Cybernetics & Psychedelic

In contemplating the relationship between cybernetics and the psychedelic experience, there seems to be little interrelatedness. The psychedelic experience as subjective and random as it may be does not fit well with the cybernetics philosophy of redundancy and stability. However, when looking through the Marshall McLuhan perspective of electromagnetic technology as having the power to retribalize and unify mankind, the subjective psychedelic experience and the resulting revelations gain the ability to become ubiquitous among a society where technology is the extension of mankind’s senses.

According to Gerald Heard in “Can This Drug Enlarge Man’s Mind?,” he explains to the psychedelic experience of LSD through the Greek mythology metaphor of the “The Gate of Ivory” in which the incomprehensible concepts that belong to “higher registers” of the human mind subside (14). Heard believes, when channeled through the proper means, the psychedelic experience can produce new original discoveries. Although these discoveries may seem initially farfetched, they can become the added variable that can produce optimal performance in a cybernetic cycle. In “Cybernetics and the Sacred,” Ryan Paul defines cybernetics as systems that process “differences in such a manner as to be self-corrective either toward maximizing particular variables or finding homeostatic optima” (133). Therefore, cybernetics provides a framework in which “different” elements can be added or subtracted in a cycle to produce regenerative rhythms for an optimal life. Consequently, if new ideas have the ability to affect our lives for the better, than the “different” ideas resulting from a psychedelic experience can potentially be added to our construction of life for the greater good.

This integration of new ideas into our consciousness and cybernetic cycle becomes inherent in modern society that relies on electromagnetic technology. According to Marshall McLuhan, electromagnetic technology is “total and inclusive…an external consensus or conscience is now as necessary as private consciousness” (57). As a result, McLuhan believes the totality of electromagnetic technology is unifying mankind as he/she seeks to express and take in ideas through a unified system of communication.

Therefore, if unity is being established through communication systems that are cybernetic, than there is a potential for the psychedelic experience to be shared among a vast audience. Whereas the psychedelic experience was once suppressed by subjectivity, mankind’s unity in electronic information system may allow ideas conceived from the “Gate of Ivory” to become integrated into our lives as “differences” introduced into a cybernetic cycle.

Sacrificial Cyborg and Communal Soul

The Electric Daisy Carnival draws around 130,000 people to it making it the largest electronic dance music festival outside of Europe.

Interestingly I have examined some of the characteristics of "Post-Intustrial Cyborgs" described by Hillegonda C. Rietveld in participants at raves, including myself.

Trance Inducing Music

This song takes me through multiple dimensions while representing the synapses being fired in my brain. I like the disentegration of the piano into a digital void in this song, giving it many textures. The song very easily invokes a trance on me whenever I listen to it.

The Sacred, The Divine, The Different

In “The Politics of Ecstasy,” Timothy Leary expresses his belief that psychedelics are the next progression in human development due to the fact that they allow the expansion of mankind’s consciousness. Leary believes that faith should be invested in the visionary that provides a philosophy or idea beyond the conception of the vast majority, in particular, established institutional structures.

Furthermore, Leary also believes that the suppression of psychedelics is ingrained in Puritanical American culture and despite many studies that prove their healing and pleasurable qualities, they have been condemned because of their ability to induce a religious experience outside of religious institutions.

In particular, Leary is trusting of radical ideas that have the ability to shape the future. His analogy of the automobile’s conception is very relevant in that represents an idea that was developed even though the infrastructure to make it work was not yet conceivable. With belief that LSD and other psychedelics have the ability to unlock the human mind to develop new ideas and break from cyclical historical failures, Leary defends psychedelics by recalling their benefits. However, Leary believes a great divide continues to exist between skeptics so long as they remain inexperienced. In reference to George Bataille’s, “The Festival, Or Transgression of Prohibition,” the psychedelic experience can be viewed as “sacred” among “profane life” and having more value. This value results from psychedelics having new possibilities defined against the “profane life” which in contrast is limited. Hence, the “profane life” attempts to prohibit the “sacred” or betters stated, divine. Therefore, psychedelics have gained divinity in American culture and is thus condemned for its disruptive nature to the status quo.

