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Getting High: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the Dream of Flight
'We are all born flightless, every one . After so many thousands of years each of us still drops into the world smooth-skinned and featherless.'
Why have we never been content to keep our feet on the ground?
In the 1960s this desire to get high exploded with the LSD counterculture and the Apollo missions. In this unique and dazzling book, acclaimed author Kester Brewin (MUTINY / AFTER MAGIC) explores the history of the human quest for transcendence, and how, following a family tragedy, it blighted his own life.
Drawing on a huge cast of characters from the Montgolfier brothers to Renaissance artists, Hells Angels, astronauts, The Beatles, Gonzo journalists and dreaming hippies, GETTING HIGH is a wild trip into the ancient dream of flight, soaring through shamanic ritual, enlightenment science and punching a hole in what we think the 1960s was all about.
Interwoven in all of this is Brewin's own story. Growing up in a mining village in Yorkshire, his father was the local vicar, the man tasked with lifting this subterranean community each Sunday and offer it a vision of the above. But this pressure to open heaven has terrible consequences for the family, and a tragic illness sends each of them flying.
Skilfully linking ancient history, the story of the 1960s and his own battles with the yearning to 'get high,' this is an important and timely book with an urgent message about religion, the promises of technology, and our need to keep our feet on the ground.
235 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 19, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 11, 2016
“If I come across as disillusioned, it’s because I am: the illusion has been destroyed.”
- Kester Brewin.
I wrestled with what to say in this piece, because Kester’s book can't be reviewed so much as witnessed; it doesn’t ask for an assessment, but rather calls for a response. In comparison to the standard radical theological fare, this reads more like a diary than a textbook, and is all the more powerful for it.
Taking us on drive-by of the various enthusiasms which have had us by the throat in the last fifty-years-or-so, from the fervor around the power of LSD, to surrounding the television in rapt attention as the moon landing took place, to the prophets now proclaiming everlasting life if we can just upload our consciousness to the cloud, Brewin systematically dissects our longing for anything which might allow us to transcend and lift away from these bags of meat we wake up to each morning. The end result of this journey is a position of disillusionment, at least with respect to what is being proffered as any new solution to the human problem.
It’s not so much that we don’t like being human; that we have been human for millennia and decided that somehow it’s not for us. It’s that we haven’t yet given ourselves over to our rootedness here on the Earth, and allowed that fact to do its work on us. We never tried being human in the first place.
If the aim of psychoanalysis is to help the analysand realise that the Big Other doesn’t exist, then perhaps a project of Radical Theology is to help shine a light on the Big Other in the first place. As each Big Other is recognised as impotent, it is continually displaced and reinstates itself elsewhere. Kester deftly weaves this story of society in the 1960’s through today with his own story of constantly seeking salvation from himself and the space(s) he found himself in. And I suppose this is where radical theology, which (broadly) takes the non-existence of the Big Other as a starting point, finds itself with some traction; its claim is that any attempt to lift away, to flee into one technology or another, whether material or spiritual, is doomed to fail.
Radical theology is for the nothings and nobodies, those who find themselves subtracted from the systems that once gave their lives meaning. It is for the shit of the world, for those who have been chewed up, digested, and flushed. It is for those who have been thoroughly disillusioned, and Kester shows through his own journey and experiences, that perhaps this isn’t the worst that could happen.
Forsake your gods; all of them.
Return to where you are.
Put your feet down, here, and don’t lift away.
As I’m sitting here writing, I wonder whether there is a future for this project, because it’s a hard sell. It’s a hard sell because at every turn we are being asked, commanded even, to worship one god or another. And we obey, because this worship is sold to us as a form of enjoyment; but it only leaves us hungry and confused. Kester is calling for us to take this hunger and confusion and channel it toward, perhaps for the first time, embracing, rather than escaping, our humanity.
But, how?
- Kester Brewin.
I wrestled with what to say in this piece, because Kester’s book can't be reviewed so much as witnessed; it doesn’t ask for an assessment, but rather calls for a response. In comparison to the standard radical theological fare, this reads more like a diary than a textbook, and is all the more powerful for it.
Taking us on drive-by of the various enthusiasms which have had us by the throat in the last fifty-years-or-so, from the fervor around the power of LSD, to surrounding the television in rapt attention as the moon landing took place, to the prophets now proclaiming everlasting life if we can just upload our consciousness to the cloud, Brewin systematically dissects our longing for anything which might allow us to transcend and lift away from these bags of meat we wake up to each morning. The end result of this journey is a position of disillusionment, at least with respect to what is being proffered as any new solution to the human problem.
It’s not so much that we don’t like being human; that we have been human for millennia and decided that somehow it’s not for us. It’s that we haven’t yet given ourselves over to our rootedness here on the Earth, and allowed that fact to do its work on us. We never tried being human in the first place.
