[davidtanner]

Not to belabor the point, but I think it bears repeating that Terence McKenna recommended a chemical perturbation of the brain, that is, a visionary substance, be used in order to 'step outside your culture'.

Some substances can temporarily remove/obscure one's entire personality structure and linguistic faculties while enhancing awareness. Such an experience offers one the opportunity to truly exist outside their biographical circumstances for a time.

[Alex3917]

"Terence McKenna recommended a chemical perturbation of the brain, that is, a visionary substance, be used in order to 'step outside your culture'."

So does Tim Ferriss. Here is a short YouTube clip of him talking about his views:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcqXRDqjIpo

But the better source is probably his original interview with Joe Rogan.

[Roritharr]

So are we again talking about scientists encouraging young people to drop acid?

[davidtanner]

Well, at least in the USA, advocating that someone consume an illegal drug is itself illegal.

However, old people can benefit greatly from the proper use of psychedelic drugs. Certain types of psychedelic experiences, called unitive experiences, have been found to be very effective in alleviating death anxiety. More information can be found through searching but this video should be informative: http://www.maps.org/videos/source/video14.html

Two excellent, little known books about the phenomenology of psychedelic experiences are:

_The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience_ http://www.amazon.com/Antipodes-Mind-Phenomenology-Ayahuasca...

Comments: This is a truly excellent book, it's published by OUP and the scholarship is the best I've ever seen in a book about psychedelics. Benny Shannon is a cognitive psychologist and philosophy and he's personally taken Ayahuasca over 200 times in addition to gathering second hand reports from many informants over years of investigation. In particular, he stresses commonalities between different people's Ayahuasca experiences despite vast cultural differences in their lives as well as the idea that Ayahuasca experiences proceed in sequences reminiscent of a course of schooling.

_The Ecstatic Imagination: Psychedelic Experiences and the Psychoanalysis of Self-Actualization_ http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Ecstatic_Imagination...

Comments: This book is also very strong in its own right, although I think that the Antipodes book is superior. In _The Ecstatic Imagination_ Dan Merkur takes a dispassionate, objective phenomenological view of psychedelic experiences. The many, many block quoted experience reports from drug-takers using LSD, mescaline and psilocybin are the best part of this book. Merkur has taken almost all of these reports from published works about psychedelic psychotherapy and they illustrate the diversity and healing potential of psychedelic experiences.