Drugs Of Hallucination - Sidney Cohen

 DRUGS OF HALLUCINATION - SIDNEY COHEN

To have or not to have? To have or have not? When it comes to the Covid-19 vaccination that is the question and whilst for most it might well be a no-brainer, for some it's an issue of procrastination. It's not for me to advise what to do but as it's one of the most important questions of the age it demands some consideration at least. Which brings us in a very roundabout way to Drugs Of Hallucination, written by Sidney Cohen and first published in 1965.

To give it its subtitle, Cohen's book is 'The LSD Story' and though any link between lysergic acid diethylamide and the Covid-19 vaccination might be non-existent, a similarity on the point as to whether the drug should be taken or not is there. There are differences, of course, but it's all to do with the reasons why some people say yes, do it, take it, have it, whilst others advocate caution and some even outright condemnation and rejection.

The thing about imbibing LSD - as with almost anything - is that once you've taken it there's no turning back. It's too late. It's in you. Which means whatever effect it might have upon you be it physically or psychologically is going to be there potentially forever. It's going to leave a footprint. Might your whole outlook and perception of life be any different to how it was before the drug was taken? There's just no way of knowing.

Cohen's book touches upon and explores a good many salient points in telling its story, many of which can be interpreted and translated so as to apply to circumstances other than the imbibing of a drug. The similarities between a model psychosis and a visionary state for example are discussed and whether the taking of LSD can lead to either? It's an obvious question, of course, and one most famously cited by Aldous Huxley's Heaven or Hell quote.

There is also the subject of mind control and whether psychochemicals can lead to robotization and a kind of dictatorship without tears? It's a fear shared by a lot of Covid-19 anti-vaxxers who seem to think vaccination will lead to them being controlled by Bill Gates. It's certainly possible that drugs can be used for mind control, says Cohen, though there is probably more to fear from a television advertisement or even from your own parents when it comes to such manipulation of the mind.

When it comes to the question of LSD and whether to take it or not, Cohen comes firmly down on the side of caution citing not only examples and testimonies from those who have benefited incredibly from the drug both psychologically and even spiritually but also from those who have been permanently damaged by it to the point of death by misadventure or even suicide.

Not surprisingly there is no love lost between Cohen and the likes of Timothy Leary and other advocates of free use of the drug for all. In his condemnation of Leary there is, however, a whiff of elitism on his part particularly when talking about the availability of the drug to 'the lower classes'.

At one point when talking about marijuana, Cohen tells us that in Western cities it's 'the marginally adjusted' who smoke it either for ''kicks' or to work up enough courage to commit a felony'. Which is plainly wrong and even somewhat ludicrous. He then goes on to say 'some 300 million (worldwide) are supposed to use hashish regularly, almost as many as those who take opium'. These are figures that I suspect need to be verified and quantified but if true then following Cohen's logic that's an awful lot of felony.

There are similar clues dotted throughout the book that suggest Cohen isn't learning from his own insights and that his judgement and evaluation is being guided by his own prejudices and academic elitism. He's very good at capturing the effects of LSD as in 'the breathing of flowers, the undulation of walls' as he is in capturing its power and profound impact: 'I have just come back from seeing the world for the first time' and 'How do you describe red to a person who was born blind?'

His more complex insights, however, hang glibly upon coat hangers like suit jackets bought but never worn: 'It is important to realise that the world as we see it is far from an exact image of the physical world. Perception is variable and often quite erroneous. One limiting factor is that we perceive only what we can conceive; knowing is prerequisite to seeing and strongly determines what is seen. We tend to see what can be incorporated into our established frame of reference and try to reject that which does not fit.'

Hence Cohen's comments about 'the lower classes' and 'the marginally adjusted'?

'A map stands in the same relationship to the territory it covers as our idea of reality stands to reality', he tells us. And that's it. Cohen's revelations, points of view and insights are maps; some leading to where you might wish to go, others leading to the back of beyond, some detailed and precise, some clearly very wrong as if drawn with crayons. Cohen's book is a map. Some of it being very useful in regards to drug culture, some of it being less than useless.

As to the question about whether drugs (or vaccines, even) should be taken or not, if applying the same Cohen map analogy then it depends on which map you're reading. If anti-drugs (and anti-vax) then you can only wait and see where that gets you - which is probably nowhere. If reading only your official, government sanctioned ordnance survey map then again you can only wait and see where that leads you - along a very straight and narrow path.

As to my own personal opinion, I would never advocate the use of drugs but I would never condemn it either. As for the Covid-19 vaccination, yes, I've had mine and had no qualms about it either, if only for the very simple reason that against some of the dangerous stuff that in the past I've willingly and very happily put into my body, up my nose and in my veins well, I feel it just doesn't compare. As Danny, the purveyor of rare herbs and prescribed chemicals in Withnail And I said: 'Why trust one drug and not the other? That's politics, isn't it?''

