Thomas Merton on Art as Meditation

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The following is excerpted from A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creative Spirituality Journey by Matthew Fox, printed with permission of New World Library

 

Was Thomas Merton himself familiar with art as meditation? Of course he was. First, as a writer, he no doubt experienced moments of ecstasy and union/communion in his research and finding of truth and in sharing it. This is the joyful vocation of a writer. This is surely why he was so fecund a writer, leaving behind dozens of books and hundreds of articles and essays.

We also know that Merton was a very serious photographer, and we can see in his photography much spiritual depth and insight along with skill and discipline. His friend and official biographer, John Howard Griffin, introduced Merton to his first camera. Griffin subsequently wrote an entire book on Merton’s photography, A Hidden Wholeness: The Visual World of Thomas Merton. He observed that for Merton, “the camera became in his hands, almost immediately, an instrument of contemplation.” He points out how Merton included the Via Negativa in his picture-taking for “his concept of aesthetic beauty differed from that of most men. Most would pass by dead roots in search of a rose. Merton photographed the dead tree root or the texture of wood or whatever crossed his path…seeking not to alter their life but to preserve it in his emulsions.” For Merton, said a friend, “photography is a way of framing wholes so that suchness reveals itself.” But suchness, as Dr. Suzuki put it, is the Cosmic Christ in Christian parlance. For it is about how every being is an image of God. Said Suzuki: “In Christian terms [suchness] is to see God in an angel as angel, to see God in a flea as flea.”

Indeed, on his final journey, Merton was often taking pictures, and he shared with us his philosophy of photography: “The best photography is aware, mindful of illusion and uses illusion, permitting and encouraging it — especially unconscious and powerful illusions that are not normally admitted on the scene.” For Merton it is not the camera that does the taking for “the camera does not know what it takes: it captures materials with which you reconstruct, not so much what you saw as what you thought you saw.” A friend comments that Merton “was not a ‘photographer.’ For him, the camera was merely another tool ‘for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn’t attending to,’ ” as Susan Sontag put it.

Three days before he died, on December 7, Merton recorded in his journal, “I sent contact prints to John Griffin with a few marked for enlargement. Took nine rolls of Pan X to the Borneo Studio on Silom Road, hoping they will not be ruined.” John Griffin wrote the Borneo Studio after Merton’s death and acquired these last photos from Merton, including them in his book A Hidden Wholeness. Thus, they were not ruined. So right up to the end, Merton was engaged with his photographic vocation — art as meditation, indeed! Griffin described his last meeting with Merton before he left for his Asian trip, which included a telling description of the joy that Merton found in art as meditation:

On my last visit with him before his trip to Asia, we went out together to photograph. He had now developed a photographer’s eye. He became excited by almost everything he saw — the peeling paint on window facings, plants, weeds, the arrangement of a stack of wood chips….I photographed him in the act of photographing, an activity in which his joy was unblemished and which added a special aura of happiness to his features.

Yes, art as meditation does bring joy, and it brought joy to Merton right up to the end.

Psychologist and ex-Benedictine Thomas Moore had this to say about Merton’s love of photography:

I am also inspired by Merton’s practice of photography. Notice that I connect his art with his spiritual life as he did in his writing. It makes complete sense that he would have discovered an art that smoothly connected his contemplative life with the world around him in a form analogous to his writing….he wrote his books and his casual writing, if you can call it that, as an artist careful with his style, even though he was such a master at it that it seems easy and natural. Most artists move from a primary art to a secondary or complementary one, and Merton’s turn to photography was a major movement in his life.

Moore names Merton’s discovery of photography as an art and prayer form “a major movement” in his life. Moore elaborates on the role of art as meditation in Merton’s vocation:

Merton’s photographs inspire me to connect the arts to the spiritual life as integrally and as tightly as possible. When I encourage people to engage an art as spiritual practice I often remind them how in history and around the world religions and the arts have been linked so closely that it’s difficult to imagine one without the other. But Merton refines that idea. He invites us to zoom in on it and notice that our meditations are complete when we can use the lens of a camera to see the interiority or the art forms of the world around us. The camera frames our world so that we can transform it into an image that speaks to the soul and spirit and is an object of contemplation.

