The Political Correction of Psychedelics. Part 3. Psychedelics as Super-Placebos

The three pillars of the psychedelic drug experience—set, setting, and dose—are the topics for this and the next blog post. They are inextricably intertwined. Channeling the set and setting toward well-defined goals acceptable by the mainstream requires staying within “manageable” doses of drug. By carefully regulating dose, set, and setting, we are now witnessing the publication of a remarkable series of beneficial and heuristically useful outcomes to psychedelic drug projects. In addition, such studies report a very low incidence of serious adverse effects. Posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, creativity, spirituality, end-of-life palliation—the list seems to grow Read More …

The Political Correction of Psychedelics. Part 2: Mainstreaming through the Media and Objectivity

How do the current presentation and reception of psychedelic drugs reflect lessons learned from the backlash against these drugs in the 1960s? And what does this say about their future? In this week’s blog I describe some ways in which psychedelics and their effects are being mainstreamed and attaining political correctness through their biomedicalization. However, by this process, I see a potential risk in limiting our understanding and application of the full range their effects. The media In the current revival of interest in psychedelics, the media have up until now taken a balanced and positive approach to anything psychedelic. Read More …

The Political Correction of Psychedelics. Part 1. Are We Closing the Psychedelic Mind?

September 12, 2017 “At the very least, we must enlarge the discussion about psychedelics.” Dr. Willis Harman, one of the pioneers of research into the effects of psychedelics on creativity, made this declaration to me while I was in the early stages of performing my DMT studies. We were walking along the central California coast during a break in an invitational conference on psychedelics at Esalen Institute. I was nervously prattling on about God knows what, and he cut right through the fog with his characteristic precision. It was great advice, and has been one of the touchstones of my Read More …

ADVERSUS Magazine (Italy): DMT, consciousness, other realms.

DMT [N,N-Dimethyltryptamine] is a powerful psychedelic compound, maybe the most powerful. Its status – legally speaking – is very complex, as DMT is illegal in most countries in its pure form, but at the same time it is legal (in many countries) in its more ‘natural’ form, most of our readers have for sure already heard of the Ayahuasca brew. Well, as you can understand from these first few lines, we are talking about a very controversial subject. DMT occurs naturally in most living species, animal and vegetal, it is naturally present in the human body where its levels have been Read More …