LSD & ESP: Scientists Study Psychic Phenomena and Psychedelic Drugs

See What do we know about the risks of psychedelics? & free documentary What's in My Baggie? There is an incredible danger in thinking you can just find good psychedelics via illegal markets, I can say that from personal experience as I was attacked by a friend who thought LSD could cure his depression.

LSD & ESP: Scientists Study Psychic Phenomena and Psychedelic Drugs

David Jay Brown

Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, and psychologist Stanley Krippner, have collected numerous anecdotes about psychic phenomena that were reported by people under the influence of psychedelic drugs, and several small scientific studies have looked at how LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline might effect telepathy and remote viewing.

A new edition of the 1964 book ESP Experiments With LSD-25 and Psilocybin: A Methodological Approach, by Roberto Cavanna and Emilio Servadio was republished in 2010, with a new preface by Charles Tart. 

In fact, when the chemical structure of an important psychoactive component of ayahuasca was first discovered, now called "harmaline," one of of the original suggestions for its name was "telepathine," due to the psychedelic brew's common association with telepathy.

A great review article by Krippner and psychologist David Luke, that summarizes all of the psychedelic research into psychic phenomena, can be found in the Spring, 2011 MAPS Bulletin that I edited about psychedelics and the mind/body connection. (This article can be found here: www.maps.org/news-letters/v21n1/v21n1-59to60.pdf)

See What do we know about the risks of psychedelics? & free documentary What's in My Baggie? There is an incredible danger in thinking you can just find good psychedelics via illegal markets, I can say that from personal experience as I was attacked by a friend who thought LSD could cure his depression.

DMT Research from 1956 to the Edge of Time

Andrew R. Gallimore and David P. Luke

Of course, to anyone at all familiar with the DMT experience, it is not so much what you see that commands particular attention but, rather, where you go and who you meet there. A large proportion of DMT users, about 50% in Strassman’s study (Strassman, 2008), report travelling to normally invisible worlds and meeting an array of peculiar beings. Curiously, this type of experience was represented in Szára’s first cohort (Sai-Halasz et al., 1958), so might be considered as a core feature of DMT experiences, rather than a later counter-cultural affectation. A 27-year old female physician (we’ll call her Bella) describes the characteristic auditory effects that precede ‘breaking through’:
“The whistling has stopped; I have arrived. In front of me are two quiet, sunlit Gods. They gaze at me and nod in a friendly manner. I think they are welcoming me into this new world.” (Sai-Halasz et al., 1958)

Although this new world seems somewhat more sedate than the worlds many DMT users are familiar with, the sense of having arrived in another place is unambiguous, as is the presence of non-human entities. There is even an attempt at communication:

“One of the Gods—only his eyes are alive—speaks to me: ‘Do you feel better?’” (Sai-Halasz et al., 1958)

The late Harvard psychiatrist, Dr John E. Mack, conducted detailed interviews and hypnotic regression sessions with over 200 so-called alien abductees. Despite not suffering from any known neuropsychological pathology that he could identify (i.e. perfectly sane), all of the abductees were uncompromising in their insistence that their experiences were real; that they had really happened. Similar to returning DMT trippers, this feeling of absolute certainty collided with their most basic assumptions regarding what was and wasn’t possible with such force that they were left in a state that Mack termed ‘ontological shock’ (Mack, 1994). Humans, sane ones at least, are extremely good at distinguishing reality from fantasy and the vast majority are quick to accept that a particularly strange dream was just that – a dream and not real. Whilst this reality-testing is impaired during dreaming and psychosis (Limosani et al., 2011), waking from the dream or recovery from psychosis is generally sufficient to restore this important ego facility and the dream or hallucination is recognised for what it is. This makes the DMT experience all the more compelling and paradoxical – it is far stranger than (almost) any dream and yet there remains a remarkable inability to shake the feeling that it was truly real once the experience has ended.

...DMT is unique amongst the classical psychedelics in not only being very short acting, but also not exhibiting a tolerance effect with repeated use (Strassman et al., 1996). As such, using the same technology developed for maintaining a stable brain concentration of anaesthetic drugs during surgery, it would be feasible to administer DMT by precisely regulated continuous intravenous infusion, permitting the explorer an extended, and theoretically indefinite, sojourn in the DMT reality. Although a well-prepared strong ayahuasca brew might achieve a crudely comparable effect, standardisation of the dose is much more difficult and the concentration of DMT in the brain will fluctuate based on a range of pharmacokinetic and metabolic factors. A well-designed continuous IV protocol could account for these factors, allowing the brain DMT concentration to be kept stable or manipulated to gradually move the explorer deeper and deeper into the DMT space. This approach might give the brave voyagers enough time to orient themselves, get their intellective tools in order and cast their nets far out into the “dark ocean of mind” in the hope of bringing back the message that DMT has been trying to convey since Szára first dipped his toes in the water almost 60 years ago. If ever there was a time, it’s now. Ahoy, shipmates! Ahoy!

