Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments:
An Entheogen Chrestomathy
Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D. and Paula Jo Hruby, Ed.D.
Author Index | Title Index

The Politics of Ecstasy.

Leary, Timothy. (1968).
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.


ISBN: None


Description: Hardcover, 371 pages.


Contents: 22 chapters.


Excerpt(s): When the individual's behavior and consciousness get hooked to a routine sequence of external actions, he is a dead robot, and it is time for him to die and be reborn. Time to "drop out," "turn on," and "tune in." This period of robotization is called the Kali Yuga, the Age of Strife and Empire, the peak of so-called civilization, the Johnson Administration, etc. This relentless law of death, life, change is the rhythm of the galaxies and the seasons, the rhythm of the seed. It never stops. (page 223)


Any action that is not a conscious expression of the drop-out-turn-on-tune-in-drop-out rhythm is the dead posturing of robot actors on the fake-prop TV studio set that is called American reality.

Actions which are conscious expressions of the turn-on, tune-in, drop-out rhythm are religious.

The wise person devotes his life exclusively to the religious search-for therein is found the only ecstasy, the only meaning.

Anything else is a competitive quarrel over (or Hollywood-love sharing of) television studio props.


How to Turn On


To turn on is to detach from the rigid addictive focus on the fake-prop TV studio set and to focus on the natural ener gies within the body. (pages 223-224)


You are a spiritual voyager furthering the most ancient, noble quest of man. When you turn on, you shed the fake-prop TV studio and costume and join the holy dance of the visionaries. You leave LBJ and Bob Lao-tse, Christ, Blake. Never underestimate the sacred meaning of the turn-on.

To turn on, you need a sacrament. A sacrament is a visible external thing which turns the key to inner doors. A sacrament must bring about bodily changes. A sacrament flips you out of the TV-studio game and harnesses you to the 2-billion-year-old flow inside.

A sacrament which works is dangerous to the establishment which runs the fake-prop TV studio-and to that part of your mind which is hooked to the studio game.

Each TV-prop society produces exactly that body-changing sacrament which will flip out the mind of the society.

Today the sacrament is LSD. New sacraments are coming along.

Sacraments wear out. They become part of the social TV-studio game. Treasure LSD while it still works. In fifteen years it will be tame, socialized, and routine. (page 225)

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