Letter From LSD-Inventor Albert Hofmann to Apple CEO Jobs

[agitprop]

I thought it was clear, given that I'd quoted monster's assertion that only those with strong world views (ie 'grounded') could handle an acid trip.

I think this whole drug conversation strikes me as .. I'm struggling to find a different word than juvenile but can't do it... juvenile, is because of my own personal experiences.

You've all used your own personal experiences *with* LSD to try to justify your allegiance to its use, so fogive me for believing that it wouldn't be out of line for me to call upon mine.

Many of you are obviously having a difficult time accepting that I have 'communed with God' (and his/her opposite) while NOT on drugs. But I think I have .. at least I think I have to the same degree that you think you have.

The question about the term grounded is important. I often don't know what people mean when they use it. Does it mean, well rooted in your world view, or belief system? If so, do people derive a degree of stability and contentment from "where they sit". I guess the best analogy would be to compare the "grounding" experience to being planted, like a plant.

If a plant is placed in a large pot with fertilizer, is watered frequently and get lots of sun, it would be cruel to rip it up and plant it elsewhere, as it would be to remove a person from a comfortable environment. That's a given. Comparatively speaking, a person that's planted comfortably, might not take well to even being given the information that he's in a pot rather than in the real world. On the other hand some people and plants are desparate to be transplanted. I think of entire crops of nihilistic youth, droopy, lifeless, without vitality, raised in a commercial culture and constrained by what they think they can achieve in a world of shrunken opportunities. Anyway, that's simple minded way of describing it and sorry if it sounds condescending.

I would love to hear your experiences of communing with God and his or her opposite. Were you able to do this, when you wanted or is it something that happened to you, without your summoning it? I think these experiences are different, in a way, than say, communicating or experiencing elfin realms, or being able to bi-locate.

[lightningBugout]

You've all used your own personal experiences *with* LSD to try to justify your allegiance to its use, so fogive me for believing that it wouldn't be out of line for me to call upon mine.

Many of you are obviously having a difficult time accepting that I have 'communed with God' (and his/her opposite) while NOT on drugs. But I think I have .. at least I think I have to the same degree that you think you have.

I strongly suggest you take a step back and re-read the thread. I will do the same, because perhaps I have missed what you describe here.

But, as someone who is strongly pro-entheogen, let me make clear that:

I don't really like LSD per se. If I could get some of the pure grade stuff Eli Lilly made several decades back, that would be one thing. But the kind I would likely find in LA or NYC or wherever, no thanks.

Dismissing drugs out of hand as juvenile makes very little sense. I would strongly recommend reading Huxley and Storming Heaven about the history of LSD. Surely some less than sophisticated things have been said in this thread. But there is an enormous and important and largely understated history to psychedelics in America. And it is highly political and deserves a great deal more attention than it is often given.

As for your own religious experiences, I must have missed the place where someone insulted you. Let me make clear, I, for one, see drugs as being only one other method of achieving altered states of consciousness, alongside meditation, fasting, prayer, exercise, revolution, food, sex, etc.

But I think Terence McKenna has an excellent point when he notes that for many people, there is a kind of piety about psychedelics, that many of us have an ingrained sense that "if its so easy" to attain such states with chemistry then somehow its not valid or we are undeserving. That, is incredibly juvenile IMHO.

[Penguin]

Many of you are obviously having a difficult time accepting that I have 'communed with God' (and his/her opposite) while NOT on drugs. But I think I have .. at least I think I have to the same degree that you think you have.

No, not at all.
Actually, the opposite. I got interested in them (entheogens widely, also other techniques like meditation, breathing and dancing later) because I had mystical experiences totally sober, when I didnt even drink beer yet, or had ever smoked even cigarettes. Described some of them ("the ceasing to be" for example) here - http://rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=23468

I think monster? or marmot? shared some similar ones at that thread.

Besides, local shamen in my own culture probably were using Amanita shrooms and possibly others like the local Psilocybe species, before the Christians arrived here on their crusades and forcibly converted us to christianity, and destroyed over a thousand shaman drums in the north (only TWO are left! And neither of them is in Finland anymore!) - along with the whole oral tradition of healing and beliefs. No written language existed here at the time, so its all gone - maybe except for a few scattered healers (mostly women) who have their knowledge passed on from generation to generation.

Thats how we got here, globally too. In the Middle Ages, the church considered all this witchcraft, and the practitioners (of all variations, from midwives to healers to shamans to people using entheogens) were burned en masse for their heresies. From that time on most of this knowledge was lost in the west - up till the time when Wasson brought back information on mushrooms and Salvia from the South America.
But the mentality is still very much the same as the church of the dark ages.

