Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work

by Steven Kotler

The Pale of the Body is ascetic to its core: no pain, no gain. Altered states that arise within ourselves, via internal catalysts like prayer and meditation, are considered stable, reliable, and earned. If the goal is genuine transformation, then nothing as fleeting or pleasant as a flow state or psychedelic session can substitute for decades of prayer and meditation. “The ultimate wisdom of enlightenment,”11 author Sam Harris emphasized in his recent bestseller Waking Up, “whatever it is, cannot be a matter of having fleeting experiences. . . . Peak experiences are fine, but real freedom must be coincident with normal waking life.” In other words, insights gleaned from within the skin-bag are valid and true, while those glimpsed outside the skin-bag are not to be trusted. Experiences that require external catalysts, such as psychedelics and smart drugs, are volatile, unreliable, and, ultimately, too easy.