Meditators are psychonauts,” says Vincent Horn, a Buddhist teacher and podcaster who has lately explored the common threads in Buddhist and psychedelic communities and practices. “There is that general interest in exploring further reaches of one’s consciousness that is shared between the two disciplines, that unites them and, in some cases, connects them.”

This interest in the confluence of meditation and psychedelics has helped drive the development of Meditate.io, the digital sangha Horn operates with his wife Emily, and the resurgence of Buddhist Geeks, Horn’s long-running podcast. Launched in the mid-’00s, Buddhist Geeks is one of the most popular and successful Buddhist podcasts. Horn has interviewed dozens of big names in mindfulness practice and online Buddhism, has appeared as a guest on some even more well-known shows (including the astoundingly popular The Joe Rogan Experience), and exposed thousands of listeners to his modernized, “unbundled” take on Buddhist dharma.

In 2016, Buddhist Geeks ceased operations, to return a year later. In “Stirrings From the Bardo,” a raw and rigorous self-inquiry, Horn explains why his shop went dark and why he decided to reopen it. As part of his quest to bring Buddhist wisdom into the modern world, he has embraced an interest in psychedelics, which has taken the form of a series of episodes and a widely shared taxonomy of “psychedelic Buddhism.”

“As a teacher of meditation, I was often running into people who had some sort of experience with psychedelics that was very much related to their interest in meditation. It introduced them to states of mind that they then needed to figure out how to understand, or get back to, or work with. Or they saw the immediate connection between the two in terms of exploration of consciousness and transformation. And so I was hearing these reports and having no first reference for being able to relate to them, because I had never done it. I had to try these things out to see what all these people were experiencing, and to see if I could better support and understand the folks who come to meditation through the psychedelic doorway. It just felt like now is a good time to open that conversation up wider, and Buddhist Geeks is a perfect place to do it from.”

By the time he tried psychedelics, Horn had been a serious meditator for many years. “What I noticed in the first trips that I did was that it wasn’t that different from what I’d go through in a meditation period or on retreats where I’m practicing a lot. On retreats, I was practicing ten or twelve hours a day in silence. I could easily argue that those were much more intense, but they were prolonged for, like, six months. Like being on a short trip and coming down and going up and coming down and going up, like, all the time.”

For those new to psychedelics, for those who want to gain maximum benefits from psychedelic therapy or inquiry, or for those who have trepidations or fears of having difficult or challenging experiences, Horn believes that having an established meditation practice can provide grounding, safety, and clarity. “I recommend, to anyone who’s working with psychedelics, to also have some sort of practice of working with their own consciousness and attention. I think many do, from what I’ve seen.”

Based on his experience at the intersection of Buddhism and psychedelics, Horn provides a six-point checklist for getting the most from a contemplative psychedelic ceremony.

Energy

Horn means this not in the new-agey sense of the word “energy,” but in the sense of, “Do I have the physical, mental, and emotional stamina to go through with this ceremony?” This requires honesty with oneself. If you’re not well rested and well prepared, you are less likely to benefit from the experience

Space

The physical space in which the ceremony takes place should reflect the desired inner state it is intended to cultivate. The ceremonial space should be clean and beautiful, perhaps with a ceremonial altar, upon which participants can place their attention.

Intention

Before the sacrament is taken, it is time to gently lean into the big questions. Aside from the five Ws, this entails examining our deeper intentions. “This phase is spent relaxing into the space we’ve created and contemplating why we’re here,” Horn says. “And not just why we’re here, but why we’re really here!” The intention can be formalized by sharing it with a group or writing it down, for later review and to etch it into the consciousness.

Sacrament

“Once we have connected with, and have communicated, our deepest intentions, we then take the sacrament,” says Horn. “Here, sacrament simply means a ‘sacred substance,’ similar to how in some of the earliest Hindu texts cannabis was identified as one of their “five sacred plants.’” The ultimate purpose of the sacred substance, says Horn, is to “help eliminate the false notion that there’s anything which is not already sacred.”

