Psychedelic People

[uber]

Crei este topico na espectativa de divulgar mentes que se marcaram pela diferença, ou não.

 

Acho este excelente para começar:

 

 

Antoni Gaudi i Cornet

 

Arquitecto espanhol de finais do séc.19 e princípios do séc. 20.

Nasceu em Reus, Catalunha, Espanha, em 25 de Junho de 1852;

morreu em Barcelona, em 10 de Junho de 1926.

 

Arquitecto cujo estilo distinto se caracteriza pela liberdade de forma, cor e texturas voluptuosas e na unidade orgânica, Gaudí trabalhou quase sempre em Barcelona ou nos seus arredores. Grande parte da sua carreira foi ocupada com a construção do Templo Expiatório da Sagrada Família, que ainda não estava concluído quando morreu.

 

Gaudí nasceu numa localidade costeira da Catalunha. De origens humildes, era filho de um latoeiro que iria viver com ele no fim da vida acompanhado de uma sobrinha, nunca tendo casado. Mostrou desde cedo interesse pela arquitectura, tendo ido estudar em 1869 para Barcelona, então o centro político e intelectual da Catalunha, sendo também a cidade a mais moderna de Espanha. Só acabou o curso oito anos mais tarde, tendo os estudos sido interrompidos pelo serviço militar e outras actividades intermitentes.

 

O estilo de Gaudí atravessou diversas fases. Quando saiu da escola provincial de arquitectura de Barcelona, em 1878, começou a projectar de acordo com um estilo Vitoriano bastante florido, que já era evidente nos seus projectos escolares, mas desenvolveu rapidamente uma maneira de compor por meio de justaposições de massas geométricas, até aí nunca usadas, cujas superfícies eram animadas com pedra ou tijolo modelado, painéis cerâmicos de cores vivas, e estruturas de metal utilizando motivos florais ou repteis. O efeito geral, embora os detalhes não o sejam, é Mourisco - ou Mudéjar, como a mistura especial da arte muçulmana com a cristã é conhecida em Espanha. Os exemplos de seu estilo Mudéjar são a Casa Vicens, de 1878-80, e El Capricho construída entre 1883 e 1885, assim como a Propriedade e o Palácio de Güell, de finais dos anos 80 do século XIX. Todas as obras, excepto o El Capricho estão localizadas em Barcelona. Mais tarde, Gaudí experimentou as possibilidades dinâmicas de vários estilos arquitectónicos: o gótico no Palácio Episcopal de Astorga, obra realizada entre 1887 e 1893, e na Casa de los Botines em Leão, construída entre 1892 e 1894; o barroco na Casa Calvet em Barcelona (1898-1904). Mas após 1902 os seus projectos deixam de poder ser atribuídos a um estilo arquitectónico convencional.

 

À excepção de alguns edifícios em que é clara representação simbólica da natureza ou da religião, os edifícios de Gaudí transformaram-se em representações da sua estrutura e dos materiais que os constituem. Na sua Vila Bell Esguard, de 1900-02, e no Parque de Güell, de 1900 a 1914, em Barcelona, e na igreja da Colonia Güell (1898 - c. 1915), a sul daquela cidade, chegou a um tipo de estrutura que veio ser chamada equilibrada - isto é, uma estrutura projectada para se apoiar sobre si própria sem apoios internos ou suportes externos - ou, como Gaudí afirmava, exactamente como uma árvore se ergue. Gaudí aplicou seu sistema equilibrado a dois edifícios de apartamentos de vários andares edificados em Barcelona: a Casa Batlló, de 1904-06, uma renovação que incorporou novos elementos equilibrados, sobretudo a fachada; e a Casa Milá (1905-10). Como era frequente nele, projectou os dois edifícios, tanto nas suas formas com nas superfícies, como metáforas do carácter montanhoso e marítimo da Catalunha.

 

Arquitecto admirado, mesmo que considerado um pouco excêntrico, Gaudí foi um participante importante na Renaixensa catalã, um movimento artístico revivalista das artes e dos ofícios que se combinou com um movimento político de feições nacionalistas que se baseava num fervoroso anti-castelhanismo. Ambos os movimentos procuraram restabelecer um tipo de vida na Catalunha que tinha sido suprimido pelo governo centralista de Madrid, ao longo do século XVIII e XIX. O símbolo religioso da Renaixensa em Barcelona era a igreja da Sagrada Família, um projecto que ocupou Gaudí durante toda a sua carreira.

 

Contratado para construir a igreja desde 1883, não viveu para a ver terminada. Ao trabalhar nela tornou-se cada vez mais religioso, e após 1910 passou a trabalhar quase exclusivamente na construção da Igreja, tendo mesmo passado a residir nos estaleiros. Aos 75 anos, foi atropelado por um trolley-car, tendo morrido dos ferimentos.

 

Ignorado durante os anos 20 e 30 do século XX, quando o estilo internacional era o estilo arquitectónico dominante, foi redescoberto nos anos 60, sendo reverenciado tanto por profissionais como pelo público em geral, devido à sua imaginação transbordante. A avaliação do trabalho arquitectónico de Gaudí é notável pela sua escala de formas, texturas, e policromia, e pela maneira livre e expressiva como estes elementos da sua arte se conjugam. A geometria complexa de um edifício de Gaudí coincide com a sua estrutura arquitectónica em que o todo, incluindo a sua fachada, dá à aparência de ser um objecto natural conformando-se completamente com as leis da natureza. Tal sentido da unidade total informou também a vida de Gaudí, já que a sua vida pessoal e profissional eram indistinguíveis.

 

 

Fonte da biografia: http://www.arqnet.pt/portal/biografias/gaudi.html

 

Para quem nunca teve oportunidade de ver, vejam os trabalhos dele, vale mesmo a pena! Psicadélismo ao mais alto nivel! O que aquela mente devia fervilhar..

 

Deixo aqui alguns liks para poderem apreciar, mas explorem mais, porque ha promenores de interiores que eu fiquei culado, completamente!

 

http://www.op.net/~jmeltzer/Gaudi/works.html

http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Antonio_Gaudi.html

http://www.gaudi2002.bcn.es/english/en_imgs/index.htm

 

Abraços

[Heidi]

Bemmmmm agora até me arrepiei com a coincidência de timing... :suprised: ... estive há pouco na casa de um amigo que veio de Barcelona a ver fotografias de edifícios projectados por Gaudi, autênticas maravilhas! Adorei os pormenores, aqueles jogos de corzinhas, adoro o estilo, muito, muito envolvente!

[Heidi]

A Sagrada Família só vai ficar terminada em 2030, penso...

[sophie]

Bem, que cena, também tive esse clique. O meu irmão tb acabou de vir de Barcelona e teve me a mostrar as fotos

 

Que brutalidade de edificios

[uber]

Baba Ram Dass

 

Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) was born in 1931. His father, George, a lawyer, helped to found Brandeis University and was President of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. Ram Dass studied psychology, specializing in human motivation and personality development. He received an M.A. from Wesleyan and a Ph.D. from Stanford. He then served on the psychology faculties at Stanford and the University of California, and from 1958 to 1963 taught and researched in the Department of Social Relations and the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. During this period he co-authored (with Sears and Rau) the book Identification and Child Rearing, published by Stanford University Press.

In 1961, while at Harvard, Ram Dass' explorations of human consciousness led him, in collaboration with Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, and others, to pursue intensive research with psilocybin, LSD-25, and other psychedelic chemicals. Out of this research came two books:The Psychedelic Experience (co-authored by Leary and Metzner, and based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, published by University Books); and LSD (with Sidney Cohen and Lawrence Schiller, published by New American Library). Because of the controversial nature of this research, Ram Dass was dismissed from Harvard in 1963.

 

Ram Dass continued his research under the auspices of a private foundation until 1967. In that year he traveled to India, where he met his Guru (spiritual teacher), Neem Karoli Baba. Ram Dass studied yoga and meditation, and received the name Ram Dass, which means "servant of God." Since 1968, he has pursued a variety of spiritual practices, including guru kripa; devotional yoga focused on the Hindu spiritual figure Hanuman; meditation in the Theravadin, Mahayana Tibetan, and Zen Buddhist schools; karma yoga; and Sufi and Jewish studies.

 

.

 

Alpert continued his research under the auspices of a private foundation until 1967, when he traveled to India. In India, he met his guru, or spiritual teacher, Neem Karoli Baba, affectionately known as Maharaji. Maharaji gave Ram Dass his name, which means "servant of God." Since 1968, Ram Dass has pursued a variety of spiritual methods and practices from various ancient wisdom traditions, including devotional yoga focused on the Hindu spiritual figure Hanuman; meditation in the Theravadin, Mahayana Tibetan and Zen Buddhist schools; karma yoga; and Sufi and Jewish studies. He also practices service to others as a spiritual path.

 

In 1974, Ram Dass created the Hanuman Foundation, which developed the Prison Ashram Project, designed to help prison inmates grow spiritually during their incarceration, and the Dying Project, conceived as a spiritual support structure for conscious and dying. These projects are now directed under independent auspices. The Ram Dass Tape Library Foundation serves as the organizing vehicle for Ram Dass' teachings, and for the distribution of his books and tapes.

