The Strange Quest To Block Spiritual Enlightenment

By James Donahue

Throughout recorded history, there appears to have been a powerful movement throughout the “civilized” world to control the minds of the people and prevent spiritual enlightenment. Strangely, the only people who have escaped this supervised control have been the aboriginals who live in remote tribal groups and freely utilize the natural plants and herbs of the planet to reach altered states of consciousness.

Some organized religions, which may have once played an important role in directing humans on spiritual pathways, seems to have outlived its value. While Buddhism and the Hindu faiths still appear to provide excellent spiritual guidance, the religions of the Middle East, Europe and the Americas have fallen into decay and extremism and are consequently causing spiritual, social and political discord.  

Where the latter named religions flourish, notice that the natural gifts from the Earth, including the Psilocybin mushroom and the hemp plant Cannabis sativa, have fallen under the list of illegal substances that get users and providers arrested and sent to prison. They are falsely included as part of the global “War On Drugs” that has been raging since President Richard M. Nixon, a known amphetamine user, officially launched it in the 1970s.

The war also attacks the coco plant, used by natives in South America for spiritual enlightenment, and the opiates, produced from a certain poppy plant long used in similar ways by the people of the Middle East and Far East. That these plants can be refined to produce powerful narcotics has been both a gift and a bane to humans. While they have wonderful medical applications for the relief of pain and suffering, their misuse also brings addiction and human destruction.

Then there has been the interesting synthetic psychedelic drug lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD, accidentally discovered by Albert Hofmann in 1938 while experimenting with ergot, a grain fungus. This substance captured the attention of the late Psychologist Timothy Leary, who successfully used it on patients to alter habitual and damaging behavior patterns.

LSD was found to be such a powerful drug that the U.S. Military experimented with it for possible uses in mind control and a truth serum to force prisoners of war to give up secrets. What was discovered, however, was that users of LSD briefly experienced a dramatic altered state of consciousness. They observed a world quite different than the one we see when in our “natural” state of mind. They called this psychedelic illusion and quickly put the drug on the list of banned substances. Leary went to prison for refusing to give it up, although his arrest and conviction was for possessing marijuana at the time of his capture.

Our government warned people that LSD was an extremely dangerous drug that caused users to think they could do things like fly and jump off rooftops of buildings, which probably never happened. A group known as the Merry Pranksters followed the popular band Grateful Dead all over the United States during the 1970s through the 1990s, providing quantities of LSD to music fans, without disastrous results. The concerts, which used visual effects to enhance the psychedelic experience, were extremely popular, always sold out, and rarely unruly. The only incidents we heard of were when there was police interference. Hofmann continued to use LSD almost until the time of his death without ill effects, and he lived to be 100.

While the awareness of new spiritual pathways is gaining interest among the youth of the world, the Mother Earth appears to have provided a gaggle of additional help for those that still need an artificial stimulus for “waking up” to alternate states of consciousness.

British author and researcher Graham Hancock, in his book Supernatural: Meeting with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind, tells about traveling the world and experiencing the effects of a variety of natural herbs and plants used by shamans to have visions and connect with the gods while in higher states of awareness. When reading this book, we were struck by the wide variety of so-called psychedelic vegetation found throughout nature.

We conclude that it is virtually impossible to identify and find ways to destroy or block the use of so many of these natural aids to spiritual enlightenment. As fast as the governments are learning about and identifying new plants, mushrooms and substances that fall into the psychedelic category, new ones crop up. There seems to be an unending supply of natural sources of things to help everyone accomplish what Dr. Leary used to advise: “turn on and turn off” from the rest of the world.

Among the other interesting plants that we know about include the peyote flower, legally used by the Navajo Native Americans for religious services in Arizona and the Southwest.

There is also Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, a naturally occurring substance found in many natural plants and also in the human body. It is going to be very hard for anti-narcotics forces to make DMT illegal without finding a way to get it out of our bodies.

Other plants we have become aware of that are out there include Salvia Divinorum, a plant from South America that is highly treasured among some aboriginals, Kratom, a tree found in Southeast Asia and Lagochilus Inebrians, a plant used by tribes of the Turkic states in Central Asia.

It is as if the Mother Earth provided all of the tools we needed to wake ourselves up from the long spiritual slumber we have allowed ourselves to fall into. Those that dare to use them, however, are suddenly in danger of being arrested and thrown into prison for daring to see reality in a different light and challenge the status quo.