DR: Drugs of all sorts seem to elicit such strong feelings and opinions among a great many people. What is going on here? How does this tie in with other problems we as a society face?

MARILYN FERGUSON: A number of recovered alcoholics have said they were on a spiritual path. They became misguided in their search, but they were looking for something. We have to create our society in such a way that it's hospitable to the spiritual search. Our abuse problems will probably disappear. Whether we're trying to prevent insider trading, or anything else that has negative consequences for the society, we have to get to the heart of it.

Why are people greedy? What are they looking for? I mean if somebody has a hundred million dollars and he wants two hundred million, you know he's not going to get what he wants with the extra hundred million.

Can we find a way to show him what he's looking for? I think that people are looking a sense of themselves as creative. A sense of personal impact. A sense of being able to solve their own problems, and to be listened to. We have to change our society in that way.

DR: Do you find that today's high school and college-age generation is less concerned about or engaged with the critical issues of the day than were their predecessors ten or twenty years ago.

MARILYN FERGUSON: All the studies show that they're more concerned about their survival. They can't look forward to the same financial future that people could twenty years ago. It's going to be difficult for young people to buy a house, or to do whatever. So this has caused them materialistic concern. But I think that underneath, they're idealistic.

In the Brain-Mind Bulletin , we did an article on the class of 1992, about an annual survey of the high school students. They're more anxious and concerned than they ever were. And they're tending to go into businesses or professions where they can make money. Unfortunately, too many going into law. But I think there will be a turnaround. They just need to be inspired.

DR: You have written that the time of spectators is coming to a close. You've also said that the best antidepressants are expression and action. Why aren't those remedies prescribed more often?

MARILYN FERGUSON: I guess we have to prescribe them for ourselves. I said in The Aquarian Conspiracy that we can't be looking to leaders to do these things for us. We're going to have to be our own leaders. Of course there will be leaders in particular situations. If your plane crashes in the desert somewhere, you're going to want somebody who knows something about airplanes or survival, to be the leader at that moment. We need specific leaders as appropriate, but if we want personal freedom, we really have to take personal responsibility.

If you say, I have a purpose, I need to be healthy for this purpose, I need to be powerful for this purpose, then you'll more often know what steps to take. You'll hear inside your head and heart, and from helpful people you meet.

And you don't have to worry about getting your act together first . . . You were never meant to have your act together forever. It's always going to keep changing. In other words, we put something together, and then it changes, and we change. It's only really in serving that we become healthy. It's only if we have a purpose that we become intelligent. A purpose organizes our intelligence and makes it meaningful. You have to take that step, and the step is actually to say to yourself, what can I do?