Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., a graduate of Oxford and Harvard, is a recognized pioneer in psychological, philosophical and cross-cultural studies of consciousness and its transformations. He collaborated with Leary and Alpert in classic studies of psychedelics at Harvard University in the 1960s, co-authored The Psychedelic Experience and was editor of The Psychedelic Review. He is a psychotherapist and Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he was also the Academic Dean for ten years in the 1980s. His books include The Unfolding Self, The Well of Remembrance, Green Psychology, The Expansion of Consciousness, Alchemical Divination and Mind Space and Time Stream. He is the editor of two collections of essays on the pharmacology, anthropology and phenomenology of ayahuasca and of psilocybinmushrooms. He is also the president and co-founder of the Green Earth Foundation, dedicated to healing and harmonizing the relations between humanity and the Earth.
David Van Nuys, PhD
Creator/Host of Shrink Rap Radio
Replies
“It’s aaaaall in your mind!”
I’m kind of confused what to think about it. No matter what is legal and what isn’t, there is a fact that people don’t drink alcohol just because they want to throw up afterwards or to sing and hug more with their friends. I don’t drink alcohol because I want to get drunk, but because a glass of it a day tastes good to me as an adult. Drinking, eating, and breathing are just what we do as living beings. It’s not really much of a difference if you let a politician or chemicals do the thinking for you, especially if chemicals (if one mistakenly assumes that you can go as far as chemicals can lead you) are the only way for an individual to have any experience of seeing the things and situation differently. I would feel very bad (a horrible human being and a complete failure as a parent who doesn’t encourage imagination) if my child took any of the substances mentioned in that interview. There is nothing I’ve heard from people taking drugs (including h…heavier drugs) that I hadn’t experienced while being “straight as a rod”. There’s no way anyone will ever convince me that crutches are more awesome than my healthy legs. There’s more than enough information on spirituality and altered states of consciousness available behind a Google search. I would feel much more comfortable if a society encouraged creativity and thinking/feeling differently.
There is for instance out there some seriously deranged music that even people who are frequently stoned out of their minds find too much to bear, so it’s not like chemicals are the only way to perceive things differently. And the listener is in charge if the mind is being changed while listening to music or just walking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR6ZxrduHLA Melt-Banana – Blank Page of the Blind
http://sunn.bandcamp.com/track/it-took-the-night-to-believe Sunn O))) – It Took the Night to Believe