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Post by Admin on Mar 19, 2022 18:02:18 GMT
DMT makes your brain think it’s dying—and it’s completely wonderful A new study compares the psychedelic DMT with near-death experiences. bigthink.com/culture-religion/dmt-makes-your-brain-think-its-dying-and-its-completely-wonderful/Back in the mid-nineties, I read a first-person article about the near-death experience (NDE) one curious traveler braved under the influence of ayahuasca while visiting the jungles of Brazil. The potent brew, which requires plants featuring the psychoactive compound dimethyltryptamine (DMT) as well as plants that provide alkaloids to elongate the hallucinogenic effects, has been ritualistically used for, well, “a long time” is the best guess anyone can muster. While memory is notoriously spotty, I specifically recall the writer lying down on the jungle dirt and watching his body from the forest canopy. Though disassociated, there was no fear. There might have been something about astral traveling; the fact that he had an NDE and returned, refreshed and reinvigorated, stayed with me. During my three experiences with ayahuasca (and numerous encounters with the isolated DMT; the effects only last a few minutes), I’ve had a similar experience on one occasion. The boundaries of my body felt porous; the distance between myself and my environment dissolved. I also spent a few years working as the music supervisor for the documentary film, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, watching the original four-plus hour cut. NDEs were the most common anecdote offered by those under the spell of this “plant medicine.” Beyond anecdotes, I’ve never vouched for the metaphysics of the substance. It offers an opportunity to dive deeply into my own psychology and contemplate my habitual patterns. The “healing,” to me, is confronting patterns I’d rather abandon; the ritual is a powerful reminder of why I should. There’s something special about the dissolution of perceived boundaries that anyone can draw benefit from. Treating the “death” metaphorically can serve as a catalyst for real-world transformation. A new study, published in the journal, Frontiers in Psychology, confirms that the NDE is a universal trait of DMT. A team of researchers from Imperial College London, supervised by one of the world’s leading researchers in psychedelic studies, Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, injected 13 healthy volunteers with either a compound of DMT or a placebo. They then asked 16 questions, comparing their responses to those preferred by 67 medical patients who had experienced NDEs during a heart attack. A universal experience not limited to psychedelics, the NDE is defined, in part, by “feelings of inner-peace, out-of-body experiences, traveling through a dark region or ‘void’ (commonly associated with a tunnel), visions of a bright light, entering into an unearthly ‘other realm’ and communicating with sentient ‘beings.’” Elves, specifically. People on DMT see elves. Chris Timmerman, a PhD candidate in Carhart-Harris’s Psychedelic Research Group and lead author of the study, summates the results: Our findings show a striking similarity between the types of experiences people are having when they take DMT and people who have reported a near-death experience. Before analogies drawn from sensations after ingesting an entheogen and those from a heart attack are entwined, the authors offer caution. DMT, they write, is like entering an “unearthly realm,” while actually nearly dying makes you feel like you’re approaching “a point of no return.” Context matters. That said, Carhart-Harris, who was featured prominently in Michael Pollan’s recent book about psychedelics (discussing how they can help terminally ill patients confront death) notes DMT’s therapeutic utility: These findings are important as they remind us that NDE occur because of significant changes in the way the brain is working, not because of something beyond the brain. DMT is a remarkable tool that can enable us to study and thus better understand the psychology and biology of dying. Pollan makes a similar point in his book. We often limit medicine to biological specificity. If I have a headache and a pill decreases inflammation associated with it, it “works.” If I have a heartache, am depressed, or am confronting terminal illness, the perspective given by psychedelics has not been treated as equally valid medicine. But it is, as this and other research is confirming. If the goal is healing someone in distress, be it physically or emotionally, all options should be on the table. As for the common occurrence of seeing little elves after ingesting DMT—I have not, though people I’ve been in a ceremony with have; the most I’ve “seen” is intense fractal patterns playing off of candlelight—the brain is a wonderful and mysterious machine. Dr. David Luke, a senior psychologist at Greenwich University that specializes in consciousness studies and psychedelics, believes that DMT might hold a key to understanding human spirituality. DMT is naturally produced in the human body (as well as in other mammals). It has been found in our lungs and eyes and, Luke mentions, appear to play a role in our immune system. The popular citation of DMT being produced in our pineal gland, which has led thousands of cosmonauts to speculate that our “third eye” produces the mystical DMT, is currently unfounded. It could be produced there, Luke says—trace amounts have been found in the pineal glands of rats—but research has not confirmed this. As Luke says: There is possibility but we have yet to discover what the pineal glands’ actually function is. It seems to be important as a neurological transmitter on certain, little understood, neurotransmitter sites in the brain … But the question remains why we have an extremely potent psychedelic chemical floating around in the human body. Can this account for spontaneous mythical and spiritual experiences? Could be. But as Timmerman concludes about his study, what’s really essential is DTM’s therapeutic utility. In this light, research is holding up.
