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The Psychedelic Renaissance

Author: Ben Sessa

Publisher: Aeon Academic

Published: 2019-11-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781913274276

"Examines the mind-manifesting properties of psychedelic drugs and assesses the scientific evidence supporting their potential clinical and therapeutic use. Ben Sessa takes the reader on a journey through the fascinating history of psychedelic plants and chemicals, examining their role in human culture from prehistory to modern times. Based on a thorough review of scientific evidence, he makes a clarion call for a reevaluation of their clinical potential with appropriate setting in scientific research, psychiatry, psychotherapy, and personal growth. First published in 2012, This second edition of Psychedelic Renaissance has been extensively revised and expanded to incorporate the extraordinary developments in research into psychedelics over the intervening years"--Provided by publisher

Acid Revival

Author: Danielle Giffort

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2020-07-21

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1452959773

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A vivid analysis of the history and revival of clinical psychedelic science Psychedelic drugs are making a comeback. In the mid-twentieth century, scientists actively studied the potential of drugs like LSD and psilocybin for treating mental health problems. After a decades-long hiatus, researchers are once again testing how effective these drugs are in relieving symptoms for a wide variety of psychiatric conditions, from depression and obsessive–compulsive disorder to posttraumatic stress disorder and substance addiction. In Acid Revival, Danielle Giffort examines how this new generation of researchers and their allies are working to rehabilitate psychedelic drugs and to usher in a new era of psychedelic medicine. As this team of researchers and mental health professionals revive the field of psychedelic science, they are haunted by the past and by one person in particular: psychedelic evangelist Timothy Leary. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews with people working on scientific psychedelia, Giffort shows how today’s researchers tell stories about Leary as an “impure” scientist and perform his antithesis to address a series of lingering dilemmas that threaten to rupture their budding legitimacy. Acid Revival presents new information about the so-called psychedelic renaissance and highlights the cultural work involved with the reassembly of dormant areas of medical science. This colorful and accessible history of the rise, fall, and reemergence of psychedelic medicine is infused with intriguing narratives and personalities—a story for popular science aficionados as well as for scholars of the history of science and medicine.

Psychedelic Justice

Author: Beatriz Caiuby Labate

Publisher:

Published: 2021-09-14

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9780907791850

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CULTIVATING A PSYCHEDELIC RENAISSANCE THAT INCLUDES EVERYONE Radical, cultural transformation is the guiding force behind this socially visionary anthology. Its unifying value is social justice. It guides us in cultivating a psychedelic renaissance that represents everyone, honors voices that have been suppressed for too long, and envisions a more beautiful tomorrow through a psychedelic lens. Psychedelic culture is at an inflection point. Within the last decade, psychedelics have assimilated into the mainstream, even becoming a multimillion-dollar industry. As they integrate into the dominant culture, a lot of longtime participants in psychedelic communities are wondering: will psychedelics help us revolutionize society, or will they merely reinforce old narratives? As psychedelic medicine integrates into mainstream, capitalist culture, the question of what forces will gain control and shape the direction of the psychedelic renaissance is front and center. In this pivotal time, with so many new players emerging, those of us who believe that psychedelics can help us transform society are being challenged to define, and embody, the values that will shape this growing movement. To do this, we must first acknowledge the shadow side of the psychedelic movement and challenge its longstanding injustices. If the psychedelic renaissance is going to expand and revolutionize society, it must include and serve everybody. The anthology highlights Chacruna's ongoing work promoting diversity and inclusion by prominently featuring voices that have been long marginalized in Western psychedelic culture: women, queer people, people of color, and indigenous people. The essays examine both historical and current issues within psychedelics that many may not know about, and orient around policy, reciprocity, diversity and inclusion, sex and power, colonialism, and indigenous concerns.

When Plants Dream

Author: Daniel Pinchbeck

Publisher: Watkins Media Limited

Published: 2019-09-10

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 1786782979

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Ayahuasca is a powerful tool for transformation, that more and more Westerners are flocking to drink in a quest for greater self-knowledge, healing and reconnection with the natural world. This formerly esoteric, little-known brew is now a growth industry. But why? Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew that has a long history of ritual use among indigenous groups of the Upper Amazon. Made from the ayahuasca vine and the leaves of a shrub, it is associated with healing in collective ceremonies and in more intimate contexts, generally under the direction of specialist – an ayahuasquero. These are experienced practitioners who guide the ceremony and the drinkers’ experience. Ayahuasca has gained significant popularity these days in cities around the world. Why? What effect might ayahuasca be having on our culture? Does the brew, which seems to inspire environmental action, simplified lifestyles and more communitarian behaviour, act as an antidote to frenzied consumerist culture? In When Plants Dream, Pinchbeck and Rokhlin explore the economic, social, political, cultural and environmental impact that ayahuasca is having on society. Part 1 covers the background; what ayahuasca is, where it is found, and its cultural origins. Part 2 explores the role and practices of the ayahuasquero in both Amazonian and Western cultures. Part 3 examines the medicinal plants of the Amazon, looking particularly at the ingredients in ayahuasca and their therapeutic qualities, covering the most up-to-date biomedical research, psychedelic science and psychopharmacology. It also covers all the legal aspects of ayahuasca use. Lastly in Part 4 Pinchbeck and Rokhlin question the future of ayahuasca. When Plants Dream is the first book of its kind to look at the science and expanding culture of ayahuasca, from its historical use to its appropriation by the West and the impact it is having on cultures beyond the Amazon.