 

Ram Dass' interests include the support of psychedelic research, international development, environmental awareness and political action. He has written a number of spiritual books including Be Here Now, published in 1971 (over one million copies sold, 37th printing, Crown Publishers); The Only Dance There Is (Anchor/ Doubleday); Grist for the Mill (with Stephen Levine, Celestial Arts); Journey of Awakening (Bantam Books); Miracle of Love: Stories of Neem Karoli Baba (Hanuman Foundation); How Can I Help? (with Paul Gorman, Knopf); Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service (with Mirabai Bush, Bell Tower Press) and Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying (Riverhead Books). His latest book, One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life was published by Bell Tower Press in September, 2002. In September, 2004, Harmony will be publishing Ram Dass' next book, entitled Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita.

 

In 1996, Ram Dass began to develop plans for a talk radio program called “Here and Now with Ram Dass.” Seven pilot programs were aired in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, and Ram Dass planned to launch the show on a nationwide basis the following year. But in February 1997, he experienced a stroke which left him with expressive aphasia and partial paralysis. The after effects of the stroke have made it necessary for him to postpone plans for his radio program, but he has been able to resume his other teaching commitments and is using the experience to explore the spiritual dimensions of suffering and the nature of the aging process.

 

Ram Dass is a co-founder and advisory board member of the Seva Foundation, an international service organization. He works with the Social Venture Network, an organization of businesses seeking to bring social consciousness to business practices. He continues to teach about the nature of consciousness, and about service as a spiritual path.

 

Fonte da biografia: http://www.ramdasstapes.org/biography.htm

 

Tentei encontrar em a biografia em português mas não encontrei, mas penso ser acessivel! O meu inglês não é lá muito bom e percebo minimamente...hehhee

 

Aconselho vivamente a verem o filme "Fierce Grace"! Pelos menos em mim, teve grande impacto, e fez-me pensar ainda mais na minha maneira de estar na vida, e de estar com os outros..e deu-me algumas "novas" prespectivas, de como encarar o rumo da vida, quando ele segue por caminhos que não nos favorecem muito...! Muito bom filme mesmo!

 

Deixo aqui a pagina do Maharaj-ji, para darem uma vista de olhos : http://www.neemkarolibaba.com/

 

[uber]

Não sei quem fez a mudança deste topico, mas acho que se tivesse que ser mudado não era para aqui...não sei! Só a minha opnião...hehehe

Abraços

[DOLPHinTRANCE]

...tens razão...não tomei grande atenção a todo o conteúdo do tópico e associei-o a pessoas que tenham desenvolvido trabalhos artisticos psicadélicos...mas parece que aquilo que pretendes é apresentar pessoas cuja actividade que desenvolveram tenha sido de alguma forma influenciada pelos psicadélicos ou pelo psicadelismo...ou cujos resultados o possam ter influenciado posteriormente...mesmo que não esteja relacionado com a arte...

 

...é isso?...fórum "Divinorum"?...

[uber]

Pois, os meu objectivo era divulgar mesmo todo o tipo de pessoas, que, directa ou indirectamente, se manifestaram/expressaram de forma psicadélica. Coloquei em "outras" por lhe atribuir um caracter geral, mas deixo ao teu critério, afinal o importante é o conteudo!

 

A falar nisso...espero a tua contribuição!! A tua e a de todos...

 

Abraços

[DOLPHinTRANCE]

...só que o fórum "outras" é: psy-free...hehe

 

...e se falamos de pessoas cuja expressão (arquitectura, fotografia, literatura, cinema, etc...) "assumiu o formato" psicadélico, então deveria ficar por aqui...por outro lado se falamos da forma como chegaram a essa expressão (ex:ingestão de psicadélicos...) talvez devesse ficar no divinorum...

 

Talvez o melhor seja ficar por aqui no "Psy-decos & Art's" (activo) e também no "Divinorum" (como link)... :hammer:

 

Desculpa fugir ao tema...e já agora: bom tópico!

[bio_vrelle]

Alex Grey was born in Columbus, Ohio on November 29, 1953 (Sagittarius), the middle child of a gentle middle-class couple. His father was a graphic designer and encouraged his son's drawing ability. Young Alex would collect insects and dead animals from the suburban neighborhood and bury them in the back yard. The themes of death and transcendence weave throughout his artworks, from the earliest drawings to later performances, paintings and sculpture. He went to the Columbus College of Art and Design for two years (1971-73), then dropped out and painted billboards in Ohio for a year (73-74). Grey then attended the Boston Museum School for one year, to study with the conceptual artist, Jay Jaroslav.

At the Boston Museum School he met his wife, the artist, Allyson Rymland Grey. During this period he had a series of entheogenically induced mystical experiences which transformed his agnostic existentialism to a radical transcendentalism. The Grey couple would trip together on LSD. Alex then spent five years at Harvard Medical School working in the Anatomy department studying the body and preparing cadavers for dissection. He also worked at Harvard's department of Mind/Body Medicine with Dr. Herbert Benson and Dr. Joan Borysenko conducting scientific experiments to investigate subtle healing energies. Alex's anatomical training prepared him for painting the Sacred Mirrors (explained below) and for doing medical illustration. When doctors saw his Sacred Mirrors, they asked him to do illustration work.

 

Grey was an instructor in Artistic Anatomy and Figure Sculpture for ten years at New York University, and now teaches courses in Visionary Art with Allyson at The Open Center in New York City, Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado and Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York.

 

In 1972 Grey began a series of art actions which bear resemblance to rites of passage, in that they present stages of a developing psyche. The approximately fifty performance rites, conducted over the last twenty five years move through transformations from an egocentric to more sociocentric and increasingly worldcentric and theocentric identity.

 

Grey's unique series of 21 life-sized paintings, the Sacred Mirrors, take the viewer on a journey toward their own divine nature by examining, in detail, the body, mind, and spirit. The Sacred Mirrors, present the physical and subtle anatomy of an individual in the context of cosmic, biological and technological evolution. Begun in 1979, the series took a period of ten years to complete. It was during this period that he developed his depictions of the human body that "x-ray" the multiple layers of reality, and reveal the interplay of anatomical and spiritual forces. After painting the Sacred Mirrors, he applied this multidimensional perspective to such archetypal human experiences as praying, meditation, dying, kissing, copulating, pregnancy, birth and nursing.

 

Renowned healers Olga Worral and Rosalyn Bruyere have expressed appreciation for the skillful portrayal of clairvoyant vision his paintings of translucent glowing bodies. Grey's paintings have been featured in venues as diverse as the album art of TOOL, the Beastie Boys and Nirvana, Newsweek magazine, the Discovery Channel, Rave flyers and sheets of blotter acid. His work has been exhibited worldwide, including Feature Inc., Tibet House, Stux Gallery, The Outsider Art Fair and the New Museum in NYC, the Grand Palais in Paris, the Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil. Alex has been a keynote speaker at conferences all over the world including Tokyo, Amsterdam, Basel, Barcelona and Manaus.

 

A large installation called Heart Net by Alex and his wife, Allyson, was displayed at Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum in 1998-99. A mid-career retrospective of Grey's works was exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego in 1999. The large format art book, Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of Alex Grey has been translated into five languages and has sold over seventy-five thousand copies, unusual for an art book. His inspirational book, The Mission of Art, traces the evolution of human consciousness through art history, exploring the role of an artist's intention and conscience, and reflecting on the creative process as a spiritual path.

 

His most recent book, released fall of 2001, entitled Transfigurations, is Alex's second large format monograph containing over 300 color and black & white images of Grey's work. Sounds True has released, The Visionary Artist, an audiotape of Grey's reflections on art as a spiritual practice. ARTmind is the artist's recent video exploring the healing potential of Sacred Art. Grey co-edited the book, Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics (Chronicle Books, 2002). He lives in New York City with his wife, the painter, Allyson Grey and their daughter, the actress, Zena Grey.

 

Alex Grey

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Alex Grey spent several years employed in a medical school morgue preparing cadavers and studying the human anatomy. During this period he began having a series of mystical experiences which transformed his agnostic existentialism to a radical transcendentalism. During the 1970s and 80s Grey did numerous performances and sculptural installations based on his visions. Grey's unique series of 21 life-sized paintings, the Sacred Mirrors, examine, in detail, physical and metaphysical anatomy of the individual. Begun in 1979, the series took a period of ten years to complete. After painting the Sacred Mirrors, Grey applied this multidimensional perspective to painted visions of crucial human experiences such as praying, kissing, copulating, pregnancy, birth and dying. Grey portrays the body as translucent, revealing complex anatomical systems and interwoven with glowing subtle energies visible to clairvoyants. Viewers recognize in his work a glimpse into the subtle spiritual archetypal domains of awareness.

 

Many of these works of art are reproduced in Grey's book, Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of Alex Grey, published by Inner Traditions and now available in five languages. Grey has an expansive audience outside of the traditional art world. His work has been included in the album art of such popular rock groups as Nirvana and the Beastie Boys and a book of songs by the Talking Heads. The underground Techno Rave culture has extensively sampled Grey's art, using it to promote all-night dance events. Grey's vision of the human psychic anatomy has been used by the Chairman of the Department of Alternative Medicine at the National Institute of Health in Washington, D.C., who uses it in his international slide lectures. Healers, body workers and "new age" figures including Matthew Fox, Joan Borysenko and Deepak Chopra have all used his work to describe the dimensions of body, mind and spirit.

