Psychedelic era

The phrase altered state of consciousness (ASC) took on its current narrow meaning in the psychedelic era of the 1960s. The meaning was centered on the spectacular and exotic visions induced by synthetic drugs like LSD, and was therefore strongly tilted in the direction of psychopharmacology. But consciousness has always been alterable and our present perspective has deep roots in the religious traditions of both Eastern and Western cultures. 

These findings together suggest that LSD psychosis is a dreamlike state that occurs in waking and that dreaming is an LSD-like state that occurs in sleep. It is in this sense that dreaming is properly regarded as an altered state of consciousness with mechanistic and subjective similarities to the narrowly defined ASCs of the psychedelic era. 

In the 1950s and 1960s, peyote was legal throughout most of the United States. During the peak of the psychedelic era, dried peyote cactus buttons were readily available through mail-order catalogues. 

But why would anyone want to cultivate the symptoms of mental illness The answers to that question are directly related to the narrow definition of Altered States of Consciousness (ASC) that arose in the psychedelic era of the 1960s. The era s radicalism was only a recrndescence of the age-old hankering for transcendence, and it is this mystical yearning that... 

In retrospect, tampering with the brain s own conscious state control systems was bound to influence the natural complement of therapeutic psychopharmacology that is recreational psychopathology Prior to the pharmaceutical era, psychedelic chemicals were discovered accidentally, usually by making concoctions of plant leaves, stems, fruits, or seeds. Their chemistry and the mechanisms of the action on the brain were unknown. 

Leary, Timothy. Flashbacks A Personal and Cultural History of an Era An Autobiography. New York J.P. Tarcher, 1997. Leary provides a multifaceted account of his controversial career as a rogue psychologist, psychedelic guru, and spiritual explorer. 

The paper by Izumi is reminiscent of the era in which therapists took the new psychedelics in order to better understand their patients. In this case, the drug was taken to facilitate the design of a mental hospital that would provide a properly therapeutic environment for patients. The hospitals that have been built as a result of these experiences have been the first major innovations in mental-hospital construction in many years, and herald an era in which buildings will be people-oriented, in contrast to the present, when people are required to be building-adapted. 

In our imaginary briefings, the statesmen would be told that the most likely outcome during the next decade would be that the interest in these substances would be maintained, though it is likely to fluctuate from year to year. Although 3 number of new psychedelics will be discovered, there is no convincing evidence that the era of "bathtub" psychedelics... 

If marijuana products are excluded, just over 55 percent of so-called "psychedelics tested out as claimed (501 out of 906 samples). More than 9 percent contained no psychoactive substance at all a full 34.5 percent were assayed as some entirely different mind-altering chemical. Although many of these samples may have been sent in for testing because there was already some question about their content, this rundown indicates a serious problem with the purity of black market psychedelics from that era. 

Huxley s book opened an era when a number of pioneers of the psychedelic movement first turned on. Robert Masters, who published the earliest account of its effects in the sexual realm in his Forbidden Sexual Behavior and Morality (Julian Press, 1962), had his first experience with peyote during the 1950s in Louisiana. In I960, Arthur Kleps wrote to Delta Chemicals Co. in New York for mescaline sulfate and tried 500 mg. The experience resulted in his leaving his job as a state prison psychologist, in addition to other considerable changes in his life. Here is how he described what o ccurred ... 

The statement reveals, I fear, a dual ignorance. If the unethical 1950s-era research he refers to is that undertaken by the CIA, (and highly unethical it was, along with much if not most other CIA "intelligence" activities), then Cytowic displays a glaring unawareness of the research of the dozens of workers who administered many thousands of psychedelic experiences in which ethics were not only respected but a primary consideration. But if Cytowic is ignoring this much... 

Those few fungi were the spark that ignited the fuse, and the decade soon shot off to explode seven years later in the starburst of San Francisco s famous "Summer of Love," felt by many to be the culmination of all that was best from that era. Of course, most psychedelics had been declared schedule-1 drugs in 1966, but by that late date this was like trying to outlaw fireworks halfway through a 4th of July celebration. 

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