The Miskatonic Manuscript (Case Files of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens Book 2) (41 page)

Mr. McKenna was also sometimes capable of elitism — only smart guys like I and thou should be trusted with these drugs — and of special pleading, urging the authorities to look at legalizing his favorite entheogens, the mushroom, DMT and the ayahuasca tryptamines, even if they continued to show no such tolerance for “other psychedelics.” But this merely encourages a strategy of “divide and conquer” among the prohibitionists. In fact, it’s both more principled and more effective, in the long run, to simply insist government has no proper authority to regulate or “control” the possession or use of
any
plant, drug, or medicine, since to do so is to attempt to control what goes on inside an individual’s mind — the ultimate tyranny.

MICROWAVES: The risks & dangers are dealt with in a fairly light tone in this book, as seemed appropriate for the genre (whatever the genre to which this book may eventually be assigned.) But those risks & dangers are real enough. See Paul Brodeur’s “The Zapping of America,” full listing in the bibliography.

THE MOYLAN CASE, 417 F.2d 1002 — UNITED STATE V. MARY MOYLAN, PHILIP BERRIGAN, ET AL., 1969 (a Vietnam War protest case) Sobeloff, Circuit Judge, writing for a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, actually upheld the convictions, finding there was no requirement that the trial judge inform the jury of their power to ignore the law, or allow defense counsel to do so, nonetheless noting: “We recognize, as appellants urge, the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge and contrary to the evidence. This is a power that must exist as long as we adhere to the general verdict in criminal cases, for the courts cannot search the minds of the jurors to find the basis upon which they judge. If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision.… Concededly, this power of the jury is not always contrary to the interests of justice. For example, freedom of the press was immeasurably strengthened by the jury’s acquittal of John Peter Zenger of seditious libel, a violation of which, under the law as it then existed and the facts, he was clearly guilty. In that case Andrew Hamilton was allowed to urge the jury, in the face of the judge’s charge, ‘to see with their own eyes, to hear with their own ears, and to make use of their consciences and understanding in judging of the lives, liberties, or estates of their fellow subjects.’”

POLICE SHOOTINGS: Anyone who finds the details of Sgt. Phil Robichaux’s deadly shooting of Providence business owner Leroy Johnson in the doorway of his own home hard to believe may want to review the shooting of John Geer, standing with arms raised in the doorway of his own home, by police in Fairfax County, Virginia in August of 2013.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/john-b-geer-had-hands-up-when-shot-by-fairfax-police-documents-show/2015/01/30/6ef0142c-a8ef-11e4-a06b-9df2002b86a0_story.html

http://www.policestateusa.com/2013/john-geer-shot-by-police/

http://www.vinsuprynowicz.com/?p=2484

POLICE TATTOOS: Anyone who finds my description of Police Sgt. Phil Robichaux’s tattoo in Chapter Six unlikely is referred to my syndicated newspaper column of Dec. 4, 2011 on a curiously similar subject, at

http://www.vinsuprynowicz.com/?p=928
, or

http://www.reviewjournal.com/vin-suprynowicz/what-does-officers-tattoo-really-mean
.

B
IBLIOGRAPHY

    
— Strongly recommended.

    
The Archaic Revival / Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History
, Terence McKenna, HarperOne 1991 (paperback)

Empire of the Air / The Men Who Made Radio
, Tom Lewis, HarperCollins 1991: Edwin Howard Armstrong, who invented the regenerative circuit (1914), the super-regenerative circuit (1922), the superheterodyne receiver (1918), and Frequency Modulation, making possible radio and television as we know them. Also the hustler Lee de Forest, and David Sarnoff, who claimed FM was worthless, then proceeded to put an FM receiver in every television he built (which is why TV sound is static-free), never paying Armstrong for any of them. Armstrong’s widow won all the patent infringement suits.

    
I Am Providence / The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft: Volumes 1 and 2
, S.T. Joshi, Hippocampus Press, New York, 2010 (hardcover), 2013 (paperback.) Volume 1 carries the reader through 1924; Volume 2 picking up at the beginning of 1925. Although “From Beyond” was written in 1920, the second volume is in many ways the more useful and revealing.

The Invisible Landscape / Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching
, Dennis J. McKenna and Terence K. McKenna, Seabury Press, New York, 1975

    
PIHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved) / A Chemical Love Story
, Alexander & Ann Shulgin, Transform Press, Berkeley, Calif., 1991. (See TIHKAL.)

    
Psychoactive Sacramentals / Essays on Entheogens and Religion
, edited by Thomas B. Roberts, The Council on Spiritual Practices, 2001. At Luke 17:21, of course, we are advised that “The kingdom of God is within you.” One would think that should have narrowed the search quite a bit. Taking up the path from there, the essays in this book — by Dan Merkur, Albert Hofmann, and Ann and Sasha Shulgin, for starters — are crucial. Editor Roberts has penned on the title page of our copy: “Children of a future age, / Reading this indignant page, / Know that in a former time / A path to God was thought a crime,” which he credits “After Wm. Blake.” And the tryptamine Munchkins cry “Now do you see? Now do you see?”

The Second Sin
, Thomas Szasz, Anchor Press 1973. Dr. Szasz asserts the “second sin” is speaking clearly, that (in contrast) control is gained by those who first define disfavored behaviors with the metaphor “mental illness,” implying their attempts to suppress such phenomena are scientific, therapeutic, and beneficial. If you talk to God, he notes, “that’s prayer. If God talks to you, that’s schizophrenia.”

Sperm Wars: The Science of Sex
, Robin Baker, Basic Books 1996: “The Evolutionary Logic of Love and Lust.”

The Tempter / A novel about a great invention — by the man who invented the science of cybernetics
, Norbert Weiner, Random House 1959: Weiner’s thinly disguised account of the temptation of scientist Michael Pupin by AT&T to file for a patent on a method of adding loading coils to correct distortion in long-distance telegraph and particularly telephone lines — an invention already published by self-taught English electrical engineer Oliver Heaviside (who developed the operational calculus and invented the coaxial cable) and thus in the public domain.

    
TIHKAL (Tryptamines I have known and Loved) / The Continuation
, Alexander & Ann Shulgin, Transform Press, Berkeley, Calif., 1997. The Shulgins were/are the courageous godparents of the modern psychedelic movement. Anything they have written is worth reading. In addition, PIHKAL and TIKHAL are pioneering cookbooks of enormous and lasting value, despite the Analog Drug Act.

True Hallucinations / Being an Account of the Author’s Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil’s Paradise
, HarperSanFrancisco, 1993. As Phil Lesh says: “How the Magellan of mentats put his mind and body on the line and discovered the source of consciousness, the end of history, and the factors that governs the ingress of novelty into our world.”

    
The Zapping of America / Microwaves, Their Deadly Risk, and the Cover-Up
, Paul Brodeur, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1977