 

Grey's artwork has been exhibited worldwide, including Stux Gallery and the New Museum in NYC, the Grand Palais in Paris, the Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil, the Centro Culturale Zittele in Venice, Italy, University Galleries of the University of Illinois, and La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles. A major exhibition of Grey's work was held at the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art in the spring of 1999. Grey was featured in a television program about the brain, mind and creativity on the Discovery Channel. He has been a keynote speaker at the International Transpersonal Association and numerous Art and Healing conferences. Articles and reviews about Grey's work have appeared in art journals and several spiritual and new age magazines. Grey has been an instructor in Artistic Anatomy and Figure Sculpture for nine years at New York University, and also teaches courses in Visionary Art with his artist wife at The Open Center in New York City, Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado and Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York.

 

Alex' website is, oddly enough, at www.alexgrey.com.

[Aerogel]

Bem, diferente era este... muito à frente para o seu tempo e um assumido psicadélico. E português!!

 

----

 

 

Era uma vez um sonho de ser cantor...

 

Chamava-se António Joaquim Rodrigues Ribeiro(1), mas ficará conhecido na história da música portuguesa como António Variações(2).

 

Barbeiro de profissão e músico por devoção, consegue em pouco mais de um ano transformar-se num caso único de popularidade.

 

Na sua discografia(3) contam-se apenas um máxi-single e dois álbuns, editados entre 1982 e 1984. A morte(4) prematura aos 39 anos virá pôr termo à meteórica carreira de Variações, mas a sua obra permanece - e permanecerá decerto - bem viva na memória(5). Não apenas na dos seus admiradores, mas também na dos seus críticos mais ferozes. Porque António gerou paixões e ódios, mas nunca a indiferença(6).

 

Bibliografia Consultada

 

Autoria: Alexandra Gil

 

 

------

(1) Biografia

 

"Vou perguntar ao mais vidente se o meu futuro será sorridente" ("Linha - Vida" do LP "Anjo Da Guarda" - excerto)

 

António Joaquim Rodrigues Ribeiro nasce em Fiscal, pequena aldeia do concelho de Amares, Braga a 3 de Dezembro de 1944. O quinto dos dez filhos de Deolinda de Jesus e Jaime Ribeiro, António faz os seus estudos na escola local, ajudando no resto do tempo os pais no campo. Mas a paixão pela música demonstrada desde tenra idade fá-lo-á esquecer muitas vezes os trabalhos da lavoura em favor das romarias e folclore locais.

 

Aos 11 anos, terminada a instrução primária, experimenta o primeiro ofício em Caldelas. " Ia fazer quinquilharias, mas passado pouco tempo desistiu ", contará a mãe já em 1988, à Imprensa. Mal completa 12 anos abandona a terra natal rumo a Lisboa. Vem para ser marçano, mas acabará por trabalhar num escritório. A tropa fá-la em Angola, mas sem antes pedir à mãe que lhe acenda uma vela a Santo António para protecção. Regressa são e salvo. Mas logo volta a partir, desta feita para Londres, onde permanece um ano a lavar pratos num colégio.

 

 

Em 1976 regressa, de novo por pouco tempo. O próximo destino será Amesterdão, onde fica mais um ano e aprende o ofício de cabeleireiro.

 

Já em Lisboa, dedica-se de dia ao ofício, e à noite à sua paixão pela música, dando espectáculos com um grupo de músicos intitulado " Variações ". E começa então a ser notado pelo seu visual excêntrico e personalizado, com base nas cores e formas originais e em alguns elementos de adorno, como por exemplo os brincos.

 

Em 1978 apresenta uma maqueta com algumas músicas à editora Valentim de Carvalho e nesse ano assina contrato. Mas terá de esperar quatro anos para poder gravar, porque entretanto Mário Martins e Nuno Rodrigues insistem para que grave, respectivamente folclore ou pop.

 

Os contactos com profissionais do mundo da música, seus clientes na barbearia, abrir-lhe-ão, entretanto as portas da notoriedade.

 

Em Fevereiro de 1981 surge pela primeira vez na televisão, no "Passeio dos Alegres" de Júlio Isidro, que o convidará para algumas emissões da "Febre de Sábado da Manhã" na Rádio Comercial.

 

Em Julho de 1982, já sob o nome António Variações, edita o seu primeiro single, um duplo lado A com "Povo Que Lavas No Rio" - imortalizado por Amália Rodrigues - e "Estou Além", um inédito de sua autoria. Um ano depois sairá o primeiro LP- "Anjo Da Guarda"- que o transformará numa estrela popular à escala nacional.

 

Depois de inúmeros concertos na época estival, sobretudo em festas e romarias de aldeias e outras pequenas localidades, volta a entrar em estúdio. Entre 6 e 25 de Fevereiro de 1984 grava o segundo e último LP; "Dar E Receber".

 

Em Abril aparece pela última vez em público no programa televisivo "A Festa Continua" de Júlio Isidro. Será a única interpretação no pequeno ecrã das faixas do novo disco. Quando "Dar E Receber " é editado, semanas mais tarde, já António Variações se encontra internado no Hospital Pulido Valente devido a um problema brônquico-asmático. É já no hospital que ouvirá pela primeira vez na rádio as músicas de promoção do disco.

 

Debilitado pela doença que se agrava vertiginosamente, é transferido a pedido da família para a Clínica da Cruz Vermelha, onde virá a falecer a 13 de Junho.

 

 

 

(2) Porquê Variações?

 

Variações é o nome do grupo de músicos que acompanha António Rodrigues Ribeiro no início de carreira, ainda na noite lisboeta.

 

Quando em 1981 se estreia na televisão, António apresentar-se-á com essa banda sob a designação "António e Variações". Um ano mais tarde, quando edita o primeiro single, o cantor surge já como António Variações.

 

"Variações é uma palavra que sugere elasticidade, liberdade. E é exactamente isso que eu sou e que faço no campo da música. Aquilo que canto é heterogéneo. Não quero enveredar por um estilo. Não sou limitado. Tenho a preocupação de fazer coisas de vários estilos". (António Variações a "O País" - 14.04.84)

 

" O António Variações gosta de pôr as pessoas a cantar, gostava de não ser só um espectador. E tem vontade de ficar na História, nem que seja na história de uma parede de casa-de-banho". (António Variações ao "Sete" - 30-03.83)

 

 

 

(3) Os discos do Variações

 

O percurso discográfico de António Variações inicia-se em 1982, quatro anos após ter assinado o contrato com a editora. Lança então um single - duplo com "Povo Que Lavas No Rio" - clássico de Pedro Homem de Mello e Joaquim Campos, imortalizado pela voz de Amália Rodrigues- e um inédito de sua autoria, "Estou Além".

 

A nova roupagem que dá ao fado de Amália causa polémica, sendo mesmo acusado de sacrilégio. Mas pouco tempo depois será visto como o primeiro passo em direcção ao sucesso e o disco foi compreendido como uma sentida amostra da sua religiosa devoção à fadista. Passado um ano, edita "Anjo Da Guarda", o primeiro LP e dedica-o a Amália. O álbum resulta de um ano muito agitado de gravações. As sessões de estúdio têm no seu início a colaboração de Vitor Rua e Tóli César Machado, dos GNR, como arranjadores e produtores, mas logo são interrompidas pelos desentendimentos que levam à saída de Vitor Rua do grupo. Serão retomadas mais tarde sob a supervisão de José Moz Carrapa. O disco acabará assim por resultar dos cinco temas com Tóli e Rua a que se juntam "Estou Além" e os quatro temas orientados por Carrapa.

 

O álbum recebe os mais efusivos elogios da Imprensa que realça a inovação e originalidade do som, assim como a postura de Variações bem notória na fotografia de perfil na capa junto a um busto simbolizando Amália. A rádio e o público acabarão por eleger o cantor como um dos maiores nomes do momento. "O Corpo É Que Paga" e "É P´ra Amanhã" estarão entre os temas mais tocados do ano, sendo o último editado com single no Verão.

 

Em 1984, Variações grava o seu segundo e último álbum e dedica-o aos pais, à equipa de trabalho do disco, a todos os que gostassem de tocar com ele, aos vigaristas e a Fernando Pessoa. Chama-se "Dar E Receber" e contará com a participação de Pedro Ayres Magalhães e Carlos Maria Trindade - à época elementos dos Heróis do Mar - como responsáveis pela produção e direcção musical. Os cinco elementos dos Heróis do Mar constituirão a banda de estúdio que participa nas gravações.

 

E mais uma vez a estética está presente na capa. Desta feita, Variações surge de corpo inteiro envergando um maillot masculino e de cabelo roxo. Olha um espelho, no meio dumas árvores.

 

"Dar E Receber" é editado em Maio e é recebido entusiasticamente pelo público e crítica, na altura abalados com o preocupante estado de saúde do cantor.

