Unique e-newsletter: April 1978.
DEAL for REAL
The Broker as Robin Hood
BY TIMOTHY LEARY
Knowledge well-stated stays treasured lengthy after its creator has grew to become silly. In terms of Timothy Leary, a legacy stays this is nonetheless value exhuming. In 1968, when Leary used to be nonetheless the Prime Priest of Acid and now not but a federal informer, he penned a piece of writing titled “Deal for Actual,” atmosphere forth brilliantly the ethics and non secular rewards of righteous dope dealing. It first seemed within the East Village Different and used to be later accumulated within the Underground Press Anthology (Ace Books, 1972). Ten years later Prime Instances reprints it within the spirit during which it used to be written: stuffed with love for good-guy dope sellers and the paranormal items they dispense.
There are 3 teams who’re bringing concerning the nice evolution of the brand new age that we’re going thru now. They’re the dope sellers, the rock musicians and the underground artists and writers.
Of those 3 heroes, mythic teams, I believe the sellers are probably the most crucial and vital. Within the future years the tv dramas and flicks might be making a large factor of the dope broker of the Nineteen Sixties. He’s going to be the Robin Hood, religious guerrilla, mysterious agent who will take where of the cowboy hero or the cops-and-robbers hero. There’s not anything actually new about this. During human historical past the shadowy determine of the alchemist, the shaman, the herbalist, the smiling smart guy who has the important thing to show you on and make you are feeling nice, has at all times heen the middle of the spiritual, aesthetic, innovative impulse. I believe that that is the noblest of all human professions and undoubtedly wish to urge any inventive younger particular person sincerely fascinated with evolving himself and serving to society develop to believe this historic and honorable occupation.
The paradoxical factor concerning the righteous broker is that he’s promoting you the celestial dream, fie could be very other from another service provider for the reason that commodity he’s peddling is freedom and pleasure. You are expecting your automotive broker to force a nice automotive and you wish to have your dressmaker to be nicely dressed, so it logically holds that you are expecting your righteous dope broker to radiate precisely that pleasure and freedom that you just search in his product. So due to this fact the problem to the broker is that now not handiest should his product be natural and non secular however that he himself should mirror the human mild that he represents. Due to this fact by no means purchase dope, by no means acquire sacrament from an individual that hasn’t were given the qualities you aspire for.
Rosemary and I simply got here again from a commute to the Heart East. Naturally, we spent maximum of our time with Sufis, hashish alchemists, and magicians. It used to be of significant pleasure for us to peer that the Arab dope sellers that we contacted in fact did shine forth because the grooviest folks you can find. I recall the evening we wandered out into the local quarter and located ourselves in a bit bazaar store within the Souk chatting with a dude named Mohamed who had the recognition a few of the global set as being the best broker on the town. We walked into Mohamed’s store and in an instant discovered that we had been stepping onto a psychedelic level.
Gorgeous costumes, gold-embroidered vests, dangling, shining jewellery, silver bracelets and whatnot. The room used to be a retinal orgasm. Mohamed used to be status in the back of his little table and he himself, in his grooming and get dressed, used to be telling you that he used to be a turned-on cat. He used to be dressed in an outrageous blouse. His hair, as an alternative of being shut clipped as maximum Arabs have it, used to be in soul-brother herbal taste and he had a impressive fluorescent shawl round his neck. I knew that I had observed him on the market previous, weaving his means during the crowd. You knew immediately that right here used to be a magician. Right here used to be a man who used to be pronouncing along with his mere presence that he used to be a flipped-out broker in some type of wondrous magic.
As he sat down, the very first thing he did used to be rummage round in his stunning leather-based pouches and begin to fill a hash pipe with nice talent and dexterity. On the identical time he used to be laying the standard Owsley alchemist rap on us. He used to be telling us that he used to be now not a businessman however despatched by way of God to show folks on, that his product used to be to not intoxicate you however to come up with what you had been in search of—freedom and pleasure—and that certainly his keef and cannabis had been the most efficient on the planet. He had other types that might flip you directly to meals, flip you on erotically and come up with visible and musical enhancement. All this time his eyes had been twinkling, or even earlier than participating of the sacrament you become grew to become on by way of the person himself. Your consider in his product is due to this fact very much enhanced.
The anomaly of the broker is that he should be natural. He should be instantly and he should be radiant. The socioeconomics of dealing psychedelic dope is very curious. Right here we have now this monumental, billion-dollar business happening in america, all of which is largely run by way of amateurs. I do know no person who has dealt psychedelic medicine over a length of months and survived with out being busted or being freaked out who wasn’t natural.
You must be natural. You’ll’t be doing it for the cash or the facility and you’ll be able to’t do it by yourself. Maximum, if now not all, righteous sellers paintings in teams or brotherhoods. This once more is the traditional message of the Heart East. The brotherhoods or teams of guys who’re engaged on this religious adventure in combination, which is at all times, in fact, a criminal offense, at all times should be unlawful and at all times should be the article of persecution by way of Caesar, the sultan or the police.
