From "Michael Pollan Drops Acid — and Comes Back From His Trip Convinced," a NYT review of Michael Pollan's new book "HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND/What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence."
Apparently, the well-known writer broke the law to use the drugs that he's writing about, and I'm glad he did. I think human beings have a right to access substances that relate so strongly to the spiritual experience (unless the detrimental effects are well-established and serious).
ADDED: According to the reviewer (Tom Bissell), "nothing in Pollan’s book argues for the recreational use or abuse of psychedelic drugs." Who knows what Pollan thinks? But what he's arguing for is "psychedelic-aided therapy, properly conducted by trained professionals — what Pollan calls White-Coat Shamanism."
That may work (like medical marijuana) to loosen up public opinion, with the secret, unstated goal of authorizing "recreational" use. I'm putting "recreational" in quotes because I want access to the spiritual experience of LSD, and "recreational" seems to refer to shallow fun and nothing deep at all.
I'd use religious freedom arguments, and religion is not "recreation" (and please don't take that as a cue to launch into a sermon that begins with the observation that "recreation" could be "re-creation," blah blah blah). The word diminishes the experience.
I'd talk about freedom of thought and autonomy over one's mind and body and "the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."
I've talked about this quite a few times on this blog. In January 2015:
The question is what drugs, delusions, illusions, and visualizations should be in the array of choices available to individuals who are suffering? But once we get that far, why do we have to be suffering? If we're all free to have our own religion — true, semi-true, false, or ridiculous — why can't we all have our entheogens?In April 2016, based on WaPo's "LSD could make you smarter, happier and healthier. Should we all try it?," I said:
Note the quick jump from "mystical experience" to "therapeutic outcomes." Disrespect for religion is an undercurrent to this discussion, which assumes the legal use would entail the assistance of medical professionals. The article quotes drug-policy expert Mark Kleiman, who "emphasizes the importance of containing the experience, both during the trip, for the purposes of safety, and afterward, 'so it’s not merely a one-off mystical experience, but actually something you could build a life around.'"And whenever I read about the importance of the guidance of medical personnel, I think of this wonderful woman, submitting to a physician-assisted LSD trip in the 1950s (previously blogged here):
You can't build your life around a religious experience?
The doctor, attempting guidance, asks "Is it all one?" And she, from the spiritual realm, delivers the crushing, liberated response: "It would be all one if you weren't here."
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93 comments:
Like athletes taking steroids. It’s not transcendence. It’s cheating.
NPR's story on ketamine - pretty amazing:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/06/04/615671405/from-chaos-to-calm-a-life-changed-by-ketamine
A mind is a terrible thing to lose.
Paul Schmidt, in a philosophy dept. religion class in the early 60s, said that you can tell a religious experience from a drug induced experience by no hangover.
Empiricism rescues religion.
A half hitnif acid for the light and sound show, a full hit for ego dispersion.
Anything that keeps you out of our hair.
Many LSD or psilocybin trips... begin with an ordeal that can feel scarily similar to dissolving, or even dying.
And how does the person know what dissolving or dying feel like, so that they could make such a comparison?
I can certainly believe that they give the impression of dissolving or dying. I just don't think you can say they feel scarily similar to something when you don't know what that something feels like.
The detrimental effects are well established and serious. That’s why the stuff was banned after a period of use in psychiatry. It makes some people lose their minds permanently.
Right Arm! Farmed Out, DUDETTE!!!!
As for Mood Altering Compounds and Religion, n'importe quoi. There is entire Veda (the Soma Veda) devoted to processing and consuming magic mushrooms or our local indigenous folks used MACs in controlled quantities. Or, consumption of vast quantities of mead among the Norse, or ganja among the mystical Shivites in India. Ergot in grain silos in the moyen ages.
The fourth chapter of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali lists five ways to samadhi, one of them being MACs.
At issue is the cultural matrix of the person taking the MAC. MAC consumers usually travel in groups for validation and augmenting their individual experiences with others. As for the issue of hangovers, this is usually a problem of the producer who can cut corners with a dash of meth, sort of like the ancient practice of adding gravel to rice to increase the weight.
Naw, tripping is bar none the best high (best taken infrequently) AND the reshuffling of the MANAS is very beneficial for the soul.
Vive the League of Spiritual Discovery.
