Greetings Sentients,
I'm back from Basel for nearly two weeks now. Usually I would have
blogged live from the event itself, but shooting with three cameras and
a crew of three slowed me down. The event started on Friday 13th
January, but we arrived early on Thursday 12th in the morning, bleary
eyed after the long overnight flight from South Africa to case the joint
as we knew things wouldn't let up once it started rolling. We weren't
wrong.
The rooms at the Swisshotel Plaza in Basel were really nice. My room had
a huge circular window which looked down onto the square. In the room
opposite was Jonathan Ott, and four rooms down were the Shulgins.
Getting into the lift with a whole lot of people who are urban legends
made for exciting moments, something the Symposium was full of.
The LSD Symposium started on Friday morning with a talk of about 20
minutes by Dr. Hofmann, alchemist extraordinaire and discoverer of the
LSD molecule. After being introduced and cheered, the magic started.
Uncle Albert is a petite, but relatively unwrinkled 100 year old genius
who has no problem in talking (in German, but translated on headphones)
for more than 20 minutes without going ahem or ahh and without
consulting any written notes. It's unbelievable. He feels that the LSD
molecule 'called to him' and he tells us that the only reason he
discovered it is because he didn't 'work correctly'. In other words, he
credits a mistake he made for the discovery, much like Marie Curie and
the discovery of Penicillin.
His advice to everyone, there is complete silence in the large
auditorium, is that it therefore follows that the pursuit of perfection
is a useless occupation. Things are just getting better and better.
There's a genuine spirit of love and affection going round as we listen
to the old man, realising how privileged we are to be here, how
privileged we are to be alive during these times. Its almost too much to
bear as Albert finishes off to cheers of 'we love you; and 'thank you'.
I find myself on my feet with the rest of the crowd screaming 'thank you
- we love you' with tears streaming down my face, but he does remind me
of my dad, who I lost only two years ago. He's everyone's father here
though, and it makes me feel really weird looking around at all the
oldies from all over the world who've come to Basel to pay their
respects. What a trip!
Albert signs off by accepting 100 red roses. I'm amazed at how intently
he looks at them, like he's never seen roses before, but I guess it's
still all in the moment for him too. I'm 10 feet away looking into him
with the HD cam. Crowded around me are another 50 photographers, film
makers, TV crews, and the like. Everyone is delicately balanced, like
trying to stay out of the field of vision of those behind, even if it
isn't really possible.
After the opening I wonder around with the camera and crew, but I'm too
distracted to film anything. Besides besides being an accredited
filmaker at the event, I'm also showing 'True Conversations', a 7 minute
movie featuring Terence and Dennis Mckenna. Leo and Kate wonder off to
film the exhibition, so I decide to take a break in the speaker's room.
All the exhibitors have access to this private area so I get free
coffee, biscuits and a place to hang out. My timing is great. Dr.
Hofmann, without his security patrol, has had the same idea as me and is
sitting with two other people at the plain white table with no
distraction, except me. I get to tell him where I'm from, crack a joke
and tell him how long the flight was. My German isn't great, but he has
no problem understanding me and doesn't seem like someone of a 100 years
old. His eyes and mind are focussed and his handshake is smooth like
cashmere. No hesitation. I'm impressed. The moment lasts a few minutes,
during which time I butt out and sit back, letting the three of them get
on with whatever they were discussing (in German) before I came in and
introduced myself. It's a great feeling, sitting there without needing
to say anything more.
The rest of the day is a blur. David Jay Brown (Conversations at the
edge of the Apocalypse) arrives from San Francisco. The screening of
True Conversations gets well accepted and there are immediate shout-outs
for it to be screened again. The technician helping me is cool. He's got
the volume up so loud that we've unwittingly taken over the whole
auditorium. Terence and Dennis's voices boom out over the sound system,
then there's an atomic explosion. Sitting in the fron row, I dare not
dare round as I try to keep hysteria at bay. "We blew up the LSD
Symposiun" is all I can think, even though I'm going to be on stage
explaining it all in less than five minutes. talk on stage for 15
minutes about the full-length feature that's coming. Alex Grey is in the
audience but the force is with me and ranting about what I'm doing to
the now-enraptured audience is more a case of deciding when they've had
enough, and not running out of things to say. I get to put in a punt for
Cognition Factor, my so-long-in-production full-length feature. I make
it off the stage but this is when the fun starts as people try to get me
to sell them, or give them, the movie I just showed, all at the same
time, in Greek, Italian, German, English and even Australian. It's very
flattering. I eventually give the copy to Spiridon, a young Greek guy
Greek guy who really flipped when he saw it.
Afterwards Alex Grey is in the lift on the way up and he makes a point
of telling me how much he enjoyed the show so David sets up an interview
with him for tomorrow.
I'm lucky David agreed to come. He knows everyone. Over the next few
days I get to film Alex Grey, Ralph Metzner, Brummbauer, Stan Kreppner
and David Jay Brown, plus short interviews with many people. Eva arrives
from Germany. We hand her a camera and hope for the best. There is a
constant coming and going from the room as we restock with film, memory
chips and batteries. Fifteen hours of film later it's already Sunday
night. I've met so many interesting and generous people. I've seen some
old friends, made some new ones and I'm content to be so priviledged.
More than happy just to hang out, I wander around the stalls and
exhibitions which are set up on the main floor. Two stories up, in the
open arcade, two chaps are blowing bubbles down onto the crowd, while
two ladies in blue jumpsuits out of 'Earth - Final Conflict' do mime
trips on everyone that comes by, including a lucky two year old. I make
sure I buy the official T-****rt - in German.
I sit in the lobby while the psychedelic community checks out at the
front desk. I say goodbye to Jonathan Ott, Sylvie Thyssen, Richard
Wolfe, Alex Grey, the Shulgins, Colin Angus, Jah Leva, Gianji and
Sylvia, Ronald Steckel, Dieter Hagenbach, Lucius Werdmuller, Angela,
George Douvris and people I'd once thought were urban legend. My son Leo
returns to his job in Spain. I'm sorry to see him go but it had been a
great experiencing this with him, and this Symposium isn't something
that can be repeated, a bonding experience.
To wrap; The LSD Symposium did not (officially) ask for the legalisation
of acid. It called for research to be allowed into our inner selves by
licensed practitioners, accredited voyagers/psychiatrists/scientists who
would need a 'drivers license' to be able to use it, and only for
research purposes, but what it really wants is for mind control to be
abolished - and I say AYE to that!!
It's not over yet because Kate and I are headed to London tomorrow to
film Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, but that's another story.
Schwann - Basel - January 17th 2006
http://LSD.info
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