The litany against fear is an incantation used by the Bene Gesserit throughout the series to focus their minds and calm themselves in times of peril. The litany is as follows:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

[Penguin]

From one of my favourite sources for all kinds of nice images (fractal stuff, maths, Laffoley, etc), I borrow this text I stumbled on now - please also see original site, and original article for the pictures it has!

I can agree with what he says here.

http://www.miqel.com/entheogens/true_an ... ons-1.html

Are All Hallucinations Really Hallucinations?
Freedictionary sums it up quite nicely:
"The term Hallucinogen, in this context, is largely a misnomer that classifies drugs with disparate effects into an inappropriately general category. Some of the effects of mind-altering substances could be labeled hallucinations, as could some of the effects of alcohol or cocaine.
From a historical perspective, however, the seminal importance of these substances to human culture has arisen from an effect that is the polar opposite of a hallucination, namely the ability of these substances to elicit different states of consciousness that provide perspective on one's ordinary mindset."

One of my favorite things about Psychedelics
is examining & attempting to define the mysterious fractal boundaries
between unfamiliar zones of sensory intensification, and actual 'hallucinations'

As some may remember from 'back in the old days' there is a certain mid-range dosage level where there is just increased perception, with very novel effects to the experimenter - but no hallucinations or non existent scenes or objects ........ At first I was disappointed(!) that i didn't see the kind of 'hallucinations' i had heard about ... fantastical bizarre things, then i realized others were describing a very complex process in a simplified way,
or lacking in words & neurological concepts to describe their experience.

Most Importantly:
Let's not jump straight to the words sensory 'distortion', and 'Hallucination'
There are many distinct levels or operational modes of sensory alteration &/or re-calibration -

because any tripper can attest to the fact that sometimes
there is no distortion at all but rather the opposite -
an incredible fine tuning of the senses and imagination,
where every detail of everything within your field of perception is razor sharp and the linear reasoning abilities are still intact.
However -
Take a bit more and you start to have so many neurons firing in response to each-other, each signal traveling to more adjacent neurons, you get feedback layered on top of this perception. This Feedback is the perception of the sense organs themselves, and how they transmit their data to the brain. Eventually, at high dosages, the condition is one of perception of just the fractal feedback itself.
This is true 'Hallucinatory Vision' or perception of infinite internal feedback loops within the mind, driven by incoming sense data, but multiplied by itself and everything else ever stored in the mind and memory, at light speed.

I see it as having 8 or more levels (based on a good bit of ... errrr .... uh, 'research')
1. Increased pattern perception:
- You notice a pattern or subtlety that is super-obvious but previously un-noticed (repeating texture on ceiling, a slight smudge on a white surface, fine details of a painting, the refresh rate on your computer monitor, etc) ... and it's still there the next day.

2. 'Creative interpretation' of actual sense data:
- where you are not actually seeing anything not-real, but re-interpreting the data in creative ways. Ever seen a face-like pattern on a wood panel, your brain picks out as having 2 eyes and a mouth, or the shape of a profile? you can outline it and make a cartoon-ish face ... the face is not there, but the brain can take the random patterns and pick & enhance the ones that are the right shape. - when tripping many forms one sees are not 'false' sense data but new ways of putting it together and applying 'meaning'. Super-fueled pattern perception& tracking mixed with the brain's natural tendency to see or recognize faces, and anthropomorphic forms. - but still in the realm of "there the next day" when you are back to normal

3. Discrete Body perceptions:
- Bodily perceptions that are usually screened out by the brain, but are real. including the pattern of the 'pixels' of the visual field, internal tactile sensation of blood flow, sound of heartbeat, 'feeling' the nerves in the teeth and interior volume of the sinus cavity, etc. Still real stuff, but not useful or pleasant to perceive all the time, lol.

4. Borderline mental stuff that's hard to prove:
- such as occasional feeling you can more deeply 'understand' the 'real' meaning of an artwork, or piece of music, or the unusual ESP-like experience that Django and I shared ... a very general conversation that was non-verbal, then mutual recognition of this without ever saying it, and then some toying about with it to make sure we weren't just losing our minds. To us it was self-validating, but an observer would have just seen us looking astonished at each-other and vaguely gesturing in the air like a couple of whitfield patients. yet to us, volumes of data were passing back and forth.

5. 'Good' and 'Bad' Trips / Paranoia / Social Hallucination
- Just as all other senses and mental processes can be accelerated by psychedelics,
Paranoia can build to darkly insidious and superhuman proportions.
Your friend is acting oddly - maybe something terrible has happened and they are afraid to mention it, you feel as though everyone knows you're tripping or is staring at you, a thought about going insane becomes self-reinforcing and soon you're convinced you will never come down.
The enhanced imagination can make a perfectly logical scenario of impending disaster
by discarding all information that doesn't match the paranoid thought train, and magnifying all info that does.
After a couple of these experiences one can recognize this as what it is ...
a runaway train of negative thought propelled by some insecurity, fear, regret or misperception.
Once you realize you are the conductor of this runaway train, its easy to stop it instantly or change tracks.
Or detach yourself from the experience, knowing it's a delusion and go along for the ride as an impartial observer,
learning in-depth & first-hand of your deepest fears, prejudices and nightmares.
If someone can't master this discipline after a couple of tries, maybe 3,
they should never take hallucinogens, or only in tiny doses.

This is why I mentioned earlier that Hallucinogens are not necessarily safe as a "party" type experience.
Nor is it necessarily always gonna be fun in the normal sense of the word, a good trip is also challenging.
Ultimately it REQUIRES: a bit of curiosity and courage,
Somewhat positive self-image, normal or near-normal intelligence and reasoning abilities,
and preferably an above-average ability to maintain total self-control or alternately,
the ZEN ability to release all control attempts & defer to inner detachment / intuition
in unpredictable, agonizing, totally alien or unrecognizable situations.

Yet,
for me, even the rare occurrence of a stressful, paranoid or delusional sequence within a trip is not such a bad thing.
After that happens, and I recover and see where i went 'off track' - i'm at once more humble and thankful, but also more adept and experienced at being able to directly identify, confront and transform nearly any fear, weakness, habit, desire, false need, inner demon or outer consequence that may present itself at any time.
After a few seconds in these micro-hells you learn real quickly how to release anxiety, root out the problem
and take responsibility for your own state of mind ... no matter how many Insect Cyborg Aliens are dissecting your brain for horrible cloning experiments in a secret space-station orbiting the moon, or whatever the hyper-paranoid or real circumstances happen to be your experience.

6. Internal Imagery of various types (closed eye):
- Semi-hallucination but more of an intensification of the natural phosphene patterns we see when the eyes are closed.
It's not a total featureless blackness,
close your eyes for a moment, gently press on them and pay attention
to the subtle colors, textures and shapes in the void of the minds eye.
The low-dosage closed-eye visuals are just an amplification of this randomly geometric looking background noise
- but with more neon colors, movement, depth and geometric regularity to the patterns.

First some background ...
In Medical LSD research the basic array of visual patterns are called "Form Constants".
http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/webstu ... ction.html

"One author tries to account for the different form constants by referring to the various structures in the eye. He concludes from anatomical and observed data that,"the rods and foveal cones can look backwards and that the retinal pigment and the choriocapillary circulation can, therefore, be seen under certain conditions" (Kluver, 65).
"In essence, some of our 'hallucinations' are actually views of looking backward at the retina."

"These same form constants are also commonly observed under a wide variety of conditions of psychological stress, or threshold consciousness, including falling asleep, waking up, insulin hypoglycemia, the delirium of fever, epilepsy, psychotic episodes,

advanced syphilis, sensory deprivation, photostimulation, electrical stimulation, crystal gazing, migraine headaches, dizziness and a variety of drug intoxications (Siegel 1976). The diversity of different conditions which provoke the same kinds of patterns suggests that these form constants reflect some fundamental property of the visual system."

"Form constants reported under intoxication by mescaline which are described as (a) lattice, fretwork, filigree, honeycomb, and chessboard patterns, and (b) cobweb, tunnel, and funnel patterns. These same form constants are observed under a wide variety of conditions of psychological stress, or threshold consciousness, suggesting that they are a manifestation of the eigenfunctions of perceptual processing."
- Steven Lehar, Research Fellow in Ophthalmology, Harvard University

In essence,
he is suggesting that hallucinations are not actually that, but 'real' perceptions of the 'eigenfunctions', the very mathematical processes operating within the brain/mind that produce the ordered 'visual-construct-mental-TV-reality' we normally experience as 'sight, and that psychedelics are the ideal and most direct way to study the neurophysiology of sight and the interrelationship of sight and the 'mind's eye'.

(This perfectly dovetails with my developing theory (as of 2003) of discrete psychedelic states representing increasing levels of iterative fractal-feedback within the brain/mind system and various commonly reported 'trip experiences' as particular strange-attractors in this acceleratedfeedback/chaos environment.)

6-a. Open-Eye "Visuals":
Similar to but not quite true hallucinations ...
visuals are unique and often fascinating visual effects
caused by hypersensitivity and independent action of the visual cortex
and core-level pattern-seeking functions of the brain.
(which, when coupled with our intelligence, was our primary survival asset
back when we all lived in the jungle and scanned constantly for predators and food).
Here is one example of the types of visual effects that are accelerated by LSD, etc, but also produced when the brain meets a stimulus that exploits it's own natural processing algorithms in the visual cortex, like the extreme movement in this optical illusion. (LINK).

7. Hallucinatory and visionary imagery (closed eye):
Beyond the basic 'form constants' there are other visual experiences
which are much more difficult to explain or even communicate about.

This level is paradoxical ....
Although we think of hallucinations as being 'random' or the result of 'randomly firing neurons',
the interesting (to me) feature of strong psychedelic visual experiences is their rich complexity and continuity -
Often way more complex, intricate, mathematically elegant, colorful, inexplicable, non-derivative and detailed
than anything I have ever seen in 'real' life experience, art, sci-fi effects or whatever.

It makes one wonder, with absolute astonishment, how is it even possible
to be clearly perceiving this stuff inside one's head, which is beautiful beyond all arts, languages and forms of nature?!!!

This (to me) indicates that rather than random stimulation of the brain,
being our most ultra-adaptive organ, the brain itself may be using that extra electrical signal strength
to hyper-extend it's normal routines and abilities to visualize, compute and interpret data in incredibly coherent, non-random, elegant ways that are fantastic and futuristic beyond recognizability to the 'everyday' conscious self, as it tries to interpret the flood of internal and external data.

I have observed consistent 3-d patterns that were composed of dozens of angled layers of multicolored, semi-transparent, complex surfaces covered in mathematical looking facets & curves with every conceivable variation of hue, texture, movement, shadow and reflectivity. But unlike in dreams, they don't go away or get fuzzy when you focus on them, you can inspect fine details as though looking at something real in the mind's eye .....
The really alien hyperdimensional seeming ones are practically impossible to describe or pin down because languages are comparative - and these visions are qualitatively unique, in the sense of not being remotely derivative or traceable to anything stored in memory.

People seem to fall into two classes; ones who will experience psychedelic imagery as:
(A)

Geometric imagery or highly-complex
repeating, rotating or morphing patterns

...or..

(B)

Those who instead see faces, bodies, plants, animals and organic beings of fantastical types


I am definitely type A,
I see turning, multiplying, intersecting, glowing, blossoming geometric patterns in at least 3 or more dimensions.
without much recognizable content (in terms of conventional mathematics visualizations i'm familiar with)
definitely fractal-ish but not mandelbrot or any of the common ones.
Closer to a mix of 4-d knot visualizations arrayed with neon minimal surface domains -
always profoundly meaningful in it's ultra-elusive defiance of description.

I have never experienced much of this,
but many of the 'B' type report open-eye visions of jungles, ancient futuristic temples, clear visions of distant people or events. This type of hallucination seems more akin to a waking or fully conscious dream, with recognizable objects and landscapes and scenarios. Sounds way cool, but in all my trips I have never had that kind of hallucination.

The closest thing(with closed eyes) was a complex 3-D scene that almost resembled stone tablets with dozens of constantly morphing & merging letters or symbols of some unknown but ultra-elegant language, they were shining like light out of the hewn-stone-like borders, arranged in a radial pattern, and seemed always just on the border of 'making sense' but always instantly evading my attempts to reconcile or match it with any remembered language or symbols.

Apparently Peyote (Mescaline) has more of this 'visionary' quality to the hallucinations, being transported into a different scene, but an earthly type one. After the hard-to-explain-away 'psychic-ish' experiences i have had on psychedelics, i'm always amused at the stories of college kids and others who report jumping into some space/time and seeing a surprised or bemused native american shaman who is also doing an out-of-body / out-of-time trip.

8. Open-Eye Fully Immersive Hallucinations:
Well, i sure have tried ..... but,
I have actually seen very few, if any of what most would think of as a true 'classic' hallucination:
Something or someone appearing to be there with no basis at all in the incoming sense data.
A gorilla sitting on the couch or a pink elephant walking thru the wall, etc. With eyes open I have never seen anything that was not somehow based in the visual data coming in ...
tracers for example are not really a hallucination, but an afterimage, a visual echo that lasts for longer than usual.
Or, the movement of patterns on the carpet - the movement is illusory, but the pattern is real.
I recognize the crawling movement of the patterns, it's a natural algorithm in the visual cortex, the exact same movement produced by this optical illusion. (LINK)

I really can't recall a single incident of seeing a definite eyes-open hallucination -
even at levels equivalent to 15 or 20 doses of lsd.
With the eyes closed it's an ever changing, infinitely detailed fractal wonderland,
but when i open my eyes i'm still in the room, on the couch, with proper contextual orientation.
I have certainly been severely disoriented and/or misinterpreted situations and circumstances.
One time i saw jumbled letters formed by the thousands of tiny rocks embedded in asphalt (but that was a case of type 2 or 'creative interpretation' hallucination) but never have I seen any gremlins on the lawn, spirits, angels, demons or faeries


