It’s Time for Another Summer of Looove
Psychedelics have huge therapeutic potential.
Seen the Netflix adaption of Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind? I recommend it. It is a fascinating look at the uses (and, at times, abuses) of psychedelic drugs.
Uses, you say? Yes. Before we decided to deride drugs like LSD and psilocybin, they were studied for their potential to treat anxiety, addiction and OCD, among a range of other conditions. In the 50s and 60s, in fact, psychedelics were a focus of Western psychiatry; and research was funded by the U.S. government itself, to the happy tune of millions. Only later did these drugs flee the lab to form the heart of hippie culture, and it was this, among other reasons, why Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act. It brought research to a halt.
In the 50s and 60s, in fact, psychedelics were a focus of Western psychiatry.
Of course, most of us know a bit about psychedelics. They call Huxley and Morrison to mind. They evoke ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’. They make us recall that meandering canal-side walk in Amsterdam. But despite what that scene in the second Bridget Jones might have us think, psychedelics are far less recreational than spiritual, or therapeutic. It is not uncommon, in fact, for those who have taken psychedelics to find the experience very meaningful. Some rank it among the most meaningful times of their lives, up there with marriage, the birth of a child, and the first time they saw Drag Race. Steve Jobs called it ‘profound’. ‘It reinforced my sense of what was important,’ he said. ‘Creating great things instead of making money.’
So what do psychedelics do? Put simply, they cleanse the gaze, open the doors of perception, expand our awareness so we better understand our place within a vast, mysterious universe, as well as what really matters to us human beings: connection with others. They can give rise to great insights. You could call the experience ‘enlightenment’ or ‘liberation’ or ‘salvation’. You could call it just a radical change in perspective. Psychedelics hush the voice of self-affirmation and possession (and deception) that we call ego. Researchers at Imperial College London suggest that LSD might be a ‘superhighway’ to the unconscious, where our deepest fears reside.
So what do psychedelics do? Put simply, they cleanse the gaze.
There are drawbacks. There are stories of people unable to recover from terrifying trips. And the psychedelic ride, even when it goes well, tends to be far from pleasant. The typical shape a trip takes involves terror: the subject resists and is faced with her demons; then, with luck, comes surrender, and a placid receptivity to the knowledge her contact with her ‘shadow’ yields. My parrot, Coco Chanel*, told me that after she took LSD one New Year’s Eve the patterns on the walls detached themselves and attacked her.
But the fact is this: psychedelics are here. They have already ‘intimated’ themselves, as Oakeshott might have put it: drugs like LSD are studied by respected academic institutions in the UK, the US and Switzerland. They are taken by ‘respectable’ people. ‘Micro-dosing’ is more and more common among those in search for productivity and creativity. Like the (non-magic) mushrooms of Sylvia Plath’s poem, their foot’s in the door. So why resist? Why not beckon them in, offer them a seat by the fire, and — with attention and care, of course — see what they have to say for themselves? Such a thing is surely worth consideration.
Like the (non-magic) mushrooms of Sylvia Plath’s poem, their foot’s in the door.
As it is, there are practical and financial barriers to research in the UK, and a shortfall of psychedelic trials on a large scale anywhere. This is because hallucinogenics are schedule 1 drugs: those thought to have little or no therapeutic value. LSD and psilocybin are class A, up there with crystal meth. This is madness. And of course, they are behind the needless criminalisation of God knows how many (mostly young) people, some of whom are bound to put themselves at risk. (This is not so much by taking the drugs, but by getting them from some gloomy soul in an anorak, lurking behind a pub on the Edgware Road.)
There is a mental health crisis in the UK, and a sense of global division and alienation. You might say the rise of the InstaGuru and interest in spiritual practices reflect a certain collective instinct that we are atomised and need to reconnect to something greater than ourselves. The research suggests that psychedelics might help. And it is only May. Perhaps we should make this a ‘summer of love”.
*I have changed both the name and the species of this person to protect their identity
