Psychedelic Leadership

On a successful LSD trip a person may think he has reached the Godhead. Sometimes, as is detailed in the Book of the Dead, a person will reach the "Clear Light," which is described in the Vedic texts as Krishna's glowing bodily effulgence, called the "Brahmajyoti." This effulgence permeates the whole spiritual sky, just as the sunshine permeates this whole universe. Realization-that is, direct perceptual experience-of the Clear Light is devoid of all variegatedness, however, and such a state of consciousness is therefore very unnatural for a living being who is eternally individual and who is accustomed to varieties for enjoyment. A person can remain in the Clear Light for short periods of time, but then he must come down again to the material platform in order to experience the varieties required for full enjoyment. In this sense, of course, the Clear Light itself becomes no more than a "variety," a change from ordinary consciousness. It is a "high," but not a final, unending or supreme state of ecstasy. The only way to remain permanently fixed on the spiritual plane is through realization of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Through this realization we can experience spiritual variegatedness, which is said to be far beyond any impersonal realization of the Godhead.

In order to achieve this topmost realization, it is necessary to have the guidance of a spiritual master who is a bona fide representative of Krishna. The psychedelic movement does not have such leaders qualified in the devotional line. Quite the contrary, these members of the psychedelic movement have, in the final analysis, practically nothing to offer mankind. They themselves have to continue taking drugs in order to feel any ecstasy. Their state of bliss is, after all, a temporary intoxication which one has to pay money for. How spiritual can it be? True spiritual ecstasy is both eternal and free to everyone.

Dr. Sidney Cohen, another major figure in the drug movement, has suggested that religious experience may one day be redefined as "a desynchrony of the reticular formation of the brain." This is the rather peculiar direction in which scientists are heading. They conduct experiments involving psychedelic drugs, and then they try fitting the results to suit their needs. Because a drug may allow someone to experience something different from "normal" consciousness, the scientists conclude that the experience is, in the first place, due entirely to the drug, and, in the second, that it is equivalent to the religious ecstasies of the mystics and saints.

In his book, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," William James took note of exactly this point when he wrote: "Medical materialism finishes up Saint Paul by calling his vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex, he being an epileptic." In this way scientists with an atheistic bias have tried to rule out the existence of a transcendent God Who exists beyond all material concepts, by holding the very evidence of direct confrontation with God to be no more than a chemical aberration within the body-in other words, an hallucination.

Even the argument against the validity of drug experiences can be questioned. As one thinker has pointed out, simply because we see something through a window doesn't mean the window caused the view. Similarly, psychedelic drugs may often open a window in the mind to let us see what is already there. However, it is only through Krishna's Grace that one can actually have full knowledge of what lies outside that window. And He may choose to reveal Himself or not, without reference to drugs or the laws of Nahure.

Timothy Leary, self-styled "high priest" of the psychedelic movement, has written: "a final comment about the disciplined yoga of psychedelic drugs. They are not shortcuts: they do not simplify. They answer no questions; they solve no problems." What value they can have, then, aside from the pleasure-giving potency present in such other narcotics as tobacco and alcohol, must come into question. On the other hand, the standard system of devotional service is the shortest and simplest method for reaching God. It does answer all questions and solve all problems.