Entheoscope Magazine Issue 1 by Entheoscope

ENTHEOSCOPE

2021

COVER ILLUSTRATION BY KARLA NOREN

MAGAZINE

A LENS INTO THE PSYCHEDELIC MOVEMENT

ISSUE 1

FROM THE EDITORS One spontaneous idea, a series of awkward Zoom meetings, and some timid in-person encounters with interesting people later, and the first issue of Entheoscope was born. We started out as a group of friends with the idea of crafting a publication dedicated to exploring the role of psychedelic drugs in our ever-changing world. As seed took root, our project grew to encompass a plethora of art, music, and literature sourced from our wonderful intercollegiate psychedelic network. We realized that the outpouring of interest, support, and content for our publication is indicative of something much greater; we are in the midst of a psychedelic renaissance. As members of a society laden with grief and sapped of kindness, psychedelics provide insight into the meaning of unconditional love. We find ourselves looking to the psychedelic realm for ways to tap into the ineffable. With Entheoscope, we seek to uplift the individual voices that advance psychedelic culture. In doing so, we hope to increase our collective understanding of psychedelic substances and the experiences that they provide. We hope you will enjoy our humble contribution to the community that has given so much to each and every one of us.

CONTENTS 03

Peak Experiences MDP

Free and Flourishing Ryan Place

06 11

12 14

16 20 24 29

A Case for the Legalization of Drugs Jonathan Hale Dimitri Anonymous Drug Safety Dawson Carter Untitled Poem Grace Abbott Trip Killers Dawson Carter Pseudodelica Akash Kulgod The Stoned Ape Theory is Bananas Jonathan Hale Silly Simon Anonymous Invitation to Explore Your Silence Kelsey Hurley

37 38 44 48 52 58 64 73 77

Burn Chad Tannous Around the World in 80 Tabs Jacqueline Schwartz Ineffability of Road Tripping Jonathan Hale For Mother Nurture Dustin Garner The Mycelial Network of Consciousness Jonathan Hale Difficult Chad Tannous Psychedelic Interactions: the Coevolution of Huichol Art and the Western Aesthetic Jacqueline Schwartz Japa Beads Walter Bonser The Golden Teacher Arjun Deepak

peak experiences by MDP

ak experie e p t nc an es as if the y h I could floa s i t Iw

but like

to l

clo

a st lo n g er

re plate a us

t h e ir w o rl d

u d s d rifti n g

nstantly co o c me y e th an o g dt ly hey t n a t cons

FREE & FLOURISHING Insights from psychedelic legend William Leonard Pickard

by Ryan Place

In addition to being delightfully cryptic, my 6’3” friend Leonard has a phobia: interviews for him can sometimes be agonizing. Thus, I am incredibly grateful for the rare privilege of peppering him with quirky questions. William Leonard Pickard is a 50+ year veteran of the psychedelic era. He’s earned an international reputation of respect and accolades for his subject matter expertise, genius-level IQ, and indomitable spirit. Leonard’s background is far too multidimensional to explore here. Instead, let’s hear about the future from his new adobe abode in the arid steppes of Santa Fe, New Mexico. “A social and scientific revolution is occurring,” says Leonard. “Unanticipated in the history of drug use. Our realm of new participants widens from those seeking spiritual experience to billion-dollar corporations.” This goes beyond psychedelics. “Ultimately we will alter cognitive function to increase skills and competence, an array of non-psychedelic effects fundamental to what is human,” he says. 4

“A social and scientific revolution is occurring. Unanticipated in the history of drug use."

In the post-psy era, after perhaps the next ten years, substances will manifest which enhance human performance. Psychedelics may be a transition to this next stage, influencing neurochemistry to become more competent, creative, functional, and productive. Within those advances, we must remember compassion.” Right now, Leonard is being absorbed into the venture capital end of the psy revolution, as a biotech consultant analyzing pitch decks from young founders in the psy space. “It is an immense privilege to meet with talented creators and investors, many with their commitment to healing and enhancing our species,” he says. “It is deeply gratifying to help in some small way.” On June 27, 2021, Leonard will be participating in an online event celebrating the life and work of Sasha Shulgin, honoring the upcoming publication of Sasha’s lectures, The Nature of Drugs. Leonard contributed an essay to the book entitled Reflections from a Student.

A CASE FOR THE LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS

by Jonathan Hale via the Berkeley Voyager For those immersed in the psychedelic scene, it can be easy to forget that psychedelics are but one of many classes of mind-altering substances. Current efforts to decriminalize psychedelics provide an invaluable foot in the door for future reforms to follow. However, the decriminalization of psychedelics cannot be the stopping point in the quest to formulate more equitable drug policy. In this essay, I’ll critically examine some arguments in favor of the decriminalization of drugs. Then I’ll make an introductory case that while decriminalization is a step in the right direction, it fails to adequately mitigate the immense harms caused by the global drug trade. I’ll wrap things up by making a case for why legal penalties that outlaw the use and trade of mind-altering substances should be abolished, before proposing my vision of what legalization would look like in a free and fair society.

The distinction is that decriminalization eliminates criminal penalties for use and possession, whereas legalization entails the removal of criminal penalties for manufacture and sale. Despite their potential benefits, the harms associated with drugs are numerous, and any government policy dealing with drugs must be carefully designed to serve the best interests of public health. The consumption of certain substances may result in addiction, which can lead to significant and irreversible physiological and psychological damage. Addiction often leads to tolerance after repeated use, requiring users to consume sadklfjsdlkf 6

increasingly larger doses to achieve the same high. This vicious cycle can sometimes end in overdose, which occurs when the consumption of an excessive amount of drugs poses a sudden and serious health risk to the user. But an approach that prohibits drugs by appealing to potential dangers both limits personal autonomy and poses needless harm to nonviolent users, who bear the brunt of enforcement and criminal sentencing. A more progressive alternative allows for the decriminalization of drugs while still maintaining their illegality. Such a position may seem counterintuitive at first, and one might express skepticism at how drugs might be decriminalized while remaining illegal. The distinction is that decriminalization eliminates criminal penalties for use and possession, whereas legalization entails the removal of criminal penalties for manufacture and sale. This framework protects users while allowing the justice system to target wholesale manufacturers and distributors as the main progenitors of crime.

ILLUSTRATION BY MOXIE EVANS

The decriminalization approach also addresses the racial disparities of the War on Drugs. Under prohibition, users and dealers of color are arrested and imprisoned at far greater rates than white people, despite being equally or less likely to use drugs or sell them (Rothwell, 2014). Racially charged enforcement has decimated communities of color and stifled upward social mobility. Decriminalization precludes the possibility of arrest for possession or personal use, eliminating the possibility that non-white drug users will be disproportionately punished. Furthermore, the effects of drug enforcement’s racial bias can be reduced if we rethink the way we prosecute young people - young men of color in particular - who may be inclined to sell drugs for lack of a better opportunity for economic gain. Thus, proponents of decriminalization argue that by overhauling the way the justice system addresses small-time pushers, we can mitigate the racial disparities of the War on Drugs without committing to full-on legalization.

At the crux of the decriminalization-but-notlegalization argument is the claim that legalization will lead to a significant increase in drug abuse, or the use of drugs in a manner that is likely to cause harm. Opponents charge that legalization will empower traffickers to push more product, resulting in higher rates of addiction and overdose. However, I contend that this claim is speculative and unfounded. Although I concede that drug use may rise slightly in a society where drugs are legal, we mustn’t fall down the slippery slope of assuming that ordinary people like you and me will suddenly become addicted to heroin. This criticism fails to take into account the complex underlying motives and cultural systems that drive people to use or abstain from drugs in the first place. The circumstances that shape the choices individuals make regarding their use of drugs will not simply vanish if drugs are legalized, and any corresponding spike in drug abuse will not be as severe as opponents of legalization suggest.

Decriminalization maintains that we should reformulate drug policy such that use and possession is no longer criminal. If carefully crafted drug policy can effectively reduce the harms associated with drug abuse, then the problem is not the illegality of drugs, but the costly means by which we enforce prohibition. Yet decriminalization, while beneficial, is not enough. The immeasurable cost of the War on Drugs cannot be effectively diminished without rescinding the prohibition of manufacture and sale. I argue that legalization, in tandem with carefully constructed policy, provides the most beneficial solution for users and the general public.

Let us now examine the reasons why prohibition of manufacture and sale is not only harmful, but a futile endeavor. A recovering addict once described to me that his attitude towards recovery changed when his sponsor instructed him to put as much effort into getting sober as he had into sourcing drugs for his next fix. This anecdote might help us understand why the unique economy of drug markets makes the War on Drugs unwinnable. Because consumers of drugs are frequently addicted to the product, demand remains relatively stable regardless of cost or availability.

"Because the demand for drugs is not pricesensitive, each ‘victory’ in the war on drugs enhances drug dealers’ revenue, making future decreases in supply all the harder to achieve." 8

If a government seeks to reduce drug use, it must either reduce demand by implementing wide-spread and effective programs to treat addiction, or reduce supply by attempting to effectively suppress sale and manufacture. While the prohibition of sale and manufacture has certainly succeeded in increasing the cost and rarity of drugs, it has failed to lead to a corresponding decrease in demand. Economist Benjamin Powell notes that “because the demand for drugs is not price-sensitive, each ‘victory’ in the war on drugs enhances drug dealers’ revenue, making future decreases in supply all the harder to achieve” (Powell, 2013). Prohibition raises profit margins for traffickers while increasing harms for addicts, who are forced to negotiate risky situations and pay exorbitant prices in order to avoid the torturous symptoms of withdrawal. The increase in the power and revenue of multinational drug trafficking organizations as a result of United States drug policy has directly contributed to the instability of foreign governments. As profit margins for drug traffickers increase, the extra cash is frequently used to purchase the goodwill of local officials. The corruption of police “results in tip-offs regarding potential raids, provision of armed protection for crops and refining laboratories, facilitation of smuggling routes, and the provision of weaponry,” all of which allow slfkjsdf

trafficking syndicates to flourish (Weiner, 2004). Additionally, any success in the suppression of drug production at a single source is negated by a phenomenon known as the balloon effect, in which “local squeezes simply [move] the industry elsewhere, spreading violence and corruption” (“Measuring Progress: Global Supply of Illicit Drugs”, 2003). The degradation of social institutions and the proliferation of drugrelated violence pose immense harms for residents of drug producing countries like Colombia (cocaine) and Afghanistan (heroin). Through its supply-side fight against drug consumption, US policy stokes the flames of instability in developing states around the world. Earlier, I suggested that governments might be able to effectively reduce demand for drugs by creating public healthcare systems designed specifically to address abuse. I endorse the idea that drugs should be legalized with the aim of implementing harm reduction policy. As the name suggests, “harm reduction” is the umbrella term for programs that seek to reduce the harms associated with drug use. In a harm reduction facility, individuals seeking to administer drugs could do so under the supervision of a qualified physician using drugs manufactured in a lab and tested for adulterants. This concept is reality in Switzerland, where some drug users can receive 9

methadone or heroin prescriptions from doctors to assist in safely managing and tapering off their addictions. Currently, over 70% of Swiss drug users receive therapy through a program which has “greatly reduced deaths while cutting crime rates”, according to public health officials (Nebehay, 2010). Experts report that new cases of addiction have fallen dramatically, and users no longer congregate at public parks to administer drugs (Knoll, 2016). Full legalization, coupled with tightly enforced and insightful policy, shows an inkling of promise as an effective means of reducing harm to users and promoting the well-being of the general public. Governments such as our own should heed Switzerland’s example. As the world’s largest drug market, legalization in the United States presents an opportunity to undercut drug trafficking operations worldwide. In addition, individuals addicted to drugs would be finally able to receive proper treatment and care. The case for legalization is one rooted in the flawed economics of prohibition, but more importantly, in compassion for those upon whom the War on Drugs has wrought so much pain. If we are to work together to build a more fair and just society, we must acknowledge that the harms of prohibiting the sale and manufacture vastly outweigh any potential benefits. Decriminalization is a good first step, but it must not be our last.

