Category Archives: Psychedelics

LSD is the most widely studied psychedelic, with hundreds of published research papers (see below). An LSD experience is similar in many ways to psilocybin mushrooms, but often individuals feel like they are better able to direct and control the experience.

LSD studies have shown success in treating depression, anxiety, smoking cessation, and many other psychological conditions. LSD consistently produces powerful long-term improvements in these conditions, even with just a single dose.

Before you begin, be sure to read our safety section and see the special safety considerations for LSD at the bottom of this page.

LSD is a powerful chemical and taking the correct dose is essential. Because LSD is active at very, very small quantities and because it is typically delivered on small pieces of paper, it is difficult to independently assess the dose (this issue is less of a problem with mushrooms or MDMA). Taking too much LSD can lead to feelings of dissociation and alienation.

Be sure that you know the dose that you are taking. A single dose or tab of LSD can vary widely in strength, so make sure you know the quantity in micrograms. A 100ug dose is a good starting point if you have never taken LSD before and should provide a calm and opening experience. If you are interested in deeper psychological work or spiritual exploration, and have a lot of experience at lower does, you may decide to move up to 400 or 500ug, but only do so if you are very comfortable with lower doses. Do not use LSD unless you are very confident of the quality and dose that you have. Its best to use a source that someone you know has also used and can vouch for.

LSD will typically be delivered on small pieces of paper that the LSD is diffused onto. It may also be provided in liquid or pill form, or even diffused into a sugar cube.

Typically, people feel very free and open in the days following an LSD experience. Remember that you need at least 12 hours before you try to sleep, so if you begin too late in the day, you may have some trouble falling asleep and could be a little tired the next day.

Most people find that they have an afterglow from their LSD experience that can last days or weeks, improving their mood and outlook and keeping them very open to others. Ideas and issues that you explored during the experience will have a new clarity too them. Emotionally difficult topics, memories, and experiences are likely to feel much safer and will bring up less fear when you remember them. You are likely to feel better able to tackle challenging emotional experiences in your life.

LSD has been shown in many research settings to dramatically reduce anxiety, depression, and other psychological challenges with just a single dose. However, you may wish to repeat the experience a few times to further explore and address any emotional and psychological issues that you are working with.

In addition to our standard safety guidelines, there are two particularly important precautions for LSD use:

Psychedelics have been misunderstood and misrepresented for decades. That's changing. Please help us share safe, responsible information on using psychedelics by sending this page to friends, and posting to Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

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How to Safely Use LSD - How to Use Psychedelics

For the last eight years, Nicky has struggled with advanced ovarian cancer, and despite repeated rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, it's unclear how long she has to live.

"Ovarian cancer has a very bleak outlook -- less than 30 percent make it to five years," said the 67-year-old former New York City French teacher. "I was diagnosed in 2002, and I was going in to my fourth year and had a recurrence -- which was like the proverbial shoe dropping -- and it frightened me so much."

"For the moment, there is no pain," she said. "The most difficult part is leaving this world early. I wasn't ready to get on that bus."

But last May, Nicky volunteered to take a psychedelic "trip" on psilocybin -- the hallucinogenic compound from "magic mushrooms" -- which has been used for thousands of years by indigenous cultures to reach higher levels of spirituality and consciousness.

Today, even after losing seven friends from her cancer support group in 15 months, Nicky said she is less afraid of death and is living her life more "honestly and authentically."

Nicky was one of the first terminally ill participants in an ongoing study at New York University on the use of hallucinogens to help those with terminal illnesses.

"I had a wonderful life, a fabulous child and beautiful grandchildren, and here my life was cut short," she said. "I thought of my two granddaughters and not seeing them growing up and graduating from college -- it made me profoundly sad. I wanted to do something for myself, to be able to live more in the moment, rather than worrying about the future and having all these existential thoughts about what life was all about."

Her "trip" took place under full medical supervision in a warm, living room-like setting with art books, fresh fruit, flowers and soothing music. She was given a pill in an earthenware chalice and a single rose, then hunkered down on a cozy sofa with eyeshades and headphones.

"I was in a dome and it was all bejeweled with colors, mostly striped, like a kaleidoscope, but not turning," she said. "Every once in awhile, the dome would open up at the top and send a luminescence," she said. "I was in awe and could feel myself taking deep breaths. At the same, tears were running down my face, but I was not crying."

"It was incredible," she said. "I wanted to share it. I couldn't believe the world could be so beautiful."

Researchers at New York University say that in a controlled setting, hallucinogens, which alter perception and cognition, can help patients reduce the anxiety, personal isolation and fear of death.

"I am still not ready to die," said Nicky, who just returned from trips to Mexico and Bali and boxes with a trainer several times a week. "It's definitely improved my interactions with those closest to me and figuring out how I want to live my life."

"Has my anxiety of dying gone away? I would say no, I don't ever want to die. Will I be able to walk toward death with a little less fear? Perhaps," she said. "I know it sounds trite, but I live more in the moment," she said.

The three-year study, "Effects of Psilocybin on Anxiety and Psychosocial Distress in Advanced Cancer Patients," is being privately funded by the Zurich-based Heffter Research Institute , which promotes the use of psychedelics for the alleviation of suffering. Fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it adheres to rigorous safety guidelines and protocols.

Researchers hope that it will one day lead to reclassification of Schedule 1 hallucinogens so that doctors may prescribe them to patients for palliative care, depression and even addiction.

"It's daunting working with people in the midst of death," said principal investigator Dr. Stephen Ross, assistant professor of psychiatry and director of the NYU Langone Center of Excellence on Addiction. "To help people to have a good death, and not more chemotherapy, to prepare for the final part of life and to die with dignity and do it in a way that they are not frightened, that is one of the most important endeavors as a physician."

Ross and his colleagues are looking for 32 patients who are willing to participate in the random, double-blind study. To be eligible, patients must be 18 to 76 years old with the diagnosis of a "potentially life-threatening disease" or advanced or recurrent cancer who are displaying symptoms of acute stress, anxiety or adjustment disorder due to their disease.

Patients are screened carefully -- those with psychotic spectrum disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression cannot participate.

"Mysticism is really the cornerstone of all major religions going back millennia," said co-principal investigator Anthony Bossis , professor of psychiatry and anesthesiology at the NYU School of Medicine.

"It is characterized by a sense of unity, transcendence, connecting to the broader universe and a sense of life and the promotion of personal spirituality," he said. "It recalibrates how we see our life and gives a sense of sacredness and reshapes how we view death."

A mystical experience can help root patients like Nicky more in the present, according to Bossis. "People with cancer can spend their final days and months not anxious and improvement in quality of life is attainable," he said. "These experiences have the potential to do that."

Scientists across the country have shown a renewed interest in the medical uses of hallucinogens. So far, 80 to 90 patients have had similar experiences in studies on psilocybin at other universities including Johns Hopkins and UCLA.

In a study on 36 patients at Johns Hopkins, researchers looked at the effects of psilocybin on depression. At the 14-month follow-up, more than 60 percent of volunteers rated the experience as among the five most meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives; 58 percent reported a "complete" mystical experience.

"We have come a long way in pain management with the use of opiods , but the sheer anxiety is so hard to address in a medical setting," said Bossis, a clinical psychologist whose specialty is end-of-life care.

"The heart of this study is to address these levels of suffering and get at the existential [fear] of not being here any longer that we all face," he said. "We provide an empirical experience where the patient goes into a journey -- his own journey -- and can find resolution and peace and transformation and return back here to integrate it into their lives."

Psilocybin, an alkaloid compound in the tryptamine family, is produced by hundreds of species of fungi and acts on the serotonin receptors in the part of the brain responsible for non-verbal imagery and emotion. Its mind-altering effects can last anywhere from three to eight hours.

It is in the same class of chemicals as mescaline, contained in the peyote cactus, which is used in religious ceremonies by Native Americans, and dimethyltryptamine, which is in ayahuasca, used by indigenous South American religions. The effects are sometimes described as similar to near-death experiences. Some research has shown that brain activity under psilocybin mimics closely that of Buddhist monks meditating.

"It appears we are hardwired with neuro-circuitry to meditate and have the spiritual experience," said Ross.

Psychologist Timothy Leary popularized hallucinogens like LSD in his 1964 book with Ralph Metzner, "The Psychedelic Experience," which he hailed as a way to "journey into new realms of consciousness."

"It opens the mind, frees the nervous system of it ordinary patterns and structures," Leary wrote.

Experiments with LSD took place as early as the late 1940s and 1950s, after it was discovered in an ergot fungus by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hoffman.

By 1965, more than 2,000 papers had described positive results in 40,000 patients with few side effects and a high level of safety in the treatment of psychiatric orders, depression, sexual dysfunction, bereavement and even addiction, according to the British Journal of Psychiatry.

But by 1966, the drug was made illegal after abuses by the hippie counterculture, scientists distanced themselves and the government cracked down on research licenses. By the 1970s, under pressure from the U.S. Justice Department, virtually all research ended.

"It got demonized as a most addictive drug, but the irony is that it is not addictive," said Ross. "Used in the models we describe, it can actually lead to sustained sobriety."

Volunteers in the NYU study agree to take part in two full-day sessions, seven weeks apart, where they are administered either a placebo or the psilocybin. They are monitored for anxiety and outcomes two to four weeks prior to drug administration, then one day prior, then again seven hours, one day and several weeks' intervals until 26 weeks post administration.

Investigators also measure depression, pain and quality of life as well as attitude toward their disease progression at designated intervals.

Beforehand, they undergo preparation for the experience in psychotherapy. "We take their life narrative and their cancer narrative and review all the safety parameters -- what happens if X," said Ross.

When the drug is administered, the patient is paired with a male and female therapist to monitor responses and for comfort.

"Emotional stability optimizes the chance for a good experience," said Bossis. "Trust with the monitors is crucial . If the patient doesn't feel safe, we don't go forward."

Sometimes the experience is traumatizing, but facing fears is part of the process. Doctors have an antidote to abort the experience, if necessary, or use valium to calm a patient down.