 

Esta última dádiva de Variações irá ter em "Canção de Engate" um dos seus maiores sucessos.

 

 

 

(4) O Adeus do Variações

 

"Tenho pena de morrer, mas não medo. Tudo o que acaba me deprime. Mais pelo fim do que pelo acto em si." - palavras de António Variações à Imprensa, poucas semanas antes de morrer.

 

Em 1984, a SIDA era ainda considerada como "praga dos homossexuais" e raros seriam os casos diagnosticados em Portugal.

 

Em Junho, a comunicação social anunciava o grave estado de saúde de António Variações. Logo se levantam as primeiras suspeitas em relação ao problema brônquio asmático que levara ao seu internamento no hospital Pulido Valente no dia 18 de Maio e à sua transferência para a Clínica da Cruz Vermelha. "Aquele a mim nunca me enganou, está mesmo a ver-se que está com isso", podia ouvir-se um pouco por toda a cidade. Mas nem todos viraram as costas a António Variações. Na clínica, recebia a visita dos Heróis do Mar, companheiros do último disco editado já durante a sua hospitalização. Foi mesmo no hospital que ouviu uma das faixas na rádio, pela primeira e última vez.

 

No mês em esteve internado, António Variações emagreceu vinte quilos. Segundo palavras da irmã, mantivera-se lúcido sendo a tosse o que lhe provocava maior sofrimento, fazendo-o mesmo pedir para morrer.

 

E na madrugada de 13 de Junho, a morte levou o criador de "Estou Além". A polémica em torno da sua doença torna-se tema de destaque, não por preocupação com o cantor, mas por constituir para muitos o primeiro caso conhecido de SIDA em Portugal.

 

Broncopneumonia bilateral extensa seria a causa apontada para a morte do cantor, mas os cuidados extremos durante a autópsia e a selagem do caixão "por constituir perigo para a saúde pública" agravariam as suspeitas.

 

Ao velório na Basílica da Estrela acorreriam Amália, Maria da Fé, Lena D’Água e elementos dos Heróis do Mar. Mas a maioria seriam os jovens de liceu, as velhinhas, os colegas de profissão - barbeiros - que vinham assim despedir-se do seu ídolo.

 

Os restos mortais de Variações seriam depois transportados no dia 15 para o cemitério de Amares, onde se encontra sepultado.

 

As declarações pouco esclarecedoras dos médicos e os desmentidos mantidos até hoje pela família acabariam por encerrar a polémica.

 

Hoje me dia a SIDA é já olhada a uma outra luz e já não se considera ser o "castigo para homossexuais" de 1984. Se António Variações foi a sua primeira vítima declarada ou não é o que menos interessa. Interessa antes lembrar a descriminação e críticas de que foi alvo nos últimos tempos de vida.

 

 

 

(5) Recordando Variações

 

Queria ficar na história da música popular e conseguiu. Muitas foram e continuam a ser as homenagens prestadas a António Variações. Eis algumas das mais relevantes, que contribuem em larga escala, treze anos após a morte do cantor, para manter bem viva a sua obra.

 

1987 - Em Abril, os Delfins incluem no seu álbum de estreia "Libertação", uma versão de "Canção De Engate". É a primeira versão gravada de um original de Variações.

 

1988 - A EMI - Valentim de Carvalho reedita o máxi-single "Estou Além". "Anjo Da Guarda" é editado pela primeira vez em CD.

 

1989 - No quinto aniversário da morte de António Variações, a EMI - Valentim de Carvalho reedita, numa edição especial, a sua discografia. Em Julho, "Dar E Receber" é editado em CD. Em Novembro, Lena D`Água edita "Tu Aqui", álbum que inclui nove temas inéditos de Variações.

 

1993 - Para assinalar os nove anos passados sobre a morte de Variações, Júlio Isidro dedica-lhe uma das emissões do seu programa televisivo "Sons do Sol".

 

1994 - A EMI - Valentim de Carvalho reúne dez artistas em torno de dez temas de Variações e edita o tributo "Variações - As Canções De António".

 

1995 - As Amarguinhas incluem no seu CD de estreia uma versão de "Estou Além".

 

1996 - O projecto MDA inclui no seu álbum de estreia uma versão de "Estou Além" e outra de "Dar E Receber". No dia 1 de Dezembro, a RTP2 transmite um documentário sobre a vida e obra de Variações, da autoria de Maria João Rocha.

 

1997 - A EMI - Valentim de Carvalho reedita em CD - single " O Corpo É Que Paga " e a colectânea "O Melhor De António Variações".

 

 

 

(6) Os amigos de Variações

 

A pretensão de reunir neste projecto as palavras tanto dos admiradores e amigos de Variações como as dos seus críticos foi em parte gorada na medida em que apesar dos contactos estabelecidos e da investigação na Imprensa, não foi possível obter dos últimos,um único depoimento.

 

Restaram assim alguns excertos de entrevistas dadas à Imprensa por algumas figuras públicas que contactaram de perto com o cantor e também breves passagens de artigos que lhe foram dedicados postumamente.

 

Pedro Ayres de Magalhães

 

A única coisa que eu posso dizer, neste momento, é que a morte de António Variações é para mim, uma grande perda e um grande desgosto como amigo, e para a música popular representa o desaparecimento de uma das suas "pontas de lança". O António foi a única pessoa neste país que conseguiu ser popular sem deixar de se mostrar. Ele sempre falou de si. Quem ficou a perder foi, sobretudo, o país.- Pedro Ayres Magalhães à revista TV Top nº 173, no dia do funeral do cantor.

 

Vitor Rua

 

Trabalhar com o Variações era simultaneamente simples, entusiasmante e divertido. Quando entrava no estúdio para cantar, levava consigo o lado extraordinário de performer que tanto o caracterizou e fazia-o como se estivesse a actuar para um estádio cheio de gente. Para uma das suas músicas a única coisa que ele me disse foi que queria sentir a terra a tremer, como se a partitura fosse: toque uma música que faça tremer a terra. E era com indicações deste género que ele ia, a seu modo, dirigindo o trabalho. - Vitor Rua ao jornal Público de 11 de Janeiro de 1985.

 

António Macedo

 

A última vez que o vi não quis receber nada e deu-me um aperto de mão. Sentou-se á minha frente e almoçou silenciosamente em torno de uma garrafa de branco. Estava rodeado de companheiros, mas nada tinha para lhes dizer, nada tinha para ouvir. - Macedo, António, "Variações em torno do António" in revista Mais, Lisboa, nº 115, 22 de Junho de 1984, p.p. 53-55.

 

Manuela Gonzaga

 

Odeio ter que escrever tudo isto sobre ti, António Variações, porque é uma prosa de adeus, e era demasiado cedo e tinhas tanta coisa para nos dar... - Gonzaga, Manuela, "António Variações - A morte é uma viagem com os seus perigos" in revista TV Top, Lisboa, nº 173, 22 de Junho de 1984, p.34.

 

------

 

Fonte: http://www.citi.pt/cultura/musica/musicos/a_variacoes/

[bio_vrelle]

Aerogel Posted on Jul 12 2005, 03:06 PM

  Bem, diferente era este... muito à frente para o seu tempo e um assumido psicadélico. E português!!

 

sem duvidas um mestre eterno da musica portuga

 

grande homen sim senhor

[Rollins]

Aerogel Posted on Jul 12 2005, 03:06 PM

  Bem, diferente era este... muito à frente para o seu tempo e um assumido psicadélico. E português!!

 

sem duvidas um mestre eterno da musica portuga

 

grande homen sim senhor

FOI O MÁIORE!!! :hammer: :weed: :hammer:

[M&Ms]

Aconselho vivamente a verem o filme "Fierce Grace"! Pelos menos em mim, teve grande impacto, e fez-me pensar ainda mais na minha maneira de estar na vida, e de estar com os outros..e deu-me algumas "novas" prespectivas, de como encarar o rumo da vida, quando ele segue por caminhos que não nos favorecem muito...! Muito bom filme mesmo!

Tb já vi e adorei simplesmente, toca mesmo cá dentro a sensibilidade de Ram Dass mas sobretudo a forma como ele expressa a paz que adquiriu na sua prokura constante.

Deu-me um certo gozo perceber como ele interpreta a trombose que lhe sucedeu e como consegue transformar algo tão complikado em mais uma ferramenta para a expansão da consciência.

 

Fantastiko, extremamente bem conduzido o filme, sem aquele toque new agie de exoterismos baratos, um filme coerente e extremamente simples, assim com o Ram Dass...

 

 

 

 

 

Uber gostava muito de ver o Hoffman`s potion, o Paulo tem isso?

Se pudesses mandar isso c ele este FDS era mel...

 

 

Excelente topico

 

[zee]

Alguém me consegue dizer o titulo em português do filme "Fierce Grace"?

Grazzi

[uber]

Zee: Sinceramente acho que não ha versão portuguesa. Pelo menos nunca encontrei em lado nenhum, nem legendas para o divx.

