The reader who sent me that photograph of Pyramid Lake writes:
Funny that you posted the Pyramid Lake, NV photo with the mushroom write-up. I traveled that weekend with three close friends I met fifteen years prior at an Alchoholics Anonymous meeting. One is 34 and in his seventeenth year sober from alcohol and other mind-altering substances, the other is 39 and in his sixth year sober (after relapsing for two years following a stretch of eight years sober). Myself, I am soon to be 38 with a little over fifteen years sober. We are all statistical anomalies in substance abuse recovery (long time sober) and a testament to not needing substances of any kind to live in accordance with spiritual principles.
I often like to tell people that I loved mushrooms because it was like taking LSD only I could go to sleep after six hours. Funny and truthful as that is, my practical experience suggests the pharmacology behind love, peace, and joy is diverse. All we needed that weekend was strong coffee and good fellowship.
Amen. Drugs are not spirituality. But they can give insights into spiritual enlightenment, and help us strive for it without them. Or in the immortal words of Bill Hicks:
"I laid in a field of green grass for four hours going 'My God, I love everything.' The heavens parted, God looked down and rained gifts of forgiveness, acceptance and eternal love from his unconditional heart, and I realized the true nature of my existence, of all our existence, is God's perfect and holy sunship, that we are spirit, we are not bodies, we are mind, we are thoughts in God's mind, his beloved children, and that has never changed, and anytime that you look through the body's eyes you are seeing illusions.
I'm glad they're against the law, because imagine how that would f*** up this country."