“ Happiness is a kind of gratitude; it is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy what we have that really counts.  ” - E. Edwards

     Psychedelics: a group retreat - lessons: playlists, nature & integration

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”  Albert Einstein

           “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”  Aldous Huxley

“

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.

” - E. B. White

                                                 Psychedelics: Sam Harris/Roland Griffiths conversation

     "There isn't any formula or method.  You learn to love by loving - by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done."  Aldous Huxley

Sam Harris is ... Roland Griffiths is ...

Conversation link tweeted on 21st November ... 122.39 ...

35 min in ... MDMA/ecstasy ... yes does have a dopaminergic effect and can produce dependence?

Around 70 minutes indiscuss low dose psilocybin and meditation practice.

“

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

” - Viktor Frankl

Psychedelics: a group retreat - lessons: ceremonies, duration & organisation

"And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been."   Rainer Maria Rilke 

“

There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly.

” - Terence

     Psychedelics: a group retreat - meeting up, orientation & the ceremony

"Today we can walk around together, talk, eat, and be silent together.  Later I believe we'll have the opportunity to act and suffer together.  All that is necessary to 'make someone's acquaintance' as they say."  Pierre Sogol, professor of mountaineering, speaking in Rene Daumal's book "Mount Analogue". 

'Breaking Convention' - the fifth biennial international conference on psychedelics - took place at Greenwich University in London from 16th-18th August.  There were apparently 1,200 or so attendees for the 6 concurrent programmes - academic, workshop, performance, cinema, entertainment & installations - as well as an art exhibition.  I went primarily because it allowed me to hear pretty much all the relevant research groups in the UK present on their current findings.  As you can see from the other quite extensive writing about psychedelics on this website, I'm very interested in the encouraging emerging research highlighting potential therapeutic value of psychedelics.  Although I focussed on the academic programme, there was much too much even here to manage an ove

“ If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in the dark with a mosquito. ” - Anonymous

          Psychedelics: again the pilgrimage - current experience, lessons

" ... the current system for bringing promising biomedical research to the bedside is operating at an obsolete level of efficiency, causing great delay, and consequently resulting in the loss of many lives."  Roger Rosenberg (JAMA 2003;289:1305-6)

  "Any unexplained phenomenon passes through three stages before the reality of it is accepted. During the first stage it is considered laughable. During the second stage, it is adamantly opposed. Finally, during the third stage, it is accepted as self-evident."  Arthur Schopenhauer

“ A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes. ” - Anonymous

Psychedelics: again the pilgrimage - current experience, low/moderate dose

             "The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."   Eden Phillpotts

                 "You'll never enjoy the word aright, until the sea itself floweth in your veins,                                                                         till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars."       Thomas Traherne

“

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage

” - Lao Tzu

        Psychedelics: again the pilgrimage - current experience, high dose

              "To reach the other shore with each step of the crossing is the way of true living."    Shunryu Suzuki

            "My house having burnt down, nothing now impedes my bright vision of the moon."  Zen saying

“

The self may be said to be made up of reflected appraisals.

” - Harry Stack Sullivan

         Psychedelics: again the pilgrimage - current experience, preparing

                                            "No man was ever wise by chance."   Lucius Seneca

               "Who will prefer the jingle of jade pendants if he once has heard stone growing in a cliff?"   Lao Tzu

“ The eye altering, alters all. ” - William Blake

                                  potential benefits of psychedelics

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.    J. K. Galbraith

It's important to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.    Traditional