 

Bem, cá vai mais um Senhor:

 

Dr. Shulgin

 

 

Alexander Shulgin, Sasha to his friends, lives with his wife, Ann, 30 minutes inland from the San Francisco Bay on a hillside dotted with valley oak, Monterey pine and hallucinogenic cactus. At 79, he stoops a little, but he is still well over six feet tall, with a mane of white hair, a matching beard and a wardrobe that runs toward sandals, slacks and short-sleeved shirts with vaguely ethnic patterns. He lives modestly, drawing income from a small stock portfolio supplemented by his Social Security and the rent that two phone companies pay him to put cell towers on his land. In many respects he might pass for a typical Contra Costa County retiree.

 

It was an acquaintance of Shulgin's named Humphry Osmond, a British psychiatrist and researcher into the effects of mescaline and LSD, who coined the word ''psychedelic'' in the late 1950's for a class of drugs that significantly alter one's perception of reality. Derived from Greek, the term translates as ''mind manifesting'' and is preferred by those who believe in the curative power of such chemicals. Skeptics tend to call them hallucinogens.

 

Shulgin is in the former camp. There's a story he likes to tell about the past 100 years: ''At the beginning of the 20th century, there were only two psychedelic compounds known to Western science: cannabis and mescaline. A little over 50 years later -- with LSD, psilocybin, psilocin, TMA, several compounds based on DMT and various other isomers -- the number was up to almost 20. By 2000, there were well over 200. So you see, the growth is exponential.'' When I asked him whether that meant that by 2050 we'll be up to 2,000, he smiled and said, ''The way it's building up now, we may have well over that number.''

 

The point is clear enough: the continuing explosion in options for chemical mind-manifestation is as natural as the passage of time. But what Shulgin's narrative leaves out is the fact that most of this supposedly inexorable diversification took place in a lab in his backyard. For 40 years, working in plain sight of the law and publishing his results, Shulgin has been a one-man psychopharmacological research sector. (Timothy Leary called him one of the century's most important scientists.) By Shulgin's own count, he has created nearly 200 psychedelic compounds, among them stimulants, depressants, aphrodisiacs, ''empathogens,'' convulsants, drugs that alter hearing, drugs that slow one's sense of time, drugs that speed it up, drugs that trigger violent outbursts, drugs that deaden emotion -- in short, a veritable lexicon of tactile and emotional experience. And in 1976, Shulgin fished an obscure chemical called MDMA out of the depths of the chemical literature and introduced it to the wider world, where it came to be known as Ecstasy.

 

In the small subculture that truly believes in better living through chemistry, Shulgin's oeuvre has made him an icon and a hero: part pioneer, part holy man, part connoisseur. As his supporters point out, his work places him in an old, and in many cultures venerable, tradition. Whether it's West African iboga ceremonies or Navajo peyote rituals, 60's LSD culture or the age-old cultivation of cannabis nearly everywhere on the planet it can grow, the pursuit and celebration of chemically-induced alternate realms of consciousness goes back beyond the dawn of recorded history and has proved impossible to fully suppress. Shulgin sees nothing strange about devoting his life to it. What's strange to him is that so few others see fit to do the same thing.

 

Most of the scientific community considers Shulgin at best a curiosity and at worst a menace. Now, however, near the end of his career, his faith in the potential of psychedelics has at least a chance at vindication. A little more than a month ago, the Food and Drug Administration approved a Harvard Medical School study looking at whether MDMA can alleviate the fear and anxiety of terminal cancer patients. And next month will mark a year since Michael Mithoefer, a psychiatrist in Charleston, S.C., started his study of Ecstasy-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. At the same time, with somewhat less attention, studies at the Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center and the University of Arizona, Tucson, have focused on the therapeutic potential of psilocybin (the active ingredient in ''magic mushrooms''). It's far from a revolution, but it is an opening, and as both scientist and advocate, Shulgin has helped create it. If -- and it's a big ''if'' -- the results of the studies are promising enough, it might bring something like legitimacy to the Shulgin pharmacopoeia.

 

"I've always been interested in the machinery of the mental process,'' Shulgin told me not long ago. He has also, from a very young age, loved playing with chemicals. As a lonely 16-year-old Harvard scholarship student soon to drop out and join the Navy, he studied organic chemistry. His interest in pharmacology dates to 1944, when a military nurse gave him some orange juice just before his surgery for a thumb infection. Convinced that the undissolved crystals at the bottom of the glass were a sedative, Shulgin fell unconscious, only to find upon waking that the substance had been sugar. It was a revelatory, tantalizing hint of the mind's odd strength.

 

When Shulgin had his first psychedelic experience in 1960, he was a young U.C. Berkeley biochemistry Ph.D. working at Dow Chemical. He had already been interested for several years in the chemistry of mescaline, the active ingredient in peyote, when one spring day a few friends offered to keep an eye on him while he tried it himself. He spent the afternoon enraptured by his surroundings. Most important, he later wrote, he realized that everything he saw and thought ''had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid. . . . I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability.''

 

Epiphanies don't come much grander than that, and Shulgin's interest in psychoactive drugs bloomed into an obsession. ''There was,'' he remembers thinking, ''this remarkably rich and unexplored area that I had to explore.'' Two years later, he was given his chance when he created Zectran, one of the world's first biodegradable insecticides. In return, Dow gave him its customary dollar for the patent and unlimited freedom to pursue his interests.

 

As Shulgin turned toward making psychedelics, Dow remained true to its word. When the company asked, he patented his compounds. When it didn't, Shulgin published his findings in places like Nature and The Journal of Organic Chemistry. Eventually, however, Dow decided that Shulgin's work wasn't something it wanted to endorse and asked that he not use the company address in his publications. He began to work out of a lab he had set up at home, eventually leaving Dow altogether to freelance as a consultant to research labs and hospitals.

 

All along he made drugs: 2,5-dimethoxy-4-ethoxyamphetamine, or MEM for short, was his Rosetta stone, a ''valuable and dramatic compound'' that opened the door to a whole class of drugs based on changes at the ''4 position'' of a molecule's central carbon ring. A compound he dubbed Aleph-1 gave him ''one of the most delicious blends of inflation, paranoia and selfishness that I have ever experienced.'' Another, Ariadne, was patented and tested under the name Dimoxamine as a drug for ''restoring motivation in senile geriatric patients.'' Still another, DIPT, created no visual hallucinations but distorted the user's sense of pitch.

 

Shulgin tested for activity by taking the chemicals himself. He would start many times below the active dose of a compound's closest analog and work his way up on alternate days. When he found something of interest, Ann, whom he married in 1981, would try it. If he thought further study was warranted, he would invite over his ''research group'' of six to eight close friends -- among them two psychologists and a fellow chemist -- and try the drugs out on them. In case of a truly dangerous reaction, Shulgin kept an anti-convulsant on hand. He used it twice, both times on himself.

 

Shulgin's pace has slowed recently -- the research group hardly meets anymore. Nevertheless, Ann figures that she's had more than 2,000 psychedelic experiences. Shulgin puts his own figure above 4,000. Asked if they had suffered any effects from their remarkable drug histories, they laughed. ''You mean negative effects?'' Ann said. In more than a dozen hours of conversation, her memory proved sharp. But Shulgin, while a nimble conversationalist, can have trouble with names -- of people and places, never chemicals. At one point, while explaining a mnemonic device he uses to remember world geography, he paused and asked me, ''Where's that place where Ann is from?'' (She was born in New Zealand.) He is, though, also nearing 80.

 

Once a Shulgin compound develops a reputation, it is almost invariably placed on the Drug Enforcement Agency's list of Schedule I drugs, those deemed to have no accepted medical use and the highest potential for abuse or addiction. It is therefore rather striking that Shulgin is not only still a free man, but also still at work. His own explanation is that, quite simply, ''I'm not doing anything illegal.'' For more than 20 years, until a government crackdown, he had a D.E.A.-issued Schedule I research license. And many of the drugs in his lab weren't illegal because they hadn't existed until he created them.

 

Shulgin's knack for befriending the right people hasn't hurt. A week after I visited him, he was headed to Sonoma County for the annual ''summer encampment'' of the Bohemian Club, an exclusive, secretive San Francisco-based men's club that has counted every Republican president since Herbert Hoover among its members.

 

For a long time, though, Shulgin's most helpful relationship was with the D.E.A. itself. The head of the D.E.A.'s Western Laboratory, Bob Sager, was one of his closest friends. Sager officiated at the Shulgins' wedding and, a year later, was married on Shulgin's lawn. Through Sager, the agency came to rely on Shulgin: he would give pharmacology talks to the agents, make drug samples for the forensic teams and serve as an expert witness -- though, he is quick to point out, he appeared much more frequently for the defense. He even wrote the definitive law-enforcement desk-reference work on controlled substances. In his office, Shulgin has several plaques awarded to him by the agency for his service. (Shulgin denies that this had anything to do with his being given his Schedule I license.)

 

Nevertheless, in the early 80's, Shulgin began having grim fantasies of the D.E.A. throwing him in jail, ransacking his lab and destroying all of his records. At the same time, he was finding it harder to get his work published: journals were either uninterested in or leery about human psychedelic research. He decided to make as much of what he knew public as quickly as possible. He and Ann started work on a book called ''PiHKAL'' (short for ''Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved,'' after a family of compounds particularly rich in psychoactivity), self-publishing it in 1991.

