On November 6, 2008 my mother made her transition at the age of 90 after a long and debilitating illness. This article is dedicated to her memory on this earthly plane at the same time as it endeavors to shed some understanding on what the Enlightened Ones have been teaching us throughout the ages about the nature of Ultimate Reality of which we are all a part, whether or not we are physically “alive.” Most of us are not able to see the “inner planes of consciousness”, but their existence is not something that can be simply attributed to blind “faith” any longer, but instead is something that is more and more a target of the serious scientific scrutiny. Just recently, the History Channel resumed its series about the Universe, stressing its multidimensional nature, along with the Biography Channel showing the investigation of children possessing a gift of seeing way beyond the physical senses that are nothing more than just that – physical.

However, the sages of history have always known that the physical plane on which we reside while on this Earth is only one of many other planes of consciousness, and that consciousness itself is infinite, just as our Universe or, as some researchers now refer to it, Multiverse, is truly infinite. So, what are the planes of consciousness that the Enlightened Ones have glimpsed, what are those “inner planes” referred to in Theosophical as well as in esoteric Christian and Jewish Kabbalistic thought? Before we go there, let me emphasize that different planes of consciousness are not separate from one another, but interpenetrate, just like the elements of physical reality, just like air in the water or water in the air, just like the carbon atom that is part of our physical beings as well as that of the most distant galaxies. Also, I believe that even though the sages have glimpsed the “inner planes”, that which they have glimpsed is but a minute part of the Ultimate Reality of which we, as human beings, cannot fully conceive at this particular stage of our evolution.

At the present level of the Theosophical and esoteric thought there are five basic planes of consciousness such as:

1. The physical plane;
2. The astral plane;
3. the mental plane;
4. the intuitive plane;
5. the Divine plane, including the divinity within.

Again, I cannot emphasize enough that all these planes (and, quite possibly, much, much more) coexist and interpenetrate one another at the same time, creating what is known in science as the space-time continuum. Our physical bodies consist not only of their solid, liquid and gaseous parts, but also include bio-energetic field around us, known as aura. There is a research facility in Arizona, called Human Energy Systems, that is actively engaged in scientific investigation of that which only very recently was scornfully dismissed by the conventional, materialistic science as “unprovable mystical beliefs.” After the physical death, our aura accompanies us to the next, or astral plane, dissolving soon thereafter, but sometimes, especially in cases of sudden or traumatic death, it fails to dissolve, possibly serving as the basis for “ghost stories” or persisting spiritual entities that the people with special “gifts” or under certain unexplained circumstances can perceive. Most people do proceed to the astral plane with their auras soon dissolving, however, and the astral plane can be thought of as the closest to our material everyday reality. We frequently “visit” the astral plane in dreams or daydreams, and we are also visited by the entities inhabiting the astral plane that influence us either positively or negatively. One thing to remember is that on the astral plane we still possess our earthly egos that will dissolve later, at more advanced levels of transition.

The “mental plane” is thought of as a more “refined” level of consciousness, comprised not of ego-oriented thoughts and desires that we, hopefully, left behind on the astral plane, (that which is known in esoteric thought as the “second death”), but of thoughts that serve as seeds of creativity and possessing much greater ranges of understanding which, on the basis of karma, will create a motif for the next life to come; the after-death state called Devachan, corresponding to the common understanding of Heaven, is that state on the mental plane where the souls “rest” and the “seed-thoughts” gather in preparation for the next incarnation according to karmic influences or “unfinished business”, including that of more lessons to learn, on the physical plane during the life to come.

At a deeper level still, there is the “intuitive plane” of which we know very little, except that sudden flashes of intuitive insight having very little basis in perception of the “physical senses”, originate on that plane of consciousness. And deeper yet is the Divine plane, or that which is known in the Eastern tradition as “Atma”, or that which Jesus called the “Kingdom of Heaven”, or that which the Jewish mystical Kabbalah knows as Ain Sof. The inner traditions of all cultures agree that the divine plane is also inside us as the “divine spark” in Gnostic theology, as the Kingdom of Heaven according to Jesus of Nazareth, as the Buddhist “Nirvana” or Islamic Paradise. When the Prophet Mohammad said that “God is as close to us as the jugular vein”, this is what he meant as well.

