Just a Wee Bit More About DMT, by Nick Sand
Nick Sand is one of the most prolific and well-known underground chemists in history. Along with Tim Scully, Nick Sand was responsible for producing over 3 million hits of Orange Sunshine, a brand of LSD that was renowned for its purity in the Sixties. Sand has a particular fondness for DMT. In fact, it was a DMT vision quest in the 60s that convinced Sand to dedicate his life to producing and distributing entheogens. He was the first underground chemist to synthesize DMT rather than extracting it from natural sources, and the first person to discover that the DMT...
My Interview with Rick Doblin, Psychedelic Pioneer Founder of MAPS Discusses MDMA Therapy, a Crazy Personal LSD Trip, and More
I recently had the good fortune of meeting my psychedelic hero, Rick Doblin, the founder and president of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies. What’s more, he graciously agreed to an on-camera interview. I asked him about the origins of MAPS, the Russian ban of methadone in Crimean addiction clinics, New Zealand’s new regulatory framework for legal highs, MAPS’ recent partnership with the military to research MDMA as a treatment for PTSD, and much more. My favorite part is when Rick tells the story of taking LSD on his twenty-first birthday. He heard a siren and became convinced that the Russians were...
One Brain, Many Selves Demons, Tulpas, and Neurons Gone Wild
This is a guest post by Kevin Simler, originally published on his website, Melting Asphalt. If you missed his previous piece, Accepting Deviant Minds, don’t worry — this essay stands on its own. Prepare to rethink your whole concept of “self” — just how many selves can take root in one brain? To reject gods and spirits is easy: just bully them away in the name of science. But to accept them, or at least our experiences of thuem, and yet give them a scientific explanation: there’s a task worthy of our art. It demands that we look them in the eye and take them seriously,...
Accepting Deviant Minds Why 'Hallucinations' Are as Real as the Self
This week’s guest post is by Kevin Simler. Kevin is a philosopher and blogger who believes in (pan)critical rationalism, keeping his identity small, and writing as an aid to thinking. This post was first published on his website, Melting Asphalt — one of my favorite sources for fresh critical perspectives on the mind, society, and everything in between. At a sleepover when I was 12, a friend told me that he could control his dreams. It didn’t happen every night, he said, but every so often he’d become aware of being in the middle of a dream. Usually at that point he’d...
8 Tips for Using Recreational Drugs Responsibly
This week’s guest post is by Aaron Moritz. Aaron is an independent writer, researcher, video editor, and co-host of the Srsly Wrong podcast. Find more of his articles at his blog and check out the Srsly Wrong website. The ‘War on Drugs’ and ‘Just Say No!’ campaigns have been colossal failures, and one of the main reasons — a reason people don’t like to talk about — is that taking drugs is fun, and not everybody who does it has a problem. We don’t like to admit that, but it’s true. I am not advocating that anybody use recreational drugs....
Good-bye Sasha: Legendary Chemist Alexander Shulgin Dies at 88
Dr. Alexander Shulgin, the influential and beloved psychedelic pioneer, has passed away at the age of 88. He died of liver cancer on Monday, 2 June, surrounded by family and friends at his home in California. Shulgin had suffered declining health in the past few years, including a stroke and the onset of dementia beginning in 2010. About his final days, his wife Ann wrote: Sasha knows that he’s dying, but that doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t know he has cancer of the liver, and there’s no need for him to know; that knowledge would give him nothing...
Zen Float Tent: The First Affordable Isolation Tank for Home
Update: The wildly successful Kickstarter campaign is complete, having raised over $295,000. Good news for all you Isolation Tank “floaters” — a new company is about to start producing the cheapest-ever in-home isolation tank, called the Zen Float Tent. Founder Shane Stott says his float tank “ships inexpensively, assembles in any room and offers personal sensory deprivation.” In a video, he assembles one in only fifteen minutes. They’ve done extensive prototyping and testing, and frankly it looks awesome. Shane seems like a very genuine guy and his enthusiasm is contagious. To raise funds for the first manufacturing...
This Cube of Infinite Mirrors Expands, Contracts, and Blows Your Mind
This light sculpture by Numen/For Use bends reality to a new level. It’s a large cube of one-way mirrors lined with bright lights along the edges. Three of the cube’s six surfaces are made of flexible membrane, which bend as air is pumped into the cube by a huge compressor on one side. The other three surfaces are semi-transparent mirrors, so you can see into the cube’s infinite dimensions without leaving a reflection. In other words, you get to peek into the Escher-esque abyss as it changes shape: “By inflating or deflating the air tank, the membrane turns convex or concave,...
Moksha Medicine: Powerful Excerpts from Huxley’s “Island”
One of my favorite books is Island by Aldous Huxley, a book often prized by psychonauts and others who enjoy looking at society from the outside in. In Island, Huxley lays out the structure for an ideal society while making piercing criticisms of modern Western culture. As the title indicates, Huxley’s utopia is set on a small island, far removed from modern technology and divisive global politics. Some have criticized the book’s characterization and plot, but in Island these are secondary. This book’s main strength is in elaborating a great thinker’s vision of a truly civilized society. I want to share a couple excerpts...
“Room 8” — The Ending of this Short Film is Mind-Blowing
This 7-minute film blew me away. At first the stark tone and lighting drew me in. Then things started getting trippy in Room 8 and I couldn’t look away. It’s a fantastic film with echoes of Escher, Borges, Christopher Nolan, and Richard Kelly. (You probably know M.C. Escher and Christopher Nolan, but Jorge Luis Borges was an Argentinian writer whose incredible stories often featured mirrors, mazes, and infinity. Richard Kelly is the director of Donnie Darko and The Box, two very trippy movies.) Definitely hit full screen and pay attention for this one. Incredible as it may be, I don’t...
Moving Into the Sacred World of DMT, by Nick Sand
Nick Sand is one of the most prolific and well-known underground chemists in history. From 1966 to 1996, he produced huge amounts of LSD, as well as MDMA, synthetic mescaline, DMT, and other psychedelics that were distributed around the globe. Along with Tim Scully, Nick Sand was responsible for producing over 3 million hits of Orange Sunshine, a brand of LSD that was renowned for its quality and purity in the Sixties. Sand has a particular fondness for DMT. In fact, it was a DMT vision quest in the 60s that convinced Sand to dedicate his life to...
Life Versus Entropy Tripping on Fractals, God, and the Mystery of Existence
Setting: Early morning at a lakeside cabin in the woods of Vermont. Chemical lens: 25I-NBOMe, a research chemical with effects resembling LSD. (25I-NBOMe is a very new chemical, its safety profile is largely unknown, and lethal overdoses have been reported. Consuming 25I-NBOMe or other research chemicals is risky and I do not recommend it.) I walk outside as dawn arrives. Fog rolls across the lake and wraps the trees in a gauzy shroud. The silence is punctuated only by the chatter of birds and my own footsteps. My breathing takes its cue from the lake, gentle and unhurried. Where...