fun with things

pwnt in the face
this is hilarious. internet hijacked for benign mischief, news at 11. thanks delicious for the link


i hate to say i told you so
...but I did.

In all seriousness, this doesn't surprise me. People talk about mystical religious experiences in terms of depersonalization, disassociation, flashes of insight, and a general feeling of well-being; research into the effects of psychedelic drugs leads to discussions of "ego death" (depersonalization/disassociation), "euphoria" (well-being), and "you know, like, totally seeing stuff in ways that I'd, you know, never seen before. or something." (flashes of insight) And, of course, there's the well-established use of peyote, datura, ayahuasca, and other natural hallucinogens as religious sacraments by native peoples all up and down the Americas.

Reading all the ONDCP's little pamphlets about magic mushrooms always gives me a chuckle. Unwilling to admit that drugs may not be the worst thing that's ever happened to America, they reach as far as their little hands will let them to find reasons why mushrooms are a Schedule I controlled substance (which makes no sense, as anyone who has eaten the little buggers can tell you): "It is difficult to tell the difference between hallucinogenic mushrooms and other, possibly poisonous mushrooms." "Some users experience severe paranoia, accompanied by increased heart rate and perspiration." Note the conspicuous lack of evidence that mushrooms are an addictive/habit-forming drug, which is usually a precondition for being classified as Schedule I ("high potential for abuse with no discernible medical benefit").

Compare this to some varieties of religious experience: it is difficult to tell the difference between a cult and an honest religion (sometimes); it's difficult to tell whether or not your priest has an... uh... unhealthy interest in your teenage son; often times the threat of eternal damnation or a life of suffering is used to extract cooperation and submission from kids who are too young to decide for themselves whether or not they're being fed a load of crap. (what eight-year-old wouldn't become agitated upon learning that their name had been written in the Book of Death?)

Everyone needs a spiritual experience every now and then; spring cleaning for your mind, as it were. American life is such that we either don't have the time to become skilled enough at Zen meditation to achieve depersonalization, or we're so ADD that we couldn't stop thinking for ten minutes if we had guns to our heads. Some of us are disillusioned with the church we grew up in, or we didn't grow up in a church at all, and thus it feels a little strange to pray to something we don't necessarily feel like we believe in. There's no need for us to walk around, self-absorbed and steeped in our own misery. If there's someone we trust that can procure some psilocybin, or mescaline, or DXM, or MDMA, or what-have-you, and we sincerely want to explore ourselves and the malleable nature of our universe, we can. Just so long as we don't do it alone without experience (sorry, Derek), or irresponsibly, the opportunity for a significant, meaningful experience with long-lasting effects on our state of mind is within reach.