Why do some people have a problem with other people attaining altered states of consciousness?

[hifiguy]

5. It baffles me.

Years ago I read a piece by, IIRC, a professor of psychiatry at USC or UCLA that explained how human beings have engaged in deliberate alteration of consciousness for varied reasons since time immemorial.

Why? This was explained very simply. Human consciousness is reflexive, i.e., self-aware. Knowledge of this consciousness leads inevitably and inexorably to a desire, in some cases a need, to experiment with the boundaries of that consciousness. Experimentation with consciousness is of a part with the aspects of the brain that led to us becoming human.

The hostility of the modern era's powers that be to such experimentation is based on fear (of being questioned) and a desire to control. Altering the consciousness and reflection upon what is learned is threatening to established orders.

Like having sex for pleasure, the desire for experimentation with consciousness for pleasure (or insight) is hardwired into the human brain and those who cannot realize or acknowledge that fact are in denial of and at war with a basic part of human nature.

To paraphrase Frank Zappa, we are what we is and we is what we am. We continue to deny it at risk to our own psychic evolution.