May 12, 2016

"The road to scientific study of psilocybin... The dark side of psilocybin use..."

"Spiritual experience is difficult to define—or miss... Flavors of unity and sacredness... Using psilocybin to give up smoking...."

Posted by Ann Althouse at 12:19 PM
Tags: , , , ,

5 comments:

buwaya said...

From (very limited) experience -
Its interesting once.
Best not to go into it assuming that it WILL be a religious experience. That way lies Satan.
Do it for the colors.

5/12/16, 12:24 PM
robother said...

It's a door, as Huxley said. Kind of a God's eye view of raw experience (to put it theistically), which is why it can be so terrible from the individual ego's perspective. I wouldn't have missed it for the world, but it is not a path, like Buddhist or Christian mysticism.

But for the last stages of life of someone who has never touched spirituality? I'm intrigued, but skeptical of the therapeutically curated experience.

5/12/16, 1:11 PM
mikee said...

I once saw my druggie roomie weaving down the hall of the university Chem building at 3am while I was pulling an all-nighter in my lab. I knew he'd been at an LSD party, and that he'd be high as a kite. He was coming to my lab to ask for a lab glassware bong, to smoke some hash to come down a bit. He'd done so before.

I quickly grabbed the hose coming off the Helium tank and inhaled a huge lungful of that wonderful inert gas, just before he walked in.

"WE WISH TO WELCOME YOU TO MUNCHKIN LAND!" I screamed in a loud squeaky helium falsetto.

He fell to the floor and twitched for a while. It was fun to watch. It has been over 30 years since then, and he still mentions it every once in a while when we talk.

5/12/16, 2:07 PM
Fernandinande said...

Here's a funny video:
1967 Navy training film MN-10507-A. Navy physician talks about the dangers of LSD or "Russian roulette in a sugar cube."

30 years later:
"The NAC [Native American Church] also gained much importance among the United States and took a huge step forward with its practices in 1997 when the Department of Defense (April 1997) established a new policy allowing military personnel to attend peyote ceremonies while on leave."

My grill-fiend is currently at lunch with the wife of a Navajo shaman.

5/12/16, 2:32 PM
Unknown said...

In retrospect it doesn't surprise me at all that the lasting legacy of hippie culture is disdain for hippies.

Only someone who has no experience with psilocybin could be intrigued by this garble. I've been there and done that. Got the t-shirt and moved on. Trying to find grounded meaning in such a discussion as this one feels like sinking in quicksand. Eat mushrooms if you want. Don't tell me about it. You had might as well try to explain your dreams. The psychedelic experience can't be transferred. Nor is it typically beneficial. Very occasionally it causes disaster. It's a stop along the way to a cultural dead end. Hippies will end up as a minor historical footnote.

If there are therapeutic benefits that can be measured that's one thing, though I'm skeptical. Freud thought he was breaking ground with cocaine, too.

5/12/16, 10:08 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)