“It is obvious that psychedelics, properly used, have a behavior-change psychotherapeutic value. But from my point of view, that is all underusing the vehicle. The potential of the vehicle is sacramentally to take you out of the cultural constructs which you are part of a conspiracy in maintaining, and giving you a chance to experience once again your innocence.”
― Ram Dass
What if there were “medicines” that not only alleviated depression, existential anxiety, PTSD, and many other forms of mental illness that are rampant in our world today? If you knew they were psychedelics, would you be able to overcome the cultural propaganda against these sacred substances so that you or those you loved could be helped?
That is why I am writing this article, which is the first in a series of articles about various psychedelics that are available today, both organic and synthetic, and their use in radically improving treatment in the field of mental health. My intention it to debunk the myth of the danger and evil of psychedelics, and to emphasize their potent healing potential when used with guidance in the proper setting (set and setting).
In addition, I want to impart to readers that psychedelics can not only help to alleviate mental illness, but also open the doors of perception that allow people to transcend their suffering, fears, and anguish on the path of their personal destiny, which ultimately affects our collective evolution. The sacred use of psychedelics points us to what is beyond all our fears, and shows us the way into the arms of an Infinite Love. 
The psychedelic renaissance
After a 50-year hiatus, psychedelics are undergoing a research renaissance and a flourishing in the mainstream culture, unlike anything I’ve known in my lifetime. The District of Columbia recently passed Initiative 81 which makes entheogenic plants like psilocybin mushrooms decriminalized in the nation’s capital. While writing this article, a friend sent me a link to a website in DC that delivers psilocybin gummies!
Psychedelics have been used as medicines for thousands of years in almost every human culture, but did not became commonplace in mainstream Western culture until the 1940s and 1950s. They were initially focused in academic and clinical settings, and LSD was one of the primary treatments for alcoholism in the ‘50’s, ‘60’s and early ‘70’s. Even now, there is proof that LSD and psilocybin can help reduce problematic consumption of alcohol.
Over time psychedelics became stigmatized and associated with the hippie and counterculture movement, prompting their designation as illegal Schedule 1 products in the 1960s and 1970s. This made research incredibly challenging, but non-profit organizations such as MAPS (The Association for Psychedelic Studies) and the Beckley Foundation forged on. Over the next three decades, scientists amassed data that suggested there was something more to these substances than governmental propaganda would have us believe.
Two generations later, in 2018, countries around the world saw a sea change in attitudes towards medical cannabis. This allowed medical specialists to prescribe CBD Oil UK products to those who might benefit from its therapeutic effects in treating childhood epilepsy, pain management, and end-of-life care.
This medical cannabis breakthrough was followed in early 2019 by the first major advance in the treatment of depression since the late1980s, with the approval of esketamine nasal spray for treatment-resistant depression in adults. When it comes to utilizing cannabis for medicinal purposes, your Guide to the Missouri Medical Marijuana Card, can offer a regulated and controlled approach.
Psychedelics have begun to return to the mainstream as rigorous clinical trials of substances such as psilocybin, methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), and others are all under investigation to treat a variety of psychiatric illnesses. The demonstration of their potential as game-changing treatment for unmet needs in mental health is being greeted with optimism by many clinicians, regulators and investors.
There is now a competitive landscape of pharma companies that have begun working on developing and trialling cannabis extracts as medicine available at your local CBD Store, also some Champignon Brands, ATAI Life Sciences, Field Trip Psychedelics and Eleusis.
What is essential is that the same capitalistic greed that has infected the drug industry already, does not poison and thus overshadow the need for the therapeutic/sacred use of these medicines. Remembering that so many of them come from indigenous communities for whom these medicines are divine tools, is essential. We must have more than a dose of cultural humility as we enter into the shamanic world that has as much power and value as our digital worlds, and must be entered with respect.
