The Netflix docuseries How to Change Your Mind, based on Michael Pollan’s book of the same name, explores the history and therapeutic effects of four different psychoactive compounds: LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, and mescaline (with the episodes in that order). Directed by Alison Ellwood and Lucy Walker, and presented by Pollan, How to Change Your Mind…
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This is a guest post from Matt Zemon, MSc, author of Psychedelics for Everyone While psychedelic medicine has been a part of human history for thousands of years, the modern history of psychedelics dates back to the 1930s when Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann synthesised LSD. Following Hofmann’s discovery of LSD’s hallucinogenic properties, research continued in…
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Dr Rick Strassman, currently an Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico, is one of the leading pioneers of modern psychedelic research. His studies on DMT, which took place between 1990 and 1995, broke the 20-year gap in psychedelic research. This halting of prolific and promising inquiry was because the US…
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Several clinical trials have concluded that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy – utilised for the treatment of PTSD – is safe (as well as highly effective). But this doesn’t necessarily mean the treatment is risk-free. MDMA therapy entails unique risks, and here I don’t mean concerns about possible neurotoxicity. The subject of MDMA’s neurotoxicity is complicated; while some…
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Sceletium tortuosum (or kanna, channa, kougoed) is a psychoactive succulent plant native to South Africa. San hunter-gatherers (or Bushmen), as well as Khoi pastoralists, have used kanna for millennia, before written reports of the uses of these plants by European explorers and settlers emerged. These indigenous peoples have used kanna – the Khoi word for…
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