John Serpico

Fashion & Perversity - Fred Vermorel

FASHION & PERVERSITY - A LIFE OF VIVIENNE WESTWOOD AND THE SIXTIES LAID BARE -

FRED VERMOREL

Has there ever been a band as much as the Sex Pistols where legend and truth have become so entwined as to become near impossible to distinguish between the two? But then 'When you have to choose between truth and legend' as Factory Records supremo Tony Wilson once said 'Print the legend', and he's a man, of course, who was an expert in such matters. This is the premise on which Fred Vermorel bases the first chapter of his book - Fashion & Perversity, A Life Of Vivienne Westwood And The Sixties Laid Bare. In fact, Vermorel takes it one step further and titles the first chapter 'Vivienne Westwood: An Imaginary Interview', it being exactly that. It's Vermorel taking liberties with everything he can recall Vivienne Westwood saying to him over thirty years of knowing her along with what she's said in interviews.

Now, who's to say if everything in this book is true or absolutely none of it? There's always been argument and confusion among the Pistols' band members themselves even over such simple things as who wrote what lyrics so who knows? According to Westwood in Vermorel's 'interview' for example: 'No one really knows who wrote the lyrics. Sometimes it was everyone, including me, in a pub, pissed. We'd come up with lines and slogans and somehow a song would emerge. Like 'Anarchy In The UK.' That was written one evening in a pub under Centre Point.' Is it any wonder there was such a fight over royalties come the end?

Other such declarations strewn throughout the 'interview' are equally questionable but at the same time equally interesting and even somewhat amusing. 'At one time Malcolm wanted me to go to Madame Tussaud's and set fire to the wax effigies of The Beatles. I thought that was inspired. Only I was worried it might start a fire and someone would get hurt.' Which, whether true or not is indeed an inspired idea. A perfect situationist stunt, even.

'It does make me smile nowadays when John Lydon says that ideas like situationism had little to do with the Sex Pistols, and that he was what counted. In fact, maybe it was John himself who had little to do with the Sex Pistols? 'Johnny Rotten' was really just a face and a mouthpiece for ideas John was often too uneducated to understand, and attitudes he was too cowardly to follow through.'

When it comes to the question of situationism there's an awful lot of evidence to point to the idea that it was in actual fact absolutely everything to do with the Pistols.

'To break through the wall of indifference Malcolm and Jamie Reid and the others around us used the sort of Dadaist tactics they'd learnt about at art college. Shock and provocation and outrage. And then more of the same. Never let up, never give in. Like the situationists they wanted to 'create a situation in which there was no going back'. Burning all bridges, going for broke.'

So might this also have included the idea to promote a blow-up Sid Vicious sex doll? Or Malcolm paying Teds to beat up punks in the King's Road?

'We were trying to start a war,' Westwood is quoted as saying, and everything right down to her T-shirt designs was all part and parcel of this. A prime example being her 'Which side of the bed' T-shirt. Composed of two lists, on one side of the shirt was everything that was hateful in British culture and on the other side everything that gave hope. 'Which side of the bed was like which side of the barricade are you on?'

And on the subject of barricades this is where Fred Vermorel comes into his own, specifically in regard to the barricades thrown up on the streets of Paris in May of 1968. Vermorel was there and in the second chapter of his book writes intelligently and very eloquently about it. Entitled 'Growing Up As A Genius In The Sixties' this particular chapter is wholly autobiographical and is all the better for it.

'Paris in May '68 was an ideological 'slippage', Vermorel writes 'A vertigo of discourses which projected political non-sense centre stage.'

On the building of the barricades, Vermorel describes how cars were shunted into the middle of the streets with cafe tables and chairs and debris added, echoing the French Revolution itself, not to mention the Paris Commune of 1871. Because more and more working class youths had started turning up from their suburbs out of curiosity and in the hope of giving the police a good hiding, the barricades began to go up in earnest - up to seven feet high. These were sons of the street and veterans of building sites so they knew how to build properly as opposed to the amateurish efforts of the students.

According to Vermorel, however, the incursion of these working class youths was not always to the students' liking who were often perturbed at the ease and panache of the street fighting of these newcomers, along with their lack of proportion and propriety and their obliviousness to liberal idealism and polysyllabic rhetoric.

At the time, nobody was acknowledging that rioting is actually serious fun and that cars being set on fire is a beautiful sight. Vermorel even suggests a metaphorical link between a riot and a collective orgasm. Describing the Grosvenor Square riot of 1967 as being less a revolution than a rugby scrimmage, Paris '68 in comparison was the moment when the imaginary burst its banks after reaching the famous situationist 'point of no return'.

The combination of student politics, working class hooliganism and situationist groups made for a heady cocktail, one that would later be commodified through the Sex Pistols and Punk. It's an analysis and an argument that Vermorel convincingly weaves, comparing the relationship of the Situationist Internationale with their student and working class 'cannon fodder' to the Sex Pistols' management team's (Glitterbest) relationship with the punks of 1976. 'Like the situationists, Glitterbest had access to an avant-gardist repertoire of examples which suggested that you can never 'go too far'. To go 'too far' was merely to enter history, timidity being the only barrier to success.'

