‘Mystical’ Psychedelic Compound Found in Normal Brains

A study in rats has revealed the presence of naturally occurring DMT, an increasingly popular hallucinogen.

In the past few years, thrill-seekers from Hollywood, Silicon Valley and beyond have been travelling to South America to take part in so-called Ayahuasca retreats. Their goal: to partake in a brewed concoction made from a vine plant Banisteriopsis caapi, traditionally used by indigenous people for sacred religious ceremonies. Drinkers of Ayahuasca experience short-term hallucinogenic episodes many describe as life-changing.

Artist Explores His Creative Potential By Painting Under The Influence Of 20 Different Drugs

Inspiration can be triggered by many things. For some, it’s the colors of changing seasons that stimulate creativity outbursts. For others, a 15-minute Pinterest scroll session might do the job.

Ayahuasca – My Heart of Darkness | London Real

Nic Gabriel returns from his Ayahuasca retreat in the jungles of Peru to discuss his experiences at El Purguero under the supervision of Shaman Ron Wheelock, the terrifying images and life lessons gained from his 4 ceremonies, his uncomfortable afternoon with the plant medicine San Pedro, and why he feels that the “Old Nic” died in that jungle.

Brian Lewis Saunders

After experiencing drastic changes in my environment, I looked for other experiences that might profoundly affect my perception of the self.  So I devised another experiment where everyday I took a different drug and drew myself under the influence.  Within weeks I became lethargic and suffered mild brain damage.  I am still conducting this experiment but over greater lapses of time.  I only take drugs that are given to me.

1/2 gram Cocaine

1 “Bump” of Crystalmeth

Psilocybin Mushrooms (2 caps onset)

Salvia Divinorum (right before but mostly right after)

Find more self potraits:

http://bryanlewissaunders.org/drugs/

There is no hiding with LSD

Beyond the flowers that turn into cats, an acid trip forces users to face whatever comes up, and self-knowledge often follows

‘There’s no respite or way out once you’ve popped that tiny scrap of blotter in your mouth.’ Photograph: Mark Linfield/Rex Features

The question: Did the drugs work at all?

Is LSD a great spiritual teacher? Or indeed a teacher at all? My answer is an emphatic “Yes”, even though there will always be students who learn nothing from their teachers or misuse what they do learn.

For me LSD is the ultimate psychedelic. It’s a tough one – one not to be taken lightly or often. A typical trip lasts eight to 10 hours and there’s no respite or way out once you’ve popped that tiny scrap of blotter in your mouth. I will even admit that on those rare occasions when I take it I feel some deep physiological reaction that makes me involuntarily shaky and afraid just before that fateful moment.

So why do it? Because the fear is worth – a million times over it’s worth – the experience.

That experience, as many writers have explained, depends dramatically on the set and setting – on what you expect of the trip, where you are, whom you are with, and how safe you feel. One of the tragedies of drug prohibition is that we have never developed a culture in which young people can learn how to use powerful drugs properly from older, wiser and more experienced psychonauts. I count myself lucky to have encountered such good teachers to guide me with such drugs as LSD, psilocybin, DMT, MDMA and mescaline.

Of course the psychedelics can be just plain fun – the amazing colours, the shifting and moving scenes, the flowers that turn into cats that turn into rabbits that disappear down holes; the sounds that turn into streams that flow away into the sky. But very few people have eight hours of simple fun. This drug, above all, confronts you with yourself. The flickering flowers can turn into scenes of horror and desperation, the coloured-streaked sky into a theatre of unwelcome memories and shame.

For myself I used to face terrible scenes of torture, rape and other kinds of human cruelty. I do not know why, but I found myself imagining them again and again both in meditation and with drugs. Perhaps like most people, I began by fighting them and trying to push them away, but LSD will not let you push anything away. You have to face it. And this is, I think, what makes it the ultimate psychedelic. There is no hiding with LSD. You have to face whatever comes up or be overwhelmed by it.

I faced the fact that I could not blame the drug nor anyone else for my visions, and certainly not for the worst fact of all – that such cruelty has always happened and is happening somewhere even now. Ultimately I confronted the fact that I was not fundamentally different from either the torturers or the tortured, that I had in myself strains of cruelty and hatred that might, under other circumstances, lead me to be the perpetrator as well as the sufferer.

This is just one small example, and everyone’s stories are different, but again and again people report that through LSD they learned to know, and accept, themselves. This may be why LSD has such powerful therapeutic effects and can be so helpful for people facing terminal illness.