Merton admired the Hindu tradition in which all artistic work is recognized as a form of yoga. In this way, he commented, “there ceases to be any distinction between sacred and secular art. All art is Yoga, and even the art of making a table or a bed, or building a house, proceeds from the craftsman’s Yoga and from his spiritual discipline of meditation.” This is a fine way to name the process of art as meditation, and Merton does so word for word. Indeed, by embracing a “craftsman’s Yoga,” Merton endorses a broader spirituality of work. He wrote: “Your work is your yoga and it can lead to a sense of being one with God….Basically, Hinduism says that your everyday work can lead you to union with God. No matter who you are, no matter how material the work is, it can unite you with God.” This parallels my theology, and my teaching of the “priesthood of all workers,” as laid out in my book The Reinvention of Work, which was the basis of the unique doctorate of ministry I created at the University of Creation Spirituality.

Merton also turned to calligraphy as an art and meditation experience. Griffin wrote, “Thomas Merton referred to his calligraphic drawings in a variety of terms…he called them abstractions, abstract writings, marks, signatures, signs, and sometimes calligraphies.” Griffin cautioned: “No need to categorize these marks. It is better if they remain unidentified vestiges, signatures of someone who is not around.” Merton held some public exhibitions of these drawings as well. Griffin wrote that Merton

trusted in the “connections” that would somehow be made between the observer and the images, particularly if the observer could see them simply as what they are: Free expressions, signs executed without preplanning, having their own reality. Merton hoped that this reality would not be obscured by undue explanations or analyses…abandon all attempts to decipher “what they mean” or “how to interpret them.”…They ask nothing at all. They demand nothing at all. They just are and that is all. “Does there always have to be a reason for everything?” Merton asked again and again in his writings.

Griffin concluded, “The drawings are free and they leave the viewer free.”

Merton also liked music. He was so in love with jazz that almost every time he could leave the monastery and go into the nearby city of Louisville, he would gravitate to what was then the segregated, black area of town and hang out in the jazz clubs. To this day, many local African Americans, now old, tell stories of hanging out and talking jazz with Merton when they were young. He could play the piano, and he admired the music of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. Once, with a third party present, Merton and Baez had a picnic on the monastery grounds, in which Baez reported that Merton got a bit tipsy from too much champagne. When French philosopher Jacques Maritain visited Merton in 1966, Merton described Bob Dylan to him as “the American Villon” and said he was preparing a study of Dylan’s poetry and songs. Merton put on a recording of some of Dylan’s songs and played them at full volume. “The Dylan songs blasted the still atmosphere of Trappist lands with the wang-wang of guitars and voice at high amplification.”

Merton was not the only one who was impacted by Baez and Dylan; I was, too, and during the same time period. In the mid-1960s, while the Second Vatican Council was in session, the strict rules were relaxed in our Dominican training, and we were allowed to listen to recordings of folk singers, of which Joan Baez made a special impression on me. My first encounter with Dylan occurred when a sort of traveling minstrel, a young hippie troubadour walking the country, showed up at our studium in Dubuque, Iowa, and played Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’ ” at the picnic table behind our priory. I was deeply moved. In the 1970s, after I returned to Dubuque after my Parisian sojourn, Peter, Paul, and Mary became the most influential mystic-prophet troubadours among my young Dominican brothers studying for the priesthood.

Merton was also a serious poet. We can feel his soul in his poems, such as in this tribute to the grace one feels while chanting the psalms, a practice that his monastic community undertook several times a day and in the middle of the night:

When psalms surprise me with their music

And antiphons turn to rum

The Spirit sings: the bottom drops out of my soul

And from the center of my cellar Love, louder than thunder

Opens a heave of naked air.