"I think human beings have a right to access substances that relate so strongly to the spiritual experience (unless the detrimental effects are well-established and serious)."
Althouse momentarily takes off her lucid, lawyerly, logical thinking cap to lapse into loose, lazy, Leftwing, legerdemain.
Where in the US Constitution or federal statutes is this "right" found, pray tell?
It may be fun to drop acid, it may help unlock the creative juices of Mr. Pollan, it may, generically, be a great boon to humanity, and help stuffy NYT readers get laid. But there is no "right" to it.
Classic lawyerly mistake - conflating X as a "good idea" with a having a right to do X.
It seems we just finished pushing Opioids and Benzos as miracle drugs with no side effects. I just don't buy all this "spirituality" of psychedelics, and I don't believe there aren't going to be long-term problems with it.
"Like athletes taking steroids. It’s not transcendence. It’s cheating."
There is no game.
And if your mind is a game — no games! — then you have freedom of conscience and you can decide to cheat. Some people might say that believing in God is cheating in the spiritual game. Why is music and incense permitted in churches? Cheating!!! The question of what is cheating and what is the game are all in reference only to one individual's mind and that individual is sovereign and gets to make all the rules.
Perhaps Roseanne should have said she dropped acid rather than took Ambien.
Valerie Jarret as a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes was just what she saw on her trip.
"Paul Schmidt, in a philosophy dept. religion class in the early 60s, said that you can tell a religious experience from a drug induced experience by no hangover."
That's wrong in both directions but I'm sure the class (his minions) laughed at the professor's humor.
There seems to be an unstated assumption here, that there is something called "spiritual" that is different and better than things that are "non-spiritual" and that the things put into the spiritual box deserve special protection.
Maybe that's baked into the Constitution if "religion" in the First Amendment includes "spirituality." And maybe that accords with people's intuitions. But I find it hard to draw a logical line between the two (spiritual and non-spiritual).
“The question of what is cheating and what is the game are all in reference only to one individual's mind and that individual is sovereign and gets to make all the rules.”
Unless it involves baking cakes.
The woman reminds me of Susan Hayward.
"Where in the US Constitution or federal statutes is this "right" found, pray tell?"
The Constitution enumerates the powers of the government and constrains them. Beyond that we are free. Your idea that the individual needs permission has it backwards. The government needs permission.
But I am only stating a philosophical and psychological opinion about what we are entitled to as individuals. Based on that, I would argue that the statutes should be changed. I am not using LSD until it is legal. I'm not saying I can do this and then argue that in the U.S. legal system I have rights that would be a defense if I were criminally prosecuted. I'm not that bold and I don't need to be to say what I've said.
And my post does link to a case that interprets constitutional due process in a way that I would rely on if I had to make a legal argument. I would also argue freedom of conscience.
“Paul Schmidt, in a philosophy dept. religion class in the early 60s, said that you can tell a religious experience from a drug induced experience by no hangover.”
The state will need clear definitions of “religious experience” or the state as currently constituted will be put out of business.
"There seems to be an unstated assumption here, that there is something called "spiritual" that is different and better than things that are "non-spiritual" and that the things put into the spiritual box deserve special protection."
Not a special box, just an approach I prefer to the medical one Pollan is using. In the end, I would also value fun. When it comes to speech and freedom of thought, there's no line between deep and shallow. People with stupid, frivolous thoughts have just as much right to freedom as weighty philosophers.
If you find this interesting, Ezra Klein's interview of Pollan (May 14 Ezra Klein Show podcast) is worth an hour and a half of your time. You might even give it a second listen.
"the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."
What if one’s definition includes gunning down all the kids in school who question your concept?
I find it funny that there are people who are contemptuous of religion and belief in God yet believe in something else as a substitute.
It seems that it comes down to this: Is there something beyond ourself and what we see and experience that is called supranatural. Not supernatural, but supranatural.
If that boundary exists, then we should be tolerant of individuals practicing anything in a sincere attempt to move beyond it.
That's why I laugh at atheists who believe in the Gaia hypothesis.
As for LSD, it's the same as alcohol. It destroys a small percentage of the population, to whom one is not enough and there's no such thing as too many. And you won't know what'll happen until you open that door.
Althouse wrote...
The question is what drugs, delusions, illusions, and visualizations should be in the array of choices available to individuals who are suffering? But once we get that far, why do we have to be suffering?
