Chapter 6

J^^OW do we know? Why do we think and believe 'j\ what we think and believe? How do we deter- ^ ^ mine what is true and what is fact? Why will people believe even the most bizarre notions? Why do people, especially establishment priests and scientists, deliberately refuse to learn lessons basic to survival and happiness? How come people believe fanatically in such different and opposing ways? Why are brains equipped or programmed or conditioned to perform such different functions? Why do minds work the way they do?
God #3 is the semantkist In the beginning was the
Word — the Third God, One who creates new
words and uses words to paint new pictures
becomes the Divinity of Thought,
The Third Craft of God is semantics.
That these questions still remain unanswered after 3 , 000 years of Eastern- Western philosophy reflects the primitive, primate nature of our species. Many religions include an epistemological theory of truth- fact. Most assert that truth was revealed once and for all by an inaccessible Deity in the form of Sacred Writings. And
23 Your ^ahb God
most religions nominate priesthoods — a lawyer- scribe caste — who arbitrate, interpret, and enforce — with violence — the Divine Truths revealed in the Bibles, Korans, Torahs' in cultures where truth- facts are tied to religious dogmas, then science wanes, practical investi- gation languishes, and thinking is subordinated to submissive belief.
But once again, we see that some Eastern religions, Zen, for example, and some Western philosophies — particularly the semantic — have understood the crucial difference between the map and the territory, between the avalanche of raw data processed by the brain and the pitifully few abstractions which we use to label reality. More recently, linguists and cognitive psychologists and ethologists have produced data that help us understand how the cognitive function emerges in species and in individual humans.
Evolutionary Intelligence
Around the age of 6 in the individual human — and around 25 million years ago in the age of our species — the Evolutionary Intelligence arranges to activate frontal lobes. Only when our primate ancestors had learned to walk on two feet, thus freeing their 'JT'''^^ mouths for oral signaling, could the
A key factor in ^^^ laryngeal- manual circuits of the ,, bram emerge.
intelligence 15 ^1,1,
socialization. ^.^ Obviously people are bom with ^/jlg/g/ggg/mmmmm airterent brams. A key factor in the evolution of intelligence is socializa- tion. Division of labor. Gaia works with gene pools, which produce specialized castes, individuals genetically geared to perform the different functions that contribute variously to the needs of the group. Sociobiologists have
Timothy Leary 29
ruminated obsessively to explain altruism in social ani- mals. Why does one bird give the alarm signal when the hawk is sighted? This seems to violate the "selfish gene" principle of natural selection. By drawing attention to hirself, the flock "crier" risks hir own reproductive future.
One possible answer — that of inborn caste differ- ence — has so far eluded the ethologists. Some birds are caste- equipped with nervous systems geared to scan more restlessly, and to react with speedier alarm- signalry. Other birds in the flock are equipped with nervous systems caste- calibrated for more accurate homing, food selection, or for just plain old dull follow- ing, thus adding population mass, in swarming num- bers, to the gene pool. Surely commonsense observation of human heredity shows us that genius brains can emerge from the dullest — normal of the kith- kin.
Brain Castes
A human group requires a variety of brain castes to perform the highly specialized and complex acts necessary
to keep the collective unit going.
People are bom with different * , ^
.J • J • u u • A human group
mmds, equipped with brains • Jl
J • J. u u .. . .• requires a \/anety
designed to be better at certain ci • j,
^ .r . ^ .1 of brain csietee.
mental functions. Our minds are ^^^^^^^^^^ "made up" for us at the moment of conception. Twentieth Century mass education methods disastrously assumed that equal Ivy League education for all was the neurological goal of a demo- cratic or even a socialist society.
Mass education has not worked. Millions of Johnnies now find themselves in college, still unable to read, because a majority of brains today are not designed to
30 Your ^rainfe God
process abstract symbols rapidly, pleasurably, obses- sively. Probably not more than 10% of Americans' brains are geared to comfortably handle symbols, that is, to read and write. Most legally literate people read only when necessary, and then with discomfort. Many highly successful nonreaders have learned in parrot fashion to recognize and rote- repeat symbol combinations. But they are incapable of producing personal original verbal communication. Writing ability cannot be taught. Those who are called "writers" or "Uterary" may make up a special small caste, necessary to provide specified functions in the social hive. My God, if everyone were a "literary writer" no one would be left to manage the store.
Thinking Fixed Early
So genetics and sociobiology give us one basic answer to the question: How are our minds made up? The secondary answer to the epistemology question is linguistic- neurological. Each child — and gene pool — is permanently "fixed" in a mental- linguistic style o{ think- ing, during the critical period when the linguistic circuits of the brain are being activated. The 6 1/ 2- year- old imprints the sign- systems and signal attitudes that hap- pen to impinge on his nervous system. The mental complexity level of the home, neighborhood, and cultural Zeitgeist determines the texture of one' s menta- tion.
