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: Why materialism is an unindicted co-conspirator in America's anti-patient war on psychoactive medicine, aka the war on drugs. 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.
Only a pathological puritan would say that there's no place in the world for substances that lift your mood, give you endurance, and make you get along with your fellow human being. Drugs may not be everything, but it's masochistic madness to claim that they are nothing at all.
If there is an epidemic of "self-harm," prohibitionists never think of outlawing razor blades. They ask: "Why the self-harm?" But if there is an epidemic of drug use which they CLAIM is self-harm, they never ask "Why the self-harm?" They say: "Let's prohibit and punish!"
What bothers me about AI is that everyone's so excited to see what computers can do, while no one's excited to see what the human mind can do, since we refuse to improve it with mind-enhancing drugs.
I agree that Big Pharma drugs have wrought disaster when used in psychotherapy -- but it is common sense that non-Big Pharma drugs that elate could be used to prevent suicide and obviate the need for ECT.
The drug war is a big scare campaign to teach us to distrust mother nature and to rely on pharmaceuticals instead.
In an article about Mazatec mushroom use, the author says: "Mushrooms should not be considered a drug." He misses the point: NOTHING should be considered a drug: every substance has potential good uses.
The Cabinet of Caligari ('62) ends with a shameless display of psychiatric triumphalism. Happy shock therapy patients waltz freely about a mansion in which the "sick" protagonist has just been "cured" by tranquilizers and psychoanalysis. Did Robert Bloch believe his own script?
It's depressing. I thought mycology clubs across the US would be protesting drug laws that make mushroom collecting illegal for psychoactive species. But in reality, almost no club even mentions such species. No wonder prohibition is going strong.
Had the FDA been around in the Indus Valley 3,500 years ago, there would be no Hindu religion today, because they would have found some potential problem with the use of soma.
The DEA has done everything it can to keep Americans clueless about opium and poppies. The agency is a disgrace to a country that claims to value knowledge and freedom of information.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, Time to Replace Psychiatrists with Shamans published on September 20, 2019 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
You have been reading an article entitled, Time to Replace Psychiatrists with Shamans published on September 20, 2019 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)