Pubdate: Thu, 05 Apr 2001
Source: Michigan Daily (MI)
Copyright: 2001 The Michigan Daily
Contact:  http://www.michigandaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/582
Author: Josh Wickerham

YOU HIP TO THE ENTHEOGEN EVOLUTION?

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- A lot of ink has been spilled over civil rights 
battles. Blood too, for that matter. And pontificators have given us our 
last civil rights fights for a long time. They say affirmative action is 
the last battle. They say gay rights is the last battle. They might even 
say that political correctness is a civil rights battle. But what has not 
been addressed is the freedom of consciousness movement.

Let's get this out in the open: I'm talking about psychedelics -- the taboo 
little topic that few have dusted off since the fallout of the '60s. But 
that word "psychedelic" is loaded with fear. A more straightforward label 
is entheogen, which literally means "generating the divine within." In 
laymen's terms, that means "becoming god." We could also go with a purely 
phenomenological description and call them "consciousness expanding agents" 
because that's what they do.

Whatever the case, I'll let you in on a little secret: The last decade has 
been secretly psychedelic. And we have all been primed and ready for an 
explosion of consciousness. To get to that point, we must have an idea of 
where to direct our energies. The best way to do this is through a common 
goal of cognitive liberty.

Cognitive liberty is the belief that we have the inalienable right to 
achieve, through the use of mind-altering plants and drugs, any state of 
consciousness we choose -- not just the socially acceptable ones.

What we need is a new definition of the word "drug." The late philosopher 
of consciousness, Terence McKenna, said a drug is anything that causes 
unexamined, compulsive behavior. A drug, then, is something that consumes 
our lives. By this definition, a cigarette is a drug, caffeine is a drug 
and alcohol is a drug. When we look at it from this perspective, television 
is also a drug. And the average American spends three to seven hours every 
day getting intimately hooked to the flickering I-V of the cathode ray 
tube. Yet television eats at our creative faculties like a cancer, alcohol 
dumbs us down (and helps us mingle -- woohoo), while cigarettes are nothing 
but dirty syringes for nicotine injection. These substances are socially 
acceptable and perfectly legal -- all the while causing serious harm at 
astronomical social costs.

It all comes down to allowing people the right to experiment with marginal 
states of consciousness. Right now most of us operate on a very narrow band 
of habitual behavior that is closed to realms of imagination and 
possibility. We are a species in crisis.

Pioneering minds have used entheogens. It's no secret that Steve Jobs, the 
creative zest behind Apple Computers, dropped acid. Bill Gates, in an 
obscure Playboy interview, all but admitted that some of his formative 
experiences came from mind-expanding substances. Entheogens break down 
boundaries of habitual, unexamined behavior and aid in the creative 
process. Yet most of us are still locked in the termite mind of man. This 
cannot stand. We've been lied to. It is time to rise.

The war on drugs is not a war on substances; it's a war on states of mind. 
Entheogens are not illegal because a loving government is concerned that 
you're going to hurt yourself by smoking pot or tripping in your bedroom. 
Entheogens are illegal because they make you question authority. They break 
down socially constructed fables and cleanse the doors of perception. They 
make you question the wrongs of society in a fundamental way, making you 
dangerous. You're like Neo in The Matrix when all of the illusions of 
reality have been irrevocably stripped away.

Not that everyone should use entheogens. Far from it. Experiencing ecstasy 
is not pleasant. It's like being grabbed by the spine and shaken until 
every sense and emotion blurs, recombines, expands, digitizes and becomes 
unspeakable. Yet it is also a birthright and is as fundamental to the human 
experience as sex.

Consciousness determines everything. An important battle for the freedom of 
our mental landscapes is brewing. And it never takes more than five percent 
of the population to start a revolution. Actually, it's never been more 
than that.
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MAP posted-by: Beth