Flashback! Psychedelic research returns

[drokhole]

This article is about a month old, but it was new to me:

Flashback! Psychedelic research returns
source: Salon

"Kristof Kossut arrived at an unlikely address for his first psychedelic experience. The 60-year-old New Yorker and professional yachtsman opened the door not to an after-hours techno party, but to the bright reception room at the Bluestone Center for Clinical Research, a large spa-like space occupying the second floor of New York University’s College of Dentistry. Kossut was among the first subjects of an NYU investigation into the question: Can the mystical states of mind occasioned by psychedelic drugs help alleviate anxiety and depression in people with terminal and recurrent cancer?
...
“It was absolutely incredible,” remembers Kossut. “The first rush was a little scary as I realized it wasn’t the placebo. That passed and next I was crossing boundaries of time and space and reality. I felt this weightlessness, this sense of being close to an unspeakable beauty that was unlike anything in my experience. For the first time since my diagnosis, I was not afraid of anything. The wall of depression that was building up day by day, the fear that I was going to die soon, that my daughter is only 8 — all those things disappeared. I wanted to stay there. I wanted it to last longer.”

It did. More than one year after his psilocybin session, Kossut reports greatly improved states of emotional and psychological well-being. “I walked out of the session happy, unafraid of death,” he says. “I don’t know why, but a transformation took place after being in that peaceful place. I relaxed. I started enjoying food again and was able to gain weight. The session taught me to be fully in the present. I’m optimistic. Mentally and physically, just better.”
------------
Among those who have benefited from a new trust in these deeper strata of consciousness is Janeen Delany, a Phoenix woman who flew to Baltimore for psilocybin therapy in 2008 after a leukemia diagnosis.

“I was struggling emotionally with my fear,” she remembers. “No matter how hard I tried to do the work myself, I couldn’t get to that place of acceptance.” More than two years later, Delaney describes her psilocybin experience as the turning point in coming to terms with her illness. “It changed my frame of mind,” she says. “This disease no longer defines me when I wake up in the morning. I understand myself as part of a greater whole made up of energy and frequencies. It’s impossible to put these insights into words, but they were real; are real. It felt like a thousand pounds lifted off my shoulders. I’m now the person I always wanted to be.”

(more at the above link)

It's a pretty great article all around, with some references to Aldous Huxley (and, in particular, his books The Doors of Perception, The Perennial Philosophy, and Island) that I particularly appreciated. It's criminal that these plants/substances are classified and disparaged as criminal in our culture; especially when you consider articles like this just recently on DU's front page - Antidepression Med Use Skyrocketed over 20 Years - in addition to articles like this - Why Medical Prescriptions May Be Killing Thousands of Americans Every Year - and, as the Salon article points out, the efficiency of psychedelics in more safely treating depression/anxiety/etc...(which references, among others, this John Hopkins study - 'Magic Mushrooms' Can Improve Psychological Health Long Term).

But it's my contention that these substances should not be limited for use in treating anxiety and/or end-of-life care. They, by almost all accounts, are completely transformative experiences in consciousness and compassion (especially when taken with great reverence/under proper Set & Setting). I don't mind further study being undertaken - hell, I'd love for our top colleges/medical institutions to introduce Psychedelic Studies in their curriculum (where they'd simultaneously teach stuff like Huxley's Perennial Philosophy to shed light on the equally important metaphysical/spiritual aspect of the experience, instead of solely focusing on the mere reductionist chemical aspect). But, as someone who commented on the article said:

"This is covering very old ground."

This isn't merely old, it's ancient. If now it's just a matter of finding the right doses, great. But it's far past time we were allowed safe, legal access to these sacred substances.

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite." - William Blake

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Whoever isn't impressed by this just doesn't understand the material, perhaps viewing

Thunderheart would do the trick.

[mdmc]

2. what is thunderheart?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. It is a movie that I thoroughly enjoyed, some quotes follow:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105585/quotes

Ray Levoi: Just before they caught Jimmy, I had a dream. I was running with other indians at the "Wounded Knee Cemetery". I was shot in the back.
Walter Crow Horse: You were running with the old ones at The Knee?
Ray Levoi: It was just a dream.
Walter Crow Horse: Who the hell are you, man?
Ray Levoi: What do you mean?
Walter Crow Horse: You had yourself a vision. A man waits a long time to have a vision, and he may go his whole life without having one. Then along comes some instant indian with a fucking Rolex and a brand new pair of shoes. A God damn FBI to top it all off, has himself a vision.
Walter Crow Horse: Oh, maybe it was just one of them, what do you call them? "Fitful dreams."
Ray Levoi: Yeah, fitful dreams.
Walter Crow Horse: Fitful dreams, horse shit! You had yourself a vision!
Ray Levoi: What the hell do you want me to do?
Walter Crow Horse: Whoa! Stop!
Walter Crow Horse: There it is, man. Red Deer Table.

[Lucinda]

4. Love that movie.

:)

[mdmc]

5. thanks for the reply

and link..

peace and low stress..

[HysteryDiagnosis]

8. Low stress.... you are looking at a person who can get Pubmed articles locked.... I now know

that I can do just about anything.... heh!!

[Ignis]

23. +1

[Warren DeMontague]

6. We need to stop the war on mental freedom

people should be able to do as they see fit with their own nervous systems.

[Lucinda]

7. I am, and always shall be a fan of these substances, however

I can see the danger possible for some users, unless there is careful monitoring of usage.

[slay]

9. Sign me up!

i rather enjoyed all the psychedelic experiments (not of the official variety of course) i did when i was younger - and would love to try it under a controlled environment with high quality substances - as long as listening to Pink Floyd is allowed. :evilgrin:

[loyalsister]

10. Some people get similar effects by immersing themselves in self- help

I am not real impressed with some of the "side effects" I have seen. People who suddenly have all the answers are annoying. I'm skeptical of anything marketed as a cure- all.

[madrchsod]

11. i like.......

i like it very much............

[On the Road]

12. Is There Any Place in the World Now Where Psylocybin or LSD are Legal?

I am glad the research is being done, but I think it would help for there to be a track record in a place where the process is routine and above board, even (or especially) if a professional has to be involved. US research is OK, but it invisible and vanishingly small. Various kinds of drug research have been going on for years, and hardly anyone even knows about them.

A http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/medical/mentalhealth/story/2011-10-20/Study-1-in-100-adults-made-suicide-plans-in-past-year/50843224/1">USA Today article says that one out of a hundred Americans made suicide plans in the past year. If psylocybin has this type of long-term effect, it could have a tremendous impact on the emotional well being of millions. The conversation has to start somewhere.

[piratefish08]

13. psilocybin spores are legal to buy and possess - google is your friend...

now if you were to grow those spores up into mushrooms, that would be illegal........


:evilgrin:

[On the Road]

15. That is Good to Know,

but I am a little afraid of growing my own mushrooms. I am not an expert and people have died from bad psylocybin.

I just think that nothing is going to change about psychedelics without their being part of the public discussion. For that to happen, it has to be above board somewhere and start from there. I have heard that some European countries have experimented with therapeutic LSD under professional supervision, but don't really know the current situation. Hence the question.

[EOTE]

19. People have died from bad mushrooms, not bad psilocybin.

Since it hardly has any toxicity itself. I'd imagine that the deaths that you've heard about were from people who thought that they had a magic mushroom, but didn't. There are also some other psychedelic mushrooms, such as Amanitas Muscarias that are fairly toxic at relatively low doses. If you know the spores you're getting, that wouldn't be a problem. Also, if you pinch the stem of a psilocybin bearing mushroom, it will bruise a green/bluish color. As far as I know, no other mushrooms do that.

[drokhole]

22. Good point, it's important to make that distinction!

Thanks for that! :hi:

[On the Road]

28. I Guess I Should Have Said Misidentified Mushrooms

or psylocybin tainted with some non p. cubensis mushrooms. This wasn't from an antidrug scare article, but from reading http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802135870/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=080410297X&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1SVMN1WTMRX9TMBJGCTW">"Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream," which is a fairly sympathetic account of the social phenomenon (and very well written).

So maybe it can be relatively safe if handled carefully. My girlfriend's son is growing shiitake mushrooms on some logs in the backyard, so he obviously doesn't feel like growing your own is poisoning yourself.

I got some material awhile back from an Aminita Muscaria outfit. It's interesting, but that stuff scares me more. It appears to be dangerous if you don't have the correct dose.

[drokhole]

21. An excellent point.

To answer your original question: as far as I know, psychedelics aren't legal - even in the clinical sense (aside from a few scattered trials here and there) - in any modern/"civilized" country. But I don't know very far, so I may be wrong. I've definitely heard of various indigenous tribes where traditional shaman still lead ayahuasca ceremonies (which contains the psychoactive ingredient DMT...another fascinating, ego-shattering, self-reflective substance - a worthwhile documentary on it can be found here: DMT: The Spirit Molecule). So, I guess that isn't really answering your question. Sorry.

