“Marijuana: the Gateway to Higher Consciousness” copyright 2013 00individual TLL
EXPERIENCE TRUE PSYCHEDELIC TRIPS!
MIND-BLOWER #15 – mid to late ’60s
MARIJUANA’S TRUTH
Every day, people get high from Marijuana for the first time in their lives.
The monumental difference that sets the 1960’s experience worlds apart from any other time is that in the decades prior only all the fringe types; musicians, actors, artists, writers, doctors, poets, philosophers and the criminal element dabbled in weed and drugs – but now for the first time in history an entire generation were explorers who willingly smoked nature’s weed and took mind-altering drugs fearlessly – and from tales told, with excited curiosity.
Once “experienced” we understood the wondrous consciousness-raising, mind-expanding, mind-altering awareness abilities that, coupled with equal doses of happiness, love and hilarity, became an infinite journey of exploration of all of the five senses; and of some we never knew we had.
Just after New Year’s 1966 in early January 1967, my best friend picked me up in his new, previously-owned, ’55 Ford Fairlane and posed the question, if he had a joint would I smoke it with him, I eagerly said yes, and he reached in his pocket and pulled out a hand-rolled cigarette tapered at one end. He lit it, took a hit and passed it to me. I inhaled deep as instructed and held the hit as long as I could. When I finally let out the smoke, my mind followed. A sense of what felt like supernatural calm overcame my physical body as well as my mind. I looked at my buddy and we were both smiling wide, trippy smiles. And with that, at nearly sixteen, 00individual had his first profound spiritual experience – and was introduced to a life-form who would become a life-long best friend.
Marijuana gave me a sense of love and well-being that I had never experienced. Besides feeling love for everything animate and inanimate and with a new level of awareness of who I was (which triggered all kinds of cascading life issues), the world I knew was now more vibrant and detailed –
I felt my hands, my skin, my face – I had never touched or felt anything like it – it was as if I had a new body that I had to get used to. I could hear my blood course through my veins and the birds chirping in the trees – everything about smoking weed was the best – trippy, far-out and cool.
Now that may sound like an acid trip but it was only in comparison to the “normal” viewpoint of the days before. With Marijuana the world does become a whole different place that matches your whole new different outlook.
The Doper zeitgeist high of this strange, but wonderful new world, was Weed/Pot (Marijuana, Hashish), Whites/Uppers (“Bennies” – Benzedrine, Amphetamine/speed) and Reds/Downers (Seconal “Sekkies”, Tuinal “Tuees” and Nembutal – Barbiturates) so the next night we smoked a couple joints with two other Doper friends and took a Downer with beer, as if the joints wouldn’t have been enough. It was a very goofy weird but magical first “trip”; everything became slowed down, kind of like underwater where there’s a drag in your movements, you see all the familiar streets and houses, yet they all look different now, not necessarily hallucinogenic but foreign – familiar yet foreign – it was weird. This was the beginning of 00individual’s enchantment with this magikal world of Marijuana and drugs.
But the single most revealing and priceless gift that you experience is truth; inescapable truth.
“Stoned faces don’t lie“ but neither did the “straights’ faces, as a matter of fact, everyone’s bullshit was evident, as was their truth. This at first was a revelation but became a humbling experience as you were now equipped with a near-perfect Bullshit Detector that was simply acquired once your mind was opened by your friend, Marijuana.
In the subtlest of cannabis inhalation to the purest LSD trip; the one experience that is universal is when the layers of your life are pulled back to reveal the “Real Me” and likewise for all that is around you; from your friends and family to society to your Government and to the Universe.
It can be a sobering experience and for many not one they wanted to have again. But for those who sought more than could ever be taught from a book, teacher or institution,
Marijuana was nature’s gift that allowed you to discover and understand vitally-important aspects of your life and of the true machinations of the world around you.
You were able to see clearly what was really important through personal experience for yourself and by yourself.
