Over the coming five months, I will be using this blog to post an ongoing collection of writings about psychedelic compounds, building on the research presented by the ground-breaking documentary Neurons to Nirvana.
Using the basic structure of the film, the blog will focus on one of the five featured substances each month, starting with LSD, then Psilocybin, MDMA, Cannabis and Ayahuasca.
These will then conclude with some summary thoughts about how these powerful substances can safely and successfully be integrated within our society. What will the future Psychedelic Society actually look like?
As described in a following post, ‘Eco to Entheo’ – A Journey in Two Directions, I believe that the shift of my personal focus from ‘Eco-’ to ‘Entheo-‘ campaigner has evolved quite naturally.
I am not the first to suggest that these compounds might prove not only to be a panacea for many of our medical and social issues, from addiction to depression, but also a potential catalyst for the quantum shift required in our belief systems, upon which a new philosophical, political and economic vision for humanity is dependent. As suggested by their alternative title – ‘entheogens’ – it now seems clear to me that psychedelics do have the power to ‘awaken the divine within.’
But for many, this still sounds nothing short of preposterous. At best, a romantic resuscitation of the utopian ideals depicted in Aldous Huxley’s novel Island; at worst, a heavy dose of flaky hippie idealism boiled up in a pot of mushroom tea.
However, when such sentiments are seen to echo those of such illustrious luminaries as Gerald Heard, Alan Watts and Huxley himself, some of the intellectual and philosophical giants of the last century, I feel at least partially exonerated in presenting such a lofty and seemingly ludicrous proposition.
So, with this is mind, I find myself embarking on a new journey, to see if they might be correct. The main motivations behind the blog therefore, are to explore the following sort of questions:
- What value does the psychedelic experience offer, from medical cure to mystical insight, and how might that best be integrated within modern society?
- What exemplars exist, ancient and modern, which manifest these contributions in the most positive ways?
- What would our society look like if it integrated the psychedelic experience in a safe, supported and sacramental way?
We tend to think of the ‘psychedelic movement’ as a bygone relic, an abortive 1960s attempt to shift consciousness. However, as I hope this blog will go on to prove, there is much to suggest that it’s real time may still be to come…
To find out more about the topic of check out Neurons to Nirvana, the definite documentary on Psychedelic Medicines.
IMAGE CREDIT: Kham & Flowers by Arzamas
