By Sean Lawlor

Dr. Carl Hart is neuropsychopharmacologist and Chair of Columbia University’s Department of Psychology. His research, which focuses on the behavioral and neuropsychological effects of psychoactive drugs in humans, has been published widely in academic journals, and Dr. Hart has discussed his research on numerous shows including Democracy Now!, The O’Reilly Factor, and The Joe Rogan Experience.  His award-winning memoir, High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society, charts Dr. Hart’s journey from childhood in a harsh Miami neighborhood to an academic life devoted to reframing society’s biased and harmful narratives around stigmatized drugs. 

At the 2019 Psychedelic Science Summit in Austin, TX, Dr. Hart addressed a crowd of psychedelic enthusiasts about concerning language he’s noticed in psychedelic-focused conversations. In this interview, Dr. Hart explains how these narratives create a “psychedelic exceptionalism” that perpetuates harmful narratives around drugs like heroin, methamphetamine, and crack cocaine, by extension demonizing people who choose to use such substances. In these transitional times, Dr. Hart reminds us of the importance to hold healthy criticism while always maintaining focus as humanitarians. 

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Sean Lawlor: In your speech, you were less gung-ho about this psychedelic renaissance than other people. This was partly due to something called “psychedelic exceptionalism.” Can you speak about this?

Carl Hart: This term refers to the perspective that psychedelics are somehow better and more useful than other classes of drugs like opioids or stimulants. I was just trying to remind people that these are all psychoactive substances. They interact on receptors in the brain to produce their effects, and we shouldn’t be treating some drugs as if they’re special while other drugs are somehow evil. Drugs all carry some risk, and depending on how you define danger, they fall on different levels of the spectrum of risk, and benefits. 

Sean Lawlor: So, you’re responding to seeing people glorifying psychedelics while continuing to demonize substances that have been demonized since the War on Drugs, if not before? 

Carl Hart: That’s exactly it. It’s great to be enthusiastic about your drug of choice. But remember not to vilify other drugs. That puts people at risk, and it marginalizes people. I don’t think anybody really wants to do that.

Sean Lawlor: Can you say more about how that puts people at risk?

Carl Hart: When people talk about heroin being evil or dangerous in generalized ways, it stigmatizes that drug and, by extension, people who use that drug. Then, we have increased penalties, and we view those people as being defective for even using that drug. 

Sean Lawlor: A way of “othering” those people, putting them in a negative box. 

Carl Hart: That’s right. We did that with crack, and we did that with that methamphetamine. But you look at MDMA versus methamphetamine, and the chemical structures are not that different. But we have wildly different narratives about them. It’s just not warranted.

Sean Lawlor: What do you see as the roots of this exceptionalism?

Carl Hart: I think people think that they’re being strategic. Folks who want to increase the availability of psychedelics for medicinal reasons, for recreation — I think they feel that if they associate with stigmatized drugs, then that stigmatizes their drug of choice. They’re playing a political game, a numbers game — you could say they’re calculating this. But there are people who are really suffering, who don’t have a choice to calculate, and no one’s given us the right to play with people’s lives based on politics. What’s wrong is wrong, what’s right is right, and it’s wrong to vilify drugs and people. No matter what.

That’s why I try to keep the focus on doing what’s right as a human being, as a humanitarian. It’s just wrong to vilify people for wanting to alter their consciousness and the particular drug that they use, especially when you’re doing the same thing with another drug. That’s just inconsistent with respecting other people’s humanity. 

Sean Lawlor: I think a lot of people have seen friends and family die from opiates. You talk about how these deaths may be due to what they’re getting, how much fentanyl may be in there, etc. But if someone’s caught in cycles of addiction with drugs that have a higher overdose potential than, say, mushrooms, and a high dose of mushrooms could allow them to work on deeper issues fueling addictive cycles, how could that drug not be seen as more healing?

Carl Hart: Because there are all kinds of assumptions with that question that are flawed. First of all, it’s not up to me to decide what people choose to work on and what drug they use. If they choose heroin as opposed to mushrooms, that’s cool. That’s their decision as autonomous adults. And if we think heroin is uniquely more dangerous than mushrooms — well, if we’re talking about respiratory depression, yes, it certainly can be. But if we’re talking about paranoia at large doses, mushrooms are more dangerous.

When we look at the Swiss situation, with a regulated supply of heroin and all sorts of services, you don’t have the problems of overdose that we see in this country. So it’s not the drug. It’s the conditions under which the drug is being administered. 

