CONNECTING, DIVERGING, AND RECONNECTING: PUTTING THE PSI BACK INTO PSYCHEDELIC RESEARCH1

摘要

It is with the last category, drugs, that I found reports of the intentional use of psychedelic plants for psychic experiences across all five continents, from the use of nicotine-rich pituri (Duboisia hopwoodii) by indigenous Australians (Australian Institute of Parapsychological Research, 2004) and datura (Datura metet) on the Indian subcontinent (Schultes & Hofmann, 1992), to die use of iboga (Tabernanthe iboga) in central Africa (Pinchbeck, 2002) , Syrian rue (Peganum harmala) in north Africa and the Middle East (Rudgley, 1998), mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) in Europe (Müller-Ebeling, Ratsch, & Stori, 2003), and fly-agaric (Amanita muscaria) mushrooms in Siberia (Rudgley, 1998) and north America (Wasson, 1979). [...] we have a whole medicine cabinet full of different "psi-chedelic" plants and fungi in Mexico alone, ranging from the use of peyote cacti (Lophophora Williamsii) by the Huichol Indians in the North (Slotkin, 1956), to teonanacatl (mushrooms of the Psilocybe genus) and ska pastora (Salvia divinorum) use by the Mazatecs in the South (Soutar, 2001; Wasson, 1962) - not to mention South America, where we find an enormous pharmacopeia of natural plant psychedelics that have been used traditionally for psychic purposes for millennia. For law enforcement agencies they are narcotics or drugs; for medics and traditional scientists they are hallucinogens, because they cause hallucinations - a term which conveniently obscures more than it explains - for therapists and those researching the potential benefits of these substances, they use the more neutral "psychedelic," simply meaning "mind manifesting" (Osmond, 1961).n Any discoveries forthcoming about the neurochemistry of these processes equally applies whether these experiences are shown to be genuine or not, because we can learn something about die neurobiology of paranormal experiences at the very least.