{"id":4235,"date":"2012-05-18T18:30:24","date_gmt":"2012-05-19T00:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4235"},"modified":"2012-05-19T09:30:43","modified_gmt":"2012-05-19T15:30:43","slug":"timothy-lear-floated-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4235","title":{"rendered":"Timothy Leary Floated Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

To raise money for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies<\/a>\u00a0 (MAPS), the organization is auctioning off a floatation tank used by Timothy Leary near the end of his life.<\/a><\/p>\n

MAPS raises money and lobbies for research in using psychedelic (entheogenic) drugs in mental-health treatments. I donate to them and have the MAPS hoodie to show for it, but a $5,000 opening bid is a little rich for my blood.<\/p>\n

But I did try the floatation tank experience,<\/a> back in the early 1980s. From Wikipedia:<\/p>\n

Flotation therapy developed from the research work of John Lilly<\/a> although he was not primarily interested in therapy, rather in the effect of sensory deprivation<\/a> on the human brain and mind.<\/p>\n

People using early float tanks <\/a>discovered that they enjoyed the experience and that the relaxed state was also a healing state for many conditions including stress, anxiety, pain, swelling, insomnia and jet lag.<\/p>\n

As a result float tanks were produced for commercial uses and commercial float centres offering flotation therapy opened in several countries during the period from 1980 to the present day when there are hundreds of flotation centres in dozens of countries. In almost all cases these float centres offer wellness<\/a> treatments and in particular the release of stress.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And it was John Lilly himself <\/a>who donated this tank originally.<\/p>\n

I found the experience restful and relaxing, but I did it without the DMT or LSD that made it really “cosmic” for some folks.<\/p>\n

In the early 1990s I attended a nature-writing workshop at New Buffalo in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico. In the late 1960s, funded by one guy’s inheritance, it was a famous commune, until it suffered the typical fate of being overrun by losers and freeloaders, and the residents shut the gates, so to speak. When I was there, the owners were trying to make it a mini-conference center and extremely crunchy B&B.<\/p>\n

There was a sign in the main room, which read something like, “Timothy Leary<\/a> slept here. Or maybe he stayed up all night.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To raise money for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies\u00a0 (MAPS), the organization is auctioning off a floatation tank used by Timothy Leary near the end of his life. MAPS raises money and lobbies for research in using psychedelic (entheogenic) drugs in mental-health treatments. I donate to them and have the MAPS hoodie to show […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,101],"class_list":["post-4235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-entheogens","tag-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-16j","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6434,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6434","url_meta":{"origin":4235,"position":0},"title":"After Decades, Legitimate LSD Therapy","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Long, long ago, in other words, the 1960s, some psychiatrists and others were interested in the therapeutic potential of LSD, after the Central Intelligence had pretty well decided that it was useless for making spies confess. There were two approaches to LSD back then. One was more cautious \u2014 it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"anthropology\"","block_context":{"text":"anthropology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anthropology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13059,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13059","url_meta":{"origin":4235,"position":1},"title":"The Passing of Christian R\u00e4tsch, Magical Ethnobotanist","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 23, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I heard Christian R\u00e4tsch (1957\u20132022) speak in person only once, at a conference in England in the 2000s, shortly after I had bought a book he co-wrote, Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants. I also treasure a recorded lecture of his on henbane beer and such topics,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ethnobotany\"","block_context":{"text":"ethnobotany","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=ethnobotany"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Ratsch-300x211.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2135,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2135","url_meta":{"origin":4235,"position":2},"title":"‘Entheogen’ versus ‘Psychedelic’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"At The Revealer, Peter Bebergal unpacks the history and connotation of the terms \"entheogen\" and the older \"psychedelic.\" But many find \u201centheogen\u201d to be problematic. Ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna, brother to the late psychedelic and speculative philosopher Terrence McKenna and a respected researcher in his own right, believes these drugs are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"entheogens\"","block_context":{"text":"entheogens","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=entheogens"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=21","url_meta":{"origin":4235,"position":3},"title":"Psychedelic Venus Church","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 3, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"I had read Hans Holzer's rather sniffy assessment of the Berkeley-based Psychedelic Venus Church back in the 1970s in his book The New Pagans, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it listed under entheogen-based groups by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Michael Marinacci wrote a more detailed history.Chief\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=61","url_meta":{"origin":4235,"position":4},"title":"Traditional Medicine versus Addiction","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 5, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"As long as I'm blogging the BBC, let me point out this story on the effectiveness of traditional therapy, including the use of entheogenic (\"psychedelic\") plants in a shamanic context to overcome drug addiction in Brazil.","rel":"","context":"In \"entheogens\"","block_context":{"text":"entheogens","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=entheogens"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7304,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7304","url_meta":{"origin":4235,"position":5},"title":"New Excavation at Marden Henge","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"A major archaeological effort beginning this summer will explore Marden Henge, a Neolithic monument that rivaled Avebury and Stonehenge but is less well known. Excavation within the Henge will focus on the surface of what is\u00a0thought to be one of the oldest houses in Britain,\u00a0a Neolithic building revealed during earlier\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/1\/590x\/secondary\/Aerial-view-of-the-dig-site-306010.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/1\/590x\/secondary\/Aerial-view-of-the-dig-site-306010.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/1\/590x\/secondary\/Aerial-view-of-the-dig-site-306010.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4235"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4244,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4235\/revisions\/4244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}