" It seems to me that telling the truth may be the key here – key to more than just devising a better Drug Policy – maybe the key to developing a more rational and just society. Even the notorious Timothy Leary said in a TV interview: “Drug education’s what‘s needed in this country, including alcohol…”
So why is our sophisticated, affluent, “advanced” society so reluctant to tell the truth about drugs? We’ll look further into that question in a later Chapter on “The War On Drugs”, but Timothy Leary thought he knew the answer: “The kids who take LSD aren’t going to fight your wars, middle-class middle aged, whiskey-drinking generals. They’re not going to join your Corporations, middle-class middle aged, whiskey-drinking, Corporation Presidents.”
Above all else, the 60s were a time of Freedom – of freeing the Spirit and opening the Mind. Teachers like Alan Watts, a former Anglican cleric, and books like Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha”, widened young people’s spiritual horizons to include the ancient profundities of Eastern religions. The use of psychedelic drugs, by intellectuals like Huxley and Isherwood just as by thousands of young people, was intimately connected to spiritual exploration. They heard the yearning in George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord":
“I really want to know you,
Really want to go with you,
Really want to show you, lord,
That it won’t take long, my lord….”
To the new generation, this was true spiritual seeking, as compared to the dreary mumblings of conformist suburban Christianity."
Hear “My Sweet Lord" here.
OR, with better sound, but nothing to look at...
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