Legalize Mysticism

An oft-neglected aspect of the debate over whether to legalize marijuana is that cannabis is an entheogen, a special  class of plant which alters perception and cognition in ways that go beyond the effects of naturally occurring stimulants or sedatives.  For untold millennia, human beings have gathered not only plants with nutritional and medicinal uses, but entheogens--sacred plants that are known to induce a range of metanormal experiences.  This continuum includes transformative insights, ego transcendence, a sense of ecstatic union with the world outside the self, and a greater impetus to question commonly held norms and assumptions (note that these are key features of nearly all contemplative traditions, which suggests that people can achieve them without ingesting anything).*  Entheogens contain psychoactive alkaloids (such as THC) which interact with human physiology in a way that encourages people to question long-held notions about themselves, society, government, and even the meaning of life... and to a particular type of leader, these are very bad things for the rabble to be doing with their consciousness.

I would posit that a resistance to the very idea of transformative insight may actually be a significant factor in the so-called "war on drugs," which considers marijuana--a plant with hundreds of medicinal and industrial applications--in basically the same category as crack cocaine.  Those involved may only be operating on unconscious taboos, but that makes it no less of a witch hunt.  People who use drugs which induce mystical or otherwise mind-expanding states seem to be systematically ostracized and criminalized by governments that are closer to the autocratic end of the political spectrum *ahem* whereas more progressive nations recognize that non-"hard" drug use is generally a victimless crime.  That is to say, the main risk of harm is to oneself, in the form of abuse, but that harm to no one is possible when used in moderation and with responsible planning.

In the U.S., the prisons are overflowing with people (overwhelmingly black teens and young adults) who were picked up for possession of relatively small amounts of marijuana.  Our system exposes them to hardened criminals who have committed multiple assaults or killings, not unlike throwing hundreds of innocent people from Iraq and Afghanistan in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they learned to both hate the American government and network with actual terrorists.  Given the vast segment of the American populace that sometimes consume marijuana, can anyone reasonably argue that this is sensible policy any more?  The cost to taxpayer is enormous, and it takes otherwise decent kids and exposes them to things like learning to make a shiv, or getting HIV because you were raped by another inmate.

I'm only speaking to the use of marijuana as an entheogen, but there is also a strong argument for the decriminalization of industrial hemp, which would be an immense boon to U.S. GDP... but that's another rant for another blog.

Link(s):
http://www.naturalnews.com/035534_hemp_paper_clothing.html for more on that.

*Michael Murphy, The Future of the Body

News Resources

As one of the first posts on this blog, I will list sources of news and opinion that manage to break the escape velocity of the mainstream narrative and tell it like it is.  A brief description will accompany each link.  I will include a few U.S. news sources in my listing. 

Domestic News Sources
Free Speech Radio News
CounterSpin

Foreign News Publications
In most cases, you can learn more about what's going on in this country from the mainstream press in other countries.  I shudder to think about the implications of this...

Blogs & Opinion

Foreign Affairs Matter

Some of you may have noticed that what is often touted as news in the mainstream U.S. media is, in fact, "olds:" the same "Choose Spin A or Spin B" narrative on the same atomistic obsession with transitory spectacle.  For instance, did you ever notice that the U.S. media tends to ignore the rest of the world, as if other countries don't matter and there's nothing we can learn from them?  Aside from a tiny fraction of each day's news cycle reserved for token Foreign Affairs coverage, we barely hear anything about what's going on outside of the United States. 

The mainstream narrative is designed to make it seem like the only things happening outside our borders involve either A) America-hating extremists, B) Dangerous would-be dictators--most of them Socialist, C) Conservative leaders who mirror our own right-wing ideologues and illustrate this worldview's ultimate supremacy, D) occasional territorial scuffles, or E) natural disasters, and subsequent outpourings of money that show how nice we all are (2-month statute of limitations).  Even in these categories, most current events that receive mention are closely tied to our own country's military and/or financial interests, bolstering the national obsession with ego-aggrandizing groupthink. 

We live in this media bubble so that we can continue on in a state of blind nationalism, assuming that we do absolutely everything better than everyone else.  This bubble serves two main purposes.  First, it shields us from facts with the audacity to suggest that our prevailing models for government, education, electoral transparency, health care, free trade, financial oversight, and environmental conservation fall pitifully far below the standards of many other post-industrial nations.  Second, it veils the scope of our imperial agenda, from murdered union organizers in Columbia to African children whose lives have been ruined--or ended--by pharmaceutical corporations' Nazi-like drug experiments.  Third and foremost, it keeps us from forming a sense of global identity, cutting us off from the billions of people around the world who have very similar hopes and dreams, and are being victimized by ruthless assholes that bear a remarkable resemblance to the ones trying to turn our own country into a polluted third-world fascist cesspool (often the same ruthless assholes).

The only way the media can push the notion of America's absolute economic, political and moral superiority is by keeping most people blissfully ignorant to the staggeringly evil agendas that our country's handlers pursue around the globe.  For media outlets to accurately frame the United States as a sickly, undereducated nation whose foreign policy is dictated by right-wing fundamentalists, secretive intelligence agencies that thrive on human rights abuses, and corporations bent on the destruction of the Earth's natural ecosystems, would sorta bum people out.  Our only enduring claim to fame in the global meritocracy is a military budget of staggering proportions that gets more swollen with each passing year, but highlighting this fact might give the impression that we're a nation bent on world conquest even though we totally fail to model a humane and sustainable template for civilization: also a mega-bummer.  Conventional wisdom tells us that depressing news only sells when it relates to things like murder or sexual depravity, so out goes the bad news, which--in terms of foreign policy--is most of it.

About the site

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