My second grade teacher, Ms. Janet, almost became a nun. She went into teaching, but nevertheless maintained the severity of one. She was at once strict and loving, seamlessly transitioning from reprimanding me for asking an off-topic question to saying she loved me. One day she suggested that we should say a Hail Mary every time we heard a siren. I followed suit.<\/p>\n
\u201cHail Mary, full of grace\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
As I progressed through elementary and middle school at Saint Theresa of Avila Catholic School in Carson City, Nevada, my religious inclinations morphed into an obsession with purity. I felt tainted by sin. The seemingly benign Hail Mary habit Ms. Janet prescribed turned into a tic. Even today, at 21, I still sometimes find myself reciting the prayer when a siren goes off.<\/p>\n
My nightly prayers turned into a high-stakes ritual which, if skipped, risked dooming a member of my family to cancer, or death. Prayers became scripts, which I recited without fail, and left me feeling trapped, my torso crushed by an invisible weight.<\/p>\n
Throughout the day, I mentally repeated little prayers at least three times. I had to mean it, and each additional recitation provided a buffer in case I failed to do so the first couple times.<\/p>\n
Lord, please forgive my mom for cursing. Lord, please forgive them for saying your name in vain. Lord, please forgive me for thinking that thought.<\/em> (Sex, a curse word, a mean wish toward a family member? I would surely be punished.)<\/p>\n Religion was the lens through which I viewed the world. Catholic teaching was, quite literally, doctrine. Sex was bad. Drinking was bad. Rap was bad. Drugs, especially, were bad.<\/p>\n …..<\/p>\n The commute to Bishop Manogue Catholic High School took forty-five minutes, thirty-seven if I sped a little. We lived in Genoa, Nevada, at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Manogue, the only academically respectable Catholic high school in the area, was all the way in Reno.<\/p>\n It was a pain to get up before six each morning, forcing my eyes to remain open while I drove my Toyota RAV4. Podcasts provided an entertaining distraction, and the Tim Ferriss Show<\/em> became my preferred selection. Ferriss is an excellent interviewer, and the breadth of his guests, some famous and others not, is vast, resulting in a fun, informative podcast brimming with colorful stories and practical advice. I still listen to every episode, regardless of the guest.<\/p>\n He started to bring on scientists and researchers who discussed the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs. Ferriss himself talked about his own profound experiences. Today he is one of the field\u2019s most influential donors.<\/p>\n I was particularly intrigued by Dr. Rick Doblin, the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), who offered a scientific view of what, in essence, were plant medicines. I had never heard this narrative applied to illegal \u201cdrugs\u201d: healing, growth, profundity, oneness, love. This didn\u2019t seem so bad.<\/p>\n I subsequently dug into the scientific literature churned out by institutions my classmates and I dreamed of one day attending: Johns Hopkins, UCLA, NYU. I read about psilocybin (the active ingredient in \u201cmagic mushrooms\u201d), LSD, MDMA, and various types of psychedelic plants that could help cancer patients feel less anxious and die peacefully, aid veterans struggling with PTSD, or allow smokers to quit.<\/p>\n These substances, I realized, were tools, and like any tool, they could be abused or used to heal. But I had been regarding them as \u201cbad\u201d\u2014as \u201cdrugs.\u201d My mindset began to shift. The tight hold my Catholic upbringing had on my psyche started to loosen.<\/p>\n …..<\/p>\n At Manogue, students used drugs and alcohol, our plaid skorts (minimum length: two inches above the knee) and sweater vests be damned.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t drink or smoke, and never went to parties, lest I compromise my identity as a \u201cgood girl.\u201d I was instead concerned with maintaining good grades and disciplining my body to conform to the standard of beauty I had foisted upon myself: skinny, starved, unimposing.<\/p>\n Calories and classwork consumed my mind. Both belonged to the realm of extreme discipline. This was how my obsessive-compulsive tendencies manifested themselves during high school. So when I conveyed to my peers my fascination with the emerging research surrounding drugs teenagers typically took at raves, yeah, it came as a surprise.<\/p>\n Mycophilia<\/p>\n I<\/strong>n the summer of 1927, R. Gordon Wasson, a vice president of J.P. Morgan, was honeymooning in the Catskills with his wife Valentina Pavlovna, a Russian physician. One afternoon they \u201cwent strolling along a lovely mountain path, through woods crisscrossed by the slanting rays of a descending sun,\u201d Wasson wrote in Life<\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n Valentina veered off the path when she spotted a patch of wild mushrooms. Her husband marveled at her enthusiasm as she crouched down and \u201ccaressed the toadstools, savored their earthy perfume.\u201d<\/p>\n Wasson could not understand how someone could look so fondly upon \u201cputrid, treacherous excrescences.\u201d When Valentina gathered some in her skirt and suggested that they take the mushrooms home to cook, he looked at her with disbelief. He was certain they were poisonous.<\/p>\n \u201cI was beside myself,\u201d Wasson recalled in his book Persephone\u2019s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. \u201cI acted the perfect Anglo-Saxon oaf confronting a wood nymph I had never before laid eyes on. I would eat nothing with mushrooms in it.