Entheoscope Magazine Issue 2 by Entheoscope

ENTHEOSCOPE MAGAZINE

2022

BRIDGING PSYCHEDELIC WORLDS

COVER ILLUSTRATION BY MONTS JUNE

ISSUE

Our Team Nele Ponce

Editor-in-Chief neleponce@gmail.com

Jacqueline Schwartz

Managing Editor jacquelineschwartz@ucsb.edu

Jonathan Hale

Editor jonathan.hale@berkeley.edu

Jess Aumick

Editor jessaumick@gmail.com

Sasha Senal

Editor sashaesenalbiz@gmail.com

Dawson Carter

Editor & Financial Coordinator dawson.carter@icloud.com

Rifka Handelman

Designer rifkahandelman@gmail.com

Abby LaRue

Designer abbymae.larue@gmail.com

Chad Tannous

Public Relations Coordinator chta7021@colorado.edu

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LETTER FROM THE EDITORS Today psychedelics are heralded in the West as revolutionizing its understanding of mental illness and human consciousness. While these substances have been used within indigenous populations for millennia and continue to be a part of indigenous cultures and syncretic religions today, efforts to integrate these substances into Western culture are still in their infancy. Compared to the 60s, a time of Western experimentation as well as pushback, the present-day language around psychedelics is becoming increasingly and reflexively bent in their favor. To be sure, psychedelics are nothing short of fascinating. They offer a bridge between the sciences and the humanities, the provinces of which have long been thought to be incompatible. They serve as a joint between the objective and the subjective, linking the ineffability of our conscious experience with the simple molecules that produce such profound changes in our psyche. A complete understanding of psychedelics cannot be achieved by limiting oneself to the sciences or the humanities. With this in mind, we seek to present psychedelics through a multidisciplinary lens, combining chemistry and neuroscience with poetry and art. With the help of our incredibly talented contributors, we’ve done our best to incorporate these thoughts into the second installment of Entheoscope. It is our aim to challenge, stimulate, and broaden our collective outlook on psychedelic drugs, and we’re grateful to each and every one of our readers for helping us achieve this end. Here’s to the inspiration you’ll find in these pages, Your friends from the Entheoscope Team

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TABLE OF

POETRY & MISC.

CONTENTS

6 15 16 29 34 36 42 48 61 67 78 86 88

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Interview with the Cover Artist Monts June

15 Chad Tannous

Entheoscope Issue 2 Playlist: Un-Psychedelic Jacqueline Schwartz

Overview of Colorimetric Reagents Dawson Carter

Salvum, a Harm Reduction Tool Noah Saso

Diary without Direction Jacqueline Schwartz

Dipping my Toes Vivian Z

The Subjective Lens Jonathan Hale

An Addict with a Pen Jacqueline Schwartz

When the Insides Don’t Light Savannah Williams

Creep on Sheep Sasha Senal

I Fear Death Nele Ponce

The Bandits and the Monks Complicated Reality

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The Case for Psychedelic Atheism How 20 sacred cows and weekly psilocybin binges led me away from religion Anonymous

What’s a Lemon Tek?

ESSAYS

The magic in the chemistry Dawson Carter

How Does LSD Work? An overview of the biological mechanisms of tripping Alec Buetow

Rewiring the Brain Psychedelics and the treatment of affective disorders Aaron E. Phillipp-Muller

Recoils of the Magic Bullet Looming dangers of psychedelic research Nele Ponce

Mind Control, Madness, and Psychedelic Medicine Thinking about MK-Ultra 70 years later Jess Aumick

Seeing Sacred in the World Around Us Psychedelics and human transformation, a book review Matthew Jamnik

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INTERVIEW

COVER arti Talking lucid dreaming, perception, and the psychedelic aesthetic with Monts June

I’m actually an anonymous artist, because I don’t want my personal identity to play such a role in my art. I want my art to be a pure expression of what I’m going through without my identity attached to it.

Can you introduce yourself to our audience? My name is Montae, but people call me Monts. I’m a digital artist, kind of turned into a crypto artist recently, but yeah. That’s me. One thing I should mention is that I’m actually an anonymous artist, because I don’t want my personal identity to play such a role in my art. I want my art to be a pure expression of what I’m going through without my identity attached to it. So, I kind of created this anonymous persona, dropped off the internet entirely, and the only representation of me on the internet is my art. Art, to me, is freedom of expression and a form of communication that feels almost ancient. When I’m really deep into something and I finish the work, I’m almost like, “woah, where did this even come from?” It’s not even what was in my head, you know? The Entheoscope cover, for example—that wasn’t my first interpretation of what I was gonna do, but as I started making it, it really had a mind of its own.

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WITH THe

rtist What role do psychedelics play in your life and your art?

I actually haven’t taken psychedelics yet, because I haven’t felt that I was there emotionally to respect it.

I’ve always been extremely drawn to psychedelics. There was a point where I did a lot of research; I did a deep dive and understood the expectation of psychedelics. I was trying to prepare myself to take them. And what came of that was me realizing, “oh, wait, this needs to be respected.” This is something that you need to go into with respect and an open mind. You need to do the work to get there to earn the journey and not expect to extract anything from it. I actually haven’t taken psychedelics yet, because I haven’t felt that I was there emotionally to respect it. I have been interested in psychedelics for a long time and waiting for the moment where I feel like I’m ready to take them on. But psychedelic media and culture have definitely influenced the way I create. I would say I have a version of psychedelics. I know it has nothing to do with using psychedelics, but the one thing that I’ve experienced that I’ve felt has been similar—and this is like, very out there—but I’m a lucid dreamer. That was one of the first things I went through where I was like, “woah, there’s a whole different perception to be explored.” That’s what actually piqued my interest in psychedelics, just because that started happening to me. It was incredible and I’ve just been so fascinated with perception ever since.

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I think what psychedelics produce in art really comes from a freedom of perception. I have a hard time sometimes letting go and letting the art do the talking.

What is the psychedelic aesthetic? What makes something look psychedelic, and how have you integrated those ideas into your work? For me, psychedelic art has always symbolized freedom. Coming from a very structured art education and being very rigid about practice, something that I love about psychedelic art is how free and expressive it all feels. When you look at psychedelic art you really resonate with the feeling and it pulls you in. I think what psychedelics produce in art really comes from a freedom of perception. I have a hard time sometimes letting go and letting the art do the talking. That’s something that I really love about this genre or flavor of art: you can just go crazy with color, with figure, with form. You can shed those expectations of what something is supposed to look like. Art itself is a stylized version of reality. Even so, people can get wrapped up in what they think reality is supposed to look like. I like that you can free yourself from that.

The figure has such a vacant expression on his face because he’s waiting—he’s trapped in the expectation of what a psychedelic trip is supposed to be.

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On the cover for Issue 2 there are bright, playful colors and shapes around the figure that you’ve depicted, but the figure himself is serious, dark, and brooding. Is that reflective of how you think about perception or the psychedelic experience? What does that contrast mean to you? The contrast actually has to do with form; the form of what consciousness is. The form of expectation—of what it is to be human, or who you are—and being able to shed that form to come into a higher experience, to take in the journey and the feeling, to take in the journey and the feeling, that’s what the figure represents. Form fighting form and resisting going with the experience to become one with everything That’s what the figure represents: form fighting to keep form and resisting going with the experience to become one with everything. The figure has such a vacant expression on his face because he’s waiting. He’s trapped in the expectation of what a psychedelic trip is supposed to be. He’s waiting for all these things that he’s heard it is, and he’s not recognizing that his mind is opening up. He’s missing what psychedelics would give him if he weren’t so trapped in his expectations of what it should be.

What role do you think art can play in the psychedelic renaissance? What is the point of art in social movements, both in general and specifically in regards to the psychedelic renaissance? I think the most important link between art and psychedelics is the power of artistic communication and how it can help you understand something that there are no words for. There are things we experience in life that there aren’t words to connect the visceral feeling of. Art is a tool to communicate something that seems like it’s not even there. I think that’s the biggest role that art can play: it allows people to experience psychedelics in proxy. They can have a glimpse of those moments through a canvas. Art can help create the bigger picture for everyone, almost like neural networks. That’s kind of what art is; a glimpse into someone’s mind, and it connects to all the other art out there. As you observe it, as you look at it and see what it means to you, it can unlock things. At least, that’s what happens in my experience. I think that specific function within psychedelics is what’s needed in the psychedelic renaissance and I think art can do that. Art is powerful enough to do that.

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I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT YOU BY HIDDEN FORTRESS

The Case for Psychedelic Atheism How 20 sacred cows and weekly psilocybin binges led me away from religion BY ANONYMOUS

Editor’s Note: This article contains mentions of suicide.

When I was 18, I hit the lowest point of my life. I loathed every moment of consciousness and thought endlessly about how to escape it. I had just been arrested for possession of cannabis in my dorm room in Johnson City, Tennessee, and I was so distraught that I stopped attending classes entirely. My mother was a dying alcoholic, I was too ugly to bear looking at myself, and now the thought of jail loomed over me and cast shadows on every future I ever imagined for myself. That semester, I earned a GPA of 1.2. I quietly withdrew from school and drifted home. As I sank into nothingness in the cold, indifferent confines of my childhood bedroom, a friend confided in me that she, too, had lost her grip on life. She offered me emotional support in the form of one pound of magic mushrooms. Our depression drove us deep down the psychedelic rabbit hole that winter. We took three, then four, then five grams of psilocybe cubensis, writhing in fungal chaos in the darkness of my parents’ basement. When we bought LSD and cut the thick white paper into little squares, we ate the scraps that stuck to our fingers even on days we hadn’t planned to trip. Olivia always kept a strip of acid in her wallet, just in case. I grew so obsessed with these psychedelic escapades because somehow, inexplicably, I started feeling human again. On one evening shortly after a failed suicide attempt, I stood alone in a terrible snowstorm with four and a half grams of

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Magic mushrooms saved my life not because of God, but because psilocybin forced me to confront my issues head-on and allowed me to see my pain with love instead of self-hatred.

mushrooms breaking down in my stomach. As I looked through the blinding light of ice and snow swirling around me, I was frozen by an all-encompassing feeling of awe and gratitude. I was alive, I was a human being, and I had the inconceivable honor of bearing witness to the world. Somehow, all the pain inside me was forgiven and I sobbed in the cold because for the first time in my life I felt love for myself, for the people who hurt me, for the way my porch light cast an orange glow on the snow that was so beautiful I wanted to climb inside it and become that light. I had been an atheist all my life, but somehow I felt God all around me, hugging every inch of my skin and flooding my brain with love. After that night I not only stopped wanting to die, but I began devouring every moment of being alive. I became enamored with psychonauts Timothy Leary and Ram Dass, whose experiences with entheogens led them on great spiritual quests. While Leary asserted that we are all God, Dass traveled through India studying Hinduism and chasing enlightenment. I was fascinated by these abrasive, cast-out gurus and I regarded their works 12

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as genuine holy books. In contextualizing the beautiful experience that changed my life, I adopted a set of idols and a new religion. I was assigned community service after my arrest and a volunteer opportunity at a Hindu cow sanctuary arose serendipitously. Every Saturday I put on my boots and worked all day in service of other beings. The sanctuary owner told me he saved his cows from slaughterhouses and named them after gods so they would be his teachers. I was reborn playing in the fields with Texas longhorns and Angus bulls with names like Krishna and Lakshmi and Durga. As I spent more time at the sanctuary, I effectively converted to Hinduism. My holy journey was explicitly tied to the substances I had spent months binging recklessly—as I sang mantras about Krishna and Rama, I felt that I was truly praying to the mushrooms, my sacred teachers who led me there. Ram Dass told me to Be Here Now, and there was nowhere I wanted to be but in the present in the arms of Krishna and cubensis mushrooms.

