Is this pill real or some metaphor? I can’t tell anymore. This was a strange column with Dolly Parton showing up and all.

Big Religion must be scared. Without "dread of death," their product is a lot harder to sell.

five-year tranquilizer?
more like fourty four-

way more to this Planet
than meets the *eye Chas

Bingo, Peri
who ya gonna Trust?

*conscious

Trust me, psilocybin does not ruin your appetite for other pills.

placebos
Chas

I can get 'em
for ya Cheap

Were you maybe shroomin' when you wrote this? Because it is vivid, but I lost the causal connection somewhere around where death became god, and well before god became Dolly Parton.

Sure, anxiety over the inevitability of death never occurred before capitalism had people punching the time-clock.

That's why none of the afterlife religions ever caught on.

I can see that if you take pills recreationally, and want a relatively temporary and predictable time period, psilocybin sounds awful.

But I know a few people who suffer from long-term, near crippling depression or anxiety. Like they can barely function half the time. Can't reliably work a regular job. Not the sort of short term depression caused by a death or break-up, that dissipates over time, but the sort that never really goes away for years and years. For people like that, psilocybin (or something like it) seems like it might be just the thing.

And while I agree with your premise that the clock and our current work schedule is entirely a product of the industrial revolution, and people never worked a 40 hour week year round for all of human history prior to the mid-1800s, the fact remains that this is the world we live in now. With a world population of 7+ billion, and climbing rapidly, there is no going back to a pastoral pre-industrial life (if it ever was pastoral).

“We have only recently left this looser time of events. We have fewer holidays. We work the same strict hours no matter what part of the year it is. This is the dictatorship of time as measurement. And certainly also the source of much human anxiety.”

Ya, and life expectancy in the early 1800’s was something like 35. So you didn’t have time to worry about death, because you were dead.

Charles, I mostly admire your writing, even when I disagree, but this is definitely another one of your “paid by the word only” posts.

Mushrooms are not tranquilizers. Not by a long shot.

"Before industrialization, seasons and natural cycles of all kinds directed the flow of human time. The moon, the migration of birds, the rise and fall of temperatures, the length of the day and night—all of these cycles and more enfolded and unfolded human experience."

John Calvin required the good people of Geneva to attend Mass a mere 17 times per week, because he wasn't letting anyone go to Hell on his watch. In pre-industrial Europe, the local church was the only place with a clock, and everyone had to attend when the bells tolled. Humans have been slaves to the clock since they were paying the collection plate for the privilege. Little wonder industrialization was viewed as a boon, and the farm laborers walked off those farms, and into those manufactories, faster than the factories could take them.

the time stamp
says this's
a pipe
dream

and nuthin' to get
hung (up) about

Placebos
50¢ ea.

all you can eat!

But what makes you think the reaction to psilocybin and the 5-year effect doesn’t also come with insight about the essential meaninglessness of the current situation? Why would we necessarily lean in on the 9-5 part and not on patterns of bird migration? The kind of anxiety relief that comes with psychedelics in general is not about smoothing out the rough spots so you can get back to work. It’s about a deeper view into reality that gives you enough perspective to see through the bullshit. That’s why it’s so durable as a cure for anxiety in the first place.

Clearly Charles has never taken a psychedelic trip. And yes, they are talking about terminal patients that have a real fear of death. Jesus he's really talking out of his ass right out of the gate on this one. Psychedelics are really bad for just zoning out; they force you to confront your own reality without your ego getting in the way. Probably the clearest one will ever be about their reality.

Weekend assignment for Charles: take mushrooms and rewrite this claptrap with some actual insight.

Didn't think that Charles could get any more clueless yet he does with each passing week. Impressive.

Peak Mudede.

This reminds me of something out of film producer Barbara Gordon's biography, Dancing as Fast as I Can.

we’ve had anxiety since we were protoplasmic goop, since we evolved to be snakes slithering in the archetypal pit. capitalism is only just the latest phase of the ancient dog eat dog. wake up dude.

Expand yer mind chaz! Drop to bottom and flick ur tongue with us :)