THE CENTER OF THE CYCLONE: An Autobiography of Inner Space

Dr. Lilly, scientist, psychoanalyst, researcher, is best known for his investigations of the dolphin, work he abandoned in pursuit of high positive states in the '60's beginning with two cautiously undertaken trips on LSD. The second which he now considers followed too closely after the first was more transcendental than you might think -- he almost died in an amnestic aftermath when he also injected himself with a detergent -- but he silverlines it all with the realization that there is a ""safe place beyond."" He went on to find ""suprahuman, supraself kinds of spaces"" via hypnosis, an encounter seminar at Esalen, assorted sets which are all part of The Human Biocomputer, Programming and Meta-programming (his last book) and which entail mentations, vibrational numbers, and exercises of a rather rarefied nature. Lilly speaks throughout (you can almost hear the disapproving inflection) of our ""national negative program"" re LSD and meets with some of the drug's more doubtful sponsors -- Houston and Masters, Alan Watts. He also gives some lessons which ""may serve to get you through a tough place on a bum trip some day"" (by the way, his dolphins had only good ones) but nothing here should persuade most commonsensical readers to abandon the everyday ""consensus reality."" And the personal revelations of his own very sick self should be a further deterrent.