JOHN LILLY & THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE (2025)

Date: Sunday, April 5, 4 pm

Venue: Philosophical Research Society
3910 Los Feliz Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Tickets: $14.64 including online fees (select April 5)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/john-lilly-the-earth-coincidence-control-office-2025-tickets-1984910736445

Michael Almereyda & Courtney Stephens' fascinating experimental doc about the psychonautic scientist who tried to communicate with dolphins
Like a pod of dolphins leaping harmoniously through the waves, the SoCal tour of JOHN LILLY AND THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE arrives April 2–5 through a collaboration between Oscilloscope, 7th House at The Philosophical Research Society, Brain Dead Studios, and Ojai Playhouse.

Alongside the documentary, 7th House and Brain Dead present two films shaped by his work: Mike Nichols’s DAY OF THE DOLPHIN (Saturday, 4/4 at Brain Dead Studios) and Ken Russell’s ALTERED STATES (Sunday, 4/5 at The Philosophical Research Society). Together, these films chart the strange and fascinating cultural wake of Lilly’s quest to understand the mind, the ocean, and the hidden systems that might connect them both.

7th House is proud to present JOHN LILLY AND THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE (2025), Courtney Stephens and **Michael Almereyda'**s fascinating documentary about the infamous psychonautic scientist whose experiments with LSD, sensory deprivation, and dolphin communication define an era of boundary pushing, experimental research of consciousness. We'will welcome co-writer/director Courtney Stephens in person for a sure-to-be captivating Q&A (and more special additions to be announced!)

From the deep end of the psychedelic age, replete with isolation tanks, LSD research, and interspecies communication — JOHN LILLY AND THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE tells the mind-bending story of John C. Lilly, the man who tried to map consciousness itself.

John Cunningham Lilly, M.D. (1915–2001) forged a singular and often perilous career through some of the most adventurous scientific experiments of the 20th century. His work unfolded across the shifting landscapes of Cold War research, the LSD-charged counterculture, and the ecological awakenings of the 1970s. Lilly sought, as one historian put it, “to get his hands on the steering wheel of consciousness” — a pursuit that grew ever more entangled with psychedelics and mysticism, and which ultimately carried him beyond the bounds of conventional science. A neuroscientist turned cosmic explorer, Lilly invented the sensory deprivation tank (his boundary-pushing work with LSD and sensory isolation inspired Ken Russell’s Altered States*)* and became one of the first to seriously investigate communication with dolphins, establishing his own laboratories in Miami and on the island of St. Thomas. In one now-notorious experiment, he paired a young female researcher with a male dolphin in a partially flooded house — a study that would ripple through popular culture and inspire The Day of the Dolphin. Once hailed as a visionary, later dismissed as a heretic, Lilly became a cult figure whose theories of reality would echo through countercultural circles and beyond.

Narrated by Chloë Sevigny and featuring reflections from figures such as Alejandro Jodorowsky, John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office dives deep into the enigma of Lilly’s life and legacy. Directors Michael Almereyda (Nadja, William Eggleston in the Real World) and Courtney Stephens (Invention, The American Sector) weave together rare archival footage, recorded experiments, and fragments of cultural ephemera to illuminate a mind forever pushing at the edge between science and revelation.

Part portrait, part séance for a lost era, the film traces Lilly’s transformation from respected researcher to countercultural oracle to maligned “crackpot”, capturing the sweep of his ideas and the mythic arc of his public persona. Revisiting a time when the frontiers of consciousness, technology, and human potential still felt infinite, it poses the same question that haunted Lilly himself: how far can we go — and what might we find — when we peer beyond the boundaries of the mind?

Dirs. Michael Almereyda and Courtney Stephens, 2025, 89 mins, United States, English, Unrated, Digital.