Following upon the discovery of LSD by Albert Hofmann in the late 30s
And then the writing on the subject of the psychedelic experience that was done by Aldous Huxley
Metzner and others it became a fad of the self exploring youth
culture of the 60s to be involved with these things
This was during a time of great social upheaval for other reasons and the end product of that
historical episode was the complete suppression of
the study of psychedelic drugs and in my opinion to the great detriment of the development of
psychology I feel that
Potentially psychedelic drugs could be forced psychology what the telescope became for the science of astronomy
the problem
with the psychedelics is that they
Dissolve cultural programming and
hence
Inherently have a political charge
about them you see
Culture is the product of the unperturbed
human mind the human mind unperturbed
through the medium of language
erect since titute zand social structures its into which it then secretes itself and
sort of lives in a private, Idaho a
psychedelic drug will dissolve these linguistic and cultural
assumptions it is a perturbation of the mind and the
perturbed mind is a mind in the act of
rediscovering the nature that lies outside of culture so this tension between
cultural values and
What we might call for want of a better word?
reality
creates a tension between
Institutions and the users of these substances, it's as if our culture if I understand you right acts as a filter
between our minds and and direct experience of reality and the drugs somehow
Blow away that crust of culture and allow more of a direct a gnostic experience
That's right
and the business of culture any culture is to perpetuate its cultural models and if
The hallucinogenic plants have not been integrated into the cultural model then they are
Definitely seen as dangerous forces for an unpredictable
Sort of social change now if the hallucinogenic plants have been integrated
Into the cultural model this is not then a problem, and this is the case with shamanism
shamanism is the
culturally sanctified institution of
inner
exploration via
Psychoactive plants where psychoactive plants are not present shamanic
Institutions tend to become Shi ated to rely on
ritual or
ordeals or
Other methods of Allu sitting eliciting these ecstatic states, but to my mind
And this is a great argument which rages in anthropology
to my mind, and I'm in agreement with Wasson here the
Hallucinogenic plants are thus in a quinone
For an active shamanism for authentic an authentic shamanism, that's right
You
