Ketamine is a drug that was approved by the FDA in the 1970’s to be used by doctors and veterinarians as an anesthetic.

It’s also a fairly popular recreational drug that provides out-of-body experiences.

However, even though ketamine has been legal for around 50 years, it was only in the last few years that psychiatrists began to realize this drug is actually quite effective at treating depression. According to one clinical study, around 70-85% of patients with severe depression reported that their ketamine treatment was effective.

We spoke with an experienced psychiatrist (who wished to remain anonymous) to dive deeper and learn more about how exactly prescribing ketamine for depression works.

Some psychiatrists have been prescribing ketamine off-label for depression. What does off-label mean exactly?

Off-label refers to using an FDA-approved medication for a purpose other than the indication that it is FDA approved for.

Off-label use of medications is common.

It is entirely legal to prescribe for symptoms other than the FDA-approved indication, as long as the drug is FDA approved for distribution in the US.

In order to for a drug to be approved by the FDA, it has to be proven both safe and effective for its proposed indication. All drugs have potential for adverse effects, so for a medication to be considered safe it has to have a low incidence of severe adverse effects compared to the benefits derived from treating the indicated condition.

A medication may be effective for conditions other than the FDA approved indication. It’s just that it has not undergone the extensive and expensive process of FDA approval.

As long as the medication is proven safe, physicians can legally prescribe a medication for off-label use. An approved drug has a well known safety profile, so it is generally safe to consider a medication for other conditions.

What are some examples of other medications that are prescribed off-label?

Some antidepressants that have passed FDA approval for treatment of depression have been used for neuropathic pain or chronic pain syndromes for over 30 years, but most of them are not FDA approved for pain.

Another example is trazodone—an older medication that has FDA approval for treatment of depression, but it is also very sedating to the point of making it difficult to reach the full dose for the anti-depressant effect. So, because of its sedating side effects, it has become commonly used for insomnia at lower doses. One can assume it is safe enough at lower doses to use for simple insomnia because it has been studied in higher doses in depression.

So how do doctors give the ketamine to patients once they prescribe it to them off-label?

Ketamine is given via IV in a supervised setting, using 1/10 the anesthetic dose, which is 0.5 mg / kg body weight. The effect tends to be delayed to the next day, at which time some sort of reset and release of habitual thoughts and emotions occurs, leaving an opportunity to engage in therapy to help solidify the results.

The antidepressant effect of ketamine tends to wear off within a few days.

Dextromethorphan (DXM) in the usual over-the-counter doses for cough is given twice a day to help maintain the antidepressant effect of ketamine. DXM affects similar receptors and neural pathways as ketamine at a much more mild and attenuated level. Some practitioners have been prescribing DXM in the hopes that it might augment and maintain the effects of the ketamine treatment.

A doctor in San Diego is giving oral ketamine at the same dose of 0.5 mg / kg body weight for situational depression in hospice patients with good results. He has the pharmacy compound the IV ketamine into a syrup that is administered every night for the remainder of their life (which is only a few weeks for the population that he has been treating). It is a small number of patients, but so far he has found it to be generally well tolerated and effective.

Ketamine only comes in IV formulation—there is no commercially available oral formulation. So you have to use a compounding pharmacy, where personalized medications in specific doses are created to fit the unique needs of a patient.

Ketamine for depression is experimental. There is not enough evidence of safety and efficacy to justify wide-spread off-label use at this point. For outpatients, the treatment protocols involve oral or IV administration in a supervised office setting. It is not dispensed as a prescription to be taken at home.

What are some concerns/risks in prescribing ketamine off-label for depression?

The important issue with ketamine is the fact that the use of it for depression is still highly experimental. It would not be as serious a concern if it were a simple medication like ibuprofen being used for treatment of cough—which can work when the cough is related to inflammation in the trachea.

Ibuprofen is a fairly safe medication. Ketamine is not. It can be used at anesthetic doses to induce a dissociative state in which pain is not felt. Any medication that is used for anesthesia can be lethal if overused. And ketamine has a street value as it is used as a party drug. This can result in people seeking treatment for reasons other than depression, or for people who are looking to access drugs simply to get high.

Ketamine has been studied by the FDA for one-time single use as an anesthetic. There is no data of the safety of repeated doses over time.

Use of ketamine for depression is being closely monitored and studied. The protocols stress the importance of screening out people with a history of substance abuse. There is concern that such patients might be more prone to respond to low-dose ketamine by developing addictive responses to the use of the medication.

The use of ketamine for depression is also limited to just a few treatments a week for a limited number of weeks. The problem is that the antidepressant effect wears off, so the idea is to use these days when the mood is improved to work on psychological issues and shift one’s perspective and break cycles of habitual negative thoughts.

How does that work exactly? What does the ketamine do?

The use of ketamine for depression is analogous to the use of plant medicine in shamanism.

Ayahuasca, for example, limited to a single session (or a limited series of 2-4), each time focusing on a specific desired goal of the ceremony—purging, cleansing, insight, teaching, and/or healing of a specific illness or concern. The idea is to use the insights gained from the expanded awareness and consciousness and incorporate the ideas and insights into daily life.

The goal of repeated ceremonial use of ayahuasca is to be able to access and retain the insights and expanded level of consciousness without the need for the plant. By remembering the state of expanded insight and re-entering that level of awareness consciously, you can incorporate the effects of the plant into your daily life.

So, likewise with ketamine, the idea is to enter a state of release of depression, feel what it feels like to have the burden of depression lifted, and learn to maintain that state of mind by conscious intent and practice.

