I wrote the following in response to the paper entitled Drug-Induced Mysticism Revisited: Interview with Charles Upton, by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos posted on Academia.edu.1
Hi, Samuel.
I am interested in eventually reading your interview with Charles Upton. I say eventually, because I dislike reading criticisms of drug use in an age where almost all drug use (and almost all psychoactive plant medicines) are illegal. It gives critics like Upton an upper hand because they have only the evidence of a few gung-ho spiritualists and presumed "hippies" to critique. I say, let's see what drugs can and cannot do for spirituality when we extract the drug experience from those with whom Drug Warriors have always sought to connect it: the disempowered and supposedly irresponsible hippy.
I sense, however, that Upton is going to take the same general line as Wolfgang Smith2, who refers to the use of drugs by hippies as satanic while granting that past saints may have also partaken, to both their own benefit and to that of the human species.
Anyway, I won't take more of your time, but as a depressive 65-year-old who has been denied plant medicines for a lifetime now, I do not want to read about the limitations of plant medicines. It is also interesting to me that Upton and Smith are proponents of Islam and Christianity respectively, so it is not surprising to me that they would cast a jaundiced eye on religious inspiration that bypasses these formalized religions entirely. But I would reassure them that use of drugs like huachuma can inspire love, which can inspire a belief in Christianity, at least, insofar as its premier tenet - for many - is the primacy of love.
I write this today for two reasons: I just saw your post at Academia.edu - and I leave in two hours for Peru, to experience what the huachuma cactus may have to offer me in fighting depression... and maybe even in inspiring my religious sensibilities... who knows?... in the general direction of a board-certified religion!
Best wishes - and I look forward to eventually reading your interview, hopefully in a world in which plant medicines are legal again - as if governments ever had a true right to outlaw the same!
Abolishthedea.com
PS I think Smith is unfair to hippies. Sure, many were vague about what they wanted - after all, they were mostly kids -- but let's think about what the mainstream wanted at that time: nuclear weaponry, a Drug War, and the real politik of mutual hatred and distrust. This latter attitude resulted in the near destruction of America by nuclear weapons, not once, but twice in the early '60s alone: first the Air Force dropped a thermonuclear bomb or two on North Carolina by mistake... and then Cuba came "one military vote" away from nuking the Eastern Seaboard. Give me wacky flower children any day over the "tombstone children" of Edward Teller and company.
PPS Also, even the best-case arguments against drug-induced spiritualism will seem suspect in general until such substances are free. Until then, such critiques will read to many as an attempt to normalize the patently unjust status quo, a kind of sour grapes approach: dismissing a priori the power of drugs that we will never be allowed to sample under various circumstances and under various philosophical assumptions.
Check out the conversations that I have had so far with the movers and shakers in the drug-war game -- or rather that I have TRIED to have. Actually, most of these people have failed to respond to my calls to parlay, but that need not stop you from reading MY side of these would-be chats.
I don't know what's worse, being ignored entirely or being answered with a simple "Thank you" or "I'll think about it." One writes thousands of words to raise questions that no one else is discussing and they are received and dismissed with a "Thank you." So much for discussion, so much for give-and-take. It's just plain considered bad manners these days to talk honestly about drugs. Academia is living in a fantasy world in which drugs are ignored and/or demonized -- and they are in no hurry to face reality. And so I am considered a troublemaker. This is understandable, of course. One can support gay rights, feminism, and LGBTQ+ today without raising collegiate hackles, but should one dare to talk honestly about drugs, they are exiled from the public commons.
Somebody needs to keep pointing out the sad truth about today's censored academia and how this self-censorship is but one of the many unacknowledged consequences of the drug war ideology of substance demonization.
As great as it is, "Synthetic Panics" by Philip Jenkins was only tolerated by academia because it did not mention drugs in the title and it contains no explicit opinions about drugs. As a result, many drug law reformers still don't know the book exists.
We should start taking names. All politicians and government officials who work to keep godsends like psilocybin from the public should be held to account for crimes against humanity when the drug war finally ends.
Musk and co. want to make us more robot-like with AI, when they should be trying to make us more human-like with sacred medicine. Only humans can gain creativity from plant medicine. All AI can do is harvest the knowledge that eventually results from that creativity.
The first step in harm reduction is to re-legalize mother nature's medicines. Then hundreds of millions of people will no longer suffer in silence for want of godsend medicines... for depression, for pain, for anxiety, for religious doubts... you name it.
Oregon's drug policy is incoherent and cruel. The rich and healthy spend $4,000 a week on psilocybin. The poor and chemically dependent are thrown in jail, unless they're on SSRIs, in which case they're congratulated for "taking their meds."
"Abuse" is a funny term because it implies that there's a right way to use "drugs," which is something that the drug warriors deny. To the contrary, they make the anti-scientific claim that "drugs" are not good for anybody for any reason at any dose.
Imagine the Vedic people shortly after they have discovered soma. Everyone's ecstatic -- except for one oddball. "I'm not sure about these experiences," says he. "I think we need to start dissecting the brains of our departed adherents to see what's REALLY going on in there."
Cop and detective shows are loaded with subtle drug war propaganda, including lines like, "She had a history of drug use, so..." The implication being that anyone who uses substances that politicians hate cannot be trusted.
If drug war logic made sense, we would outlaw endless things in addition to drugs. Because the drug war says that it's all worth it if we can save just one life -- which is generally the life of a white suburban young person, btw.
Even fans of sacred medicine have been brainwashed to believe that we do not know if such drugs "really" work: they want microscopic proof. But that's a western bias, used strategically by drug warriors to make the psychotropic drug approval process as glacial as possible.
As great as it is, "Synthetic Panics" by Philip Jenkins was only tolerated by academia because it did not mention drugs in the title and it contains no explicit opinions about drugs. As a result, many drug law reformers still don't know the book exists.