See What do we know about the risks of psychedelics? & free documentary What's in My Baggie? There is an incredible danger in thinking you can just find good psychedelics via illegal markets, I can say that from personal experience as I was attacked by a friend who thought LSD could cure his depression.

There’s a huge question swirling around the really big psychedelic experiences. Are these mind-blowing trips just hallucinations – the brain shot full of chemicals, playing tricks on you - or do they crack open some transpersonaldimension of consciousness? Most scholars who study psychedelics won’t go anywhere near this question, and yet it’s central to how you interpret these experiences. If you’re in psychedelic-assisted therapy, you want to know if this glimpse of the divine was real or just some figment of your imagination. Philosopher Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes believes we need a metaphysics of psychedelics to explain these powerful experiences.

There’s a huge question swirling around the really big psychedelic experiences. Are these mind-blowing trips just hallucinations – the brain shot full of chemicals, playing tricks on you - or do they crack open some transpersonaldimension of consciousness? Most scholars who study psychedelics won’t go anywhere near this question, and yet it’s central to how you interpret these experiences. If you’re in psychedelic-assisted therapy, you want to know if this glimpse of the divine was real or just some figment of your imagination. Philosopher Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes believes we need a metaphysics of psychedelics to explain these powerful experiences.

When you're starting out, it can feel like a figment of imagination... I went through the thought-loop for years, despite the persistence of particular aspects that came out of the experience. Namely, the spiritual entities I've become attuned to. I doubted, worried, thought I was maybe going crazy, not sure whether it was healthy and not sure whether I wanted it to stop, as I've always felt more stable, more alive, more me, with just their passive presence.

From my wonderings over time... psychedelics can gradually open up new psychic connections to things we'd never known before, allowing us, with practice, to access these same states outside of the psychedelic state. So, yeah, they can crack open a transpersonal dimension ~ though not always. For some, with an unhealthy or unbalanced underlying mental frame, they can have latent mental illness awaken, they can get lost in thought-loops, they can lose themselves. Basically, without proper structure, psychedelics can be a ticket to nowhere except being lost in your own mind.

However... I suppose past-life experience with psychedelics can provide structure, as you have an unconscious knowledge of what to expect, even if you don't really consciously comprehend it. Especially if the psychedelic was taken quite often, such as with Ayahuasca.

I do think I would have gotten lost in mental tricky and figments of imagination if I didn't have my spirit guides providing the structure for my Ayahuasca experiences. They, in retrospect, have always had a theme of progression, a narrative being built upon by each new journey, however vague or shaky in the moment.

Excellent video! Very open-minded individual. Will probably need to watch again to let stuff sink in better.

See What do we know about the risks of psychedelics? & free documentary What's in My Baggie? There is an incredible danger in thinking you can just find good psychedelics via illegal markets, I can say that from personal experience as I was attacked by a friend who thought LSD could cure his depression.

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss (Dennis' book): https://amzn.to/3QmjzmT
  
• ETHNOPHARMACOLOGIC SEARCH FOR PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS: https://espd55.com
  
• Dennis' website (BioGnosis): https://mckenna.academy
  
• Karl Friston TOE podcast (Cautions on Consciousness):   Karl Friston: Derealization, Consciou...  
  

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:19 Dennis McKenna's working habits / quotidianness
00:02:45 Microdosing doesn't work
00:03:49 "Hang up when you receive the message"
00:08:35 Psychedelics aren't meant to be taken isolated from community
00:13:22 Terrence, the family, and Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss
00:18:46 Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs (ESPD)
00:27:49 MDMA's uses (and designer drugs)
00:40:31 Mycelium vs. fruiting bodies
00:46:03 Psychological metamorphosis without hallucinogens?
00:56:46 Staying "grounded" and not being "high" all the time
00:59:23 Terrence never found ground and got lost
01:12:13 Perils of investigations into consciousness
01:14:47 Gender differences in psychedelics
01:15:24 Love in disunity rather than pure "connectedness"

To me the most interesting aspect of the psychedelic drug phenomenon is the spiritual and metaphysical interpretations of them. 

I think the most crucial difference between DMT (and other psychedelic experiences) and paranormal experiences, most prominently NDEs and CORTs, is that the latter have strongly veridical features associated with them in which the experiencers bring back information that is later confirmed by investigators, information that could not possibly have been obtained through their normal senses but could be explained by their claimed journeys out of body. I am not aware of veridical cases among the psychedelic literature but there may be a few, but they are apparently rare.

These veridical features of NDEs, CORTs and some mediumistic communications constitute very strong evidence of the reality of the soul, spirit and the afterlife, whereas the psychedelic experiences though bizarre and otherworldly have very little or no actual empirical evidence to confirm that they are real revelations of other and very strange realms of existence. The only evidence is the reports of the experiencers.

A key point is that NDEs and CORTs seem to verifiably through veridicality reveal according to their profound experiences an ultimate reality vastly different than do the psychedelic experiences. This would seem to indicate that the NDE and CORT-revealed reality is much more likely than the often conflicting psychedelic experiences. 