Some researchers have noted that ketamine seems to break the ruts of chronic negative thoughts and negative emotional states that self-perpetuate when depressed, and by breaking the patterns for a few hours or days, you have an opportunity to move forward without continuing the patterns of negative thoughts and feelings. It’s like a reboot of a computer. A momentary shutting down, setting the dials back to zero, and then starting again. Like turning your computer off and on again to resolve a persistent and baffling problem on your computer.

A British physician from England who has been researching ketamine has suggested that ketamine is somehow addressing the “ruts” in our thoughts and emotions.

When certain negative thoughts and feelings are repeated over and over, you tend to fall back into the same ruts over and over. He feels ketamine clears out the ruts, like repaving a street, providing a smooth surface to respond and move forward in a different direction instead of following the same old paths.

Psychologist, researcher and writer Iker Puente holds a degree in Psychology from the University of Deusto and in Anthropology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He obtained his Ph.D. at the UAB with his dissertation “Complexity and Transpersonal Psychology: Chaos, Self-Organization and Peak Experiences in Psychotherapy,” exploring the short and medium-term effects and the subjective effects of different breathwork techniques, including Holotropic Breathwork. He has been trained in Gestalt Therapy, Integrative Bodywork Therapy, Holotropic Breathwork and Transpersonal Psychology. He recently published his first book, “Psychedelic Psychotherapy and Research: Past, Present and Future.”

 

You’ve been researching Holotropic Breathwork for 10 years. What caused you to devote so much of your life to studying this practice?

I had my first experience with breathwork in 2000, just after finishing my psychology degree. At that moment, I was disoriented and confused at a personal level and also at a professional and vocational level. I didn’t know what to do with my life, basically. I was interested in the field of transpersonal psychology—I just started knowing about that field in 1999 and started doing my first readings of Stan Grof and Ken Wilber books—in psychedelics and in non-ordinary states of consciousness, but I could not imagine at that time that I could devote my professional career to that field.

I knew about a holotropic breathwork session taking place near my town and I participated in a one-day workshop. The experience was very significant for me at different levels: emotionally, psychologically, and also professionally. During the experience, I connected with my emotions in a deeper level than in my daily life, and what I felt during the experience gave me a clear picture of my present moment and gave me some important clues regarding my path. I saw pretty clearly in which direction I wanted to direct my professional career.

After that workshop I decided to continue studying transpersonal psychology on my own and to study a degree in anthropology in order to complete my academic education. I felt that studying anthropology, I would find more content related with the field of transpersonal psychology (like shamanism, the use of different psychoactive plants by different cultural groups, the rites of passage and so on).

During the next three years I participated in a number of breathwork workshops in Barcelona and I completed the anthropology degree. I had a number of deep experiences during my breathwork sessions and I also saw the positive effects of the technique in other people. I realized that there was very little research done on breathwork. So when I decided to start a Ph.D. in 2006, I thought it was a very interesting topic to study.

To be honest, my first choice and intention was to do research in the field of psychedelic psychotherapy, but very soon I realized that it would take me so long to obtain all the permissions that it would delay the completion of the Ph.D. So I decided to move to do research on holotropic breathwork and other breathwork techniques. I already had a contact in Barcelona with the person who was leading the breathwork workshops in which I had been participating [in] during those years, and he was open to do research in the context of his workshops.

Then, in one of those synchronicities that sometimes happen in this field, Stanislav Grof came to Barcelona this same year to present the Spanish translation of his book “LSD Psychotherapy.” I was introduced to him, who was very interested in my project; he even gave me some tips for doing the research. We [stayed] in touch by email during the next months; he sent me some bibliography, and in 2007 he invited me to a one-week holotropic breathwork workshop that he was doing near New York to do a pilot study and collect some data. I found the field really interesting, and since then I have had access to breathwork groups—some of them very large—to do research and collect data, so I have done different studies looking to different things during the last 10 years.

How does Holotropic Breathwork work exactly? What does one experience and what does it do to the body?

Holotropic Breathwork is not just a breath technique; it involves a number of elements besides the breath. The technique was developed by Grof and his wife Christina after two decades [of] working with LSD and other psychedelic substances in psychotherapy. This method was conceived as a non-drug way of accessing non-ordinary states of consciousness.

Holotropic Breathwork is an experientially oriented psychotherapeutic technique that involves diverse elements, including evocative music, elective bodywork and accelerated breathing. It also includes the use of a specific bodywork method, and a specific way of doing the integration of the experience, using the drawing of the experience and a group circle to share the experience at the end of the sessions. The session usually lasts between 2.5 and 3 hours.

The range of the experience that the participants have during a breathwork session is very broad. The breathwork can induce changes on a physical, emotional and psychological level. The content and the course of breathwork sessions varies considerably from person to person and in the same person also from session to session. On a physical level, some people show a very rich motor activity, shaking different parts of the body, for example, and other people stay very quiet. On an emotional level, a very wide range of emotions and emotional states can be observed, from feelings of wellbeing, tranquility and happiness, to anger, sadness, guilt or shame. On a psychological level, we can also see a very diverse variety of experiences.

Regarding the physiological and biochemical mechanisms that might be involved, it is still relatively unknown how the breathwork works and what it does to the body and to the brain.

There are different hypotheses that try to explain those effects. James Eyerman, Torsten Passie and Grof have done research and proposed some hypotheses. Faster breathing brings more oxygen into the lungs, but it also eliminates carbon dioxide (CO₂) and causes vasoconstriction in certain parts of the body. Since CO₂ is acidic, reducing its content in blood increases the alkalinity of the blood (the so-called pH), and in an alkaline setting relatively less oxygen is being transferred to the tissues. This triggers a homeostatic mechanism that works in the opposite direction: The kidneys excrete urine that is more alkaline to compensate for this change. The brain is also one of the areas in the body that can respond to faster breathing by vasoconstriction. The cerebral cortex, being the youngest part of the brain from an evolutionary point of view, is generally more sensitive to a variety of influences than the older parts of the brain. So it seems that this constriction is more accentuated in the cortical layers of the brain than in the subcortical layers. This situation would thus cause inhibition of the cortical functions and intensified activity in the archaic parts of the brain. The subcortical structures and the limbic system are not as much inhibited by the cortex as they usually are, which could explain why people experience more emotions during these states.