To know and appreciate the divinity within and as our own true nature is the final object of the Spiritual Quest. In the end, when all is “said and done”, this is what it is all about.

Christians consider Jesus to be fully human and fully divine at the same time. Esoteric Christians further believe that it would be a serious error to deny Jesus’ humanity in any and all of its manifestations, or his divinity in a sense that he was well aware of the multi-dimensional nature of Reality, even as he said, My Father’s house has many mansions. The Gospel writers believed that the spiritual entities inhabiting the astral plane, including the evil or “demonic” entities, recognized Jesus’ far-reaching consciousness. At the beginning of his ministry, during a healing of a man possessed by an “unclean spirit”, the demon cried out: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God” (Luke 4:34).

As we can see, even at the time of Jesus (and long before his time, for that matter), the Sages of History had perceived that which our contemporary science started to seriously investigate only very recently. There is no doubt that, as the time goes on and our own consciousness expands and evolves, we will be more and more cognizant of the Ultimate Reality of which we are all a part just as, at the same time, It is a part of all of us.

“I am come to testify to the Truth”, Jesus of Nazareth supposedly said to Pontius  Pilat during his trial, to which the Roman governor supposedly responded, “What is truth”? Indeed, what is “Truth”? Is it something that exist for each of us individually, or is it instead that which we all hold collectively? Is it permanent and unchanging, or does it change with time? Is it something in which most people believe, or is it what our leaders tell us? And if the Nazis had won the Second World War and imposed their will on the rest of the world, would their ideology then have become “truth”? Is the truth readily observable by ordinary people in the outside world, or is it “hidden” under the layers of “appearances” and can be glimpsed at only by those privileged few who are able to look beyond the “appearances” and see the underlying world of “reality”?

But then again, what is Reality? Immanuel Kant held that we really do not know Reality as it is, because our minds are so constituted that we are forced to look at the outside world through the “spectacles” of time, space, substance, causality, quality, quantity, things like that… The only way to know Reality, Kant believed, is through “moral experience”. Is it “moral” then, we may ask, to deny seriously ill patients the medicine that keeps their symptoms under control in many cases? Is it moral to arrest people for using the LESS dangerous substance (Cannabis), when those who arrest them use the MORE dangerous one (alcohol) themselves? Was it moral to outlaw marijuana on the basis of racist lies and distortions to begin with? Is it “moral” now not to admit to those errors? Is it moral to put a man in prison for five years for selling seeds of a natural plant? No, I don’t think any of these things are “moral”. But then, the Cannabis prohibition itself is immoral! And the final question: Is it “moral” not to protest bad laws? After all, if people who came before us had not spoken out, Blacks would be still riding at the back of a bus, Berlin Wall would be still standing, and Gay people would be still considered “second class” citizens under the “best” of circumstances! And for some “strange” reason, no truly Progressive Movement in history has ever commanded an immediate assent of the “powers that be”.

So, I decided to do some philosophical research and see if the theories of “truth” and “error” as articulated by the prominent thinkers of humanity apply to contemporary controversies, and more specifically, to the red-hot controversy about whether or not to legalize a plant with beautiful slender leaves called Cannabis Sativa, a plant that offered itself in a service to humanity for thousands of years until the time of Harry Anslinger who said that “the main reason for marijuana prohibition is its effect on degenerate races”. Maybe that was the ultimate “truth” about the Cannabis plant that had somehow eluded humanity for thousands of years until it was finally “apprehended” by Harry Anslinger? The people who followed in Harry Anslinger’s footsteps continue to assert that Cannabis is a “dangerous drug with no accepted medical uses”. So, what if they are telling the “truth”? How do we really know what is the truth and what is error? Well, different philosophers advanced different theories of truth and error, with three main ones remaining that we can currently use in our quest to glimpse the realities of Cannabis plant and to at least attempt to separate fact from fiction or, to put it differently, “truth” from “error”.

