Encyclopedia of Psychedelics

Cultural Context, 1 Origin of the Word Psychedelic, 4 Other Terms Proposed, 7 Varieties of "Psychedelics," 9 What are the Common Effects?, 11 What are the Benefits to Humanity?, 17 Counterculture! Influences, 19 Questions about Impurity and Other Complications, 21 Use and Misuse, 25 Dealing with Difficulties, 26 Drawbacks of Psychedelic Usage, 30 Future Directions, 31

Preview . . . a psychedelic drug is one which, without causing physical addiction, craving, major psysiological disturbances, delirium, disorientation, or amnesia, more or less reliably produces thought, mood, and perceptual changes otherwise rarely experienced except in dreams, contemplative and religious exaltation, flashes of vivid involuntary memory, and acute psychoses.

Mind-altering substances have been used in all societies except among the Eskimos and some Polynesians, and thus many of the plants discussed in this book have long and exotic histories. Much of the history, including early New World native use, is undocumented, and much is veiled in legend. We may never know whether Buddha's last meal was of mushrooms ("pig's food"). However, many scholars have now accepted the identification of Fly Agaric mushrooms as the inspirational "Soma" in the world's earliest religious text, the Rig-Veda, and evidence seems strong that ergot, an LSD-like substance, was the mysterious kykeon, used for more than 2,000 years in the annual ancient Greek Eleusinian Mysteries. The anthropologist Weston La Barre characterized the use of mindaltering plants as being the source and mainstay of "the world's oldest profession"—that of the shaman or medicine man. He adds that such a specialist was "ancestor not only to both the modern medicine man or doctor and the religionist priest or divine, but also ancestor in direct lineage to a host of other professional types." Shamanism in the New World was fostered by indigenous psychedelics that are powerful and quite safe. The Old World had to rely on less dependable, more erratic substances, such as hashish, belladonna, thorn apple and Fly Agaric mushrooms. It is now evident that the prescriptions of specific plants in the recipes in witches' brews of the Middle Ages was not as superstitious or random as earlier supposed. After accompanying Columbus on his second voyage, Ramdn Paul brought back word of cohoba sniffing among natives in Haiti. The earliest account of peyote was set down in 1560 in Bernardino de Saha'gun's History of the Things of New Spain. In 1615, botanical notes made by the Spanish physician Francisco Hernandez about the mind-changing effects of morning glory seeds were published. The first report on use ofAmanita muscaria mushrooms among Siberian tribesmen didn't appear until 1730. Forty-one years later, a Swedish botanist accompanying Captain James Cook on his first voyage to the 1

2 Preview Hawaiian Islands described kava-kava and the natives'ceremonial use of this substance. One year later, Sir Joseph Priestly, who first isolated oxygen, produced nitrous oxide (N^O). At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, after whom the Pacific current is named, gathered together the first "scientific" report on the use oiyopo snuff in the Amazonian region. Around the middle of the nineteenth century, the pace of knowledge of psychoactive substances greatly quickened. In 1839, W. B. O'Shaughnessy introduced Cannabis indica into the Western pharmacopoeia, and five years later Theophile Guautier established Le Club des Haschischins in Paris. In 1851, the British explorer Richard Spruce first observed ayahuasca practices among the South American natives; four years later, Ernst Freiherr von Bibra published an account of seventeen plants capable of affecting the mind. Urging others to study this field, he described it as "oromising for research and fraught with enigmas." In 1864, die earliest description of psychoactive effects from the African bush Tabernantha iboga appeared. It wouldn't be until near the end of the nineteenth century, however, that peyote investigations eventually produced

Ernst Friherr von Bibra laid the foundation for modern pharmacological studies in his 1855 Die narkotischen Genussmittel und der Mensch (Narcotic Inebriants [•'mediums of enjoyment"] and Humanity).