What are the benefits of doing Holotropic Breathwork?

Regarding the benefits, first of all I need to highlight that very little research has been done in this field. Grof points at a number of possible positive effects and benefits, based on his own experience during the last decades working with this technique, but from a scientific point of view, these statements are considered anecdotal observations.

Grof points out reductions in the levels of depression and anxiety, improvements in various types of phobias, improvements in the level of self-esteem and self-confidence. To date, few studies have empirically examined the therapeutic potential of holotropic breathwork. However, there is some preliminary evidence of the clinical utility of HB, including the research I’ve been conducting during the last years (Binarova, 2003; Brewerton, Eyerman, Cappetta and Mithoefer, 2012; Eyerman, 2013; Hanratty, 2002; Holmes, 1993; Holmes, Morris, Clancey and Putney, 1996; Pressman, 1993; Puente, 2014a; Puente, 2014b).

Regarding my own research, in one of the pilot studies I conducted I found a reduction in the global psychological distress of the participants, an increase in the meaning in life — the participants perceive their life to be more meaningful after the workshop — and also an increase in a personality trait called “self-directedness”—one of the “character” dimensions in Robert Cloninger´s Temperament and Character Inventory—which is defined as the ability to regulate and adapt behavior to the demands of a situation in order to achieve personally chosen goals and values. Self-directedness is conceptually related to locus of control, and a high self-directedness is associated with internal locus of control. The increase in self-directedness might be indicating that the person is more able to regulate and adapt behavior according to his or her own goals and values.

Are there any risks involved?

It depends on what you mean by “risk.” Since the technique involves a wide range of physical and emotional reactions, there are some contraindications. The main contraindications indicated by Grof include the following: It is not advised for persons with a history of cardiovascular disease, including angina or heart attack, high blood pressure, glaucoma, retinal detachment, osteoporosis, significant recent physical injuries or surgery, and pregnant women. Usually holotropic breathwork is also not advised for persons with severe mental illness, seizure disorders or for persons using major medications.

Besides these contraindications, there are no serious risks involved. But we need to take into account that we are talking about a self-exploration and psychotherapy technique, and any type of self-exploration or psychotherapy involves dealing with the dark parts of oneself and connecting with difficult emotions. I don’t think that any kind of psychotherapy is risk-free, or at least free of difficult moments in the process. Besides this, the theoretical framework underlying holotropic breathwork implies that the symptoms must be intensified before they can be healed.

Were you shocked by anything in particular from your findings?

First, one of the interesting findings was that I used similar questionnaires in some of these studies and the findings point out in the same direction—a reduction in the global psychological distress of the participants, an increase in the meaning in life and also an increase in a personality trait called self-directedness.

Another interesting finding is related with the subjective effects occasioned by the breathwork and reported by the participants. I used the States of Consciousness Questionnaire (SCQ) to measure the subjective effects of breathwork, specifically looking to mystical-type experiences, in different workshops (day-long, weekend and weeklong workshops) and in different countries (USA, Russia, Spain), so I have transcultural samples.

The SCQ was developed and administered recently by Griffiths, et al. (2006, 2008, 2011) at the Johns Hopkins University to conduct a number of studies to characterize the mystical-type effects of psilocybin, and has been used to measure the subjective effects of other psychedelics. And, as far as I know, it was the first time that it was used to measure the subjective effects of breathwork.

I found that holotropic breathwork can also occasion mystical-type experiences, and I found it in the different workshops and contexts in which I used it (one-day long, weekend and week-long workshops) and in the different samples of North-Americans, Russians and Spanish. This finding was also very interesting and exciting.

Now I’m comparing the subjective effects of holotropic breathwork and different psychedelics, focusing especially in comparing the subjective effects of holotropic breathwork and ayahuasca, with some preliminary interesting results.

Christopher M. Bache, Ph.D. is professor emeritus in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University, where he taught for 38 years. He is also adjunct faculty at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Fransisco and a Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, where he was Director of Transformative Learning from 2000 to 2002. An award-winning teacher, Chris’ work explores the philosophical implications of non-ordinary states of consciousness, especially psychedelic states. He has written three books: Lifecycles, a study of reincarnation in light of contemporary consciousness research; Dark Night, Early Dawn, a pioneering work in psychedelic philosophy and collective consciousness; and The Living Classroom, an exploration of the transpersonal dynamics of teaching and collective fields of consciousness. He is currently working on a book describing his 20-year psychedelic journey—Diamonds from Heaven.

Zoë: Why did you conduct 73 high-dose LSD sessions on yourself over the span of 20 years?

Chris: I was trained as a philosopher of religion. As soon as I read [Stanislav] Grof’s Realms of the Unconscious in 1979—just as I was starting my academic career—I immediately saw the relevance of his research to the core questions I had been trained to pursue as a philosopher—questions about whether life has any meaning or purpose, whether human beings survive death, and whether there is a conscious intelligence operating in and behind the universe.

Given the legal status of LSD at the time, I made a difficult and painful decision. I chose to learn Grof’s methods for working therapeutically with LSD and use them in my private life to systematically explore my own mind and the mind of the universe as deeply as possible—73 high-dose sessions over 20 years. I did this work not as a clinician but as a philosopher.

In order to do this, a large portion of my life had to go underground. It is only after retiring from active university service in 2011 that I [felt] free to speak openly about this hidden side of my life, bringing the two sides of my life together.

