Has anybody else read "The Electric Koolaid Acid-Test"? It's a wonderful book, though somewhat sad. DMT is used three times in it: First, at the end of the Leary chapter, second, at the end of the Hell's Angels Chapter, and third, at the end of the Unitarian chapter.

Also, how "The Yage Letters," by Burroughs and Ginsberg? Most of the book is Burroughs' experiences seeking out yage in S. America, and the last part is Ginsberg's poetical description of the yage experience. I highly recommend it.

Are there any other beat writings regarding DMT?

I've heard of these two but haven't read either.
Haven't come across any other instances, but I mainly stick to Kerouac. Kerouac rocks! Whereas Burroughs creeps me out, and I don't like poetry so I stay away from Ginsberg.
I always assumed DMT was more a hippy thing (I think of beats more as the proto-hippies)... although there was crossover, like in Dharma Bums, so maybe poor old Jack just got left behind...
Gary Snyder was one of the fathers of the Green movement, as well as being mates with Jack (appearing as Zaphy in Dharma Bums)... I bet he tried DMT...

"The Dharma Bums" is my favorite Kerouac book.

'The Acid Test' represented sort of a transitional period between the beats and the hippies, many of the most prominent pranksters and Wolfe himself were quite essentially beats, though with a more "freakish" quality. The pranksters actually meet up with Kerouac at one point in the book, but he's already pretty broken down by then. There's no doubt in my mind that Kerouac would've ventured into psychedelics had he not been such a damned alcoholic. He had lost a great deal of exuberance by that time.

If there's one one thing you ever read of Burroughs or Ginsberg, make it "The Yage Letters," seriously.

I've been meaning to read The Yage Letters since SWIM got into ayawaska, I'll buy him it as a present!

Poor old Jack. He had genuine empathy. Whereas hippies tended to be self-obsessed or full of shit or both. Jack didn't think much of Hermann Hesse so I imagine he felt the same about many hippies... he also had disdain for hipsters like 'The Subterraneans'... I think he was seing the falseness in pretentious people being underground just because it's 'cool'. Counterculture is a weird mix of genuine, exciting, open-minded people, and then shallow, self-obsessed, obnoxious, amoral husks. At least that's how it seems where I live.

Aw this thread quietened down pretty quick. Can we just talk about DMT-related Beats stuff to keep it going?

I'll start... with a rant about William Burroughs. The guy was corrupt. He would mug people to feed his skag addiction, as outlined in 'Junky'. And he shot and killed his own wife (a marriage of convenience) in the famous William Tell incident... I am even sceptical that this was an accident, because I can imagine his morbidity compelling him to miss the apple. It was apparently a regular party trick of theirs. He was a scumbag. A talented scumbag, yes, but still a scumbag. So far, some of you may be agreeing with me, others may not, but read on...
Here's the clincher. I just bought 'The Yage Letters' (Redux) and have read the background information at the beginning. We are told that Ginsberg hoped that Burroughs and Leary would team up to usher in a new era of consciousness. Did they? No. Why not? Burroughs turned against psychedelics. He opposed them, because he had had bad trips when he tried LSD and DMT. I'm not surprised he did, given the probable state of his psyche. Him and Leary became enemies because of it. He was not 'one of us', he was not a psychonaut, he was 'one of Them' in his opposition... except he wasn't 'one of them' because he was also an inethical hedonist, a selfish man. He was a junky, and has more in common with those jittery types on the street who get in the press sometimes for murdering grannies in their homes to feed their habit (extreme example, yes, but it happens). That's his choice to be a junky, but his amoralism in feeding his habit (no remorse shown in 'Junky' whatsoever) and his opposition of psychedelics was not cool... he was throwing the toys out of the pram... if he can't play with them, why should anyone else?

