Something very strange happened to me the other day. I won't go into too much detail, in order to protect my anonymity, but I met this person completely unexpectedly and in an entirely random setting. The person to whom I was introduced the other day was
Casey William Hardison.
Some of you may have heard of Casey. Here is a little background, quoted from Erowid:
Quote:Casey Hardison is an entheogenic activist, unauthorized researcher and psychedelic chemist who is best known for his indefatigable good mood and enormous energy. Casey attended entheogen-related conferences, wrote articles for the MAPS Bulletin, The Entheogen Review, and contributed to Erowid. After moving to Britain in 2002, Casey chose to fulfill a ten-year spiritual journey to make LSD, in part to make up for the drought caused by a major LSD bust in the United States. He was arrested and convicted of LSD, DMT and 2C-B manufacture in Britain.
Casey acted as his own lawyer during his trial. Instead of arguing he did not commit the acts, he argued that--as long as he harmed no one--he had the human right to engage in his chosen entheogenic praxis. In essence, Casey challenged the drug laws as a discriminatory affront to free thought, therapeutic choice and free religion. The trial judge rejected these arguments and an eight-week trial ensued after which Casey was convicted on March 18, 2005 on 6 of 8 counts and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment on April 22, 2005. On appeal, Casey submitted substantially similar human rights arguments but these were rejected and his sentence upheld on May 25, 2006.
Being a person who lives in a relatively remote and small community, it has proven to be very difficult for me to connect with other like-minded psychonauts in the "real world". Much less those who are relatively well-known contributors to the psychonaut/entheogenic community. It would be foolish of me to pass on this opportunity to sit down with Casey and pick his brain, so hopefully I will be doing so some time in the next couple of weeks.
Another idea I have considered is to write out some questions and conduct the discussion in the format of an interview, then either submit the interview to an issue of The Nexian or just share it with you folks on the forum. If you have any thoughts on the matter, or any questions you would like to ask Casey given the opportunity, please feel free to share them here.
Thanks for reading, my friends. I am very excited about this situation which I have found myself in. Much love and respect to you all.