60s counter-culture icons

luka

Well-known member
i have a real fondness for a lot of these people. i don't know why. i love reading books by alan watts, john c lilly, timothy leary, robert anton wilson, rd laing and others. i love the energy and optimism and the mad ideas. i love the 8fold diagram of the evolutionary soul and all that sort of thing.

what do you think of their legacy? who do you think is still relevant/useful?
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
I dunno about their legacy, but I love RD Laing and arguing about him with my friends who are psychology academics, who's education has told them to dismiss him as a quack. Fools.

Lilly is extremely good value as well, although his ketamine-induced conspiracy ravings are somewhat unhinged.
 

mms

sometimes
i have a real fondness for a lot of these people. i don't know why. i love reading books by alan watts, john c lilly, timothy leary, robert anton wilson, rd laing and others. i love the energy and optimism and the mad ideas. i love the 8fold diagram of the evolutionary soul and all that sort of thing.

what do you think of their legacy? who do you think is still relevant/useful?

it's so hard to say isn't it, they were all persecuted cos they worked outside the system and all quite flawed human beings, with gigantic egos.
R.D.Laing seemed in some ways to reflect super-individuality, whilst alot of the other ideas ended up in wishy washy new age ideas, some of the actual paranoia got plowed into the paranoia of conspiracy theories, some into chaos magic and psychonautical adventurers etc.
Some of their ideas are still be worked on and certainly their madcap inspiration is still alive.
 

luka

Well-known member
that's been an accusation that's followed him around for a long time. might be true-ish.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
Laing is still very important to me. Also worth a mention in this company is Ivan Illich (although I don't like Illich personally).

Gurdjieff is pre-60s by quite some way, but I think had a bit of a posthumous vogue.
 

luka

Well-known member
mad life. i mean, not a Hero, obviously. but one of those people who seem to become picked and used by gpowerful historical forces. i always quite fancied becoming one of those people.
 
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