Quotes / Higher Understanding Through Drugs

I am not so foolish as to equate what happens under the influence of mescalin or of any other drug, prepared or in the future preparable, with the realization of the end and ultimate purpose of human life: Enlightenment, the Beatific Vision. All I am suggesting is that the mescalin experience is what Catholic theologians call "a gratuitous grace," not necessary to salvation but potentially helpful and to be accepted thankfully, if made available.

— Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception

Pot opens everything up. All the anxieties, the creepy crawly blues, it just drifts away and you can slowly remember what it was like to be alive. Even more importantly, you can take a step back to see the crap that's flying and see what really is important. Not much!

— Marilyn Monroe

There is a belief among the Native American that great visionaries would gain an insight into visions by packing their pipes with marijuana. The visionaries believed that their visions were intensified with the use of cannabis that was smoked in their peace pipes.

— Annette Felix, First Nations traditional use of peace pipes and marijuana

Statistical fact: Cops will never pull over a man with a huge bong in his car. Why? They fear this man. They know he sees farther than they, and he will bind them with ancient logics.

— Marty, The Cabin in the Woods

"While tripping balls, Firewater and I made an important meta-psychical breakthrough."

—Gum, Sausage Party

"Whoa! The bath salts are showing me the REAL world! IT FUCKIN' LIFTED THE VEIL OF NON-REALITY!"

—Druggie, Sausage Party

"I hear them breathing on my telephone
I know I'm never alone
I've been to places you should never go
God's really Satan, and he's waiting for you out there"

— Ozzy Osbourne, implied to be extremely high on cocaine, "It's a Raid"

I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether, with the determination to put on record, at the earliest moment of regaining consciousness, the thought I should find uppermost in my mind. The mighty music of the triumphal march into nothingness reverberated through my brain, and filled me with a sense of infinite possibilities, which made me an archangel for the moment. The veil of eternity was lifted. The one great truth which underlies all human experience, and is the key to all the mysteries that philosophy has sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me in a sudden revelation. Henceforth all was clear: a few words had lifted my intelligence to the level of the knowledge of the cherubim. As my natural condition returned, I remembered my resolution; and, staggering to my desk, I wrote, in ill-shaped, straggling characters, the all-embracing truth still glimmering in my consciousness. The words were these (children may smile; the wise will ponder): "A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout."

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., 1870 lecture at Harvard

Eleanor: Um, so who was right? I mean about all of this?
Michael:' Well, let's see. Hindus are a little bit right, Muslims a little bit right. Jews, Christians, Buddhists, every religion guessed about five percent, except for Doug Forcett.
Eleanor: Who-who's Doug Forcett?
Michael:' Well, Doug was a stoner kid who lived in Calgary during the 1970s. One night, he got really high on mushrooms, and his best friend, Randy, said, "Hey, what do you think happens after we die?" And Doug just launched into this long monologue where he got like ninety-two percent correct. [chuckles] I mean, we couldn't believe what we were hearing. [points to a portrait] That's him, actually, right up there. He's pretty famous around here. I'm very lucky to have that.

— The Good Place episode 1, "Everything is Fine"

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