Drug Prohibition and the Metaphysical Search for 'Real' Religious Inspiration

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Drug Prohibition and the Metaphysical Search for 'Real' Religious Inspiration

a review of essay number 6 in Hallucinogens: A Reader, edited by Charles Grob

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

June 26, 2025

The following remarks are part of a series of responses to the essays contained in the 2001 book "Hallucinogens: A Reader," edited by Charles Grob ¹. The comments below are in response to essay number 6: "Chemical and Contemplative Ecstasy: Similarities and Differences" by Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D.

Walsh confronts the metaphysical question of whether drugs "really" increase religiosity, but I contend that this is an ill-conceived question. It is based on the presumption that there is an identifiable one-size-fits-all "sober" state against which we are to judge the effects of psychedelics. There is no such paradigmatic ideal and baseline state however. Each individual has a unique biochemistry and psychology and life story that renders their reactions to life very different from those of their fellows. They already have drugs in their "systems," even if we consider them to be stone sober. Everybody has drugs in their system. That is their biochemistry. To ask about the role that chemicals play in producing a specific behavior or impulse is therefore misconceived -- for behavior is produced by the totality of inputs -- chemical and otherwise -- and the unique way that they interact in an individual at a certain time and in a certain environment and so on. The very term "biochemistry" reminds us that we are all on drugs all the time. The question is therefore NOT: how do those drugs effect us -- but rather how does the wide array of chemical and non-chemical incentives combine (with our upbringing, our psychology, our default biochemistry, etc.) to influence behavior?

Does mescaline increase religiosity? That is a meaningless question. The drug experience is dependent on a vast array of factors besides the use of mescaline by itself. This is why Sartre ² experienced hell on mescaline while many others (most notably Aldous Huxley) experienced pure joy. The outcome of drug use always depends on the unique combination of a vast array of inputs. We should therefore resist the temptation to reify psychoactive drugs as all-powerful causative agents that have one specific outcome of use.

Meanwhile, the idea that drug-aided religiosity is not "real" is highly problematic. It begs endless philosophical questions, such as:

1) If I sharpen my mind with the use of cocaine ³ ⁴ ⁵ and feel closer to nature for having done so (and therefore feel more "religious" according to my definition of that term), is that somehow not a "valid" religious benefit? Why not, exactly?

2) If morphine ⁶ gives me a deep appreciation of the intricacies of Mother Nature and I view this as a religious advancement on my part, in what sense am I "wrong"?

The moralist's attempt to say that drug-aided religiosity is not "real" reminds me of the materialist's attempt to tell us that drugs like laughing gas ⁷ and morphine ⁸ and coca and phenethylamines cannot "really" help the depressed. Both moralist and materialist are blinded to the obvious. The moralists are blinded by their preconceived ideas about what constitutes a "real" religion. In the case of the materialist, they are biased by the Behaviorist doctrine that real benefits must be discovered under a microscope and can never be seen by the naked eye -- or divined easily by common sense. Common sense tells me that laughter would help the depressed and that states of extreme concentration would help a writer -- and yet Drug War morality and materialist ideology both teach us to pretend that no such help is available, that such help is somehow illusory.

Of course, exceptions are made when money is at stake. Thus speed is rebranded as Ritalin so that we can give it to grade schoolers to improve their concentration levels -- but if we tried to improve the concentration levels of adults with speed, it is considered wrong and demonized as the use of "meth." It makes you wonder how stupid Drug Warriors think we are... and if they might be right about that, at least when it comes to substances that we demonize as "drugs."

Hallucinogens: a Reader, edited by Charles Grob

Notes:

1: Hallucinogens: a reader Grob, M.D., editor, Charles, Penguin Putnam, 2002 (up)
2: Sartre and Speed: a review of essay number 4 in Hallucinogens: A Reader, edited by Charles Grob DWP (up)
3: What the Honey Trick Tells us about Drug Prohibition DWP (up)
4: Sigmund Freud's real breakthrough was not psychoanalysis DWP (up)
5: “Freud on Cocaine : Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” 2023. Internet Archive. 2023. https://archive.org/details/freudoncocaine0000freu/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater. (up)
6: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)
7: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
8: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)

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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

William James knew that there were substances that could elate. However, it never occurred to him that we should use such substances to prevent suicide. It seems James was blinded to this possibility by his puritanical assumptions.

In his treatise on laws, Cicero reported that the psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian Mysteries gave the participants "not only the art of living agreeably, but of dying with a better hope."

The December Scientific American features a story called "The New Nuclear Age," about a trillion-dollar plan to add 100s of ICBM's to 5 states, which an SA editorial calls "kick me" signs. This Neanderthal plan comes from pols who think that compassion-boosting drugs are evil!

This is the "Oprah fallacy," which has led to so much suffering. She told women they were fools if they accepted a drink from a man. That's crazy. If we are terrified by such a statistically improbable event, we should be absolutely horrified by horses and skateboards.

It is a crime against humanity to withhold cocaine from the depressed and those with impaired cognition.

Here are some political terms that are extremely problematic in the age of the drug war: "clean," "junk," "dope," "recreational"... and most of all the word "drugs" itself, which is as biased and loaded as the word "scab."

Aleister Crowley actually TRIED to get addicted to drugs and found he could not. These things are not inevitable. The fact that there are town drunkards does not mean that we should outlaw alcohol.

We need a few brave folk to "act up" by shouting "It's the drug war!" whenever folks are discussing Mexican violence or inner city shootings. The media treat both topics as if the violence is inexplicable! We can't learn from mistakes if we're in denial.

Someday those books about weird state laws will be full of factoids like: "In Alabama, you could be jailed for 20 years for conspiring to eat a mushroom."

Brits have a right to die, but they do not have the right to use drugs that might make them want to live. Bad policy is indicated by absurd outcomes, and this is but one of the many absurd outcomes that the policy of prohibition foists upon the world.

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Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.

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