“ Any unexplained phenomenon passes through three stages before the reality of it is accepted. During the first stage it is considered laughable. During the second stage, it is adamantly opposed. Finally, during the third stage, it is accepted as self-evident. ” - Arthur Schopenhauer

     Psychedelics: a group retreat - lessons: playlists, nature & integration

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”  Albert Einstein

           “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”  Aldous Huxley

“

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

                                                 Psychedelics: Sam Harris/Roland Griffiths conversation

     "There isn't any formula or method.  You learn to love by loving - by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done."  Aldous Huxley

Sam Harris is ... Roland Griffiths is ...

Conversation link tweeted on 21st November ... 122.39 ...

35 min in ... MDMA/ecstasy ... yes does have a dopaminergic effect and can produce dependence?

Around 70 minutes indiscuss low dose psilocybin and meditation practice.

“ Doctors came to see her singly and in consultation, talked much in French, German, and Latin, blamed one another, and prescribed a great variety of medicines for all the diseases known to them, but the simple idea never occurred to any of them that they could not know the disease Natasha was suffering from, as no disease suffered by a live man can be known, for every living person has his own peculiarities and always has his own peculiar, personal, novel, complicated disease, unknown to medicine. ” - Leo Tolstoy

Psychedelics: a group retreat - lessons: ceremonies, duration & organisation

"And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been."   Rainer Maria Rilke 

“ Life is too short to be small. ” - Benjamin Disraeli

     Psychedelics: a group retreat - meeting up, orientation & the ceremony

"Today we can walk around together, talk, eat, and be silent together.  Later I believe we'll have the opportunity to act and suffer together.  All that is necessary to 'make someone's acquaintance' as they say."  Pierre Sogol, professor of mountaineering, speaking in Rene Daumal's book "Mount Analogue". 

'Breaking Convention' - the fifth biennial international conference on psychedelics - took place at Greenwich University in London from 16th-18th August.  There were apparently 1,200 or so attendees for the 6 concurrent programmes - academic, workshop, performance, cinema, entertainment & installations - as well as an art exhibition.  I went primarily because it allowed me to hear pretty much all the relevant research groups in the UK present on their current findings.  As you can see from the other quite extensive writing about psychedelics on this website, I'm very interested in the encouraging emerging research highlighting potential therapeutic value of psychedelics.  Although I focussed on the academic programme, there was much too much even here to manage an ove

“ If in your head you undertake hatha yoga as a form of exercise or body building, you will end up with just what you reached for ... a more beautiful body. On the other hand, if you undertake hatha yoga as a form of yoga then it will, in a relatively short time, bring about a profound metamorphosis in your body calmness, sensitivity, and lightness ... all of which will facilitate your sadhana. ” - Ram Dass

          Psychedelics: again the pilgrimage - current experience, lessons

" ... the current system for bringing promising biomedical research to the bedside is operating at an obsolete level of efficiency, causing great delay, and consequently resulting in the loss of many lives."  Roger Rosenberg (JAMA 2003;289:1305-6)

  "Any unexplained phenomenon passes through three stages before the reality of it is accepted. During the first stage it is considered laughable. During the second stage, it is adamantly opposed. Finally, during the third stage, it is accepted as self-evident."  Arthur Schopenhauer

“ A leader is a dealer in hope. ” - Napoleon

Psychedelics: again the pilgrimage - current experience, low/moderate dose

             "The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."   Eden Phillpotts

                 "You'll never enjoy the word aright, until the sea itself floweth in your veins,                                                                         till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars."       Thomas Traherne

“ The "real world" is a construct, and some peculiarities of scientific thought become more intelligible when this fact is recognized ... Einstein himself in 1926 told Heisenberg it was nonsense to found a theory on observable facts alone, saying "In reality the very opposite happens. It is theory which decides what we can observe." ” - D. O. Hebb

        Psychedelics: again the pilgrimage - current experience, high dose

              "To reach the other shore with each step of the crossing is the way of true living."    Shunryu Suzuki

            "My house having burnt down, nothing now impedes my bright vision of the moon."  Zen saying

“ The eye altering, alters all. ” - William Blake

         Psychedelics: again the pilgrimage - current experience, preparing

                                            "No man was ever wise by chance."   Lucius Seneca

               "Who will prefer the jingle of jade pendants if he once has heard stone growing in a cliff?"   Lao Tzu

“ To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe. ” - Marilyn Vos Savant

                                  potential benefits of psychedelics

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.    J. K. Galbraith

It's important to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.    Traditional