And never was there an answer, there an answer.
Not without listening, without seeing.
– David Gilmour
Not without listening, without seeing.
– David Gilmour
Terence McKenna's books include True Hallucinations and The Archaic Revival, eponymous with the return of time-tested spiritual and metacognitive practices to alleviate psychological distress.
Meditation and psychedelic-psychotherapy are two archaic practices that modify self-referential processing without causing long-term adverse effects or addiction.
Meditation and psychedelic-psychotherapy are two archaic practices that modify self-referential processing without causing long-term adverse effects or addiction.
Within the human mind there must co-exist the Eros, the life-loving and self-perpetuating force, with the Thanatos, the self-destructive death-wish. Both are present in each of us, but they are usually separated by the difficult-to-penetrate wall of the unconscious.
– Sasha Shulgin
Excerpt from 'True Hallucinations,' Energy and Time:
– Sasha Shulgin
Excerpt from 'True Hallucinations,' Energy and Time:
'Terence McKenna's True Hallucinations' and 'The Transcendental Object at the End of Time' are films about Terence McKenna and his relationship with brother Dennis, life, universe, and magic plants. Learn about the creator: We Plants are Happy Plants
Terence McKenna's final reflection on the self, excerpt from 'The Transcendental Object at the End of Time.'
Terence McKenna's final reflection on the self, excerpt from 'The Transcendental Object at the End of Time.'
Click for link.
30-Year High in Suicide Rates, 35-Year High in Alcohol-Related Deaths, and Declining Life Expectancy: Identifying Sick U.S. Cultural Institutions that Have Created a Downward Trend in American Health
Psychology Study Explains Psychedelic Ethics: Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior
Health Benefits of Positive Emotions: Awe, joy, pride, and contentment lower levels of IL-6.
Psychology Study Explains Psychedelic Ethics: Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior
Health Benefits of Positive Emotions: Awe, joy, pride, and contentment lower levels of IL-6.
Click for link.
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Bernie Sanders: The Stress of Poverty
#Bernie2016: Stress of #Poverty https://t.co/DeCSL9Mriz#Awe #pride contentment #joy ↓ #IL6 https://t.co/X5b7NrhFqNhttps://t.co/sb7YjEkm2Q
— Our Amazing World (@OAWoww) May 11, 2016
Chronic pain, hallucinogen studies, news, and reviews
Forty years after the Nixon administration effectively shut down research on psychedelic drugs, Roland Griffiths helped reopen it. One of the nation’s leading psychopharmacologists, Griffiths’ research focuses on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs. Griffiths was the 2015 Nathan B. Eddy Award winner from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence.
Forty years after the Nixon administration effectively shut down research on psychedelic drugs, Roland Griffiths helped reopen it. One of the nation’s leading psychopharmacologists, Griffiths’ research focuses on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs. Griffiths was the 2015 Nathan B. Eddy Award winner from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence.
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He is the lead investigator of the Psilocybin Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins, which includes studies of psilocybin occasioned mystical experience in healthy volunteers and cancer patients, and a pilot study of psilocybin-facilitated smoking cessation. He has been a consultant to the National Institutes of Health, and to numerous pharmaceutical companies in the development of new psychotropic drugs.
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Roland Griffiths, Johns Hopkins University
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Have you had a personal encounter with God or The Divine? Please consider responding to Dr. Griffiths' survey, found here. If you know of others who have ever had an experience of a personal divine encounter, please send them the link and encourage them to participate. This includes people who had such an experience long ago. Special message from Roland Griffiths: "My colleagues and I at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine are conducting a fascinating, important, anonymous, internet-based survey to characterize experiences that some people have of a personal encounter with God. The study will permit a better understanding about the phenomenology, interpretation, and enduring effects of such encounters." Learn more by watching the video below.
Personal Look at the McKenna Brothers: Terence McKenna's True Hallucinations and The Transcendental Object at the End of Time
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Dennis McKenna
The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss: My Life with Terence McKenna by Dennis McKenna. "Here, for the first time, Dennis gives his account of the ideas, adventures, and anguishes he and Terence shared—and some they didn’t." ~Luis Eduardo Luna
Surely our lives were destined to be unique in many ways, as all lives are... And yet I’ve also realized how much Terence and I were the products of our age, our minds and dreams shaped by the cultural influences that touched so many.
