022: Response to A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin

Entheogen

This is Entheogen. Talk about tools for generating the divine within.

Today is January 7, 2016, and we are discussing A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin.

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We discussed this film and interviewed its producer, Robert Barnhart back in August 2015 before the film’s release. Since then, the film has been released and you can rent or buy it on online. We’ve all had a chance to watch it again and we wanted to reflect on our impressions of the film.

We’ll start with a quote from Alex Grey:

"A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin puts an original face on psychedelics. Not the typical faces in the media of delusional drop-outs associated with drugs, but the faces of normal Americans, some suffering from the final stages of terminal cancer. After one dose of psilocybin the face of joy, relief and peace is nothing short of miraculous. A medical mystical miracle is in our midst, and this film beautifully describes the facts! Bravo to Robert Barnhart and all the production team, the courageous chemists, doctors and patients who are helping our society re-evaluate Psilocybin as a medicine for the Soul." ~Alex Grey

Hofmann discovered LSD, creating the modern psychedelic movement; not many people know he also isolated and synthesized psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms.

Shutting down of research. Schedule 1. “No medicinal value, addictive”

Kevin purports that Maria Sabina had given Albert Hofmann an “academic boner” over his successful synthesis of the active alkaloid in her magic mushrooms, psilocybin.

“Throughout history, people have been able to have this mystical experience. The drug is a reliable way of getting one, but it's not about the drug, it's about the experience.” - Anthony Bossis

Ann Levy’s son’s eulogy for her

How does the experience help you confront death?

“We’re all star stuff.” - Carl Sagan

Bill Richards: 6 basic categories of a "core religious experience":
1. Unity
2. Transcendence of time and space
3. Noetic / intuitive knowledge
4. Sense of sacredness / awesomeness
5. Deeply felt positive mood / joy / peace / love
6. Ineffability / paradoxicality (difficult to put into words)
Psilocybin and LSD as aphrodisiacs

Why not? Why can’t we provide the relief these treatments offer?

Brad: “word.”

Wikipedia: List of Schedule I drugs and Schedule II drugs

Rent or buy the film on Vimeo

When you rent you can also watch DMT The Spirit Molecule

The film’s website has a convenient “who’s who” of psychedelic researchers on the participants tab, with names, titles and photos, and a short bio when clicked