\u201d<\/p>\n Wasson, originally from Great Falls, Montana, and Valentina, who grew up in Moscow, became fascinated by the curious \u201ccultural cleavage\u201d they had observed in their starkly different attitudes toward mushrooms. They discovered the differences persisted among their respective friends as well: his \u201cAnglo-Saxon mycophobes\u201d and her \u201cRussian mycophiles.\u201d<\/p>\n The two decided to go further. \u201cWell, we were off,\u201d Wasson wrote.<\/p>\n Wasson began studying mushrooms, meeting with numerous experts in the field and consuming scientific literature, including the Revue de Mycologie. Wasson recruited the Revue\u2019s editor, Robert Heim, to be his and Valentina\u2019s mycology consultant.<\/p>\n In 1952 Wasson received a letter from his acquaintance, the poet Robert Graves, describing the work of Richard Evans Schultes, a Harvard ethnobotanist who studied the use of mind-altering mushrooms among indigenous peoples in Mexico. Wasson immediately telephoned Schultes, who suggested that he and his wife instead continue their research in South America, which had a rich indigenous tradition of ceremonial and medicinal use of such mushrooms. \u201cIt turned out that we had happened on a novel field of inquiry,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n …..<\/p>\n Wasson\u2019s path to mycology was unconventional. After graduating from the Columbia School of Journalism in 1920, he received the Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship and studied at the London School of Economics. He later worked as a journalist at the New Haven Register<\/em>, Current Opinion<\/em>, and the Herald Tribune<\/em>. He joined J.P. Morgan in 1934 and became a vice president nine years later.<\/p>\n His marriage to Valentina triggered a lifelong fascination with mushrooms. Valentina possessed a love for fungi that resulted largely from her memories of foraging for them in the Russian forests. The couple\u2019s 1927 encounter with the patch of wild mushrooms in the Catskills ultimately launched his own mycological interests, to which he dedicated his \u201cleisure hours,\u201d he later wrote in his 1986 book Persephone’s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion<\/em>.<\/p>\n Wasson traveled to Huautla de Jimenez, a town in Oaxaca, Mexico, in June of 1955 to \u201clearn the secrets of the divine mushroom.\u201d A local official helped Wasson locate some of the mushrooms before leading them to a curandera, or shaman, named Mar\u00eda Sabina, a 61-year-old Mazatec woman. That evening Sabina led the two Americans in a sacred mushroom ceremony. \u201cI could not have been happier,\u201d Wasson wrote, \u201cthis was the culmination of years of pursuit.\u201d For the next several hours Wasson saw intense visions ranging from \u201cart motifs\u201d to \u201cresplendent palaces.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor the first time the word ecstasy took on real meaning. For the first time it did not mean someone else\u2019s state of mind,\u201d he recounted. Wasson sensed that psychedelic mushrooms could offer a mode of healing to many. He had yet to learn of the specific agent that had produced his hallucinations. \u201cWe are now reasonably sure that it differs from such familiar drugs as opium, coca, mescaline, hashish,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe problem is of great interest in the realm of pure science. Will it also prove of help in coping with psychic disturbances?\u201d<\/p>\n When the Life<\/em> article came out in 1957, Wasson sent fungi specimens to Albert Hofmann, a Swiss chemist who, almost two decades earlier, had synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, while studying the chemical structure of ergot, a fungus found primarily on rye and other grains.<\/p>\n Sandoz, the pharmaceutical company for which Hofmann worked, had originally concluded that LSD-25, so named because it was the twenty-fifth lysergic acid derivative produced by the scientist, had no therapeutic potential. It was all but forgotten for half a decade.<\/p>\n Hofmann nonetheless continued to produce \u201cfruitful\u201d results from his research on ergot-derived alkaloids. The chemist, still haunted by the \u201crelatively uninteresting\u201d LSD-25, synthesized LSD-25 for further testing in 1943. When a bit of it penetrated his skin, he felt \u201cunusual sensations\u201d and had to go home, where he \u201clay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination,\u201d Hofmann wrote in a report to his superior.<\/p>\n So when the Swiss chemist later received the mushroom samples from Wasson, he knew what to do. Hofmann subsequently identified and isolated two psychoactive compounds: psilocybin and psilocin. He also manufactured a synthetic version of the former which is still used in clinical trials.<\/p>\n …..<\/p>\n Wasson\u2019s experience with Mar\u00eda Sabina marked the first known time a Westerner partook in a sacred mushroom ceremony. The Life<\/em> article, \u201cSeeking the Magic Mushroom,\u201d was the first instance the term \u201cmagic mushroom\u201d was used to refer to hallucinogenic fungi. It marked a pivotal moment in the modern history of psychedelic substances, which had long been used by the ancient Greeks and various indigenous cultures.<\/p>\n \u201cIn these cultures, it\u2019s an ancestral use of these mushrooms that are still used in a family setting, and for a reason,\u201d Giuliana Furci, the founder and CEO of the Fungi Foundation, the world\u2019s first fungi-dedicated NGO, told me. \u201cYou work to heal something, or to find something, or to resolve something with a group.