美国国家公共电台 NPR Did This Novel About LSD Trials Get It Right? We Ask Someone Who Was There

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Author T.C. Boyle likes to focus on historic figures in his novels - historic figures with cult-like followings, such as cornflakes king John Harvey Kellogg, architect Frank Lloyd Wright and sex researcher Alfred Kinsey. Boyle's new novel imagines what it might have been like for psychologist and writer Timothy Leary in the early 1960s, when he started researching psychedelic drugs. Tom Vitale looks into this strange, long trip.

TOM VITALE, BYLINE¹: "Outside Looking In" tells a fictional² story about psychology³ graduate students at Harvard University who attempt to explore the nature of human consciousness by taking psychedelic drugs. Author T.C. Boyle says he was intrigued⁴ by recent news stories about LSD coming back into medical use.

TC BOYLE: So I went back to discover where it was all coming from. So this book is set at a very narrow window of time - the very early 60s, before Jimi Hendrix and acid rock and all of that. Where did this come from?

VITALE: It came from a trip psychologist Timothy Leary took to Mexico in 1960, where he ate psilocybin mushrooms and decided⁵ to redirect his respected clinical research on personality studies to the effects of hallucinogens on the mind. Leary eventually took his experiments to a 64-room mansion⁶ in Millbrook, N.Y., where he extolled⁷ the virtues⁸ of psychedelics.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TIMOTHY LEARY: LSD is like a microscope, even an electron microscope, which opens up awareness⁹ of energies which are there. It's nothing miraculous¹⁰ or mysterious about LSD. In any situation where we now use our symbolic¹¹ mind, the microscope of LSD will help us see more, see faster and see deeper.

VITALE: The main character of T.C. Boyle's novel is one of Leary's students, Fitzhugh Loney, who signs up to take weekly acid trips and record his reactions. He takes his first trip with his wife Joanie.

BOYLE: (Reading) And the puppet, she said, you see the puppet. He didn't see the puppet not that he didn't want to. But now all at once, every ordinary object in the room came alive just as if it had a heart inside it pumping blood - highboy, bookcase, Persian rug, rocker, armchair, the nautical¹² scene hanging over the mantelpiece - everything stirring, buzzing, fracturing the room with light. And he said, I think it's coming on.

GUNTHER WEIL: I think he did an incredibly great job at describing the Zeitgeist of the time, the nature of the trips. The protagonist¹³ there is a graduate student who seems to be kind of an amalgam¹⁴ of a number of us.

VITALE: Gunther Weil was a 23-year-old doctoral student in clinical psychology when he entered Harvard in 1960 and was assigned to Timothy Leary as his faculty¹⁵ advisor¹⁶. Over the next four years, he says he attended between 40 and 50 research sessions, ingesting the hallucinogens psilocybin and LSD with a handful of colleagues.

WEIL: We definitely felt that we were on the leading, bleeding edge of research and consciousness. We definitely felt like pioneers. We definitely were enthralled¹⁷ and captured by the mysteries that we were beginning to approach.

VITALE: One of those mysteries was Weil's own spirituality. The psychedelic drugs he ingested are known as entheogens. That is, they allow you to see God. And Weil says he did.

WEIL: In the sense of realizing the oneness of the interconnection of all phenomena¹⁸ of understanding the underlying¹⁹ spiritual nature of existence, absolutely yes.

VITALE: That mystical aspect of psychedelic drugs was another thing that fascinated novelist T.C. Boyle.

BOYLE: If God is as simple as altering the chemistry of the brain, then what does that mean for our world religions? Is there anything outside of us or is it all inside of us? And it is all hormonal²⁰ and brain functions. And if this little fungus²¹ can give us God, then who are we? What does that mean? What do we need God for?

VITALE: In the novel, as Leary's acolytes²² get more involved in LSD, their research becomes less scientific and more hedonistic. The participants go beyond graduate students to include musicians, fashion models and socialites who had heard about the experiments. And then there are the bad acid trips.

BOYLE: (Reading) Images slam down like heavy sashes, shutting one after the other, only to open up on the next and the next after that. Control a joke, personality a hoax²³ and schizophrenia the only realistic outcome because they didn't call these drugs psychotomimetics for nothing, did they? Of course. Of course, he was losing his mind. And what other result could he have expected?

VITALE: Seventy-year-old T.C. Boyle says his perspective on Timothy Leary's experiments may have been colored by his own drug use when he was in his 20s.

BOYLE: OK, I'll fess up. I never had a good trip - never. We would all begin our trips communally²⁴ at a great time - the fireplace is going. The music's playing. We're laughing. Everything's great. We're seeing things. Everybody else will have crashed. And I would be up, you know, with the snakes crawling out of my stomach for the next six hours. I think my mind is too active anyway. I'm always out there in outer space. This is why I'm a novelist.

VITALE: Today T.C. Boyle says he gets his highs from getting lost in his work, lost in music and lost in the nature of the California Sierras.