Alternatively, we are all suffering.
People with stupid, frivolous thoughts have just as much right to freedom as weighty philosophers.
Thank you! We appreciate your support.
When the correct people do it it's clinical, therapeutic, beautiful, and should be celebrated.
When the incorrect people do it it's recreational, harmful, ugly, and must be punished (for the incorrect people's own good, obviously).
What's new?
This the way of the 1960s. About 1964, it became accepted that it was a terrible thing to live a life without hallucinogenic drugs. That siren song plays on. Mind altering for fun. But there remains a remnant who never fell for it.
The Word Made Flesh came to tell us that Spiritual Progress is measured by outpourings of charitable love and by dying to self. We are made to be in relationship. Drug induced transcendence is just another in a never ending stream of counterfeit promises of enlightenment. “Ye shall be as gods.”
I took lsd when I was 18. First time was the best. I was with my closest friends. I though it gave me a sense of the transience? and poignancy? of life. I looked at my best friend across the reflecting point at PCC, and thought how much I loved her, but how we would all soon enough fly apart. We did of course.
Soon I left the best job I'd ever have, with fedgov, go to Haight Ashbury then into the music business and finally ended up in Montana.
I can't say whether that was a good thing or not. It seems rather disordered now. But oh yeah, je ne regrette pas and all that.
Carol
Ann Althouse said...
There is no game.
Good answer.
Bill Peschel said...
I find it funny that there are people who are contemptuous of religion and belief in God yet believe in something else as a substitute.
I'm contemptuous of religion and belief in gods.
It seems that it comes down to this: Is there something beyond ourself and what we see and experience that is called supranatural. Not supernatural, but supranatural.
No, it doesn't come down to that. You seem to think everyone believes in spirits and ghosts and shit like that.
As for LSD, it's the same as alcohol.
Actually it's not at all like alcohol, including the fact that the addiction potential is approximately zero.
That's why I laugh at atheists who believe in the Gaia hypothesis.
I laugh at narrow-minded superstitious fools who spew nonsense.
"Is it all one?" And she, from the spiritual realm, delivers the crushing, liberated response: "It would be all one if you weren't here."
The very definition of "harshing her mellow"
That's wrong in both directions but I'm sure the class (his minions) laughed at the professor's humor.
Go after the idea not the person.
"Your idea that the individual needs permission has it backwards. The government needs permission."
No, you have it backwards, and you misconstrue my idea. I don't think the individual needs permission, and I do agree the government needs permission. However, the government obtained permission to criminalize the sale and use of LSD by passing a law through the elected representatives.
You say the law should be changed. Great, have at it. Nothing wrong with that. Claiming, though, that there is some "right" to use LSD - that emerges not from a textual legal source, but from the befogged brain of an advocate -- is the problem.
Leftwing lawyers make up "rights" they want to see enshrined into law and then hornswoggle like-minded fuzzy Leftwing judges to do the enshrining. We've seen that movie before.
To be intellectually honest, just say you want to legalize LSD, but there is no "right" to use it, and remove the issue from the judicial realm, into the political/democratic realm where it belongs.
By the way, as an aside, LSD was introduced into the Hippie era through the universities by the CIA to fuck with their lives and minds. (See, MK/Ultra and Leary, Timothy.)
The 14th Amendment was written by Radical Republicans to overturn the Supreme Court decision of Dred Scott and allow Black people to be citizens of the United States. For nearly 100 years, that was all it did.
Now we are told that the 14th Amendment also created rights to birthright citizenship, homosexual behavior, abortion and the recreational use of drugs banned by the government.
It is absurd to state that the writers of the 14th Amendment intended to create any of these new rights. There is no historical record to suggest this, and these behaviors were illegal at the time the amendment was written, and stayed so for nearly 100 years. There is no way that a simple clear reading of the words themselves created these rights.
The words "privacy", "abortion", "homosexual" or "drugs" do not appear in the text, or the debates over, the 14th Amendment.
The only way you get to these new rights is by ignoring the intent of the writers and the clear meaning of the words in an effort to create these new rights. Ignoring the intent of the writers and ignoring the clear meaning of the text negates the whole purpose of having a written constitution.
"The detrimental effects are well established and serious. That’s why the stuff was banned after a period of use in psychiatry. It makes some people lose their minds permanently."