But there is hope ...
Whenever I have the opportunity to sample smoked n-n-dmt!
i will probably experience total loss-of, or total homogeneity of orientation. Apparently the visual stimulation is so intense that it's difficult and ultimately meaningless to even determine if the eyes are open or closed, if you are sitting up or lying down, etc. Things look the same both ways ...
a fully immersive experience in which all senses and even all concepts blend together, but with no loss of 'ego' or individuality - the self-referential "I" function of how you are now still maintains it's usual feel, so you can be less 1st person, and more of an astonished 3-rd person perspective spectator of these super-hallucinations for the short but endless 5 or 10 minutes it lasts ....
But Remember,
Taking Mushrooms, LSD, Peyote, or DMT
is NOT something I would recommend to most people ... (more about this - http://www.miqel.com/entheogens/why-not ... ics-1.html )

[Penguin]

http://www.miqel.com/entheogens/why-not ... ics-1.html

Again, please see original for the pictures alone make it worth it

Part 1: Motivations and Disqualifying Factors - are you a good candidate for a 'successful' trip?
"LSD is a substance well-known to cause paranoia and insanity, in those who have never taken it"
- Harvard Psychologist Dr. Timothy Leary

Taking Mushrooms, LSD, Peyote or DMT is not something I would recommend to most people ...
without first having a a thorough discussion of any previous or current mental illness, incl.
Epilepsy, identity instability, schizophrenia, PTSD, bipolar & manic depressive disorders, family history of mental problems, acute anxiety problems, or for anyone already on psych meds of ANY type! *Do not under any circumstances take ANY psychedelics AT ALL if you are taking a prescription MAOI Inhibiting medication.*
Folks with most all of these conditions can still benefit from psycedelic-assisted therapy, but they should avoid self-experimentation and/or only take hallucinogens under carefully & professionally supervised, thoughtfully prepared conditions.
If there was no major history of, or overt indication of mental/neurological problems ....
I'd have an in-depth discussion of their motivation for seeking a mind-altering experience of such magnitude and intensity.

Positive Motivations might include:
• Having a chronic medical problem for which it is effective.
• Psychological self-discovery
• Personal experiential curiosity (just to know)
• Scientific curiosity
• Learning of it's use in native cultures as a visionary tool for healing
GREEN IS THE COLOR SYMBOLIZING 'SAFE TO PROCEED' -

YELLOW IS THE COLOR SYMBOLIZING USE OF CAUTION & GOOD JUDGEMENT !!!

Negative Motivations for "Tripping" which (in my opinion) will dramatically increase the chances
of an unpleasant, incomprehensible, dangerous or simply useless trip:
• wanting to forget one's troubles
• reckless or self-destructive tendencies
• substitution for some other 'drug of choice'
• thinking the effects are similar to other drugs
• to get 'fukked up' or 'wasted', or decrease social inhibitions.
• to go out and party, rave, or to a public event, etc.
(Ravers, Teens, Newbies, Wild People - Listen up: It's not that partying is bad, but it usually leads to multi-drug combinations, driving is not a good idea & trying to interface with the 'normal' world in a psychedelic state is most often pointless, confusing and potentially dangerous. Learn to place yourself in a SAFE, CALM and Beautiful PLACE & SITUATION when you dose - turn your attention to the universe inside yourself, You'll get 1,000,000% more out of the trip)


TREATMENT OF ILLNESS
The current body of clinical research indicates psychedelics, (because of their extraordinarily broad potential range of perceptual, psychological and neurological effects), when used in a supportive and purposeful medical setting, in conjunction with psychiatric counseling - have shown VERY significant results in treating an extraordinarily broad range of mental and physical diseases and problems including;

Pain, depression and death-related anxiety in terminal cancer patients,
Prison recidivism,
Self-image problems,
Obsessive/compulsive disorder,
Eating Disorders,
Cluster headaches,
even Alcoholism and Narcotic drug dependency -

(seems paradoxical, but this effect is due both to psychedelics ability promote a 'self confrontational' psychological experience, and to the drugs positive action on the serotonin/dopamine regulation in the brain, offsetting psychological/physical cravings for other drugs, while facilitating personal insight into the root of one's drug-abuse problem. Ibogaine in particular, seems to work best in this capacity)"A study of 135 alcoholics found that six months after treatment with LSD, 53 percent of a high-dose group reported abstinence, compared with 33 percent of a low-dose group. Alcoholics receiving conventional therapy had a 12 percent improvement rate."
from the FDA's webpage on new therapies: Medical Possibilities for Psychedelic Drugs