\u201d<\/p>\n …..<\/p>\n Hofmann\u2019s inadvertent hallucinogenic experience changed his lab\u2019s opinion on LSD-25. In a hunt to commercialize its discovery, Sandoz subsequently offered free samples of the substance to any \u201cresearcher\u201d who promised to write up their results.<\/p>\n When psilocybin became mainstream, LSD-focused research had been ongoing for several years. With all the scientific promise, however\u2014including positive results involving LSD and the treatment of alcoholism\u2014certain public figures grew too excited.<\/p>\n Aldous Huxley, whose book, The Doors of Perception<\/em>, chronicled his psychedelic experience on mescaline, and Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary shared the magical properties of LSD to all who would listen. The drug was especially important during the 60s because it was so easily synthesized. Substances like mescaline and DMT could not be mass produced or distributed, but a single chemist could produce millions of doses of LSD.<\/p>\n The proliferation of \u201cacid parties,\u201d and its use by those who were unqualified to do so, made authorities nervous. Sandoz stopped handing out Delysid samples; under the Kefauver-Harris Drug Amendments of 1962, the FDA had to approve any drugs under investigation. The U.S. Government started to crack down. \u201cWhat was an experimental drug has become, now, a social problem,\u201d Senator Robert F. Kennedy said in a 1966 congressional hearing. \u201cWe must be prepared to deal with that problem to educate people, particularly young people, about the dangers of LSD.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Kennedy and others at the hearing expressed appreciation for the research on LSD, especially regarding its use in treating alcoholism, striking the right regulatory balance seemed daunting. \u201cWe are dealing with compounds having fantastic social implications that the old medicines did not have,\u201d Senator Abraham Ribicoff, of Connecticut, said at the hearing. \u201cDo we have imagination enough and flexibility enough to weigh the proper course of new drug development and guard against abuse?\u201d<\/p>\n …..<\/p>\n President Nixon answered Ribicoff\u2019s question in 1970 when he signed the Controlled Substances Act, which classified LSD and psilocybin as Schedule I substances, with \u201chigh potential for abuse\u201d and no \u201caccepted medical use.\u201d The age of psychedelic research ground to a halt.<\/p>\n LSD and psilocybin remain Schedule I substances, but emerging research offers an opportunity for their eventual rescheduling, decriminalization, and legalization for certain uses. Indeed, many people claim that the world is currently witnessing a \u201cpsychedelic renaissance.\u201d Others are more cautious. With so much excitement comes the threat of repeating the past\u2019s mistakes. \u201cPeople are haunted by the ghosts of Timothy Leary,\u201d Glenn Cohen, the director of Harvard Law School\u2019s Project on Psychedelic Law and Regulation, told me.<\/p>\n These substances have profound potential, but they can just as easily be abused and disrespected. Wasson himself was horrified by the flurry of commercialization that resulted from his bringing \u201cmagic mushrooms\u201d to the West.<\/p>\n \u201c[W]hat I have done gives me nightmares,\u201d he wrote in a 1970 op-ed in the New York Times<\/em>. \u201cI have unleashed on lovely Huautla a torrent of commercial exploitation of the vilest kind.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n II. PRESENT<\/p>\n Non-Ordinary State<\/p>\n I<\/strong>n a cozy office on the 29th floor of The Future, a building in Manhattan\u2019s Midtown, hangs a replica of an ancient stone relief from the Greek town of Eleusis. The stone depicts strands of barley casually bent by the breeze.<\/p>\n Eleusis is the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a secretive rite performed each year by a select group of ancient Greeks. It is believed that during this ceremony, participants drank a psychoactive beverage derived from ergot-infested barley.<\/p>\n The office, and the relief, belong to Dr. Anthony Bossis, a clinical assistant professor at NYU\u2019s Grossman School of Medicine. Whenever he lectures, he includes an image of the stone, he told me on a biting November evening.<\/p>\n Bossis, a proud Greek-American with a graying mane of hair and kind exuberance, believes the drink, the kykeon, likely generated psychedelic experiences. \u201cWe see antiquity as the foundation of Western civilization,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd did these medicines play a role in that?\u201d<\/p>\n Bossis has published several papers on the therapeutic potential of psychedelic substances. Most of his work concerns psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in what are colloquially known as \u201cmagic mushrooms,\u201d and its use in palliative care. \u201cHow funny is it now that my level of dealing with research and psychedelics and religion dovetails with this Greek to the Eleusinian Mysteries?\u201d he mused, maintaining a perpetually relaxed and welcoming posture as he spoke.<\/p>\n As a child, Bossis grappled with a fear of death, and in college was drawn to existential questions<\/span>. He was influenced by Carl Sagan, Alan Watts, the Beatles\u2014especially George Harrison\u2014and authors like Aldous Huxley, who wrote about his own psychedelic experiences.