Strength of street knowledge

Space

What can the medical sector learn from the space? “Everything,” says Dr Luke

If you like this there’s another Grant Morrison reference in the issue

‘Field research’ is Dr Luke’s term for the surveys and private research projects he’s conducted on the fringes of everyday reality.

“It’s citizen science at its finest – but tragically illegal,” expanded Dr Luke in answer to my question, ‘What can the medical sector learn from the psychedelic subculture?’

“I’ve invented ‘psychograms’ to represent all sorts of altered states,” he offers by way of an example, “I have about four art-stroke-science virtual reality projects on the go right now ranging from inducing synaesthesic meditation to interplanetary inter-connectedness and the tarot,” he says. “It’s the inverse – you alter your perception to change your brain, rather than alter your brain to change your perception. We have things like that at the festivals, they supposedly replicate the effects psychedelics… at least on paper according to the tests. I slightly don’t believe it, but there is massive potential.”

While keen to stress that “psychedelics are not a panacea” like all authentic experts, extensive surveys conducted by Dr Luke and his team “show that they can be good for all kinds of things actually, from autism to Parkinson’s.”

“This is the intersection of science, and genuine transcendence of time/space to bring back information”

In the suburban living rooms of Britain something stirs. “We go round to people’s houses, it’s much more pleasant for the subjects. We did some experiments with precognitive individuals, and put shared experiences declared by ayahuasca users under the microscope: two people, experienced users who didn’t know each other, weren’t allowed to talk beforehand, attempted to join each other in the experience, and were interviewed separately afterwards. I haven’t fully evaluated the data as independent judges are interpreting the reports and images. But just eyeballing the material, I thought it was a long shot but… it looks like we’re going to get something quite significant. Albert Hoffman saw the doctor coming with an obsidian knife and feathered headdress. He knew where the provenance; his colleagues in Basle had similar visions, but no idea of any connection to Mexico or the Inca.”

This is the intersection of science, “and genuine transcendence of time and space to bring back information,” declares Dr Luke, “I’ve been looking into creative problem solving with scientists in DMT, bridging the gap between shamanism and science. It speaks to the very nature of reality, the meeting point between world views. And nobody’s asking these questions. They’re asking ‘What does it do in the brain?’ questions. And they’re getting ‘What it does in the brain’ kind of answers. They don’t engage with the glaring ontological questions about the nature of reality.”

He believes the obvious experts to ask, like many actually do, are the DMT explorers of the Amazon. “Collectively as a culture they have thousands of years of expertise,” Dr Luke says, “They were the original keeps of the wisdom and the substances. They haven’t been invited to the table at these multi billion dollar conferences.”

Cosmic Midwifery

Space

Psychedelic therapy sets the stage for new life to flourish

Leonora Carrington, ‘The Temple of the Word’

The psychedelic therapist offers presence, but doesn’t require reporting on behalf of the client. “At a very high dose, we are beyond words anyway,” advises Dr Richards.

Guides are “like midwives, they create a container” to encourage the voyager’s “own choreography of the experience.”

Voyagers should be prepped to “dive into the pupil of the monster” lest one pounce from the shadows of their psyche. Challenging experiences are actually quite unusual (only 40% of users say they’ve had ever one) but “we all have our cross to bear - our trauma” reminds Dr Richards.

“We are primarily dealing with human consciousness,” says the Maryland and Spring Grove veteran, “a meaningful process unfolding from within.” He says objects to examine and inspire, personal or otherwise, can be offered to the voyager who appears inquisitive.

“We are primarily dealing with human consciousness”

Guides practising in legally permitted conditions from my study group say music is a fine changer of mood, especially with those who may have difficulty expressing their mystical sides. These “external routes to mystical consciousness” as Dr Richards dubs them, like the rose bud of lost era lore, or family photos used by silver age guides, can ‘make the energy dance’ like Alfred North Whitehead suggested. Suddenly everything is important, but somehow irrelevant, and both are absolutely fine. Unless they’re not.

“Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity,” wrote Whitehead in Process and Reality: An Essay on Cosmology, “[it] may not neglect the multifariousness of the world — the fairies dance, and Christ is nailed to the cross.“ Quite.

Can you hold your own?

Space

In psychedelic therapy as any other, you have to take responsibility for your own mental health

Kelsey Brookes, LSD Poster, available here

The Imperial College testing rooms are the most British thing I’ve ever seen.

There’s a blanket thrown over the studio kitchen in the corner, a drape with some trees on and a lamp stuck behind it, plus some spiritual tat.

It does look surprisingly cosy nonetheless, especially with Dr Ros beaming angelically from her seat in the corner. But you almost certainly have to dream the Albion way to appreciate its understated succour. Bar the open heartedness oozing from the ever-radiant Dr Ros, being served the Mysteries by the priestesses of Demeter it is not. Neither is donning a blindfold plus headphones, and boasting a grin like the one that betrays the fact you don’t normally fly business class, an experience surely at all comparable to the jungle ayahuasca one.

12-step style integration and ceremony – my bad, ‘celebrating the mysteries’ – circles were mentioned as future possibilities by Psych delegates in a huddle with Imperial College trials participants Iain Roullier and Leonie Schneider, unsung heroes of the UK space who also spoke onstage with Dr Ros repping their PsyPan set-up. In the meantime there is… an app.

“The substance is only 51% of the process”

‘Holding space’ doesn’t seem to have been much of an issue during contemporary scientific tests and education regarding bad trips-stroke-challenging, purgatorial experiences may take the edge off them so to speak. Admittedly a guide, let alone a skilled psychotherapist or shaman, may be good for a bad trip too. Because surely MindMed’s ‘off switch’ jab is cheating*.

An old pal has just reminded me that our sitter was a table leg with an acid house smiley face drawn on it which we kept in the back of the van. The Wild Hunt rides.

*Take the off switch if they offer it or at least don’t say I told you not to