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Psychedelics, Technology, Psychedelics
Bernard S. Aaronson and Humphrey Osmond
The Introduction to PSYCHEDELICS, The Uses and Implications of Hallucinogenic Drugs edited by Bernard Aaronson and Humphry Osmond, Doubleday & Company 1970.
Copyright Aaronson and Osmond.
Any culture may be regarded as a ramification of a particular
technology applied to the particular set of local conditions
within which that culture is situated. The term
"technology," as used here, refers to the entire set of
devices, whether mechanical, chemical, or linguistic, by which
adaptations of individuals to their environments are enhanced.
Plows, clubs, radios, airplanes, fertilizers, drugs, breakfast
cereals, grammars, and concepts are each implements and instances
of technology, which influence and are influenced by one another.
Some implements operate by directly altering the environment in
response to the demands of the individual, as when we turn on an
air conditioner on a hot day. Others operate by altering the
individual to meet the demands of the environment, as when we
"make the last one for the road coffee." Still others
may attempt to integrate the two, as when we read a book to gain
knowledge that will help us in particular situations.
All systems of technology have certain common characteristics
in terms of how they affect those who use them. They set up ways
of looking at the world in terms of which new experiences can be
encoded. One of the best illustrations of this is given in an old
Jewish folk song in which the singing of a new cantor on the
Sabbath is heard by a tailor in terms of how one sews a suit of
clothes, by a cobbler in terms of making shoes, and by a
carpenter in terms of cutting wood. Systems of technology focus
attention on certain kinds of relationships and particular ways
of conceptualizing those relationships. It is probably no
accident that the great Chinese book on time, the I Ching,
with its emphasis on seasons and changes and on ways of adapting
to these and on the right time for initiating and carrying
through action should have arisen as a vegetable oracle, the
product of a farming people.
Conceptualizations, once arrived at, interact to produce new
conceptualizations, new technology, from which, once more, new
concepts and new needs may emerge. Television, for instance,
derives as a concept from motion pictures and radio and, even
though it was introduced only a comparatively short time ago, has
rapidly become a central part of homes at all levels of society
in our culture. Watching television has tended to produce a more
uniform culture through greater exposure to common stimuli, has
reduced the amount of time available for free interaction by
members of any particular household, and has resulted in the
creation of such implements as "TV trays" and "TV
dinners" to accommodate the need for more time around the
television set. Automobiles have made possible the movement to
the suburbs, the virtual end of public transportation in many
parts of our country, and a resultant increased dependency on
private means of transportation. In its turn, this has produced a
more mobile population, a proliferation of roads, a tendency to
think of distance in terms of units of time, the destruction of
the countryside, and an increased need to deal with air
pollution.
Any technological innovation in any area expands to fill all
the analogous gaps to which it can be applied. The technology of
clubs developed into the technology of axes and hoes, and, in
modern America, into the technology of baseball. Any
technological system has a degree of play that makes possible the
development of new technologies, which may not be immediately
useful, but can become functional or can be combined to be
functional when the need arises. The technique for producing
light shows has long been available but remained essentially
unused until the advent of psychedelic drugs produced its impact
on a generation accustomed to TV diffraction patterns.
The technology of drugs is one of the oldest technologies and
probably began when our ancestors browsed their way through the
forests and found that, among the foods they sampled, some
produced interesting changes in how they felt, how they
perceived, and how they could accommodate themselves to the
world. Substances that alter consciousness are found in use among
probably all the peoples of the world (Taylor, 1963). In
particular, substances containing alcohol and caffeine seem to be
used nearly everywhere, and hemp and its derivatives also seem
widely used.
Substances whose main effect is to stop hunger are classed as
foods. Even though it is now customary to present an analysis of
the chemical composition of many of the foods we eat on the sides
of the containers in which they are packaged, their action tends
to be studied in laboratories of nutrition rather than in those
of pharmacology. The kinds of detailed study of effects on
particular structures and organ systems that have historically
characterized pharmacological study are rarely undertaken with
foods.
