Is Taking Psychedelics an Act of Sedition?

The disturbances of Sept. 11 have sent us reeling, driving many to seek relief from anxiety and depression through socially sanctioned psychotropics such as Prozac, Xanax, and alcohol. But some of the so-called psychedelic drugs (cannabis, LSD, peyote, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and MDMA or Ecstasy), targets of America's deeply misguided war on drugs, could have a more profound and healthful effect, if used responsibly.

The very idea of going off on a psychedelic "head trip" in this hour of national crisis might be seen as self-indulgent folly, or worse, an act of cerebral sedition. Yet a cold and sober look through the smoldering smoke of Ground Zero leads me to believe that, depending on individual circumstances, of course, there are now even more compelling reasons to sanction the practice of judicious psychedelic use.

If combat readiness is an issue, if your function is to evacuate a building in a hurry, screen airline passengers, detect the presence of microscopic pathogens, analyze forensic evidence that could lead to the apprehension of culpable or would-be terrorists, or execute a commando raid on an Afghan mountain, this is probably not the season for psychedelics.

But if you're not sure who the real enemy is, if you're inclined to ask more questions about the nature of the reality that's just swung out into a broad new arc, or if you're seeking solace and healing from trauma or debilitating stress, it could well be the time to venture out into new psychical frontiers by means of certain time-tested plants and chemicals. In fact, for some especially scarred, it might even be foolish not to, given that there might not be as much time to lose as we thought we had.

Perturbing the Brain

Granted, a state of war, or any other condition in which physical security is under threat, is not the ideal circumstance to explore inner realms. The removal of base concerns for food, shelter, and bodily safety has been a key factor in the evolution of human consciousness from such immediate distractions to plans for future (inner and outer) space exploration.

To paraphrase Terence McKenna, the late shamanologist and outspoken champion of psychedelic consciousness, if you remove stress and threat, add a lot of alkaloids, and perturb the brain, it will transcend three-dimensional space and unfold into a four-dimensional matrix. In an era in which Terror and the War Against It are being waged, the safe and supportive setting long advanced by psychedelic gurus and pundits would seem harder to provide.

But let us not suppose that psychedelics are only for the serene and that their impact on the psyche is purely pacific and unobtrusive. Because they dissolve boundaries to cognitive, emotional, and spiritual understanding, there is, in fact, something uniquely destructive about them, particularly the sort that effectively "kills" the ego through a symbolic death that blows the hatch on one's clinging obsessions and deconstructs one's entire perception of reality*a nuclear fission of the psychological world with impacts not unlike some of the far-flung effects of Sept. 11. Aldous Huxley's proposed invocation for psychedelic sessions includes the admonition: "Your ego and the [fill in your name] game are about to cease."

Deployed with ill intent, along psychotomimetic lines (the first use of LSD and mescaline earmarked by the scientific community), such an assault could wreak havoc on individuals and populations. The CIA tested LSD as a weapon for immobilizing enemies and extracting secrets from them. Conversely, hashish was allegedly used to induce visions of paradise and thereby stoke the courage of a secret order of Muslim guerrillas called the People of the Old Man of the Mountain, which terrorized Christians during the Crusades by stealthily killing their leaders; hence the term "assassins" from the Arabic Hashshashin for "hashish smokers." Subject to the wrong input, the vulnerability of the psychedelicized mind can be grossly abused. History is rife with such examples of the perversion of technology or magic.