Should you 'hang up' when you get the message? Perhaps not.

Although many people will admit that psychedelics are scientifically interesting and may even be potentially useful as tools for personal or spiritual discovery, most people will also couch those sentiments with the refrain, "as long as you don't use them too often" or "as long as you hang up the phone once you get the message." And, of course, there are also people who wouldn't even go that far, and are of the opinion that any experience gained through the use of psychedelics is simply 'drug-induced' and therefore 'not real'.

Well, I for one am here to say that my experiences on drugs have most definitely been real, even if they don't always neatly overlap with the consensus version of what reality 'is'. Also, the sentiment which claims that the use of psychedelics may be okay for short-term experimentation but must eventually be discarded in favor of more "standardized" avenues of spiritual and personal discovery is obviously culturally biased. There are a plenum of personal and spiritual growth cycles far and above the "standardized" Western and Eastern models of spiritual discovery that can *only* be achieved through the consistent and persistent use of mind-altering substances and/or techniques over the course of a lifetime. Shamanism is perhaps one of the best actual models for the lifelong use of psychedelics, and for the sake of argument I will also describe my personal (planned) lifelong use of psychedelics as an example.

From my own perspective, I view my personal and spiritual growth as a linear arc which is currently unfolding through this particular reality. My personal growth arc started (as did everyone else's) at the beginning of time, and the wave function of my potentiality started to collapse at the moment of my genetic conception. From the moment of my physical inception into this dimension, I have had many opportunities to alter the course of my own life and the lives of people around me through conscious decision-making and action. I only fully realized the power of my own decision making and actions through the use of LSD (and, later, with the help of many other plants and substances). Through my relationship with psychedelics, I know that my destiny is not yet written, and that the waveform which describes my potential in this dimension will not be fully collapsed until I am no longer remembered by any sentient beings, all DNA I may pass has been destroyed or degraded, and all physical records of my existence are gone. I am also very aware that my wave potential could exist even beyond these limiters through many "invisible" ways that I will never know about (I call these UCETSI - Unknown Chaos Effects Through Subtle Interaction). This perspective of my role in history, humanity, and 'everything' stretches from the universal first cause all the way out to an indeterminate wave collapse point somewhere in the distant future. I did not get this POV from Buddhism or Christianity or Magick or Science, I got it through direct Gnostic visceral experience facilitated by the ingestion of psychedelics.

Although I perceive my day to day existence as a single perspective point moving through localized time and space, I am able to "jump out" of this reference point through the use of psychedelics. When I "jump out", I am able to view time and reality as a complex web of causal events which unfold in a hyperspacial (3D+) matrix. I can look at where I am now as opposed to where I was the last time I "jumped out" and gauge my progress from jump point to jump point. I can also look ahead to where I might be in another year, two years, five years, 100 years... Scanning the hyperspacial horizon for future jump points and crossovers into hyper-perspective. While in the jump state, I can send subtle vibrations of expectation up and down the threads of the matrix to see how they resonate and unfold in future space. I can pick images of the future that I find pleasing and worth pursuing and can make deeper analysis of the futures that I have already set in motion. If I see something potentially disturbing coming down the pike, I can alter my actions in real-time and see the effects as they unfold in theoretical space. I sometimes call this technique the "Magic Mirror" or the "Recursive Looking Glass", but I'm sure there are many shamanic, magickal, and alchemical corollaries in the field of "future gazing" which use similar techniques. I believe John Lilly referred to a similar Ketamine-induced state of manifested potential as "Alternity" in his biography 'So Far'.

So, for me, to suggest that psychedelic practice is not "positive" unless I eventually move through it in favor of a more traditional spritual path; or that it will become useless and/or potentially damaging if I continue do it in the future, is absurd. My moments of psychedelic transcendence are the only true reference points I have in evaluating my personal and spiritual progress through time. To shut them off would be like putting a blindfold over my eyes for the rest of my physical existence, and that is just not an option I would like to consider.

And, to address the whole "When you get the message, hang up!" model, I say "horse hockey!" (excuse my colloquialism). The 'message' (if there is one) is so covered over with the white-noise of modern living that it is simply too easy to forget it once you hang up. If you never pick up the phone again, how do you know you remembered the message correctly? I'm betting that *no one* can walk away from a transcendent experience with the 'message' permanently and untarnishedly engraved in their mind in glowing gold letters for the rest of their lives. Unless you live in meditative isolation and avoid all contact with language systems, the 'message', once delivered, is too easily modified and painted up with rationalizations and linguistic abstractions that once the phone is hung up it immediately starts to decay. No course of religious study can counteract the decay of the message because all religions have their own linguistic dogmas which are (by their very nature) at least two or three levels of abstraction removed from the message. The only way to keep the message fresh in your mind is to pick up the phone often and pay very close attention to what it says!

Just my two bits.