– Dennis McKenna
Dr. Dennis McKenna’s research has focused on the interdisciplinary study of Amazonian ethnopharmacology and plant hallucinogens. He has conducted extensive ethnobotanical fieldwork in the Peruvian, Colombian, and Brasilian Amazon.
The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss: My Life with Terence McKenna by Dennis McKenna. "Here, for the first time, Dennis gives his account of the ideas, adventures, and anguishes he and Terence shared—and some they didn’t." ~Luis Eduardo Luna
Surely our lives were destined to be unique in many ways, as all lives are... And yet I’ve also realized how much Terence and I were the products of our age, our minds and dreams shaped by the cultural influences that touched so many.
– Dennis McKenna
Dr. Dennis McKenna’s research has focused on the interdisciplinary study of Amazonian ethnopharmacology and plant hallucinogens. He has conducted extensive ethnobotanical fieldwork in the Peruvian, Colombian, and Brasilian Amazon.
The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss. Click for link.
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McKenna's doctoral research (University of British Columbia, 1984) focused on the ethnopharmacology of ayahuasca and oo-koo-he, two tryptamine-based hallucinogens used by indigenous peoples in the Northwest Amazon. He is a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute, and was a key organizer and participant in the Hoasca Project, the first biomedical investigation of ayahuasca used by the UDV, a Brazilian religious group. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota.
Follow and support: Psilocybin and Cancer Research, Heffter Research Institute (website), The Beckley Foundation (website), Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (website), OPEN Foundation (website), and International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service (website)
Follow and support: Psilocybin and Cancer Research, Heffter Research Institute (website), The Beckley Foundation (website), Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (website), OPEN Foundation (website), and International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service (website)
Steve Marsh of Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine interviewed McKenna in 2013:
The big challenge in neuroscience for the 21st century is to understand consciousness. How does what we know about the brain—which is quite a lot but still an incomplete picture—translate into our experience of being a conscious entity? That’s the holy grail of neuroscience.
These psychedelic compounds are to the study of consciousness what the telescope is to astronomy.
The big challenge in neuroscience for the 21st century is to understand consciousness. How does what we know about the brain—which is quite a lot but still an incomplete picture—translate into our experience of being a conscious entity? That’s the holy grail of neuroscience.
These psychedelic compounds are to the study of consciousness what the telescope is to astronomy.
Photo by Stephanie Colgan for Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine.
Follow and support: Psilocybin and Cancer Research, Heffter Research Institute (website), The Beckley Foundation (website) Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (website), OPEN Foundation (website), and International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service (website)
Dennis McKenna Discusses the Importance of Set
The set is really everything you bring to it. Who you are, what your expectation is, it's you. It's your mindset and everybody's mindset is different. Terence told me once when we were young, before I'd ever taken LSD. He said, "Don't take LSD until you've ready 'Psychology and Alchemy,'" by Jung. And we were reading Jung at that time. He said, "Don't take LSD until you've ready 'Psychology and Alchemy,' you'll get much more out of it if you do that." Well, I hadn't read Psychology and Alchemy when I took them the first time. But later I did and I realized what he meant. A lot of the things that came up... Psychology and Alchemy is a kind of a good map for a lot of the gestalts and ideas that come up during a psychedelic experience.
Dennis McKenna Discusses the Importance of Set
The set is really everything you bring to it. Who you are, what your expectation is, it's you. It's your mindset and everybody's mindset is different. Terence told me once when we were young, before I'd ever taken LSD. He said, "Don't take LSD until you've ready 'Psychology and Alchemy,'" by Jung. And we were reading Jung at that time. He said, "Don't take LSD until you've ready 'Psychology and Alchemy,' you'll get much more out of it if you do that." Well, I hadn't read Psychology and Alchemy when I took them the first time. But later I did and I realized what he meant. A lot of the things that came up... Psychology and Alchemy is a kind of a good map for a lot of the gestalts and ideas that come up during a psychedelic experience.
Terence McKenna and Carl Jung
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Dr. Dave and Friends: Psychedelics Expert Interviews and America's Mental Health & Addiction Tragedies
Courageous Heffter-Funded Work at UAB School of Public Health that Changes Perceptions & Could Change Your World
More studies.
Similar work to that of Peter Hendricks' research above: University of British Columbia (UBC) study finds that psychedelics may reduce domestic violence
In the video below, UBC professor Zach Walsh takes a fresh look at psychedelic drugs as he leads a research study that reveals the use of hallucinogens may help curb violence against intimate partners.