I cared deeply about my spirituality as a psilocybin Hindu, and I worked hard to understand the Gita and the Vedas. But in regarding the sanctuary as a holy, sacred place, I missed red flags. In trusting that the universe would put me right where I needed to be—in needing to be religious—I put myself in danger. The sanctuary owner, whom I idolized as my greatest teacher, began asking me to file papers in his bedroom. I did so uncomfortably, unsure of how to say no or how to pretend I didn’t notice the porn he intentionally left up on his computer. I stared helplessly as patrons donated thousands of dollars to him, oblivious to the fact that they were feeding the lifestyle of a man who put secret cameras in his home and tried to get eighteenyear-old girls to move in with him. As soon as I finished my community service I left without a word. I was soon replaced by another young girl. Though I had been burned, my search for God didn’t end when I left the sanctuary. I floated to a Buddhist temple next, which I soon discovered was a cult disguised as a meditation retreat. When I returned home, I bragged that the cult was where I worked harder and ate better than I ever had in my life. I framed artwork from the temple on my wall, built an altar in my bedroom, and played their worship songs in my car. I thought I killed my ego, but I was so in love with the idea of myself as a Hindu-Buddhist that I failed to think critically about my lifestyle and beliefs. As I grew serious about academics, I became busy and gradually stopped practicing. While studying religion in college, I began wondering how the nature of the world could possibly be characterized by that whimsical holiness of careless, upper middle class psychedelia in a world so full of suffering. Why did the universe put my peers and I right where we needed to be for sacred healing while remaining callous towards those born without reliable access to food, shelter, and safety? Eventually, I decided that I didn’t believe in sacred cows or the healing power of cult nuns. I loved being religious, but in challenging my ideology I came to believe that the mushrooms hadn’t granted me divine healing

any more than antidepressants may have. Psilocybin was my life-changing, life-saving medicine, and I don’t need fantasies of divinity to feel gratitude for that. Not everyone who finds God inside the lemon tek will end up in a cult or narrowly avoid molestation from a local holy man. Nor are they wrong for embracing philosophies that bring them peace, whether they pray to Mother Nature or meditate before the Buddha. But for me, true liberation came when I realized my healing did not have to be religious or sacred. Magic mushrooms saved my life not because of God, but because psilocybin forced me to confront my issues head-on and allowed me to see my pain with love instead of self-hatred. I am forever grateful for the time I spent praying to cows and dining with cultists, but I am equally eager to continue my psychedelic journey away from the confines of religion. Be Here Now, a book by Ram Dass.

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MUSHROOM DREAMS BY AMANDA LOYER

BY CHAD TANNOUS

15 Last time You taught me

I was far too flat to listen To the truth between the spaces To pick the wisdom from each statement This time I’ll hear the darkness too

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ISSUE 2 ENTHEOSCOPE PLAYLIST 16

UNPSYCHEDELIC DISCOVERING PSYCHEDELIC MUSIC THROUGH WHAT IT’S NOT BY JACQUELINE SCHWARTZ

What exactly is psychedelic music? Most people would instinctively point to the tie-dye and peace signs of Woodstock-era rock—think Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, or anything that Jimi Hendrix touched with a ten foot pole. But what about this music is actually psychedelic? Is it the LSDsoaked lyrics, reverb-laden guitar riffs, or simply the knowledge that the music was made by and for people on drugs? These characteristics undeniably have their place, but much like psychedelics themselves, there is a certain degree of ineffability to psychedelic music that defies characterization. When genres and labels are stripped away, psychedelic music boils down to what it really is: a sensation. It’s the feeling of being completely swept away. Such a sensation is not confined to the music of the psychedelic ‘60s; the experience of being swept away by sound can come from any genre and any era. So here’s a playlist of exactly that. Not a single song on this playlist is traditionally defined as psychedelic, but the sensations they provoke might say otherwise. By exploring psychedelic music through strictly un-psychedelic songs, we might begin to understand the mystifying nature of psychedelic substances themselves.

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Nude RADIOHEAD

Speaking of sonic sensations, there is no better place to start than with the soothingly syncopated harmonies of Radiohead’s “Nude.” Someone once told me that this song makes them feel like they’re on acid. Close your eyes and let yourself float with the melody—you’ll feel it too.

Timberland ERKIN ABDULLA The intro to this song proves that it is possible to make a guitar sound like a waterfall. Further downstream, the chorus climaxes in a hypnotic marriage between the rising power of Abdulla’s voice and the synths that carry it even higher.

Vi Lua Vi Sol

KAMASI WASHINGTON Psychedelic experiences are called trips for a reason: they take you on a journey. Roughly chronicling a love story between the sun and the moon, this song’s eleven minutes of ever-changing jazz will certainly make you feel like you’ve been transported somewhere else.

Laurentech SPECIAL OTHERS One of the most fundamental elements of psychedelic music is its ability to convey profound emotion. Here, the emotion of peaceful joy takes the steering wheel; the song is the sonic equivalent of the beautiful feeling you get when you realize that everything is going to be alright.

Paradise and So Many Colors LARKIN GRIMM If “Laurentech” is about the joy of peace, “Paradise and So Many Colors” is about the joy of acceptance. Sometimes psychedelic experiences are full of laughter but others are full of sorrow. This song is the feeling that remains after you’ve cried out all of your tears.

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Modeh SHYE BEN TZUR, JONNY GREENWOOD, AND THE RAJASTHAN EXPRESS

The third and final song in the joy series. There is something incredibly beautiful about celebration, a beauty which shines through in this song’s chorus. The dozen voices chanting “Modeh Ani” invite you to join in and celebrate the joy of another day.

Pompei HEIMAT Sometimes the profundity of psychedelics manifests in something tangible, and other times it doesn’t. Sometimes you just end up feeling like you’ve touched God. Or that you are God. This song is here for those moments.

(Ghost) Riders in the Sky JOHNNY CASH You’re damn right Johnny Cash makes psychedelic music. Whether he knew it or not, singing an epic tale about ghost cowboys in the sky accompanied by reverb-laden slide guitar is just about as trippy as it gets. Yippee yi oh indeed.

The Sparrow MASTODON If metalheads were to try and prove their frequently-repeated claim that metal is closer to classical music than to rock, it would be smart to use this song as exhibit A. With “The Sparrow,” Mastodon has struck the rare balance between the intensity of metal music and the delicacy of a philharmonic orchestra, all to a very psychedelic end.

ILLUSTRATION BY SAMUEL PRATER-BELLVER

clockWise THOMTIDE At just under two minutes, this song packs quite a punch for such a short song. Clearly, though, a successful build doesn’t have a time minimum; fifty-five seconds in and the chorus hits just as intensely as those misleadingly small mushrooms. Prepare to close your eyes.

Rock Fishes FAT WHITE FAMILY If your eyes have opened since the last song, you’ll want to go ahead and close them again. “Rock Fishes” manages to combine surf rock and polka sensibilities, a task that makes just about as much sense as the chorus. But, as psychedelic experiences tend to, the illogical turns to perfection and you’ll happily find yourself singing about eating rock fishes too.

Brother JONNY L In psychedelics, there are thought loops. In Drum & Bass, there are drum loops. In Jonny L’s “Brother,” you can experience them both at the same time. How lucky are you!

When There is No Sun SUN RA Listening to Sun Ra feels like vibrating at a different frequency. Soft ascending piano melts into the muted trumpet and you can’t help but sway from side to side. It evokes a sort of gentle laziness reminiscent of the morning’s first sip of coffee; warmth spreads and peace follows in its wake.

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ILLUSTRATION BY SAMUEL PRATER-BELLVER

Liebestraum, S541/R211: No. 3: Nocturne in A-Flat Major FRANZ LISZT AND JENŐ JANDÓ

Franz Liszt brings us back to the topic of the profound emotional power of both music and psychedelics. “Liebestraum” directly translates to “love dream,” a title which comes to life in the swirling build of the piano. Fluctuating between soft and powerful and fast and slow, the fluttering notes evoke the beautiful chaos of a new love.

Love Songs on the Radio MOJAVE 3 If Franz Liszt represents the wonders of a budding romance, “Mojave 3” represents what comes after. Have you ever stared into your lover’s eyes and felt the world melt away? Have you ever held someone so tight you forget where you end and where they begin? This song is a slow burning reminder that touching love feels like touching eternity.

Alice Lake NORTH AMERICANS

We end our playlist with gratitude. Beyond joy, beyond power, and beyond love, the most profound gift of the psychedelic experience is the overwhelming sense of gratitude. Some call it oneness, others call it peace—the ability to look upon the world with fresh eyes and a newfound appreciation for the beauty of life is a gift that has no equal. Psychedelics can bring you there, but so can music; they both have the power to transform the mundane into the profound. In either case, it’s up to you to decide what you make of the noise.

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ILLUSTRATION BY SAMUEL PRATER-BELLVER

I ONLY SEE YOU WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES BY HIDDEN FORTRESS 26

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ILLUSTRATION BY TEGO GRATOS

Overview of Colorimetric Reagents BY DAWSON CARTER

References for this article can be found on page 90.

The illegality of most drugs means that their quality is completely unregulated. Drugs purchased illicitly may be impure or adulterated, and they might not even contain the desired product. For most people, the only viable option to analyze psychoactive compounds is using chemical spot tests for color comparison, also known as colorimetric or photometric tests. By no means are these tests 100% confirmatory—results must be interpreted on the basis of color, which may vary if the reagent is old. In addition, some drugs produce reactions of similar colors, which can lead to confusion in discernment. However, the use of colorimetric reagents narrows down the list of potential chemicals to what can be a reasonably safe level of assurance. It should be noted that while there are not many ways these reagents can detect adulterants, presumptive spot testing can help identify psychoactive compounds and allow users to recognize when a substance is unsafe to consume. Before using a colorimetric reagent test, it is important to recognize these reagents are more dangerous than most people realize. Most contain some concentrated acid such as sulfuric acid, which can cause chemical burns and is common in reagents. Reagents generally have other toxic chemicals as well, such as the Marquis reagent, which contains formaldehyde. When using colorimetric reagent tests, care should be taken to keep these chemicals away from dishes you eat from. Those wishing to test their drugs should also be cognizant of reagent discoloration and expiration and take safety precautions such as avoiding contact with fumes and inhalation, wearing gloves, not letting reagents mix, and only working while sober. Note that reagents are generally acceptable to possess in the United States; however, they may fall under paraphernalia laws in stricter jurisdictions. ISSUE 2

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The Basics In this section, I’ll lay out the essential kit that everyone should have in order to provide decent assurance that the composition of their drugs are as-advertised. Test kits may be purchased online directly through retailers such as DanceSafe or the Canada-based TestKitPlus, or indirectly through a third party like eBay (Amazon does not permit the sale of reagent kits). The following is a list of several great general purpose reagents with a wide variety of applications. I rarely consume any substances without testing with all five listed below, plus a few others with more specific applications. All are very useful for most substances.

Marquis

The Marquis is normally the first reagent used in a series of tests, as it confirms drug class. It doesn’t react with cocaine, so if there is a reaction with a substance sold as such the Marquis can indicate adulteration (although caffeine, a common adulterant in cocaine, is not reactive). The Marquis can be also used on benzodiazepines in a similar manner where a reaction may indicate contamination. However, further tests are often necessary because smaller quantities of adulterants likely won’t elicit a reaction.

Mandelin

The Mandelin identifies PMA and PMMA contamination in amphetamine and methamphetamine. These adulterants, although not excessively common, may nonetheless be life-threatening. However, the Mandelin does have a fairly short shelf life. While not quite as effective and concise as the Simon, the Mandelin paired with a keen eye could be used as a substitute to tell methamphetamine and amphetamine apart.

Mecke

The Mecke is a good general purpose reagent that can be used as a confirmatory test of the reactions of other reagents to numerous drugs, including ketamine and cocaine.