Substances that increase conviviality or stimulate the
individual are often treated as foods if they can be eaten, or as
more like drugs (without usually naming them such) if they must
be smoked. Alcohol, coffee, tea, and chocolate represent the
edible class of these substances, as does cannabis and its
derivatives in many Moslem and Eastern countries. Cannabis and
tobacco probably represent the principal common substances
smoked. The continuing agitation against the use of alcohol and
cannabis by various groups in our culture suggests the anomalous
position of these kinds of substances on the food-drug continuum.
The fear and anxiety over the moral and physical degradation that
might result from enslavement to coffee, tea, and chocolate when
these were introduced into Europe are another case in point. It
should also be noted that many tobacco smokers often have trouble
conceptualizing tobacco as a drug, for the term "drug"
has developed very specialized meanings.
Among the foods sampled by our ancestors, some sustained life,
others destroyed it. Still others seemed to remove illness.
Sometimes those foods that destroyed life could also sustain it
and remove illness if administered in proper ways and in proper
amounts. It is hard to say when the division of edibles into
foods and poisons and into foods and drugs arose, for the
divisions already existed at the beginning of recorded history.
Legends of the witch woman and the wizard and their herbs, or of
the apple whose scent drives away disease are very old. A
technology of drug use is found in all cultures along with a
technology of poisons, and the control of that technology is
vested in individuals with priestly or semi-priestly functions,
or in others with claims to special relationships with the
supernatural. As the amount of knowledge around the use of the
healing arts grew, the priesthood, which dealt in healing,
gradually gave way to a more secularized group, with specialized
training, called physicians. Another group claimed jurisdiction
over the preparation of these substances and were called
apothecaries or, more recently, pharmacists. These experts knew
which drugs to prescribe and when. It was also apparent that
these substances could sometimes be dangerous when improperly
compounded or improperly used, so it was important to listen when
they told you how to use the possibly dangerous substances in
which they dealt. In addition, since they dealt in alleviating
suffering, a "good guy" image was easy to come by. As a
result, a drug in this context became something that was used on
the advice of a physician, and that it was foolhardy to use
otherwise.
While a tradition of using minor remedies for things like
colds or warts existed, reasonable people left the control of
drugs in the hands of the experts. Even patent medicines derived
their fundamental cultural status from the implied approval of
these groups, or had to go back to their precursors, the medicine
men and shamans of primitive days. To this day, television
advertisements for patent medicines that will cure headaches,
sinus congestion, or "tired blood" are delivered by
friendly, fatherly looking men in white coats. On the other hand,
the development of modem research technology made possible an
expansion of the number of substances recognized as specifics
against particular ailments and increased the range of illnesses
and conditions for which drugs could be used. In particular, the
realization that food-deficiency diseases exist, and the
development of vitamin pills to be used as a food supplement,
created a dynamic tension between the restricted use of drugs and
the use of pills as food. Subsequently, the modern development of
mood-changing drugs such as tranquilizers, and their promiscuous
prescription by physicians to such a point that some minor
tranquilizers can now be purchased without a prescription,
completed the breach. We became a pill-using culture, although
the earlier caution about the use of drugs remained as a nagging
sense of guilt.
Alongside the medically controlled and related concept of
drugs, a second conception exists of drugs as substances that
produce depressing but exotic sleep states to which the user
becomes easily addicted, to the exclusion of the claims and
pleasures of ordinary life. In Homer's Odyssey, Ulysses
and his crew visit the Land of the Lotus Eaters, whose
inhabitants are addicted to a fruit that, when tasted, puts the
user into a sleep in whose dreams all thoughts of home and
country are forgotten. In our country, in our time, when somebody
says he feels "drugged," he is generally referring to a
state of depressed apathy. In contrast to this, we may often
refer to a situation in which we have been gratified as one in
which we have been "fed." A product that does not sell
is referred to in business as "a drug on the market,"
but a new concept or a new perception may be "food for
thought." It is a commonplace to hear how opium, the
prototype for this conception, destroyed the initiative and
capacity for constructive activity of the people in many Eastern
countries and kept them from the progress and well-being of the
Protestant ethic. It is a fact, moreover, that China did fight a
losing war to keep British enterprise from bringing in opium,
because the rulers of China felt that the effects of opium
addiction would enervate their population.
