Savants: What They Can Teach Us

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The following originally appeared in Explore: the Journal of Science and Healing.


There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series 1

When developmental psychologist Joseph Chilton Pearce was in his early thirties, teaching humanities in a college, he was engrossed in theology and the psychology of Carl Jung. Pearce describes himself as "obsessed" by the nature of the God-human relationship, and his reading on the subject was extensive. One morning as he was preparing for an early class, his 5-year-old son came into his room, sat down on the edge of the bed, and launched into a 20-minute discourse of the nature of God and man. "He spoke in perfect, publishable sentences," Pearce writes, "without pause or haste, and in a flat monotone. He used complex theological terminology and told me, it seemed, everything there was to know. As I listened, astonished, the hair rose on my neck; I felt goose bumps, and, finally, tears streamed down my face. I was in the midst of the uncanny, the inexplicable. My son's ride to kindergarten arrived, horn blowing, and he got up and left. I was unnerved and arrived late to my class. What I had heard was awesome, but too vast and far beyond any concept I had had to that point. The gap was so great I could remember almost no details and little of the broad panorama he had presented. My son had no recollection of the event."2

Pearce's interpretation was that his son, a bright, normal child, had undergone a "savant episode," responding to a field of information that he could not have acquired. "Terms such as telepathy are misleading," Pearce adds. "He wasn't picking up his materials from me. I hadn't acquired anything like what he described and would, in fact, be in my mid-fifties and involved in meditation before I did." Pearce alludes to the morphogenetic fields hypothesized by British biologist Rupert Sheldrake as carriers or progenitors of this kind of knowing.3 "Just as the standard intelligences?.?.?.?mathematical, musical, and so on?.?.?.?are carried as 'fields of potential' available to all brain-minds, experience in general also congregates as 'fields.' The more any phenomenon or experience is repeated, individually or within a society, the stronger its field-effect."4 Pearce suggests that his son had come into the influence of Pearce's field of concern and the larger ancient field of theological and psychological inquiry. "My son's theological discourse was not random but squarely in keeping with my own passionate pursuits," he says. "Children, as Carl Jung observed, live in the shadow of their parents, and my son and I had a close rapport to begin with. Note that my son's report was direct and clear, like a savant's report. …"5

George Wald, the Harvard neurobiologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1967 for his work with pigments in the retina, relates a similar "savant episode," which he describes in his brilliant essay, "Life and Mind in the Universe." When his daughter was nine years old, she and her brother were playing one day in her room. His son picked up a piece of paper off the floor, looked at it, and said to his sister, "That's a pretty good poem, Debbie," and showed it to Wald and his wife. It read:

If you ever get to infinity
You will find me there
For tomorrow I will climb
The elementary stair.
I will climb to the very top
Open up the door
Look at all the ages
Lying on the floor.

Wald, like Pearce, was stunned. "To me," he says, "that is not just a good poem; it is a revelation. How could a little, middle class, nine-year-old American girl, living a carefully nurtured life, going to a select private school — how could such a child write such a poem? And that was it: there never was another like it and I doubt that there ever will be. I don't really understand how that poem happened; but I think that at that time in her life an intuitive wisdom which distilled into those words was connected with what we should like to be connected, but have lost contact with and would have to work hard and change very much to reestablish it."6


The Learned Ones

Savant is derived from a French word meaning "learned one." Although they are often mentally or socially impaired, savants frequently possess astonishing creative and intuitive powers of obscure origin, in areas such as mathematics, art, or music.7

Pearce probes the mysteries of savant syndrome in his book Evolution's End: Claiming the Potential of Our Intelligence. He states, "Savants are untrained and untrainable, illiterate and uneducable?.?.?.?few can read or write?.?.?.?Yet each has apparently unlimited access to a particular field of knowledge that we know they cannot have acquired?.?.?.?Ask?.?.?.?[mathematical] savants how they get their answer and they will smile, pleased that we are impressed but unable to grasp the implications of such a question.?.?.?.?The answers come through them but they are not aware of how-they don't know how they know.?.?.?.?The ones sight-reading music can't read anything else, yet display this flawless sensory-motor response to musical symbols. …" And here is the crux of the mystery: "The issue with these savants is that in most cases, so far as can be observed, the savant has not acquired, could not have acquired, and is quite incapable of acquiring, the information that he so liberally dispenses [emphasis added]."8

"Savant syndrome" was popularized in the 1988 movie Rain Man. Kim Peek, the developmentally disabled man who was the inspiration for the film, knew more than 7,600 books by heart, as well as every area code, highway, zip code, and television station in the United States.9

Leslie Lemke, a blind savant, is developmentally disabled and suffers from cerebral palsy. Born with glaucoma, doctors were forced to remove his eyes. His birth mother gave him up for adoption, and May Lemke, a nurse, adopted him when he was six months old. He was 12 before he learned to stand and 15 before he learned to walk. When he was 16, May found him playing Tschaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in the middle of the night. He had recently heard the piece performed on television. Although he never studied piano, he was soon playing all styles of music, from ragtime to classical. He composes music and is able to play thousands of pieces flawlessly, even when he has heard them only once. Lemke became a sensation and has toured in the United States, Scandinavia, and Japan.9, 10

Psychologist David Feinstein11 reports that at least 100 savants with prodigious mental abilities have been identified in the past century. Their abilities are often thought to be curiosities with little practical value, but this is not always true. During World War II, the British government employed two mathematical savants to serve as human computers who were, so far as is known, infallible.12

