The Psychedelic Renaissance: Reassessing the Role of Psychedelic Drugs in 21st Century Psychiatry and Society(Muswell Hill Press)

Can psychedelics do for psychiatry what the microscope did for biology and the telescope to astronomy? Can they be used to access on the depths of the psyche that are usually inaccessible? Psychedelic means: "mind manifesting" About the book Psychedelics were inextricably associated with the hippie counterculture of the 1960s and, more recently, with the rave music scene, and were once believed to hold great promise for treating a number of medical conditions as well as providing access to profound spiritual experiences. However, legal restrictions on the use of such drugs effectively forced them underground and brought clinical research to a halt - until recently. In this book, psychiatrist Dr. Ben Sessa makes a persuasive case for the re-evaluation of psychedelics - LSD, MDMA ('ecstasy'), DMT, psilocybin, ayahuasca, peyote, ibogaine, and more - as he explores their clinical potential for treating a range of conditions from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression to autism and cluster headaches. Based on a thorough review of the evidence, Sessa corrects some common misconceptions about psychedelics and makes a clarion call for their responsible therapeutic use, with appropriate set and setting, in psychotherapy, psychiatry and personal growth. Topics covered in this book include: What are the drugs and why are they so controversial? How should they be safely and wisely used What is the nature of the psychedelic experience? What are the implications for psychiatry and for psycho-spiritual growth? With clarity and wit, the author surveys the contributions of major figures in the psychedelic movement - from Huxley, Hofmann and Sandison to Leary, Grof and McKenna - and takes the reader on a journey through the fascinating history of psychedelic plants and chemicals as he considers the crucial role such drugs have had in human culture from prehistory to modern times.

Table of Contents:
Forewords Rick Doblin and David Nutt Introduction Apocalypse, Now and Then What Can the Psychedelics Offer Us? Defi ning Psychedelic Drugs Brain Toxins Sacramental Gifts Alien Visitors Dangerous Drugs of Abuse Research and Clinical Tools The Joy of Hippie Culture 1. Personal Reflection Just Missed the Sixties From a Pair of Crutches to a Pair of Turntables Mind over Matter Where Did All the Flowers Go? Discovering the Lost History Turn On, Tune In and Disseminate Validation from Senior Figures Closure of the Past and Foundation for the Future Undreamt of Possibilities for Therapy 2. The Experience and the Drugs Why Do They Do It and What's It Like? 1. Physiological effects 2. Heightening or distortion of perceptions in all sensory modalities 3. Altered sense of space and time 4. 'Cinematographic' effects 5. Regressive behaviour and an increased recall of childhood memories 6. Increased sensitivity to the feelings of others 7. Religious or spiritual experience 8. Being at one with the universe 9. Psychotic/delirious changes As a Neuroscientist, What Does All This Mean? 1. Unity 2. Objectivity and reality 3. Transcendence of space and time 4. Sense of sacredness 5. Deeply felt positive mood 6. Paradoxicality 7. Alleged ineffability 8. Transiency 9. Positive changes in attitude and/or behaviour The Importance of Set and Setting Careful Planning, Due Care and Attention How to Take LSD Safely Personal Opinion, Matter of Judgment and Disclaimer Embracing the Challenge The Drugs Themselves Classifying the Psychedelic Drugs The 'Classical' Psychedelics The Entactogens or Empathogens The NMDA-antagonist Dissociatives The Kappa-Opioid Agonist Dissociatives Tryptamines (or those psychedelic drugs closely related to it) Phenethylamines Some Common Psychedelic Substances in More Detail 1. LSD 2. Psilocybin 3. N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) 4. Mescaline 5. 