<\/p>\n Bossis began to wonder if mystical experiences were in fact at the center of the world\u2019s religions: \u201cAre they all just coming out of the same experience, the numinous or mystical or peak\u2014whatever we call it\u2014as an attempt to connect to the ineffable, whatever this whole is?\u201d<\/p>\n His fascination with death eventually led him to work in palliative care, the central topic of most of his research. Psilocybin\u2019s effects on end-of-life distress in cancer patients had been studied in the mid-20th century. But research on psychedelics stopped after a series of scandals, irresponsible use, bad press, and politically-motivated crackdowns. In 2011, the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center conducted a small pilot study to investigate \u201cthe potential utility of a psilocybin treatment model\u201d for advanced-stage cancer patients struggling with anxiety. The study was the first of its kind in 35 years.<\/p>\n Although the UCLA researchers used a relatively modest dose of psilocybin (.2 mg per one kg of body weight), they still saw improvements in depression six months after the drug\u2019s administration. Immediate benefits were less pronounced. Still, it set the stage for future studies and opportunities to find the right dose and optimize the setting in which the experience occurs.<\/p>\n In the past decade, researchers like Bossis have worked to refine the psilocybin treatment model, which they hope will be implemented into a legal framework. Patients generally have two therapists, one male and one female, whom they get to know prior to ingesting any medicine. \u201cA key part of that is developing trust and rapport,\u201d Bossis said. \u201cThat’s crucial\u2026that is why we don’t have any adverse effects in our trials.\u201d Although there have been no adverse effects, Bossis emphasized that this does not mean there were no difficult experiences: \u201cIt\u2019s not all peaches and cream.\u201d<\/p>\n Giuliana Furci, the founder of the Fungi Foundation, also spoke about how a psychedelic session may bring up uncomfortable, even frightening, emotions and visions. \u201cHealing experiences aren’t always beautiful,\u201d she said over Zoom from her home in Chile. This is why having a trained guide is so important.<\/p>\n She doesn\u2019t believe an advanced degree in psychology or psychiatry is necessary to guide someone on a journey. \u201cYou need to know how to face demons and you need to know how to get somebody out of a space that can be extremely scary, threatening, or painful,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd you\u2019re navigating that in a dimension that is intangible.\u201d<\/p>\n During a session, patients wear eyeshades and headphones \u201cto encourage inward attention,\u201d Bossis explained. They listen to a curated Spotify playlist\u2014\u201cmostly classical music.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe main recommendation is to trust consciousness, trust yourself as you move into these unfolding changes in consciousness,\u201d Bossis said.<\/p>\n Furci also stressed how central cultivating a safe environment is for a meaningful experience. \u201cI think the most important thing for anybody who’s going to have an experience like that is to feel freedom\u2014freedom of movement, freedom of making noise,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Studies have indicated that psilocybin can help those struggling from depression, anxiety, alcoholism, and smoking addiction. Future studies will involve eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder. MDMA has been shown to be effective in treating PTSD, and may be legalized in as little as two years.<\/p>\n The resulting attention from the public, however, makes Bossis nervous. He and his team have gone to great lengths to deliver a measured, fact-based message. \u201cWe’re not saying it’s God in a pill. We’re not saying this is for everybody,\u201d he said. New York\u2019s Midtown glittered out the window. \u201cSo in terms of the radar, we wish it was a little quieter.\u201d The likelihood of \u201cbad outcomes\u201d generated by untrained therapists in underground sessions threatens to reverse much of the progress already made. Bossis worries what could happen without the proper training. \u201cIt\u2019s not just, Take this and go have a good time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n …..<\/p>\n Cooper Union\u2019s Great Hall, located in the Bowery in Manhattan, has hosted Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, and Susan B. Anthony in its cavernous space dotted with wide columns. On a chilly December Saturday in 2021, it housed the annual Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics conference.<\/p>\n The day\u2019s talks covered laws and patents, FDA approval, and the biochemical effects of psychedelics. In the afternoon, the focus shifted. Dr. Matthew Johnson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins and one of the world\u2019s most published researchers on psychedelics, walked onto the rounded stage. He bears a striking resemblance to Edward Snowden with his wire-rimmed glasses, clean haircut, and tall, lanky figure.<\/p>\n Johnson conceded his topic, the \u201cpitfalls\u201d of psychedelics, may not be the most popular at a psychedelic-centered conference. He discussed the tendency to fall victim to an \u201camplification, irrational exuberance\u201d regarding these medicines, which can sometimes erroneously be viewed as a panacea. \u201cThere will be casualties,\u201d he warned during his discussion of the risks involved.<\/p>\n Psychedelics, he added, \u201cshake things up\u201d and could worsen psychiatric disorders in some instances. Researchers and guides need to consider the protocol for patients leaving a clinic after having a disruptive experience.