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consciousness
The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience: The classic guide to the effects of LSD on the human psyche
The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience was published in 1966, just as the first legal restrictions on the use of psychedelic substances were being enacted. Unfortunately, the authors’ pioneering work on the effects of LSD on the human psyche, which was viewed by its participants as possibly heralding a revolution in the study of the mind, was among the casualties of this interdiction. As a result, the promising results to which their studies attested were never fully explored. Nevertheless, their 15 years of research represents a sober and authoritative appraisal of what remains one of the most controversial developments in the study of the human psyche. Avoiding the wild excesses taken by both sides on this issue, this book is unique for the light it sheds on the possibilities and the limitations of psychedelic drugs, as well as on the techniques for working with them. With drug legalization an increasingly important issue, The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience provides a welcome and much needed contrast to the current hysteria that surrounds this topic.
Expanding Mind
Expanding Mind with Erik Davis. He explores the culture of consciousness: magic, spirituality, psychology, technology.
Green Earth Foundation
The Green Earth Foundation is an educational and research organization dedicated to the healing and harmonizing of the relationships between humanity and the Earth. Our objectives are to help bring about changes in attitudes, values, perceptions, and worldviews that are based on ecological balance and respect for the integrity of all life-forms on Earth. Our areas of research and interest include consciousness studies, shamanism and alchemy, Earth mythology, as well as green- and eco-psychology. We sponsor events featuring Green Earth Foundation founder Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., who (since his participation in the Harvard psilocybin project of the 1960s) has been exploring states of consciousness and transformational practices for over forty-five years.
Dying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary
Dying to Know is an intimate portrait celebrating two very complex controversial characters in an epic friendship that shaped a generation. In the early 1960s Harvard psychology professors Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert began probing the edges of consciousness through their experiments with psychedelics. Leary became the LSD guru, asking us to think for ourselves, igniting a global counter-cultural movement and landing in prison after Nixon called him ‘the most dangerous man in America’. Alpert journeyed to the East becoming Ram Dass, a spiritual teacher for an entire generation who continues in his 80s teaching service through compassion. With interviews spanning 50 years the film invites us into the future encouraging us to ponder questions about life, drugs & the biggest mystery of all: death.
The Way of the Psychonaut: Stanislav Grof’s Journey of Consciousness
The Way of the Psychonaut explores the life and work of Stanislav Grof, Czech-born psychiatrist and psychedelic psychotherapy pioneer. Stan’s quest for knowledge and insights into the healing power of non-ordinary states of consciousness, influenced the discipline of psychology and profoundly changed many individual lives. One of those transformed by Stan is filmmaker Susan Hess Logeais. The documentary utilizes Susan’s personal existential crisis as a gateway to Grof’s impact, from the micro to the macro.
LSD: Doorway to the Luminous, The Groundbreaking Psychedelic Research into the Realms of the Human Unconscious
A pioneering book that explores the unknown landscape of human consciousness induced by LSD and other psychedelics.
Shows the relationship between shamanism, near death experiences, and other mystical and altered states with those induced by psychedelics.
Lays the conceptual foundation for the creation of important new therapies in psychiatry and psychology.
Stanislav Grof’s first 17 years of research into nonordinary states of consciousness induced by LSD and other psychedelics led to a revolutionary understanding of the human psyche. His research was the impetus behind a vastly expanded cartography of the unconscious, including two new realms still unacknowledged by official academic circles–the perinatal domain, which holds memories of the various stages of birth, and the transpersonal domain, which mediates experiential identification with other species and mythic figures, visits to archetypal realms, access to past life memories, and union with the cosmic creative principle.
The research presented in this book provides a map of the psyche that is essential for understanding such phenomena as shamanism and near death experiences as well as other nonordinary states of consciousness. This map has led to the development of important new therapies in psychiatry and psychology for treating mental conditions often seen as disease and therefore suppressed by medication. It also provides a new threshold to understanding and entering the numinous realm of spirit.
Ketamine: Dreams and Realities
“Karl Jansen’s book Ketamine, Dreams, and Realities is a goldmine of information on this fascinating substance that combines in a unique way the properties of an anesthetic and a psychedelic. It is clearly written, well researched and documented, and presents a balanced and objective view point. The author’s broad perspective that covers all the aspects of Ketamine from pharmacology to its use in raves makes this book interesting for clinicians and researchers, as well as the general public.”- Stan Grof, M.D.
Psychedelics and Consciousness: Distinctions, Demarcations, and Opportunities
Psychedelic substances produce unusual and compelling changes in conscious experience that have prompted some to propose that psychedelics may provide unique insights explaining the nature of consciousness. At present, psychedelics, like other current scientific tools and methods, seem unlikely to provide information relevant to the so-called “hard problem of consciousness,” which involves explaining how first-person experience can emerge. However, psychedelics bear on multiple “easy problems of consciousness,” which involve relations between subjectivity, brain function, and behavior. In this review, we discuss common meanings of the term “consciousness” when used with regard to psychedelics and consider some models of the effects of psychedelics on the brain that have also been associated with explanatory claims about consciousness. We conclude by calling for epistemic humility regarding the potential for psychedelic research to aid in explaining the hard problem of consciousness while pointing to ways in which psychedelics may advance the study of many specific aspects of consciousness.
The Doors of Perception
Half an hour after swallowing the drug I became aware of a slow dance of golden lights . . . Among the most profound explorations of the effects of mind-expanding drugs ever written, here are two complete classic books—The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell—in which Aldous Huxley, author of the bestselling Brave New World, reveals the mind’s remote frontiers and the unmapped areas of human consciousness.