Re: Study finds ‘magic mushrooms’ may improve personality long-term

"I believe meditation is good, but as they say there are multiple roads to the same place."

My unwritten point (like the one on the top of my head?) is that Americans live in the fast lane and unless they could grab an hour of relaxation or meditation at a drive through in two minutes they don't allow themselves to have it.  Also anything that you attached to your body to buzz you into a semi hypnotic state or play crashing waves on a beach or any other external stimulus/relaxation is more of the same "take a pill" mentality and invalidates one's ability to do it on your own and at the same time finding that eternal spirit within.  Am not knocking them, they have their place but really turning within is very different.

"You are also right about many people thinking that pills and other meds are the answer to everything. The worst thing about them is they don't want to hear about anything else. They have been dumbed down by the advertising.

Drive by a fast food restaurant at lunch time, the cars are lined up to buy that crap."    

We've been doing the pill and self medication for decades.  100 and more years ago Sears catalog had a stainless steel hypodermic syringe with extra needle and carrying case for $1.50.  They also had the heroin to fill it with along with codeine and a plethora of patent medicines all with codeine, cocaine, opium or equivalent concoctions with it.  Americans have wanted a quick fix for a long time and we are paying a price for it with ills - real and imaginary.  The Easterners have said that illness is the Americans form of meditation and I believe it.  As "bad" as it seems that we're all doped up now - we were really doped up then - PBS has run some great history on Americans and our drug habits which included lots of opiates and cocaine.  Also during that era medical doctors didn't have to have a single day of college, just a year of "medical" school.  In spite of our gripes about modern medicine (I bitch about it right along with everyone else yet have had good experiences too) it has improved - just look at the increase in our longevity - 47 years in 1900, though about 15th or so in the world rank today at 78 years.

Now I'll quit and run out for fries before bedtime.  (Just joking.)