Hans Lovejoy, editor

Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third storey window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.

This is just one quote from psychonaut Terence McKenna (19462000).

His views are not popular with those who administrate authority, which is precisely why his message is so important and valuable in the modern era of mindless tyranny.

Feeling disempowered? McKenna said this is because youre giving your time and power away to icons. Vacuous celebrities and politicians are indeed exhausting.

The reason we feel alienated is because the society is infantile, trivial, and stupid. So the cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation.

Its 2020 people! Time to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron.

Heres to a decade where well-honed corporate marketing in the fields of distraction, data mining, manipulation and mass hypnosis start to falter and dissolve.

And heres to a new decade where all those reporting for mainstream media finally get a spine and pressure politicians and bureaucrats on their integrity and record, or lack of it.

Its truly the most effective mechanism for change, apart from inspiring younger generations to learn for themselves and think critically.

Its 2020 time to break free from the shackles of the herd mentality and question the fuck out of authority!

You are a divine being, McKenna said. You matter, you count. You come from realms of unimaginable power and light, and you will return to those realms.

You are an explorer, McKenna also said. And you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness.

All the best for 2020, everyone. Now is the time to hurl yourself into the abyss and discover its a feather bed.

Some of The Echos editorial team: journalists Paul Bibby and AslanShand, editor Hans Lovejoy, photographer Jeff Dawson and Mandy Nolan

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Editorial: Psychonaut of the week - Echonetdaily