Originally posted in Google Group on metaphysical speculations, hosted by Bernardo Kastrup
I believe that psychiatry must become shamanism if it wishes to survive and be relevant, shamanism administered by "empaths" who are intimately familiar, not just with the handful of addictive "mind" drugs manufactured by Big Pharma, but with every single known psychoactive plant in the rainforest, and that they must use this knowledge to empower "lost souls" (or indeed anyone lacking self-fulfillment) with self-knowledge and clear-sightedness, choosing the plants to accomplish this goal in the way that a fashion designer chooses clothes to suit the person and to bring out the qualities that are missing but desired.
{^Only imagine: a new psychiatry that sees the "patient" as an actual individual and not one of an infinite set of human clones, all therapeutically susceptible to the same one addictive "miracle cure" that psychiatry claims to have on offer.}{
This, of course, requires that we cease outlawing the products of Mother Nature and re-legalize the plants and fungi that grow at our very feet. Unfortunately there are a number of old-guard forces that stand resolutely against this, four of which I've listed below:
1) PUNISHERS AND PROTECTORS: There are still plenty of Americans (and other anti-patient Nixon fans from Europe to China now) who believe that the need to punish abusers (and/or to protect them from themselves) trumps the psychological needs of the responsible masses who could benefit therapeutically from the re-legalization of natural substances. The quality of life of the masses means nothing to these groups: it's all about punishing and protecting a minority of supposed abusers.
2) PSYCHIATRISTS: Even if we can convince such people that the laws that are created by their "concern" have resulted in the creation of countless violent drug gangs in every major city on Earth, we're still going up against the psychiatrists, who are not going to go gently into that good night of re-legalization, since they have profited handsomely from having a monopoly on prescribing psychoactive drugs.
3) MATERIALISTS: Meanwhile, materialists, in their physics envy, will continue to deny the utility of drugs whose means of action cannot be sufficiently captured and quantified by their blunt tools of analysis. They have no interest in drugs that produce mere "insight" or even "happiness" for that matter (whatever that is) - they want to fix some clinically discernible chemical imbalance that they postulate as the root of all biological evil (or at least they want to be seen as fixing such an imbalance, even if their synthetic drugs end up causing the imbalance that they sought to cure, as is the case with modern anti-depressants).
4) PURITANS: Then there's the Westerner's subconscious belief in Christian Science with respect to mental health, thanks to which they look with suspicion and disapproval on someone who uses natural psychoactive substances to improve their mind. Such people see psychoactive drugs as "crutches." (They consider this suspicion to be common sense when it is actually just a tenet of faith of the modern Drug War, a belief that's just as philosophically problematic as the Christian Scientist's refusal to use aspirin for a headache.)
And let's not forget law enforcement, departments of correction, and Big Liquor.
{^"The White Man goes into church and talks about Jesus. The Indian goes into his tipi and talks with Jesus." Likewise, the White Man goes to AA to talk about getting off alcohol. Someday, he will actually get off of alcohol by using any one of hundreds of godsend psychoactive plants that the government has unconstitutionally banned, even for research purposes. That's Drug War "morality" for you: thump your chest about the Drug War, and to hell with actual patients.}{
June 7, 2022
As you might expect, Brian was eventually "drummed out" of the Kastrup group by folks who considered the Drug War to be off-topic -- and yet as Brian has been at some pains to point out, the Drug War would not be possible except for the west's embrace of materialistic doctrine. See Materialism and the Drug War to learn more. Indeed, the whole problem with Americans today is that they think that the Drug War only has to do with drugs -- that we can demonize plant medicine and carry on as normal free and unbiased citizens in every other aspect of our lives. This whole AbolishTheDEA website was set up to prove that this is not the case: that the insidious superstitious drug-war ideology of substance demonization has implications for all aspects of American life, including philosophy.
It's so much easier to ghettoize the discussion of the Drug War and pretend that its anti-nature and materialist presuppositions somehow have no place in a critique of materialism itself.
But then Americans (and westerners) of all walks of life are in denial. That's why our modern authors dare to opine ex cathedra about the "best" way to treat depression, treat Alzheimer's disease, and promote creativity (etc etc etc) without ever alluding to the 64,000-pound gorilla in the room, namely the fact that we have outlawed almost all the medical godsends that could help us achieve these lofty ends.
Ten Tweets
against the hateful war on US
This is why America is creeping toward authoritarianism -- because of the prohibitionists' ability to get away with everything by blaming "drugs." The fact that Americans still fall for this crap represents a kind of collective pathology.
Problem 2,643 of the war on drugs:
It puts the government in charge of deciding what counts as a true religion.
In "How to Change Your Mind," Michael Pollan says psychedelic legalization would endanger young people. What? Prohibition forces users to decide for themselves which mushrooms are toxic, or to risk buying contaminated product. And that's safe, Michael?
My depression would disappear overnight if religiously intolerant America would just allow me to live as freely as Benjamin Franklin.
Drug prohibition began as a racist attempt to prevent so-called "miscegenation." The racist's fear was not that a white woman would use opium or marijuana or cocaine, but that she might actually fall in love with a Chinese, Hispanic or Black person respectively.
To oppose the Drug War philosophically, one has to highlight its connections to both materialism and the psychiatric pill mill. And that's a problem, because almost everyone is either a Drug Warrior or a materialist these days and has a vested interest in the continuation of the psychiatric pill mill.
These are just simple psychological truths that drug war ideology is designed to hide from sight. Doctors tell us that "drugs" are only useful when created by Big Pharma, chosen by doctors, and authorized by folks who have spent thousands on medical school. (Lies, lies, lies.)
Now the folks who helped Matthew get Ketamine must be sacrificed on the altar of the Drug War, lest people start thinking that the Drug War itself was at fault.y
It is a violation of religious liberty to outlaw substances that inspire and elate. The Hindu religion was inspired by just such a drug.
We should hold the DEA criminally responsible for withholding spirit-lifting drugs from the depressed. Responsible for what, you ask? For suicides and lobotomies, for starters.
This is why America is creeping toward authoritarianism -- because of the prohibitionists' ability to get away with everything by blaming "drugs." The fact that Americans still fall for this crap represents a kind of collective pathology.