DIMITRI

by Anonymous

A daring adventurer set off on a trip To visit Dimitri, who he hadn’t yet met The voyager was nervous, but still well equipped With a pipe in his hand, he was seated and set. Then a spark and a light and a flame to the glass, And a crackle and pop and a wisp of pale smoke, The past became future, the future did pass As he held his breath tight, and tried not to choke. His mouth was agape at the things that he saw: fractals and crystals, and magical beings, Indescribable patterns that left him in awe, Yet frozen in place by what he was seeing. Then the Maker itself emerged from the mix. “My name is Dimitri, hello my old friend!” It spoke with a boom without moving its lips; And end was beginning, beginning was end. And then there was nothing, nothing at all. No body, no mind; no heartbeat, no breath The world stood still, and time seemed to stall And death became life, and life became death. 11

DRUG SAFETY

by Dawson Carter

Three Techniques for Cleaner Drugs

Illicit markets lack quality control and are often riddled with corruption, leaving you with constant worry about that “molly” you thought you purchased. In this article, I’ll give you a bit of a lowdown on testing and purifying a wide variety of psychoactive substances. Nobody should be consuming drugs of low purity, cuts, and unreacted precursors. This guide is an introductory lesson on how to make your drugs much safer to consume with fewer side effects and less potential harms.

REAGENTS

First and foremost test your drugs... all of them. A drop of a reagent onto a compound produces an identifying color, and a set of these examinations can provide a degree of certainty that the drug is real. Such reagents commonly used are the Marquis, Mandelin, Mecke, Ehrlich, Froehde, Liebermann, and others. Also check out fentanyl dipsticks, which as the name implies, check for the presence of fentanyl. Everyone should know what they consume. This is by far the most important part of harm reduction: knowing the contents.

ACETONE WASH

This only works for drugs that have “hydrochloride” in the chemical name. For reference, consider MDMA, which is in hydrochloride salt form**

Buy the highest purity acetone off Amazon, 99% or so.

Optional: If you’re fanatical you can suck out that 1% water with Epsom salts if you want, but I personally use 3A molecular sieves over the salt for versatility elsewhere. The salt must be pure and unscented, then baked in the oven at a very high temperature for a couple hours. Let cool and add to the acetone to remove unwanted water content.

Grind the MDMA or what-have-you to the finest powder and hold it in a paper towel. Depress that region of the towel slightly so nothing falls out. Then lightly pour the acetone over the depression and let it drain into a clean container. Countless impurities were just removed. Spread out the resultant crystals and let dry for a day or two (you’ll know if it’s ready when you do not taste anything similar to alcohol’s flavor or like acetone’s scent). Now you have some potent MDMA or other hydrochloride salt. The chemistry of the drugs doesn’t change at all but the procedure removes unwanted material.

ALCOHOL RECRYSTALLIZATION

Now this takes patience and is a bit advanced. Do not attempt unless you feel completely comfortable. You’ll have to look up specifics on what compounds this works for, but MDMA works well with this. Good ventilation is a must since alcohol vapors are flammable. Do this outside if possible. Any common alcohol could work, but 99% isopropanol is the easiest high-purity alcohol to buy. You can dry it with Epsom to increase yield. Save a few grains of MDMA and put the rest in a cup, beaker, or whatever and keep it pretty warm. Heat the alcohol and stir constantly with excellent ventilation until it is boiling or near boiling. Slowly add the hot alcohol to the MDMA a drop at a time until all is dissolved. Now you just let it cool, then stick in the freezer. You’ll likely have very high-purity MDMA crystals after waiting a day. If no crystals form, then add the few grains saved from earlier to act as “seeds.” Another day of waiting and you will have immaculate MDMA, although you may want to let it dry before consuming.

Stay Safe!

PREVIOUS PAGE: ILLUSTRATION BY KARLA NOREN | 13

UNTITLED POEM by Grace Abbott

I looked down at my arms two brown sticks With near-black hairs growing in one direction I couldn’t believe what my mind was telling me! I had parents, I was the product of other humans I started out so small and grew big we all start out very small and grow big… Really, I can’t believe my eyes. I’m just like a sim randomized characteristics put into one body Really, there’s no reason to feel ashamed by any of it. we’re just a bunch of boxes, checked and unchecked sliding scales and color palettes These observations seem simple but it all felt very new to me very very new As I looked down at my arms

TRIP KILLERS by Dawson Carter

As many of us have heard by now, either by firsthand experience or just keeping an open ear, psychedelics are becoming more recognized for their incredible potential to help individuals. From PTSD recovery to personal growth, these hallucinogenic drugs consistently have positive and profound effects. I certainly vouch for that. LSD, DMT, and the like all facilitate this process, which often includes some tough bouts of ego death and deep introspection. Sometimes this may lead to a bad trip, which is typically the result of being overwhelmed at this time. Yep, bad trips. Dealing with all the anxiety, disorientation, and panic for a few hours can be a hell of a struggle. It's commonly agreed upon by many psychonauts that these episodes provide the benefit of strongly catalyzing a fresh outlook on life. Everyone has issues and they’re never easy to deal with, but psychedelics bring a full-force confrontation that is nearly inescapable. Almost. There’s a wide variety of substances that can bring an end to most overwhelming experiences, most commonly benzodiazepines ________

or antipsychotics. These "trip killers" work by depressing the central nervous system to suppress the changes in mental function, oftentimes inducing sleep or occasionally amnesia for the sake of forgetting the trip. But should they be used? Doing so effectively strips the trip of the emotional, mental, and spiritual hurdles that bring significant growth. That’s what these drugs are for; some might argue that to remove the challenging aspects of a trip defeats the purpose of the experience. To get the most out of tripping on psychedelics it’d be best to work through it with a sober trip-sitter with good judgement, who would be in charge of the trip killers. And please note that they wouldn’t take effect for a half hour or longer, with few exceptions. Beyond blocking positives, there will be a handful of risks. Immediate considerations should include drug interactions, particularly if depressants were recently consumed. Benzodiazepines and many other depressants do have a high potential for dependence and addiction in the long term as well, and possibly a lowering threshold of how difficult the trip must be to warrant trip killers.

"It's commonly agreed upon by many psychonauts that bad trips provide the benefit of strongly catalyzing a fresh outlook on life."

16 | PREVIOUS PAGE: ILLUSTRATION BY KARLA NOREN

On the plus side, trip killers can stop what could otherwise be traumatic for quite some time. If you really want the full psychedelic experience just hold off. For me personally, I prepare for the trip and intend to go all the way, but sometimes take benzodiazepines to cut trips a couple hours short for the sake of sleeping earlier. It can be a good tool to even take small amounts just to turn the psychedelia a notch rather than end it entirely. Adding an element of control is a nice amenity, just as long as tripping doesn’t require anxiolytics every time. This is simply a personal opinion from my own experiences, and by no means do I condone the use of benzodiazepines for their high potential for dependence. All in all, while trip killers might serve to end the psychedelic experience, they defeat the purpose of the trip. You won’t go through a mind frame and perspective metamorphosis quite the same. In addition, trip killers have limited uses and pose some potentially severe consequences. They are a good aid for extremely awful trips, but should people like myself occasionally take it to only lighten trips that come on a bit strong? Everyone should face their hardships and reach some elevated perspective on life - that's the beauty of personal freedom.

" . . . while trip killers might serve to end the psychedelic experience, they defeat the purpose of the trip. You won’t go through a mind frame and perspective metamorphosis quite the same."

Stay safe, Dawson

18 | PREVIOUS PAGE: "EASIER TO GIVE UP" BY JULIETTE COLLETE

PSEUDODELICA

On the demarcation problem, being wooed by the woo and lying on the cusp of revolution by Akash Kulgod How do we pseudoscience?

distinguish

science

from

While seemingly easy to answer, the question has flummoxed western philosophers of science dating back all the way to Aristotle, although the first documented use of 'pseudoscience' was made only in the late 18th century to refer to alchemy [1]. Aptly known as the demarcation problem, Karl Popper described it as the “key to most of the fundamental problems in the philosophy of science” [2]. The difficulty of the problem has been thought to lie not in what fields constitute pseudoscience (think astrology and homeopathy), but in what criteria to use to make such a distinction, a telling clue that there is likely still much to be worked out. Unlike your average philosophical quandary whose esotericism confines its real-world implications to the armchair and the lecture hall, the demarcation problem has some weighty high stake implications for individuals and broader society. This has never been clearer in the past year under the throes of the pandemic — from the contested origins of the virus and the brouhaha over the utility of masks to the endorsement of outlandish cures and a burgeoning anti-vax movement — the lines between science and pseudoscience have come under increasing scrutiny and strain, only made worse by the proliferation of runaway echo chambers and filter bubbles that the algorithmic cyberspace we increasingly dwell in is designed to spawn.