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) 6. Ketamine 7. Some Other Phenethylamines 3. Early Pioneers of the First and Second Psychedelic Eras The First Psychedelic Era: 1880 to 1930 The Second Psychedelic Era: 1938 to 1976 Hofmann the Creative Explorer LSD Comes to Blighty for the First Time Just an Average Day at Work Will LSD be the Next Big Thing in Psychiatry? LSD as a Psychotomimetic Enter Dr Humphrey Osmond Using LSD to Treat Alcohol Dependency Enter Aldous Huxley A Brief Mention of Al Hubbard Huxley the Conservative Stanislav Grof and the Perinatal Matrices Harvard University and Timothy Leary Leary Discovers the Divine Mushroom Leary Graduates to LSD God in a Bottle God in Bottle? Not Everyone's Cup of Tea Things Start to Change and Doctors Get Nervous A Good Thing Turned Sour, but Outcomes Remain Good Did Psychedelic Therapy Actually Work in the 1960s? The Anti-Psychiatry Psychiatrist with a Passion for LSD Prohibition and Ecstasy 4. The Prehistory and Ancient History of Hallucinogens Contemplation of Navels Sitting Around and Coming Up with God Portal for the Immortal Back to the Cave People Mushrooms Gave Us Thought and Thinking Gave Us Language The Mushroom Cycle The Birth of Religion Shamanism Many Religions Can Trace Their Roots to Psychedelic Drugs Soma Eleusinian Rites Psychedelic Drugs at the Heart of Christianity Modern Spirituality in Europe: The Middle Ages and Witches Psychoactive Plants Available to Europeans in the Middle Ages Witches, Witchcraft, Ergotism and Witch-hunts Stigmatisation of Mental Illness Hunting Down and Persecuting Psychedelic Users Has Not Gone Away Spaghetti Monsters and Pot Head Pixies The Varieties of Religious and Psychedelic Experiences Wrestling Bliss off the Church Conclusion and Confusion about Collusion with the Delusion 5. Hippie Heydays, Ravers and the Birth of Ecstasy Meet the Hippies Who's Going to Take All the Credit a " or the Blame? The Beat Generation One Flew East, One Flew West and One Took LSD and Bought a School Bus The Californian Proto-Hippies Get a Place of Their Own Literally, Psychedelically Mind-expanding Words Did JFK Drop LSD? Leary Leaves Harvard and the Fun Really Begins Suddenly LSD is Everywhere The Psychedelic Music Scene Read All About It It's All Too Much Lose Your Mind a " but be Sure You're Home for Tea Wales, London, Goat-breeding and a WPC Called Julie Haight, Collapse and Blame: It's All LSD's Fault But it's Not All Doom and Gloom LSD, Computer Geeks and Green Activists: A New Age of Social Enlightenment It's Not All over Yet Ecstasy is Upon Us The Grandfather of MDMA Meets His Grandson for the First Time MDMA Becomes Too Popular, Gets Banned and MAPS is Born Banning MDMA Gives Birth to Ecstasy and Rave Modern Raving, Festivals and Shamanism: Come Together Kids on E Demonization of Ecstasy MDMA Research On the Ropes and Labels On the Wrong Bottles Doblin Meets Mithoefer at a Conference for the Spiritual Vine Things Start Looking Up for MDMA Research 6. Psychedelic Creativity Measuring the Influence of Psychedelics on Creativity Creativity, Psychedelics and the Human Brain Art, Music and Psychedelic Creativity Studying How Psychedelics Influence Creativity A Really Nice Study by James Fadiman and Colleagues Commercial and Design Applications for Psychedelic Creativity: LSD Architecture From Double-helix DNA to San Franciscan Hippies and Geeks with Mice Clinical Applications for Psychedelic Creativity: Autism The Future Looks Creative for Psychedelic Research 7. Modern Uses of Natural Plant and Fungi Psychedelics Wasson All the Fuss About? Mazatec Magic Mushroom Morning Mayhem He Sees When You are Sleeping He Knows When You're Awake Objections to the Mushroom Cult The Long-standing Use of Peyote Cacti Ibogaine: Natures Anti-addiction Plant The Eerie Effects of the Diviner's Sage: Salvia Divinorum The Sacred Vine: Ayahuasca But What is It All About? The Ceremony Ayahuasca Through the Ages Ayahuasca in Modern Times The Weed: The Risks, Benefi ts, Chemistry and Culture of Cannabis Indian Cannabis East African and Jamaican Rastafarianism and Cannabis The Killer Weed is Here to Stay This is What I tell My Teenage Patients About Cannabis Being a 'Psychedelic Consultant' for Music Television If in South Africa, One Must Try the Plant Sceletium When in Australia You May Wish to Consider Cane Toad Licking? If You Get to Tonga, You May Want to Check Out the Kava Next Stop India, for Indian Snakeroot Calamus! Calamus! Will You Do the Fandango? If You Stop in South East Asia, Be Sure to Ask for Kratom Nonda Mushrooms The 'Rubbish' Pitohui Bird The Fierce Agara Leaves of Papua New Guinea The Visionary Plants of Africa The Zulu's Strawfl ower Smoke Jenkem Pandanus Nuts What Happened to the Dirty Sanchez Boys? 8. The Psychedelic Renaissance Part One: Movers and Shakers A Coming Together of Disparate Tribes Some Important Contemporary Psychedelic Organisations 1. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) 2. The Heffter Research Institute 3. The Beckley Foundation 4. Council of Spiritual Practice 5. The Gaia Media Foundation 6. Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics 7. Breaking Convention 8. The Open Foundation 9. Erowid 10. Bluelight 11. Shroom with a View 12. Neurosoup 13. Reality Sandwich 14. Regeneration 15. Psychedelic Spirituality Forum 16. Students for Sensible Drug Policy Some Important Contemporary Psychedelic Researchers 9. The Psychedelic Renaissance Part Two: Contemporary Studies When Did the Psychedelic Renaissance Begin? How to Get a Drug to Market How This Research Method Relates to Psychedelic Drugs Looking at the Contemporary Research for the Drugs 1. MDMA 2. LSD 3. Psilocybin 4. Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) 5. Ayahuasca 6. Ketamine 7. Ibogaine Conclusion 10. Psychedelics Caught in the Crossfi re of the War on Drugs Crime Pays War is a Money-spinner But for Whom? Evidence-based Decriminalisation and Temple Balls MDMA: Are We Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater? Those Evil Blacks and Mexican Drug Users Just How Dangerous is MDMA? How Frequently are Clinical Syndromes Attributed to Ecstasy Use? Unscientifi c Attitudes Affecting Medical Research The Socio-political Agenda on Drugs has a Deleterious Effect on Medical Research Medical Research with Psychedelics Requires Courage The Concept of Harm Minimisation Demonization of Prohibition Why Does This Issue Matter? Recreational Drug Use for Psycho-spiritual Growth In Conclusion Conclusion Back to the Future Psychiatry Needs Psychedelics, and Psychedelics Need Psychiatry Prehistoric and Recent Psychotherapy with Psychedelics The Problem with Psychiatry Why Psychedelic Medicine Works The Problem with the Recreational Use of Psychedelics The Problem with the Medical Use of Psychedelics Resolution of These Problems Summary of this Book and Orientation for Future Direction Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography and Further Reading

About the Author :
Dr. Ben Sessa is a NHS Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist working in Taunton, Somerset with children and young people with a wide range of severe mental disorders. He trained in medicine at University College London and is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Dr. Sessa's research into psychedelic therapy has been published in The British Journal of Psychiatry. He has worked alongside Professor David Nutt at Bristol and Imperial universities as part of the growing research into therapeutic applications for the drug psilocybin. He is currently planning a clinical study looking at MDMA-assisted psychotherapy as a tool to manage treatment-resistant PTSD. His interest in this field stems from a fascination with the myriad of possibilities for therapy and neuroscientific research afforded by this unique class of compounds. Whilst accepting that the psychedelic drugs have a complex and controversial social history, he believes these drugs carry great potential to improve the depth of psychotherapy for patients whose history of trauma makes them resistant to many traditional approaches.

Review :
"Although books on psychedelics abound, volumes like The Psychedelic Renaissance show how the field is now addressing the substance of findings from recent research rather than the legions of case reports and anecdotes ... Sessa enthusiastically progresses his account of the potential of psychedelic drugs into spirituality and creativity, bringing his unique clinical background to consider concepts too often neglected in psychiatric illness." - The Lancet