Now, we do have people in our country who are dying from heroin or opioid-related overdoses. That’s a fact. But that has more to do with the stigma and the social conditions under which the drug is being taken. I am wholeheartedly in support of dealing with those issues, which are not that complicated. We could have a regulated supply of heroin. We could check the mixture to verify that people don’t have an adulterated drug. With mushrooms, you’re less likely to have adulterants in your compounds than you are with opioids. That’s a problem, but not of the opioid itself. That’s a problem of our supply.

Sean Lawlor: How about the problem of what’s underlying people’s addictions in general?

Carl Hart: That’s a whole different issue, that we have to figure out why people are addicted. People are addicted for a variety of reasons — and when I say “addiction,” I mean the DSM criteria for substance use. Those criteria have to do with people’s inability to inhibit, their lack of responsibility skills, or the conditions under which these drugs are available or not available. It has more to do with all of those things than, again, the drug itself. 

It’s true that opioids can produce a physical dependence, whereas other drugs are less likely to. But alcohol can produce a physical dependence that is deadly, and we do alcohol relatively well in this country. There are people who have problems with alcohol, but the vast majority of folks don’t. So, alcohol will remain legal. 

Whether it’s a drug or an activity like driving a car, people can and will get in trouble. It’s crazy to think we’re somehow going to prevent all negative possible outcomes of some activity. We can certainly take steps to minimize it. And we do. And we could do the same thing with drugs like heroin.

Sean Lawlor: You said something during a panel that elicited a strong response. I believe your quote was, “Heroin made me a better person.” I’m curious what that meant. 

Carl Hart: I don’t remember the context that I was saying that. But the point I was trying to make is simple. We have alcohol at receptions, for example, where alcohol functions as a social lubricant. The same can be true with a drug like heroin. 

Many of these psychoactive substances people use make them less anxious, more magnanimous — all of these kinds of things. That’s not a shocking statement. It’s only shocking for people infected with the Puritanism virus. Anybody who knows anything about drug use, particularly with opioids, knows they can enhance positive social interactions, and that’s why many people take them.

Sean Lawlor: You’ve said that only 25% of people who use heroin are addicted, which is different than the instant-addiction cultural narrative we’ve inherited.

Carl Hart: Yeah. But still, you don’t want people to become addicted. And when I say addicted, I mean the DSM criteria, not just physical dependence. People who take antidepressants, for example, have physical dependency. They can’t abruptly stop after taking antidepressants for a number of years. They have to be weaned off. The same is true with opioids. So when I say “addiction,” I mean that the person is distressed by their drug use and the consequences of their drug use, and they have disruptions in psychosocial functioning. 

That 25% still concerns me. But I think it has to do with the stigma associated with heroin. People have to hide their use and engage in tremendous risk because of how society sees heroin. In places like Switzerland, where heroin is available medically, you don’t see people engaging in disruptive behaviors to get it. They just go to the clinic and they get their daily doses. In many cases, these people work. They’re responsible members of society.

Sean Lawlor: If there’s a psychedelic correlate to these trends, I’d say it’s LSD. Microdosing is popular, but LSD carries the heaviest social stigma of any psychedelic. I hear far less people speak publicly about their use of it than mushrooms and MDMA, which have essentially been adopted as “good.” And LSD often appears at festivals, where you don’t know what you’re getting, and really bad stuff can happen.

Carl Hart: Exactly. You hit it on the head. We see that with all stigmatized drugs. People are more likely to take risks that decrease their likelihood of getting the drug they’re seeking, because people can replace them with more potent drugs. And that could be dangerous. 

Sean Lawlor: Do you see any effort in this psychedelic community to combat psychedelic exceptionalism?

Carl Hart: I have to tell you, I’m always disturbed when people identify themselves as a “psychedelic community.” That seems fucking bizarre to me. When you have all of these psychoactive substances, and people are taking them for similar reasons of altering consciousness, and then you have a line —  these drugs over here, these drugs over here — I just find it bizarre that people would even identify as such a thing. 

Sean Lawlor: Have you noticed that delineation more than me saying it right now? 

Carl Hart: Oh, yeah. I didn’t mean — you’re absolutely right. I’m just saying as a neuropsychopharmacologist, as somebody who’s interested in consciousness and having your consciousness altered by these substances, it just seems strange that people would have the audacity to include themselves in a single sort of community that delineates its boundaries in a way that excludes other people doing the same thing. 

