23-08-2010, 10:33 PM
Magda Hassan Wrote:The potential of psychedelics for positive transformative or ecstatic experiences is well known and as you say need not be at all bad. But there sure is such a thing as a 'bad trip'. Many went on trips never to come home again like Frank Olsen though admittedly he may have had human assistance out the window and not transformed into a bird. With the black shrinks that Jan has referred to above LSD was used on unsuspecting and unconsenting people and children who often were forced to witness the dismemberment of living animals and other delights with the sole purpose of creating psychic trauma. If that's not a bad trip I don't know what is.
Of course, I have to agree with this. Giving people psychedelics without their knowledge or consent is possibly one of the worst forms of torture I can imagine. I did not have this situation in mind when I said that no trips are bad, as this was not the subject of the article in the beginning of this thread.
Along with the experiments of the CIA and probably other government agencies in the US and other countries in the sixties, other, more constructive and positive research was also taking place. Many people took LSD and other psychedelics in a therapeutic setting, and had great results from this. Psychedelic therapists Stanislav Grof and Humphrey Osmond deserves to be mentioned in this context, as they had quite some success treating conditions where other known forms of therapy usually didn't work.
Especially Stan Grof has described his work in great detail, in various books. He describes how it can be of great value to confront experiences of fear of going crazy, deep despair, being caught forever in an absolutely unbearable situation, and many other things, and it is from this perspective I said that bad trips doesn't exist. His message is that only when you fully accept these experiences, you will go through them, and transformation will happen. But the normal instinctive reaction to something like this is of course massive resistance, and this is why it can be helpful to have a guide. The guide is NOT supposed to do anything, except when you are caught in your own resistance and need someone to tell you to accept what is.
I would expect someone like Leary to want to put his own views into your trip, but in my view he was a really out of balance person that I wouldn't want as a guide on my trips in any case.
Keith: I agree with your description of LSD so far as "what you think is". But for me, this doesn't make it necessary to have mental control of any kind. On the contrary, this gives me a genuine chance of exploring myself in great detail, and become aware of hidden aspects of myself that I wasn't aware of before. Sometimes it is very pleasurable, sometimes it isn't. But at the end of the day, if I'm able to accept whatever I see, I will have a more realistic view on myself.
I really see why you suggest that people with psychological issues should stay away from psychedelics. On the other hand, some people have issues that requires drastic methods to even get a chance of resolving. Of course, they should take these drugs only in a setting where they have genuine support from people who have a clue about what they are going through. But if everything else doesn't work, and you're in a desperate situation, I'd say it would be worth a shot.