John Lennon – My First LSD Trip, Animation (Video)

It was spring 1965. Lennon and his wife, Cynthia, and Harrison and his wife, Pattie Boyd, were attending a dinner at the London home of dentist John Riley and his girlfriend, Cyndy Bury. Before the foursome left, Riley asked them to stay for coffee, then urged them to finish their cups. Shortly after, he told Lennon he had placed sugar cubes containing LSD in the coffee.

Beatles’ Acid Test: How LSD Opened the Door to ‘Revolver’ | Rolling Stone

6 Amazing Things Scientists Have Discovered About Psychedelics

6 Amazing Things Scientists Have Discovered About Psychedelics | Third Monk image 5

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Despite the fact that the U.S. government deems many hallucinogenic or psychedelic substances to be dangerous, classifying them as Schedule I drugs with “no currently accepted medical use,” various scientists have dared to study their effects.

What they’ve found over the years paints a startling, promising and powerful picture of potentially game-changing medicines.

LSD Mitigates End-of-Life Anxiety

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The results of the first clinical study of the therapeutic use of LSD in humans in more than 40 years were published. They show that LSD can promote statistically significant reductions in anxiety for people coming to terms with their own impending demise.

Aldous Huxley famously made use of LSD as a way to ease his own passing.

Swiss psychiatrist Peter Gasser and his colleagues conducted the double-blind, placebo-controlled study, sponsored by the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). They tracked 12 people who were near the end of life as they attended LSD-assisted psychotherapy sessions. In his report, Gasser concluded that the study subjects’ anxiety “went down and stayed down.”

Psilocybin – Magic Mushrooms Actually Calms Certain Brain Functions

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The common conception is that psychedelics do something extra to cause their effects – like increase activity, add hallucinations, promote awareness, etc.

study that examined brain scans of people under the influence of psilocybin found that it reduces activity in certain areas of the brain. That reduction of activity leads to the drug’s effect on cognition and memory.

Psychedelics, and psilocybin in particular, might actually be eliminating what could be called the extra “noise” in the brain.

MDMA Promotes the Release of Oxytocin – Helping to Treat PTSD and Severe Social Anxiety

Love = Psychedelics

Before being classified as a Schedule I substance, therapists experimented with MDMA beginning in the 1970s to help reduce moderate depression and anxiety among their adult patients.  Recent research primarily supported by the MAPS has continued to turn up positive results for the drug’s potential therapeutic use.

Various clinical trials and statistical research have confirmed that MDMA can successfully treat post-traumatic stress in military veterans and others.

A 2009 study offers a plausible explanation for MDMA’s effectiveness in treating PTSD. The double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study of 15 healthy individuals confirmed that MDMA causes the brain to release oxytocin, which is the human hormone linked to feelings of love and compassion.

MAPS recently received government approval to launch a new study examining MDMA’s potential for treating social anxiety in autistic adults. Based on the known effects of MDMA, as well as individual reports, this exploratory study will focus on enhancing functional skills and quality of life in autistic adults with social anxiety.

Psilocybin Can Help You Quit Smoking

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Psychiatry Professor Matthew Johnson, who works at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, presented the preliminary results of a pilot feasibility study looking at the ability of psilocybin to treat smoking addiction.

For the study, five cigarette-addicted participants underwent placebo-controlled psilocybin treatment with a psychiatrist. All five completely quit smoking after their first psilocybin session. At all followup visits, which occurred up to one year later for the first four participants, it was biologically confirmed that the participants had abstained from cigarettes.

Ayahuasca Can Treat Drug Addiction

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Ayahuasca is a brew prepared with the Banisteriopsis caapi vine, originally used for spiritual and healing purposes in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. The vine is usually mixed with leaves containing the psychedelic compound DMT.

Gabor Mate, a medical doctor from Vancouver who is a prominent Ayahuasca researcher, contends that therapy assisted by psychedelics, and ayahuasca in particular, can untangle complex, unconscious psychological stresses. He claims these stresses underlie and contribute to all chronic medical conditions, from cancer and addiction to depression and multiple sclerosis.

