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Thread: Here’s How Psychedelic Drugs Could Radically Change Society For The Better

  1. #1

    Here’s How Psychedelic Drugs Could Radically Change Society For The Better

    May 1, 2015 by Sophie McAdam


    Stating the case for the decriminalization of mind-altering substances



    Terence McKenna, self-styled ‘psychonaut’, ethnobotanist, writer, lecturer, freedom fighter and culture-doubting intellectual, was arguably one of the greatest minds who ever lived. He believed passionately in a basic human right to explore one’s own consciousness, and he advocated the use of psilocybin (the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms) and other natural psychedelic drugs to do so. Controversial until his untimely death in 2000, McKenna was dubbed the ‘Tim O’Leary of the 90s’. Ground-breaking books such as The Archaic Revival, Food of The Gods and The Invisible Landscape inspired a generation to turn off the TV and reclaim their minds from the clutches of culture. This, McKenna told us, ”is not your friend.”

    Contrary to what his critics might claim, McKenna never played down the dangers of taking psychedelic drugs. He warned: “Experimenters should be very careful…One must build up to the experience. These are bizarre dimensions of extraordinary power and beauty. There is no set rule to avoid being overwhelmed, but move carefully, reflect a great deal, and always try to map experiences back onto the history of the race and the philosophical and religious accomplishments of the species. All the compounds are potentially dangerous, and all compounds, at sufficient doses or repeated over time, involve risks. The library is the first place to go.”


    For maximum personal growth, McKenna advised taking a ‘heroic dose’ (five grams of dried psilocybin mushrooms) alone and in darkness. The idea is to plumb the depths of one’s own psyche in order to discover something meaningful and life changing; not to simply abuse these sacred plants by ‘getting high’. McKenna warned of worlds with dark entities and the initial feelings of fear, panic and apprehension that accompany such an intense experience, but fundamentally he saw psychedelics as a human rite of passage, a gateway to the hidden wisdom of the collective consciousness, a profound spiritual experience for those who dared to lift back the veil of normal human perception and peer into the unknown.

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    This is what they don’t want, Mckenna said. He believed that the idea of an enlightened human race terrifies the establishment because it threatens “to tear down the house of cards they built”. He often argued that, like psychedelic drugs, politicians “would make sex illegal if they could.” As a nod to the public hysteria that often accompanies any discourse on these compounds, McKenna once joked that “LSD is a psychedelic substance which occasionally causes psychotic behaviour in people who have not taken it.”

    The failed War on Drugs embodies this statement. We’ve all heard urban myths about people jumping to their deaths after thinking they could fly during a bad acid trip, but the emotional and psychological benefits of psychedelics have long since been overlooked in favour of these terrifying anecdotes (most of which ignore crucial factors such as alcohol abuse and long-term mental illness as fatal catalysts).

    Psychedelics have been used as a spiritual practice for at least 5700 years, pre-dating every organized religion we know of. Almost every known tribal society has a tradition of using naturally occurring plants and mushrooms to alter their state of consciousness for spiritual and medicinal purposes. Shamans in the Amazon have used Ayahuasca for religious ceremonies since time immemorial, and many ancient civilizations are thought to have used a variety of psychedelics too. The great body of research conducted by Graham Hancock is testament to this theory. In his book Supernatural, Hancock puts forth a fascinating and weighty argument that modern man began to evolve as a direct result of taking psychedelic drugs, and makes a strong case that European cave art (some of which is over 30,000 years old) is proof of this creativity unleashed.

    The celebrated English writer Aldous Huxley was a huge fan of psychedelics and wrote about his experiences with mescaline in the fascinating book The Doors Of Perception. Huxley, an intellectual and aristocrat, found such comfort and delight in the psychedelic experience that his wife even administered LSD to him while he lay on his deathbed in 1963.

    LSD was first synthesized in a laboratory by Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann in 1938. He ingested a small amount by accident, and began tripping while riding his bicycle home that evening. Hofmann described “a not-unpleasant, intoxicated- like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors.”

    Steve Jobs credited LSD with his talent to think outside the box, and it has even been claimed by various reputable sources that Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who discovered DNA, did so during a vision after taking LSD.

    Finally, Dr Rick Strassman’s acclaimed research on DMT, which is detailed in the book DMT: The Spirit Molecule, offers a fascinating insight into a highly illegal psychedelic compound which is present throughout the natural world (it is even produced in our brain’s pineal gland). Strassman gave study participants doses of DMT and recorded their experiences. He was surprised to learn that the psychedelic compound often triggered very similar experiences, visions, and meetings with other-worldy beings in study participants with very different backgrounds. Strassman’s scientific view of the world was turned upside down by his findings, which suggested there was some truth to the Jungian theory of archetypes, which dwell in a collective unconscious accessible to all humans across all periods of history and regardless of culture, nationality, age, class and religion.