Our question mentions “spirituality” and whether anyone becomes “kinder and wiser”. Surely knowing oneself underlies all these – knowing and accepting your own mind, taking responsibility for what you have done and what you might do. Even simple kindness grows with self-knowledge. When we see ourselves clearly we can see others more clearly, and then it is so very much easier to be kind.

Finally, our question asked “did anyone learn anything about reality from LSD?”, “… was it a glimpse – however inadequate – of something real and standing beyond our everyday lives?”. I would say that in one sense selves are not “reality”, but are invented stories about non-existent inner beings; that what we learn through LSD is precisely about our everyday lives, not something beyond them. But then I would say the same of spirituality. It is not something to be found beyond our everyday lives at all. It is right here and now, and that is precisely what LSD reveals.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/mar/22/lsd-acid-trip-self-knowledge

Terence McKenna's Final Earthbound Interview

Terence McKenna is a genious. Watch his last interview about what he calls novelty theory. As time proceeds towards 12/12/12 , time compresses due to the increase of complexity. More and more connections are made.

An absolute must wacth.

http://www.realitysandwich.com/sites/default/modules/contrib-stable/flvmediaplayer/mediaplayer.swf

John Hazard

In this last video interview before his untimely death, Terence McKenna describes Novelty Theory to director John Hazard with an elaboration of its core principles involving hyper-complexification and the compression of Time. He holds forth on the correspondences between the structure of the DNA molecule and the Chinese I-Ching, then shows how his notion of an Archaic Revival leads from the theories of mind and the art movements of the early 20th century to the Shaman as the quintessential figure of the 21st century, with psychedelic substances being the bridge between these worldviews.

By way of explaining why he’s finally releasing this footage, Director John Hazard has the following to say:

“On meeting Terence: I had just finished shooting a film which profiled George Wallace for American Experience, and I was looking for a subject for a film that I might make that would engage me in a compelling way. I stumbled upon Terence and Novelty Theory, and I liked the correspondences between his work and the Mayan calendar.

Terence agreed to work with me, and I went to his home on the Big Island of Hawaii to conduct what I assumed would be the first of several interviews. We were just beginning to work together when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

I’ve always believed that my interview with Terence worked especially well as a long form conversation, because of his gifted way with language. When Jeremy Narby began his ‘Awakening the Cosmic Serpent’ Evolver Intensives sessions, I was struck by how engaging his long form interviews were, and I noticed how week after week his guests would tell a story about Terence. I’m inspired to release this interview on Reality Sandwich within the context of Jeremy’s Evolver Intensives.

With the psychedelic movement undergoing a renaissance, many in the new generation, the core participants who are finding their way to the Evolver/RS nexus, were children when Terence conducted his interview with me. I think this audience may consider his remarks to be prescient.”

Source: http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/93685

Drugs and the Meaning of Life

(Photo by JB Banks)

Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person’s thoughts. Every waking moment—and even in our dreams—we struggle to direct the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of consciousness that we value.

Drugs are another means toward this end. Some are illegal; some are stigmatized; some are dangerous—though, perversely, these sets only partially intersect. There are drugs of extraordinary power and utility, like psilocybin (the active compound in “magic mushrooms”) and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), which pose no apparent risk of addiction and are physically well-tolerated, and yet one can still be sent to prison for their use—while drugs like tobacco and alcohol, which have ruined countless lives, are enjoyed ad libitum in almost every society on earth. There are other points on this continuum—3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or “Ecstasy”) has remarkable therapeutic potential, but it is also susceptible to abuse, and it appears to be neurotoxic.^[1]

One of the great responsibilities we have as a society is to educate ourselves, along with the next generation, about which substances are worth ingesting, and for what purpose, and which are not. The problem, however, is that we refer to all biologically active compounds by a single term—“drugs”—and this makes it nearly impossible to have an intelligent discussion about the psychological, medical, ethical, and legal issues surrounding their use. The poverty of our language has been only slightly eased by the introduction of terms like “psychedelics” to differentiate certain visionary compounds, which can produce extraordinary states of ecstasy and insight, from “narcotics” and other classic agents of stupefaction and abuse.

Drug abuse and addiction are real problems, of course—the remedy for which is education and medical treatment, not incarceration. In fact, the worst drugs of abuse in the United States now appear to be prescription painkillers, like oxycodone. Should these medicines be made illegal? Of course not. People need to be informed about them, and addicts need treatment. And all drugs—including alcohol, cigarettes, and aspirin—must be kept out of the hands of children.

