How Stanislav Grof Helped Launch the Dawn of a New Psychedelic Research Era

[MagickMuffin]

Next week, the brightest lights of the psychedelic cognoscenti will gather in San Jose, California. Leaving swirls of tracer visions in their wakes, they will converge from around the world at an incongruously bland Holiday Inn, 50 miles south of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood that once served as the pulsing capital of Psychedelistan. Once assembled, several hundred turned-on and tuned-in doctors, psychologists, artists and laypeople will participate in the annual conference of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). For four days, they will explore -- through workshops and lectures, nothing more -- the widening gamut of clinical inquiry into the uses of the psychedelic experience, a global resurgence of which has led to hopeful talk of a “psychedelic revival.”

After decades of psychedelic deep freeze, such talk is finally more than just wishful thinking. A skim of the conference agenda offers a tantalizing glimpse into the newly bubbling world of clinical psychedelic research. UCLA Medical professor Charles Grob will speak about his work using psilocybin to treat anxiety in late-stage cancer patients. Psychologist Allan Ajaya will share findings from his research in LSD-assisted myofascial pain therapy. Other speakers will address possible psychedelic-based cures for alcoholism, addiction, depression, migraines,= and post-traumatic stress disorder. Each will represent a different corner in a promising field newly awakened. From North America to the Middle East, recent years have seen a rising interest into the medicinal possibilities of MDMA, LSD, DMT, and other drugs now shaking off decades of government-imposed clinical hibernation.


Since 1986, MAPS has been agitating for this overdue renaissance, spearheading and publicizing efforts to legalize and de-stigmatize research involving schedule-1 drugs designed to induce non-ordinary states of consciousness. As the outfit’s slogan has it, “We put the M.D. back in MDMA.” It is a testament to the organization’s work that this year’s conference, "Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century,” not only features a multinational cast of active researchers, but also caters to an increasingly interested public: tickets for many of the workshops sold out a month in advance.

snip

One of the most significant figures attending the conference in San Jose is a man largely unknown to the general public. Years before Leary made headlines for his Ivy League adventures, and years before Ken Kesey held the first acid parties in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a young doctor named Stanislav Grof was conducting rigorous clinical experiments involving LSD in the most unlikely of places: a government lab in the capital of communist Czechoslovkia. It was there, at Prague’s Psychiatric Research Institute in the 1950s, that Grof began more than half-a-century of pioneering research into non-ordinary states of consciousness. While he is frequently marginalized in, if not completely left out of, popular psychedelic histories, it is not for any lack of contribution to the field. “If I am the father of LSD,” Albert Hoffman once said, “Stan Grof is the godfather.”


more about Stan Grof @ link


http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/146393


I REALLY wish I could attend this conference, since I have had a particular interest in Psychedelic Research and Consciousness.

[Celebration]

1. Wish you could too

I'm glad that the barriers against this type of research are breaking down.

Thanks for posting.

[MagickMuffin]

3. Some of those barriers shouldn't have been there in the first place

There were a lot of people who benefited from the use of psychotherapy along with LSD.

Cary Grant was one of those people.


Timothy Leary is always the one who is demonized by the government for his role in promoting LSD. However, Leary knew that "Set and Setting" were fundamental in the use of the drug. Ken Kesey on the other hand promoted a free willing do what thy will attitude when it came to LSD trips. Kesey belittled Leary for his approach to transcendental consciousness.



And of course there would be a two pronged reason for going to San Jose, I could visit Rosicrucian Park. I haven't been there since they renovated several buildings.

[rumpel]

2. I am also interested in research of the consciousness

yet, I am very apprehensive of the chemically (synthetic) induced altered states. And as I check on the drug on wiki, it is a quite interesting read:
It is semisynthetic is says and "non-addictive, non-toxic". LSD was first synthesized by Albert Hofmann in 1938 from ergot, a grain fungus that typically grows on rye.

and here is more about Dr. Grof:

Spiritual

LSD is considered an entheogen because it can catalyze intense spiritual experiences, during which users may feel they have come into contact with a greater spiritual or cosmic order. Users claim to experience lucid sensations where they have "out of body" experiences. Some users report insights into the way the mind works, and some experience permanent shifts in their life perspective. Some users consider LSD a religious sacrament, or a powerful tool for access to the divine. Dr. Stanislav Grof has written that religious and mystical experiences observed during LSD sessions appear to be phenomenologically indistinguishable from similar descriptions in the sacred scriptures of the great religions of the world and the secret mystical texts of ancient civilizations.<44>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide

[MagickMuffin]

4. As a seeker on the Spiritual Path

I don't see why there should be such an uproar on whether the seeker chooses to use a short cut.

Why walk several thousand miles along a brick wall and not knowing whether you will ever you will ever obtain enlightenment, when you could just as easily walk through a secret doorway and know you have achieved enlightenment.

From my own personal experience, I never thought I could fly, not literally anyway. And I do believe it helped me with so many of my personal problems I had because of my childhood dramas.

Set and Setting play a vital role in LSD and Cosmic Consciousness.

Anyway, I'm glad that there is a continued interest in this field.

[MagickMuffin]

5. Here's another article (NY Times) about the conference

Scientists are taking a new look at hallucinogens, which became taboo among regulators after enthusiasts like Timothy Leary promoted them in the 1960s with the slogan “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Now, using rigorous protocols and safeguards, scientists have won permission to study once again the drugs’ potential for treating mental problems and illuminating the nature of consciousness.

After taking the hallucinogen, Dr. Martin put on an eye mask and headphones, and lay on a couch listening to classical music as he contemplated the universe.

Because reactions to hallucinogens can vary so much depending on the setting, experimenters and review boards have developed guidelines to set up a comfortable environment with expert monitors in the room to deal with adverse reactions. They have established standard protocols so that the drugs’ effects can be gauged more accurately, and they have also directly observed the drugs’ effects by scanning the brains of people under the influence of hallucinogens.

Scientists are especially intrigued by the similarities between hallucinogenic experiences and the life-changing revelations reported throughout history by religious mystics and those who meditate. These similarities have been identified in neural imaging studies conducted by Swiss researchers and in experiments led by Roland Griffiths, a professor of behavioral biology at Johns Hopkins.

In interviews, Dr. Martin and other subjects described their egos and bodies vanishing as they felt part of some larger state of consciousness in which their personal worries and insecurities vanished. They found themselves reviewing past relationships with lovers and relatives with a new sense of empathy.

The subjects’ reports mirrored so closely the accounts of religious mystical experiences, Dr. Griffiths said, that it seems likely the human brain is wired to undergo these “unitive” experiences, perhaps because of some evolutionary advantage.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html?hp=&pagewanted=print




I was a little surprised by the NYT positive reporting.