 

It is a curious hybrid work, divided into two sections. The first, ''The Love Story,'' is a thinly fictionalized account of Sasha's and Ann's comings of age, previous marriages, meeting, courtship (to which nearly 200 pages are devoted) and many drug experiences. The second, ''The Chemical Story,'' is not a story at all, but capsule descriptions of 179 phenethylamines. Each entry includes step-by-step instructions for synthesis, along with recommended dosages, duration of action and ''qualitative comments'' like the following, for 60 milligrams of something called 3C-E: ''Visuals very strong, insistent. Body discomfort remained very heavy for first hour. . . . 2nd hour on, bright colors, distinct shapes -- jewel-like -- with eyes closed. Suddenly it became clearly not anti-erotic. . . . Image of glass-walled apartment building in mid-desert. Exquisite sensitivity. Down by? midnight. Next morning, faint flickering lights on looking out windows.'' ''TiHKAL'' (''Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved''), self-published six years later, follows the same model.

 

To date, ''PiHKAL'' has sold more than 41,000 copies, a figure nearly unheard-of for a self-published book. It introduced Shulgin's work to a whole new audience and turned him into an underground celebrity. An organization called the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics has an online Ask Dr. Shulgin column that receives 200 questions a month. On independent drug-information Web sites like www.erowid.com, you can find the ''PiHKAL'' and ''TiHKAL'' entries for dozens of drugs, along with many anonymously posted accounts of Shulgin-style self-dosing drug experiments, some of them harrowing in their recklessness.

 

With all of these fellow travelers, some very bad experiences are inevitable. In 1967, a Shulgin compound called DOM enjoyed a brief vogue in Haight-Ashbury under the name STP, at doses several times larger than those at which Shulgin had found significant psychoactive effects, and emergency rooms saw a spike in the number of people coming in thinking they would never come down. And while the number of psychedelic-related deaths is orders of magnitude smaller than the number due to alcohol, prescription drugs or even over-the-counter painkillers, they do occur regularly. In October 2000, a 20-year-old man in Norman, Okla., died from taking 2C-T-7, a drug Shulgin describes in ''PiHKAL'' as ''good and friendly and wonderful.''

 

When I asked Shulgin whether he remembered the first time he heard that someone had died from one of his drugs, he said he did not: ''It would have struck me as being a sad event. And yet, at the same time, how many people die from aspirin? It's a small but real percentage.'' (The American Association of Poison Control Centers, whose numbers are not comprehensive, attributed 59 deaths to aspirin in 2003; most, though, were suicides.) Asked whether he could imagine a drug so addictive that it should be banned, he said no. With his fervent libertarianism -- he says the only appropriate restriction on drugs is one to prevent children from buying them -- he has inoculated himself against any sense of personal guilt.

 

Shulgin's special relationship with the D.E.A. ended two years after the publication of ''PiHKAL.'' According to Richard Meyer, spokesman for the agency's San Francisco Field Division: ''It is our opinion that those books are pretty much cookbooks on how to make illegal drugs. Agents tell me that in clandestine labs that they have raided, they have found copies of those books.'' In 1993, D.E.A. agents descended on Shulgin's farm, combed through the house and lab and carted off anything they thought might be an illicit substance. Shulgin was fined $25,000 for violations of the terms of his Schedule I license (donations from friends and admirers ended up covering the whole amount) and was asked to turn the license in.

 

To the extent that Shulgin is known to the wider world, it is as the godfather of Ecstasy: 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine, or MDMA, was originally patented in 1914 by Merck. The byproduct of a chemical synthesis, it was thought to have no use of its own and was promptly forgotten. But Shulgin resynthesized it in 1976 at the suggestion of a former student. (He has never found out how she heard about it.) Two years later, in a paper written with his friend and fellow chemist David Nichols, he was the first to publicly document its effect on humans: ''an easily controlled altered state of consciousness with emotional and sensual overtones.''

 

Unlike many of its subsequent users, Shulgin did not find his MDMA experience transformative. For him the effect was like a particularly lucid alcohol buzz; he called it his ''low-calorie martini.'' He was intrigued, though, by the drug's unique combination of intoxication, disinhibition and clarity. ''It didn't have the other visual and auditory imaginative things that you often get from psychedelics,'' he said. ''It opened up a person, both to other people and inner thoughts, but didn't necessarily color it with pretty colors and strange noises.'' He decided that it might be well suited for psychotherapy.

 

At the time, it was not such an unconventional idea. In the 50's and 60's, the use of LSD, psilocybin and mescaline in therapy was the subject of much mainstream scholarly debate. LSD was a particularly hot topic: more than a thousand papers were written on its use as an experimental treatment for alcoholism, depression and various neuroses in some 40,000 patients. One proponent was a psychotherapist and friend of Shulgin's named Leo Zeff. When Shulgin had him try MDMA in 1977, Zeff was so impressed that he came out of retirement to proselytize for it. Ann Shulgin remembers a speaker at Zeff's memorial service saying that Zeff had introduced the drug to ''about 4,000'' therapists.

 

In certain therapeutic circles, MDMA acquired a reputation as a wonder drug. Anecdotal accounts attested to its ability to induce in one session the sort of breakthroughs that normally took months or years of therapy. According to George Greer, a psychiatrist who in the early 80's conducted MDMA therapy sessions with 80 patients, ''Without exception, every therapist who I talked to or even heard of, every therapist who gave MDMA to a patient, was highly impressed by the results.''

 

But the drug was also showing up in nightclubs in Dallas and Los Angeles, and in 1986 the D.E.A. placed it in Schedule I. By the late 90's, household surveys showed millions of teenagers and college students using it, and in 2000, U.S. Customs officials seized nearly 10 million pills. Parents and public officials worried that a whole generation was consigning itself to a life of drug-induced depression and cognitive decay.

 

There is, in fact, little consensus about what MDMA does to your brain over the long run. Researchers generally agree on its immediate physiological effects: especially at higher doses, it can trigger sharp increases in muscle tension, heart rate and blood pressure. Hyperthermia, or raised body temperature, is a particular worry, along with the attendant risk of heatstroke or dehydration. MDMA also, at least temporarily, exhausts the brain's supply of serotonin (a neurochemical thought to play a role in memory and mood regulation). But as to the extent and duration of that depletion, and whether it has any measurable functional or behavioral consequences, there is fierce debate and surprisingly scarce data. Nationwide, fatality numbers are hard to come by, but a study by New York City's deputy chief medical examiner determined that of the 19,000 deaths from all causes reported to his office between January 1997 and June 2000, 2 were due solely to Ecstasy.

 

In the past couple of years, MDMA's opponents have backed off from some of their stronger claims. (In one particularly embarrassing instance, a study linking MDMA to Parkinson's disease was revealed to have instead been based on the use of methamphetamine, which is known to be much more neurotoxic.) Emboldened, a few psychiatrists are bringing MDMA back into the news in a role closer to the one Shulgin originally imagined for it.

 

With the F.D.A.'s approval of the Harvard cancer-patient study on Dec. 17, all that's still needed is a D.E.A. license for MDMA. John Halpern, the psychiatrist heading the study, anticipates that happening in the next couple of months. At the same time, he cautions against making too much of his ''small pilot study'': eight subjects undergoing a course of MDMA therapy, with another four receiving a placebo. The Charleston study is similarly modest, with 20 subjects.

 

Still, according to Mark A.R. Kleiman, director of the Drug Policy Analysis Program at U.C.L.A., ''there's obviously been a significant shift at the regulatory agencies and the Institutional Review Boards. There are studies being approved that wouldn't have been approved 10 years ago. And there are studies being proposed that wouldn't have been proposed 10 years ago.''

 

The theoretical basis for MDMA therapy varies a bit depending on whom you talk to. Greer says that by lowering patients' defenses, the drug allows them to face troubling, even repressed, memories. Charles Grob, the psychiatry professor running the U.C.L.A. psilocybin study (also with terminal cancer patients) and a longtime advocate of therapeutic MDMA research, focuses more on the ''empathic rapport'' catalyzed by MDMA. ''I don't know of any other compound that can achieve this to the degree that MDMA can,'' he said.

 

The medical community remains dubious. For Vivian Rakoff, emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, there is something familiar about the claims being made for psychedelics. ''The notion of the revelatory moment due to some drug or maneuver that will allow you to change your life has been around for a long time,'' he said. ''Every few years, something comes along that claims to be what Freud called the 'royal road to the unconscious.''' Steven Hyman, professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, put it this way: ''If you asked me to place a bet, I would be skeptical. In general, one worries that insights gained under states of disinhibition or mild euphoria or different cognitive states with illusions may seem strange and distant from the vantage of our ordinary life.'' Even so, both Hyman and Rakoff say that research should be allowed to proceed.