Froehde

The Froedhe comes in handy in confirming many opioids, distinguishing some psychedelic phenethylamines (2C-series, mescaline and analogs), and detecting adulteration in cathinones.

Liebermann

Although useful for most psychoactive compounds, the Liebermann reagent can uniquely detect levamisole (a common cattle dewormer) added to cocaine. It also distinguishes the more common psychedelic phenethylamines fairly well.

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Fentanyl Test Strips

Fentanyl test strips are not spot tests like the others listed, but are nevertheless essential for any testing kit. Fentanyl and its powerful analogues (colloquially known as “fentalogues”) have been detected in a wide variety of street drugs. While fentanyl is primarily used as an adulterant in street opioids and counterfeit pharmaceuticals, it has also been detected in numerous substances sold as stimulants. It is important to consider the risk of “hot spots” in testing for fentanyl. Counterfeit pills may vary in amounts and powders may not be evenly mixed. Any test for fentanyl should thoroughly sample the drug, ideally dissolving all of the drug in water for homogeneity prior to testing. Fentanyl on its own may be lethal in doses of as little as two milligrams (some analogs even less) and this threshold may drop significantly lower when combined with other drugs, which is often the case. As such, fentanyl test strips are not only cheap to buy but also potentially lifesaving. With the widespread prevalence of fentanyl and its analogs, I highly recommend having the opioid antidote naloxone (sold as nasal spray Narcan) on hand. Naloxone can save one’s life in situations of accidental ingestion. Please note that you cannot administer naloxone to yourself if you are overdosing, so a trusted friend should be present.

The tests below have much more specific uses and are crucial for testing specific psychedelics.

Ehrlich

The Ehrlich test is handy for psychedelics as it identifies indole compounds, thereby ruling out toxic NBOMe drugs sold as LSD. It is also useful as a quick check for tryptamines like DMT and psilocybin. Results are binary and nonspecific so it cannot distinguish different drugs with the reaction colors. The Ehrlich can have variable reaction times, depending on temperature.

Simon’s

This two-part reagent provides a binary positive or negative test for the presence of a secondary amine, which distinguishes amphetamine from methamphetamine and MDMA from MDA.

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Some More

Van Urk / Hofmann

This reagent also goes by “p-DMAB-TS”. It is quite similar to the Ehrlich, even sharing the important constituent p-DMAB (para-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde), but produces distinguishing results for some tryptamines. For instance, DMT yields a yellow result and 5-MeO-DMT yields green. Its reaction times are often shorter in duration and common results are less vivid than the Ehrlich.

Modified Simon’s

Similar to the typical Simon’s this tests amines in drugs. However, this positively identifies primary amines instead of secondary with a colorful reaction. It is quite uncommon that someone would actually need this test, one instance being to rule out MDA, amphetamine, or PMA adulteration in MDMA or “ecstasy” tablets. Although not available through most reagent retailers there are a couple that sell it as the “Robadope” reagent despite official standards deeming it the “Modified Simon’s.”

Improved Hallucinogens

This one does pop up occasionally in literature and I have seen it sold once under the title “Ehrlich 2.0” before. It has a better shelf life and is less finicky with temperature, however there is not nearly as much testing data on this as the Ehrlich. It screens for indoles with a formulation similar to the Ehrlich. The “Improved Hallucinogen Reagent” seems to have produced reliable results in my experience.

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Concentrated Nitric Acid

I do not recommend handling this unless you have adequate equipment and experience (it tends to ignite many materials, including nitrile gloves). I’ve never heard of anyone else using this, but it does appear in official standards for presumptive field testing of drugs. It is known to be useful for mescaline, LSD, morphinan opioids, and a handful of other drugs.1 There isn’t much reason for a typical consumer to have this, especially if they have the “essential kit” that covers most scenarios, and is not something most people can purchase.

Others

This list is far from exhaustive! There are countless other tests out there, but no consumer would really have a use for these. Such reagents tend to give little to no information to someone outside law enforcement, and are far more dangerous to handle. One neat tool to have as an additional test is a 365nm black light. Some drugs fluoresce under it and that may assist in identification. The intensity of fluorescence may indicate differences in purity for some drugs, however this practice is not very common.

Outside of performing these tests yourself, there are a few services such as EcstasyData that offer professional labs for drug identification. The caveats to this are its high costs and the illegality of mailing drug samples to the laboratories. Nevertheless, these services offer the most comprehensive method for analyzing drugs. Testing your drugs is essential and has the potential to save you from harm or even death from an unregulated supply. Although these methods may never provide complete assurance, they can identify some of the greatest dangers.

Stay safe!

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Salvum

a Harm Reduction Tool

www.salvum.love

by Noah Saso Have you ever wanted to quickly check a drug combination? Or check what doses are considered light, common, and strong among recreational users so you can determine your own limits more safely? All of this information exists online, but not in an easy-to-use mobile interface, and not all in one place. Salvum (from Latin meaning ‘safe’) is a harm reduction tool that aggregates substance and interaction data from various online sources—primarily PsychonautWiki and TripSit. Situations where quick access to this information is most critical (e.g., parties, concerts, and festivals) tend to experience poor Internet connection and little to no access to medical experts. So why are these resources so scattered and predominantly built for computers instead of phones? It turns out that mobile app stores currently consider this information a liability, even when disclaimers and cited sources are present. Thus the mobile-oriented website Salvum. love was born!

Pro tip: Salvum works offline after you visit it once, and if you use the “Add to Home Screen” button in your smartphone browser under the share menu, it’s virtually indistinguishable from an app and will update automatically.

If you have suggestions, confusions, or anything else, don’t hesitate to reach out. You can contact me via noah@salvum.love.

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ILLUSTRATION BY TEGO GRATOS

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DIARY WITHOUT DIRECTION BY GRIFFIN WILNER

Dear Diary, Or journal or whatever I’m supposed to call you, My head is full of distorted cognitions As I contemplate my past parties And my interests and imaginations. This weekend, I danced in damp apartments And rolled around in grass on grass and cheap liquor. I loved how I felt. When drama passed, I could pass out. I avoid what bothers my brain, Even as I have learned to escape escapism And in therapy where I try to speak but I am mute. I have so much to say when I see stars And my friends who are stars spinning. My mouth moves freely around the bodies Of intoxicated inmates under celestial bodies. Where am I going in life if all I live for… Is the party? My life can’t be serotonin-studded weed fests in the gardens forever. I seek direction. Shall I fight to sing or flight and write? Both? Neither? Dear Diary, Or journal or whatever I’m supposed to call you, When is it too much And how can I be enough? Bitterly with love, Griffin 36

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THC BY ROACH

What’s a Lemon Tek? The magic in the chemistry BY DAWSON CARTER

References for this article can be found on page 90.

If you’ve ever done shrooms, you may have heard of the “lemon tek.” Recommended by some as a way to mitigate the adverse effects of ingesting psilocybin-containing mushrooms, the lemon tek involves soaking the dried or powdered product in lemon juice for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, before consuming the resultant mixture. The mushrooms or mushroom powder may be strained and discarded, and other citrus juices (e.g. lime juice) work as a substitute to lemon in a pinch.1 Regardless of the method, the lemon tek is undoubtedly popular. But how and why does the lemon tek work? In this article I’ll delve into the chemical magic underlying the popular method of consuming psychedelic mushrooms. Before we get into the science of the lemon tek, I’ll first explain how psilocybin is metabolized in the body. After ingesting psilocybin-containing mushrooms, most of the psilocybin is converted to another drug, psilocin 38

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(4-hydroxy-DMT). This transformative process, known as “dephosphorylation,” occurs mostly in the liver. The resultant psilocin is detectable in blood plasma approximately half an hour after initial consumption.2 In solutions with a pH of 7.4 (the pH range of human blood is 7.35-7.45), psilocin is much more lipid-soluble than psilocybin. This allows it to be more effective at crossing the blood-brain barrier and into brain tissue.3 Psychoactive drugs need to be able to make it into the central nervous system to produce effects—thus, it is psilocin, not psilocybin, that produces the psychedelic experience associated with magic mushrooms. In fact, evidence suggests that psilocybin is not significantly psychoactive, and that the psychedelic effects primarily come from psilocin.3 In a 1963 article published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry*, researchers found that psilocybin lost its psychoactive effects when they inhibited a metabolic enzyme called alkaline

Psychoactive drugs need to be able to make it into the central nervous system to produce effects—thus, it is psilocin, not psilocybin, that produces the psychedelic experience associated with magic mushrooms.

PSILOCYBIN

phosphatase—the protein responsible for most of the dephosphorylation process in the body.3 A later meta-analysis from Drug Metabolism Reviews cites a few different studies that indicate minor dephosphorylation to occur in the stomach’s acidic environment after oral administration.4 In essence, anyone that eats magic mushrooms has to wait for the psilocybin to be absorbed and then dephosphorylated before tripping. Most of this conversion happens from metabolism, but the stomach’s high acidity dephosphorylates psilocybin through a secondary route in small quantities. It is not psilocybin but rather psilocybin’s metabolite, psilocin, that produces the psychedelic effects with which we are so familiar. The lemon tek moves the dephosphorylation process outside of the body, while also preventing the degradation of the chemically unstable psilocin. Lemon juice does not contain the hepatic enzymes normally responsible for the dephosphorylation, however it has an acidic environment that may emulate the dephosphorylation process otherwise in the stomach. The juice has a pH range of 2.00 - 2.35,5 and stomach acid has a pH range of 1.5 - 3.5.6 Therefore, it seems plausible that the lemon

PSILOCIN

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. . . instead of waiting for the liver to dephosphorylate psilocybin, the psychoactive effects will have a much faster onset, shorter duration, and greater intensity.

PHOTO BY FIELDTRIPS

juice supplants the stomach’s acidity in facilitating the dephosphorylation of psilocybin. Moreover, psilocybin is highly polar and thus quite soluble in water and lemon juice, so the lemon tek readily extracts the psilocybin in magic mushrooms for conversion.4 What’s even more interesting is that psilocin is unstable and subject to fast degradation, but ascorbic and citric acids, antioxidants found in lemon juice, stabilize psilocin after the dephosphorylation process. Lemon juice far exceeds the minimum concentration of these acids to preserve psilocin solutions (10 mM),7 allowing psilocin to be preserved in a stable state until consumption. In fact, many laboratories add antioxidants including ascorbic acid to psilocin prior to analysis so it won’t degrade enough to skew experimental results.8 Thus, the tek prevents the psilocin’s degradation, allowing the product to remain in solution for longer durations as more inactive psilocybin is dephosphorylated. The lemon tek essentially extracts the psilocybin and transforms it into the active ingredient psilocin, 40

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which is responsible for the psychedelic effects. By using the lemon tek, the waiting period for hepatic metabolism to activate the drug is preemptively bypassed—so instead of waiting for the liver to dephosphorylate psilocybin, the psychoactive effects will have a much faster onset, shorter duration, and greater intensity. As such, the lemon tek can be likened to an instant release medication, with untekked shrooms being the extended release equivalent. This may explain the general consensus amongst tekkers that the subjective effects are preferable to those of unadulterated fungus.1 Not only is the lemon tek a popular means of consuming magic mushrooms, but the science behind why it works offers valuable insight into the way that psilocybin acts on the body. With a couple simple ingredients and a bit of chemistry, the lemon tek may help improve the psychedelic experience. By taking a closer look at the lemon tek, it becomes clear that there is magic to be found in the science in addition to the mushrooms themselves.

BLEEDING SUN BY LIANA ORDONEZ FROM THE ARTIST This image reflects one of the last trips I had where the sun was bleeding into a field of grass. It is a reminder that we are all one and the sun is made up of the same stuff as a blade of grass.

DIPPING MY TOES BY VIVIAN Z A few deep inhales A relaxing breath Look up at the sky and into its nest See the branches frame it in a living death You then close your eyes And it’s more than you’d guessed A moment of colors takes you by surprise They follow you down with crisp shifting scales Then, it’s gone You’re back down to Earth With a mind now anew Yet you feel what you’ve seen Was already in you A body weighed down And trees that same green The colors and light act as a shining crown Know that it all proves your own self-worth The mind breaks dawn The journey stays with you still After it has past Though it was not at all what you hoped A feeling inside is all that it cast Know that it’s taken, now you can rest Through its intentions you have interloped And its harmonious feeling is long past its crest It sits in your mind where it’ll fill And leave you with it connected as one.

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JUNGLE FACE BY ELENA SALINAS

PHOTO BY PRETTY DRUG THINGS

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How Does LSD Work? An overview of the biological mechanisms of tripping BY ALEC BUETOW

References for this article can be found on page 90.

The infamous lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), first synthesized by Albert Hofmann some 83 years ago and ingested by millions since, remains elusive in function even today. While the mechanism for uptake is known, the chemical’s interaction with receptors in the brain is far less easy to understand or analyze. What we do know, I can explain here; for that which we do not, I can explain the leading theory. The first step on LSD’s path to the brain is uptake. While there are several methods to do so, all are highly inconvenient or unsafe relative to the most common technique, through the mouth. Regardless of how

LSD enters the mouth, whether through a dropper or gel or paper tabs, once exposed to saliva, the highly soluble LSD crystal begins to dissolve and then diffuse, entering the stomach as one swallows their own spit. The second step in this pathway occurs in the stomach and intestines, where LSD can be absorbed1 into the blood plasma2 and travel to the brain. It is not definitively known whether LSD binds to any proteins in human plasma, though it occurs with about 65-90% of LSD in guinea pigs2 and is suspected to work similarly in people. These proteins are unable to cross the blood-brain barrier, thus any LSD bound to them will not reach the brain. In fact,

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a maximum of only 10% of LSD administered to a monkey through its blood is present in its brain at any given moment after injection2 and it is reasonable to assume that this number is both similar in humans and lower when LSD is absorbed through the stomach, as low pH degrades the molecule.2 There are many potential mechanisms for it to be lost on its journey, both in the blood and in the digestive system, including degradation, digestion, excretion and the protein binding already mentioned. LSD that remains unbound to any protein easily crosses the blood-brain barrier in monkeys2 and likely acts similarly in humans, thereby reaching the brain. The third step in this progression, now that LSD has completed its 20–90-minute3 trip from the mouth to the brain, is with the brain receptors themselves. The magic of both the metaphysical and physical trip the LSD molecule must take occurs during this process. Here, the LSD molecule itself binds to several dopamine receptors,4 though widely considered to be more important for LSD’s noticeable effects is its higher binding affinity for the 5-HT2B, 5-HT2A and 5-HT1A receptors.5,6 Normally, serotonin binds to each receptor to activate it (5-HT stands for 5-hydroxytryptamine, another name for serotonin); however, due to LSD’s similarity to serotonin, it is able to substitute for the molecule. For the former two receptors it is only able to activate them partially,7,8 and for the latter it can do so fully.9 But what does this mean for the psychonaut at hand?

Partial activation occurs due to LSD’s structural difference compared to serotonin, as it is both larger and missing the hydrogen bound to the nitrogen in serotonin, which is necessary to properly associate with the receptor. Serotonin, when properly bound to its receptor, changes the receptor’s shape and allows a series

SEROTONIN

Blue spots mark the atoms in serotonin that associate with 5-HT receptors and the analogous atoms in LSD which allow it to do the same. Green spots mark the atom in serotonin that associates with the 5-HT receptors and which is not present in LSD.

Activating the 5-HT2A receptor excites neurons, causes hallucinations, invokes out-of-body experiences and causes fear. This is thought to be the primary receptor responsible for the psychedelic experience of taking LSD.

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LSD

of reactions inside the neuron to occur; partial activation also induces this change in shape but may cause a different series of reactions or the original series of reactions to a lesser extent. Activating the 5-HT2B receptor inhibits the brain’s release of serotonin10. While this sounds counterintuitive, as tripping is typically associated with positive feelings along with the release of serotonin, it makes sense in the context of LSD acting as serotonin. With less serotonin in the brain, LSD is more likely to bind to receptors, producing greater effects. Activating the 5-HT2A receptor excites neurons, causes hallucinations, invokes out-of-body experiences and causes fear.11 This is thought to be the primary receptor responsible for the psychedelic experience of taking LSD. Normally, this receptor helps to release dopamine12 and plays an important role in maintaining attention13 and learning.14 Activating the 5-HT1A receptor has been shown to decrease aggression15, impulsivity,16 hunger,17 and drug-seeking behavior,18 while also releasing dopamine,19 relieving anxiety,20 increasing sociability,21 and

impairing some aspects of memory.22 All of these effects are typical of a trip. Additionally, activation of this receptor slows the firing rate of neurons and causes them to need more stimulation to fire at all.23 Neurons with these receptors pause for longer periods and are less likely to be activated; the effect of this is unknown. If LSD simply replaces serotonin in a receptor, then why does it elicit such a different response? Well, its different structure allows it to both stay in the receptor for far longer than serotonin, elongating the trip, and also activate a different mechanism.6 While serotonin typically binds to the receptor and causes a cascade of reactions to stabilize mood and boost happiness,24 LSD initiates a different cascade after binding to the same spot. This cascade may be responsible for its psychedelic effects, though studying something so miniscule in the brain is next to impossible, so no conclusions have yet been drawn. It is this journey of a nanoscopic molecule which elicits the spiritual, hallucinogenic, and often recreational effects when one trips on this mind-altering psychedelic compound. ISSUE 2

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BY JONATHAN HALE

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With a steady, measured hand The scientist grasped the microscope, placing the sample carefully Beneath the subjective lens. Then she pressed her eye to the eyepiece And peered within. She saw herself, emerging from her mother’s womb; Crawling, stumbling, learning to walk; And speaking her first words. The years flew by - college, graduate school, Her hiring at the laboratory and promotion. Then she saw herself giving birth to a son, and a daughter with deep brown eyes The color of fertile soil. And then she was old. Surrounded by family, She looked up from a hospital bed And drew her final breath. When the scientist withdrew her eye It swam in a sea of emotions. She paused for what felt like an eternity Then looked again. Colors danced before her; Reds, greens, and blues, tantalizingly arranged. They pulsated gently in synchrony with her every breath, Glistening and shimmering, as if illuminated By a light from afar. She was drawn toward what she saw, For it was beautiful beyond comprehension. And every heartbeat echoed Through her field of vision Like a great drumbeat, but She was not sure of the source of the rhythm If it was the colors, Or her.

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JULIA AND FATOU BY BRUNEL

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In time, she withdrew her eye again, and The colors of the lab, Usually monochromatic and drab, Seemed a little brighter. The world manifested itself within her With a clarity she had never experienced. Again she gazed into the subjective lens, but What she saw this time was different. Her perceptual field was dark; The hair stood up on the back of her neck And she felt a deep, primal fear, Of suffering, Of the blackness before her. A light appeared in the distance. She moved towards it; curious but apprehensive The light shone from the base of a withered fig tree With branches as old as time. Its roots wrapped around the body Of a man, as if In an eternal embrace And despite his imprisonment,

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He appeared content With his eyes closed, And a smile upon his lips. The scientist sensed that this time would be the last; If those words even had such a meaning. Her fear returned, a fear of time and its passage, Of change, Of the unknown. She thought back to the first time she had peered into The subjective lens, of witnessing Her birth and death, And the emotions she had felt then Were replaced with fear of eternity, Of death, Of being forgotten, just like The man buried within the roots of the fig tree. Her fear consumed her. But she gazed once again at what she saw before her, and The light grew ever brighter She gazed at the man, Cradled in the roots of the fig tree Yet at peace. Then her fear, once so overwhelming, Became irrelevant. And everything seemed to fall into place. And she too, the learned scientist, Was finally content.

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AN ODE TO TRIPPING IN SANTA BARBARA BY SEQUOYAH SVH

JULIA AND FATOU BY BRUNEL

Rewiring the Brain Psychedelics and the treatment of affective disorders BY AARON E. PHILIPP-MULLER

References for this article can be found on page 91.

Psychedelic drugs are making waves in recent years in neuroscience and psychiatry. Knowledge of psychedelics can be traced back to traditional medicine, which expanded into Western culture throughout the mid-20th century. As a result of growing interest in clinical neuroscience, researchers are currently working to understand whether psychedelics can be used to treat mental health issues such as depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The short answer is yes—psychedelics can be an effective treatment option, if given at the correct dose and in a medically supervised setting.1–4 Compared to conventional treatments, psychedelic medications have a rapid time to onset and have much longer lasting treatment effects.5,6 For example, a single dose of ketamine when treating depression provides symptom relief within hours and lasts for weeks.6 In addition, psychedelics have successfully alleviated symptoms in patients who previously did not respond to conventional treatments.7 However, before psychedelics can reach greater acceptance in the clinic and the community, the ISSUE 2

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question remains: Why is this form of treatment so effective? In order to provide an answer, we must understand what changes psychedelics engender on a neurological level. Many of the most successful psychotherapeutic treatments for mood and emotional disorders (collectively referred to as affective disorders) promote new ways of processing emotional information. A good example of these principles in action can be seen in the treatment of PTSD. A learned fear response stemming from traumatic memories, PTSD can crystallize into problematic core beliefs regarding oneself, others, or the world.8,9 Psychotherapies such as cognitive processing therapy and prolonged exposure therapy encourage patients to challenge their core beliefs and by extension, their automatic thoughts and behaviors.10,11 However, established treatment methods are ineffective in over one third of PTSD patients.12,13 This is likely due in part to the fact that patterns of thought and behavior associated with PTSD are often very deeply ingrained. In contrast, psychedelic treatments are highly effective for PTSD patients who are treatment-resistant to traditional psychotherapies. This is because psychedelics take advantage of the brain’s natural ability to rewire itself in order to promote learning,14 allowing psychedelic treatments to succeed when other methods have fallen short. When put into neurological terms, the challenge in treating affective disorders can be described by Hebb’s Rule, which states that if a pathway between neurons is frequently activated, it will be strengthened over time.15 Thus, the ultimate goal in treatment is to weaken pre-existing negative neural tracts while facilitating the construction of new, positive pathways. In other words, a successful treatment will reroute neural impulses. The drug ketamine serves as an example of how psychedelic medications reroute these signals, as it shares neurobiological pathways with many of the classical psychedelics.16 Therefore, many of the concepts discussed in regards to ketamine apply to other psychedelic medications.

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If one were to suddenly rotate a potted plant away from the sun, it will either turn its leaves or grow like a corkscrew to ensure that it faces the window. It is a similar idea with a neuron—the reduction of incoming glutamate forces the cell to grow and send out feelers in search of glutamate, which ultimately facilitates learning.

In order to understand how ketamine affects emo-

take. This promotes cellular growth by triggering a chem-

tional disorders, we must first discuss learning and mem-

ical called actin to form filaments that serve as the cell’s

ory. When information is committed to long-term mem-

scaffolding. These microscopic renovations are critical

ory, a series of neural events occur known as long-term

for LTP, as they provide the structural changes needed in

potentiation (LTP).

During LTP, the brain physically

order for the brain to integrate new information. A help-

restructures itself to accommodate incoming learned in-

ful analogy to illustrate the process of actin stabilization

formation. LTP is involved in a multitude of learning and

is that of a potted plant. If one were to suddenly rotate a

memory processes, from memorizing a phone number

potted plant away from the sun, it would either turn its

to encoding deep emotional events. Ketamine has been

leaves or rotate its stem to face the window. A neuron

found to increase LTP in the hippocampus,

can be thought of in a similar fashion. The reduction of

a cortical

region that plays a major role in long-term memory.

incoming glutamate forces the cell to grow and send out

Ketamine boosts hippocampal LTP through a crit-

feelers in search of glutamate, which ultimately facilitates

ical process known as actin stabilization. This process

learning. This is key for improving mental health in that

takes place in the dendrites, the neuronal region respon-

learning, whether through experience or introspection,

sible for receiving signals from other neurons.

