Truth4Youth wrote:Sorry if this comes off as a bit of rambling and incoherency I wrote it in a hurry.
I was recently talking to someone about the use of drugs for "brain change" or consciousness expansion. We discussed how goverment programs like Mk-ULTRA were used for behavior modification experiments, but I mentioned that under the right circumstances and by one's own will the use of drugs for behavior modification could be a good thing. She essentially responded by saying that it is inhuman to use something other than one's self to modify his/her behaviors. In other words use of a tool for the advancement of consciousness and/or behavior modification is "inhuman".
I was a bit struck by this statement. I really didn't want to argue with her though, so I just let it go. Which is fine.
I just really had a hard time grasping her logic. And by no means do I hold her logic against her. But to me, people like Timothy Leary, etc. promoted the use of psychedelics as a TOOL for behavior modification and consciousness expansion. I don't quite understand how use of a "tool" could be "inhuman". Does that make meditation techniques inhuman?
I don't know that there was any real reason for me to post this other than to vent my frustrations. Not that I was frustrated with this person, but with the thinking. Or maybe I'm wrong and she's right. You tell me.
Have you read C.S. Lewis's "Abolition of Man"? Don't read the first two essays it's bundled with, they're mostly Lewis trying to justify his aesthetics. But the last essay is pretty simple, ultimately, and worth reading. It amounts to a defense of "just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should."
When I was a little younger, I didn't understand that. Now I think I have a further grasp on it.
For example, Cat Cora, celebrity chef, is (or was?) pregnant with a child that is a combination of her girlfriend's DNA and some random sperm donor's. This isn't a South Park lesbians with a turkey-baster scenario. Actual reproductive surgery was involved, since it's impossible for a woman to be carrying a child that isn't hers.
And what you can see there is that, ultimately, the more powerful our tools get, the further they erode our image of human. I mean, that's cool, we're turning into cyborgs anyway, right? But you can clearly argue that said image is going to be socially constructed blah blah blah and while I can't totally disagree, part of me does have some concern about our straying from the eidos.
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Now, w/r/t to drugs... that's different. "Life is hard. Coffee is wonderful." Humans aren't pefectly sealed vessels. We have to eat and we have to get pieces for our metabolism neurotransmitters from our external environment. Look at coca plants, e.g. They chew them in the Andes since the air is thin and cocaine increased the ability to consume oxygen. Hell, my cats have a problem with cat nip and valerian.
That doesn't mean a chemical utopia is possible. There isn't a perfect chemical balance. I know, I just mentioned the eidetic earlier. too bad.
Now, I think you mean hallucinogens.
They are great. Acid and ecstasy both have powerful therapuetic modalities when used properly. I would procede in that vein very carefully. Our personalities and neuroses are much more complicated than we think--you know how you're supposed to call the utility company before you dig? That sort of thing.
Drugs also have some very interesting other effects, but there is much to be said for doing something under your own power. Drugs are a short cut to what I'd call the "psychic powers", with the understanding that the effect fades in hours or days. I suspect some drugs have in their own way an intelligence or communication but have zero evidence.
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That said, some people have used drugs for spiritual purposes and made some progress on them, catalyzing "the vision of tipareth" or "knowledge of the arising and passing away" but I don't know or know of anyone whose ever gone through a whole cycle with drugs alone, save those who mistake that dramatic experience for the end of the cycle (it's not). And with that said, for every person I know personally who's had eye-opening experiences on drugs, I know personally at least five times as many people who treat them as toys fit only for teenagers.
