Gender Roles Introlude
Dr Cohen: Now Gerald I know you have, great personal experience with, lysergic acid. What do you think of it?
Gerald Heard: To do this in two minutes, eternity in an hour. It's almost impossible of course as all the patients say to describe it. You can only say, “it isn't it isn't it isn't,” trying to tell people what it is. Well of course, I don't know any of our friends said that have taken it but haven't said this one thing in common: “Well, I never knew anything like that in the whole of my life.” And one or two people have said to me, I've said it to myself: “That's what death is going to be like. And oh what fun it will be.”
Dr. Cohen: How do you mean that?
Gerald Heard: Well I mean that there are the colors and the beauties, the designs, the beautiful wavy things appear. People themselves, – dull people that I thought dull appear fascinating interesting mysterious wonderful. But that's only the beginning. Man was saying it this afternoon who was taking it. Suddenly you notice, that there aren't these separations. That we're not, on a separate island shouting across to somebody else and trying to hear what they're saying and misunderstanding them. You know. You use the word yourself: empathy. These things flowing underneath. We're parts of a single continent. It meets underneath the water. And with that goes such delight. The sober certainty of waking bliss