How Psychedelics Can Help Save the World: Visionary and Indigenous Voices Speak Out

MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine), also known as Ecstasy or Molly, isn’t per se a psychedelic or hallucinogen (a dubious term).*9 Common labels for MDMA are empathogen (generating empathy) and entactogen (to produce a touching within). Psychiatrist Lester Grinspoon, M.D., describes MDMA as “a gentle invitation to insight.” And while it is o

As a prime example and but one of numerous initiatives undertaken in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, has been conducting carefully designed and administered studies showing remarkable benefits and/or great promise treating su

It is a time of great change and awakening. As we look around us, we see the changes in our healthcare system, the dismantling of political systems across the globe, and the awakening to the truth that many of the institutions we believed were here to help us, are not.

WITHOUT A STORY or vision of a promising future, we are lost and will create a ruinous future for ourselves. For example, the “American Dream” that pulled the United States and a good portion of the world forward for generations has become the world’s nightmare as the excesses of consumerism produce climate disruption, species extinction, and enorm

It is abundantly clear that the more privileged people of the Earth must rapidly transform nearly every aspect of their lives if some form of viable species-civilization is to emerge: the energy we use, the levels and patterns of consumption we choose, the work we do and skills we develop, the homes and communities in which we live, the food we eat

It pains me when the pollinators’ wildflowers are mowed down in spring so we can have this strange ecological disaster called a “lawn,” or when an entire species is branded “pest” or “vermin.”

Abundant evidence has shown that when used in optimal circumstances in the right hands with skill and appropriate intention, and when the openings and insights are brought back into the daily walk as components of ongoing spiritual work and com-passionate action, psychedelic medicines are the most potent tools at our disposal.

From a Native American perspective, there is a place for the Western medical model of healing. However, I believe this model misses the opportunity for healing at its core, which is comprised of the emotional and spiritual levels. As practitioners, if our focus is to be the catalyst for healing those who come to us, we need to open our hearts, open

The idea of “reconnecting with nature” is a human-supremacist construct. We are nature. We are nothing but nature. We are embodied psyches living in vulnerable flesh-blood-and-bones vessels. We’re born, we live, we die, we decompose. We’re animals—wildlife indigenous to Earth. And like other wild species, without freedom we fall apart. We are able