“I’m not saying that only intellectuals can benefit from [drugs which dissolve some of the barriers between ordinary pedestrian consciousness and the multidimensional super consciousness of the organism], but that there must be sufficient discipline or insight to relate this expanded consciousness to our normal, everyday life.

Such aids to perception are medicines, not diets, and the use of a medicine should lead to a more healthful mode of living […], measures we might take to maintain a sounder form of sanity. Of these, most important is the practice of what I would like to call meditation [or] ‘contemplation’ or even ‘centering,’ for what I mean is a slowing down of time, of mental hurry, and an allowing of one’s attention to rest in the present – so coming to the unseeking observation, not of what should be, but of what is.” – Alan Watts