January 27, 1969
N. C. ESSAY
Page 3
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HIGH PRIEST
By Timothy Leary, World Publishing, $7.95
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(Con't from last week)
Though it is a fantasy, YELLOW
SUBMARINE takes ordinary objects
from the environment and plays with
them to make philosophical points.
"That's my car you’re driving," says
Ringo as George goes by the screen.
"How do you know it's your/" "I'd
k,:/.ow it anywhere; it's red with yel
low wheels." Which it is. But on
rlie next pass, the car is blue with
orange wheels. "It's all in your
mind," says George.
Pepperland too is a country of
the mind. A land of music, flowers
and rainbows, where even the dogs
wag their tails in rhythm, is cap
tured by Uie blue meanies, who turn
it—and its inhabitants—grey, beige
and lifelessly still, through the
use of their "anti-music missiles."
Young Fred—who is old—gets
away in the yellow submarine, ar
rives in Liverpool and eventually
collects four Beatles who, after
various adventures— "Not unlike a
certain Mr. Ulysses," says John—
arrive in Pepperland, where they
play the roles of Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely hearts club band and restore
music— thus peace and life— to the
countryside.
The element of play is forti
fied by the non-violent nature of
the conflict. In spite of the hide
ous Flying Glove, Snapping Turtle-
Turks and Green Apple Bonkers, no
one is killed or physically maimed.
One is left with the impression that
to have no Music or color in the
world is injury indeed. The effect
of the meanies' attack is a lifting
of the victim's spiritual essence, a
state of suspended animation which,
happily, is not permanent. A.simple
injection of music, like chicken
soup, returns one's essence to a
condition of full and colorful bloom.
A3.though the Story sounds sim
ple— it is simple —the kinetic pre
sentation doesn't give the eyeball a
moment's rest. A kind of Hegelian
synthesis, involving everything from
old daguerreotypes to oscilloscope
patterns, produces a sum of parts
that really swallows the whole.
STill another surprise' is the
reliance on familiar literary devices.
The imaginative use of juxtapos
ition (Young Fred—who is old) espec
ially in colors, is the most easily
grasped. The bright yellow submarine
drifting along through drab Liverpool;
narrow paths of flowers against abso
lute white. It is not a lack and
white film, nor is it one completely
in color; that which should be, is.
The Liverpool sequence plays
"In the Western World, visiona
ries and mystics are a good deal
less common than they used to be...
In the currently fashionable picture
of the universe there is no place
for the valid transcendental experi
ence. Consiquently those who have
had what they regard as valid trans
cendental experiences are looked u-
pon with suspicion as being either
lunatics or st'/indlers. To be a mys
tic or a visionary is no longer cre
ditable."
Aldous Huxley,
HEAVEN AND HELL
If you're a head (i.e. aspiring
mystic, seek expanded consciousness,
dig better living through chemistry,
smoke pot), you might argue that
books on drugs are a real bring-down.
(If you're straight, you probably
have more complicated objections to
psychodelic literature.)
Timothy Leary, hip, flipped-out
ex-Harvard shrink is pushing some
acid-laced pages for $7.95 at the
neighborhood bookstore; for five
cents more, according to RAT, NYC's
Subterranean newspaper, you can buy
a tab of Mighty Quinn, purple pill,
good for two heavy trips, and get
the real message. Or you can ignore
the whole scene, watch T.V.
If the set was broken, or for
toher reasons you are still interest
ed, two books have been recently pub-
film loops—arm movements, smoke ris
ing—repeated over and over but never
followed through, against the static
brovTOS and greys of abandoned build
ings.
In the "foothills of the head
lands" John gazes into the cerebral
landscape and sings "Lucy in the Sky
With Diamonds" (It is a testament to
the coordination of the film that one
must see it through to appreciate how
the music is integrated so appropri
ately into the story). This sequence,
of bareback riders and circus dancers
must have been made by shooting one
frame of old movie at a time onto a
wall, then pencilling in the outline
of the dancers, then running the re
sulting sketches together in the same
speed. Once again we are startled by
artistry translating something real
into semething imaginative.
Metamorphosis arises out of both
nonsensical and profound events.
Ringo first appears as a golden, pear
shaped spinning toy top. John, the
author of the group, emerges from the
body of a purely literary creation,
Frankenstein, with the comment "Ringo
I've just had the strangest dream."
More subtle conversion is indicated
when the chief meanie sprouts a
flower on the end of his nose. Only
(oon’t on p. 4)
lished concerning drugs and expanded
consciousness. Both are work exa
mining.
First: The adventures of Tim
Laary, or How I Lost my Mind But
Found My Head In 16 Easy Trips.
WASP-type American, 39, present
ly cultivating long locks of golden
brown hair, listening to Country Joe
and the Fish, fighting (mildly) an
Establishment which would throw him
in the clink for 30 years (he forgot
to pay his marijuana tax), writing
psychedelic bibles Tim Leary.
Leary is a modern explorer; his
trip is more dangerous, more impor
tant, potentially more meaningful
than Apollo 8. He's heading into
his head. Heading for a new reli
gion. He's doing that-old-mystical-
experience-rag, sometimes getting
his feet stepped on (confusion,
misrepresentation, persecution, im
prisonment, etc.)
A well-known and respected, if
somewhat controversial. Harvard psy
chologist, Leary began experiemtns
with psilocybin (chemical synthesis
of hallucinogenic mushrooms found in
Mexico) in 1960. He gave it to stu
dents in Cambridge, took it himself
xvith other professors, tripped with
sage Aldous Huxley (who had discover
ed the religious and philosophical
aspects of hallucinogens years be
fore) . Quickly Leary realized he
had in his hands a revolutionary
tool for psychotherapy.
He describes a drug project for
prisoners in a Massachusetts pen, an
unsuccessful turn-on with novelist,
once junkie, William Burroughs, fly
ing high with Allen Ginsberg.
The book is attractively print
ed, McLuhanish (the main column of
type on each page is complemented by
running relevant, irrelevant margin
notes). Good illustrations. For
$7.95, however, it seems to be going
nowhere, eccentric cocktail party
rap.
And then—FLASH—Trip 12 (the
book is organized by trips): LSD—
the Drop-Out Drug. And it suddenly
becomes clear that Leary is not sim
ply putting down cool, entertaining
thoughts cut with 1 ching, Hermann
Hesse.
Leary hits the hard stuff:
"...Psilocybin had sucked me down
into nerve nets, into somatic organs,
heart, pulse, and air breath, had
let me spiral down the NNA lader of
evolution to the beginning of life
on this planet. But LSD was some
thing different...(it) flipped con
sciousness out beyond life into the
whirling dance of pure energy, where
nothing existed exceot whirring vi
brations, and eacft illusory form was
(con't on page 4)