This is the dissertation I wrote for my Philosophy undergraduate degree in 2012. Some of the statistics may be a bit out of date, but recent developments in drug liberalisation (such as in the US) and research on the illicit drug trade – as well as the therapeutic application of certain illicit drugs – are still…
View Post
Between 2016-17, US comedian Shane Mauss was performing on a tour called A Good Trip, a two-hour comedy show about psychedelics. One of the aims of this tour, he said, was to remove the stigma that surrounds the use of psychedelics. Public Perceptions About Psychedelics Many people have misguided and negative preconceptions about what these substances…
View Post
Luis Tamani is an artist who was born in the Peruvian city of Pucallpa on the Amazonian Ucayali River. At the end of his academic training in art, he was introduced to the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca, used by the indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon for healing, divinatory, and spiritual purposes. Tamani’s work is influenced…
View Post
Jonathan Solter is a visionary artist from the Bay Area in California. He said he tries “to put as much detail into every painting as possible.” And looking at some of his artwork, this is clear: he paints brilliantly intricate ethereal worlds. His paintings often feature Shipibo patterns (influenced by ayahuasca) overlaid on pyramidal, temple-like and…
View Post
N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a psychedelic compound of the tryptamine family. This family of compounds also includes psilocybin and psilocin (both found in magic mushrooms), which are similar in molecular structure to DMT. DMT is also similar in molecular structure to the neurotransmitter serotonin. Indeed, this is precisely why these compounds can affect our minds in the way that…
View Post