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The following is excerpted from Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics, edited by Allan Badiner and Alex Grey, published by Synergetic Press.

I first visited Green Gulch Farm on a sunny Sunday in the fall of 1995. A group of students were sitting beneath the alien rows oeucalyptus trees, talking casually with Tenshin Reb Anderson, then abbot of the San Francisco Zen Cen-ter. Jerry Garcia had recently died, and at one point in the conversation, a blond, fortysomething woman asked Anderson, in all seriousness, whether Garcia was a bodhisattva.

I would have failed this particular Marin County koan. But not Anderson, who answered the question promptly and without condescension. He first described the Buddhist idea of protectors: beings who encircle and guard the Dharma without being entirely within the fold. Presumably, Anderson was taking inspiration from the dharmapalas of Tibetan Buddhism, especially the lokapalas: ferocious local spirits who swore allegiance to the Buddha-way only after being magically subjugated by the tantric missionary and wizard Padmasambhava. Some of these shamanic entities are even said to not fully accept the Buddhas teaching, though integrated within Tibetan Buddhism, they retain an intense liminality, or in-betweenness.And as the recent controversy over the protector spirit Dorje Shugden makes clear, one monks manifestation of the bodhisattva Manjushri can he another monks bloodthirsty demon.

In any case, Andersons response was brilliant. Without castigating what-ever visionary and communal ecstasy some Deadheads managed to extract from their loopy scene, Anderson established an open border between Garcia and the Dharma, at once separating the two while acknowledging their connectiona connection which, in the San Francisco Bay Area anyway, is as local as a lokapala. But while American Zen and the Grateful Dead have both served as major attractions in Northern Californias spiritual carnival, the abbot also needed to draw the line. On the far side of this line lay drugs, because drugs, Anderson made clear, were definitely not the Buddha way.

Anderson did not name the drugs, which was just as well, as the day was growing short and the Deads curriculum vitae is long. Garcias appetite for heroin and freebase was at times prodigious, and few would make an argument for the enlightening nature of these substances. But in the larger context of the Grateful Dead experience, drugsmeans psychedelicsthe LSD, mescaline, peyote, mushrooms, and other compounds that transformed the Deads cowboy jazz into the occasion for Dionysian romps in the electric bardo. In Andersons analogy, then, psychedelics correspond to the unassimilable shamanic elements of Tibetan folk magic, to those pre-Buddhist beliefs and practices, Bonpo or not, that remain outside the circle of Dharma they nonetheless helped shape.

Leaving the Grateful Dead aside, Id like to suggest that the overlap between American psychedelic culture and American Buddhism is roughly anal-ogous to the liminal zone inhabited by the dharmapalas. The analogy works both historically and, if you will, institutionally. On top of providing an imaginative slant on the significant historical links between American Buddhism and psychedelics in the sixties and seventies, the tantric tension between local demons and Dharma protectors also helps us understand how some contemporary American Buddhists grapple with the controversial, even heretical specter of psychedelic spirituality. When Tibetan Buddhists engaged the fierce and sorcerous entities of the pre-Buddhist mindscape, they faced the same sort of problem that greets American Buddhists attempting to account for the convulsively magic molecules in their midst: how to simultaneously honor and vanquish, integrate and control.

The grizzled bearded visage of Mahajerrytells us something right off the bat: the question of psychedelics and American Buddhism remains intimately bound up with the collective spiritual narrative of one particular generation of Americans. Though American Buddhism sprouted from seeds planted long before the emergence of the sixties,the Dharma rode to relative prominence on the same countercultural wave of mind-expansion that thrust Timothy Leary into the limelight. Indeed, if there had been no Pranksters, no acid tests, no instant nirvana,it is hard to imagine that places like Green Gulch would exist at all. Buddhism in America first hit its stride in the context of countercultural spirituality, and it is simply impossible to understand countercultural spirituality without taking psychedelics into account. Indeed, such understanding is probably impossible without taking psychedelics, period.