"We encourage them to go inward, to minimize the communication with us and enter the experience, even if it's something dark and difficult that comes before them," said Bossis. "We tell patients that no matter where they find themselves, they will return to a normal state of consciousness within six hours."

Two of the three patients in Nicky's group have already died. Both reported extraordinary experiences -- "a cleansing of the body and soul of grief and sadness and an increase in the acceptance of the disease and the dying process," according to Bossis.

The patients said they wanted to give back more -- financially or emotionally and were able to reconnect with estranged friends and family members. Both were "peaceful and thankful," at the end, he said.

As for Nicky, the first hour of her psychedelic journey was awe-inspiring, but the second part was deeper and more emotional. At several points, she had to sit up and take off her eyeshades and seek the comfort of Ross and her other therapist.

"I became profoundly sad, and I actually had to sit up after 45 minutes and talk to them and I cried a lot," she said. "There was another scenario, then I went through the rest by myself."

In six hours, when it was all over, she stayed and analyzed her experience with the doctors.

"In therapy we had been working on my top five [issues with death or family]," she said. "During my experience, I reordered the hierarchy of issues to lead a more authentic life emotionally. I didn't realize my number four was actually number one."

"It was such an enormous gift," said Nicky. "It's really amazing that a king's ransom arrived at my door step."

Today, Nicky said she would take psilocybin again -- "in a New York minute." She continues her therapy at NYU and will go on a drug trial soon for late-stage ovarian cancer. She also hopes that her openness about the psychedelic experience will help others.

"I don't think people should be so afraid of something that could be so helpful when you are nearing the end of life," she said. "I had huge insight into my head. I can still conjure it up and I tried for very long to relive it -- it was breathtaking."

Nicky never expected to find God. "I didn't have that spiritual experience, but my dome was very close," she said. "When it opened up several times and let in the light, I would have thought it was my creator if I had been religious."

For more information on how to participate in the study, contact patient coordinator Krystallia Kalliontzi at 212-998-9252 or kk71@nyu.edu.

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Scientists Study Psychedelic Mushrooms to Help Cancer ...

Microdosing of 10 to 20 micrograms (of LSD)allow me to increase my focus, open my heart, and achieve breakthrough results while remaining integrated within my routine. My wit, response time, and visual and mental acuity seem greater than normal on it.

Madeline, The Psychedelic Explorers Guide

On a beautiful morning in Amsterdam I grabbed my vial of LSD, diluted down with half high grade vodka and half distilled water, and told my friend to trust me and open his mouth. While semi-carefully measuring the droplets for his microdose, I told him to whirl it around in his mouth for a few minutes before swallowing the neuro-chemical concoction. I quickly followed suit.

We had one of the best walking conversation ofour lives.

I first became immenselycurious about the potential of microdosing psychedelics after reading this captivating storyabout James Fadiman and his research. After a few test-runs, I knew I stumbled upon something significant.

Today we arewitnessing the birth of a truly remarkable epoch. With the psychedelic renaissance well under way, consisting ofnew fascinating research, the coming out of thousands of individuals and the introduction of many, hitherto unknown, psychoactive plants steeped in their cultural context of healing and initiation, we are now facing some new and interesting questions.

I think one of the more fruitful directions we can take is towards is microdosing.

Microdosing is taking sub-perceptual doses (6-25 microgram LSD, 0.2-0.5 gram dried mushrooms, 50-75 microgram mescaline HCL) while keeping up with ones daily activities, engaging in extreme sports, appreciating nature or enhancing ones spiritual practice.

This manner of integrating psychedelics, also known as a psycholytic dose, doesnt inhibit ego-functioning in the same intense manner asthe heroic Terence McKennadose does. It is much easier integrated into non-psychedelic activities.

It is knownthat Albert Hofmann, the first synthesizer of LSD, continued this practice well into his old age while saying it would have gone on to be used as Ritalin if it hadnt been so harshly scheduled.

James Oroc, the author of the amazing book Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad, while writing about the secret affair between psychedelics and extreme sports, saysthat taking psychedelics at lower doses, the cognitive functioning, emotional balance, and physical stamina were actually found to be improved.

For some, this might not come as a surprise, since Hofmann already spoke in a now famous interview that Lysergic acid diethyl amide (LSD) is related in chemical structure to nicotinic acid diethylamide, known to be an effective analeptic. (central nervous stimulant.)

But theres more, as James Oroc eloquently put,

Virtually all athletes who learn to use LSD at psycholytic dosages believe that the use of these compounds improves both their stamina and their abilities. According to the combined reports of 40 years of use by the extreme sports underground, LSD can increase your re- flex time to lightning speed, improve your balance to the point of perfection, increase your concentration until you experience tunnel vision, and make you impervious to weakness or pain. LSDs effects in these regards amongst the extreme-sport community are in fact legendary, universal, and without dispute.

He goes so far to suggest that, to some in the extreme sports subculture, taking a microdose at any physical competition is considered cheating. And this is not just the case for sports.P.G. Stafford and B.H. Golightly write in LSD The Problem-Solving Psychedelicabout a student that wanted to learn german making huge strides under the influenceof an unknown amount of LSD.These are the words of the student:

It was a week before registration and it depressed me tremendously that I had not spent the summer learning German, as I had planned. I had intended to give myself a crash course so I could take second-year German, which I needed for my study in physics. I had heard of a woman who had learned enough Spanish in a few days, via LSD, to speak it fluently when she had to go to Mexico on business.

I had taken LSD before, and while I couldnt see how she did this, I decided it was worth a try. I hadnt even gotten around to picking up a textbook, but I did have a close friend who knew German well and who said he was willing to sit in while I took the drug and try to teach me the language.

Fortunately, I knew something about conjugation and declension, so I wasnt completely at sea. I wanted to get worked up and feel involved with the language, as it seemed that this must be at least part of the key to the problem, so I asked my friend to tell me about Schiller and Goethe, and why the verb came at the end. Almost immediately, after just a story or two, I knew I had been missing a lot in ignoring the Germans, and I really got excited. The thing that impressed me at first was the delicacy of the language (he was now giving me some simple words and phrases), and though I really messed it up, I was trying hard to imitate his pronunciation as I had never tried to mimic anything before.

For most people German may be guttural, but for me it was light and lacey. Before long, I was catching on even to the umlauts. Things were speeding up like mad, and there were floods of associations. My friend had only to give me a German word, and almost immediately I knew what it was through cognates. It turned out that it wasnt even necessary for him to ask me what it sounded like.

Memory, of course, is a matter of association, and boy, was I ever linking up to things! I had no difficulty recalling words he had given mein fact, I was eager to string them together. In a couple of hours after that I was reading even some simple German, and it all made sense.

The whole experience was an explosion of discoveries. Normally, when youve been working on something for a long time and finally discover a solution, you get excited, and you can see implications everywhere. Much more than if you heard someone else discovering the same-thing. Now this discovery thing, thats what was happening with mebut all the time.

The threshold of understanding was extremely low, so that with every new phrase I felt I was making major discoveries. When I was reading, it was as though I had discovered the Rosetta Stone and the world was waiting for my translation. Really wild!

In the 60s the creativity enhancing effects of psychedelics were already hailed as revolutionary, and these famous tripperswould certainly agree. One significant study investigated the effect of 100 micrograms of LSD on top of the field experts who had been struggling with a hard problem for months. Their solutions were reviewed by a panel of other experts in the same field. As Tim Doody reports;

LSD absolutely had helped them solve their complex, seemingly intractable problems. And the establishment agreed. The 26 men unleashed a slew of widely embraced innovations shortly after their LSD experiences, including a mathematical theorem for NOR gate circuits, a conceptual model of a photon, a linear electron accelerator beam-steering device, a new design for the vibratory microtome, a technical improvement of the magnetic tape recorder, blueprints for a private residency and an arts-and-crafts shopping plaza,
and a space probe experiment designed to measure solar properties.

Psychedelics can be described as non-specific amplifiers, and, as such, not just creativity can be enhanced, also the distressing states of mind. In smaller doses this is not as overwhelming and therefore, if used properly, can be quite beneficial.

Myron Stolaroff, while writing about the usefulness of psychedelics in the practice of buddhism, argues that low doses of psychedelics can be extremely beneficial to improve ones meditation practice.

The use of low doses often can be much more effective in dealing with our psychic garbage. Many do not care for low doses because they can stir up uncomfortable feelings, and they prefer to transcend them by pushing on into higher states, but it is precisely these uncomfortable feelings that must be resolved to achieve true freedom.

With low doses, by focusing directly on the feelings and staying with them without aversion and without grasping, they will in time dissipate. Resolving ones repressed feelings in this manner clears the inner being, permitting the True Self to manifest more steadily. Such a result provides greater energy, deeper peace, more perceptive awareness, greater clarity, keener intuition, and greater compassion. It permits the deepening of ones meditation practice. The surfacing of buried feelings that this procedure permits often can bring new understanding of ones personality dynamics.

The potential to improve cognitive functioning, body awareness and our spiritual evolution with a microdose of psychedelics are limitless. There are five categories by which we can describe the overall effects of microdosing LSD. I gathered these from the various first person reports Ive quoted so far and my own extensive experimentation.

To be able to experiment with these states of conscious in a safe and constructive manner, be sure to follow these guidelines.

To make this trivial world sublime, take half a gram of phanerothyme -Huxley

In a not so far away future it will be possible to unlock different experiences with a pill. A little piece of matter, folded and turned using organic chemistry into a unique organic key to insert your brain. A drug you can buy as easy as alcohol or tobacco, or weed. Perhaps it will thrive in a system where one has to take an exam, some basic tests, and will be rewarded a license of some kind.

Aldous Huxley envisionedin Island,his last, and according to himself, his most important book, that psychedelics could help us overcome addiction, anxiety and depression. That if we could change how we experience ourselves, our loved ones and the world at large, either through rituals or through neurochemical mediated ways, we could usher in a new paradigm of human flourishing.

While his vision has not come to fruition yet, it is still very much alive. With the practice of microdosing, we will be one step closer to learning how to cope with the vast depths of our own psyches.

Enjoy the magic, my friends.

Share your microdose experience here

Ive gotten so many questions, requests and microdose stories after writing this article that I have decided to write an e-book on this fascinating subject matter. If youd like to help, I am looking for:

All information received will be used anonymously. Please enter Microdosing as the subject. Thank you 🙂

As we repeatedly stress on HighExistence, psychedelics mustbe approached with reverence and caution. We believe that in a loving context, psychedelics are powerful medicines with tremendous potential, but there are a number of physical and psychological safety concerns that one should consider before journeying with psychedelics. Please, please do plenty of research, and do not take psychedelics if you have reason to believe that they will not jibe with your personality or particular mental baggage.The Essential Psychedelic Guideon Erowid is an exceptional free resource, and we recommend reading it,especiallythe section on Psychedelic Safety, before ever dabbling in these substances. Take care, and happy tripping. : )

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Microdosing: The Revolutionary Way of Using Psychedelics ...

Psychedelics.com helps you help yourself and others. Supportive tools for making better life choices.

Psychedelics, while they can cause pleasurable side effects, are mostly Schedule I classified drugs that are not only illegal but dangerous. While psychedelics can cause a person to feel a sense of oneness with the universe and experience spiritual or enjoyable hallucinations and distorted perceptions, they can also cause intense fear, paranoia, and panic.

Whether or not a person has a good trip or a bad tripall depends on many variables, and there is no assurance that even the same individual will experience a positive reaction twice. This is only one of the dangers of psychedelics which, while they have been used in spiritual rituals for centuries, can cause many harmful effects.

We can help you quit using psychedelic drugs. Call 800-895-1695 today.

The effects of psychedelics are extremely hard to predict. As stated by CESAR, psilocybin or psychedelic mushrooms are one of the most popularly abused psychedelics to this day, and the effects produced by psilocybin are highly variable and depend on several factors including the age, type, and dosage amount of the mushroom used, the setting the mushroom is used in, the users expectations, past drug experiences, and personality.

This is what makes psychedelic drugs so different from other commonly abused substances; it is very difficult to pinpoint how a person will react to these drugs or what they should even expect. While some effects like hallucinations, nausea, and an altered perception of space and time can all be expected to be experienced by the user, psychedelics may cause a different type of high in every user (each and every time) and their effects could last anywhere from an hour to six or more.

While there isnt a strong amount of research on the issue of psychedelic drug addiction, it is possible in some instances. Especially with a drug like MDMA, some users report symptoms of dependence, including continued use despite knowledge of physical or psychological harm, tolerance (or diminished response), and withdrawal effects (NIDA).

Some other drugs (like LSDand peyote) only cause tolerance while the effects of salvia divinorum have not yet been researched enough to provide any conclusive results. The question of whether or not addiction to certain psychedelic drugs exists can be puzzling. In many cases, though, treatment may still be necessary to help with the effects abusing psychedelic drugs can cause.We can help you find the treatment you need. Call 800-895-1695 toll free today.

If you are concerned about your psychedelic drug abuse or that of another individual, here are some steps to follow in order to better the situation.

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Psychedelics - Mushrooms, LSD, Salvia

Psychedelics have been used by many of the most creative and successful individuals in our society. Because of the stigma surrounding psychedelics, only a small percentage of these people have spoken publicly about their experiences. Here are a few who have. Right now, this list is just white men! We'd love to feature some well-known people of color and women-- please let us know if you have any suggestions.

Steve Jobs and his Apple co-Founder Steve Wozniak took LSD many times at the beginning of their career. Their experiences are discussed in Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs.

"Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there's another side to the coin, and you cant remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was importantcreating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could."

Steve Jobs Founder, Apple

Susan Sarandon discussed ayahuasca and mushrooms in an interview with the Daily Beast.

"Ive done Ayahuasca and Ive done mushrooms and things like that. But I like those drugs in the outdoorsIm not a city-tripper... I like doing it in the Grand Canyon, or in the woods. You want to be prepared and not have responsibilities. It does remind you of your space in the universeyour place in the universeand reframe things for you. I think you can have some very profound experiences."

Susan Sarandon Actor

Frances McDormand described her experiences with LSD and psychedelic mushrooms in a 2014 interview with the Daily Beast.

"I really, really enjoyed LSD. And I really enjoyed mushrooms very much. Its unfortunate, I think, that drugs were not handled properly. Politically, theyve been used to separate the economic classes. Thankfully, its all getting fixed now with the marijuana laws. But with LSD, because it was countercultural, and because it was used as an experimental drug, it was not marketed properly. It if had been marketed properly, we would have it.... We needed a PR person for that LSD! It was very profound. Very profound."

Frances McDormand Actor

Tim Ferriss is a multi-bestselling author of the Four-Hour Workweek and the Four-Hour Body. He has spoken repeatedly about his use of psychedelics and his advice about what he considers a safe and productive approach.

"The billionaires I know, almost without exception, use hallucinogens on a regular basis," Ferriss said. "[They're] trying to be very disruptive and look at the problems in the world ... and ask completely new questions." - Tim Ferris, CNN.com

In this video he addresses the subject in depth:

Cary Grant was used LSD with his therapist many times and was an advocate. Vanity Fair wrote about his experiences in detail in this article from 2010.

"The Curious Story Behind the New Cary Grant headlined the September 1, 1959, issue of Look magazine, and inside was a glowing account of how, because of LSD therapy, "at last, I am close to happiness." He later explained that "I wanted to rid myself of all my hypocrisies. I wanted to work through the events of my childhood, my relationship with my parents and my former wives. I did not want to spend years in analysis."

Vanity Fair

Kary Mullis won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in for dramatically improving the technique of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which is an essential tool of modern biology research. Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD, was told by Kary that LSD had helped him develop his PCR invention (Wired, 2008).

"Back in the 1960s and early '70s I took plenty of LSD. A lot of people were doing that in Berkeley back then. And I found it to be a mind-opening experience. It was certainly much more important than any courses I ever took."

Kary Mullis California Monthly, 1994

"What if I had not taken LSD ever; would I have still invented PCR?" He replied, "I don't know. I doubt it. I seriously doubt it."

Kary Mullis BBC Horizon Interview, 1997

Psychedelics have been misunderstood and misrepresented for decades. That's changing. Please help us share safe, responsible information on using psychedelics by sending this page to friends, and posting to Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

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Famous Users of Psychedelics - How to Use Psychedelics for ...

by Henrik Dahl

on January 2, 2015

The following piece first appeared in Psychedelic Press UK:

Psychedelics often trigger a rich flood of visual content. One may for instance experience highly intricate patterns, otherworldly landscapes and mysterious beings some angelic; others demonic. Colours are frequently perceived as being extremely intense and objects may transform into bizarre and unthinkable shapes. Surely visions like these must be of great interest to visual artists. Still, most psychedelic culture researchers will find it hard to come up with a satisfying list of visual artists who acknowledge the importance of psychedelics in their work. Why is this the case? When it comes to writers and musicians, examples are plenty. Shouldnt there be as many, if not more, visual artists associated with psychedelics?

Admittedly, there is a lot of psychedelic art out there. Usually though the term is used to describe a particular aesthetic rather than art directly influenced by psychedelic drugs. Surprisingly little has been written about art that is psychedelic in the true sense of the word. The typical take on the subject is exemplified by art critic Ken Johnson, who is the author ofAre You Experienced?: How Psychedelic Consciousness Transformed Modern Art:

While I think it would be a worthy project for a sociologist or historian to find out who did what, when, and where, to provide some empirical grounding for speculations about the influence of drugs on art, I am neither equipped for nor inclined to do that job. What interested me was not necessarily the influence of drugs on particular individuals but the influence of psychedelic culture in general on artists (Johnson 2011, 8).

Image:Psychedelic: Optical and Visionary Art Since the 1960s book cover.

A similar approach is found in David S. RubinsPsychedelic: Optical and Visionary Art Since the 1960s, which explores the visual impact that psychedelic culture has had on artists working over the past five decades.

Although Johnson and Rubin have done a great and much welcome job with their respective books, they raise an important question: How many of the artists described as psychedelic actually feel comfortable with being categorised in such a way? In todays highly professionalised art world its likely that at leastsomeartists find the association problematic. Reasons for this may vary of course, but the connection to drug culture is probably one of them. Perhaps this is why Johnson points out that readers of his book are advised not to assume that any artist discussed has even used drugs at all or would agree that drug-induced experience has affected their art (Johnson 2011, 8).

Obviously, to be certain that a psychedelic has influenced an artwork one needs some sort of testimony from the artist that confirms the association. This fact dramatically narrows the number of artworks that are clearly induced by a psychedelic. That said, many artists have openly ascribed psychedelic experiences as a major influence on one or several of their artworks.

Discussions about psychedelic art are often reduced to speculations, where critics sometimes see trippy influences in artworks that in reality have little to do with the psychedelic experience, mistaking it for themes such as dreams states, New Age spirituality or the occult. This essay is a modest attempt at approaching the subject differently; rather than looking at art influenced by psychedelic culture as a whole, I will present some of the art that has been directly influenced by psychedelics.

A key figure when it comes to western art directly influenced by psychedelics is the Belgian-born French visual artist and writer Henri Michaux. Already in the 1960s he was looked upon as a pioneer in psychedelic art (Masters & Houston 1968, 118). His perhaps most notable work isMiserable Miracle, containing both his writings and drawings, published for the first time in French in 1956. The book was the result of the authors experiments with mescaline. In his dissertationA History of Irritated Material: Psychedelic Concepts in Neo-Avant-Garde Art, Danish art historian Lars Bang Larsen calls Michauxs drawings seismographic, describing them as pulsating,brutlandscapes (Larsen 2011, 115).

Michaux wasnt the only westerner experimenting with psychedelics at the time. Two years beforeMiserable Miraclecame out, Aldous Huxley described his experiences on mescaline in his essayThe Doors of Perception. Still,Miserable Miracleis an important work. Not least because of the inclusion of Michauxs psychedelic artworks. Incidentally, the same year asMiserable Miraclewas first published, psychiatrist Humphry Osmond coined the word psychedelic in a correspondence with Huxley. However, since Michaux was making his drug experiments long before psychedelic became a catch phrase in the sixties counterculture, Larsen aptly describes Michaux as a proto-psychedelic artist (Larsen 2011, 33).

Image: Miserable Miracle book cover.

Henri Michaux continued his explorations with mescaline, resulting in additional books on the subject. In 1963, he also made an educational film calledImages du monde visionnairefor Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz (recognized by psychedelicists as the company where Albert Hofmann worked when he synthesized LSD in 1938). Michauxs film was made in collaboration with French filmmaker Eric Duvivier for the purpose of demonstrating the hallucinogenic effects of mescaline and hashish. Given the limitations of the technology at the time, the films psychedelic effects look a bit bleak and feel rather unconvincing today and, according to an article on book publisher Strange Attractors webpage, Michaux himself was said to have been quite disappointed by the result. One may wonder if this is a common reaction among artists trying to depict psychedelic experiences. If that is the case, its possible that many artists avoid such attempts.

Although Michauxs drawings were induced by a psychedelic drug, it wasnt until the mid-to-late sixties that psychedelic art became recognised as a distinct artistic expression of its own. An early proponent of the style during this era was American painter Isaac Abrams. In 1965, he had his first LSD session with psychologist Stanley Krippner. According to the blog Transpersonalspirit, the experience gave him a vision of what he felt psychedelic art would look like. Abrams artworks display oceanic, cosmic and microscopic motifs, exemplified by his 1968 painting Cosmoerotica. Still actively pursuing his art, he has stayed true to the artistic style he envisioned on his first acid trip.

As a result of the popularization of LSD in the sixties, many visual artists experimented with the drug. Its easy to assume that those artists were automatically incorporating their experiences in their art. However, that was not always the case. German-born painter Mati Klarwein, known for painting the cover of Miles Davis classic jazz albumBitches Brew, said his experiences with psychedelics never inspired his art in any major way. Instead, according to his biography on Matiklarwein.com, his inspiration came from extensive travelling and the artists interest in non-western deities and symbolism.

One who ascribed great importance to psychedelics though, was Swedish poster artist Sture Johannesson. In his piece Psychedelic Manifestopublished in the Swedish magazine Ord & Bild, phrased in his typically humorous and anarchistic style, the artist immodestly promotes psychedelics saying, The
cultural workers most important task in the future is to spread information about these matters. Psychedelic drugs mean freedom, equality and brotherhood (Larsen 2002, 8).

Image: Andre Will Take A Trip! (1969) by Sture Johannesson.

Between 1967 and 1969, Johannesson made a series of posters calledThe Danish Collection. They have stood the test of time surprisingly well and, apart from becoming collectors items, they are regularly exhibited at museums around the world. Included in the series isAndre Will Take A Trip!(1969). The poster, arguably one of his most complex and captivating works, shows a series of small photographs taken during Swedish engineer S.A. Andres balloon expedition to the North Pole in 1897, a misadventure that ended in the death of Andre and his group. The photos are arranged against a pink background and at the top of these is a quote associated with William S. Burroughs saying, Anything which can be done chemically can be done by other means! Lastly, much like a hallucination, three huge but delicately designed yellow letters placed in the centre of the image spells out the word LSD.

An artistic genre that is often associated with the use of psychedelics is visionary art. Artists working in this style often depict visions experienced while in altered states. Although far from being the only source of inspiration, many visionary artists acknowledge the importance of psychedelics in their artistic process. The genres association with mind-expanding drugs is evident inFirst Draft of Manifesto of Visionary Art written by visionary artist Laurence Caruana, where he discusses psychedelics at length. Interestingly, this type of art may have a particular function for those who view it. It is no secret that many visionary works of art are designed to be viewed with the aid of mind-altering substances, says Caruana in the manifesto (First Draft of Manifesto of Visionary Art,2001).

One of the foremost artists working in the visionary style is Alex Grey. A prolific painter, his artworks have appeared on several album covers and his 1990 art bookSacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of Alex Greyhas been translated into several languages and is still in print. In the mid seventies, while on LSD with his future wife, the artist Allyson Grey, Alex experienced what would prove to be a pivotal moment in his career as an artist. In a 2008 interview with SFGate.com, Alex said the trip made him interested in the study of consciousness, and that he started making drawings of what he had seen. For Allyson the experience turned out to be equally profound, saying it was to become the subject of our art for a lifetime (Allysongrey.com). AlexsUniversal Mind Lattice(1981) and AllysonsJewel Net of Indra(1988) are both depictions of their LSD trip.

Another visionary artist associated with psychedelics is the Peruvian painter Pablo Amaringo. Amaringo, avegetalistawho depicted visions on ayahuasca, was brought to the attention by ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna and anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna. At Lunas suggestion, Amaringo started painting his ayahuasca visions, which resulted in the coauthored bookAyahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shamanpublished in 1999. Apart from being a painter, Amaringo was the art teacher at his Usko-Ayar School of Painting and was supervising ayahuasca retreats.

Most visionary artists are highly skilled at their craft. According to Laurence Caruana, as precise a rendering as possible is absolutely necessary for vision-inducing works. Fine lines, gradual transitions, infinite details there is no limit to the pains endured nor the patience required to successfully render a vision into image form (First Draft of Manifesto of Visionary Art,2001). One may wonder at what length the complex nature of altered states of consciousness including those triggered by psychedelics has affected the technical abilities of artists working in the visionary style. Its possible that the sometimes incredibly detailed visions seen on mind-expanding drugs have forced these artists to perfect their work considerably more than had they worked in another artistic field.

When discussing artists who use psychedelics one should keep in mind that very few of them are likely making art while actually under the influence. For example, in an interview published on Historygraphicdesign.com in 2002 San Francisco poster artist Victor Moscoso strongly opposes to the idea:

People ask me, Did you draw on acid? Draw on acid? Thats like drawing while youre tumbling down a flight of stairs. Are you kidding? With you dying and being re-born, having an understanding of the molecular structure of your body and of the cosmos at the same time. Drawing is absurd. You cant do it! Whatever you draw will not come close to what you can see, or perceive.

Most artists using psychedelics would probably agree with Moscoso. Yet there are several examples of artists who have made art while they were on mind-expanding drugs. In 1990, Charles Ray shot a self-portrait when he was under the influence of LSD, resulting in his artworkYes. Another contemporary artist making art while on LSD is Rodney Graham, whos film The Phonokinetoscopeis a 2001 reenactment of Albert Hofmanns legendary LSD bicycle trip in 1943. Also in 2001, Bryan Lewis Saunders made a series of self-portraits while on a variety of drugs, including psilocybin mushrooms and DMT.

The three artworks mentioned pose the question of how these artists actually managed to make art while tripping. In all likelihood, they either made their artworks while they were coming down from their trips, or their doses were low from the beginning. In the case of Graham, he is quoted on Ubuweb.com saying he ingested a blotter. Considering the fairly low doses usually distributed on blotter acid, Grahams trip was likely rather mild compared with Hofmanns, making the formers reenactment a less dramatic event.

Why are relatively few artists associated with psychedelics? I can think of several possible explanations. For instance, its probable that many artists trying to depict visions seen on psychedelics actually fail in their attempts. Translating such complex experiences as discussed by visionary artist Caruana in his manifesto requires great technical skills and an endurance that few possess.

Furthermore, artists working in the contemporary art scene may feel inclined to keep their psychedelic experiences to themselves. In todays highly professionalised, academically shaped and in many ways commercialised contemporary art world, its probable that many dont want to risk being associated with psychedelics for fear of being reduced to a drug artist. This is something I have encountered myself during interviews with artists working in this field.

From a historical perspective, its likely that quite a few artists have been using mind-expanding drugs in their artistic process. However, without testimonies there is no way to know for certain. One such example is New York avant-garde filmmaker Storm de Hirsch. Although generally left out of history, her 1965 filmPeyote Queenhas become a minor underground classic. The films kaleidoscopic imagery, combined with its title, strongly indicates she had taken peyote. There are many artists, like de Hirsch, who have probably been using psychedelics in the past. Yet because of their relative obscurity, their experiences with these substances will remain unknown.

Artists in the future will most likely keep experimenting with psychedelics as part of their artistic process. One can also assume that the vario
us types of mind-expanding drugs used for this purpose will be greater than those mentioned in this essay. How these artworks will look like, one can only try to imagine.

Perhaps we will soon see more art historians, curators and psychedelic researchers focusing on psychedelic art. Lately there have been many signs of a growing activity in this field. One recent example is the 2013 exhibitionUnder Influences Visual Arts and Psychotropicsat La Maison Rouge in Paris, where many artists directly influenced by psychedelics were exhibited. In addition, several books on psychedelic art have been published in recent years, clearly showing an increasing interest in the topic.

References:

Caruana, Laurence.First Draft of Manifesto of Visionary Art(retrieved fromhttp://visionaryrevue.com/webtext/manifesto.contents.html), 2001

Johnson, Ken.Are You Experienced?: How Psychedelic Consciousness Transformed Modern Art. Munich: Prestel, 2011

Larsen, Lars Bang.A History of Irritated Material: Psychedelic Concepts in Neo-Avant-Garde Art(PhD dissertation). Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, 2011

Larsen, Lars Bang.Sture Johannesson. New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2002

Masters, Robert E.L. & Houston, Jean (Eds.).Psychedelic Art. New York: Grove Press, 1968

Rubin, David S. (Ed.).Psychedelic: Optical and Visionary Art Since the 1960s(exhibition catalogue). San Antonio: San Antonio Museum of Art, 2010

See the original post:

Reflections On The Direct Influence Of Psychedelics On Art ...

I originally wrote this article for the Journal ReVision Winter 2003.

Female Shamanism, Goddess Cultures, and Psychedelics by Karen Vogel

The Goddess came consciously into my life after I moved to Berkeley, California, in 1975. I began attending Goddess rituals, studying with psychic healers, practicing yoga and looking at images of goddesses in prehistoric and indigenous art. Many experiences came together in rapid succession to lead me to co-create the Motherpeace Tarot deck with Vicki Noble. The Motherpeace deck is based on iconography and consciousness of the Goddess. The psychedelic world view is represented in the deck by Amanita muscaria, peyote, cannabis, morning glories, datura, poppies, and tobacco.

