene of the Circus-Circus in Fear where Duke that is that very same mix of attractions and hustle (46). Similarly, both protagonist get sick. The irony of the two worlds in Erin expressed within above paragraphs is obvious; it is possible for the outer world to become a part of the isolated festival but not vice versa.
Even though book concentrates on the festival life, the outer world or everyday reality is addressed frequently in Erin, most dominantly via staff of the festival who is addressed with the language of fantasy. Author sees the organizing staff as "pixies" and security guards as "trolls" even though, at least in the case of pixies, the traits of pixies are shifted from the classic notion of pixies as described by Kronzek: "pixies are [...] very persistent in their devotion of making pranks on people. They are often picking on people they consider lazy"(Kronzek and Kronzek 225) which is not true in case of Erin as the pixies often provide Lije with useful information or help even though Lije's sometimes refers to their nature as mischievous. Trolls on the other hand follow the traditional perception of big, dim-witted giants, carrying negative connotation - the same as for example in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien or Terry Pratchett.
Apart from the characters already mentioned, there are not many other characters that are central to the story. Lije groups the festival people in one of the early stages of the book to "older generation , seasoned festival junkies[...]teens [...]dense clouds of hormones and twenty somethings with a bit of space to dance[...]as if they were modelling some sort of trendy Solypsycle cool" (Dickins 25-26) but they do not interact with story significantly. Important here is that Lije does not seem to identify
56 with any of the group, in fact, the reader can only guess what his age is. Even though the reader can assume that the main protagonist is in his early thirties, there is actually nothing in the book that would suggest the character is not a lot older.
Erin contains more of archetypes mainly because of its apparent spiritual nature.
Even though it is impossible to fully address the archetypes mainly because the topic's fluidity, the following paragraphs will try to analyse two most important characters
(excluding the main protagonist) with a help of archetypal imagery and symbolism rather than the full Jungian concept.
Above all, there is the rite of passage theme that is obvious and that makes Lije undergo a psychospiritual crisis. This will not be analysed as it is more or less the summary of a couple of points before and after this paragraph. Additional ideas would therefore be a mere duplication of what has been already said.
Going to less central symbols, one of the most interesting characters in Erin is
Margaret - a healer who helps Lije overcome bad trip in the Healing Area. Margaret serves and an archetype of old wise woman that functions as a representation of Lije's anima. As Carolyn and Ernst Fay assert "The masculine psyche needs the healing brought by the Old Woman just as much as the feminine does" (120) and that is what
Margaret tries to help Lije with. As pointed out in the conversation between her and
Lije, Margaret is well aware that her help might be only a temporary fix to the problem and that complete resolution lies in Lije's acceptance of Erin, however it is her that gives Lije strength and more importantly brings him to the solution of his problem. To digress from literary analysis a bit, Margaret in many respects does what skilled therapist would do and as therapist would be, Margaret is paid to do the job.
By this Margaret also author's thoughts on interconnection of psychotherapy and psychedelics. She finishes the session with a gift - a couple of psylocibic mushrooms
57 with precise instructions how to use them: "whip together a mushroom chai this evening and go to the burning of the wooden tower at midnight, drink up an hour and half before hand [...] once the tower has collapsed, burn the cloth down" (Dickins 55. This is what connects Dickins with Huxley as the same connection between medical uses of psychedelics is expressed on the pages of Island where Pala use it primary to transcend their mind and to help the dying come to terms with themselves
As the name suggests, the most important character in the book is Erin.
According to archetypal symbolism, she can be classified as shadow though in some aspects she plays the role of Lije's anima as well. She accompanies Lije during the festival, from the beginning when she offers him a pipe of Salvia {Erin 32) - an extremely potent psychedelic that sets him on the journey. During the four days when
Lije is lost and found again, Erin parallels his path towards the crisis especially during the moments when they fight with each other in the cavern - a parallel to a struggle to accept Self {Erin 35-37) displayed in former phase Erin's desire to devour Lije, later vice versa. The parallel of consumption here marks the domination. In other words, should the anima consume Lije, it would not bring him the resolution he seeks. Anima, as explained in the Development of Personality is an image that every man carries regardless if the woman exist or not (Jung 198). In case of Lije it is, as has been already mentioned, a consequence of a traumatic experience when he witnessed Erin's death
{Erin 68-72). After winning the fight, Lije comes to terms with the trauma by and closes the whole story as well.
