Although you focused on divination, there is a huge problem with "following the science" when it comes to studying drugs. This is because Western governments and their materialist scientists are focused exclusively on the potential downsides of drug use. Such "science" is political. This is why we have a National Institute on Drug Abuse in America and not a National Institute on Drug Use. The scientists' job today is to prove that drugs are dangerous. They ignore all glaringly obvious holistic benefits of drug use. And so our materialist scientists gaslight Americans by telling us that drugs like coca and opium 11 have no positive uses whatsoever. Sigmund Freud knew better12. So did Galen, Paracelsus and Avicenna. But modern science is blind to anecdote, history and common sense. This is why our FDA promotes brain-damaging shock therapy for the depressed and yet refuses to approve of a wide range of drugs whose intermittent use could make shock therapy unnecessary13. This is what they call "following the science" in the age of the Drug War: depriving the depressed (and endless others) of all inspirational medicine -- you know, the kinds of medicines that inspired the Vedic religion14, the kinds of medicines that our predecessors considered to be panaceas!
This is why drug prohibitionists want us to "follow the science," because they know that materialist science is blind to the obvious when it comes to drug benefits. And so they hold drug use to standards that we set for no other risky activity on the planet, thereby forcing millions to go without godsend medicine, merely because such substances could be misused by white American young people -- the white American young people whom we refuse "on principle" to educate about safe drug use. This is why hospice kids in India go without morphine 15 today, because fearmongers and demagogues have taught us to fear drugs rather than to use them as wisely as possible for the benefit of humankind16. This is what comes of "following the science" in the age of drug prohibition.
This is all due, in turn, to a category error. It was a mistake to place passion-scorning materialists in charge of mind and mood medicine in the first place. By so doing, we have created endless jobs for materialists -- but only at the cost of completely disempowering human beings when it comes to healthcare.
Prohibition is wrong root and branch. It seeks to justify the colonial disdain for indigenous healing practices through fearmongering.
There are a potentially vast number of non-addictive drugs that could be used strategically in therapy. They elate and "free the tongue" to help talk therapy really work. Even "addictive" drugs can be used non-addictively, prohibitionist propaganda notwithstanding.
Mariani Wine is the real McCoy, with Bolivian coca leaves (tho' not with cocaine, as Wikipedia says). I'll be writing more about my experience with it soon. I was impressed. It's the same drink "on which" HG Wells and Jules Verne wrote their stories.
Drugs are not the enemy, ignorance is -- the ignorance that the Drug War encourages by teaching us to fear drugs rather than to understand them.
The 1932 movie "Scarface" starts with on-screen text calling for a crackdown on armed gangs in America. There is no mention of the fact that a decade's worth of Prohibition had created those gangs in the first place.
In a free future, newspapers will have philosophers on their staffs to ensure that said papers are not inciting consequence-riddled hysteria through a biased coverage of drug-related mishaps.
If media were free in America, you'd see documentaries about people using drugs wisely for a wide variety of praiseworthy purposes.
Americans were always free to take care of their own health -- until drug warriors handed doctors a monopoly on providing mind and mood medicine.
Science knows nothing of the human spirit and of the hopes and dreams of humankind. Science cannot tell us whether a given drug risk is worthwhile given the human need for creativity and passion in their life. Science has no expertise in making such philosophical judgements.
This is why it's wrong to dismiss drugs as "good" or "bad." There are endless potential positive uses to psychoactive drugs. That's all that we should ask of them.
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