Your Brain Is God
by Timothy Leary
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Book Summary Information
Author: Timothy LearyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-06-09
ISBN: 1579510523
Number of pages: 96
Publisher: Ronin Publishing
Book Reviews of Your Brain Is God
Book Review: A Rorschach Test using Literature and the Images of the Mind for the Institutionalized Being
Summary: 5 Stars
"I had awakened from a long ontological sleep...[E]very subsequent brain-opening has awed me with philosophic-scientific revelations as convincing as the first experience" (Page 8). This is Leary's reference to his first trial of a psychoactive substance which he described as "brain-activation-illumination" (Page 8). I do not think I could have explained it better myself. I will not say that these substances are the empiricism of ontology/spirituality, but they should be included in your repertoire. The first time I experienced an entheogen I quite literally was "awakened from a long ontological sleep". These substances allow one to vet the contents of its own mind and experience this essence through the personal datum that is stored in its brain from a very unique perspective that cannot be experienced any other way, there is nothing that one can do in life to replicate this. For anyone who may contend with this idea I simply give the caveat that Terrence McKenna ardently expressed as directions for the use of these substances, "Turn off the radio. Turn off the television. Sit in a dark room. Sit down. Shut up. Pay attention." Do not defile these experiences by taking them for social recreation. Through this admonition you will find a revelatory experience, not just about life in general, but even more so about you, the entity that is harnessed in that vessel that you call a body. There are thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of plants/mushrooms that can kill us, there are millions of plants that revitalize and nourish the body, but there are only a very infinitesimal fraction of plant and mushroom life that we can ingest that induces these ecstatic states; in the words of Terrence McKenna, "What do you make of this?" If nothing, so be it, if something, bring back your perspective of your sojourn in these realms. It seems to me, and is self evident, especially with the nature of endogenous DMT, that our somatic cells tailored our chemistry and parts of our physiology to the chemicals in these plants/mushrooms, or, on the hand of contention, one could be reserved to say that it is a "fluke" of nature-the mystic in me just will not ascribe that these are inadvertent syntheses of accord. (***I realize that Leary is an advocate for the use of LSD, but I am weary of anything that man synthesizes for ingestion, even if it is considered relatively benign. I would rather stay the course that our indigenous tribes have bequeathed to us through hundreds/thousands of years of use with all natural substances; this definitely deserves a seal of organic approval, but that is just me.)
The only aversion I have to the book is the title itself. Your brain is not God, the Mind is God, and the brain is just an instrument that taps into that source. As Jiddu Krishnamurti conveys so passionately, there is One Mind, no individual. Now, my personal perception of the Mind, is that it is the totality of all the energy that is exerted in the Universe and the cells have tapped into it utilizing the most advanced technology in the Universe, the human body and its brain, and in harmony with this essence it does not exist without human thought to convey that idea into Physical Reality, in other words we create the essence, so we are the essence, and it does not exist without us. The Universe is Anthropocentric; call this hubris or egoism, but none of this matters if we are all dead and there remain not even vestiges of man, unless there are other sentient beings out there to learn from, divulge our own understanding of ontology and/or to hand the baton of vetting the Universe to ensure the continuity of this endeavor. In summary, the 50 trillion cells that we are invented a way to tap into this essence and calibrate that energy into six and half billion specific subjective points on Earth, and in consummation with the datum that the brain stores there is the illusion of individuality. With the reference to this essence that most call God/Gods, we are the creatures that have the most graphic relationship with it and also culture it during our life time; therefore, we sculpt it and mold it until our death, and, by my interpretation at the moment, upon the death of our body our energy/spirit is transferred into that essence to sway it even more vividly. Unfortunately, the Masses of the population are just drones of the Institutionalization that we had had to erect to maintain Progress, which is a necessary evil, and really never achieve anything worth value to Society and the Universe except labor. They go to and fro mechanically adhering to the Program that has been constructed and never truly realize their individual Divinity and their potential to sculpt human culture and in turn the essence that we tap into.
Aside from the essence and harmony of the Mind and the Brain, I do concur with Leary that we are the Gods, each human being occupies a very specific and unique void in the space-time continuum that will never be experienced again; this is the ONLY thing that is impossible in this Universe. The power of conglomerating our efforts through civilization is that we have the time to create advanced technology, and this technology is that which renders to us our OBVIOUS divinity. One individual is capable of creating the most novel invention of advanced technology, they just need the time, and time is given to them by the Social Machine. Also, the only competition we have for gods, are our ancient myths, these challenge us and we feel subordinated by them, so externally we feel that we are inferior to something that our mind projects, this is why we continue to endeavor to Create even more; essentially, there really is no competition for the human race, we are divine intelligence, the culmination of the Imagination of the Universe, we just make stupid and atrocious decisions at times. The "God vs. Devil" perennial myth is evident in our actions, and that equates to "Good vs. Evil", with the omission of one letter (the "o" in God) and the addition of another (the "d" in Devil). In the words of Leary himself, "Geneticist [are to accomplish] the routine tasks of divinity - create life, improve life, attain immortality (Page 41). Organisms equipped with nervous systems capable of attaining higher altitudes, velocities, and communication systems, eventually allow lifepods to blow off the planet, like seed blossoms, and thus disseminate Gaia around the galaxy (Page 44). [H]uman intelligence is [obviously] designed to shape the Universe, to navigate the process of evolution, and fabricate the structure of personal reality (Page 48). Recombinant engineering allows humans to create new life forms, to correct malfunctioning genes, to clone, to effect DNA repair, to understand and manage the genetic signals which cause aging and death (Page 46)."
Thank God Totalitarian Christian Fundamentalism did not poison the minds of our Founding Fathers, had they been, they would have never realized and granted us the freedom of Religion, Speech and Press. This book, along with Leary's audio, video and other literature is a testament to the power and importance of free speech, while the subject of utilizing "drugs", I prefer entheogens (at least for the naturally occurring substances), is a very taboo subject, even more emphatically when it is coming from an individual who has a level of reverence for the possibilities and potentialities through utilizing these substances with interlaced espousal of reTHINKING/reEVALUATING the whole establishment and "order" of the Social Machine along with all of its facets, Political-Economic-Religious-Education.
The depth of this book, at least as I experienced it, and the execution of reading is a test to sobriety without a substance, intoxication will ensue! While some may satire this as a metaphor as Mindless Beguile of intoxication, my intentions are to say that the book definitely caused me to think beyond the current measure of my inferior conception of reality. Out of this very short 106 page book I have recorded twenty five pages of notes, quotes and subsequent thoughts. Had I not been born prior to the death of Leary I would have to indeed identify the belief that I was a reincarnation of him, just simply due to how parallel and abundant our thoughts are identical from my intuitive feelings prior to coming into knowledge of Leary and his work. Out of the mentors (Timothy Leary, Terrence McKenna, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Ron Paul and Aubrey de Grey...at current) I have decided to take highest level of resonance with from various facets our Societies, both present and past, Leary is at the top of the list.
Summary of Your Brain Is God
This collection of essays, written by the poster boy of 1960s counterculture, describes the psychological journey Timothy Leary made in the years following his dismissal from Harvard, as his psychedelic research moved from the scientific to the religious arena. He discusses the nature of religious experience and eight crafts of God, including God as hedonic artist. Leary also examines the Tibetan, Buddhist, and Taoist experiences. In the final chapters, he explores man as god and LSD as sacrament.
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