"“Enlightenment in a pill,” many have pointed out, is a quintessentially American concept. Who’s got time for all that prayer and study and meditation and practice when there’s an easier, faster way?
But there isn’t. Therein lies the great danger of LSD and its dopey cousin, marijuana. By offering a simulacrum of spiritual and intellectual growth – a very convincing simulacrum at times – it takes you everywhere except where you need to be, which is doing the long, hard work of learning to live."
I resonate with what he says because, like the author mentions later on, I also have many friends who went deep into the psychedelics journey while claiming it was 'freeing their minds', 'enlightening' them, or whatever other concept they liked to use, only to end up, a decade or two later, in either a regular struggling life like so many others, or a downright bad place. I'm probably wrong to generalize, as I'm sure it can help many, but the drugs still can't substitute the individual's effort and struggle to grow, and overcome, and the learning of how to live a meaningful life.