04 February 2007

Magic mushrooms

Ordinarily square political blogger Mark AR Klieman reports that a new, serious, well-conducted study demonstrates that psilocybin mushrooms work.

Duh.

Now it seems that the Beatific Vision, or at least a 60% chance of something the feels a lot like the Beatific Vision, might be in reach of almost anyone with access to a competent guide, a comfortable room, headphones, eyeshades, and the right kind of mushrooms.

Would that be a good thing? How much mystical insight can this society handle?

Good question. Klieman also considers some good questions about whether or not having psilocybin a Schedule One substance conflicts with the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment and why the researchers are having trouble finding further funding ... which both point to an answer to that first question. With enough mystical insight, this society isn't this society any more.

Considering the changes in society that coincided with the last uncontrolled mass experiment in entheogenic drugs, this is hardly a surprise.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mark has right, people many times think that magic mushrooms are a bad thing, but that's not true. Of course that like everything in life, people need to know the formula, and how to use it safely.

Reya Mellicker said...

We baby boomers believed that a society of mystics could change the world. We got high on a regular basis, purely for the greater good. Now look at us with our SUV's and all our toys, still as selfish as we were when we were hippies.

I'm not convinced mushrooms are the way to a more evolved society, obviously. Too many mushrooms, too many mystics, is no better than too few.

Jonathan Korman said...

There's more interesting discussion of this post over on the LiveJournal syndicated feed version, including me saying something that's relevant to both comments here:

These drugs are powerful technologies that should neither be abused as mere toys nor ignored out of fearful puritanism.