Underlying the problem is the fundamental question of “how to determine which beliefs are epistemically warranted.” [3] Science purports to offer a compelling answer by allowing its practitioners to separate the wheat from the chaff and tell fact from fiction. It has, with little doubt, been tremendously successful at doing so. Yet, while several accounts of science's epistemic framework have been offered, such as Popper's notion of 'falsifiability', no comprehensive definition of what it really exists. This is because science is heterogeneous and constantly evolving and changing, which makes a timeless definition next to impossible. Thus, the boundaries between science and pseudoscience remain embroiled in mist. No field encapsulates the treacherous nature of the demarcation problem better than the realm of psychedelics. Folk beliefs that run counter to what is considered scientific fact — chakras, telepathy, synchronicity — have a rich history of being associated with psychedelics, exemplified by the intertwined nature of many New Age style beliefs with psychedelic counterculture. This infamous predilection for 'wooey' beliefs amongst psychedelic users prompted Robin Carhart-Harris and Karl Friston to devote an entire section - 'What to do about the woo?' - in their highly influential paper 'REBUS and the Anarchic Brain' [4]. They posit that the 'ontological shock' caused by psychedelics — where the influx of new sasdfasdfasdfa

20 | PREVIOUS PAGE: ILLUSTRATION BY NATALIE PIRES

"Thus, the very conceptualization of western science . . . made the so-called 'hard problem of consciousness' inevitable." information and emotion causes one to question everything one once knew — can often lead to an escapist defense that masquerades as awakening and led to bizarre beliefs or poorly understood platitudes in order to explain away uncertainty. Even more interesting, however, is the entangling of the scientific community investigating psychedelics with ideas and concepts that many would consider defy or subvert the traditional norms of science. Since the 1960s, the phrase 'mystical experience', has been common parlance among scientists to refer to the profound peak experience that many people have on high psychedelic doses. 'Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance' was the title of the seminal 2006 paper by Hopkins researchers that has been cited over a thousand times, and arguably launched the psychedelic renaissance [5]. This paper, and many others that followed it, use the 'Mystical Experience Questionnaire' — a well-validated psychometric tool that operationalizes the concept of a mystical experience by measuring the participant’s felt sense of unity, timelessness, sacredness, paradoxically, and ineffability [6]. While the MEQ has proven to possess predictive utility for ascertaining therapeutic outcomes, its usage has been criticized as creating a 'black box' mentality that casts certain aspects of experience as out of bounds for scientific inquiry. In a recent opinion piece for ACS Pharmacology titled 'Moving past mysticism in psychedelic science', [7] Sanders & Zijlmans argue that the "terminology and conceptualization scientists use in their research should not imply that a psychedelic experience dfsdf

holds a special status of inaccessibility beyond other kinds of experience. To assume this special status a priori is unscientifically pessimistic" [emphasis mine]. A similar argument of 'psychedelic exceptionalism' was made by Matthew Johnson, who observed there was an "inclination to believe that the nature of the experiences people have on psychedelics are so sacred or important that the normal rules do not apply[...]" [8]

Does the central role of the mystical experience in psychedelic science threaten to bleed into the pseudoscientific? This cuts to the heart of the demarcation problem in psychedelics and reveals the inherent tensions of investigating phenomenal consciousness within the current metaphysical framework of western science. The tension boils down to essentially this — How do we objectively evaluate from the outside what is inherently subjective on the inside? Of course, investigations into consciousness have long preceded modern psychedelic science and have occupied philosophers across the world for millennia, with Indian and Buddhist philosophers particularly notable for their devising of systematic and extensive methodologies to probe the inner realm of mind. But the study of consciousness was essentially ignored in the West, primarily to protect science from the Church, as famously articulated by Descartes who described the domain of science to explicitly be only about the material world (res extensa), while mental phenomena (res cogitans) was deemed to be under the purview of religion. Thus, the very conceptualisation of western science (which is now global science) made the so-called 'hard problem of consciousness' inevitable. 21

Recently however, consciousness has emerged back into mainstream cognitive science. One prominent approach to tackle the 'hardness' of consciousness has been neurophenomenology, made concrete in the 1990’s by the prolific cognitive scientist Franscisco Varela [9]. Neurophenomenology emphasises the importance of the irreducible nature of conscious experience and suggests complementing extensive third person 'neuro' centric methods with robust first person phenomenological approaches (such as those pioneered by Buddhist meditators). While such an approach is proving to be fruitful in laying out a path forward, the psychedelic experience still poses various challenges. For instance, how does one investigate the phenomenal nature of an experience if it is by nature ineffable?

This article began with a seemingly simple yet unanswered question 'How do we distinguish science from pseudoscience?' and in lieu of any answer, we seem to have been left with even more questions. Yet, rather than cause for despair, the seemingly intractable nature of the demarcation problem, in psychedelics and in general, may potentially be cause for optimism. Thomas Kuhn, the philosopher and author of the influential 1962 work 'The Structure of Scientific Revolution', proposed that it was only in 'normal science', which took place between moments of scientific revolution, that we find the characteristics by which science can be distinguished from other activities [10]. The misty and mystical terrain of the psychedelic landscape might be an important sign that we are on the cusp of a major scientific revolution.

To say that there is more to reality than physics can account for is not a piece of mysticism: it is an acknowledgment that we are nowhere near a theory of everything, and that science will have to expand to accommodate facts of a kind fundamentally different from those that physics is designed to explain.

—

Thomas Nagel

THE STONED APE THEORY IS BANANAS by Jonathan Hale via the Berkeley Voyager Author’s note: throughout this article, I repeatedly draw from Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge by Terrance McKenna. I did not provide page numbers because I pirated the book and the page count was messed up. For clarification on specific points, please contact me directly.

One wonders why McKenna’s theory has become so popular despite a lack of empirical evidence to back it up. Maybe it’s because there’s something reassuring about the thought that the profundity of the psychedelic experience was necessary to make us who we are. Maybe it’s because the suggestion that psychedelics boost brainpower massages the ego of the outspoken psychedelic user. Or maybe it’s because the stoned ape theory offers a refreshingly simple explanation of why the world is “just so”. The fact of the matter is, many people who do psychedelics believe in the stoned ape theory, and it’s worth talking about. The purpose of this article isn’t to offhandedly dismiss the stoned ape theory as pseudoscientific hogwash (excuse the title, I couldn’t resist the pun). Nor is it to discredit ethnobotanist 24 | PREVIOUS PAGE: GRAPHIC ART BY SABA TABRIZI

GRAPHIC ART BY MIKE HALL

In Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge, Terrence McKenna posits that naturally occurring hallucinogenic substances played an integral role in the evolution of modern human cognition. McKenna’s theory is enticing, albeit scientifically unfounded. Yet a lack of scientific support hasn’t stopped the “stoned ape theory” from gaining traction in the psychedelic community in the years since the publication of Food of the Gods in 1992.

Terrance McKenna, the pioneering ethnobotanist and daring psychonaut. Rather, this article will examine McKenna's central claims about human evolution before making the case that the stoned ape theory suffers from a methodological flaw of viewing psychedelics as inherently necessary for human survival. Let’s start by taking a closer look at McKenna’s theory as originally presented in Food of the Gods. The theory revolves around three central claims. The first suggests that naturally occurring psychedelic substances increased reproductive fidelity in proto-humans. That is, consuming psychedelics caused our mushroommunching ancestors to become sexually aroused, which led to greater birth rates. The second pillar of the stoned ape theory holds that psychedelics boosted the visual acuity of primitive hunters and gatherers, allowing for greater success in the never ending search for sustenance. The final, and arguably most controversial, tenet of McKenna’s theory is that psychoactive substances served as a catalyst for a rapid expansion in the size and capabilities of the human brain.

" . . . even if the consumption of psychedelics led to heightened sexual fidelity, greater visual acuity, and increased language processing abilities, this wouldn’t necessarily lead to phylogenetic changes persisting across generations."

A critical reader of Food of the Gods might ask the obvious question: where’s the evidence? If you’re going to toss around paradigm-shifting claims about human evolution, you’d better be able to back them up. But McKenna’s prose in Food of the Gods is speculative, and references to empirical research are few and far between. The book’s tone is open-ended, as if challenging the reader to ask “what if?” Indeed, it may not have been McKenna’s intention to present the stoned ape theory as scientific fact. If so, then the buck stops there - the Food of the Gods is an interesting work of literature, nothing more. If not, then we need empirical evidence before we can accept McKenna’s theory as scientific dictum. But let’s play along and grant that McKenna’s central claims about psychedelics and human evolution are correct. If so, then another problem emerges: even if the consumption of psychedelics led to heightened sexual fidelity, greater visual acuity, and increased language processing abilities, this wouldn’t necessarily lead to phylogenetic changes persisting across generations. The stoned ape theory succumbs to Lamarckian pitfall of suggesting that changes during an organism’s lifetime are heritable. Before Darwin’s theory of natural selection, evolutionary biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck theorized that giraffes have long necks because ancient giraffes once stretched to reach the highest branches. We now know that this is not the case - giraffes have long necks because ancient giraffes with long necks were fitter, and thus more likely to bear successful offspring. Suggesting that the cognitive capabilities of modern humans resulted from our ancestors taking psychedelics is akin to suggesting that giraffes are as they are because their ancestors stretched their necks.

...psychedelics afford us an opportunity to challenge ourselves to ascribe meaning apart from that which satiates our basic needs. The psychedelic experience brings to the forefront a capacity for empathy, altruism, and unconditional love that belies any evolutionary necessity. McKenna sidesteps this objection by suggesting that the variety of foods consumed by ancient hominids increased the likelihood of mutations occurring in our genome. He also proposes that psychedelics played a key role in shaping our ancient culture. So maybe there are five central claims to the stoned ape theory, not just three. In addition to the positive effects of psychedelics on visual acuity, sexual fidelity, and language development, psychedelics also increase the likelihood of mutations to our genome and served as a cornerstone of early human culture. At this point it may be evident that McKenna is taking quite a leap of faith to fit psychedelics into a broader picture of human evolution. The stoned ape theory is a bit of a stretch. As in, Shaq doing the splits kind of a stretch. And that would be fine if McKenna provided some more evidence for his claims. But there’s a more pressing problem with thinking about human evolution as contingent upon our use of psychedelics. The stoned ape theory implies that psychedelics were necessary for us to become who we are today. By this logic, psychedelics played a similar role to stone tools, fire, and agriculture in the evolution of our species. The thing is, psychedelics aren’t anything like stone tools, fire, or agriculture. Psychedelics don’t help us survive - in fact, the opposite is more than likely to be true. Eating a handful of Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms might not lead to immediate death, but an unexpected psychedelic experience would pose a signifiant

threat to the survival of a proto-human forager. A loss of sense of self, a feeling of unabridged empathy, and a fascination with the natural world all sound like wonderful things from our modern, Western vantage point. But these feelings would surely be a death spell to a hunter-gatherer attempting to stay alive in a harsh and unforgiving world. The feelings that psychedelics engender are in direct opposition to our evolutionary instincts. Our ego helps us remain cognizant of our own needs and desires; our capacity for empathy is tailored to be discriminatory, not inclusive; and a healthy fear of the natural world helps us avoid predators and other hazards. To suggest that consuming psychedelics allowed our ancestors to hunt, have sex, and communicate is anachronistic. Psychedelics are scary - they break down the preconceptions of ourselves and the world around us that help keep us alive. Why, then, do we do psychedelics? They don’t quench our thirst or fill our bellies or ensure that our children will survive to adulthood. They are not, as the stoned ape theory suggests, a tool that makes us better hunters or lovers or orators. Rather, psychedelics afford us an opportunity to challenge ourselves to ascribe meaning apart from that which satiates our basic needs. The psychedelic experience brings to the forefront a capacity for empathy, altruism, and unconditional love that belies any evolutionary necessity. We get to decide that these things are important.

