Practicing xenolinguist Diana Slattery writes about Simon Powell’s new book, "The Psilocybin Solution, The Role of Sacred Mushrooms in the Quest for Meaning," that concerns the ability of the psilocybin experience to deliver high-speed downloads; information transmission as communication with the Other; and especially, information delivered as a visual language of intense concentration.

Languages are disappearing faster even than butterflies – except in the conlang community. Conlanging (from constructed language) is obsessional, hermetic, prolix, and involves Deep Chops, combined with the spirit of play.

This year's World Psychedelic Forum was a massive, beautifully organized affair attended by more than 1,900 people from 37 countries. Topics ranged from cognitive enhancement to aesthetics and art, with speakers including Rick Doblin, Kathleen Harrison, and Dennis McKenna. [videos]

Our natural language is simply too slow a software to carry the complexity, the simultaneity of multiple meanings, and the speed and quantity of cognitive connections among ideas and images that define the psychedelic state. Hence Xenolinguistics: the search for, creation and study of alien languages.