For us, drugs are often seen as substances used in strange and
alien cultures whose customs are the material from which
travelogues are made and to which the intrepid traveler may
venture only at the risk of being debauched. The early writings
on opium by Thomas De Quincy, and the accounts of hashish
experiences by Theophile Gautier and Fitzhugh Ludlow stress the
exotic nature of the experience. Even Coleridge's famous poem Kubla
Khan, written from an opium dream, in which the legendary
ruler builds a pleasure dome in Xanadu over a hidden sacred river
where women mourn for demon lovers and Abyssinian maids play
dulcimers, bears out this aura of the strange. Drugs are
substances that not only render us unable or unwilling to
function in ordinary life, but make available exotic and
forbidden landscapes. In these landscapes, the images of
nightmare from which we have fled since childhood, move and take
shape.
This view of the dangerous nature of drugs is further
buttressed by the modern concept of "the drug
addict"an individual so enslaved by his need to escape
"reality," a euphemism for the disappointments
attendant on the need to survive, that he seeks these dangerous
substances to the exclusion of the more conventional activities
that keep society functioning. This immediately arouses the fear
that if one person finds "illegitimate" states so
attractive, others will follow because of their inherent superior
pleasure-giving quality. The strictures by Louria (1966) on the
hedonism of drug use emphasize this fear. Similar attitudes are
expressed in the fear and condemnation of homosexuals by many
perfectly adequate and well-adjusted heterosexuals, and in the
horror felt by some parents when they find their children
masturbating.
The drug addict is seen as becoming less controlled and more
apt to express impulses that our society frowns upon, as his drug
use continues. He is finally so taken over by his need, and so
debauched, and so unable to make his own way, that he is forced
to turn to crime to prolong a life that is now a threat to the
survival of others. These negative images play an important role
with respect to any substance labeled "drug" and not
medically prescribed or available in a pharmacy. It is
interesting to note that cough medicines containing codeine, an
addicting drug, are available without prescription in many of our
states, and that, at least until recently, paregoric, which
contains a small quantity of opium, was freely available without
prescription for use with infants. That these concepts represent
an important aspect of the affective reaction to drug use is
shown by the fact that campaigns against drug abuse in general,
and the use of psychedelics in particular, have centered around
appeals to these images.
Psychedelics are the newest addition to drug technology in our
culture. While the use of many of these substances in their plant
form is very old, their use in our culture is very recent, apart
from minor experimentation by early scientists concerned with
consciousness, such as William James, Weir Mitchell, and Havelock
Ellis (DeRopp, 1957). Written descriptions of the use of hemp
date from about 1250 B.C. Datura preparations are used in magic
and witchcraft in many areas of the world. Amanita muscaria,
the fly agaric mushroom, was not only probably used by the
ancient Vikings when they went into battle, but, according to
recent evidence, may have been the legendary soma of the founders
of Hinduism (Schultes, 1969; Wasson, 1969). It is not possible to
say how far back the use of peyote, ololiuqui, or of Psilocybe
mexicana goes, for the records were destroyed by the Roman
Catholic missionaries to the conquered people of Mexico in their
zeal for the welfare of the souls of their charges.
The central property of any of the substances labeled
psychedelic is the enhancement of experience. In the anti-drug
writings in the popular and semi-popular press, psychedelics have
even been condemned as offering "instant experience."