<\/p>\n Johnson considered the \u201cclinical boundaries\u201d that would also need to be established. A sort of \u201cguru complex\u201d can result from such an unequal power dynamic, and can create an environment ripe for sexual assault. This, he stressed, must be seriously considered\u2014and prevented. With psychedelics, people are at their most vulnerable.<\/p>\n Laura Mae Northrup, a somatic psychotherapist whose work deals largely with how psychedelic medicines can help survivors of sexual trauma begin to heal, spoke of similar issues. Her podcast, Inside Eyes<\/em>, includes several conversations with such survivors.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason we cause harm is being wounded and having the power to do it,\u201d she told Cooper Union\u2019s hushed audience. When therapists have undergone trauma themselves, they are more likely to harm their clients. This is a cycle that must be broken, Northrup demanded as her voice cracked. \u201cBeing a healing practitioner is a sacred role.\u201d<\/p>\n …..<\/p>\n What constitutes a psychedelic experience? The range of possibilities is vast, and an individual\u2019s mindset and physical environment greatly influence what occurs. Still, there are some common elements. William James\u2019 1902 book The Varieties of Religious Experience<\/em> provides \u201cthe foundations to this whole field,\u201d says Bossis.<\/p>\n Bossis sat back in his chair as he cited some of the relatively universal aspects of a psychedelic experience relayed by James: transcendence, unity, ineffability, among others. Study participants often transcend their own bodies or even \u201ctime and space as we know it.\u201d This is especially helpful to people whose bodies are riddled with cancer. Patients receive the \u201cprofound gift\u201d of recognizing \u201cthat I’m not just my body, that there’s something more enduring,\u201d Bossis said.<\/p>\n Psychedelics also prompt a sense of unity, that \u201call things are connected. Literally, everything is interconnected.\u201d With this comes a sense of wonder, sacredness, and a \u201cdeeply felt positive mood.\u201d<\/p>\n Bossis has written and spoken about the noetic quality, another criterion of many psychedelic journeys. The adjective as it is used today was coined by James and derives from the Greek word for \u201cintellectual,\u201d no\u0113tik\u00f3s. In The Varieties of Religious Experience<\/em>, James writes that mystical episodes with this quality are \u201cstates of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect.\u201d<\/p>\n Bossis described it as the understanding \u201cthat this is not the only reality. There’s even a greater reality. And it speaks with authority\u2026this thing we’re living in right now, whatever this is, it’s one sliver of what’s available.\u201d<\/p>\n Ineffability, too, is a hallmark of psychedelic-induced, \u201cnon-ordinary consciousness.\u201d With this comes \u201cparadoxicality\u201d (\u201cIsn\u2019t that a groovy word?\u201d Bossis asked.) Patients experience conflicting feelings: being \u201cdead\u201d but feeling fully alive, or seeing the entirety of nature in a single object, for instance.<\/p>\n Scientists have yet to discover precisely why and how psychedelics produce the effects they do. But the experiences they promote have nonetheless garnered powerful results.<\/p>\n Desperation<\/p>\n R<\/strong>ichard Cone was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2005. In 2011, he discovered the disease had metastasized to his bones. With his diagnosis came a crushing bout of depression.<\/p>\n Cone had worked as an assistant biology professor at Harvard and later taught biophysics at John Hopkins. In 2012, Hopkins was conducting a study investigating psilocybin\u2019s effects on cancer patients suffering from depression or anxiety. He was desperate; the psilocybin study offered a vague sense of hope.<\/p>\n Before the study, Cone struggled to get out of bed. \u201cI\u2019d rather just stay there, lie there, thank you,\u201d he shared in a video produced by one of his guides, Cody Swift. \u201cIt was the impending arrival of the end of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Swift, a therapist-guide who has worked with and funded several Johns Hopkins psychedelic studies, believes much of the unhappiness and problems humans face stem from attachment to our identities and what we believe reality should look like. Psychedelics, he said recently, \u201chave a way of\u2026dislodging that a little bit so there’s more fluidity. And so there’s more room for creativity. There’s more for play. There’s more room for breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n Cone received a dose of psilocybin and embarked on what he hoped would be a psychedelic healing journey. Rather than confronting his mortality, however, he revisited the death of his first daughter, Tanya, who had herself died of cancer at the age of eight. He experienced a \u201creawakening\u201d of what it felt like when she died.<\/p>\n \u201cThe feelings just came flooding up,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I howled.\u201d<\/p>\n Psychedelics seem to initiate \u201ca process of opening doors,\u201d Swift explained on a Zoom call from Santa Cruz. They allow participants to access the \u201cdeeper shadows,\u201d which otherwise would be too painful to confront and ultimately work through.<\/p>\n This is what Cone experienced after ingesting the psilocybin. \u201cA lot of his depression wasn’t about the cancer. His depression was about this old trauma that he had, that he hadn’t fully addressed,\u201d Swift said.