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There is much to be said about “The Analysis of an ‘Outsider,‘” but I shall restrict my comments to the impact of psychedelic drugs and psychedelic drug cults upon affect and therapist omniscience.
On superficial scrutiny, one would imagine that drugs which provide repetitive id gratifications, immeasurable insights and ecstatic experiences ought to produce sustained pleasure or at least an armistice with the conflicts that smoulder in the unconscious.
Unfortunately, this is not so. It was not so with Dr. Savage's patient, nor does it seem to occur in the others that have been studied. The thin veneer of “love” which is regularly encountered overlays unresolved, repressed aggression and a puerile promiscuity. The compulsive taking of psychedelic chemicals on a weekly basis makes one wonder why The Enlightenment is so transient.
The paper makes another point worth underlining because it is a routinely seen phenomenon, and it explains the proselytizing zeal of the drug cultist. The omnipotent feeling that one has the power to turn a neophyte onto a transcendental experience or to provide some ultimate bliss is a strong and heady feeling. This ability to endow another person with so enormous a state has overwhelmed more than one LSD therapist and LSD prophet.
The worker with these potent chemicals capable of providing dissolution of the ego boundaries and a state of at-oneness must constantly inquire of himself what his motives are for using them. Pitfalls for the therapist as well as for the patient exist in connection with this potentially valuable group of agents.