[ExI] 27 psychedelics??

[Henry Rivera]

Sorry to jump in late here. But I’ve got 2 cents to throw in. 

I am a scientifically trained psychotherapist who is also a subject matter expert in psychedelics (among other things). I am aware of colleagues that use them underground in therapy. They are a small minority. Very few therapists are rogue like that in the US. The industry of legal psychedelic therapy, as in ayahuasca and synthetic psilocybin, that is developing is a whole other animal I’m not addressing here. I’m talking about lsd, mdma, and psilocybin in individual psychotherapy sessions with the therapist as a guide and doing processing often of trauma. This is illegal but done in the US, driven by word of mouth and promoted by the people helped this way. 

I am also aware of some very smart people who use psychedelics. They are lawyers, financial people, academics, IT people. They do write textbooks, software, policy, and influence culture at large in multiple ways. 

The Apple computer’s development was heavily influenced by psychedelics based on what I’ve read. 

I know nothing about the research literature in psych re psychedelics. Probably not a lot of it because of legalities.  But surely someone has tested people who were tripping with some standard tests and such, and could verify your assertion about thinking faster.  

I’m well versed in these areas. In the 1950s and 60s there was widespread academic research within Psychology Departments with psychedelics at many prestigious schools and all the Ivy Leagues. Creativity, treating addiction, accelerated learning, preventing criminal recidivism, “mind control,” and more were studied. CIA-sponsored research in particular was unethical at times and didn’t always obtain informed consent from participants (often naive undergrads). That was the dark side. But this period was a good run with rich scientific data obtained, articles and books written. And then a cultural revolution followed when the drugs left the labs and retreats and made their way to parties and the music scene. Kids dropped out of college, rejected social mores, started burning their draft cards. The Establishment backlash was severe especially in the context of the Vietnam conflict where psychedelics, hippies, and the anti war movement became intertwined as far they were concerned. The War on Drugs, mandatory minimums, new ways for racists to oppress resulted. We are only now climbing out of that mess and the damage done (astronomical amounts money thrown at the “problem,” broken families, black market violence, militarization of the police, corrupting of the police by forfeiture incentives, suppression and distortion of the knowledge gained from psychedelics, a dulling or slowing down the pace of our collective intelligence increase I’d argue, etc.). 

Elon Musk is open about his psychedelic use, or people have told on him, I forget which. But I’d suggest it’s not a coincidence he has come up with so many novel ideas, connections, ways about thinking about things differently. I’d argue we are collectively better off as a result and could benefit from more smart people intelligently using psychedelics and more people making themselves smart by using psychedelics. That is not what is being promoted however in this burgeoning wave of new legal psychedelic entrepreneurialism happening. See 
https://www.psymposia.com/corporadelic/ for more on that topic. There are some nefarious actors out there motivated by greed and/or power trying to exploit psychedelics going mainstream. Meanwhile reputable folks like https://maps.org/ continue the scientific mission to improve mental health treatment at least with these powerful tools. 

Some people should stay away from psychedelics too. They are not for everyone. They can trigger psychotic episodes in those predisposed to severe mental illness and crush the reality, shattered the worldview of many content people who would rather not think for themselves or see the world differently. They can cause significant dissonance and psychological discomfort for the I’ll-prepared or unguided. To treat them as playthings is a mistake. They are sacred tools that can and always have lead to visionary, mystical experiences that are core to our identity and purpose, to understate them. We also evolved along side them which I don’t think is a coincidence. Terrence McKenna argued our primate ancestors taking psychedelic mushrooms triggered an evolutionary divergence, this branch-off, to what we are now from more primitive primates. 

-Henry

> On Mar 18, 2022, at 9:44 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
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> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat
> Subject: Re: [ExI] 27 psychedelics??
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> >…Why are you so against it?  I don't really understand.  Upbringing?  It seems very anti-learning…
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> Could be early perceptions are influencing my attitude.  When I was a child, rock stars seemed to be dropping dead regularly.  Judy Garland (ja I know she wasn’t a rock star, but liked her voice),  Alan Wilson, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were all in the same few weeks as I recall, Jim Morrison was a little later, Mama Cass they half-ass tried to tell us she choked on a ham sandwich, but we suspect it was dope or perhaps heart failure.  It did seem like drugs were taking a lotta stars, and ja I realize acid ODs are not fatal usually but in any case, I do admire your openness and honesty about the risks, going crazy and vast nightmare realms.  That last part has a poetic ring to it, but I would rather read about it in a poem than live it.
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> Besides that… it suffices me to hear your description of it, as I play chess.
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> Regarding that last part, it would be an interesting experiment, for that would give us a ton of data.  Reasoning: the win/loss number is only a tiny fraction of the data available.  The computer analyzes the games and can tell us accuracy, time per move, how many blunders, how many brilliant ideas and so forth, so we could get about 30 good data points per 10 minute game.  We could collect a pile of evidence easily.  As I said, I will go nowhere near the stuff, any of it.  But I will interpret data if someone else wants to give it a go.
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> spike
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