Darold A. Treffert, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, describes in his book Extraordinary People13 a savant whose conversational vocabulary was limited to some 58 words, but who could accurately give the population of every city and town in the United States with more than 5,000 people; the names, number of rooms, and locations of 2,000 leading hotels in America; the distance from any city or town to the largest city in its state; statistics concerning 3,000 mountains and rivers, and the dates and essential facts of over 2,000 leading inventions and discoveries.14

One mathematical savant was shown a checkerboard with a grain of rice on the first of its sixty-four squares and was asked how many grains of rice there would be on the final square if the grains of rice were doubled on each square. Forty-five seconds later he gave the correct answer, which exceeds the total number of atoms in the sun.13

George and Charles are identical twins who are known as "calendrical savants." They are incapable of taking care of themselves and have been institutionalized since age seven. If you ask them on which date Easter will fall 10,000 years into the future, they answer immediately — not just with the date for Easter but also with other calendrical data such as the time of the tides. If you ask them for the date of an event prior to 1752, when Europe shifted from the Gregorian to the Julian calendar systems, their answers accommodate to the switch. They can tell you the day of the week of any date you choose, ranging 40,000 years into the past or future. Give them your birth date and they can tell you the Thursdays on which your birth date might fall. In addition to their calendrical skills, they enjoy swapping 20-digit prime numbers, thereby showing a parallel ability that is uncommon in savants. Despite these prodigious abilities, they cannot add the simplest numbers. If you ask them how they knew to switch from one calendrical system to the other in 1752, they will be confused by such an abstract question; indeed, they don't know what "calendrical system" means.15

The low intelligence of savants may be an advantage by limiting their attention to a narrow band of attention and screening out extraneous stimuli. Fewer distractions might increase the "signal-to-noise" ratio from the timeless information source and heighten the reception of what comes through for the savant.


Extrasensory Perception

Many clinicians have reported savants capable of extrasensory perception, or ESP, also called psi. In one case George, an autistic savant who could not write his name or a sentence, would know when his parents unexpectedly decided to pick him up at school (he usually rode the bus). He would tell his teacher his parents were coming, and he would be at the door when they arrived. Other parents described their autistic-savant children as capable of hearing conversations that were out of range of hearing, and the ability to pick up thoughts not spoken. In one case, the father of one savant told how his watch crystal fell out in the bathroom and was immediately replaced, an occurrence known only to him. A short time later his savant daughter related the incident to him in accurate detail. In another case, a savant girl was able to accurately predict a week before Christmas what her gift packages would contain, although she had no way of knowing and had been given no clues what her gifts might be. Another savant girl could predict when the telephone would ring and who would be calling. These and several dozen similar cases were reported by Dr Bernard Rimland in a study of 5,400 autistic children. Rimland believed he was witnessing genuine psi abilities in many of these children, commenting, "[The] statistical probability of coincidental knowledge [is] nil."16


Genes, Brains, and Ancestral Memory

How do they do it? The usual explanations rely on not-yet-understood genetic propensities and obscure brain processes. Psychiatrist Treffert, who has studied more savants than probably anyone, proposes "ancestral memory" as a key. He states, "Prodigious savants particularly 'know' things, or 'remember' things, they never learned. To explain that reality — and it is a reality — it seems to me one has to invoke a third type of memory — ancestral or genetic memory — that exists alongside the cognitive or semantic and the habit or procedural memory?.?.?.?To me such ancestral memory is simply, and only, the genetic transfer of knowledge (emphasis his)."17

Treffert acknowledges the concept of the collective unconscious that psychologist Carl Jung used to account for "inherited traits, intuitions and collective wisdom of the past," and the notion of "racial memory." But for Treffert, all these proposals come down to genes. He states unequivocally, "Whether called ancestral or racial memory, intuitions or even collective unconscious, the concept of the genetic transmission of knowledge of a complex type is necessary to explain how the prodigious savant particularly does remember things he or she never learned.?.?.?.?The prodigious savant, it seems, comes with a great deal of software 'factory installed' which already contains a considerable amount of actual data or knowledge. It would appear that access to that 'factory installed' software may account for the innate, instinctive, exceptional skills, ability and 'knowledge' which is evident in the savant's vast and instant mastery of some particular area of functioning?.?.?.?It is through that same transfer and mechanism that all of us 'know,' or 'remember,' to greater or lesser extent, things we never learned."18


Desperation

All of which seems a violation of the basic tenet of evolutionary biology, which says that those abilities that contribute to individual survival and procreation are the ones that are genetically transmitted to succeeding generations. What is the survival value of knowing, as do some savants, vast information in a narrow field that is utterly trivial? Why would this information have been factory installed in the savant's genes? And how could this information reflect "ancestral memory," when information such as the aforementioned hotel facts and zip codes did not exist when the savant's ancestors were alive? (An "ancestor" is a person, typically one more remote than a grandparent, from whom one is descended.19)

Factory-installed knowledge and ancestor-derived information have little explanatory value. These proposals seem to be a desperate attempt to keep the brain and genes in charge of the savants' skills. If ever there were a promissory note in science with little redemption value, these attempts may be it, because no one has a clue how genes, which code for proteins, could account for these abilities, or how unlearned facts could be stored in ancestors' genes before the facts even existed.

In our golden age of brain scanning, neuroscientists are exploring patterns of brain activity that correlate with the abilities of savants.9, 20, 21 Geneticists may also identify patterns in the DNA of savants that also correlate with their abilities. However, in either case this will not prove that brain mechanisms or genes account for or cause these feats, any more than a television set produces the picture that appears on its screen. Rather, brains and genes may be a relay station for information originating outside themselves, just as a television's picture originates elsewhere. As the venerable tenet within science has it, "Correlation is not causation."

