Comments on: The Spirit Molecule

By: Lee Schneider

Lee Schneider — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:26:03 +0000

Thanks for jumping in on this, Bruce. Roz Dauber also called me attention to Dr. Hoffman’s letter to Jobs.

By: Bruce Shlain co-author Acid Dreams

Bruce Shlain co-author Acid Dreams — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:17:05 +0000

Some promising areas of LSD research were with alcoholism in Canada — it brought on the DT’s, or final stages, and had a lower recidivism rate than anything else tried, and also with autistic patients. To me the most interesting work was with terminal cancer patients, by Dr. Stanislas Grof in what was then Czechoslovakia. He gave them intravenous injections of LSD while wearing dark eyeshades. He developed a detailed psychic map of where his patients traveled, but it was largely ignored by the medical community because he posited that intra-uterine memories were involved. One of Grof’s books on this work is The Human Encounter with Death, which is quite powerful. And just this week, LSD was in the news, the NYT published LSD inventor Dr. Albert Hoffman’s letter to Steve Jobs after hearing that Jobs owed some of his most creative thinking about the cyber-revolution to his psychedelic experiences. Here’s a link to that story.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/read-the-never-before-pub_b_227887.html

By: Lee Schneider

Lee Schneider — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:53:23 +0000

I’m going to look further in the Lilly dolphin research. There might be a secret with the dolphins!

By: realitysurfer

realitysurfer — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:40:18 +0000

Please check out my LSD Documentary. posted at youtube

Link to part one of four from POWER AND CONTROL LSD IN THE SIXTIES

GROUCHO ON ACID, DOC ELLIS PITCHES A NON-HITTER WHILE HIGH, CIA LSD BROTHEL AND MORE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZdz0G4lG6k&

By: Jeff Schneider

Jeff Schneider — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:15:43 +0000

Wow, this topic brings back memories. I can remember hours of debate back in college about the value (or not) of altered states and “higher levels of consciousness” on the human experience. Remember Andrew Weil’s “The Natural Mind?” His book was an attempt to legitimatize all of this, to prove it wasn’t just a bunch of kids fooling around with drugs.

Maybe the secret is with the dolphins. They’re laughing at us all the time because we haven’t figured it all out yet.

By: Frank Rodriguez

Frank Rodriguez — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:32:26 +0000

Let’s not forget that the float tank provides an excellent means of accessing dream states while awake (theta brainwaves), as well as increased sensitivity, due to greatly reduced stress (i.e. distractions).

By: Lee Schneider

Lee Schneider — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:24:56 +0000

Yes, worth checking out. Any time I’ve done breathing work in yoga it’s always been powerful. (Or at least makes me dizzy.)

By: Ingrid Von Burg

Ingrid Von Burg — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:46:44 +0000

Steve Ross does a workshop called Ecstatic Breathing that supposedly is a natural way to come very close to the effects of LSD. It’s a rapid deep breathing exercise that I have only seen him lead. It’s fun, a little scary, and certainly worth trying .

By: Lee Schneider

Lee Schneider — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:21:37 +0000

I’m inclined to agree – it’s the journey, not the destination. We learn so much getting there that we might feed robbed of an experience if we popped a pill and just arrived in an instant.

By: Lee Schneider

Lee Schneider — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:19:40 +0000

Hi, Jesse, thanks for commenting! I think Dr. Lilly would make for a great biopic documentary. His story covers so much terrain.