As one old saw goes, in the 60s, we thought computers would enslave us, and drugs would set us free.
Jury still out on computers, but clearly the drug thing did not work out as hoped.
Obviously psychedelics have had a major impact on every corner of the culture, and I don’t think there’s any doubt that they figured prominently in the birth of the environmental movement.
There’s been a lot of research showing positive impacts on substance abuse, depression and other negative behaviors..
But I long ago gave up on the idea that psychedelics, especially in uncontrolled settings, could actually make people into, well, better people.
If you’re a jerk, they can just make you into an even bigger jerk.
For personal growth, there is ultimately no substitute for the old fashioned way – dealing with anxiety, boredom, suffering and mortality, and opening to the growth opportunities that present in every day living, working, loving or not, accepting death, (or not, and dying anyway).
That said, there can undeniably be moments, catalyzed by certain substances, that can bump us to another, more genuine path.
Continue reading “Nature’s Way of Telling You: Psychedelics and Climate Awareness”There’s some science to back up the woo-woo. In 2017, the Journal of Psychopharmacology published a study showing that using LSD, psilocybin and mescaline — “classic psychedelics” — led to a boost in self-reported “pro-environmental” behaviors. The study even controlled for other substances that don’t cause tracers, like cannabis, and for personality traits that might predispose participants to being green, like “openness to experience, conscientiousness, conservatism.” The result, while correlative and not causative, suggests that long-term psychedelic use changes how people think about their place in the natural world.
Enough people to turn the tide on climate change? Not anytime soon, but early findings are intriguing. Another study, “From Egoism to Ecoism,” found a positive link between lifetime psychedelic use and “feeling close and kindly towards nature,” especially for participants who experienced “ego-dissolution,” wherein the sense of self dies during the hallucinogenic experience.
“Psychedelics are default mode network dampeners” that “lower our awareness of the individual self,” says Joel Brierre, who leads retreats at the Tandava Center in Mexico, where participants ingest a powerful psychedelic known as 5-MeO-DMT. Mode network dampeners battle the brain system that keeps us from paying attention to the world around us; Brierre says many of his clients have emerged with new resolve to live cleaner, greener lives.