Sean Lawlor: Yeah, that very language is a kind of exceptionalism, aligning with a “community” that uses drugs that are becoming less stigmatized and more popular.

Carl Hart: Yeah. It’s very disturbing. It’s just inconsistent with being a humanitarian.

Sean Lawlor: I’m thinking about how the War on Drugs set regulations in place that have disproportionately affected people from particular areas or particular races who tend to associate with particular drugs, and how that’s created, institutional divisions.

Carl Hart: But it’s not necessarily the laws. It’s the enforcement of the laws. The laws can be enforced in a way that hits across the various dimensions of society. But the laws are not enforced in that way. The enforcement of the laws seems to focus on specific communities of color, so enforcement is the problem. 

My expertise is in drugs, so I focus on that. But this is not unique to drug law enforcement. This is how we behave in this country in general. That’s why I try to help people to understand how their verbal behavior about one compound versus another contributes to a misperception that allows for disproportionate enforcement of the drug laws.

Sean Lawlor: What is your parting advice for people invested in this psychedelic renaissance? 

Carl Hart: I would ask that people think about the language they’re using for substances they like versus their language for substances that have been vilified. I ask that people think about the narratives that have been built around crack cocaine and heroin versus the narratives built around drugs like psilocybin and MDMA, and how wildly they conflict. Whether people are using heroin or MDMA, they’re seeking to alter their consciousness. They’re seeking intimacy with partners. They’re seeking the same things.

Sean Lawlor: Thank you for your time, Dr. Hart. I figured some biases and assumptions would come through my questions, but hopefully representing them here can help dismantle them for others who read it.

Carl Hart: I hope so. Thank you for doing this. And if you just remind people to think about other people’s humanity in the same way they think about their own, this won’t be an issue. If they think of people as being equal to them, this is not a problem. We all make mistakes, and that’s fine. But once you remember that no matter who you’re dealing with, they’re another person who deserves the same kind of respect you deserve, then it becomes easy.

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About the Author

Sean Lawlor is a writer, certified personal trainer, and Masters student in Transpersonal Counseling at Naropa University, in pursuit of a career in psychedelic journalism, research, and therapy. His interest in consciousness and non-ordinary states owes great debt to Aldous Huxley, Ken Kesey, and Hunter S. Thompson, and his passion for film, literature, and dreaming draws endless inspiration from Carl Jung, David Lynch, and J.K. Rowling. For more information or to get in touch, head to seanplawlor.com, or connect on Instagram @seanplawlor.

By Jeff Kronenfeld

Sonoran Desert toads emerge from earthly tombs every year after the late summer monsoons roll in, which cause countless tiny ponds and lakes to form. Though most will evaporate in a few hours or days, toads lay eggs in the depths of these small water beds. Most of the tadpoles won’t last longer than the waters in which they are born, a few will become pollywogs then toads, ensuring survival for another generation. 

Life in the desert is stark as it is. But these unique desert toads are currently facing a host of new threats, including climate change, habitat loss and — perhaps most dangerous — commodification. Bufo alvarius, the Sonoran Desert toad’s scientific name, is the only known animal source of 5-MeO-DMT, a popular chemical among psychedelic users. Unfortunately, poachers overharvest toads to feed the ever-growing market for this powerful substance. While the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species placed these toads in the lowest category of risk for extinction in 2004, the same report acknowledged they were virtually extinct in California. Scientists, conservationists, and artists are banding together to ensure the rest of the species avoids a similar fate. 

Climate Change on Habitats

To understand how human-caused climate change could impact Sonoran Desert toads, we first need to look at potential effects on their home region. A 2012 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) predicted that the Southwest would continue to get hotter and drier. A 2018 National Climate Assessment bore out those predictions. This is bad news for toads, who already live near their physiological limits. More troubling was a 2017 report in Nature Climate Change, which predicted the probable decline of monsoons by 30 to 40 percent over the next century. 

Thomas R. Jones, Amphibians and Reptiles Program Manager for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, believes parsing the impact of climate change from other threats and historical fluctuations is difficult if not impossible. This past summer he observed a decrease in toad populations at a site where they are normally abundant. “I think it’s a reasonable assumption to say if the monsoon gets squirrely and we have drier years, it will be rougher on summer breeding anurans — toads and frogs — like the Sonoran Desert toad,” Jones said. 