The results of the first North American observational study on the safety and long-term effectiveness of Ayahuasca treatment for addiction and dependence were published in June 2013 in the journal Current Drug Abuse Reviews.

All of the participants in the study reported positive and lasting changes, and the study found statistically significant improvements “for scales assessing hopefulness, empowerment, mindfulness, and quality of life meaning and outlook subscales. Self-reported alcohol, tobacco and cocaine use declined, although cannabis and opiate use did not.”

The reported reductions in problematic cocaine use were also statistically significant.

Taking DMT Can Naturally Simulate Death

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DMT causes hallucinogenic experiences and is conveniently made up of a chemical compound that already occurs within the human body (as well as in a number of plants). This means our brains are naturally set up to process the drug, because it has receptors that exist specifically to do so. Cannabis is another illegal drug that occurs endogenously.

Some research based on near-death experiences points to the fact that the brain releases DMT during death. Some researchers have also conjectured that DMT is released during other intense experiences, including orgasm.

> 5 Things Scientists Have Discovered About Mind-Altering Drugs | Alter Net

Using Psychedelics to Imprint the Buddhist Experience by Dr. Timothy Leary (Guide)

Using Psychedelics to Imprint the Buddhist Experience by Dr. Timothy Leary (Guide) | Third Monk image 6

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A Guide to a Successful Psychedelic Experience

This guidebook may also be used to avoid paranoid trips or to regain transcendence if it has been lost. If the experience starts with light, peace, mystic unity, understanding, and continues along this path, then there is no need to remember the manual or have it reread to you. Like a road map, consult it only when lost, or when you wish to change course.

Planning a Session

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What is the goal? There can be four possibilities:

  1. Increased personal power, intellectual understanding, sharpened insight into self and culture, improvement of life situation, accelerated learning, professional growth.
  2. Duty, help of others, providing care, rehabilitation, rebirth for fellow men.
  3. Fun, sensuous enjoyment, aesthetic pleasure, interpersonal closeness, pure experience.
  4. Transcendence, liberation from ego and space-time limits; attainment of mystical union.

The manual’s primary emphasis on the last goal does not preclude other goals – in fact, it guarantees their attainment because illumination requires that the person be able to step out beyond problems of personality, role, and professional status. The initiate can decide beforehand to devote their psychedelic experience to any of the four goals.

In the extroverted transcendent experience, the self is ecstatically fused with external objects (e.g., flowers, other people). In the introverted state, the self is ecstatically fused with internal life processes (lights, energy waves, bodily events, biological forms, etc.).

Either state may be negative rather than positive, depending on the voyager’s set and setting.

For the extroverted mystic experience, one would bring to the session candles, pictures, books, incense, music, or recorded passages to guide the awareness in the desired direction. An introverted experience requires eliminating all stimulation: no light, no sound, no smell, no movement.

Preparation

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Psychedelic chemicals are not drugs in the usual sense of the word. There is no specific somatic or psychological reaction. In initial sessions with unprepared persons, set and setting – particularly the actions of others – are most important.

Long range set refers to personal history, enduring personality, the kind of person you are. Your fears, desires, conflicts, guilts, secret passions, determine how you interpret and manage any psychedelic session.

Flexibility, basic trust, philosophic faith, human openness, courage, interpersonal warmth, creativity, allow for fun and easy learning. Rigidity, desire to control, distrust, cynicism, narrowness, cowardice, coldness, make any new situation threatening.

Immediate set refers to expectations about the session itself. People naturally tend to impose personal and social perspectives on any new situation. For example, some ill-prepared subjects unconsciously impose a medical model on the experience. They look for symptoms, interpret each new sensation in terms of sickness/health, and, if anxiety develops, demand tranquilizers.

