Customer Reviews

Your Brain Is God

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As substance induced psychedelia became almost a sweeping religion in the 60s certain great minds emerged that tried to conceptualise the goings on of that era and form them into new philosophies made of an amalgam of Eastern teachings, ancient western cosmotheories and modern realisations.

Among the many in that effort was T.Leary. Most of his books are known to the lay public as nothing more than acid-promotion but the truth is that they are excellent philosophical endeavours of the trippiest kind.

"Your brain is god" is a primary example of that. Allthough a mere 100 pages it summarises emphatically the vision those 60s luminaries had for ourselves. To realise that we are, or can be, gods. A much misunderstood concept to be sure, but one that has enormous merit in it not in an anthropocentric sense but more from a "know thyself" point of view.

Knowing thyself is of course no simple matter (if it were we wouldnt be on the verge of self-extinction). There have been many approaches and many philosophies over the eons that have tried to accomplish just that with various degrees of success. Leary came to that "field" through the confrontation with one's one brain that certain substances can provoke. His realisations might not sound like new discoveries to those few that are well philosophy-broken but his style and his way of formulating his beliefs are almost inimitable.

There's more to be taken from this book of Leary's than from many other bulky tomes that well known philosophers have written. Because, make no mistake here, he was unquestionably a philosopher and a darn good one. Leary has a way of condensing things in a modern 20th century type of way that will intrigue even the more focus-challenged out there.

My favorite quote from this book, is one that you can write a whole new book about in itself:
"...the smarter you become the smarter your world becomes".

A great "lil" book for those that are never content with the number of doors opened in their minds.

One objection that some might have is the later chapters of the book when Leary is basically giving out methodology on the use of acid. This is the time he comes from and this is the path he used. This though, does in no way mean that he promotes it as an absolute path. Life isnt one street. It would anyway be totally hypocritical of him to omit those chapters when he was known as the acid-guru. You should simply concentrate on taking out what's valuable for you, whatever that might be. And there's a lot of that here.

A new science, with new practitioners - the psychedelic guides, having the profound opportunity and evolutionary significance of literally transforming humanity, changing the consciousness of social, cultural, environmental, linguistic and neurological patterns that inhibit humanity towards higher levels of awareness and being are briefly stated in this book. This was, and still is, revolutionary towards the beneficial growth of human development. What a sad document of fearful conditioned man to have rejected the science in this book, reverting back to simplistic, fundamental and dangerously limited snapshots of reality, each believing their "truths" as absolutes.

Apparently, there is a short time period as an infant only for many species, or both infant and early childhood for humans, which then ends shortly, permanently imprinting the human's social and cultural frame of mind through linguistics for the remainder of their lives. Experiments with birds and the immediate introduction towards a human, or even a ping-pong ball, causes the bird to search for this parental ideal the remainder of their lives. As humans we are subject to the attempt to the ideals that were first exposed to us in early childhood, attempting to get as close to that model for the remainder of our lives. Anotherwards we all take a still snapshot on reality, forever freezing our interpretation on what otherwise is a moving transient reality.

With psychedelics, there is an opening again as in infancy and early childhood where a person can perceive the moving essence of reality outside our snapshot of imprinted mindset, our still schematic, and see the moving, multifaceted reality in its many different levels, through more than one of the chakras, where one then reimprints their minds with new perceptions of reality and refocuses on previous chessboard structures, thus re-entry into society with much broader and wider perceptive capabilities with significant healing properties that are extremely beneficial.

I am moved by Leary's Galilean venture into the neurological areas of subjective experience, experiential awareness to cellular memories, DNA communication of evolutionary and primordial psychological areas. To venture beyond the grasp of conditioned minds, outside the held structures into a transient moving reality, areas of non-communicative being. It is here Leary introduces a few of the psychedelic prayers of a previous book, moving symbols in language for the lysergitized conscious.

On page 48: "It is crucial philosophic importance to understand that neurology, genetics, and quantum physics are all - in their separate narrow vectors into the future - coming to understand that evolving human intelligence is apparently designed to shape the universe, to navigate the process of evolution, and to fabricate the structure of personal reality. All modern sciences accept that pay respect to the subjectivity of the experience."

"To understand that your are designed to be God-the-Universe-Creator, you must first grasp the implication of the Heisenberg principle of determinacy - abjectly, cravenly, primitively called indeterminacy. Heisenberg's wonderful, liberating discovery states that the scientist determines the nature of experiment. Modern quantum physics is currently producing scenarios involving multiple realities, indeed, infinite universe, determined by the attitudes and mental structures and measurements of the observer. Prominent and distinguished physicists have actually suggested that the universe which we measure with our instruments is a production of our thought."

