Evoler Boulder March: The Future of Psychedelics

March 10, 2010 - 7:00pm - 10:00pm

2244 Kalmia St

Boulder, 80304

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For millennia, cultures around the world expanded minds and visions with “teacher plants” – what we commonly know today as psychedelics. The widespread popularity of LSD during the 1960s awakened the Western psyche to these powerful substances, ushering in a period of wild experimentation that revolutionized art and music, inspired social movements, and opened new vistas of possibility for psychotherapy. But a swift backlash from the establishment made psychedelics illegal, repressing and marginalizing them as “dangerous drugs.”

Today, there is new potential for psychedelics to be reintroduced into mainstream culture, not as drastic catalysts of social upheaval but as tools that can help people overcome serious problems, explore mystical experiences, find inspiration, and understand more about consciousness and the brain. Psychedelic research with human subjects is underway again after a 35-year blockade, thanks to the efforts of non-profit organizations like MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) and the Beckley Foundation. Prominent newspapers and magazines are giving these substances another look, acknowledging their potential for therapeutic and spiritual breakthroughs if used with care. At the same time, the worldwide resurgence of interest in indigenous shamanism indicates a deeper maturity and respect emerging toward these ancient sacraments.

In this Spore, we will explore and discuss the exciting new frontiers for psychedelics in our modern culture, as both scientifically verified medicines and intentional tools for personal development.

Posted by: Jason Bowman • posted in: Evolver Boulder

Comments

given thanks

glyph — Mar 06, 2010

this is one Spore that i think i may have something substantial to bring to the 'table'.
Have you all been keeping up with Strassman's Cottonwood Research Foundation in northern NM? i think we should get some up to date info directly from them, if possible. this group is truly at the forefront of 'the future of psychedelics', especially Psilocybin and Dimethyltryptamine.
I've also been experimenting with vibrational inducement and binaural 'brain balancing' audio. i'm a 'sound guy', so this material is very interesting to me. Effective as well, i got a point using a Binaural audio in noise cancelling headphones that rivals the energetic intensity of DMT, seriously. it could be used as a preperatory tool to give one an idea of what it's going to 'feel' like. the breath is gated, as you only hear 'inside' your head (headphones on), this gated-ness of your breath gives you first of all nearly the exact same feeling of breathing in a DMT state. If you do any gutteral chanting or breathing, throat singing etc. combining that and these binaural beats makes a practice ground for using your voice to seemingly emulate the vibratory tone, but actually we vocalize the opposite vibration (takes practice), canceling out both vibrations. At this point is a similar 'break-thru' to the DMT break-thru. The vibrating STOPS, oneness, i find myself out of space time, very much like DMT induced state, tho far less 'intense' and it is over as soon as you withdraw your attention, there may be a point where this is more difficult, but i think by reaching that point one would have had ample experience to navigate it. again, in any case, a good preparation tech for anyone interested but cautious or aprehensive.

-g
di te incolumem custodiant

fuck yeah man, can't wait to

Jason Bowman — Mar 06, 2010

fuck yeah man, can't wait to hear your perspective. looking forward to a consciousness altering conversation. cheers.

Entheogens

Tristan Gulliford — Mar 14, 2010

This was fun! Good times.

Since I am writing my thesis, I paid close attention to what people said.

Here are the characteristics I noticed which people used to describe the qualities of entheogens:

self analysis, positive and negative

spiritual introspection

peak experience/ecstasy

ritual--religious and personal

communicating with nature

understanding and feeling the body

control over one's physiology

having a different frame of reference for perspective

the idea that the experience has to be integrated into daily practice

unspoken

glyph — Mar 24, 2010

maybe also, insight into religious, historical and mystical texts & art. experiential validation/discernment. i guess, in short, when i read accounts of mystical experience, biblical angelic dialogues, creation mythology etc., I feel like i have truly a discernment that makes sense of theses accounts and makes the 'mystic's reality' a very real one. one that i have experienced and those experiences, the more perfectly occasioned ones, were in the same underlying style as those of old, though molded into the forms and archetypes afforded by my own particular set of cultural and personal parameters. there is a commonality and a continuity, ever evolving, to all of these accounts that is something that cannot be neglected by anyone truly interested in understanding the nature of these things. so interesting is what we manifest as our longing to know ourselves, eachother, our environment and our relation to it, these great religions and philosophies, one over another, on and on. fictions become myth, artist renditions take up the image in our collective thought. and far back like this, all impressing something unique upon the aetheric memory, we are truly creating our imaginal world folded in the the gridworks of what is 'really' there, innit? something true, living, ancient, just beyond our periphery. i think this is one of the harder to talk or write about aspects of entheogens, but of the more profound.

i guess this all is accounted for more a bit more broadly by a couple of points on your list but this, in particular is something that is a very major part of what entheogens are to me.

just my thoughts.
thanks. i am in admiration of your work.

-g