Psychedelics offer vast possibilities of accelerated learning and scientific- scholarly research, but for initial sessions, intellectual reactions can become traps. “Turn your mind off” is the best advice for novitiates. After you have learned how to move your consciousness around – into ego loss and back, at will – then intellectual exercises can be incorporated into the psychedelic experience. The objective is to free you from your verbal mind for as long as possible.

Recreational and aesthetic expectations are natural. The psychedelic experience provides ecstatic moments that dwarf any personal or cultural game. Interpersonal intimacy reaches Himalayan heights. Aesthetic delights – musical, artistic, botanical, natural – are raised to the millionth power. But ego-game reactions – “I am having this ecstasy. How lucky I am!” – can prevent the subject from reaching pure ego loss.

Some Practical Recommendations

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The subject should set aside at least three days: a day before the experience, the session day, and a follow-up day. This scheduling guarantees a reduction in external pressure and a more sober commitment. Talking to others who have taken the voyage is excellent preparation, although the hallucinatory quality of all descriptions should be recognized.

Reading books about mystical experience and of others’ experiences is another possibility (Aldous HuxleyAlan Watts, and Terence Mckenna have written powerful accounts). Meditation is probably the best preparation. Those who have spent time in a solitary attempt to manage the mind, to eliminate thought and reach higher stages of concentration, are the best candidates for a psychedelic session. 

The Setting

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First and most important, provide a setting removed from one’s usual interpersonal games, and as free as possible from unforeseen distractions and intrusions. The voyager should make sure that he will not be disturbed; visitors or a phone call will often jar him into hallucinatory activity. Trust in the surroundings and privacy are necessary.

The day after the session should be set aside to let the experience run its natural course and allow time for reflection and meditation. A too-hasty return to game involvements will blur the clarity and reduce the potential for learning. It is very useful for a group to stay together after the session to share and exchange experiences.

Many people are more comfortable in the evening, and consequently their experiences are deeper and richer. The person should choose the time of day that seems right. Later, he may wish to experience the difference between night and day sessions. Similarly, gardens, beaches, forests, and open country have specific influences that one may or may not wish. The essential thing is to feel as comfortable as possible, whether in one’s living room or under the night sky.

Familiar surroundings may help one feel confident in hallucinatory periods. If the session is held indoors, music, lighting, the availablility of food and drink, should be considered beforehand. Most people report no hunger during the height of the experience, then later on prefer simple ancient foods like bread, cheese, wine, and fresh fruit. The senses are wide open, and the taste and smell of a fresh orange are unforgetable.

In group sessions, people usually will not feel like walking or moving very much for long periods, and either beds or mattresses should be provided. One suggestion is to place the heads of the beds together to form a star pattern. Perhaps one may want to place a few beds together and keep one or two some distance apart for anyone who wishes to remain aside for some time. The availability of an extra room is desirable for someone who wishes to be in seclusion.

The Period of Ego Loss

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Liberation is the nervous system devoid of mental-conceptual redundancy. The mind in its conditioned state, limited to words and ego games, is continuously in thought-formation activity. The nervous system in a state of quiescence, alert, awake but not active, is comparable to what Buddhists call the highest state of dhyana (deep meditation).

The duration of this state varies, depending on the individual’s experience, security, trust, preparation, and the surroundings. In those who have a little practical experience of the tranquil state of non-game awareness, this state can last from 30 minutes to several hours.

The subject should hail stomach messages as a sign that consciousness is moving around in the body. Experience the sensation fully, and let consciousness flow on to the next phase. It is usually more natural to let the subject’s attention move from the stomach and concentrate on breathing and heartbeat. If this does not free him from nausea, the guide should move the consciousness to external events – music, walking in the garden, etc. As a last resort, heave.

Note: This was a condensed version of Timothy Leary’s psychedelic guidebook. The full guide has suggestions on involving a guide aka sober cop.

The Truth About LSD – 10 Profound Quotes From Great Minds About Dropping Acid

The Truth About LSD - 10 Profound Quotes From Great Minds About Dropping Acid | Third Monk image 2

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Taking LSD can often be a wonderfully mind-expanding journey, especially when taken in a healthy environment with a positive mental outlook.