Many a Newton and Einstein has lived and died in dumb cultures that could not provide the vulnerable brain with the level of symbol complexity required. Teachers — a critical aspect of the "mental environ- ment"— are, of course, themselves members of a mental caste, crucial genetic agents designed to perpetuate unquestioningly the hive culture. Their function is to
Timothy Leary ^'l
instill, in rote manner, the symbols and thinking- modes of the society. They succeed with that large majority of students, themselves bred for unthinking hive perfor- mance.
But teachers often run into problems with young members of the "thinking" caste,
neurally geared to invent, originate ,,,. „..„.„„
abstractions. It is sufficient only Te^chcrS inU5t
that this caste be exposed to the tranStTlit 5Vinbol
current symbol techniques. They inaniPUlatbri
are geared to really understand methods XO at
symbols so that they can improve least S
^^^^* brain-models.
An American teacher is faced g^^h O^OS^VCd XO
with the problem of transmitting think in a
symbol manipulation methods to at different WaV. least 8 brain- models, each geared ■■■■■■■■■■i
to think in a way very different from the others. The confusion among these specialized castes, each of which operates under the illusion that it is the "smartest, " is the history of philosophy.
It is the great semantic revelation of Sapir, Whorf, Chomsky, Korzybski, Wittgenstein, that symbols define a special reality- level of their own, separate from the realities they naively assume to represent. In the begin- ning was the Word. This defines God the Semanticist.
Chapter?
Ethics
One of the principal functions of pre- scientific religions was the definition of social- domestic- sexual roles and legislation of the moral codes that guided approved interactions among the various roles. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor' s wife and other chattel goods. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's car. Herd acceptability, social conformity are survival neces- sities in civilizations controlled by religious orthodoxy.
God #4 is the moralist. The Fourth God is
accepting responsibility and moving beyond
hive-docility. The Fourth Craft of God is the
fabrication of your own new morality — freer ^
more intelligent and more genetically evolved.
Domestication of consciousness by the monolithic state is an inevitable stage in species and individual evolution. Although most of humanity despises their rulers, it is impossible to change the cultural- moral structure of a society. The recent return to fundamen- talism in Iran and other Moslem countries indicates how geography determines social behavior.
Timothy Leary 33
Drop Out
For millennia, Oriental religions have taught that a "drop- out" from conventional roles was necessary for personal growth, but this detachment from hive morality has been difficult in highly organized western states. The recent establishment of global com- a^MiiiiMMMiM™™™ munication nets, particularly mov- Oriental rdi^bn5 ies, television, radios , and the \\Ss/^\oc\a
internet have presented humans e)C\CT)\yC2iOCd
with alternate lifestyles and moral dwW\K\a OWt fof codes. The peasant in Ceylon, the nc\^^or\2i\ arowth office worker in Budapest learn what ^^^^^^^^^^^ cultural modes are acceptable in other lands. This leads to migration. And migration typically leads to changes in religion and social role.
God the moralist is a watchful, jealous divinity. Priests and moral commissars typically do everything possible to maintain cultural conformity and to prevent migration. More than two- thirds of the United Nations demand exit visas to prevent citizens leaving to seek another lifestyle.
Seek Within
The psychedelic revolution of the late 20^^ Century encouraged millions of people to seek within to find navigational coordinates for the voyage of life. It was to be expected that a mass "turn on" would lead to a wide- spread "drop- out" phenomena. The typical LSD bad' trip panic occurred when the subject discovered the rubber- stamp artificial nature of social reality and social role; realized that one's identity is a fragile role in a flimsy historical vaudeville show.
34
Your drainh God
This freedom is wrong! Get me back to my safe ^^^^^^^^ cubicle in the urban hive! If I am not my social role, who am I? What will the neighbors and the moralists think? If I violate the taboos defining my cultural iden- tity, I will offend God.
The solution is, of course, to accept the responsibility. Each person who wishes to move beyond
hive- docihty must become God the Moralist just as the
old Hindus said.
If you want to
movcbcyond
h^c-dod\ty you
mu5t become
God the
Moralist.
Chapters
Esthetics
06t post-pagan, organized, civilized reli- gions have been inspired by God the Moral- ist Dictator, who invariably proscribed, under the pain of eternal punishment, the pleasures of sensuality, eroticism, individual — as opposed to priesthood — luxury and free art. These taboos are comprehensible because a citizenry that pursues plea- sure will tend to pay less attention to domestication roles and the self- sacrifices that benefit society.