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Post by Admin on Mar 21, 2022 12:41:44 GMT
To learn from a psychedelic trip, explore the dreams that follow psyche.co/ideas/to-learn-from-a-psychedelic-trip-explore-the-dreams-that-followThe psychedelic renaissance is fully upon us. Clinicians, directors of spiritual communities and others are engaged in the implementation of a bevy of psychedelic medicines to treat everything from major depression to problematic substance use to existential angst. Individuals with longstanding, multidimensional suffering are experiencing the relief of psychedelically induced tectonic perspective shifts. In his essay collection Alchemical Studies (1967), the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung suggested that life’s greatest problems ‘can never be solved, but only outgrown’. A psychedelic experience is indeed a self-expanding one. Research indicates that an essential healing mechanism of psychedelic use is the ‘mystical experience’: an encounter with the ineffable, with that-which-is-nothing-and-all, or that which you, as a discrete entity, are most certainly not. That is, psychedelics seem to heal by expanding people into something larger than they previously thought themselves to be. But this raises some questions. If psychedelics introduce us to realms of consciousness to which we cannot rationally attach ourselves – because they are too alien, too expanded, too mysterious – what are we meant to do with the insights attained in the underworld? How are we meant to integrate them into life? We could soon have millions of people taking psychedelics on their doctor’s orders, and the supercharged nature of these sorts of inner-world journeys warrants very intentional digesting. For the sake of orientation: by psychedelic experience I mean one resulting from a high dose of a plant medicine or entheogenic chemical compound – common ones include ayahuasca, peyote, psilocybin, mescaline, LSD, DMT, ketamine and MDMA – ingested in a ceremonial or therapeutic setting. (While people no doubt have profound experiences in recreational contexts, social settings tend to shift one’s orientation from inner to outer, thus barring some of the deeper insights for which integration would be warranted.) By integration I mean the digesting, assimilating and sense-making mechanisms that one can engage after the fact by reviewing the discoveries of the inner stones overturned while under the influence. Without integration, a psychedelic experience is a bit like a holiday on which you’re the best version of yourself – you’re attentive with your children, lovingly related to your partner, gleaming with a playful knowing shared with strangers in winks and smirks, and bursting with creativity – only to return home and decide that your vacation self is impossible to maintain during your default life, and so you shut the door on it entirely. The experience alone is not enough to transform; for that, we need to consciously choose to apply what we have seen, felt and known to our waking life. We must understand the experiences on a deep enough level that, in the words of the religion scholar Huston Smith, our altered states become altered traits. This, in my personal experience, requires two things. Firstly, we must willingly submit to the temporary breakdown of our rational consciousness. That is, we must release the ego-stance that suggests: ‘I am only that which I believe myself to be, and what I know is all there is to know.’
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Post by Admin on Apr 8, 2022 14:56:18 GMT
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Post by Admin on May 11, 2022 14:39:26 GMT
The Dark Side of Plant Medicine Join Nina Izel as we learn about some of the risks - and strategies for safety - in working with plant medicine. psychedelic.support/resources/dark-side-plant-medicine/While plant medicine can be deeply healing, there is also the potential for harm. Join Nina Izel as we learn about some of the risks – and strategies for safety – in working with plant medicines. This article explores: The abuse of money, sex and power in psychedelic assisted therapy Predators exist, how to recognize them Identifying the red flags How to stay safe during you plant medicine healing journey The Plant Medicine Renaissance We are experiencing a psychedelic renaissance, right now in the West. And undoubtedly the past 20 years, the research, use, legalization of some entheogens (like magic mushrooms or cannabis) keeps growing and spilling over into mainstream medicine. There is promising research showing the benefits of certain psychoactive substances easing the suffering of chronic disease, mental illness and death. A growing number of people are traveling from the West to Central and South America to participate in shamanic retreats and work with psychoactive plants such as Ayahuasca, Wachuma, Iboga, and more. Cultural Differences in Plant Medicine Spaces One of the challenge is that most people in the West lack history, knowledge, culture and experience regarding these plants and how to use them. Most of us are not familiar with the term shaman and don’t understand how a spirit in a plant can help to heal our cancer, for example. We read the miraculous stories on social media of how some people’s life changed after an Ayahuasca retreat and we think finally, we found the magic pill. And while I personally believe that these plants are powerful allies in our healing and awakening, I am also aware of the nature of duality. Namely that where there is light, there is a shadow. And while the healing light of these medicines are widely celebrated, as it should be, the shadows are often ignored. Where There is Light, There is a Shadow So, let’s look at that shadow of plant medicines with the intention to learn and to educate ourselves on how to use these power plants in a sacred, conscious and responsible way. The general shadow aspect of any profession in society is the abuse of money, sex and power, with sexual abuse being the most common breach of ethics in a therapeutic setting. Holistic healing and plant medicine work is not an exemption from this, sadly. When you go to Peru or Costa Rica to participate in an Ayahuasca retreat (or Kambo or Bufo or San Pedro) you enter uncharted territory. First of all, you are out of your comfort zone, out of the familiar, maybe don’t even speak the language and second you are to embark upon a journey that you know nothing about, with people you don’t know and have never met before. Beware of the Shaman’s Spell Most of us want to trust people, especially when they use words we want to hear and promise things we deeply desire. When we are in the unknown and feel afraid and insecure, we naturally look for guidance. On top of that, when we are on a healing journey, we can be in pain, triggered, sensitive and overwhelmed, in other words, we are in a vulnerable state. Under these circumstances, we can be easily influenced, sometimes manipulated or exploited. We must remember that predators do exist and can sometimes take a form of a shaman or healer. Sometimes we can fall into a shaman’s spell, seeing what we want to see, a powerful, magical, perfect being: Shaman, Healer. We have to remember that when we meet a shaman we only see part of reality because we don’t know anything about their life or their reputation in their community. It can be hard to discern who are we really seeing and what kind of ‘powers’ they have, especially when we don’t know about anything of shamanism or plant medicine. Do Your Research / Preparation for the Journey It’s my desire to help you to discern and recognize the red flags so you can find a safe place/people to work with these power plants, if you are called to do so. The following are some guidelines to help you discern between people who are really in service to others and people who use their power for self-serving purposes. The most important thing is not to give your power away thinking that shamans and gurus are perfect or superior or God-like, but instead use your logic and reason combined with your intuitive guidance to find out what serves you and what is not in your best interest. The Reputation of a Healer/Shaman/Retreat Center When you choose a place/person to lead you on this plant medicine journey, you can do a little background check and personally connect with people who can provide you with more information on the place or people who you are looking to work with. These include former participants, the staff/leader of the retreat or ceremony, members of the community where the retreat/ceremony is taking place. Please not to rely on just one source of information or book a retreat based on a flyer you saw on social media. Informed Consent Every place/shaman/healer with integrity has a client intake process. This normally consists of a written intake form you fill out about your background and medical history and also a verbal consultation to discuss specific needs and desires. In addition, there has to be a signed agreement about the duties and responsibilities of both the client and the shaman/healer/retreat center, including pricing, number and duration of sessions and ceremonies. Performing any kind of healing, ceremony and ritual without informed consent can be potentially harmful and dangerous. Transparency, Integrity Choosing a place/people with integrity is of utmost importance, but what does integrity really mean? Integrity means saying what you think, doing what you speak of, in other words leading, by example. Often people say something but then do something completely different. To bring your thoughts, words and deeds into alignment means being in your integrity. Transparency means you are open about your life, not much is hidden or secret. In general people who are more transparent have less to hide. For me what makes a shaman/healer with integrity is somebody who uses their power in a conscious and responsible way for the benefit of all. As I mentioned earlier, the most common pitfalls in life (and in plant medicine) are the misuse of money, sex and power. To know somebody on a deeper level, we can look at their relationship with money, sex and power to have a more accurate picture of who they really are. Service to Others Some people can be described as in service to self, while others are in service to others. This simply means that the service-to-others people are always working with the intention to serve the highest good of all and uplift the collective. These people usually lead a life of example and have a high reputation within their community. For obvious reasons, when you are looking for healing and higher guidance, you want to work with a person of integrity, ethics and service to others. On the other hand, service-to-self people put themselves above others, consider their needs to be of utmost priority, even to the detriment of others. Some harm people out of selfish ignorance, not being aware of the consequence of their actions, while others can cause harm intentionally. We call this black magic in the shamanic context. Shamans/healers/way showers who use their power to inflict harm are creating a portal to the lower realms (lower astral worlds) where we can easily get lost or attacked.