Fashion & Perversity is an interesting addition to the Sex Pistols/Punk Rock/Situationist/May '68 canon, written by someone who by chance and acquaintance was at the centre of these cultural/political cyclones. Years later in the 1980s during Malcolm McLaren's Bow Wow Wow period, Vermorel fell out with McLaren but remained friends with Westwood though it should be said the relationship between the three was always a strange one, almost like an unfulfilled menage a trois.

Come the end of the book, we see Vermorel diagnosing McLaren as having Tourettes and this explaining the way McLaren talks, his mannerisms and even his behaviour throughout his whole life - and Vivienne Westwood agreeing with the diagnosis. When thinking about it, it's a pretty strange thing to put into print in a book, based as it is merely on amateur and idle speculation no matter if it might be true or not? But then maybe it's meant to be taken as just another stitch in the tapestry? More grist to the mill falling somewhere between truth and legend? Which brings us once again back to the Tony Wilson adage: 'When choosing between truth and legend - print the legend.'

John Serpico

Inside The Black Room - Studies Of Sensory Deprivation - Jack Vernon

 INSIDE THE BLACK ROOM - JACK VERNON

What needs to be noted from the start when it comes to reading Inside The Black Room by Jack Vernon is when it was first published, which was 1963. The significance of this is apparent when Vernon says 'There are many who claim that if a person was deprived totally of sensory stimulation his brain would cease functioning. This altogether reasonable belief holds that sensory stimulation, in addition to having its normal function of bringing information to the individual, serves to keep the brain active, alert, and alive'.

Vernon was a Professor of Psychology at Princeton University, New Jersey, and little did he know that there was another professor by the name of Peter C Lilly who would a few years later be developing a flotation tank that would enable a person to attain total deprivation of all sensory stimulation and prove that once deprived of all such stimulation the brain would in fact go into interstellar overdrive - particularly when combined with lysergic acid diethylamide. It's interesting because it goes to show that Vernon's psychological investigations were not only being guided but dictated by the scientific tools available to him at that time as in the use of a dark room instead of a flotation tank.

This, then, is what Vernon's book is about: An investigation into the results of locking up numbers of willing subjects in a darkened and sound-proofed room for long periods of time, denying them almost all sensory stimulation. Would their knowledge or memory be impaired? Would they be open to the influence of propaganda? Would they lose all sense of time? What hallucinations might they suffer? And what would be gained from answering such questions and to whose advantage? In a world concerned with space travel, solitary confinement and brain washing to ask such questions is vital, Vernon replied. All this, particularly in regards to brain washing, perhaps not coincidentally just a few years after the Korean war when the subject of indoctrination was all the rage.

Another interesting point that Vernon raises is his surprise at how long his subjects would spend asleep when in the dark room, adding he was also greatly surprised to learn that Yuri Gagarin had been able to sleep during his space flight around the earth. And yes, it is surprising. When entering into an experiment to spend time in a dark room you'd think the subjects would be curious and somewhat excited themselves, so much so that they'd be unable to sleep. And as for Yuri Gagarin on one of the greatest achievements in human history - and he slept through some of it. Can you imagine?

Whilst asleep in the dark room a common trait was for the subjects to remember long-forgotten childhood experiences and to realise and understand the effect of those experiences upon their behaviour as an adult. Professor Peter C Lilly in his experiments would find the same. It was the stuff of Freudian analysis. The stuff of Solaris, even.

Is there a difference between hallucinations and vivid daydreams, Vernon wonders? Utilising the definition of a hallucination as identified by an early nineteenth century French psychiatrist called Guiraud who specialised in the hallucinations of the mentally ill, Vernon establishes that there is and that a good percentage of the subjects entering the dark room experienced them, which included 'seeing' wallpaper patterns, cartoons, flickering lights, geometrical shapes and even fully integrated complex scenes.

Is spending time in a blacked-out room devoid of all sensory stimulation comparable to Orwell's Room 101? Vernon suggests that it is, with many of the subjects resurrecting and encountering their innermost secret fears in much the same way as the political prisoners in Orwell's 1984 were forced to do so. Which puts in mind the Taliban prisoners who when captured by US Forces following 9/11 were bound and blind-folded and flown to Guantanamo, which must have put them in a serious state of disorientation.

At the time, the photographs that came out of the Taliban prisoners on their knees in orange jumpsuits, their hands bound and their eyes blind-folded were quite shocking but in hindsight only because we had never seen anything like it before. Again, in hindsight the US Military would have known exactly what it was doing and was all part of a process of intentionally disorientating the prisoners so they would be more susceptible to questioning. In essence, it was all part of breaking the prisoners down via the US Military's modern day version of Room 101. All part of a process developed in part from the studies conducted by Professor Jack Vernon as presented and discussed in this book, Inside The Black Room.

John Serpico

Nihilists - Ronald Hingley

 NIHILISTS - RONALD HINGLEY

There surely comes a time in every man's life when he must ask himself: 'Am I a Nihilist?' Before being able to fully answer such a question, however, first and foremost he must understand what is exactly meant by the term? Nowadays, of course, most people would just turn to the Internet so let's do that shall we?