psychedelizatton of Society 3 the world's first psychedelic compound in crystalline form. Louis Lewin, another German important in the development of modern psychopharmacology, traveled to the southwestern United States and brought peyote back to laboratories in Berlin. Eight years later, Lewin's rival, Arthur Heffter, isolated "mezcalin" from Lewin's specimens. After fractionating the alkaloids, or nitrogen-containing compounds, from this cactus, Heffter was able to locate the source of peyote's psychoactivity only by trying the various fractions himself. Tlie first account of the peyote experience from someone who had actually tried it appeared in 1896. This came from a distinguished author and Philadelphia physician, S. Weir Mitchell, who then forwarded "peyote buttons" to the prominent psychologists William James and Havelock Ellis. After ingesting them in his flat in London, Ellis called the resulting experiences "an orgy of visions" and "a new artificial paradise" (from the titles of his two reports). James, however,got a severe stomachache after eating only one, declaring that he would "take the visions on trust." Scientific curiosity about peyote dimmed shortly after the turn of the century but was revived in 1927 by the French pharmacologist Alexandre Rouhier, who gave an extraction from the cactus to several students and published accounts of their "exotic" visions. A year later, Kurt Beringer published his 315-page study Der Meikaltnrausch (Mescaline Inebriation). A year after that, an English monograph that attempted to catalog the elements of "mescal visions" was published. By this time, a continuing interest in what we now call psychedelic states was emerging. However, there was little indication yet that psychedelks would eventually affect and enchant a great many people. That eventuality began to take shape in 1938, when the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann synthesized d-lysergic acid diethylamide tartrate—LSD-25 In mid-April 1943, Hofmann apparently absorbed some of this compound through the skin of his hands and thus learned what animal tests had failed to show: that this substance was a mind-altering drug that had about 4,000 times the potency of mescaline. In 1947, Werner A. Stoll, the son of Hofmann's superior, broadcast news of this discovery in scientific literature. Within two years, Drs. Nicholas Bercel of Los Angeles and Max Rinkel of Boston brought LSD to the United States. The change that would take place in our thinking about molecules and their ability to affect the mind was catalyzed during the mid-1950s. In a slender, much noted book, Aldous Huxley described how his "doors of perception" had been cleansed by 500 milligrams of mescaline sulfate. In May 1957, Life magazine published the third part of a "great adventures" series with ten pages of color photographs: R. Gordon Wasson described how he had become one of the first two white men to be "bemushroomed." Since then, knowledge about psychedelics has grown steadily, as have the numbers of people interested in them.

Prew

from "Psychotomimetic" to "Psychedelic"

Origin of the Word Psychedelic In the early 1950s, researchers Humphry Osmond and John Smythies wrote a paper about the mental effects of mescaline that came to the attention of Aldous Huxley, who invited Osmond to visit him if he should be in the Los Angeles area. Huxley's wife, Maria, was initially apprehensive about such a meeting, fearing that Osmond "might wear a beard." When Osmond did go to L.A. for a psychological conference, Maria was satisfied that he was not a Bohemian or a mad scientist (he didn't have a beard), and he stayed with the Huxleys. Maria, ironically, finally asked about getting some mescaline for Aldous. Osmond's reaction to the proposal was favorable, with one reservation: The setting could hardly have been better, Akious seemed an ideal subject, Maria eminently sensible, and we had all taken to each other, which was very important for a good experience, but I did not relish the possibility, however remote, of being the man who drove Aldous Huxley mad In the literature then available about what we now call psychedelic drugs, the term most commonly used to describe the effects was psychotomimetic (meaning psychosis-mimicking). Yet it is evident from Huxley's description in The Doors of Perception that when he tried mescaline sulfate he was not going through some kind of "imitation psychosis." Huxley believed he had experienced something akin to mystical experience. He was considered an authority on the subject, being the author of one of the classics in this field, The Perennial Philosophy. Osmond was already sensitive to the lack of an adequate term for the mental state induced by mescaline and LSD. He and his colleague Abram Hoffer had been observing LSD's effects in the treatment of acute alcoholism, and the states produced in their subjects were not as expected. Having read in the literature that LSD produced temporary psychosis, they had reasoned that such a substance could be used to touch off a kind of artificial and controllable delirium tremens. About 10 percent of those who experience d.t.'s never drink again. Osmond and Hoffer tried LSD on two patients—one recovered, the other remained an alcoholic. They began to use LSD as regular treatment for their worst alcoholic cases, and it gradually became clear that recovery seemed to occur most commonly when the dJ.'s hypothesis was forgotten altogether. Hoffer has since commented: . . . by 1957 it was apparent that even though many of our patients were helped by LSD, it was not its psychotomimetic activity which was responsible. In spite of our best efforts to produce such an experience, some of our subjects escaped into a psychedelic experience. The new term came out of a regular correspondence that developed between Osmond and Huxley. Psychedelic—coming from the Greek psyche

Humphry Osmond, an early LSD, mescaline, morning glory seed and adrenolutin researcher, proposed the word psychedelic. (soul) and delein, to make manifest, or dehttn, to show, reveal—was first proposed in 1956 by Osmond. Huxley took the lead, proposing words derived from roots relating to "spirit" or "soul." He invented the word phanerothyme and encased it in a couplet for Osmond's consideration: To make this trivial world sublime, Take half a gramme of phanerothyme. Osmond has since remarked that the word Huxley selected was too beautiful. He replied: To fathom hell or soar angelic, Just take a pinch of psychedelic Especially noteworthy about psychedelic is the presence of the first e— which varies from the ordinary way of combining Greek roots and thus dissociates this word from the misleading connotations of psychotic. Soulmanifesting belongs to the category of meanings that make sense in terms of contrast: fust as empty implies full, as child implies adult, so soul-manifesting implies an enlargement or actualization of consciousness. This point about psychedelics is often hard to get across. For better or worse, Osmond's psychedelic has been largely accepted as a description of the state produced by the substances to be discussed in this book.

Similarities to Various "Synonyms"

PSYCHEDELIC REVIEW Issue Number 1 SUMMER 1963 $1.50

This journal, mainly edited by the psychologist Ralph Metzner, promoted the adjective and noun that eventually came to be most closely associated with LSD. mescalme and similar substances.