The false prophesy of Prozac
I became a psychotherapist in 1989, 2 years after the drug fluoxetine (branded as Prozac) received FDA approval for the treatment of depression. For hundreds of years, depression, or melancholia), was considered a rare and serious disease, reserved for psychiatric inpatients . Within months of Prozac hitting the market, it was the best-selling antidepressant of all time. Touted as safer and avoiding weight gain and other uncomfortable side effects, doctors began prescribing it to patients with much milder symptoms.
I had been in psychotherapy myself for several years, and had worked through low self-esteem and the effects of childhood trauma without psychopharmaceuticals, and with lots of grit, tears, and other therapies such as Holotropic Breathwork. When psychedelics were banned in 1966, the psychiatrist Stan Grof had developed this form of breathing that facilitates transcendent and expanded states of awareness that allow for dramatic shifts in perception and deep healing.
Like psychedelics, holotropic breathwork helps people to grieve so that they can move beyond the pain into very joyful and blissful states of awareness. It has been proven that the symptoms of grief show little or no response to antidepressants.
With the introduction of Prozac, a biological revolution was well underway, and people who would have used psychotherapy began to use Prozac and its long line of successors instead.
I must admit that from the beginning, I felt suspicious of these so called “miracle drugs” as I attempted to support clients in their healing. What I observed was at times a wondrous letting up of painful symptoms, only to be followed by a heavy blanket of malaise or hidden symptoms like emotional numbing, leaving them in despair. They often end up on a merry go round of psychotropic medication that leaves them far worse than they began.
I am not vilifying these drugs, for they also save lives. When given to the people who really need them, in the way they were meant to be used, along with other forms of treatment that can support healing, they can truly be medicines. The short-term use of anti-depressants or anti-anxiety drugs to bring someone out of crisis and into a place where they can be amenable to other treatment, is an essential tool in treating mental illness.
As with all things on planet earth, these wonder drugs have had their dark and light aspects. “We often hear the shocking fact that deaths from heroin increased nearly 5 fold (374%) between 1999 and 2014, but rarely – if ever – do we hear that deaths from psychiatric drug overdoses have increased nearly 4 fold (278%) over the same time period,” says Kenneth Anderson in his article, Psychiatric Medications Kill More Americans Than Heroin.
And now we are being shown other ways, using medicines that help resolve the trauma underlying the various diagnoses. Rather than suppress, psychedelics activate deep places within a person. In the right set and setting, with the proper guidance, the person's inner healer is also activated, and remarkable transformations are possible,
Psychedelics and unmet needs in mental health
In truth, this renaissance of psychedelics is happening at a time when there are so many unmet needs in mental health. Existing therapies and medications are not working for the depth and breadth of the symptoms that are being presented.The fact that multiple different therapeutic approaches have been studied in depression and other mental health disorders with limited success has contributed to an existing and ongoing mental health crisis, Research by World Health Organization published in late 2019 found that one in four people will be affected by a mental or neurological disorder in their lifetime, and one in 20 will be severe cases. That was before the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Eleusis is a life science company based in London and New York, dedicated to transforming psychedelics into medicines. Eleusis’ co-founder and chairman Shlomi Raz says “Psychedelics have robust and long- lasting anti-depressant effects.” There is also evidence that psychedelics could be effective in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety.
Contrary to the myths about psychedelics, they are for the most part safe and well-tolerated, and do not leave a person with the negative side effects of SSRIs or other anti-depressants currently in use.
Statistics show that more and more people, both young and old, have become dreadfully disillusioned with the prospect of being a part of a society that has forgotten how to truly care. The number of adults, ages 18 to 65, on the federal disability rolls due to mental illness jumped from 1.25 million in 1987 to four million in 2007. Roughly one in every 45 working-age adults is now on government disability due to mental illness. So much for the success of Prozac!
How psychedelics change the brain
One of the most famous recent studies into psychedelics examined the effects of psychedelics on the brains of volunteers using high-resolution brain imaging. One of the findings of this study was that LSD (and by extension, other classic psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms) have a dramatic effect on the default mode network, or DMN. The default mode network refers to an interconnected group of brain regions that are associated with introspective functions, internally directed thought, such as self-reflection, and self-criticism.