Some who study savant syndrome sometimes admit they are baffled. They recognize they are confronting a conundrum that apparently cannot be solved by continuing to focus on the usual suspects of genes and brains. Writing in Scientific American in their article "Inside the Mind of a Savant," Treffert and Daniel D. Christensen state, "Until we understand his [Rain Man Kim Peek's] abilities, we cannot pretend to understand human cognition."22 Treffert also concedes, "There have been about as many theories that have attempted to answer this question as there have been investigators."23 No single model has emerged from cognitive psychology or neuroscience that can explain all savants. In the 1970s, researcher Jane Duckett of the University of Texas at Austin, called for "extensive theory revision" in the quest to understand savants' abilities.24, 25 Her recommendation still applies.


Alternative Views

Understanding savants may require a new way of thinking about consciousness, such as the view that consciousness may be nonlocal, which we have explored often in these pages. Nonlocal mind is mind that is not localized to specific points in space (brains, bodies) or time (the present), as commonly assumed. Nonlocal minds are unbounded; and if unbounded, perhaps unified in some dimension where all information, past and present, could be shared. This Source would be a kind of watering hole for consciousness, where the thirst for information, creative solutions, and wisdom can be slaked. The spatiotemporally nonlocal Source would be a meeting place for all minds that have ever existed or will exist. It would resemble the collective unconscious postulated by psychologist Carl Jung, the Oversoul of transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, and various other proposals of a unified, spatiotemporally infinite dimension of mind. This might explain how savants could acquire information they have never been exposed to, nor could have learned.
This basic idea of a unified, universal consciousness is ancient.26 Samkhya, one of the oldest philosophical systems of India, dating to at least 200 bc, promoted the concept of the Akashic records, a compendium of information and knowledge encoded in a nonphysical plane of existence that later interpreters likened to the Mind of God.27 Throughout history there have been many variations on this basic idea. A common premise is that humans might penetrate this domain and gain access to the information that is contained there.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, America's great essayist and poet, boldly asserted this possibility in the 1840s, as we saw in the epigraph. Harvard's William James, widely regarded as the father of American psychology, also endorsed the idea of overlapping minds that are united in a kind of superconsciousness. He said, "We must suppose that my consciousness of myself and yours of yourself, altho in their immediacy they keep separate and know nothing of each other, are yet known and used together in a higher consciousness, that of the human race, say, into which they enter as constituent parts. Similarly, the whole human and animal kingdoms come together as conditions of a consciousness of still wider scope. This combines in the soul of the earth with the consciousness of the vegetable kingdom, which in turn contributes its share of experience to that of the whole solar system; and so on from synthesis to synthesis and from height to height, till an absolutely universal consciousness is reached?.?.?.?[T]here is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge into a mother-sea or reservoir."28

The description of a collective, universal mind has been repeatedly updated as science has progressed. As British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington said, "The idea of a universal Mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory; at least it is in harmony with it."29 British physicist-astronomer-mathematician Sir James Jean affirmed this view, saying, "When we view ourselves in space and time, our consciousnesses are obviously the separate individuals of a particle-picture, but when we pass beyond space and time, they may perhaps form ingredients of a single continuous stream of life. As it is with light and electricity, so it may be with life; the phenomena may be individuals carrying on separate existences in space and time, while in the deeper reality beyond space and time we may be all members of one body."30 In this tradition, Dean Radin, Explore co-editor and author of The Conscious Universe31 and Entangled Minds,32 writes, "[M]inds are entangled with the universe, so in principle minds can nonlocally influence anything, including a collection of other minds or physical systems. Individual neurons in the brain combine into networks of neurons, giving rise to complex brain circuits and conscious awareness (or correlates of awareness). By analogy, individual minds may combine into networks of entangled minds, giving rise to more complex ‘mind circuits,' forms of awareness, and collective psi effects beyond our conception."33

One of the most explicit endorsements of a collective domain of information accessible to humans is from the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Laboratory. For more than three decades, Robert G. Jahn, former dean of engineering at Princeton University, psychologist Brenda Dunne, and an exceptional team of scientists have explored ways in which subjects can acquire information remotely in space-time, as in precognitive remote viewing, as well as mentally influence the function of an array of electronic, mechanical, optical, fluid dynamic, and nuclear random-event generators at a distance and outside the present. These abilities require subjects to skirt the limitations imposed by the brain, which Jahn and Dunne call the "neurological grid and control center" that reduces incoming stimuli to the measly trickle of information we ordinarily perceive. The experiments at PEAR have led Jahn and Dunne to assert, "[T]here exists a much deeper and more extensive source of reality, which is largely insulated from direct human experience, representation, or even comprehension." They call this domain the "Source." As they put it:

[W]e reject the popular presumption that all modes of human information processing are completely executed within the physiological brain, and that all experiential sensations are epiphenomena of the biophysical and biochemical states thereof. Rather, we?.?.?.?regard the brain as a neurologically localized utility that serves a much more extended "mind," or "psyche," or "consciousness" that far transcends the brain in its capacity, range, endurance, and subtlety of operation, and that is far more sophisticated than a mere antenna for information acquisition or a silo for its storage. In fact, we?.?.?.?contend that it [extended mind/psyche,/consciousness] is the ultimate organizing principle of the universe, creating reality through its ongoing dialogue with the unstructured potentiality of the Source. In short, we subscribe to the assertion of [astrophysicist] Arthur Eddington nearly a century ago: "Not once in the dim past, but continuously, by conscious mind is the miracle of the Creation wrought."34

As with physicists, so with poets, such as William Butler Yeats: "[T]he borders of our minds are ever shifting, and?.?.?.?many minds can flow into one another?.?.?.?and create or reveal a single mind, a single energy.?.?.?.?[T]he borders of our memories are?.?.?.?shifting, and?.?.?.?our memories are a part of one great memory. …"35

In the adjudication of views such as these, savants might be Exhibit A.

This abbreviated sortie gives only a hint of the considerable number of respected scholars in many areas of science who have endorsed a collective, beyond-the-brain-and-body aspect of consciousness. Many people have heard of psychologist Carl Jung's idea of the collective unconscious but are unaware of similar positions held by key members of the scientific community. Examples include the aforementioned neurobiologist George Wald (Nobel Prize, 1967): "Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always?.?.?.?the source and condition of physical reality"36; Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger (Nobel Prize, 1933): "The overall number of minds is just one…. In truth there is only one mind"37; and the eminent American physicist David Bohm: "Deep down the consciousness of mankind is one. This is a virtual certainty?.?.?.?and if we don't see this it's because we are blinding ourselves to it."38 Many more examples could be added.

These views are excluded from textbooks of psychology and neuroscience. Why? During the 20th century the drawbridge to the castle of academia was raised, and entry was denied to anyone who defied the password: MATERIALISM. From that moment forward, those outside the gates were considered barbarians. Credentials no longer sufficed; even Nobelists were excluded for suggesting that consciousness might transcend the world of matter/energy. For example, a position such as Schrödinger's, that, "Sensations and thoughts do not belong to the ‘world of energy,'"39 would guarantee not only refusal of admission to the neuroscience castle itself, but also likely exile from the entire territory.

Nobel laureate Wald has enlarged on this situation: "[W]e in the West insist that for communication to occur there must be an exchange of energy?.?.?.?Let even another human being, whose consciousness we are quite ready to concede, claim to hear something that we fail to hear or see, or feel something that we fail to perceive?.?.?.?and we cry delusion, illusion, mass hypnosis, fakery! We have a whole armory of terms with which to deny to other persons elements of consciousness that we do not share."40 Wald observed great cultural differences in these matters. He used the example of ghosts. Natural scientists in America, Wald says, "reject ghosts out of hand; the English rather enjoy them. To an American scientist the entire structure of science would shake were one to admit a single ghost. The English scientist, asked for an opinion, and a little uncomfortable if it is an American who asks, is likely to reply, 'Well, we don't know, do we?' ?.?.?.?I doubt there is any Eastern culture in which I would fail to be congratulated if I were to announce that I could hear what other persons are thinking. 'How fine!' they might say. 'Were you always that way, or did you have to learn? If you learned, would you tell me how?'?.?.?.?To an American, this is obvious nonsense.?.?.?."41

Nonsense indeed. And as long as it is considered nonsense, it is quite unlikely that we will understand the workings of the mind of the savant.


Savants as Messengers

Savants are harbingers of human possibilities. They show us, I suggest, that it is possible to access transpersonal aspects of consciousness that are currently denied in conventional science. Their deep mental acuity, though limited in bandwidth, points toward the possibility of omniscience, for that is what an unlimited, collective pool of information accessible to humans implies.

The mind rebels; the very thought of omniscience is frightening to many because it suggests hubris and blasphemy, for only a god can be omniscient. Is this why savants were only recently referred to as "idiot savants"? Did this disrespectful label insulate us from the superiority that savants so clearly demonstrate in a narrow slit of knowing? Who, exactly, are the idiots — the savants, or ourselves, who sense our inadequacy and project it onto them? Do we also resort to "explanations" lodged in genes, brains and memory to distance ourselves from the possibilities posed by savants?

Savants are earthquakes that shove sacrosanct theories of the mind off their foundations and reduce them to rubble. They are like Copernicus' observations, or the evidence of physicists Planck and Einstein, that undermined hallowed tenets and led to a new worldview. So far, we've managed to ignore the tremors that savants generate, but as our conceptual walls and ceilings continue to collapse around us that may no longer be possible.

A related mystery is not how savants do what they do, but why we can't. I am reminded of the experiment in which flies are placed in a closed jar. After a few days the lid can be removed, but the flies remain in the jar and do not fly away. They have recalibrated their capabilities downward. Are we fly-equivalents who have forgotten our natural endowments? Are the occasional strobe-like bursts of insight, creativity, and epiphany that some people experience reminders of what we are capable of, but have forgotten how to access, but yet might remember? Clearly, these experiences are not limited to savants. Pearce's five-year-old son entered this grace-filled space for 20 minutes, for which he had no recall. Wald's nine-year-old daughter produced a brilliant poem only once, and then the door closed. Why the son and not Pearce? Why the daughter and not Wald? Why are these experiences evanescent and sometimes forgotten? Why do they seem to "do" us, and not the other way around?

The view of consciousness as a shared, unified, collective phenomenon that individuals can access will not die. No one expressed its importance better than Plato in his Symposium: "This becoming one instead of two [is] the very expression of humanity's need. And the reason is that human nature was originally One and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love."42

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Image by Volker Springel et al.  The Virgo Consortium. 2005

Psychedelic Resources

A Foraging Trip: Where Do Magic Mushrooms Grow?
Eager to learn more about the origin of psilocybin species? Read this article to find out where magic mushrooms grow and more!

How to Make Shroom Tea: Best Recipe and Dosage
A step by step guide on how to brew shroom tea, and why entheogenic psilocybin tea is a preferred method for psychedelic connoisseurs.

R. Gordon Wasson: Author and Mushroom Expert
Learn about R. Gordon Wasson, the “legendary mushroom expert” and popular figure within the psychonaut community.

Shrooms vs Acid: Differences and Similarities Explained
Ever wondered what the differences are between shrooms vs acid, or if you can take both together? This guide explains what you need to know.

Quantum Mechanics, Reality, and Magic Mushrooms
Scientist and author Dr. Chris Becker takes an in-depth approach in understanding how we perceive reality through magic mushrooms and quantum mechanics.