We should perhaps consider the context of Burroughs' life and works: The fifties were a stagnant, fearful, and overtly "moralistic" time in America, and Burroughs sought deviance in his creative pursuits. He perhaps didn't adapt well to the sixties, but he also avoided many of the pitfalls of the time and persisted to act as one of the inspirations behind the punk movement in the seventies. Certainly he's done many detestable things (a nike commercial, for example), and certainly I'm hardly a fan of his life or writings, but I do find his cultural impact and relevance to be quite interesting.

Oyahoco, you will either laugh or cry at the climax of Burroughs' part of the book, but I think you will enjoy what Ginsberg has to say about the experience. Burroughs is certainly as seedy as ever in this book, but I enjoy seeing such a journey documented by such a talented writer.

yeah I did read the koolaid. Quite nice, I was amazed how his writting style totally represented the mindset, sometimes really psychedelic reading. takes a few pages to understand what the hell is going on, but when you get the pattern its a very nice unique reading.

I love these oldschool stories. Didnt read the yage letters more or less because of what ohayoco was talking about. Burroughs gives me much the impression of a crazy and talented person, yes, but without conscience, too extreme, etc.. So even if it might be interesting, I somehow tend to steer away from reading it. Maybe someday.

As for other books, not exactly about the beats but about the whole psychedelic counterculture history, there is a great book: brotherhood of eternal love - from flower power to hippie mafia. It has loads of these stories about acid cooks, owsley, sand, scully, the distribution and hash cargos from afghanistan, etc.. Leary, Kesey and how the whole scenario developed. Also a lot of information about the police operations, CIA infiltrated in the middle east, also this early MKULTRA acid testing programs. Worth a reading for sure

I love the "beat era" it was the transitional stage of open mindedness and the questioning of society that led into the hippy era.
Jack kerouac's main charecter in "on the road" was dean moriority (splng?) who is Neal Cassidy of the merry pranksters....which in the Electric Koolaid acid test...it was the pranksters that through the tests and the dead we're the FIRST acid rock band.

"It was cowboy neal at the wheel,on the bus to never ever land." -GD lyric (excuse the annoying quotes)

I love kerouac "dharma bums" is great.

you cant really critisize William Burroghs "old bull lee" (those were different times) and i'm sure the man suffered for his actions. I never did read "the yage letters", i'll have to pick that up.Although naked lunch is bizarre and i enjoyed junkie.

Another great one is "Howl" by allen Ginsberg....who'm i ran into on the subway in NYC probably around 15 yrs ago.

It's a part of American History that is not tought in school, although that is true with many things....sad.

He actually said that the hippies were better than the beats, because the beat movement was full of scoundrels. This was near rock-bottom for Jack, though, so I consider the statement to be on par with his regression back to catholicism. I don't think that he necessarily would have had disdain for the hippies, but I don't think he was lucid or insightful enough at the time to make an honest assessment.

I'm not great fan of Burroughs et al. but "Junky" is the best book I've read about addiction.

Here's a funny anecdote. Burroughs was asked what he thought about Huxley's "Brave new world": "I think it would be an improvement" he said.

Hahaha, a good answer. I'll have to check Endlessness's book out, I'm fascinated by the 60's counterculture. I didn't realise that 'Dean' was in the Merry Pranksters, the end of On the Road when he turns up unannounced at Jacks when they've grown up, and gets kind of rejected, is so sad. I didn't imagine him as getting involved with acid, I thought he would've just worked as a sorry valet living in his static. I'm glad, he's my favourite character from the books. I also started a thread in the history section asking if anyone here was on the scene and can tell us about those days first-hand. http://www.dmt-nexus.me/...ts&m=44971#post44971