When we take high enough doses of psychedelics, the control of the DMN is released, allowing a person to break free from habitual thought patterns. This disruption of the DMN is what leads to the feelings of ego dissolution so typical of the psychedelic experience. The sense of self is expanded far beyond the limiting bounds of the ego to include biographical, archetypal spiritual, and even cosmic levels of consciousness.
This reduction in DMN activity functions as a kind of “rebooting” of the brain, and is thought to be linked to one of the most enduring therapeutic effects of psychedelic substances—-the total surrender of the personality to something far greater than itself. There is growing scientific evidence that suggests that the DMN may play a role in many mental health conditions, as well as suppressing our natural creative impulses.
Psychedelics can release our minds from the rigorous control of the DMN, and in a sense, temporarily give us the wide open mind of a child. This is what Ram Dass meant when he said that they “give you a chance to experience once again your innocence.”
By opening up the mind, people under the influence of psychedelics can confront their painful pasts or self-destructive behavior without shame or fear. Rather than being emotionally numb, they feel deeply and are able to have a fresh and objective view, rather than the toxic conditioning that creates suffering.
Combining psychotherapy and psychedelics
At this time, the world is probably within five years of seeing the first psychedelic therapy gain regulatory approval, according to researchers.
The Founder & Executive Chairman of Field Trip, Ronan Levy, sees psychedelics in a different, more integrated way. The company believes that the efficacy of psychedelics really shines through when they are combined with psychotherapy. Says Levy, “Psychedelics have an immediate antidepressant effect, so you get a lift that helps people break out their mental health conditions on a neurobiological experience. They also seem to open up a period of neuroplasticity where the parts of the brain that tend to resist ideas are subdued, which really opens people up to being more responsive to the effects of psychotherapy.”
Psilocybin and MDMA are the two drugs that have gotten the most research attention, and now have breakthrough status from the FDA – psilocybin for major depression and treatment-resistant depression, and MDMA for PTSD. Clearly, this indicates that the FDA recognizes the potential based on early studies and promises an expedited review.
These two drugs have different chemistry and effects, but they have the potential to be used in a similar way: a small number of doses paired with psychotherapy for long-term change. MDMA is an empathogen, also called a heart opener, which is a class of psychoactive drugs that produce experiences of emotional communion, oneness, relatedness, and emotional openness. Psilocybin like LSD and several other psychedelics are called entheogens, which are psychoactive substances that induce alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behavior for the purposes of engendering spiritual development, and awakening, Earl Nightingale says, “The word “enthusiasm” comes from the Greek word “entheos” which means the God within. And the happiest, most interesting people are those who have found the secret of maintaining their enthusiasm, that God within.”
It takes little imagination to see how these “medicines” can be used in conjunction with psychotherapy at a time when the real sickness is a pervasive sense of isolation, and lack of purpose and meaning. In previous generations, young people acted crazy to successfully avoid military service, but most young people today who are diagnosed and treated for mental illness are not trying to dodge the draft. They have been conditioned to adapt and adjust and comply with boring and unsafe schools, meaningless jobs, and a sterile and alienating society in which we are no longer told the truth by leaders, our food supply is contaminated, our environment is in crisis, our healthcare system obscenely inadequate, and many are losing friends to an opiate epidemic, or a raging pandemic.
Only if we were not human, would we not end up feeling anxious, depressed, and unable to function—-but we are—human. We have limbic systems that cause us to have soft underbellies and to feel deep psychic pain when faced with a hopeless situation. We need new medicines that offer hope, joy and a deep sense of real connection.
The second time around
For many of us who were alive and involved with psychedelics in the 1960s and 1970s, these new changes bring an enormous validation of peak experiences that changed the course of our lives back then. At 68, it’s been exactly 50 years since I first “dropped acid” in Harvard Square with my friend Kathryn. It was a below zero night in Massachusetts, with snowbanks taller than we were, but nothing seemed to dampen our enthusiasm for EVERYTHING that night.
