In the early days, psychedelic drugs were not taken for "fun." I still don't quite understand the notion of taking it for "fun." Altered reality is often a terrifying place. Sometimes, however, it offers beautiful and mystical experiences. It opens one's mind to new ideas and alternate consciousness. It puts many in direct contact with the creative imagination.
We were foolish and naive, thinking we could shortcut the quest for numinosity and creative bliss. We played with fire, wide eyed and unprepared. The Old Gods were awaked by all that ecstatic devotion. Those primitive forces are both good and bad. They act according to their own nature. People died. But the music from that time period was most certainly inspired.
Listening to Leon Russell sing that song is like a flashback to that time. You describe the times back then so well. We were so open to the possibilities of it all. We believed, we really believed we could change the world. Yes, we were inspired.
ReplyDeleteIs there more pure a belief than when the young feel it?
DeleteWho could not love Leon Russell? But it is your use of the word, "numinosity," that got my slow thinking morning head thinking. I had to look it up. That's a very creative and nice variation on a word I did not know. The last paragraph of your this blog post is outstanding, a pleasure to read.
ReplyDeleteStay safe...we're doing our part too...I'm so ignorant I hope we are.
:)
Tom
Thank you so much, TJ. You made my day.
DeleteNow here's an oddity. It might even be attributable to drugging if that had happened mutually, but the fact was, and is, drug-taking terrified me. I always feared I would arrive at some extreme state of mind and not be allowed back again. The real world seemed demanding enough. Adding to its demands with chemicals seemed to be equivalent of seeing how deeply I could cut into the carotid artery without the cut proving to be fatal. And there were those ancillary experiences: sticking a needle into myself without any prior training; inhaling noxious vapours down bronchia that had been bronchitic since birth. My terrors were enhanced by prescription drugs; I think I've taken sleeping tablets two or three times over the last 84 years, their certainty left me uneasy, the result seemed unnatural. Not surprising really - a bit like the first half of committing suicide.
ReplyDeleteBut where's the oddity? Both of us have used a five-dollar word within three or four days of each other. I used it adjectivally, you as noun.
Numinous,numinosity. What are the odds? Should we form a club with a membership of two? Have medals made?
Tell you what, we were born to read each other's blogs.
I think yes, we were. I sure enjoy yours. You may or may not know that you encourage a love for words for many of us. I also think you are wise to fear drug-taking. I attribute it to the fact that you were older and wiser in the late 1960s. Between 16 and 19 I didn't have a brain in my head. At least not a brain for thought. And now, at 68, if I should stumble across a recreational drug and smoke or swallow it, I would be quite paranoid and fearful. In our dotage, we know what we have to lose.
DeleteI first came across the word Numinous many, many years ago when reading a book by analytic psychologist. Erich Neumann. It is a word one falls for hard and deep.
Such a fantastic song. It was a great era for music. I never did any psychedelic drugs, not even shrooms -- a fact that I sometimes regret.
ReplyDeleteI regret I never got a tattoo. It is much safer than taking drugs.
DeleteWe thought we were invincible. Sometimes we were.
ReplyDeleteSometimes we were!
DeleteThank you for another side of things. It’s a life that is so foreign to me.
ReplyDeleteThank you, your recent post about your nephew was the inspiration for this post.
DeleteI remember several people who died of drug overdoses in the sixties and seventies. They just swallowed anything that was offered them without any sense of caution. That period wasn't quite the glorious paradise some made it out to be. Personally I tried marijuana twice and LSD twice and then decided to keep away from back-street drugs altogether.
ReplyDeleteWise to steer clear.
DeleteI sometimes remember those days with a shudder, sometimes with a smile. My parents did have a clue but unfortunately for my daughter, her parents did.
ReplyDeleteA shudder and a smile. I like that.
DeleteHaving awareness that I possessed an addictive personality trait, I steered clear of so many things that my other Hippie Friends did with reckless abandon. Some survived it, some did not... notwithstanding, once a Hippie, I tended to Age into an Old Hippie all the same! Now the Grandson likes to joke that NONE of his Friends truly Believe that his Dreadlocked Gramma doesn't know where to get the Good Kush! *LOL*
ReplyDeleteHahaha. Keep 'em guessing, Dawn.
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