7

Other Terms Proposed The word intoxication is said to have more synonyms than any other word in English, but none of them conveys the essense of a psychedelic mental state. To be psychedelicized is not at all the same as being drunk. Intoxication by alcohol may hint at the experience that is characteristic of psychedelics. Hermann Hesse speaks of alcohol in Steppenwolf as being capable of "lighting the golden trail" William James wrote about the impulse it gives to mystical feeling and "Yea-saying." However, it cannot approach the revelatory power of psychedelics, and its well known drawbacks—loss of lucidity and sometimes of memory—put it in an altogether different category from LSD or mescaline. If any of the intoxication synonyms are to be used to describe soul-manifested states, the best is probably inebriation, because it lacks the connotation of poisoning contained in toxi-. Hallucinogen is another word commonly used for substances producing a psychedelic experience. There is some truth in the characterization, for users often see "visions," especially with the eyes closed. However, most users consider the hallucinatory effect to be only one part of the experience— often a minor part. Even so, the man who formulated the word psychedelic used hallucinogen in the title of a book he wrote later with Abram Hoffer. Richard Evans Schultes and Albert Hofmann in their books about the botany and chemistry of these substances weight the various descriptive terms and settle on hallucinogenic and hallucinogen, while pointing out how inaccurate they are. The chemist Alexander Shulgin, after expkining that most MDAlike compounds evoke no visual imagery at all, labeled them "hallucinogenic" substances in his writings. Even in the second edition of his book on the botany of psychedelics, the ethnobotanist William Emboden retained the title Narcotic Plants. These psychedelic plants and related compounds are quite the opposite of narcotics: unlike opiates, they are basically stimulating, and they are nonaddictive. (Psychedelics also differ from true stimulants; they increase lucidity but not, as with amphetamine, at the expense of psychological warmth.) The most common psychiatric term for these botanicals and compounds has been psychotomimetic, stemming from a concept proposed in the late nineteenth century by the French doctor J.J. Moreau de Tours. He was the first to raise the hope that chemicals could produce insights toward the alleviation of mental illness. The hope was only partially realized. While the psychedelic state may have some similarities to psychotic ones, the differences are more numerous and more significant, a main difference being that the induced state is known to last only a short while. By the 1960s, few of the therapeutic projects using psychedelics were attempting to bring about psychotic mental states. Yet the term still lingers, with papers describing blissful, beneficial results ascribed to some "psychos is-mimicking" drug. Another psycho therapeutic term that has much currency, especially in Europe, is psycholytic, which has been specifically limited to refer only to low dosage use of psychedelics in conjunction with therapeutic sessions. Shulgin

Chemical and Botanical "Clusterings" has compiled several more from the prominent psychotherapeutic literature: deltrients, delustonogens, dysteptics, misperceptionogens, mysticomimetics, phantasticants, pharmakons, psychotaraxics, psychoticants, psychotogens and scbizogens. Many observers have favored Louis Lewin's suggestion of pbantastica, but this early formulation never caught oa Several writers have turned to German or Sanskrit to find more appropriate words, but these have largely been ignored. More notable terms are peak experiences, a term popularized by the psychologist Abraham Maslow; altered states, popularized by the psychologist Charles Tart; alternative states, coined by Norman Zinberg; and cosmic experience, popularized in William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience. The latest term proposed comes from the team of Ruck, Bigwood, Staples, Ott and Wesson, writing in the January-June \919 Journal of Psychedelic Drugs. They feel strongly that "not only is 'psychedelic' an incorrect verbal formulation, but it has become so invested with connotations of the pop-culture of the 1960s that it is incongruous to speak of a shaman's taking a 'psychedelic' drug." They offer entheogen, calling it a new term that would be appropriate for describing states of shamanic and ecstatic possession induced by ingestion of mind-altering drugs. In Greek the word entheos means literally "god (theos) within," and was used to describe the condition that follows when one is inspired and possessed by the god that has entered one's body. It was applied to prophetic seizures, erotic passion and artistic creation, as well as to those religious rites in which mystical states were experienced through the ingestion of substances that were transsubstantial with the deity. Combining this Greek root with gen, "which denotes the action of 'becoming,' " they argue further for the suitability of entheogen: Our word sits easily on the tongue and seems quite natural in English. We could speak of entbeogenr or, in an adjectival form, of entheogemc plants or substances. In a stria sense, only those vision-producing drugs that can be shown to have figured in shamanic or religious rites would be designated entheogens, but in a looser sense, the term could also be applied to other drugs, both natural and artificial, that indite alterations of consciousness similar to those documented for ritual ingestion of traditional entheogens. After being around for a couple of years, the term entheogen has entered the ethnobotanical literature and is about to be included in the Oxford English Dictionary. So far as popular usage is concerned, it doesn't seem to sit as easily on the tongue as orginally claimed. For now, the term psychedelic, even if a little shabby and cheapened by overuse, will have to do. It is commonly understood, and since 1976 it has been included in the Addenda to Webster's Third International Dictionary. Here, with illustrations, is Webster's perception of this book's theme:

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