[parafactual]

> He considered himself a logical rationalist with a self-described “zero tolerance for woo-woo,” so when his search for social anxiety treatment lead him to a psychospiritual retreat center in Mexico, referred to him by Psychedelic Times, he felt completely out of his element.

I don't really understand how these things are connected.

[Zealotux]

I'm currently exploring similar options and I'd also describe myself as a "logical rationalist with zero tolerance for woo-woo”. The thing is: a lot of these psychedelic retreats are wrapped with strong spiritual culture.

I'm torn on this, on one end I noticed retreats in Northern Europe usually have a more "scientific" approach than, let's say, similar retreats in Peru such as Ayahuasca which is rooted in shamanism. I believe both approaches are valuable, but it's clear that a "rational mind" would be out of its element at first.

[pmoriarty]

As someone who started out as a die-hard atheist materialist, who mellowed out and became much more open to "spirituality" and religion (when they're constructively positive and tolerant rather than dogmatic, intolerant, close-minded, and violent), I've started to develop an allergic reaction to the recent shamanism craze.

James Oroc, in another article on the same site about underground 5-MeO facilitators[1], summarized some objections which I also share:

"A lot of these practitioners like to take the tail hit on the end of the pipe because they believe if they are in tune with you, they are influencing your 5-MeO-DMT experience. I would say for one, if you've had a true 5-MeO release your experience is almost un-influenceable. Music can affect it and touch can bring you back a little bit, but the whole point is for your consciousness to go and for your body to be safe and undisturbed. I actually think the best practitioner is a licensed nurse who can put you in the recovery position. Any practitioner who would actually mess with your body in any way while your consciousness is out surfing the Akashic field, that's unethical in my opinion. And that's a common theme among all these practitioners- they all like to get really involved with your experience. So that's going to be the next major thing I write about: my ideas on the importance of a neutral container.

"I'm actually a little irritated at the moment, the way the whole movement has sort of been swept up by the New Agers and falling back into this kind of cultism. Because there was a moment when Burning Man and psychedelic culture were actually breaking free of that, and heading into a much more William Gibson punk-anarchist kind of reality. That's still mixed in there, but I feel like we keep getting pulled back into this New Age bullshit. To me, the toad shamans are a classic example of that."

For more examples of the harm some of these "shamanic" approaches can cause see: [2]

[1] - https://psychedelictimes.com/underground-5-meo-dmt-facilitat...

[2] - https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=86872

[Zealotux]

Thanks for that, definitely some interesting insight for someone looking for a radical experience. It can be very confusing to navigate this world, and I'm not sold on most of these spiritual gurus.

I'm very novice on this, I feel like Humanity is missing out on important tools and we're just barely scratching the surface of what's possible to heal the mind.

[pmoriarty]

If you're a novice I'd recommend staying away from what is reputed to be the most powerful psychedelic on the planet: 5-MeO-DMT.. at least until you have some more experience with other substances.. though many 5-MeO-DMT users think there's really no way to prepare for it, as nothing else remotely even comes close.

Legal MDMA therapy with a professionally trained and licensed therapist is probably the safest way to dip your toes in.. and, regardless of what you do, integration with a professional therapist you like and trust can be very helpful.

[DubiousPusher]

Because currently, psychadelics as a treatment for mental illness and neuroses are on about as firm of ground as cough medicine and chiropractic.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/reference/chiropractic/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11045895/

That is not to say we don't definitively know they do not work. We just dont know if they do anything or not. There is promising preliminary research but a lot of that research is coming out of a community that appears prone to some serious motivated reasoning. And there is a small cultural movement brewing that seeks to promote them despite our current ignorance. Proponents have made a mad dash to dump them into alt med toolbox to sit alongside acupuncture, cupping, ear candling, essential oils, etc.

Edit: Don't get me wrong. I really hope these do work as the current standards of care for most mental illness are terribly flawed. Lithium for example is amazing but it has horrible side effects, destroys your organs and for many eventually stops working. Abilify has saved a lot of people's lives but when you're on it, a lot of times you just fucking want to die. It would be great to move beyond SSRIs, mood stabilizers and antipsychotics.

[sterlind]

MDMA successfully completed Phase III trials for PTSD: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03537014 results here: https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/phase-3-trial-of-mdma-the...

Psilocybin can provide peace to terminally ill patients: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367557/

and it's in Phase II trials for major depressive disorder: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03866174

and already has successful results in a small cohort, as published in JAMA Psychiatry: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...

hell, ketamine is FDA approved for depression: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr...

[DubiousPusher]

> MDMA successfully completed Phase III trials for PTSD:

Cool. I look forward to seeing how it performs in long term practice.

> Psilocybin can provide peace to terminally ill patients:

Looks promising, though that is a single study with a small sample size.

> and it's in Phase II trials for major depressive disorder:

Again, compelling but small sample size

> hell, ketamine is FDA approved for depression

This approval is based on self reported symptom data from phase III trials and currently is backed up with any extrinsic measurements such as reduced suicide. It's not nothing but it's not a slam dunk yet.

Again, it's all very preliminary though it looks promising. I don't see any evidence to suggest it will become the standard of care soon but it may in the future. We just have to wait and see.

[pmoriarty]

"That is not to say we don't definitively know they do not work. We just dont know if they do anything or not. There is promising preliminary research but a lot of that research is coming out of a community that appears prone to some serious motivated reasoning."

It's not just preliminary research.

At the time LSD was banned there were thousands of research papers on it, and I've read that it was the most widely studied psychoactive substance on the planet.

The research that's come out more recently about psychedelics has largely just confirmed what was already known about them, and what has become crystal clear is that they're actually far more effective for some very severe mental illnesses (like treatment-resistant depression and PTSD) than any other medication or therapy in existence.

[parafactual]

That's fair. I just sometimes get the sense that people equate being "logical" to being very hardheaded and skeptical, only preferring well-established solutions. There is nothing inherently illogical about trying experimental approaches; in many cases if they don't work you can just move on.

This isn't exactly that, though.