I just found out that John Lilly died. He was the scientist that Ken Russell based the film "Altered States" on, he virtually invented sensory deprivation tanks, extolled the virtues of LSD and other psychedelics, worked on dolphin communication in a non-hippy, non-bullshit way and was generally one of the Good Guys.
I remember in the mid eighties when someone produced a huge pile of old Omni's from their attic, and we spent days trawling through them - they had an interview with John Lilly and he went on, covering all of this mad stuff - dolphins, drugs, brains, sensory deprivation tanks - but in a really calm, rational way. I suppose now that he's dead and Tim Leary is dead that that is the last of the pro-science counter culture which has been replaced by something which is at times depressingly luddite and quasi-mystical and generally lacking any rigour.
I've just been and looked, and that interview is online here.
posted by Anonymous 15:28
