The suppression of the natural human fascination with altered states of
consciousness and the present perilous situation of all life on earth are
intimately and causally connected. When we suppress access to shamanic ecstasy,
we close off the refreshing waters of emotion that flow from having a deeply
bonded, almost symbiotic relationship to the earth. As a consequence, the
maladaptive social styles that encourage overpopulation, resource mismanagement,
and environmental toxification develop and maintain themselves. No culture on
earth is as heavily narcotized as the industrial West in terms of being inured
to the consequences of maladaptive behavior. We pursue a business-as-usual attitude
in a surreal atmosphere of mounting crises and irreconcilable contradictions.
...
Our culture, self-toxified by the poisonous by-products of
technology and egocentric ideology, is the unhappy inheritor of the dominator attitude
that alteration of consciousness by the use of plants or substances is somehow
wrong, onanistic, and perversely antisocial. I will argue that suppression of
shamanic gnosis, with its reliance and insistence on ecstatic dissolution of
the ego, has robbed us of life's meaning and made us enemies of the planet, of
ourselves, and our grandchildren. We are killing the planet in order to keep
intact the wrongheaded assumptions of the ego-dominator cultural style.
It is time for change...