More healthy, less normal
Medical
The performance enhancing and problem solving powers of psychedelics are growing in legitimacy and acceptance
By Sidone Roddam via Gallery 46
Psychedelic philosophy endorses mind-expanding supplement use as ethically sound plus highly beneficial to discovery and innovation.
Scientific problem solving with psychedelics is the pet subject of Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide author Dr James Fadiman to this day.
“It would be horrific if psychedelics just turned into anti-depressants,” says Dr Sjöstedt-Hughes, “What a waste of our psychedelic renaissance.”
The ideology begins its case for supplemental LSD use with historical examples, like Nietzsche’s concept of moral relativity. The moustachioed firebrand challenged conservative christian ethics he concluded were toxic to society. Nietzsche believed the church promoted a ‘slave morality’ that he claimed advantaged the unadventurous and the unmotivated – crucially at the expense of the more inspired.
“As with after-work drinks not everyone wants to take part”
Admittedly Nietzsche could come across as a little problematic. So the argument in favour of psychedelic use for self-improvement also deploys topical markers of acceptability.
“Carey Mullins said he ‘learned to use his visual problem solving imagination’ and that led to the applications of DNA,” is one of Psychedelic Philosophy author Dr Chris Letheby’s favourite pieces of lecture ammo.
Mullins’ open declaration of how much impact LSD had on his studies also makes an appearance in the summer ’22 paper in Drug Science, Policy and Law.
“Many scientific insights were partially if not wholly dependent on criminalised activity”
Psychedelics as potential catalysts of scientific creativity and insight by Drs David Luke and Sam Gandy presents a watertight case for creative problem solving under low doses of LSD (40ug to 100ug have been used in limited official trials over the decades) and otherwise.
The clarion call deploys history, philosophy, scientific thinking and direct quotes from the likes of Einstein: “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” The paper covers the importance of dreams and ‘visions’ in personal and scientific breakthroughs, citing declarations from Google creator Larry Page and Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table. It lists the inventors who’ve cited their psychedelic use itself: Apple boss Steve Jobs claimed the drugs advised him to focus on product quality over revenue generation, and contemporary physicist Carlo Rovelli claims psychedelics gave him an understanding of the nature of time which inspired his career.
“Many of the insights outlined, including the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of PCR, were partially if not wholly dependent on criminalised activity… the potential of psychedelics as agents to support creative thinking demonstrates the restrictiveness of a ‘health-only’ classification that fails to holistically consider the breadth of risks and benefits of drug use,” it concludes.
Real life, as ever is far ahead of academia and the medical establishment, let alone politics. Data scientists like Ahnjili ZhuParris, who’s provided frameworks for microdose self-tests and speed learning on psychedelics, are at the cusp of both the ‘Quantified Self’ movement – an army of science nerds self-testing for self-improvement – and the subculture’s citizen science element.
“It would be horrific if psychedelics just turned into anti-depressants”
Ironically it’s exactly the attitude that eager start-up execs are drawn to. And modern-day corporatism is colonising the culture in its inimitable way. An article in the June ’22 issue of financial bible The Economist declared ‘Bosses want to feed psychedelics to their staff. Are they high?’
It turns out tripping in the office could be a case of two steps forward, one step back.
‘As with after-work drinks, not everyone wants to, or can, take part,’ The Economist reminds us more enthusiastic readers, ‘an asset manager at a big family office reports agonising over whether or not to accept an invitation from a firm in her portfolio to an (illegal) Ayahuasca retreat at a villa in California, with a shaman flown in for the occasion.’
A portent perhaps, that even in the psychedelic renaissance we are still fretting about our workplace networking obligations. Perhaps we were naive to assume we’d glide towards a seamless new interconnectedness.
More ancient forces, The Economist warns, are at play: ‘A mind-bending experience can lead workers to question everything—including capitalism and the nature of work.’
Truly we must be mindful when turning on the staff. The New Health Club and Field Trip are among the companies vying to usher in this new age of glad-handling. Which to be fair sounds a lot more compelling than Friday evening in the local Irish pub.
Apparently though, life is not all about work. And neither does our career have a monopoly on problems that require solving.
“I loved and desperately wanted my wife. This was a surprise to everyone including ourselves”
Within the pages of 1967’s The Problem Solving Psychedelic PG Stafford and BH Golightly went to the heart of the matter.
“Marriage may begin with a great deal that favours success and yet there is an appalling rate at which the relationship deteriorates… the ‘advice’ given by LSD is for the most part benevolent. Instead of encouraging disparagement of a mate for shortcomings, as may result from greater intellectual clarity, the drug generally activates emotional tolerance, if not empathy, and highlights hidden or forgotten attractive qualities.”
The writers quote two husbands who underwent LSD therapy in the 60s:
“I am able to talk to my wife more freely and frankly than I ever used to be. I am not so afraid of saying what I really think even if I know she will not agree. Apart from the restoration of intercourse, we really get on much better than before."
“I loved and desperately wanted my wife. This was a surprise to everyone, including ourselves, because as I said we had been through a bad time together. But under LSD it is impossible to fake anything: she was my connection with life.”
Certainly a more worthwhile state of affairs than after-work drinks.