How to Use Psychedelics for a Healthy Mind and Direct …

Psychedelic medicines are some of the most powerful tools in the world for personal healing and psychological growth. This guide is intended as a starting point for using psychedelics for personal healing, recovery, and development, on your own or with a mental health professional. This site is science-focused: at the bottom of each page, we link to articles and research studies related to the particular substance, treatment goal, and treatment method.

For an overview of recent research with mushrooms and LSD, take a look at Michael Pollan's wonderful 2015 New Yorker Cover Story, The Trip Treatment and the video Magic Mushrooms and the Healing Trip.

UPDATE: We are supporting the 920 Coalition's work to build a day of events around psychedelic mushroom research and awareness. Read more and join or participate in an event here.

All of our guides are listed on the left sidebar. Some of our most popular are:

Treating Depression >> Treating Anxiety >> Mushroom Guide >>

Research at major medical centers over the past few years have shown remarkable results in the treatment of conditions such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and anxiety. The same protocols used in these research settings can be done at home or with an independent practitioner and frequently lead to new insights and dramatic breakthroughs in mental health. This site is designed to help you do that.

Psychedelic medicines provide a path of treatment that is often more effective and rapid than other methods, and with many fewer side effects than pharmaceutical options. In addition, psychedelics have been effective for patients who have not made progress with other approaches.

Several organizations are working with and funding research at major medical centers around the world to expand the use of these drugs for therapeutic purposes. More than 50% of Americans support legalization of marijuana and that number is rising every year. Over 75% now support medical marijuana access. Recently, several countries and many US states have authorized use of marijuana for medical and personal purposes and other psychedelics are moving quickly towards approval as prescription medicine. See our resources page to learn more.

Psychedelics have also been shown to reliably and predictably provide powerful spiritual and religious experiences and to create lasting positive personality changes, increasing emotional openness and acceptance of difficult experiences. In a recent Johns Hopkins research study that administered psilocybin mushrooms, "94 percent of subjects said that it was one of the five most meaningful experiences of their lives; 39 percent said that it was the most meaningful experience" (New York Times).

Unless you know a lot about psychedelics, you probably have mostly inaccurate information floating around in your head. We certainly did, until we started reading and having our own experiences. But times are changing very fast and the conversation is quickly moving back to reality-- new research on psychedelics is accelerating at major universities and legalization of marijuana is now supported by the majority of the population.

Even a cursory review of the research shows that psychedelics are dramatically safer and have far fewer side effects than alcohol, cigarettes, narcotics, and most pharmaceutical anti-depressants (please, read the research!). Yet marijuana, mushrooms, LSD, MDMA, and other substances have been lumped into the futile war on drugs and now two generations have grown up with a completely distorted understanding of what should be understood as medicines.

We are a group of friends, professionals in our late 20s and 30s-- theres a lawyer, a mobile game company CEO, a television producer, a non-profit director, a reporter, and a filmmaker. Half female and half male. White, black, and asian. Psychedelics have helped to open us emotionally, relieve stress, depression, and trauma, connect more deeply to our creative core, and have given us powerful spiritual experiences that weve never had before.

All of us have been both surprised and amazed over the past few years as psychedelic experiences have become an important part of our lives and of the people around us.

We were surprised because these incredible tools have been so overlooked and misunderstood that we could have gone through our whole lives without having seriously explored them. Its actually a little bit scary to think how easily that could have happened and how much we would have missed out on. We feel very lucky.

And we are amazed at the extent of the positive impact on our lives and our work, and the incredible freedom that weve felt in the experiences and afterwards. We want to share this.

When used intelligently, in positive environments, and with purpose, psychedelics bring love, energy, creativity, and healing to individuals and to society.

Canadian psychiatrist Dr. Humphry Osmond coined the word 'psychedelic', a combination of the Greek words for 'mind' and 'make visible, reveal'. We hope to bring some clarity to the subject of psychedelics, which in turn bring clarity about our own minds.

Weve created this site because, despite all the information available about psychedelics, we havent found a clear, simple, and up-to-date guide thats grounded in science. You can help us change how the world sees psychedelics by sharing this guide with your friends and helping to create positive environments for them to make psychedelics a healthy part of their life.

To be clear, psychedelics are very powerful medicines and they have risks. Like almost everything that gets ingested in our society, they can be misused and are very misunderstood. Even many intelligent people who used psychedelics repeatedly in their youth did so in a party setting and have never experienced the psychological and spiritual benefits that emerge in an intentional session. The difference is dramatic.

We cant recommend that anyone use psychedelics and we urge you to be extremely careful about the dose and quality of the substance, setting of use, the age of the individual and their mental state, and potential supplement and drug interactions. Prohibition of these substances in many locations has made it more difficult to create a safe environment, but doing so is essential.

And please be in touch and let us know what could be better-- we will be making updates and adding new research frequently.

Psychedelics have been misunderstood and misrepresented for decades. That's changing. Please help us share safe, responsible information on using psychedelics by sending this page to friends, and posting to Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Read this article:

How to Use Psychedelics for a Healthy Mind and Direct ...