If the aim of psychoanalysis is to help the analysand realise that the Big Other doesn’t exist, then perhaps a project of Radical Theology is to help shine a light on the Big Other in the first place. As each Big Other is recognised as impotent, it is continually displaced and reinstates itself elsewhere. Kester deftly weaves this story of society in the 1960’s through today with his own story of constantly seeking salvation from himself and the space(s) he found himself in. And I suppose this is where radical theology, which (broadly) takes the non-existence of the Big Other as a starting point, finds itself with some traction; its claim is that any attempt to lift away, to flee into one technology or another, whether material or spiritual, is doomed to fail.
Radical theology is for the nothings and nobodies, those who find themselves subtracted from the systems that once gave their lives meaning. It is for the shit of the world, for those who have been chewed up, digested, and flushed. It is for those who have been thoroughly disillusioned, and Kester shows through his own journey and experiences, that perhaps this isn’t the worst that could happen.
Forsake your gods; all of them.
Return to where you are.
Put your feet down, here, and don’t lift away.
As I’m sitting here writing, I wonder whether there is a future for this project, because it’s a hard sell. It’s a hard sell because at every turn we are being asked, commanded even, to worship one god or another. And we obey, because this worship is sold to us as a form of enjoyment; but it only leaves us hungry and confused. Kester is calling for us to take this hunger and confusion and channel it toward, perhaps for the first time, embracing, rather than escaping, our humanity.
But, how?
January 9, 2017
There are many ways we humans have tried to reach beyond our condition towards the heavens. Yet, our quest to become gods, (i.e. get high) has always failed. Kester Brewin documents how this has occurred from the 1960s to today. He focuses mainly on this period because of his own life's narrative. He expands this narrative by intertwining other historical high-getting moments. He does a wonderful job. Most of our existential problems have come from this quest to become gods. Brewin has learned that it is important to embrace the ground, even our graves. I learned much about where our culture, technology, and politics have come from.
I can go with him almost all of the way. "Getting-high" closes down our existence. Embracing our creatureliness and finitude is a more honest and life-giving posture. It allows for us to live within this joyous-tragedy that is our lives.
Yet, I cannot share in Brewin's mode of hope. He finds a 'permanence' or 'rest' in loving others around him. Cheers! But this becomes merely trying to better the world for the next generation. He hopes they will be more adjusted than the previous one. It is a fairly small hope. I think this comes from his inability to embrace a greater view of the resurrection. His faith stops at the death of Christ. He understands what it means for a god to humbly plunge himself into the dirt. The resurrection, however, is a mystery to him. The cruxfication and the resurrection remain symbolizing two different approaches. He fails to see how the resurrection is enshadowed by the crucifixion, combining the two. This leads to a greater hope, while we remain-- and will remain-- dust.
His hope also leans on unexamined, or at least unexplained, views of the good. He seems to leave unquestioned Liberalism's view of the good. Power structures are historically oppressive. (Yes, most of the time.) We should work to cope with life. Coping then becomes the greatest good. It is like he had a great run up to something really good, but couldn't quite get beyond the normal pessimism and settling of our time. He--as we all are--are still learning. I don't have the answers either.
I, further, think he falsely narrows religion into a mode of getting high. There are many examples of religious expression that reject "getting high". C.S. Lewis equated knowledge and religion against magic and technology. The former category is a passive receiving, a waiting for the eternal in the muck of the world. The other category is a means of getting high. Magic and technology suffer from the sin of Simon Magus. There are many expressions of religion that act like the former category. Brewin only dwells on the moralistic and charasmatic expressions of faith of his past. I agree these modes can trap one into either depression--anger towards the self--or "getting high".
All and all. A good read!
I can go with him almost all of the way. "Getting-high" closes down our existence. Embracing our creatureliness and finitude is a more honest and life-giving posture. It allows for us to live within this joyous-tragedy that is our lives.
Yet, I cannot share in Brewin's mode of hope. He finds a 'permanence' or 'rest' in loving others around him. Cheers! But this becomes merely trying to better the world for the next generation. He hopes they will be more adjusted than the previous one. It is a fairly small hope. I think this comes from his inability to embrace a greater view of the resurrection. His faith stops at the death of Christ. He understands what it means for a god to humbly plunge himself into the dirt. The resurrection, however, is a mystery to him. The cruxfication and the resurrection remain symbolizing two different approaches. He fails to see how the resurrection is enshadowed by the crucifixion, combining the two. This leads to a greater hope, while we remain-- and will remain-- dust.
His hope also leans on unexamined, or at least unexplained, views of the good. He seems to leave unquestioned Liberalism's view of the good. Power structures are historically oppressive. (Yes, most of the time.) We should work to cope with life. Coping then becomes the greatest good. It is like he had a great run up to something really good, but couldn't quite get beyond the normal pessimism and settling of our time. He--as we all are--are still learning. I don't have the answers either.
I, further, think he falsely narrows religion into a mode of getting high. There are many examples of religious expression that reject "getting high". C.S. Lewis equated knowledge and religion against magic and technology. The former category is a passive receiving, a waiting for the eternal in the muck of the world. The other category is a means of getting high. Magic and technology suffer from the sin of Simon Magus. There are many expressions of religion that act like the former category. Brewin only dwells on the moralistic and charasmatic expressions of faith of his past. I agree these modes can trap one into either depression--anger towards the self--or "getting high".
All and all. A good read!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews