The patients who received the drug found the experience aided them emotionally, and none experienced panic reactions or other untoward events. One patient, Udo Schulz, told the German weekly Der Spiegel that the therapy with LSD helped him overcome anxious feelings after being diagnosed with stomach cancer, and the experience with the drug aided his reentry into the workplace.
The trials follow a strict protocol—“all LSD treatment sessions will begin at 11 a.m.”—and the researchers are scrupulous about avoiding mistakes that, at times, occurred during older psychedelic trials, when investigators would leave subjects alone during a drug session. Both Gasser and a female co-therapist are present throughout the eight-hour sessions that take place in quiet, darkened rooms, with emergency medical equipment close at hand. Before receiving LSD, subjects have to undergo psychological testing and preliminary psychotherapy sessions.
Another group is also pursuing LSD research. The British-based Beckley Foundation is funding and collaborating on a 12-person pilot study at the University of California, Berkeley, that is assessing how the drug may foster creativity and what changes in neural activity go along with altered conscious experience induced by the chemical. Whether LSD will one day become the drug of choice for psychedelic psychotherapy remains in question because there may be better solutions. “We chose psilocybin over LSD because it is gentler and generally less intense,” says Charles S. Grob, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, who conducted a trial to test psilocybin’s effects on anxiety in terminal cancer patients. Moreover, “it is associated with fewer panic reactions and less chance of paranoia and, most important, over the past half a century psilocybin has attracted far less negative publicity and carries far less cultural baggage than LSD.”
One of my most favorite musical acts is releasing a new album in the coming weeks. Quite possibly the most psychedelic music you’ll come across, Shpongle will be releasing their 4th album, Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland, on November 2nd.
Samples of the tracks can be found in the music player on Shpongle’s website, Twisted Records.
At the end of this post I’ll have a player with some Shpongle tracks on it to listen to. Please do yourself a favor and listen to some of them. It is some of the most amazing music you’ll ever hear.
I’m also working on the creation of a music review website that will focus on the electronic music genre known as psychedelic ambient, which Shpongle definitely falls under. Still working on the site as well as material to post, but hopefully I’ll get some hits on it soon and I’m very anxious to read some comments over on that site about the reviews I’m writing.
First post in awhile. Haven’t had really that much to say, but now I do!
Been listening to a lot of Alan Watts lately. I’ve just been really identifying with some of the things Watts has been saying. A few nights a week, after smoking, I’ve simply laid down on my hardwood bedroom floor and listened to him speak, seeing if I could keep focus on the message he was trying to convey. This was one that really hit close to home and I felt like sharing it. A cool video I found on Youtube is right below the quote:
So you have this process, which is quite spontaneous, going on. We call it Life. It’s controlling itself. It’s aware of itself. It’s aware of itself through you. You are an aperture from which the Universe looks at itself. And because it’s the Universe looking through you, there’s always an aspect of itself that it can’t see. So it’s just like that snake, you see, that is pursuing it’s tale, ’cause it can see it’s head, like you can. We always find as we investigate the universe, make the microscope bigger and bigger and we will find ever more minute things. Make the telescope bigger and bigger and bigger, and the universe expands because it’s running away from itself. It won’t do that if you don’t chase it.
So, it’s a game of hide and seek. Really, when you ask who is doing the chasing, you are still working under the assumption that every verb has to have a subject. That when there is action, there has to be a doer. Well, that’s what I will call a grammatical convention, leading to what Whitehead called “The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness.”
Interesting article in The Nation magazine this week from Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater-exposer extraordinaire. Seems two former employees of the “mercenary” army company Blackwater have come out with allegations claiming the intentional killing of Iraqis based on their belief they modern-day Knights Templar. Crazy shit. Here’s some quotes from it. Probably should give the entire thing a read.
The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”
To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.
Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince’s executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to “lay Hajiis out on cardboard.” Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince’s employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as “ragheads” or “hajiis.”
Doe #2 expands on the issue of unconventional weapons, alleging Prince “made available to his employees in Iraq various weapons not authorized by the United States contracting authorities, such as hand grenades and hand grenade launchers. Mr. Prince’s employees repeatedly used this illegal weaponry in Iraq, unnecessarily killing scores of innocent Iraqis.” Specifically, he alleges that Prince “obtained illegal ammunition from an American company called LeMas. This company sold ammunition designed to explode after penetrating within the human body. Mr. Prince’s employees repeatedly used this illegal ammunition in Iraq to inflict maximum damage on Iraqis.”
My very first play is up on my main website. Please give it a read and let me know what you think. As usual, it can definitely be improved, like anything anybody writes. But for my first play I must admit I’m proud of the results.