The first and the most popular theory is called the “Correspondence” theory. It is held by most “realist” philosophers, or those who believe that “objective reality”, however it is conceived, is independent of our minds and that, in order to know whether anything is “objectively” true, all we need to do is to establish “correspondence” with easily observable facts that people of common sense can see for themselves. So, if I say that “my car is in the driveway”, and my car is in the driveway, a fact that can be easily seen and confirmed by rational witnesses, then, regardless of anything else, the truth of the proposition that “my car is in the driveway” is established. Just the same, when the DEA says that “marijuana is a dangerous drug without accepted medical uses”, the Correspondence theory of “truth” and “error” would require some verifiable facts to establish the “truth” of this proposition.

Has anyone died from using Cannabis? Has anyone become physically dependent on Cannabis? Has the scientific research refuted the alleged medicinal properties of the plant? Can at least the potential for danger be detected based on how we, as humans, or Cannabis, as plant, are constituted? Unfortunately for the DEA and its prohibitionist allies, they do not have any serious facts to “correspond” with their allegations about marijuana. The plant never killed anyone, there have been no cases of physical dependence, and countless thousands of people throughout the history of our “race” have attested to almost miraculous health benefits of the Cannabis plant. In fact, the scientific research of our brains and bodies, as well as research into the Cannabis plant itself revealed that neither overdose deaths, nor an inducement of “physical dependence” is even possible with marijuana. It turns out that, by some strange series of “coincidences”, our “cannabinoid receptors” are scarce in the brain stem that governs the body’s vital functions such as breathing and circulation of blood. It also turns out that Cannabis compounds are slowly released from fat tissue in our bodies, thus preventing rapid “withdrawal” and making marijuana physical dependence impossible.

And here is something interesting, something that I want people reading this to clearly see. Given our own constitution and that of the Cannabis plant, and given our long history of experience with this plant, we can assert or “predicate” this safety of Cannabis, with conviction approaching psychological certainty, and not only of the “weed” that we have tried, but of the “weed” that we haven’t tried, not only of the “weed” that’s been harvested, but of that that has not even been planted yet, not only of the “weed” from our present reality, but also of all the “weed” of the future. In other words, as long as we are constituted the way we are, and the Cannabis plant the way it is, the inherent safety of Cannabis “outruns” our future experience with the plant, and is established, as philosophers would put it, “a priori“. We can further assert that the proposition that “marijuana is a dangerous drug without accepted medical use”, advanced by the DEA and its allies, fails to “correspond” with the facts and is, therefore, a false proposition.

Another philosophical theory of “truth and “error” is the so-called “Coherence” theory. This theory is mostly held by those philosophers who believe that the Universe is One Coherent Whole, which in some important sense is also a Unity. Is the safety of Cannabis plant and advisability of its use “coherent” with the universe as a whole? To briefly look at this question, let’s assume that to be “coherent” with the Universe is the same as to be “coherent” with its evolutionary impulse, or with that which the early 20-th Century French-Jewish philosopher Henri Bergson called a “vital surge” or “elan vital” of evolution. Henri Bergson held, and very correctly from my point of view, that evolution is not a haphazard series of chance events aimed at “adaptation” to “environment”, but a purposive “vital surge”, or constant flow of consciousness, that he called “Duration”. For, as Henri Bergson observed, if the only evolutionary purpose of an organism was to “adapt” to its environment, evolution would have stopped long time ago because amoeba is better adapted to its environment than we are to ours. It is this immaterial “vital surge” that is really behind the evolutionary impulse, that propels life-forms to become more and more complex, and to take risks in attaining this complexity.

How would Cannabis plant have facilitated our own evolution? I am inclined to believe that Cannabis is decidedly pro-evolutionary in its “design”. By stimulating appetite and suppressing violent urges Cannabis promotes a non-violent food-seeking behavior, which would greatly facilitate survival of the species. Cannabis action to reduce the pressure inside the eye would have improved vision even in those who had no idea about glaucoma and its intimate connection with blindness. Calm and rest that Cannabis induces are markedly pro-evolutionary as well, for no effective action is possible without adequate rest. And I believe that no further comment is necessary about the evolutionary value of the enhancement of sexual experience that Cannabis use seems to promote.

