Psychedelic Horizons-

a Review
by Preston Peet

Originally published in High Times Magazine,
October 2006

posted DrugWar.com
August 25, 2006

Is it possible that extremely powerful, positive psychedelic drug experiences can boost our immune systems and strengthen our health? Can taking psychedelic drugs help increase human intelligence and creativity? Is the insistence by most modern science and those waging their War on Some Drugs that ideas and perceptions formed under the influences of psychedelics and other altered states of consciousness are false and hallucinatory only wrong, and has the reliance on only ideas and perceptions formed during so-called normal states of mind limited our learning about psychology, health, and the vast potential of human thought?

In "Psychedelic Horizons," (Imprint Academic Philosophy Documentation Center, VA) Thomas B. Roberts, a Professor in the Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations at Northern Illinois University for 30 years, says that indeed, this "Single State Fallacy," the "erroneous assumption that all worthwhile abilities reside in our normal, awake mindbody state," indeed "stunts ourselves, our children, and the human future by teaching only one mental state-one cognitive program."

Roberts' ideas are described in a refreshing and remarkably personal way. Broken into four distinct sections, "Psychedelic Horizons" is a fascinating examination of the possibilities for human mind and psychedelic potential and perspective, increased health and a stronger immune system. This is a guide to "thinking about thinking" and how to gain a much wider view of what constitutes reality around and within us. While not entirely original, Roberts' thesis is basically, "that there are more to our minds than our normal awake state," and that while there are other ways to reach this realization, such as "meditation, dreams, anesthetics, stimulants," psychedelics are "so powerful and so overwhelming that one simply cannot ignore them." Using such substances may make it possible to not only enlarge our learning capacity but even become more intelligent, "well educated" beings.