They seem to step up the capacity of the organism to respond to
fine gradations of stimulus input, to enhance response to
stimulation at the upper and lower levels of perceptual
responding, and to break down the barriers imposed by the
different sensory avenues through which stimulation is received,
in order to produce new perceptions, a greater frequency of
illusions, and, more rarely, hallucinations. Before Osmond
(1957b) coined the word "psychedelic," they were more
commonly referred to as psychotomimetics or hallucinogens to
stress their capacity to mimic psychoses or induce
hallucinations. In contrast, depressants, such as alcohol and the
barbiturates, and narcotics, such as opium and morphine, reduce
attention to stimulus input, although hypnagogic and dreamlike
states are possible with all of these. Stimulants, such as the
amphetamines and caffeine, may enhance endurance, improve mood,
and increase alertness and work capacity, but they do not promote
attention to the fine nuances of sensory experience as do the
psychedelics.
The ability of the psychedelics to produce enhanced capacity
for experiencing, and for interrelating the data of experience,
is central in understanding both their significance and their
popularity. Very few books that deal with psychedelics fail to
include individual protocols of such experiences. Metzner (1968),
Ebin (1961), and Watts (1962) have published entire books
containing nothing but protocols of psychedelic experience.
Huxley's great book The Doors of Perception (1954), which
probably marks the beginning of the modern psychedelic movement,
is also such a protocol from his famous initial encounter with
the Belle of Portugal rose to his final return to "that
reassuring but profoundly unsatisfactory state known as 'being in
one's right mind.'" Timothy Leary's recent autobiographical
account of psychedelia, High Priest (1968a), is also
presented in terms of psychedelic "trips." In
discussing the use of psychedelics in therapy for various
emotional disorders, Hoffer and Osmond (1967) stress that LSD,
psilocybin, and mescaline may all be equally effective. "It
is the experience, not the compound which induces it, which is
responsible."
The stress on enhanced experiencing as the fundamental
characteristic of these substances leads, in the literature, to a
stress on the importance of the setting in which the drug is
taken. In order for the enhanced capacity for experience created
by these substances to show itself, an adequate range of stimuli
must first be available to be experienced. Administration of
psychedelics under conditions of sensory deprivation seems to
abolish most of the usual effects attributed to them (Pollard,
Uhr, and Stern, 1965). Hoffer and Osmond (1967) stress the
importance of providing adequate environmental support to produce
the kinds of experience required to produce change in
personality. Alpert and Cohen (l966) also stress the need for
adequate settings to provide psychedelic experiences.
On the other hand, as the stimulus situations presented to the
drug taker increase in complexity, the variability of possible
responses to those stimuli increases, especially when there is
perceptual heightening. For this reason, along with the emphasis
on setting, a companion emphasis on setthe attitudes,
motivations, preconceptions, and intentions that individuals
bring to their experienceshas arisen. Mogar (1965a, 1965c) has
suggested that contradictory results in different experiments on
the effects of psychedelics on different functions can be
accounted for by considering the differences in set and setting.
Leary, Litwin, and Metzner (1963) have suggested that the total
effect of an exposure to psilocybin could be accounted for
entirely in terms of set and setting. Krippner (1965) has pointed
out that the psychotomimetic reactions of the early studies with
LSD occurred within the context of a laboratory in which the
individual taking the drug was surrounded by white-coated
physicians who were looking for evidence that an analogous
situation to schizophrenia was being produced. Hyde (1960) showed
that when psychedelics were administered to a variety of normal
subject groups under conditions in which they were confronted
with impersonal, hostile, and investigative attitudes on the part
of others, the subjects responded with devaluative distortions
and hostility. Flexibility, familiarity, and the presence of
others with a common culture ameliorated the psychotomimetic
aspects of the reaction, while rigidity, unfamiliarity,
non-acceptance, and absence of others with a common culture
exacerbated them.
While few would seek enhanced experience if that experience
were negative, the ability to enhance the capacity for experience
is an important reason for the increased popularity of
psychedelics. People tend to do what they are good at.
