When they lose their sense of awe,
People turn to religion.
When they no longer trust themselves,
They begin to depend upon authority.
When rich speculators prosper
While farmers lose their land;
When government officials spend money
On weapons instead of cures,
When the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
While the poor have nowhere to turn -
All is robbery and chaos
It is not in keeping with the Tao.
Let go the fixed plans and concepts,
And the world will govern itself....
The more prohibitions you have,
The less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
The less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
The less self-reliant people will be.
Therefore the Master says,
Let go of the law and people will be honest.
The Master understands
That the universe is forever out of control,
And that trying to dominate events
Goes against the current of the Tao.
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching.)
Is it not interesting that a common theme within most of the countercultural spiritual practices we discuss involves practitioners experiencing ecstasy - people feeling really good, high, and happy - while at the same time, these same people have renounced material greed, and the ego gratification of social success and fame? Perhaps there's a message in there for us. (Ken Goffman and Dan Joy, Counterculture Through the Ages, p. 166.)
By their panic, as expressed through their prohibitionary legislation, the conservative forces teased out what was perhaps the central countercultural progression of this epoch. Rationalist countercultures like the Enlightenment had sought to expand freedom of thought and speech. Transcendental or spiritual countercultures like Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and Sufism, and post-rationalist countercultures like Romanticism and Surrealism, sought to liberate the entire human being from self-abnegating constrictions. But now, as reactive forces moved to suppress this attempt at transcendent and/or post-rational liberation of consciousness through plants and chemicals, the logical response was to demand an expansion of the definition of enlightened liberal democratic rights. Leary called it the fifth freedom, the right of a human being to control his own states of consciousness, In a free society, the state ought not prevent people from achieving any mind state, as long as these people don't intrude on others. (Goffman and Joy, p. 267.)