The legitimacy of psychedelic spirituality is a vexed question, especially given the tricky ideas of authenticity and illusion that play such a pivotal role in the spiritual assessment of altered states of consciousness. Anthropologically speaking, though, its hard not to see the question of legitimacy as anything other than a mechanism of cultural power through which religious institutions and lineages define and police their borders. (In this sense, religious discourse surrounding drugs is similar to that surrounding food and sex.) As we now know, psychedelic substances, not to mention other psychoactive drugs, have played a profound role in the history of the human spirit. We may never know what materials composed the soma praised in the Vedas or the punch that gave the Eleusinian Mysteries their mystical zap, but its a pretty safe bet that something more than watery oatmeal was being quaffed. Psychoactive plants are even more fundamentally linked to those ancient indigenous practices we rather loosely describe as shamanism.The religious culture of pre-Buddhist Tibet, for example, was part of a huge shamanic complex that stretched throughout Eurasia and included, in its more northern stretches at least, the ritual use of the psychedelic mushroom Amanita muscaria.

In any case, psychoactive drugs must be featured prominently in any catalog of what Mircea Eliade called humanitys technologies of ecstasy”—a tool kit of altered states-production that includes dancing, drumming, fasting, fucking, and physical ordeal. But in the 1960s, in a culture that had swept its mystical and ecstatic traditions under the moldering carpet of mainline Christianity, there was little to no context for the experiences such technologies helped produce. While one can certainly explore psychedelic space as a modernist,looking to art and science for models, many people found that only mystical language and occult images could frame their chemical illuminations. Many Westerners turned, in particular, to Eastern religion, partly because the Orient has long been an imaginal zone that beckons to Westerners who want to escape the prison of scientific materialism. The Eastern turnalso makes phenomenological sense. LSD can send serpentine energy shooting up your spine, or thrust you into apocalyptic mandalas, or vibrate the world into an energetic void. At the same time, drugs can also unveil the simple, immanent Zenof the ordinary world: a leaf, a breeze, or, as in Huxleys famous mescaline tale in Doors of Perception, a fold in ones trousers.

Drugs and Dharma were themselves only a few of the ingredients in a heretical countercultural stew that included marijuana, free love, tarot cards, street protests, long hair, anarchism, the I Ching, electric guitars, the under-ground press, Carlos Castaneda, and Hindu iconography. From the perspective of serious Western Buddhists with Eastern teachers, not to mention the roshis and lamas who arrived in the 1960s and 1970s in order to found institutions, the freak scene must have seemed, in its eclectic mania, almost as wild and fierce as Tibet seemed to the Indian missionaries of the eighth century. In a sense, the counterculture was Americas own fractured shamanism, seething with untamed energies and magical phantasms. By taking root within this intensely vibrant culture, the Dharma was able to make the transition from a marginal pursuit of intellectuals and cultural mavericks to the influential if constrained mass phenomenon it is today. While those roots may have been intoxicant-free, the soil they found was psychedelic, and its peculiar nutrients fundamentally shaped the blooms to come.

For one thing, Buddhism owed many of its recruits to the widespread fascination with altered states of consciousnessa fascination that was largely sparked, if not fueled, by drugs. Simply put, psychedelics gave people a taste for the excitement, power, anxiety, insight, and joy of altered states of consciousness. On an even more basic level, drugs also encouraged people to explore their own immediate experience, and to recognize that heaven and hell, like every other power structure, were functions of their own minds. Many Westerners were drawn to Buddhism because it too offered a hands-ondimension lacking in Christianity, one which also loosely accorded with the modern scientifictemperament that drugs, in their molecular way, subtly reinforced. This democratic turn toward direct experience became one of the hallmarks of countercultural spirituality, just as it became a hallmark of American Buddhism. The notion that samadhi was available to all, that everyone possessed something like the Buddha-mind, was emphasized by the universal action of the Sandoz molecule. Have you ever been experienced?Hendrix asked. If not, why not?

Once blown, many Western minds were also far more likely to put up with alien rituals and grueling disciplines that promised even deeper and more subtle experiences. The notion of practiceperhaps the richest and most multivalent term in American Buddhismis crucial here. One basic meaning of practice is technique: one does not believe, one acts (or, perhaps more accurately, action happens). In other words, one adopts a technique, an internalized technology or a psycho-behavioral recipe, and explores the results. Though the act of swallowing a sugar cube is a pretty rinky-dink operation compared to the rigor and depth of zazen or hatha yoga, psychedelics did teach people that altered states, even refined ones, could be accessed through technologies of perception.