Nihilism: nihilism. (ˈnaɪɪˌlɪzəm) n. 1. a complete denial of all established authority and institutions. 2. (Philosophy) philosophy an extreme form of scepticism that systematically rejects all values, belief in existence, the possibility of communication, etc.

It is, however, sometimes better to turn to a book which leads us to Nihilists, written by Ronald Hingley, and to give its full subtitle: Russian Radicals and Revolutionaries in the Reign of Alexander II (1855-81).

What is clear from the very start of Hingley's book is that he himself is no fan of revolutionary violence as is pronounced by the citation of a quote from Joseph Conrad in the foreword that declares: 'The ferocity and imbecility of an autocratic rule rejecting all legality and in fact basing itself upon complete moral anarchism provokes the no less imbecile and atrocious answer of a purely Utopian revolutionism encompassing destruction by the first means to hand, in the strange conviction that a fundamental change of hearts must follow the downfall of any given human institutions. These people are unable to see that all they can effect is merely a change of names'.

This point of view, however, is very debatable. As proven by history, if Hitler, for example, had been successfully assassinated (as some attempted to do) the course of the Second World War would have been altered immediately. If Scottish anarchist Stewart Christie had successfully assassinated Franco the course of Spanish history would have altered irrevocably. The same goes for the IRA and their attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher. And so on and so forth. So to say that the 'downfall of any given institution' does not lead to 'a fundamental change of hearts' is arguably wrong, even if that change of hearts goes the complete opposite way to what was intended and repression is ratcheted up and hearts made even colder - it's still a fundamental change.

Hingley, who was a Fellow of St Anthony's College, Oxford and University Lecturer in Russian, goes on to say: 'Deriving as it does from Latin 'nihil', the name Nihilist seems to imply a belief either in nothing at all or in destruction for its own sake. In fact, Nihilists were not men of little or no faith. Far from it: they mostly believed passionately in something. They preached destruction often enough, but chiefly as a means to an end'.

Interestingly, Hingley identifies their earlier incarnation as a proto-type of those who would later be known as 'Bohemians'. They were a subculture coming with their own fashion sense and ethics, only the fact of them missing a suitable musical soundtrack preventing them from being the equivalent of modern day punks and hippies.

The men would sport huge beards and long hair, while the girls would have their hair bobbed and renounced such frivolities as combs. Both favoured blue-tinted spectacles and high boots. Other common features were a heavy walking stick and a rug flung over the shoulders. They were great cigarette smokers and drinkers of tea and by on-lookers were claimed to be dirty, with chewed fingernails and an untidy and unwashed appearance. It could almost be a description of a free festival audience sans drugs.

The Nihilists' concerns at the start focussed upon what back then in the 1800s was called the 'woman problem', by which they meant female emancipation. It wasn't votes for women they were after, however, because most men didn't even have the vote themselves nor was it anything to do with property rights. No, the main issues were careers and sexual freedom.

Promoted by a writer called Chernyshevsky and his book What Is to Be Done?, Russian feminism was embraced by a significant number of Russian women infuriated at being denied a profession and whose lives were dominated by the dictates of men who wished women to be only wives and mothers.

Vera Figner (1852-1942), the grand old lady of Nihilism

With a little further effort combined with the influence of other writers, Nihilist theory developed into revolutionary political theory advocating emancipation of the peasants and the overthrow of the Tsar. With the arrival of Sergey Nechayev and the publication of his notorious Catechism Of A Revolutionary this then escalated to the advocacy of assassination, merciless destruction and Tsaricide.

After a number of failed attempts the Nihilists did eventually succeed in killing the Emperor only for the perpetrators to be duly rounded-up and summarily executed. The only one to evade capture being Vera Frigner, who in later life would become known as the grand old lady of Nihilism.

With the execution of these most militant of Nihilists so too according to Hingley came to an end the life of the Nihilist movement of that period, subsequently entering the rich annals of Russian history. With the assassination of Emperor Alexander II the unstoppable wheels of revolution, however, were put into motion leading eventually to the storming of the Winter Palace and the Great Russian Revolution of 1917. For better or for worse.

So to go back to and in answer to the original question as in 'Am I a Nihilist?' the answer is that in one way or another and to a certain degree we probably all are. As principal theorist of the Situationists Raoul Vaneigem once declared: 'Nihilists, one more effort if we are to be revolutionaries'...

John Serpico

The Last Of The Hippies - An Hysterical Romance - Penny Rimbaud

 THE LAST OF THE HIPPIES - PENNY RIMBAUD

Originally published as part of a 28-page booklet entitled A Series Of Shock Slogans And Mindless Token Tantrums that came enclosed with the 1982 Crass album 'Christ - The Album', The Last Of The Hippies - An Hysterical Romance is the tale of Phil Russell, alias Wally Hope, personal friend of Penny Rimbaud and founder of the Stonehenge Free Festival whose arrest for possession of drugs propelled him into the depths of a State-sanctioned nightmare leading directly to his death.