It was banned and made illegal due to typical law enforcement and government scare stories, just as marijuana had been decades earlier.
"unless the detrimental effects are well-established and serious"
There's the rub.
This presupposes some halfway serious effort to "establish" and assess effects, which requires controlled experiments over a number of years examining a variety of possible outcomes.
It also presupposes some legitimate process for deciding what is "detrimental"--involving, in the US of A, not just the claims of individuals to have some unenumerated "right" but also the deliberations of the people's representatives who will be asked to pay for the just ever so slightly detrimental consequences to users and their associates.
And what are you gonna do if research shows "serious detrimental effects" after legalization --say, if pot studies show long-term impact on the health of potheads' babies?
"It seems that it comes down to this: Is there something beyond ourself and what we see and experience that is called supranatural. Not supernatural, but supranatural."
Okay, you got me to look up the 2 prefixes. I used the OED:
supra- "Forming adjectives and nouns denoting a thing which is situated over, above, higher than, or (less commonly) upon another."
super- "Forming adjectives and nouns denoting a thing which is situated over, above, higher than, or (less commonly) upon another, and verbs expressing this relation."
The only difference I see is that "super-" works with verbs as well as adjectives and nouns.
I know you've got a distinction in your head, and your head is your domain, but....
"inter-" and "intra-" are different, but I wouldn't from that infer a parallel difference between "super-" and "supra-"
The question of where God is (if He exists) is not something that can be answered and used to make governmental policy? Is God inside us or out there in the universe or beyond? I can't imagine the government picking an answer and imposing it on us. Not in America anyway.
Is God inside us or out there in the universe or beyond? I can't imagine the government picking an answer and imposing it on us. Not in America anyway.
Sure you can...you've done it in this post. The government has clearly decided that God is inside us when you use the justification of: "the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."
God (or Gods) define existence, of meaning, the universe and the mystery of human life. They do this through religion and religious texts. That is their whole purpose. If we have these "rights" as individuals then clearly God must be inside us.
“What the hell are you getting so upset about?' [Yossarian] asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrive amusement. 'I thought you didn't believe in God.'
I don't,' she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. 'But the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make Him to be.'
Yossarian laughed and turned her arms loose. 'Let's have a little more religious freedom between us,' he proposed obligingly. 'You don't believe in the God you want to, and I won't believe in the God I want to . Is that a deal?”
Suppose big pharma bought out a drug that slowed the progression of rheumatoid arthritis, but also suppose that that drug had as many deleterious side effects as LSD or marijuana. How long before the lawyers suing that pharma company could become one with the pharma company.......Can anyone speculate how an odorless, tasteless drug that caused attractive women to lose their inhibitions might somehow be used for non-religious purposes?
If we have these "rights" as individuals then clearly God must be inside us.
Is the wind moving or is the flag moving?
No. It is the mind that is moving.
We aren't as individual as some want to think.
This is a pernicious idea.
We are a social species, and everything happens in a social context, including religion, or maybe especially religion. Your genuine transcendental experience, should you have one, is not meant for you. These things are like the visions at Fatima. If yours is, its not some message from the divine, but an illusion cast by the enemy.
What, the devil can't make you think you have touched God?
I've never understood the desire to "trip". So that's my disclosure of bias- I simply have no interest in partaking in this and I recognize that others do, and perhaps should have the freedom to do so.
But I feel there's a difference between using naturally occurring substances that have relatively mild effects on consciousness and perception (albeit with a certain level of toxicity and potential for addiction, especially for certain individuals) and a very long history of human usage so that we understand the risks and side effects, as opposed to lab created drugs which clearly cause dissociation. I think if using the latter there really ought to be a more medically oriented reason, and we ought to subject those chemicals to the regulations that we've collectively agreed to (the licensed medical profession and FDA, as imperfect as they are) for the purpose of treating minds that are already disordered rather than for recreation or spiritual journeys.
And I do think there's a distinction between use of LSD and use of incense or sensual experiences such as music. There's a parallel to the Catholic acceptance of natural family planning vs artificial birth control. One is using what God provides while the other is an artificial manipulation. Icarus flying too close to the sun.
We aren't as individual as some want to think.
This is a pernicious idea.
Yes, I'd say it's the pernicious idea of the sixties.
It looks like LSD may be making a comeback. Sid Cohen, who I knew fairly well took LSD hundreds of times, but became convinced that it was too harmful for some, to be legal.
