Psychedelics vs. the Apotheosis of Reason

Jules Evans recently interviewed Steve Rolles about "What comes after the war on drugs?" A transcript of that conversation is a fascinating demonstration or dramatization, in my opinion, of what Max Weber (and many others) have called "the apotheosis of reason."

Psychedelic drugs basically turn loose the best, and the worst, intentions and experiences accessible to individuals. Both the best and the worst are far more extreme than modern day humans can easily imagine. We have historical references like Christ/Buddha/Gandhi, and Torquemada/Hitler/Manson; but we do not find or confront those extremes regularly in our daily lives. When somebody gets crazy, like on October 7th in Israel, that merely precipitates a crazy reaction: lives and society are destroyed, but nothing is learned. In fact the world only becomes stupider.

No great patriotic war has ever helped humanity. Each and every one of them brought only dishonor, ruin and tragedy. Ideas, not battles, mark forward progress for Man. During battle, ideas literally disappear and only force exists. Battle is an absence of ideas, even if ideas are blamed or credited beforehand and afterward. Drugs, especially psychedelic drugs, produce battle within a mind.

The interview by Evans of Rolles is replete with the blissful ignorance and glib denial of evil. The whole framework of how to best regulate psychedelics so they provide benefits without causing harm hearkens back to classic lines from war movies like (two of my favorites) Full Metal Jacket and Starship Troopers:

    "How can you shoot women and children? Easy--just don't lead them quite as much."

    "What's the matter, you want to live forever? Let's all get tattoos!"

Steve Rolles is charming to note that psychedelics can turn people into boring dickheads. But there may be nothing so boring as his own discussions about, "The core thrust of regulation (being) ...keeping people safe or at least safer, and mitigating known risks."

That's not why people take psychedelic drugs, it's only what they seem to get interested in after they've been turned into dickheads. People take psychedelic drugs to overcome themselves, or in Nietzsche's own language, zur Selbsüberwindung zum Übermenschen. People want salvation, and that has never been a project for reason, but always a project for faith. 

Galileo began the long historical trend away from faith and toward reason in the early Seventeenth Century; but not long after Nietzsche died insane and godless at the dawn of the Twentieth, Albert Hoffman, Richard Helms, Paul Tibbets, Rudolph Höss, Captain Al Hubbard and Timothy Leary certainly ended that trend.

Now people vote for Donald Trump or believe in woke-ism. And they fight each other. They appear only able to cherish the artillery shell in the face or the bullet in the heart.

They want a trip, but it'll be a bad one now. Forget regulation.

Easter and Music

I have always loved the concept of the Christian Resurrection as an ultimate triumph over death. In retrospect, I'm not sure what sort of "death" needs to be triumphed over, or that human life is anything like an ultimate game. My favorite New Testament bit is the angel's question on Easter morning, "Why do you look in a place of the dead?"

I know my mother never feared death. (I'm not sure about my dad.) Among the other dead people whom I miss most are my wife's dad, a rare violin expert named Robert, and John Prine.

My parents loved music. When I hear certain Jimmy Buffet songs, or Don McClean's American Pie, or the Eagles, it sure seems to me like they are alive. My father-in-law listened to Harry Belafonte and sang along with Tennessee Ernie Ford's 16 Tons. Music is resurrection in some far more significant way than any mere re-animation of a ruined meat body.

Nevertheless, I had a strange and wonderful dream.

My wife and I do an annual music cruise with another couple, which entails 41 bands and about two thousand paying fans on a ship for a week in the Caribbean. It's called Cayamo (a made-up word which means nothing beyond being the name of the event itself). This year we had the Mavericks, Brandy Clark, The War and Treaty, Rodney Crowell, Lyle Lovett, and various others too good to forget but too many to remember. Cayamo is not quite Woodstock, but it's fully beautiful, and much more comfortable.

The pool deck is our favorite of about six different venues on the boat. You can sit in the hot tub and listen to the show, watch old people dance, read your book and drink. It's not easy to find a seat in the shade. One afternoon this week we walked out and there were several shady seats available. Our friend (age 84)  commented dryly, "Yep, people died."  I hate to say it, but the crowd does seem to get more geriatric every year; anyone who appears to be under forty is almost certainly a member of a band. 

There are just over three dozen patrons who have been there every year (of 16) without exception. Those guys always get an official shout-out from Shawn Mullins, the one performing musician who has never missed a year. They all parade down the aisle of the Stardust Theater in bathrobes. We've done nine Cayamo's in a row now, and we won't miss next year, because Emmylou Harris will be back on board.

Which brings me back to my dream.

We were sitting on the pool deck during a set by Buffalo Rose, when one of the female singers said, "Ladies and gentlemen we have a very special surprise for you. Please welcome my friend and hero, back from the dead, Mr. John Prine!" And to our shock, he actually walked out onto the stage with his guitar!

Needless to say the crowd was instantly hysterical, in unrestrained tears. No human being is more loved on Cayamo than John Prine. He is the patron saint of the event, everyone tells stories about him, most of the artists imitate him in some way, and they try to tell stories like he told stories. (One colorful example is Paul Thorn, who has some story to introduce every song he sings: "My daddy was a preacher and my uncle was a pimp... they taught me how to love and how to fight.")

Anyway... my dream continued with the most wonderful lyricist who ever lived stepping up to the microphone and speaking to us all in that same conversational, Kentucky-drawl tone as soon as the stunned pool deck multitude could calm down. "Thank you, I'm happy to be here. I'm sorry if I look tired. You know, I've been dead for several years, and that takes a lot out of a person. They say rest in peace, but man I gotta tell you, it ain't restful being dead. So I'm happy to be back on Cayamo, it's a lot better...." 

Then he sang Souvenirs, and we all cried, and I woke up from the dream crying. Every year at Cayamo I have the same realization: music is the most important thing in my life!

Back from the ship, walking by the ocean on Miami Beach, a man was dragging a cross south by the water's edge. The cross wasn't quite big enough to actually crucify anyone on it, just big enough to theatrically remind sunbathers and spring breakers of The Crucifixion. An interviewer and a videographer followed about ten yards behind the man dragging the cross, to record people's reactions (and proselytize).

I suggested that the guy with the cross should fall down occasionally, and they'd see whether anyone named Simon could be convinced to help him carry it. The interviewer ignored that, but asked what the cross meant to me. I thought for a moment, and came up with something along the lines of... coming back from such a gruesome death would sure prove a person is tough. 

I could have mentioned centuries of persecuted non-believers, brutal forced conversions, and prejudice that inspired the ruinous American Civil War. But these days Christians are decent, if boring, people.

The guy asked if he could pray for me. I told him pray for peace, that will be praying for me. 

I should have said pray for music.