I discuss issues of drug policy in some detail in my first book, The End of Faith (pp. 158-164), and my thinking on the subject has not changed. The “war on drugs” has been well lost, and should never have been waged. While it isn’t explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, I can think of no political right more fundamental than the right to peacefully steward the contents of one’s own consciousness. The fact that we pointlessly ruin the lives of nonviolent drug users by incarcerating them, at enormous expense, constitutes one of the great moral failures of our time. (And the fact that we make room for them in our prisons by paroling murderers and rapists makes one wonder whether civilization isn’t simply doomed.)

I have a daughter who will one day take drugs. Of course, I will do everything in my power to see that she chooses her drugs wisely, but a life without drugs is neither foreseeable, nor, I think, desirable. Someday, I hope she enjoys a morning cup of tea or coffee as much as I do. If my daughter drinks alcohol as an adult, as she probably will, I will encourage her to do it safely. If she chooses to smoke marijuana, I will urge moderation.^[2] Tobacco should be shunned, of course, and I will do everything within the bounds of decent parenting to steer her away from it. Needless to say, if I knew my daughter would eventually develop a fondness for methamphetamine or crack cocaine, I might never sleep again. But if she does not try a psychedelic like psilocybin or LSD at least once in her adult life, I will worry that she may have missed one of the most important rites of passage a human being can experience.

This is not to say that everyone should take psychedelics. As I will make clear below, these drugs pose certain dangers. Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug. It has been many years since I have taken psychedelics, in fact, and my abstinence is borne of a healthy respect for the risks involved. However, there was a period in my early 20’s when I found drugs like psilocybin and LSD to be indispensable tools of insight, and some of the most important hours of my life were spent under their influence. I think it quite possible that I might never have discovered that there was an inner landscape of mind worth exploring without having first pressed this pharmacological advantage.

While human beings have ingested plant-based psychedelics for millennia, scientific research on these compounds did not begin until the 1950’s. By 1965, a thousand studies had been published, primarily on psilocybin and LSD, many of which attested to the usefulness of psychedelics in the treatment of clinical depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), alcohol addiction, and the pain and anxiety associated with terminal cancer. Within a few years, however, this entire field of research was abolished in an effort to stem the spread of these drugs among the general public. After a hiatus that lasted an entire generation, scientific research on the pharmacology and therapeutic value of psychedelics has quietly resumed.

The psychedelics include chemicals like psilocybin, LSD, DMT, and mescaline—all of which powerfully alter cognition, perception, and mood. Most seem to exert their influence through the serotonin system in the brain, primarily by binding to 5-HT_2A receptors (though several have affinity for other receptors as well), leading to increased neuronal activity in prefrontal cortex (PFC). While the PFC in turn modulates subcortical dopamine production, the effect of psychedelics appears to take place largely outside dopamine pathways (which might explain why these drugs are not habit forming).

The mere existence of psychedelics would seem to establish the material basis of mental and spiritual life beyond any doubt—for the introduction of these substances into the brain is the obvious cause of any numinous apocalypse that follows. It is possible, however, if not actually plausible, to seize this datum from the other end and argue, and Aldous Huxley did in his classic essay, The Doors of Perception, that the primary function of the brain could be eliminative: its purpose could be to prevent some vast, transpersonal dimension of mind from flooding consciousness, thereby allowing apes like ourselves to make their way in the world without being dazzled at every step by visionary phenomena irrelevant to their survival. Huxley thought that if the brain were a kind of “reducing valve” for “Mind at Large,” this would explain the efficacy of psychedelics: They could simply be a material means of opening the tap.

Unfortunately, Huxley was operating under the erroneous assumption that psychedelics decrease brain activity. However, modern techniques of neuroimaging have shown that these drugs tend to increase activity in many regions of the cortex (and in subcortical structures as well). Still, the action of these drugs does not rule out dualism, or the existence of realms of mind beyond the brain—but then nothing does. This is one of the problems with views of this kind: They appear to be unfalsifiable.^[3]

Of course, the brain does filter an extraordinary amount of information from consciousness. And, like many who have taken these drugs, I can attest that psychedelics certainly throw open the gates. Needless to say, positing the existence of a “Mind at Large” is more tempting in some states of consciousness than in others. And the question of which view of reality we should privilege is, at times, worth considering. But these drugs can also produce mental states that are best viewed in clinical terms as forms of psychosis. As a general matter, I believe we should be very slow to make conclusions about the nature of the cosmos based upon inner experience — no matter how profound these experiences seem.

