I don't see any difference between "mass therapy" and "mass
religion" since
the implication is that if only everyone would get some
"good psychedelics" into them rather
than "good religion" the world would
be a better place.
How is that any different to the proselytization of
a "born-again/baptised in the Holy Spirit" Christian?
Just a 'pinch of
psychedelic', for the hell of it, and all will be saved ... mein gott! i'm on
a religious list....
My posting has been misunderstood. To my thought,
several mass religions do exist and have failed to unite the planet, or
provide a basis for international cooperation, etc. Mass therapy, by
which I mean any form of psychotherapy that is (a) effective and (b)
cheap and fast enough for mass marketting, does not exist, has not been
invented yet, and certainly won't be achieved through a "pinch of
psychedelic" alone. Calling a random psychedelic experience
"therapeutic" has been tried, isn't accurate except by chance, and has no
mass appeal. What I am talking about is genuine personality change, as
indeed sometimes occurs through religious conversions (but usually doesn't)
and sometimes is brought about through psychotherapy (but often
doesn't). This differs from "baptism in the Holy Spirit" and all
religious analogs in that I am not talking about magic, or about social
status, etc. It is of no importance to me whether a psychedelic
experience arrives a person at a mystical union, a death-rebirth
experience, a conversation with a god or God, or any other manifest
content. People have lots of religious experiences whose manifest
contents I think to be sheer fantasy; and no doubt lots of people think the
same of the religious experiences I happen to think well of. This is
beside the point. Becoming religiously holy, perfect, sanctified,
saved, elect, redeemed, transpersonally developed, etc., is just a
label. Performative language does not accomplish psychotherapy.
The terms all describe something supernatural, something that may be validated
consensually by one's society or friends, but is
nevertheless make-believe (like money, patriotism, and a lot of other
very serious fictions). Sometimes, not often, people who have such
experiences do coincidentally undergo therapeutic change, but most do
not. The research I am proposing is to discover what
has to go right for thereapeutic change to occur, so as to be able to produce
it predictably. I am not proposing to debate the value of genuine
personality change. It's a bit like debating the value of true
love. If you don't think it exists, or is important, you are not going
to participate in research on it. On the other hand, I make no
apology for having an interest in pursuing ideal solutions to real
problems. Are inadequate solutions to world problems the only ones worth
going after?
Dan Merkur