I’ve spent numerous my time within the remaining 8 years in search of turned-on folks, holy males, to determine the place they had been at and to be informed from them. I’ve been in India, Japan, throughout the Heart East and Europe. I’ve talked to the swamis, the rishis, the maharishis, and I will say flatly that the holiest, handsomest, healthiest, horniest, humorest, maximum saintly staff of guys that I’ve met in my lifestyles are the righteous dope sellers. They have to be that means as a result of they have got to proceed to make use of their very own product. That is likely one of the fascinating psychopharmacological facets of dope dealing.
A broker has to understand his product. He has to understand what those other dopes do to his head, differently he doesn’t know what he’s promoting. Which means that your righteous dope broker has to understand concerning the results of acid, mescaline, DMT, grass and cannabis. He has so that you could smash off a bit lump of Nepalese hash, scent it, chunk it and light-weight it up after which come to a decision if it is grade A, B or C. He has were given to take an acid tab, swallow it and apply on his personal detecting tools if it is acid, if it is nice acid and kind of what the microgram amount is. Which means that he has were given to be a grasp Sufi.
The broker has were given to be totally correct, instantly religious detective. He has were given to be freed from his personal hangups. He can’t be riddled with paranoias or he’s going to take a gasp and scream for the psychiatrist. This implies by way of definition that your righteous broker should have a natural head and a holy center. In a different way he’s going to be freaked out by way of his personal product. It used to be of significant pastime for Rosemary and me to find, after ten years within the psychedelic and medicine-man trade, that more and more maximum of our buddies grew to become out to be sellers, which we now see isn’t unintentional however certainly inevitable.
There’s an excessive amount of hypocrisy all over all ranges of the established order in addition to the underground concerning the broker. There are lots of psychedelic liberals who say: “Smartly, it’s ok for younger folks to experiment with grass and acid. We don’t need to have rules in opposition to them, however we must have rules punishing the sellers.” By some means the broker is in a decrease ethical or sociological class. That is simple bunk.
Let’s be instantly and truthful about it. The 30 million folks in america who’re grew to become directly to psychedelic medicine—any considered one of them has been a passive collaborator in an unlawful act. And each probably the most 30 million individuals who have used grass or acid on this nation in the previous few years has were given to resist the truth that it used to be a righteous and brave one who took nice dangers to make the acid or smuggle within the hashish.
Now not handiest does it take braveness and willpower nevertheless it takes talent. In spite of everything, the newbie LSD chemist has to have the technology to spin the molecules in combination. He has to have the potency and organizational skill to deliver in combination a laboratory in secret and carry out a minor chemical miracle. This calls for a heavy, in combination type of particular person. I believe this is a ethical workout that everybody of the 30 million who’re the use of psychedelic medicine must take a flip at dealing. I believe it’s nearly symbolically important that someday on your spiritual-psychedelic profession you do deal. Now not for the cash however merely to pay tribute to this maximum honorable occupation.
I have in mind speaking lately to a gaggle of clear-eyed, smiling, stunning sellers. They had been younger males of their twenties, as all sellers should be younger. At the moment their lifestyles state of affairs used to be with regards to very best. They had been dwelling along side their households in nature, and there used to be no reason why for them to go away the rustic on such a exciting missions. They had been making plans some other rip-off. I requested them, “Why are you doing it? that at this actual time, with the Nixon management waging all-out struggle on turned-on youngsters with assistance from border guards, secret brokers, it’s simply now not a fab time to do it. You’ve got the entire land and dope to heart your individual lives. Why take the possibilities?”
They concept for a minute, and their solution used to be fascinating. “We imagine that dope is the hope of the human race, this is a method to make folks unfastened and glad. We wouldn’t really feel nice simply sitting right here smoking the dope we have now and saving our souls realizing that there are 30 million youngsters that want dope to heart themselves. Our lives had been stored from the plastic nightmare as a result of dope, and we’d really feel egocentric if we simply stayed right here in our stunning utopia. Our brothers and sisters available in the market must be as liberated and loving as we’re.” So far as the police community this is being constructed up in opposition to them, they only laughed. “We’re smarter and wiser than the FBI, the CIA and the Narcotics Bureau put in combination. We should be. We simply can’t admit defeat simply because they have got increasingly more apparatus in opposition to us.”
There used to be no need for me to argue with that perspective, after which they took off for the Heart East with my blessings.
I recall to mind probably the most exceptional acid chemists, ones who organized their laboratories like shrines. They pray continuously whilst acting their chemical miracle, that the acid they’re making will deliver freedom and liberation to the individuals who will take it. Praying that there might be no dangerous journeys and paranoias within the mysterious molecules that they had been brewing.
The acid chemist is in a in particular inclined place as a result of you’ll be able to’t make acid with out being continuously uncovered to this robust molecule. You must get prime. They’re floating on 10,000 mics whilst acting their magic. They have to be natural. They have to be focused to perform their technical success. I don’t know of 1 a success psychedelic chemist who doesn’t have a sense about how he does it. None who doesn’t try to purify his thoughts of unfavourable pondering and who doesn’t imagine that the acid is influenced by way of the religious and psychic standing of those that make it and distribute it.
I don’t know one righteous and a success broker who doesn’t. Don’t ever purchase grass or acid from a broker who doesn’t lay a prayer on you whilst he’s taking your cash.
It’s robust treatment, it’s magic and it’s got to he handled that means.
