For a while now, I've mistrusted the impulse to drug the depressed. Society should think twice before forcing smiles onto the faces of people who may have genuine reason to feel sad -- for example, when they lose a job or a home. (That's going to happen to a lot of people very soon.)
Now we learn that researchers hope to foist ketamine onto the depressed. Ketamine, sometimes jocularly referred to as "vitamin K," is one of those substances people re-discover every ten or fifteen years. For a harrowing description of one man's near-fatal experience with the stuff, check out John Lilly's autobiographical book The Scientist.
Sidenote: Lilly never revealed his source for the drug. However, the book records that, during a particularly bad episode, his wife asked if she should contact "Dr. Jolly W." This is a reference to Dr. Louis Jolyon West, the notorious MKULTRA scientist at UCLA (and likely murderer of Jack Ruby).
12 comments:
can cause o.b.e.'s .
As someone who once suffered
greatly from depression, I'd like
to share something that helped me:
Albert Ellis's ideas to the effect
that irrational ideas are the root
cause of human unhappiness.
I made the effort to root out all
irrational ideas from my life
(with occasional exceptions for
recreation) and guess what? No
more depression!
(Of course rationality is a mixed
bag and it cost me my career and
my marriage, but that's another
story entirely.)
VITA-Mine K (!)
comment at 2 otherwise very fine observations You -again- made :
00.000.19-- " " There is no such thing as 'society' Mr. Speaker " " -Then- UK Prime Minister M.Thatcher in a paliamentary speach.
'Progressives' talk. FASCISTS ACT.
Ignorance is power. Propaganda is fabricated Ignorance.
"All philosopher s of all times have one in common : They INTERPRETATE reality.
Whereas what matters is to CHANGE it." - guess Who sad [sic]?
- Jesus ?
- Marx ?
- Rove ?
- Well, Mama always said, terror is as terror does...
MAMA is different, Mama Talking IS Mama DOING. -It's because Mama IS.
- sorry, cryptic ? - critique !
consider : continous buffer overrun.
Hello Joseph Cannon.
I never read John Lilly's book, "The Scientist", but would like to. The story about Lilly having a seizure because of taking ketamine is interesting. Did his wife really ask him if she should call Dr. Jolly West?
Would you know what page that story is on?
THANKS SO MUCH for all your great information.
Paul
Paul, this is an old post, and I had forgotten I wrote it. I don't have a copy of "The Scientist" to hand at the moment, otherwise I'd give you a page number. The quote comes toward the end, and as I recall, Dr. West is referred to as "Dr. Jolly W." I also distinctly recall listening to a recording of a lecture given by Lilly in which he referred to West by his full name and implied that the two had a fairly close working relationship.
You should be able to get "The Scientist" through inter-library loan. I don't think that the book has an index, but it IS short, and a pretty good read.
Thanks Joseph for your response. I had intended on picking up Lilly's book anyway. So if I find that reference to "Dr. Jolly W", I'll let you know. Also, can you recall where you heard that Lilly lecture where he mentions Dr. Louis Jolyon West? Was it on YouTube or somewhere else?
Also... you said you never found Jolly West in his office at UCLA. Were you a student there at the time he was? And what kind of nefarious activity do you think he was involved with at the Veteran's Hospital near UCLA? We know what he was doing at the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic in 1967 with the Manson gang... and his activities with MK-Ultra.
Paul, I didn't know who Jolly was when I was a student. Although I had read some JFK books, my interests in those days were elsewhere.
Years after my student career came to an inglorious end, I read some of the literature on MKULTRA and became interested in the topic. I visited UCLA pretty often because they had the best libraries in California and the internet had not yet been invented. (Also, I've always loved the campus.) During those visits, I often cheekily attempted to see Jolly in his office on the first floor of the UCLA NPI building, but he wasn't there.
That building was completely open in those days (the '80s, the 90s). I was all over it. Didn't see anything to arouse paranoid suspicions. Believe it or not, the whole campus was surprisingly open -- barely a locked door anywhere. When I was a student, and for decades after, just about the only places that were off limits at UCLA were the monkey research lab and the nuclear reactor.
I'm sure things are very different now, but security was just lax in those days.
(Also, I later discovered that UCLA is the world's greatest late-night off-leash dog park.)
I heard that Lilly lecture on late night radio long before the internet was born. I recorded it off the air. Unfortunately, my collection of oddball cassette tapes is LONG gone. (Too bad! There were some gems in there.) There's a small possibility that the Pacifica archives has a copy of that talk. Maybe Lilly's heirs have it. Lilly recorded various lectures, and obviously at this historical remove I can't pinpoint which talk we're talking about. I can tell you only that, in this talk, Lilly basically summarized the story of "The Scientist" and blurted out a few further details.
If people don't want to trust my memory, that's understandable. But as we age, for many things, memory is all we have.
The LA Times published a story about Jolly's wife, also a shrink, who had an office in the Veteran's hospital. You can find it online with some clever Googling. I've heard that Jolly himself spent most of his time in that hospital "across the freeway" and that some of the veterans under his dubious care were pretty zonked out -- total zombies who had no idea who or where they were. By the time that claim reached me, the story was already third-hand, so it's not something you can take to the bank or cite in a book (except as rumor).
I'm afraid I can't give you more information, though I'm sure that you are right now tempted to ask me for further details. Years pass, and one loses track of who-said-what in informal blab-fests.
Are you researching a book?
Hey Joseph. Thanks for all the cool info. I'm not researching for a book, I'm just helping Tom O'Neill with some details. I assume you're familiar with his book "CHAOS: Charles Manson, The CIA and The Secret History of the Sixties". We had reason to believe John Lilly had contact with Charles Manson while Lilly was a resident at the Esalen Institute in 1969. Manson stopped by there just 3 days prior to the Tate murders. We know Manson and Jolly West had contact in San Francisco in 1967. So I was looking up any possible John Lilly - Jolly West connections. That can probably be verified if I get Lilly'a book, "The Scientist." I've seen it on Ebay and Amazon. It is cool though that you were checking up on Jolly at UCLA. That's funny. Paul
Paul, I hope you are reading this. I have indeed read the O'Neill book. More than that, I have a lead on where he, or you, might find those tapes that he writes about -- the ones that Bugliosi supposedly had access to.
I had intended to write to O'Neill with this information, but wasn't sure if he wanted to pursue the matter further. Someone who interviewed O'Neill privately told me that he was sick of the topic.
If he's still going down the Manson trail, I hope that you or he will write to me at the address published in the information box in the upper right-hand corner of this page.
My same informant said he met Manson in Big Sur.
Hey Joseph. Tom is not sick of the Manson subject. We've found new information that backs up his assertions in CHAOS. He'll be putting out an updated version of his book next year.
I assume you're talking about the Tex Watson tapes. Tom has been trying to get a hold of them for many years.
Also, would love to hear about Manson's trip to Esalen or Big Sur.
Write to me at Paulhart2@aol.com
I'll put you in direct contact with Tom's e-mail address.
Thanks, Paul Hart
Hello? Joe? Did you get my e-mail?
Thanks, Paul
Okay Joe. I got your e-mail. Let me know if you got my response. Thanks so much.
Paul Hart
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