"How does making you see things that aren't real challenge any hierarchies?"
While LSD and psilocybin do sometimes cause people to hallucinate, this is only one small part of the psychedelic experience. The real value is in how the drugs change your thinking. It would take an entire book to explain this, but here are a few YouTube videos to give you the basic idea:
It's difficult to explain how exactly they challenge hierarchies, but the 35,000 foot overview would be that psychedelics tend to make one more prosocial, whereas hierarchies tend to be fueled by antisocial behaviors. They also tend to give one self-confidence and internalize one's locus of control, whereas again hierarchies can only exist when people lack self-confidence and have relatively external locii of control. Essentially hierarchies are built on the backs of those trying to fill some sort of void in their lives, whereas psychedelics undermine this by giving one perspective and making one whole.
Here is the best description I've found:
"What is the psychedelic experience? For me it's the full and overwhelming realization of all the beauty, love, and pain, the wonder and possibility, of the human experience. For the first time you see your life truly objectively, what's going wrong, and what's going right. You grasp and grapple with how you can do better, and you are overcome by the newfound desire to strengthen your community, your relationships, and your karma. And so it proceeds for the next 4 to 6 hours.
And as the raw intensity of the experience fades, it leaves behind this lasting sense of optimism, hope, and strength, a sense that something essential has been renewed, replenished, and maybe even reborn. Above all you're left with a need to make things better, to help others, and to improve your life. And at last you have the strength and vigor you need, without which action was not possible.
The morning after taking LSD it's not uncommon for people to re-enroll in school, restart their job search, or reunite with old friends. There is this sense that whatever was holding us back is dead, we've come to terms with it, and now the power is back in our hands.
It's an experience that will shake your faith in society while simultaneously restoring your faith in yourself, the meaningfulness of existence, and your ability to make a difference.
Agreed. Going on a hallucinogenic trip is a life-changing experience that does not favour rigid structures in your mind nor the society. It's an experience so far out of the common framework of language and rational thinking that it's hard to exactly pinpoint what changes inside of you, but for me one of the biggest eye-openers was seeing myself from an outer perspective, seeing all the little selfish thinking that drives me most of the time. And appreciating the unique experience of life not filtered by my rational and rigid self for a few moments. This experience does not favour the traditonal society where a lot of people would love you being reduced to a part of the machine, for various selfish and misguided reasons.
It should be said that a trip can also be the worst experience of your life; you can live through the biggest fears you could not imagine that even existed. I have been tripping about five times in my life and most of the trips were of mixed nature. I have felt the supreme beauty and I have felt the supreme fear. In retrospective both are worth it.
Use of LSD would be terrifying for governments with strict hierarchies like China. But I think that for countries where social mobility is encouraged (like US) psychedelics would not ruin anything. Example: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates both admitted to use of LSD.
"see things that aren't real" is a very poor characterization of the psychedelic experience. One attempt at describing a small part of its many aspects: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2498783
While LSD and psilocybin do sometimes cause people to hallucinate, this is only one small part of the psychedelic experience. The real value is in how the drugs change your thinking. It would take an entire book to explain this, but here are a few YouTube videos to give you the basic idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c8an2XZ3MU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLXmE_hxCcg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeqmKwsvM58
It's difficult to explain how exactly they challenge hierarchies, but the 35,000 foot overview would be that psychedelics tend to make one more prosocial, whereas hierarchies tend to be fueled by antisocial behaviors. They also tend to give one self-confidence and internalize one's locus of control, whereas again hierarchies can only exist when people lack self-confidence and have relatively external locii of control. Essentially hierarchies are built on the backs of those trying to fill some sort of void in their lives, whereas psychedelics undermine this by giving one perspective and making one whole.
Here is the best description I've found:
"What is the psychedelic experience? For me it's the full and overwhelming realization of all the beauty, love, and pain, the wonder and possibility, of the human experience. For the first time you see your life truly objectively, what's going wrong, and what's going right. You grasp and grapple with how you can do better, and you are overcome by the newfound desire to strengthen your community, your relationships, and your karma. And so it proceeds for the next 4 to 6 hours.
And as the raw intensity of the experience fades, it leaves behind this lasting sense of optimism, hope, and strength, a sense that something essential has been renewed, replenished, and maybe even reborn. Above all you're left with a need to make things better, to help others, and to improve your life. And at last you have the strength and vigor you need, without which action was not possible.
The morning after taking LSD it's not uncommon for people to re-enroll in school, restart their job search, or reunite with old friends. There is this sense that whatever was holding us back is dead, we've come to terms with it, and now the power is back in our hands.
It's an experience that will shake your faith in society while simultaneously restoring your faith in yourself, the meaningfulness of existence, and your ability to make a difference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Ps_MBXEdA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2hL6iCSFxk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY59wZdCDo0 "