What does the fact that the pharmacology effort to reduce the mind to the molecular structure contained in the brain, has returned to us with a vision of the mind, indicating its almost cosmic proportions? Psychoactive substances seem to be potential agents of our regression back to the animal, and our metamorphosis into the bright dream of possible perfection. “Man for man is like a lost beast,” wrote the English social philosopher Thomas Hobbes, “and man for man is almost a god.” “And never to the same extent as it happens with the consumption of psychoactive substances,” we could add.

The eighties were a period unusually poor in psychedelics. Synthetic amphetamines, such as MDA, occur sporadically in the early 1970s, and in the 1980s, MDMA, the so-called Ecstasy, appeared in significant quantities. MDMA, in particular, seemed promising when used in guided psychotherapy, / Sophia Adamson. Through the Gateway of the Heart (San Francisco: Four Trees Press. 1985) / but these substances quickly became illegal and were driven underground, before they achieved some noticeable influence on society. MDMA was simply the most recent echo of the search for inner harmony, which guides the ever-changing styles of substance consumption and internal research. The drug of the 80s was crack cocaine,whose economic profile and high risk of addiction made it ideal in the eyes of the already established infrastructure to provide for the regular cocaine market.

The cost of training and treatment in the field of psychoactive substances is small compared with current military costs, and it can be sustained. But it is impossible to withstand the effect that psychedelics would have on the formation of our cultural image of ourselves if all substances were legal and accessible. This is a hidden reason for governments to reluctant to discuss the issue of legalization: an uncontrollable change in consciousness, which would be brought by legal and accessible substances, including vegetable psychedelics, would be extremely dangerous for a culture of dominion – an ego-oriented culture.