On pages 66-67: "Liberation is the nervous system devoid of mental conceptual redundancy. The mind in its conditioned state, limited to words and ego games, is continuously in thought-formation activity. The nervous system in a state of quiescence, alert, awake but not active, is comparable to what Buddhists call the highest state of dhyana or deep meditation. The conscious recognition of the Clear Light induces an ecstatic condition of consciousness such as saints and mystics of the West have called illumination."

On page 86: "The "turned on" person realizes that every action is a reflection of where s/he is at. The "turned on" person knows his world is created by his consciousness-existing only because s/he has arranged his sensory and neural cameras to shoot these particular scenes. His movements, dress, grooming, room, house, the neighborhood in which s/he lives, are exact external replicas of his state of consciousness. If the outside environment doesn't harmonize with his state of mind, s/he knows that s/he must move gracefully to get in tune.

This book touches on the ego-loss, preparing for a session, the use of the Tibetan book of the dead and the non-religious symbols of Taoism, LSD as a Sacrament and our dropping out of the chessboard games, turning on to our neurological divnity, and tuning into our divinity, making our environment, our place of dwelling, our clothes, our walk, our talk - our psyche divine, flowing and "beautiful."

Honestly, I think that Leary was being extremely daring tackling the subject of psychadelics in the manner which he did. Also though, this book runs through a brief history of the beginning of his working with psychadelic experiences in the sixties, and offers an outline for reproducing and guiding such experiences. Not only htat though, but his "summa Theologica" is transmitted in the psycho-philosophical banter on spiritual questions. In my opinion leary has seriously done his part in making spirituality and science one and the same. He has been accused of being overly radical and highly speculative, - even by me - but this is precisely why I respect his work as much as I do. Personally, I do not use psychotropic drugs, but I am indescriminately into Dreams as a medium for psychadelic experiences. In my opinion Leary describes poetically, and precisely, the most efficient method for guiding a session that is psychological in nature, be it psychadelics, journeying, self-analysis, etc. In my opinion the personal and comfortably set setting and atmosphere should be adopted by professional psychological doctors. Of corse, that's just my opinion, what do I know?

That is the question this book wants you to ask yourself. From a fundamental standpoint religions which aim at self improvement are the best in my opinion. This book is not really about religion though. Leary writes about his early exploration into psychedelics and the proper preperation for a session. He also breaks things down to their simplest level and discusses how we can lose ego and rebuild our thoughts.

Some of the questions he poses made me think, and some made me feel like the world made sense. I am not big into the psychodelic drug scene, I am sure if I were I would rate this at 5 stars though.

The theology of Leary's "Scientific Paganism" is laid bare with wit and clarity. Great insights pertaining to the true nature of experience and the human mind are explained. A must for every fan of Leary, and for all psychedelic psychonauts seeking the truth about the macrocosm, microcosm and psychedelics.

"I had awakened from a long ontological sleep...[E]very subsequent brain-opening has awed me with philosophic-scientific revelations as convincing as the first experience" (Page 8). This is Leary's reference to his first trial of a psychoactive substance which he described as "brain-activation-illumination" (Page 8). I do not think I could have explained it better myself. I will not say that these substances are the empiricism of ontology/spirituality, but they should be included in your repertoire. The first time I experienced an entheogen I quite literally was "awakened from a long ontological sleep". These substances allow one to vet the contents of its own mind and experience this essence through the personal datum that is stored in its brain from a very unique perspective that cannot be experienced any other way, there is nothing that one can do in life to replicate this. For anyone who may contend with this idea I simply give the caveat that Terrence McKenna ardently expressed as directions for the use of these substances, "Turn off the radio. Turn off the television. Sit in a dark room. Sit down. Shut up. Pay attention." Do not defile these experiences by taking them for social recreation. Through this admonition you will find a revelatory experience, not just about life in general, but even more so about you, the entity that is harnessed in that vessel that you call a body. There are thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of plants/mushrooms that can kill us, there are millions of plants that revitalize and nourish the body, but there are only a very infinitesimal fraction of plant and mushroom life that we can ingest that induces these ecstatic states; in the words of Terrence McKenna, "What do you make of this?" If nothing, so be it, if something, bring back your perspective of your sojourn in these realms. It seems to me, and is self evident, especially with the nature of endogenous DMT, that our somatic cells tailored our chemistry and parts of our physiology to the chemicals in these plants/mushrooms, or, on the hand of contention, one could be reserved to say that it is a "fluke" of nature-the mystic in me just will not ascribe that these are inadvertent syntheses of accord. (***I realize that Leary is an advocate for the use of LSD, but I am weary of anything that man synthesizes for ingestion, even if it is considered relatively benign. I would rather stay the course that our indigenous tribes have bequeathed to us through hundreds/thousands of years of use with all natural substances; this definitely deserves a seal of organic approval, but that is just me.)