^
God #5 is the hedonic artist. The Fifth God is
the esthetic director of the sensory world that
one constructs and blissfully inhabits.
The Fifth Craft of God is management
of one s own body.
Centralized monotheisms understandably de- nounced paganism. The looseness of the nature worshipper had to be tightened up to maintain an urban, post- tribal society. The Eastern and Mideast- em empires reserved luxury, art, sensuaUty to the aristocracy.
36 Yajir3ra\n]3God
God the Hedonic Artist
The concept of God the Hedonist emerged in Greece in the centuries before Christ. Here the wonderful notions of individuahty and democracy first blossomed. If the singular human being is the unit of life, then naturally the individual is going to develop a personal philosophy and select hir own style of self- reward.
The idea of beauty, the adoration of the human body, its grooming, nurture, play, display, and its harmony with esthetic environments has lasted through the hegemonies of Alexander, Rome, Catholicism, flared up magnificently in the ■■■■■HiB^MiRM Renaissance, rode the wave of Some rd\q\one Protestantism, and appeared in hSiVC fitfully the 20* Century in the form of the allowed CUlt5 that Bohemian, the artist, the enter-
focus on somatic tainer, the designer, the playboy- energy and sacred playgirl.
sensuality. Some religions have fitfully
■■■■■■■ allowed cults that focus on somatic
energy and sacred sensuality. Tantra — both Bengali and Tibetan, Zen, Hasidic Juda- ism preserved the notions of kundalini, cakra conscious- ness, spiritual- eroticism, ecstatic exuberance , mystic altered states. But Hedonism has always been easily checked by centralized religious states and restricted to a specialized caste of artists usually patronized and toler- ated by the rulers. This worked out well. The masters needed the hedonic estheticians to entertain and beautify while the great mass of the citizenry was kept in submis- sive asceticism. The lowest classes and the outside minorities were usually allowed to indulge themselves in gross sensuality, sternly condemned by bourgeois moral- ists.
Timothy Leary 57
In the 20^^ Century, the concept of selfhood sud- denly became popularized and vulgarized. Two world wars moved people around, lessening the hold of paro- chial moral censors. Psychoanalysis introduced the notion of self- improvement. The explosion of the film/ video culture trained the citizenry to dial and tune the entertainment they wished. The material consumerism mania of the 1950s strengthened the idea that the work- ing person was entitled to choose what looked good — purchasable things, that is.
Resurrection of the Body
In the 1960s, the 2, 500- year- old tradition of self- discovery and self- indulgence finally blossomed as a mass phenomenon. The widespread use of hedonic drugs led to a resur- ^^^^^m^
rection of the body. Sensual con- ^>, r . .
sumerism. bexual liberation, brotic .
dress, dance, talk, print, film, hoTOI^of the
music. Wholistic health methods. , ^r>.
^. . . J 1 T^u LSP experience
Diet jogging, trendy style. The j^^hekjdd^
working person discovered that hir c ^ j^-
uj ui J u confrontation
own body belonged, not to the state .^,
u 1 u u • With your
or to the moralist or to the authori- / ,
tarian doctor, but to hirself. ^'
The continually expanding use of brain- activating drugs in the 1970s built up the hedonic momentum because of the obvious neurological fact that drugs turn on the body. One of the ecstatic horrors of the LSD experience is the sudden confrontation with your own body. You are catapulted into the matrix of quadrillions of squirming cells and somatic communica- tion systems, swept down the tunnels and canals of your own waterworks. You have visions of microscopic pro- cesses, strange, undulating tissue patterns. You are
3& Your dravnh God
pummeled down the fantastic artistry of internal facto- ries, recoiling with fear or shrieking in pleasure at the incessant push, struggle, drive of the biological machin- ery at every moment engulfing you.
Heaven Within
Here is the ancient wisdom of gnostics, hermetics, Sufis, Tan trie gurus, yogis, occult iiiiiiii'ii''Kmmmmmmmmmmm healers. Your body is the mirror of Your body \3 the the macrocosm, the kingdom of mirror of the heaven within you. Tibetan and yx\^CWCO'd(T\, the Indian tantras and modem psychol- kingdom of heaV^en ogy workshops train the student to Within you. pay attention to the body' s energies
'"'''''''''^^ and messages.
By 1981 the intelligent American was beginning to define hir body as a complex receiving station, a sacred communications satellite, a bipedal telescope , a mosaic of touching, sniffing, listening, tasting microphones picking up vibrations from planetary energy systems, a worldwide retinal ABC, an eardrum RCA, an Interna- tional Smell and Tell, a consolidated General Foods laboratory. God of un- common sense.