Great Greek philosopher Plato believed that whatever we are seeing in the world around us is the result of some immaterial Form that “expresses” Itself in the “featureless flux” of the material Universe. The better the Form “expresses” itself in a given material thing, the more this material thing “approximates” the Form, or as Plato put it, the more it “participates” in the Form, the more perfect that given material thing becomes. Under this system Beauty is objective, the Will is Free, and the greatest Form is the Form of the Good. If we were to conceive of a Platonic Form of a medicinal or recreational substance, wouldn’t Cannabis plant be the one to almost perfectly “participate” in such a Form, given its non-toxicity, effectiveness in many medical conditions, and its pro-evolutionary design? Look how beautiful the Cannabis plant is, and for Plato Beauty and Truth were inseparable in the end, for One is not possible without the Other!

Materialist science would, no doubt, view these different characteristics of a Cannabis plant and our own anatomical and physiological attributes as a series of “coincidences”. In fact, the material science and “materialist” philosophy are very fond of the word “coincidence”, as whatever does not easily lend itself to “scientific explanation” is a “coincidence”. Even the design of a Cannabis plant and its non-toxicity for humans because of how we are built is a “coincidence”. And what about the plant’s medicinal properties on top of all this? Another coincidence? And the beauty of the plant itself that makes it to “stand out” in the botanical kingdom for the human eye to see? Yet another coincidence?

Too many coincidences, if you ask me. Wouldn’t an alternative philosophical conception better explain the existence and role of Cannabis in our world? An explanation that takes a “holistic” view of things; an explanation that sees our own anatomical “design” and that of the Cannabis plant as parts of a Whole in which there are NO coincidences, but a definite “purposive” drive, consistent with the Evolutionary Impulse of the Universe, with Henri Bergson’s “elan vital”, or Plato’s Forms, or Hegel’s unity-driven and intricately interconnected Universe? Can’t we also say then that the DEA assessment of the Cannabis plant is not in “coherence”  with “Truth” under the “Coherence” theory of “truth” and “error”? That, in fact, the DEA assessment of the plant is a blatant “error”?

There is yet another philosophical theory of “truth” and “error”, the one that is held by “pragmatist” philosophers who believe that whatever gives us “emotional satisfaction” or is helpful in our experience is, in fact, the “truth”. This theory is out of “philosophical favor”, however, because many different things have given an emotional satisfaction or “positive experience” to many different people, which, nevertheless, were later proven to be false, the belief that the Earth is flat, for example.

Even if Nazis had won the Second World War, or Communists the Cold War, their “teachings” would not have become the “truth”, because they would be “incoherent” with the flow of Reality, which could be known, we will remember, through “moral experience”.

Just the same, failing the test of “Correspondence” theory and of “Coherence” theory, the DEA and its prohibitionist allies’ “assessment” of the Cannabis plant must, therefore, be declared an “error”, even if such an “assessment” is giving them “emotional satisfaction”. The sooner our opponents recognize this error, the sooner they accept the united “verdict” of science and wisdom with regards to the role of Cannabis plant in our world and our evolution, the better it will be for all of us, as it is not the “ideology” or “dogma” that propels us forward, but new scientific discoveries which are, in turn, forever guided by philosophy’s “eternal light”.

When we look back it is amazing how fast the time flies. It has already been over a year since Michael Jackson died, over six months since Haiti earthquake, eighty six days since the Gulf oil disaster began and almost two years since Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. And it is only three and a half months left until the mid-term elections on November 2, 2010 when California voters will decide whether to end the senseless marijuana prohibition and the destructive war that the United States government wages against its own people, the infamous and tragic “drug war”. While Cannabis freedom activists and their supporters lead this new Civil Rights struggle, while the DEA and its prohibitionist allies do everything they can, often resorting to the unimaginable theatrics, to prevent the sick people from gaining access to medicinal Cannabis in State after State, while politicians engage in their usual long-winded grandstanding aimed at showing that it is “I and not the next person” who is the “toughest” on drugs, it is certainly interesting to see where exactly does scientific community stand on all these issues and how it envisions moving forward from this artificially created “dead-end”.