By the time we had managed to find our way back to the North Shore in her powder blue VW beetle, we both knew that there was a whole lot more to life than what we’d been taught by parents, teachers, or any book. We shared an experience that was beyond our comprehension at the time, and that ushered us both into a Mystery of what is possible. Doors to our perception had been opened that piqued a tremendous curiosity, and I know that my life’s trajectory changed forever that night.
Please note that dropping acid in Harvard Square, and then driving 20 miles on a snowy night, is far from recommended. As journalist Michael Pollan describes in his 2018 bestseller “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence,” the set and setting (the intention and the place) are key factors that determine the course of a psychedelic journey. It is very important to be in a safe place with trustworthy support, and to have a clear intention, if you choose to embark on a psychedelic journey.
Love and truth and the use of psychedelics
On Jan 6, 2021, the world was witnessed the outrageous behavior of radicalized Americans, including the so called “QAnon Shaman”, Jake Angeli, a self-initiated medicine man who supposedly uses psychedelic ceremonies for mental health.
This not-reality based fellow believes he is a “super soldier” with psychic powers and is part of a secret government operation, just like Captain America. He created a Star Seed Academy which is to help people awaken and ascend, He is a nationalist who believes that gun ownership is a sacred right, and he has somehow fused Trump’s second term with Ascension, and the Great Awakening, all very much a look alike for many well-intentioned people who also imbibe psychedelics and envision a world of peace and love.
I mention this because it’s people like Angeli who can revive myths of psychedelics causing psychosis. The truth is that when someone who is already unstable takes psychedelics, grandiosity and outrageous inflation can be ramped up to a truly dangerous level.
What this speaks to is the power of psychedelics to fuel a vision. It is true that taking psychedelics opens doors of perception, and if those doors are on a house made of hatred and fear, the doors will open to more of the same.
At this time, there are countless above-ground and below-ground psychedelic “sitters”— people who hold space for others using psychedelics—all over the world. There are groups gathering every day, using psychedelics for personal and spiritual growth and to create loving communities that support one another. There are more and more legal ketamine clinics cropping up across the country. Psychotherapists offering Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) are abundant on the West Coast, and the movement using this unique synthetic psychedelic is building. I have already begun to offer it in my own practice, and it changes everything!
Just as some “shamans” profess a gospel of domination and control, there are those whose message is one of Oneness and Love. Christopher Bache, a philosopher of religion, wrote the remarkable book LSD And The Mind Of The Universe, about the 73 high-dose LSD sessions he experienced over the course of 20 years. With his wife as sitter, Bache underwent an initiation into cosmic consciousness that yogis have taught for centuries. He encountered the “Ocean of Suffering,” the “The Birth of the Future Human,” and “Diamond Luminosity,” among other dimensions.
Bache’s dedication to this form of spiritual practice is unequaled, and I trust his words, after years of rigorous work: “The goal of this work, I have learned, is not to achieve some final condition or reach the end of this infinity. I think the goal of deep work is to make ourselves transparent to this infinity, to let as much of it into our earthly lives as we can skillfully manage, and to be patient with the rest. For this a gentler path works well.”
This gentler path is the way of the Divine Feminine that we can more readily embody when we use psychedelics in a sacred way. Used therapeutically, or in ritual, in the service of love, these medicines can heal.
It is essential at this time that we do not agree to a level of consciousness that is based on fear. Love is stronger than fear, always. That is what psychedelics have shown me in a very unique and experiential way, with very personal tones and wide strokes of the brush. The picture I have seen is a world enduring oceans of suffering in the exquisite process of rising in the light of love.
I am not alone in that vision, and it is not the same vision as Jake Angeli. It does not involve guns, and it stretches beyond the United States to include a world where all human beings at last cooperate with nature and one another.
You do not need psychedelics to do that. It is a path, a beautiful path that has opened up once again to assist human beings in the ever-expanding universe of which we are a part. For those who choose to step onto this path, however briefly, there is an opportunity for your heart to open to infinite oneness and infinite love, here on earth, at this time, in the midst of tremendous change and upheaval.