For NPR News, I'm Tom Vitale in New York.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 fictional   

adj.小说的，虚构的

参考例句：

• The names of the shops are entirely fictional.那些商店的名字完全是虚构的。
• The two authors represent the opposite poles of fictional genius.这两位作者代表了天才小说家两个极端。

3 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

4 intrigued   

adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You've really intrigued me—tell me more! 你说的真有意思—再给我讲一些吧！
• He was intrigued by her story. 他被她的故事迷住了。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 mansion   

n.大厦，大楼；宅第

参考例句：

• The old mansion was built in 1850.这座古宅建于1850年。
• The mansion has extensive grounds.这大厦四周的庭园广阔。

7 extolled   

v.赞颂，赞扬，赞美( extol的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school. 他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Tessenow decried the metropolis and extolled the peasant virtues. 特森诺夫痛诋大都市，颂扬农民的美德。 来自辞典例句

8 virtues   

美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处

参考例句：

• Doctors often extol the virtues of eating less fat. 医生常常宣扬少吃脂肪的好处。
• She delivered a homily on the virtues of family life. 她进行了一场家庭生活美德方面的说教。

9 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

10 miraculous   

adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的

参考例句：

• The wounded man made a miraculous recovery.伤员奇迹般地痊愈了。
• They won a miraculous victory over much stronger enemy.他们战胜了远比自己强大的敌人，赢得了非凡的胜利。

11 symbolic   

adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的

参考例句：

• It is symbolic of the fighting spirit of modern womanhood.它象征着现代妇女的战斗精神。
• The Christian ceremony of baptism is a symbolic act.基督教的洗礼仪式是一种象征性的做法。

12 nautical   

adj.海上的，航海的，船员的

参考例句：

• A nautical mile is 1,852 meters.一海里等于1852米。
• It is 206 nautical miles from our present location.距离我们现在的位置有206海里。

13 protagonist   

n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公

参考例句：

• The protagonist reforms in the end and avoids his proper punishment.戏剧主角最后改过自新并避免了他应受的惩罚。
• He is the model for the protagonist in the play.剧本中的主人公就是以他为模特儿创作的！

14 amalgam   

n.混合物；汞合金

参考例句：

• To counter this myth,we explained that we're really an amalgam of little guys.为了打破这个神话，我们解释说，我们确实是由一群小小的老百姓所组成的混合体。
• American literature is to our eyes a curious amalgam of familiar and strange.我们认为，美国文学把我们所熟悉的和陌生的东西奇妙地结合起来了。

15 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

16 advisor   

n.顾问，指导老师，劝告者

参考例句：

• They employed me as an advisor.他们聘请我当顾问。
• The professor is engaged as a technical advisor.这位教授被聘请为技术顾问。

17 enthralled   

迷住，吸引住( enthrall的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到非常愉快

参考例句：

• The child watched, enthralled by the bright moving images. 这孩子看着那明亮的移动的影像，被迷住了。
• The children listened enthralled as the storyteller unfolded her tale. 讲故事的人一步步展开故事情节，孩子们都听得入迷了。

18 phenomena   

n.现象

参考例句：

• Ade couldn't relate the phenomena with any theory he knew.艾德无法用他所知道的任何理论来解释这种现象。
• The object of these experiments was to find the connection,if any,between the two phenomena.这些实验的目的就是探索这两种现象之间的联系，如果存在着任何联系的话。

19 underlying   

adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的

参考例句：

• The underlying theme of the novel is very serious.小说隐含的主题是十分严肃的。
• This word has its underlying meaning.这个单词有它潜在的含义。

20 hormonal   

adj.激素的

参考例句：

• Some viral diseases are more severe during pregnancy, probably tecause of hormonal changes. 有些病毒病在妊娠期间比较严重，可能是由于激素变化引起的。
• She underwent surgical intervention and a subsequent short period of hormonal therapy. 他接受外科手术及随后短暂荷尔蒙治疗。

21 fungus   

n.真菌，真菌类植物

参考例句：

• Mushrooms are a type of fungus.蘑菇是一种真菌。
• This fungus can just be detected by the unaided eye.这种真菌只用肉眼就能检查出。

22 acolytes   

n.助手( acolyte的名词复数 )；随从；新手；（天主教）侍祭

参考例句：

• To his acolytes, he is known simply as 'the Boss'. 他被手下人简称为“老板”。 来自辞典例句
• Many of the acolytes have been in hiding amongst the populace. 许多寺僧都隐藏在平民当中。 来自互联网

23 hoax   

v.欺骗，哄骗，愚弄；n.愚弄人，恶作剧

参考例句：

• They were the victims of a cruel hoax.他们是一个残忍恶作剧的受害者。
• They hoax him out of his money.他们骗去他的钱。

24 communally   

adv.共同地

参考例句：

• Only when the means of production were communally owned would classes disappear. 只有当生产工具公有时，阶级才会消失。
• The mills were owned communally. 工厂是公有的。