Psychedelic Politics

[Lou Gold]

Sorry Shu but it was bound to come.

Psychedelic Politics

Bernardo already touched on it a ways back.

[Lou Gold]

There's a good framing of the issues offered by Jonathan Goldman of the oldest Santo Daime church in Oregon where I first sampled the sacrament:

“…It is nobody’s business to judge anyone’s form of ceremony, spiritual perspective, lineage, politics, or opinions. In fact, in my estimation, none of that is relevant to any evaluation of a medicine work. Ceremony is necessary to hold experience. We each live in an organized body and in order to let it go and enter into communion with the transpersonal forces, our little, sensitive body needs to be held in a ceremonial ‘body.’ That’s all. The space needs to be coherent and harmonious- there needs to be form- but beyond that the actual form is irrelevant. What is relevant, whatever the form or lineage, is how people are screened for appropriateness of participation, how they are oriented to the experience, how they are made safe on all levels, how they are attended to, how the people leading and assisting in the ceremony handle whatever may come up for participants, and how participants are followed up with.”

[Jim Cross]

From the article the Compass position.

To make sure it is safe and effective in patients, psilocybin therapy needs to be approved by medical regulators, not legislators.”

I would say it shouldn't need to be approved by anyone. It should be a matter of individual choice about what, when, and how someone chooses to use psychedelics. I am greatly opposed to the entire medical model as the only valid reason for using psychedelics. I also find somewhat irritating (and somewhat playing into the medical model) the reference to psychedelics as medicine and the experience as healing. But if someone finds that meaningful, that's fine. It just doesn't work for me.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Not that I ever needed psychedelics to decompose my indoctrination into the politics-as-usual paradigm, or to recognize the sorry sham that it now is ~ with its equally unhealthy choice between 'Sprite Zero' or 'Orange Crush' ~ but given the power of psychedelics to do so, I'm all for as many folks as possible, most especially the politicians, getting legal access to them, and taking them by whatever responsible means possible, so as to facilitate the recognition of how blatantly dysfunctional politics as usual has become, and thus hasten its demise and eventual reformulation, albeit not without some attendant transitional chaos and disintegration ... bring it on.

[SanteriSatama]

I also find somewhat irritating (and somewhat playing into the medical model) the reference to psychedelics as medicine and the experience as healing. But if someone finds that meaningful, that's fine. It just doesn't work for me.

Vegetalismo shamanhood is a medicinal paradigm that calls ayahuasca (etc.) medicine and uses it for that purpose. Also many other spiritual pacts require that the pact is used only for healing. Medical model does not refer only to the Western paradigm. I very much agree that materialist Western paradigm should not have authority over other paradigms.

There's variety among various substances. LSD and partly also psilocybins are more often used also for more recreational purposes. Recreational use of belladonna, ie. other than strict microdosing for medical use, strongly tend to limit to one trip and never again. Etc.

[Jim Cross]

I am not opposed to anyone using psychedelics for religious or therapeutic reasons.

My own preference is a different path that is not the same as recreational use. Just because use is not within some sanctioned structure does not automatically make it recreational.

I prefer to approach usage is an intellectual and personal exploration that is done as much as possible without preconceptions and beliefs. I realize that is not wholly possible but an attempt to maintain some degree of objectivity to the experience I think is essential. That means questioning the experience, trying to understand how it works, and remaining open to the idea that the experience could have elements of truth but also elements of falsehood.

[SanteriSatama]

I prefer to approach usage is an intellectual and personal exploration that is done as much as possible without preconceptions and beliefs. I realize that is not wholly possible but an attempt to maintain some degree of objectivity to the experience I think is essential. That means questioning the experience, trying to understand how it works, and remaining open to the idea that the experience could have elements of truth but also elements of falsehood.

Very good. I would say that the exploration model underlies all others. And as it done nowadays, it would be foolish to discard all cumulative experience of safe dosage, interactions between various substances, set and setting etc.

[SanteriSatama]

We are optimistic that Compass and Atai will not succeed in these efforts, and that the psychedelic ecosystem will nurture and support the right kind of companies

The right kind of companies are not those based on ownership by shares, ie. corporations of limited liability ltd. Those are not good company to mix with and should be deprived of their legal personhood.

[Soul_of_Shu]

We've addressed this before in the old MS forum, but if the big pharma powers-that-be were to remove from psychedelics the magical, mind-revealing power that makes them so compelling to those who are attracted to them, why would we not just carry on as we currently are and do whatever it takes to get the unadultered versions from those who 'grow' their own. I also wonder, even as the powers-that-be might make a fortune on selling legal psychedelics, if it turns out that the hoards of users of the 'real deal' then enter the status quo fortress, like some gifted Trojan horse, and once within its walls, proceed to dismantle it by virtue of having been dispelled of the delusion of the segregated identity notion, what benefits might come of all that new found wealth, if the mindsets have been freed from their prison-like fortress?

[Jim Cross]

why would we not just carry on as we currently are and do whatever it takes to get the unadultered versions from those who 'grow' their own

Of course, I'm fine with that but if Compass, pHARMa. or even misguided liberal legislators decide they want to regulate it then that may not be possible legally.