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Post by Admin on Jul 6, 2022 17:52:58 GMT
Wednesday, July 6, 2022 Ways Forward in the Wake of Psychedelic Therapy Abuse By David S. Prescott, LICSW, and Natalie Villeneuve, MSW, RSW blog.atsa.com/2022/07/ways-forward-in-wake-of-psychedelic.htmlSeveral weeks ago, we wrote a blog post highlighting concerns about abuse taking place within psychedelic therapy. This centered on revelations from a podcast titled, Cover Story: Power Trip, which uncovered how practitioners have engaged in abusive practices, often seemingly ignored by researchers. We have also recently written an article that explores the issues and offers some ideas on the way forward. In many cases, the evidence has been shocking. The main forces behind this podcast (and many other efforts), Lily Kay Ross and Dave Nickles, are to be commended for their efforts. As always, we have been grateful to the survivors who were willing to help us by telling their stories and reviewing drafts of our writings. Since our first blog, other allegations have surfaced, such as this example, in which a therapist is reported to have taken millions from an elderly client who was a holocaust survivor. Although legal action against the therapist, Vicky Dulai, reportedly began in May 2021, the case was only reported in April 2022. These allegations were especially noteworthy given that Dulai is on the board of directors for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which initiated an investigation only after the case was reported publicly. Not surprisingly, MAPS trials are now under review over the alleged abuse of study participants. For their part, MAPS has not appeared to prioritize the needs or rights of those who have been harmed. The above linked reporting discusses how it took several years for them to review video recordings of abuse that took place under their auspices. More recently, the distinguished trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk has become the principal investigator for MAPS in Boston. Of course, van der Kolk himself had been fired from a position he held for many years following allegations of employee mistreatment in 2017. It has seemed clear to us, as professionals working in the field of trauma, that the practice and research efforts in current psychedelic therapy have not fully accounted for the unacceptable risk of harm that takes place when abuse occurs. Setting aside the more overt forms of abuse already covered, it’s worth repeating that discussions of informed consent, and the withdrawal of consent have remained in short supply. Two recent examples come to mind. The first example appeared on Twitter recently, when Ronan Levy, the founder of Field Trip (whose mission is to “bring the world to life through psychedelics and psychedelic-enhanced psychotherapy”) posted to Twitter about a man who had accidentally taken “magic mushrooms.” The original story described a police officer who had “unwittingly” taken this drug and now takes microdoses of it every day to alleviate his depression. Levy’s summary is, “From unwitting to witting. That’s the nature of wisdom.” The tweet implies that giving someone these drugs without their knowledge is acceptable. It also implies that microdosing psychedelics with no plan for termination is also acceptable. This has led us to wonder where the boundaries are in implementing psychedelic therapies are. The second example is in some of the historical underpinnings of psychedelic therapies. A Google search on the term “There is no such thing as a bad trip” can be enlightening. Much of the history of this statement is addressed in the Cover Story: Power Trip podcast, but it is worthy of a deeper dive, such as in this post in Psychology Today, this paper in the International Journal of Drug Policy, and this article in Medium. Each is optimistic about the nature of psychedelics, but none seems to acknowledge that some bad experiences can be very bad indeed. Some survivors have described lingering effects from these drugs, as well as increased usage of them after the purportedly therapeutic experiences. While reframing adverse events in one’s life can be profoundly healing, it seems bizarre to tell people who have had bad experiences that they are looking at them incorrectly. It is completely contrary to what we know does and doesn’t work across all forms of psychotherapy. One early proponent, Salvador Roquet, was well known for initiating difficult experiences as part of his work. From the Psychology Today post linked above: Another fascinating example is the therapeutic model of Mexican public health doctor Salvador Roquet, who had reasoned that the perennial human fear of death was the root of all forms of anxiety. Hence, Roquet purposefully subjected his patients to abuse and showed them violent and pornographic footage under the influence. This may seem crude, but some patients were allegedly better off after their trips. Tying these threads together, there is ample reason to be concerned that the use of psychedelic therapy is not staying true to its Indigenous roots and that sub-cultures within it are emerging that tolerate and, in some instances, even encourage abusive behaviors. This is especially concerning when one considers what is at stake: the effective treatment of anxiety, depression, and trauma. It seems that psychedelic therapies as currently implemented need to examine not only the abuses taking place within them, but also the cultures that permit them. To that end, it is our hope that: · Practitioners and organizations such as MAPS, Field Trip, and many others will enlist the assistance of trauma experts and use survivors’ voices as their strongest guidance in moving forward. Advancing too quickly without this guidance poses an unacceptable risk of harm not only to deeply vulnerable clients, but also to these efforts more broadly. · These same entities can conduct extensive work into the nature of informed consent as it applies to research and practices that use these drugs. The nature of psychedelics makes them different in kind from other interventions. This work can involve considerations of how clients can withdraw consent. · As we indicate elsewhere, these entities can also develop active cultures of feedback from participants to ensure that the voices of those adversely affected are heard. By “active,” we mean working diligently to develop a culture in which each client’s voice is solicited, and each voice is heard, understood, and respected. This must be a collaborative culture, one in which the client is welcome to speak out with no concern about judgment or negative repercussions. · Finally, these entities can also guard against a practice which is too common elsewhere. All too often, psychiatric medications are assigned very quickly after brief office visits. These entities will benefit from guarding against processes that are so brief that they neglect the potential downside impact of these drugs. It is our hope that deep considerations in these areas will be helpful to everyone involved, starting with the survivors themselves.
