[tomhoward]

This recent interview [1] with Jamie Wheal, co-author of Stealing Fire [2] is worth watching if you're interested in this topic.

He's observed the psychedelic "revolution" in recent years, and has both positive and negative things to say about it, but on the whole he's deeply pessimistic about where it seems to be going.

His observations about fashion-driven, Instagram-performative "enlightenment", and the propensity for a little bit of enlightenment to lead one down dangerous paths (including charging big money to lead others down the same dangerous path), are resonant for me, having been through the journey myself and seen it from both sides.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkPB33bD3hQ

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Fire-Maverick-Scientists-Rev...

[netcan]

I think there's a Hegelian-esque pendulum to it.

Discretionary uses of mind-altering drugs, especially those that have been prominent in youth culture, pop culture and party culture face massive resistance. Look how long cannabis is taking to reach legalization. Look at the barriers to medical scientists who want to study psychedelics.

In that sort of environment, it's near inevitable that the remaining "torch bearers" lean to the true-believer/fanatic end of the spectrum. The mild-mannered actors just won't put up with that sort of resistance. So, reserved scientists and practitioners who avoid hyperbole are under-represented.

Ultimately everything boils down to use. The details of therapeutic use, spiritual use and such. On the therapeutic end, I think there's room to be hopeful. It's just a good fit for a "talk therapy" approach that the discipline values already, and that many of the "one-a-day" prescriptions are not.

On the spiritual end, most living traditions are highly culturally mitigated. If/When it comes to the modern, apartment-dweller world, there aren't any social institutions that can fill that role (well, churches, religions, but that's unlikely to happen at scale). In tandem with the earlier point (the true believer advocates promoting psychodelics despite resistence), this probably adds up to a lot of quackery.

This is more worrying, or at least it points in the direction of purely "recreational" use.

[Chris2048]

What is "spiritual use"?

[netcan]

Depends on your definition of spiritual, I suppose.

I didn't mean anything too semantically specific. I meant the religious/cultural practices using psychodelic which still exist and the new practices similar to them.

I'm not a hard lines type, so I'll concede a ton of grey area between spiritual, therapeutic and recreational... if that's what you're driving at.

[vokep]

Probably use that is intended as general self-improvement and finding better perspective on life in general, as opposed to the same but for something going wrong (therapeutic) or for fun (recreational). Really it could fit under therapeutic use.

[tomhoward]

A form of practice undertaken by people for their own reasons in accordance with their own beliefs or philosophies. It's no big deal.

[ak39]

Thank you for the video links. I had never heard of Jamie Wheal before - I enjoyed listening to his thoughts.

I also enjoy listening to Terence McKenna and Alan Watts every once in a while ... most of what they say often sounds completely irrational, outrageously verbose, ridiculous and border-line ramblings of "mad men" ... but their words are also powerfully disarming, deeply engaging and resonant and finally emotionally embracing. I don't know how to explain it. I wouldn't want to be caught listening to them!

[pmoriarty]

I'd encourage you to have a listen to Erik Davis' "Expanding Mind" podcast.[1]

Erik Davis is, to my mind, the most interesting and intelligent of the post-McKenna visionaries/psychonauts. He's at the same time much more critical than most of his predecessors, and very open to an interested in extraordinary experiences and what he calls "high weirdness".

[1] - https://techgnosis.com/category/podcast/

[kostadin]

Agreed. Techgnosis was a very influential read for me and Expanding Mind is still a very unique program.

A bit late probably, but for anyone reading this I highly recommend tracking down Davis’s interview with McKenna conducted shortly before he passed. It was probably one of the first things I heard from either and became interested for life in both.

[tictoc]

Yeah Jamie Wheal is kind of along the same lines. He has a way with words to say the least. It's intoxicating actually.

[puranjay]

I really wonder if anyone ever really does anything for themselves anymore. Every experience, even the most intimate and introspective ones, seem to be telegraphed and advertised as a part of your "branded identity"

[bregma]

This is a prime example of selection bias.

How would you even know if the vast majority of things people are doing don't get broadcast regularly if the things these people are doing does not get broadcast regularly?

[blotter_paper]

Yeah, people do things for themselves. I have written, drawn, and programmed many things that I've never shared with anyone, and never intended to share. In some cases I've destroyed the work in such a way that I couldn't reproduce it exactly even if I wanted to. You could argue that I'm putting that on display right now, but I could just as well be lying to you, so I don't think that argument would hold up with regard to my motives. Also, my identity here isn't easy to tie to my identity IRL; if it was intended to be, I would have picked a more professional and socially acceptable name than blotter_paper :)

[shoes_for_thee]

Hi, yes, thank you & welcome to the Society of the Spectacle.

[KineticLensman]

Some of us are not focussed on building our brand identity. I enjoy photography and back in the day my Flickr portfolio had 500k views. I still take photographs, but don’t now post them online because I want to enjoy the craft of creating them, not help others maximise engagement or similar

[sutterbomb]

But you do want to point out to strangers that you’re above sharing your photos.

It’s easy to be super cynical about everyone’s motivations, and it’s turtles (or signaling) all the way down