"If God were to permit you a brief voyage into the divine process, let you whirl for a second into the atomic nucleus or spin you out on a light-year trip through the galaxies, how on earth would you describe what you saw when you got back, breathless, to your office? This metaphor may sound farfetched or irrelevant, but just ask someone who has taken a heavy dose of LSD." - Tim Leary, The politics of ecstasy, 1968
It's similar to the 'overview effect' reported by astronauts who've been to space. Of course it triggers a paradigm shift and 'cures' depression or other mind-loops that we find ourselves in so often.
It's good to see that there are more discussions about psychedelics in the scientific community. I suspect there are many (more and more) scientists and academics who use psychedelics so I think we will see more and more material published on this subject, apart from the huge amount of anecdotal material available online.
I also suspect that people use more psychedelics now than ever in our history. And it's happening globally. And it's a good thing.
Because I believe psychedelics are the mythical 'love bomb' which can stop wars and bring peace to people and other species on Earth. And they could, in theory, cure cancer - certainly the psychological and spiritual effects of the disease, which could bring remission to it's physical manifestation.
So yeah, there's lots of research still to be done.
But in real life, seeing as how one's predispositions get highlighted with acid, we'd probably end up with a lot of people thinking they now know the answers. Or that their trip showed them that (Allah|Zeus|Quantum Democracy|Whatever) is the True God and go all nuts on that.
Leary and others made up these unsubstantiated claims about the effects of acid and really tried to sell it as something beyond what it is. It's a damn awesome molecule that does really nifty shit to brains, and certainly bears plenty of research and use.
But to say it can cure cancer? Come the fuck on man. That's just new-age heebie jeebie nonsense with no basis in reality. It's why a lot of pro-LSD people are simply not taken seriously, because they forget it's just a molecule messing with brains' perceptions.
(Unless you meant cure cancer in the "well it made you feel better, and feeling good is important to health so it might give you a better chance against some diseases", in which case it's not much of a claim and certainly shouldn't be phrased that way. Hey, Apple products can prevent street crime, because the metal bodies might slow down bullets and make an otherwise fatal shot survivable!)
That said, I know of a few people who had cancer, and no longer have cancer, and the treatment plan they followed involved copious quantities of a kind of goo or tar made from cannabis plants. Those three items are facts: They had cancer, they no longer have it, they used ganja and not chemo or radiation.
I have no interest in arguing with anyone about this, nor am I attempting to condone or evangelize anything. I offer the above as (admittedly anecdotal) data points for consideration. If you want to know more about this please do your own homework online, no one is hiding this sort of thing from anyone (but themselves.)
We really don't have that much evidence - at the one Uni they'd done what, 500 trials with mushrooms over 10 years?
It's obviously not guaranteed to bring world peace, but I honestly think it could make a huuuuuge portion of the public wake up and start asking questions of their leaders.
People thinking that they know things that they actually don't is definitely a problem. I find that it happens way more often in people who have never tried LSD though. People use false assumptions and self-lies all the time to survive this world. Here's an example:
> It's why a lot of pro-LSD people are simply not taken seriously, because they forget it's just a molecule messing with brains' perceptions.
How do you know that? Science doesn't even know what consciousness is, so what does it mean that you're "messing with perception"? Based on that - I think that you simply don't know and you have no proof of what you're saying.
Because I've known a lot of people who used a variety of drugs and many who swore by LSD, mushrooms, ecstasy or a combination, and they weren't a teeny bit less likely to start petty fights over pretty much nothing than the rest of us, nor were they more free from prejudice towards specific groups of people, etc.
It's a horrible idea. Beyond the obvious ethical problems with dosing people without their consent, you aren't guaranteed to have a good experience. In fact a positive experience is probably pretty unlikely if you have no idea what's happening to you or why.
Uses of psychedelics to treat depression or PTSD are happening during a counseling session, and has apparently had some promising results. Although I'm not sure if they've used a comparable length counseling sessions as a control.
Yes, they can be useful, they can make you see yourself differently and see people differently. But they can equally be a pretty blinkenlight show that makes you giggle for hours with friends. Or be distressing for people.
More than that, nobody has yet been able to tell me how this post-acid utopia is going to function any differently from what we have now.
There's a reason that the majority of post-summer-of-love communes failed.
About 5 years ago my friend tried acid for the first time and enjoyed the "profound insights" a little too much. I know this isn't common but he ended up getting addicted to acid, and proceeded to go on a 10 day long acid fueled frenzy. At the peak of his trip he believed that he was Jesus and that he was here to save mankind. Being the good modern Jesus he thought was, he proceeded to spread his Gospel by trying to friend EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON FACEBOOK. He at one point even posted his credentials online so that anyone and everyone could use his account to add more friends. His behavior was absolutely insane but the acid made him feel like it was "profound".
The point I'm trying to make is that while psychedelics can make you feel extraordinary feelings, there's no evidence that the insights gained from tripping have any use in reality.
Not only should that be studied, but it should be more generally studied in regard to anything. How often does a politician, company, or product make similar claims? How many people then believe those claims to be true, even if they can be demonstrably shown to be false?
There's a reason the majority of civilizations failed.
Most people have big egos. Many people have big ego's and low self esteem or high self esteem. That is the problem, and the ego absorbs the new information.
Once off the drug, that 'paradigm' shift will be integrated into the same type of thinking they had before, except now they are 'enlightened' and act in a superior way because they have seen the light.