26 | NEXT PAGE: ILLUSTRATION BY EMMA TILLOTSON

SILLY SIMON by Anonymous

Well, I was nineteen the first time I died My body dissolved into a pint of paint And Pollock painted the world with me Oh, Silly Simon The world crumbles at your feet Yet here you sit in the dirt beneath Oh, silly Simon What is there left to do? When I am him and he is them and all of us are you? Silly Simon, The walls are melting again My skin is dripping again My love is blue and pulsing with you The green lights flicker and I'm gone again Oh, Silly Simon I want to build my house on your body And wake up every morning just to worship the earth PREVIOUS PAGE: ILLUSTRATION BY KARLA NOREN | 29

INVITATION TO EXPLORE YOUR SILENCE by Kelsey Hurley I’d like to bring you to a time and place that might only exist in on these pages, but suspend your disbelief and imagine that this perfect scenario of a night could take place. Let’s travel back to the beginning of more liberated dating, where you’ve just had your first passionate encounter with a new partner who you’ve been courting for a little while. You’re staying at their place, they don’t have a TV, and you’re sure to stick to the record player to avoid any advertisements on the radio. You’re returning from the bathroom, a sly smile on your face as you appear in the doorway wrapped in your partner’s robe. Maybe looking silly, but it only adds to the ease of the room. The air thick with satisfaction, a soft silence filling your ears as you fall back into their arms. Now this is a moment. So comforted by the silence, so safe. Your partner reaches to the nightstand quickly lighting and passing you a joint, saturating the air with sweet pungent smoke. There’s too much to think about to sleep, too much excitement, too much curiosity, too much fun to be had, and you’re much too engrossed with one another to be thinking about tomorrow. Deep conversation is flowing easily. The stories bubble up and you feel a sense of vulnerability, of openness, of acceptance. You share your dreams, and your fears, and the type of life that you’re claiming for yourself. Trading Truths leaves you more curious than when your conversation began. You’ll never forget that twinkle of awe, and perhaps admiration, in your partners eye.

You’ve reminded them of a song, something they have on vinyl, and grabbing your hand they lead you to the den. Playing the song, they take you back to a time where their world was over and they didn’t know how anything could ever get better, but that was so long ago and now everything is just so different. Better than they could have ever imagined. And as you dance, laugh, and sing, butterflies fill your heart, and not just metaphorically but your heartbeat flutters, your breath quickens, your cheeks flush. This could be the start of something great - can you picture it? Wouldn’t it be great to just ride the high of the moment and just enjoy what’s happening? Eventually you dance your way into the kitchen. Late night pancakes are always a great idea. You splash around flour and maybe toss in some blueberries, and you watch and learn your partner a little more. Maybe this is the first time cooking together. Do you notice their brow safddsf

"How do you feel about creating silence that is just for you? Could you find excitement in that idea? Or is there more fear present?"

furrow as they read directions? Do you empathize with them when they burn their finger? Do you giggle a little when they shout and pull their finger back? Do you console them? Could you make them forget about it as you wrap your legs around them from your seat on the counter, meeting them with a good kiss? While you enjoy your syrupy treats, the conversation turns to films, books, art, politics all the things about which you feel most passionately. In this moment you’re free to learn one another, and there’s a sense of safety that causes you to feel open to speak your Truths, to explore your connection. Ripe with curiosity, you feel emboldened to claim the potential of the moment. Oh, what might you discover?

or anxiety ridden spaces, but as exalted and glorious ones. So then, what if we were to shift this practice into an individual one? How do you feel about creating silence that is just for you? Could you find excitement in that idea? Or is there more fear present?

Now, I’d like to believe that most of us have had at least a night like the one above. A night where we’re so enveloped in our new partner that we allow the rest of the world to fade away. Where we’re too excited by the new, too curious to learn more, and maybe even a little afraid to pop the bubble and potentially disrupt the moment by looking at our phones, scrolling through social media apps, checking in with friends and family or on work responsibilities, or catching up with the lovely 24 hour news cycle.

This concept is something that I have been working on, but not without a certain amount of frustration. For example, I realized how quickly and mindlessly I would pop that bubble of silence, of presence. Yet I was brought back into my practice by a gentle reminder from a good friend, who encouraged my patience. She pointed out how apps are frequently designed to hit your brain with a dopamine rush to keep you coming back, and how clearing notifications is like satisfying a hard-to-reach itch. She also noted that those just hitting their late twenties have been enthusiastically plugged in since high school, at least. It’s a lot of habit to unlearn, once you bring awareness to it. It’s so easy to shoot a friend a message, scroll through your feed, check in on what’s dsfsdfsdf

I believe we do allow ourselves these moments where we establish these capsules and create a space for silence that is rich with excitement, wonder, admiration, openness, and connection. We usually do not view these bubbles as scary sdf

32 | PREVIOUS PAGE: PAINTING BY LEXIE STEWART

While this piece started coming together, I was reintroduced to the phrase “fear is excitement without breath”, coined by Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy. It’s the idea that at a physiological level our bodies process the fear and excitement the same way, with the main difference being how you manifest the emotion in question. I’ve had many friends confide that sitting alone, unplugged, and being confronted with that void of silence provokes anxiety and spiraling thoughts. Uncomfortable emotions for anyone, but I invite you to consider if there’s any excitement there too. Is there a possibility that you could breathe through that fear and find parts to be excited and curious about?

ILLUSTRATION BY EMMA TORRES

going on, or wiki an answer that I wonder if it degrades our connection with curiosity. This instant gratification of knowledge, does it change how we consider the world? Does it allow the space to really think things through? But what if we were to hold onto that curiosity? How would you fill that silence? If you were to look for guidance to this question, you’d probably find suggestions like meditation, techniques to move your body, breath and perhaps simple things like walking in nature or journaling.

Imagine going for a walk and there’s a rustling in the leaves a few feet off the path. Do you think you would even notice the sound while engaging with your phone? What if you had instead spent your walk noticing the wildlife, how the sun was shining through the canopy, wondering when certain flowers will bloom, marveling at the checkered hues of a bluejay that let you get extra close? Then would you be more likely to investigate the unknown? What a gift to see, to notice, to admire. Could you find something to learn here?

Fear is excitement without breath. —

Fritz Perls

How about journaling? Getting it all out of your head, even if you rip up what you wrote and burn it after. Could you allow yourself the safe space to nurture that ability, to open and be curious? See if the words you write actually feel true and explore what comes up. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, just allow your pen to flow along with your thoughts and explore with wonder and excitement. Create that bubble where there’s no reason for any judgment, allow yourself to step into your own silence and revel in it. Even if you were to start with a statement like “I don’t think I’ll enjoy this”, explore that, with gentle curiousity, and allow yourself to learn something more about yourself. Now, I’m not tying to encourage you to throw away your phone, delete all your apps, tell your boss to shove it, and go be a hermit it the woods (although for a weekend here and there the escape would be nice). I fully appreciate the utility of modern technology and what it affords us, but I think it highlights the benefits of occasionally unplugging and reconnecting with ourselves. Allowing ourselves ssasdffasfgfgdfkl

the space and silence to be curious, and be excited instead of fearful. sdlfkjasdflk Isn’t there something rejuvenating and freeing about being somewhere without service? About not being consistently accessible to your family, friends, and workplace? Or constantly exposed to the 24 hour news cycle? How have you felt in the past when you’ve allowed yourself to be enamored with another person, unaffected by the outside world for a moment? How easy would it be for you to extend that ability and create a bubble of silence for yourself? What wonderful things could come out of the silence? I invite you to think about those questions, really let yourself feel them. Notice any sensations that might arise in your body and get curious about them. If some fear arises, I ask can you breathe through it and discover a little excitement there? And if you can find the smallest speck of excitement, I dare you to get curious about it, and if you can, well, that’s just the beginning.

ILLU ST R AT IO N

US YMO ON AN BY

PREVIOUS PAGE: ILLUSTRATION BY EMMA TORRES | 35

SCULPTURE BY LIZZY SOMER

BURN by Chad Tannous

When walking on the cobbed and sweating streets, Through center town, I stop to have a drink. Begrimmed the fog in valley sets to speak, To visions of the what’s already seen. Like one who acts like god is here to give, The mucid trace of once experienced: Begets my physic, like a snuff, and hence. The wanden call of music down the lane. The frisk and gambol sure‘d is my measure; That I should keep on dancing like a child, With youth by candle light and flushed with gial... Not drowning now but flying over sot. By the labyrinth of what’s Implied in thee, I’m running through the halls of jubilee. With longing to the forests edge I creep... Imbibe upon the sweet lycanthropy.

leu qca J yb

s baT 08

d ni

d t n h u e o r Wo A rl

S c h ztraw

i n e

A PLAYLIST OF PSYCHEDELIC ROCK FROM ALL CORNERS OF THE GLOBE

GATHERINGS JAPAN Kikagaku Moyo Reverb-laden guitar riffs emerge from a driving percussion section like ripples in a pond. Psychedelic rock has never been so relaxing.

SZAZABODELICO Casa Sui

DENMARK

Seven minutes of instrumental bliss. If you want all of the classic psychedelic sounds without any of the talking, this is for you.

MARCHE DE SQUELETTES CANADA Yoo Doo Right Haunting. Hypnotic. French. My go-too song for inducting new members into the cult of psychedelic rock.

NIGER

CHISMITEN Mdou Moctar

What would it sound like if Jimi Hendrix was born in the Sahara? Listen to this song and find out.

JAPAN

KAWASEMI AH OOIOO

What started out as a fictitious band for a photoshoot has since made very real psychedelic rock music. Learn the title of this song, and you’ve got 99% of the lyrics down.

CROATIA

HALOPERIDOL Daliborovo Granje

Post-rock meets psychedelia in a Croatian bar. (The instrumental meetcute you didn’t know you needed).

SOUTH KOREA

GANADARAMABASA Kim Jung Mi

The kind of song you listen to while running through a field of sunflowers on a sun-drenched day. While on drugs. 40

TURKEY,

NETHERLANDS

KAYMAKAMIN KIZLARI Altin Gun

Rhythmic Turkish vocals, traditional Anatolian beats, and an instrumental chorus— psychedelic rock at its funkiest.

BRAZIL

É PRECISO DAR UM JEITO, MEU AMIGO Erasmo Carlos

Slinky, sexy, characteristically Brazilian — if Sergio Mendes had a cooler brother.

ISRAEL

SAKLA BENI

Kutiman, Melike Sahin

The laid back groove that opens up the song is somewhat misleading; wait a minute or so, and you’ll be met with an explosive chorus that reminds you what psychedelic rock is supposed to feel like. 41

SOUTH KOREA

RESTLESS SONG Shadow

그림자 공동체

Community

The calmest track on this playlist. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, this song’s floating rhythm and soft vocals will gently bring you back down to earth.

ZAMBIA

HOT FINGERS Rikki Ililonga, Musi-O-Tunya

Zamrock makes an appearance! Bouncy basslines, screaming guitar riffs and an irresistibly catchy chorus; Hot Fingers indeed.

