I’ve been observing the phenomena and wondering about it for quite some time: people who try and speak up in the psychedelic community, those who raise their voice in the most articulate way (unlike me) and get the most audience, those whose publications and videos and articles will get shared and propagated the most, seem all to be so proper, as proper as our favorite PhD Robin Carhart-Harris, or, at least, they obviously try hard to be.
Sometimes they will allow a little « f » word to pop out of their mouth, but if you ever dare to take the risk to communicate with them in a similar rather familiar style, you may get shunned, ignored, considered stupid, mean, or even called a bully.
Don’t you dare trade on their proper feet with too rude of a word.
Don’t you either dare criticize their work in public, even with some reasonable arguments (and I mean « arguments », not insults).
They can allow themselves some familiarity and critics with their audience sometimes, but you’d better not risk it on them yourself.
How would dare you?
They are serious and respectful people deserving plenty of respect and politeness. Don’t you ever dare be « punk » (or autistic) with them – using plenty of derision and « f » kind of words – even when they happen to play in a punk band! No! You oughta offer them as much properness as if they were old oxfordians PhDs teachers… Even if they’re not.
Honnestly I bet Tolkien himself was not that « proper » all the time and enjoyed being given some hobbitish style of language in real life, whether from his very educated colleagues, or from his totally uneducated neighbours, family members or grocer. I bet he was enough of a sharp man to make the difference between the form and the content, between showy shaekspearian discourses, or plain slang, and the true subtle music of the heart. And I bet he was enough of a sharp guy to be aware that even the brightest people sometimes make mistakes and just never « know it all » in reality, therefore I bet he welcomed critics with interest, since critics are essential to intellectual progresss and personnal growth.
Observing this phenomena led me to write a short essay last spring, during shut-down: « Psychedelic community: where are the punks? » (entirely in French, sorry).
It seems they have yet to be found.
They have yet to be found eventhough it takes to be some kind of punk « somehow, deep down, at least a tiny bit » to dare transgress society taboos, such as daring using some substances that most people consider as plain « bad ». You may replace the word « punk » with « rocker » if you tend to believe punks are just dirty addicts who don’t deserve any respect of any kind, just like any kind of addict don’t deserve to be treated with any kind of respect, kindness, humanity…, do they?
Yep. You may watch out for toxicophobia in the area, and sorry if that’s not the proper English word for something that’s not the fear of toxic substances, but something similar to homophobia, racism, sexism, segregation, etc…, generally applied to people who « do drugs ».
We’re not « punks » because we’re not junkies, we’re not addicts, see? Big difference.
Addicts deserve to be spit upon, and live on the street, where they belong.
They may deserve to be spoken roughly to, or simply banned, silenced forever, no big loss.
Us, we’re different, we deserve proper manners, because we know better. We use psychedelics in the proper way for proper reasons, we don’t « abuse » them, we’re not « addicted » to them, we’re honnest and kind and always perfect sweety pies, we behave! So we deserve to be given proper manners.
Toxicophobia seems to me to be as big in our comunity as the mere thirst for respect and recognition. So whether you show any sign of belonging to the addicts’ world (a world full of liars, thieves, scrappers, bullies…, isn’t it?), or any sign of believing that you are speaking to someone who belongs to that addicts world, by using some familiar form of language, or whether you fail at showing the proper form and amount of respect and recognition, even merely by making too long lists of too down to earth critics, then you’ll likely be identified as a mean little stupid thing that will get blocked even on patreon.
Yep. Down to earth critics are not so welcomed.
The psychedelic community is about the psyche, the « mind », the soul, the pure clouds, the angels and aliens up there in the sky, it’s about the « spirit world », that’s got so much nothing to do with the dirty material one [just « kidding » here! I’m truely an animist: all is sacred, even humor, derision, slang, inebriation… And all that is « nature »-made, such as trees, mountains and petra olea, is conscious and alive and has got a « spirit side » to it in the spirit world, as far as I can tell].
Hobbitish style of critics, such as « Your fire will smoke like hell and leave you freezing cold with such an amount of wet wood » are totally inappropriate. Even if they were given in shakespearian kind of rhymes, they’d still be very inappropriate.
Don’t you dare criticize the PhD’s setting and remind any popular speaker what about 99,99% of experienced users will tell them: « Doing it in nature is the best way to go ».
Don’t you dare.
If they do it on a synthetic couch, in a perfectly sanitized apartment, in a big city, with all LEDs on, then it must mean that it’s the best way to go.
So be silent, please, and don’t raise your voice.
Leave it to them, the proper people, and if you enjoy the sound of your own croaky voice, go play in a punk band with your punk addicts friends and leave science and all serious matters to proper people.
This said, in case you’d be secretly a bit of a punk yourself and wish to give a look at what an anarcho-chamano-activist’s ideal setting looks like, it’s all there:
The ideal setting: the Hobbit way
Psychédéliques 