<\/p>\n After the session, Cone said he felt \u201cfully alive,\u201d and \u201cecstatic\u201d at the prospect of living. He experienced a profound sense of interconnectedness: \u201cHumans are not separate from nature,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe found himself just excited about the day,\u201d Swift said, \u201cwaking up in the morning with life again.\u201d<\/p>\n …..<\/p>\n Wyly Gray came from a \u201cbroken family,\u201d he told the Psychedelic Times<\/em> in 2019. His parents divorced when he was two years old. Although his mom won custody, his dad kidnapped him. At age four he was returned to his mother. Gray did not see his father again until he was 27.<\/p>\n His mother started using drugs during the crack cocaine epidemic that ravaged the 80s and 90s. At age ten, he was put into foster care. As a teenager, Gray joined the Delayed Entry Program for the Marines, his \u201cfirst solid family,\u201d he recalled on the Straight Outta Combat<\/em> podcast.<\/p>\n Gray worked in logistics for the artillery battery, and finished eight-and-a-half years of active duty in 2008. Upon finishing, however, a cascade of events took a toll on his mental health. His grandparents died, his wife suffered a miscarriage, he suffered from severe insomnia. \u201cFor a while I trucked along and felt like I could still manage it,\u201d he said in the Times<\/em> interview.<\/p>\n Gray realized he had been struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress. The VA did not provide much help, he told me. \u201cThey basically told me, \u2018You know, we can’t do much here, like, we can give you handfuls of pills. That should make you okay.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He knew that SSRIs typically take a couple months to start working. He worried what could happen in the interim. \u201cI found my journey in desperation,\u201d he told me. If things didn\u2019t change, he thought he\u2019d kill himself.<\/p>\n …..<\/p>\n Psychedelics have helped veterans heal from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. Gray had read about the psychological healing properties of Ayahuasca, a South American psychedelic plant brew used by indigenous cultures. It is generally consumed in a group and prompts multiple hours of vomiting. He decided to give it a try.<\/p>\n He found a shaman and flew to Peru. The experiences he had there with Ayahuasca did not cure his PTSD. But it did alleviate some of his most painful symptoms, including insomnia.<\/p>\n Gray attributes his regained ability to sleep to developing a sense of security. \u201cThat’s what most veterans have lost. It’s this idea, like when you come home, you know that home is safe. Veterans don’t have that.\u201d<\/p>\n His Ayahuasca journeys placed him in the \u201cpassenger seat of someone else’s consciousness.\u201d It was an unfamiliar position for someone who had always had to be in charge. Rather than reacting immediately to a trigger, he now had \u201ca preview second that didn’t exist before,\u201d where he could ask himself, \u201cIs that the way I want to react?\u201d<\/p>\n …..<\/p>\n In 2015, Gray founded Veterans of War, a non-profit that holds Ayahuasca retreats for veterans suffering from PTSD. The program includes months of therapy and a \u201cguided psychedelic therapy workshop\u201d in Peru. Gray believes a large part of what makes Ayahuasca so effective is its group dynamic. \u201cHealing happens in community,\u201d he told me. He had found community in the Marines, and he could now find it though helping others heal. \u201cThe most I’ve ever felt whole was when I was a part of something. And I think that many of our traumas stem from inability to feel whole,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n III. FUTURE<\/p>\n Patent Pending<\/p>\n P<\/strong>sychedelic medicine will likely generate handsome profits. But it too is a business that risks falling into the Big Pharma playbook of limiting access, driving up prices, and restricting the manner of therapeutic treatment.<\/p>\n COMPASS Pathways is a British pharmaceutical company that has conducted clinical trials into psilocybin\u2019s therapeutic use. It has ten patents, many of which concern a synthesized psilocybin molecule called Polymorph A. It is not possible to patent a naturally occurring substance, so a company could not patent a mushroom belonging to the Psilocybe genus, for instance. But a specific molecular configuration of a synthesized compound is fair game.<\/p>\n But is Polymorph A a novel, patentable molecule? In December of 2021, Freedom to Operate, a non-profit to protect psilocybin research for the public benefit, filed a petition for a post-grant review of COMPASS\u2019 most recent patent. It argued that Polymorph A is in fact a mixture of different pre-existing polymorphs, and presented examples of past instances, or \u201cprior art,\u201d which challenged the seemingly novel elements of COMPASS\u2019 patent. COMPASS must respond to the claims within three months of their filing, at which point the Patent Trial and Appeal Board will examine the case and reach a decision.<\/p>\n The psychedelic community is worried by COMPASS\u2019 efforts to patent treatment and administration methods. At the annual Horizons Conference in New York City, the company took on the aura of Voldemort, as none of the speakers there would utter its name.<\/p>\n Over a recent Zoom call, Tracey Cheung, COMPASS\u2019 Chief Communications Officer, told me that COMPASS is a \u201cmental healthcare company, not a psychedelic company,\u201d later adding, \u201cour goal is to help people with mental health, our goal is not to get psilocybin legalized.