동요

ART BY KARLA NOREN

INEFFABILITY OF ROAD TRIPPING by Jonathan Hale via The Berkeley Voyager If you’ve ever asked somebody who’s taken psychedelic drugs to describe their experience, they might have expressed bewilderment at how difficult it is to put into words. That’s because the psychedelic experience is inherently ineffable. Trip reports, artwork, and music, no matter how imaginative, fall short of capturing the subjective qualia - the “what-it’slike”-ness - of being in an altered state of mind. In bringing subjectivity to the forefront, psychedelics raise some important questions. Why is it that some things are so hard to describe? Is it possible for others to see as I do? Is it possible for me to see through the eyes of others? These questions tug at the very fabric of our existence, of what it means to be conscious, and of what it means to be us. They are all questions that weighed heavily on my mind as I began my trip. It was just after 6:30 AM and the road was bare and empty. I opened the throttle on my 2002 Suzuki SV 650 and raced down Highway 101, chasing the fog. After a brief ride south I exited onto Highway 154 and headed up the San Marcos Pass. The road narrowed to two lanes. I settled into the ride, tucking low against the gas tank to shield my chest from the biting wind. The bike was running like a charm, and the steady hum of the engine felt reassuring between my legs. There’s not much you can do when you’re riding a motorcycle except think, especially when you're in the saddle for a while, like I was planning on doing today. 44

Motorcycles, like psychedelics, can help provide some insight as to why the subjective experience is so hard to understand. The rush of the wind, the rumble of the engine, and the closeness of the pavement zipping by inches below your feet are all things that make motorcycling a particularly visceral experience. But the feeling of motorcycling belies any elaborate metaphors or colorful adjectives that I might use to describe it. This is because in trying to tell you what it’s like to ride a motorcycle, I’m limited to the view from inside my helmet. I can provide objective details of the experience (it was forty-seven degrees Farenheit when I left Isla Vista) or the subjective qualities of my experience (I was freezing my ass off) but I’ll never be able to describe what riding a motorcycle might feel like for you. I stopped at a vista point by Lake Cachuma. As the sun emerged from behind the eastern hills, tendrils of fog retreated into the valleys and canyons like the long fingers of the sky caressing the earth’s gentle curves. When I reentered the highway I found myself stuck behind a semi truck. After some time the road straightened and I downshifted to fifth and rolled open the throttle. In a few moments the slower vehicle was a faraway dot in my rear view mirrors. sdf

GRAPHIC ART BY SABA TABRIZI

Understanding what it’s like to have a subjective experience requires more than simply knowing the physical facts of the matter. In his seminal paper “Epiphenomenal Qualia”, philosopher Frank Jackson (1982) posits that there’s something special about subjectivity. “Tell me everything physical there is to tell about what is going on in a living brain” Jackson argues, "[and] you won't have told me about the hurtfulness of pains, the itchiness of itches, pangs of jealousy, or about the characteristic experience of tasting a lemon, smelling a rose, hearing a loud noise or seeing the sky” (p. 1). All subjective experiences are ineffable, and some experiences (like a psychedelic trip or a long motorcycle ride) more so than others.

If I wanted to communicate what my experience was like, I could tell you about the ride out of San Luis Obispo, of weaving through the coastal grasslands shrouded in fog. I could tell you about rolling north on Highway 1, riding the ribbon of asphalt set at the feet of cliffs that rise from the ocean like great monoliths hewn by a giant’s hand. I could provide objective facts and figures, show you pictures, and if I knew more about the brain, I could tell you what was happening inside of my own. And yet words, statistics, and objective details will inevitably fall short. Similarly, I cannot definitively claim to see the world as you experience it, because your experiences are uniquely yours - to each their own.

"Understanding what it’s like to have a subjective experience requires more than knowing what it’s like for someone else. It might get you close, because other people have similar brains. But it won’t get you all the way."

The traffic in front of me had slowed, but it didn't matter. I wasn’t in a hurry. The trip had been a challenging one, yet I found myself reluctant for it to come to an end. Like the fog, I drifted lazily between the austere cliffs. To my left the water was dark and turbulent, murky blue-grey punctuated by white foam. I felt miniscule juxtaposed against my surroundings: the cliffs lined with towering redwood trees, the omnipresent fog, and the seething ocean.

Just south of Big Sur I stopped at a turnout and sprinted into some bushes to pee. My heart was pounding and my head was throbbing. I was overly caffeinated and dehydrated and hungry. A knot had developed in my back, and my hands and feet had entered a perpetual state of numbness from the persistent cold and my crouched body position.

The philosopher David Lewis (1990) proposes an elegant argument to support the claim that subjective experiences are uniquely personal. Lewis begins by positing that what isn’t true isn’t knowledge. What’s more, if something is true for me (I’m thirsty), then by default it isn’t true for you since we’re different people. You might be having a similar experience of thirstiness, but it’s not the case that our experiences are exactly the same. So what’s true for one individual is never true for another, and as such, one can never truly know the contents of another’s subjective experience.

Jackson (1982) proposes a thought experiment involving Mary, a neuroscientist specializing in color vision who has lived her entire life in a black-and-white room. In addition to being an expert on biology and neurophysiology of the visual system, let us suppose that Mary is extraordinarily well versed in the literature, art and poetry that accompanies the color experience. She knows that red is the color of roses, love, and war; she has heard tell of the way the sky changes from blue to purple to orange with the setting sun; and she has seen countless great paintings and films, albeit in black-and-white. Still, it seems obvious that Mary learns something new when she steps out of the black and white room for the first time. Understanding what it’s like to have a subjective experience requires more than knowing what it’s like for someone else. It might get you close, because other people have similar brains. But it won’t get you all the way.

I don’t mean to suggest that you go out and take a trip, nor do I mean to prosthelytize about my love for motorcycling. My point is simply to make the case that subjective experiences are more than the sum of their parts. If you are planning a journey, familiarize yourself with the route, be safe, and maintain the proper mindset. But don’t expect to know everything - I certainly didn’t, and still don’t. The humbling fact of facing the unknown with each new moment is part of the beauty of these sorts of things. There’s something inherently ineffable about an experience, a moment, a trip; something that occurs only in the mind of a conscious individual. Our experiences are our own, and that's precisely what makes them so special.

PREVIOUS PAGE: "THE AWAKENING" BY EMILY LITTLE | 47

FOR MOTHER NURTURE by Dustin Garner

I feel your perpetual presence As my lungs expand and my heartbeat slows. I see your unceasing growth As the pavement cracks and the cliffs crumble around me. It’s so easy to live in square homes, To bathe in their manufactured warmth. So comfortable to ignore the cracks, To neglect our growing dependence on the heat. We are at your mercy As you have so effectively shown. Though we are also at your love If only we choose to welcome you. I have felt your arms cradle me, Breathed in your eternal nourishment. I will one day return to your everlasting embrace. But until then, We will all sing of your love.

ILLUSTRATION BY EMMA TORRES

THE MYCELIAL NETWORK OF CONSCIOUSNESS A Primer on Panpsychism

by Jonathan Hale via The Berkeley Voyager Our current knowledge of the brain and mind has surely surpassed even the wildest dreams of the likes of Buddha and Descartes, and it seems only a matter of time before we will be able to explain the existence of consciousness in material terms and pass the project of understanding consciousness from the philosophers to the empirical scientists. But the view that empirical science can explain the phenomenon of subjectivity is a philosophical position in and of itself, meriting consideration alongside other theories of mind.

This position is known as physicalism, which as the name implies, maintains that all existent phenomena can be understood by appealing to the laws of physics. According to physicalism, our subjective experiences, just like electromagnetism and black holes, can ultimately be described as an emergent phenomena resulting from complex patterns of interactions between subatomic particles. In this article, I’ll be providing a primer on physicalism before arguing that it falls short in explaining why we are conscious. After critiquing physicalism, I’ll propose that panpsychism, or the hkjh 52 | PREVIOUS PAGES: GRAPHIC ART BY SABA TABRIZI

view that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, provides a more cogent framework for understanding the nature of mind. Let’s begin by taking a look at how one might view consciousness from a physicalist perspective. On the physicalist account, consciousness originated in the natural world because it was an adaptive trait. Our primordial ancestors that were aware of the world and their place in it were more likely to make decisions that prolonged their survival and increased fitness. Genes that encoded for protoconsciousness, or at least some kind of general awareness of an organism’s surroundings, were favored by the process of natural selection. This precluded the development of centralized processing mechanisms such as brains and nervous systems to facilitate complex conscious experiences like our own. If consciousness exists in the brain or nervous system, then there must be some pattern of neural activity, area of brain, or physical state that we can point to and say “Aha! When X happens, a being is conscious!”. Theories that address the so-called neural correlates of consciousness, or NCCs, are numerous. Notable examples include Crick and Koch’s 40 Hz oscillations, Gray’s quantum coherence theory, and Baars’ global workspace among others. While there is much debate as to what actually comprises an NCC, these proposals point to the same conclusion - NCCs are all that consciousness is, and hence consciousness is something that is both observable and physically present.

So as mysterious as consciousness might seem, the physicalist maintains that it’s ultimately just something that happens in the brain or nervous system as a result of the phenotypic expression of a set of genes favored by natural selection. If we want to know how genes work, we can look to biology; if we want to go deeper still, we can look to organic chemistry. The last stop is physics, which explains the fundamental workings of the subatomic particles that comprise the elements that comprise the cells that comprise our brains and genetic material. This is physicalism in a nutshell: physics begets chemistry, which begets biology, which begets brains and nervous systems, which beget consciousness. But while physicalism seems promising at face value, it does not provide a sufficient account for why we are conscious. Let’s suppose that in some distant future, we have identified a perfect neural correlate of consciousness down to the atomic level (whether this is in fact possible is dubious, but we’ll set the issue aside for now). Even if we knew everything that was happening in the brain at the moment of consciousness, we would still lack an understanding of what causes us to experience the redness of a rose, or the sound of our favorite song, or the anguish of grief. For neural correlates of consciousness are just that: correlates. “Well wait a minute!” replies the physicalist. “We feel these things because the process of natural selection has gifted us with brains capable of interpreting sensory stimuli to produce complex emotional states, and our brains consist of subatomic particles that behave according to the laws of physics.” PREVIOUS PAGE: PAINTING BY ASHIKA SHAH | 53

Not quite. While physicalism might explain why we have brains, it does not explain why they are conscious. There is something it’s like for you, a subject, to experience the world, something that belies an explanation that appeals to things like atoms and neurons and brain states. To understand why this is the case, consider the possibility that some people are philosophical zombies - beings that are biologically and behaviorally identical to humans, but lack consciousness. In other words, instead of having an “inner movie”, philosophical zombies have a blank screen. The point isn’t that philosophical zombies actually exist, but rather that if they did, we would have no way of knowing! There’s no way of determining whether a being is conscious particles, as the physicalist would have it. But what, then, explains the inner movie playing inside our heads? And why should we believe that panpsychism is the solution? Part of the problem with physicalism is that it describes everything relationally, rather than intrinsically. Electrons are particles that behave a certain way in relation to protons; neurons behave in a certain way in relation to other neurons, and so on and so forth. And at some point, voilà! Consciousness! Physicalism explains almost everything, but leaves open the question of what comprises the intrinsic nature of matter. The missing piece of the puzzle is panpsychism, which posits that this intrinsic nature is consciousness. This isn’t to say that electrons can have existential crises, or that a chair feels pain every time you sit on it. Nor is it to say that the laws of physics are invalid. Rather, sdsggdfg 54

"SPROUTING" BY ASHIKA SHAH

panpsychism maintains that consciousness is a ubiquitous, fundamental property that exists at the heart of matter. It is from this intrinsic universal consciousness that our own comes into being. The conscious experience that you and I possess may be likened to the toadstools of a fungus, individual in their own regard but inextricably connected to a subterranean mycelial network. It would be tempting, albeit inaccurate, for observers limited to an above-ground vantage point to suggest that toadstools simply pop out of the ground because of the physical properties of the mushroom’s environment. These observers might take samples of the soil, monitor the oxygen content of the air, and measure the duration and intensity of sunlight reaching the forest floor. They might come to the conclusion that these factors in a certain relation to one another define mushroom-ness, and that to suggest there exists some underground network binding the toadstools together is an absurd ad hoc postulation. While it is certainly true that healthy soil is a prerequisite for the emergence of toadstools, this approach fails to grasp the full picture. Mycelium binds together seemingly independent toadstools scattered across the forest floor; similarly, fundamental consciousness unites seemingly independent iterations of consciousness throughout the universe. In order to understand why we experience consciousness as we do, it is necessary to look beneath the surface.