Of course this apparently spiritual ultimate reality experienced by deep NDErs could just be one part of an even vastly greater and stranger reality experienced through psychedelics, but that would be contradicted by the communications received by these deep NDErs, but that in turn require these communications to be lies.

The very different effects of the various psychedelic substances also tends to argue for their effects being ultimately artifacts of the different chemical structures of the various psychotropic drugs.

I would think that the most hard-nosed paranormal investigators and proponents (who try to keep one foot in parapsychology and the other at least a little in science) would therefore skeptically interpret psychedelic experiences in general as (albeit bizarre and weird) malfunctions of the physical brain's exceedingly complex and intricate intermeshing of spirit and neuronal structures when that delicate interface is disturbed by certain key drugs.

Of course another interpretation of at least some psychedelic experiences is that they are in reality actual glimpses of other realms of existence (some containing strange beings) separate and profoundly different from the afterlife realms that appear to be revealed by the paranormal experiences of NDEs, CORTs and mediumistic communications.

In my opinion this latter interpretation of psychedelic experiences (that they are real and not hallucinatory) is wrong, primarily because of the general absence of veridical evidence. There is also the drastic conflict between the supposed strange realms revealed by psychedelics (often very unspiritual), and the profound spirituality of the afterlife realms revealed by deep NDEs.

One last observation: the strange worlds experienced by psychedelic users also drastically differ from another class of extraordinary experiences - instances of "cosmic consciousness" notably compiled by Bucke. These instances of cosmic consciousness have been deeply felt by the experiencers as communicating absolutely ultimate truths about reality. These communications would also have to be lies if the psychedelics are revealing some sort of truths about ultimate reality.

In my opinion this latter interpretation of psychedelic experiences (that they are real and not hallucinatory) is wrong, primarily because of the general absence of veridical evidence. There is also the drastic conflict between the supposed strange realms revealed by psychedelics (often very unspiritual), and the profound spirituality of the afterlife realms revealed by deep NDEs.

Never done any psychedelics myself, but IIRC there are recorded OOBEs that have similar veridical claims as NDEs.

There also seems to possibly be greater consistency in the realms people report visiting on DMT versus the varied culturally colored NDE stuff we often get.

OTOH, it does seem that some NDEs actually influence culture rather than just copy prior teaching.

I would say NDE veridical aspects give evidence of Survival, but they fail to tell us what Survival is like. 

DMT/ayahuasca similarly cannot say much about whether the realities they show are genuine but the work of neurobiologist Gallimore and others to lengthen the trips may eventually give us some greater reason to think those visited realities really are somewhere else than just fabricated mental imagery.

Never done any psychedelics myself, but IIRC there are recorded OOBEs that have similar veridical claims as NDEs.
There also seems to possibly be greater consistency in the realms people report visiting on DMT versus the varied culturally colored NDE stuff we often get.
OTOH, it does seem that some NDEs actually influence culture rather than just copy prior teaching.
I would say NDE veridical aspects give evidence of Survival, but they fail to tell us what Survival is like. 
DMT/ayahuasca similarly cannot say much about whether the realities they show are genuine but the work of neurobiologist Gallimore and others to lengthen the trips may eventually give us some greater reason to think those visited realities really are somewhere else than just fabricated mental imagery.

I would be especially interested to see your specific responses to two of my points:

(1) The very different effects of the various psychedelic substances also tends to argue for their effects being ultimately artifacts of the different chemical structures of the various psychotropic drugs.

(2) ....the strange worlds experienced by psychedelic users also drastically differ from another class of extraordinary experiences - instances of "cosmic consciousness" notably compiled by Bucke. These instances of cosmic consciousness have been deeply felt by the experiencers as communicating absolutely ultimate truths about reality. These communications would have to be lies if the psychedelics are revealing some sort of truths about ultimate reality.

I would be especially interested to see your specific responses to two of my points:

(1) The very different effects of the various psychedelic substances also tends to argue for their effects being ultimately artifacts of the different chemical structures of the various psychotropic drugs.

(2) ....the strange worlds experienced by psychedelic users also drastically differ from another class of extraordinary experiences - instances of "cosmic consciousness" notably compiled by Bucke. These instances of cosmic consciousness have been deeply felt by the experiencers as communicating absolutely ultimate truths about reality. These communications would have to be lies if the psychedelics are revealing some sort of truths about ultimate reality.

Well different psychedelic substances may produce different experiences, but DMT/ayahuasca seem to have some uncanny commonality in the recorded experiences. Arguably more so than a historical survey of NDEs.

Cosmic Consciousness could just be a different level of realization. Also not all afterlife accounts speak of this kind of experience, and in fact there are psychedelic reports that agree with the Cosmic Consciousness vision. It seems to me this argument [that Cosmic Consciousness is an Ultimate Truth] would invalidate In Between Lives [and accounts from Mediumship] that bear some resemblance to certain shamanic psychedelic spirit journeys.

The feeling of ultimate truth is not, in itself, an accurate guide. People have mystic experiences where all individuality is erased, while others believe they [are] immortal in the sense of Personal Survival. Both sets of experiencers feel they experienced ultimate truths about reality.