Psilocybin

First, I had a couple of strategic advantages. I held a PhD in philosophy, religious studies, and philosophy of religion, allowing me to study theology, mysticism, and mystical traditions—both Eastern and Western. I taught courses in comparative mysticism, spending a lot of time with great masters. Psychedelic and contemplative experiences are different genres. Psychedelic...

Given the synchronicity of the atomic bomb's birth and LSD in the same decade, I don't think it's accidental. I see it as an amplifier and catalyst of consciousness, akin to Psilocybin, Ayahuasca, DMT, and 5-MeO-DMT. Each substance has its own characteristics. LSD, relatively new, has little historical background, making it unusually clean compared...

I have experience with other psychedelics besides LSD, though my LSD work is primary. I have experimented with Psilocybin, MDMA, San Pedro, and 5-MeO-DMT, an extremely powerful short-acting psychedelic. I don't have a lot of experiences with 5-MeO-DMT. After a long period of not working with psychedelics, I nibbled on that for integration rather...

I don't recommend that protocol, truly. Knowing what I know now, at the end of that journey, I would do it differently if I were starting over again. I would work with lower doses. I would balance periodically, maybe working with high doses of LSD, with intermediate sessions of psilocybin or ayahuasca. I have...

Many psychedelics come to mind: LSD, psilocybin, MDMA—though that's probably more of an entactogen than a straight psychedelic—5-MeO-DMT, salvia divinorum, San Pedro. Most people are familiar with these. There are also derivatives, like of MDMA, tweaks along the way.

Okay, well, there are several things rolled into your observations, and all good. They're all good observations. So some process comments: First, I think integration is very important. We're finding we have the technology, the chemical technology, to trigger very deep states of consciousness, but these states of consciousness may have very little lasting...

We can learn to enter these states more skillfully. Some people have a natural aptitude, but whatever the starting point, practice and careful integration matter. After accessing non-ordinary states, careful debriefing and recording are crucial. Integration and processing set the baseline for future sessions. My work involved maintaining stable variables over 20 years—same setting,...

Having experienced the light itself, the diamond is the most natural image that comes to mind. Perhaps I'm influenced by the fact of Vajra, the diamond way you know, that part is in the background. The image of diamond is not uncommon in the terma texts, trying to describe these subtle levels of consciousness....

I'm sure we can learn to enter these states more skillfully. Some have a natural aptitude, but we can practice these states, enter carefully, process, and debrief carefully. It establishes the baseline for future non-ordinary states. Integration and careful debriefing, recording your session, processing it, and sitting with the content really matter. In my...

In 1979, I began what became a 20-year journey working with LSD. LSD was what Stan had done his research with, so I chose to continue with that. If I were doing it today, I would have a more diversified cocktail including Ayahuasca, Psilocybin, and more, but I worked with LSD and chose to...

Dan, I love hearing you riff, man. I mean, that's just beautiful. Everything you're you're doing and putting together is just beautiful.

That's a good question. I'm not sure that I would. I think knowing now what I—if I had known then what I know now, I would have been gentler on myself. I would have used a gentler protocol, balancing high versus low doses, balancing LSD with Psilocybin and Ayahuasca. I still would have taken...

That's a good question. I'm not sure that I would. I think knowing now what I... If I had known then what I know now, I would have been gentler on myself. I would have used a gentler protocol, balancing high versus low doses, balancing LSD with psilocybin and ayahuasca. I still would have...

I would recommend a more balanced regimen. Low-dose sessions balanced with high-dose LSD sessions, balanced with more body-grounded psychedelics like Psilocybin or Ayahuasca. LSD tends to be a high-altitude psychedelic, very different from Psilocybin, which is much more body-emotional. If I had a breakthrough session, I would balance it with Psilocybin sessions to integrate...

I used LSD because that was the substance Stan had worked with in his early years; that's what his research was based on, primarily, and I trusted what I saw in his work. After my sessions, my work always followed the protocols he laid out in his early book, LSD Psychotherapy. The sessions were...

First of all, I've never used Ibogaine, so I'm not really qualified to speak to its function or value. Just looking at the window issue, there are other issues with psychedelics. Every psychedelic has a mind-amplifying quality, but the texture or nuance, the way it opens consciousness, and the spectrum of consciousness it opens,...

Fewer high-dose sessions, integrating psychedelics like LSD with body-grounded ones like Psilocybin or Ayahuasca, and maintaining daily spiritual practice. Daily practice is vital for managing the energy and insights from psychedelic work. I was driven by the false model of reaching an awakened state, not realizing that depth is infinite and ever-expanding. Now, understanding...

I would vary the dose level. I would work with high doses sometimes, but low doses at other times. I would also balance LSD with other psychedelics like Psilocybin or Ayahuasca. All of them have in common the effect of amplifying the sensitivity of consciousness, but they do so in slightly different ways. They...

Share in the animistic community is the belief that nature is infused with consciousness, fused with mind and soul. And, of course, now we know how vast the physical universe is, and the question becomes, how large is the mind of the universe? How deep is it? So, I was just out of graduate...