Indeed, LSD was only one device in the countercultures ever-expanding occult tool kit, which included divination systems like tarot cards and the I Ching, biofeedback devices and flotation tanks, as well as a variety of internal and physical disciplines: breathwork, tai chi, massage, pranayama, veganism, Kriya yoga. Given the unprecedented technological experience of the baby boom generation, its not surprising that they developed the conviction that technique, in some form, was integral to the process of transformation and insight. Whether the technology was external or internal was less importantwas an acid test, with its feedback systems, light shows, and communal chemistry, inside or out? LSD helped ensure that the Eliadean metaphor of spiritual practices as inner technologieswould find its way into the lexicon of countercultural spirituality, so much so that today it appears in the writings of a serious Buddhist scholar like Robert Thurman.

The problem with the metaphor of technology is that technologies generally encourage a dualistic viewpoint, while mature practice erodes the perception that there is a doer using a tool to pursue a goal. This was an important lesson for American Buddhists during the freak years, when the goals were cosmic. In those idealistic times, there was a veritable obsession with the achievement of enlightenment experiencesan obsession that may have owed much of its ferocity to expectations first laid down by drugs. Over the decades, the emphasis has shifted away from such fierce pursuits, and many teachers go out of their way to deflate the excitement surrounding powerful meditation experiences. Indeed, I suspect that the hostility that some contemporary Buddhists express toward psychedelics conceals an anxiety that their practice remains tainted, on some level, with the desire to merely get high. But this is an understandable desireits hard to say how many people would continue to practice over the years if they didnt occasionally get the goods,whether on the pillow or on drugs.

But psychedelics dont just get people high. Like literal acid, they work to erode, on both individual and social levels, the apparently solid substance of conventional realityso-called common sense. Regardless of the otherworldly visions drugs can bestow, the deeper psychedelic message concerned the relativity of thought and perceptiona philosophicalinsight that drugs reveal directly through the operation of your own nervous system. Unfortunately, as Nietzsche saw with a prophets eye, relativity is only a stones throw away from nihilism. Strong psychedelics gave people a glimpse of emptiness, but while the void could be glittering at its peak, it could feel like a bottomless pit the morning after. The ease with which so many psychedelic users sank into cynicism, mental instability, and addiction to more insidious drugs shows that psychedelics themselves do nothing to build the contexts of meaning and spiritual aspiration necessary to prevent such ecstatic technologies from becoming hollow and even destructive mechanisms. Some of the new religious movements of the 1970slike the Jesus Freaksreacted against the druggy void with a new fundamentalism. But the Dharmawhose full-frontal embrace of sunyata is coupled with a compassionate rejection of nihilismseemed unusually poised to answer the problems posed by a stark psychedelic confrontation with the ultimate relativity and provisional nature of all phenomenal experience.

So how do we express and characterize the relationship between psychedelics and Dharma practice? The conventional answer, offered by many once-tripping Buddhists, is that drugs can open the door.Without much work or knowledge on the part of the user, psychedelics can crack open consensus reality, expand identity beyond the confines of the conventional self, induce ego-death, and unveil the connection between mind and the totality of the real. However unauthenticthese experiences may be judged to be, many people respond to them by turning to Eastern practice in order to extend, comprehend, and deepen their insights. Once their practice has stabilized and opened up, many of these people abandon drugs as needless or even harmful distractions. In this view, spiritual practice becomes something like the liftoff of Apollo 11. Drugs point you toward the moon of enlightenment, and somewhat violently thrust you away from the gravity of consensus reality. Having done so, they can then be abandoned like the early stages of a rocket. Or as Alan Watts quipped, Once you get the message, hang up the phone.

