I think the short of it is that if you need LSD to make you see that there's something wrong with the system, you're probably not out of grade school. LSD was used to treat criminals and reduced recidivism -- what does that say? It certainly isn't going to turn us all into Weather Underground types.
I have a bit of tripping experience. I'll try to explain something.
The things you see and think and feel on acid are often highly personal, possibly embarrassing (vouch), and difficult to express. There is an aphorism, which, like so many aphorisms, is uselessly true: "enjoy the little things". It's hard to take this advice if you've forgotten what the "little things" are, never mind appreciating them; if you try to take this advice, you might just emulate some clichés you saw in a movie or a show and bore yourself.
This is what it's like to roll a joint on mushrooms:
One of my friends, who has tripped many times, when I was describing a novel psychedelic to him, asked:
"Does it do that thing, where you're like ..."
snaps fingers slowly several times
And... yeah. That thing. You forget yourself, you notice yourself. It is totally exquisite.
Psychedelic introspection draws on this. It is an utterly human phenomenon that one thinks of their beliefs and ideas as part of them, when they are nothing of the sort (cf. Five Aggregates). It becomes much easier to realize you have a drinking problem when you have first realize that you lose nothing by realizing that you have a drinking problem.
Perhaps you have done something wrong: it does you no harm to accept this. Perhaps you have aligned yourself with bad company: seeing them for who they are makes them no worse than they were before. Perhaps you have been wasting time: you waste no more time if you start working.
Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing in it to steal.
Ryokan returned and caught him. "You may have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift."
The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.
Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow, " he mused, "I wish I could give him this beautiful moon."
It is a common lament of the e-lucy-diated: so many of the world's problems would be resolved if those people could see this beautiful moon. But who should take acid? What would it do? And how could the world possibly benefit?
Consider the case of the police interrogator who tortures a false confession out of an innocent sixteen-year-old and destroys a life. How does one survive an encounter with a mirror after such an abhorrent act? A person will recoil in abject horror at even the possibility of admitting to have done such a thing. The belief that you have done it becomes a demon, and it is as though it attacks your mind, and so your mind runs and hides.
In a state of constant renewal -- which is the only true state of the mind -- a memory can be seen for what it is, and one can react honestly, appropriately, and ethically, with true humility. But when people are denying reality, they are helpless to change it. And perhaps the moon can remind a person that theft is not a very good life-track to follow.
I do not mean to present LSD as the solution to the world's problems. I mean to present LSD as LSD. From my perspective, I feel as though I have barely scratched the surface, and already I am caught up in dramatic overexpression and gratuitous use of italics. I had hoped to write a good post. That did not happen.
I have a bit of tripping experience. I'll try to explain something.
The things you see and think and feel on acid are often highly personal, possibly embarrassing (vouch), and difficult to express. There is an aphorism, which, like so many aphorisms, is uselessly true: "enjoy the little things". It's hard to take this advice if you've forgotten what the "little things" are, never mind appreciating them; if you try to take this advice, you might just emulate some clichés you saw in a movie or a show and bore yourself.
This is what it's like to roll a joint on mushrooms:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/qnf5g/from_now_on_ill...
One of my friends, who has tripped many times, when I was describing a novel psychedelic to him, asked:
"Does it do that thing, where you're like ..."
snaps fingers slowly several times
And... yeah. That thing. You forget yourself, you notice yourself. It is totally exquisite.
Psychedelic introspection draws on this. It is an utterly human phenomenon that one thinks of their beliefs and ideas as part of them, when they are nothing of the sort (cf. Five Aggregates). It becomes much easier to realize you have a drinking problem when you have first realize that you lose nothing by realizing that you have a drinking problem.
Perhaps you have done something wrong: it does you no harm to accept this. Perhaps you have aligned yourself with bad company: seeing them for who they are makes them no worse than they were before. Perhaps you have been wasting time: you waste no more time if you start working.
Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing in it to steal.
Ryokan returned and caught him. "You may have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift."
The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.
Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow, " he mused, "I wish I could give him this beautiful moon."
It is a common lament of the e-lucy-diated: so many of the world's problems would be resolved if those people could see this beautiful moon. But who should take acid? What would it do? And how could the world possibly benefit?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/why-do-inno...
Consider the case of the police interrogator who tortures a false confession out of an innocent sixteen-year-old and destroys a life. How does one survive an encounter with a mirror after such an abhorrent act? A person will recoil in abject horror at even the possibility of admitting to have done such a thing. The belief that you have done it becomes a demon, and it is as though it attacks your mind, and so your mind runs and hides.
In a state of constant renewal -- which is the only true state of the mind -- a memory can be seen for what it is, and one can react honestly, appropriately, and ethically, with true humility. But when people are denying reality, they are helpless to change it. And perhaps the moon can remind a person that theft is not a very good life-track to follow.
I do not mean to present LSD as the solution to the world's problems. I mean to present LSD as LSD. From my perspective, I feel as though I have barely scratched the surface, and already I am caught up in dramatic overexpression and gratuitous use of italics. I had hoped to write a good post. That did not happen.
Oh well. It's four in the morning.