Courageous Heffter-Funded Work at UAB School of Public Health that Changes Perceptions & Could Change Your World
- 2015. Hendricks. Classic psychedelic use is associated with reduced psychological distress and suicidality in the United States adult population. J Psychopharmacology.
- 2014 Hendricks Hallucinogen use predicts reduced recidivism among substance-involved offenders under community corrections supervision. J Psychopharmacology.
More studies.
Similar work to that of Peter Hendricks' research above: University of British Columbia (UBC) study finds that psychedelics may reduce domestic violence
In the video below, UBC professor Zach Walsh takes a fresh look at psychedelic drugs as he leads a research study that reveals the use of hallucinogens may help curb violence against intimate partners.
Failing America: Politicians Lack Courage to Fight Substance Abuse and Improve Mental Health and Drug Policy
Because the Fact of the Matter is... Terence McKenna and Steve Jobs' Words of Wisdom About Life and Death
Could Psilocybin Be Useful in Combating Depression and Anxiety in Homebound Older Adults and Patients with Chronic or Terminal Illness?
Because the Fact of the Matter is... Terence McKenna and Steve Jobs' Words of Wisdom About Life and Death
Could Psilocybin Be Useful in Combating Depression and Anxiety in Homebound Older Adults and Patients with Chronic or Terminal Illness?
Top American Psychiatrist Calls for Greater Research of Hallucinogens
Past president of the American Psychiatric Association, Jeffrey Lieberman, M.D., said about classic hallucinogen research in a July 2015 Medscape blog post:
We have had a nearly 50-year hiatus in any serious investigation, except for some heroic investigators at a few universities, primarily in Europe but also in the United States.
I believe that the scientific investigation of mind-altering psychedelic drugs in the 1960s and '70s was a truncated but promising avenue of research, and that these medications, these drugs, could have significant value for a variety of indications if studied adequately... Until we have studied them, however, it is not prudent for any proposals for these to be used on an ad hoc experimental basis. They need to be studied, and we need to determine for what purposes they should be used and what risks and benefits are associated with these treatments.
Lieberman describes the impact that LSD and Freud had on his decision to enter the field of mental health:
Past president of the American Psychiatric Association, Jeffrey Lieberman, M.D., said about classic hallucinogen research in a July 2015 Medscape blog post:
We have had a nearly 50-year hiatus in any serious investigation, except for some heroic investigators at a few universities, primarily in Europe but also in the United States.
I believe that the scientific investigation of mind-altering psychedelic drugs in the 1960s and '70s was a truncated but promising avenue of research, and that these medications, these drugs, could have significant value for a variety of indications if studied adequately... Until we have studied them, however, it is not prudent for any proposals for these to be used on an ad hoc experimental basis. They need to be studied, and we need to determine for what purposes they should be used and what risks and benefits are associated with these treatments.
Lieberman describes the impact that LSD and Freud had on his decision to enter the field of mental health:
Lieberman stated in Shrinks, The Untold Story of Psychiatry:
Perhaps I’m biased, since without psychiatry I might not be alive.
As a teenager my depression nearly got the upper hand before I was saved by drugs—a one-two punch of tricyclic antidepressants and tryptamine psychedelics—and I continue to find better living through chemistry.
My trip did produce one lasting insight, though--one that I remain grateful for to this day...I marveled at the fact that [if] such an incredibly minute amount of a chemical...could so dramatically alter my cognition, the chemistry of the brain must be susceptible to pharmacologic manipulations in other ways, including ways that could be therapeutic.
Below: Slide from psilocybin researcher Robin Carhart-Harris' presentation to the Czech Psychedelic Society, Psychedelics in Science and Medicine. More about research of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression below.
Perhaps I’m biased, since without psychiatry I might not be alive.
As a teenager my depression nearly got the upper hand before I was saved by drugs—a one-two punch of tricyclic antidepressants and tryptamine psychedelics—and I continue to find better living through chemistry.
My trip did produce one lasting insight, though--one that I remain grateful for to this day...I marveled at the fact that [if] such an incredibly minute amount of a chemical...could so dramatically alter my cognition, the chemistry of the brain must be susceptible to pharmacologic manipulations in other ways, including ways that could be therapeutic.
