posted April 15, 2010 07:06 PM         

The New York Times
__________________

Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again
By John Tierney
Published: April 11, 2010

"...Today, more than a year later, Dr. Martin credits that six-hour experience with helping him overcome his depression and profoundly transforming his relationships with his daughter and friends. He ranks it among the most meaningful events of his life, which makes him a fairly typical member of a growing club of experimental subjects.

"Researchers from around the world are gathering this week in San Jose, Calif., for the largest conference on psychedelic science held in the United States in four decades. They plan to discuss studies of psilocybin and other psychedelics for treating depression in cancer patients, obsessive-compulsive disorder, end-of-life anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction to drugs or alcohol."

Read the whole article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html

John Hopkins Study
For Cancer Patients:
http://www.bpru.org/cancer-studies/

posted April 16, 2010 06:26 PM         

And the USA has a special problem with these drugs (though all countries do to some extent): they help many people see through the BS that they have to believe in order for society to function with certain elites staying almost forever at the top (including in some businesses forever making killer profits, not to mention the war machine).

We already have soma, btw, such as TV, and many drugs advertised on TV. Many churches also fill this need.

posted April 16, 2010 06:48 PM         

Clearly, I think it's wonderful that authorities are starting to dialogue again about sacred medicines which have been known and honored by peaceful, highly spiritual cultures around the world for thousands of years.

We're still in our infancy as far as understanding and appreciating these gems, and since there has been so much silence, propaganda, and abuse surrounding their initial impact on our culture, it's no wonder at all that most people haven't a clue, and continue to spread their lies and misconceptions.

It will be some time yet before the whole truth comes out. Until then, it will continue to be a few voices, far ahead of their time, and with the courage of honesty, crying out in the wilderness.

As someone who has seen relatively deeply into the nature of consciousness, I'll support "a maintenance dose" of mushrooms over Prozac any day of the week.

Will the culture have to change, in order to accomodate the awakening consciousness? You bet. And mushrooms are just the catalyst to get those changes underway. The evidence is mounting...

People repairing long-broken relationships, finding meaning in their lives, and folks on the brink of death are able to prepare for the next life by gracefully letting go of this one (the benefits of this for the soul cannot yet be calculated).

And as anyone who read the article already knows, observation of brain patterns shows that the near-instantaneous effects of mushrooms and the long-term effects of transcendental meditation are practically identical. Nothing else has come close to matching these effects.

It's plain to me, and to anyone with an ounce of true vision, that it would take a thoroughly narrow, fatalistic, and/or brainwashed mind to ignore, or to downplay, these historical findings.

The forces that have held us back in the past are beginning to crumble under the weight of their own ignorance. I see it, and you should too, lol!

Now that people are hearing the truth, they want to experience this profound medicine -- and that demand will undoubtedly create the supply. You'll see.

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts, many of which you've shared on my threads before, and thank you for bumping this one. People need to hear and take these new findings into account. Open minds will change!

God bless.

posted April 17, 2010 03:15 AM         

kat -- "My" mushrooms?? I haven't seen mushrooms since Christmas, and then it wasn't much. Before that, it was a couple of years, I think. And longer before that. I haven't had much access to them since my early twenties. The way I see it, the government already has its thumb -- nay, its jackboot -- on "my" mushrooms. So if it wants to take them in hand, and hand them to me, well, I'm not going to scoff. This is the next step. And nothin's gonna stop the flow.

lalalinda -- Kesey was inspired by psychedelics to write an amazing book, and much of the music you love, and which has enhanced your life, was inspired by psychedelics. The New Age and The Civil Rights movements, for Christ's sake, were largely motivated by the atmosphere of psychedelics that penetrated that era. Many things changed which we now take for granted, and future generations will regard the discovery of entheogens as the prime cause. Whatever Kesey told the authorities, I have it on good authority that he was tripping right up to the end. A friend of mine tripped with him, -- in the summer of '99, I think it was. Good for him. Just because a religious experience is temporary, doesn't mean it's illusory, or incapable of transforming your life. The best things in life can't be held onto, but they're all the more precious for being transient.

Before enlightenment...
smoke herb, take mushrooms.
After enlightenment...
smoke herb, take mushrooms.

I don't argue for others to be like me.

I argue for the right to be like me.

posted April 17, 2010 03:21 AM         

quote:

---

I can recommend a good dose of psilocybin mushrooms to sort the wheat out from the chaff. Which is what we did Friday, P and I. We LAUGHED. God we laughed. We ran around in fields with the sun on our backs, we had a cry because we were happy. We discussed how many things are constructs, work, money, and what things are important. We held on to each other and said "You do what you want when you want to do it, I will always love you" and we discussed freedom and belonging and possession. He hid from me in a field (how he makes me laugh, I am so lucky), we saw a big brown trout. He said "You have great posture" and for some reason that was hilarious. SHY PISCES MAN VERBALISES SOMETHING! And he knew why I was laughing, that we are bad at the verbal stuff, both of us, and we howled laughing. He stood by a wall when I was climbing over it just so he could be there to help me if I needed it, and I said "I LOVE HOW YOU DO THAT!" Then he ran off giggling. Oh my god, he is so much fun to hang out with, and I've been hanging out with him for nearly five years. Joy, joy, joy.

