Altered States of Consciousness - The Truth Behind Illegal Drugs

They've been used for centuries as doorways to mystical experiences and new levels of consciousness. They've been injested to help escape the seemingly insupportable problems of everyday life. They've been tacitly encouraged by governments to assuage the misery of underpaid factory workers. Can there be any new dimensions to consider regarding drugs?

Today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, Altered States of Consciousness: the Truth Behind Illegal Drugs.

First, thanks for all your emails and requests for Norberto Keppe's book on the pathology of power, something we'll be considering again a bit in today's program, since the world of drugs walks hand in hand with those who stroll the corridors of power. So I'll continue giving away Keppe's book this week because it directly analyzes through a keen psychological lens the sickness that exists in the human psyche ... and which is exacerbated in those who lust for power. Great reading. Just email me for your free copy of this landmark book, rich@richjonesvoice.com

Back in the mid 1980s, Claudia Pacheco was researching deeply into the connection between drug trafficking and power. She wasn't the only one writing about this, of course, but she was the first and only one to apply Keppe's psychological analysis to the area, and this lent her research an intellectual heft missing from other writers on the subject.

And because of this, her research had a bomb-like effect on the powerful. Actually, all of Keppe's work did. He and Claudia were finally arrested at the peak of their activities in the U.S. for trumped up customs charges (a fact Claudia mentions in this Podcast) right after the extraordinary campaign they'd been mounting for some years to try to make American conscious of the decadence their country was entering because of the very maliciously intentioned policy of Reagonomics. Reagan's policy was, incidentally, a disaster for the U.S. and the rest of the world who followed blindly along. And Keppe and Pacheco's research into the pathology of power led them directly to confront worldwide governmental involvement in many illegal activities - something Pacheco was writing about at the time. Interestingly, shortly after this period, Iran Contra broke out.

This is pretty incendiary stuff. And today, Claudia Pacheco joins us to look at this situation more closely and bring us up to date.

Click here to listen to this episode.

Tags: drug trafficking illegal drugs Norberto Keppe pathology of power