Here psychedelics, once again, play the role of a liminal technology. That is, like a doorway or a telephone, they stand in-betwixt and in-between, shuttling mind over a threshold. However, while the image of door-opener certainly jibes with many peoples life experiences, it also serves to cordon off and subtly under-mine the full force of psychedelic experiencesnot to mention their ongoing potential for insight. In other words, once drugs become nothing but expendable tools, the experiences they help provide (with more than a little help from the mind) can be ignored without being wholeheartedly denied. In Zen terms, they can be dispensed with as nothing more than makyo.

But what happens when serious Dharma practitioners continue to follow what poet Dale Pendell calls the poison path? What happens when you open the door and dont shut it tightly behind you? Here is where the real controversy begins. No ones logging any numbers, but I suspect that a healthy chunk of self-identified practicing American Buddhists keep at least occasional dates with the writhing, world-rending void lurking in the heart of psychedelic hyperspace. But I also suspect that, if asked to render judgment on such activities, most Dharma teachers would deliver a fat thumbs down. Indeed, psychedelic spirituality may well be the only real heresy in American Buddhism (except for maybe voting Republican). Heresy, though, is a Western concept, the stuff of witch burnings and gnostic cults. And though serious psychedelic culture certainly has its gnostic aspects, in the context of American Buddhism, it is perhaps best described as a kind of tantraa coarse and scan-dalous one perhaps, but homegrown at least, arising from our nativetradition of countercultural craziness.

Given the generally cheesy spectacle of American neo-tantric sexology, I want to emphasize that I am not claiming that psychedelics have much of anything to do with authentic Asian tantra, an immensely rich and complex tradition about which I have only a scattering of book learning. Nonetheless, in the spirit of productive analogies rather than proclamations of meta-physical truth, Id like to suggest a number of intriguing parallels. The most obvious one is secrecy. Despite their crucial role in the propagation of American Buddhism, psychedelics are basically not the stuff of Dharma talks, or Shambhala books, or Tricycle articles. Discussions can occur within the context of sangha and teacher-student relationships, but only selectively and probably not very frequently. One reason for this secrecy derives from another similarity: as with the pañca-tattva practices of left-handedtantric adepts, who, among other things, ritually consume booze, fish, and meat, the materials of psychedelic Buddhism are socially unsanctionedliterally, against the law.In fact, the condemnation that surrounds psychedelics may actually lend them some of their esoteric power, just as the negative social mores surrounding meat, alcohol, and sexual congress in traditional India contributed a certain antinomian buzz to the feistier tantric practices.

The connection between psychedelics and tantra goes beyond social practices, into the heart of esoteric perception. This material is difficult to describe, but one could say for starters that psychedelics usher the bodymind into a magical, liminal realm that unfolds between the consensual sensory world and the transcendental worlds depicted in dream, art, and high-octane metaphysics. Within this bardo zone,memories, ideas, and images multiply and pulse like hieroglyphic sigils, suggesting patterns of association and hidden resonances that voyagers often takeor mistakefor revelations. But the real object of revelation is the mind itselfnot simply as a source of meaning, or linguistic categories, but as an organic machine of perception, a machine that can be tweaked. Simply put, psychedelics present the imagination. And by imaginationI dont simply mean the source of our daydreams or visionary flights, but the synthetic power that Kant posited as the generally unconscious mechanism through which our basic conceptual faculties construct the world of space-time.

The status of the imagination in Buddhism is, to put it mildly, ambivalent. On the one hand, the imagination is often treated as a synonym for avidyait is the imagination that mistakes the rope of reality for the frightening (or seductive) serpent. The very literary form of the earliest Buddhist textstheir dryness, repetition, and lack of flavorargues that the desiccation of the imagination was a goal of practice. On the other hand, many Mahayana sutras are brimming with the materials of fantasy:galaxies of bodhisattvas, infinite garlands of wish-fulfilling gems, clouds of spheres of light the color of the curl of hair between the Buddhas eyebrows.All this can sound very familiar to a seasoned tripper. Indeed, I have not come across a canonical religious text that can approach the psychedelic majesty of the Avatamsaka Sutra, whose infinite details and ceaseless lists capture both the adamantine excess and fractal multiplicity of deep psychedelia.