Many great minds agree.

Steve Jobs

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Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important – creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.

Terence McKenna

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LSD burst over the dreary domain of the constipated bourgeoisie like the angelic herald of a new psychedelic millennium. We have never been the same since, nor will we ever be, for LSD demonstrated, even to skeptics, that the mansions of heaven and gardens of paradise lie within each and all of us.

Steven Wright

Steven Wright

If God dropped acid, would He see people?

Bill Hicks

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Always that same LSD story, you’ve all seen it.

‘Young man on acid, thought he could fly, jumped out of a building. What a tragedy.’ What a dick! Fuck him, he’s an idiot. If he thought he could fly, why didn’t he take off on the ground first?

Check it out. You don’t see ducks lined up to catch elevators to fly south – they fly from the ground, ya moron, quit ruining it for everybody. He’s a moron, he’s dead—good, we lost a moron, fuckin’ celebrate. Wow, I just felt the world get lighter. We lost a moron! I don’t mean to sound cold, or cruel, or vicious, but I am, so that’s the way it comes out.Professional help is being sought.

How about a positive LSD story? Wouldn’t that be news-worthy, just the once? To base your decision on information rather than scare tactics and superstition and lies? I think it would be news-worthy.

‘Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we’re the imagination of ourselves’ . . . ‘Here’s Tom with the weather.’

Ken Kesey

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I believe that with the advent of acid, we discovered a new way to think, and it has to do with piecing together new thoughts in your mind. Why is it that people think it’s so evil? What is it about it that scares people so deeply, even the guy that invented it, what is it?

Because they’re afraid that there’s more to reality than they have confronted. That there are doors that they’re afraid to go in, and they don’t want us to go in there either, because if we go in we might learn something that they don’t know. And that makes us a little out of their control. – Quoted in the BBC documentary, ‘The Beyond Within: The Rise and Fall of LSD,’ 1987

Alexander Shulgin

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I don’t know if you realize this, but there are some researchers – doctors – who are giving this kind of drug to volunteers, to see what the effects are, and they’re doing it the proper scientific way, in clean white hospital rooms, away from trees and flowers and the wind, and they’re surprised at how many of the experiments turn sour.

They’ve never taken any sort of psychedelic themselves, needless to say.

Their volunteers – they’re called ‘subjects,’ of course – are given mescaline or LSD and they’re all opened up to their surroundings, very sensitive to color and light and other people’s emotions, and what are they given to react to? Metal bed-frames and plaster walls, and an occasional white coat carrying a clipboard. Sterility. Most of them say afterward that they’ll never do it again. – Pikhal: A Chemical Love Story, 1991

George Carlin

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Fuck the drug war. Dropping acid was a profound turning point for me, a seminal experience. I make no apologies for it. More people should do acid.

It should be sold over the counter.

Timothy Leary

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‘Turn on’ meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end.

‘Tune in’ meant interact harmoniously with the world around you—externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. Drop out suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments.

‘Drop Out’ meant self-reliance, a discovery of one’s singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean ‘Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.’ – Flashbacks, 1983

Hunter S. Thompson

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That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America selling ‘consicousness expansion’ without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously . . . All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours, too.

What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create . . . a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody—or at least some force—is tending the Light at the end of the tunnel. – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1971

Albert Hofmann

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Of greatest significance to me has been the insight that I attained as a fundamental understanding from all of my LSD experiments: what one commonly takes as ‘the reality,’ including the reality of one’s own individual person, by no means signifies something fixed, but rather something that is ambiguous—that there is not only one, but that there are many realities, each comprising also a different consciousness of the ego.

One can also arrive at this insight through scientific reflections. The problem of reality is and has been from time immemorial a central concern of philosophy. It is, however, a fundamental distinction, whether one approaches the problem of reality rationally, with the logical methods of philosophy, or if one obtrudes upon this problem emotionally, through an existential experience.

