Re: Black Magic, Shamanism, Supernatural, Graham Hancock
anart said:
Stevie Argyll said:
John Lilly used ketamine to explore 'inner spce' first in flotation tanks investigating the effects of sensory deprivation and later because he seemed to 'get messages' while on ketamine.
I had two books of his: Centre of the Cyclone , The Scientist. I think both explored his sensory deprivation / haluciagenic experiments but from memory Cyclone was more a biography focusing on Sensory Dep/Military/Cetacions and Oscar Icazo at Esalen and Big Sur, I am sure the Scientist went into more depth with ketamine.
Open to correction, my summary is from memory - read these books in the 80s so might have them mixed up a little.
A lot of drug abusers use ketamine. I'm wondering what your point might be?
To add info about ketamine use as Corto had mentioned it in the post before mine. So that If anyone was interested they could read John Lillys books.
Lilly wasnt a drug user in the sense of taking drugs to get high/escape he was a scientist and psychoanalyst.
From Wiki
Lilly was a qualified physician and psychoanalyst. He made contributions in the fields of biophysics, neurophysiology, electronics, computer science, and neuroanatomy. He invented and promoted the use of the isolation tank as a means of sensory deprivation[2]. He also invented the peak-flow meter. He was also a pioneer in attempting interspecies communication between humans and dolphins. His work helped establish the creation of the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act.
His eclectic career began as a conventional scientist doing research for universities and government. But as he followed his own inquiries, Lilly delved into what mainstream science considers fringe areas. He published many books and had two Hollywood movies based loosely on his work.
Development of the sensory deprivation tank
In 1953, he took a post studying neurophysiology with the US Public Health Service Commissioned Officers Corps. At the NIMH in 1954,[3][4][5][6] following the desire to strip away outside stimuli from the mind/brain, he devised the first isolation tank, a dark soundproof tank of warm salt water in which subjects could float for long periods in sensory isolation. Lilly and a research colleague were the first to act as subjects in this research.
He later studied other large-brained mammals and in the late 1950s he established a centre devoted to fostering human-dolphin communication; the Communication Research Institute on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. In the early 1960s, Lilly and co-workers published several papers reporting that dolphins could mimic human speech patterns[7][8]. Subsequent investigations of dolphin cognition have generally, however, found it difficult to replicate his results.
[edit] Exploration of human consciousness
In the early sixties he was introduced to psychedelics like LSD and (later) ketamine and began a series of experiments in which he took the psychedelic either in an isolation tank or in the company of dolphins. These events are described in his books Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments and The Center of the Cyclone, both published in 1972. Following advice from Ram Dass, Lilly studied Patanjali's system of yoga (finding I. K. Taimni's Science of Yoga, a modernized interpretation of the Sanskrit text, most suited to his goals). He also paid special attention to 'Who am I?' meditation advocated by Sri Ramana Maharshi, and was reformulating the principles of this exercise along the lines of his human biocomputer paradigm (described in Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments and The Center of the Cyclone). He later travelled to Chile and trained with the spiritual leader Oscar Ichazo (whose attitude to metaphysical consciousness exploration Lilly characterized as "empirical" in The Center of the Cyclone). Lilly claimed to have achieved the highest level of Satori-Samadhi during his training.
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He starts experimenting with LSD, later he moves to Ketamine. He 'channels/communicates' with 'entities' under ketamine - from memory his ketamine communications become more paranoid.