Merton said, “Poetry is not ordinary speech, nor is poetic experience ordinary experience. It is closer to religious experience. Rasa is above all santa: contemplative peace.” In a discussion with Dr. V. Raghavan on rasa and Indian aesthetics, Merton reported that together they “discussed the difference between aesthetic experience and religious experience: the aesthetic lasts only as long as the object is present. Religious knowledge does not require the presence of ‘an object.’ Once one has known Brahman one’s life is permanently transformed from within. I spoke of William Blake and his fourfold vision.” Among Merton’s jottings in his Asian Journal are passages from many writers, which he wrote down possibly for meditation or for future commentary. One such passage from G. B. Mohan’s book The Response to Poetry reads as follows:

Aestheticism which fails to integrate art with life and crude moralism which reduces poetry to sermons perpetuate the end-means conflict. Aesthetic experience is both an end in itself and a means for a fuller realization of human values….By pointing out unsuspected affinities between apparently dissimilar things, by establishing meaningful relations between apparently unrelated phenomena, poetry extends the range of our awareness.

One can presume that Mohan is in some way speaking for Merton’s appreciation of poetry and its capacity to “extend the range of our awareness.”

Merton was also keen about visual art, and he wrote movingly about cave art and iconography, such as in the following story:

No art form stirs or moves me more deeply, perhaps, than Paleolithic cave painting — that and Byzantine or Russian icons. (I admit this may be really inconsistent!). The cave painters were concerned not with composition, not with “beauty,” but with the peculiar immediacy of the most direct vision. The bison they paint is not a mere representation of an animal, it is a sign, a gestalt, a presence of the unique and peculiar life force incarnated in this animal — in terms of Banta philosophy, its muntu. This is anything but an “abstract essence.” It is dynamic power, vitality, the self-realization of life in act, something that flashes out in a split second, is seen, yet is not accessible to mere reflection, still less to analysis. Cave art is a sign of pure seeing, nothing else.

While traveling in India with friend Amiya Chakravarty, Merton visited the home of painter Jamini Roy, “a warm, saintly old man,” where Merton described encountering “simple, formalized little icons with a marvelous sort of folk and Coptic quality absolutely alive and full of charm, many Christian themes, the most lovely modern treatment of Christian subjects I have ever seen.” Merton concluded, “All the faces glowing with humanity and peace. Great religious artists. It was a great experience.”

Merton had a powerful experience in meditation at the large sacred statues of the Buddha at Polonnaruwa, Ceylon.

I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of Madhyamika, of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything — without refutation — without establishing some other argument.

He explains how it hit him so hard, becoming a breakthrough event:

I was knocked over with a rush of relief and thankfulness at the obvious clarity of the figures, the metal bodies composed into the rock shape and landscape, figure, rock and tree. And the sweep of bare rock sloping away on the other side of the hills, where you can go back and see different aspects of the figures. Looking at these figures I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious….The rock, all matter, all life, is charged with dharmakaya…everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. I don’t know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together on one aesthetic illumination.

He tells us that this mystical/aesthetic experience with the Buddha statues was the culmination of his pilgrimage to the East. “My Asian pilgrimage has come clear and purified itself. I mean, I know and have seen what I was obscurely looking for. I don’t know what else remains but I have now seen and have pierced through the surface and have got beyond the shadow and the disguise. This is Asia in its purity.”

Sister Lentfoehr said that, in a Chilean magazine interview in 1967, Merton “named himself not only the author of ‘many books of prose and poetry’ but also an artist, and though living ‘as a hermit, solitary in the forest in contact with groups of poets radicals, pacifists, hippies, artists, etc. in all parts of the world.’ ” It is true, Lentfoehr observed, that “Merton considered himself a poet, and he was that, and it is highly interesting to trace his poetic development over the years — from the early poems which he chose to keep, to his latest, so-called antipoetry, strongly marked by sociological concern and a richly orchestrated neo-surrealist technique.” Ross Labrie, in The Art of Thomas Merton, concluded that Merton is

recognized as an important figure in recent American poetry. The range of his work strikes one in retrospect as impressive — from the austerely beautiful religious lyrics of the early period to the inventiveness and structural complexity of the later style. In the late 1960s he had finally come to feel that the poet and the contemplative in him were one, and this confidence gives the later poems an attractive energy and buoyancy that seem in hindsight to have been full of promise.