Well-co-ordinated, well-muscled individuals are apt to be
involved in athletics; those with good number ability are apt to
enjoy working with numbers. One of the best predictive devices
for vocational success is the Strong Vocational Interest
Inventory, which provides scores based on the similarity of an
individual's interest patterns to those of individuals who are
successful in their chosen fields. Virtually everyone has the
capacity to react, judge, and seek out experience. People will
often go on long and arduous journeys just to see things, or will
buy recording equipment, radios, or television just to provide
themselves with stimulation. They will register for difficult
courses of instruction with no demonstrable practical
consequences for themselves, in order to enhance their
experience. This is not unique to man, for animals show a similar
pattern of experience seeking (Welker, 1961). In human societies,
the theater, the church, sports spectaculars, the pomp and
ceremony of parades, the rides, color, and glitter of carnivals,
all are institutions created to meet the need for enhanced
experience. We are built to process stimuli, and an important
part of living is seeking out stimuli to be processed. The
popularity of psychedelics is not only a function of this general
characteristic of stimulus seeking, but it also suggests the
relative infrequency of bad experiences resulting from their use,
unless we wish to posit masochism as an equally fundamental
characteristic of biological adjustment.
Because psychedelics focus attention on individual experience,
some important social consequences arise from their use.
Individual experience is on the one hand unique to the
experienced and on the other characterized by great transpersonal
commonality as one goes deeper into the self (Aaronson, 1968d).
In spite of the scientific validity of the behaviorist critique
that private experience is not available for scientific
observation, for each of us, as individuals, our own experiences
have a veridicality shared by few other things in this world. We
not only seek experience, we respond in terms of our experiences,
and accord a special hearing to those who can "speak from
experience." Immediate experience is of greater consequence
to the individual experiencing it than any promise of future good
or ill made by a personal or impersonal authority figure. Any
parent who has had to take a child to face a shot administered to
him by his kindly pediatrician can testify to this. Any smoker
who lights up contentedly as he reads the warning on his
cigarette pack also shows its validity.
When individual experience is emphasized, the generalized
verbal formulas for societal control based on hoary and
long-unquestioned precepts become open to question as they are
filtered through the individual consciousness. Various
institutions maintain their authority by means of symbols and
concepts that evoke traditional emotional reactions, and the
more-rational verbal responses function as unconscious
rationalizations of these reactions. That is, many logical
arguments turn out to be simply elaborations of illogical
emotional biases. These traditional emotional biases are
inculcated from the earliest age at home, in the schools, and in
the propaganda organizations for children, such as the Boy
Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the YMCA, and other groups. Similar
institutions exist in Communist and Fascist societies, except
that there the conditioning tends to be more frenetic and
compulsive than in our own. The attention to the ways in which
these symbols can affect us makes plain the inherent illogic of
conventional wisdom. Once the question of "Why, indeed,
should I respond in this way?" has been posed, many of the
structures of society will tumble if answers cannot be found
rooted in the existential being of the questioner.
Many of the consequences of this kind of questioning can be
seen not only among the hippies and in Leary's concept of society
as a collection of television stage props (1968b), but in the
kinds of questions posed by those of our young people who have
not obviously taken on the extreme styles of life represented
either by the hippies or by Leary. The use of marijuana is
sufficiently widespread among our young adult groups that
attitudes developing from attention to one's own consciousness
have pervaded their style of approach to the world. Before the
question of "What career shall I choose?" can be
answered, the question of "Why should I choose a
career?" must be settled. Before one can agree to fight for
flag and country, the existential meaning of flag, country,
death, killing, freedom, and a host of other concepts must be
considered. The source of power is not seen as being conferred
from on high, but as arising from the behavior toward the power
wielder of those over whom power is exercised. This attitude has
tremendous implications with regard to the kinds of behavior that
will be displayed toward the traditional holders of power and the
traditional methods of displaying power.