Overdevelopment and the Destruction of Habitats

While climate change looms like ominous clouds in the distance, habitat loss is the single greatest threat to Sonoran Desert toads. According to a 2013 report from the USDA, 90 percent of riparian areas in Arizona and New Mexico converted to other land uses over the last century, ultimately turning habitats into agriculture fields or residential developments. At the same time, surface water was diverted from the few year-round rivers into massive reservoirs as aquifers pumped out groundwater in order to supply the region’s growing population and agricultural production. 

These toads once thrived in farmland irrigation systems, too. But, due to the increasingly intense use of chemicals — both pesticides and fertilizers — and mechanization, they disappeared from some agriculture areas, such as the Southern California side of the Colorado River and the Imperial Valley. 

Paved roads are also particularly deadly to these creatures. Toads go to pools that form on impermeable surfaces where water can more easily absorb through their skin. The hot spots for Sonoran Desert toads are lined with roads, often putting them in harm’s way. In fact, a 2010 study in Human-Wildlife Interactions estimated 12,264 amphibians died annually on roads in and around Saguaro National Park just west of Tucson, Arizona. Roads also hinder the toad’s range, causing a loss in gene flow, or genetic evolution, which negatively effects populations, according to Jones. “The number of animals that die on roads are just huge.”

Pop Culture, Money, and Psychedelic Tourism

The least understood threat is the impact of poaching and overharvesting for the 5-MeO-DMT market. Though Sonoran Desert toads can be legally gathered with appropriate licenses in Arizona, collecting them for the extraction of 5-MeO-DMT — which became a Schedule 1 substance in 2011 — is a federal crime. 

In order to extract 5MeO-DMT, the toads must be agitated, which causes their glands to excrete poison. Then, it’s squeezed or scraped out. Robert Villa, president of the Tucson Herpetological Society (THS) and a research associate at the University of Arizona’s Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill, is concerned about the harm this poses to toad survival. 

“I think what’s going to happen over time is that if intensive collection continues,” Villa explained, “it’s going to create a vacuum in these areas, what is also known as a mortality sink.”

Some argue that indigenous communities have used the drug for centuries. But Villa points to flaws in this argument, saying that some advancing this position may have a vested financial interest in doing so. Some scholars have cited the discovery of toad bones at shamanic burial sites. If true, it could legitimize the toad extraction industry, helping businesses grow at the expense of the toad populations. For doctors or others selling 5-MeO-DMT, this would be a boon. 

But Villa noted the bones were from a different species of toad that doesn’t produce 5-MeO-DMT. He is not convinced by the evidence that indigenous people historically used the toad as a source of 5-MeO-DMT. “We couldn’t decipher it from residues. There’s research that discovered cacao residue in pots in New Mexico,” Villa explained. “What we see today is a blatant misuse of indigenous culture to do it.”

We may never know who first smoked 5-MeO-DMT for sure, but one of the earliest academic papers citing its psychedelic properties appeared in a 1967 issue of Biochemical Pharmacology. Then, knowledge about how to extract, prepare, and consume 5-MeO-DMT from toads was first widely propagated by a pamphlet written in 1983. The document contained detailed instructions, diagrams, and background information. Its author was listed as Albert Most, a pen name, though multiple people throughout history have claimed to be Most. 

In a 2017 episode of VICE’s Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia, a man named Alfred Savinelli claimed he wrote the pamphlet and that he was the first person to ever consume the toad’s venom. Savinelli is the author of Plants of Power: Native American Ceremony and the Use of Sacred Plants, but aside from that his claims have not been verified. 

Though its authorship is disputed, the pamphlet’s role in raising awareness about the drug is not. Following its publication, groups like the Church of the Toad of Light started promoting 5-MeO-DMT consumption. Its proponents claim the drug can help with depression and anxiety, which was supported by a study in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse earlier this year. Advocates also claim it helps with recovery from substance abuse. 

Unfortunately, a number of bad actors are harming toads and humans by providing the toad excrement for consumption. An open letter published earlier this year accused two doctors who facilitate 5-MeO-DMT use, Octavio Rettig and Gerry Sandoval, of defrauding, harming, and even causing patients to die. Numerous self-proclaimed shamans administer the drug illegally throughout the US and other countries. One such person was identified as Shaman Dan. He is alleged to have led a series of 5-MeO-DMT parties at the residence of a woman in Southern California, who we’ll call Christina (not her real name) for the sake of anonymity.

Christina was connected to Shaman Dan by her mentors, who recruited her into Amway, a multi-level marketing company accused of being a pyramid scheme by consumer advocates, academics, and newspapers such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She described Shaman Dan as a white male under 25-years-old who formerly sold energy drinks through a multi-level marketing company. He told Christina that he was trained in Mexico by a woman named Shaman Sandra. After extracting the toad’s poison — which Christina incorrectly identified as venom — Shaman Dan described using an undisclosed chemical as a bonding agent into the 5 MeO-DMT blend. 

