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What's Drugs Got to Do With It?

the importance of psychoactive substances in modern philosophy

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

February 5, 2025



Anyone with an eye on futurity must be careful about criticizing great thinkers, lest they thereby betray to future generations their inability to properly understand the pundits in question. But in reading the works of Schopenhauer, I have identified two fundamental assumptions of his which are clearly false, or at least highly problematical in the light of modern scientific understanding. I do not claim that these discoveries of mine invalidate his claims about the existence of the will or even about its supposedly unchangeable nature through time; however, they do seem to require that his theories be qualified and modified in such a way as to bring them back in line with the world as we understand it today, over 150 years after his publication of "The World as Will and Idea1" and its ground-breaking prequel, "On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.2"

Issue 1: Schopenhauer maintains that the will of an individual is unchangeable. Unfortunately, he supports this claim by asserting that human personalities do not - indeed, cannot -- fundamentally change over time, that even brain injuries will merely mute a given personality, not change it. One has a given will, says Schopenhauer, and it will seek its "ends" consistently in one's life, to the extent that it is physically possible for it to do so, even in the face of grave injury to the physical body in which said will is manifested.

In making this claim, the philosopher was apparently unaware of the celebrated case of Phineas Gage of New Hampshire3. Gage was a railroad construction foreman whose personality changed dramatically after his skull was pierced by an iron rod in a railroad accident in 1848. Before the mishap, Gage's work crew considered him to be a "capable and efficient foreman." After the accident, the same workers found him to be impatient, volatile and profane. In other words, his personality had changed dramatically. Similarly drastic changes in personality have since been associated with brain pathology, especially in Alzheimer's 4 cases, whose victims occasionally betray a belligerence that is totally out of keeping with their erstwhile peaceable demeanor. And then there is the case of Charles Whitman, that seemingly peace-loving ex-Marine who climbed to the top of the clock tower at the University of Texas on August 1, 1966, and then methodically shot and killed 14 people5. Although the case remains controversial to this day, the subsequent autopsy revealed that the 25-year-old veteran had a pecan-sized tumor pressing against his amygdala, a group of neurons thought to play a key role in stimulating aggressive behavior.

Such transformations would seem to cast doubt on Schopenhauer's idea that the will is set decisively in stone, as it were, before we are even born.

There is, however, at least one way to salvage Schopenhauer's concept of an unchangeable will. The first step is to clearly distinguish an individual's will from their personality and to give the former a transcendental residence outside of time and contingency, a location outside of the highly changeable human body and brain through which said will is attempting to manifest itself. This, in turn, suggests an appeal to the implicate order of David Bohm and/or the holographic order of Stanislav Grof, to a theory of the universe in which everything is connected outside of time6. It suggests considerations raised by the so-called quantum enigma and Einstein's "spooky action at a distance," aka entanglement.7

I have no intention of going into detail here, however; my goal is merely to suggest possibilities. The important point is that the physical brain in such a scenario would be like a radio receiver when it comes to human consciousness. A radio receiver can be damaged and so produce crazy noises and static, but it does not follow that the original signal was full of crazy noises and static: it simply means that the mechanism for reproducing the signal was damaged. Just so, the fact that our personality changes after a brain injury does not mean that our will - our primum mobile - has changed, but simply that our body's ability to channel that will accurately, so to speak, has been compromised.

Issue 2: Schopenhauer insists that the universe is eternal, without a beginning. My question is: how does this square with the 1922 "Big Bang" theory of Alexander Friedmann8?

I am not yet qualified to go into any detail here. For now, I merely hope to facilitate a relevant discussion for my readers on the topic of this seeming discrepancy. And so I say with Mike Myers of Saturday Night Live: "Talk amongst yourselves."

NOTE:

To those readers who are unfamiliar with my philosophical approach to drugs, this essay will appear out of place. "What's drugs got to do with it?", they will ask, in the manner of an academically oriented Tina Turner. This is why the Drug War ideology of substance demonization sticks around like an unwelcome guest: few people realize its pernicious influence on almost everything that we do, say, and think.

So work with me here if you're still at sea.

Schopenhauer explains how the seemingly unchangeable will can yet be modified and even denied by those who acquire certain focused transcendent mental states. In defense of this thesis, he adduces the reports of mystical states compiled by the German mystic Meister Eckhart9. This much we know.

But here's the important part, the part which most of Schopenhauer's readers overlook:

Meister Eckhart's description of mental states are often indistinguishable from the trip reports of psychonauts using drugs like mescaline, LSD and/or high doses of psilocybin. Both speak of an ultimate oneness and a feeling of fundamental and transcendent love, one that cannot be properly conveyed by words.