Actin

is the only way for individuals to establish new ways of

stabilization enables cellular growth for LTP, and is typ-

seeing themselves, others, and the world. For many pa-

ically mediated by the chemical glutamate, a chemical

tients, reshaping their perspectives on these matters is

signal released by neurons. When bound to the N-meth-

central to improving their emotional state.

15,19,20

yl D-aspartate receptors on neighboring neurons, glu-

Ketamine also has other methods of promoting

tamate hinders cellular growth. Ketamine functions by

learning; namely, in its capacity as a key modulator of

blocking glutamate from binding to this type of receptor

the mechanistic Target of Rapamycin (mTOR), a protein

on other neighboring neurons, thus preventing its up-

influenced by LTP. When activated, mTOR promotes

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When a neuron is exposed to ketamine, new spines develop across its dendrites within 24 hours. The growth of new spines ultimately allows for the establishment of additional points of connection between neurons, improving the neural infrastructure for learning.

dendritic spine growth. Dendritic spines are small pro-

addiction, among other detrimental side effects.2,25,26

trusions from a neuron’s dendrites that form connections

Considering other psychedelic medications brings on

with other neurons. Ketamine ultimately activates mTOR,

new challenges. For example, psilocybin produces such

and hence assists in the formation of new neural connec-

intense neural restructuring that it can have antidepres-

tions.

When a neuron is exposed to ketamine, new

sant effects for several months following a single dose.7

spines develop across its dendrites within 24 hours. The

However, its strength can also be its pitfall. At times, the

growth of new spines ultimately allows for the establish-

intensity of the experience paired with social stigma of

ment of additional points of connection between neu-

psychedelics may be intimidating or overwhelming. Mi-

rons, improving the neural infrastructure for learning.

crodosing may be a more favorable option for some, but

Ketamine also increases the quality of the spines. The

more research is still needed on this topic.27,28 A final in-

highest quality spines, known as mushroom spines, are

sidious limitation is the risk that increased LTP could be

larger and have wider diameters, providing greater sur-

harmful if a patient experiences a traumatic event during

face area for connections with other neurons. After ex-

the sensitive window surrounding treatment. This cir-

posure to ketamine, neurons display a higher proportion

cumstance could further entrench a patient’s negative

of mushroom spines,

which indicates stronger, more

core beliefs by instilling negative thought patterns in

mature structures. Most importantly, a larger propor-

one’s long-term memory. Ensuring a safe environment

tion of healthy dendritic spines helps facilitate learning,

should be a paramount concern when caring for pa-

which is critical for psychological recovery.

tients in the days surrounding psychedelic treatment.

15,21,22

With all of these considerations, the future

Ultimately, an in-depth look at the neuroscience

should bode well for ketamine as a medication. And

of ketamine illustrates how psychedelic treatments may

yet, the treatment is not without limitations. The great-

offer a new approach to treating emotional disorders. By

est stumbling block is that its effects are not permanent.

taking advantage of the brain’s natural ability to rewire

For depression, ketamine lasts for a few weeks; for PTSD,

itself, psychedelics offer hope to patients who have ex-

a single dose wears off after only one week.

This is

hausted other methods of treatment. However, the full

considerably more effective than a single dose of SSRIs

potential of psychedelic medications will not be realized

but unlike SSRIs, regular doses of ketamine can lead to

until their treatment effects can be safely lengthened, or

chronic drowsiness, issues with attention, and a risk of

ideally, made permanent.

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5,7,24

PORTALS BY EMILY LITTLE

FROM THE ARTIST "Portals" is a striking oil painting visual exploring the realms we live between, inspiring curiosity towards what lies beyond our dimension.

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NAIVE OBSERVATIONS 1 BY PETER TRAVIS

An Addict with a Pen BY JACQUELINE SCHWARTZ

An Addict With A Pen

An Addict (Reprisal)

“This is the last time.” I tell myself Again For the thousandth time As I look around the room (careful to avoid any mirrors) Frantic Like a dog In a cage The walls are burning But I feel no warmth I feel nothing at all But a dull sting of shame A cocktail of self hatred One part pity, two parts denial I drink it down the same way I always do The bitterness made sweeter By a sugar coated lie This is the last time. This is the last time...

This body of mine Made callous by repeated offenses This throat of mine Still burning from last night’s poison These eyes of mine Tired of seeing Tired of the eyes that stare back Tired of not recognizing them These hands of mine Soaked red Soaked black Soaked in the blood of a previous self Who’d rather numb the world away Than let go of the knife It’s a funny thing, really The comfort of self-hatred When the night is through And the high is gone It’s always there waiting In the hole I failed to fill.

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Recoils of the Magic Bullet Looming dangers of psychedelic research BY NELE PONCE

References for this article can be found on page 92.

We are currently entering the third decade of the psychedelic renaissance. Over the years, a plethora of preliminary studies spearheaded by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Imperial College London, and MAPS, have pointed to the therapeutic promise of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, MDMA, and psilocybin. Several of these small-scale studies suggest the potential of psychedelics to benefit those with clinical conditions such as cancer-related anxiety and depression,1,2 post-traumatic stress disorder,3 treatment-resistant and major depression,4,5 and substance dependence,6 among others. Mainstream media headlines tantalize the public about how these “medicines” can improve our mental health, and popular interest in psychedelics is again gaining momentum. Prompted by media coverage, pro-psychedelic subcultures are fostering notions of psychedelics as “magic bullets,” or quick fixes for mental illness and society’s ailments, and are entertaining visions of a more enlightened society. 62

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While these studies suggest exciting possibilities for the therapeutic and creative applications of psychedelics, it is important to keep in mind that the science is still immature, and to move ahead of a field still lacking in conclusive evidence could increase these substances’ potential for harm. Thus far, clinical trial designs suffer from several limitations that make it difficult to find conclusive evidence on their efficacy.7 Proper controls are a particular concern in many of these clinical trials, for instance. Those who are given placebos (either niacin or methylphenidate) know they are taking placebos, and the powerful effects of psychedelics make blinding nearly impossible. Generalizations about targeted populations are also precluded by samples that are too small and homogenous. Results remain difficult to interpret, as the vast majority of studies so far have only been preliminary. Researchers are also careful to be mindful of risks, and so trials are designed to be as safe as possible.8

Under rare circumstances, psychedelics can trigger psychotic reactions, typically in people with a family history of psychosis. Thus, those with a personal or family history of psychosis are typically excluded from the trials. In psilocybin sessions, people come to an aesthetically decorated clinic, sit on a reclined chair wearing eyeshades and headphones, and are monitored by two trained guides with whom they have developed a good relationship with in preparatory sessions.8 Given the volatile nature of the psychedelic experience, several sessions are held between the individual and the guides to prepare the individual for the dosing sessions. Such preparatory sessions use psychotherapy methods to understand the individual’s problems and to translate them into specific intentions for the session. Any slight interpersonal frictions can be a source of psychological unrest which can easily inflate while under the influence of the psychedelic, so establishing rapport between the individual and the guides is critical for maximizing safety. Moreover, psychedelics can expose buried or otherwise hidden psychological content. These contents, un-adulterated by the individual’s usual cognitive patterns, become the raw working materials for the follow-up non-drug sessions aimed to help the

individual integrate and extract potential insights gained from the experience. Outside the lab, the psychedelic experience can be vastly different, especially with unknown purities and doses of the drugs. In uncontained settings, “bad trips” become more common. In psychiatry, they remain ill-understood. While they have been suggested to increase well-being9 and are thus potentially beneficial, they can also lead to accidents and dangerous behavior.9,10 Researchers are not necessarily impervious to the ornamented depictions of psychedelics by the media. The increasingly optimistic media coverage helps to taper the lingering structural stigma around these substances, whilst galvanizing support and funding for continued research. The catch-22 is that such attention may compromise the efficacy, or integrity, of the research. Contextual factors—psychological and environmental—have historically confounded methods of studying these substances, and concomitantly challenged interpretations of findings. Every successful trial feeds into mainstream ideas of psychedelics as magical cure-alls for mental health, and this, in turn, shapes the expectations of participants in future trials. Especially considering the substantial (albeit largely unaccount-

Recreational use of psychedelics, if carelessly informed and skipping ahead of only prelusive data on their potential harms, may very well become more dangerous, especially as their use gains popularity.

Photo: One of the rooms at Johns Hopkins University used in psilocybin clinical studies. A participant is accompanied by two guides throughout the duration of their psilocybin experience. Photo taken by Matthew W. Johnson. ISSUE 2

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Photo: Dr. Osmond speaking on CFSL Radio, dated 1960. From Soo Line Historical Museum.

The psychedelic movement is becoming political. People are emerging who wish to change the society, not to drop out from it. They are not communists, nor are they anarchists. They plan a society of a different kind, based on psychedelics; they are much opposed to the current political climate. Humphry Osmond

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CULTURAL SETTING e.g., public opinion and media representation

LONG-TERM OUTCOMES e.g., changes in mental health

SET e.g., expectations

ACUTE EXPERIENCE e.g., ‘peak’ or ‘challenging’

A feedback loop between the influences of culture, set (or psychological), the psychedelic experience, and longterm outcomes of the experience.4

ed for empirically) impact of contextual factors on the psychedelic experience, participant expectations will undoubtedly continue to play a large role in future trials. However, while expectancy effects may certainly threaten research efficacy, these expectations may also be driven to such unrealistic proportions outside the lab that they eclipse the risks involved with psychedelic use. Risks that, if not heeded, could turn the current climate of growing optimism into that of nonacceptance. Déjà vu. By the end of the ‘60s, there were more than 1,000 published literature reports on LSD and psilocybin involving more than 40,000 individuals who had been administered psychedelics in the context of clinical research.11 Scientific interest in psychedelic drugs was booming. So was that of the public. However, recreational psychedelic use had become synonymous with the ‘60s hippie counterculture, and psychedelics were subsequently sensationalized by media reports and political campaigns aimed at portraying psychedelics, and their proponents, as dangerous. Ultimately, psychedelic drugs were labeled as Schedule I substances under the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, and all academically sanctioned research with these substances came to a grinding halt.

Should today’s investigators neglect to consider the contextual influences on the psychedelic experience, including those from public expectations, psychedelic research risks running into the same shortcomings that led to its demise in the ‘60s. Recreational use of psychedelics, if carelessly informed and skipping ahead of only prelusive data on their potential harms, may very well become more dangerous, especially as their use gains popularity. Media and public opinion may then turn against psychedelics once more, negatively influencing trial participants’ expectations, and subsequently the psychedelic experience itself.4 In a recent article, Marco Aqil, founder and director of the Amsterdam Psychedelic Research Association, proposes that a bigger concern might be the burgeoning interest among businesses to invest in psychedelics.12 Concerned mainly and often only with making quick profits rather than promoting research efforts, such businesses are likely to gloss over safety guidelines carefully crafted by researchers, and shortcut cautions. Not only might the rich have privileged access to psychedelic drugs, the potential harms of psychedelic use can also easily inflate in the hands of irresponsible businesses. In a society burdened with an ever-growing mental health crisis, worsened still by the international pandemic, the psychedelic renaissance offers a welcome reform to the psychiatric industry ill-equipped with the therapeutic tools to relieve it. But this renaissance, as Humphrey Osmond, the psychiatrist who coined the term, “psychedelics,” advised Timothy Leary in 1960, must “do good stealthfully and to hasten slowly,”13 lest it repeats the same mistakes of the past. The evidence so far is only preliminary, and the extent of psychedelics’ potential harms have not yet been extensively and systematically probed. Responsible researchers able to confess the potential dangers of psychedelics yet uncharted are careful not to supersede safety protocols and be tempted by larger cultural agendas. Trailing behind psychedelics is the shadow of structural and social stigma ingrained in the cultural fabric and politics of postwar America. In order to progress current scientific efforts to illuminate the full range of their mechanisms, it will be necessary for psychedelics to become mainstreamed not just in culture, but also (and arguably more importantly) in psychiatry.