\u201d Cheung is a lovely British woman with short black hair and kind, gentle eyes. She is very good at her job.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you didn’t have any patents, there would be no incentive for anybody to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars required,\u201d she said, referring to research and development, or R&D. \u201cWe persuade our investors to invest in the company. And in return, we promise them that we will protect our innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n She emphasizes that COMPASS is a for-profit company, unlike, say, the Usona Institute, a 501(c)3 non-profit research organization that conducts clinical psilocybin research, or the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelics Studies (MAPS), also a 501(c)3, which is primarily concerned with MDMA-assisted therapy. (I currently intern at MAPS.) Both of the latter organizations manufacture their respective compounds to use in clinical trials, and both are concerned solely with psychedelic research. Once psilocybin and MDMA are legalized, they hope to profit off of their sale and distribution.<\/p>\n MAPS does not intend to patent its discoveries. Usona plans to license any intellectual property \u201cto anyone who will use it for the common good.\u201d Both Usona and MAPS adopt an Open Science approach, where scientific discoveries and results are kept public, for the benefit of the \u201cpublic good.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe will not withhold, nor will we require others to withhold, materials or knowledge (experiences, observations, discoveries, methods, best practices, or the like) for commercial advantage,\u201d reads a statement published by Usona and signed by multiple researchers, including Dr. Bossis.<\/p>\n Cheung did say that COMPASS supports this approach.\u201cOpen science is about publishing your studies and research and sharing that,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are absolutely committed to doing all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n None of these companies are anti-profit or anti-competition, but the race for patenting psychedelics poses unique challenges. Because these substances have been illegal for decades, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) will likely not have the expertise required to determine if a specific molecule is in fact novel.<\/p>\n In an article for Harvard Law Review, esteemed bioethics experts I. Glenn Cohen and Mason Marks write that much of the \u201crelevant knowledge\u201d that would help identify prior art comes from non-U.S. sources, was passed down orally, or was never publicly shared out of \u201cfear of arrest and prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSome stakeholders,\u201d they warn, \u201ccould exploit these blind spots to blanket the landscape with broad patent claims, using language and technology that is foreign to examiners.\u201d<\/p>\n COMPASS\u2019s pending patent involves administering psilocybin in a room with \u201cmuted colors and soft furniture,\u201d and with \u201ca therapist holding the patient\u2019s hand,\u201d among other elements that have been used in clinical trials, underground, or by Indigenous communities.<\/p>\n Cohen and Marks write that examiners unfamiliar with this history \u201cmay issue patents on this and similar inventions that lack novelty.\u201d<\/p>\n This is largely why MAPS supports an anti-patent strategy in this space. The organization hopes to prevent prohibitive patents by making as much information public as possible.<\/p>\n Others are more blunt. \u201cI don\u2019t agree with what COMPASS is doing,\u201d the somatic psychotherapist, and podcaster Laura Mae Northrup, told me. \u201cI do not believe it\u2019s in the spirit of healing.\u201d<\/p>\n Stepping Stones<\/p>\n I<\/strong> can\u2019t wait until the session is over. My left AirPod cuts out, and the silk mask covering my eyes only reminds me of the sunshine of which I am depriving myself on this uncharacteristically gorgeous March day in New York. I lie on my yoga mat, which I rolled out on my living room floor. I had to move the coffee table to make room.<\/p>\n I heard \u201cneurodynamic breath work\u201d was a stepping stone to a psychedelic experience, and could, for some, produce a non-ordinary state of consciousness akin to one brought on by ingesting a mind-altering substance. A colleague of mine told me about Neurodynamic Breathwork Online. I just began an internship at MAPS, and she informed me that employees could take advantage of a free session. The online convenience, coupled with the fact it was free, intrigued me. In an effort to increase access to this type of work, the founder, Michael Stone, started the workshop in 2017. I was skeptical, but curious.<\/p>\n During the session, I resolve to \u201csurrender\u201d to the experience, as Michael instructs our Zoom group of over 100 participants. After an over-long introduction, we begin. The soundtrack starts with fast-paced, drum-based beats interspersed with the occasional chirp of a distant bird or insect. Michael instructs us to breathe in and out through the mouth, \u201cdeeply and rapidly,\u201d forming a continuous circle of breath.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t long before my mouth is dry. I miss the automaticity of normal breathing, which, I realize, I took for granted. But the rest of my body begins to respond. My chest feels hollow, my limbs buzz.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat am I doing?