I remember a patient I interviewed at the time it was being used fairly freely. He and his psychoanalyst each took the drug for a therapy session, an example of the careless use at the time. He told me he had the sensation of being a fetus in the uterus again. He curled up in a fetal position and became quadriplegic. It turned out that he had an AV malformation of the spinal cord in his neck. Somebody got him to straighten himself out and he recovered. He was going to have surgery on his neck.
When I was a surgery resident, ketamine was being used for anesthesia. The patents had signs on the their beds in the recovery room and had to be kept very quiet until the drug was completely gone. If startled, they would have a very dysphoric reaction, in some cases it lasted a very long time and resembled a psychotic state.
Both drugs are risky from people. Caveat Emptor.
An excellent book about the more philosophical aspects of psychedelics is
Moksha: Aldous Huxley's Classic Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience.
Foreword by the man credited with coining the term "psychedelic", Dr. Humphry Osmond, who "turned on" Huxley to mescaline back in the 1950s.
Available on Amazon!
I wouldn't say you feel like your dying or disintegrating. That's some baggage someone is bringing in to the trip.
My impression of LSD has always been that it jams your neurons on. So physical sensations, sensory inputs and mental impressions linger longer than expected. The physical and sensory input effects are well-known (tracersTracersTracers and breathing walls) and can be disconcerting if you are in an uncomfortable situation.
The mental impression effect is more profound. With thoughts jammed on, your brain starts making connections that would normally never happen. Thoughts which you subconscious would normally throw away will percolate to the conscious mind (thus the child-like awe sensation that Pollen describes). This can be troublesome if you've been repressing something or, again, you are in an uncomfortable location or surrounding and there is no one with you to guide you away or through it. The connections though, those can be amazing. Those can also lead to visual and audio hallucinations when combined with your senses also being jammed on.
Psilocybin is different, much more visually intense, much more a a 'drug' experience. It is also a very strong diuretic, so have plenty of water on hand.
Both dilate your pupils like crazy, so avoid bright lights and accidentally interviewing for jobs.
Whether to legalize LSD or not is a valid discussion. Reasonable minds can differ on this. I don't have a hard opinion on which side I fall. Mostly, inertia keeps it illegal.
However, claiming there is some "right" to use LSD is both faulty and facile.
And, most importantly, whenever a left of center person is claiming a "right" to something, big red flag alert. They selectively fight for the "rights" they want (abortion, gay marriage) and vigorously trample over the "rights" they don't want (gun, free speech at Universities).
From a couple of posts in the last few of days I get the idea that Althouse may be thinking of taking a LSD trip in the near future? I've had random thoughts over the years of the same thing myself. It's been a long long time ago. Not so sure it would be a good idea though...
Joe Rogan interviews Pollan
Pollan on Rogan
Jordan Peterson on therapeutic use of psychedelics
Peterson on Rubin
Rogan-Pollan podcast notes
"There seems to be an unstated assumption here, that there is something called "spiritual" that is different and better than things that are "non-spiritual" and that the things put into the spiritual box deserve special protection."
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
Not a special box, just an approach I prefer to the medical one Pollan is using. In the end, I would also value fun. When it comes to speech and freedom of thought, there's no line between deep and shallow. People with stupid, frivolous thoughts have just as much right to freedom as weighty philosophers.
So as long as it somehow involves "speech and freedom of thought", "spiritual" and "recreational" are in the same box, even though "'recreational' seems to refer to shallow fun and nothing deep at all"?
traditionalguy said...
This the way of the 1960s. About 1964, it became accepted that it was a terrible thing to live a life without hallucinogenic drugs. That siren song plays on. Mind altering for fun. But there remains a remnant who never fell for it.
And what a remnant they are, having never touched alcohol or caffeine.
It was banned and made illegal due to typical law enforcement and government scare stories, just as marijuana had been decades earlier.
I'm not disagreeing, but there was a purpose behind Grimm's Fairy tales as well. As a productive society, you don't want your seed corn (children) contemplating their belly buttons while drooling in the corner. You create scary stories to keep them from experimenting.
Full disclosure - I've never taken LSD, but I have spent time drooling in the corner while contemplating my belly button.
law enforcement and government scare stories
My son is a paramedic. My in-laws are physicians. The stories are written in the emergency room.