Psilocybin Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
Our ultimate guide to Psilocybin has everything you want to know about this psychedelic fungi from its uses to its legal status.

The Psilocybin Experience: What’s the Deal With Magic Mushrooms?
From microdoses to macrodoses, the psilocybin experience has been sought after both medicinally and recreationally for millennia.

Psilocybin and Magic Mushroom Resources
Curious to learn more about psilocybin? This guide is a comprehensive psilocybin resource containing books, therapeutic studies, and more.

Paul Stamets Profile: Mushroom Guru, Filmmaker, Nutritionist, Scientist
Learn about Paul Stamets, read his thoughts on psilocybin mircodosing, the future of psilocybin, and his recent film “Fantastic Fungi”.

Microdosing Psilocybin & Common Dosage Explained
Microdosing, though imperceivably, is showing to have many health benefits–here is everything you want to know about microdosing psilocybin.

Psilocybin Nasal Spray: Relief for Anxiety, PTSD, and Depression
Microdosing nasal spray with psilocybin, is that possible?! Oregan a start-up Silo Wellness believes so and has created this new option for PTSD treatment.

Mazatec Mushroom Usage: Notes on Approach, Setting and Species for Curious Psilonauts
A look at traditional Mazatec psilocybin mushroom usage, and a comparison to the cliniical therapeutic approach, with an examination of the Mazatec setting and species used in veladas.

María Sabina: The Mazatec Magic Mushroom Woman
Magic mushrooms are incredibly popular today. How they became introduced to into American culture isn’t usually a topic discussed while tripping on psilocybin fungi. We all may have María Sabina to thank for exposing the Western world to the healing properties of the psilocybin mushroom.

Guide to Magic Mushroom Strains
Are there different types of psilocybin? Read our guide to learn about the different magic mushroom strains and their individual effects.

Kilindi Iyi: Mycologist, Traveler, Teacher
Learn about traveler and mycologist Kilindi Iyi known in the psychedelic community for his research and exploration of psilocybin.

How to Store Shrooms: Best Practices
How do you store shrooms for optimal shelf life? Learn how and why the proper storage method is so important.

Shroom Chocolate Recipes: How to Make Magic Mushroom Chocolates
This recipe provides step by step directions on how you can make mushroom chocolates with the necessary ingredients. Read to learn more!

Why Do People Use Psilocybin? New Johns Hopkins Study
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicines has just published a new study on psychoactive effects of psilocybin. Read here to learn more.

How-To Lemon Tek: Ultimate Guide and Recipe
This master guide will teach you how to lemon tek, preventing the onset of negative effects after consuming psilocybin. Read to learn more!

How to Intensify a Mushroom Trip
Learn about techniques like Lemon tekking, or discover the right time to consume cannabis if you are looking to intensify a mushroom trip.

How to Grow Magic Mushrooms: Step-by-Step
This step-by-step guide will show you how to grow magic mushrooms at home. Read this guide before trying it on your own.

How to Dry Magic Mushrooms: Best Practices
Read to learn more about specifics for the best practices on how to dry magic mushrooms after harvesting season.

How to Buy Psilocybin Spores
Interested in psilocybin mushrooms? We’ll walk you through all you need to know to obtain mushroom spores. Nosh on this delish How To guide.

Hippie Flipping: When Shrooms and Molly Meet
What is it, what does it feel like, and how long does it last? Explore the mechanics of hippie flipping and how to safely experiment.

Having Sex on Shrooms: Good or Bad Idea?
Is having sex on shrooms a good idea or an accident waiting to happen? Find out in our guide to sex on magic mushrooms.

Gold Cap Shrooms Guide: Spores, Effects, Identification
Read this guide to learn more about the different characteristics of gold cap mushrooms, and how they differ from other psilocybin species.

Guide to Cooking with Magic Mushrooms
From cookies to smoothies and sandwiches, we cover various methods of cooking with magic mushrooms for the ultimate snack.

2020 Election: The Decriminalize Psilocybin Movement
Are you curious if mushrooms will follow in marijuana’s footsteps? Read to learn about how the U.S. is moving to decriminalize psilocybin.

Oregon’s Initiative to Legalize Mushrooms | Initiative Petition 34
Oregon continues to push ahead with their initiative to legalize Psilocybin in 2020. The measure received its official title and now needs signatures.

Canada Approves Psilocybin Treatment for Terminally-Ill Cancer Patients
Canada’s Minister of Health, Patty Hajdu approved the use of psilocybin to help ease anxiety and depression of four terminal cancer patients.

Mapping the DMT Experience
With only firsthand experiences to share, how can we fully map the DMT experience? Let’s explore what we know about this powerful psychedelic.

Guide to Machine Elves and Other DMT Entities
This guide discusses machine elves, clockwork elves, and other common DMT entities that people experience during a DMT trip.

Is the DMT Experience a Hallucination? 
What if the DMT realm was the real world, and our everyday lives were merely a game we had chosen to play?

How to Store DMT
Not sure how to store DMT? Read this piece to learn the best practices and elements of advice to keep your stuff fresh.

What Does 5-MeO-DMT Show Us About Consciousness?
How does our brain differentiate between what’s real and what’s not? Read to learn what can 5-MeO-DMT show us about consciousness.

How to Smoke DMT: Processes Explained
There are many ways to smoke DMT and we’ve outlined some of the best processes to consider before embarking on your journey.

How to Ground After DMT
Knowing what to expect from a DMT comedown can help you integrate the experience to gain as much value as possible from your journey.

How To Get DMT
What kind of plants contain DMT? Are there other ways to access this psychedelic? Read on to learn more about how to get DMT.