“It’s not something the individual taking it knows,” Christina said. “That’s why it’s very important that you trust whoever is administering this, because if they do not know what they’re doing, they will mess you up. It’s basically like taking crystal meth from a drug dealer off the street.”

Public awareness of the toad has grown rapidly in recent years, with increasing references not just in academic journals, but in popular media as well. Journalist and author Michael Pollan discussed his negative experience with 5-MeO-DMT in his 2018 book How to Change Your Mind, which reached number one on the New York Times bestsellers list. Pollan also discussed the subject on The Joe Rogan Experience, a popular podcast. Host Joe Rogan has covered 5-MeO-DMTs transformative power many times, perhaps most notably in an episode from earlier this year with Mike Tyson. All this buzz leaves the little toads facing evermore heavyweight dangers from all corners. 

The Sonoran Desert toad does not face these challenges alone, however. The THS is funding a project to study how the ionic composition of cement water holes may be harmful or even lethal to amphibians. Villa partnered with Cream Design and Print to produce t-shirts, posters and other items that spread awareness about the danger extraction poses to toads, and to raise money for conservation efforts. He hopes that if potential 5-MeO-DMT users know the harm they’re doing to these hardy animals, that they will choose less-harmful methods for obtaining whatever it is they seek. 

While the toad may be the only animal source for 5-MeO-DMT, the compound can be synthesized and found in many plants. The seeds of one species of Anadenanthera trees in South America contain 5-MeO-DMT and DMT. Virola trees also originate from South America, and some species of this plant contain both forms of DMT as well. They are both typically prepared as snuffs but can be consumed otherways as well. 

Synthetic 5-MeO-DMT is in many ways a superior delivery vehicle to the toad-sourced variety. The extract from toads contains many other chemicals and can be dangerous if it is not consumed correctly. Synthetic 5-MeO-DMT can be precisely dosed, whereas every toad’s extract is a little different. The study cited earlier showing 5-MeO-DMT’s effectiveness as a treatment for depression and anxiety used the synthetic variety in its experimental trials. 

The benefits of synthetic versus toad-sourced 5-MeO-DMT were even discussed by Rogan on his podcast. Rogan reported a very positive experience when he consumed synthetic 5-MeO-DMT. Pollan had a very different reaction, describing his consumption of the toad-sourced variety as horrible. For the most toad-loving psychonauts, these alternatives can provide a safer and more eco-conscious way to experience this unique molecule. “It boils down to your individual ethics,” Villa said. “As psychonauts, I would hope that you are able to think about how your use of substances and your acquisition of those substances has an effect on the rest of the world.”

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About the Author

Jeff Kronenfeld is an independent journalist and fiction writer based out of Phoenix, Arizona. His articles have been published in Vice, Overture Global Magazine and other outlets. His fiction has been published by the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, Four Chambers Press and other presses. For more info, go to www.jeff-k.com. 

Instagram: jeff.the.scrivener 

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By Patrick Smith

Extinction Rebellion has become the most well-known climate justice movement in history.

With over 100,000 members and worldwide protests regularly attracting crowds of thousands, XR aims to use non-violent civil disobedience to share their message: political leaders are not doing enough to protect the world from climate catastrophe.

Now the XR hourglass logo can be seen dotted around most major cities, and local groups are catalyzing a global revolution.

Extinction Rebellion began as a collaboration between climate activists who were becoming disenfranchised by the slow progress of their protest efforts. And uniquely, its roots are deeply set in the world of psychedelic plant medicines.

The Psychedelic Origins of Extinction Rebellion

Gail Bradbrook, one of the original co-founders of Extinction Rebellion, has been very transparent about the psychedelic influences behind her decisions.

Having been involved in climate activism for most of her life, Gail was feeling like nothing was working. Speaking at this year’s Breaking Convention in London, UK, Gail described how she prayed for “the codes to social change” during an ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica. Gail also took iboga and kambo, alongside ayahuasca, during her time there.

In her talk at Breaking Convention, Gail described the immediate lessons she learned from the West African plant medicine iboga, which told her: “Gail, you create your own reality!” The notoriously uncomfortable iboga experience eventually gave way to Gail feeling all her negative thought patterns being gently removed by a grandmotherly figure. 