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VIBRANT MINDS BY ABBY LARUE

by Savannah Williams

when the insides don't light

it’s fair to reach for matches or a lighter a coping mechanism is not a gunshot wounds are created from memory the slingshot throwback of an arrow can’t compare to the feeling of my spine being blown out by you // the hands are messy enough the dirt and blood and spit make mud baths seem less sexy it’s collective effervescence, you see there will always be another football game or chocolate covered pretzel to remind you of someone // losing grip on reality makes broken chords seem easier to sing

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WANDERING THROUGH CONSCIOUSNESS BY ABBY LARUE

ILLUSTRATION BY MONTS JUNE

Photo: A scene from A Clockwork Orange, a 1971 dystopian crime film inspired by CIA-run mind control experiments.

Mind Control, Madness, and Psychedelic Medicine BY JESS AUMICK

Thinking about MK-Ultra 70 years later

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References and footnotes for this article can be found on page 93.

As accounts of the powerful healing benefits of LSD and other psychedelics are increasingly supported by scientific research, the integration of psychedelics into Western healthcare becomes an imminent reality. Each day we cross new boundaries as government entities like the Food and Drug Administration veer ever closer to approving medicinal and therapeutic usage of psychedelic substances for depression, PTSD, cluster headaches, and other hard-to-treat ailments. Psychedelic drugs, of course, have not always been so readily acknowledged for their medicinal potential in the United States. From the 1950s to the early 1970s, the American government’s primary use of LSD was via the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), covertly conducting illegal experiments in which human subjects were dosed with the drug without their knowledge or consent. As this project—dubbed “MK-Ultra”—spanned more than 10 years of experiments, its scope was broad

and encompassed human rights violations committed with a wide spectrum of drugs including mescaline, heroin, barbiturates, and amphetamines. For the sake of relevance to the psychedelic community, this article will focus primarily on the role of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) in Project MK-Ultra. As the psychedelic renaissance steers us closer than ever towards a mental health system that prescribes entheogens as medicine, we must reflect on the complicated history and continued criminalization of these substances—lest we perpetuate the precedent for abuse and harmful drug policy that mars the past of our movement.

An Overview of MK-Ultra When the CIA first took interest in LSD near the dawn of the Cold War, its primary objective was to determine how the drug could be used as a weapon both in international conflict and domestic affairs. Could it be fed to Russian spies to force them to divulge their secrets? Could it be released as an aerosol and dropped over enemies, allowing troops to conquer a city with no bloodshed? Could it give those who weaponize it total control over another human being? In 1951 the CIA launched Project ARTICHOKE, which was among the institution’s first initiatives to study the effects of LSD. In 1999, a document declassified through the Freedom of Information Act* revealed that ARTICHOKE sought to determine whether “an individual of [REDACTED] descent” could “be made to perform an act of attempted assassination” after being drugged with various (and often unspecified) mind-altering substances.1 While it is unclear how frequently LSD was used in Project ARTICHOKE, this exploration of coerced assassination served as a segue into the use of psychedelic substances for violent purposes in government-sponsored research. Once the CIA determined through Project ARTICHOKE that LSD was a powerful tool for inducing altered states of consciousness (albeit an ineffective one for coercing assassination), Project MK-Ultra was born.

Among its various subprojects was Operation Midnight Climax, which aimed to determine if substances like LSD could function as a truth serum when used during vulnerable sexual situations. The modus operandi of the aptly named project involved hiring sex workers to lure unsuspecting patrons to a CIA-sanctioned brothel, where prior to intercourse they were drugged with LSD and observed by government officials behind a one-way mirror. Operatives aimed to determine whether or not test subjects could be coerced into revealing secrets about themselves or their businesses. The CIA “marveled at how freely men spoke” under the combined influences of LSD and sex, but available documents reveal little else about the conclusions of Midnight Climax.2 Other projects from this era include: supplying heroin to addiction center patients who volunteered to participate in LSD experiments;** drugging suspected foreign criminals and other political persons of interest with LSD during interrogations; asking a subject to describe changes in vision while under the influence of a hallucinogen and receiving a lobotomy; injecting LSD into the spines of psychiatric patients; and attempting to develop a hallucinogenic incapacitant to be deployed abroad by the military.3 As a result of these treatments, many subjects were traumatized and suffered debilitating complications including memory loss, post-traumatic stress, and suicide attempts.4 Throughout the operation, federal employees involved in Project MK-Ultra also used LSD for their own purposes. One branch of CIA employees “agreed among themselves to slip LSD into each other’s drinks” at unannounced intervals, a practice which purportedly began with the intention of furthering psychedelic research but soon devolved into spiking punch with LSD at office Christmas parties.3 These antics had devastating consequences in 1953, when Army scientist Frank Olson “slid into a deep depression” after being unexpectedly drugged with LSD at a work retreat.3 Following nine days of increasingly erratic and paranoid behavior, Olson fell from a tenth-floor hotel window and died of an apparent suicide.†

It can be reasonably inferred . . . that the CIA approached psychedelics with nefarious purposes and saw little use for these substances as medicine.

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Photo: In 1953, American bacteriologist Frank Olson fell from a window of Hotel Statler (now called Hotel Pennsylvania).

In the wake of the Vietnam War, the anti-war counterculture was scapegoated for provoking drug criminalization—and yet the federal government observed and provoked the dark side of LSD before the hippies had even heard of it.

Internalizing Destruction; Set and Setting Because the public was not privy to these experiments until years after their conclusion, the immediate internal aftermath of MK-Ultra is unclear. It can be reasonably inferred, however, that the CIA approached psychedelics with nefarious purposes and saw little use for these substances as medicine. Because the CIA framed the psychedelic experience as a means to coercion, manipulation, and destruction, the therapeutic value of LSD was missed entirely: There were times when CIA agents found themselves [...] deeply moved by the experience. One MK-ULTRA veteran wept in front of his colleagues at the end of his first trip. “I didn’t want to leave it,” he explained. “I felt I would be going back to a place where I wouldn’t be able to hold onto this 72

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kind of beauty.” His colleagues assumed he was having a bad trip and wrote a report stating that the drug had made him psychotic.3 In their book Acid Dreams, Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain noted the difference between psychedelic trips undertaken in favorable and unfavorable conditions, writing, “LSD can be used to heal as well as maim.”3 Compare the experience of the agent who wept at the beauty of LSD to that of foreign nationals who were drugged during interrogations as described by Lee and Shlain: One subject vomited three times and stated that he “wanted to die” after the Special Purpose Team gave him LSD; his reaction was characterized as “moderate.”3 A subject from the same interrogation experiments “asked to be killed in order to alleviate his suffering.”3 In reviewing these accounts, it is clear that the set and

THE ASPECT OF SURRENDER IS VERY IMPORTANT BY MOXIE EVANS

CONTACT BY YULENE TEAGLE-ALARCON

settings of the MK-Ultra experiments were largely uncomfortable spaces—interrogation rooms, brothels, prisons—accompanied by fear, torture, and exploitation. Is it any wonder, then, that even before the federal government halted MK-Ultra in 1973 they concluded that psychedelics were dangerous, bred psychosis and insanity, and should be outlawed? In the wake of the Vietnam War, the anti-war counterculture was scapegoated for provoking drug criminalization—and yet the federal government observed and provoked the dark side of LSD before the hippies had even heard of it. In 1968—five years before Project MK-Ultra would be officially terminated—LSD was criminalized in the United States as a Schedule I drug. A DEA report from [YEAR] illustrates the influence of MK-Ultra on the decision to outlaw LSD: [Its] use in psychotherapy largely has been debunked. It [...] does not increase creativity, has no lasting positive effect in treating alcoholics or criminals [...] However, drug studies have confirmed that the powerful hallucinogenic effects of this drug can produce profound adverse reactions, such as acute panic reactions, psychotic crises, and “flashbacks.”5 While psychoactive substances like ketamine and psilocybin are now slowly being embraced by the medical community, the majority of psychedelics remain in Schedule I and are therefore illegal without prior medical approval. As modern science debunks urban legends and the panic generated by the war on drugs and ill-informed government officials, American law continues to categorize psychedelic substances as having “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,”6 in spite of a plethora of studies plainly demonstrating otherwise.7 In short, keeping psychedelics in Schedule I means that even when these substances are legalized medicinally, they will only be legal to use under closely monitored clinical supervision. Seventy years after the CIA’s brutal torture of human subjects, where does this leave us? Is all forgiven if the experiments have stopped and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, finally, is brought to the fore? After all, CIA officials later condemned MK-Ultra, while

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VESTA DRAWING BY ANTHONY ACRI

The only path forward, then—the only way for psychedelic medicine to be truly liberating and separated from the legacy of unethical government manipulation—is decriminalization.

many branches of government claimed to be entirely unaware that the operation had taken place at all.8 As our government becomes more receptive to psychedelic medicine and acknowledges misdoings of the past, how do we reconcile the depraved abuses of MK-Ultra?

Moving Forward Ongoing clinical trials indicate that like ketamine today, psilocybin and LSD will soon be legal on paper— for those who can afford the four-digit cost of doctor approval, psychedelic sessions, and follow-up therapy. Thus, in stopping at medicalization, American drug policy has cemented the government’s absolute authority on who is allowed to take psychedelics and in what circumstances. Substances proven to be safe since their criminalization 50 years ago continue to bear the threat of fines and imprisonment when used outside of the unrealistic and prohibitively expensive limits of medicalization. While the legalization of psychedelic medicine may appear to be liberation, legalization only under formal therapeutic circumstances remains a violation of bodily autonomy that only serves to incriminate those who opt to treat themselves in their own homes. The only way for psychedelic medicine to be truly liberated and separated from the legacy of unethical government manipulation is full decriminalization. Whereas medical legalization necessitates expensive therapy under doctor supervision, decriminalization allows for the use of psychedelics among loved ones, in familiar environments and at affordable costs. Under this model, clin-

ical oversight would still be required to supply drugs to consumers. However those who procure and consume drugs outside of clinical settings would be protected from prosecution for possession. Decriminalization stands the chance of making drugs financially and legally accessible to those who choose to use them. Until then, the federal government’s grip on cognitive liberty remains as tight as it was during the era of MK-Ultra, when the operation’s victims were nonconsensually administered drugs that would have resulted in prison time had they been consumed willfully. In addition to serving as a quintessential example of human rights abuses carried out by the American government, MK-Ultra exemplifies the failure of federal institutions to use drugs responsibly and to institute sensible drug policy. While those responsible for the MK-Ultra experiments are long dead or removed from positions of power, the legacy of this project has left an indelible mark on American law and psychedelic culture. If anything can be learned from MK-Ultra, it is that the essentiality of bodily autonomy should serve as a guiding principle in both psychedelic medicine and drug policy as a whole. Respecting bodily autonomy is not merely an issue of gaining consent when dosing an individual with a drug, but of allowing those who want to be dosed the freedom to do so without fear of legal repercussions. If we wish to build a society that has matured beyond the transgressions of bodily autonomy that sully psychedelic history, then we must leave psychedelics in the hands of those who choose to use them.

