R.D. Laing Remembered

Abstract

This article conveys some of my thoughts, feelings, and experiences with R. D. Laing. Although I met him only briefly and did not know him personally, I sympathize greatly with his concerns.

Once people believed that the world was flat; however, science has proved that the world is round.... Now in spite of that, one still believes that life is flat and goes from birth to death. However, life is probably round and much superior in extension and capacity to the hemisphere known to us at present. Future generations will probably enlighten us on this so interesting subject; and then science itself might arrive-willy-nilly-at conclusions... relating to the other half of existence.

-VINCENT VAN GOGH (quoted in Graetz, 1963, p. 71)

We respect the voyager, the explorer, the climber, the space-man. It makes far more sense to me as a valid project-in-deed, as a desperately and urgently required project for our time-to explore the inner space and time of consciousness.

-R.D. LAING (1967, p. 127)

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