From: tnf@well.sf.ca.us (David Gans)
Subject: Interview with Owsley
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 21:48:00 GMT


The following is an excerpt from _Conversations with the Dead_ by David Gans,
published September '91 by Citadel Press.

As far as I know it is the only interview Owsley has ever granted and allowed
to be published.


BEAR (Owsley Stanley) - Oakland, California, January 13, 1991



Bear:  [LSD] seemed to give me access to my head in some way. I can't exactly
explain it.  It's not something I've ever been able to put into words.  I got
involved with it because the first time I did it I realized it opened a door.
And it was a place I wanted to explore.
   I got involved maybe more deeply than I should've, because I didn't like
poisoning myself with unknown things. 

Q:  You just wanted to make sure you could control what you were taking?

Bear:  I wanted to know what I was doing. And I guess I'm a good cook, is all
I can say.
   But the thing is that you only need very tiny amounts. And so even a fairly
small amount of it is a lot.

Q:  What was different about what [Ken] Kesey was doing with it?

Bear:  Well, it was magic.  It took you into a place that was like the
descriptions in the books by the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons.  It made
sense of all the different occult things that I'd read. It was the
introduction to magic.  It was a pathway to another place, and it seemed to
give you access to mental powers that were written about and talked about,
amongst the Hindus and amongst the ancient alchemists and magicians.  And
direct: it seemed to go direct and give you access to those things. It was
like a tool, like a tool to work on the consciousness. 
   The material always gave me great visions, incredible visions. I'm sure
that it's the root source of the art that I do, even today. I'm sure it was
the root source of my ability to manipulate sound - which I looked at as an
art form.
   I never looked at myself as an engineer, any more than I looked at myself
as a chemist or anything else. Not a scientist. I have a scientific
background, because I'm interested in everything, and science is just a way of
describing the physical universe.  And alchemy and the occult is just a way of
describing the non-physical universe.  And I was interested in both aspects.
Art is a way of creating something yourself, as a man, which can say something
about either the physical, the nonphysical, or both.
   One of the earliest things that happened to me with regard to psychedelics
was that the universe became even more three-dimensional.  It seemed to have
more dimension and depth and space to it.  Colors and things seemed very
intense. At one of the Acid Tests - I don't know which one it was, it might
have been Watts [February 11, 1966] - it was a very strange experience where
all of a sudden I was looking at sound coming out of the speakers.  This
happened on several occasions.  It also happened at the house we were staying
in in Watts, where I actually saw sound coming out of the speakers. . . .
What's that called, synesthesia.
   I've never talked to anyone else who's actually had that experience, but I
actually had that experience.  And it was funny because I'm looking at this
sound, I'm really out there, and all kinds of other things are going on, and I
was thinking, you know, that doesn't look the way I thought sound. . . .
   The lady I was with in those days was quite direct about everything.  Her
name was Melissa.  This was long before I met the Dead.  Whenever we would get
high, and things would start getting really weird, she would insist on dealing
with them as though they were real - not a hallucination, not something that
the drug was doing - "This is reality"  - and force me to deal with it.  So I
never got into that space that a lot of people get into where they say, "Oh,
its the drug that's doing this.  This is a hallucination.  This is a non-real
effect which is being produced by a chemical which is in my brain."  I had to
deal with it as though this was the absolute concrete everyday reality now -
deal with it, right?  And that was interesting, because it's different that
way, see?  You have a whole different set.  It's like the difference between
driving a car in a video game or getting in a car, and she wouldn't let me
drive the video-game car.  Deal with it!  On the street!  Now!
   And so when I got to this point in the Acid Test when I saw sound coming
out of the speakers, I was totally programmed to accept whatever I saw as
being real - more real, perhaps, than my everyday life, which I'd come to
believe was restricted consciousness, where I actually saw less, or felt less,
or perceived less.

-- 

	David Gans	tnf@well.sf.ca.us
			{apple,pacbell,hplabs,ucbvax}!well!tnf

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