How DMT is Made: Everything You Need to Know
Ever wonder how to make DMT? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how DMT is made.

Having Sex on DMT: What You Need to Know
Have you ever wondered about sex on DMT? Learn how the God Molecule can influence your intimate experiences.

Does the Human Brain Make DMT? 
With scientific evidence showing us DMT in the brain, what can we conclude it is there for? Read on to learn more.

How to Use DMT Vape Pens
Read to learn all about DMT vape pens including: what to know when vaping, what to expect when purchasing a DMT cartridge, and vaping safely.

DMT Resources
This article is a comprehensive DMT resource providing extensive information from studies, books, documentaries, and more. Check it out!

Differentiating DMT and Near-Death Experiences
Some say there are similarities between a DMT trip and death. Read our guide on differentiating DMT and near-death experiences to find out.

DMT Research from 1956 to the Edge of Time
From a representative sample of a suitably psychedelic crowd, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who couldn’t tell you all about Albert Hofmann’s enchanted bicycle ride after swallowing what turned out to be a massive dose of LSD. Far fewer, however, could tell you much about the world’s first DMT trip.

The Ultimate Guide to DMT Pricing
Check out our ultimate guide on DMT pricing to learn what to expect when purchasing DMT for your first time.

DMT Milking | Reality Sandwich
Indigenous cultures have used 5-MeO-DMT for centuries. With the surge in demand for psychedelic toad milk, is DMT Milking harming the frogs?

Why Does DMT Pervade Nature?
With the presence of DMT in nature everywhere – including human brains – why does it continue to baffle science?

DMT Substance Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
Our ultimate guide to DMT has everything you want to know about this powerful psychedelic referred to as “the spirit molecule”.

DMT for Depression: Paving the Way for New Medicine
We’ve been waiting for an effective depression treatment. Studies show DMT for depression works even for treatment resistant patients.

Beating Addiction with DMT
Psychedelics have been studied for their help overcoming addiction. Read how DMT is helping addicts beat their substance abuse issues.

DMT Extraction: Behind the Scientific Process
Take a look at DMT extraction and the scientific process involved. Learn all you need to know including procedures and safety.

Microdosing DMT & Common Dosages Explained
Microdosing, though imperceivable, is showing to have many health benefits–here is everything you want to know about microdosing DMT.

DMT Art: A Look Behind Visionary Creations
An entire genre of artwork is inspired by psychedelic trips with DMT. Read to learn about the entities and visions behind DMT art.

Changa vs. DMT: What You Need to Know
While similar (changa contains DMT), each drug has its own unique effect and feeling. Let’s compare and contrast changa vs DMT.

5-MeO-DMT Guide: Effects, Benefits, Safety, and Legality
5-Meo-DMT comes from the Sonora Desert toad. Here is everything you want to know about 5-Meo-DMT and how it compares to 4-AcO-DMT.

4-AcO-DMT Guide: Benefits, Effects, Safety, and Legality
This guide tells you everything about 4 AcO DMT & 5 MeO DMT, that belong to the tryptamine class, and are similar but slightly different to DMT.

How Much Does LSD Cost? When shopping around for that magical psychedelic substance, there can be many uncertainties when new to buying LSD. You may be wondering how much does LSD cost? In this article, we will discuss what to expect when purchasing LSD on the black market, what forms LSD is sold in, and the standard breakdown of buying LSD in quantity.   Navy Use of LSD on the Dark Web The dark web is increasingly popular for purchasing illegal substances. The US Navy has now noticed this trend with their staff. Read to learn more.   Having Sex on LSD: What You Need to Know Can you have sex on LSD? Read our guide to learn everything about sex on acid, from lowered inhibitions to LSD users quotes on sex while tripping.   A Drug That Switches off an LSD Trip A pharmaceutical company is developing an “off-switch” drug for an LSD trip, in the case that a bad trip can happen. Some would say there is no such thing.   Queen of Hearts: An Interview with Liz Elliot on Tim Leary and LSD The history of psychedelia, particularly the British experience, has been almost totally written by men. Of the women involved, especially those who were in the thick of it, little has been written either by or about them. A notable exception is Liz Elliot.   LSD Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety LSD, Lysergic acid diethylamide, or just acid is one of the most important psychedelics ever discovered. What did history teach us?   Microdosing LSD & Common Dosage Explained Microdosing, though imperceivable, is showing to have many health benefits–here is everything you want to know about microdosing LSD.   LSD Resources Curious to learn more about LSD? This guide includes comprehensive LSD resources containing books, studies and more.   LSD as a Spiritual Aid There is common consent that the evolution of mankind is paralleled by the increase and expansion of consciousness. From the described process of how consciousness originates and develops, it becomes evident that its growth depends on its faculty of perception. Therefore every means of improving this faculty should be used.   Legendary LSD Blotter Art: A Hidden Craftsmanship Have you ever heard of LSD blotter art? Explore the trippy world of LSD art and some of the top artists of LSD blotter art.   LSD and Exercise: Does it Work? LSD and exercise? Learn why high-performing athletes are taking hits of LSD to improve their overall potential.   Jan Bastiaans Treated Holocaust Survivors with LSD Dutch psychiatrist, Jan Bastiaans administered LSD-assisted therapy to survivors of the Holocaust. A true war hero and pioneer of psychedelic-therapy.   LSD and Spiritual Awakening I give thanks for LSD, which provided the opening that led me to India in 1971 and brought me to Neem Karoli Baba, known as Maharajji. Maharajji is described by the Indians as a “knower of hearts.”   How LSD is Made: Everything You Need to Know Ever wonder how to make LSD? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how LSD is made.   How to Store LSD: Best Practices Learn the best way to store LSD, including the proper temperature and conditions to maximize how long LSD lasts when stored.   Bicycle Day: The Discovery of LSD Every year on April 19th, psychonauts join forces to celebrate Bicycle Day. Learn about the famous day when Albert Hoffman first discovered the effects of LSD.   Cary Grant: A Hollywood Legend On LSD Cary Grant was a famous actor during the 1930’s-60’s But did you know Grant experimented with LSD? Read our guide to learn more.   Albert Hofmann: LSD — My Problem Child Learn about Albert Hofmann and his discovery of LSD, along with the story of Bicycle Day and why it marks a historic milestone.   Babies are High: What Does LSD Do To Your Brain What do LSD and babies have in common? Researchers at the Imperial College in London discover that an adult’s brain on LSD looks like a baby’s brain.   1P LSD: Effects, Benefits, Safety Explained 1P LSD is an analogue of LSD and homologue of ALD-25. Here is everything you want to know about 1P LSD and how it compares to LSD.   Francis Crick, DNA & LSD Type ‘Francis Crick LSD’ into Google, and the result will be 30,000 links. Many sites claim that Crick (one of the two men responsible for discovering the structure of DNA), was either under the influence of LSD at the time of his revelation or used the drug to help with his thought processes during his research. Is this true?   What Happens If You Overdose on LSD? A recent article presented three individuals who overdosed on LSD. Though the experience was unpleasant, the outcomes were remarkably positive.

