A few years ago, Steve Jobs told New York Times reporter John Markoff that using LSD was one of the “two or three most important things” he had done in his life. Many who have used psychedelics describe the experience as similarly consequential; as a sort of illuminating, psychospiritual reboot. Before starting Apple, Jobs also backpacked around India studying Zen Buddhism on a quest for spiritual enlightenment. There’s little question that what he learned has been applied throughout his personal and professional life.

As the teeming masses jockey for space outside Apple stores this morning, it’s clear that Jobs has infused his devices with serious spiritual appeal. No company has ever catalyzed this level of loyalty and passion in its adherents. Again today, there is a feverish and virtually boundless excitement for a taste of Jobs’ newest reality - the iPhone 3G - as if it were a crystalline stepping stone toward technological nirvana.

Judging by the breathless anticipation and by-the-minute online coverage, it would seem that salvation was for sale, wrapped inside a beautiful box and gleaming with colorful, jewelesque tabs dancing across its face. It’s hard to miss the parallels with 1960s Haight-Ashbury, when many found a gateway to personal salvation in a package much smaller but no less colorful: the hand-colored blotter paper that was as good as currency during the Summer of Love.