Phil Russell was an enthusiastic, shamanistic, hippy visionary keenly exploring the counterculture world of the late Sixties/early Seventies. Inspired by free festivals such as the Windsor Free and Phun City, it was Phil's idea to reclaim Stonehenge and organise a free festival there. Enlisting the aid of Rimbaud and his fellow housemates of that time, the idea was put into action and the first Stonehenge Free Festival took place in the summer of 1974. It was whilst working and preparing for the second festival the following year that Phil was arrested for possession of some tabs of LSD.

From the start, Phil was refused bail and put into prison on remand where through being denied the use of a phone or even pen and paper was isolated from any contact with the outside world. Following an altercation regarding the wearing of prison uniform, Phil was sent to the prison doctor who diagnosed him as being schizophrenic. The drug Largactil (more commonly referred to in those days as 'liquid cosh') was prescribed to him, rendering Phil incapable of dealing with much of anything at all, least of all a defence in a court case.

At court, Phil was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and committed to a mental hospital where the drug Modecate was administered to him. By the time of his release a month later (and coincidentally just after the second Stonehenge festival had taken place), Phil had been reduced (in the words of Rimbaud) to 'an incurable cabbage', unable to even walk properly. After an examination by a private doctor, his condition was diagnosed as 'chronic dyskinesia', a disease caused by overdosing on Modecate and other related drugs.

A few weeks later, Phil overdosed on sleeping pills and choked to death on his own vomit.

By anyone's standards this is a woefully tragic tale open to a variety of interpretations, one being - and the one favoured by Rimbaud - that Phil Russell was murdered. Murdered not by the wilful action of any one individual but by the wilful actions and collusion of a number of individuals collectively representing 'the system'. According to Rimbaud, Phil Russell was murdered by the State.

Following an inquest into Phil's death a verdict of suicide was passed with no real reference to the treatment meted out to him by the police, the prison and the hospital authorities - the treatment that had directly led to his suicide. Being rightfully appalled by the outcome of the coroner's court, Rimbaud launched his own investigation into what had happened from the time of Phil's initial arrest through to his incarceration, his sudden release and up to his untimely death.

Though not one usually given to seeking out conspiracy theories, a conspiracy was indeed what Rimbaud found along with endless lies, deceit, corruption, fear and tales of cruelty. Perhaps what shattered Rimbaud the most, however, was the conspiracy of silence and the refusal of those in a position of being able to help and advise to do anything but. According to Rimbaud, this silence was the voice of fascism: 'The voices of silence, at times, made my investigations almost impossible. The respectable majority were too concerned about their own security to want to risk upsetting the authorities by telling me what they knew. They did know and I knew that they knew, but it made no difference - they remained silent.'

Unwittingly he had come face to face with what he termed the silent, violent majority: 'Against all the evidence, against all that they know, they remain silent because convention decrees that they should. Silence, security, compliance and convention - the roots of fascism. Their passive silence is their active part in the violence. A huge and powerful, silent voice of approval - the voice of fascism.'

For some years previously, Rimbaud had been running his rented home in the Essex countryside as a commune, or 'open house'. A place where people could not so much 'drop out' but 'drop in' to; where 'given their own time and space they could create their own purposes and reasons and, most importantly, their own lives.' A place where 'people could get together to work and live in a creative atmosphere rather than the stifling, inward looking family environments in which we had all been brought up.'

Though blatantly already living the hippy dream, the arrival of Phil Russell at the house introduced Rimbaud fully to 'real' hippy culture and the concept of free festivals. Phil's arrival was to set him on a course of no return: 'Wally had come along at a time when I was beginning to question the value of what I was doing. Was it enough? My experience both before and after his death showed me that it wasn't.'

Phil Russell's instigation of the Stonehenge free festival was a stroke of genius, lighting up a bright, burning beacon of hope that would forever be visible to anyone caring to look as a signpost to a brilliant future and a way to how life could be. Rimbaud's participation in making that dream come true (though he would probably refute the idea) is something to always be proud of. Phil's suicide/murder, however, was the counter-balance to it, casting a shadow over Rimbaud's personal life that he would never be able to cast off. Though even from this tragedy, hope/Hope would be born. Or re-born: 'Desire for change had to be coupled with the desire to work for it. If it was worth opposing the system, it was worth opposing it totally. It was no longer good enough to take what we wanted and to reject the rest, it was time to get back into the streets and attack, to get back and share our experiences and learn from the experiences of others.'

With the release of the Sex Pistols' Anarchy In The UK the transmogrification of the zeitgeist was set fully in motion, the harsh radiance of it touching and penetrating all corners of society from council estates, suburbs, inner cities and even hippy communes tucked away in the Essex countryside: 'A year after Wally's death, the Sex Pistols released Anarchy In The UK. Maybe they didn't really mean it ma'am, but to me it was a battle cry. When Rotten proclaimed that there was 'no future', I saw it as a challenge to my creativity. I knew that there was a future if I were prepared to work for it. It is our world, it is ours and it has been stolen from us. I set out to demand it back, only this time round they didn't call me a dirty hippie, they called me a filthy punk.'