I think the supranatural/supernatural distinction Bill Peschel was trying to make is more like the deist/theist distinction. Supernatural implies that there are specific beings who operate outside natural laws, like God or gods or angels. Supranatural implies something vague and non-specific, maybe indescribable, that is somehow in addition to the laws of matter and energy.
"But there is no "right" to it."
PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS!!!!
Okay, not the Constitution; but part of the US Trinity and a damn sight better than Liberté, égalité, fraternité, the latter giving your neighbors to meddle in your business.
Where would American culture be (and its number one export) be without acid rock, be-ins, group-ins, and Baba Daba Rum Raisin Das?
Anyway, merci Madame Professor for this post; entertaining and a very good trip bringing back many fond memories past and near past. When you and Mr. Professor come to south France, there are plenty of very old cow pastures with happy little mushrooms just waiting to be plucked!
Rock On!
It's been almost fifty years, but I know exactly what she's talking about.
Bay Area Guy said...
"And, most importantly, whenever a left of center person is claiming a "right" to something, big red flag alert. They selectively fight for the "rights" they want (abortion, gay marriage) and vigorously trample over the "rights" they don't want (gun, free speech at Universities)."
I think the important distinction is between negative rights, which are rights to be left alone, and positive rights, which are rights to coerce others. The Left is only fond of the latter.
That lady was flawlessly gorgeous in that video.
"The Native American Church (NAC), also known as Peyotism and Peyote Religion, is a Native American religion that teaches a combination of traditional Native American beliefs and Christianity, with sacramental use of the entheogen peyote.
...
The controversy over peyote resulted in its legal classification as a controlled drug. Thus, only card-carrying members of the Native American Church are allowed to transport, possess, and use peyote for religious purposes."
See. It's an entheogen.
As a productive society, you don't want your seed corn (children) contemplating their belly buttons while drooling in the corner. You create scary stories to keep them from experimenting.
When I was a senior in medical school, half the second year class was supposed to be using LSD. I know a few of them never finished or never did internships. It was very destructive.
Blogger Daniel Jackson said...
When you and Mr. Professor come to south France, there are plenty of very old cow pastures with happy little mushrooms just waiting to be plucked!
--
"Wait..was that a mushroom?"
"Wow..I feel like I'm going back in time..I'mmm...cud..moving through chambers.."
Not JUST a mushroom. A HAPPY little mushroom saying, "pick me; pick me."
No. That was later.
Timothy Leary claimed all his LSD work was in the interest of "science" It was bull shit then and is, most likely, bull shit now. Go ahead, Ann, give it whirl and report back! Thanks.
I was wondering about how the "All One" found on Dr. Bronner's products fit in to things, as that's the only other time I'd seen that expression. Took a look at their site and found this review of the Pollan book: Love it! It is the language of an older friend who'd lived in Cambridge, MA nearly all her adult life and who would jump from one new age spiritual (ahem) cult experience to the next.
https://www.drbronner.com/all-one-blog/2018/05/michael-pollans-new-book-will-open-mind/
Dr Bronners original rant
http://www.subgenius.com/updates/5-99news/X0007_BRONNER.txt.html
traditional religions that use psychodelics to heal usually did so under the supervision of a shaman or priest who guided you in a ceremony to help you interpret what you see on "the other side". These ceremmonies often seek healing of memory or forgiveness of one's sins to integrate you back into society. (at least in my observations of their use in certain Native Americacn and African tribes where I have worked as a doctor).
This has little in common with taking LSD etc to get a spiritual high.
and of course, one needs to note that this modern version naively assumes a 'spiritual" event is good, yet anyone who remembers the psychiatric casualties of the 1960s should be skeptical about their claims.
Most religions (both modern ones and traditional ones) are aware of the presence of the demonoic, so I suggest caution here. One need not to believe in evil "spirits" to note the danger of "Monsters of the id" are very real.
Chemically-induced conflation of logical domains... or progressive perception?
Psychedelics are exhilarating in their ability to take you instantly from unenlightened to enlightened without passing Go. Which is exactly the problem. Getting there without doing the work is like taking a road trip in a plane.
But what he's arguing for is "psychedelic-aided therapy, properly conducted by trained professionals — what Pollan calls White-Coat Shamanism."
Yes, we need a priesthood to keep us from bad think. This goes back to Plato v Aristotle. Are people free or do they need shepherds? - for their own good, you understand.
