What sort of world do we want to live in? Certainly not one like the one we’re living in now. Where should we take this current revolution, this chance for a new and brighter future? If we don’t know where we want to go, how will we ever get there?
.

I envision a world where there is complete acceptance of all human beings by all human beings, regardless of gender, race, nationality, religion, or sexual preference, a world where there are no outsiders, no untouchables, not in any sense of that old and ugly word.

I envision a world where there is equality, on all levels for all folks, a world where there are no leaders or followers, no hierarchies at all. Where there are no privileged folks, not in any way.

I envision a world where there are no bosses, no one telling anyone what to do. This is a Rainbow Family concept. At the gatherings, everything is always decided by consensus. The entire idea of leaders and followers puts most of us down. Also, it should be obvious by now that all the leaders, throughout history to these present days, are always stupid, greedy, power seeking assholes.

I envision a world where there is no money, where everything is free. This is another Rainbow Family idea. Earlier though, back in the early 60’s, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters took it one step further, putting all their possessions in one room. When one of them needed something, he or she would get it out of the room, use it, and then return it to the pile.

James Redfield had a similar idea in his book, The Celestine Prophecy. He sees a future in which “Our needs for survival – foodstuffs and clothing and transportation – will be totally automated and at everyone’s disposal. Out needs will be completely met without the exchange of any currency.”
.

How will we ever get from where we are now, mired in prejudice, inequality, greed, and evil bosses with their stupid power games? It will never happen with protests or revolutions. Anger and righteousness will kill any change for a higher future.

It will never happen unless we change our consciousness, and I definitely do not mean just our thoughts. I don’t even mean the consciousness that seems to live in our heads, the consciousness that we think comes from our brains Actually, each chakra has it’s own consciousness, and, if we let it, it will contribute to the whole.

We will need to change our consciousness from our present day and very limited left-brain ego consciousness – that very small bit of consciousness that we are able to accept today with our closed minds – to one more whole, one without fear, one more open to both masculine and feminine consciousness, and especially one that is more connected to Spirit.

I liked what Grof said about the results of his LSD Psychotherapy. I like that he showed us that we can all be fully conscious, as he describes it. This is certainly a goal worth achieving. If we can do this, we will have a future, otherwise, probably not.

I don’t care how we get there, to this new and higher consciousness. If we can get there without acid, fine. But if we can’t find our way to this higher consciousness otherwise, please remember that acid as therapy can take us there. We could just make acid legal for psychotherapy, as it once was. It would sure help. I think that’s why it’s here, to take us into our future.

According to Grof, with the guided use of LSD, we can overcome our fear of death, the source of most of our fears. We can give up our head trips and learn to appreciate the simpler aspects of existence. We can give up being selfish and competitive. And, of course, we can realize how exciting the exploration of consciousness can be. As Grof says, “The universe ceases to be a gigantic assembly of material objects; it becomes an infinite system of adventures in consciousness.”
.

I envision a future that would satisfy all of us. This is so because no one would be prejudiced against another person, not after becoming conscious of that side of him or herself that is like that other person. I envision a future where we are all equal, where we know that no one is better or worse than we are. This is so because we have seen who we really are. I envision a future where there are no bosses, no leaders and followers. How could a fully conscious being think that they knew another’s path through life? I also see a future where everything is free, where we finally realize that we are all family.

The 60’s revolution failed. We all know this. The bad guys kept their power and undid almost all of the positive changes we had worked so hard for – all of them that they could undo, that is. However, some of the things we worked so hard to actualize back then did survive. In fact, many of the positive social changes from the 60’s revolution are still with us today.
.

We have become much more aware of our Mother Earth, this awesome Spaceship Earth that we all live upon, cruising through the endless space-time continuum. We have learned that she is more fragile than we thought. We have learned that she loves us all dearly – after all, she is our mother. We have also begun to realize that we can help her too.

We have become more aware of the various kinds of pollution that are slowly killing all life on Mother Earth, whether it be in our waters, in our air, or even in our earth itself. We have seen the enemy, and he is not us. He is of the 1 percent that try to lord over the rest of us. If they would just get out of our way, we could still save ourselves and Mother Earth.

We have become more aware of overpopulation, although we haven’t done anything about it yet. In fact, there is a powerful faction here in the United States that is against limiting the population. But Mother Earth can only keep so many of us folks alive and well. Too many folks are already dying of hunger, bad water, and disease. I keep hearing folks saying, “Maybe we should all have to have a license to be a parent.” Good idea, but try telling that to most of the folks on this planet.

We have become more aware of the effects of global warming. This was something we were already very concerned about in the 60’s. It seemed obvious to us then. Now it is obvious to almost everybody, although the many brain-dead folks aligned with the immoral world of greed are still in convenient denial.

It is obvious now though. Temperatures are rising. Animals and even plants are slowly migrating north in the Northern Hemisphere. Most of the world’s glaciers are going or already gone. When we hike in the high country around here, we see that the glaciers we used to play on are already gone.
.

Since the 60’s, we have become more aware of our bodies too. Physical health and fitness have become more important. More and more folks are walking, running, bicycling, skating, swimming, working out with weights, playing sports, skiing, climbing rocks, hiking, backpacking, doing yoga, making love, and all the other adventures that we give to ourselves these days. More and more of us folks are not going blindly into couch potato old age.

More folks are now exploring and enjoying Mother Nature in her wilder aspects. We are rediscovering Her as she truly is, as a place of high adventure as well as a place of spiritual renewal. Many of us use Her wild mountains and deserts as spiritual retreats, as places away from the chaotic group consciousness of the city and this sick society that we all live in, a place where we can slow down and listen to Spirit.
.

