Psychedelics: the Healing of Now
“Psychedelics are not a substitute for faith. They are a door to authentic faith, born of encountering directly the sacred dimension of everyday experience. This is not the only gate to that discovery, but it is the most ancient and universal, and potentially the most accessible to the majority of the human race.”
― Rick Doblin, Manifesting Minds: A Review of Psychedelics in Science, Medicine, Sex, and Spirituality
I would like to preface this article with a statement of potential risk involved with using hallucinogens. As with any substances, people can be negatively impacted by their use. To mitigate the risk involved one would seek a guide for the duration of their trip. Set and setting (i.e. mindset and environment) are two crucial aspects of using psychedelics and describe the physical, mental, social, and environmental context that an individual brings into their experience.
Neuroscientist and philosopher, Sam Harris, explained that substances of extraordinary power, such as psilocybin (the active compound in “magic mushrooms”) and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), pose no apparent risk of addiction and are physically well-tolerated, and yet one can still be sent to prison for their use—whereas drugs such as tobacco and alcohol, which have ruined countless lives, are enjoyed for pleasure in almost every society on earth. Human beings have ingested plant-based psychedelics for millennia, but scientific research on these compounds did not begin until the 1950s. By 1965, a thousand studies had been published, primarily on psilocybin and LSD, many of which attested to the usefulness of psychedelics in the treatment of clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, alcohol addiction, and the pain and anxiety associated with terminal cancer.
Oneness, unity, transcendence, rebirth, bliss, ecstatic love, release of or death of ego: these are all reported qualities we experience while ingesting psychedelics.
Aside from the array of profound qualities of experience that we discover by using psychedelics, there are many other explanations of why psychedelics work for healing depression, ptsd, anxiety, and mood disorders. From a neuroscientific perspective, psychedelics open neural pathways — pathways of connection found within the brain — and usher in serotonin releases, as well as promoting neurogenesis (the creation of new neural pathways, neurites, and dendrites). A hallmark of depression is the atrophy (decay) of dendrites in the brain (Christoffel et al., 2011; Duman and Aghajanian, 2012).
While neuroscience continues to build strong cases for the use of psychedelics to treat psychiatric dysfunctions, subjective experience and the nature of first-hand discovery continues to prevail as the leading way to knowledge of the powers which psychedelics hold. Psilocybin, MDMA, Ayahuasca, DMT, and LSD are the most commonly researched and used psychedelics and of these, psilocybin and LSD are incredibly nontoxic.
Although psilocybin is regulated by the federal government under the most restrictive category (Schedule I) of the Controlled Substances Act, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2001, 2005) does not consider psilocybin and the other classical hallucinogens to be drugs of “addiction” because they do not produce compulsive drug-seeking behavior as do classic addicting drugs such as cocaine, amphetamine, heroin, and alcohol (R. R. Griffiths & W. A. Richards & U. McCann & R. Jesse 2006).
It is important that the risks of hallucinogen use not be underestimated. Even in the present study in which the conditions of volunteer preparation and psilocybin administration were carefully designed to minimize adverse effects, with a high dose of psilocybin 31% of the group of carefully screened volunteers experienced significant fear and 17% had transient ideas of reference/paranoia. Under unmonitored conditions, it is not difficult to imagine such effects escalating to panic and dangerous behavior. Also, the role of hallucinogens in precipitating or exacerbating enduring psychiatric conditions and long-lasting visual perceptual disturbances should remain a topic of research (Abraham et al. 1996; Halpern and Pope 1999).
“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”
― Terence McKenna