Last Days of CoSM
Posted December 20, 2008 / By Steven Xavier Solipse / 0 Comments
After many years, the time has come for the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors to leave New York City. Over the past few years, the Greys have been engineering a transformation from an urban art gallery in the trendy Chelsea district of Manhattan to an art sanctuary and sacred space in a relaxing natural environment. On …
Doctor Hoffman Is Dead
Posted April 29, 2008 / By Steven Xavier Solipse / 1 Comment
It saddens us to confirm that Dr. Albert Hofmann passed away at his home in Burg outside of Basel, Switzerland today, April 29 2008 at the age of 102 years. Dr. Hofmann was at his home with two of his caretakers, he passed away at 9am local time. Dr Hofmann follows his late wife Anita, …
man burned 5 days early in black rock city
Posted August 30, 2007 / By Steven Xavier Solipse / 0 Comments
The ritual of Burning Man was disrupted by an amusing act of counterculture fundamentalism when the effigy was burned five days early by an embittered veteran Burner. The blaze began at the apex of a total lunar eclipse — stunning beautiful in the open desert — and drew an amusing mix of reactions from the …
bicycle day
Posted April 19, 2007 / By Steven Xavier Solipse / 0 Comments
On April 19th, 1943 at 4:20 pm Dr. Albert Hofmann, chemist for Sandoz Pharmaceuticals in Basel, Switzerland, swallowed the first deliberately ingested LSD.
Now, little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux. It was particularly remarkable how every acoustic perception, such as the sound of a door handle or a passing automobile, became transformed into optical perceptions. Every sound generated a vividly changing image, with its own consistent form and color.
Late in the evening my wife returned from Lucerne. Someone had informed her by telephone that I was suffering a mysterious breakdown. She had returned home at once, leaving the children behind with her parents. By now, I had recovered myself sufficiently to tell her what had happened.
Exhausted, I then slept, to awake next morning refreshed, with a clear head, though still somewhat tired physically. A sensation of well-being and renewed life flowed through me. Breakfast tasted delicious and gave me extraordinary pleasure. When I later walked out into the garden, in which the sun shone now after a spring rain, everything glistened and sparkled in a fresh light. The world was as if newly created. All my senses vibrated in a condition of highest sensitivity, which persisted for the entire day.
Thus went the world’s first acid trip.
LED terrorism spawns dionsyian chaos in Boston
Posted January 31, 2007 / By Steven Xavier Solipse / 0 Comments
Members of the Boston psytribes assisted in the installation of a guerrilla art installation of mooninites at the start of the New Year. The following video document of the art project began circulating among the knowledgeable and well-connected in the days that followed. Now it can be watched on YouTube…
Robert Anton Wilson, concluded
Posted January 11, 2007 / By Steven Xavier Solipse / 1 Comment
Posted today on the robertantonwilson blog: Robert Anton Wilson Defies Medical Experts and leaves his body @4:50 AM on binary date 01/11. All Hail Eris! On behalf of his children and those who cared for him, deepest love and gratitude for the tremendous support and lovingness bestowed upon us. (that’s it from Bob’s bedside at …
weathering City scrutiny at CoSM
Posted September 25, 2006 / By Steven Xavier Solipse / 1 Comment
September has not been kind to the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. Alex Grey‘s psychedelic sanctuary found itself in the middle of a classic NYC nightlife war between the police and the many clubs that line West 27th Street, CoSM’s home. The City Government is on a new nightlife security kick. The Council is deciding on …
psyNY web calendar application reaches 1.0
Posted September 18, 2006 / By Steven Xavier Solipse / 0 Comments
The NY community trance association, psyNY, recently announced the 1.0 launch of their psytrance web calendar application. The site may be the first psytrance web application ever written; it offers scheduling, mapping, weather, and other party-coordinating resources, aggregated into one page for quick access to event info. It compliments, not replaces, communication systems like the …
mouse party
Posted August 29, 2006 / By Steven Xavier Solipse / 0 Comments
(via apophenia) Have you seen the Mouse Party before? The University of Utah put together a Flash-based visualization of the effects of various intoxicants upon the brain. You analyze the brains of a group of highly-intoxicated mice, trapped in a genetics lab together listening to downtempo grooves. They all seem quite mellow, despite their extremely …
psychedelics in the public eye
Posted August 16, 2006 / By Steven Xavier Solipse / 0 Comments
Its been a good year for ethenogenic awareness; it has seen a number of encouraging reports in the general media directly contradicting years of “common sense” understandings of psychedelic experimentation. First came the LSD Symposium in early spring, bringing together the global village’s academics and enthusiasts for a research festival (if you will). The benefits …