The Ayahuasca Experience
Ayahuasca is both a medicine and a visionary aid. You can employ ayahuasca for physical, mental, emotional and spiritual repair, and you can engage with the power of ayahuasca for deeper insight and realization. If you consider attainment of knowledge in the broadest perspective, you can say that at all times, ayahuasca heals.

 

Trippy Talk: Meet Ayahuasca with Sitaramaya Sita and PlantTeachers
Sitaramaya Sita is a spiritual herbalist, pusangera, and plant wisdom practitioner formally trained in the Shipibo ayahuasca tradition.

 

The Therapeutic Value of Ayahuasca
My best description of the impact of ayahuasca is that it’s a rocket boost to psychospiritual growth and unfolding, my professional specialty during my thirty-five years of private practice.

 

Microdosing Ayahuasca: Common Dosage Explained
What is ayahuasca made of and what is considered a microdose? Explore insights with an experienced Peruvian brewmaster and learn more about this practice.

 

Ayahuasca Makes Neuron Babies in Your Brain
Researchers from Beckley/Sant Pau Research Program have shared the latest findings in their study on the effects of ayahuasca on neurogenesis.

 

The Fatimiya Sufi Order and Ayahuasca
In this interview, the founder of the Fatimiya Sufi Order,  N. Wahid Azal, discusses the history and uses of plant medicines in Islamic and pre-Islamic mystery schools.

 

Consideration Ayahuasca for Treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Research indicates that ayahuasca mimics mechanisms of currently accepted treatments for PTSD. In order to understand the implications of ayahuasca treatment, we need to understand how PTSD develops.

 

Brainwaves on Ayahuasca: A Waking Dream State
In a study researchers shared discoveries showing ingredients found in Ayahuasca impact the brainwaves causing a “waking dream” state.

 

Cannabis and Ayahuasca: Mixing Entheogenic Plants
Cannabis and Ayahuasca: most people believe they shouldn’t be mixed. Read this personal experience peppered with thoughts from a pro cannabis Peruvian Shaman.

 

Ayahuasca Retreat 101: Everything You Need to Know to Brave the Brew
Ayahuasca has been known to be a powerful medicinal substance for millennia. However, until recently, it was only found in the jungle. Word of its deeply healing and cleansing properties has begun to spread across the world as many modern, Western individuals are seeking spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical well-being. More ayahuasca retreat centers are emerging in the Amazon and worldwide to meet the demand.

 

Ayahuasca Helps with Grief
A new study published in psychopharmacology found that ayahuasca helped those suffering from the loss of a loved one up to a year after treatment.

 

Ayahuasca Benefits: Clinical Improvements for Six Months
Ayahuasca benefits can last six months according to studies. Read here to learn about the clinical improvements from drinking the brew.

 

Ayahuasca Culture: Indigenous, Western, And The Future
Ayahuasca has been use for generations in the Amazon. With the rise of retreats and the brew leaving the rainforest how is ayahuasca culture changing?

 

Ayahuasca Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
The Amazonian brew, Ayahuasca has a long history and wide use. Read our guide to learn all about the tea from its beginnings up to modern-day interest.

 

Ayahuasca and the Godhead: An Interview with Wahid Azal of the Fatimiya Sufi Order
Wahid Azal, a Sufi mystic of The Fatimiya Sufi Order and an Islamic scholar, talks about entheogens, Sufism, mythology, and metaphysics.

 

Ayahuasca and the Feminine: Women’s Roles, Healing, Retreats, and More
Ayahuasca is lovingly called “grandmother” or “mother” by many. Just how feminine is the brew? Read to learn all about women and ayahuasca.

What Is the Standard of Care for Ketamine Treatments?
Ketamine therapy is on the rise in light of its powerful results for treatment-resistant depression. But, what is the current standard of care for ketamine? Read to find out.

What Is Dissociation and How Does Ketamine Create It?
Dissociation can take on multiple forms. So, what is dissociation like and how does ketamine create it? Read to find out.

Having Sex on Ketamine: Getting Physical on a Dissociative
Curious about what it could feel like to have sex on a dissociate? Find out all the answers in our guide to sex on ketamine.

Special K: The Party Drug
Special K refers to Ketamine when used recreationally. Learn the trends as well as safety information around this substance.

