The fundamental problem

Just in case I never mentioned it or never explained this before 😂, my advocacy is for total freedom.

I've been told that is a conversation stopper, because everyone instinctively aspires to total freedom or innately knows total freedom is their own true and natural state as an immortal individual. Everyone agrees it's the correct ultimate target, so no one really argues with you if you just continue to advocate total freedom.

All lies derive their power from an earlier or underlying truth to which they connect by argument or opposition. The lie that we are human beings and must be controlled, that we are naturally slaves, derives its power from the truth that we can be totally free. Identifying and putting attention on the underlying truth, repeating it, tends to expose the connection and make the lie lose power.

I wonder if this explains the appeal of psychedelic drugs. The trip can dramatically remind a drug user of the truth: freedom, oneness, brotherhood with the universe. The lie of mortal, complicated, or evil humanity becomes irrelevant.

But a psychedelic trip is at best a limited reminder. The drug wears off and revelations fade, quickly like a bright dream before breakfast, or slowly like youthful energy over graying years. The only permanent reminder of the truth is the dreary lie we are stuck with. People either have to take the drug again and again, or they have to work hard, to really learn and live the truth without the drug.

The project is to continue to advocate total freedom incessantly and forever. If you take the drug again and again to remind yourself of freedom, you might just empower a new lie (i.e., you can't just be free, once and for all..?). But if you have to work hard to learn and live the truth, isn't that religious discipline, in the most traditional sense?

There's a very interesting, related internal conflict, from which the current "psychedelic renaissance" probably cannot escape. Enthusiasts for mushrooms, horse tranquilizers, frog venom, etc., desperately need to assert an idea of psychedelic science featuring controlled, validated research, safety protocols and informed consent. That's what might enable eventual FDA approvals of medical products that can make money in the real world. 

But the enthusiasts also, just as desperately, have to promote religious epiphanies, world peace, extraordinary states of consciousness, and breakthrough evolutionary leaps in human nature, to keep everyone interested. Real science (like hard work, in fact) just doesn't have much mass appeal. It's part of the dreary lie, it's not total freedom.

So which way do we go: into science or back to religion; medicine or spirituality; hard, careful work or total freedom? These things are opposites. Trying to go in opposite directions at the same time brings confusion and disaster. The recent demise of the "TREAT California" initiative was predictable. Even if "Barbenheimer Fontana" didn't abscond with money, she certainly tried to go in opposite directions simultaneously, and people got confused.

The fundamental problem is collapsing cause and effect: we can't be free beings and neurobiological machines at the same time.