“ We must all die. But that I can save (a person) from days of torture, that is what I feel as my great and ever new privilege. Pain is a more terrible lord of mankind than even death himself. ” - Albert Schweitzer

     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

“ A man is as happy as his mind allows him to be ” - Abraham Lincoln

                                                 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.

“

Friendship is the single most important factor influencing our health, well-being, and happiness.

” - Robin Dunbar

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 

“

Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.

” - David Mitchell

     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

“

... 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)

          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

“

Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourselfl

” - Miles Davis

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

“

The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them; there ought to be as many for love.

” - Margaret Atwood

        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

“ Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness. ” - Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby

         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

“

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

                                  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