What was your process during each session?

I followed the protocol for doing high-dose psychedelic therapy by the book, standardizing my practice as much as possible. I did this work in my home or a home-like setting, isolated from the world, cared for by a sitter (a clinical psychologist), lying down, wearing eyeshades and headphones, and using music carefully selected and managed to pace the stages of opening and closing of the session.

My sessions began in the morning and lasted all day. I began with a period of yoga and centering meditation (and later Vajrayana Buddhist practices). I wrote up every session within 24 hours, going to great lengths to make sure that the account was as complete and phenomenologically accurate as possible. I always worked alone, never in a group.

I worked at very high dose levels (500-600 mcg) which is a regimen that I honestly don’t recommend. This is an extremely demanding protocol and you pay a price for driving your system this hard. Given what I know now, I would recommend a gentler approach to the deep psyche.

Why 73 sessions?

That’s just the way the numbers came out; no special significance or design to it.

What kept you going over the years? What were your goals?

My goals changed and evolved as the journey deepened. At the center was my philosophical hunger to understand our universe, to experience it as deeply as possible. Intertwined with that was a desire to know myself, to know what I am underneath all the social and psychological layers at the very core of my being.

As both of these deepened and unfolded through the years, what drew me forward was the opportunity to experience the Creative Intelligence behind existence, to dissolve intact into the crystalline nature, the Divine. Closely associated with this was opportunity to enter deep into Oneness, to rest in the transparency of our Essential Nature.

In the last five years of my journey, what drew me most powerfully was the opportunity to return to what I call the Diamond Luminosity. Beyond spacetime, beyond the bardo echoes of spacetime—the Absolute Clear Light of Dharmakaya.

This is a hard question to answer. The most important? That the universe is the manifest body of a Divine Being of unimaginable intelligence, compassion, clarity, and power, that we are all aspects of this Being, never separated from it for a moment, that we are growing ever-more aware of this connection, that physical reality emerges out of Light and returns to Light continuously, that Light is our essential nature and our destiny, that all life moves as One, that reincarnation is true, that there is a deep logic and significance to the circumstances of our lives, that everything we do contributes to the evolution of the whole, that our awareness continues in an ocean of time and a sea of bliss when we die, that we are loved beyond measure and that humanity is driving towards an evolutionary breakthrough that will change us and life on this planet at the deepest level. Take your pick.

Did the LSD help you get deeper into your meditation practice?

Yes, my sessions have deepened my meditation practice and my meditation practice has helped ground my psychedelic practice. In my experience, these are complementary and mutually reinforcing undertakings that can be integrated well.

At the same time, in my particular psychedelic practice, a process of cosmological exploration opened that was different than the process of enlightenment. These are two different tracks with different goals and each should be judged on its own merits. One does not have to transcend time, be dissolved into archetypal reality or return to the birth of the universe in order to realize one’s Essential Nature or rest in the condition of emptiness and non-duality.

If you practice meditation enough, can you access the same state of consciousness you get when you are tripping?

First, I’ve never tripped. The therapeutic protocol is a very different undertaking that leads to much deeper and more challenging experiences than tripping. But can meditation access the same states of consciousness accessed through a therapeutically focused regimen? My honest answer is yes and no, with yes being the more important answer. Consciousness is consciousness; psychedelics are amplifiers of consciousness; it is consciousness that does the work. Therefore, what one can experience with psychedelics can be experienced using other methods such as meditation. The history of mysticism is filled with great beings, mahasiddhas, who show us that this is the case. But we’re talking about lifetimes of practice here, not simply a few decades.

The no side is this: There are some experiences I had in my psychedelic practice that are so extreme, that involve transcending the limits of spacetime so deeply, that they push the edges of what shows up even in the mystical literature. And since consciousness is consciousness, there is no reason for not allowing the possibility that psychedelics may amplify consciousness so strongly that they may take us places or teach us things that have not shown up on the contemplative’s radar.

What did your university in Ohio think of your research?

It’s been a complex dance. My university has not been aware of my personal psychedelic work. My friends in the department have but I have kept this to private conversations. Professionally, I have championed the philosophical significance of psychedelic research, have taught courses and published in this area, and all this has been recognized and accepted by my university. It even gave me its highest faculty award for publishing Dark Night, Early Dawn, which was a thinly veiled analysis of some of my own psychedelic experiences.

At a university that emphasizes teaching, you tend to be judged less on the content of your ideas and more [on] whether you are a good citizen of the academic community. If you serve your students well, have good teaching evaluations, publish in good journals, work on the usual university committees, and contribute to the wellbeing of your department, this buys you a lot of good will.

All that said, I think my university will be shocked when they learn from my new book what I was doing behind the scenes all these years—I hope they will be pleasantly surprised.

What will you be talking about at the International Transpersonal Conference in Prague?

It is a deep honor to come to Prague where Stanislav Grof did his formative psychedelic research and where my particular psychedelic lineage began. I will be presenting an overview of the book I am just completing—Diamonds from Heaven—describing where my psychedelic journey took me, some of the adventures it’s given me, and some of the lessons I learned.

Correction 9.6.17: A previous version of this article stated the book title as Stealing Diamonds from Heaven. The correct name is Diamonds from Heaven.

The Psychedelic Network is a 3-part series looking at the phenomenon of “psychedelic societies” around the globe. Read part one and part two.

 

Mexico

Brun Gonzalez is here to enlighten us on the flourishing psychedelic community that exists in Mexico.

Somehow, the man finds the time to be tirelessly involved in fourteen different drug-related organizations, including Espolea, ReverdeSer, Nierika, Mind Surf, and the International Network For People Who Use Drugs—and, of course, he recently founded The Psychedelic Society of Mexico to serve as a platform to bridge these groups together and provide visibility and communication between them.

