"Indigo now!"

I always have fun in class with William James's experiments in psychoactive chemistry, especially the one involving nitrous oxide and Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.

I strongly urge others to repeat the experiment, which with pure gas is short an harmless enough. The effects will of course vary with the individual, just as they vary in the same individual from time to time; but it is probable that in the former case, as in the latter, a generic resemblance will obtain. With me, as with every other person of whom I have heard, the keynote of the experience is the tremendously exciting sense of an intence metaphysical illumination. Truth lies open to the view in depth beneath depth of almost blinding evidence. The mind sees all the logical relations of being with an apparent subtlety and instantaneity to which its normal consciousness offers no parallel; only as sobriety returns, the feeling of insight fades, and one is left staring vacantly at a few disjointed words and phrases, as one stares at the cadaverous-looking snow peak from which the sunset glow has just fled, or at the black cinder left by an extinguished brand.

He was half-joking, but half not.The punchline is the "fade" at the end, and the joke's on us metaphysical seekers.

Well, looks like Oliver Sacks is carrying on in a similar vein: no nitrous or Hegel in his case, but it's fundamentally the same quest for transcendence through pharmacology. And, it seems about as likely to succeed.

Hegel was not a Cubs fan

Probably not a Cards fan either. But I hit upon a fun new way of trying to explain Hegel yesterday in Co-Phi, inspired by an essay on 19th century St. Louis Hegelians Henry Brokmeyer and W.T. Harris:

Hegel’s progressive unfolding [of rational consciousness, geist, Utimate Reality] thrived on conflict, what Hegel’s popularizers (but rarely Hegel himself) referred to as “thesis and antithesis.” Hegel stuck to lofty abstractions like Being (thesis), Nothing (antithesis) and Becoming (synthesis.) Henry Brokmeyer, not so much. His unimpeachably practical list of theses and antitheses encompassed nearly every aspect of American life: religion vs. science, abolitionism vs. slavery, St. Louis vs. Chicago.

It just so happens that St. Louis defeated Chicago on Sunday to keep their flickering MLB postseason hopes alive. What could be the "world-historical" significance of that? Or of the fact that the lowly Astros knocked the Cards off last night, dropping the Braves' magic number to 2?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say: none at all. But I still like Hegel's largest message, as reported by the authors of our Co-Phi text. "We're all in this together." I wonder if they came to that after a hit of nitrous? Or after reading "On Some Hegelisms"...

"The interest of history is detached from individuals." Squashed Hegel

bliss

Classroom conversations of recent days remind me that many students are intrigued by the metaphysical possibilities they imagine (or claim) can be found in deliberately-altered states of consciousness. It was ever thus. William James shared the feeling, but finally resisted the lure of his own experiments in psycho-pharmacology and creative dentistry (catalyzed by the "subjective effects" of nitrous oxide, which btw is apparently a leading cause of ozone depletion). 

James: "It is part of the deeper mystery and tragedy of life that whiffs and gleams of something that we immediately recognize as excellent should be vouchsafed to so many of us only in the fleeting earlier phases of what in its totality is so degrading a poisoning." Varieties of Religious Experience 

Eric Weiner has a lighter take on the subject, in his Geography of Bliss. His experience in a Netherlands "hash cafe" is very funny, and this observation seems right to me:

...at least half the fun of engaging in illicit activity is the illicit part and not the activity part. In other words, smoking hash legally in Rotterdam is not nearly as much fun as doing it illicitly in your college dorm room with Rusty Fishkind, knowing that at any moment you might get caught.

Still, though, he wonders: "What if I felt like this all of the time. Wouldn't I be happy all of the time?"


Depends on what "happy" means. I'm teaching Happiness 101 again next Fall, this time exploring the premise that there might be some secret or key to happiness. Is it simply a matter of chemical re-engineering? 

done with the dentist

There's this at least to be said for being dead, Emerson once observed: at least you're done with the dentist.

My second trip to the chair this summer was a lot better than being dead. A lot. But I may not have been paying full attention, and I think they upped my dose of nitrous when I admitted it didn't seem to do much for me last time.

It's the first time I've had a dentist call the house later to check on me.

Not dead yet, Dr. M. But thanks for asking. And thanks for the Larry King stories. I know I seemed a docile (if captive) audience, but I was laughing on the inside.