It was in an ayahuasca ceremony that Gail asked the specific question about where to go next with her activism. The Amazonian psychedelic brew, typically associated with intense physical purging, is often taken by people in search of otherworldly wisdom. “I was praying for guides, and allies, to know that people would have my back.” Although she received no immediate answers, Gail was aware that “ayahuasca is mysterious, and her gifts come later.”

One month after her ayahuasca ceremony, Gail met with activist Roger Hallam, and they talked for hours about the latest research into activism and revolution. It ended with Roger saying “What you’ve got here, Gail, are the codes for social change.”

It looked like her prayers had been answered.

Disobedience was the foundation of these codes, and it directly led to the philosophy of Extinction Rebellion. “It’s only by being disruptive that you get people to have a conversation about an issue,” says Gail. During the press conference at Breaking Convention, Gail called for mass psychedelic disobedience, “where we take [psychedelic] medicine to tell the state that they have absolutely no right to control our consciousness and to define our spiritual practice.”

Gail’s calls for psychedelic law-breaking are a distinct contrast to the mainstream stance of the psychedelic community, who are mostly seeking the medicalization of psychedelic compounds, the first wave of which could come within the next ten years.. Gail has responded to this by saying “We don’t have time to wait for the science. […] Society will have collapsed by then. Why mess around behaving ourselves?”

Psychedelics Can Shift Our Relationship With Nature

Although the Extinction Rebellion organization has no official stance on psychedelics, there’s good reason for XR to be interested in their potential. We know that psychedelics can help to change the way we see ourselves and our position in the world.

People who have more lifetime experience with psychedelics are more likely to feel a connection to nature, and be more environmentally friendly (such as reducing water usage and recycling) compared to others. Even when other personality traits linked to environmental behavior – such as conscientiousness and liberal morals – are taken into consideration, this finding stands up.

It’s also been shown that the intensity of the psychedelic experience can predict the level of connection to nature that people have. Those who have had the most profound sense of a “loss of self” during their psychedelic experiences are the people most likely to feel a strong connection to nature.

These findings are important because our detachment from nature is arguably a large part of why humanity has caused the climate and ecological crisis we find ourselves in. As Daniel Quinn explains in his book Ishmael, the modern narrative of our inherent disconnection from the natural world is a pervasive philosophy that has convinced many of us that humanity is a lost cause.

One chance we have to reject this philosophy is through psychedelics. Science has now confirmed that psychedelics have the potential to change our perspective of the natural world. And any psychedelic journeyer can testify about their power to remind us that there is no such thing as humanity outside of nature.

A Return to Animism?

It’s not just the psychedelic experience itself that can bring us into an awareness of our true place in the natural world, but also the traditions that can accompany it.

Most cultures that have developed alongside psychedelic plant medicines are fundamentally animist societies. This means that they believe every living thing in the world has a spirit, or soul. In other words, every being is just a human in another form; another life.

Animism takes interconnectedness to be the very core fact of life. Although animist societies are not immune to greed, corruption, homophobia or misogyny, in general they appreciate that these actions have consequences. These cultures, though often flawed, very rarely destroy their lands, and they understand that their existence relies upon the wellbeing of their surroundings.

The concept of animism is also starting to enter mainstream Western thought, as our growing understanding of quantum physics points towards consciousness being something of a big deal. The philosophy of idealism, adapted to fit our quantum view of the world, could be about to see a surge in popularity among Western thinkers and scientists. Animism could soon see a resurgence in Western culture.

Westerners often end up taking psychedelic plant medicines within animist cultural contexts, as the most experienced shamans and practitioners usually come from these traditions. This means that psychedelics present a unique opportunity – not just for the encounter with one-ness they can induce, but for the animist wisdom they can bring us into contact with.

Could Psychedelics Catalyze Social Change?

Is an increased connection to nature enough to catalyze widespread social change? Could this be enough to combat the climate crisis?

Gail Bradbrook does not think that this should be our focus. She feels that although changing our relationship to nature will be crucial in order to build a less destructive society, it would be a process requiring “many centuries of work.”

Right now, Gail is calling for urgent social upheaval, starting with large acts of civil disobedience. 

Plant medicines have already catalyzed the formation of Extinction Rebellion. Now, they may be used as an expression of cognitive freedom. And ultimately, they could be a route towards a society that accepts its place in a global ecosystem.

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About the Author

Patrick Smith, PhD, is a biologist and science writer. He has been working in the psychedelic space for the past five years. He currently writes for EntheoNation.