Psychedelics are effective in helping one identify and change subconscious motivations and habitual behaviors (references).
They can also, on occasion, be a 'miracle' drug, for people with severe mental problems, even catatonic patients(!) who are completely un-responsive to the full range of current treatment modalities - it can be the ultimate shock that snaps them back to 'normality'.
Dr. Albert A. Kurland of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center cited a remarkable example
from among the 177 patients whom he and his associates– Dr's. Charles Savage, John W. Schaffer, and Sanford Unger– had treated up to that time.
This patient was a forty-year-old male alcoholic, black, brought to the hospital from jail after ten days of uncontrolled drinking. He had dropped out of the fourth grade at the age of twelve and had an I.Q. of 70."He had been draining whiskey barrels at his place of work, a distillery. He gave a history of excessive alcohol consumption over the past four years ... The only limit on his drinking was his low income and the need to support five children. During these years his marriage had deteriorated." Given a week of preparation and a single large dose of LSD, this patient felt (among other things) that be was being chased, struck with a sword, run over by a horse, and frightened by a hippopotamus–– a quite typical "bad trip."
His own verbatim report of his trip then continued:
"I was afraid. I started to run. but something said "Stop!" When I stopped, everything broke into many pieces.
Then I felt as if ten tons had fallen from my shoulders. I prayed to the Lord.
Everything looked better all around me. The rose was beautiful. My children's faces cleared up -
I thought of alcohol and the rose died.
I changed my mind from alcohol toward Christ and the rose came back to life.
I pray that this rose will remain in my heart and my family forever.
As I sat up and looked in the mirror, I could feel myself growing stronger.
I feel now that my family and I are closer than ever before, and I hope that our faith will grow forever and ever. "
This patient was given psychological tests both before and after his LSD experience.
His score on the Eysenck neuroticism scale before LSD had been in the eighty-eighth percentile – highly neurotic.
One week after LSD his score had swung to the normal portion of the scale.
His pre-LSD depression, as measured by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) had lifted and his score was greatly improved. Tested a third time, six months after LSD, his depression score on the NIMPI was still within normal limits."



Other General Precautions:
Hallucinogens, Psychedelics, Psychotropics, Psycholytics, Entheogens (the accepted word for self-help and spiritual use), or Indole-ring serotonin neurotransmitter/modulator (the medical non-spin way of stating it), or whatever you want to call them,
should always come with a warning,
(like the 'Do Not Operate Motor Vehicles while taking this Drug' stickers on many medications), that says:


Ø - CAUTION: Take this medication in a quiet, comfortable, clean & naturally or artistically pleasing setting with very close friends or family, do not leave the house unsupervised or drive during the peak of your experience. If you start to feel uncomfortable - simply relax, focus on your breathing, move to a different room, open an art book or put on some positive, uplifting music.

It's no mere 'coincidence' that native cultures scattered around the planet
ALL developed nearly identical traditions of using psychedelic plants

Generally in a group, community or family setting, in a reassuring, ritual manner, accompanied by music or drumming, for the purpose of spiritual / psychological / physical healing.
There's a good reason for this - it prevents 'bad trips'
and feelings of paranoia or isolation; while reinforcing the positive experiences
of group unity & identity and allowing attention the focus on the
inner subconscious information folding out, for inspection and healing

- If
a person is in good physical health, has a stable personality,
no recent emotional tragedies, no history of severe mental problems,
an average or above average intellect, a bit of curiosity and courage,

an average or preferably above-average ability to maintain self-control in unpredictable or even impossible situations,
has an interest in arts, science, religion, neurology, spirituality or self-knowledge ... and has done at least the basic background reading on the history of psychedelic plants, their method of action in the brain, their medical uses, mental and physical dangers, and widespread abuse/experimentation in the 1960's and an explanation of the diversity of possible effects .....

- Then (and only then)
I would say they might be a good candidate for trying a psychedelic substance -
and they might even yield significant personal insights from one or two guided sessions -

Most people I personally know (probably 85%) who have tried LSD or mushrooms in the past,
but no longer ingest them, express the feeling that overall they're glad to have had the opportunity to experience a truly 'different' perspective, and it was one that made them feel in some ways more aware of, connected with, responsive to & grateful for 'life' in general.

The others (the remaining 15%) had frightening, incoherent, negative or just neutral experiences - but even in this group around half say they gained 'something beneficial' from the trip (such as a greater understanding of the dynamics of one's paranoia, fears or delusional thinking patterns, or better empathy for people who are freaking out) even though it was not very pleasant at the time.


Internal Dynamics of Having an Ideal Trip .....