“In Mexico we are very fortunate and blessed to have a lot of psychoactive plants. It’s one of the most diverse geographical areas of the world, so biodiversity is exuberant and awesome.

On top of that, and maybe because of that as well, the historic interaction with these plants and compounds through ritualistic traditional models is also very close to the broad Mexican population, especially amongst indigenous communities, but this also goes to the more urban and globalized places like Mexico City and other big cities.

Also, the fact that Mexico is the entry point for lots of things in both ways, from Latin America and the deep Amazonian and Andean culture into the United States and the north, and the more Western modern globalized culture from the north down, really means that we get the best (and definitely the worst as well) of both worlds.

So we have all the medicines of the south coming into Mexico and helping to increase this traditional and ceremonial approach to psychedelics, a phenomenon that here is totally related as well to this cultural heritage of the use of Híkuri/Peyote and Mushrooms that are not so foreign to our everyday life, even in the cities. But we also have the new psychoactive substances and research chemicals that you can see in, let’s say, the UK.

I would feel my mission as this intention of helping to aim for a more sustainable, harmonic, liberating, peaceful, and more luminous collective paradigm that integrates the feeling of interconnectedness and symbiotic components of our presence on this plane that many psychedelic experiences seem to provide (and have been doing so since before we were humans.)

Psychedelics allow us to go beyond our own limitations, they provide a broader understanding, and they are tools to explore and connect with the Great Mystery and Source/Spirit.

They’re really fun as well, and fun is so important.

The future will be awesome if we can strengthen and continue weaving the networks of networks so that our efforts are synergic and interconnected, just as information and Spirit [should be]. I think that this kind of vision or goal wouldn’t be so close to us without the psychedelics’ influence.

I firmly believe we should strive towards using them and making use of these properties as tools for individual development, spiritual growth, and social transformation.”

Australia

Nick Wallis is here to enlighten us on the state of the psychedelic scene in Australia. He is the producer of a weekly radio show and podcast, Enpsychedelia, which is a platform for Melbourne’s psychedelic culture that focuses on the controversial crossroads of psychoactive mind-states and society. He also very recently started the Australian Psychedelic Society, which will officially launch at Rainbow Serpent Festival on January 27th.

“Though Australia is a large land mass with people spread over vast distances, it seems we have a relatively small psychedelic scene, where just about everyone knows everyone.

Australia is unique in many ways. It seems that there is a global psychedelic culture which is reflected in similar, yet slightly different ways in places across the world, especially through the festival scene. Each country adds its own unique flavour to this global culture. Australia’s bush doof culture has grown and grown over the decades from all-night parties into vibrant psychedelic temporary townships and a whole myriad of ongoing cultural operations.

The small population size of Australia and distance from Europe and North America do mean that our resources are often more limited for seeing bigger projects come to fruition. But the scene and culture continue to grow and mature, especially in these times of increased global connectivity. There is a growing number of people dedicated to growing and nurturing the psychedelic community, especially those from academic pursuits.

These are tools not just for the sick, but for teaching our minds to know the malleable nature of reality, especially with regard to the emotional worlds that exist in our shared mind’s eye.

My dream is that we will see the growth of a globally connected psychedelic community, which is focused not just on healing those with medical ailments, but on helping to nurture the lessons learned through psychedelic exploration.

I hope that psychedelics do not end up as merely another tool in the arsenal of Western medicine, nor a sacrament for a very specific religious ceremony. My hope is that psychedelic exploration can be fostered in a manner that fundamentally understands the ineffable, rather than trying to explain it through one institution or another.

Technology is moving at a quickening pace, while still we struggle with political, economic, and social issues that pop up time and time again. Psychedelics may be the doorway through which we can start to better grasp our place in this world and what we are, so that we can shake off the imaginary worlds that too often guide us to conflict and start to re-ground ourselves in this wholly reality (wholly intended to be spelled that way).”

Israel

Amid all the war and conflict in the Middle East, Israelis are all too aware that life is short and tomorrow is uncertain. Naturally, people here celebrate the moment and tend to party pretty hard.

Ido Hartogsohn, who currently lives in Jerusalem, runs an Israeli psychedelic magazine called LaPsychonaut, arranges screenings of psychedelic videos from his website dailypsychedelicvideo.com, and gives lectures on the topic of psychedelics around Israel. He has written extensively on the topic, including a book entitled “Technomystica: Consciousness in the Age of Technology,” which presented the Hebrew reader, for the first time, with the works of psychedelic thinkers such as Huxley, Leary, and McKenna and attracted much attention and praise in Israeli media.

While there isn’t an official Psychedelic Society of Israel yet, the man has a lot of knowledge about the psychedelic community in his home country.

“The Israeli psychedelic community is steadily growing, with more and more events being produced, an expanding knowledge base and a growing sense of identity.

In contrast to many other countries, many of the people who take psychedelics in Israel are not part of the well-off white intelligentsia, but rather come from lower socio-economical strata of society. As somebody who volunteers in an Israeli psychedelic support service which provides psychedelic care in local psytrance festivals, which attract diverse groups from Israeli society, I get to encounter this side of the psychedelic scene.

At the same time, it is also very much a phenomenon which attracts a lot of educated young people and spiritually-oriented individuals. There is a lot of interest in medicine ceremonies, and people are excited to learn more about sacred plants and about contributing to the growing scene of psychedelic research.

I am constantly amazed by the enthusiastic response and the level of interest these topics produce in the Israeli public. I am currently also working on setting up a first Israeli conference on the topic of psychedelics, but this project is still in early stages.

