stories
The 5 Best Books for Exploring Psychedelics (Without Actually Taking Any)
Recently I discovered Shepherd, a neat website where authors recommend their favorite books on a particular topic, theme, or mood. The Shepherd folks asked me to provide a list of psychedelic book recommendations — how could I say no to that? As an avid reader, it was difficult to pick just 5! I wanted to list books that I really loved, and which would appeal both to veteran trippers and stone-cold sober readers alike. Without further ado, here are my selections for your psychedelic bookshelf. If you’re interested in exploring more, check out Shepherd’s Best Psychedelic Books list,...
Can Mushrooms Help Heal a Pro Surfer’s Brain Injury? New Short Film "Resuracing: Koa Smith"
When a devastating accident leaves a pro surfer with a traumatic brain injury and depression, he searches for answers where ancient rituals meet modern science. Resurfacing: Koa Smith, a brand new mind-expanding short film from MUD\FILMS, has just premiered worldwide. You can watch it for free below. Liked this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed to get much more! Or enter your email address for weekly updates: Share this:
How I Quit Smoking with Psilocybin
Today’s guest post is by my good friend John Robertson, who blogs at Maps of the Mind. Last year, I decided to combine a personal psychedelic experiment with a decision to finally quit smoking tobacco. At the time I was neither a heavy nor regular smoker, but the fact that I smoked at all, usually in social situations and with drinks, disappointed me. I used psilocybin truffles and placed three sessions inside a 15 week course, modelled on a nicotine cessation study at Johns Hopkins university. Addiction I first started smoking tobacco regularly over a decade ago....
How Mescaline Helped Me to Better Understand Schopenhauer’s Philosophy Philosophical Explorations With Mescaline: Veganism and Schopenhauer
This guest post is by Sam Woolfe, a freelance writer who blogs about philosophy, ethics, psychology, and mental health at samwoolfe.com. Catch him on Twitter: @samwoolfe A psychedelic experience can often be a chance to put our fundamental beliefs and opinions under the spotlight, whether intentionally or not. I’ve had a few experiences like this, particularly through solo experimentation with mescaline HCl, with the most profound experiences featuring major shifts in how I view myself and existence itself. In moments of clarity, narrow and negative beliefs about what I am like as a person and how I view...
A Long Time Ago When the Sky Kissed Me Back An Excerpt of 'Love in the Time of Trump' by Mike Millard
This story of unexpected samadhi is excerpted from Mike Millard’s new book, Love in the Time of Trump: A jagged memoir of the psychedelic ‘60s, today’s politics and religion. School was out on that beautiful San Francisco spring day with protest in the air. Sagittarius dropped by to see if I wanted to go tripping around. His battered blue Monza convertible was running again and he had the top down. Sagittarius was a bit of a head case, but he was an old friend of Vernon’s and I knew him well enough to be fairly comfortable around him....
Psychedelics and Witchcraft — The Truth About Hallucinogenic “Hexing Herbs” The Sordid History of Deadly Nightshade, Mandrake, and Henbane
Were “hexing herbs” really used by witches in medieval times? Are they for healing, cursing, or consorting with the Devil? Learn all about the sordid history of Deadly Nightshade, Mandrake, and Henbane in today’s post. This text appeared in the original manuscript of Magic Medicine, my new book about the most fascinating psychedelics on the planet, but was cut for length. So this a sneak peek into the finished book, which covers 23 different plants, fungi, fish, and synthetic substances, from ayahuasca and 2C-B to “mad honey” and hallucinogenic sea sponges. Origins and Background Throughout human history, few...
The Loop Trip How Two Kids on Acid Stumbled onto the Theory of Everything
When I was around twenty years old, I was living in a little apartment on Pearl Street, in Boulder, Colorado, with my good friend Jim. We were both guys who had an affectionate, on-again-off-again relationship with LSD, and during this time we were both on again. We were tripping all the time. Often, we would develop themes, inside references, ongoing philosophical explorations that would carry over from trip to trip. One day, we were sitting around waiting for our doses to kick in and decided to put on the Steely Dan album, Aja. (Steely Dan is hugely underrated...
Acid Drops: An Interview with Andy Roberts Author, Speaker, and Historian of British LSD Culture
Andy Roberts is an historian of Britain’s LSD psychedelic culture and author of Acid Drops: Adventures in Psychedelia, as well as Albion Dreaming: A Social History of LSD in Britain. He first fell down the rabbit hole in 1972 and has been exploring the labyrinth of passages ever since. His views on the psychedelic experience are (basically) – You take a psychedelic and you get high. What happens after that is largely the result of dosage, set and setting. Andy, thanks very much for joining me, I’m looking forward to hearing more about your book. Acid Drops is...
Coming Back to Life My Story of MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD
This story by Rachel Kaplan first appeared in the MAPS Winter Bulletin 2017. As I sit in a field of tall green grasses, feeling the earth beneath me and listening to the songs of meadowlarks, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for not only being alive but for finally wanting to be alive. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for often feeling a sense of peace in my self and feeling connected with myself, with others and the world. These are all new experiences for me that I never believed where possible until now, after being a participant in the...
Ayahuasca: A Skeptic’s Notes (or The Shortcut to Eternity Leads Through Hell)
Eye-Uh-Waz-Kah I was drinking coffee in the courtyard of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art when I finally mastered the pronunciation of the word “ayahuasca.” Redmond Blake, who was sitting across from me in dark shades and a baby blue painter’s jacket, was explaining the Medicine to me. A few days earlier, he’d returned from a weekend-long ayahuasca ceremony in Ojai led by disciples of a powerful shaman from Peru. Under the protection of the Mother, he had taken an astonishing journey through a beautiful and frightening spirit land. As I listened to Red’s stories in the...
My Share of Sacramental LSD Wiccans Celebrate a Lunar Eclipse
My first experience with taking LSD in a ritual context took place in 1980 in a Wiccan community in Northern California. But the event, an observance of the eclipse of the full moon, was by no means my first experience with psychedelics. For the previous 14 years, I had used such psychedelics as LSD and psilocybin as part of a spiritual practice, often during the four years when it seemed to elevate my marriage into a cosmic union; and less often after my 1970 divorce, when I attempted — with very limited success — to reach acid light...
Hand in Hand: How Psychedelic Harm Reduction Is Making a Difference Now
This essay by Shannon Clare Petitt was originally published in the MAPS Bulletin, Winter 2016 edition. If you believe in MAPS’ mission of furthering psychedelic medicine while promoting harm reduction, please donate to their cause. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) continues to make huge strides towards the goal of establishing psychedelics as legal medicines. In advancing the cause of psychedelic therapy, the organization has also become a repository for experience and techniques essential for assisting people journeying through difficult psychedelic experiences. Psychedelic harm reduction is the practice of creating safe spaces in environments where the use...