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Post by Admin on Jul 11, 2022 11:25:42 GMT
Psychedelic Therapy Will Not Save Us By Erica Rex -June 17, 2022 www.madinamerica.com/2022/06/psychedelic-therapy-will-not-save-us/It was tempting to imagine that therapists of the psychedelic movement were going to be cut from dramatically different cloth than that of my parents’ generation. They are not so fine after all. The cult of personality, and the penchant for victim blaming in the field, seems to be unkillable. I took part in an MDMA session during the Covid confinement. I’d been stranded in Paris following the unfortunately timed coincidence of the sale of my small house in the Loire Valley. I’d already signed the contract when the pandemic arrived. My intended return to the US was thwarted. All of my belongings had to be moved into storage willy-nilly. I moved into a friend’s Paris apartment, expecting to be there a month. A year later, Paris was still under effective martial law. City services had all but ceased. There was garbage everywhere. Rats appeared on the streets. I was mugged twice in my own small quartier. I became extremely depressed and anxious; I was losing my mind. During this time, I interviewed a woman doctor, a one-time psycholytic therapist, for a newsletter I was writing. She invited me to visit her and her husband at their home in another European city. The circumstances around the experience were challenging. I had to obtain paperwork to be permitted to travel more than a few kilometers outside Paris. I had to prove I’d been vaccinated at a time when vaccinations were hard to come by. Fortunately, an infectious diseases doc with whom I was acquainted made that possible. I was so grateful to be invited, and to be among people after over a year of total isolation — people who appeared to welcome me into their home even though they did not know me, no less — that when the experience deviated into something unexpected and off-piste, I wanted nothing more than to dismiss the idea anything was awry. At first, I was too confused to disclose what happened. After a year, I’ve begun to comprehend the experience in terms of the dimensions of what can occur in the psychedelic space when practitioners whose own drug use, and persistent adulation by their clients and disciples, leads them to believe they are larger than life. Normal rules of conduct do not apply. In retrospect, that is what happened here. In such hands as these, the dangers MDMA poses intensify a participant’s vulnerability exponentially — at her own peril. MDMA is an empathogen — a drug that produces feelings of emotional communion, oneness and emotional openness. Interpersonal boundaries can blur. The husband’s statement of his feelings of attraction to me — along with his wife’s blandishments, “you’re beautiful” — early in the session as the drug effects came on, unmoored me. I was supposed to trust them. Could I? I recall my exact thought was: “I really do not need this.” Even before the session, I began to feel as though the entire event was engineered. Why ever did she invite me? She was busy with her therapy clients during the week (once a doctor, she now has a busy psychotherapeutic clientele), which left her husband to take me under his own wing. I began to see their intentions less as selfless gestures toward a woman on her own in a Parisian Covid hellscape than as a balm to relieve them of their own ennui. Conditions in their city weren’t nearly as bad as in Paris. Here, people were masked, but otherwise moving about normally. Still, the pandemic had affected everyone all over Europe. As the week went on, the lingering effects of the drug session colored the time I spent at their household. I engaged in integration sessions with my host several mornings, where we sat at a table and she encouraged me to examine my feelings about a role-play I took part in during the session where her daughter played the part of my mother. But these seemed to be a kind of scrim over the dynamics of what was occurring in her household. The husband surprised me one evening when I was emerging from the sauna in the basement. I was naked and about to shower. Suddenly there he was. Seeing him approach, I told him I’d just gotten out of the sauna and was about to shower. I pulled a towel off a hook and wrapped it around myself. He halted, stared at me unflinchingly for maybe thirty seconds, then turned and went back upstairs. This encounter engendered some longer-term fallout. The couple’s own backstory is one of manifold boundary violations. After her first marriage ended following an affair from which she emerged devastated, my host, who was a doctor, began a Holotropic Breathwork training, among many other therapeutic modalities, to help her on her quest to confront her own issues and eventually use her knowledge to help others. Her present-day husband came to her as a client. He was also divorced. She taught him how to practice Holotropic Breathwork, and introduced him to MDMA. The two fell in love. Her daughter (who was in our MDMA session) later left her own husband to marry another man (a former client of my host who was also in the session). This man’s former wife (also a one-time psychotherapy client of my host) outed them to the police over a decade before, blaming my host for the breakup of her marriage. Both my hosts, husband and wife, were arrested. They spent time in prison, and paid hefty fines. The husband gave up his license to practice law as a result. Their casual air toward holding an MDMA session in their home, given their history of problems with the law, astonished me. (And why in the world would they include a woman they’d never met before?) Although nothing physical or aggressive occurred, the boundary violations took a significant toll. They brought up feelings from my childhood, of having been used as a pawn in my parents’ alcohol-infused folie a deux. My parents were both shrinks: my father a psychiatrist, my mother a psychologist. She was an alcoholic, he was a barbiturate and alcohol abuser, and a rage-addicted narcissist. The second of four, I’d been the family scapegoat. I was my mother’s personal whipping boy. I was often separated from my siblings. I felt, once again, that I was back at home in the worst possible way. I found myself revisiting the wished-for idea of home as a place of greater safety. At this couple’s