Advances in Psychedelic Medicine

Author: Michael J. Winkelman

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2019-03-22

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 144086411X

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Researchers, program administrators, and practicing clinicians explain the most recent developments in using psychedelic substances to treat psychological, physiological, and social problems. More than a decade ago, the U.S. government lifted its ban on all testing of psychedelic substances. Winkelman and Sessa now provide updated scientific research and applications of these substances, now moving into approved categories of medicine. The text is an up-to-date assessment of the latest advances in the field of psychedelic medicine, covering the use of LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, ayahuasca, and other substances to augment psychotherapies for a range of disorders. It discusses medical and psychiatric concerns, clinical efficacy and safety, ethical considerations, and neuroscience findings regarding the psychedelic compounds. Topics covered include an overview of psychiatric applications of psychedelics; treatments for addictions and depressive disorders; effects of psychedelics on inflammation and neuroplasticity; evidence for clinical applications of DMT, ayahuasca, and cannabidiol; psychedelic treatment of sociopathic disorders; microdosing psychedelics; training psychedelic therapists; and community-based harm reduction approaches to managing psychedelic crises.

The Trials of Psychedelic Therapy

Author: Matthew Oram

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2018-10-01

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 1421426218

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The rise—and fall—of research into the therapeutic potential of LSD. After LSD arrived in the United States in 1949, the drug's therapeutic promise quickly captured the interests of psychiatrists. In the decade that followed, modern psychopharmacology was born and research into the drug's perceptual and psychological effects boomed. By the early 1960s, psychiatrists focused on a particularly promising treatment known as psychedelic therapy: a single, carefully guided, high-dose LSD session coupled with brief but intensive psychotherapy. Researchers reported an astounding 50 percent success rate in treating chronic alcoholism, as well as substantial improvement in patients suffering from a range of other disorders. Yet despite this success, LSD officially remained an experimental drug only. Research into its effects, psychological and otherwise, dwindled before coming to a close in the 1970s. In The Trials of Psychedelic Therapy, Matthew Oram traces the early promise and eventual demise of LSD psychotherapy in the United States. While the common perception is that LSD's prohibition terminated legitimate research, Oram draws on files from the Food and Drug Administration and the personal papers of LSD researchers to reveal that the most significant issue was not the drug's illegality, but the persistent question of its efficacy. The landmark Kefauver-Harris Drug Amendments of 1962 installed strict standards for efficacy evaluation, which LSD researchers struggled to meet due to the unorthodox nature of their treatment. Exploring the complex interactions between clinical science, regulation, and therapeutics in American medicine, The Trials of Psychedelic Therapy explains how an age of empirical research and limited government oversight gave way to sophisticated controlled clinical trials and complex federal regulations. Analyzing the debates around how to understand and evaluate treatment efficacy, this book will appeal to anyone with an interest in LSD and psychedelics, as well as mental health professionals, regulators, and scholars of the history of psychiatry, psychotherapy, drug regulation, and pharmaceutical research and development.

Trip

Author: Tao Lin

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2018-05-01

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1101974508

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Part memoir, part history, part journalistic exposé, Trip is a look at psychedelic drugs, literature, and alienation from one of the twenty-first century's most innovative novelists--The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test for a new generation. A Vintage Original. While reeling from one of the most creative--but at times self-destructive--outpourings of his life, Tao Lin discovered the strange and exciting work of Terence McKenna. McKenna, the leading advocate of psychedelic drugs since Timothy Leary, became for Lin both an obsession and a revitalizing force. In Trip, Lin's first book-length work of nonfiction, he charts his recovery from pharmaceutical drugs, his surprising and positive change in worldview, and his four-year engagement with some of the hardest questions: Why do we make art? Is the world made of language? What happens when we die? And is the imagination more real than the universe? In exploring these ideas and detailing his experiences with psilocybin, DMT, salvia, and cannabis, Lin takes readers on a trip through nature, his own past, psychedelic culture, and the unknown.