The viewpoint I gained from psychedelics and my ongoing relationship with the Goddess propelled me to search for the roots, the history and practices associated with the three important threads in my life, female shamanism, Goddess cultures and psychedelics. I want to know about my lineage. I'm following a calling to research these realms and create art that is informed by my exploration. As part of my quest, I carved in wood a close replica of a relief carving from the Louvre of two women, or goddesses, holding mushrooms (fig. 1). The original carving is on a funeral marker or stele from Thessaly in northern Greece, dated around 470 B.C.E. Through the story of this particular image I will explore what might have happened in ancient Greek culture to the Goddess, female shamanism, and psychedelics in the transition to a more patriarchal way of life.

Figure 1. Mushroom Shaman-Priestesses woodcarving in cypress 11"x15" by Karen Vogel. Replica of Exaltation of the Flower, stele from Thessaly, 470 B.C.E., in the collection of the Louvre Museum, Paris.

Women healers have been around as long as there have been women. I think these early women healers had many skills and much knowledge, which eventually developed into a tradition of female shamanism.

Our human ancestors had the ability to self-medicate because of our animal heritage. Animals are incredibly discerning at diagnosing ailments and seeking out certain plants or minerals to treat a variety of ailments. Animals are also very precise about using the correct dosage. Animals also know how to get intoxicated. Some even use psychedelics. (2002, Engel,C.). Caribou seem to love to ingest the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria. (1997, Devereux,P.). Our ancestors also knew about psychedelics. Human use of psychedelics may be as old as humanity.

The roots of female shamanism may go back more then 5 million years and be linked with our ancestors upright posture. Once our ancestors stood upright there would be a need for midwives, according Ian Tattersal, one of the leaders in the study of human evolution and curator at the Museum of Natural History in New York City (Ian Tattersal, Becoming Human p.121-122).

It is rare for women to give birth alone. Usually cultures have midwives. The !Kung San or Ju/'hoansi (pronounced: zhu-twasi) as they prefer to be known, a gathering and hunting people of Botswana in southern Africa, are reported to ideally give birth alone. Marjorie Shostack says in her book Nisa, that a woman may give birth alone, but close enough to camp that she could call out for help. Shostack explains:

"A !Kung woman will have on average, four of five live births during her reproductive life. With each successive birth, she is more likely to attain the ideal of delivering alone. Without telling anyone, she walks a few hundred yards from the village, prepares a cushion of leaves, and gives birth to her child. Accompanied or not, most births occur close enough to the village so that others can hear the baby's first cries. This signals the woman's female relatives and friends that the child has been born and that the mother may welcome assistance in delivering the afterbirth, cutting the umbilical cord, and wiping the baby clean. Perhaps carrying the baby for her, other women will accompany her back to the village. Only the most experienced and determined woman insist on being alone during these last stages."(Nisa, p.181)

Humans are almost unique in our use of midwives. Most animals give birth alone, though midwives have been observed among elephants, dolphins and bats. The human need for midwives undoubtedly increased, as the size of newborns heads increased. In our evolution humans have struck a delicate balance with our large heads. Our big brains make for difficult births. The trend in the human line (hominids) has been for our babies to be born less mature so a great deal of the brain growth happens after a baby is born. As a result of this evolutionary strategy, human babies are born "immature" and need care for a long time compared to other animals. This puts all sorts of demands on social structure and nursing mothers in particular. It also must have increased the demands on midwives. Midwives have the experience of catching babies and usually at some points in their lives are also pregnant and give birth. This double experience, over millions of years, gives midwives a vast body of knowledge about pregnancy, birth and child rearing. This body of knowledge would include what to do if something goes wrong, or someone gets sick, or hurt. The importance in human evolution of the tradition of midwifery seems to me to be the logical root of female shamanism.

Shamanism is a concept that has many meanings attached to it. The more I study shamanism the broader I become in my use of the term. I think it encompasses a world-view as profound and yet very different from other world religions. I think there are many ways of being a shaman and using shamanic energy. We all have shamanic moments, such as in birth and death.

Some people draw distinctions between true shamans and herbal practitioners. Others draw the line between shamans, doctors, and priest/priestesses. I think it is impossible to make such distinctions. A shaman is a profession or calling with no set rules about how to enter the profession or precisely what is done once someone is a shaman.

A shaman can gain the position hereditarily through a lineage or family tradition. People in a community or extended family will see that a young child has talents or special experiences. The talents and experiences of an individual can grow into a calling to undertake a period of apprenticeship to become a shaman. Bonnie Glass-Coffin worked with female healers in northern Peru. Glass-Coffin reports that some of the healers inherited their mesa or altar and healing tools from relatives after the relative died.

The period of apprenticeship can include many ways of learning. A person may study with one or more shaman, or someone may study directly with a certain plant or substance. The apprenticeship may include accidental or chosen "ordeals" both physical and mental. Through this time of apprenticeship an individual develops a reputation based on results. Eventually the individual is acknowledged for her abilities as a shaman.

An individual may be recognized for certain talents such as midwifery or healing a particular class of diseases, protecting, or finding things (i.e. plants, animals or lost objects) or controlling weather. A shaman may use touch and massage, sweats, medicinal plants, animals and minerals. These techniques or substances can produce altered states or be medicinal in other ways.

A shaman may be particularly adept at entering trance and altered states and dealing with unseen forces, restoring balance and doing "soul retrieval". The repair work or healing may be for an individual or community or the earth itself. These so-called world renewal ceremonies and dances are still performed by the local tribes, in many of the roundhouses all around northern California.

A shaman can also harm others by being a poisoner, sending darts or illness and death. A shaman can make or have power objects, which some shamans believe are the source of their power. A shaman can be an artist, storyteller or ritual leader. A shaman may use sandpaintings, songs, dances, sweats and community rituals to create and heighten the energy used to heal.

Shamans may use power for war and peace, to control weather and other environmental factors. Some shamans may be feared or be afflicted, with what might be called mental or physically illness. In other cases a shaman can be an exceptionally strong and clear individual who is loved and respected by an extended community.

The respect, participation, and belief of a community in shamanism enable individual talents to flourish and grow. Shamans interact and trade plants and techniques with each other. Shamanism is a group activity and a worldview. It is easy to be dazzled by someone's talents and forget all that goes into making the magic, ritual or healing happen. Many people tended and collected the plants, gathered and ground the pigments, painted the rock walls, created and learned the songs and dances and made the regalia which were used in the rituals of the shaman.

Shamanism is a community activity especially it seems when it comes to female shamanism. Bonnie Glass-Coffin explains female healing traditions with the term coessence. "Coessence, in contrast to both transcendence and immanence, locates shamanic power and spiritual energy upon which shamans draw neither within nor without the boundaries of this world. Instead, coessence implies that this thing flows between worlds. When the shaman taps into this source of power, she is not transcending dichotomies and she is not healing"on behalf of" her patients. Instead, she is facilitating a reestablishment of the energy flow between spirit and matter, between individual and group, and between shaman and patient. Shamanic power and shamanic voyage is, thus, inherently relational." (Glass-Coffin, 1998, p.188-9)

Human experience of altered states became evident in the Paleolithic, around forty thousand years ago, in a creative flowering of art and ritual. At this time what I call goddess culture took hold in the art in a number of places around the world, a significant milepost in the development of female shamanism.

My personal experience with the Goddess and discovery of prehistoric goddess cultures came after my first experiences with psychedelics. I felt immediately connected with early art because the things that I had seen and felt on psychedelics were reflected in these first images of forty thousand years ago. The geometric and other abstract patterns of the early art painted on rock and cave walls were often linked with female imagery. In my mind it makes sense to put together the great mysterious realm of shapes and colors of psychedelics, with my experience of the Goddess.

This eruption of art forty thousand years ago is remarkable because it happened in many places in the world around the same time. Paintings and engravings on rock walls from around the thirty to forty thousand years ago are found in Africa, Asia and Europe. The Americas may be added to the list, if controversial early dates are substantiated. I will use the term rock art to refer to paintings and engravings on rocks including those inside caves. Cave art in Europe is often called Ice Age art because forty thousand years ago Europe was in a period of glaciers called the Ice Age.

The sudden worldwide proliferation of art forty thousand years ago is shocking. The only vague explanation I've found is something called "a slow acting neural transformation in the human brain." (McKie, R. 2000 p. 195). I think that is a fancy way of saying; we don't know how or why art started at the same time, in different location that had no known contact.

Even if we don't know why art began many scholars have tried to figure out what the early art means. David Lewis-Williams, a South African archeologist, has become well known in the field of rock art. He has used the innovative approach of interviewing people from cultures where rock art is still used. He discovered that the San (!Kung San or Ju/'hoansi) people go into altered states or trance by touching the images on rock walls.

Lewis-Williams also studied altered states with T.E. Dowson. They developed a system of three stages of visual imagery that people experience when in altered states. The stages are a way of recognizing and discussing imagery that can seem to be random. The incomprehensible array of dots, lines and geometric shapes are considered to be the first stage and supernatural beings are the third stage. The second stage is an intermediary between the two in which thing may be recognizable, but not animated or mythological as in the third stage. Lewis-Williams says that there aren't hard and fast lines between the 3 stages.

In other work, Lewis-Williams collaborated with Jean Clottes, an eminent scholar of the rock art of Ice Age Europe. Lewis-Williams and Clottes believe that this early rock art is evidence of shamanism and that the art comes from shamanic practices, rituals and altered states.(Clottes,J. and Lewis-Williams,D.,1998).

Female figurines also say something about Paleolithic humans. These so-called Paleolithic "Venus" figurines are found in great numbers all over Europe. There is speculation about what they are ranging from Goddesses to early male pornography.