We watched the stars spinning around when we were lying on White Dog's grave. We cried and talked about how we missed him, what he meant to us, what we learned from him. I sat on my own and experienced the deepest, most serene peace. The Universe spoke and said all will be well, in fact I was the Universe.

And stuff like that.

What is important to take from the experience is that stuff is just stuff. Nothing dies after death. Love doesn't depend on a marriage certificate, you can't pin love down and claim it. One can fall in love with someone else in a heartbeat, be attracted to someone else unexpectedly. People are beautiful, fluid, not subject to rules. And accepting all of these things, when you're with a Piscean - makes everything so much easier, let's not ignore these things, let's explore them in safety and love.

So hurrah for Pisceans.

---

She got it.

So...

When's the last time YOU had a day like that?

posted April 17, 2010 10:47 AM         

but as far as the other, and including LSD, if they were utilized by psychologists, like Leary and Mr. Kesey were wanting, the world would have been a much better place by now, IMHO.

Hugs,
(goatgirl)

PS ~ BTW I understnad congratulations are in order. Blessings to you both!!!

------------------
We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique. --Benjamin Jowett

posted April 17, 2010 11:03 AM         

lalalinda, valus is right, kesey was no turncoat but obviously he had to change his TUNE once he became a marked man by the govnrs.i want to emphasize that as your excerpt points out he was ALREADY writing before he took part in the studies. cuckoos nest and its absurdities might have stayed locked up inside him but they were there already waiting for the key to open the doors...it is disgusting that he was prosecuted for coming out with the stuff when the government was dosing unsuspecting civilians as an "experiment" and much much more...

lots of people think these drugs are responsible for the disintegration of the world as we knew it, a place with which you, valus, are unfamiliar. while the new age might be an outcropping it was already latent before people took them!! and the civil rights movement was WELL underway and in the hands of people who never did take psychedelics before anyone ever heard of timothy leary.

they are VERY valuable allies, to use castaneda's term, in self-acquaintance. but many many people are just not ready for them. and the CASUALTIES of the 60s and beyond were people whose "doors of perception" slammed open without warning and left them hanging in mid-air and in a hostile environment. quite the opposite of psychiatric cures was their fate.

while i believe these things should be legal as they once were, i do not want them held under lock and key and regulated by head doctors and the government. learn a little botany and go get your own...but stay away from those who will exacerbate your paranoia...

also i don't think fixing depression was ever a reason for taking mushrooms or any other psychotropic drugs. it was more about exploration initiation and reorientation... recreation was a later use of less pure forms of the drugs(unless picked in the wild or cultivated)...spirituality was very much a part of the orignal rites. albert hoffman took lsd periodically throughout his 103 year long life...

when i say your mushrooms, v, i mean the future candidates for your ingestion. not that you have laid claim to them!

@dragonfly - yes, little children can also take you there, but many moms never "get" that. i second your emotion though!!

kesey turn of the century:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl9gIZ5YruY&feature=related

posted April 17, 2010 01:45 PM         

Children are amazing, but I think most people who have children do it as a substitute for releasing their inner child. We think we need to "put away childish things" in order to live in "the real world", but, really, the world is what we make it, and we can make it a playground, if we have the vision and the faith to let it happen. Imagine if one percent of what our government spends on national security were spent on developing agricultural technologies; learning how to reprenish topsoil and arable earth on a massive scale. How long before we could grow everything we needed? A person could walk across the country, and find a fruit-tree, or a marijuana crop, or a family of mushrooms, or peyote buttons, every few steps of the way. Government is a cocoon. A larval stage.

And thank you. We're happy.

katatonic,

Indeed, "the mind opening stays with you". The cup runneth over, but the Lord is ready to pour more, if we desire it.

Nixon cracked down. That's what caused the disintegration. The culture wasn't ready to make the big changes overnight, and many people made the transition to more culturally acceptable drugs (alcohol, cocaine, pills, etc.). The fault doesnt belong to the psychedelics, but to the prevailing dominator paradigm we've been witnessing for the past five thousand years or so. There is a really big picture here.

Of course many things were already latent, or partially underway. But it wasn't until people started "turning on, tuning in, and dropping out" that protests began to happen on a grander scale and the movements finally received the wider support they'd been struggling for since slavery and even long before that.

I am not turning a blind eye to the "casualties". But I see very clearly that the clash was not so much between their former perceptions and the revealed awareness that rushed in through the doors of the open mind, but, between the dominator culture and the awakened consciousness. You blame mushrooms, because you don't see the casualties that are already happening, every day, all around you. Those people who conformed to the system, in order to save their lives, and their minds, are just as surely casualties. We all are. The question is, what kind of casualty are you? A martyr, or a traitor?

i dont understand -- you think, just because the government makes it legal for treatment, spores will disappear from the public sphere? If they could do that, they would have done it already. I'm working on the botany, but it's a sticky situation, for a number of reasons, most of which I cannot elaborate upon here. If the government says this stuff is medicine, a lot of people will start changing their minds and being more permissive where their use, and cultivation, is concerned. Am I psyched about taking mushrooms in a clinical environment? Yes. I'll go to hell, if I've got an appointment with Christ there. But the main reason for my excitement, is that this is the next step for our culture. This step is auspicious, not only for itself, but primarily for the direction and the destination it anticipates.

If you see no connection between depression and inner exploration, then I don't know what to tell you. Read "Man's Search For Meaning" and then we'll talk. As for recreation.. when did FUN become a bad word? Does spirituality have to be a grave matter? Does every trip have to be under optimal conditions for it to be a good trip? I admit, there is a lot that has gone wrong and a lot more can and will go wrong. But this is the way. There isn't another. Society needs to maintain a vital relationship with psychedelics. There is so much that is encouraging and positive about them, and that is where we need the emphasis now.

The first video isn't loading...

The second is great! thanks!

posted April 17, 2010 02:34 PM         

and of course shrooms still grow wild. but i have a residual mistrust of the authority structure that says "don't go there" ie don't let them mess with something that is outside their framework. they will create more "controlled substances" in place of "illegal" ones, and though morphine is used for medicine you try making it in your backyard and see how well that is received...that's all. i would NOT take psychedelics in a govt sponsored setting. kesey was not just brave but naive...when he first went for it.

and in case you have missed this point, i believe the structure is disintegrating in front of our eyes. i just don't like to step back in the box if i can help it!! and i can see possible nasty repercussions if too many people get too out there before it is time!!

i am aware that depression can be a strong stimulus to growth. but for a lot of people it creates the opposite effect. the seeking is in the seeker, not the depression, just as different people experience different effects when taking psychotropics/delics...i was just trying to point out that a) a lot of the 60s discoverers/partakers were involved in the civil rights movement and explorations into metaphysics BEFORE they took those drugs, in fact the same curiosity was what led them to the experimentations...and by and large i don't think most of us were trying to escape depression but push the envelope of possibilities available to humankind. i saw many depressed people go under because their depression was right there with them during the trip.

posted April 17, 2010 09:45 PM         

quote:

---

hey are VERY valuable allies, to use castaneda's term, in self-acquaintance. but many many people are just not ready for them. and the CASUALTIES of the 60s and beyond were people whose "doors of perception" slammed open without warning and left them hanging in mid-air and in a hostile environment. quite the opposite of psychiatric cures was their fate.

while i believe these things should be legal as they once were, i do not want them held under lock and key and regulated by head doctors and the government. learn a little botany and go get your own.

---

Amen Sister! Thank you!

quote:

---

Imagine if one percent of what our government spends on national security were spent on developing agricultural technologies

---

posted April 17, 2010 10:20 PM         

quote:

---

i saw many depressed people go under because their depression was right there with them during the trip.

---

interesting. i realize people experience these things differently. my experience was that it was impossible to be unhappy on mushrooms, except for one time when it was late and i was alone and tired, and i didnt take enough then anyway. i had a borderline-shady acid trip once, but most of my acid trips were fairly smooth. i can honestly say, after nearly a hundred trips (mostly on mushrooms, maybe only twenty or so on acid, and always small doses) i never had a bad trip. and the friends i've talked to who had bad trips said the so-called bad trips were the best trips of all -- the ones they learned the most from. i almost wish i had a trip like that. but no matter how sad i was in my life, mushrooms would plug me into something pure and true and good for a while, and that would linger often for weeks. the best experiences of my life were on mushrooms. the best memories. and if anybody thinks that is sad, that is sad. these are sacred medicines, and there are types of people who are born for them, and for whom they grow. they show us the reflection of our innerlife. if a fool looks into the water, a fool will look out. and, yes, there are many other considerations besides. but the legalization and harnessing of these allies is crucial to the spiritual survival of our species. these considerations are so weighty and so profound that anything you can say to slow this down just sounds like a bunch of conservative hair-splitting. This is about vision. When the culture embraces these medicines and the explorers who make use of them, the trips will get better and better. Society needs to change. values need to change. end of story. This is good news. Everyone who cares about Spirit and the heart should be cheering. The end.

posted April 17, 2010 11:55 PM         

This is not the first time the Government has studied the effects of hallucinogens for medical purposes....

and then given the Ken Kesey link.

Out