But, you're absolutely right - there desperately needs to be an honest, open, fair discussion on this topic. Unfortunately, they've been so disparaged, dismissed, mocked and mislabelled, that it's hard to even broach the matter without hitting a brick wall of ignorance and misinformation (a dismissive "far out, man," or "whatever, hippie" will usually shoot the conversation down). That goes for the effects being regarded as "mere hallucinations" by many Very Serious Scientists (which really should still be up for debate, given the wide variety of disparate, cross-cultural people reporting strikingly similar "hallucinations" - but, even if that were true, that still doesn't dampen the stunningly beneficial/positive results...see quotes at end of post). And that's not to mention the unfair association with harmful, addictive narcotics like heroin. Calling them "drugs" alone evokes a negative conditioned response - which, when you really think about it, is also disingenuous given the loaded nature of the word "drugs." Alan Watts gives one of the better talks I've heard on that very subject:

Drug Abuse Law & Sin ∞ Alan Watts (1/5)

Heck, I'd venture to bet that they'll never be legalized/recognized as legitimate simply because they are currently labelled as Schedule I "drugs," since that would be admitting they were wrong all this time. Then there's the money it would most certainly take away from pharmaceutical companies (especially anti-anxiety and anti-depression drugs), and their proven affects at helping to treat hard-drug and alcohol addicts (which, again, affects certain pharmaceutical companies, and possibly even the rehab industry and returning clients for psychiatrists), and it goes on and on.

"By their fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots."

- William James

Murugan calls it dope and feels about it all the disapproval that, by conditioned reflex, the dirty word evokes. We, on the contrary, give the stuff good names—the moksha-medicine, the reality revealer, the truth-and-beauty pill. And we know, by direct experience, that the good names are deserved. Whereas our young friend here has no firsthand knowledge of the stuff and can't be persuaded even to give it a try. For him, it's dope and dope is something that, by definition, no decent person ever indulges in."

"What does His Highness say to that?" Will asked.

Murugan shook his head. "All it gives you is a lot of illusions," he muttered."All I mean is that I don't want any of your false samadhi."

"How do you know it's false?" Dr. Robert inquired.

"Because the real thing only comes to people after years and years of meditation and tapas and . . ."

"Murugan," Vijaya explained to Will, "is one of the Puritans. He's outraged by the fact that, with four hundred milligrams of moksha-medicine in their bloodstreams, even beginners can catch a glimpse of the world as it looks to someone who has been liberated from his bondage to the ego."

"But it isn't real," Murugan insisted.

"Not real!" Dr. Robert repeated. "You might as well say that the experience of feeling well isn't real."

"You're begging the question," Will objected. "An experience can be real in relation to something going on inside your skull but completely irrelevant to anything outside."

"Of course," Dr. Robert agreed.

"Do you know what goes on inside your skull, when you've taken a dose of the mushroom?"

"We know a little."

"Their response is the full-blown mystical experience. You know—One in all and All in one. The basic experience with its corollaries—boundless compassion, fathomless mystery and meaning."

"Not to mention joy," said Dr. Robert, "inexpressible joy."

"And the whole caboodle is inside your skull," said Will. "Strictly private. No reference to any external fact except a toadstool."

"Not real," Murugan chimed in. "That's exactly what I was trying to say."

"Do you like music?" Dr. Robert asked.

"More than most things."

"And what, may I ask, does Mozart's G-Minor Quintet refer to? Does it refer to Allah? Or Tao? Or the second person of the Trinity? Or the Atman-Brahman?"

Will laughed. "Let's hope not."

"But that doesn't make the experience of the G-Minor Quintet any less rewarding. Well, it's the same with the kind of experience that you get with the moksha-medicine, or through prayer and fasting and spiritual exercises. Even if it doesn't refer to anything outside itself, it's still the most important thing that ever happened to you. Like music, only incomparably more so. And if you give the experience a chance, if you're prepared to go along with it, the results are incomparably more therapeutic and transforming. So maybe the whole thing does happen inside one's skull. Maybe it is private and there's no unitive knowledge of anything but one's own physiology. Who cares? The fact remains that the experience can open one's eyes and make one blessed and transform one's whole life."

- Aldous Huxley, Island

[On the Road]

29. In the Early to Mid-Sixties,

a of psychotherapists began using LSD as a clinical tool, somtimes even in marriage counseling. From the originally linked article, it sounds like depression is an even better application.

