Psychedelic quotes and trippy sayings have always been a source of enlightenment and fun for enthusiasts. The following sentiments provide great insight into the minds of psychonauts. Make sure to check out our Trippy Talk series for further exploration of diverse voices in this field.
1. “My notion of what the psychedelic experience is, for us, that we each must become like fishermen, and go out on to the dark ocean of mind, and let our nets down into that sea”—Terrence Mckenna, The Purpose of Psychedelics
2. “The [psychedelic] experience corresponds almost excactly to the theological concept of a sacrament or means of grace—an unmerited gift of spiritual power whose lasting effects depend upon the use made of it in subsequent action.”—Alan Watts, The Joyous Cosmology
3. “Psychedelics are not just about psychotherapy. They’re about intellectual and artistic development.”—Dr. Thomas Roberts
4. “To fathom hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic.”—Dr Humphry Osmond
5. “I suddenly became strangely inebriated. The external world became changed as in a dream. Objects appeared to gain in relief; they assumed unusual dimensions; and colours became more glowing. Even self-perception and the sense of time were changed. When the eyes were closed, coloured pictures flashed past in a quickly changing kaleidoscope. After a few hours, the not unpleasant inebriation, which had been experienced whilst I was fully conscious, disappeared. What had caused this condition?”—Dr. Albert Hofmann, Laboratory Notes (1943)
6. “Administered in suitable doses, [mescaline] changes the quality of consciousness more profoundly and yet is less toxic than any other substance in the pharmacologist’s repertory.”—Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
7. “There’s no doubt in my mind that psychedelic medicine, or just psychedelics in general, are going to have a huge impact on both mental health and our society. We’ve already seen it with cannabis. It was “resistance, resistance, resistance,” and now it’s huge. And I think the same thing is going to happen for psychedelics. The issue is, is our society mature enough and ready enough to be able to integrate this?”—Ashley Booth
8. “Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”—Steve Jobs
9. “It would appear that at the most personal level of an individual’s being, namely the psychedelic experience, one’s own cultural membership can determine the nature of the visionary experience.”—Marlene Dobkin de Rios and Oscar Janiger, LSD: Spirituality and the Creative Process
10. “It isn’t just about integrating the substance into an individual’s life, it’s about integrating it into our societies at large.”—Bia Labate
11. “Whether drugs lead to illumination or degradation depends on the spirit in which one takes them.”—George Andrews
12. “I remember an Indian telling me that whever he drank ayahuasca, he had such beautiful visions that he used to put his hands over his eyes for fear somebody might steal them.”—Heinz Kusel
13. “The key to changing external reality and reactions to the environment lies in internal transformations.”—Andrew Weil, “The Psychedelic Vision”
14. “Whereas our ancestors could only avail themselves of substances that were provided for them by the natural world, the rise of chemistry has allowed us to modify these organic substances and create completely new molecules with unique effects and mechanisms of action.”—Richard J Miller, Drugged: The Science and Culture Behind Psychotropic Drugs