Jesus cast the money changers from the temple because it was an extortion racket run by the priesthood.
The major issue between the Gnostics and orthodox Christianity was whether people had a personal relationship with their God (Gnostics) or required informed spiritual guidance (Catholic Church). The Protestant Reformation threw off the chains of Rome to worship God as they saw fit.
Today we are assaulted on all sides by forces who seek to use the government to coerce our words, our very thoughts, to conform with their enlightened philosophies. It's quite incidental that there's lots of money to be made in the process.
It's not Big Brother. It's his piss-ant army of scolds and Social Justice Warriors who are running the big scam.
Blogger Caroline Walker said...
The Word Made Flesh came to tell us that Spiritual Progress is measured by outpourings of charitable love and by dying to self. We are made to be in relationship. Drug induced transcendence is just another in a never ending stream of counterfeit promises of enlightenment. “Ye shall be as gods.”
It's not counterfeit if it spends the same. According to Jordan Peterson, your opinion is in conflict with the extensive psychological literature. But if you insist on the self-flagellation path, go for it, it's still a free country.
Howard at 1:58 pm: Thank you for that! Always had a bottle of castile soap in the bathrooom; made for the best 'on the throne' reading ever.
Another great, emotive "hallelujah!" reading was the package for a wonderful flatbread called Ak-Mak, which originated here (huge Armenian population in the Greater Boston area), but then moved out to CA, if I remember correctly. They used to quote scripture, underlining in red important to them terms to remember. That used to be the after dinner dramatic reading.
Co opting spirituality to sell stuff seems to have been a common Hippie marketing ploy. I'm sad to say that Dr. Bronner's gone full Gaia / Fair Trade and that Ak-Mak has expunged all spiritual references to grain from their labels. I guess that this is what we get when such purveyors move from the dusty Hippie Coop to Erewhon to Bread and Circus to Whole Foods, and have to cater to a larger public.
What's trippy to me is that she looks like Roseanne and the post below seems to be about the show.
Blogger Nancy Reyes said...
traditional religions that use psychodelics to heal usually did so under the supervision of a shaman or priest who guided you in a ceremony to help you interpret what you see on "the other side". These ceremmonies often seek healing of memory or forgiveness of one's sins to integrate you back into society. (at least in my observations of their use in certain Native Americacn and African tribes where I have worked as a doctor).
This has little in common with taking LSD etc to get a spiritual high.
This is a great point, but I disagree slightly with your conclusion. LSD shrooms and ecstasy are primarily taken too often and at excessive doses for use as party drugs under the guise of spiritual enlightenment.
The therapeutic doses administered under supervision, even if the supervision is from a guide or shaman, is more likely to provide psychological benefit. According to Jordan Peterson, the positive changes can be permanent. This makes them horrible Pharmagrande drugs because they don't require long-term use.
Be: ditto, ditto. Ak-Mak was our kids second and third words after Dada.
cassandra lite: awful hard to drive to India nowadays, which, I guess, is why we have the likes of Kripalu here in New England and Esalen on the West Coast. (With snake-handling / glossolalia / a schismatic Pope at rest stops in between.)
Psychedelics are great for people who neither like to drive nor fly, but imagine that they are doing both, sometimes simultaneously, from the anecdota I've heard.
Also, Nancy you are wise to suggest the demonic. Peterson talks about this and there needs to be a screening process to determine who can safely use of psychedelic drugs.
Common sense shows that the biggest source of drug induced demonic possession is from alcohol.
Be: don't drive on LSD, it's a bummer, man. My brother said some of the guys he flew Huey's with in Vietnam would be on LSD during missions, most notably the gunship pilots firing rockets and miniguns. In his anecdotal observation, the guys who flew high in country were more likely to suffer from PTSD, have drug and alcohol problems, employment troubles, rocky marriages, etc.
Howard 3:41 pm! That is awesome! My housemate, a mathematician who struggles with faith, and who has issues with voice modulation, would practice elocution with any such label. When he built a tolerance to Ak-Mak boxes, would buy other crackers, randomly underline things and start reading them aloud like they were Shakespearean soliloquies. His best reading to date was the Finn Crisp label, which he concluded with "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SPOCK'S BRAIN?"
