I'm reading a rather interesting book by Daniel Pinchbeck, called "Breaking Open the Head." It's an exploration of psychedelics and modern shamanism. This is his site. And, yes, his site is going into my Entheogens Folder.

I think that a lot of the problems of our modern world can be traced back to the fact that we no longer have a tradition of spiritual use of psychedelics. What traditions we do have, we have to borrow from other indigeneous cultures. My theory is that without reverent use of psychedelics, we become wrapped up in our own egos. We become selfish, basically.

In relation, Mike wrote an interesting article about the Drug War.

"The first and most idiotic claim which the bottom rung of the anti drug movement makes is that all drugs are alike. Of course, generalization is the tool of the ignorant, but in this case the behavior, in large part a result of out and out lies from government and religious groups mixed with a constant pressure to encourage absolutely no research into the subject matter, has resulted in a population so astoundingly ignorant of the matter they oppose that it makes it difficult to even converse with them." -Michael Heaney