We have gone sick by following a path of untrammelled rationalism, male dominance, attention to
the visible surface of things, practicality, bottomlineism. We
have gone very, very sick, and the body politic, like any body when it feels
itself to be sick, it begins to produce antibodies or strategies for overcoming the condition
of disease and the twentieth century is an enormous effort at self healing.
Phenomena as diverse as surrealism, body piercing, psychedelic drug
use, sexual permissiveness, jazz, experimental dance, rave culture, tattooing, the list is
endless. What do all these things have in common? They represent various
styles of rejection of linear values. The society is trying to cure itself
by an archaic revival, by a reversion to archaic values. So when I see people manifesting sexual
ambiguity, or scarifying themselves, or showing a lot of
flesh, or dancing to syncopated music, or getting loaded, or violating
ordinary canons of sexual behaviour I applaud, all of this because it's an impulse to return
to what is felt by the body, what is authentic, what is archaic and when
you tease apart these archaic impulses at the very centre of all these
impulses is the desire to return to a world of magical empowerment of feeling. And at
the very centre of that impulse is the shaman stoned, intoxicated on plants,
speaking with the spirit helpers, dancing in the moonlight, and vivifying
and invoking a world of conscious living mystery. That's what the world is! The world is not
an unsolved problem for scientists or sociologists. The world is a
living mystery. Our birth, our death, our being in the moment, these are
mysteries. They are doorways opening onto unimaginable vistas of self-exploration, empowerment,
and hope for the human enterprise and our culture has killed
that, taken it away from us, made us consumers of shoddy product and
shoddier ideals. We have to getaway from that and the way to get away from it is by a return
to the authentic experience of the body and that means sexually
empowering ourselves, and it means getting loaded exploring the
mind as a tool for personal and social transformation. The hour is late. The clock is ticking. We
will be judged very harshly if we fumble the ball. We are the
inheritors of millions and millions of years of successfully lived lives and
successful adaptations to changing conditions in the natural world. Now the challenge passes
to us, the living, that the yet to be born may have a place to put there
feet and a sky to walk under. And that's what the psychedelic experience
is all about, is caring for, empowering and building a future that honours the past, honours
the planet, and honours the power of the human imagination. There is nothing
as powerful, as capable of transforming itself and the planet as the
human imagination. Let's not sell it straight. Let's not whore ourselves to knit-whit ideologies.
Let's not give our control over to the least among us. Rather,
claim your place in the sun, and go forward into the light. The tools are
there the path is known. You simply have to turn your back on a culture that has gone
sterile and dead, and get with the program of a living world and a re-empowerment of the imagination.
Thank you very very much! [Rapturous applause from audience]