"Joyous Cosmology by Alan Watts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watts Alan)

William James used nitrous oxide and ether to "stimulate the mystical
consciousness in an extraordinary degree." Today the attention of
psychologists, philosophers, and theologians is centering on the
effects of three synthetic substances---mescaline, lysergic acid, and
psilocybin.

What are these substances? Medicines or drugs or sacramental foods? It
is easier to say what they are not. They are not narcotics, nor
intoxicants, nor energizers, nor anaesthetics, nor tranquilizers. They
are, rather, biochemical keys which unlock experiences shatteringly new
to most Westerners.

For the last two years, staff members of the Center for Research in
Personality at Harvard University have engaged in systematic
experiments with these substances. Our first inquiry into the
biochemical expansion of consciousness has been a study of the
reactions of Americans in a supportive, comfortable naturalistic
setting. We have had the opportunity of participating in over one
thousand individual administrations. From our observations, from
interviews and reports, from analysis of questionnaire data, and from
pre- and postexperimental differences in personality test results,
certain conclusions have emerged. (I) These substances do alter
consciousness. There is no dispute on this score. (2) It is meaningless
to talk more specifically about the "effect of the drug." Set and
setting, expectation, and atmosphere account for all specificity of
reaction. There is no "drug reaction" but always setting-plus-drug. (3)
In talking about potentialities it is useful to consider not just the
setting-plus-drug but rather the potentialities of the human cortex to
create images and experiences far beyond the narrow limitations of
words and concepts. Those of us on this research project spend a good
share of our working hours listening to people talk about the effect
and use of consciousness-altering drugs. If we substitute the words
human cortex for drug we can then agree with any statement made about
the potentialities---for good or evil, for helping or hurting, for
loving or fearing. Potentialities of the cortex, not of the drug. The
drug is just an instrument.

In analyzing and interpreting the results of our studies we looked
first to the conventional models of modern psychology---psychoanalytic,
behaviorist---and found these concepts quite inadequate to map the
richness and breadth of expanded consciousness. To understand our
findings we have finally been forced back on a language and point of
view quite alien to us who are trained in the traditions of mechanistic
objective psychology. We have had to return again and again to the
nondualistic conceptions of Eastern philosophy, a theory of mind made
more explicit and familiar in our Western world by Bergson, Aldous
Huxley, and Alan Watts. In the first part of this book Mr. Watts
presents with beautiful clarity this theory of consciousness, which we
have seen confirmed in the accounts of our research subjects---