house, just as with my parents, the reality was anything but. The experience was compounded when I learned, upon returning to Paris, that my father, from whom I’ve been estranged my entire adult life, died the day I was traveling to meet them. The coincidence was more than eerie. More complicated feelings followed. I did not write about these occurrences, initially, for fear of harming my hosts. Once the Paris lockdown was over, I moved to Alsace to get my bearings, and to have the contents of my house delivered to me, finally, from storage, so I could sort through them prior to my now two year delayed move back to the US. Living within a few hours of them, I suggested a visit to my hosts. Over the course of the year, I asked to see them a few times. I suggested to the husband we meet for coffee, as a way of clearing the air. Each time, I was rebuffed. For reasons I can only surmise, they no longer speak to me. I would have expected that psychedelic therapists — or any therapists — as experienced as they would be more self-aware about their own issues, and their own boundaries, and be able to face them. Not so. Theirs was a very different response from the other psychedelic experience I had, as part of a clinical trial in 2012. My 2012 psilocybin experience left me with the sense I was part of a larger community. That feeling lingers to this day. I remain in touch with some of the researchers. Here, with the MDMA experience, I felt as though I was left high and dry. I was especially troubled by the husband: once I’d made my own boundaries clear, we spent what were for me pleasant hours together walking in the forest above the town with their dog and talking. I was able for the first time to speak candidly about my marriage, which ended in 2005. He was thoughtful and reflective. Knowing I used to ride, he’d taken me to the barn where he rides. He invited me to take a few lessons, if I liked, on his own horse, or on another horse in the barn. He invited me to a hotel he owns in the mountains for a night — an experience whose boundaries I made a point of defining and clarifying explicitly with him in advance of the excursion as non-intimate, and social only. He seemed fine with my candor — at least on the surface — protesting that he was able to have women friends, and had many, his riding instructor among them. These occurrences have left me with the impression that I’d been used as a toy. My vulnerability and isolation, my very reasons for trusting them when I was literally at my worst, were my undoing. I’m now convinced MDMA is not the right drug for female trauma survivors — especially when guided by practitioners who have boundary issues themselves. But how is one to know in advance? The inflated self-image many practitioners project, refined over many years, coupled with a sense of their own infallibility, often becomes mixed up with their own unacknowledged needs. They’re not likely to be doing much self-examination. Boundaries become even more porous under the influence of the drug because of the flood of oxytocin it causes and the feel-good messages it can elicit when participants take it together during the session. For women survivors of sexual or physical trauma, MDMA should be used judiciously. Or maybe it shouldn’t be used at all. MDMA for veterans is a different story entirely because of the nature of their experiences, and the nature of the population itself. Male veterans as subjects are coming to grips with guilt and shame over what they did to others during war in service to an outside authority. They must face the horror of their own actions — not what was done to them. They never lost or relinquished their own agency, even if they chose to submit to the demands of the service hierarchy. Autonomy and their own power never actually failed them, unless, for instance, they became prisoners of war. By contrast, women dealing with sexual, physical and emotional trauma must come to grips with their internalized shame and fear because of what was done to them when they were powerless. Victimized women had no agency, and no capacity to make decisions in and around their abuse. The physical and emotional violations were enacted upon them. They are the victims of the actions of others. MDMA compounds their vulnerability. Under MDMA, women relinquish personal agency, as they were forced to do when they were abused. Under the drug, they are entirely powerless. Guides or therapists who are willfully unaware of their own boundaries endanger them. Having tried several therapeutic modalities — conventional psychotherapy when I was younger and more recently, psychedelic therapy — I’m convinced the classic psychedelics, such as psilocybin and ayahuasca, when used with the right guides in the right settings, are far more suitable for women dealing with trauma. MDMA should probably be avoided altogether. *** Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.
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Post by Admin on Jul 28, 2022 13:05:04 GMT
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PLANS FOR LEGAL PSYCHEDELIC THERAPIES WITHIN TWO YEARS A letter from the Health and Human Services Department discloses the anticipated FDA approval of MDMA and psilocybin treatments. theintercept.com/2022/07/26/mdma-psilocybin-fda-ptsd/AS TWIN MENTAL HEALTH and drug misuse crises kill thousands of people per week, the potential of psychedelic-assisted therapies “must be explored,” urges a federal letter on behalf of the U.S. health secretary and shared with The Intercept. President Joe Biden’s administration “anticipates” that regulators will approve MDMA and psilocybin within the next two years for designated breakthrough therapies for PTSD and depression respectively. The administration is “exploring the prospect of establishing a federal task force to monitor” the emerging psychedelic treatment ecosystem, according to the letter sent by assistant secretary for mental health and substance use Miriam Delphin-Rittmon to Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa. The May correspondence, not shared publicly until now, is the clearest indication yet that top officials are preparing for the approval of psychedelic drugs — demonized for decades after former President Richard Nixon sought means to attack the anti-Vietnam War counterculture in the late 1960s — which was arguably unthinkable even five years ago.