Merton was a poet, an essayist, a diarist, a narrative writer, and a spiritual author. He told his friend Robert Lax that his poems helped his calligraphies, his calligraphies helped his poems, and his calligraphies helped his manifestos. He identified himself as a writer, confiding to a friend, “There is something in my nature that gets the keenest and sharpest pleasure out of achievement, out of work finished and printed and distributed and read.” The Via Creativa, indeed!

As we have seen, Merton was also a photographer, a lover of visual art and music, and he drew as well. He was also very outspoken and very much practiced in the art of friendship — an art form that is often quite rare in American society, especially among men. Indeed, this was driven home to me when I was living on a Basque farm in the foothills of the Pyrenees in southwestern France (Merton was born in Prades, France, in the southeastern Pyrenees). One night in the local family-run inn where I ate my dinners, we watched the first moon landing on a black-and-white television. Afterward, an unknown visitor came to see me, a ninety-year-old Basque priest who came limping through the door on a cane. He approached me, shook my hand excitedly, and extended his congratulations: “Bravo!” he said. “Who but the Americans could land someone on the moon? Congratulations!” Then he added, “But when it comes to friendship, you Americans are morons.” And with that he turned around and left the room.

Merton was not a moron. His friends and friendship were important to him. Sister Lentfoehr reminds us that in September 1968, just three months before his death, Merton wrote an article entitled “The Monastic Theology of St. Aelred,” a saint and English Cistercian. Merton had studied St. Aelred in depth as a young monk, especially Aelred’s well-known treatise on friendship. Merton wrote, “The natural basis for this theology of friendship is of course the indestructible inclination to love which is the divine image in us.” He employed the phrase “an apostolate of friendship” — and he practiced it. In just one collection of Merton’s letters, the great range of individuals he wrote to included people in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, England, Japan, and Pakistan. As one person put it, this testifies “to the ever-widening circle of friendships he built through his correspondence.” Of course, this was decades before email! Among his friends by correspondence were peace activists such as Dorothy Day, James Forest, Jean and Hildegard Goss-Mayr, Dan and Philip Berrigan, and Gordon Zahn; writers such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Wendell Berry (who visited him in his hermitage), Boris Pasternak, Czeslaw Milosz, Bill Everson (Brother Antoninus, who visited him in his hermitage), and Henry Miller; psychologists and psychoanalysts such as Erich Fromm, Karl Stern, and Joost Meerloo; scientists like Leo Szilard, and more.

John Howard Griffin, one of his closest friends, said that Merton had a “genius for friendship.” Griffin wrote:

Thomas Merton found no inconsistency in seeming opposites. He was a hermit, with a true vocation for solitude and at the same time he had such a boundless affective nature that he made and cherished deep friendships. He counted as friends the famous and the unknown of the world. Many who never met him except through correspondence were authentic friends. He had a genius for friendship in that he gave of himself without demanding anything. His closest friends reflected that genius, never intruding unduly, leaving him free as he left others free.

One friend Merton made on his final trip to Asia was Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who was only thirty-one years old at the time and made a deep impression on him. Merton considered him “a good friend of mine — a very interesting person indeed…who got the complete reincarnation treatment: a thorough formation in Tibetan science monasticism, and everything,” and who had to escape from Tibet “to save his life, like most other abbots.” Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche later started the Naropa Institute (which became Naropa University). After his death, Naropa University linked up with my University of Creation Spirituality and accredited our master’s program in Creation Spirituality in Oakland for seven fruitful years.

***

 

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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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