entheogenics | The Blog of Baphomet

This proposal is an open invitation and not a strict program or dogma for prescription.

LSD, DMT, Psilocybin, Peyote, Ayahausca and other psychedelics, enthoeogens, shamanic medicines and hallucinogenic chemicals are generally illegal and targeted by nation states and supranational organisations like the United Nations, G20 etc. Production, distribution and possession are heavily penalized in the majority of countries around the planet, even though there have been some advances towards their accepted uses in spirituality, psychiatry, psychotherapy and neuro-research in various territories.

The cases of judicial injustice which have taken place internationally and continue to take place are staggering in multitude, at the level of a so-called “war on drugs” which has been declared to be taking place for decades. This war is a means of domestic and foreign repression, racial and class-based segregation and it fuels an increasingly privatized prison system which props up an economic order based on division and
exploitation. It is also a war against consciousness itself, who gets to experience it, how it gets transformed and who gets to control and define it. The psychedelic community is a revolutionary and subversive explosion of colour, love, possibility and positivity which has suffered since its inception from state repression, disruption, investigation and infiltration.

50-years-of-lsd-in-the-usa-358aaa2a-6eb0-430c-af86-71e825b78669

Subverting the State since 1967

There is a need within the psychedelic community for an increased awareness of legal, security and penal issues, from those who are in need of support and to those who will be. Without illegal chemists, distributors, local suppliers and trippers themselves, the psychedelic current wouldn’t exist. Currently the whole entire scenes which dovetail
with the psychedelic movement are based on ‘drug’ experiences which are criminalized and forbidden. Someone has to produce and supply the psychedelic and entheogenic medicines which are so prevalent and so there is a responsibility from the community to support those people who get caught.

A proposed psychedelic prisoner solidarity group would have to decide about a centralized or decentralized structure; their relationships to other entities such as government bodies, trade unions, penal reform organisations such as the Howard League for Penal Reform, Amnesty International, and prison abolition groups such as the Anarchist Black Cross.

The group would need at least four or five core activists in order to be effective at a wider level, needing all the usual resources that a group like this requires: laptops, phones, printer, photocopier etc. It would be thought that a small group which has a such a broad remit and potentially vast interaction with many incarcerated psychonauts and wider society could suffer from being overwhelmed with cases and avenues of expansion beyond its means. The group should be a means to collect and unify many drug war prisoners without being based on individuals solely. This is to focus on the overall picture of repression and to prevent the ebb-and-flow of interest due to a particular case coming to an end or to give the illusion that the group could be a solution to all the problems that an imprisoned person may suffer from. The group should not be a charity based organisation but a means of struggle for the acceptance of psychedelic substances and their positive uses. This also means the family and friends who are supporting their imprisoned loved one do not have to spend all their time doing the public outreach which could be achieved by the impact of a psychedelic prisoner solidarity group, if they wish to focus on more important issues, like practical help to the one inside.

Inside the System

The group would bring itself to the attention of the authorities quickly due to the campaign topic and the actual contact with prisoners inside. It would need to be up to date with law and policing issues and themes such as security and policy. The group would need to maintain virtual and physical presence, and provide accurate legal information and resources; it would network within and without the psychedelic community, researchers, medical community, marijuana industry, alternative and mainstream media, etc. It would maintain contacts with drug reform groups, lawyers and solicitors with expertise for those requiring their help; it would collect and maintain emergency funds for psychedelic prisoners and defendants; it would seek high-level public support from people, groups and entities of influence as a way to promote it’s causes; it would promote psychedelic culture and values, explaining the reasons to support advocated prisoners to the broader public. It would promote, through its outreach, the struggle for a world without need for a vast prison-industrial complex,
social repression and criminalization, for a better future and healing for all.

We can’t let those psychedelic chemists, entheogenic suppliers and drug war prisoners behind bars remain there, and we cannot fail those people who the state wishes to jail for many years, in some cases, for multiple lifetimes, like William Leonard Pickard. A movement for social change can be judged on how well it treats those who go to prison in defense of its principles, as a movement which forgets its prisoners, forgets itself.

