1 – How is Freud’s use of cocaine (and the subsequent development of pharmaceuticals for “psychiatric illness”) any different than humanities long-time usage of psycho-active substances (and practices and rituals)?

2 – What is the difference between suppressing and repressing emotions with drugs and suppressing and repressing emotions with one’s innate defense mechanisms (in other words pushing things down into the unconscious, shadow, etc.)? This would seem to be very much contrary to Freud’s understanding of effective treatment.

3 – Do some substance suppress/repress and others facilitate growth, change, transformation, transmutation, integration of emotions and their associated defense mechanisms, shadows, past traumas and wounds? Studies on psychoactive plants and mushrooms and associated rituals certainly confirm this supposition.

4 – How are whole-plants different than purified and pharmaceutically synthesised compounds?

5 – When is suppression/repression appropriate and when is it detrimental and result in stagnancy or lack of forward growth? When overwhelmed a little numbness is a great gift and may allow one to build resources, rest and recuperate before jumping back into the crucible of transformation and facing one’s suffering, pain, emotions, wounds, and shadow.

6 – What is the result of a society that relies nearly exclusively on pharmaceutical (and other means such as TV, computers, etc.) suppression/repression and never moves into the phase of digestion, absorption, assimilation and transformation. The phase, in other words, of growth and development. Are people being trapped, from an increasingly young age, their development along certain lines (emotional intelligence, interpersonal, spiritual intelligence, etc.) stilted? At what purpose (economics and maintenance of the status quo)?