Silicon Valley… Fueled on LSD

“The discovery of serotonin, as well as today’s most widespread class of drugs, SSRIs (Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), was due to this early clinical research of LSD.”

- from: “Silicon Valley's long obsession with LSD” by Derek Beres

PSYCHEDELIA UPDATE

Recently, the Big Think Network published an article titled: Silicon Valley's long obsession with LSD. In it, author Derek Beres explores the alleged long association of High Tech and LSD. The article not only traces the history of LSD and Silicon Valley, it also examines very interesting aspects of how LSD has affected neuro-research. This brief article is a highly recommended read.

However, it is the more esoteric and, dare we say, occult aspects of psychedelia and it's recent, dramatic and mysterious resurgence in pop-culture… that is of interest here... 

Over at the highly recommended site: VISUP, our illustrious ally, the diligent researcher and deep scholar of all things Fortean, the enigmatic Recluse… recently posted a couple of new installments on a series of posts he originally published in 2012. The original work focused on the Mellon Family, their ties to the US Intelligence community and their continued involvement in psychedelics.

His new foray into the Mellon family story focuses on the strange, recent death of billionaire Matthew Mellon, who allegedly died from compilations relating to an Ayahuasca session in Cancun, Mexico. Recluse’s recent posts go on to weave an incredible tale of psychedelic billionaires, machine elves, disclosure, crypto-currencies, and artificial intelligences... the likes of which could easily fit the plot points of a William Gibson cyberpunk thriller.

In keeping with his style, Recluse digs deep into the subject matter to explore the highly occult narrative that flows beneath the surface of the overt, mainstream story being reported. The result of these investigations begins to unravel a cryptic tale of, not only the odd emergence of an Alt-right faction, rising within the US West Coast’s High Tech industry… but of Silicon Valley’s long and deep association with psychedelics… namely: LSD. 

I had touched upon this theme in my book: The Tek-Gnostics Heresies, published in 2016. In keeping with meaningful coincidence, much of the "Heresies" was written in 2012, when Recluse was writing the original Mellon material. The following is a brief excerpt from a chapter in the book, titled: “Psychedelic Apocalypse” where I examine the influence that psychedelics exerted on the counterculture of the 1960’s…

"What began with Leary, et al on the East coast and Kesey & Co. in the West, is much more important than we realize… even today. The seed of psychedlia that was then planted, has germinated… incubated… and quietly blossomed… lotus-like… into a new world view, beyond McLuhan’s global village… to a global mind. The psychedelic experience revealed, to a large cross-section of American youth, dimensions of the mind only hinted at in philosophic and spiritual texts. 

In the west, the Summer of Love mutated… migrated to the South Bay, where it would rest dormant for a decade, in an area of Northern California that would soon launch the next phase of American innovation and entrepreneurship, a strange brew of fiscal conservatism and “dotcom” neoliberalism, some have called the California Ideology. This sleepy region, just south of San Francisco, now recognized as the birthplace of the computer revolution, would soon become known, world-wide as: Silicon Valley. 

The rise and proliferation of personal computing… as a technology of personal freedom… is a now-obvious outcome of the incubator that was the sixties. What occurred then is inextricably tied to who we are now and who we will become. For the psychedelic experience, drugs aside, is the consciousness of the future… and in the words of Kesey… You’re either on the Bus, or you’re off the Bus."

- The Tek-Gnostics Heresies

As many of you are aware, all things psychedelic are in the midst of a cultural revival. The modern origin of Western Psychedelic Culture can arguably be traced to April 19th, 1943 in Basel, Switzerland. From this now-infamous genesis, there began a global migration, a scattering or “Diaspora” of Psychedelic Culture, the likes of which have not been seen since the fall of the Western Mystery Tradition of late antiquity. Currently, the Western Psychedelic Cultural Diaspora is experiencing a significant renaissance that is three-fold in nature…

1. The resurgence of academic study of psychedelics and (perhaps more importantly) the renewed funding of research... 
2. The distinct, entheogenic, “Psychedelic Diaspora” that is migrating from South American Amazonia to North America, via the psychedelic catalyst, commonly known as: Ayahuasca...  
3. The pop-cultural phenomena (also reportedly initiated in Silicon Valley) known as "micro-dosing." 

Keep your eye on this space, as in the weeks ahead, I shall be delving into the overt facets of these specific migrations of psychedelia, and examining, in depth, the occult ramifications of the Psychedelic Diaspora, and its effect on modern American culture. As I indicated in the "Heresies," the rise of Psychedelia is much more important than we realize… even today.

The world in which we live is a mysterious place… and the rise of psychedelia and the resulting psychedelic diaspora… is not done with us yet… Stay tuned.