Philosophers may argue about the extent to which the German quietist's spiritual states are identical to those facilitated by the use of drugs, but by outlawing those drugs, we prematurely hand the victory on this question to the Christian Scientists and Drug Warriors, to those who deny any ontological similarities between the two experiences. Moreover, Eckhart may well have used drugs for all we know. In his time, "drugs" did not exist, at least not in the prejudicial sense in which that term is defined today, namely, as a substance that can have no positive uses for anybody, anywhere, ever. Had Eckhart been a "user" of some psychoactive substance(s), he may have seen no need to tell us of that fact, just as a modern writer would see no need to tell us that he or she was imbibing coffee or alcohol during the writing process. Such facts are deemed irrelevant by the "users" -- at least until such time as a drug-war society ascribes determinist causative powers to all such "drug use."

It should be remembered, moreover, that the great philosopher and psychologist William James believed that drug-inspired states had much to tell us about the nature of ultimate reality and that it was our duty as philosophers to investigate such states.

"No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded."10


Hence the subject of drug prohibition is extremely important in the world of philosophy -- and that is why it's so sad that most modern philosophers fail to realize this. Instead, they write as if the Drug War does not exist. They write as if they are philosophizing from a natural baseline, a world of academic freedom11, and so they feel free to ignore the implications that drug-inspired experiences would otherwise have on modern theories of consciousness, the self, and the nature of the universe. They rule out all forms of consciousness except for a presupposed neutral "sober" state, thereby placing their ontologies on the shaky ground of human perception, a stance that has made no sense since Immanuel Kant 12 arrived on the scene with his Critique of Pure Reason13.

So we see that modern philosophers are fundamentally stymied and misled by their own self-censorship in fealty to the substance-demonizing ideology of the War on Drugs.

I once asked Professor Patrick Grim in a video conference how he could teach a class (on Wondrium) about self and mind without a discussion of drugs and the fact that the Drug War had outlawed almost all substances that could affect mind and mood. His answer...? Well, he did not answer at all. He changed the subject.

And I do not mean to pick on Patrick. Almost all philosophers 'go dark' on the subject of drugs, except maybe in a throw-away line used by way of example, a line in which the evil of so-called drug use is presupposed. Otherwise, it is considered impolite to bring up the subject of drugs in academia. That certainly seems to be the take-home message from my own experience. I have written to almost 200 philosophers on this subject over the last five years and none of them have ever responded. Not one of them14.

But I should thank them, really. Their reticence on this topic has ceded to me a great privilege. I am the only philosopher in the world who has protested to the FDA about their plans to treat laughing gas 15 as a "drug." I am the only philosopher in the world who stood up for William James and the freedom of philosophical inquiry. I am the only philosopher who gave a damn.

Thanks for the privilege, guys.

One finds oneself shining in this world sometimes simply because all other luminaries have gone dark.

Author's Follow-up: February 5, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up




After posting the above essay, it occurred to me that brain damage (or at least brain injury) is not always a bad thing. On rare occasions, it results in so-called Acquired Savant Syndrome, a case in which an individual develops uncharacteristic abilities after a concussion. After being hit in the head by a baseball at age ten, Orlando Serrell discovered that he could "name the day of the week for any date." After being attacked outside a karaoke bar, a furniture salesman named Jason Padgett found that he suddenly possessed the instincts of a mathematical genius. After being struck by lightning, then-surgeon Anthony Cicoria was inspired with a multitude of melodies, this despite the fact that music had never played a big role in his life.

What does this have to do with drugs?

Patience, folks, patience.

In her 2022 article in Readers Digest on this subject, Emily DiNuzzo quotes neuropsychologist Mara Klemich as follows:

"The challenge, of course... is how to access that hidden ability and skill without some sort of brain-related disaster.16"


Well, here's an answer that will never occur to any drug-hating westerner but which makes perfect psychological common sense and comports with reports of drug-user experience...

The strategic use of a variety of drugs that we have outlawed have the potential to awaken and/or facilitate talents of which our sober selves would be totally incapable.

So you see that drugs has everything to do with it, even when it comes to Savant Syndrome. Indeed, our attitude toward drugs is so cramped that I am no doubt the only philosopher to point out this psychologically obvious connection. Drug war censorship ensures that such an angle will never be discussed in public, least of all on a mainstream platform like RD.com.



Author's Follow-up: February 7, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up




But how can Acquired Savant Syndrome be squared with Schopenhauer's eternal will, ontologically speaking?

