IR Final Blog Post

 Summary:Kesey appears in court and his lawyers successfully convince the judge to let him post bail. He is still accused of other charges in San Francisco, but the lawyers get him off there, too. Kesey is back on the street after only five days in the criminal justice system. His status of the leader in the LSD world suffers, because people think he has abandoned principles to stay out of jail.
Many of the old Pranksters who drifted away once Babbs took over return to San Francisco to partake in the Graduation. Plans for the Graduation fall apart, but it is held in the Warehouse anyway on Halloween. Kesey expects a power struggle to take place between returning members and himself over who is the leader of the LSD world. Kesey, his family and a Prankster named Ram Rod take the bus to his home town, Springfield, Oregon. The other Pranksters scatter around the country and to Mexico. Kesey gets off easy on a third felony count by pleading no contest to a lesser charge.
Symbols:The court system and the system of leadership in the LSD world, both have similarities in that you are judged by your peers by a certain standard and if they are not met you could very easily lose your place if it holds some form of power.
Events: The graduation, Kesey' trials.
Themes:An alternate reality. The whole book is really in some way a jump between realities for Kesey and the Pranksters. With their experiments with LSD and other hallucinogens, they put themselves in a  euphoric like state a majority of the time and after coming down are forced back into the world which we consider to be the real and have to face the harsh judgment of others.
Connections: I can connect to this through the ideas of alternate realities, I have always thought of the idea of there being some form of different now. There could be many different ways to find it but Kesey and the Pranksters seemed to have found a short cut through LSD.

This is a picture of 9 drawings made through out the time one artist was on LSD. This was done for a government experiment. Its clear to see how the ideas of alternate reality can come up.

IR Blog Post 3 cont.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5d4wWGK4Ig

This is a video with research on LSD, talking about what it does, and how it affects different human minds

IR Blog Post 3

Some people react very negatively toward Kesey and The Acid Tests. Owsley thinks that Kesey is dangerous and talks as if he is about to cut off the Pranksters' LSD supply. Richard Alpert, a man who had given up his career as an academic psychologist, believes that the actions of Kesey and the Pranksters seriously threaten the movement. Many others in the movement expect the Pranksters to suddenly do something so outrageous that the movement will be killed at any moment. The police watch closely, but because LSD is not yet illegal, they can take no actions against Kesey and crew.
Symbols: Crazy actions by the Pranksters, LSD
Themes: preserving a cause through self sacrifice
Connections: I can see how the Pranksters and Kesey are slowly getting off course and its similar to how many ideals of a group work, once one radical causes an upset an entire movement is finished.

This is a picture of random tabs of LSD, tabs are the way LSD is generally used.

RAFT Peru 3-4-1-2

Role:You
Audience:You
Format:Letter
Topic: T-T T-S T-W

Dear self,

There are a number of things that I could connect this section to. Another text I could connect it to, is The Heights of Machu Picchu by Pablo Neruda. This poem talks about similar themes that Ernesto slowly begins to realize as he travels through South America that the people have to live with the world and each other. A text to self is that I got to go on a much smaller version of this kind of trip but I was not able to gain as much inspiration as Ernesto. A text to world, people have to really get out and travel to really understand what the lower people of the countries go through to survive and that we all have to do our part if we want to help bring about change in the world.