However, there is no question that the mind is vaster and more fluid than our ordinary, waking consciousness suggests. Consequently, it is impossible to communicate the profundity (or seeming profundity) of psychedelic states to those who have never had such experiences themselves. It is, in fact, difficult to remind oneself of the power of these states once they have passed.

Many people wonder about the difference between meditation (and other contemplative practices) and psychedelics. Are these drugs a form of cheating, or are they the one, indispensable vehicle for authentic awakening? They are neither. Many people don’t realize that all psychoactive drugs modulate the existing neurochemistry of the brain—either by mimicking specific neurotransmitters or by causing the neurotransmitters themselves to be more active. There is nothing that one can experience on a drug that is not, at some level, an expression of the brain’s potential. Hence, whatever one has experienced after ingesting a drug like LSD is likely to have been experienced, by someone, somewhere, without it.

However, it cannot be denied that psychedelics are a uniquely potent means of altering consciousness. If a person learns to meditate, pray, chant, do yoga, etc., there is no guarantee that anything will happen. Depending on his aptitude, interest, etc., boredom could be the only reward for his efforts. If, however, a person ingests 100 micrograms of LSD, what will happen next will depend on a variety of factors, but there is absolutely no question that something will happen. And boredom is simply not in the cards. Within the hour, the significance of his existence will bear down upon our hero like an avalanche. As Terence McKenna^[4] never tired of pointing out, this guarantee of profound effect, for better or worse, is what separates psychedelics from every other method of spiritual inquiry. It is, however, a difference that brings with it certain liabilities.

Ingesting a powerful dose of a psychedelic drug is like strapping oneself to a rocket without a guidance system. One might wind up somewhere worth going—and, depending on the compound and one’s “set and setting,” certain trajectories are more likely than others. But however methodically one prepares for the voyage, one can still be hurled into states of mind so painful and confusing as to be indistinguishable from psychosis. Hence, the terms “psychotomimetic” and “psychotogenic” that are occasionally applied to these drugs.

I have visited both extremes on the psychedelic continuum. The positive experiences were more sublime than I could have ever imagined or than I can now faithfully recall. These chemicals disclose layers of beauty that art is powerless to capture and for which the beauty of Nature herself is a mere simulacrum. It is one thing to be awestruck by the sight of a giant redwood and to be amazed at the details of its history and underlying biology. It is quite another to spend an apparent eternity in egoless communion with it. Positive psychedelic experiences often reveal how wondrously at ease in the universe a human being can be—and for most of us, normal waking consciousness does not offer so much as a glimmer of these deeper possibilities.

People generally come away from such experiences with a sense that our conventional states of consciousness obscure and truncate insights and emotions that are sacred. If the patriarchs and matriarchs of the world’s religions experienced such states of mind, many of their claims about the nature of reality can make subjective sense. The beautific vision does not tell you anything about the birth of the cosmos—but it does reveal how utterly transfigured a mind can be by a full collision with the present moment.

But as the peaks are high, the valleys are deep. My “bad trips” were, without question, the most harrowing hours I have ever suffered—and they make the notion of hell, as a metaphor if not a destination, seem perfectly apt. If nothing else, these excruciating experiences can become a source of compassion. I think it would be impossible to have any sense of what it is like to suffer from mental illness without having briefly touched its shores.

At both ends of the continuum time dilates in ways that cannot be described—apart from saying that these experiences can seem eternal. I have had sessions, both positive and negative, in which any knowledge that I had ingested a drug had been extinguished, and all memories of my past along with it. Full immersion in the present moment, to this degree, is synonymous with the feeling that one has always been, and will always be, in precisely this condition. Depending on the character of one’s experience at that point, notions of salvation and damnation do not seem hyperbolic. In my experience, Blake’s line about beholding “eternity in an hour” neither promises, nor threatens, too much.

In the beginning, my experiences with psilocybin and LSD were so positive that I could not believe a bad trip was possible. Notions of “set and setting,” admittedly vague, seemed sufficient to account for this. My mental set was exactly as it needed to be—I was a spiritually serious investigator of my own mind—and my setting was generally one of either natural beauty or secure solitude.

I cannot account for why my adventures with psychedelics were uniformly pleasant until they weren’t—but when the doors to hell finally opened, they appear to have been left permanently ajar. Thereafter, whether or not a trip was good in the aggregate, it generally entailed some harrowing detour on the path to sublimity. Have you ever traveled, beyond all mere metaphors, to the Mountain of Shame and stayed for a thousand years? I do not recommend it.