It first must be remembered that, as I understand it, there are two wills in Schopenhauer's system: namely, the individual will and the Will writ large, which, again according to my understanding, is essentially a unitary expression of ALL will, of which each individual will is but one idiosyncratic iteration.

We then combine this understanding with the filter theory of Bergson and Huxley to suggest that brain injuries, besides blocking "signals," can sometimes have the effect of "bringing in" certain signals (or elements of the Will) more clearly, signals that were muted -- or even absent -- prior to the injury.

To picture this more concretely, let us consider the case of a radio set that is playing rock music but is suddenly knocked off a table and onto the ground.

We can imagine two different outcomes to this accident.

In the first scenario, the radio goes from playing rock music to playing static. This is analogous with a "normal" brain injury.

In the second scenario, the radio goes from playing rock music to playing classical music. This is analogous with Acquired Savant Syndrome.

This all presupposes the instantaneous availability of information from a transcendent source, as, for instance, from the implicate order of David Bohm.

Materialists may deny that information is available to the brain from outside of the brain, but personal experience tells me that this is likely the case. During my use of peyote some years ago in the tribal lands of Arizona, I saw (or rather experienced) a neon-green slide show of Mesoamerican imagery, seemingly drawn directly from what I was later to see in a Mayan codex. Now, I had never seen a Mayan codex at the time of this experience, nor was my mind on such topics. So the idea that a local cactus would inspire such visions in such a place seems of the highest philosophical interest to me and immediately brings to mind the ideas of Joseph Campbell about archetypes. The experience gave me a sense of "something far more deeply interfused," of something that transcends my own personal brain chemistry.




Notes:

1: The World as Will and Idea Schopenhauer, Arthur (up)
2: On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason Schopenhauer, Arthur (up)
3: Phineas Gage: His Accident and Impact on Psychology Olivia, Guy-Evans, MSc, Simply Psychology, 2023 (up)
4: What the Honey Trick Tells us about Drug Prohibition DWP (up)
5: Charles Whitman: American Assassin Britannica (up)
6: Exploring the Cosmos & Consciousness: An Adventure Through the Ideas of David Bohm, Stanislav Grof, and the Mystery of Quantum Physics and Neutrinos Crisp, B.A., bacrisp.com (up)
7: Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness Rosenblum, Bruce, Oxford University Press, 2006 (up)
8: Friedmann Universe Britannica (up)
9: Meister Eckhart and Drugs DWP (up)
10: Scribd.com: The Varieties of Religious Experience James, William, Philosophical Library, New York, 1902 (up)
11: Coverup on Campus DWP (up)
12: What drug use could tell us about the rationalist triumphalism of Immanuel Kant DWP (up)
13: The Critique of Pure Reason Kant, Immanuel, Project Gutenberg, 1781 (up)
14: I asked 100 American philosophers what they thought about the Drug War DWP (up)
15: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
16: 5 People Whose Brain Injuries Gave Them New Abilities DiNuzzo, Emily, Readers Digest, 2022 (up)


Schopenhauer




Schopenhauer synthesizes the ideas of Immanuel Kant and Plato with the philosophy of eastern religions, according to which we human beings are unable to perceive Reality writ large. This limitation, however, which both Schopenhauer and Kant suggest applies to all human beings as such, may actually only apply to "sober" individuals, as William James was to point out a decade after Schopenhauer's death. James realized that the strategic use of drugs that provide self-transcendence can help one see past the so-called Veil of Maya. He went so far as to insist that philosophers must use such substances in an effort to understand ultimate realities -- advice that, alas, most modern philosophers seem committed to ignoring.

"No account of the universe in its totality," wrote James, "can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded."

The exciting thing now is to consider Schopenhauer's philosophy in light of the revelations provided by certain drug use and to assess how such epiphanies tend to confirm, qualify or perhaps even refute the German pessimist's ideas about an eternal and unchangeable will, a will which the philosopher tells us is manifested in (or rather manifested AS) objects, animals, plants and persons. Schopenhauer tells us that the will corresponding to these entities is purposeful, for it seeks to create a specific kind of object or individual, but that the will is also meaningless, in the sense that the fact that it IS a specific kind of will is an arbitrary given, to which we need not ascribe any purpose, let alone a creator.

I am still trying to wrap my head around that latter claim, by the way, the idea that there can be teleology without design. I think I am slowly beginning to understand what Schopenhauer means by that claim in light of Kantian distinctions, but I am by no means sure that I agree with him. Yet I am not qualified to push back at this time. Further reading is required on my part before I can either refute him advisedly, or else concede his point. I do find, however, that Schopenhauer occasionally makes definitive-sounding claims that are actually quite open to obvious refutations.