Psytrance is very strong in Israel, and has been for many years. In that sense the Israeli community is very connected with the European tribe and the central role of psytrance festivals in the European psychedelic scene. At the same time, in recent years there also exists a growing Burner community, so American-style psychedelia is also part of the discourse.

Lots of Israelis find out about psychedelics during their military service or shortly thereafter, during their coming of age trip to the Far East, or Central America. Young people often use psychedelics for hedonic purposes, but these agents can also trigger some powerful processes and transformations in people who just exited (or are still inside) a highly authoritative military system, leading many on a path of search and rediscovery.

With more and more psychedelic research getting prominent and favorable media attention and increasing global interest in drug policy reform, there is a growing sense that something is genuinely changing and that this is a developing and exciting field to get involved in. The internet has certainly done a lot for the psychedelic community, in allowing people to connect, exchange information and grow as a group.

A lot of people expect that the growing recognition of the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics, the anticipated approval of MDMA and psilocybin as Schedule II drugs, in conjunction with a global move towards cannabis legalization/decriminalization, will lead to a new era for integration of psychedelics in society. I believe public opinion and culture have definitely grown more open and receptive to the psychedelic message since the 1960s.

Nevertheless, psychedelics have traditionally been a marginal technology, operating on the boundaries of society and culture, not just in our own western world, so I suspect that their re-integration to present-day society and culture would continue to be far from a simple and straightforward process despite everything.”

Conclusions

As the internet continues to dismantle the boundaries of space and time in this new and exciting era of humankind, the imaginary lines of countries and nations will increasingly blur.

Never before have we been able to assemble so many people all over the globe to work together on advancing shared interests and goals. This allows a really beautiful thing to happen: People begin to transcend identification with any single country, and instead identify with their passions.

It no longer matters much where you were born or raised. For example, I wrote this article in Tel Aviv, for this organization based in Baltimore, and have gathered information from individuals all over the globe, so that you (wherever you are) can learn from it. Now that is pretty damn trippy when you think about it.

One might begin to think that as the world becomes more globalized, individuals will become less important. But actually, the exact opposite happens.

Just take a look at the individuals we spoke to in this piece. They’re just normal people, no different from you or me. But they used this incredible new technology we have at our fingertips, and created psychedelic communities around the world that are now vibrant and thriving.

In fact, during these interviews, one person continually was named again and again as each person’s biggest inspiration: Rick Doblin, the founder and director of MAPS. He is just one individual, but he has changed the lives of so many people all over the world. He doesn’t have superpowers…he is just passionate and committed to his cause.

Daniel Jabbour also catalyzed a lot of these psychedelic societies to form when he published his article on MAPS with a call to action urging people to start their own groups.

A quote from one of my favorite anthropologists, Margaret Mead, comes to mind:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

The individuals highlighted in this piece, through their tireless passion and dedication to standing up for what they believe in, are literally changing the world every single day. If you feel inspired by this, I urge you to join your local psychedelic society and contribute in your own way (and join the Global Psychedelic Network online). Or, if one doesn’t exist yet in your area, form one. It’s really that simple. We have the tools and the power in our hands.

Graham Hancock sums this concept up perfectly: “I am convinced that the way forward for the human race is to recognize and protect the fundamental right of sovereignty over consciousness, to throw off the chains of our divisive religious heritage, to seek out forms of spirituality (or no spirituality at all if we so prefer) that are truly supportive of liberty and tolerance, to help the human spirit to grow rather than to wither, and to nurture our innate capacity for love and mutual respect. The old ways are broken and bankrupt, and new ways are struggling to be born. Each one of us with our own talents, and by our own choices, has a part to play in that process.”

The Psychedelic Network is a 3-part series looking at the phenomenon of “psychedelic societies” around the globe. Read part one and part three.

Arunning thread found throughout these inspiring chats, when asked “Why is a global Psychedelic Renaissance occurring right now?” is an emphasis on the importance of the internet.

“I’m thinking that the popularity of the internet has probably contributed to the openness of the psychedelic community today, and the rise of psychedelic groups around the world,” Shannon Petitt of MAPS muses in part 1.

Ido Hartogsohn, who you’ll meet in part 3 when we visit Israel, explains that “the internet has certainly done a lot for the psychedelic community, in allowing people to connect, exchange information, and grow as a group.”

Terence McKenna predicted this back in 1996, when the World Wide Web was still in its infancy, claiming the internet would be “the nervous system of the human oversoul.”

He goes on to explain: “The internet is more life-changing than an alien invasion, and far more interesting than an Earth change. It’s here. Information is power. And, it’s the power not to build, but to dissolve what has been built—to dissolve the boundaries. The internet is the light at the end of the tunnel…it is creating a global society.”

This is perhaps best exemplified by the recent emergence of the Global Psychedelic Network (GPN), an internet-based community connecting members of the psychedelic movement around the world (including a sub-forum for psychedelic group organizers to collaborate and share).

This digital network’s genesis stems from a physical meeting of the minds at the Beyond Psychedelics conference in Prague this past October—more on this shortly.

Following the conference, the GPN site was built by our next interviewee Stephen Reid, whose group further leveraged the internet with its recently launched #psychedelicpride campaign.

Let’s head to the UK to talk to him.

United Kingdom

Stephen Reid is the director and founder of The Psychedelic Society of the UK, an impressive community with over 20,000 supporters. We interviewed him to find out more about psychedelic culture in the UK:

“The UK takes a lot of drugs. We have the highest rate of use of heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy in Europe, and a culture of binge drinking. There’s a danger that this culture of bravado and excess creeps into the psychedelic scene. Part of what we’re doing is to show people there’s a different way of using psychoactive substances, a more careful and considered way, that ultimately is much more rewarding.

The Psychedelic Society was set up as an activist organisation; we initially advocated the use of psychedelics as a tool for social and ecological justice.