    Almost one in five (over 32 million) of the US adult population have experience with psychedelics, and in the past 50 years they have taken an estimated half billion doses of these mind-warping drugs. Fifteen years after McKenna died, we now know that these substances (LSD, magic mushrooms, DMT, Peyote, Ayahuasca and MDMA, to name a few) are not addictive and have no lasting toxic effects on the mind or the body.

    In March this year, Ben Sessa wrote a piece in scientific journal The Lancet entitled ‘Turn on and tune into evidence-based psychedelic research.’ It reads: “For many people, words such as psychedelic and LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) refer only to dangerous drugs of abuse. Less well known is that tens of thousands of patients were treated effectively with psychedelic drugs in the 1950s and 1960s, and that these drugs had almost become part of mainstream medicine by the time they became demonised and research was halted for 40 years.”

    A large part of the reason for this was the nature of the research being carried out in the post-war years. Cruel psychological experiments by the CIA for example, in which participants on LSD were tortured with electro-shocks, tainted the government’s view of psychedelics and dampened their enthusiasm to fund genuine research in the future.

    Sessa believes this is a mistake, and advocates decriminalization: “The classical psychedelic drugs, LSD and psilocybin, are physiologically safe, have a low dependency risk, and might be effective and safe adjunts to psychotherapy for patients with a range of psychiatric disorders when used in therapeutic doses in controlled conditions.”

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  3. #2
    50 years ago,today,in history.

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  4. #3
    For maximum personal growth, McKenna advised taking a ‘heroic dose’ (five grams of dried psilocybin mushrooms) alone and in darkness.

    'We endorse the idea of voluntarism; self-responsibility: Family, friends, and churches to solve problems, rather than saying that some monolithic government is going to make you take care of yourself and be a better person. It's a preposterous notion: It never worked, it never will. The government can't make you a better person; it can't make you follow good habits.' - Ron Paul 1988

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    Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

    ...the familiar ritual of institutional self-absolution...
    ...for protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment...


  5. #4
    Terrence McKenna has been exposed as just another FBI/CIA PR agent pushing the "psychedelic movement" as was Timothy Leary, and the rest of them. It was part of the MK Ultra mind control program.

    http://www.gnosticmedia.com/McKenna-Agent

  6. #5
    Albert Hofmann believed that LSD had a huge therapeutic potential, but he was bothered by the fact that Leary and others used it as a toy.

    I have no doubt that it has the ability to radically alter ones long term perspective of the world, maybe even for the better, but I also suspect that not everybody passes the electric kool aid acid test.

  7. #6
    You'd be a fool to live your entire life and not take psychedelics even once.

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by PatriotOne View Post
    It was part of the MK Ultra mind control program.
    And what the idiots will not tell you is that LSD was a complete and total failure for mind control uses.

    It tends to free minds rather than control them.

    Yes, it was one of many drugs tested. It was a total failure for their purposes.
    Big Pharma produced many more that were much more effective.. They are advertized on nearly every television channel daily.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

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  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by pcosmar View Post

    It tends to free minds rather than control them.
    How so? I took more than my fair share of LSD in the 70's. Didn't free my mind unless you equate hallucinations with a free mind.



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by PatriotOne View Post
    How so? I took more than my fair share of LSD in the 70's. Didn't free my mind unless you equate hallucinations with a free mind.
    Well you would probably be in the minority.

    Most people learn to deconstruct constructs when they are hallucinating. You question things you normally don't question in new ways, like societal norms, organizations that control people, etc. They aren't all bad, some have good intentions, but you explore the motivations and reasoning behind such moreso when you are hallucinating. You can do that without hallucinogens, but it is a good tool to get people to think outside the box, as Steve Jobs put it.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post

    You question things you normally don't question in new ways, like societal norms, organizations that control people, etc.
    I would say the person was already like that before they took the drug...otherwise they would not of taken the drug to begin with if they didn't question controlling organizations telling them not too...lol.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by PatriotOne View Post
    I would say the person was already like that before they took the drug...otherwise they would not of taken the drug to begin with if they didn't question controlling organizations telling them not too...lol.
    Yes but it allows you to delve deeper down the rabbit hole.

    Mushrooms worked better for me in that regard, but LSD certainly didn't hurt.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    Yes but it allows you to delve deeper down the rabbit hole.

    Mushrooms worked better for me in that regard, but LSD certainly didn't hurt.
    What if at the end of your life your view on politics isn't what really mattered?

