Amazing! The drug-leery censorship algorithms at the Internet Archive actually allowed me to post the following review of "The Varieties of Religious Experience" by William James1. I was initially irked by their requirement that I limit my effusions to 1,000 words, but then I reflected that this was probably for the best. It obliges me to pounce straight for the jugular in attacking the great psychologist's failure to connect the dots between Hinduism and the anesthetic revelation 2 . I still give the book four out of five stars, however, insofar as James actually acknowledged the power of altered states -- and just in time, too -- for had he done so in modern times, he would have been kicked out of academia for such Drug War heresy.
William James discusses how the use of anesthetic compounds such as laughing gas can provide one with a tantalizing glimpse of new realities. "Our normal waking consciousness," quoth James, "is but one special type of consciousness." He fails to realize, however, that such "anesthetic revelation 3 s," as he calls them, comprise but a subset of the transcendent experiences that have been invoked purposefully for millennia by indigenous religious seekers with the use of psychoactive substances. Although James makes half a dozen references to Hinduism in this book, he never mentions the fact that the Hindu religion was inspired by the use of a psychoactive substance called Soma. Had he made the connection, America's demagogue politicians would have had a harder time convincing us that drugs were evil. Instead, they have succeeded so well that even James's alma mater, Harvard University, does not mention either laughing gas 4 or the anesthetic revelation 5 in their online biography of James6.
Over 45% of traumatic brain injuries are caused by horseback riding (ABC News). Tell your representatives to outlaw horseback riding and make it a federal offence to teach a child how to ride! Brought to you by the Partnership for a Death Free America.
Someone needs to create a group called Drug Warriors Anonymous, a place where Americans can go to discuss their right to mind and mood medicine and to discuss the many ways in which our society trashes godsend medicines.
All uplifting drugs are potential antidepressants. Science denies that fact by claiming that drug efficacy must be proven quantitatively. And so they ignore anecdote, history and psychological common sense.
How would we even KNOW that outlawed drugs have no positive uses? We first have to incorporate them in a sane, empathic and creative way to find that out, and the drug war makes such a sensible approach absolutely impossible.
I passed a sign that says "Trust Trump." What does that mean? Trust him to crack down on his opposition using the U.S. Army? Or trust him not to do all the anti-American things that he's saying he's going to do.
People say shrooms should not be used by those with a history of "mental illness." But that's one of the greatest potential benefits of shrooms! (They cured Stamets' teenage stuttering.) Some folks place safety first, but if I did that, I'd die long before using mother nature.
Thanks to the Drug War, folks are forced to become amateur chemists to profit from DMT, a drug that occurs naturally in most living things. This is the same Drug War that is killing American young people wholesale by refusing to teach safe use and regulate drug supply.
In "Psychedelic Refugee," Rosemary Leary writes:
"Fueled by small doses of LSD, almost everything was amusing or weird." -- Rosemary Leary
In a non-brainwashed world, such testimony would suggest obvious ways to help the depressed.
Almost all of today's magazine articles about human psychology should come with the following disclaimer:
"This article was written from the standpoint of Drug War ideology, which holds that outlawed substances can have no beneficial uses whatsoever."
Alcohol is a drug in liquid form. If drug warriors want to punish people who use drugs, they should start punishing themselves.
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