A
conference held on October 29, 2014 on the University of Puerto Rico in Rio
Piedras, in which I had the opportunity of assisting to, was of much admiration
and enjoyment. At the beginning I had no idea what to expect or what it was
going to be about, but then the introduction captured my curiosity as an
auditor. From it, I learned the time period to which the conference was going
to be focusing on, the sixties. I thought: "How amazing!", since I
have always admired older generations, due to the fact that they portray
various changes humanity have overcome. "Timothy Leary: The Harvard
Years" is a book written by Dr, James Penner about Leary's thoughts and
experiments of psychedelic drugs and its involvement in people's life.
I
believe you can reach a similar state of mind through other means, since as Dr.
Penner described, if the person that consumes it has not the adequate state of
mind, the desired effect of reaching "enlightenment" might not be
acquired. This is an interesting topic, but as well give the reader a lot to
think about.
I think it is interesting that someone believes that
psychedelic drugs taken in controlled ways may help in the development of the
person who consumes them. This involves perspective, since there are many ways
to take in this believe, and also, not everyone believes so. It is important,
too that we acknowledge the time period when there was a movement (involved in
the introduction and use of drugs such as LSD and psilocybin) in the 60's.
Everything is so risky nowadays, that having these might not be a good option,
even though Leary describes they had a good effect in his first experience.
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| Picture taken from: http://timothyleary.org/#1 |
Dr. Penner, the author, has done an admirable work by
bringing back the collections of Dr. Leary's writing including his scientific
articles during his career as a professor in Harvard from 1960 to 1965. After
the conference I got interested in the book, and into looking on some of
Leary's quotes (activity recommended by the author), so I'll leave some of
these below. Enjoy!
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| Picture taken from: http://timothyleary.org/#1 |
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