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creep on BY SASHA SENAL Our first pair of sheets are stained with blood You look as if you don’t know what it is Next time that we do drugs will be good Your face looks like it did when we were kids I seem to sink into a waking sleep: And drift to find myself sanguine, heureuse My nail it bleeds, on fingertips I creep Like blinking eyes you turn it off and on Do androids dream of the electric sheep? Like trusting child, je peux pas défendre And so we lay there, you across from me, Licking the Earth like bloodied fallen pawn Between our jaws an angle ends with we A psychotropic gleam is what we see

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n sheep (terza rima)

blood is good kids sleep: heureuse creep on sheep? défendre me, pawn A(we) see

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Seeing Sacred in the World Around Us Psychedelics and human transformation, a book review

Photo: Psychedelics and Spirituality: the Sacred Use of LSD, Psilocybin, and MDMA for Human Transformation, by Thomas B. Roberts (editor), David Steindl-Rast (introduction), and Roger Walsh (foreword).

BY MATTHEW R. JAMNIK

References and footnotes for this article can be found on page 93.

The history of psychedelic science is a pendulum that has swung from mainstream support on one side to skepticism, dismissal, and taboo on the other. During their relatively brief history in Western culture, psychedelics have seen several groundbreaking shifts in their perception in the public eye. Today, we bear witness to a continued renaissance in psychedelic research and related practices. The ever-increasing recognition of psychedelic drugs by the media, science, and medicine represents perhaps the greatest sea change yet in the history of psychedelics. A significant addition to this growing body of knowledge is Dr. Tom Roberts’ book, Psychedelics and Spirituality: The Sacred Use of LSD, Psilocybin, and MDMA for Human Transformation. This edited compilation of essays, sermons, and other writings offers an excellent reference source for the early history of the study and use of psychedelics for human transformation. Taken together, the collection addresses the potential of psychedelics to cultivate a sense of awe at the beauty of the world around us, promote a greater connection with the divine, and develop a deeper understanding of one’s self. The writings of more than 25 spiritual leaders, scientists, and psychedelic visionaries are featured; the list of authors includes such luminaries as Albert Hofmann, Stanislav Grof, and Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, among many other influential experts.

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Psychedelic explorers of the twentieth century have endowed explorers of the twenty-first with enlightening experiences, uplifting spiritual challenges, and, above all, intriguing questions. Thomas Roberts

Photo: Thomas Roberts.

In the book’s editorial note, Dr. Roberts writes that “the essays in this book ask profound questions about the meaning of being human, our place in the universe, and how we can explore our spiritual nature.”1 In closing, he reflects that “we are lucky to live during a time when it is increasingly possible to explore such questions.”1 Indeed, how truly lucky we are. The book begins by briefly revisiting the context preceding the creation of this edited volume, a story which Dr. Roberts titles “a tale of three books.”1 Over a quarter of a century ago, in 1995, a group of experts were invited to a week-long conference held on a topic which, at the time, was unpopular and even professionally risky—the use of psychedelics. After the conference concluded, the attendees were asked to reflect on the topics discussed and submit essays based on those ideas shared. These essays were first compiled in Psychoactive Sacramentals: Essays on Entheogens and Religion (2001), then republished eleven years later in Spiritual

Growth with Entheogens: Psychoactive Sacramentals and Human Transformation (2012).2,3 The latter work featured a newly written foreword by the noted psychologist Dr. Roger Walsh underscoring the utility of psychedelics as “powerful and important research tools.”2 Dr. Walsh attests that the contributing authors offer a “more balanced assessment of these curious substances.”3 In keeping with the spirit of its first two iterations, Psychedelics and Spirituality highlights the ideas presented at the original conference while bringing the subject matter into the modern era. In his opening narrative, Dr. Roberts educates the reader that despite their synonymy in the past, psychedelics and entheogens—the two key terms used in this book—have distinct meanings. The term ‘entheogen’ specifically describes the religious use of psychedelics, whereas the broader term ‘psychedelic,’ means mind-manifesting.1 The reason for using these terms interchangeably was because historically, the term psychedelic carried negative connotation and, therefore,

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MIND MALWARE BY SANTERI KARTE

The book covers a wide variety of topics that span both science and religion, ranging from objective research studies to more subjective personal accounts, experiences, and words of wisdom.

entheogen was a term that professionals could use more openly. (For those interested in knowing more, see Chapter 24 by Robert Jesse for a deeper discussion). The main writings of this anthology are organized into a one-chapter-per-author approach. This organizational style is helpful because it allows each author to offer their own unique perspective on psychedelics (and/or entheogens) within their area of expertise. As a result, the book covers a wide variety of topics that span both science and religion, ranging from objective research studies to more subjective personal accounts, experiences, and words of wisdom. With this variety, most readers will surely find a topic that is of great interest. The first essay of Psychedelics and Spirituality is a sermon titled “If I could change your mind,” which describes the thoughts and reflections of Reverend Mike Young three decades after his participation in the Good Friday Experiment, an early study examining the intersection of religion and psilocybin. A few chapters later, the potential pros and cons of entheogens are discussed in “Psychoactive sacramentals: What must be said”, a provocative treatise by parapsychologist Dr. Charles T. Tart. The book’s eleventh chapter features “A scientist’s view of miracles and magic,” a

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piece written by Dr. Alexander Shulgin that reflects on science and religion and calls for a greater synthesis between body and spirit. Finally, in Chapter 25, Dr. Roberts provides an essay called, “An entheogen idea-map—future explorations,” in which he argues against conceptualizing consciousness as a “single state,” instead suggesting that prospective psychonauts and open-minded individuals alike ought to adopt a more nuanced multi-state view. These chapters, among many others, highlight the consciousness-expanding potential of entheogens and present innumerable questions for continued ponderance. The book concludes with a brief final section that pays homage to the Council of Spiritual Practices (CSP). CSP is a collaboration among spiritual guides, religious scholars, and experts in behavioral and biomedical sciences who are dedicated to making direct experiences of the sacred available to more people. The highlight of this section is the Code of Ethics proposed by the council, which includes nine principles: intention, serving society, serving individuals, competence, integrity, quiet presence, not for profit, tolerance, and peer review. Truth be told, although these guidelines are specifically intended by CSP for spiritual guides, I sincerely believe that these principles could be of great benefit to all humans.

In summary, Dr. Roberts’ Psychedelics and Spirituality provides an update to a timeless book collection based on the reflections of professionals who attended a small invitational conference on the utility of entheogens. It serves as a present-day reworking of its predecessors, providing readers with deep insights into psychedelics from experts who have been integral to the renaissance. As Dr. Roberts notes, “psychedelic explorers of the twentieth century have endowed explorers of the twenty-first with enlightening experiences, uplifting spiritual challenges, and, above all, intriguing questions.”1 These questions will remain with readers of Psychedelics and Spirituality long after they close the book’s pages. The collective wisdom of the contributors to this compilation is food for thought and intellectual stimulation for the budding psychonaut, curious practitioner, or open-minded scholar. Psychedelics and Spirituality offers great appeal and worth not

only for those who may be curious about the utility of psychedelics for human transformation, but also for those who are more well-read on the topic of psychedelics. It might even help us to recognize the sacred in the world around us—and if not, this book’s well-reasoned and scholarly presentation will surely act as a continued catalyst for the psychedelic renaissance. All told, Psychedelics and Spirituality offers a timely revisit to an compilation that has served, and likely will continue to serve, an integral role in documenting the history of psychedelics. Keeping in mind the ever-increasing interest in this field, it is crucial that the boundaries of psychedelic studies be expanded to include more disciplines and methodological approaches. Like guiding light amidst a sea of taboo, Dr. Roberts’ edited volume and the lessons offered by its contributors are a beacon of inspiration for the further development and advancement of the field of psychedelics.

Photo: Peyote Ceremony 1892. From National Anthropological Collection.

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I FEAR DEATH BY NELE PONCE

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I fear death — after all, I have earned my memories. I infuse the scent of my tears in the candles of my home. I stash my pain to season the sunlight, ever-sweeter against my darkest dreams. I do not wish to be distracted by (chasing) the glamor of God adorned in an aura of enlightenment, for I might mistake myself to be Infinite. For I might forget the words that let me dance the mundane. Why chase the sunrise when it is here? Tear through our flesh as if it doesn’t house our soul? I fear death because I do not want to forget the voices of living.

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THE BANDITS AND THE

MONKS BY COMPLICATED REALITY

Two monks are walking, and come across a destroyed wagon. Its rider is beaten and bloody and warns of a pack of bandits in the area. After bandaging the man, they continue on. The younger monk asks, “What if the bandits come upon us?” The elder monk replies, “Surely our martial training will keep us safe,” and keeps walking. The next day, the younger monk asks, “What if the bandits have guns and swords?” The elder monk replies, “Surely our sharp minds will prevail” and keeps walking. On the third day, the young monk asks, “What if there are so many bandits they overwhelm us?” The elder monk replies, “Then we shall meet our end with grace.” They arrive at the monastery in the evening and meet with the high monk there. He asks, “Three days of travel—tell me, what did you see?” The younger monk answers, “We saw a beaten man who warned us of bandits. I spent the whole trip with my eyes and ears strained, listening for them.” The older monk answers, “We walked through the Old Forest and I enjoyed the vibrant life there. We passed the Winding River, and I meditated on the fish that fought the current. We walked around the Blue Mountain and I beheld the splendors of creation.” The high monk smiles and says to the younger monk “A bandit steals gold and food. Who then stole the forest, the river, and the mountain from you?”

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ILLUSTRATION BY MONTS JUNE

REFERENCES Overview of Colorimetric Agents by Dawson Carter 1.

O’Neal, C. L., Crouch, D. J., & Fatah, A. A. (2000). Validation of twelve chemical spot tests for the detection of drugs of abuse. Forensic Science International, 109(3), 189–201. https://doi. org/10.1016/s0379-0738(99)00235-2

Additional Reading 2. Color test reagents/kits for preliminary identification of drugs of abuse, NIJ Standard-0604.01. (2000, June). National Institute of Justice. https://nij.ojp.gov/library/publications/color-test-reagentskits-preliminary-identification-drugs-abuse-nij-standard 3.

Rapid testing methods of drugs of abuse: Manual for use by national law enforcement and narcotics laboratory personnel. (1995). United Nations.

What’s a Lemon Tek? by Dawson Carter

8. Hasler, F., Bourquin, D., Brenneisen, R., & Vollenweider, F. X. (2002). Renal excretion profiles of psilocin following oral administration of psilocybin: A controlled study in man. Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, 30(2), 331–339. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0731-7085(02)00278-9 9. Gotvaldová, K., Hájková, K., Borovička, J., Jurok, R., Cihlářová, P., & Kuchař, M. (2020). Stability of psilocybin and its four analogs in the biomass of the psychotropic mushroom psilocybe cubensis. Drug Testing and Analysis. https://doi. org/10.1002/dta.2950 10. Blei, F., Dörner, S., Fricke, J., Baldeweg, F., Trottmann, F., Komor, A., Meyer, F., Hertweck, C., & Hoffmeister, D. (2019). Simultaneous production of psilocybin and a cocktail of β‐carboline monoamine oxidase inhibitors in “magic” mushrooms. Chemistry–a European Journal, 26(3), 729–734. https://doi. org/10.1002/chem.201904363

How Does LSD Work? by Alec Buetow 1.

Footnotes *I do want to mention that there are a plethora of psychedelic fungi that contain a variety of psychoactive chemicals. These chemicals include the tryptamines baeocystin and aeruginascin,9 as well as β-Carboline Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs).10 Studies researching psilocybin use the pure substance—not the mushrooms themselves or their other active constituents—thus providing an incomplete picture of the consumption of psychedelic fungi. References 1. Janikian, M. (2020, June 10). How to Lemon Tek: A Complete Guide for Mushroom People. DoubleBlind Mag. https:// doubleblindmag.com/mushrooms/how-to-take-shrooms/lemon-tek/ 2. Passie, T., Seifert, J., Schneider, U., & Emrich, H. M. (2002). The pharmacology of psilocybin. Addiction Biology, 7(4), 357– 364. https://doi.org/10.1080/1355621021000005937 3.

