34 Comments
Jul 23, 2022Liked by Cynthia Chung

Thank you very much for this comprehensive treatment, a reference text, really.

Regarding this quote: “ No man, however, civilized, can listen for very long to African drumming, or Indian chanting…and retain intact his critical and self-conscious personality. It would be interesting to take a group of the most eminent philosophers from the best universities, shut them up in a hot room…and measure…”

Much of modern popular music (techno, house, hip hop) adheres to a fairly rigid 4/4 drum pattern. Worth a look?

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You are doing great work, Cynthia! Jeff in France

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"Again, there are other types of unstable and poorly disciplined souls who would use the sentimental ideas of religion as an avenue of escape from the irritating demands of living. When certain vacillating and timid mortals attempt to escape from the incessant pressure of evolutionary life, religion, as they conceive it, seems to present the nearest refuge, the best avenue of escape. But it is the mission of religion to prepare man for bravely, even heroically, facing the vicissitudes of life. Religion is evolutionary man’s supreme endowment, the one thing which enables him to carry on and “endure as seeing Him who is invisible.” Mysticism, however, is often something of a retreat from life which is embraced by those humans who do not relish the more robust activities of living a religious life in the open arenas of human society and commerce. True religion must act. Conduct will be the result of religion when man actually has it, or rather when religion is permitted truly to possess the man. Never will religion be content with mere thinking or unacting feeling." The Urantia Book, Paper 102, Section 2.

I loved this piece, Ms. Chung, even though it challenged my fond memories of being 'enlightened' by Eric Fromm and Carl Jung. I cannot deny, though, that your presentation makes sense, particularly in the context of today's disastrous cultural decay. Thank you!

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Dec 16, 2021Liked by Cynthia Chung

Thanks Cynthia...very nice...looking forward to the next chapter:-)

Just as a side comment, I recall reading a Hunter S. Thompson book (Proud Highway?) where spent some time down there in Big Sur in the early sixties. He said something to the effect that Alan Watts and T. Leary, both of which he had met, were charlatans and bull shit artist.

Your work certainly fills in the gaps to his statements...

Anyway... thanks again...

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Dec 14, 2021Liked by Cynthia Chung

Superb...the Modern-era Western mystic philosophers in one neat bundle!

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I am about to start reading the book Acid Dreams, I saw that it has some similar approaches to this series, only focused on the 60s. Do you know Gerard Colby's book "Thy Will Be Done - The Conquest of Amazon"? He elaborates on all forms of coups and social control, but focusing on Latin America with Nelson Rockefeller's protagonism... this was the first time I read in depth about the impact of the CIA and MKULTRA in Latin America.

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Jan 30Liked by Cynthia Chung

John, “the Savage”, was a hero of my youth, after reading BNW and identifying wholly with his response to and reading of its culture.

I naively imagined that John thus represented Aldous’ highest belief values and was somehow warming us to avoid the descent into civilisation madness. (I’ve read none of his other works).

Video interviews of AH (On the schizophrenic UTube) seemed to uphold this idea. Clearly there is much more to it. How disappointing. “Bad company corrupts good character.”

Back to the Reservation…

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Jan 14, 2023Liked by Cynthia Chung

Absolutely excellent

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"According to authors such as Craig Heimbichner (Blood on the Altar), Martin P. Starr (The Unknown God), and John Carter (Sex and Rockets), Dennis Hopper and David’s dad, John Carradine, were both members of the infamous Agape Lodge of the OTO, alongside doomed rocket scientist Jack Parsons, actor Dean Stockwell, and doppelgangers L. Ron Hubbard and Robert Heinlein (who was also, it will be recalled, a Laurel Canyon resident). According to Gregory Mank (Hollywood’s Hellfire Club), John Carradine and John Barrymore were also members of the so-called “Bundy Drive Boys,” a group that engaged in such practices as incest, rape and cannibalism. And according to Ed Sanders (The Family), among the upscale homes visited by a Process Church work group 'was the John Barrymore mansion, located at 1301 Summit Ridge Drive.' " https://centerforaninformedamerica.com/inside-the-lc-the-strange-but-mostly-true-story-of-laurel-canyon-and-the-birth-of-the-hippie-generation-part-xvii/

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I think from the piles of convoluted nonsense these people put together the CIA synthesized workable MKULTRA stuff to turn people into automatons useful for the megalomaniac purposes of the CIA's true bosses who I think are the top international bankers. I think if you check these bankers out you will find philosophical links between them, Pharisaism, Zionism, maybe going all the way back to Babylon in some respects. Controlling humans like barnyard animals on an earth farm is an old and evolving concept with psychopaths and in my opinion is undoubtedly having a major effect on the direction of the planets evolution.