Germany

Our next stop in Europe is the country where MDMA was first synthesized. In 1912, a German pharmaceutical company named Merck created the drug by accident in an attempt to create a good vasoconstrictor. Decades later, the chemical is widely enjoyed in techno and psytrance clubs across the country, although it is still illegal.

Germany is home to two psychedelic groups–The German Psychedelic Society and Psychedelische Gesellschaft Deutschland.

Through Psychedelische Gesellschaft Deutschland, Christoph Kahse is working to change the stigmas surrounding the use of psychedelics. As a behavioral psychotherapist and clinical psychologist, Kahse is passionate about showing the world that psychedelics can be powerful healing agents.

“Last year I went to California to talk with MAPS about MDMA therapy and scientific research. I came back and had a strong feeling we need to change something over here. We need to encourage people to reveal their experiences. Let the public know.

I don’t know why [the Psychedelic Renaissance] is happening now, but I see it is happening. Even the tragedies, I see as a sign that something is changing. There is a bigger movement forming.

In America, we could openly talk about psychedelics. In Europe, you cannot without being afraid of heavy consequences because it is a taboo. Taking drugs is a taboo. Taking drugs in therapy is a double taboo. They think this is criminal. They have no clue about the healing potential of psychedelics. This goes together with this stupid drug policy which I guess comes from America, too.

We are living in the age of truth. Things are being revealed. Think of Edward Snowden, Wikileaks…something wants to show. Something wants to be born to this world.

We don’t know where this journey is going to, but I am a part of it.

They can’t fight back for too long against this movement. Regarding drugs, I think something is changing. Maybe everything has to get worse and worse before it can start getting better. In therapy, sometimes things get really bad before they improve.

The popping up of all these groups indicates that something is going to change. I don’t know if we will make it, but I am going for it. I care for it.”

Kjartan Nilsen, founder of The German Psychedelic Society, has this to say about the psychedelic situation in Germany:

“What the country lacks is an organized psychedelic movement. But the change is coming. There are more organizations and foundations popping up, and there are efforts being made trying to coordinate the different entities, so we all are working towards the same goals, not stepping on each other’s feet along the way.

It is my belief that psychedelics will have an important role to play for mankind, both spiritually, socially, and politically. Psychedelics have the potential to bring the human race into a more unified existence. I want to make a positive impact on the planet, and to me, psychedelics is what makes most sense to work with.

I think the future looks very bright for psychedelics. The Psychedelic Renaissance is a real thing, and it’s global.”

Czech Republic

In October, Prague hosted the Beyond Psychedelics conference, a Global Psychedelic Forum featuring more than 60 speakers from all over the world. The conference also included a first-of-its-kind meeting of a large group of global psychedelic society leaders, discussing ways to better connect and share, leading to the formation of the GPN.

We spoke with Rita Kočárová, executive director of the conference and co-founder of the Czech Psychedelic Society.

“I was interested in psychedelic science from the first time when I realized psychedelics are something that we should not be scared of or merely used and experienced, but also studied on an academic level.

When I planned our first event, in just a few days, more than 3,000 people expressed their interest in participating on the Facebook event. It got completely sold out almost immediately. 500 people in each city participated in the end, and we could see that there is a big interest in the public for psychedelics.

Connecting professionals from the interdisciplinary psychedelic fields, the Czech Psychedelic Society aims to establish a platform for an open discussion on psychedelic substances, to provide information on the risks and benefits of their use, to support research, and to destigmatise psychedelics in the public eye.

The capital of the Czech lands, Prague, is a city with a name aptly derived from the Czech equivalent of ‘threshold’. Prague has long served as a doorstep into the unknowns of the human mind and a serendipitous guardian on the threshold of perception. The country is at the international forefront of drug liberalization.

During the Global Psychedelic Forum, we managed to bring to Czech Republic a bunch of great speakers from all over the world, which made this event truly global as we aimed from the beginning. We have already heard about many valuable connections and outputs from the conference participants. We also believe this will significantly speed up the Psychedelic Renaissance in Czech Republic!

The current state of affairs surrounding psychedelics bears witness to human rights issues and signifies a possible societal crisis. It is time to move forward and seek a solution to this situation in a world where alternative treatments are denied even to those cases not helped by standard care. It is time to join forces at a global scale, to evaluate all risks and benefits, and to decide upon the most suitable means of utilising psychedelics.

Only when united can we encourage today’s psychedelic movement and safeguard that the history does not repeat itself, that a boom does not quickly turn into an all-encompassing repression.”

Next…

In part 3, we’ll visit Mexico, Australia, and Israel.

The Psychedelic Network is a 3-part series looking at the phenomenon of “psychedelic societies” around the globe. Read part two and part three.

Psychedelic research has been making big waves in mainstream media for its power in healing a vast array of disorders. As each day passes, more and more people are coming out of the psychedelic closet.

Over the past few years, psychedelic societies have begun popping up all over the world. There’s a rebirth of people recognizing and honoring the power of entheogens. People are gathering together and forming a vast network, like mycelium growing underground. The Dawn of a Psychedelic Renaissance is upon us.

Here at Psymposia, we decided to dig deeper and examine this phenomenon through interviewing some pioneers of these psychedelic societies in an effort to shine a spotlight on the ground-breaking work they are dedicating their lives to.

We’ve asked them to answer some questions about what the psychedelic scene is like in their country, what projects they are currently working on, and why they believe there has been a resurgence in the psychedelic movement lately.

Let’s go on a psychedelic tour around the globe!