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Post by Admin on Aug 6, 2022 19:03:50 GMT
Over the counter culture: Are psychedelics coming to the corner shop? Kevin E G Perry www.msn.com/en-gb/health/medical/over-the-counter-culture-are-psychedelics-coming-to-the-corner-shop/ar-AA10mIjjSix years ago, when journalist Michael Pollan started work on a book about the potential of psychedelic drugs such as mescaline, psilocybin, MDMA and LSD to treat a variety of mental health conditions including OCD, PTSD, alcoholism and depression, he met academics who were wary about declaring their interest in a subject then still considered taboo. “I interviewed several scientists who knew a lot about psychedelics and were really interested in them,” he recalls. “And when I would ask them: ‘Well, why don’t you study them?’ They would say things like: ‘The reputational risk is too great’, or ‘It would be the kiss of death for my graduate students’.” Times have changed. When Pollan’s book, How to Change Your Mind, was published in May 2018 it became an instant sensation. It topped The New York Times best-seller charts and has since been adapted into a four-part Netflix documentary series that hit screens last month. The book kick-started a conversation that has had real-world impacts – and not just for those with a pre-existing mental health diagnosis. In 2020, voters in Oregon backed a measure that from January next year will establish a state psilocybin program offering guided psychedelic therapy sessions to anyone 21 and older, regardless of whether they have a prescription. Meanwhile, groundbreaking research is taking place at universities such as Johns Hopkins medical school in Maryland and California’s University of Berkeley, where Pollan himself recently co-founded the Berkeley Centre for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP). “The psychedelic renaissance is well under way,” according to Imran Khan, the BCSP’s executive director, who spoke at a press conference last week. “We’re at the dawn of an exciting new era of scientific, social and spiritual exploration of psychedelics after several decades of their political and cultural suppression.” This change in attitude towards psychedelics has happened at remarkable speed, but it isn’t entirely unprecedented. Oregon was also a trailblazer when it came to the use of cannabis, which was decriminalised in the state as far back as 1973. This paved the way for cannabis to be legalised for medical use, which is now the case in 37 of the 50 states, and eventually for “recreational” or adult use, which has so far passed into law in 19 US states. Whether or not psychedelics can follow a similar pathway from medicinal use to full legalisation remains to be seen, but some companies aren’t waiting around to find out. Californian social media influencers and prominent figures such as rapper Wiz Khalifa have recently been showered with packets of psychedelic mushrooms by a brand named Psilo. The same company has recruited athletes such as nine-year NFL veteran Kenny Stills to talk about their use of psychedelics with the aim of “normalising psilo”. “The way that I was raised, I was pessimistic, negative and one of those people who I thought could never change,” says Stills in a slickly produced video for the brand. “To see my personal growth through therapy, mindset work and microdosing psilocybin totally changed the way that I think and live and feel. The easiest way for me to describe it is like the weight of all the things in the world come off of your shoulders, come off of your chest. It just makes it easier for you to live.” Psilo isn’t the only brand looking to destigmatise the use of psychedelics. Earlier this month, Psychedelic Water launched across the US, and is now available in more than 500 locations, including Walmart and Urban Outfitters. While the lightly carbonated drink is by no means as potent as substances like MDMA or psilocybin – its active ingredient is the kava root, which has long been revered in the Fiji islands for its mildly psychoactive effects – the way it’s being marketed and sold is an indication of how psychedelics could be packaged for mainstream consumption. It ties into a popular lifestyle trend, “California Sober”, a term coined by journalist Michelle Lhooq to describe those who eschew alcohol in favour of cannabis and psychedelics, which counts the likes of singer Demi Lovato among its adherents.
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Post by Admin on Sept 4, 2022 22:09:16 GMT
The symbiotic ecology of the psychedelic realm Reading | Philosophy of mind www.essentiafoundation.org/the-symbiotic-ecology-of-the-psychedelic-realm/reading/The many seemingly autonomous entities encountered in the psychedelic realm suggest that human consciousness is the result of psychic symbiosis, entailing both personal and transpersonal formative principles, argues Dr. Walden in this fascinating essay. Psychedelics are becoming mainstream. In the wake of cannabis legalization, and following some of its legal and economic pathways, several psychedelic plants have been decriminalized in a number of cities across the US; and beginning in 2023, psilocybin will be legal (with various restrictions) in the entire state of Oregon. Clinical research on the medicinal use of psychedelics is being pursued at a frenzied pace, fueled by both philanthropic funding and extremely promising early results for their safety and efficacy in treating various recalcitrant mental health issues including addiction, depression and PTSD. There are well-endowed centers for research at Johns Hopkins, The University of Texas at Austin, NYU, Ohio State University, Mass General Hospital, etc., as well as a number of non-profit and public benefit corporations. And of course, for-profit and publicly traded companies have invested heavily in manufacturing and standardization, not only to supply clinical research, but to gain market share in the case that psychedelics are legalized nationally—an outcome they forecast the next few years. This list is of course limited to my own country; similar movement is parallel, or even outpacing these developments, in Canada, the UK, The Netherlands and elsewhere. The need to train mental health professionals in the optimal use of these medicines has produced a surge in published work on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. But there is also a growing literature on the historical contexts of psychedelic plant use, the protection of indigenous knowledge and cultures, philosophical and speculative works on the content of psychedelic visions, and so on. This has opened up new possibilities for exploring psychedelics in the context of the arts, music, social theory, religious studies, and not least of all, the philosophy of consciousness. What follows is a beginning, an effort to make the first few steps in using the data from psychedelic experience to expand our philosophical understanding of what consciousness is, and how it relates to existence itself. If a given consciousness is like everything else in the cosmos, we should be able to clarify at least two dimensions of its ontological structure: its distinction from other consciousnesses and its internal coherence. In other words, what is it that distinguishes a consciousness or a conscious self from other conscious selves? But also, what are the internal components or aspects of a consciousness, and how are they held together? Several authors have made good inroads into the first issue, describing in various ways how consciousness, though ultimately a single substance, can partition itself amongst selves who believe they are independent. But the issue of internal complexity has not been adequately addressed. While we may recognize certain kinds of multiplicity in our conflicting desires and discrete levels of self-knowledge, these considerations are almost always examined from a psychological perspective only, ignoring what they suggest about the