DIFFICULT

Regarding systemic prejudice within the psychedelic world: How can we address inherent bias in groups that may see themselves as beyond examining bias?

by Chad Tannous

Psychedelia is overwhelmingly white. Now that I have your attention, allow me to explain what I mean by that. I believe psychedelic communities often give space to, and even perpetuate, privileged perspectives. Open discussion of illegal drug use, is, in itself a privilege taken for granted by those less susceptible to personal and professional repercussions for such behavior. Therefore, taking part in psychedelic use and open integration of psychedelic experience is likely to attract less systematically marginalized voices. As a result, the expressed complaints of those who have been on the receiving end of aggressive behaviors in psychedelic communities are often swept under the rug in favor of sentiments favoring “the bigger picture” that psychedelic insight can provide. As a harm reduction advocate and drug policy activist, I have seen the problematic phenomenon of silencing marginalized identity manifest in professional settings, casual settings, and even in integration groups within the psychedelic world. I don’t, for a second, dfsdf

think that any community, digital or in-person is beyond examining their collective and individual biases, and how said biases may be affecting those around them. Psychedelics are not an end all be all to fixing complex socialized prejudices that are learned from an early age. Said journey requires both the bravery to observe our shadow, and the unending practice of applying human empathy to personal and professional situations in a capitalist world. Gaslighting the discussion of problematic issues in the psychedelic world is enough to be considered a large issue, commented upon in official media by organizations such as the Chacruna Institute and Students for Sensible Drug Policy. Speaking up against inherent bias is hard, because in speaking up, one is labeled as difficult. In speaking up one is labeled as a hindrance to the unity all psychonauts “should” be experiencing.

"Psychedelics are not an end all be all to fixing complex socialized prejudices that are learned from an early age." 58 | PREVIOUS PAGES: ILLUSTRATION BY KARLA NOREN

My most recent experience with such an incident occurred to me in the Psychedelic Integration Circle of Boulder, a “support group (which) aims at building a safe space for individuals to deepen their integration through discussion, open process, and interpersonal reflection with like-minded and nonjudgmental explorers”. I had been attending the group for roughly a year or so, when something unsettling happened to me. A white man within the group began making comments about a hair mask I was wearing to deep condition my hair. I was stunned as he made derogatory jokes about a self care practice I had learned from other members of my Arab-American family. I, like many others from an ethnic background, have been taught protective hair care. I grew up in North New Jersey, seeing my immigrant cousins walk around with plastic on their heads and curl defining treatments in their hair.

While I am aware that the practice of deep conditioning is not foreign to people of caucasian descent, I am also aware that it is more prevalent in ethnic communities, so I shuddered to think what kind of damage jokes like that would do to a BIPOC person visiting the group for the first time. In this particular group, BIPOC people were already less likely to attend recurring circles, which often made me the only person from a marginalized ethnicity present at most meetings. C wasn’t open to bringing the discussion up within the circle itself, and was insistent on holding a separate space to discuss why I felt D’s behaviors were problematic. Upon trying to engage D about his problematic behavior, I was met with emotional manipulation and gaslighting.

I wasn’t thoroughly convinced that the integration circle was a toxic space, until some months later when I attempted to confront another circle member about behaviors which made me uncomfortable. This person, let us call him D, reached out to me several times, with no follow up beyond initial contact. The counselor who was running the group, let us call him C, encouraged people to reach out to one another, yet I wanted to register my protest to the fact that this may have not been the best idea. D was requiring a marginalized person to do extra emotional work, for the sake of being able to say he reached out. I have severe abandonment and rejection issues, and it has taken years of therapy to even be able to admit that, so upon calling D in, I was simply trying to raise his awareness toward the fact that action and intention are different. I wanted to bring attention to the fact that those with experiences of intense discrimination are more likely to be affected adversely toward the prospect of being treated as a charity project. ILLUSTRATION BY KARLA NOREN

. sdf

The most memorable quote of his from this confrontation was “I am not responsible for how others feel about my behavior”. For me, this reaction was worrying. Even more worrying was the fact that C had been letting D lead integration circle meetings with no training, risking the safety of others in the group. The Integration Circle in question is no longer running, at least for the time being. C found it more necessary to try to "handle" my difficulty first before proceeding with the circle, but to his credit, he has assured me that D will no longer be running meetings. We will see how that turns out. D’s initial actions were problematic enough, but it was something I was open to working through. It is not uncommon for someone to reach out to others with a savior complex, expecting to get a pat on the back for the act of initiating contact itself. as a gay arab, growing up in the very masculine environment of New Jersey, I am not a stranger to the fact that this type of behavior is the result of a socialization which praises white savior myths. Still, more often than not, when white men in the psychedelic movement are confronted with their own toxic behaviors, they tend to meet the criticism with a host of deflections, criticizing the victim as crazy or difficult. I am lucky to have been considered difficult. To be difficult in a space centered around the insights of a psychedelic state, can make you a stronger activist, but under no terms should you feel required to fight the bigotry you are experiencing. With the reluctance to treat such aggressive incidents as serious from leaders within the psychedelic world, the victim is often expected to become a de facto diversity facilitator, often with little to no training on how to handle the issue at hand.

You are not required to educate people on their own racism, sexism, homophobia, or ableism (among other -isms), nor should you be expected to hold the discussion about said biases in a given space. I have noticed professional diversity trainers remark that the person cast as difficult, dramatic, or over reactive, is often commenting upon actual toxic elements within a given space. In evading accountability, the buck stops with no one but the victim. There is a certain entitlement that can come with psychedelic use and an elitist response to criticism that makes implementing social justice theory in psychedelic arenas particularly difficult. Psychedelic entitlement, spiritual bypassing, a mystical blanketing, whatever it may be called, encourages a perspective that doesn’t hold the experience of marginalization as a paramount informer to psychedelic community ethics. I wish I knew how to reconcile the oneness we feel in the psychedelic space with the oppressive reality of bigotry in a contemporary world. "I am not responsible for the way people feel about my actions” “This is subjective. Everything you are saying is subjective” “We control our own realities, and I will not let you control mine with this narrative” “Look at all of these things I have done, and look at all the people who I am in good standing with, how can I be harmful?” “You are projecting your insecurities onto me” “You are working your trauma out on me” “You are jealous of me”

I have heard all of the above statements, or variations of them, in the act of confronting bias within psychedelic circles at one point or another.

Fighting for basic human respect and the decency to understand the difference between intention and action can feel like an uphill battle, as the person critiquing problematic elements of a certain community is gaslighted with a slew of remarks about the subjective nature of reality. There is nothing I wouldn't do, to never have to hear a white male voice remarking upon the subjectivity of experiences not relevant to their lives again. Bias, judgement, and prejudice don’t have one and done solutions. Perpetrating a hurtful action related to identity isn’t a marker of a bad person, but rather a marker of socialization coming from a white heteronormative standard. We will use, hurt, betray, and throw under the bus people who we are struggling deep down to accept, and the less prejudice has taken a role in our lives, the less likely we are to integrate insights about our own prejudice into our waking life. The sad truth is, I don’t have an answer for you. I have no magical cure-all to help you reach a space where you feel accountability has been imbued upon offending parties. I have no list of ten things most likely to happen when calling people in/out that would fit into a Facebook post. I have no conversation map for how to go about these things. I have only the advice tos dflks

never stop fighting. The psychedelic community leaders who favor letting unchecked privilege continue unchecked will one day leave. If you can stomach it, do what you can to gain position, or begin your own communities. Go in through the system and rewire it, rather than burning it down. We are all one... this fact should be an assistance rather than a hindrance to the fact that unchecked systemic biases affect marginalized people. Bias divides, and we must be aware of bias to examine it. If you hold the privilege of being a leader in the psychedelic community, hold space for people to be confronted with their behaviors in a respectful manner. Business Owners, Employees, Activists/Organizers, Teachers, Mental Health and Medical Professionals, and so many others have a say in correcting prejudice within their circles. Try to avoid minimizing the victim's impact, or making confrontation more comfortable for the offending party. Know that a dominant dogma of this world serves the continued oppression of the weak. After these experiences, I am a firm believer that to reflect true psychedelic unity and joy, one should not be afraid to go to battle.

62 | PREVIOUS PAGE: ILLUSTRATION BY EMMA TORRES

PSYCHEDELIC INTERACTIONS: THE COEVOLUTION OF HUICHOL ART AND THE WESTERN AESTHETIC by Jacqueline Schwartz

Artist Unknown.

Background Any discussion of the cultural imagination of the 1960s would be incomplete without the discussion of psychedelics. From the music scene to the art museum, nearly every facet of sixties culture was directly or indirectly impacted by the psychedelic movement. Incorporating high art, low art, and nonWestern religious symbols, a certain conception of the psychedelic aesthetic was born in the sdfsd 64 | PREVIOUS PAGE: ART BY RILEY CARTER

West. This aesthetic grew specifically out of the Op Art and Pop Art movements (think Victor Vassarely and Andy Warhol), further permeating and developing through more democratized art forms like cartoons and concert posters. The latter imbued the psychedelic aesthetic with a certain sense of spirituality, most often stemming from appropriated religious symbols and iconographies from non-Western cultures. dsdf

This psychedelic aesthetic saturated the visual culture of the 1960s and became desirable on a global scale; accordingly, psychedelic-minded global tastes permeated through art markets all around the world, encouraging artisans to emulate the popular forms. Nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in the artwork produced by the Huichol people in Mexico. The selective forces of Western tastes can be traced throughout the history of Huichol art, spanning from the Spanish colonial period and up to the present day. The evolution of Huichol art in response to Western preference has indeed been studied by art historians. These studies, however, ignore the simple fact that the current of culture flows both ways. There are studies on the nonWestern religious symbols appropriated by Western psychedelic art, and then there are separate studies on the development of indigenous art in response to Western tastes. These topics have been treated in isolation from one another.

