Why young people turn to drugs and the occult and what the schools can do about it.

Claiming that the emphasis should be on "use" and not on "abuse," the author sees drug use as symptomatic--as indicative of a deep human need to search for integrating experiences and ideologies. In this sense, he defines the drug experiences as "religious experience." He believes schools should take responsibility to provide constructive experiences to meet needs of young people turning to drugs. They can do this by teaching about the religious and ideological traditions of our society, by avoiding the downgrading of subjective experiences, by fostering the search for different ways of viewing reality, and by helping youth to use their experiences as sources of meaning for life. The person who can "turn on" young people is "the psychedelic teacher" who can "create a loving environment wherein the pursuit of awareness could be joyfully carried out."