Amor: yes you're right, I remember him saying the hippies were good kids in an interview. It was the most contrived interview, the interviewer was playing a piano whie asking him questions, while Jack sat there sweating and looking a bit worse for wear. I would've been tempted to drop the lid onto his fingers! So I guess it's just the Herman Hesse types he wouldn't've like (pretentious bores?)(hope I'm not in that category!). And about him thinking that the hipsters were scoundrels, this is interesting because I think the same about the hipsters of today... many of them are vacuous, depoliticised consumers of 'cool'. I have been to some more happening stuff where arty people hang out, but despite the refreshing creativity there's a seediness to it... illegal parties with no security in a warehouse full of both interesting people, and hideous potential rapists and murderers! Actually, that sounds pretty much like the kinds of mix of people old Jack hung around with. Whereas squat parties REALLY give me the creeps, maybe it's different elsewhere where you can stay longer, like Holland where the law is more pro-squatter and people can create fantastic dwellings inside buildings like the now-demolished Grand Silo. I wish the flower children or whatever they were called were still around.

Those are actually two different interviews. I actually liked the one with the piano man, as Jack is still Jack at that point. He's still quite eloquent in that one and reads an excerpt from "On the Road." In the one where hippies are mentioned, he's put on a lot of weight and obviously descending into deep alcoholism.

It's a little different where I live in terms of hipsters. It's a fairly small town, so the diversity within the "scene" varies wildly between handfuls of people. People who probably would never know each other in larger cities are fairly well-acquainted, and everyone's connected to pockets of people in the larger cities through one way or another. Being "hip" in a town like this means a lot of different things, but mostly what it means is that you're not a bro or a hick or a wigger (excuse the term, if it offends you) or a pseudo-hippy jam-rat (don't quite know what else to call it) and that you have at least somewhat refined cultural tastes. Some are certainly a bit more freakish and creative than others, though in some ways could be considered to be "hipsters."

Well I count you as hipster from your photo, favourite music etc. But I count you as one of the good ones (as opposed to the shallow ones I complain about). Yes there are people who are just alternative but not necessarily a 'hipster' and wouldn't describe themselves or be desacribed as such, because they wear the 'wrong' clothes or like the 'wrong' music...

I mean the full-on hipsters, think the VBS and Vice magazine crowd. Vice can be funny, but it's so vacuous and hateful. I'm actually a very positive person despite how this is making me sound (it's just that we talk about the government and ethics a lot here!). They own a venue in London which is like hipster-mecca. There you find the guys who (I think) brought skinny jeans back into fashion years ago (which was fine, good to not be tripping over all the time), but now are suddenly all wearing boat shoes (!) as their latest craze, whch is beyond me. So they are differentiating themselves, by wearing the same shoes as rich yachting types? I don't get that, it's mindless. But then, I have a love-hate relationship with this crowd, because I like the music and I like the girls . I'd just rather be hanging out with the guys from the Woodstock video if I could. I love that spirit of freedom and optimism that they seemed to have back then (am I being nostalgic?).

It seems to me that these are the modern subcultures spawned by the Beats and the hippies that have retained some of the old countercultural ideas: hipsters, alt-folk, trancers, greens, goths, pagan/new age, the fetish crowd, travellers, junkies(?), metalheads, skate/snowboard, maybe rockabillys and posh-hippies (some of the rich are hippy in a retro way). I've made some of these labels up! And I know we're not meant to label, but it makes things easier... in reality many people are a mixture. Actually it's hard to draw the line with what culture is and isn't ideologically too close to mainstream to be counted because the Beats and the hippies did change society in some ways. And there are so many subcultures now, that in the megacity in which I live I have only one favourite bar that I feel is 'me', then a few others where I can get on with the crowd but don't particularly 'belong', then all the other places I avoid. And it keeps on splintering... teenagers today have a lot more names for different groups than there were when I was their age. Society has become highly individualistic and culturally specialised.

you might enjoy this, Oyahoco.