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Jul 22, 2022·edited Jul 22, 2022

I was in SF as a young hippy, tripping and experiencing the eye opening psychedelic experiences. It put me on a spiritual journey that I still am on. It was a shock that I couldn't believe at first when I heard that it was all engineered by the CIA. How could it be, when we were all turned on and turned off to everything that was establishment and becoming free spirits? It helped make me an activist, which I still am today, in Ecuador. And the music was so great, how could the CIA develop such great bands?

I never went to Esalen, I thought that it was too elitist. It's great to know of the origins in Swiss. with the crazy guy they all loved. Many of my favorite people. At least they weren't eugenicists. I listened to Alan Watts from time to time, but thought his humor was way too dry, and didn't give him so much credit as he gets now as a proponent of Zen. I am always trying to be Zen, a life long practice.

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Krishnamurti, Isherwood and Huxley were seduced by life in California as were most everyone you focused on. Its an intoxicating place. I guess its intoxication that really has us seriously on the ropes. Your man in Toronto, Gabor Mate has stuff to say about that. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Cynthia.

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Thomas McGrath: You propose that hippie culture was established to neutralise the anti-war movement. But I also interpreted your book as suggesting that, as far as you’re concerned, there’s also some resonance between what you term “psychedelic occultism” (the hippie counterculture) and the “elite” philosophy/theology? You think this was a second reason for its dissemination?

David McGowan: Yes, I do. Hippie culture is now viewed as synonymous with the anti-war movement, but as the book points out, that wasn’t always the case. A thriving anti-war movement existed before the first hippie emerged on the scene, along with a women’s rights movement, a black empowerment/Black Panther movement, and various other movements aimed at bringing about major changes in society. All of that was eclipsed by and subsumed by the hippies and flower children, who put a face on those movements that was offensive to mainstream America and easy to demonize. And as you mentioned, a second purpose was served as well – indoctrinating the young and impressionable into a belief system that serves the agenda of the powers that be....

https://dangerousminds.net/comments/classic_rock_conspiracy_theory_weird_scenes_inside_the_canyon

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Jul 17, 2022·edited Jul 17, 2022

Yesterday Into Today: Laurel Canyon: Walking the Sixties. Part III

"A number of books and articles have been written about the Laurel Canyon music scene in the 60s and 70s, but none perhaps as intriguing as David McGowan’s Weird Scenes: Inside the Canyon...

Still, in Weird Scenes, McGowan brings to the surface an uncanny amount of coincidences and intriguing links between many 60s musicians living in close proximity to a place called Lookout Mountain Laboratories, up-and-coming filmmakers, murder, and what the anti-war movement referred to as the military-industrial-complex (McGowan prefers the term “military/intelligence complex”).

It is McGowan’s thesis that the 60s counterculture movement was manufactured in order to undermine the growing anti-war movement. In support of this, he points out that a number of the Laurel Canyon bands back then were created almost overnight, and that many of the musicians not only did not come from musical backgrounds or have prior musical skill, but that they came from blueblood families, or families with backgrounds in the military, intelligence, and/or politics. In connecting the dots, McGowan seems to be indicating that government and/or military elements may have been the ones doing the “manufacturing.” A whale of a conspiracy theory? Perhaps. But McGowan presents background information, which can be verified, of so many of the musicians, that it is hard to dismiss his thesis outright. Here is a sampling of some of those musicians.

Jim Morrison. According to McGowan, Morrison was the son of Admiral George Stephen Morrison, “the commander of the U.S. warships that allegedly came under attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin” and propelled escalation of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The book shows a photo of a preppy-looking Jim Morrison standing next to his father on the bridge of one of the warships in early 1964. In 1967, a mere three years later, after the release of his album Doors, Morrison, would be asking the world to “‘break on through to the other side” and “light my fire” on the Ed Sullivan Show..." https://www.independentnews.com/community/yesterday-into-today-laurel-canyon-walking-the-sixties-part-iii/article_ee6521f8-2d84-11e8-8cab-972d1af4ffcb.html

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Every movement - religious or cultural, spiritual or education or medical - starts with an idealistic vision, and over time becomes corrupted or taken over by those with other agenda.