Walter Benjamin's "Hashish in Marseilles"

This is by far one of the funniest readings I have ever been assigned. Walter Benjamin, the theorist who coined the term "Aura" and wrote the amazing Theses On the Philosophy of History, details his experience on hashish in the most scholarly of ways. I think the funniest part about this essay is reading Benjamin vividly articulate his munchies.

"To my lionish hunger, it would not have seemed inappropriate to satisfy itself on a lion. Moreover, I had tacitly decided that as soon as i had finished at Basso's (it was about half past ten) I would go elsewhere and dine a second time."

Nevertheless, Benjamin explains how on this altered state he is able to analyze things on a new level. He concludes with the following:

"I would like to believe that hashish persuades Nature to permit us--for less egoistic purposes--that squandering of our own existence that we know in love."

I interpret this as Benjamin stating that hashish enables a person to get lost in the moment in a liberating, transcendental manner similar to the experience of being in love.

The Seashell & The Clergyman

Although it might not abide by the ontology of Surrealist films or fit Germaine Dulac's theory of "pure cinema," this film is definitely dreamlike and treads the zone between reality and unreality tapping into some Freudian concepts of suppressed thoughts and memories. I especially like the scene at 1:35, priceless!

Desert Desolation

Let’s go up there. Yes, let us. For the sun will be gone in an hour. We’ll climb this natural monstrosity of rocks layered upon rocks, hiding its meaning ever so deep. It’s breezy, grab a jacket, keep the blood flowing to the extremities to keep moving and more so for the brain to maintain focus. That looks steep, we’ll take this way, snap a photo we must remember that we were here and not only capture the awe inspiring, but the awe itself, empathetic in nature, the wolf pack of has grown closer. KOOKOO!?!………..KAAKAA, my brother you are still here with me. Call and response type of situation, yet the caller has no more or less significance, yet communal concern. These rocks are sharp, my hands will be raw, yet the top will be so rewarding. Glad that these shoes are a rubber extension of my feet as they grip ever so well to every enticing rock. Pan here, zoom there, the camera is the cyborgian extension of my memory. Film the legs, watch the body work its way up, we must document our struggle to illuminate our glory. Can I make this? I got it, distribute my weight evenly. 127 hours, I saw that movie, this looks a similar situation I got the camera, you got the water, who’s got the knife. Keep moving. KOOKOO…………… Where is he? KOOKOO…………….KAAKAA. We’re almost there. Bodies become outlined in gold as hair blows in the wind as shivers are prevented by the shelter of our new home of rocks. Breathing heavily, out of breath already? The air is perfect though, move on let my heart beat faster with admiration. We are high, this is beautiful! That is the rock, that is the spot. Proceed. Is it possible? We’ll try. We must go down to come up. KOOKOO…Oh there he is. Lets go there instead, we can’t make it. We are kings of the desert. Sit, chill relax, the respiratory system is calm now, give it some hazy love. We are literally high and mentally lifted. Feel that golden sun our faces and lay back. Calmness grounds me to the earth and these rocks are further solidarity. The sky is enchanted with Technicolor clouds, a phoenix. A catching mitt, a space ship. You beautiful source of light, changing color to match our emotions. Can you stay there and we will continue to stare. Panoramic, wide vast, my eyes usurp my other senses. You must go, I know. I’ll stare at you till I’m blind. Fruits of our labor in this dry desert. Goodbye sun, sinking behind the horizon, that is West, it does not matter. Get down before night falls and we fall. I have forgotten what flat ground feels like as I stumble down the rocks disoriented from a 180-degree flat plane. We really put ourselves on a challenge here guys. Boulder cradle…but please don’t cradle us to our deaths. The ground is grounding reorient and proceed. Both feet on the same plane, lets the brain explain what is reality of our memories of motor skills. Saddle up, we’re on the road again.