Meditation

Horn suggests including a formal sitting practice as part of the psychedelic experience, possibly for 30-60 minutes, based on the onset and duration of the effects. “Once you have completed your formal practice period,” he says, “you can feel free to move into a more formless type of practice. This isn’t the same as just hanging out and playing out our habitual patterns. Rather, it’s a broadening of the understanding of what meditation is and what it includes. Now, we can begin to relate to everything as meditation, in a more free form and spacious way. Our interactions and our spontaneously arising experiences become the meditation. Whatever we do is meditation, a fresh and unbounded way of relating to life.”

Closing

The formal end of the session marks the beginning of the integration phase, which should be commenced with some deliberation. This can include sharing new insights with a group or expressing gratitude for the journey, however fruitful, beautiful, or arduous it may have been. “Gratitude is the practice of recognizing what’s good. It breaks us from the spell of cynicism and shines a light on our unrecognized areas of privilege.” Extinguishing a flame, dismantling an altar, or cleaning up ceremonial remnants can put a bookend on the experience, letting the mind and the soul know that, as one stage is complete, another has begun.

There was a participant in the study who had had an extensive, extensive practice, like tens of thousands of hours of meditation, which is an incredibly extreme amount,” said Frederick Barrett, PhD at the Johns Hopkins Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. “And she indicated after her psilocybin session that she relived all of the peak experiences she had ever had meditating. Wow.”

Barrett is currently studying the effects of psilocybin on the brains of long-term meditators, specifically default mode network functional connectivity and retrospective ratings of qualitative experience. It includes a set of experimental sessions separated by two-month buffers. The first two are split between psilocybin and placebos—participants who receive placebos are switched to psilocybin at later stages. Before and after the drugs are administered, participants get MRI scans to measure brain activity.

“We have a target of 40 people that we’re looking to enroll in the first portion of the study,” said Barrett. “And we actually just got finished screening the 40th person. So, they’re not completely enrolled yet, but we suspect we may have finally completed this study after three and a half years.”

Any study such as this poses certain difficulties. Funding must come from somewhere. In this case, Bill Linton, through the Heffter Research Institute, has generously kicked in. (Heffter, the Beckley Foundation, and MAPS have been the major benefactors of psychedelic research in the US and Europe for many years.) Regulatory hurdles are not insignificant—the research needs FDA approval under an Investigational New Drug application, and someone on the team needs a license to dispense Schedule 1 drugs. That would be Dr. Roland Griffiths, a mentor to Barrett and a drug researcher with decades of experience.

Then, there is the challenge of recruitment. “It was exceptionally difficult because we were really looking for a bit of a unicorn in terms of the participants for the study. So we were searching far and wide for individuals who had an established Buddhist meditation practice who were open to using or experiencing the effects of a psychedelic drug, but who hadn’t already done so within the context of their practice.”

The fifth precept of Buddhism, as generally translated, forbids intoxication to the point of heedlessness. “There were some Buddhist teachers who, upon hearing and contemplating our study, said, ‘this is against my religion,’ to the extent that a Buddhist would ever say that. And, thankfully, there were others, the people who were good candidates for the study, who interpreted it much differently. That it’s just meant to say, ‘don’t do anything that will dim your awareness.’”

The threshold for what constitutes long-term meditators in this context is a fairly high one. Participants are required to have a daily practice sustained for at least three years. This could mean a 20-minute practice, provided there are no breaks, but usually means more serious dedication, including long retreats. “We calculated the average lifetime hours of meditation that were represented in the study was roughly 5,000,” said Barrett. “Hours and hours of meditation.”

Likewise, the doses of psilocybin administered are not low. While he can’t share exact dosages, Barrett provides an illustration. “We administer the drug in one location, in our research laboratory where we’ve done all of our synthesizing studies,” said Barrett. “An hour after drug administration, when they’re beginning to feel the effect of the drug, we get them in a car and drive them ten minutes across town to the imaging center… Of the 20 people who completed that portion of the study, 18 of them experienced the onset of drug effects before leaving to go to the imaging center. And each of the 18 people, when the hour was up and we were ready to get in the car, we asked, ‘Hey, how are you? Are you ready to go?’ And each of them hesitated a just a bit, and they’re, like, ‘Okay, you know, I guess I came here to do this, and we’re here, so I’m going to be a good subject,’ and we get in the car. But there was a substantial drug effect.”

