psychedelics

I’m unsettled when I see the word ‘medicine’ used by psychedelic enthusiasts, purportedly as a loan concept from how indigenous peoples or long-term holistic practitioners might use it to describe the use of psychedelic plant medicine. How many times have you heard some psychonaut claim that if everyone had a revelatory ayahuasca/LSD/MDMA experience the world would be different? I wonder how much of the deep ‘healing’ attributed to psychedelics is just part a Penrosesteps type mental loop that always seems to end on a revelation that leads to more questions, precisely because the brain was primed to perceive the outcome experience as the uncovering of a “hidden” part of itself? Our brain will always deliver! Ultimately, how many use ‘healing’ feels like a red-herring, a distraction from accepting that, materially, we only ‘heal’ when we’re connected, supported, & nourished in community w/ others & nature.

I’m unsettled when I see the word ‘medicine’ used by psychedelic enthusiasts, purportedly as a loan concept from how indigenous peoples or long-term holistic practitioners might use it to describe the use of psychedelic plant medicine. How many times have you heard some psychonaut claim that if everyone had a revelatory ayahuasca/LSD/MDMA experience the world would be different? I wonder how much of the deep ‘healing’ attributed to psychedelics is just part a Penrosesteps type mental loop that always seems to end on a revelation that leads to more questions, precisely because the brain was primed to perceive the outcome experience as the uncovering of a “hidden” part of itself? Our brain will always deliver! Ultimately, how many use ‘healing’ feels like a red-herring, a distraction from accepting that, materially, we only ‘heal’ when we’re connected, supported, & nourished in community w/ others & nature.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/23/opinion/psychedelics-mdma-mental-health.html