YOU HIP TO THE ENTHEOGEN EVOLUTION?

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- A lot of ink has been spilled over civil rights
battles. Blood too, for that matter. And pontificators have given us our
last civil rights fights for a long time. They say affirmative action is
the last battle. They say gay rights is the last battle. They might even
say that political correctness is a civil rights battle. But what has not
been addressed is the freedom of consciousness movement.

Let's get this out in the open: I'm talking about psychedelics -- the taboo
little topic that few have dusted off since the fallout of the '60s. But
that word "psychedelic" is loaded with fear. A more straightforward label
is entheogen, which literally means "generating the divine within." In
laymen's terms, that means "becoming god." We could also go with a purely
phenomenological description and call them "consciousness expanding agents"
because that's what they do.

Whatever the case, I'll let you in on a little secret: The last decade has
been secretly psychedelic. And we have all been primed and ready for an
explosion of consciousness. To get to that point, we must have an idea of
where to direct our energies. The best way to do this is through a common
goal of cognitive liberty.

Cognitive liberty is the belief that we have the inalienable right to
achieve, through the use of mind-altering plants and drugs, any state of
consciousness we choose -- not just the socially acceptable ones.

What we need is a new definition of the word "drug." The late philosopher
of consciousness, Terence McKenna, said a drug is anything that causes
unexamined, compulsive behavior. A drug, then, is something that consumes
our lives. By this definition, a cigarette is a drug, caffeine is a drug
and alcohol is a drug. When we look at it from this perspective, television
is also a drug. And the average American spends three to seven hours every
day getting intimately hooked to the flickering I-V of the cathode ray
tube. Yet television eats at our creative faculties like a cancer, alcohol
dumbs us down (and helps us mingle -- woohoo), while cigarettes are nothing
but dirty syringes for nicotine injection. These substances are socially
acceptable and perfectly legal -- all the while causing serious harm at
astronomical social costs.

It all comes down to allowing people the right to experiment with marginal
states of consciousness. Right now most of us operate on a very narrow band
of habitual behavior that is closed to realms of imagination and
possibility. We are a species in crisis.

Pioneering minds have used entheogens. It's no secret that Steve Jobs, the
creative zest behind Apple Computers, dropped acid. Bill Gates, in an
obscure Playboy interview, all but admitted that some of his formative
experiences came from mind-expanding substances. Entheogens break down
boundaries of habitual, unexamined behavior and aid in the creative
process. Yet most of us are still locked in the termite mind of man. This
cannot stand. We've been lied to. It is time to rise.

The war on drugs is not a war on substances; it's a war on states of mind.
Entheogens are not illegal because a loving government is concerned that
you're going to hurt yourself by smoking pot or tripping in your bedroom.
Entheogens are illegal because they make you question authority. They break
down socially constructed fables and cleanse the doors of perception. They
make you question the wrongs of society in a fundamental way, making you
dangerous. You're like Neo in The Matrix when all of the illusions of
reality have been irrevocably stripped away.

Not that everyone should use entheogens. Far from it. Experiencing ecstasy
is not pleasant. It's like being grabbed by the spine and shaken until
every sense and emotion blurs, recombines, expands, digitizes and becomes
unspeakable. Yet it is also a birthright and is as fundamental to the human
experience as sex.

Consciousness determines everything. An important battle for the freedom of
our mental landscapes is brewing. And it never takes more than five percent
of the population to start a revolution. Actually, it's never been more
than that.