I think your description of ego death is spot on. What dies is what is consumed—our self-representation, our sense of identity amassed from our physical experience and our time-space existence. I also want to mention that every medicine has a certain range, a certain signature and power. Psilocybin, for instance, has a depth of...

Wouldn't that have been interesting? I did have an opportunity to do some teaching at the California Institute of Integral Studies in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program, but this came rather late in my series. Basically, I did my work between 1979 and 1999, when I was between 30 and 50 years old,...

Each psychedelic opens consciousness differently. LSD, a high ceiling psychedelic, pushes cosmic boundaries. Psilocybin is more body-grounded and emotion-focused. Ayahuasca integrates with the body and emotional system but has limited experience on my part. 5-MeO-DMT is profound but short-acting, a different exploration. Short versus long-acting psychedelics is a complex area. Longer sessions allow sustained...

I understand. I really do. Because if your genuine spirituality leads you away from social engagement, then I don't think it's very mature, because mature spirituality leads to that place in the heart where we contact the heart of all living things. When we contact the heart of all living things, naturally, we want...

Okay? Looks like it's just as a winner. Okay. This is my psychedelic lineage. My psychedelic lineage basically grounds in the work of Stanislav Grof. When I was 29 years old, fresh out of graduate school, just beginning my academic career in Ohio, I met Stan Grof's work, Realms of the Human Unconscious, and...

Stan differentiated between low-dose and high-dose psychedelic therapy. First, understand in psychedelic therapy, you're not taking a psychedelic to engage the world—there's no taking psychedelics and going to concerts. It's a highly protected, introspective environment, focusing completely internally with eye shades and carefully selected music, confronting whatever is emerging and letting it guide you....

Yes, well, it took me a long time to understand the patterns of my sessions because in some ways they started as I expected them to, drawing upon Stan's map of consciousness that he gave us in his early writings. But then after a few years, they seemed to diverge in some ways and...

Yeah, it is hard to read. I had to really give some careful thought to how much to expose that because I know it's challenging for readers to go into that material. Just to finish that other topic—even once I let go of that personal model, I found that I developed a taste for...

I think it's very important. I've done sessions without music eventually, after a long period, and I've done psilocybin sessions with and without music. But when working with a powerful psychedelic like LSD and at high doses—which, by the way, I do not recommend—it’s critical. I wouldn’t approach it the same way today. Music...

I think it's both. As my work changed me, certainly my presence in the classroom changed. But the more interesting aspect is working at the subtle level. For example, I found that when I was lecturing and looking for an example to illustrate a concept, I would pause, my mind would go blank, and...

I want to say at the outset that this is not a methodology I would recommend today. If I were doing it over, I'd be gentler on myself. I'd take a slower process of engaging the expanse of the mind of the universe. I'd balance high-dose work with low-dose sessions. I'd also balance working...

Good question. I mean, I don't think I have a pat answer for that. I'd like more dialogue around it. But basically, the things that spring to mind are, first, in your sessions, emphasize clean contact, controlling the variables, controlling the isolation, so that you have clean contact with these realities, not smudgy contact,...

Well, you have to go back to 1978 and think about the landscape then. It was before the era of Ayahuasca, Psilocybin mushrooms were around, and it was really before the era of DMT. More importantly, my work was founded on Stanislav Grof's work, and most of his early work was done with LSD....

I want to add that this is not a protocol I recommend. At the time, I thought I could do this work safely, and I did do it safely, always staying within safety limits. But I found that pushing oneself that hard into the universe generated complications that it took all of my resources...

I'm going to discuss this strictly in terms of the LSD body of work. After stopping, I've done psilocybin and ayahuasca—a few times, but I'm comfortable in those worlds. I want to restrict myself to the LSD work in describing this.

Yes and yes. Intention is powerful, especially collective, focused intention. It influences our body, circumstances, and people. David Nichols wrote about subtle activism, where global meditations integrate consciousness into prayerful exercises. Spiritual traditions organize students worldwide at certain times for powerful practices. The spiritual universe is highly populated. Sacred medicine traditions encounter life forms...

This was a learn-as-you-go process for me. I wasn’t part of a psychedelic culture, didn’t have a shaman guiding me, and was figuring it out alone, using a medicine without much history like mushrooms or Ayahuasca. It was a relatively new medicine pushing my experiences to the edge. In reading literature on psychedelic experiences,...

Now, what's the difference between tripping and serious psychedelic work? First, there are many psychedelics, each needing individual consideration—LSD, Psilocybin, MDMA, DMT. I never use the term hallucinogen, as it's a pejorative materialist description. Hallucination implies seeing something that isn't there, making a metaphysical judgment I avoid. Some use "entheogens" for substances that awaken...

If I were talking to my younger self, or if I'm talking to my own children, who are young adults now, I would recommend it partly depends on what you're trying to accomplish. When I got into this work, I was seeking enlightenment, like what most of us were seeking—to be a better human...