You seem to be a seeker, and are not self centered in the way many others are. Do not assume just because you have this experience of the world, men like Jeb Bush, Mao zedong, etc are seekers to a greater truth and will then abide by that. No, they will justify their power seeking behavior.
These chemicals will serve great purpose in practiced medicine, just as they have for tens of thousands of years in many societies. Recreational use vs self medicating might get some people there, but ritualized religious use in the context of insight, healing does work in many cases. But to bring a love bomb upon the globe? Not sure about that
Did you really just say that?
Cancer of the liver; cancer of the rectum; cancer of the [insert body part], has nothing to do with the actions that psychedelics have on your body.
Psychedelics are for the brain and mind, not the abnormal cells attacking your rectum.
The only mention of cancer in the article is treating cancer related anxiety. Getting high and curing cancer at the same time wasn't part of the research. Mentioning such ridiculous ideas only poisons the discussion, and drags the legitimate scientific effort through the mud of false belief, back down to the bottom of the reputation barrel.
How do you know that? Are you saying that the brain/mind have no effect on the body?
Please point to the scientific research that states that psychedelics definitely do not affect your rectum. At that point, your statement will be more valuable to me than the GP's. As of now, it's at equal value.
Your penultimate paragraph just screams of magical New Age thinking, though.
And just how do you believe that psychedelics "could bring remission to [cancer's] physical manifestation"?
That said, I have nothing against medicational nor recreational tripping - but I would be aware that those are not necessarily fixing the conditions but only changing the perception of them. And sometimes it indeed is only our perception that needs fixing. But in some cases it would be good to fix the source of angst as well.
In fact, this is what life is about - getting from the current 'not so satisfied' point to the next 'a bit more satisfied'.
First we have our bodies - which need food and shelter and can get sick and hurt. So one of our tasks in life is to constantly keep our bodies satisfied - hunger, thirst, piss, shit, cold, hot, pain, horny. This takes a lot of our energy/time.
Then we have the effects of mortality - parents, children, friends, pets - every living being dies eventually and this generates suffering inside us (unless we are the one dying, which generates suffering inside everyone we love).
Then we have the whole of our society - competition, job, class struggle, bugs in our software... too many to enumerate.
Total satisfaction ('bliss') is only possible for short periods of time (until hunger strikes or the bladder's full) and it's a function of a realisation, of letting go, of simplifying the requirements for 'satisfied'. This is what the monks do - they let go of everything 'worldly' in exchange for a much simpler achievement of 'satisfied'.
But then, of course, we don't want to live like monks, so we want more comfort and hence a more complex problem to solve.
http://www.amazon.com/And-Then-Thought-Was-Fish-ebook/dp/B00...
It's also online as part of his blog: http://www.stilldrinking.org/the-episode-part-1
Nothing is risk-free.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0c5nIvJH7w
Out of interest, are there any other theories as to what might have caused this "leap"?
http://www.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/McKenna/Evolution/
From the link above:
McKenna theorizes that as the North African jungles receded toward the end of the most recent ice age, giving way to grasslands, a branch of our tree-dwelling primate ancestors left the branches and took up a life out in the open -- following around herds of ungulates, nibbling what they could along the way.
Among the new items in their diet were psilocybin-containing mushrooms growing in the dung of these ungulate herds. The changes caused by the introduction of this drug to the primate diet were many -- McKenna theorizes, for instance, that synesthesia (the blurring of boundaries between the senses) caused by psilocybin led to the development of spoken language: the ability to form pictures in another person's mind through the use of vocal sounds.
I have no doubt that psychedelics are capable of producing lasting changes in behaviors, habits, or outlooks. Actually, I'd be surprised if that particular point is at all controversial.
However, prespcribing a psychedlic that could have lasting impacts on a person for "reasons we don't understand" seems... unnecessarily dangerous, whenever an alternative exists. Which of course is only an argument for more research.
Sure SSRIs might have lots more study than LSD and they might know how it affects certain neurotransmitters. But it seems a far cry from really understanding it.
SSRIs have a very specific method of action, and it's drastically more limited in scope than these recreational drugs.
It sounds to me like it may imply that much of what we call "mental health" disorders are really somatopsychic conditions.
Traditional preparations often (but not always) contain other components which contain DMT, the effect of which is normally metabolized by a mitochondrial enzyme called monoamine oxidase. Since the ayahuasca vine inhibits the activity of monoamine oxidase, a preparation of ingested DMT taken with, or after, an MAOI will allow the DMT to reach the brain.
The vine taken on its own, however, has an intense effect which is said to be mildly psychedelic, and a preparation of just the ayahuasca vine qualifies as ayahuasca.
It least puts such ideas in a position of having to work a lot harder to make their case.
Have I mistaken your purpose, and if not, can you clarify the reasoning?
It's precisely the opposite of a medical evaluation. It's a reductio ad absurbum on the idea that there's a potential Utopia within us revealed by drugs. Drugs apparently make you a new man but the new man may not be perceptually ... congruent with the old man.
I think he's describing the collapse of the experiment that included the Summer of Love.
"And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
Can the medicos provide structure to ameliorate this?
I don't see how if it was clinically manufactured and administered the risks couldn't be acceptably mitigated. The interviewee seems confident the government is on board and things are going down a new path though so I guess this could be a thing now.
Strategic concerns aside, psychedelics clearly are powerful medicines and can yield profound insights, and their relative safety makes their Schedule 1 status morally repellent.