(Pokhara, Nepal)

On my first trip to Nepal, I took a rowboat out on Phewa Lake in Pokhara, which offers a stunning view of the Annapurna range. It was early morning, and I was alone. As the sun rose over the water, I ingested 400 micrograms of LSD. I was 20 years old and had taken the drug at least ten times previously. What could go wrong?

Everything, as it turns out. Well, not everything—I didn’t drown. And I have a vague memory of drifting ashore and of being surrounded by a group of Nepali soldiers. After watching me for a while, as I ogled them over the gunwale like a lunatic, they seemed on the verge of deciding what to do with me. Some polite words of Esperanto, and a few, mad oar strokes, and I was off shore and into oblivion. So I suppose that could have ended differently.

But soon there was no lake or mountains or boat—and if I had fallen into the water I am pretty sure there would have been no one to swim. For the next several hours my mind became the perfect instrument of self-torture. All that remained was a continuous shattering and terror for which I have no words.

These encounters take something out of you. Even if drugs like LSD are biologically safe, the potential for extremely unpleasant and destabilizing experiences presents its own risks. I believe I was positively affected for weeks and months by my good trips, and negatively affected by the bad ones. Given these roulette-like odds, one can only recommend these experiences with caution.

While meditation can open the mind to a similar range of conscious states, they are reached far less haphazardly. If LSD is like being strapped to rocket, learning to meditate is like gently raising a sail. Yes, it is possible, even with guidance, to wind up someplace terrifying—and there are people who probably shouldn’t spend long periods in intensive practice. But the general effect of meditation training is of settling ever more fully into one’s own skin, and suffering less, rather than more there.

As I discussed in The End of Faith, I view most psychedelic experiences as potentially misleading. Psychedelics do not guarantee wisdom. They merely guarantee more content. And visionary experiences, considered in their totality, appear to me to be ethically neutral. Therefore, it seems that psychedelic ecstasy must be steered toward our personal and collective well-being by some other principle. As Daniel Pinchbeck pointed out in his highly entertaining book, Breaking Open the Head, the fact that both the Mayans and the Aztecs used psychedelics, while being enthusiastic practitioners of human sacrifice, makes any idealistic link between plant-based shamanism and an enlightened society seem terribly naive.

As I will discuss in future essays, the form of transcendence that appears to link directly to ethical behavior and human well-being is the transcendence of egoity in the midst of ordinary waking consciousness. It is by ceasing to cling to the contents of consciousness—to our thoughts, moods, desires, etc.—that we make progress. Such a project does not, in principle, require that we experience more contents.^[5] The freedom from self that is both the goal and foundation of “spiritual” life is coincident with normal perception and cognition—though, admittedly, this can be difficult to realize.

The power of psychedelics, however, is that they often reveal, in the span of a few hours, depths of awe and understanding that can otherwise elude us for a lifetime. As is often the case, William James said it about as well as words permit^[6] :

One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question,—for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas, and open a region though they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.

(The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 388)

NOTES:

1. A wide literature now suggests that MDMA damages serotonin-producing neurons and decreases levels of serotonin in the brain. Here is the tip of the iceberg: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. ↩
2. What is moderation? Let’s just say that I’ve never met a person who smokes marijuana every day who I thought wouldn’t benefit from smoking less (and I’ve never met someone who has never tried it who I thought wouldn’t benefit from smoking more).↩
3. Physicalism, by contrast, could be easily falsified. If science ever established the existence of ghosts, or reincarnation, or any other phenomenon which would place the human mind (in whole or in part) outside the brain, physicalism would be dead. The fact that dualists can never say what would count as evidence against their views makes this ancient philosophical position very difficult to distinguish from religious faith.↩
4. Terence McKenna is one person I regret not getting to know. Unfortunately, he died from brain cancer in 2000, at the age of 53. His books are well worth reading, and I have recommended several below, but he was, above all, an amazing speaker. It is true that his eloquence often led him to adopt positions which can only be described (charitably) as “wacky,” but the man was undeniably brilliant and always worth listening to. ↩
5. I should say, however, that there are psychedelic experiences that I have not had, which appear to deliver a different message. Rather than being states in which the boundaries of the self are dissolved, some people have experiences in which the self (in some form) appears to be transported elsewhere. This phenomenon is very common with the drug DMT, and it can lead its initiates to some very startling conclusions about the nature of reality. More than anyone else, Terence McKenna was influential in bringing the phenomenology of DMT into prominence.