The only aversion I have to the book is the title itself. Your brain is not God, the Mind is God, and the brain is just an instrument that taps into that source. As Jiddu Krishnamurti conveys so passionately, there is One Mind, no individual. Now, my personal perception of the Mind, is that it is the totality of all the energy that is exerted in the Universe and the cells have tapped into it utilizing the most advanced technology in the Universe, the human body and its brain, and in harmony with this essence it does not exist without human thought to convey that idea into Physical Reality, in other words we create the essence, so we are the essence, and it does not exist without us. The Universe is Anthropocentric; call this hubris or egoism, but none of this matters if we are all dead and there remain not even vestiges of man, unless there are other sentient beings out there to learn from, divulge our own understanding of ontology and/or to hand the baton of vetting the Universe to ensure the continuity of this endeavor. In summary, the 50 trillion cells that we are invented a way to tap into this essence and calibrate that energy into six and half billion specific subjective points on Earth, and in consummation with the datum that the brain stores there is the illusion of individuality. With the reference to this essence that most call God/Gods, we are the creatures that have the most graphic relationship with it and also culture it during our life time; therefore, we sculpt it and mold it until our death, and, by my interpretation at the moment, upon the death of our body our energy/spirit is transferred into that essence to sway it even more vividly. Unfortunately, the Masses of the population are just drones of the Institutionalization that we had had to erect to maintain Progress, which is a necessary evil, and really never achieve anything worth value to Society and the Universe except labor. They go to and fro mechanically adhering to the Program that has been constructed and never truly realize their individual Divinity and their potential to sculpt human culture and in turn the essence that we tap into.

Aside from the essence and harmony of the Mind and the Brain, I do concur with Leary that we are the Gods, each human being occupies a very specific and unique void in the space-time continuum that will never be experienced again; this is the ONLY thing that is impossible in this Universe. The power of conglomerating our efforts through civilization is that we have the time to create advanced technology, and this technology is that which renders to us our OBVIOUS divinity. One individual is capable of creating the most novel invention of advanced technology, they just need the time, and time is given to them by the Social Machine. Also, the only competition we have for gods, are our ancient myths, these challenge us and we feel subordinated by them, so externally we feel that we are inferior to something that our mind projects, this is why we continue to endeavor to Create even more; essentially, there really is no competition for the human race, we are divine intelligence, the culmination of the Imagination of the Universe, we just make stupid and atrocious decisions at times. The "God vs. Devil" perennial myth is evident in our actions, and that equates to "Good vs. Evil", with the omission of one letter (the "o" in God) and the addition of another (the "d" in Devil). In the words of Leary himself, "Geneticist [are to accomplish] the routine tasks of divinity - create life, improve life, attain immortality (Page 41). Organisms equipped with nervous systems capable of attaining higher altitudes, velocities, and communication systems, eventually allow lifepods to blow off the planet, like seed blossoms, and thus disseminate Gaia around the galaxy (Page 44). [H]uman intelligence is [obviously] designed to shape the Universe, to navigate the process of evolution, and fabricate the structure of personal reality (Page 48). Recombinant engineering allows humans to create new life forms, to correct malfunctioning genes, to clone, to effect DNA repair, to understand and manage the genetic signals which cause aging and death (Page 46)."

Thank God Totalitarian Christian Fundamentalism did not poison the minds of our Founding Fathers, had they been, they would have never realized and granted us the freedom of Religion, Speech and Press. This book, along with Leary's audio, video and other literature is a testament to the power and importance of free speech, while the subject of utilizing "drugs", I prefer entheogens (at least for the naturally occurring substances), is a very taboo subject, even more emphatically when it is coming from an individual who has a level of reverence for the possibilities and potentialities through utilizing these substances with interlaced espousal of reTHINKING/reEVALUATING the whole establishment and "order" of the Social Machine along with all of its facets, Political-Economic-Religious-Education.

The depth of this book, at least as I experienced it, and the execution of reading is a test to sobriety without a substance, intoxication will ensue! While some may satire this as a metaphor as Mindless Beguile of intoxication, my intentions are to say that the book definitely caused me to think beyond the current measure of my inferior conception of reality. Out of this very short 106 page book I have recorded twenty five pages of notes, quotes and subsequent thoughts. Had I not been born prior to the death of Leary I would have to indeed identify the belief that I was a reincarnation of him, just simply due to how parallel and abundant our thoughts are identical from my intuitive feelings prior to coming into knowledge of Leary and his work. Out of the mentors (Timothy Leary, Terrence McKenna, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Ron Paul and Aubrey de Grey...at current) I have decided to take highest level of resonance with from various facets our Societies, both present and past, Leary is at the top of the list.