The literary function of such apparently imaginativematerials is debatable. Are they glimpses of Sambhogakaya, crude folk material, depictions of literal powers, allegories of wisdom? Whatever its function in sutra, however, the work of the esoteric imagination in tantra is central, even on the most literal level of visualization. For the generation stages of tantra, during which deities and their associated mandalas are constructed with the inner eye, the merely individual imagination is used as a gateway, an engine to tame and train for the powerful perceptions of tantric reality. Through diligence, conduct, and ritual, the imagination itself is alchemically transformed, and the completion stages actualize, according to traditional accounts, what had only previously been imagined. Psychedelics are generally too chaotic and willful for this kind of controlled work; nonetheless, serious psychonauts will often encounter feelings, images, and pocket universes with an intensely tantric flavor. And why not? If one buys into tantric accounts of the subtle body, with its nadis and chakras and winds, then it is not too tough to imagine that, just as physical practices like hatha yoga, mantra, and tummo can stir up the energies of transformed perception, so might swarms of molecules swimming in the neural bath of the nervous system. Psychonauts who also practice yoga, tai chi, and visualization work regularly find these practices reshaping the phenomenology of their trips, sometimes in insightful ways.

Of course, even if drugs trigger actual changes in the esoteric bodymind, they may still be quite harmful, even demonica fear immortalized in the notorious claim that drugs somehow put holes in your astral body.As the scholar and historian David Gordon White makes clear, however, medieval Indian tantrics were not above ingesting alchemical elixirs, even as renegade sadhus ingest hashish and even jimsonweed today (White, 1996). It is hard to imagine that if LSD, peyote, or DMT existed in ancient India, these substances would not have been used by at least some folks who conceived of their path as tantra. Despite the thoroughly integrated example of Vajrayana in Tibet, the religious temperament of tantra suggests that some of its practitioners will almost inevitably stray toward heterodoxy; its extreme wings will adapt extreme technologies, dangerous or not. Representatives of orthodoxy may argue that such activities represent degenerate tantra, and they may well be right. But technology is about nothing if it is not about speed, and tantra is the lightning path, appropriate for a time of waning Dharma. Perhaps psychedelics are the greased lightning appropriate for an even more degenerate West, when even the Vajrayana seems like a laborious grind.

One red herring in the psychedelic debate is the rejoinder that drugs are artificial and cannot provide authenticspiritual experiences. Leaving aside the reverse spiritual materialism of this argument (i.e., that there are some productions of mind that we can legitimately embrace as authentic spiritual experiences), there is the evident fact that psychedelics can produce something like spiritual or visionary experience. In other words, instead of worrying about authenticity, we can look at them as simulators of the mind. The use of the individuals imagination in the generation stages of tantra, during which images, colors, and processes are constructed which only later become actualized, alerts us to the productive work that can be done by staging run-throughsof later, more profound experiences.

The most profound experience that lies ahead for most of us, practitioners or not, is death. Given the scandalous liberties Ive already taken, I dont want to draw too tight an analogy here, but the ultimate object of tantric simulation is the dying process: the loss of the elements, the experience of the clear light, and the bardo. Similarly, the most ferociously meaningful psychedelic experiences tend to be those in which something like dying seems to occur. These experiences can be so powerful that, even if some kernel of us knows that we are on drugs, they rip usdown to the bones. (The nature of the witnessing consciousness that undergoes intense psychedelic experiences is one of the koans of drugs.) Even if psychedelic ego-death itself does not resemble the actual dying processand given the dizzying range of psychedelic experiences across both substances and minds, I suspect it may often lie rather far from the markit may be the closest most of us come to having the world snatched away and replaced with an exhila-rating, terrifying, and blissful realm of deep cosmic mind. From this perspective, drugs can be seen as flight simulators for the bardo; certain substances, including ketamine, ayahuasca, and 5MEO-DMT, seem to lend themselves particularly well to this kind of work.