   DMT is unique among psychedelics for a several reasons. Everyone who has tried it seems to agree that it is the most potent hallucinogen available (not in terms of the quantity needed for an effective dose, but in terms of its effects). It is also, paradoxically, the shortest acting. While the effects of LSD can last ten hours, the DMT trance dawns in less than a minute and subsides in ten. One reason for such steep pharmacokinetics seems to be that this compound already exists inside the human brain, and it is readily metabolized by monoaminoxidase. DMT is in the same chemical class as psilocybin and the neurotransmitter serotonin (but, in addition to having an affinity for 5-HT_2A receptors, it has been shown to bind to the sigma-1 receptor and modulate Na+ channels). Its function in the human body remains mysterious. Among the many mysteries and insults presented by DMT, it offers a final mockery of our drug laws: Not only have we criminalized naturally occurring substances, like cannabis; we have criminalized one of our own neurotransmitters.

   Many users of DMT report being thrust under its influence into an adjacent reality where they are met by alien beings who appear intent upon sharing information and demonstrating the use of inscrutable technologies. The convergence of hundreds of such reports, many from first-time users of the drug who have not been told what to expect, is certainly interesting. It is also worth noting these accounts are almost entirely free of religious imagery. One appears far more likely to meet extraterrestrials or elves on DMT than traditional saints or angels. As I have not tried DMT, and have not had an experience of the sort that its users describe, I don’t know what to make of any of this. ↩

6. Of course, James was reporting his experiences with nitrous oxide, which is an anesthetic. Other anesthetics, like ketamine hydrochloride and phencyclidine hydrochloride (PCP), have similar effects on mood and cognition at low doses. However, there are many differences between these drugs and classic psychedelics—one being that high doses of the latter do not lead to general anesthesia. ↩

Recommended Reading:

Huxley, A. The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell.

McKenna, T. Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution.

McKenna, T. The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History.

McKenna, T. True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author’s Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil’s Paradise.

Pinchbeck, D. Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism.

Stevens, J. Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream.

Ratsch, C. The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and Its Applications.

Ott, J. Pharmacotheon: Entheogenic Drugs, Their Plant Sources and History.

Strassman, R. DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences.

Source: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life/

Magic mushroom’s positive effects lasting over a year, say researchers

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine claim to have determined the proper dose levels needed to create positive changes in attitudes, mood, life satisfaction, and behavior that persist for more than a year with the psychoactive substance in so-called “magic mushrooms.”

The findings are the latest in a series of experiments done at Johns Hopkins to investigate psilocybin, a psychedelic substance contained in certain mushrooms. The findings were published online this week in the peer-reviewed journal Psychopharmacology.

“In cultures before ours, the spiritual guide or healer had to discern how much of what type of mushroom to use for what purposes, because the strength of psychoactive mushrooms varies from species to species and even from specimen to specimen,” said Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the study’s lead scientist.

“In our laboratory, weʼre working with the pure chemical psilocybin, which we can measure out precisely,” he added. “We wanted to take a methodical look at how its effects change with dosage. We seem to have found levels of the substance and particular conditions for its use that give a high probability of a profound and beneficial experience, a low enough probability of psychological struggle, and very little risk of any actual harm.”

SIMILAR: First therapeutic study of LSD in 35 years finishes treatment of last subject

The researchers said 94 percent of the study’s 18 participants rated their experiences with psilocybin as among the top five most or as the top most spiritually significant experience of his or her life at a 14-month follow-up. Eighty-four percent also reported positive changes in their behaviors, changes like improved relationships with family and others, increased physical and psychological self-care, and increased devotion to spiritual practice, which were corroborated by family members and others.

“I feel that I relate better in my marriage,” one participant reported. “There is more empathy – a greater understanding of people and understanding their difficulties and less judgment.”

The participants, ages 29 to 62, were screened to include only those who were deemed psychologically and physically healthy. Each participant received five closely-monitored, eight-hour psilocybin sessions a month apart. Each session had a different dose of psilocybin, with one session using a placebo, and was “blind,” meaning neither the participants, the monitors, nor the scientists knew how much psilocybin – if any – had been given during any session.

At higher doses of psilocybin, nearly a third of the participants experienced great fear or had delusions, but with gentle guidance from researchers, those reactions did not outlast the psilocybin session or harm the participants. Those who received lower doses of the psychedelic before the higher doses were the most likely to have long-lasting positive changes in attitudes and behavior.