As an example: 00individual was unwillingly indoctrinated into the “Christian” church as a kid, attending every Sunday’s
solemn presentations of boredom on up through my preteens and never felt anything spiritual throughout it all. However, with Marijuana 00individual saw, felt and experienced all of the good that the church was trying to preach – only joyously, honestly, truly and on his own.
Because of the balance of the accompanying humorous amusement that spontaneous stoned enjoyment brings to a group of friends; the “new reality” was not overwhelming, but more of an observance – a journey. At the same time it magically separated the fact from the fiction we’d been told, which naturally led to our Tribe’s motto to “Question Authority” and then the inevitable rebellion against the lies, untruths and manipulation by all those who wanted to control us and keep us down and dumb – and still do to this day. Well, it didn’t work, thanks to Marijuana our generation’s eyes were opened and we saw through it all at an extremely crucial time in history.
Like Mighty Mouse and Superman, Marijuana swooped-in at just the right time to save the day!
00individual remembers back to the early days of Westchester High when we were literally the few in the whole school who were getting stoned; there were some other guys who got high that we didn’t hang with – then – but did later.
In society’s terms anyone who smoked weed or popped pills was a “Doper” – a supposedly derogatory name that we secretly took pride in as it clearly set us apart from ALL of the rest of the school population and to a greater degree, society at large – being an outlaw rebel felt cool.
There was an exciting dangerous vibe that was associated with drugs and marijuana – not only was it forbidden, but it got us “high” in so many ways – how could this not be good?!
We came upon a magical weed, literally, a magical weed that for 00individual was the best experience at the most perfect time in his life to recognize the importance to joyously live life to the fullest.
Yes, there was a sense of superiority at first and it came with the awareness of who you were before, and who you were now. We all knew how we had been positively affected and knew that all of those around us had not – and it was true and it was cool.
Altered background detail from 1969 Psychedelic Collage copyright 1969/2013 00individual TLL
In the beginning we kept things quiet, just knowing smiles and grins while passing in the halls. For a time it was like we were in a Cult, a Cult of Unity among us Dopers who now saw our world with a whole new set of eyes. People at school could suspect, but no one really knew, just rumors, because you learned to “maintain” early on when in public as it kept “trouble” away and furthered the mysterious and thrilling vibe we all shared. We were Undercover Dopers!
We were so cool that only about four of us were getting high in the “group” that I ran with called “the Caste”, but eventually at one meeting someone who had suspicions said, “I think the Caste is going to pot” – a clever way to let the “secret” out and turn-on the rest of our group. This is a perfect example of how the universal spread of Marijuana by friends turning-on friends turning-on friends began.
Once there was less than a dozen “Dopers” in high school, but by the time I graduated in February ’69 there were probably less than a dozen students who hadn’t “smoked pot”. However, eighty-five percent just experimented; the rest of us fifteen percent adopted it as a life-style and a sacred relationship with nature.
Original “Caste” patch – approx. size
00individual can remember the exact moment that his consciousness was markedly raised in one specific area of social interaction. It was from inside a local coffee shop that I saw some “jock” guys that I hung with drive by with their bare-asses out the car window. This was apparently great fun for them and whereas days before I might have been in on the “fun”, my whole mind-set had changed forever and I couldn’t have been further from it.
Consequently, the regimented military game of football had become a childish display of misguided machismo and a true waste of my energy and time so I quit my Westchester High School varsity football team the next day.
While these changes may seem minor, they were important beginnings of life-changing growth and awareness that 00individual’s spirit really needed.
This awareness spread, especially when one was on a contemplative high on your own or with others. It reinforced and exposed the knowledge of the positive and the negative of many things involving our lives – and with this new expanded consciousness we became confident and we had no problem trusting ourselves and our own intuition.
Marijuana opened the minds of a generation and for many of us we continued the journey past the ’60s and ’70s because we learned early on that,
“Once your consciousness is raised, it can never be lowered.”
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00INDIVIDUAL 