 

Shulgin has been credited with jump-starting today's therapeutic research, but he prefers to play down his role. While heartened by the MDMA studies and happy to play psychedelic elder statesman, he insists that he is not a healer or a shaman but a researcher. Asked why he does what he does, he replies, ''I'm curious!'' He is most animated when describing the feeling that accompanies the discovery of a new compound, no matter what its properties. Sometimes he compares the moment to that of artistic creation (''The pleasure of composing a new painting or piece of music''), and sometimes it sounds more like a close encounter of the third kind (''You're meeting something you don't know, and it's meeting something it doesn't know. And so you have this exchange of properties and ideas'').

 

Shulgin's lab is in the concrete-block foundation of what used to be a small cabin, set into a ridge a few dozen yards from his house along a narrow brick path. On the door is a laminated sign that reads, ''This is a research facility that is known to and authorized by the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office, all San Francisco D.E.A. Personnel and the State and Federal E.P.A. Authorities.'' Underneath are phone numbers for the relevant official at each agency. He posted it after the sheriff's department and the D.E.A. raided the farm a second time a few years ago. (They later apologized.)

 

Shulgin gave me my tour late one afternoon. A weak light came in through the small, dusty windows. The smell -- synthetic and organic at once, like a burning tire doused in urine -- took some getting used to. Bulbous flasks were clipped into place above a counter crowded with glassware shaped like finds from the Burgess Shale. ''Everything you need is right here,'' Shulgin declared, pulling out drawer after clattering drawer of test tubes, beakers, plastic tubing and syringes. At the far end of the room, beside the fireplace, was a small chalkboard covered with the traces of his brainstorming -- antennaed pentagons and hexagons ringed with N's, H's, C's and O's. Shulgin picked a short bit of scrap wood off the counter. He occasionally used it, he explained, to tear down the spider webs that festooned the rafters. ''But the main problem is the squirrels,'' he said, pointing to where he had put up sheet metal to keep them out. ''It doesn't look like the labs you see in the movies, but you get a chemist out here, and he'll say, 'Oh, my God, I'd love to have a lab like this.'''

 

Of course, in a way, it's exactly the sort of lab that you see in the movies -- they're just movies in which the scientists wear frock coats, turn into monsters and abduct wan women in nightgowns. There's an undeniable romance to what Shulgin does. As he stood there with his spider-web stick, describing what it's like to be in the lab late on a cold night with the fire blazing and Rachmaninoff on the radio, it seemed to me that he realized it.

 

He might best be described not as a scientist in the modern sense but as a different type -- what Aldous Huxley, the novelist turned psychedelic philosopher, once described as a ''naturalist of the mind,'' a ''collector of psychological specimens'' whose ''primary concern was to make a census, to catch, kill, stuff and describe as many kinds of beasts as he could lay his hands on.'' Shulgin has on occasion run PET scans to see where in the brain some of his drugs go. He has offered theories as to mechanisms of action or, as with MDMA, even suggested an application for a drug. But his primary purpose, as he sees it, is not to worry about things like that -- much less about the political and social consequences of his creations. His job is to be first and then push on somewhere new. What to do with the widening wake of chemicals he leaves behind is for the rest of us to figure out.

 

 

Não é uma biografia, mas é o melhor texto que consegui arranjar sobre a sua vida/trabalho.

 

Fonte: http://mdma.net/alexander-shulgin/dr-ecstasy.html

[Xinodromodosonodromo]

http://deoxy.org/mckenna.htm

 

Vale muito a pena virem visitar este site

[Xinodromodosonodromo]

[]Terence McKenna (1946-2000) has been studying the ontological foundations of Shamanism and the Ethnopharmacology of A transformation for the past quarter century. An innovative theoretician and spellbinding orator, Terence has emerged as a powerful voice for the psychedelic movement and the emergent societal tendency he calls The Archaic Revival. Poetically dispensing enlightened social criticism and new theories of the fractal dynamics of time, Terence deobfuscates many aspects of the visionary lexicon, and then some. As Artist Alex Grey suggests, "In the twilight of human history, McKenna's prescription for salvation is just so crazy it might work."

[Aerogel]

Ufa... custou ler isto tudo uber... mas valeu a pena. Já tinhamos discutido sobre isto tudo varias vezes, mas agora tenho umas ideias mais claras sobre o assunto!

 

Obrigado pelo texto!

[moleirinho]

e este!

 

 

http://www.shamansoftheamazon.com/shamans_moreinfo.htm

[uber]

Grande documentário este! Por acaso já tive oportunidade de o ver! Fabulástico!

[Psilocibino]

Boas

 

Apos ver um topico tao interessante, nao resisti em contribuir um pouco!

 

Apresento-vos o candidato Vieira, uma das lendas vivas do psicaledismo portugues!

Pintor, cantor, escritor, filosofo, tarado sexual e politico, este senhor continua a surpreender em todos os projectos onde esta comprometido.

O humor negro, a ironia, o sarcasmo, a satira, o deboche... ementas diarias da mente do candidato.

Bandas como "Ena Pa 2000", "Irmaos Catita" ou "Coracoes de Atum", todas excelentemente bem servidas pela voz do animal, sao dos raros exemplos em como o psicadelismo esta vivo e de boa saude na musica portguesa!

 

Nao aconselhavel a mentes mais sensiveis!

 

Nao esquecer que este senhor pretende apresentar-se como candidato nas proximas elericoes presidenciais!

Por isso, ja sabes em quem votar...

 

 

 

 

 

 

MANUEL JOÃO VIEIRA

 

Manuel João Vieira has been at the forefront of the Lisbon underground art scene since the early 80's as a painter, actor and leader of 3 bands - Ena Pá 2000, Irmãos Catita and Coracões de Atum. With a huge cult following, he continues to draw attention to his projects through his unique brand of dada-like showmanship and corrosive sense of humor. Anarchy, kitsch and pornography are all parts of the Vieira formula and of its immense creative output. Vieira is Duchamp, Guevarra, Cantiflas and Zappa all rolled into one. By his own admission Vieira is "annoying, real annoying".

A celebrated visual artist, Manuel João Vieira co-founded the Homeostético Group in 1983. Provocative and irreverent, the Hoemeostéticos produced wildly versatile work steeped in such varied influences as pop music, comic strips and film animation. Manuel João's own work, which he has continued to exhibit throughout his career, is dominated by fantastic and dream-like qualities that give way to both melancholy and the burlesque. In his paintings, space, objects, people, animals and nature often mutate into grotesque elements that populate a strange, enchanted world. Philosophy and politics have always played an important role within Vieira's artistic context. So what's left for a man with such an eclectic foundation to accomplish? To run for President, of course.

 

 

In 2001, Vieira officially announced his candidacy for the Presidency of Portugal. What ensued was a hilarious adventure to collect the necessary signatures to put him on the ballots. Stump speeches, TV appearances, wide press coverage and campaign promises such as "a Ferrari for every citizen" have brought Vieira into the spotlight, much to the dismay of the political establishment. Although he was unsuccessful in his bid, a book - I'll only give up if I'm elected - documents the effort in all its glorious surreality. Vieira is running for office again in 2006.

 

 

www.vieira2006.com

 

http://www.arcofilms.com/vieira/

 

 

Por incrivel que pareca, nao consegui encontrar nenhuma biografia em portugues!

[CHESTBONZ]

Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa

 

[uber]

Richard Evans Schultes

 

 

Richard Evans Schultes, botanist, explorer, and teacher, focused his attention and that of his contemporaries on the uses of plants by indigenous peoples of the Amazon, the chemistry of compounds produced by those plants, and the vulnerability of ecosystems and peoples of tropical South America.

 

Schultes was born in Boston on January 12, 1915; he grew up and was schooled in East Boston. As a child he took an interest in plants but, upon entering Harvard in 1933, he considered his future to be in medicine. This direction changed after he enrolled in Biology 104, "Plants and Human Affairs," taught by Oakes Ames. Mentored by Ames, he became an assistant in the Botanical Museum and wrote a senior thesis on the medicinal and hallucinogenic properties of the peyote cactus as used by Indians in Oklahoma. Here he gained first hand experience with peyote and developed his botanical and anthropological skills. Later he generalized, that, "...it would have been an unpardonable rudeness to refuse them [hallucinogens] when the Indians were kind enough to offer them during a ceremony."

 

In 1937 as a Harvard Ph.D. student with Ames, Schultes investigated the flora of Northeastern Oaxaca inspired by conquest reports of an hallucinogenic mushroom and a vine with psychoactive seeds. He collected both of these - a mushroom and a morning glory - and thus bridged the gap between pre-Colombian ritual uses of plants and 20th century practices. With Ph.D. completed in 1941 he received a fellowship from the National Research Council to study the plants used to make curare. In the Amazon curare-tipped arrows were potent weapons; curare, a plant derivative, was known in Western medicine but the specifics of its formulation were unclear. Schultes confirmed that curare was derived from plants in the genera Strychnos and Chondrodendron but discovered that it might be made from one plant species or, more usually and more effectively, from many different species.