Howard: Interesting that you mention that. Flying a helicopter in Vietnam (or any war zone, I'd imagine) could very well lead to PTSD in any event, given the rate of them getting shot down. My dad (in signals) and his older brother (was the guy who flew in the helicopters with huge wads of cash for soldiers' payday) both suffered from PTSD, though neither were drug users. Myself, I have a beautiful combination of weirdness that is part nature, part nurture: senses bleed together in interesting ways, organically. I also am in treatment for PTSD. I am Frightened to Death of any Hallucinogen / psychotropic.
I also don't drive here: the # of unlicensed, under the influence drivers / cyclists we have around makes anything but walking a terror for me.
LSD? Pass. Use it if you like, but do not make that out to be a virtue. It is not. It is a weakness, a rejection of reality.
Once, a philosopher; twice, a pederast. And some things are not worth trying even once - the potential for harm being too high to accept.
“Anyway, merci Madame Professor for this post; entertaining and a very good trip bringing back many fond memories past and near past. When you and Mr. Professor come to south France, there are plenty of very old cow pastures with happy little mushrooms just waiting to be plucked!”
Thanks.
They’re all over the place in my neighborhood!
No discussion of LSD is complete without this:
https://youtu.be/4e1kaWHxzEo
Dock Ellis's No Hitter.
I rate the first trip as my best drug experience ever. I was a high school junior (70s). The lady describes it way more cogently than I have yet been able to. I almost wonder if it wasn't staged. But even so... more or less...yeah, that was it.
Hi Be. My brother has PTSD (he calls it PTS because it's not a disorder) but he handles it very well. He's a Bernie Sanders liberal who is always armed, which gives him a sense of control. He continued to fly helicopters for a total of 47-years in very high stress environments, so it's hard to know how much PTS was from War, what was from all the death and destruction from search and rescue, or the high altitude, bad weather nap of the earth hair-ball flying.
If you are apprehensive about psychedelics, it's probably best to avoid them unless under medical supervision. A guy freshman year had a bad trip on LSD. Nothing crazy, but he had paranoia panic real bad for several hours. I played backgammon with him and he seemed to calm sort of, but he was quite miserable.
@Howard: it is classified as a disorder under DSM standards. (And it is.) So many variables, that we can't pick out one to focus on.
The only drug that I find mildly not harmful, and that I only use sparingly, is alcohol. Even that affects me weirdly. It's a pity, because we have so many wonderful breweries around here (STEM seeds, even, like Aeronaut.).
Yeah, in the late 1970s at my small, southern, Baptist affiliated university some of the kids did drugs. Pot, hash, peypote, coke, LSD. My roomie, an experimenter of ingesting & smoking such thngs, told me I couldn't take any drugs, as I was too weird already, without them. I considered that a compliment.
Having dropped acid a few times back in my college days, I can say that it truly feels like a religious experience, in the sense that you feel you are getting a secret insight into the world and its meaning in a way you couldn't access before. I was sure I was on the cusp of understanding the "purpose" of the world, seeing "behind the veil" of reality to "the truth." It all faded when I came down the next morning, but I completely get why peyote based religions exist and why Carlos Castaneda wrote the books that he did.
Other observations - you hallucinate on LSD. I went into the university cafeteria, heard the plastic cups breathing, and saw a dude in the dinner line with half of his face blue. In acid speak, I "bugged out" and had to leave, seeking an area with less sensory input because my mind was being overloaded.
Also - LSD is not addictive. I did it five times and then stopped with no withdrawal, cravings or subliminal desire to continue. It's not like alcohol - it just doesn't seem to ring that bell in the human psyche.
Why was it necessary to try and convince viewers of the film that before taking the drug, the woman was “normal” with a very short interview and reference to some “tests” which had shown that she was? For me the most interesting questions raised by the whole clip was whether we still had such tests and just what responses to what questions might show a person to be abnormal. The woman was obviously acting— I got the distinct impression that the whole experiment was staged, which raises the less interesting question of what we’re the motives of the people involved. They really needed someone who could appear so shy and unassuming that she could not answer the question of whether she considered herself normal and then, after drinking the water, appear so bold that she essentially said the doctor was harshing her buzz. It is very easy for someone, especially the attention seeking show-off, to convincingly act as if they are in another world seeing and realizing things that other people cannot. And, everything is always in technicolor. Did acid droppers just see in black and white before Hollywood came up with that invention?
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