With these considerations in mind, the Drug Policy Alliance and California Society of Addiction Medicine organized a one day Conference on July 8, 2010 in Los Angeles that was hosted by the California Endowment Center for Healthy Communities, and which included not just physicians, but policy makers, law enforcement officials, therapists, administrators and politicians. As it is clear to everyone by now that current drug policies are ineffective and unsustainable, the Conference participants made it their goal to examine what they aptly called “A Public Health and Safety Approach to Drug Policy”.

This new approach can only be achieved, in the words of Dr. Barry Zevin of Waddell Health Center in San Francisco, by “doing what works”. “If something does not work and we keep doing it, what can we expect”, said Dr. Zevin, clearly referring to the old, rigid “abstinence-based”, disciplinarian approaches to drug treatment that were prevalent in addiction treatment until recently, and are still advocated by some authorities, but which proved ineffective in reducing drug use, despite being quite congenial to the “well-being” of what the Conference participants exposed as the “prison-industrial complex” in the United States.

One of the more memorable presentations at the Conference was that by Fatima Trigueiros, Senior Adviser to the Executive Board of the Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction in Portugal. Mrs. Trigueiros told the participants that the proposal to decriminalize drug possession for “personal use” was being discussed in Portugal since 1976 and, as usual, the right-wing parties in Parliament were against it, while more left-leaning politicians were for it, until the personal possession of “illegal substances” in the amounts of up to ten days supply was finally decriminalized in 2001. Just like in the United States, the “right-wingers” in Portugal had predicted an “Armageddon” of an exploding drug use that would follow the decriminalization of drug possessions for “personal use”. However, as Mrs. Trigueiros pointed out, since the decriminalization of such “possessions” the drug use in Portugal actually DROPPED by 10%, and the new legislation proved so successful as to presently command the support of all political parties in Parliament, a situation “quite rare for any European Parliament”. As opposed to the dire predictions of the opponents of this legislation, Portugal has not become a “drug tourism” destination in Europe, while the rates of HIV infection and other conditions prevalent among addicts, and particularly among injection drug users, actually decreased.

Mr. Donald MacPherson, former Drug Policy Coordinator of the City of Vancouver shared that jurisdiction’s experience with decriminalization of substance use, harm reduction approach to drug problem, and more rational drug policies that have been operational in the City of Vancouver. A supervised injection facility has been functioning in Vancouver for 25 years. While something like this is beyond “controversial” in the United States, this facility has helped many previously “hopeless” injection drug users to initiate their journey to recovery, or at least to a more manageable lifestyle, as they are able to make a gradual transition from dangerous practices of using dirty needles and other “equipment”, strongly associated with disease transmission, to a potentially life-saving contact with treatment and social services, and to do so without fear of being “busted” or having to lie, as is the usual routine in more “traditional” settings. This is, basically, the essence of a “harm reduction” approach to addiction treatment, the approach that gives us an opportunity to “meet patients where they are”, instead of insisting on their being where the “abstinence-based” approach advocates want them to be, something that is unrealistic and largely ineffective.

We may erroneously think that the “drug war” is becoming less “intense” and less destructive as the time goes on, and its ravages and futility are exposed to the scientific community and to the public at large. But as Pete White, Founder and Co-Director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network has clearly shown, this is, unfortunately, not yet the case. As Pete White told the delegates, if anything, the “drug war” is escalating in the City of Los Angeles where inordinate police manpower and financial resources are devoted to to its ignoble ends. It is not unusual for undercover police officer to say something like this to a homeless person in the “skid row” areas of the city: “Hey, man, I got 20 dollars in my pocket, what have you got for me”? So, a homeless person goes to “get something” for 20 dollars only to find himself in handcuffs upon return, now charged with possession with intent to sell, a much more serious offense which will also make it impossible for him to enter some kind of “diversion” program. These underhanded police actions are fully supported by the “prison-industrial complex”, according to Pete White, as those people want more “privatized” jails and prisons, more prisoners, more prison guards, more probation and parole officers, more, more, more… and whose lives they destroy in the process is of very little concern to any of them!