\u201d I wonder anxiously. I don\u2019t know why I am resisting. My mind wanders to all the things I should be doing. I feel guilty, unproductive. \u201cShould I abandon the Zoom session?\u201d I think.<\/p>\n And yet, I know the discomfort and impatience I feel is part of the therapy. Indeed, psychedelic therapy, like breath work, requires surrender, something I have always struggled with. But I have grown less rigid. I stick with it and allow myself to breathe through my nose a bit, aiming for the faster pace Michael suggested. My body becomes chilly and my hands grow numb. My fingers curl into claws. Michael said this was extremely common. There\u2019s even a name for it: tetany.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is actually a very healing experience,\u201d the preparatory information read. Apparently, my body was \u201ctaking energy that has been stuck\u2026creating maximum tension which will then turn into an amazing release.\u201d<\/p>\n I feel hopeful something is happening. As the music changes to melodic voices punctuated by gentle ocean waves, my body feels heavy. I sink into the floor and enjoy the natural, slow rhythm of my breath.<\/p>\n I never experience an amazing release, but this is surprisingly pleasant. It resembles how I feel after working up a robust, cathartic sweat from intense strength training or cardio. As I lie on my mat, eyeshades on, my body and mind loosen. It is just a taste, but one that reminds me of what\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n …..<\/p>\n In many ways, the future is already here. Companies like Field Trip and Mindbloom administer Ketamine, a common anesthetic, as a form of therapy. Ketamine is not a classic psychedelic like psilocybin or LSD, but at low doses, it can prompt a dissociative, psychedelic experience.<\/p>\n Patients working with Mindbloom undergo a psychiatric evaluation before they are prescribed the medication. The company then ships Ketamine lozenges to the patient\u2019s home. After a virtual preparatory session with a therapist, the client embarks on their own psychedelic journey without having to leave their house. A family member or friend is present to silently check in on them every fifteen minutes. After an hour, the trusted at-home sitter helps them \u201cland\u201d from their experience.<\/p>\n After the journey, the patient journals, uses the restroom, eats a snack. Then they hop back on Zoom to \u201cdebrief\u201d with their therapist, Juanita Vera, a therapist who contracts with Mindbloom, told me.<\/p>\n At Field Trip, patients come into the clinic to receive the medicine intramuscularly. Patients at both clinics undergo six ketamine sessions, and participate in therapy and integration work, crucial aspects of the treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cI always like to tell my clients, you’re coming in here, you’re doing the real nitty gritty work,\u201d Radhalisa Zarzuela, a therapist at Field Trip, told me. \u201cBut the real, real hard work happens outside of here. It\u2019s what you do after you leave.\u201d<\/p>\n Kim Clay, another therapist at Field Trip, told me that intentionality is key. Without an intention and without integration, she said, the experience risks turning into a \u201cfantasy.\u201d But if a meaningful intention and effective therapy were behind such promising results, was Ketamine any different than an SSRI? In other words, if someone coupled an SSRI prescription with intentionality and a good therapist, would the outcome prove comparable?<\/p>\n With Ketamine, something else seems to be occurring. As with the classic psychedelics, Ketamine has very few side effects and is not addictive. The experience, too, seems to be important.<\/p>\n Viera, of Mindbloom, told me that the speed of treatment is accelerated. The medicine lowers a patient\u2019s defenses, allowing them to go \u201cstraight to the root\u201d of the issue. \u201cThe substance itself is an opener,\u201d Clay said.<\/p>\n Ketamine clinics provide a viable model for how MDMA, psilocybin, and other substances might be administered in the future. Rather than relying on a lifelong prescription, perhaps psychedelics will offer lasting healing to those suffering from addiction, depression, OCD, PTSD, anxiety, eating disorders, alcoholism. Perhaps psychedelics will help enrich the lives of those without a diagnosed condition, but who nonetheless, crave an expanded worldview or a peek into their consciousness.<\/p>\n In his New York office, Dr. Bossis, the palliative care researcher from NYU, spoke about the seemingly universal human inclination toward mystical, \u201cpeak experiences,\u201d which can be produced by playing music, exercise, nature, a brush with death. \u201cIt’s part of who we are,\u201d he said. Psychedelics, especially when paired with therapy, offer yet another possible peak experience\u2014another opportunity to connect with our shared humanity, or something larger.<\/p>\n They seem \u201cto give us temporary access to a part of the landscape of consciousness, whatever that is,\u201d Bossis told me with a twinkle in his eye. \u201cOur life map is there for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I. PAST Drugs & Religion In Kindergarten, all I wanted for my birthday was a statue of Mary. I loved the Blessed Virgin\u2014her serenity, her kindness, her impossibly peaceful affect. I aspired to be like her. Whenever Mrs. Hogan or Ms. Smith taught the class stories from the Bible in which Mary starred, distraction became […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-all","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Red](\"https:\/\/shoeleathermagazine.com\/2022\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Msuhroom-225x300.jpg\")