If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen." - Meaning and context.">
QuotesCosmos
p. 26 (This statement was redacted from later editions.)
“

If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.

— Alan Watts

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen." in the context of "p. 26 (This statement was redacted from later editions.)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Alan Watts" (Quotes, The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness (1962)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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#Alan Watts#psychedelic#instruments#microscopes#permanently#telescopes#telephones#microscope#biologist#message#simply#phone
Alan Watts

About Alan Watts

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English philosopher, writer, speaker, and expert in comparative religion.