Mr. Jakada Imani, Executive Director of Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, shared the same sentiment as Pete White. As people are rounded up for minor drug possessions, they become second-class citizens, “damned to the life of poverty and exclusion”, deprived of most opportunities that others take for granted, locked in misery and despair, as their children are “stuck” in foster homes, with tragic personal consequences and economic burden of such actions benefiting only two groups of individuals: the “prison-industrial complex” and the makers of tobacco and alcohol who would love to keep their “monopoly” on the mind-altering substances in this country.

There was a lively discussion during lunch about marijuana policies, moderated by Stephen Gutwillig, California State Director for the Drug Policy Alliance. Unfortunately, there was what I would only characterize as a certain “ideological split” between Conference organizers, with the DPA fully endorsing Proposition 19 to Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis in the State of California, while California Society of Addiction Medicine adopting what it called a “neutral position” with regard to this important Civil Rights Initiative. Let me state very clearly that California Society of Addiction Medicine does favors decriminalization of possessions for “personal use” and, most definitely, an immediate end of the “drug war”, but my personal opinion was (and is) that the National politics have played an important role in its adopted “neutrality” with regards to marijuana Legalization. In this I found myself in complete agreement with Dr. David Bearman of the Academy of Cannabinoid Sciences with whom I was fortunate to make a personal acquaintance. When Dr. Bearman attempted to bring more clarity into discussion by emphasizing the relative safety of Cannabis as compared to ALL other “recreational” substances, he was promptly cut off by Dr. Peter Banys of the UCSF and the San Francisco VA Medical Center under the pretext of “time constraints”. I met with the same response from Dr. Barry Zevin when I attempted to introduce the topic of a potential utility of Cannabis in addiction treatment. However, it was very clear from the reactions of most participants that they favor marijuana legalization and support the Proposition 19 on the California ballot this fall. As our friends from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Donald MacPherson and Kyle Kazan indicated very clearly, most police departments support the “drug war” and, especially, marijuana arrests because they are beneficial for “departmental funding”, all the personal costs and human suffering notwithstanding.

As Donald MacPherson stated, “You cannot arrest yourselves out of this problem”, so that the rational drug policies must rest on “four pillars” of Science, Compassion, Health and Human Rights”. Law enforcement should not make or dominate drug policies, a task that rightfully belongs to addiction treatment professionals and the science that they represent. We must not be like a cat sitting in the litter box and not capable of thinking “outside” that “box”. Dr. Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance made a passionate appeal during the closing Plenary session to end the destructive and futile “drug war” and to pass Proposition 19 legalizing personal marijuana possession by responsible adults in California that is on the ballot this fall. In this he, undoubtedly, resonated with absolute majority of the delegates who rewarded his presentation with a rousing round of applause.

As both Dr. Bearman of the Academy of Cannabinoid Sciences and myself agreed in the end, the Conference got better as it progressed, as the majority of speakers and delegates were on the side of ending the “drug war”, legalizing Cannabis for personal possession and defeating the “prison-industrial complex” as the sinister entity that threaten our personal liberties as well as effective and scientific methods of dealing with the drug problem in the United States. After the closing of the official Conference sessions, their was a reception in the courtyard organized by our host, the Endowment Center for Healthy Communities. I used the opportunity to become better acquainted with Dr. David Bearman and was quite happy to conclude that our scientific views on Cannabis as medicine and Cannabis as a recreational substance are one and the same. In the end, the Conference was a remarkable success. It underscored the pressing need for a scientific approach to drug abuse problem, the central role that basic human rights should play in whatever is being done, with the law enforcement not as a “legislator”, but as a link in the chain of rational drug policies that are both scientifically sound and practically effective.