Horita, A. (1963). Some biochemical studies on psilocybin and psilocin. Journal of Neuropsychiatry.

Dinis-Oliveira, R. J. (2017). Metabolism of psilocybin and psilocin: clinical and forensic toxicological relevance. Drug Metabolism Reviews, 49(1), 84–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/03 602532.2016.1278228

pH values of common foods and ingredients. (n.d.). https:// www.clemson.edu/extension/food/food2market/documents/ ph_of_common_foods.pdf

6. Stomach acid test. (2013). Medlineplus.gov. https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003883.htm 7. Hasler, F., Bourquin, D., Brenneisen, R., Bär, T., & Vollenweider, F. X. (1997). Determination of psilocin and 4-hydroxyindole-3-acetic acid in plasma by HPLC-ECD and pharmacokinetic profiles of oral and intravenous psilocybin in man. Pharmaceutica Acta Helvetiae, 72(3), 175–184. https://doi. org/10.1016/s0031-6865(97)00014-9

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Santos-Longhurst, A. (2019, December 8). How Long Does Acid Stay in Your System? Healthline; Healthline Media. https://www.healthline.com/health/how-long-does-acid-stayin-your-system

2. Axelrod, J., Brady, R. O., Witkop, B., & Evarts, E. V. (1957). The distribution and metabolism of lysergic acid diethylamide. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 66(3), 435–444. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1957.tb40739.x 3.

‌ olland, K. (2018, April 12). How Long Does Acid Last? What H to Expect. Healthline; Healthline Media. https://www.healthline.com/health/how-long-does-acid-last

4. Watts, V. J., Mailman, R. B., Lawler, C. P., Neve, K. A., & Nichols, D. E. (1995). LSD and structural analogs: Pharmacological evaluation at D1 dopamine receptors. Psychopharmacology, 118(4), 401–409. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02245940 5.

‌ assie, T., Halpern, J. H., Stichtenoth, D. O., Emrich, H. M., & P Hintzen, A. (2008). The pharmacology of lysergic acid diethylamide: A review. CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics, 14(4), 295–314. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-5949.2008.00059.x

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Rewiring the Brain by Aaron E. Philipp-Muller 1. Mion G. History of anaesthesia: The ketamine Mion G.

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Davis, A. K., Barrett, F. S., May, D. G., Cosimano, M. P., Sepeda, N. D., Johnson, M. W., Finan, P. H., & Griffiths, R. R. (2020). Effects of psilocybin-assisted therapy on major depressive disorder. JAMA Psychiatry, 78(5). https://doi.org/10.1001/ jamapsychiatry.2020.3285

5. Feder, A., Parides, M. K., Murrough, J. W., Perez, A. M., Morgan, J. E., Saxena, S., Kirkwood, K., aan het Rot, M., Lapidus, K. A. B., Wan, L.-B., Iosifescu, D., & Charney, D. S. (2014). Efficacy of intravenous ketamine for treatment of chronic posttraumatic stress disorder. JAMA Psychiatry, 71(6), 681. https:// doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.62 6. Chen, M.-H., Lin, W.-C., Wu, H.-J., Bai, Y.-M., Li, C.-T., Tsai, S.-J., Hong, C.-J., Tu, P.-C., Cheng, C.-M., & Su, T.-P. (2020). Efficacy of low-dose ketamine infusion in anxious vs nonanxious depression: Revisiting the adjunctive ketamine study of taiwanese patients with treatment-resistant depression. CNS Spectrums, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1092852920001194 7. C ‌ arhart-Harris, R. L., Bolstridge, M., Day, C. M. J., Rucker, J., Watts, R., Erritzoe, D. E., Kaelen, M., Giribaldi, B., Bloomfield, M., Pilling, S., Rickard, J. A., Forbes, B., Feilding, A., Taylor, D., Curran, H. V., & Nutt, D. J. (2017). Psilocybin with psychological support for treatment-resistant depression: six-month

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for post-traumatic stress disorders and it’s possible therapeutic mechanism. Neurochemistry International, 146, 105044. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuint.2021.105044 21. L ‌ i, N., Lee, B., Liu, R.-J. ., Banasr, M., Dwyer, J. M., Iwata, M., Li, X.-Y. ., Aghajanian, G., & Duman, R. S. (2010). mTOR-dependent synapse formation underlies the rapid antidepressant effects of NMDA antagonists. Science, 329(5994), 959– 964. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1190287 22. L ‌ i, N., Liu, R.-J., Dwyer, J. M., Banasr, M., Lee, B., Son, H., Li, X.-Y., Aghajanian, G., & Duman, R. S. (2011). Glutamate N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonists rapidly reverse behavioral and synaptic deficits caused by chronic stress exposure. Biological Psychiatry, 69(8), 754–761. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.12.015 23. M ‌ atsuzaki M., Ellis-Davies G. C. R., Nemoto T., Miyashita Y., Iino M., Kasai H. (2001). Dendritic spine geometry is critical for AMPA receptor expression in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons. Natural Neuroscience, 4(11), 1086–1093. https:// doi.org10.1038/nn736 24. Murrough, J. W., Iosifescu, D. V., Chang, L. C., Al Jurdi, R. K., Green, C. E., Perez, A. M., Iqbal, S., Pillemer, S., Foulkes, A., Shah, A., Charney, D. S., & Mathew, S. J. (2013). Antidepressant efficacy of ketamine in treatment-resistant major depression: A two-site randomized controlled trial. American Journal of Psychiatry, 170(10), 1134–1142. https://doi.org/10.1176/ appi.ajp.2013.13030392 25. H ‌ asler, G. (2019). Toward specific ways to combine ketamine and psychotherapy in treating depression. CNS Spectrums, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1092852919001007 26. L ‌ uo, Y., Yu, Y., Zhang, M., He, H., & Fan, N. (2020). Chronic administration of ketamine induces cognitive deterioration by restraining synaptic signaling. Molecular Psychiatry, 26(9), 4702–4718. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-020-0793-6 27. K ‌ uypers, K. P. C. (2020). The therapeutic potential of microdosing psychedelics in depression. Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology, 10, 204512532095056. https://doi. org/10.1177/2045125320950567 28. K ‌ uypers, K. P., Ng, L., Erritzoe, D., Knudsen, G. M., Nichols, C. D., Nichols, D. E., Pani, L., Soula, A., & Nutt, D. (2019). Microdosing psychedelics: More questions than answers? An overview and suggestions for future research. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 33(9), 1039–1057. https://doi. org/10.1177/0269881119857204

Recoils of the Magic Bullet by Nele Ponce 1.

Grob, C. S., Danforth, A. L., Chopra, G. S., Hagerty, M., McKay, C. R., Halberstadt, A. L., & Greer, G. R. (2011). Pilot study of psilocybin treatment for anxiety in patients with advanced-stage cancer. Archives of General Psychiatry, 68(1), 71-78.

2. Griffiths, R. R., Johnson, M. W., Carducci, M. A., Umbricht, A., Richards, W. A., Richards, B. D., … Klinedinst, M. A. (2016). Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening can-

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cer: A randomized double-blind trial. Journal of Psychophar- upon the request of any person or organization. macology, 30, 1181–1197. **One participating prison reportedly “had a return rate of 90%” Mitchell, J. M., Bogenschutz, M., Lilienstein, A., Harrison, C., due to interest in receiving heroin in exchange for participating in Kleiman, S., Parker-Guilbert, K., … & Doblin, R. (2021). MD- the experiments. These experiments went far beyond responsible MA-assisted therapy for severe PTSD: A randomized, dou- research ethics: “Certain patients—nearly all black inmates—were 3 ble-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 study. Nature Medicine, given LSD for more than seventy-five consecutive days.” Page 77 27(6), 1025-1033. †The nature of Olson’s death has been debated, with some beCarhart-Harris, R. L., Roseman, L., Haijen, E., Erritzoe, D., Watts, R., Branchi, I., & Kaelen, M. (2018). Psychedelics and lieving that he did not commit suicide but was murdered by his the essential importance of context. Journal of Psychophar- colleagues or superiors. Regardless of his manner of death, it is certain that he had an unnerving experience after being drugged macology, 32(7), 725-731. with LSD and died shortly thereafter.9 Davis, A. K., Barrett, F. S., May, D. G., Cosimano, M. P., Sepeda, N. D., Johnson, M. W., ... & Griffiths, R. R. (2021). Effects References of psilocybin-assisted therapy on major depressive disorder: 1. Central Intelligence Agency. (1954, January 22). Artichoke Report. Retrieved November 18, 2021, from https://www.cia. A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry, 78(5), 481-489. gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000140399.pdf. Bogenschutz, M. P., Forcehimes, A. A., Pommy, J. A., Wilcox, C. E., Barbosa, P. C. R., & Strassman, R. J. (2015). Psilocy- 2. Kinzer, S. (2019). Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control (1st ed.). Henry Holt and Company. bin-assisted treatment for alcohol dependence: a proof-of3. Lee, M. A., & Shlain, B. (1992). Acid Dreams: The Complete concept study. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 29(3), 289Social History of LSD. Grove Press. 299. 4. Fore, S. (2018). The Psychological Torture of MK Ultra. IU Rucker, J. J., Iliff, J., & Nutt, D. J. (2018). Psychiatry and the South Bend Undergraduate Research Journal, 18, 27–34. psychedelic drugs. Past, present and future. Neuropharmacol5. DEA Public Affairs (2001, November 16). DEA - Publications ogy, 142, 200-218. - LSD in the US - The Drug. Retrieved November 19, 2021, Johnson, M. W., Richards, W. A., & Griffiths, R. R. (2008). Hufrom https://web.archive.org/web/19990427145322/http:// man hallucinogen research: Guidelines for safety. Journal of www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/lsd/lsd-4.htm. Psychopharmacology, 22(6), 603-620. 6. United States Drug Enforcement Administration. (n.d.). Drug Barrett, F. S., Bradstreet, M. P., Leoutsakos, J. S., Johnson, Scheduling. DEA. Retrieved November 19, 2021, from https:// M. W., & Griffiths, R. R. (2016). The Challenging Experience www.dea.gov/drug-information/drug-scheduling. Questionnaire: Characterization of challenging experiences 7. Krebs, T. S., & Johansen, P.-Ø. (2013). Psychedelics and Menwith psilocybin mushrooms. Journal of Psychopharmacology, tal Health: A Population Study. PLoS ONE, 8(8). https://doi. 30, 1279–1295. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0063972 Carbonaro, T. M., Bradstreet, M. P., Barrett, F. S., MacLean, K. 8. Wood, J. (1977, August 5). CIA Chief Deplores Cia Brothels. A., Jesse, R., Johnson, M. W., & Griffiths, R. R. (2016). SurSan Francisco Examiner, p. 3. vey study of challenging experiences after ingesting psilocy9. Brown, M. H. (2012, December 8). Six decades later, sons seek bin mushrooms: Acute and enduring positive and negative answers on death of Detrick Scientist. Retrieved November 18, consequences. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 30(12), 12682021, from https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/bs-md1278. frank-olson-lawsuit-20121208-story.html. Grinspoon, L., & Bakalar, J. B. (1979). Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered (pp. 221-223). New York: Basic Books.

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Mind Control, Madness, and Psychedelic Medicine by Jess Aumick

Seeing Sacred in the World Around Us by Matthew R. Jamnik

Roberts, T. B. (2001). Psychoactive sacramentals: Essays on entheogens and religion. Council On Spiritual Practices. 2. Roberts, T. B. (2012). Spiritual growth with entheogens: Psychoactive sacramentals and human transformation. Park Street Press. 3. Roberts, T. B. (2020). Psychedelics and spirituality: The sacred use of LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA for human transformation. Park Street Press.

Footnotes Page 71 *The 1967 Freedom of Information Act is a United States law mandating the publication of unreleased government documents

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