Potential psychotherapeutic value of ‘magic mushrooms’

“The Hopkins psilocybin studies clearly demonstrate that this route to the mystical is not to be walked alone,” Jerome Jaffe, M.D., who served as the first White House “Drug Czar,” commented. “But they have also demonstrated significant and lasting benefits.”

“That raises two questions: Could psilocybin-occasioned experiences prove therapeutically useful, for example in dealing with the psychological distress experienced by some terminal patients? And should properly-informed citizens, not in distress, be allowed to receive psilocybin for its possible spiritual benefits, as we now allow them to pursue other possibly risky activities such as cosmetic surgery and mountain-climbing?”

A similar study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in January found psilocybin can safely improve the moods of patients with advanced-stage cancer and anxiety.

The study was headed by Dr. Charles S. Grob, a professor of psychiatry at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and found a significant improvement of mood and a reduction in symptoms of anxiety up to six months after receiving psilocybin-assisted therapy.

“We are working with a patient population that often does not respond well to conventional treatments,” said Grob. “Following their treatments with psilocybin, the patients and their families reported benefit from the use of this hallucinogen in reducing their anxiety. This study shows psilocybin can be administered safely, and that further investigation of hallucinogens should be pursued to determine their potential benefits.”

Although some may be concerned that a relatively unstudied and illegal substance such as psilocybin could pose health risks, a study published in the Psychopharmacology in 2004 found there is “no cause for concern that [psilocybin] is hazardous with respect to somatic health” in healthy adults.

The only physiological side-effects the study found was a brief increase in blood pressure and a small increase in levels of thyroid-stimulating-hormone (TSH), prolactin, cortisol, and adrenocorticotropic hormone. None of these side-effects were considered dangerous to healthy adults.

“Typically, the experiences after were rated positive, with retrospective statements ranging from ‘pleasurable’ to ‘ineffably beautiful,’ ” according to the study. One volunteer had a fearful experience after being given a high dose of psilocybin, but his anxiety was resolved without the need for pharmacological intervention.

“We know that psilocybin is remarkably non-toxic to the bodyʼs organ systems,” Matthew Johnson, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins and lead author of an earlier Hopkins paper on hallucinogen safety remarked. “But there are indirect risks: if someone experiences high anxiety, fear, or paranoia during a psilocybin session, itʼs not hard to imagine them behaving in ways harmful to themselves or others.”

“These risks appear to be minimized when volunteers develop a trusting relationship with a skilled monitor, who remains present with them for the duration of the substanceʼs primary effects, and who is available afterwards for consultation.”

Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/15/magic-mushrooms-positive-clinical-effects-lasting-over-a-year-say-researchers/

Far out: Magic mushrooms could have medical benefits, researchers say

The hallucinogen in magic mushrooms may no longer just be for hippies seeking a trippy high.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have been studying the effects of psilocybin, a chemical found in some psychedelic mushrooms, that’s credited with inducing transcendental states. Now, they say, they’ve zeroed in on the perfect dosage level to produce transformative mystical and spiritual experiences that offer long-lasting life-changing benefits, while carrying little risk of negative reactions.

The breakthrough could speed the day when doctors use psilocybin–long viewed skeptically for its association with 1960s countercultural thrill-seekers–for a range of valuable clinical functions, like easing the anxiety of terminally ill patients, treating depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and helping smokers quit. Already, studies in which depressed cancer patients were given the drug have reported positive results. “I’m not afraid to die anymore” one participant told The Lookout.

The Johns Hopkins study–whose results will be published this week in the journal Psychopharmacology–involved giving healthy volunteers varying doses of psilocybin in a controlled and supportive setting, over four separate sessions. Looking back more than a year later, 94 percent of participants rated it as one of the top five most spiritually significant experiences of their lifetimes.

More important, 89 percent reported lasting, positive changes in their behavior–better relationships with others, for instance, or increased care for their own mental and physical well-being. Those assessments were corroborated by family members and others.

“I think my heart is more open to all interactions with other people,” one volunteer reported in a questionnaire given to participants 14-months after their session.

“I feel that I relate better in my marriage,” wrote another. “There is more empathy — a greater understanding of people, and understanding their difficulties, and less judgment.”

Identifying the exact right dosage for hallucinogenic drugs is crucial, Roland Griffiths, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins who led the study, explained to The Lookout. That’s because a “bad trip” can trigger hazardous, self-destructive behavior, but low doses don’t produce the kind of transformative experiences that can offer long-term benefits. By trying a range of doses, Griffiths said, researchers were able to find the sweet spot, “where a high or intermediate dose can produce, fairly reliably, these mystical experiences, with very low probability of a significant fear reaction.”