We can include Christianity here.

By highlighting the darker elements and influences of the human potential movement, you have ignored the positive aspects.

I grew up with the human potential movement, as a teenager in the sixties, and a developing adult and student of psychology in the seventies.

Looking back, this period was one of incredible growth and awakening for me, and I observe in dismay how today's psychologists are reduced to using only cognitive behaviour therapy (with a dash of mindfulness more recently being approved), which is based on the principle that humans are entirely rational, and can control their emotions and mental state through their thoughts.

No credence these days is given to the principle of "working on yourself", i.e. discerning your own hidden motivations and impulses and triggers.

"Working on yourself" (with the help of trained professionals, who had themselves been through this process) was a principle of Freudian and Jungian analysis, and of the experiential psychotherapy movement, and I can't emphasise enough how important this is, in changing the therapist-patient dynamics (as well as in one's general process of maturation and integration).

The alternative therapeutic approach is one of the "expert" - a psychiatrist or psychology with loads of book knowledge - holding themselves above the "patient" - the person who needs to be fixed.

This is the medical model, and we have seen in recent years how flawed this is, just for general medicine.

The "expert" has all the knowledge - the "patient" is someone with an illness that needs to be fixed, most likely with some pharmaceutical.

During my career as a clinical psychologist I went from strongly anti-psychiatry (R.D. Laing's view) to pro-medication (because there are people who are not reachable by talk therapies or other psychological interventions) and back to a more moderate position, not against all psychiatric medications but horrified at their overuse today, and particularly as a first intervention for young people.

I won't try to deny the influence of the CIA in the use of psychedelic drugs back in the sixties and seventies - but this too had its positive side. As did the access to Eastern philosophies and religions and spiritual practices.

My own experience as a teenager was that Christianity was not meeting the spiritual needs of my generation. Yes, there is a mystical aspect to Christianity - but it is not very accessible, and tends to be minimised in most churches and denominations. Christianity was (maybe still is) presented as a sort of kids' Santa Claus story, maybe suitable for uneducated medieval peasants, but not for the more educated spiritual seekers of my generation.

So we found the meditative practices of Buddhism and Hinduism to offer us something that was sadly lacking in Western religion.

Sure, there were a lot of self-styled gurus, with all the abuses that go with this. But we were better able to avoid getting caught up in this, than if we had come from a framework where the leaders were considered to be the actual voice of God (as is the case with Christianity). Our leaders were fallible humans, not immune to the power and adulation of their students. With a solid foundation of personal awareness, it was easier to discard a guru who was indulging a little too much in unrepressed sex & ego-tripping.

While there are some important disclosures in this series, I humbly beg you not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Because what is the alternative?

Mass prescription of anti-depressants? Diagnosis of mental illness by the panel of experts who decree the categories of the DSM?

Truly, I believe that mainstream psychiatry is much more the vehicle of the globalists, and much more likely aligned with the intentions of the New World Order, than the human potential movement ever was.

It was a true counter-culture movement, a rebellion against the experts telling us what was wrong with us, and yes, it was corrupted in just the same way that the ecological movement and the peace movement and so on have been corrupted and taken over by sinister infiltrators.

Discernment is the key to getting through the miasma of forces that would control us and enslave us. Discernment, self-awareness, and a strong spiritual center (and Christianity has no monopoly on this).

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Cynthia - The point you are making is a bit unclear to me though it seems to be that the entire human potential movement was / is nefarious. I think you do not have the personal experience of the times you write about, as others of us lived it. For instance, Abraham Maslow was a key figure and you barely mentioned him at all. Considered to be the father of 3rd and 4th force psychology - Humanistic and Transpersonal - he studied high functioning people and creatives - to arrive at an understanding of how to expand our human potential. Nothing bad about this at all, in fact very inspiring, and it built a bridge between psychology and spirituality. My several years of training in psychosynthesis on top of a master's degree in human potential development makes me somewhat of an expert on all of this. I do hope that you arrive at a more balanced and complete perspective at some point, one that includes the positive realities of mind expansion and the unfolding of consciousness.

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