In the early 60’s, it was difficult if not impossible to find organic food in most towns and cities across the country. Most of what we did find was in funky co-ops or vitamin shops that carried only a few organic items. Organic food sure caught on fast though. Look around now. There are at least ten natural food stores here in Boulder, and many more in the nearby, surrounding communities. And most of the big chains, Safeway and King Supers, are carrying more and more organic foods.

Along with this, in the 60’s, came an upsurge in organic gardening. For many of us, gardening has become a new but meaningful endeavor. Today, it is becoming a necessity.

People are raising chickens nowadays too, for the eggs mostly. But some folks are killing the males when they are old enough to be called fryers. At least three of our neighbors here in the city are raising them. No roosters though. Too noisy, too early in the morning.
.

The 60’s really changed the status of women. We have finally begun to realize the importance of women and the feminine. We are finally accepting that women are different from men and at least equal to them. They certainly can mellow out the men’s warlike, testosterone induced energy. Without their balancing energy, men would probably have already destroyed this world of ours. Women can create life, whereas men can only destroy it.

Motherhood has become more important and more respected too. Women can now nurse in public. Many women can take maternity leave from their jobs and can even nurse at work now. Since the 60’s, women have gained much in the way of freedom, in so many areas of life.

Blacks are accorded much greater respect than they were before the 60’s. When I was young, we never saw a black person on TV or in movies, not unless it was Jack Benny’s Rochester. The same is true for the other minorities, especially for the Asians and the Latinos. Even the Indians are getting a better press these days.

Gay men and women have become much more accepted in our culture too, even in the military. Now they can honor their love for one another in a sacred marriage, just as those of us who are not gay have always been able to do.

Perhaps we are slowly becoming a more accepting culture. We definitely need to keep moving in this direction. It is in the Tao.
.

Most of us are back living in our single-family dwellings, inside our single-family minds. Most of us have given up on community, although we do keep saying that it takes a village to raise a child, almost as if we’re trying to remind ourselves of something.

Lately, however, I have been hearing folks wishing that they could share the childcare, preferably without everyone having to live together in one house or on one farm. These folks are just beginning to wake up. At this time in history, we all need to remember (with a slight change) that old 60’s saying, “People (originally ‘dope’) will get you through times of no money better than money will get you times of no people.“

Dope helps too, helps community. Remember the circles and folks saying, “What goes around, comes around.”
.

I wonder where we will take the world with this revolution? All these gains from the 60’s were just baby steps, mere beginnings on our way to a higher future. Wherever we do take it, it will help us if we remember that we are all here together on Spaceship Earth and that to keep it livable, we all have to work together.

In my next note, I will begin to share my vision for our collective future.

During the 60’s, those of us who wanted to create a more spiritual reality used various paths to become more conscious, loving, and kind.

We used various forms of dream work. This included analyzing our dreams and/or using active imagination, or visualization, to understand their messages. We learned from Jung and Perls and others what dreams are and how we could use them to become more whole beings. We learned that dreams speak in ‘God’s forgotten language.’

We discovered the I Ching, the ancient Chinese holy book, an extremely high spiritual book. We saw that the book was also an oracle that responded to whatever question we might ask by describing the situation that we found ourselves in at the time we asked the question.

Many of us began meditating in the 60’s, influenced perhaps by the influx of the many Buddhists who saw a golden opportunity and came to America to gather disciples. Many of us still meditate, just doing our own forms.

Many of us favored LSD in the 60’s. We weren’t afraid of it then as many folks are nowadays. We liked how it made us more clear and compassionate. We found that we could be completely open and honest with one another when we tripped together. We found that we couldn’t bullshit when we were tripping, not to ourselves or to each other. We called it acid honesty.
.

Although I don’t think Stan Grof’s way, his LSD Psychotherapy way, is necessary – many of us have done it on our own, in our own ways – but it does work. The result of his LSD therapy, the sort of person one can become, is described in the following quotes from his bookLSD Psychotherapy (see pages 227 and following if your curious.)

“It (LSD) has mediated a profound spiritual opening in atheists, skeptics, and materialistically oriented scientist, facilitated far reaching emotional liberation, and caused radical changes in value systems and the basic life style.”

“Subjects free themselves from certain idiosyncratic perceptions, inappropriate emotional responses, rigid value systems, irrational attitudes, and maladjustive behavior patterns that are products of their early programming.”

“They suddenly see that their entire concept of existence and approach to it had been contaminated by a deep, unconscious fear of death.”

“The emphasis shifts from pursuit of complicated external schemes to appreciation of simple aspects of existence.”

“A selfish and competitive approach to existences is seen as ignorant, inferior, and ultimately self-destructive.”

“The western life philosophy, which confuses conspicuous consumption with richness of life is replaced by a new emphasis on “voluntary simplicity.”

“Another striking aspect of the psychedelic transformation is the development of intense interest in consciousness, self-exploration, and the spiritual quest.”

“The universe ceases to be a gigantic assembly of material objects: it becomes an infinite system of adventures in consciousness.”

.

Those folks ‘in power’ today, those who are still trying to bullshit us so that they can ‘control’ us and the world, all those politicians and other leaders, were so afraid of LSD in the 60’s, afraid of how it was waking folks up, that they made it illegal and those of us who disagreed, outlaws.

Those bad guys are still out there. If we wish to overcome them, we have to be more conscious, more loving, and more kind. We can’t win by fighting them. We have to walk those peaceful spiritual paths again.

In my next note, I’ll share some of the positive results of our efforts in the 60’s, results such as environmental awareness, the growing equality of women and the feminine, the equality of gay men and women in our culture, the health and fitness movements that have led to organic foods and gardening, and the notion that it takes a village. I’ll look ahead too, wondering where we can take the current spiritual revolution.