The development of similar emphases on personal revelation and
personal consciousness at various points in the history of
Christendom led to the formation of many of our existing
Protestant denominations and the replacement of the old Catholic
concept of an ordained priesthood with a new concept of the
priesthood of all believers. The so-called "generation
gap" is a mirage that results not from the traditional need
of the young to make their way in a world of already established
people nor from any traditional traits of impatience or idealism,
although all these may be factors, but from differing amounts of
attention to the importance of individual experience. Because of
the greater willingness of young people to try new things, the
consciousness-changing chemicals had their greatest effect along
peer-group lines.
Because of the fact that each individual consciousness is
located in a body, increased awareness of the body and of our
functions as biological organisms seems to occur in the
psychedelic-user population. This is not the kind of stress on
the body traditionally associated with weight lifting or the
overdevelopment of body parts that give a good male or female
image, but desire for a well-functioning body that is pleasant to
experience. This has led to an interest in hatha yoga and in tai
chi, the Indian and Chinese systems of exercise whose aim is not
muscular development, but peace, coordination, and good bodily
functioning. All bodily functions and bodily needs are more apt
to be accepted and, even more important, respected. The ancient
verbal taboos limiting sexual behavior have been weakened by the
non-verbal nature of psychedelic experience. Excretory functions
are accepted without embarrassment. Preferences develop for
simple foods with more concern about how these may affect the
body, although there is some tendency for this concern to turn to
cultishness. Clothes are no longer used to hide the body, but to
emphasize the body as the source of experience. The greater
openness with regard to the physical self has been accompanied by
relaxation of the taboo against touching other people and being
touched by them, an event of overriding social consequence in
changing the character, intensity, scope, and available
possibilities in any interpersonal relationship.
Beyond the perception of the body itself, the enhanced sensory
experience has called attention to the pleasures and insights
that can be obtained directly from sensory experience. Light
shows and modern rock music reflect some of the visual and
auditory experiences produced by psychedelics. Aldous Huxley
(1956) has pointed out the luminous intensity of colors found in
"the antipodes of the mind," and this is mimicked by
Day-Glo paints and the eerie glow of colors under black light.
The greater sensitivity to color reflections, color shadows, and
afterimages, especially as they appear reflected on glossy
surfaces like skin, has led to the modern fashion of body
painting. Along with the perception of oneself as a biological
organism, with its consequent emphasis on the simple and natural,
there has been an increased awareness of the complexity and
beauty of natural phenomena. This has been further elaborated by
the fact that, with many of the psychedelics, the retinal
structure of the eye itself enters into the perception, as Kluver
(1966) has pointed out. This has complicated the drive for
simplicity with a preference for the baroque. The resulting
dynamic tension appears in all forms of psychedelic decoration,
music, literature, and art. Masters and Houston (1968) have shown
this well in their recently published book on psychedelic art,
which runs the gamut from simple meditative expressions to
welters of clashing stimulation designed to make the viewer leave
his senses through overstimulation of his senses.
Going deeply into one's own experience leads to insights
beyond those experienced when the focus of attention is on what
is experienced rather than the mode of experience itself. The
appearance of reality is no longer taken at face value, but is
seen as an interaction with the perceptual apparatus of the
perceiver. This means that the usual existential primacy given
the world around us, probably because we are built to process
information coming to us from the outside, gives way to an
equality of perceives and perceived, so that the perception
itself becomes the primary datum in a conscious sense, as it has
always been without our realization. This is, indeed, one of the
goals of many meditative systems, and meditation as such has
become a popular activity among the psychedelic subgroup and
those influenced by them. Indeed, movement within the self away
from its more-surface manifestations inevitably invokes religious
imagery (Masters and Houston, 1966; Aaronson, 1968a), although
images invoking religious feelings may be possible at all levels
of consciousness. The sense that depth is expanded, common in
psychedelic experiences, is like the environmental conditions
most commonly associated with mystical experience, and mystical
experiences can be produced by experimentally providing
experiences of enhanced depth (Aaronson, 1967d).