Psychedelic Medicine

Author: Richard Louis Miller

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2017-11-21

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1620556987

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Explores the potential of psychedelics as medicine and the intersections of politics, science, and psychedelics • Explores the tumultuous history of psychedelic research, the efforts to restore psychedelic therapies, and the links between psychiatric drugs and mental illness • Offers non-technical summaries of the most recent, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies with MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca • Includes the work of Rick Doblin, Stanislav Grof, James Fadiman, Julie Holland, Dennis McKenna, David Nichols, Charles Grob, Phil Wolfson, Michael and Annie Mithoefer, Roland Griffiths, Katherine MacLean, and Robert Whitaker Embracing the revival of psychedelic research and the discovery of new therapeutic uses, clinical psychologist Dr. Richard Louis Miller discusses what is happening today in psychedelic medicine--and what will happen in the future--with top researchers and thinkers in this field, including Rick Doblin, Stanislav Grof, James Fadiman, Julie Holland, Dennis McKenna, David Nichols, Charles Grob, Phil Wolfson, Michael and Annie Mithoefer, Roland Griffiths, Katherine MacLean, and Robert Whitaker. Dr. Miller and his contributors cover the tumultuous history of early psychedelic research brought to a halt 50 years ago by the U.S. government as well as offering non-technical summaries of the most recent studies with MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca. They explore the biochemistry of consciousness and the use of psychedelics for self-discovery and healing. They discuss the use of psilocybin for releasing fear in the terminally ill and the potential for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of PTSD. They examine Dr. Charles Grob’s research on the indigenous use and therapeutic properties of ayahuasca and Dr. Gabor Mate’s attempt to transport this plant medicine to a clinical setting with the help of Canada’s Department of National Health. Dr. Miller and his contributors explore the ongoing efforts to restore psychedelic therapies to the health field, the growing threat of overmedication by the pharmaceutical industry, and the links between psychiatric drugs and mental illness. They also discuss the newly shifting political climate and the push for new research, offering hope for an end to the War on Drugs and a potential renaissance of research into psychedelic medicines around the world.

Philosophy of Psychedelics

Author: Chris Letheby

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-08-05

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 0192581090

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Recent clinical trials show that psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin can be given safely in controlled conditions, and can cause lasting psychological benefits with one or two administrations. Supervised psychedelic sessions can reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and addiction, and improve well-being in healthy volunteers, for months or even years. But these benefits seem to be mediated by "mystical" experiences of cosmic consciousness, which prompts a philosophical concern: do psychedelics cause psychological benefits by inducing false or implausible beliefs about the metaphysical nature of reality? This book is the first scholarly monograph in English devoted to the philosophical analysis of psychedelic drugs. Its central focus is the apparent conflict between the growing use of psychedelics in psychiatry and the philosophical worldview of naturalism. Within the book, Letheby integrates empirical evidence and philosophical considerations in the service of a simple conclusion: this "Comforting Delusion Objection" to psychedelic therapy fails. While exotic metaphysical ideas do sometimes come up, they are not, on closer inspection, the central driver of change in psychedelic therapy. Psychedelics lead to lasting benefits by altering the sense of self, and changing how people relate to their own minds and lives-not by changing their beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality. The upshot is that a traditional conception of psychedelics as agents of insight and spirituality can be reconciled with naturalism (the philosophical position that the natural world is all there is). Controlled psychedelic use can lead to genuine forms of knowledge gain and spiritual growth-even if no Cosmic Consciousness or transcendent divine Reality exists. Philosophy of Psychedelics is an indispensable guide to the literature for researchers already engaged in the field of psychedelic psychiatry, and for researchers-especially philosophers-who want to become acquainted with this increasingly topical field.

How to Change Your Mind

Author: Michael Pollan

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2019-05-14

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 0735224153

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Now on Netflix as a 4-part documentary series! “Pollan keeps you turning the pages . . . cleareyed and assured.” —New York Times A #1 New York Times Bestseller, New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018, and New York Times Notable Book A brilliant and brave investigation into the medical and scientific revolution taking place around psychedelic drugs--and the spellbinding story of his own life-changing psychedelic experiences When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such as depression, addiction and anxiety, he did not intend to write what is undoubtedly his most personal book. But upon discovering how these remarkable substances are improving the lives not only of the mentally ill but also of healthy people coming to grips with the challenges of everyday life, he decided to explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third. Thus began a singular adventure into various altered states of consciousness, along with a dive deep into both the latest brain science and the thriving underground community of psychedelic therapists. Pollan sifts the historical record to separate the truth about these mysterious drugs from the myths that have surrounded them since the 1960s, when a handful of psychedelic evangelists inadvertently catalyzed a powerful backlash against what was then a promising field of research. A unique and elegant blend of science, memoir, travel writing, history, and medicine, How to Change Your Mind is a triumph of participatory journalism. By turns dazzling and edifying, it is the gripping account of a journey to an exciting and unexpected new frontier in our understanding of the mind, the self, and our place in the world. The true subject of Pollan's "mental travelogue" is not just psychedelic drugs but also the eternal puzzle of human consciousness and how, in a world that offers us both suffering and joy, we can do our best to be fully present and find meaning in our lives.