Magic mushrooms are like cannabis, not for everyone! Let's learn about unintended consequences and possible side effects first!

I'd want a good deal of research before we prescribe this stuff or social drugs like ecstasy etc!

I heard a few days ago that the babies of ice addicted mums had to be given small doses of ice, to wean them off stuff they got addicted to in the womb?

There's just too many unknown unknowns here to support your experience as alt medicine, although it may well be?
Alan B.

Illegal or not, consciously & willingly letting any mind-altering substance enter your bodily system for pleasure sensation is simply plain stupid & you'll never find an intelligent, common sense person who does so !

Yawn, no credence and no clearwater here, for any originality to her revival strategy.

News: it’s all been done before, and the outcome is an off your face society, incapable of any serious ability to exist in a world outside of a Buddhist prayer mantra.

But I must admit, those from the sixties that dedicated themselves to dropping out, did well later with real estate development in goat country!

Makes you wonder really!

Dan

Individual, mostly agree with your take but note that, all indigenous folk have had access to various narcotics for millennia. From the peace pipe loaded with tobacco, to the mescaline of the southern Indians. The mind-altering, "natural" substance that had a place in religious ceremony or initiation.

Some South American tribes chewed the coca leaf to provide endurance, we harvested it, processed it to produce cocaine. The Maori found wood alcohol that fermented naturally inside hollow living trees as did the Tasmanian aborigine. Both of who used it before their tribal wars! And the mainland aborigine knew of several narcotics they used for various purposes including bush medicine.

But to highlight your point, the practice of sniffing petrol did damage exactly as you said! With long-term deleterious consequences that included brain damage and in some cases, blindness!

We know that cannabis can produce psychosis in some and some of the hallucinogenics/LSD can produce similar outcomes in some. And we know that ecstasy has killed dozens of concert attendees!

And everyone knows you can O.D., on heroin, morphine and sentinal!
Alan B.

As I read the first part of the article, I decided the effect of 'drugs' was akin to rebooting one's mental computer with an improved and 'refreshed' operating system.
As I read further, I saw that the writer concluded this as well.
That fact told me I was understanding what was written.
And, in my case, I reached this understanding without drugs.

It occurs to me that a person is born with a logical and uncluttered mind.
Over time, this will be subjected to a great deal of input from sources around him.
If he is not encouraged to exercise and develop his own mind, it will be swamped by the thoughts of others.
His head will be so full of externally sourced thoughts, that there will be little room for his own.
His ability to reason will lie dormant and undeveloped.
He will grow up as a kind of 'zombie'.
He will likely be confused, and subject to erratic behaviour?
He will be unable to cope with a normal life?

If we believe the writer, resetting can be achieved by 'drugs'.
I must point out that it can also be reset by truth.
Injecting truthful ideas in to one's consciousness can, over time, slowly 'upgrade' one's mental computer.
The sleeping brain comes to life, and the person will be better for it.
So, injecting truth has much the same effect as drugs do, although it takes much longer?

I think 'injecting truth' is behind the success of 'counselling'?
There, a person's mental computer can be returned to logical processing by the injection of truthful ideas?
Gradually, logic will have its day, and 'normality' will return.
Provided always that the mind in question is capable of it.

Short answer - I might send a longer one to TdJ. I really enjoyed LSD 1967/8 to '72; and contrary to what many said, I got real insight from it. But the insight was real for perhaps three weeks, then I had only a memory of the insight. In Vipassana meditation from 1972, I found a technique for real understanding and change, a practice which enables one to live a peaceful, harmonious, productive life, good for onseself and good for others. The understanding from direct experience of reality as it manifests within one's own mind and body is life-changing in a way that more transient approaches can never be.