SCI-FI FRI ~ Dr. John C. Lilly & Altered States

After watching a DVD of the 1980 movie Altered States, an adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky's only novel, I wanted to know more about the character who inspired the storyline: Dr John C. Lilly. His sensory deprivation research conducted in isolation tanks under the influence of psychoactive drugs like ketamine and LSD fuelled the novel and the movie. The film starred William Hurt, and was directed by Ken Russell. Ken Russell is known for his outlandish treatment of subjects, and after seeing what he'd made of Altered States, Chayefsky declined to put his name to it, so was credited under a pseudonym. We found the movie thought provoking, but rather overdone for the horror factor - what else would one expect from Ken Russell though?

Dr. John C. Lilly was known for his work on interspecies communication, especially with dolphins, as well as the development of an isolation tank, and research into altered states of consciousness. He was inspiration for the main characters in two movies, The Day of the Dolphin as well as Altered States.

Dr. Lilly, throughout a long career made significant contributions to psychology, brain research, computer theory, medicine, ethics, and interspecies communication. He was on the cutting edge of neuroscience, first to map the brain of chimpanzees. His brain mapping with acoustic, motor, and travelling waves predated today's state of the art by fifty years. He conducted research into electronic brain stimulation, dreams, schizophrenia, and punishment and reward systems, later published in several psychiatric journals.

While working at the National Institutes of Health on isolation, solitude and confinement, he invented the floatation tank, a tool to maximally isolate sensory stimulation to better understand what the mind does without exterior influence. NASA and other organizations have used his research. After ten years of tank research he was given the responsibility to experiment with LSD in the tank. The results of that study were reported and published. Dr. Lilly considered this documentation his most original work: "In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits"

Dr. John C. Lilly died on September 30th, 2001 .

Born January 6th, 1915, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. TopSynergy.com has his time of birth at 7:30. I'm not sure how reliable that is but will use it here....perhaps they calculated sunrise for January 6 in Minnesota, in which case rising sign and Moon degree would not be reliable, so I'll proceed with caution!



A stellium (tight cluster of planets) in Capricorn reflects his pull towards science. Capricorn relates strongly to science and all things structured. What differentiated Dr. Lilly from many other scientists, however, was his will to experiment with what some would call mysticism or less politely, New Agey drug-ridden issues. Uranus represents New Age, left-fieldy stuff, a willingness to contemplate those outer areas - areas "where the buses don't run". Uranus here is right at home in its modern sign of rulership, Aquarius.....and if this time of birth is anywhere near accurate it was in Dr. Lilly's first house of self. Uranus is in mildly helpful semi-sextile to the Capricorn cluster - and let's not forget that Aquarius and Capricorn share Saturn as ruler in traditional astrology, which makes for an easier blending of these particular neighbouring signs (or so I always think).

Additional Aquarius back-up comes from Jupiter, this planet also makes harmonious trine to Saturn (Capricorn's ruler and Aquarius's trad. ruler) in Gemini.

I reckon that little lot ties up his gravitation towards outlandish scientific experimentation.

"Mad as Hell"...Paddy Chayefsky...Network

"We have entered the madhouse without noticing" ...Those words were written by film critic Roger Ebert in 2000 in his review of the 1976 movie Network (DVD version). He was referring to the progression of the movie's plot-line, but ten years on, in 2010 Mr. Ebert's words ring true for real life as does so much of Network's fictional storyline, 36years on. It'd be too depressing to enumerate examples of current madness, I feel sure a passing reader would not need any prompting from me to come up with a string of 'em!

I saw Network for the first time this week. Had I seen it in the 1970s, back in the UK, I doubt very much that I'd have appreciated its satire, its messages, its dark humour - or even understood them. Now, in 2010, in the USA - I do!

If the movie's theme was appropriate in 1976, it's a hundred times moreso now. Screenwriter Paddy Chayefski was, all unknowlingly, a prophet - more reliable than Nostradamus! Chayefski (29 January 1923) had Sun and Mercury in the first decan of Aquarius, with that sign's ruler, Uranus the rebel planet, in semi-sextile to them from adjacent sign Pisces, and agressive Mars in sextile from it's rulership Aries. Click on chart to enlarge. It's set for 12 noon as no time of birth is available. Ascendant will not be accurate and Moon would be in either early Cancer or late Gemini. Gemini is a very good bet for a writer.
With that line-up it's not surprising that Chayefski excelled when writing hard-hitting, no-holds-barred dialogue.

At Wikipedia there's a quote from drama critic Matt Gottfried on Chayefski's personality - clip from it:

".......He was an intellectual competitor, always spoiling for a political argument or a philosophical argument, or any exchange over any issue, changing sides for the fun of the fray. A liberal, he was annoyed by liberals; a proud Jew, he wouldn't let anyone call him a "Jewish writer." In short, the life of the mind was a participant sport for Paddy Chayefsky."

Sounds as though he was a good match for his astrology! Chayefsky's novel Altered States was also adapted as a movie, directed by Ken Russell, with whom Chayefsky is said to have had disputes. He diassociated himself from the film but remains credited under his real first and middle name, Sidney Aaron. At Wiki's Altered States page Film critic Janet Maslin wrote:

It's easy to guess why he and Mr. Russell didn't see eye to eye. The direction, without being mocking or campy, treats outlandish material so matter-of-factly that it often has a facetious ring. The screenplay, on the other hand, cries out to be taken seriously, as it addresses, with no particular sagacity, the death of God and the origins of man.

Hmmmm - I shall seek out a DVD of that one!

Some quotes from his screenwriting for Network: Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch, during his live studio broadcast of the Network News Hour

"We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true. But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube. You eat like the tube. You raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube. This is mass madness -- you maniacs! In God's name you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion.
"So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I am speaking to you now. Turn them off!"

This from a scene where Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) the President of CCA talks to Howard Beale, a washed-up newsman. CCA is a multi-national conglomerate that has taken over UBS the TV company the movie portrays:

"We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel."

And the speech containing that most famous quote of all~ Howard Beale:

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad."
[shouting] "You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,
[shouting]I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"