In "The World as Will and Idea," for instance, he states that tropical birds have brilliant feathers "so that each male may find his female." Really? Then why are penguins not decked out with technicolor plumage? To assign "final causes" like this to nature is to turn animals into the inkblots of a biological Rorschach test. Not only is Schopenhauer being subjective here, but he has an agenda in making this particular kind of claim: he wants to underscore his belief that there is a logical causative explanation behind the fact that "wills" of the tropical birds would manifest in this colorful way, that it was not some act of extravagance on the part of a whimsical creator. But this kind of explanation is not the least bit compelling since one can imagine dozens of equally plausible "final causes" for the feature in question: the birds want to attract mates, the birds want to warn off predators, the birds want to mimic other yellow birds, the birds want to collectively camouflage themselves while roosting as one big yellow object (or more accurately, the birds' wills want to do these things).

One senses that Schopenhauer would respond as follows: "Fine. Give any reason you like, Ballard. But whatever you do, do not tell me that some suppositious God likes variety!"

And what about this famous pessimism? It's so typical of curmudgeons to try to make a universal law out of their own psychological issues. Schopenhauer does not seem to understand that attitude matters. As Hamlet said, "I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." It is neither the shortness of life nor the inhumanity of our fellows that ruins life for most people -- but rather their attitude TOWARD such circumstances. Every manic-depressive knows that a blue sky and party cake does not make a person happy, nor living amid postcard scenery. One can commit suicide in Disneyland just as well as Skid Row. It is attitude, attitude, attitude that matters -- from which it follows that it is a sin to outlaw substances that can help us adopt a positive attitude toward life. That's why it's so frustrating that philosophers like Schopenhauer pretend that life can be judged by circumstances alone. Only once we acknowledge that attitude matters can we clearly see the importance of the many mind-improving medicines of which Mother Nature is full, the meds that we slander today by classing them under the pejorative label of "drugs."








  • Ego Transcendence Made Easy
  • How the Drug War limits our understanding of Immanuel Kant
  • How the Drug War Outlaws Criticism of Immanuel Kant
  • Immanuel Kant on Drugs
  • Psilocybin Breakthrough
  • Schopenhauer and Drugs
  • Too Honest to Be Popular?
  • What Can the Chemical Hold?
  • What's Drugs Got to Do With It?
  • Drug War Propaganda from Hollywood
  • Ego Transcendence Made Easy
  • If this be reason, let us make the least of it!
  • Psilocybin Breakthrough
  • Schopenhauer and Drugs
  • Too Honest to Be Popular?
  • What Can the Chemical Hold?
  • What if Arthur Schopenhauer Had Used DMT?
  • What's Drugs Got to Do With It?





    • Ten Tweets

    against the hateful war on US




    Addiction thrives BECAUSE of prohibition, which limits drug choice and discourages education about psychoactive substances and how to use them wisely.

    Attempts to improve one's mind and mood are not crimes. The attempt to stop people from doing so is the crime.

    William James claimed that his constitution prevented him from having mystical experiences. The fact is that no one is prevented from having mystical experiences provided that they are willing to use psychoactive substances wisely to attain that end.

    What are drug dealers doing, after all? They are merely selling substances that people want and have always had a right to, until racist politicians came along and decided government had the right to ration out pain relief and mystical experience.

    Americans love to blame drugs for all their problems. Young people were not dying in the streets when opiates were legal. The prohibition mindset is the problem, not drugs.

    I never said that getting off SSRIs should be done without supervision. If you're on Twitter for medical advice, you're in the wrong place.

    Even when laudanum was legal in the UK, pharmacists were serving as moral adjudicators, deciding for whom they should fill such prescriptions. That's not a pharmacist's role. We need an ABC-like set-up in which the cashier does not pry into my motives for buying a substance.

    We have a low tolerance for the downsides of drug use only. We are fine with high risk levels for any other activity on earth. If drug warriors were serious about saving lives, they'd outlaw guns, free flying, free diving, and all pleasure trips to Mars.

    There are endless creative ways to ward off addiction if all psychoactive medicines were at our disposal. The use of the drugs synthesized by Alexander Shulgin could combat the psychological downsides of withdrawal by providing strategic "as-needed" relief.

    Classic prohibitionist gaslighting, telling me that "drugs" is a neutral term. What planet are they living on?


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