In part 1, we explore some psychedelic societies of the US, starting naturally with California, which will host the Psychedelic Science 2017 conference in Oakland this April—including a convening of global psychedelic societies. The conference is being organized by the first group we interviewed, based just south in Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz, California

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies

Okay, so this first one isn’t a grassroots society like the rest of the organizations we talked to, but if you want to learn more about why we are going through a Psychedelic Renaissance, then it’s vital to find out about MAPS and the incredible cutting-edge research they do.

Shannon Clare Petitt is the MAPS Therapist Training Program coordinator, Zendo Project community engagement coordinator, and co-therapist in the study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety associated with life-threatening illness. Shannon spoke to us about her relationship with psychedelics and the awesome work she is doing with MAPS:

“I’m not sure if I chose psychedelics or if they chose me.

I started working at MAPS after serving a year with AmeriCorps and starting a master’s program in counseling psychology. At that time, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to stay in the field of psychedelic therapy. But when I graduated and started seeing clients, I was frustrated that the process was long, and it was very difficult to connect with a person through the complex defenses and protective walls we build around ourselves. I started to understand why psychedelic psychotherapy was so revolutionary and what it meant for subjects who’ve been through MAPS trials to finally get an effective treatment.

My biggest project is running a program that is training 60 new MDMA therapists this year, and another 60 next year!

I think the psychedelic revolution is happening now and with more support than ever because we are recovering from the fear of the 60s. We needed time. People who have been skeptical about the potential benefits of psychedelics are becoming interested in the therapeutic uses proven by science.

Once a topic hits critical mass and several people are speaking out about it, many others can feel comfortable also speaking out about it.

I’m thinking that the popularity of the internet has probably contributed to the openness of the psychedelic community today, and the rise of psychedelic groups around the world.

We still live in a time where the people are fearful of their government, and for good reason. I am hopeful that we can change government to be one of fair justice so that people can be okay practicing their right to free speech and congregation. But there are still thousands of people behind bars for drug offenses, and many people know it’s not outside the realm of possibility for us too.”

San Francisco, California

A psychedelic tour around the world would be remiss without a stop in the unique city of San Francisco, home of the Grateful Dead and the 1960’s hippie movement.

Daniel Jabbour founded the Psychedelic Society of San Francisco in 2011 and thus created a thriving community with thousands of members, from doctors and lawyers to artists and hippies.

A psychedelic tour around the world would be remiss without a stop in the unique city of San Francisco, home of the Grateful Dead and the 1960’s hippie movement.

Daniel Jabbour founded the Psychedelic Society of San Francisco in 2011 and thus created a thriving community with thousands of members, from doctors and lawyers to artists and hippies.

Jabbour published an article on the MAPS Bulletin, where he invited people around the world to start their own local psychedelic society chapters. “This generation is shaping up to be the one that brings psychedelics into the mainstream. It’s an exciting time to be a part of the community,” he wrote.

Tragically, Jabbour passed away shortly after writing this article. Yet his spirit continues to live on in the hearts of the many people that he inspired to dedicate their lives to the psychedelic movement.

The Psychedelic Society of San Francisco continues to grow and flourish.

Irina Alexander, who got involved in the society thanks to Jabbour, explains what makes San Francisco so unique:

“San Francisco is one of the historic epicenters of the American psychedelic revolutionary movement.

We also have a very strong multi-generational community vibe within the psychedelic scene out here, which is greatly influenced by Burning Man culture, the Shulgins, and the drug policy movement. It’s an incredible place to be at a big cultural turning point.

I think things are really shifting right now. People are finally starting to see the healing effects of psychedelics, partially because of all the successful clinical trials that keep releasing mind-blowing data. Before, it was just stories. Now, it’s stories supported by science and data, so people who weren’t previously able to ‘come out of the psychedelic closet’ feel enough support to do so.

I assume that San Francisco, being a relatively open-minded place, will be one of the major providers of safe and well-regulated administration of psychedelic therapy.

As a counselor in my professional life, it’s my goal to give people space to be heard, to heal, and feel empowered. The healing that psychedelics are able to bring, with planning and integration, fits right into that life mission.

There are so many people suffering who have tried absolutely every other treatment option they can think of, and they deserve a chance for relief. Psychedelics are such a powerful tool that can help people dig deep, process traumas, and transform lives. It’s a violation of human rights to keep psychedelic therapy away from people going through so much pain.”

New York, New York

There is nowhere in the world quite like New York, in all its beautiful, gritty, deranged, wondrous, chaotic holiness.

There is a thriving underground subculture devoted to pretty much any phenomenon you could think of (as well as ones you’ve never heard of before)—and the psychedelic scene is no different.

Daniel Miller founded the Psychedelic Society of Brooklyn just last year, and it has already grown to have over 1,000 members on Meetup.

“Our mission is first and foremost to build community.

We host events, but we’re also creating an event calendar that will highlight many of the different psychedelic-related shows, lectures, festivals, and conferences in the New York area. The hope for the calendar is that it will help connect individuals and groups within the larger psychedelic world that wouldn’t have otherwise come into contact.

Psychedelics have the potential to make a lot of us happier and healthier—and not just the sick or the addicted or the depressed.

Thing is, on some level, we all feel depressed and anxious sometimes. And we’re all addicted to something. Psychedelics can help give us a more balanced, less egocentric perspective.

The more the media talks about these drugs and their therapeutic benefits, the more people will try them and have profound experiences. And some of these people will want to share their experiences with others and meet people who’ve seen what they’ve seen. Starting a psychedelic group is one way to do this.

I do believe that society will ultimately embrace the potential of these substances to make most of us happier and healthier. It’s only a matter of time before the truth, as embodied by people’s personal experiences and the science, becomes too hard to ignore.”

*Since this interview, Daniel Miller has stepped down as organizer of the group, but it continues to grow under the leadership of Colin Pugh.

Next…

In part 2, we take this tour to Europe