Huichol art after 1970 responds to the demands of a psychedelically-primed Western tourist market through the reappropriation of the Western psychedelic aesthetic, which was in turn originally characterized by Western distortions of nonWestern and indigenous religious traditions.

When we analyze them together, we can see that there is a constant flow of cultural appropriation from all directions; non-Western religious traditions appear in Western psychedelic art, and in turn non-Western religious artforms emulate psychedelic art to appeal to the imaginations of Western audiences. Such a complex cultural system of exchange calls for an investigation that approaches both Western psychedelic art and non-Western religious art as a dynamic and interrelated global phenomenon rather than isolated artistic evolutions. I will accomplish this task by looking specifically at the artwork of the Huichol people and its evolution in the face of broader global art trends and tourist markets through the analysis and comparison of multiple artworks from both Huichol craftspeople and purveyors of the Western psychedelic movement. I draw largely from Postcolonial theory, which emphasizes the human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonized people. Through this lens, I will argue that Huichol art after 1970 responds to the demands of a psychedelicallyprimed Western tourist market through the reappropriation of the Western psychedelic aesthetic, which was in turn originally characterized by Western distortions of nonWestern and indigenous religious traditions. While traditional formal analysis plays a role in my research, I place a greater emphasis on understanding the social, political, and economic circumstances that the artwork was created under; Postcolonial theory applied to art helps us understand that interactions between the colonizer and the colonized create a two-way cultural street. The Postcolonial scholar Homi Bhabha explores the ways in which cultural mimicry between the colonizer and the colonized acts as a tool in the negotiation of power structures [1]. This is the lens through which I will approach the relationship between Huichol art and Western art. 65

While the Huichol appropriation of the Western psychedelic aesthetic could be considered cultural mimicry, the Western appropriation of non-Western religious symbols is purely appropriation because the West clearly holds the position of power.

Pre-Columbian Huichol art primarily took the form of a mosaic, meticulously assembled from rocks, shells, beeswax, seeds, and other small objects [3]. The arrival of the Spanish colonizers in the sixteenth century also meant the arrival of wool, which was quickly incorporated into Huichol art and affixed to devotional objects with beeswax [4]. Yarn became an essential component of Huichol art for the next few centuries. It wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century, however, that Huichol art transitioned away from three-dimensional devotional objects towards the twodimensional “yarn paintings” that they are now so famous for. This transition was facilitated by Mexican officials, who urged the Huichol to “make paintings that were more like the Western conception of art” in order to make them more desirable in Western art markets (MacLean 314).

A Huichol artisan at work.

Before analyzing Huichor art itself, it is first necessary to outline the evolution of Huichol art from the pre-Columbian period up until the 1970s by tracing the artistic developments that directly resulted from Western interactions with Huichol artists. It is important to note the role that Peyote (mescaline) has played in the religious traditions of the Huichol for centuries. One of the most sacred Huichol rituals is the annual Peyote Hunt, a pilgrimage with Peyote as the destination [2]. The consumption of Peyote is considered a vehicle for direct communication with the gods, and these mescaline-induced visions have become a mainstay of modern Huichol art. To the undiscerning Western eye, Huichol art and mescaline (a well-known psychedelic) are intrinsically linked. This association will prove essential when I describe the Western preference for psychedelic-looking artwork in the fourth section.

Pre-Columbian Huichol Art

Clearly, Western tastes have contributed to the development of Huichol art for the past five centuries. By establishing the historic relationship between Huichol art and colonialism, I have demonstrated the power that market tastes can yield over the development of traditional art forms. This foundation will bolster my argument in the last section that outlines the ways in which the popularization of the psychedelic aesthetic in the Western world encouraged Huichol artists to emphasize the psychedelic characteristics of their work.

Blaze 1 (1964) by Bridget Riley .

In this section, I will analyze artworks from the two categories that I have deemed most influential in the establishment of the psychedelic aesthetic: high art and common art. The Op artists Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely perfectly demonstrate the contributions of high art to the psychedelic aesthetic. There are indubitably other artists who helped shape the Western conceptualization of the psychedelic aesthetic, but I have chosen Riley and Vasarely because their works summarize the relevant artistic trends of the period. In Riley’s piece Blaze 1 (1964) and Vasarely’s piece Vega-Noir (1969), the use of concentric, repetitive lines and geometric forms are recognizably psychedelic, as is Vasarly’s use of color as a vehicle for disorientation. These works were inspired by both color theory and the use of psychedelics [5]. Their artwork (and the work of Op artists in general) became synonymous with the visual culture that was forming around psychedelic use. sdfsd

Vega-Noir (1969) by Victor Vasarely.

The Western Psychedelic Aesthetic

The psychedelic high art of the sixties was further popularized by the common artforms that drew inspiration from their formal qualities. To visualize this point, we can reference the ‘psychedelic’ music posters of the and geometric forms are recognizably psychedelic, as is Vasarly’s use of color as a vehicle for disorientation. These works were inspired by both color theory and the use of psychedelics. Their artwork (and the work of Op artists in general) became synonymous with the visual culture that was forming around psychedelic use. 67

Jimi Hendrix's Axis: Bold as Love.

The psychedelic high art of the sixties was further popularized by the common artforms that drew inspiration from their formal qualities. To visualize this point, we can reference the ‘psychedelic’ music posters of the 1960s that have since become iconic symbols of the decade. Many aspects of high art were incorporated into the poster designs, but they were often distorted and imbued with popular imagery. Most relevant to this paper is the appropriation of non-Western religious symbols in common psychedelic art. One does not have to look further than the album artwork for Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold as Love to get a taste; a similar aesthetic of appropriation became a mainstay of psychedelic common art [6]. Both the high art and the common art that I reference

referenced contributed to the conception of the psychedelic aesthetic. This aesthetic became popular on a global scale, and as psychedelic art was exported and circulated so too were the appropriated non-Western religious symbols. Accordingly, in the imagination of the West, the psychedelic aesthetic was intrinsically linked with the religious symbols, myths, and traditions of non-Western cultures. This resulted in a Western art market that was primed to seek out indigenous art practices that conformed to the established Western conception of the psychedelic aesthetic. Now that we have established the general tendency of the Western taste to favor non-Western traditional artworks, we can begin to analyze the specific case of Huichol art.

"The market pressures placed on Huichol artisans to conform to Western tastes resulted in the appearance of the psychedelic aesthetic in Huichol art." 68

Huichol Art and the Western Psychedelic Aesthetic As I mentioned in the second section, Huichol art has been continuously transformed by Western tastes since the fifteenth century. The market pressures placed on Huichol artisans to conform to Western tastes resulted in the appearance of the psychedelic aesthetic in Huichol art. For this section, I draw largely on Juneja’s article [7] on the performance of localized culture in a global market as well as Clifford’s writings [8] on the transformation of indigenous art in response to tourism. These provide the conceptual framework with which to understand the cultural dynamics between Huichol artisans and Western tourists. As I mentioned previously, in the Western imagination there already existed an intrinsic link between indigenous spirituality and psychedelics. It was (and is) certainly a superficial conception, but it was powerful sdfsdfsd

enough to transform the traditional Huichol art form. The art of the famous Huichol artist and shaman Ramon Medina Silva acts as a vehicle for tracking the rise of the psychedelic aesthetic in Huichol artwork. It was at the direct behest of the UCLA ethnographers Peter T. Furst and Barbara Myerhoff that he started making his art more representational; in other words, they wanted him to more directly depict the sacred visions of peyote [9]. Accordingly, I will compare a few of Silva’s works made during that transformative period. Most of his work is undated, making an accurate timeline difficult, but I will use the general artistic developments as my basis. Some of the works I will look at include How One Person Received A Huichol Name and Three Sacred Peyotes. The former illustrates the transition to narrativebased artwork while the latter illustrates the rise of the “quintessentially psychedelic” aesthetic in Silva’s work [10]. These pieces contain the same concentric lines and geometric forms seen in the Op Art of Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely, demonstrating the phenomenon by which Huichol art began to take on the formal qualities of Western psychedelic art. dsfdfs

Three Sacred Peyotes by Ramon Medina Silva.

How One Person Received a Huichol Name by Ramon Medina Silva.

Vochol (2010).

Essential to my argument is the fact that Peter Furst went on to organize an exhibition of Silva’s work at the UCLA Museum of Ethnic Arts in 1968 [11]. This was the first time Huichol art was shown outside of the US and it launched Huichol art onto the world stage. By this point, Silva’s artwork had made its visual transition towards the psychedelic aesthetic. Because Silva’s work was the only thing Western audiences knew about Huichol art, it became the basis for the global perception of the entire culture’s art, resulting in the preference of psychedelic-leaning Huichol works in the tourism market. To conclude, we can look at a popular contemporary Huichol artwork to demonstrate the complete arc of the psychedelic aesthetic since the time of Ramon Medina Silva. The colors have become brighter and the lines more hypnotic; illustrating this point is the piece Vochol, created in 2010 by lksdjf

Huichol artisans. Every inch of the piece is covered in beautifully psychedelic patterns, shapes, and symbols; instead of a canvas, however, the medium is a Volkswagen Beetle, uncoincidentally harking back to the Beatles and the psychedelic sixties at the heart of it all. My research by no means includes every relevant artist and piece from the periods I mentioned, but my goal is that the works I analyzed provide a foundation for the understanding of multicultural global art exchanges, specifically between colonizer and colonized. By connecting the intrinsically linked developments of Huichol art and the Western psychedelic aesthetic, I hope to have created an analytical framework that can be reworked and reapplied to other situations to better understand the complexities of multidirectional art exchange in a postcolonial world. 71

JAPA BEADS by Walter Bonser Matter cannot be created or destroyed. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. I believe this: consciousness cannot be created or destroyed. Bury me with my japa beads. Sometimes, when I do my 108 breaths, I’ll let all the air out and sit, empty, until it falls back in of its own accord. Everything stops. I have no breath, no thoughts. My muscles become weak and my fingers become cold. In the coffin it will be the same.

PREVIOUS PAGE: GRAPHIC ART BY SABA TABRIZI | 73

THE GOLDEN by Arjun Deepak

I can light a spark But I cannot fan the flames. I can show you the truth But I cannot induce acceptance. I can reveal the cracks in your soul But I cannot fill them with gold. I can grant omniscience But I cannot provide omnipotence. I will show you the mountain. But you must scale it yourself.

76 | PREVIOUS PAGES: ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMMA TORRES

TEACHER Odin gave up an eye for the privilege Of a drink from the well of knowledge. So chew my bitter earthy flavors, Cherish the physical discomfort, Jubilate at the boiling nausea. Pain is necessary To break the shell of understanding. Prepare yourself to sacrifice All that you have ever known And all that keeps you secure To pursue my otherworldly insights. Release your soul so it may fly To a more enlightened existence.