I wouldn't give up on it entirely. Societies change. But it has to start somewhere. I saw mention of some recent therapeutic uses in Europe, but it looks like these are experimental as well, in places like the Netherlands and Switzerland. I guess it's a start.

[Zorra]

14. It should bel legal to grow and ingest peyote for medicinal purposes. IMO,

it is a more effective spirit/mind altering healing substance than other "psychedelics".

It is very often called "Medicine" and is a sacrament in the very beautiful Native American Church ceremony we commonly call "sitting up".

[drokhole]

18. Amen! Would especially make for a much better - and truer - sacrament for any type of "communion"

This was the plant whose substance Aldous Huxley ingested and described in Doors of Perception, and its fascinated me ever since (I also believe he wrote about those very Native American Church ceremonies in there, and how they were able to get the practice reinstituted). Regarding it (more correctly) as "medicine" also reminded me of in Huxley's Island, where "natives of the fictional paradise Pala ingest a psilocybin-like drug...during stages-of-life rituals" - and how, instead of "drugs," they call it "moksha-medicine, the reality revealer, the truth-and-beauty pills" because, one character points out, "we know, by direct experience, that the good names are deserved."

Thanks for your input and sharing the info! :hi:

[EOTE]

20. Why not other "psychedelics"?

Why not psilocybin? Why not DMT or it's traditional preparation "Ayahuasca"? Why not man made psychedelics like LSD for that matter? I think all of these drugs have many beneficial properties. I don't see why any of them should be illegal.

[dogknob]

16. Anything that removes fear will never be legal n/t

[HysteryDiagnosis]

17. Well put, well put. +1000. n/t

[sibelian]

24. Ye-es..... Well....

The vast majority of the serious recreational hallucinogen users I knew during my brief stint in that "scene" are now either suffering severely from clinical depression, in hospital against their will for psychosis-related disorders or steadfastly uninterested in distorting their perception of reality, responding with a polite but firm "no" to any of the younger members of my social group who still think this sort of thing is cool and offer mind-distorting experiences. One particularly excitable proponent of the theories around the use of hallucinogens in establishing a healthy mind went entirely mad, paranoid as you can get, was sectioned, escaped from the mental hospital he was confined to and has never been seen since. His disappearance was a catastrophic event in my social circle precipitating appalling repercussions for the mental health of his girlfriend who had a full-on nervous breakdown and his best friend who now spends his life, all of it, on the sofa skinning up.

There is a sinister undertone in the assumption that the mind can be "fixed" as if it's a chemistry experiment. A mind is a person and treating yourself as a laboratory in which you can invent any kind of ideation you like so long as it feels good is an extremely dangerous thing to do, not only because you might mistake the headlights in a stream of traffic for pretty fairy lights and want to go and play with them (as another friend did) but because the relation between ideology and neurochemistry is not *at all* a fully understood field and no-one has very much to say on what the *long term* chemical effects might be.

I have become increasingly exasperated with the idea that the brain can be tinkered with chemically for fun. It is a *physical* information processor whose processes are just as amenable to damage via chemical interference as any other organ in the body. We are not so dim-witted as to ignore the side effects of Prozac, Mirtazipine or alcohol but for some reason some of us are delighted to assume that illegal substances, very mysteriously, and quite often *only* the illegal substances, are clearly entirely safe and enjoyable and therapeutic and lovely despite the fact that these are the psychoactive substances that have NOT undergone serious clinical trials.

Maybe what we're dealing with here isn't the idea of drugs but the idea of banning something.

I speak as a very experienced ex-user of mushrooms, LSD, salvia and cannabis. I no longer touch any of them.

[EOTE]

25. Your anecdotal experience is trumped quite a bit by actual scientific studies.

I know quite a few psychonauts as well, they're all well employed and living happy lives. I know some others, like the pioneers of the internet. Or how about Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA? He was under the influence of LSD at the time. But hey, you know some burnouts, so all of that is null, right?

[sibelian]

26. Correct.

I will take my own experiences over second hand experiences every time.

Incidentally, your total disregard for my experiences utterly disgusts me, as do you.

[EOTE]

27. So, what about the other documented experiences?

You don't think your burnout friends are at least somewhat trumped by one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century (the structure of DNA)? Or by one of the greatest technological achievements of all time (the internet)? And by the way, you dismissing scientific studies as "second hand experiences" tells me how much you know or how much you respect science.

You talk about being disgusted by me dismissing your experiences, but you dismiss all other experiences which don't fit in your world view. And that makes you a hypocrite. Adults are more than capable of deciding what goes in their bodies. Just because some people can be idiots doesn't make that any less true.