If you’re interested in this proposal please get in touch.

https://www.gofundme.com/psychedelic-prisoner-support

These days have been called the ‘Psychedelic Renaissance’ and for good reason. Over the last few years licensed research, conferences, publications and (positive) mainstream media coverage about psychedelics has been popping up like, well, magic mushrooms. There are less well publicized contributory factors to this in the underground too. Across the world the Medicine Community (i.e. people making use of psychedelics as entheogens or sacraments in their own spiritual practice) has been dramatically increasing in number. The gathering of tens of thousands of people in Oregon for the recent total eclipse is just one example. Elsewhere the underground is currently blessed with the availability of excellent quality MDMA and LSD (so I’m told). The recent draconian and bonkers legislation against psychoactives in the UK has been shown to be deeply flawed… can this Third Summer of Love get any better?

The answer is ‘yes’!

Fulfilling the prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor.

Something major, indeed an event of seismic proportions, has just happened. In the USA the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recognized MDMA therapy as a breakthrough treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This amazing leap forward for (legal) psychedelic medicine has been brought to you by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. The cultural space in which this remarkable volte-face (from the American criminalization of MDMA in 1985, to its recognition as a valid, safe and highly effective therapeutic agent) has been nurtured by many organisations and individuals; from research bodies such as the Beckley Foundation, pressure groups such as Transform, and many individual acts of advocacy and (to use a religious metaphor) people bearing witness to the value of the psychedelic experience (even at great personal risk).

The announcement by MAPS (covered here by CBS) marks a sea-change in the story-line of Western medicine, one that picks up the amazing work being done by researchers in the early days of late 20th century psychedelic science. More broadly the recognition of MDMA as a breakthrough therapy represents an official validation of what I would describe as a shamanic practice. The point about MDMA therapy is that it’s not a case of prescribing Ecstasy to patients and letting them get on with it. The therapeutic protocol developed by MAPS researchers includes both ‘MDMA assisted’ and non-MDMA psychotherapy sessions. MDMA theapists are given this empathogenic and entactogenic medicine as part of their training, gaining an experiential understanding of the space their patient will be in. (I’m not sure how many psychiatrists have tried electroconvulsive therapy in order to better understand their patients experience).

With one or more skilled healers present, the sessions, both psychedelic and non-psychedelic, are carefully supported and guided. This process, the intelligent management of psychedelic Set and Setting to promote healing, is exactly what a shaman does. In the case of treating PTSD the therapists help the patient to remember their trauma and to find new ways to orientate themselves in relation to past difficult experiences. Whether this process is imagined as a species of shamanic soul retrieval or a way of inducing the optimum arousal state for therapy, the point is that the therapists are accompanying the patient on a psychedelic-supported healing journey. They are psychedelic shamanic psychopomps; and the FDA recognizes that this process works!

This announcement is significant in that it will hasten the development and deployment of MDMA assisted therapy in the USA and hopefully in Europe too. It also marks the return of not only legal psychedelic research but of approved psychedelic therapy. With the exception of the first wave of research, following the discovery of LSD, this return is the first time since the days of the Eleusinian mysteries that mainstream culture has openly embraced the healing potential of the psychedelic journey. Given the record-breaking levels of mental illness in our culture the return of this profound and very effective method of healing has come (to quote Terence McKenna) ‘not a moment too soon’.

The great irony of this story is that a medicine that entered our culture at the end of the 20th century, which made people want to dance and love each other, is only now being permitted back into legal use because so many in our society are damaged by abuse and war. There is a black humor in this, or perhaps a magical, alchemical narrative. But however we understand what is going on, and whatever our preferred terminology, this Third Summer of Love may finally be a time when our culture honestly engages with the healing potential of the psychedelic experience.

To again quote Mr McKenna, “we’re not dropping out here, we’re infiltrating and taking over’.