Kitty Flipping: When Ketamine and Molly Meet
What is it, what does it feel like, and how long does it last? Read to explore the mechanics of kitty flipping.

Ketamine vs. Esketamine: 3 Important Differences Explained
Ketamine and esketamine are used to treat depression. But what’s the difference between them? Read to learn which one is right for you: ketamine vs. esketamine.

Guide to Ketamine Treatments: Understanding the New Approach
Ketamine is becoming more popular as more people are seeing its benefits. Is ketamine a fit? Read our guide for all you need to know about ketamine treatments.

Ketamine Treatment for Eating Disorders
Ketamine is becoming a promising treatment for various mental health conditions. Read to learn how individuals can use ketamine treatment for eating disorders.

Ketamine Resources, Studies, and Trusted Information
Curious to learn more about ketamine? This guide includes comprehensive ketamine resources containing books, studies and more.

Ketamine Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
Our ultimate guide to ketamine has everything you need to know about this “dissociative anesthetic” and how it is being studied for depression treatment.

Ketamine for Depression: A Mental Health Breakthrough
While antidepressants work for some, many others find no relief. Read to learn about the therapeutic uses of ketamine for depression.

Ketamine for Addiction: Treatments Offering Hope
New treatments are offering hope to individuals suffering from addiction diseases. Read to learn how ketamine for addiction is providing breakthrough results.

Microdosing Ketamine & Common Dosages Explained
Microdosing, though imperceivable, is showing to have many health benefits–here is everything you want to know about microdosing ketamine.

How to Ease a Ketamine Comedown
Knowing what to expect when you come down from ketamine can help integrate the experience to gain as much value as possible.

How to Store Ketamine: Best Practices
Learn the best ways how to store ketamine, including the proper temperature and conditions to maximize how long ketamine lasts when stored.

How To Buy Ketamine: Is There Legal Ketamine Online?
Learn exactly where it’s legal to buy ketamine, and if it’s possible to purchase legal ketamine on the internet.

How Long Does Ketamine Stay in Your System?
How long does ketamine stay in your system? Are there lasting effects on your body? Read to discover the answers!

How Ketamine is Made: Everything You Need to Know
Ever wonder how to make Ketamine? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how Ketamine is made.

Colorado on Ketamine: First Responders Waiver Programs
Fallout continues after Elijah McClain. Despite opposing recommendations from some city council, Colorado State Health panel recommends the continued use of ketamine by medics for those demonstrating “excited delirium” or “extreme agitation”.

Types of Ketamine: Learn the Differences & Uses for Each
Learn about the different types of ketamine and what they are used for—and what type might be right for you. Read now to find out!

Kitty Flipping: When Ketamine and Molly Meet
What is it, what does it feel like, and how long does it last? Read to explore the mechanics of kitty flipping.

MDMA & Ecstasy Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
Our ultimate guide to MDMA has everything you want to know about Ecstasy from how it was developed in 1912 to why it’s being studied today.

How To Get the Most out of Taking MDMA as a Couple
Taking MDMA as a couple can lead to exciting experiences. Read here to learn how to get the most of of this love drug in your relationship.

Common MDMA Dosage & Microdosing Explained
Microdosing, though imperceivable, is showing to have many health benefits–here is everything you want to know about microdosing MDMA.

Having Sex on MDMA: What You Need to Know
MDMA is known as the love drug… Read our guide to learn all about sex on MDMA and why it is beginning to makes its way into couple’s therapy.

How MDMA is Made: Common Procedures Explained
Ever wonder how to make MDMA? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how MDMA is made.

Hippie Flipping: When Shrooms and Molly Meet
What is it, what does it feel like, and how long does it last? Explore the mechanics of hippie flipping and how to safely experiment.

How Cocaine is Made: Common Procedures Explained
Ever wonder how to make cocaine? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how cocaine is made.

A Christmas Sweater with Santa and Cocaine
This week, Walmart came under fire for a “Let it Snow” Christmas sweater depicting Santa with lines of cocaine. Columbia is not merry about it.

Ultimate Cocaine Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
This guide covers what you need to know about Cocaine, including common effects and uses, legality, safety precautions and top trends today.

NEWS: An FDA-Approved Cocaine Nasal Spray
The FDA approved a cocaine nasal spray called Numbrino, which has raised suspicions that the pharmaceutical company, Lannett Company Inc., paid off the FDA..

The Ultimate Guide to Cannabis Bioavailability
What is bioavailability and how can it affect the overall efficacy of a psychedelic substance? Read to learn more.

Cannabis Research Explains Sociability Behaviors
New research by Dr. Giovanni Marsicano shows social behavioral changes occur as a result of less energy available to the neurons. Read here to learn more.

The Cannabis Shaman
If recreational and medical use of marijuana is becoming accepted, can the spiritual use as well? Experiential journalist Rak Razam interviews Hamilton Souther, founder of the 420 Cannabis Shamanism movement…

Cannabis Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
Our ultimate guide to Cannabis has everything you want to know about this popular substances that has psychedelic properties.

Cannabis and Ayahuasca: Mixing Entheogenic Plants
Cannabis and Ayahuasca: most people believe they shouldn’t be mixed. Read this personal experience peppered with thoughts from a procannabis Peruvian Shaman.

CBD-Rich Cannabis Versus Single-Molecule CBD
A ground-breaking study has documented the superior therapeutic properties of whole plant Cannabis extract as compared to synthetic cannabidiol (CBD), challenging the medical-industrial complex’s notion that “crude” botanical preparations are less effective than single-molecule compounds.

Cannabis Has Always Been a Medicine
Modern science has already confirmed the efficacy of cannabis for most uses described in the ancient medical texts, but prohibitionists still claim that medical cannabis is “just a ruse.”

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