The Joyous Cosmology (revisited)

As for Watts’ abandoning (or not) the ideas presented in The Joyous Cosmology, as I read on I realized that the book is a later, revised, edition from 1970. Watts added a little about what happened during the nine years that had passed since the first edition.

First I want to summarize what Watts’ writes in the prologue about the use of these chemical substances. He advocates taking one small dose of one of the substances (which one apparently depends on the individual; people react differently to each of them) in a retreat-like setting, supervised by a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist for a period of two days. The effect lasts for five to eight hours and the rest of the time is to be spent “digesting” the experience.

When I wrote this book, I was well aware that LSD in particular might become a public scandal [...] I reasoned, however, that since [Aldous Huxley in his The Doors of Perception] and others had already let the secret out, it was up to me to encourage a positive, above-board, fearless and intelligent approach to what are now known as psychedelic chemicals.

But in vain. Thousands of young people, fed up with standard-brand religions, which provided nothing but talk, admonition and (usually) bad ritual, rushed immediately to LSD and other psychedelics in search of some key to genuine religious experience. As might be expected, there were accidents. A few potential psychotics were pushed over the brink, usually because they took LSD in uncontrolled circumstances, in excessive dosage [...]

Watts writes that the usefulness of the chemicals were absolutely drowned in the news reports about accidents. “A divorce is news; a happy marriage isn’t.” Eventually, the patent holder for LSD-25, Sandoz Company (now Novartis), withdrew it from the market and the substance was banned. This led to amateur chemists producing lots of black-market LSD. Watts meant that the ban therefore only increased the number of accidents involving LSD: “Consequently the number of psychotic episodes resulting from its use began to increase, aggravated by the fact that, in improperly controlled situations and under threat from the police, the LSD taker is an easy victim of extreme paranoia.”

Watts seems bitter that the “blanket suppression of LSD [...] has seriously hindered proper research” so I guess that if he abandoned the idea, it was because it became illegal and impossible to talk about. Personally, I’m no expert on LSD or any other drug. I find it very hard to make an opinion of this topic, because both sides in the argument have grown so hysterical. It’s very difficult to sort out what’s true and what’s not. I have a great respect for Watts, but it is more than thirty years since this book came out, so it’s hard to know if what he writes still holds today.