Below: Slide from psilocybin researcher Robin Carhart-Harris' presentation to the Czech Psychedelic Society, Psychedelics in Science and Medicine. More about research of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression below.
Additional Resources:
Below: Excerpt from Meditation and Psilocybin Researcher Roland Griffiths' Q&A with Ted Med. View Griffiths' Ted Med Profile.
We’re especially curious about your research into the connections between psilocybin, spirituality, and consciousness. Can you tell us more? Are there any updates?
In ongoing studies, we’re examining the effects of psilocybin in long-term meditators and in religious leaders from the major faith traditions. We’re also conducting two anonymous internet surveys. One is asking about experiences that some people report of an encounter with God, or the God of their understanding.
We’re especially curious about your research into the connections between psilocybin, spirituality, and consciousness. Can you tell us more? Are there any updates?
In ongoing studies, we’re examining the effects of psilocybin in long-term meditators and in religious leaders from the major faith traditions. We’re also conducting two anonymous internet surveys. One is asking about experiences that some people report of an encounter with God, or the God of their understanding.
Another is examining anomalous experiences, such as Near Death Experiences, that produce enduring changes in people’s attitudes and beliefs about death and dying. In both surveys, we want to compare spontaneously occurring experiences with psychedelically occasioned ones. Our hope is that these surveys will allow us to better understand such experiences and how they may differ across faith traditions and occasioning events (e.g. prayer, meditation, spontaneously-occurring, nature experiences, drug-occasioned, etc.). Our research has shown that a single experience with psilocybin can produce personally meaningful experiences accompanied by enduring positive changes in attitudes, mood and behavior.
Finally, we’re initiating a study to explore the efficacy of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. (continued below).
Psilocybin vs. Ketamine: Imperial College London psilocybin researcher Robin Carhart-Harris presents preliminary data for treatment-resistant depression.
The United States is home to a terribly deficient mental health care system that has shown no significant progress in the treatment of mental illness in the past 4 decades. The annual cost by 2030 of mental illness will exceed $6 trillion. Treatment with antidepressants are trial and error and may take 8, 10, or 12 weeks to see an effect, if any, while benzos are addictive and play a part in 8,000 overdose deaths a year. In spite of this, U.S. drug laws are the greatest barrier to meaningful research with non-addictive classic hallucinogens like psilocybin, ayahuasca, and DMT. Robin Carhart-Harris discusses a preliminary open label study using psilocybin to treat depression and compares it to an early study with ketamine, a Schedule III dissociative hallucinogen and anesthetic called "one of the most significant advances in the field of depression in recent years."
Finally, we’re initiating a study to explore the efficacy of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. (continued below).
Psilocybin vs. Ketamine: Imperial College London psilocybin researcher Robin Carhart-Harris presents preliminary data for treatment-resistant depression.
The United States is home to a terribly deficient mental health care system that has shown no significant progress in the treatment of mental illness in the past 4 decades. The annual cost by 2030 of mental illness will exceed $6 trillion. Treatment with antidepressants are trial and error and may take 8, 10, or 12 weeks to see an effect, if any, while benzos are addictive and play a part in 8,000 overdose deaths a year. In spite of this, U.S. drug laws are the greatest barrier to meaningful research with non-addictive classic hallucinogens like psilocybin, ayahuasca, and DMT. Robin Carhart-Harris discusses a preliminary open label study using psilocybin to treat depression and compares it to an early study with ketamine, a Schedule III dissociative hallucinogen and anesthetic called "one of the most significant advances in the field of depression in recent years."
Griffiths continues: In several of our studies we are using fMRI brain imaging methods to examine the acute and persisting changes in brain function that occur after receiving psilocybin.
Why study mystical experiences? What does this work mean to you?
Many of the challenges facing the world today, such as the environmental crisis and hostilities within and between cultures, stem from a lack of appreciation for the profound interconnectedness of all people and all things. This sense of interconnectedness or unity is a core feature of the world’s ethical and moral systems. Our interconnectedness is also a core feature of the mystical or transcendent experiences that occur with high probability after the ingestion of psilocybin under appropriate conditions. Ultimately, systematic prospective study of mystical experiences and their consequences may be critical to the survival of our species and the healing of our planet. Read the full Griffiths interview.
The Default Mode Network & End of Suffering: Experienced meditator Gary Weber talks about the effects of meditation, psilocybin, ayahuasca, on connectivity of the default mode network and cingulate cortex, areas of the brain responsible for the sense of self.