metaphysics of consciousness. I would like to move in this direction by suggesting two kinds of constitutive principles: functional independence and symbiosis. Both of these principles can be understood by analogy to the human body. By functional independence within the human body, I mean the limited integrity of the various organ systems. The circulatory system, the nervous system, and so on, each have a degree of functional autonomy, but at the same time, they are hierarchically structured in the sense that they serve a common telos [Editor’s note: purpose, goal] in the functioning of the body as a whole. Thus, they have both lateral interrelations, to the extent that they overlap, cooperate, and sometimes interfere with each other, as well as vertical relations. The overall integrity of these systems requires smooth functionality in both dimensions. In a similar way, we learn from the Abhidharma tradition [Editor’s note: ancient Buddhist philosophy] that consciousness can be analyzed in terms of its discrete perceptual bases, which have a number of interrelations. What we call sight, sound, hunger and anger are so many disparate consciousnesses that operate in parallel, but are also vertically aligned (by the five aggregates or categories) to form the experience of objects and events in the constructed world. The perceptual world is neither ultimately real, nor ultimately unreal. It simply has the constructed nature that it does, which is shared, robust and continuous in (our experience of) time. The nature of the self is that it is one construction among others. So, from this Buddhist perspective, if you want to understand what the self is, you simply need to understand the process by which the bases or foundations of perceptual consciousness are synthesized. I have explored this kind of internal complexity in an earlier essay. For the remainder of the present essay, I want to focus on the other kind of internal plurality: namely, symbiosis. The analogy of the body, in this case, rests on the observation that much of our body is not our own at all, but made up of various quasi-independent microorganisms. I have in mind especially our gut bacteria, which are so important not only for the digestion of our food, but for the regulation of mood, our immune system, and even cognition. Researchers have found strong connections between our microbiome, stress and auto-immune responses such as inflammation, which is at the root of a host of physical illnesses. There is even evidence showing a relationship between gut biome diversity and autism. Given the sheer number of neurons in the gut, and its role in producing neurotransmitters such as serotonin, we are justified in saying that the gut thinks for itself (think, for instance, of ‘gut feelings’). But what’s important here is the fact that this second brain is, in large part, genetically alien. This means that our bodies are much more complex (logically, not just biologically) than we normally assume. The body is like a nation-state in miniature, where most of its citizens are genetically similar, but a substantial minority are immigrants and refugees of questionable legal status. The issue of hospitality is of paramount importance here. At the risk of multiplying analogies recklessly, think about how one might respond to ants in the house. If you have a lot of ants there are at least two options. On the one hand you might lay out traps and poisons. There is even the nuclear option: the kind of poison which the ant takes back to the nest and which wipes out the entire colony. On the other hand, you could simply seal cracks in the molding and do a better job sweeping up crumbs, to minimize the motivation for ants to come in in the first place. Which option do you instinctively prefer? Now, what if I suggested that the ants you have were a special kind of carpenter ant, which actually helped maintain your house, repairing rotten wood, and even driving away disease-carrying vermin? Then you might think twice about trying to seal them out, much less trying to kill them all off. Just so, most of the bacteria in and on your body are not only not harmful, but very helpful in minimizing the harmful bacteria, along with their other household tasks. Doctors have finally started to come around to the dangers of overprescribing antibiotics! In our era, the most dangerous cells in our body are not foreign invaders, but our own cells mutated out of control in the form of cancers. What I want to suggest here is that many of the thoughts and feelings we experience as ‘our own’ are not really our own at all, but genetically alien, quasi-independent selves, which exist in symbiosis with the ‘native’ aspects of our conscious lives as described in the Abhidharmic analysis. They are those mysterious and mischievous beings that have been called at various times gods, spirits, angels, demons, elves, archetypes, mass-delusions, aliens, neuroses, and so on. They constitute a rather heterogenous collection of forms of consciousness that have their own psychologies, their own moral principles, their own likes and dislikes. But like the microbiome in our guts, they serve prophylactic and other functional purposes that we are deeply dependent on. If we welcome them as full citizens of our psyche, we will be all the stronger for it. The basis for the present proposal comes from the contemporary confluence of comparative mythology and religion on the one hand, and on the other the renaissance of research on psychedelics. This convergence has its roots in the work of the patriarchs of the ‘perennial philosophy’ (William James, Huston Smith, Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts), who were themselves fascinated by the similarities between ancient myths and the phenomenological contents of non-ordinary states of consciousness. The implicit suggestion is that humans universally share the neurological capacity to enter into visionary states in which they experience interior but transpersonal events of the highest reality, value and meaning. The ways in which people enter these states are rather varied. They can be triggered by (among other things) oxygen depletion, fasting, sensory deprivation, drumming, psychoactive medicines, or most often, some combination thereof. The contents of visionary states are widely consistent not only with each other, but with the contents of the world’s mythologies and religions. They include several classes of material experienced as ‘given’: Gods, spirits, angels and demons, and inhabitants of other realms of being; conscious intelligence in non-human actors such as animals, insects, plants and the Earth itself (herself?); Consciousness/Existence itself experienced as unified and purposeful; the souls of others, alive and dead; specific insights about one’s mortal life encompassing healing, moral renewal and vocation. So, from the perspective of the sheer subject matter, it obviously looks as if the stories, myths and beliefs that we think of as ‘religious’ may have their origin here. But what is actually happening here? Are people who take this medicine simply projecting unconsciously remembered myths and repressed wisdom onto the dreamlike stage of visionary experience? Or are the myths actually the literary record of encounters with independent non-physical realities? The third option, a middle way, is that the experience is literally a manifestation of mind, that is, an opportunity to see the internal structure of one’s own consciousness, and an insight into the nature of consciousness more generally. Up till now, the primary context for describing and interpreting the entities encountered in visionary states has been mythic, religious and/or supernatural. On the other hand, the common denominator in all these categories can be seen as consciousness itself: the appearance of consciousness in unexpected places, and in unexpected forms. The term ‘psychedelic’ means ‘mind-manifesting.’ I want to argue that this is precisely what is happening in these states: the structure of the personal self, the ordinary ego identity, is temporarily stripped away, or at least thinned to the point of transparency, so that the underlying structures and forces that constitute consciousness more broadly are revealed. In this case, the various beings encountered are not independent selves in the way that individual humans (think they) are; rather, they are patterns in the structure of consciousness, best understood (so far) in terms of Jungian archetypes. Recall that Jung [Editor’s note: Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung] was essentially a Kantian at heart. He believed that the archetypes functioned as structuring principles, universal categories that gave our experience their shape and texture. But how could this possibly work? Kant was talking about space, time and logical categories. These principles structure experience by giving form, but no content, to perceptual elements. By following out Jung’s analysis, we can see that the archetypes actually contribute a different kind of structure to experience, by giving perceptions their semiotic salience, their meaning and value. For us, things like sex, warfare, hunting, pilgrimage, birth and death are to discrete individual perceptions the way the constellations are to individual stars. They provide an over-arching trajectory and form that allows us to cognize vast quantities of data in very efficient ways. The way they do that, in part, is by turning an otherwise senseless series of events into a coherent story. But the relationship goes both ways: we rely on these archetypes for sense-making, while they rely on us to give them specific content. They are interested in our lives and push us in various unconscious ways toward courses of action that tell the story that they want (us) to tell. In order to flesh out this admittedly speculative proposal, we can address these three questions: what is the evidence that these things exist? What is their ontology or mode of being? And how does this contribute to the working out of the idealist ontology more generally? Concerning the first question, what is the evidence that psychic symbiotes exist? Simply that we seem to encounter them, repeatedly and robustly, in roughly the ways that Jung says we do: in myths, dreams and psychedelic visions that spill over into our ordinary conscious life in distinctive and persistent ways. This is not to say that the archetypes as Jung understood them are the only such psychic symbiotes that exist—there is some reason to think that there are others. And ‘archetypes’ might not be a natural kind either: the term may turn out to comprise several sets of beings that are rather different in their logic, nature and scope. But whatever the actual extension of the category of psychic symbiotes, they do share certain ontological features that we can briefly summarize. For one thing, these other beings are made up of consciousness. This should not be read in a deflationary sense, as if they are merely products of our collective imagination; after all, many of us believe that everything is, ultimately, made up of consciousness. My earlier use of the analogy to the physical body should not be taken to imply a dualist doctrine either. Nonetheless, a consciousness-only worldview, even if (or especially if) it is ultimately monistic or non-dualist, must take careful account of the deep, perhaps infinite internal complexity of consciousness, its varied forms, manifestations, resonances and conflicts. To say that those other beings are made up of consciousness is to say that they are no more or less real than our own conscious selves. However, unlike us, they do not necessarily have a bodily anchor within perceptual spacetime. They are located both intrapsychically and transpersonally. That is, while we experience ourselves as located within, and in primary relation to, a single physical body, they appear to exist simultaneously within our own consciousness and within that of other people as well. (This is where the analogy to bacteria apparently breaks down.) On the other hand, if we change our frame of reference to look at souls as such, rather than bodies, we could just as easily see the others as unified and simple, and understand ourselves as located simultaneously within them, and between them. In fact, given the much longer timespan of their existence as compared to our own, this inside-out perspective is probably the more appropriate one. Finally, they want what they want—we should not give in to the temptation to think that they are merely subaltern expression of ourselves. They are mostly (but not always) friendly to humans, to the extent that they depend upon us as much as we depend upon them. But their forms of life are profoundly different from our own. As to the subjective experience of their own conscious perspective, we can hardly imagine. It’s not just a matter of imagining what it would be like to be a dog or cat, instead of a human. It would be more akin to imagining what it would be like to be a gene, or a galaxy. The third question asked above was, how does this kind of consideration contribute to our ongoing efforts to ramify the idealist perspective? It shows how human consciousness is simply a braid or a strand in the tapestry of consciousness that is the cosmos, where each stand is itself a tightly woven band of finer threads, and simultaneously is itself woven into larger braids. Idealist metaphysics tend to echo the neo-Platonic trajectory in treating the singleness of ultimate consciousness as primary, and its various manifestations as derived from that original unity. On the other hand, what would it look like to treat the most specific, most diverse plurality of consciousnesses as basic, with unity being generated by successive modes of interrelation? The middle way here is to allow for a flexibility of perspective, such that we can treat, for the purpose of a given analysis, any level or frame of consciousness as basic, and then move either ‘up’ or ‘down’ to look at its parts, or that of which it is a part. Kant taught us that time, space and the elements of logic are stipulations of the way we organize perceptions in conscious experience. The upshot of this line of reasoning is to emphasize that mereology, the relationship between a whole and its parts, between the one and the many, is similarly constructed. This applies, in ways that may make us uncomfortable, to ourselves as well. It is strange to think that the parts that comprise us are not entirely homogenous, not entirely our own. And it may be even more difficult to accept that we ourselves are only parts, from the perspective of some greater whole. For a number of social and political reasons, it is salutary in our time to continue to push away from Leibnizian Monads, understood as individual discrete units of consciousness, and towards a greater sensitivity to the ways in which consciousnesses overlap, intertwine and mutually constitute one another. Likewise, we should push back against the notion that human consciousness as we normally experience it is the basis or measure for all forms of consciousness in the universe. It may be that the use of psychedelics, and the creative possibilities for culture that they may inspire, will help in this regard. In lieu of a traditional bibliography for this informal essay, I would like to acknowledge, with gratitude, the influence of Dr. Robert Corrington in my own work.
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Post by Admin on Sept 5, 2022 16:16:01 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 10, 2022 14:50:56 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 11, 2022 20:43:45 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 11, 2022 20:57:36 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 11, 2022 21:00:45 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 11, 2022 21:03:49 GMT
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