Fast-forward to another politics of consciousness in the 1960s, during the heady days of the psychedelic fad. The sudden revelations of drug-induced altered states led to assumptions like, as one acidhead put it, “With LSD we experienced what it took Tibetan monks 20 years to obtain, yet we got there in 20 minutes.”20 Dead wrong. The trouble with drug-induced states is that after the chemical clears your body, you remain the same person as always. And, as Richie discovered, the same fading away happens with highs in meditation.