So this was where Crass were from? An explanation of sorts as to their origin? From experimenting with communal living, the arrival of Phil Russell/Wally Hope and his subsequent death, hippy culture, Stonehenge, mental health, silence as consent, and 'the system'. All formulative experiences paving the way to what would be one of the most important bands ever.

Critics have always chided Crass for being hippies (in Punk clothing) and here Penny Rimbaud is putting his hands up and saying 'Yes', some of them were from that era and 'Yes', some had once believed in the hippy dream. The difference between Crass and most other groups, however, was in the fact that Rimbaud et al were coming from hippydom via an ideological perspective rather than a musical one.

In an effort to wipe out the past with Punk Year Zero revisionism it was actually far easier to hide record collections and old photographs than to hide ethics. As Joe Strummer pointed out: "The day I joined The Clash it was very much back to square one, back to Year Zero. We were almost Stalinist in our approach, all in a frenzied attempt to create something new - which isn't easy at the best of times." One of the memories Joe was shedding was his appearance with his pre-Clash, R&B squat band, The 101'ers at the 1975 Stonehenge festival...

In one of the Sex Pistols' first interviews, Johnny Rotten declared: "I hate hippies and all they stand for." though a year later he was playing some of his favourite records on Capital Radio, which included Neil Young, Peter Hamill and Captain Beefheart - hippy stalwarts all...

Music journalist and first division Punk inner circle member Caroline Coon rebuked Rotten for the tabloid journalism manner in which he was denigrating hippy idealism and warned him that "the gutter press did to hippies what they're going to do to you." She was right. And so too was Penny Rimbaud: "This time round they didn't call us 'hippies', they called us 'Punks'."

Like all other Punk groups, from the start Crass were readily rejecting the now redundant and useless aspects of hippy culture but unlike so many others they weren't denying it as their heritage. Woven into the story of Phil Russell in The Last Of The Hippies a direct lineage between different generations and events through the decades is plotted out; from the dawn of consumerism after the Second World War to the birth of CND, rock'n'roll, hippy and Punk. Taking in along the way acid guru Timothy Leary, psycho warlord Charles Manson, Yippy leader Jerry Rubin, the Kent State University shootings, 1960s protest movements, free festivals, anarchism, pacifism, Marxism, Sid Vicious, Garry Bushell, and even Adam Ant.

The implication is clear: Everything is connected and nothing stands alone unto itself. Lines in the sand can be drawn and anything presented in a new light but at the end of the day everything is but a continuation of something else.

All of this contained within The Last Of The Hippies, however, is really but a vehicle to relay the thoughts and ideas of Crass, particularly concerning the problems of the world and their perceived solutions to those problems. Those solutions being anarchism and pacifism. In all but name, The Last Of The Hippies is as close to a manifesto that Crass would ever get:

'We are born free, but almost immediately we are subjected to conditioning in preparation for a life of slavery within the system. We are moulded by our parents, teachers, bosses, etc to conform to what 'they' want from us rather than to our own natural and unique desires. Anarchists believe that those natural desires for peaceful and cooperative lives are denied us because they do not serve the requirements of the ruling classes. Life could and should be a wonderful and exciting experience. Despite what the politicians say, the world is big enough for us all if we could only learn to share it and to respect each other within it. Millions of people are governed by very few; millions of lives of grey slavery simply so those few can enjoy the privileges that are the birthright of us all. Surely, by sheer weight of numbers, we have the strength to take back what is rightfully ours? '

Armed revolution and violence, particularly as advocated by the extreme Left, are condemned as nothing more than acts of destructive revenge serving only to strengthen the vicious circle of violence that rolls endlessly on. Right-wing violence is claimed to be generally non-political and a reaction against inhuman conditions, whilst Left-wing violence is cited as often being organised and calculated, led usually by educated and privileged people. All States, however, both Left and Right are said to use violence to maintain power.

Pacifism was the rejection of all violence, and anarchy was rejection of State control. Pacifism and anarchism went hand in hand, for if anarchists believed they had the right to live their own life then violence shouldn't be used to to deny others theirs. Being pacifist didn't mean being passive. Violence could be opposed. Being pacifist didn't mean being unwilling to defend oneself or others from attack although when this happened it shouldn't be done from a sense of aggression or revenge but from a sense of love. Love being the natural instinct of all people, it was only the circle of violence that distorted and perverted people's basic kindness and goodness. By refusing to be used as tools to other people's desires, strength of love could be demonstrated and the oppression and violence of everyday life be overcome. Although unwilling to exactly advocate direct action as a form of protest, the need for it is suggested though only when success is certain and only by those who feel ready and confident.

'We must learn to live with our own weakness, hatred, prejudice, and to reject theirs. We must learn to live with our own fears, doubts, inadequacies, and to reject theirs. We must learn to live with our own love, passion, desire, and to reject theirs. We must learn to live with our own conscience, awareness, certainty, and to reject theirs. We must learn to live with our own moralities, values and standards, and to reject theirs. We must learn to live with our own principles, ethics, philosophies, and to reject theirs.

