To live backwards in time would offer such promise of future wonders. To know what I know--and want to know--now when one becomes more daily aware of the finiteness of this corporeal existence can be a melancholic knowledge.


I'm almost all set for my much-anticipated adventure to Basel, Switzerland to listen to --and perhaps meet with--some of those who have guided me on my journey thus far.

As for the general focus of the conference, the world of psychedelic (I prefer entheogenic) substances as they apply to consciousness, psychology and medical research is perhaps the most fascinating part of this journey and the impetus for it.

It is truly fascinating to have grown up during the 60's, with its wild overreaction by government and media to Timothy Leary and others who were proselytizing for the widespread use of (mostly) LSD. I've come to view Leary's doctrine as perhaps the most ill-conceived effort in Western popular culture. His immense ego and hubris created a backdraft from "the establishment" that virtually stopped research into all psychedelic substances worldwide.

The tragic fact is that many of these substances had shown incredible promise into understanding the human mind and its maladies. For Leary and his disciples, LSD was just a toy; a party favor, even though much of his writings on the chemical took on a pseudo-spiritual tone.

Yet, we learn in his biography that Leary was little more than a highly-addictive personality who would abuse any available psychoactive substance. His use of LSD is legendary, but his addiction to alcohol and other substances were far more to his liking it seems.

Even at the end of his life, his drug of choice was nitrous oxide, of which he inhaled hundreds of pounds. During his life, he destroyed almost everyone he was ever close to. His wife and daughter committed suicide. His son became a lost soul as well as a lost mind; not so much for the incredible amounts of LSD he is said to have consumed as a teenager, but more because of a lifetime of love denied him from his father.

That said, most in our Western World have grown up (thanks to an exploitational and ill-informed media) with the notion that all psychoactive substances are evil and mind-shattering except--of course--those officially allowed like alcohol, tobacco and the myriad drugs pushed by the pharmaceutical industry.

Yet before and after the government created the "anti-drug" industry in the early 70's, there has been a small but important group of people who have categorically rejected the right for governments to control their minds or consciousness.

Even in a cursory search on Google regarding 'psychedelics' , you will find an enormous amount of information about such people. But once you delve into the results, you will find them both fascinating and incredibly surprising.

Instead of a small group of people who have "kept the dream alive", there are numerous people, websites, e-retailers, researchers, psychologists, clinics, universities, tales and conferences doing this.

In currently reading a book called Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience by Benny Shanon.

Throughout almost all my reading and research, I've heard about this substance. Ayahuasca is a complex preparation of at least two Amazonian plants that when prepared properly produce perhaps the most powerful spiritually transformative state of consciousness known to man. It is the most ineffable of ineffable states and has been used for thousands of years.

Yet Professor (of Psychology) Shanon attempts to study this substance in a highly-structured and scientifically qualitative and quantitative manner. It is a challenging and academic study of a very important substance in the overall study of man's mind and consciousness.

It is very hopeful to me that there were and are people who wouldn't be bullied by the ignorant and incurious of the world; too many of whom seem to gravitate to government where they can spread their ignorance. Our government today, led by arguably the most incurious dolt ever to head a modern government, is emblematic of these attitudes.

As in a lyric from the play, Hair, I can only echo the lament, "how dare they try to end this beauty."