Concerned with scholarly, popular, and religious backdrops that understand the connection between psychedelics and mystical experiences to be devoid of moral concerns and ethical dimensions—a position supported empirically by the rise of acid fascism and psychedelic cults by the late 1960s—Psychedelic Mysticism: Transforming Consciousness, Religious Experiences, and Voluntary Peasants in Postwar America traces the development of sixties psychedelic mysticism from the deconditioned mind and perennial philosophy of Aldous Huxley, to the sacramental ethics of Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner, to the altruistic religiosity practiced by Stephen Gaskin and The Farm. Building directly off the pioneering psychedelic writing of Huxley, these psychedelic mystics understood the height of psychedelic consciousness as an existential awareness of unitive oneness, a position that offered worldly alternatives to the maladies associated with the postwar moment (e.g., vapid consumerism and materialism, lifeless conformity, unremitting racism, heightened militarism). In opening a doorway to a common world, Morgan Shipley locates how psychedelics challenged the coherency of Western modernity by fundamentally reorienting postwar society away from neoliberal ideologies and toward a sacred understanding of reality defined by mutual coexistence and responsible interdependence. In 1960s America, psychedelics catalyzed a religious awakening defined by compassion, expressed through altruism, and actualized in projects that sought to ameliorate the conditions of the least advantaged among us. In the exact moments that historians and cultural critics often locate as signaling the death knell of the counterculture, Gaskin and The Farm emerged, not as a response to the perceived failures of the hippies, nor as an alternative to sixties politicos, but in an effort to fulfill the religious obligation to help teach the world how to live more harmoniously. Today, as we continue to confront issues of socioeconomic inequality, entrenched differences, widespread violence, and the limits of religious pluralism, Psychedelic Mysticism serves as a timely reminder of how religion in America can operate as a tool for destabilization and as a means to actively reimagine the very basis of how people relate—such a legacy can aid in our own efforts to build a more peaceful, sustainable, and compassionate world.

Reveals how psychedelics can facilitate spiritual development and direct encounters with the sacred • With contributions by Albert Hofmann, Huston Smith, Stanislav Grof, Charles Tart, Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, Brother David Steindl-Rast, and many others • Includes personal accounts of Walter Pahnke’s Good Friday Experiment as well as a 25-year follow-up with its participants • Explores protocols for ceremonial use of psychedelics and the challenges of transforming entheogenic insights into enduring change Modern organized religion is based predominantly on secondary religious experience--we read about others’ extraordinary spiritual encounters with God but have no direct experience ourselves. Yet there exist powerful sacraments to help us directly experience the sacred, to help us seek out the meaning of being human and our place in the universe, and to help us see the sacred in the world that surrounds us. In this book, more than 25 spiritual leaders, scientists, and psychedelic visionaries examine how we can return to the primary spiritual encounters at the basis of all religions through the guided use of psychedelics. With contributions by Albert Hofmann, Huston Smith, Stanislav Grof, Charles Tart, Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, Brother David Steindl-Rast, Myron Stolaroff, and many others, this book explores protocols for ceremonial and spiritual use of psychedelics, including LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and MDMA, and the challenges of transforming entheogenic insights into enduring change. It examines psychoactive sacraments in the Bible, myths surrounding the use of LSD, and the transformative ayahuasca rituals of Santo Daime. The book also includes personal accounts of Walter Pahnke’s Good Friday Experiment as well as a 25-year follow-up with its participants. Dispelling fears of inauthentic spirituality, addiction, and ill-prepared encounters with the holy, this book reveals the potential of psychedelics as catalysts for spiritual development, a path through which faith can directly encounter God’s power, and the beginning of a new religious era based on personal spiritual experience.

In this companion work to The Mystery of Manna, Dan Merkur sheds new light on the use of psychedelics in the Western mystery tradition.. He discusses certain teachings of Philo of Alexandria, Rabbi Moses Maimonides, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, which refer to special meditations to be performed while partaking of the "psychedelic sacrament."

In the 1960s, Americans combined psychedelics with Buddhist meditation to achieve direct experience through altered states of consciousness. As some practitioners became more committed to Buddhism, they abandoned the use of psychedelics in favor of stricter mental discipline, but others carried on with the experiment, advancing a fascinating alchemy called psychedelic Buddhism. Many think exploration with psychedelics in Buddhism faded with the revolutionary spirit of the sixties, but the underground practice has evolved into a brand of religiosity as eclectic and challenging as the era that created it. Altered States combines interviews with well-known figures in American Buddhism and psychedelic spirituality—including Lama Surya Das, Erik Davis, Geoffrey Shugen Arnold Sensei, Rick Strassman, and Charles Tart—and personal stories of everyday practitioners to define a distinctly American religious phenomenon. The nuanced perspective that emerges, grounded in a detailed history of psychedelic religious experience, adds critical depth to debates over the controlled use of psychedelics and drug-induced mysticism. The book also opens new paths of inquiry into such issues as re-enchantment, the limits of rationality, the biochemical and psychosocial basis of altered states of consciousness, and the nature of subjectivity.

Recent clinical trials show that psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin can be given safely in controlled conditions, and can cause lasting psychological benefits with one or two administrations. Supervised psychedelic sessions can reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and addiction, and improve well-being in healthy volunteers, for months or even years. But these benefits seem to be mediated by "mystical" experiences of cosmic consciousness, which prompts a philosophical concern: do psychedelics cause psychological benefits by inducing false or implausible beliefs about the metaphysical nature of reality? This book is the first scholarly monograph in English devoted to the philosophical analysis of psychedelic drugs. Its central focus is the apparent conflict between the growing use of psychedelics in psychiatry and the philosophical worldview of naturalism. Within the book, Letheby integrates empirical evidence and philosophical considerations in the service of a simple conclusion: this "Comforting Delusion Objection" to psychedelic therapy fails. While exotic metaphysical ideas do sometimes come up, they are not, on closer inspection, the central driver of change in psychedelic therapy. Psychedelics lead to lasting benefits by altering the sense of self, and changing how people relate to their own minds and lives-not by changing their beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality. The upshot is that a traditional conception of psychedelics as agents of insight and spirituality can be reconciled with naturalism (the philosophical position that the natural world is all there is). Controlled psychedelic use can lead to genuine forms of knowledge gain and spiritual growth-even if no Cosmic Consciousness or transcendent divine Reality exists. Philosophy of Psychedelics is an indispensable guide to the literature for researchers already engaged in the field of psychedelic psychiatry, and for researchers-especially philosophers-who want to become acquainted with this increasingly topical field.

Featuring essays and interviews with Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, Ram Dass, Albert Hofmann, Alexander (Sasha) Shulgin, Daniel Pinchbeck, Tim Robbins, Arne Naess, and electronic musician Simon Posford, as well as groundbreaking research and personal accounts, this one-of-a-kind anthology is a "best of" collection of articles and essays published by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). Topics include the healing use of marijuana and psychedelics--including MDMA, ibogaine, LSD, and ayahuasca--for PTSD, anxiety, depression, and drug addiction, as well as positive effects of these substances in the realm of the arts, family, spirituality, ecology, and technology. Among many other thought-provoking and mind-opening pieces are the following: • "On Leary and Drugs at the End," by Carol Rosen and Vicki Marshall • "Psychedelic Rites of Passage," by Ram Dass • "To Be Read at the Funeral," by Albert Hofmann • "Another Green World: Psychedelics and Ecology," by Daniel Pinchbeck • "Psychedelics and Species Connectedness," by Stanley Krippner, PhD • "Huxley on Drugs and Creativity," by Aldous Huxley • "Psychedelics and the Deep Ecology Movement: A Conversation with Arne Naess," by Mark A. Schroll, PhD, and David Rothenberg • "Psychedelic Sensibility," by Tom Robbins • "Electronic Music and Psychedelics: An Interview with Simon Posford of Shpongle," by David Jay Brown • "How Psychedelics Informed My Sex Life and Sex Work," by Annie Sprinkle • "Consideration of Ayahuasca for the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder," by Jessica Nielson, PhD, and Julie Megler, MSN, NP-BC • "Psychedelics and Extreme Sports," by James Oroc • "Youth and Entheogens: A Modern Rite of Passage?," by Andrei Foldes with Amba, Eric Johnson, et al. • "Diary of an MDMA Subject," by Anonymous • "Dimethyltryptamine: Possible Endogenous Ligand of the Sigma-1 Receptor?," by Adam L. Halberstadt • "Lessons from Psychedelic Therapy," by Richard Yensen, PhD • "Psychosomatic Medicine, Psychoneuroimmunology, and Psychedelics," by Ana Maqueda • "Talking with Ann and Sasha Shulgin about the Existence of God and the Pleasures of Sex and Drugs," by Jon Hanna and Silvia Thyssen

Sacred Knowledge is the first well-documented, sophisticated account of the effect of psychedelics on biological processes, human consciousness, and revelatory religious experiences. Based on nearly three decades of legal research with volunteers, William A. Richards argues that, if used responsibly and legally, psychedelics have the potential to assuage suffering and constructively affect the quality of human life. Richards's analysis contributes to social and political debates over the responsible integration of psychedelic substances into modern society. His book serves as an invaluable resource for readers who, whether spontaneously or with the facilitation of psychedelics, have encountered meaningful, inspiring, or even disturbing states of consciousness and seek clarity about their experiences. Testing the limits of language and conceptual frameworks, Richards makes the most of experiential phenomena that stretch our understanding of reality, advancing new frontiers in the study of belief, spiritual awakening, psychiatric treatment, and social well-being. His findings enrich humanities and scientific scholarship, expanding work in philosophy, anthropology, theology, and religious studies and bringing depth to research in mental health, psychotherapy, and psychopharmacology.