Why study mystical experiences? What does this work mean to you?
Many of the challenges facing the world today, such as the environmental crisis and hostilities within and between cultures, stem from a lack of appreciation for the profound interconnectedness of all people and all things. This sense of interconnectedness or unity is a core feature of the world’s ethical and moral systems. Our interconnectedness is also a core feature of the mystical or transcendent experiences that occur with high probability after the ingestion of psilocybin under appropriate conditions. Ultimately, systematic prospective study of mystical experiences and their consequences may be critical to the survival of our species and the healing of our planet. Read the full Griffiths interview.
The Default Mode Network & End of Suffering: Experienced meditator Gary Weber talks about the effects of meditation, psilocybin, ayahuasca, on connectivity of the default mode network and cingulate cortex, areas of the brain responsible for the sense of self.
Hallucinations have a bad reputation in Western culture
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) attempts to manipulate brain circuitry in the same therapeutic way as psilocybin and ayahuasca, without the hallucinations.
30 Years of Futility in Mental Health: AZT and Prozac were invented in the same year. While patients with HIV have seen good health outcomes, those with mental illness have not been getting better. That’s according to Dr. Amit Etkin, assistant professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. In this video for the World Economic Forum, Etkin explains why he thinks mental illness is not caused by chemical imbalance, but by faulty neural circuits. TMS isn't cheap and it takes multiple sessions to see an effect, if any.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) attempts to manipulate brain circuitry in the same therapeutic way as psilocybin and ayahuasca, without the hallucinations.
30 Years of Futility in Mental Health: AZT and Prozac were invented in the same year. While patients with HIV have seen good health outcomes, those with mental illness have not been getting better. That’s according to Dr. Amit Etkin, assistant professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. In this video for the World Economic Forum, Etkin explains why he thinks mental illness is not caused by chemical imbalance, but by faulty neural circuits. TMS isn't cheap and it takes multiple sessions to see an effect, if any.
How deficient is mental health care in the United States, and how clueless are healthcare professionals and policymakers in their understanding of the brain?
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In the February 2016 video below, H. Westley Clark, MD, JD, MPH, CAS, FASAM, retired former director of SMHSA gives his perspective on the scourge of poorly addressed mental health and substance abuse issues in the U.S., as well as current mental health bills in Congress, one of which is Representative Tim Murphy's H.B. 2646. According to the right-leaning National Review: "The most important part of Murphy’s bill is to eliminate SAMHSA and replace it with an assistant secretary for Mental Health, charged with shifting federal dollars away from useless, often duplicative programs and those that focus on “behavioral
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NPR: Mental Health Advocates Oppose Rep. Tim Murphy's Bill for Promoting Forced "Treatment" over More Effective and Less Expensive Voluntary Care
Dr. Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Is SAMHSA to Blame for a Broken Mental Health System? Two members of Congress differ on how to fix a failing system H. Westley Clark |
wellness” and mild forms of mental illness and toward those that focus on the most seriously ill. The federal government spends $130 billion annually on mental health — to little effect. This is primarily because the federal government’s mental-health policy is largely driven by the failed Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)."
Dr. Clark held a workshop in 2015 titled, "Can there be a role for psilocybin as a medical intervention?"
Beyond the Status Quo:
Dr. Clark held a workshop in 2015 titled, "Can there be a role for psilocybin as a medical intervention?"
Beyond the Status Quo:
NIH fiddles and NIMH diddles while mental health infrastructure is gutted, taxes wasted, and America dies from mental illness and addiction: "NIMH loves fancy basic science and couldn't care less about the clinical care received by our citizens. It is run by, and for, scientists with an indifference to the needs of the taxpayers who support its budget." –Allen Frances, MD, Chair of the DSM IV Task Force and Professor Emeritus at Duke University
Dr. Collins attended the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. A quote from the conference: "So what you’ve got here are three options: Door No. 1, there was a medicinal property to the peyote that cured her shingles; door No. 2, the relief that she felt from her vision reduced her stress and thus her shingles; or door No. 3, that she really did access the spiritual world."
Legacy of Perseverance: Protecting the Peyote for Future Generations
Legacy of Perseverance: Protecting the Peyote for Future Generations
Because the fact of the matter is, nobody knows what's going on.
– Terence McKenna
– Terence McKenna
Click for link.
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