of what is not present in the senses (part 2b)

I don't think one can sit down and say, "I want to write
a magnificent poem, and so I'm going to take LSD."
- Aldous Huxley
A little digging around and some interesting finds, including the Huxley quote above, which I like because it's the opposite of what Kerouac wanted from speed and expresses a different reasoning (or anticipated effect) behind experimenting with mind-altering substancees. Also came across some info on experimental work done by Oscar Janiger, a scientist who worked in the 1950s and 60s researching connections between LSD on creativity. The book LSD, Spirituality, and the Creative Process is about his work and was published in 2003. His studies are especially interesting because of the personalities who took part in his study--Janiger himself took part, admitting to having experimented over 10 times with LSD, which he described as having helped him see "many, many things were possible" (not especially helpful, but I suppose it gives him some sort of personal reference by which to judge other reactions.) In one trial, he used an artist, a scientist, and a writer--his belief was that a "prepared mind"--one inclined toward expansion and experimentation were the best subjects. This suits my needs as far as my personal exploration on the topic, but I wonder if it removes the science behind it by stacking the decks, as it were. In any event, his theory was that the writer--in this case, Anais Nin (though he worked with Huxley as well)--would be most able to describe the experience and whether their mind's world was in any way expanded by it. It appears he was correct in his theory, as apparently the artist was merely able to express "being expanded" by taking the drug, while Nin wrote of the experience:

The memory of the LSD experience is very clear and I wrote the whole thing out--a long, long, long reverie. And then I compared it to see whether the images brought on by LSD were similar to images and sensations and impressions I had already described. And I found them in my work--particularly in the first book I wrote, a prose poem, The House of Incest, which was made up of dreams. The material was so like what was brought on by LSD that it proved my point that this dream world is a world accessible to the poet, accessible to the artist. If we wouldn't belittle the artist and the poet so much, we wouldn't need drugs to reach these visions.

A fascinating slap at the world, those last two sentences, if a bit self-pitying (something no self-respecting artist is without a bit of ... heh). But, I especially like that for Nin, her aesthetic is consistent as far as her artistic output (whether it was good under either circumstance, well, that's subjective). She achieved, consciously through memory of her unconscious, and through drug-induced "expanded" consciousness, the same result. It's all just reaching in and being able to drag it out. Curious.