Above all we must learn to live with our own strength and learn how to use it against them, as they have used it against us. Throughout history, it is our strength that they have used against us to maintain their privileged positions. It is up to me alone, and you alone, to bite the hand that bleeds us. THERE IS NO FUTURE BUT OUR OWN. YOU AND I, WHO LOVE THIS PLANET EARTH, ARE ITS RIGHTFUL INHERITORS. THERE IS NO AUTHORITY BUT OUR OWN. IT IS TIME TO STAKE OUR CLAIM.'

The Last Of The Hippies is an excellently written and extremely well-composed piece of polemic. In hindsight, of course, and with the benefit of age and experience there are aspects of it, however, that are - if not politically conservative - very liberal, ill-advised and wishy-washy. But that's okay and it doesn't take away none from it's importance in opening up the mere question of the possibility that the world is not alright and that it can be changed for the better.

During their time, Crass successfully circumnavigated the entire music business; from the music press, the promoters, and the major record companies and without any hype or big sell successfully carved out their own space. As an example of what can be achieved with a bit of determination, integrity and mutual support, within the world of music culture there is probably none better. It's unclear what purpose The Last Of The Hippies serves nowadays but at the time of when it was first published it was an important stepping stone and even gateway drug to much wider possibilities and if for no other reason than this it's probably a good thing that's it's still available in book form.

John Serpico

The Centre Of The Cyclone - John C Lilly

THE CENTRE OF THE CYCLONE - JOHN C LILLY

John C Lilly was an original psychonaut, an explorer of inner space and mind states hitherto never before explored with a scientific eye. He was the Captain James T Kirk of the neurophysiology generation boldly going where no man had gone before, and his book The Centre Of The Cyclone is almost his captain's log, star date 1972, coming with the sub-title An Autobiography Of Inner Space.

'In the province of the mind,' Lilly writes 'there are no limits', and in a way this is irrefutable. It's a given. It should be a common sense. Sartori is the state that mankind needs to attain and any sub-state on the way to that can only be of benefit, he goes on to say. Once mankind is on this path then problems such as pollution, slaughter of other species, overproduction, famine, disease and war will be solved.

Sartori is what they called it in India, of course, but in the West the hippies called it 'far out'. So, with the aid of lysergic acid diethylamide tartrate (otherwise known as 'pure Sandoz') and sensory deprivation flotation tanks - and then the two combined - Lilly sets off to explore the outer limits of his brain, his mind, his consciousness and what a non-scientifically trained person might call his soul.

Lilly's descriptions of his first trips reads like a combination of every LSD trip ever captured on paper and in film; like Roger Corman's film The Trip colliding with Fantastic Voyage starring Raquel Welch where a mini-sub containing a crew of scientists is miniaturised and injected into a human body where blood cells then hurtle past them as they travel along capillary systems. It's a kaleidoscopic, multi-dimensional, psychedelic helter skelter that Lilly experiences throwing up countless questions regarding self, ethics, meaning and understanding.

'In the awe, reverence, and wonder of exploring the many spaces present inside myself and in the universe,' Lilly writes 'I found that I was developing a very powerful ethic. This ethic was beginning to regulate my life, my attitude, my relations with others, and my professional career'. That ethic being 'Do unto others and not do unto others what you would have the others do unto you and not do unto you. The others are to include other species, other entities, other beings in this universe'.

This same ethic leads to him never conducting an experiment on another living entity unless he was willing or actually had conducted that same experiment upon himself, whether that be inserting electrodes into his brain or the ingestion of psychotropic drugs.

Lilly's exploration of human consciousness also leads him to consider whether dolphins, porpoises and whales - the majority of which have similar brains to humans and with an equivalent level of neuronal complexity - might also possess similar consciousness and subsequently a similar sense of self? Might they even possess language and logic capacities and if so, the capacity also for thought?

As with any imbiber of LSD, the use of the drug doesn't actually provide Lilly with any concrete answers to his questions but instead serves to raise further ones. It does, however, serve to cast doubt upon the idea that the consensus reality we ordinarily perceive is the only reality and that there might also be other alternative realities of which we are typically oblivious to. 

The use of the flotation tank proves to Lilly that the function of the brain isn't dependent upon outside stimuli and in fact the complete opposite. That without any external stimulation the brain will continue to function in ways hardly imaginable, somersaulting through multi-universes impossible to experience whilst 'captured' by everyday senses.

Come 1969, Lilly ups sticks from his job at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Centre and heads off to Big Sur, California to hang out with the hippies whereupon he experiences various encounter groups and sometimes accompanying group nudity. It's what the hippies there did, by all accounts. In one such session describing how sixty people together in a small room would all take their clothes off and then walk around and look at and touch one another 'in order to realise a greater human freedom'. And why not?