Barrett has not yet fully immersed himself in the data emerging from this work, but as he presents his preliminary findings, the implications are clear. “There are a number of cases where descriptions of psychedelic drug experiences dovetail with descriptions of non-drug mystical, profound, or otherwise nominally psychedelic experiences,” he said. “A motivation of this research is to first ask the question of whether these things really are similar, to which many of our meditators have answered quite clearly, yes. A further motivation is to at least begin to reconcile the notion that, on one hand, you have a pharmacological, and on the other hand, a non-pharmacological route to the same space. Understanding the space that these two routes can bring us to, and understanding the neurobiological basis for these states, may help us to begin to better understand the biological basis of consciousness.”

Instruments such as the MRI can detect patterns in states achieved through different means, and may break down some of the barriers that impede objective understanding of subjective experiences. “Naturalistic research allows us a window into the experiences and practices of many traditions of consciousness alteration,” said Barrett. “Psychedelics allow us a reversible and somewhat controllable tool to peer into consciousness alteration. I see this and research on other traditions of consciousness alterations to be very complementary.”

Welcome to The State. This column looks at a few of the more noteworthy stories making waves in the psychedelic and reform spheres, and when appropriate, examines how they fit into a larger context.

On Thursday, October 26, President Trump declared America’s opioid crisis a national emergency, on par with hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural disasters requiring serious and immediate action for relief.

The numbers around US opioid use are stark and damning. Americans consume more opioids than any other nation on earth. OD deaths have mushroomed and abuse dings the economy to the tune of billions per year. The human stories are wrenching.

Opioids are strong and versatile instruments that demand respect. The damage done defies simple explanation. The American opioid situation involves worldwide factors and implications, from Chinese manufactures of fentanyl to Mexican gangs eager to make up for the losses they’ve suffered thanks to legalized weed.

But most of the evidence points straight toward the pharmaceutical industry.

Starting decades ago, those in the healthcare business undertook a rethinking of pain and pain treatment. (“Pain is the fifth vital sign!”) Since then, big pharma has pumped pills into poor communities, kneecapped the DEA in its attempts to stop the spread and saturation, and gave rise to a sleazy new business niche.

Taxpayers and governments are lashing out legally, under the assumption that the private companies who exacerbated the problem should take some ownership of the check. The state of West Virginia provides a useful case study. Big pharma invested millions to plague WV with painkillers. When it’s time to clean up the mess, should the police and the people do all the work?

For anyone who remembers the Reagan Administration’s awesome response to the ’80s crack epidemic, the Trump plan may prompt discouraging deja vu. Writer Steve Chapman poetically describes the White House approach as “mostly a form of yoga: lots of posturing while staying in one place.” Trump has an array of incentives to protect big pharma. There’s little reason to believe a punitive broken-window approach will soothe root causes, but that’s what we’re likely to get from a DOJ under Jeff Sessions, who has expressed his readiness to crack down hard… on marijuana use.

“Really tough, really big, really great advertising” has been tried before, and the results spoke for themselves. Chapman continues: “More innovative remedies will be needed to actually turn back the relentless onslaught of overdose fatalities.”

What sort of treatment might move that needle?

Well, there’s Naloxone, the emergency fix that reverses 93% of overdoses. But treatment for opioid addiction is not a one-and-done endeavor. Most abusers don’t get clean and find themselves suddenly cured. Addiction isn’t a hero’s journey with a clear beginning, middle, and end—effective treatments take time and go on, for life, in some cases.

Methadone or buprenorphin are widely considered the most useful for helping addicts become functional citizens. There’s proof: long-term treatment involving these medications makes patients less likely to relapse. But they’re heavily stigmatized, and it will take some time and effort for society to soften toward them.

The controversial herbal supplement kratom has long been a darling of Reddit and other electronic enclaves. It has been used as a home remedy for the symptoms of opiate withdrawal, and may garner more mainstream attention in a bull market for answers.

