Psychedelics

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Ronin Publishing, May 1, 2009 - Social Science - 144 pages
Provides a framework for understanding the enormous amount of information available on psychoactive substances. Stafford relays the history, botany, chemistry, physical and mental effects, forms, sources, and preparations of LSD—the most potent and representative of class of drugs called psychedelics. Stafford claims that psychedelics offer surprising benefits to society and he explores the record of promising studies that were truncated in the 1960s, along with a commentary of developments since that time.

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Contents

INTRODUCTIONS
9
PSYCHEDELIC ROOTS
21
ERGOT DISCOVERED
27
HOFMANN DISCOVERS LSD
34
MILITARY INVOLVED
41
5 POP CULTURE
48
BIRTH OF THE COUNTERCULTURE
60
HYSTERIA
67
LSD RESEARCH
122
PERSONAL GROWTH
126
ACID THERAPY
130
CREATIVITY
138
BEYOND LSD
145
PLANT SOURCES
151
PURITY TESTS
160
TRENDS the mysterious powers of these substances
163

TRIPPING
75
EXPANDED CONSCIOUSNESS
85
TRIP GUIDES
93
CHEMISTRY
102
THE MIND
109
PSYCHOTHERAPY
117
PROFILES
172
INDEX
183
BOOKS OF INTEREST
188
PETER STAFFORD
191
Ronin Books for Independera Minds
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Page 54 - LSD— using musical groups such as the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and...
Page 35 - I lay down and sank into a kind of drunkenness, which was not unpleasant and which was characterized by extreme activity of imagination. As I lay in a dazed condition with my eyes closed (I experienced daylight as disagreeably bright) there surged upon me an uninterrupted stream of fantastic images of extraordinary plasticity and vividness and accompanied by an intense, kaleidoscope-like play of colors.
Page 146 - The simultaneous action of separate agencies which, together, have greater total effect than the sum of their individual effects.
Page 129 - ... receiving meaningful insight about themselves in an LSD experience without the intervention, participation or even presence of a therapist. . . . Those who administer lysergic acid in a single dose have as their goal, in the words of Sherwood, et al., an overwhelming reaction "in which an individual comes to experience himself in a totally new way and finds that the age old question 'Who am I?
Page 146 - ... an everyday mysticism underlying and giving significance to everyday rationality, everyday tasks and duties, everyday human relationships.
Page 37 - Occasionally I felt as being outside my body. I thought I had died. My "Ego" was suspended somewhere in space and I saw my body lying dead on the sofa. I observed and registered clearly that my "alter ego" was moving around the room, moaning.
Page 82 - Most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that it is uniquely lovely. All, from Slotkin's65 unsophisticated Indians to men of great learning, agree that much of it is beyond verbal description. Our subjects, who include many who have drunk deep of life, including authors, artists, a junior cabinet minister, scientists, a hero, philosophers, and businessmen, are nearly all in agreement in this respect. For myself, my experiences with these substances have been...
Page 140 - ... years. Meetings: Monthly, October to May inclusive, at the Academy. Research funds, medals, etc.: The Society has thus far voted each year a grant of $100 or more to aid the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Diseases, which this Society originated. Publications: Proceedings are published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases and in the Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry. 594. NEW YORK PATHOLOGICAL SOCIETY Address: Beryl Holmes Paige, Secretary, Presbyterian Hospital, New...
Page 85 - ... the spontaneously generated idea of an afterlife in which the disembodied soul, liberated from the restrictions of time and space, experiences eternal bliss, or the accidental discovery of hallucinogenic plants that give a sense of euphoria, dislocate the center of consciousness, and distort time and space, making them balloon outward in greatly expanded vistas...
Page 37 - While we were still cycling home, however, it became clear that the symptoms were much stronger than the first time. I had great difficulty in speaking coherently, my field of vision swayed before me, and objects appeared distorted like images in curved mirrors. I had the impression of being unable to move from the spot, although my assistant told me afterwards that we had cycled at a good pace.

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