I think they are Goddesses. In particular they seem to be very good depictions of what it must feel like to be pregnant. I would venture to say that whoever made these early sculptures knew from the inside what it was like to be pregnant. If that's true the artists of the figurines were mothers. This flies in the face of the assumptions that sculptors of hard materials, like stone, must be male. In order to gain understanding, anthropologists are encouraged to participate in the culture they are studying. In archeology this practice is called hermeneutic archeology. (Schaafsma,P. 1997 p.8)

I'm not Paleolithic despite what some of my friends might say, but I am a sculptor of hard materials. I've found that I need inspirations that are strong enough to motivate me to sit for countless hours chipping, etching and slowly, almost imperceptibly, grinding away at hard surfaces. I also need time to sit for long hours. No matter how much the Paleolithic mind and culture may differ from ours, I don't see that a Paleolithic sculptor was all that different from me in these essential qualities, whether that person was male or female. We know the Paleolithic sculptors and painters had a good deal of time to be creative because we have the art as evidence of their labor-intensive work. The nature of the inspiration is open to speculation.

The goddess figurines are often said to be symbols of a fertility cult. I think that is too narrow. Instead I believe they speak of many things, including a profound sense of awe around birth and death. The Goddess is a midwife, as well as the mother from which everything is born. These early Goddesses are impressive expressions of the pregnant state. They are also good depictions of a baby's view in which a mother is a large, round, encompassing being. In many of the Paleolithic figurines I also see old age and the forces of gravity and erosion returning matter to the earth. These figurines could represent the knowledge that we come from the mother in birth and we return to her in death. Perhaps these figurines were shamanic tools of midwives in their important role as priestesses to new life and healer/shamans when necessary.

Though the roots of shamanism are probably much older. Siberian shamanism is often used as the model for all shamanic tradition because it was one area where shamanism was first extensively studied. Among the many tribes found across Siberia, the word used to indicate a male shaman varied, whereas the term for female shaman was the same. Archeologist Jeannine Davis-Kimball concludes in her recent book "In fact, if we are to believe the linguists, women were also the first shamans. The roots of shamanism are to be found in Paleolithic Siberia, where a single term... always referred to the female shaman." (Davis-Kimball, J. 2002 p.236).

So, here we are forty thousand years ago with evidence of female shamanism and goddess culture. What about the third thread: psychedelics? There is no direct evidence that our Paleolithic ancestors used psychedelics, yet I believe our animal lineage indicates humans always knew about them. "The use of hallucinogens is in fact one of humankind's most widespread practices. Everywhere people in small-scale societies have remarkable knowledge of plants and there psychoactive properties, and this was almost certainly the case in the Upper Paleolithic." (Clottes,J. and Lewis-Williams, D. 1998 p. 22).

Based on this assumption I would say that the use of psychedelics was an intricate part of the female shamanistic tradition and the developing goddess culture.

I use the term goddess culture not because I think there was a monotheistic ideology of goddess worship sweeping across the world during the Paleolithic. Instead I'm painting broad brush stokes across time to show a pattern and possible trend in human history. To me the widespread creation of female figurines means the great mysterious spirit realm began to be personified as the Goddess.

What I have always loved about the Goddess is that I have my own idiosyncratic relationship with Her. She can have many aspects or personas. I learn from others experiences and certainly have been inspired by all sorts of images, writing and rituals. Still it is all mediated through my direct experience and relationship with the Goddess.

Two intriguing images that come from widely separated cultures both around ten thousand years ago. To me both look like possible connections between Goddess cultures and the use of psychedelic mushrooms. The first is from a famous and extraordinary rock art complex called Tassilli in southern Algeria. (fig 2). In this image, a large goddess figure gesture to a smaller individual in a mask and a net garment sprouting four mushrooms. The other image (fig. 3), from a site in Turkey. depicts a mushroom headed goddess who, with her prominent vulva may be giving birth.

Figure 2. Rock painting from Tassili, southern Algeria, 6000 B.C.E. Drawn by Karen Vogel

Figure 3. Image on a rock wall of a ceremonial building in Gobelki Tepe, Turkey, 9000 B.C.E. Drawn by Karen Vogel

Currently I know of only two cultures that uses any psychedelics as part of labor. Midwives among the Mazatec of Mexico sometimes use morning glories (Kathleen Harrison, 2000 in Palmer and Horowitz p.304). Women among the Huichol may take peyote during pregnancy. (Susana Valadez, personal communication 2002). Stacy Shaeffer reports that Huichol women use peyote "especially while in labor, to ease the birth process" (Schaefer 2002, 56).

I would link female shamanism to midwifery and psychedelics, but I don't think that psychedelics were necessarily used in labor. Psychedelic experiences are integrated into a culture as a whole. It informs and effects daily life in many ways, from the patterns in the artwork, to the entire worldview of a group. Even if a particular individual has not taken a psychedelic, they are already living in a psychedelic culture. Datura was used widely in a number of California Indian tribes yet some individuals may take Datura only once in their life. (Bean,J.L.,1992).

The gathering and hunting cultures of Paleolithic Eurasia lasted for around thirty thousand years from the emergence of art forty thousand years ago until around ten thousand ago. Then, most likely women since they were the primary plant gatherers invented methods to grow plants and select for more productive crops. This new subsistence strategy emerged in a number of cultures around the world. (Hawkes,J. 1976)

The tending plants and animals enabled settled agricultural civilization to flourish in what's called Neolithic Europe from ten thousand to three thousand years ago. These cultures continued to make art. Goddess figurines were the predominant and pervasive features of the art created by the people of Neolithic Europe.

There is a great debate about how goddess centered cultures of Neolithic Europe ended. Some believe that warrior nomadic horse cultures invaded from the eastern steppes. Still others look to causes from within the cultures. There is also evidence for cataclysmic events, such as drought and flooding, displacing people.

The Neolithic was changed five thousand years ago by the discovery of metallurgy. This led to the need for huge amounts of wood for smelting the raw ore into usable metal. It began with copper, eventually leading to bronze and iron. One of the first large-scale operations was on the island of Cyprus. The island is endowed with an excellent source of copper, iron and trees. The forest was cut down and regrew at least 16 times over two thousand years of copper mining and smelting. (McPhee, J. 1993 p.143). Finally the trees were decimated and the island abandoned by 90 percent of the inhabitants. (Perlin,J. 1989)

The increased trade of metal and other goods created a need for bigger boats, which also required more and more, trees. Imagine this pattern occurring over and over across Europe for several thousand years. This had to be a tremendous factor in the development of warfare to find, control and steal resources and then move on. A familiar pattern to this day. Repeated raids and invasions transformed the Neolithic civilizations of Europe. People fought back, ran, hide and adapted.

The pressure of war and raiding may have been a major reason for the breakup of the large settlements that had developed across Neolithic Europe including cultures in Thessaly. I think that war came from many locations, including city-states expanding their domain and nomadic cultures raiding and conquering. I don't know who started war, but once it got going it became impossible for large peaceful communities to survive. Some were able to continue for a time on islands such as Crete. By this time Thessaly had become a key factor in the struggle between the city-states of Athens and Sparta for domination of the Greek peninsula and lands beyond. This is the backdrop for life in Thessaly when the grave marker or stele was created in 470BCE that inspired my carving in figure 1.

Thessaly is in an important geographic location for a number of reasons. For one thing it sits at the doorway to the vast timber resources of Macedonia. Athens power was based on dominance of the sea. In order to maintain this position of power they needed reliable access to wood to build more ships and forge metal weapons.

Whoever controlled Thessaly could block attacks by land because they controlled the mountain pass that led from Macedonia into Thessaly and the rest of Greece. That would force anyone that wanted to attack Greece to do so by ship. Thessaly tried to make an alliance with Sparta. Sparta declined and Thessaly made a deal with Athens. Athens became the dominant power until it fell to Sparta in the Peloponnesian war fought during the later part of the 5th Century B.C.E.

By 470 B.C.E. earlier invaders of the Greek peninsula had already pushed many of the previous inhabitants of Thessaly into the mountains and off the rich soil of the plains of Thessaly. These former inhabitants are presumed to have been descendents of earlier Neolithic Goddess civilizations of Thessaly. These so-called mountain people are important links to the earlier female shamanism of the Neolithic Goddess cultures of Thessaly.

From Neolithic Thessaly, including the archeological sites of Nea Nikomedeia, come numerous female figurines. These artifacts as well as others, indicate a strong orientation to the Goddess existing in that part of Greece at least 6000 years ago. Vicki Noble (2003) believes the name Nea(new) Niko(victory) Medeia(wise woman) may be "referring to a "dynastic" legacy or lineage of shaman-priestesses." (Noble,V. 2003)

The most compelling evidence that these Neolithic Goddess cultures may have used psychedelics comes from a site around 400 miles north of Thessaly near Belgrade. Mushroom stones from a Neolithic Goddess culture site from 7000 years ago were found in area known as Vinca. The archeologist and renowned scholar of Neolithic European Goddess civilizations Marija Gimbutas says: "The fact that the mushrooms were carved out of the best available stone alone speaks for the prominent role of the mushroom in magic and cult...and it is possible that the Vinca mushrooms were connected with intoxicating drinks."(Gimbutas 1974 p. 220) (figure 4).

Figure 4. Stone mushrooms, approximately 3", from Vinca, near Belgrade, 5000B.C.E. Drawn by Karen Vogel

By the time the stele was made, the earlier inhabitants, who had become the people of the mountains, were a number of different tribes renowned for their horse riding skills and herbal practices. In fact they are believed to be the legendary centaurs. One form of centaurs is the horse and human amalgam. But there are numerous other animals that are mixed together and also called centaurs. The centaurs were known as sorcerers or witches. They practiced the shamanic art of shapeshifting by turning into animals, or using animals as allies to augment their human power. (Lawson,J.C. 1964 p.252)

The ancient Greek writer Apollodorus said Thessaly was "always the home of magic" (Harrison,J.E. 1963 p.81). There is evidence that the people of Thessaly coped with drought by having rituals to make rain. According to Jane Ellen Harrison, a scholar of ancient Greece, "Magic was no hole and corner practice but an affair of public ritual, performed with full social sanction." (Harrison,J.E. 1963 p.82). The rainmaking ritual is said to have included a dance on hobbyhorses, which is a further link to the centaurs. (Graves,R. 1996 p.199)

The Greeks were able to dominate the land of the earlier inhabitants, but not the spirituality and healing practices of the people. The name of the Thessalian Goddess is Enodia. She is represented riding a horse on the coins of a city in Thessaly beginning 480 B.C.E. (Rabinowitz,J. 1998 p.37). Enodia became the Greek Goddess Hekate in the fifth century. Hekate was originally a multifaceted Goddess who was associated with childbirth, death, the crossroads and healing. She actually embodied the mother (Demeter), maiden (Persephone) and Crone. She was also sometimes called Artemis and both were Goddesses of childbirth and of wild places. Eventually Hekate was relegated to the image of a crone and Goddess of witches and the underworld.