Think of this as the self, or your 'I'
- the normal conscious integrated 'you-ness'
Surfing the crest of a mental-tidal-wave of Supercharged Perception / Awareness,
if you keep alert, calm and constantly adapting, changing and letting go
then you can stay afloat (keeping your rational faculties intact),
maintain 'control' (actually just balance)
and surf the crest of consciousness

to see the ghastly, beautiful un-distorted big-picture view from above - just like being in an airplane -
everything familiar seems small, geographically obscure relationships are quite apparent, yet startlingly broad NEW vistas are now visible past the horizon, and the meta-order between things is seen in a more comprehensive fashion.

Then as an individual observer of this grand pattern of life,
you can assess your place relative to all else and then merge beyond the 'self',
experiencing the ALL as the grand pattern itself.

This is a successful trip!
- a positive journey into, through and beyond all
the normal limitations of habitual neurotic patterns, feelings of separateness
& beyond the normally experienced realms of mind, identity, time, space, language or concept,
and bringing back measurable results
in terms of positive motivation, stress relief,
creative inspiration, personal or social insights and self-actualization.

In the medical psychedelic assisted therapy it's called a "peak experience" or "Integrative experience"; According to the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, six major psychological characteristics of this experience are as follows:
1. A sense of unity or oneness with all (positive ego transcendence, loss of usual sense of self without loss of consciousness)
2. Transcendence of time and space
3. Deeply felt positive mood (joy, peace, love)
4. Sense of awesomeness, reverence and wonder
5. Meaningfulness of psychological and/or philosophical insight
6. Ineffability (sense of difficulty in communicating the experience by verbal description) (Pahnke, 1969)


But the flipside is .....

if the tidal-wave of experience, vision, emotion and novelty overwhelms you,
and it outpaces your ability to track, correlate and make-sense of the info-stream,

You lose footing & the wave of increasingly un-referenced data
can crash you down into a chaotic sea of jumbled, confused, disorienting weirdness.

The conscious experiencer is relocated to the trash can of the mind.
If you project your fears and weaknesses onto this cascade,
they can quickly multiply and mutually reinforce eachother
into absolute hell-like states or cosmic-scale paranoia ....

the table above of positive integrative experiences is then reversed;
1. A sense of separateness and being at-odds with the world, or even the entire universe
2. Being trapped in a small endlessly repeating pockets of time or space
3. Deeply felt negative, terrified mood (confusion, anger, anxiety, grief, fear, abandonment, hopelessness, dread, paranoia, etc, etc)
4. Sense of imminent destruction, or certainty of innate 'evil'
projected on all experiences, memories or events
5. Feeling of meaninglessness to one's life, family, job, world
or the ultimate futility of living and dying
6. Negative ego dissolution (fearful or panic-inducing sense of dissolving,
going permanently mad, dying, being erased, or being devoured)

this is like being thrashed and drowning in the wave of perception,
although, just as in drowning in water, to end a "bad-trip" you can simply relax, breathe, relax more, breathe deeper, focus on the process of drawing in life-breath & just float to the top ....
- then - stay aware & recognize that you've simply lost the wave and are free floating in a potentially enjoyable wonderland until you get your bearings again or catch another wave.

[agitprop]

Penguin, Thank you so much for those terrific posts! A lot of rich, interesting material there. I'm very interested in what I consider a kind of false dichotemy, the real and the hallucinatory. They are different in presentation and form, but often more closely related than most people, rooted in materialism, understand. Have you read any of Daniel Pinchbeck's books?

[2012 Countdown]

Penguin, I was going to reply to your second to last post, using material you used in your last post. "Set and setting' (as it was called in the books I read) cannot be understated.
And yes, this is NOT for everyone -which is why I was so surprised that according to the article I'd posted, Jobs in his reply to Hofmann thought maybe blanket dosing the unsuspecting public through water supply was a good idea. That talk has been around since invention, but to me it seems insane. You really need to be made known what is about to happen. If I were slipped LSD and did not know anything about it, I could easily imagine the freak out it would cause.

For my part I will say, yes, I 'experimented' with LSD back in college, maybe 15 years ago, but not before doing lots of reading and research. I too, like Jobs, will count that experience as
'life changing' and 'life altering', and one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. I did it maybe 6 times. I haven't done it since that 1-2 year period. The lessons, ways of thinking, or insights gained from those experiences can last a lifetime -that is to say, I am a different person (I think much better) and am permanently changed because of it.

I think you had it right, its a tool. I think you need to be in the right place mentally for it to be positive, then again, there are cases where severely disturbed people have found it a 'cure' for them.