To understand "Your Brain is God" it is helpful to know a little about the author. Timothy Leary was a controversial figure of his time. He was a part of the Harvard Psychedelic Drug Research Project to study the effects and uses of powerful brain-change chemicals on humans. LSD was the tool. He was expelled from Harvard. He later was convicted of possession of marijuana and facing 20 years for less than an ounce of marijuana. It seems a stiff penalty for the crime, but then he was once labeled the most dangerous man in America. He was "dangerous" not for anything he did but for his "spreading his ideas" that may have had some influence on the counterculture movement of the 1960's and 1970's. His most famous phrase was " turn on, tune in, drop out".

"Your Brain is God" is his summa theology. Prior to 1966, LSD was legal for scientific research. But it was generally not widely accepted in the scientific community to embrace with such mind changing chemicals. Brain-activating drugs expose people to powerful mind-blowing experiences that shatter conventional ideas about reality. Leary stated that "the brain has replaced the genitals as the forbidden organ that must not be touch or turned on by the owners." After decided that the scientific approach was not the prudent way due to the strong taboo against brain-change, his group decided to turn back to the East, turn to religion as the basis for continuing the experimentation. After all, there is freedom of Religion in the 1st Amendment. LSD is his protected sacrament. LSD was later declared illegal even in religious settings.

"Your Brain Is God", is a do it yourself, style of theology. But this new religion "was to be no kneeling down, no dogmas, no holy men, no followers no church, no public worship and no financial offering." Scientific Paganism is the concept his new religion named The League for Spiritual Discovery. God is defined in terms of the technologies involved in creating the universe and the eight stages of evolution-called the Eight Crafts of God. This self determining theology was rooted in the premise that: "Control your own brain, be your own Divinity, make your own world, live out your own highest vision."

So why was mind expanding chemicals considered so dangerous, while mind numbing medications like Prozac and Valium prescribed on a daily basis? Starting in kindergarten, whenever a kid is deemed curious or energetic, Ritalin is prescribed to fix that. Society, in general, and government has always impose conformity to status quo. From the moment you are born, you are expected to follow a preset of pattern considered acceptable to social norms. You go to schools for a number of years, you get and hold a job, you collect Social Security and then you die. Leary was very astute when he said "many a Newton and Einstein has lived and died in dumb cultures that could not provide the vulnerable brain with the levels of symbol complexity required(p.30). Our current education system succeeded in creating a class of unthinking automatons capable of holding a job and be good obedient government subjects but nothing more. This book makes me wonder since LSD is nontoxic and non addictive, why was so much negative propaganda surround the chemical. Does it really fry your brain or does it, according to Leary, activate brain illumination? What have I missed?

The book really got me thinking about human consciousness, the amazing capabilities of the brain, what are the truths. Not too long ago, the truth is that the Earth is the center of the universe. What are the truths now? How are they going to change in the future? The book is an amazing read, I had to read it twice to really get the finer points. A must read for anyone who like to stop and smell the roses once in a while. The actual book, however, is poorly made. Ronin Publishing, Inc. did a poor job editing this book. There are many misspelled words. The pages started to come apart the moment you open the book. I now have to have a rubber band to hold all the pages together. If you are one of those fortunate one with a Kindle, get the Kindle version.

Solid book by Leary would recommend as well as his other titles. This is one of those books I know I will end up reading multiple times in the years to come.

What a huge disappointment this book was. A poorly written essay. The addled ravings of a egotistic megalomaniac, that does nothing to support his thesis. A series of unconnected dots. He brings NOTHING new to the subject. This book does nothing more than pander to his "pathetic followers", as he puts. Followers he openly scorns and ridiclues in his book. Yet he not above bilking them for a few dollars each. In fact this book reads more like a diary of someone who is supremely self centered. A poor poor avatar for the psychedelic movement going on today.

Not worth the match it would take to incinerate it.

This book is filling with wonderfully insightful concepts about the nature of humans perception of reality. For anybody who is truely interested in psychology You Brain is God, or any Leary book for that matter, is a good bet. Leary's ideas led me, as a high school student, to change the way I think, view the world scientifically, and to determine my major in college. My only critque is that Leary uses his ideas as a basis for forcing the use of LSD on the public. About half the book focuses on the use of LSD as a religious sacrament. If you're into that part of the book, you'll love it in it's entirety. Otherwise, pick around it and enjoy.