And it is work. Psychedelics can be as grueling, frightening, and anxious as any sesshin. Moreover, they offer any number of yawning traps for the spiritually inclined experimenter, and part of the kind and grizzled wisdom radiated by some longtime heads arises from the deep work required to avoid those traps. One of these dangers is the temptation to cling to the visions, to interpret the images or narratives or self-models that arise as being messages from some being or deeper plane of reality. Besides literalizing the imaginationthe sin of idolatry, if you willthis grasping overlooks the site of much of the real work. The visions are not the point. The point is how youchange in relationship to your experience, both inside it and outphenomenologically, ethically, aesthetically. There is no revelation but your own experience. And what is this experience? Submission to change, and the absolute truth of impermanence. After all, the altered states pass, obvious products of changing causes and conditionsin this case, eminently material ones.

Recognizing impermanence is a crucial ingredient for any spiritual path that involves altered states of consciousness, since the temptation to reify and cling to feelings, visions, and realizations is so overwhelming. This temptation leads to religionin the bad sense of the term, and it is one that Buddhism, at least some of the time, goes out of its way to undermine. One of the lessons dealt by psychedelics, at least for mature aficionados, is that they disenchant the very exalted states they introduce to the psyche. Not only do drugs demonstrate that such states can be generated by swallowing a pill or insufflating some noxious powder, but they invariably snatch those states away as they are metabolized and flushed from the body. Drugs are always and evidently upaya, or means.In contrast, the material or contingent aspect of purely spiritualaltered states of consciousness, such as those that, arise naturally in meditation, are not always so obvious, making the temptation to hold onto those states and experiences all the greater. Indeed, drugs may also have something to say to these apparently nontechnological states of consciousness that play such a profound role in deep meditation, reminding us that they too arise from causes and conditions that are material as well as karmic. In fact, drugs may encourage us to sap the illusion of essencefrom all states of consciousnessnot only from this serotonin trance we take for ordinary reality, but from even the most classicmystical experiences. And yet the powerful phenomenology of drugs simultaneously argues that we would be foolish to take these material causes as the only reality. Their illuminations are paradoxical, not simply profane.

The dark side of drugs goes without saying (if only because it is said so much). One does not need to be a genius, or even a psychologist, to understand how easily drugs can amplify delusion, dissociation, and spiritual materialism, let alone feed into patterns of behavior and consumption that lead ever further away from the Dharma. Even if the real horrors are avoided, I suspect that any-thing more than occasional use of all but the most sacred medicines does not help much in the long run. From the perspective of an established meditation practice, with which even a mild drug like marijuana can interfere, drugs can come to seem quite crude, even ridiculous, their once awe-inspiring dynamics revealing ever more mechanical, repetitive, and confusing effects. Nonetheless, at this point in the history of the spirit, spiritual practice and the psychedelic path are perhaps most fruitfully considered as distinct paths. Just as therapy is perhaps best seen as a complement of Dharma, sharing elements but also diverging in both goals and results, so might psychedelics be seen as a kind of shadow practice, with its own peaks and pitfalls. For most of us, it will seem, like the Bonpo side of Tibetan Buddhism, always a little dodgy, a bit too earthy and intense for comfort.

And it is this discomfort that makes psychedelic Buddhism a marginal subject, buried beneath the far more established narrative of psychedelics as an historical door-opener. This latter narrative is simpler to accept, not only because it takes the heat off the present moment, but because it accords so well with the larger American Buddhist boomer narrative, a narrative that still dominates the American Dharma.

You know the basic tale: the sixties were a crazy time of collective and individual experiments, including the copious consumption of mind-bending drugs. The fascination with altered states of consciousness led some to the deeper rewards of Eastern practice, which many embraced with radical, even revolutionary, intensity. But the 1970s and 1980s brought various forms of disillusionment: cult-like scenes, sex, power, and money scandals, the erosion of naive expectations surrounding spiritual attainment. While continuing to refine their commitment to the Dharma, many practitioners embraced more conventional careers, married and spawned, and became increasingly integrated and identified with mainstream society. Meanwhile, previously uninterested, largely liberal boomers began to turn to pop Dharma as a path of healing rather than a means of probing the fringes of the mind. Today, as the gray hair thickens and bodies start to creak, American Buddhism has become a rather conventional affair, especially when compared to the days of Trungpa, early Tassajara, and Be Here Now. The popular focus has shifted from the great doubt to the gentle heart, from fierce aspiration to everyday integration. Jack Kornfield says it all in the title of his recent book: After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.

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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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