By Iris Kulbatski — 2020
Psychedelic drugs like psilocybin are being tested to treat mental illness. They're also expanding our understanding about human consciousness.
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CLEAR ALL
There is one way to reach altered states of consciousness that is related to the heights of spiritual love. It is healthy for body and mind by all means and can be shared with a partner. I am writing about sex.
Why is alcohol so much part of our daily lives? Because aside from the strong negative side effects, there must also be significant benefits.
I'm no psychedelic prude. I reported on, and applauded, the resurgence of research into psychedelics in my 2003 book Rational Mysticism. I participated in a peyote ceremony of the Native American Church, and I advocated legalization of psychedelics for therapeutic purposes.
Writing in the British journal Time and Mind, Benny Shanon of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University said two plants in the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.
We talked to Stacia Butterfield, a Holotropic Breathwork facilitator with nearly two decades of experience through Grof Transpersonal Training, to learn what goes into a Holotropic Breathwork workshop and what people can expect to get out of the technique.
Traditionally, psychedelics (as well as other experiences, like Holotropic Breathwork) are coupled with practices that confirm, extend, and expand the insights intrinsic to altered states.
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What I will focus on are the psychological factors that influence people’s judgments about what is real and how these might explain why people come to believe in the existence of such beings.
The phenomenon of encountering non-human entities under the influence of DMT has inspired debate about what these might actually be.
If we as adults are not free to make sovereign decisions—right or wrong—about our own consciousness, that most intimate, that most sapient, that most personal part of ourselves, then in what useful sense can we be said to be free at all?
A conversation with Ralph Metzner about his book, The Expansion of Consciousness, and his reflections on questions that touch on the most profound problems we face for our survival, our existence as a species.