Wednesday, July 29, 2009

A Manifesto for the New American Psychedelic

As we reach the end of our age, with the rising tides and entire nations on the brink of drowning, now is the time to put our revolutions aside. Ours is now an age of refinement, of the realization of the greater self that was burst forth from the levee with nowhere to run. A river that attempts to run as wide as the sea will spread itself thin to the point of nonexistence. We hold the water, we have broken free from the old streams and now we must form the unbroken frothing liquid power that is only so many drops running together in a singular chaotic purpose.

We reject the old poets and prophets but read their words just the same. We paddle the backwoods creeks when we will, walk the mountain paths when we must, and ride the pavement when it suits us. Our new way is a collection of all of the old ways, all of the essences that do not insist on their own correctness. We are the new psychonauts, the tenders of the gardens of our own universe. We recognize that our selves are all we have to offer the world, and the best life is spent offering the best self.

We affirm that the exploration of the psyche is a rigorous undertaking, man's most ardent and its most important. Psychonautic exploration is a discipline, not a boys game. Let it be wild and exciting and unknown and chaotic but let it above all be fruitful lest we become farmers that feasts on the anticipation of the newly sown seed only to despair when he forgets where he must look for his harvest. Let us seize the full blessing of our searches!

We do not affirm the self-debasement of the original psychedelic movement. We do not affirm the principles of free love, that is to say, "indiscriminate love," or love that does not know itself or by extension its counterpoint. Men are not idle seekers of pleasure, knowing the shallow rewards of the flesh without a recognition of the holistic binds of the human organism. They are the leaders and strivers, not charlatans and abusers. They maintain purity and propriety not out of a sense of prudishness, but for the unrestrained joy that comes with knowing why one feels joy at all. We are not sluggish hypothesizers, we are scientists lovers of knowledge and of the overcoming of fear and blindness.

We strive for the fully realized woman, beauty and passion and delicate strength. She who knows her heart and wears it proudly as a beacon. She burns like an oil field that once torched burns eternal. She throws her back her head and laughs with mirth because she knows that all of the oceans in the world cannot quell her fire and she laughs again at the vast reserves of wealth that disappear in peals of black smoke above her head because she knows that all of the engines in the world cannot equal the radiant power of her self-possession.

We are explorers, friends and lovers of self. We search for the essence of the spiritual and material, rejecting nothing till it has been examined through the lens of selfhood. We encourage others to do the same with infinite patience and understanding. We are steadfast in our belief, inquisitive and respectful of all other actualized selves. We know peace and cooperation is not possible without first eradicating the fear that accompanies the prospect of grappling with and subduing the fearsomeness of our own humanity. We are not afraid, and encourage through example.

We believe that a radical shift in perception is required in order to confront the mysteries of our own viciousness. Whether it comes through imbibing consciousness altering substances, sober meditation, or simple open hearted social interaction, the true psychonaut embraces all perception shifting confrontation in order that he might add to his ratio. He uses rationality to cycle through his ever expanding sense of the universal organism and his individualized role within it, seeing rational thought not as a means to an end, but as a tool to organize the chaotic wisdom that enters his ever expanding ratio.

We, the psychonauts, wish to legitimize the pursuit of fully actualized selfhood by living a life of informed love, devoid of malice and hypocrisy.