Movement within reaches the level of archetype and myth and
may transcend these to a point of ultimate mystical union. The
archetypes may be an elaboration of current material featured in
the concerns of the popular press, as Barron (1967) has pointed
out. They may derive from early impressions and concerns fed by
other technologies in our culture. Tom Wolfe (1968), for
instance, has pointed out the prevalence of imagery from the
comic books dear to children in the late thirties and early
forties in the group centering around Ken Kesey. They may derive
from fundamental perceptions of our own structures and modes of
functioning. Barron (1967) has noted, "an experience of
Christ, i.e. of Christ free from the institutional embodiment
known as Christianity, is common to many psychedelic
"trips." Christ on the cross may then be understood
simply as "consciousness impaled on the human form, mind
hung to die on body to expiate our voluntary participation in the
world's heavy materialism." This manner of thinking and
perceiving, the concentration on archetype, the sense of an
indwelling, immanent God, and the interest in meditation have
correspondingly created an interest in those forms of religion
that stress these notions: Hinduism, and Tibetan and Zen
Buddhism. Psychedelic experience is fundamentally religious, as
any experience of life taken as an experience of life must be.
Braden (1967) has pointed out that the fundamental thrust of
psychedelic experience is religious and its fundamental challenge
is to the forms of organized religion. It is one of the forces
contributing to the ferment in contemporary Christianity that is
presently leading one of the oldest and most tradition-bound of
Christian churches to reevaluate its forms, its structure, and
many of the engrafted beliefs of its development.
The development of any new major innovation in technology
affects profoundly the life and structure of the society in which
it occurs. The development of psychedelics is such a major
innovation, which promises revolutionary changes and is, in fact,
already producing them. Psychedelics may have a potential impact
on society equivalent to that of the machine, which in setting
off the Industrial Revolution, created much of what we now
consider our "natural" and "traditional"
styles of life and forms of organizing society. At the time of
the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, those dispossessed by
the new forms blamed the machines and tried to wreck them in the
Luddite rebellion. Our modern Luddites are not the dispossessed,
but those who exist at the very center of the power structure.
The alteration of values, the questioning of rules by those who
have had psychedelic experiences, create much consternation,
often by their very own children, among individuals who have made
their way by those rules and under the value system of the
existing society. In addition, the negative implications of the
concept "drug," noted earlier in this discussion, are
not without their effects.
Confronted by danger, each carries out his social function.
The mass media simultaneously point at the wonders of psychedelic
experience and view them with alarm. Psychologists,
psychiatrists, and sociologists, whose business it is to find
abnormality in deviance, find abnormality in deviance. Government
agencies introduce regulations, lawmakers make laws, and
policemen police. The upshot of all this activity is that it is
now almost impossible to carry out legitimate research with
psychedelics. A large user population has developed that uses
bootleg drugs, sometimes containing dangerous impurities, and
almost certainly producing revenue for organized crime. Drugs are
now used by individuals who, under a system of controlled access
to them, would probably not have been exposed to them and run the
risk of injuring themselves. It is difficult to set up safeguards
for the proper use of the major psychedelics when this use is
illegal. One segment of our population exists under conditions
reminiscent of prohibition, while the other looks on with alarm.
A crisis in confidence has been created that cuts across
generational lines. A great many people who normally would be
law- abiding are placed in the position of outlaws, with marked
implications for their further relationships to society and its
institutions.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to do any more than
outline briefly some of the implications of psychedelic
technology and some of its associated problems. The rest of this
book is devoted to filling in the picture in more detail. At the
present time, the repressive attitudes toward this new technology
are so strong that its effects can only show themselves in
strange and aborted forms. Perhaps the situation will be eased to
permit more-open and controlled development of what is now
clandestine and uncontrolled. Hopefully.
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