I think that when I was 16 or 17, I was one of the few people in Graz who read and got intoxicated by the master of his field, who was barely appreciated at the time but had since become the world's most famous and perhaps most publicly successful neurologist.

Oliver Sacks

Reading all of his works would be a bit boring, the thousandth case is probably one too many, but I love the cross-connections to my youth, it makes everything so logical and rounded and it's nice to know how selectively intelligent I was back then in recognizing masterworks. That's what my little narcissist needs 🙂

It was hardly any different with Terry Pratchett, whom I discovered very early on, long before he was publicly recognized as the greatest and most intelligent humorist of his time.

So I am actually reading Oliver Sacks again, and of course he beams me into the scientific WOW in no time at all, with which one may find it difficult to maintain the transpersonal level that Mulzer opened up shortly before with his Ester Hicks and co stuff, but which Grof and Wilson and the like protect, while even good old esotericism under scrutiny takes on its significance as a biting Gault Millau for psycho stuff, because it is not the lone perpetrator but the conspired lie that causes us problems, the interesting thing about it could be that you learn to distinguish fraudsters from masters, and who would be better suited than someone who goes from trickster to producer and always wants to be both at the same time.

A seal of quality for the esoteric and wellness scene?

Absolutely necessary, the word is a thing of the past, is only discussed in special cases such as an energetic protective ring around a Viennese hospital for 95,000 euros, or as another example the madness with Grander water, as at least one interesting potential network partner in the Standard is researching. But just being against it is unfortunately not enough, it is much more complicated, my friend, but that is my talent, not yours.

The book has other kicks in store for me, for example in the sections in which Sacks talks about his own life as a junior doctor or student and about his own research and experiments with hallucinogens. Psychedelic Garden is the expression of this in mine. And I get new inspiration, for example on the subject of mescaline, which for me has always been somewhat influenced by Castaneda but could perhaps be a worthwhile new start in terms of interests.

Sacks is also right about one thing: Sunday mornings are perfect, or the Saturday nights before that; you have to imitate the culture to survive in it. The Chameleon.

Sacks' books can be a treasure trove because these experiences, which exist in all times, classes and cultures, form the basis of psychological diversity and artistic manifestation. Yes, of religion itself, of psychology, of magic.

Perhaps in another book he also researched the neurological equivalents of collective hallucinations and how they could possibly be explained.

POSSIBLY EXPLAINED, A NICE BONMOT?

It is hardly tiring but very inspiring to trace the history of these phenomena back to Baudelaire, the artificial paradises, Huxley and Hoffmann. There is now a new movement on this topic, like me, many things have been dormant for one or two decades only to be exploited indirectly to achieve fame and glory. DMT and Ayahuasca, for example, in their workshop quantity.  

I am taking back my youth. To continue and develop it in the spirit of modernity, of postmodernity, of my own mindful emergence, as a specific and creative way of being, I think that is all right and perfect.

And it is the same with this book; in some sections it almost feels like his best. His power of observation on the world, on the miracle of the brain, is one of the most beautiful that I know. At least in the modern West. Perhaps even CGJung.