In the 1950s and ’60s, scientists became interested in the potential effects of hallucinogens like psilocybin, mescaline, and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on both healthy and terminally ill people. Mexican Indians had, since ancient times, used psychedelic mushrooms with similar chemical structures to achieve intense spiritual experiences. But by the mid ’60s, counterculture gurus like Dr. Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley were talking up mind-altering drugs as a way of expanding one’s consciousness and rejecting mainstream society. Stories, perhaps apocryphal, circulated about people jumping out of windows while on LSD, and some heavy users were said to have suffered permanent psychological damage. By the early ’70s, the US government had essentially banned all hallucinogenic drugs.

But recent years have seen the beginning of a revival of mainstream scientific interest in mind-altering drugs, and particularly in the possibility of using them in a clinical setting to alleviate depression and anxiety. A 2004 study by the government of Holland (pdf) found psilocybin to have no significant negative effects.

Here in the United States, too, the climate may be shifting. In a statement accompanying the announcement of the Johns Hopkins findings, Jerome Jaffe, a former White House drug czar now at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said the results raise the question of whether psilocybin could prove useful “in dealing with the psychological distress experienced by some terminal patients?”

The hope is that the long-lasting spiritual and transcendental experiences associated with psilocybin could–if conducted in a controlled and supportive setting, and with appropriate dosage levels–help ease patients’ fear and anxiety, allowing them to approach death with a greater sense of calm. (You can see one terminally ill cancer patient speak movingly about the positive effects of psilocybin here.)

Griffiths thinks the drug may have the potential to alleviate the suffering of terminal patients. He’s currently leading a separate Johns Hopkins psilocybin study, using volunteers who are depressed after being diagnosed with cancer. “So far we’ve had–anecdotally only–very positive results,” comparable to the study with healthy volunteers, he said. A study from the University of California, Los Angeles last year reported similar positive results.

But Griffiths said his study, under way for three years, has only recruited 20 patients, in part because oncologists are more interested in curing cancer than helping patients cope with its effects, so they don’t refer provide many referrals. “Most oncologists just don’t get it,” he said. “It’s not the focus of their research, and they’re busy people.”

But the experience of one volunteer in Griffiths’s study offers a glimpse of the potential benefits. Lauri Reamer, 47, told The Lookout that she participated in two Johns Hopkins psilocybin sessions last September, not long after ending intensive chemotherapy and radiation to treat a rare form of leukemia that, several times in the preceding few years, had almost taken her life.

Reamer, an anesthesiologist from Ruxton, Md., with three young daughters, said that although her disease was in remission by that time, she was still suffering psychologically from the trauma of the illness and the treatment. She had walled herself off emotionally, she said, and was unable to show empathy for others or even for herself.

The psilocybin had an immediate impact. “At the end of the session, I was just in this joyous, happy, relaxed state,” she said. “The drug was gone–what was left was just this peaceful calm.”

That calm had lasting benefits. Reamer said the experience–what she called “an epiphany”–gave her the impetus to get out of a failing marriage. Since doing so, she said, both she and her daughters have been much happier.

“I don’t think it was the drug that did it,” she said. “It was the drug that helped me find the clarity.”

That’s not the only improvement. “My sleeping has gotten better. My relationships have gotten better with people,” she said. “The fog has lifted.”

“The best thing it did for me was heal me psychologically and emotionally and allow me to be back in my kids’ lives, be back to being a mother,” Reamer concluded. As she spoke, she was taking her daughters–two 15-year old twins, and a 6-year-old–on a trip to Hershey Park.

And although doctors tell her that, thanks to the effect of the illness and the treatment, she likely has only 10 or 15 years to live, she’s able to approach that challenge with equanimity.

“My fear of death kind of disappeared,” she said. “I’m not afraid to die anymore.”

Griffiths, of Johns Hopkins, said Reamer’s experience isn’t an outlier among the volunteers, both sick and healthy, who have tried psilocybin. “People feel uplifted, and very often have a sense that everything is O.K. at one level,” he said. “That there’s sense to be made out of the chaos.”

“When you see people undergoing that kind of transformation,” he added, “it’s really quite moving.”

(Magic mushrooms at a farm in Hazerswoude, Netherlands, August, 2007: AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110615/ts_yblog_thelookout/far-out-magic-mushrooms-could-have-medical-benefits-researchers-say

Terence McKenna – Hallucinogens & Culture