The first planned LSD experiment was therefore so deeply moving and alarming, because everyday reality and the ego experiencing it, which I had until then considered to be the only reality, dissolved, and an unfamiliar ego experienced another, unfamiliar reality. The problem concerning the innermost self also appeared, which, itself unmoved, was able to record these external and internal transformations.

Reality is inconceivable without an experiencing subject, without an ego. It is the product of the exterior world, of the sender and of a receiver, an ego in whose deepest self the emanations of the exterior world, registered by the antennae of the sense organs, become conscious. If one of the two is lacking, no reality happens, no radio music plays, the picture screen remains blank. – LSD: My Problem Child, 1980

> Greatest Lysergic Acid Diethylamide Quotes | Alternative Reel

DJ Mark Farina – Mushroom Jazz (KJ Song Rec)

DJ Mark Farina - Mushroom Jazz (KJ Song Rec) | Third Monk image 4

Mark Farina is a Chicago born disc jockey and musician best known for his acid jazz music. 

Mark’s trademark style, Mushroom Jazz is a blend of acid jazz and organic productions infused with urban beats.

His downtempo music is a great addition to any psychedelic journey.

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Mark Farina – Mushroom Jazz 18

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Mushroom Jazz Live, San Antonio (1997)

Mark Farina – Mushroom Jazz (Album 1998)

0:00 Bossa Nova – Mr. Electric Triangle
5:09 Remember Me – Blue Boy
9:23 Get This – Groove Nation
15:15 Pick Me Up – Deadbeats
19:46 Gibby Music – Apollo Grooves
27:54 Midnight Calling – Naked Funk
33:10 Midnight Calling (Fly Amanita Remix) – Mark Farina
36:40 If We Lose Our Way – Paul Johnson
44:11 In Hale – Hydroponic Groove Session
53:50 Warm Chill – Julius Papp
1:00:24 Music Use It – Lalomie Washburn
1:06:11 Longevity – J Live

Mark-Farina

Listen to more of Mark’s music here.

A Scientific Look at Psychedelic Medicine (Video)

A Scientific Look at Psychedelic Medicine (Video) | Third Monk image 1

There’s a class of natural organic medicine that can take the world on a consciousness changing trip, but their potential is restricted by mindless laws.

Is it possible that, because of the war on drugs, we have demonized a treatment for otherwise untreatable diseases?

A way to increase personal well-being, permanently treat depression, break the cycle of addiction, and ease the transition from life into death?

The solution to all of these problems (for many people) might be a nice, hallucinogenic trip. –SciShow

Sources of Studies Cited in Psychedelic Medicine Video

1.Pilot Study of Psilocybin Treatment for Anxiety in Patients With Advanced-Stage Cancer

2.Response of Cluster Headache to Treatment of Psilocybin and LSD

3.Magic Mushroom Shows Promise in Treating Addictions and Cancer Anxiety

4.Psychedelics, Hopeful Medicine for OCD

5.How Psychedelic Drugs Can Help Patients Face Death

John Hopkins, Psilocybin Session Room
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The Westminster Dog Show… On Acid! – VICE Documentary

The Westminster Dog Show... On Acid! - VICE Documentary | Third Monk image 4

Ever wondered what it’s like to trip on acid while at The Westminster Dog Show? Me either, but the combination is actually oddly entertaining. Brayden does a great job of handling the throng of people while enjoying his very first trip on acid.

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Westminster Dog Show… On Acid!

The Westminster Dog Show is a hellscape packed to the gills with Midwesterners and dogs who receive more attention and have better lives than at least 40 percent of the world. The amount of misplaced love and resources funneled into these pooches on a daily basis is enough to make a stone-cold sober person uneasy. But recently I discovered that being thrust into the middle of the whole ordeal, while tripping acid, is a great way to kill an afternoon.

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“The difference between a dog and a cat show is that at a cat show the women are really heavy.” – Gentleman in the hat

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> Westminster Dog Show | VICE