Hekate is considered a midwife to birth and death. The following quote from Hesiod speaks to Hekate's power over birth and death: "and those whose business is in the grey discomfortable sea, and who pray to Hekate and loud-crashing Earth Shaker, easily the glorious goddess gives great catch, and easily she takes away as soon as seen, if she so will." (Hesiod(Theo. 440-52) from Rabinowitz,J. 1998 p.20)

Thessaly is renowned for it's female healers or witches, as they are called in the writings of Greek historians. Robert Graves says, "That Zeus did not deny her (Hekate) the ancient power or granting every mortal his heart's desire is a tribute to the Thessalian witches, of whom everyone stood in dread." (Graves,R. 1955 v1 p.124-5).

Part of what must have made people stand in dread is the female shaman-priestesses ability to use poisons such as aconite and hallucinogens such as datura. According to Robert Graves aconite was called hecateis, named for Hekate who first used it. Aconite, creates a numbing sensation and was used by the Thessalian witches to make a flying ointment. (Graves,R. 1955,1996 p.471-2). Datura stramonium is what the English herbalist Gerard thought the Greeks called hippomanes, known for driving horses mad. (Schultes,R.E. and Hoffman,A., 1992 p.109)

Originally when I carve my version of the stele from Thessaly I thought the figures were Demeter and Persephone. I had read that the stele was connected with the Eleusinian Mysteries, which is associated with Demeter and Persephone and the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms (Samorini, G. 1998 p.60). The initial assumption is that the two women are Demeter and Persephone. The reasoning goes that Demeter is associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries. Therefore the stele is believed to be evidence for hallucinogenic mushrooms being used in the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Ludovic Laugier, Scientific Collaborator of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the Louvre Museum said of the stele: "Here, the dead woman seems to be on the right: she's the one receiving gifts. We don't know whether this indicates a mother and daughter or two sisters. Another mystery: The contents of the bag of seeds being handed over by the survivor. Perhaps in receiving seeds, the deceased is receiving symbols of renaissance? This is but a hypothesis"(personal communication, 2001).

Speculation is tricky business especially when it is based on an image. I want to see female shaman-priestesses. Ludovic Laugier sees flowers and seeds, in a funerary image of symbols of death and rebirth. Giorgio Samorini sees mushrooms and a mushroom presentation bag. In his opinion the presence of mushrooms connects the stele to the Eleusinian Mysteries, which is associated with Demeter and Persephone. So for him the two females appear to be older and younger or the mother goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. (Samorini, G. 1998).

The site of the Eleusinian Mysteries was a temple 14 miles outside of Athens. The first temple was built in the 8th Century B.C.E. It was destroyed during the Persian Wars around 480 B.C.E. The temple was rebuilt after 460 B.C.E. It became widely known for the Eleusinian mysteries after it was rebuilt. This chronology seems important to me because the stele was made during a time when there was no temple at Eleusis and before the new one was built.

What actually occurred during the ceremonies in the temple is secret. We do know that participants drank something called kykeon and had amazing experiences of life and death. It certainly sounds as if the drink was hallucinogenic. Psychedelic or entheogen scholars have tried to discover what was in the brew.

Some people think it was ergot, a fungal parasite on grain that can have effects similar to LSD. There are many strains of ergot and it can be a tricky and toxic hallucinogen. Others think the Eleusinian drink contained some other hallucinogenic mushroom containing psilocybin. Some suggest it was a combination of ergot and psilocybin.

I think that hallucinogens were used in Greece at the Eleusinian Mysteries. Perhaps it was a combination of ergot and psylocibin or some other species of hallucinogenic mushroom such as panaeolus or Amanita muscaria. (Graves, R.,1960. Samorini, G. 1998.) Whatever the actual content of kykeon, it is an impressive feat to dose and conduct a ritual in a temple with three thousand people in an altered state.

The Eleusinian Mysteries seem to have provided a really important experience of ecstasy and Goddess energy through Demeter and Persephone. Women were virtual slaves in Athens during the 5th century B.C.E. Perhaps it was revitalistic practice and reaction to the repression of Goddess culture and ecstatic experiences of an earlier era.

Revitalistic is an anthropological term, applied to practices that happen when cultures are in times of great change. People create ceremonies to bring back old ways that are being swept away and repressed by new power. The Eleusinian Mysteries seem to me to be a revitalistic cult.

Women in 5th Century B.C.E. Athens were under male authority and expected to stay in the home. For all it's so called democracy Athens was firmly in the grips of patriarchy. The Eleusinian Mysteries may have provided a controlled outlet for lost freedom. Through the power of psychedelics people could experience the Goddess and the mysteries of life and death.

I think the desire to link the stele from Thessaly to the use of hallucinogens at the Eleusinian Mysteries is important to psychedelic or entheogen scholars because it can be used to give a history and distinguished lineage to the use of psychedelics. Having a lineage or history has been important to many current users of psychedelics. If psychedelics were used in Greece, at the birthplace of western civilization, psychedelics are civilized. In other words the use of hallucinogens is can be associated with literate as well than as preliterate people.

But the stele comes from Thessaly. There is no reason to assume that the two women are Demeter and Persephone. Steles or funeral markers are thought to show the diseased person's life and not to depict deities. Also the stele is dated 470 BCE, which is exactly the time when there was no Eleusinian temple, presumable there were no Eleusinian Mysteries. It was after the first temple was destroyed and rebuilt that the Eleusinian Mysteries gained widespread fame. In 470 BCE in Thessaly, it would be unlikely to have the Eleusinian Mysteries portrayed on a stele.

I think the stele is of two shaman-priestesses. I believe that the long tradition of shaman-priestesses played an important part in the development of cultures. It makes sense that the tradition be represented and honored on a funeral stele. The tradition of funeral steles is thought to represent an important event or aspect of someone's life. Perhaps the stele is an image of two priestesses honoring the death of one of them.

The two women in the stele look the same age, not younger and older. To me the women in the stele are entranced with each other and the mushrooms. I think these shaman-priestesses of Thessaly were commemorating their relationship as colleagues and the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

What is that so-called bag in the hand of the woman on the left? In the carving I did of the piece, I left the object obscure, because it looked to me like she could actually be holding the end of the other women's peplos (dress or robe). Were they lovers? Our perhaps the removing of the peplos had symbolic meaning. A Greek ritual existed in which a larger then life wooden "puppet" of a Goddess would be renewed yearly by redressing the Goddess with a new peplos or robe. (Jane Ellen Harrison 1913 p.179-80). The removing of the robe could be a symbol of rebirth.

In my own experience, death and psychedelics go hand in hand. In my first experiences with psychedelics over thirty years ago, I was mesmerized by the visual effects and sensations in my body. I'm still astounded visually and physically. Over the years, as I've developed in the rest of my life, I've learned to navigate the psychedelic terrain and stunning visual and body effects. I've also learned how to work with patterns and disharmony, repairing and soothing what is broken or tangled in the design of the world and in my life.

A near-death experience when I was eighteen preceded both the Goddess and psychedelics. I was unconscious for two days with a fractured skull, the result of a car accident. When I woke suddenly I was flooded with the most extraordinary and powerful feeling of love.

I know there are all sorts of brain chemistry reasons why I might have woke up telling my mother and everyone else I knew that I loved them. I was changed and opened in a way I'll never forget. This experience as continued to fuel and inform my life. Certainly it deeply colors my expectations about death. It was my initiation into my future work with psychedelics, the Goddess and love. In the course of my research I found this quote from the Jungian therapist and scholar Nor Hall in which she refers to the stele. She thinks they are Demeter and Persephone holding poppies. No matter, she gives a lovely summing up of Goddesses, female shaman-priestesses and psychedelics. "The frieze of the poppy-bearing goddesses arrest them eternally in the moment of passing into each other. Sometimes the point of passage is thought of as the Maiden Well, where Demeter sat grieving awaiting "'the flowering from the depths'"

Hall warns:

"Hekate becomes a witch whose power is magic rather than realization, and the passing of the phases or psychological states into each other is accomplished -if at all- by the use of too many "aids" (seeds,brew,grass, chemical), rendering the experience inaccessible and antipodal to consciousness. Hekate can poison as well as intoxicate, turn ecstasy into madness, and cause death where incubation -or short journey- was intended." (1980 p.63-64)

In this passage Hall is using Hekate to represent the negative or shadow side of psychedelics. Psychedelics are a powerful tool for healing. Psychedelics can certainly be misused or over used. People can become numb or deluded when the primary focus becomes high dosage, frequent use, and multiple combinations without a sacred setting.

It has been important to me to link the use of psychedelics to shamanism and the Goddess. Susana Valadez says of women's ritual among the Huichol, who use peyote and other hallucinagens:"Women perform many rituals for healing and shamanic powers where they invoke the Mother Creator, Tacutsi. The goddess reveals knowledge the women seek only after a long arduous path. Magical plants and animals provide the women with the power objects and "tools" they need in order to successfully channel communication from the spirit world into their everyday lives." (1992, 39)

Shamanism, the Goddess and psychedelics are widespread despite the concerted efforts to stamp them out. The inquisition did significant damage wherever the hand or ideas of the church reached. But people are good at hiding, retreating to wild places, disguising and adapting practices. The Mazatec Indians pray to the Virgin of Guadeloupe in their mushroom ceremonies. Ayahuasca takes on a Christian flavor in Santo Diame. Southern California Indians developed Chingchinix, a syncretic mix of Christianity and Datura.