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    Yes but it allows you to delve deeper down the rabbit hole.
    I did that sober using the internet. All I got from LSD was some pretty cool and some pretty terrifying hallucinations and about 5 years of occasional night terrors.

  16. #14
    /.
    Last edited by specsaregood; 05-18-2016 at 07:33 AM.

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Sola_Fide View Post
    What if at the end of your life your view on politics isn't what really mattered?
    lol... this has little to do with politics, but it does relate since it is the center of humanity's false constructs.

    It has to do more with why people react certain ways to certain things, including political control, but also with regard to just about everything else in life. It allows you to separate people's motivations and intentions from their actions and understand how people limit themselves and their thoughts within a tiny bubble of what is socially acceptable within their immediate environment.

    It helps your perception of why certain things are a certain way, beyond just the facade.
    Last edited by dannno; 05-06-2015 at 03:42 PM.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  18. #16
    Even though I'm far from being an angel, I've never done psychedelic substances. But I've done quite a bit of reading on the subject.

    Many people who have extensively experimented with psychedelics report seeing the world as it truly is,..a "separate reality" to use Castaneda's term,...and some of it is very inspiring. One dominant theme seems to be that everything and everybody is constructed of a common energy.

    In other words, everyone is a small part of the whole and I don't discount that or anything else that people have experienced while seeing the world through the eyes that psychedelics offer.

    But I've never been able to understand how people can go back to the day to day routine of life once they've seen the reality which is exposed through psychedelics.

    I don't make any judgments on the matter,....but it seems to me that once one is exposed to a much better defined view of reality, that they would no longer have any interest in the reality that has been funneled into something that can be processed by the unaltered human condition.

    But that's what most of them do.

    They experience the wonders of greatly expanded consciousness,....next day they're in a factory running a punch press.

    I can't understand that part.
    Last edited by Smitty; 05-06-2015 at 04:13 PM.



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Smitty View Post
    But I've never been able to understand how people can go back to the day to day routine of life once they've seen the reality which is exposed through psychedelics.

    I don't make any judgments on the matter,....but it seems to me that once one is exposed to a much better defined view of reality, that they would no longer have any interest in the reality that has been funneled into something that can be processed by unaltered human consciousness.

    But that's what most of them do.

    They experience the wonders of greatly expanded consciousness,....next day they're in a factory running a punch press.

    I can't understand that part.
    You have clearly put some thought into this and have done a pretty good job trying to understand what psychedelics are all about.

    You are correct, it can be difficult to go back and participate in the reality we are all used to after this type of experience. In fact a lot of people do end up turning off and tuning out at least to some degree because they see the superficiality of the life around them, artificial boundaries and closed minds. It can be frustrating.

    But on the other hand, it's difficult for one to survive and find happiness on their own - even with enlightenment into the workings of the world there is still room to find happiness and participate in the human experience. The goal is to do so without harming others - this is why many people who do psychedelics end up becoming vegan. I was vegetarian for a long time, but then I realized that grain farming was detrimental to living beings as well. Is protecting an area for cows to graze, live and breed safely really so bad, I mean you are providing a life for them to live considering it wouldn't have existed otherwise? As long as you respect what you eat I don't see the big issue - if you don't fill the life space something will. So it's sort of a balance in finding happiness, helping others and maximizing positivity in the world. You can't do that if you meditate in the forest the rest of your life.

    At some point, you have to take life for what it is. In the beginning of Joe Rogan's 2005 comedy special, he talks about how one time he flew over LA and realized that humanity was a cancer on the earth, like mold on a sandwich. Then he thought, hmm, maybe the purpose of humans is to eat the sandwich. I mean, we could kill ourselves and leave the planet to the animals, but animals are brutal and kill each other as well. So maybe the goal is to eat the sandwich without becoming too greedy. Or maybe there is no goal and we are just along for a ride.
    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
    "dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
    "You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Smitty View Post

    Many people who have extensively experimented with psychedelics report seeing the world as it truly is,..a "separate reality" to use Castaneda's term,...and some of it is very inspiring.
    Another CIA PR man pushing the drug/new age "agenda". Even ran a mind control sex/suicide cult. So............

  22. #19
    Having lived around and interacted with a decent cross section of Americans I'm comfortable saying that at least 1/2 of the population has no business altering what little consciousness they have...

    The other half however would certainly benefit from any psychedelic consumption in the right circumstances......

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by tod evans View Post
    Having lived around and interacted with a decent cross section of Americans I'm comfortable saying that at least 1/2 of the population has no business altering what little consciousness they have...

    The other half however would certainly benefit from any psychedelic consumption in the right circumstances......
    Oh, yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes.

  24. #21
    Crack Cocaine Spider vs Marijuana Spider
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