MacDonald deems Lennon's remark about the Beatles' "god-like status" in March 1966 to have been "fairly realistic", given the reaction to "Revolver". He adds: "The album's aural invention was so masterful that it seemed to Western youth that The Beatles "knew" – that they had the key to current events and were somehow orchestrating them through their records." MacDonald highlights "the radically subversive" message of "Tomorrow Never Knows" – exhorting listeners to empty their minds of all ego- and material-related thought – as the inauguration of a "till-then élite-preserved concept of mind-expansion into pop, simultaneously drawing attention to consciousness-enhancing drugs and the ancient religious philosophies of the Orient". Author Shawn Levy writes that the album presented an alternative reality that contemporary listeners felt compelled to explore further; he describes it as "the first true drug album, not a pop record with some druggy insinuations, but an honest-to-heaven, steeped-in-the-out-there trip from the here and now into who knew where".