60 Spirituality Studies 10-1 Spring 2024 equipped us to contend with them if and when they emerge”. Beyond the safeguards afforded by sacred tradition, there are no effective means to offset the possible harm caused by secular uses of entheogens. Leary (1995, 170) readily admitted that the “cortex… washed clean of… rituals” may be susceptible to “psychedelic brainwashing”. The cultivation of spiritual virtue is a direct participation in the Divine nature. Therefore, this may prove an indispensable complement to a lasting cure for those suffering mental illness. Many afflicted people who embark on a life of virtue often recover in an inexplicable manner. Yet virtue, on its own, may not always assist someone who has been so deeply traumatized as to prevent them from knowing how to become virtuous in the first place. In such cases, an entheogen may provide a liberating release as a preliminary step toward a more enduring recovery. Entheogens do appear to harbor a spiritual power that can serve to undermine the stranglehold that materialism and scientism have over many people today. In other words, treatment of this kind may be the antidote to a disenchanted worldview by restoring a “sacramental vision of reality” (Huxley 1990, 22) that recalls to us the “divine source of all existence” (Huxley 1990, 18). Under the right conditions, entheogenic therapy “can bring a sudden liberation from ignorance or illusion, enlarge the spiritual horizon and give new meaning to life” (Terrill et al. 1964, 192). Furthermore, “it may lead to a lessening of alienation, to a rediscovery of the self, to a new set of values, to the finding of new potential for growth and development and to a new beginning” (Terrill et al. 1964, 198). In some cases, entheogens have led people to “a new faith in God” (Davis 1961, 73). Owing to the spiritually compromised nature of modern people, psychedelics may be made available to not only heal worldly afflictions, but to bring us closer to our true selves. It is from this metaphysical standpoint that we may justify the need to make available, to all people, powerful medicines for mental health purposes – a use that was hitherto forbidden outside of a sacred environment. The highly anomalous times in which we live today appear to call for a corresponding response that is also irregular and unconventional, but with a view to a greater good that serves to give relief to those who need it most. 14 Pitfalls of a Chemical Utopia The modernist mindset is distinguished by a debased notion of permanence, sometimes referred to as the “immanentization of the eschaton” (Voegelin 1952, 163) or the “counterfeit of Eternity” (Burckhardt 2008, 38). From a metaphysical perspective, everything in our transient world comprises causes and conditions that will inevitably exhaust themselves; yet the Real is timeless and cannot perish. The secular ideologies that sustain the psychedelic movement are undoubtedly powerful and seductive. They should not be dismissed as the opinions of a minority, especially as the world becomes increasingly dystopian. Nevertheless, given the conditions of our flawed and ephemeral existence in saṃsāra – this “burning house” as the Buddha described it – there is no possibility of creating an earthly paradise, as much as many are tempted to do so (having given up any notion of a transcendental mode of perfection). Huxley (1931, 227) writes: If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant… then, it seems to me, all our problems… would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise. Propaganda and pharmacology were themes also explored by Huxley in his 1936 essay “Writers and Readers,” underscoring how mind-control drugs would influence future society (1947, 1–45). This question is addressed in his utopian manifesto Island (1962), where he brings together his final reflections on education, psychology, metaphysics, and the role of entheogens in exploring human potential (Beauchamp 1990, 59–72). In this work, he invented a new mind drug called moksha-medicine, “the reality-revealer, the truthand-beauty pill” (Huxley 1994, 153). It is as if the universal and timeless wisdom of the world’s spiritual traditions is distilled into a pharmacological solution. Accordingly, “for a little while, thanks to the moksha-medicine, you will know what it’s like to be… what in fact you always have been” (Huxley 1994 192–193): But, like everything else… it will pass. And when it has passed, what will you do with this experience? What will you do with all the other similar experiences that the moksha-medicine will bring you in the years to come? Will you merely enjoy them as you would enjoy an evening at the puppet show, and then go back to business as usual, back to behaving like the silly delinquents you imagine yourselves to be? Or, having glimpsed, will you devote your lives to the business, not at all as usual, of being what you are in fact… And all that the
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