CREDITS COVER PAGE 3 PAGE 4 PAGE 6 PAGE 7 PAGE 11 PAGE 12 PAGE 14 PAGE 15 PAGE 16 PAGE 17 PAGE 19 PAGE 20 PAGE 23 PAGE 24 PAGE 27 PAGE 28 PAGE 29 PAGE 30 PAGE 31 PAGE 33 PAGE 34 PAGE 35 PAGE 36 PAGE 37

Illustration by Karla Noren Peak Experiences by MDP Free and Flourishing by Ryan Place A Case for the Legalization of Drugs by Jonathan Hale Inform Yourself by Moxie Evans Dimitri by Anonymous Drug Safety by Dawson Carter Illustration by Karla Noren Poem by Grace Abbott Illustration by Karla Noren Trip Killers by Dawson Carter Easier to Give Up by Juliette Collet Illustration by Natalia Pires Pseudodelica by Akash Kulgod Graphic Art by Saba Tabrizi The Stoned Ape Theory is Bananas by Jonathan Hale Graphic Art by Mike Hall Illustration by Emma Tillotson Illustration by Karla Noren Silly Simon by Anonymous Invitation to Explore Your Silence by Kelsey Hurley Painting by Lexie Sievert Illustration by Emma Torres Illustration by Emma Torres Be Yourself Love Will Follow by Anonymous Sculpture by Lizzy Sommer Burn by Chad Tannous

PAGE 38 PAGE 43 PAGE 45 PAGE 46 PAGE 48 PAGE 49 PAGE 50-51 PAGE 52

PAGE 54-55 PAGE 56-57 PAGE 58 PAGE 59 PAGE 61 PAGE 63 PAGE 64 PAGE 72 PAGE 73 PAGE 74 PAGE 75 PAGE 76

Around the World in 80 Tabs by Jacqueline Schwartz Art by Karla Noren Graphic Art by Saba Tabrizi The Awakening by Emily Little For Mother Nurture by Dustin Garner Illustration by Emma Torres Graphic Art by Saba Tabrizi The Mycelial Network of Consciousness: a Primer on Panpsychism by Jonathan Hale Painting by Ashika Shah Sprouting by Ashika Shah Illustration by Karla Noren Difficult by Chad Tannous Illustration by Karla Noren Illustration by Emma Torres Illustration by Riley Carter Psychedelic Interactions: The Coevolution of Huichol Art and the Western Aesthetic by Jacqueline Schwartz Graphic Art by Saba Tabrizi Japa Beads by Walter Bonser Illustration by Emma Torres Illustration by Emma Torres Golden Teacher by Arjun Deepak Photo by Anonymous

Design and Art directed by Nele Ponce

MEET THE Nele Ponce is a recent alumni of UC Santa Barbara with a B.S. in Psychology and Brain Sciences. She was the president of UCSB’s Psychedelic Club in 2021, where she met all the current editors of Entheoscope. In her free time, she has been reading the Jungian analyst Stanton Marlan's "The Black Sun," decorating her new apartment in Santa Barbara, and sneaking chocolates in and in between her meals.

Jacqueline Schwartz is a fourth year art history student at UC Santa Barbara focusing on museum studies. When not preparing for her career as a curator, Jacqueline spends her time exploring new hiking trails and curating music as a radio host on KCSB-FM. Ever wonder where rock and roll, psychedelics, and art history converge? Come find out Tuesdays at 3pm with D.J. D.O.S.E.

Dawson Carter is an aspiring actuary, attending UC Santa Barbara for a double major in actuarial sciences and mathematics. His ultimate goal is to learn as much as he can, oftentimes working on odd skills like lockpicking and home chemistry. Dawson enjoys hanging out with friends over fine Scotch and chatting the evening away.

EDITORS Kiana Ranjbaran is a third year Biopsychology major at UC Santa Barbara and the rising president of UCSB’s Psychedelic Club. During her time on Earth, she aspires to learn, grow, and love endlessly, and to help others do the same. In her free time, you can find her sunbathing, reading, or swimming in any nearby body of water large enough to sit in.

Jonathan Hale is a fourth-year student at UC Berkeley studying philosophy and psychology. He is working to launch the Berkeley Voyager, a publication documenting psychedelic science, culture, and art from a Berkeleyan perspective. In his free time, he enjoys riding his motorcycle, trying to convince anybody who will listen that they should join him, and writing bios about himself in third person.

Chad Tannous is a graduate of CU Boulder, having studied Strategic Communications, and English Literature. He was the chapter President of the CU Boulder chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, having planned a Virtual Cannabis and Psychedelic Symposium in April 2021. He likes kratom and kava, cannabis, and also nice wine. He believes that facts are the best way to combat the war on drugs. 81

BIBLIOGRAPHY Works Cited for "A Case for the Legalization of Drugs" Knoll, S. (2016, February 12). The US Can Learn a Lot from Zurich about How to Fight Its Heroin Crisis. The World from PRX. http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-02-12/us-can-learnlot-zurich-about-how-fight-its-heroin-crisis Laffiteau, C. (2011). The Balloon Effect: The Failure of Supply Side Strategies in the War on Drugs. Academia.edu, 1. Measuring Progress: Global Supply of Illicit Drugs. (2003, April 29). Transnational Institute. https://www.tni.org/en/publication/measuringprogress-global-supply-of-illicit-drugs Nebehay, S. (2010, October 25). Swiss drug policy should serve as model: experts. Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-drugsidUSTRE69O3VI20101025 Powell, B. (2013). The Economics Behind the U.S. Government’s Unwinnable War on Drugs | Benjamin Powell. The Independent Institute. https://www.independent.org/publications/article.as p?id=4694 Rothwell, J. (2014, September 30). How the War on Drugs Damages Black Social Mobility. Brookings; Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/socialmobility-memos/2014/09/30/how-the-war-ondrugs-damages-black-social-mobility/ Weiner, M. (2004). An Afghan “Narco-State”?: Dynamics, Assessment and Security Implications of the Afghan Opium Industry. Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence, 158.

Footnotes for "Pseudodelica" 1. Used by the historian James Petitt Andrew in 1796 2. (Popper1962,42)fromhttps://plato.stanford.edu/e ntries/pseudo-science/ 3. (Fuller1985,331)fromhttps://plato.stanford.edu/e ntries/pseudo-science/ 4. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31221820/ 5. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16826400/ 6. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26442957/ 7. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsptsci.1c000 97 8. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsptsci.0c001 98 9. https://philpapers.org/rec/VARNAM 10. (Kuhn1974,801) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/

Works Cited for "The Ineffability of Road Tripping" Jackson, F. (1982). Epiphenomenal Qualia. The Philosophical Quarterly, 32(127), 127–136. https://doi.org/10.2307/2960077 Lewis, David K. (1990). What experience teaches. In William G. Lycan (ed.), Mind and Cognition. Blackwell. pp. 29--57.

Footnotes for "Psychedelic Interactions" 1. D'Alleva, Anne. Methods and Theories of Art History. 2nd ed. London: Laurence King Publishing, 2015 (177). 2. Myerhoff, Barbara G.. Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians. United Kingdom: Cornell University Press, 1976 (15). 3. Grady, C.J. (2004), Huichol Yarn Painting Texts: Postcolonial Ekphrasis, Ethnic Art, and Exhibits. Museum Anthropology, 27: (73). https://doi.org/10.1525/mua.2004.27.1-2.73 4. Grady, C.J. (74). 5. Hauptman, Laura. The Maximal Sixties : Pop, Op, Figuration from the Drawing Collection : The Museum of Modern Art, January 18-April 29, 1997. New York, N.Y.]: [The Museum], 1997 (4). 6. Moist, Kevin M. "Visualizing Postmodernity: 1960s Rock Concert Posters and Contemporary American Culture." Journal of Popular Culture 43, no. 6 (2010): 1242-265. 7. Juneja, Monica. "Global Art History and the Burden of Representation." In Global Studies. Edited by Hans Belting, Jakob Birken, and Andrea Buddensieg, 274-297. Stuttgart: Hatje Cantz, 2011. 8. Clifford, James. "On Collecting Art and Culture." In The Predicament of Culture: TwentiethCentury Ethnography, Literature, and Art, 21551. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press, 1988. Accessed March 12, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvjf9x0h.13. 9. Maclean, Hope. "Huichol Yarn Paintings, Shamanic Art and the Global Marketplace." Studies in Religion 32, no. 3 (2003): 311-35. 10. Jay, Mike. Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic. NEW HAVEN; LONDON: Yale University Press, 2019. Accessed March 12, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvgc61q9 (47). 11. Grady, C.J. (75).

Works Cited for "Psychedelic Interactions" Clifford, James. "On Collecting Art and Culture." In The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art, 215-51. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press, 1988. Accessed March 12, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvjf9x0h.13. D'Alleva, Anne. Methods and Theories of Art History. 2nd ed. London: Laurence King Publishing, 2015. Grady, C.J. (2004), Huichol Yarn Painting Texts: Postcolonial Ekphrasis, Ethnic Art, and Exhibits. Museum Anthropology, 27: 73-86. https://doi.org/10.1525/mua.2004.27.1-2.73 Hauptman, Laura. The Maximal Sixties : Pop, Op, Figuration from the Drawing Collection : The Museum of Modern Art, January 18-April 29, 1997. New York, N.Y.]: [The Museum], 1997. Jay, Mike. Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic. NEW HAVEN; LONDON: Yale University Press, 2019. Accessed March 12, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvgc61q9. Maclean, Hope. "Huichol Yarn Paintings, Shamanic Art and the Global Marketplace." Studies in Religion 32, no. 3 (2003): 311-35. Moist, Kevin M. "Visualizing Postmodernity: 1960s Rock Concert Posters and Contemporary American Culture." Journal of Popular Culture 43, no. 6 (2010): 1242-265. Juneja, Monica. "Global Art History and the Burden of Representation." In Global Studies. Edited by Hans Belting, Jakob Birken, and Andrea Buddensieg, 274-297. Stuttgart: Hatje Cantz, 2011. Myerhoff, Barbara G.. Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians. United Kingdom: Cornell University Press, 1976.

BE A PART OF OUR TEAM Accepting applications! We need designers, photographers, editors, writers, fact checkers, proofreaders, marketers, social media managers, web editors, and all sorts of creatives to help us run the magazine! Join our team and apply! We won't bite.

SUBMIT FOR ISSUE 2 Entheoscope Magazine is accepting submissions for Issue 2! Submissions can take the form of artwork, a trip report, an opinion piece, a study, a poem, or really anything else that interests you. If you are a budding artists or writer and you want to get your work out, submitting a piece is in your best interest.

SUPPORT US Bitcoin (BTC)

Monero (XMR)

Venmo

Support the magazine! Producing, compiling, and displaying this content requires consistent funding; if you like what you see, please consider supporting us through a monetary donation to ensure the continuance of this publication.

LINKS / ADDRESSES Entheoscope Application Form: https://form.jotform.com/212026804014037 Issue 2 Submission Form: https://form.jotform.com/212022750015034 BTC: bc1q930an6ykdv7dxextqv7gmsqnjyl67zyse3epkg XMR: 452BpM8WHBDLKdWMYTgFXVfpzdgmbhWg12WeGbc3qfX5ec9d1CdSypqKD9fCDZ5agc9w82hW8TmRtWDxBKM4TQ1FLyhd3HU Venmo: @DawsonCarter_EM