The filthiness freaks me out! Is that a shoot, or for real? You don't have to be dirty to live an alternative lifestyle. The Aztecs, for example, were very clean people and were disgusted at the filthiness of the Spanish invaders. Even the poorest tribal people in the world aren't as filthy as the motley crew in those photos. Cleanliness costs nothing. They're gonna get ill. I know a guy who was told he had to wash his hands because the building he worked in had rats. He was too lazy to bother. He got ecoli. He survived fortunately, but he still wishes he'd washed his hands.

yes im not a fan of these 'drop-outs' in general.. too dirty and disgusting somehow..

but very very nice pics, thanks for the link

Wow, Jeez...

Those photos made my whole living room smelly!!
I think I'm gonna have to wash my laptop screen!!

DIRTY is not an alternative lifestyle, it's just dirty!!

WS

Try living on the road and on the rails and in the wilderness and see if you don't get dirty. You think getting clean is really that easy and "free" when you don't own or rent property? Try living in the field for weeks on end scrubbing yourself with baby-wipes. I've lived like that, people take sanitation for granted. You think they're dirty out of laziness? These people are glistening compared to those who are simply vagrant by circumstance, rather than by choice. I guarantee that those living such lives know the value of sanitation, and don't see it in such simple terms as soiled or unsoiled.

The Aztec's are hardly an example to live by for a subculture. The Aztecs were essentially empire and lived by enslaving the "dirty people," those who lived in the wilderness.

Do you really think the beats are any different from these people, apart from having the luxury of transitioning between civilization and transience?

I'm sorry, but I'm quite taken aback by these responses and the classism they entail.

Living in the wilderness one can clean himself in rivers and lakes (considering there is any, of course), like most (all?) indigenous people do.

obviously if you live in the streets in a busy city and can't get access to water, its not easy.. but thats also a choice, is it not?

I always thought that if I had 0 money, I would never live in a city. Why not start walking direction nature, or small town where they could be useful to somebody and get some food/shelter/water in return or find water and fruit trees and so on around?

I do understand if you have lived in such a way and therefore feel offended if people answer negatively, but also I think it is not necessarily classism if one is honest and just expresses that he does not like this kind of hygiene levels, right?

Amor, I'm sorry to have shocked you. But I have been all over the world and rubbed shoulders with the poorest people living hand-to-mouth and on the streets. I can tell you now that these people are less dirty than the people in those pictures.

I think the people portraited are deliberately making themselves mucky for effect, or revelling in dirtiness as part of their Western drop-out manifesto. Living autonomously does NOT mean living in filth. As I said before cleanliness is easy. And in any case I suspect it's staged for a photoshoot because the chicks are hot.

It is only in the West that you see an apparent predominance of dirty homeless people (although perhaps this is because one doesn't notice the better-kept 'hidden homeless'. Everywhere else in the world the people who live on the city streets (and also of course the indiginous peoples in the jungle/mountains/plains/deserts of 'developing' Africa/Asia/America) have appeared somewhat cleaner to me, in some of the most polluted cities in the world. I have seen people in famine-stricken and war-torn countries and they were all cleaner. In fact in one such country with both famine and civil war, I was laughed at by shoe-shine boys because my shorts got dirty. Imagine the people in your photos shining shoes, I expect they'd be smearing polish all over their face and clothes!
I'm sure that SOME of the poor in the 'developing' world are filthy, what I mean is that they are generally a lot cleaner. Perhaps this is because in the West to end up on the streets you have to either stop caring, or have a mental illness which causes you to overlook hygiene. Perhaps it's more that junk stops you prioritising your health. Or perhaps part of it is that people wear less clothes in warmer countries (generally the poorer ones) so appear cleaner, and skin cleans itself to an extent when you're sweating. In the 'developing' world, a lot more people live in poverty, so perhaps this very different demographic are not so inclined to give up personal hygiene.

And this isn't classisism, it's hygiene, nothing else. Think of the difference between a healthy cat cleaning itself beautifully, and a sick one neglecting itself and looking mangey. I wouldn't be surprised if the aversion to filth is an evolutionary response. If you don't wash whatsoever, I'll wager you die early, or at least spend a lot of time with the chronic shits.