He also partakes in Gestalt therapy, Rolfing, meets Baba Ram Dass, and experiences himself as a microbe on a mud ball rotating around a Type-G star two-thirds of the way from galactic centre to the indefinite edge in a small galaxy in a universe of galaxies whilst simultaneously realising his true self and Atman, seeing his soul, joining Universal Mind, becoming one with God, tuning in on the Infinite and transforming from clay to the Divine. 

It's easy to mock John C Lilly and his book The Centre Of The Cyclone is even easier to deride but it should be remembered that his work promoted worldwide interest in dolphins and whales as intelligent life-forms and was fundamental to the establishment of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the first legislation to mandate an ecosystem-based approach to wildlife management. And for that in itself I would say, we should be very grateful to him and award him our utmost respect. John C Lilly was born in 1915 and passed away in September 2001.

John Serpico

Strange News From Another Star - Hermann Hesse

 STRANGE NEWS FROM ANOTHER STAR -

HERMANN HESSE

He was a master of great book titles Hermann Hesse, I mean just who wouldn't want to read a book called The Glass Bead Game, or Steppenwolf, or Narziss And Goldmund? And so too Strange News From Another Star? Sometimes the image on the covers of his books wouldn't be up to much but this would have been something out of the author's control and down to Penguin or whatever publishing house the book was from. And of course, seeing as how Hesse has been dead since 1962 he's got even less say in it now. A case in point being the cover of Strange News From Another Star, first published in 1919 and republished in 1976 with an uninspiring silhouette of Hesse's profile superimposed over a quartet of pictures. It's pretty rubbish and not really the image you might conjure up from the title. I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover but like it or not the cover still plays a part in deciding whether you choose to read it. But like how The Dude abides in The Big Lebowski, like a loyal trooper I persevere. 

It was Timothy Leary in the Sixties who first rekindled interest in Hermann Hesse by citing him as an influence upon new psychedelia. 'We read Hermann Hesse' he told Tom Wolfe, describing Hesse as 'the poet of the interior journey', and not without good reason. Most of Hesse's books deal with the duality between the physical and the metaphysical, the subsequent conflict and the search for balance. His books beautifully illustrate yearnings of the soul and an often unspoken grasping for enlightenment and ways in which to achieve it.

'Turn on, tune in, drop out' as Leary advised which was all well and good but in so doing he and everyone who followed his advice came into direct conflict with the physical world and its representatives in the form of the police, the army, politicians and straight society. What path to take and which way to go then became the only question with Leary finding clues within the works of Hermann Hesse.

Strange News From Another Star is a collection of eight short stories and though it's not one of Hesse's better known book by any means, it's still an important addition to his canon of work because the mere fact that the stories are written by the maestro guarantees them to be of interest and of high quality. It's a given.

Augustus is written almost as a fairy tale, the moral of it being that to love is a good thing but is not enough in itself and that to love is much more important.

The Poet concerns itself with the getting of wisdom, written as a metaphor.

Flute Dream describes life as a dream with love, joy and happiness alongside fear, death and despair being mere other dreams within that dream.

Strange News From Another Star essentially conveys that 'in the midst of life we are in death', as the saying goes.

The Hard Passage is another metaphor for the journey through life.

A Dream Sequence is exactly that: sequences of a dream captured on paper.

Faldum is about a stranger entering a town and granting a wish to each and every one of its inhabitants, one of whom wishes for nothing more but to listen and watch and to think about what is immortal. So he becomes a mountain. It's folklore, so in that sense it's not as stupid as it might sound.

The last story and probably the best one is called Iris, and is about a man's search for what is in effect an essence rare. It's fascinating. The allusions to William Blake and his Auguries of Innocence are obvious , particularly to Blake's couplet 'To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour'. The story starts with a young boy's love of flowers and is the prose equivalent of one of Robert Mapplethorpe's flower photos. It ends with the boy as an old man searching for nirvana and 'the image behind the image'. In the end he finds it right where he began as a child and having abandoned wealth, stature and all notions of modern-day respectability, enters into it.

As with a lot of Hesse's books, Strange News From Another Star raises once again the question that Timothy Leary posed as in did Hermann Hesse ever go down the chemical path to enlightenment and use mind-changing drugs like mescaline? Interestingly, Leary never asked the same about William Blake. There's no evidence, however, that Hesse ever partook of drugs although he did travel extensively through India which means if anything he would have indulged in hashish or opiates.

'To make this mundane world sublime, take half a gram of phanerothyme' as Aldous Huxley once put it though of course Humphry Osmond put it better with his 'to fathom Hell or soar angelic, you need a pinch of psychedelic'. Hermann Hesse, William Blake and Aldous Huxley all circle around each other warily like in some mad gunfight from an Italian western. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Well there's three right there but as always it's an irrelevant question just as the question of Hesse and drugs is - even though it's an intriguing one. Hesse himself would probably say it's better to just read the books, turn off your mind, relax and float down the stream; to lay down all thoughts and surrender to the void because it's not dying, it's shining, it's being, it's knowing and it's believing. Now where have we heard that before?

John Serpico