To pull a thread in from your other comments though:

You have lies being told over generations. Most people run on programming. They have the lies programmed into them.

This could be applied as a description of what a shaman does: they are a programmer who gives another person a framework for inner perceptual experiences. This is fairly profound. It is a completely neutral thing which can be taken in any direction: programming. My point about psychedelics is that they open up the possibilities of undoing these programs altogether in a spontaneous not even animalistic way, something totally pre-animal, something alien to our way of existing and perceiving. The spirit of the entity itself leads. It may not lead you into good directions as well, because its goals and needs are quite alien to that of a droplet of consciousness stored temporarily in a human body.

I think there are divinely appointed leaders.

I don’t think so. I believe that any one at any time has the potential to lead through the choices they make. Their commitment to their beliefs and the lifestyle and behavior which flow naturally from that is what makes them a leader. God may smile on it, but God always smiles when a flower blooms in the desert.

It even seems like Jesus didn’t toot his own horn like that.

This is my impression from the Bagavahd Gita. I know you are into Taoism, you might get a lot out of it. Has a similar flavor. My favorite translation is called

“A walk through for Westerners” I forget the name of the transpator.

But anyway People aren’t simply animals. There is a lot more to us than that. It has to do with geometry and the design of the Universe. But leaders are part of the design.

I mean sure if you want to encourage people to go out and start sampling wild mushrooms on their own, fine.

Sure some people are smart and will read up on it. But for example I was all into this rewilding kick once and spent a week out in the woods and came across these white mushrooms and I was thinking of eating them. I figured the poisonous ones would be brightly colored. I was just going on kind of a half assed knowledge of nature how poisonous insects are often brightly colored.

But anyway, long story short, I decided not to eat them. Later I bought a feild guide and found out that the two most poisonous mushrooms were growing in that same area The deathcap and the destroying angel. both white and innocent looking.

So my point is that sure government agencies being in charge of things sucks. Just look at the DMV but that doesn’t mean there is no need for leadership and guidence.

I think that in a tribal society the shaman winds up reflecting/serving the political culture that develops.

“these plants and fungus are actually elected by God to teach people about immortality”

But, God has the final say about who touches real “enlightenment” and scatters the means around without regard to politics.

You two always appear to be arguing when you’re really in close agreement with each other.

I just think there should be the context of a spiritual tradition behind this. With Someone playing the role of a Shaman guiding others through the process.

The reason is because these plants and fungus are actually elected by God to teach people about immortality and there are people elected by God to do the same thing. They work together.

Not saying I am this amazing mystic or anything, but I’ve had my share of visions and communications with the spirit world. Nothing I have read of people sharing their drug induced visions of Ayahuasca, LSD etc. seems implausible or really all that unfamiliar to me in light of my own experiences.

If you are at all open to this stuff its there all the time with the volume turned way down. Even if you are a materialist, this stuff is there. So if you want to follow this line of inquiry all you need to do is turn the volume up, or learn how to turn the volume of everything else way down by being quiet and still.

To me this is better than being bombarded. Because you are in control. All you have to do is is start doing some time wasting activity, call a frieind, watch a stupid t.v. show, etc. if your visions get a little intense, the introspection gets a little scary, and suddenly its all gone. Back to the mundane world.

But if you are really into this journey, mediating for a while, taking notes, reading books, establishing rapport with your inner guides…. Maybe a drug can improve the proccess. Or maybe drugs are good for people that are practically atheists to be opened up to this stuff.

But to me drugs are a crutch. Also why reinvent the wheel? Sure some caveman needed to “discover” this stuff and expiriment, but that was 10,000-40,000 years ago.

In terms of egalitarianism, some people have been put on this Earth to spiritually teach others, I would find them.

That’s my take on it anyway.

Traditionally there have been Shamans and Mystery Schools guiding people in these things.

Is nature really all that egalitarian? What if the idea of there being shamans and spiritual traditions was part of the plan? A lot of times we think of indigenous people as being more egalitarian than they really are. Within their own traditions they are usually conservative and respect elders and traditional wisdom.

Not that Government oversight is the answer. That is stupid.

But uhhh…My feeling is restraint and support and guidence is better with this stuff.

Plus working willy nilly and alone as a dabbler…you can have a lot of these experiences without drugs. The learning curve is tempered by how serious and dedicated you are too. Its hard to get in over your head and unprepared without drugs.