The center of the cyclone

What Hacker News says

1. LiquixNov 2024
   an interesting aside: when asked about his inspirations Ecco's developer Ed Annunziata said, "No, I never took LSD, but I did read a lot from John C. Lilly". Lilly is known for his pioneering work in the fields of animal intelligence, ketamine psychotherapy, isolation tanks, and consciousness exploration.

   The name "Ecco" is a reference to Lilly's ECCO (Earth Coincidence Control Office), a supernatural/extraterrestrial base which John posited existed on the other side of the moon to coordinate all earthly "coincidences". He was also one of the first to recognize how intelligent dolphins were and became obsessed with figuring out how to communicate with them, going as far as flooding half of his house in the Carribeans to cohabitate. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I'd highly recommend his autobiography The Center of the Cyclone if any of this is intriguing, he's a fascinating guy

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2. delbelNov 2017
   Center of the Cyclone by Dr. John C Lilly
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3. cnpApr 2017
   The one you really need to read by him is "The Center of the Cyclone" ;) It is truly, truly incredible. This guy was a real-deal scientist.

   I first discovered him through reading this https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/the-ketamine-secrets-of-s... and then went on to read every one of his books except for his last, which I want to save for the right time. This guy has had a profound effect on my life and I cant recommend his work highly enough.

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4. dwarmanSep 2013
   Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming" - linked lists, state machines.

   Carlos Castenada's Don Juan series (yes, I know it was fiction) - "one has no choice but to believe. What matters is what you believe".

   John C. Lilly's "Center of the Cyclone".

   These three, all around early-mid 70's, ended up moving me from the UK to Los Angeles. Strangely, each adds a different understanding to the others. Together, I guess it just makes me a bit strange. But it works.

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5. PaulHouleNov 2025
   I almost saw this movie last night

   https://thefilmstage.com/john-lilly-and-the-earth-coincidenc...

   but we had a visitor at home and enough to deal with. I read Lilly's books like

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Center_of_the_Cyclone

   and they were a bit of a hoot as he nearly killed himself multiple times injecting LSD and then testified that LSD was perfectly safe. I've known a few people, all male, who took LSD and developed a sort of "messiah complex" where they felt not a general spiritual "sacrament" experience but rather the opposite and some kind of hypertrophy of narcissism like the 'False Self' that Kohut warns about.

   The article mentions 2-C-T-2 which I got in Europe which I understand was the closest people got to a commercially viable psychedelic in that it has a nice stimulant effect (easy walk from the German border to Děčín) and very nice visuals but seems to have little cosmic element so you are sitting on the toilet and feeling like a constipated sinner and that's about it.

   Myself I don't have a lot of interest in LSD and company these days because for a while every time I take it it makes me aware of how I have many more nerve endings in my gut than I have on my skin so I feel turned inside out which isn't quite a "bad trip" but isn't very good either. Best thing that happened the last time was I laid down in the leaf litter and watched a pair of snakes having sex but I later picked four ticks off myself.

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