Through all this, the problem of pain remains and persists.

In a provocative piece, the libertarian Jacob Sullum cautions that a strict, prohibitive law-and-order approach will hurt not just addicts, but pain patients using these medicines for their intended purpose. Sifting through NSDUH numbers, Sullum questions the dominant narrative of drug distributors as witting profiteers of misery. The overwhelming majority of opiate users aren’t abusers or addicts, and the majority of addicts have issues outside of opioids. When experts originally suggested that there was too much paranoia around the potential for abuse, they weren’t wrong, or at least they weren’t lying. Cutting the supply, in lieu of a cleaner panacea, will threaten patients who depend on these drugs for their comfort and sanity.

We need to go deeper. Let’s start the conversation where it starts.

What is pain? How does it work? When a person is suffering, should you focus on the suffering, or the person?

At Cedars-Sinai, Brennan Spiegel sees some promise in using virtual reality to mitigate the psychological turmoil associated with physical trauma. Psychedelic solutions such as ibogaine therapy may be effective not just as chemical agents, but as transformative journeys of psychological inquiry.

Pain is, in part, a creature of the mind. America’s opioid situation demands smart, creative, and rational remedies.

Welcome to The State. This column looks at a few of the more noteworthy stories making waves in the psychedelic and reform spheres, and when appropriate, examines how they fit into a larger context.

To get a vision of the future of psychedelics from a legal and regulatory perspective, the most useful thing to do might be to see what’s happening already in the realm of weed. That situation is more complex than it may first appear.

When cooks and foodies are focused on cannabis, you know it’s entered the mainstream. Deregulation was a big winner in the 2016 election cycle. And yet, the attitude of the Trump Administration toward safe and legal weed has been, at best, confusing, marked by infighting and consternation involving the DEA, set against a background of an increase in marijuana arrests during 2016.

At this juncture, it’s still very much a state-by-state situation. While some states roll out decriminalization and others consider it, particularly in the larger context of criminal justice reform. At the same time, a joint will still get you locked up in over half of the states in the union. As usual, the US is a nation with a lot of big ideas and a strong fear of change. But it’s not the only nation with dank ambitions.

Nonetheless, there is an undeniable and unstoppable larger cultural rethinking going on around these issues. With the opioid epidemic, we’re rehashing the debates that surrounded the ’80s crack crisis, but with more empathy and insight (now that the faces of the victims are largely white). Acknowledging that the War on Drugs, as conceived in the ‘70s and ‘80s, was a bust, we’re looking for fresh ideas in unusual places. We’re reexamining the role and importance of psychedelics in realms such as art and religion.

The interest in therapeutic applications continues. MAPS continues its victory lap after its Breakthrough Therapy Designation for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. That cracks the door for medicines such as mushrooms, ayahuasca, and ibogaine, which have long shown efficacy as treatments for addiction (and, at least anecdotally, for all sorts of compulsive behavior). Ayahuasca is even getting some attention as a possible treatment for eating disorders.

As psychology, psychiatry, and healthcare in general revise attitudes toward psychedelics, they undergo a larger shift of culture. It’s funny how that works.

In news from the drama-filled realm of microdosing, the Beckley / Imperial Research Programme is raising funds for an intriguing and relevant LSD microdosing study using the Chinese strategy game Go, itself an established object of fascination among techies. It’s getting plenty of press but still needs some donations to keep moving.

Summer is over, along with festival season, but events are still happening. Altered Conference is set for the weekend of November 3-4 in Berlin, bringing together scientists, activists, artists, and partiers to explore the big ideas nested in unusual states of consciousness. The Entheogenesis Australis Outdoor Psychedelic Symposium is booked for December 8-10.

A belated thank you to everyone who attended our Microdosing Party with Duncan Trussell. If you missed it, you can catch a replay – it’s one of the bountiful benefits you will receive as a Psymposia Patreon subscriber (along with new ones soon TBA). This is the most exciting time in decades to have your ear to the tracks of psychedelia, and Psymposia is stoked to cover all the journeys and intersections.