Erin is a literary work that draws on the works of Huxley and Thompson while at the same time proposes a new way to look at psychedelic substances. There is a difference between Thompson and Huxley as the former propagates the use of the drugs just for its own sake while the latter asserts drugs are meant to be used as mind
58 expanding tool. Erin combines both approaches and puts them in the context of modern society when it shows them as a mind medicine, something one can use to snap away from a trauma. It is by no means a manual in Leary's sense, but it combines the t concepts above in a way that provides the reader with contact high and which in the most accurate sense gives the reader the perception of psychedelic state. At the same time, it avoids Lenson's paradox of the Western/Eastern disparity as the inspirations are clearly the ones stemming from the Western culture.
59 Conclusion
The thesis shows connection between 20th century psychedelic literature and contemporary efforts to readopt psychedelic substances. It shows that despite various restrictions and persecutions they were able to survive until today when they are starting to attract more attention which is reflected in their increased production.
The UK has been always crucial to the development of psychedelic literature, assuming the role of a mentor rather that a leader through the works of Aldous Huxley.
This role now begins to change through the various initiatives that seek to propagate psychedelics. As a result, British psychedelic literature of the 21st century is represented by fiction and non-fiction as well which is in contrast with the situation of 1950s-1970s.
While the non-fiction explores and provides the reader with full history of psychedelic substances, the fiction aims to induce the feelings similar to the use of psychedelics and partially show the reader what effects psychedelics can have. The aim to provide the reader with contact high and to immerse them in the psychedelic experience as much as possible is one of the main benefits of Huxley's and Dickins' works.
The British psychedelic literature demonstrates clear effort to strip psychedelics of their negative connotations. Not only can one read books on the history of psychedelics and their true abuse by the British government during the Porton Down's operations "Recount", "Small Change" and "Moneybags" (A. Roberts 79) but there is also a number of novels featuring psychedelics substances that are equally important.
Robert Dickins' Erin is work that connects the tradition of psychedelic literature as established by Thompson and works as a vehicle that is most effective and accurate to demonstrate psychedelic experience to its readers. It is therefore beneficial not only for the reason of promoting the genre and showing the way how psychedelics can be used to treat mental trauma but mostly for its enriching effect that lies in retelling the
60 ineffable, making it accessible to everyone. At the same time, connection with elements of transpersonal psychology enables the reader and user of psychedelics to understand the concepts of their psyche and help them on the way of deeper understanding of the
Self.
Despite their different focus, the works mentioned create a coherent body of literature that complements academic and scientific research in the field. Their mutual effort to redefine the way psychedelics are perceived in the society is a true continuation of what has disappeared with Huxley.
The cultural and spiritual dimension of the contemporary British literature represents two sides of the same coin - one being purely empirical and the other purely spiritual. This dichotomy, as often proposed by Sessa and Roberts, is the biggest benefit people can get as it is the right approach to modern study and use of psychedelics.
Based on careful research of the historical development of psychedelics both authors agree that the role of the recreational use of psychedelics must originate in the careful research of the subject, only after that can psychedelics be legalized which ill enable the spiritual dimension to be explored as well.
Psychedelic drugs have great potential to influence human mind. While non- addictive (A. Roberts 32), they can influence not only on arts but also the personal lives having the ability to help a person come to terms with themselves, hence something that psychotherapy and psychopharmacology devotes enormous amounts of time and resources in the 21st century. Even though it is now impossible to, as Shulgin explains, to imagine any "pharmaceutical house risking its reputation on the something that smells of evil" (Shulgin) it seems to be only a question of time as the researches in the field must inevitably lead to wider and less regulated use of psychedelics.
61 Literature that is produced on the topic is therefore crucial as it corrodes the negative connotation of psychedelics and provides an insight of what one can expect.
This supply of knowledge is the most important of functions in which cultural and spiritual space cooperate. At the same time, contact high allows the reader at least partially undergo and sample the author's experience. The last but not least, as demonstrated in the chapters devoted to the development of psychedelic literature, it helps to reconstruct the long forgotten and hidden past of psychedelics.