 

The attack on Pearl Harbor briefly brought him out of the Amazon and put his botanical knowledge to patriotic use. With British and Dutch rubber plantations in Southeast Asia under Japanese control, serious rubber shortages resulted. Rubber plants, species of the genus Hevea, are native to the Amazon; these wild plants were the principle source of latex prior to establishment of high-yielding plantations in Asia. Securing wild sources of rubber became a national priority. In early 1942, as a field agent for the governmental Rubber Development Corporation, Schultes began work on rubber and concurrently undertook research on Amazonian ethnobotany, under a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. His task was to locate Hevea trees and to instruct local people on extraction and processing methods. Seeds he collected contributed to breeding programs and allowed high yielding and sturdy plants to be developed. His work with Hevea continued in South America and Asia for the rest of his active career.

 

During his many years in South America, Schultes traced the journeys of Richard Spruce, 19th century naturalist, whose account of travel in South America he had read as a child. In his explorations Schultes suffered hunger, beriberi, repeated bouts of malaria, and near drowning. He lived with the Indians for extended periods, eating their food and learning the names they used for the plants that were a part of their daily lives. He understood two Amazonian languages, those of the Witoto and Makuna, but language did not seem to be essential for communication in his jungle world. He believed that tribal chiefs were gentlemen, bemoaned their westernization and earned from them the title of "white witch doctor." In reflecting on his experiences he wrote, "The ethnobotanical researcher...must realize that far from being a superior individual, he - the civilized man - is in many respects far inferior...."

 

With the support of Paul Mangelsdorf, Professor and Director of the Harvard Botanical Museum, Schultes was appointed Curator of the Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium in 1953; from 1958 to 1967 he was Curator of Ethnobotany in the Museum; from 1967 to 1970 he was Executive Director of the Botanical Museum and was its Director from 1970 to his retirement in 1985. He was named Professor of Biology in 1970, the Paul C. Magelsdorf Professor of Natural History in 1973 and the Edward C. Jeffrey Professor of Biology in 1980. He taught Biology 104, his distinctive version of plants and human affairs, for 27 years first with Mangelsdorf and then alone. A generation of economic and ethnobotanists are his legacy.

 

Schultes was a colorful character with many contradictions - despite his Germanic surname he was an anglophile; he could infuriate his colleagues with some of his views yet do so cordially and charmingly; he taught about hallucinogens but did not embrace the drug culture of the 1960s; he was a proper Bostonian whose work influenced Aldous Huxley, William Burroughs and Carlos Castaneda. When Burroughs described a psychedelic trip as an earth-shaking metaphysical experience, Schultes responded, "That's funny, Bill, all I saw was colors." He was loyal to Harvard; to his church, Kings Chapel in Boston; and to his beloved family.

 

In 1959, after a long courtship, he married Dorothy Crawford McNeil, a professional singer. One of his biographers noted, "She knew nothing of science; he was a musical ignoramus. Politically, she was liberal; he was ... a conservative of the first order." Their son Richard Evans II and twins Alexandra Ames and Neil Parker soon followed. In their large home in Melrose the Schulteses welcomed and sustained students and visitors from near and far.

 

Richard Evans Schultes died in Boston on April 10, 2001. He had authored more than 400 papers about rubber, hallucinogens, Richard Spruce, and the flora of northern South America, particularly the orchids. In eight books he dealt with the chemistry and culture of hallucinogens. He received many honors, awards and international distinctions. Sector Schultes, a 2.2 million hectare conservation tract in Colombia, was but one of many tributes paid him by the Colombian government. The annual Lindberg Award captures his spirit and contributions in citing him as a "... link to the great natural historians of the 19th century and to a distant era, when the rainforests stood immense, inviolable, a green mantle stretching across an entire continent."

 

Among Schultes' more recent books were:

 

Potions, Poisons, & Panaceas: An Ethnobotanical Study of Montserrat, by Richard E. Schultes, David E. Brussell, and J. P. Theurillat (Southern Illinois University Press, 1997)

 

The Sacred Mushroom Seeker: Tributes to R. Gordon Wasson, edited by Thomas J. Riedlinger, Albert Hofmann, Terence McKenna, Joan Halifax, Peter Furst, and Richard E. Schultes (Inner Traditions International, Limited)

 

Ethnobotany:The Evolution of a Discipline, by Richard E. Schultes and Siri V. Von Reis (Timber Press, Incorporated, 1995)

 

The Glass Flowers at Harvard, by William A. Davis and Richard E. Schultes (Botanical Museum of Harvard University, 1992)

 

The Healing Forest: Medicinal & Toxic Plants of the Northwest Amazonia, by Richard E. Schultes, and Robert F. Raffauf (Timber Press, Incorporated, 1990

 

 

 

 

Fontes : http://www.rbg.ca/cbcn/en/news/archive/obit_schultes.html

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/09.18/39-mm.html

[psynando]

Baba Ram Dass

 

Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) was born in 1931. His father, George, a lawyer, helped to found Brandeis University and was President of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. Ram Dass studied psychology, specializing in human motivation and personality development. He received an M.A. from Wesleyan and a Ph.D. from Stanford. He then served on the psychology faculties at Stanford and the University of California, and from 1958 to 1963 taught and researched in the Department of Social Relations and the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. During this period he co-authored (with Sears and Rau) the book Identification and Child Rearing, published by Stanford University Press.

In 1961, while at Harvard, Ram Dass' explorations of human consciousness led him, in collaboration with Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, and others, to pursue intensive research with psilocybin, LSD-25, and other psychedelic chemicals. Out of this research came two books:The Psychedelic Experience (co-authored by Leary and Metzner, and based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, published by University Books); and LSD (with Sidney Cohen and Lawrence Schiller, published by New American Library). Because of the controversial nature of this research, Ram Dass was dismissed from Harvard in 1963.

 

Ram Dass continued his research under the auspices of a private foundation until 1967. In that year he traveled to India, where he met his Guru (spiritual teacher), Neem Karoli Baba. Ram Dass studied yoga and meditation, and received the name Ram Dass, which means "servant of God." Since 1968, he has pursued a variety of spiritual practices, including guru kripa; devotional yoga focused on the Hindu spiritual figure Hanuman; meditation in the Theravadin, Mahayana Tibetan, and Zen Buddhist schools; karma yoga; and Sufi and Jewish studies.

 

.

 

Alpert continued his research under the auspices of a private foundation until 1967, when he traveled to India. In India, he met his guru, or spiritual teacher, Neem Karoli Baba, affectionately known as Maharaji. Maharaji gave Ram Dass his name, which means "servant of God." Since 1968, Ram Dass has pursued a variety of spiritual methods and practices from various ancient wisdom traditions, including devotional yoga focused on the Hindu spiritual figure Hanuman; meditation in the Theravadin, Mahayana Tibetan and Zen Buddhist schools; karma yoga; and Sufi and Jewish studies. He also practices service to others as a spiritual path.

 

In 1974, Ram Dass created the Hanuman Foundation, which developed the Prison Ashram Project, designed to help prison inmates grow spiritually during their incarceration, and the Dying Project, conceived as a spiritual support structure for conscious and dying. These projects are now directed under independent auspices. The Ram Dass Tape Library Foundation serves as the organizing vehicle for Ram Dass' teachings, and for the distribution of his books and tapes.

 

Ram Dass' interests include the support of psychedelic research, international development, environmental awareness and political action. He has written a number of spiritual books including Be Here Now, published in 1971 (over one million copies sold, 37th printing, Crown Publishers); The Only Dance There Is (Anchor/ Doubleday); Grist for the Mill (with Stephen Levine, Celestial Arts); Journey of Awakening (Bantam Books); Miracle of Love: Stories of Neem Karoli Baba (Hanuman Foundation); How Can I Help? (with Paul Gorman, Knopf); Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service (with Mirabai Bush, Bell Tower Press) and Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying (Riverhead Books). His latest book, One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life was published by Bell Tower Press in September, 2002. In September, 2004, Harmony will be publishing Ram Dass' next book, entitled Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita.

 

In 1996, Ram Dass began to develop plans for a talk radio program called “Here and Now with Ram Dass.” Seven pilot programs were aired in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, and Ram Dass planned to launch the show on a nationwide basis the following year. But in February 1997, he experienced a stroke which left him with expressive aphasia and partial paralysis. The after effects of the stroke have made it necessary for him to postpone plans for his radio program, but he has been able to resume his other teaching commitments and is using the experience to explore the spiritual dimensions of suffering and the nature of the aging process.

 

Ram Dass is a co-founder and advisory board member of the Seva Foundation, an international service organization. He works with the Social Venture Network, an organization of businesses seeking to bring social consciousness to business practices. He continues to teach about the nature of consciousness, and about service as a spiritual path.

 

Fonte da biografia: http://www.ramdasstapes.org/biography.htm

 

Tentei encontrar em a biografia em português mas não encontrei, mas penso ser acessivel! O meu inglês não é lá muito bom e percebo minimamente...hehhee

 

Aconselho vivamente a verem o filme "Fierce Grace"! Pelos menos em mim, teve grande impacto, e fez-me pensar ainda mais na minha maneira de estar na vida, e de estar com os outros..e deu-me algumas "novas" prespectivas, de como encarar o rumo da vida, quando ele segue por caminhos que não nos favorecem muito...! Muito bom filme mesmo!

 

Deixo aqui a pagina do Maharaj-ji, para darem uma vista de olhos : http://www.neemkarolibaba.com/

 

 

 

muito bom

[eternal life]