I like you, Michael…
Along with others, you’ve done much to improve the overall understanding of psychedelics in a society which, despite the spectacular rise in interstellar travels around the late sixties and early seventies, has remained largely hermetic to them (or the other away around).
But I’m an individualist. This doesn’t mean I’m selfish. It means I am, to some extent, convinced, as was McKenna, that “culture is not [our] friend”, in that it always contains some element of coercion (whether subtle or overt), which, when pushed to its limits, invariably leads to forced assimilation. And coercion, in my view, is the exact antithesis of the psychedelic experience, which is meant to liberate.
The exacerbated form of capitalism that has ruled our destinies since the Reagan years, which, among other things, has wreaked havoc on the environment, may have slowly led us to understanding that there are some resources (water and air, for instance) that are best managed collectively, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the march towards progress in Western societies — that is to say the break with absolutism, whether exerted by religion or the state, often both simultaneously — has been unmistakably characterized by the individualization of inalienable rights.
That there need to be rules circumscribing the use of psychedelic substances (e.g. no driving under the influence, and not allowing minors to partake in the aforementioned travels) is beyond discussion : they are but the logical consequence of the regulation policy the enlightened are advocating. But whether, in addition to those rules, OOBEs should be subjected to “rituals” should, on the other hand, be a matter of individual preference entirely, since there can be conceived of no more inalienable individual right than the one to freely dispose of one’s body and one’s conscience.
I understand your aim is to prevent the excesses of the Leary era from prevailing again, as they would undoubtedly lead to the same kind of backlash the non-Indigenous pioneers incurred back then. And, in that perspective, it is highly commendable : at the time, the Diggers, who were themselves outspoken individualists, had already used their verve and their creativity to warn against a form of unrestrained consumerism which, while advertising a new idealism, was actually consuming human lives, and often very young ones at that, in a very destructive (and, in that case, selfish) manifestation of hedonism.
But the frameworks you are suggesting in your latest New York Times op-ed, which imply a somewhat mandatory supervised use of certain substances, and the psychedelic experience as I have come to enjoy and understand it seem to me to be mutually exclusive. I, for one, do not wish to have an utter stranger by my side while I’m tripping because, however “secular”, such a setting is unfamiliar to me, and therefore more likely to induce a bad trip than anything else : why should I be comfortable with an “agent of the system”, with whom I share nothing and who may very well never have explored the ontological depths of parallel realities for himself, monitoring my every reaction as if I were one of those rats Hari reported about, during what ought to be a highly intimate escapade ? Why would I need said stranger to “make sense of and apply whatever [I] have learned” if I have indeed learned it ? I have no problem imagining some people — a lot of them maybe — do, but why should I — should everyone — be required to consent to a hierarchical tutelage sprinkled with doxa or mythology 2.0, knowing that runs contrary to everything said experience has taught me, starting with the abolition, if only for a brief moment, of all forms of hierarchy and ideology, which, through the prism of psychedelic illumination, can only be viewed as tenacious perversions inherent to everyday reality ?
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Why would you deprive people from the ability to make sense of it for themselves and draw their own conclusions ? Isn’t that much more stimulating and sincere ? Why would you want to streamline a set of perceptions that, if left free to vagabond, could compose the most colorful mosaic, the most mind-blowing kaleidoscope of human imagination conceivable, affecting not only art and philosophy but also the way we apprehend politics and the economy ? Why would you endeavor to contain what, in effect, essentially sets free from every kind of indoctrinated containment ? Why would you seek to build a wall around the travelers by means of “culturally appropriate containers” exceeding the purview of the (new) law ? Isn’t that missing the whole point ?
Speaking in general terms, you claim that “[t]he problem of drug addiction will be with us as long as unhappiness is […]”. But addiction should never be equated with mere use.
Because they are much more powerful than any other drug in revealing us to ourselves and the universe to us — “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” –, psychedelics are also probably the least addictive. As it profoundly reshuffles the cards, the experience they bring about is intense, and far less recreational than it is educative. That’s why most people don’t care to overindulge in them, the late Leary and his gang having been the most notable exceptions.
Referring specifically to psychedelics, I would argue mind-opening drugs will be part of our environment as long as there is intellectual curiosity in (wo)man. Only if that should come to vanish would humanity have a huge problem…
Inform (thoroughly), minimize (social) harm, assist when assistance is solicited, care, but let every individual decide for her/himself what setting best suits his/her curiosity…
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This post was originally published (by myself) on July 9, 2021 on https://yannickbaele.wordpress.com, my main blog from May 31, 2012 until February 26, 2026 (ca. 3,000 posts), which was censored by Wordpress from one day to the next, without any explanation !