The rebirth of psychedelic literature in Britain is already under way. It is demonstrated in all the parts of the academic and cultural life. Whether it is organizations such as MAPS, public space such as Breaking Convention or via representatives of academic and popular approach such as Sessa, Roberts and Dickins, there is no doubt that the UK is in unique position to assume the role of mentor in the field of psychedelic literature once again.
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66 English Resume
The thesis focuses on the selected British literary works from the period of 1950-
1970 and after 2000 that feature the use of psychedelic substances. It tries to prove there is an effort to reintroduce psychedelic substances to the society and to corrode the perception of psychedelics drugs as something inherently negative. For this reason, it focuses on the manifestation of such efforts in the 21st century British literature.
The thesis is divided into three sections. An introductory chapter provides basic information on the most popular psychedelic substances (mescaline, psilocybin and
LSD) and briefly touches the subject of transpersonal psychology that is connected to the use of psychedelics. It also explains how psychedelics became illegal. Second section is dedicated to the manifestation of psychedelic substances in the British culture during 1950-1970. This part elaborates on the manifestation of psychedelics in music but more importantly in two Aldous Huxley's novels - Island and The Doors of
Perception. The third chapter focuses on the current status of psychedelics in the British literature and features contemporary representatives of psychedelic literature and current strategies to readdress psychedelics. It examines Ben Sessa's Psychedelic
Renaissance, Andy Roberts' Albion Dreaming and Robert Dickins' Erin in terms of how psychedelics are portrayed and what strategies are employed to strip them of their negative connotation. To support the arguments, the thesis uses a number of scholarly articles as well as illustrations from the books analysed.
The conclusion shows that there are indeed efforts to change the perception of psychedelics substances. The literature analysed shows that psychedelics were banned despite their apparent benefits such as treatment of various mental disorders and potential to extend human mind. The authors featured in the thesis seek to revert this decision via their works.
67 Resumé
Práce se zaměřuje na vybraná díla britské literatury v období 1950-1970 a po roce 2000, která zmiňují používání psychedelických látek. Práce se snaží dokázat, že v 21. století existuje snaha redefinovat psychedelické látky a narušit jejich negativní pověst. Práce se soustřeďuje zejména na manifestaci takovýchto snah v Británii 21. století. K tomu používá vybrané práce autorů reprezentujících psychedelickou literaturu.
Práce je rozdělena do tři částí. Úvodní kapitola nabízí základní informace ohledně nej populárnější psychedelických látek (meskalin, psylocibin a LSD) a zmiňuje také transpersonální psychologii která je úzce spjata s použitím psychedelik. Zároveň také vysvětluje, jak se psychedelické látky staly zakázanými. Druha část je věnována způsobu jakým se psychedelické látky prezentovaly v britské kultuře během let 1950-
1970. Tato část pojednává o inspiraci, kterou psychedelika představovala pro hudební scénu, nicméně její důležitější část popisuje, jaký vliv měla psychedelika v literatuře, zejména ve dvou pracech Aldouse Huxleyho - Ostrov a Dveře vnímaní. Třetí kapitola se soustředí na momentální statut psychedelických látek v britské literatuře a prezentuje současné zástupce psychedelické literatury, a také strategie jakými se snaží redefinovat psychedelické látky. Zkoumá práce Bena Sessy Psychedelic Renaissance, Andyho
Robertse Albion Dreaming a Erin Roberta Dickinse se zaměřením na způsob, jakým jsou psychedelické substance vyobrazeny a jaké postupy autoři používají k tomu, aby psychedelika zbavili jejich negativní konotace. Za účelem podpoření argumentů práce cituje vybrané teoretiky s použitím názorných ukázek z knih.
Závěr demonstruje, že v britské kultuře existují snahy o změnu toho, jakým způsobem jsou psychedelické látky vnímány. Literatura ukazuje, že psychedelika byla zakázána bez jakékoliv hlubší diskuze i přes jejich nesporný potenciál v léčbě duševních nemoci, což se právě tito autoři pokoušejí skrze svá díla zvrátit.
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