[teamdaemon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadamar_Clinic

As the 2nd Infantry Division marched across Germany, it uncovered several sites of Nazi crimes. In early April 1945, the unit captured the German town of Hadamar, which housed a psychiatric clinic where 10,072 men, women, and children victims were gassed by asphyxiating them with carbon monoxide in a gas chamber in the first phase of the killing operations (January to August 1941) in the Nazi "euthanasia" program. Another 4,000 were then murdered by starvation and lethal injection until March 1945.

Thick smoke billowed over Hadamar in the summer of 1941 while the staff celebrated the cremation of their 10,000th patient with beer and wine served in the crematorium. Despite precautions to cover up the T-4 program, the local population knew of the operation. The people killed in the Hadamar hospital would arrive by train or bus and ostensibly vanish behind the site's fence. Furthermore, since the crematorium ovens were usually fed with two corpses instead of one, the cremation process was faulty. This often resulted in a cloud of stinking smoke hanging over the town. In the local schools, students would often taunt each other by saying "You'll end up in the Hadamar ovens!"

Up to 100 victims arrived in post buses every day. They were falsely told to disrobe for a "medical examination". Sent before a physician, instead of examining them he assigned one of a list of 60 fatal diseases to every victim, then marked them with different-colored band-aids for one of three categories: Kill; kill and remove brain for research; kill and break out gold teeth.[1]

Following a groundswell of opposition, Hitler announced an official stoppage of "euthanasia" activities. However, after a short hiatus the killing went on, the difference being that victims were no longer gassed.

Resident physicians and staff headed by nurse Irmgard Huber directly killed the majority of these victims, among whom were German patients with disabilities, mentally disoriented elderly persons from bombed-out areas, "half Jewish" children from welfare institutions, psychologically and physically disabled forced laborers and their children, German soldiers and foreign Waffen-SS soldiers deemed psychologically incurable. The medical personnel and staff at Hadamar killed almost all of these people by lethal drug overdoses and deliberate neglect.

The Hadamar psychiatric hospital is still in operation today and houses both a memorial and an exhibition about the mass murder of the T-4 Euthanasia Program.

[Penguin]

Ive heard of Pinchbeck of course, but havent read anything of his.
Dont have an opinion, thereby.

This was interesting -
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11115
(I quote just a part of it under fair use, read all of it at link)

Sleep medication linked to bizarre behaviour

* 12:44 06 February 2007 by Roxanne Khamsi

New evidence has linked a commonly prescribed sleep medication with bizarre behaviours, including a case in which a woman painted her front door in her sleep.

UK and Australian health agencies have released information about 240 cases of odd occurrences, including sleepwalking, amnesia and hallucinations among people taking the drug zolpidem.

While doctors say that zolpidem can offer much-needed relief for people with sleep disorders, they caution that these newly reported cases should prompt a closer look at its possible side effects.

Zolpidem, sold under the brand names Ambien, Stilnoct and Stilnox, is widely prescribed to treat insomnia and other disorders such as sleep apnea. Various forms of the drug, made by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis, were prescribed 674,500 times in 2005 in the UK.

A newly published report from Australia's Federal Health Department describes 104 cases of hallucinations and 62 cases of amnesia experienced by people taking zolpidem since marketing of the drug began there in 2000. The health department report also mentioned 16 cases of strange sleepwalking by people taking the medication.
Midnight snack

In one of these sleepwalking cases a patient woke with a paintbrush in her hand after painting the front door to her house. Another case involved a woman who gained 23 kilograms over seven months while taking zolpidem. "It was only when she was discovered in front of an open refrigerator while asleep that the problem was resolved," according to the report.

The UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, meanwhile, has recorded 68 cases of adverse reactions to zolpidem from 2001 to 2005.

The newly reported cases in the UK and Australia add to a growing list of bizarre sleepwalking episodes linked to the drug in other countries, including reports of people sleep-driving while on the medication. In one case, a transatlantic flight had to be diverted after a passenger caused havoc after taking zolpidem.
Hypnotic effects

There is no biological pathway that has been proven to connect zolpidem with these behaviours. The drug is a benzodiazepine-like hypnotic that promotes deep sleep by interacting with brain receptors for a chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid. While parts of the brain become less active during deep sleep, the body can still move, making sleepwalking a possibility.

The product information for prescribers advises that psychiatric adverse effects, including hallucinations, sleepwalking and nightmares, are more likely in the elderly, and treatment should be stopped if they occur.

Patient advocacy groups say they would like government health agencies and drug companies to take a closer look at the possible risks associated with sleep medicines. They stress that strange sleepwalking and sleep-driving behaviours can have risky consequences.

"When people do something in which they're not in full control it's always a danger," says Vera Sharav of the New York-based Alliance for Human Research Protection, a US network that advocates responsible and ethical medical research practices.

Thats a very small number of cases as well, related to how widely used zolpidem is.