Posted By: Samayana @ 07/12/2008 7:21:21 AM
Comment: Two essential things about psychedelics: the first is that one does them, the second is that one stops doing them. Psychedelics show you what's truly out there beyond the grey walls of our dull, socially-sanctioned realities. What's most frustrating about psychedelics is that once you're back from the journey, the walls recongeal - as strong and as impervious as ever. However, once you know what lies on the other side of your dungeon wall, you can then choose to devote the rest of your life to figuring out ways and means of sneaking out. As I write that, there comes to mind a whimsical cartoon I once saw of a prisoner painting a fantastically realistic door on the wall of his prison cell. When he's finished the painting, he grasps his painted door handle, opens his painted door, and steps out of his cell forever. The profound lesson that cartoon has always held for me, is that that after taking psychedelics, the most fruitful route to the 'beyond within' is to be found the realm of art. As Dostoevsky once wrote: 'Beauty will save the world.'
Regrettably modern artists seem to have completely lost sight of that truth - but go back through the centuries of man's artistic endeavours and you will find 'doors in the wall' in abundance. BTW, you can always judge the vitality of any religion by the beauty of the art that it generates - alas, the monotheisms of the West have had nothing visually beautiful to offer us for a very long time.
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