Our modern day inquisition makes hallucinogens and other mind-altering medicine illegal. In addition, tactics of ridicule, accusations of pre-scientific thinking, superstition and co-opting have made inroads in old, well develop practices of shamanism, Goddess worship and psychedelic use. Much is lost, yet many practices remain, some taking root in new soil.

There is an image from a Greek vase that I found instructive (fig. 5). The horned snake is coiled around a tree. Two mushrooms grow at the spring flowing from the roots of the tree. One priestess steps on her vase to begin her ascent. The second priestess floats beside the tree offering the snake a plate. The third priestess descends with her vase filled.

Figure 5. Image on a Greek vase, from a latern slide in the collection of Jane Ellen Harrison (1963, p.431). Drawn by Karen Vogel.

To me the ritual use of psychedelic mushrooms is clear in this image. Go to a sacred space. Empty yourself as you begin the climb. Enjoy yourself, and honor, respect and feed the snake guardian of the medicine. Receive the healing and descend back to the ground with you vase refilled.

My hope is that everyone, who wants to, can find productive, healing and ecstatic uses for psychedelics. Female shamanism, the Goddess and psychedelics have a long history and lineage. I hope in particular, women can continue to develop psychedelic healing traditions that serve us all in the future.

Bibliography

Bean, John Lowell, editor 1992, California Indian Shamanism, Ballena Press, Menlo Park

Clottes, Jean and Lewis-Williams, David 1998 The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves, Harry N. Abrams, New York.

Davis-Kimball with Behan, Mona 2002 Warrior Woman: An Archeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines, Warner Books, New York.

Devereux, Paul 1997 The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia, Penguin/Arkana, New York

Engel, Cindy 2002 Wild Health, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston and New York.

Gimbutas, Marija 1974, 1982 The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe 6500-3500BC Myths and Cult Images, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.

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Female Shamanism, Goddess Cultures, and Psychedelics

Psychedelic agents in creative problem-solving experiment was a study designed to evaluate whether the use of a psychedelic substance with supportive setting can lead to improvement of performance in solving professional problems. The altered performance was measured by subjective reports, questionnaires, the obtained solutions for the professional problems and psychometric data using the Purdue Creativity, the Miller Object Visualization, and the Witkins Embedded Figures tests.[1] This experiment was a pilot that was to be followed by control studies as part of exploratory studies on uses for psychedelic drugs, that were interrupted early in 1966 when the Food and Drug Administration declared a moratorium on research with human subjects, as a strategy in combating illicit use.[2]

Some weeks before the actual experiment, a preliminary experiment was conducted. It consisted of two sessions with four participants in each. The groups worked on two problems chosen by the research personnel. The first group consisted of four people with professional experience in electrical engineering, engineering design, engineering management and psychology. They were given 50 micrograms of LSD. The second group consisted of four research engineers, three with a background in electronics and one in mechanics. They were given 100 milligrams of mescaline. Both groups were productive in ideation but, according to Fadiman, the fact that the participants didn't have actual personal stake in the outcome of the session negatively affected the actualization of the ideas. This is why the actual study focused on personal professional problems that the participants were highly motivated to tackle.[3]

The experiment was carried out in 1966 in a facility of International Foundation for Advanced Study, Menlo Park, California, by a team including Willis Harman, Robert H. McKim, Robert E. Mogar, James Fadiman and Myron Stolaroff. The participants of the study consisted of 27 male subjects engaged in a variety of professions: sixteen engineers, one engineer-physicist, two mathematicians, two architects, one psychologist, one furniture designer, one commercial artist, one sales manager, and one personnel manager. Nineteen of the subjects had had no previous experience with psychedelics. Each participant was required to bring a professional problem they had been working on for at least 3 months, and to have a desire to solve it.

Commonly observed characteristics of the psychedelic experience seemed to operate both for and against the hypothesis that the drug session could be used for performance enhancement. The research was therefore planned so as to attempt to provide a setting that would maximize improved functioning, while minimizing effects that might hinder effective functioning.[4] Each group of four subjects met for an evening session several days before the experiment. They received instructions and introduced themselves and their unsolved problems to the group. Approximately one hour of pencil-and-paper tests were also administered. At the beginning of the day of the experiment session, subjects were given 200 milligrams of mescaline sulphate (a moderately light dose compared to the doses used in experiments to induce mystical experiences). After some hours of relaxation, subjects were given tests similar to the ones on the introduction day. After the tests, subjects had four hours to work on their chosen problems. After the working phase, the group would discuss their experiences and review the solutions they had come up with. After this, the participants were driven home. Within a week after the session, each participant wrote a subjective account of his experience. Six weeks further, subjects again filled in questionnaires, this time concentrating on the effects on post-session creative ability and the validity and reception of the solutions conceived during the session. This data was in addition to the psychometric data comparing results of the two testing periods.

Solutions obtained in the experiment include:[3][5][6]

The participants also reported following experiences of enhanced functioning: low inhibition and anxiety, capacity to restructure problem in larger context, enhanced fluency and flexibility of ideation, heightened capacity for visual imagery and fantasy, increased ability to concentrate, heightened empathy with external processes and objects, heightened empathy with people, subconscious data more accessible, association of dissimilar ideas, heightened motivation to obtain closure, visualizing the completed solution.

In the overview of the experiment, Harman and Fadiman mention that experiments on specific performance enhancement through directed use of psychedelics have gone on in various countries of the world, on both sides of the Iron Curtain.[7]

In the book LSD The Problem-Solving Psychedelic, Stafford and Golightly write about a man engaged in naval research, working with a team under his direction on the design of an anti-submarine detection device for over five years without success. He contacted a small research foundation studying the use of LSD. After a few sessions of learning to control the fluidity of the LSD state (how to stop it, how to start it, how to turn it around) he directed his attention to the design problem. Within ten minutes he had the solution he had been searching for. Since then, the device has been patented by the U.S., and Navy and Naval personnel working in this area have been trained in its use.[8]

In 1999 Jeremy Narby, an anthropologist specialized in amazonian shamanism, acted as a translator for three molecular biologists who travelled to the Peruvian Amazon to see whether they could obtain bio-molecular information in the visions they had in sessions orchestrated by an indigenous shaman. Narby recounts this preliminary experiment and the exchange of methods of gaining knowledge between the biologists and indigenous people in his article Shamans and scientists.[9]

In 1991, Denise Caruso, writing a computer column for The San Francisco Examiner went to SIGGRAPH, the largest gathering of computer graphic professionals in the world. She conducted a survey; by the time she got back to San Francisco, she had talked to 180 professionals in the computer graphic field who had admitted taking psychedelics, and that psychedelics are important to their work; according to mathematician Ralph Abraham.[10][11]

James Fadiman is currently conducting a study on micro-dosing for improving normal functioning.[12] Micro-dosing (or sub-perceptual dosing) means taking sub-threshold dose, which for LSD is 10-20 micrograms. The purpose of micro-dosing is not intoxication but enhancement of normal functionality (see nootropic). In this study the volunteers self-administer the drug approximately every third day. They then self-report perceived effects on their daily duties and relationships. Volunteers participating in the study include a wide variety of scientific and artistic professionals and students. So far the reports suggest that, in general, the subjects experience normal functioning but with increased focus, creativity and emotional clarity and slightly enhanced physical performance. Albert Hofmann was also aware of micro-dosing and has called it the most under-researched area of psychedelics.[13]

Since the 1930s, ibogaine was sold in France in 8mg tablets in the form of Lambarne, an extract of the Tabernanthe manii plant. 8mg of ibogaine could be considered a microdose since doses in ibogatherapy and -rituals vary in the range of 10mg/kg to 30mg/kg adding usually up to 1000mg.[14]Lambarne was advertised as a mental and physical stimulant and was "...indicated in cases of depression, asthenia, in convalescence, infectious disease, [and] greater than normal physical or mental efforts by healthy individuals". The drug enjoyed some popularity among post World War II athletes, but was eventually removed from the market, when the sale of ibogaine-containing products was prohibited in 1966.[15] In the end of 1960's The International Olympic Committee banned ibogaine as a potential doping agent.[16] Other psychedelics have also been reported to have been used in similar way as doping.[17]

In 1948, Swiss pharmacologist Peter N. Witt started his research on the effect of drugs on spiders. Witt tested spiders with a range of psychoactive drugs, including amphetamine, mescaline, strychnine, LSD, and caffeine. All the drugs tested reduced web regularity except for small doses (0.10.3g) of LSD, which increased web regularity.[18]

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Psychedelics in problem-solving experiment - Wikipedia ...

Psychedelic drugs include LSD (acid), psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline (found in peyote), ibogaine, salvia, and DMT (found in ayahuasca). Psychedelic substances have been used for thousands of years for religious and therapeutic purposes.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, psychedelic drugs such as LSD were considered promising treatments for a broad range of psychological and psychiatric conditions. Tens of thousands of people were introduced to them in clinical studies, as an adjunct to psychotherapy, or as part of a religious or spiritual practice.

By the late 1960s, however, as millions of people experimented with them, psychedelics became symbols of youthful rebellion, social upheaval, and political dissent. By the early 1970s, the government had halted scientific research to evaluate their medical safety and efficacy. The ban persisted for decades, but has gradually been lifted over the past decade.

Today, there are dozens of studies taking place to evaluate the medical safety and efficacy of psychedelics, and the Supreme Court has ruled that psychedelics can be used as part of the practices of certain organized religions.

Facts

Sources:

Grinspoon, Lester and James B. Bakalar. 1997. Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered. New York: The Lindesmith Center.

Grob, Charles and Roger Walsh, ed. Higher Wisdom: Eminent Elders Expore the Continuing Impact of Psychedelics. SUNY University of New York Press, 2005.

Stamets, Paul, Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World, Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 1996.

Stolaroff, Myron. The Secret Chief. Sarasota, FL: MAPS, 2006.

Strassman, R. J. 1984. Adverse Reactions to Psychedelic Drugs: A Review of the Literature. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 172: 577-95.

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Psychedelics: LSD, Mushrooms, Salvia | Facts | Drug Policy ...

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