Ram Dass, known and loved all over the world as the self-described "HinJew" incarnation of Dr. Richard Alpert, gave the following talk at The Celbration Of the Birth Centenary of Aldous Huxley. This is an abridged version of the three-hour talk which ended with an ecstatic Dance of Shiva on stage with Laura Huxley and Tai Ji Master Chungliang Al Huang while the section of Island was read aloud.

Cyberia is a book meant to provide a guided tour through the vision I call Cyberia. It is an opportunity to take part in, or at least catch up with, a movement that could be reshaping reality. The cyberian explorers we will meet in the next chapters have been depicted with all their human optimism, brilliance, and frailty. Like the first pioneers of any new world, they suffer from the same fears, frustrations, and failures as those who stay behind and watch from the safety of familiarity. These are not media personalities but human beings, developing their own coping mechanisms for survival on the edges of reality.

Whether or not we are destined for a wholesale leap into the next dimension, there are many people who believe that history as we know it is coming to a close. It is more than likely that the aesthetics, inventions, and attitudes of the cyberians will become as difficult to ignore as the automatic teller machine and MTV. We all must cope, in one way or another, with the passage of time. It behooves us to grok Cyberia.

LSD and Aldous Huxley’s Island: Setting Sail for a Better Country by Bruce Eisner is a 40 Minute presentation given on January 15, 2006 in Basel, Switzerand