Library
Recommendations from Society Members
Doors of Perception - Aldous Huxley
The critically acclaimed novelist and social critic Aldous Huxley, describes his personal experimentation with the drug mescaline and explores the nature of visionary experience. The title of this classic comes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."
The Harvard Psychedelic Club (the story of Leary, Alpert, Huston Smith & Andrew Weil)
The Psychedelic Experience: a manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead - Leary, Metzner & Alpert
The Psychedelic Experience, created in the movement's early years by the prophetic shaman-professors Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), is a foundational text that serves as a model and a guide for all subsequent mind-expanding inquiries. In this wholly unique book, the authors provide an interpretation of an ancient sacred manuscript, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, from a psychedelic perspective. The Psychedelic Experience describes their discoveries in broadening spiritual consciousness through a combination of Tibetan meditation techniques and psychotropic substances.
Be Here Now - Ram Das
The electric kool-aid acid test- Tom Wolfe
Zig Zag Zen ( Buddhism & Psychedelics) - Allan Badger, Alex Grey
Link to pdf of Life Magazine’s 1957 article on magic mushrooms by Gordon Wasson
https:www.fungimag.com/summer-2011-articles/FungiSUM_HistoryFutureLR.pdf
Article that can be downloaded as pdf which is a comprehensive history of psychedelics-
Neuropharmacologist, 2017 October
The Therapeutic Potential of Psychedelic Drugs: Past ,Present and Future by R.L. Carhart-Harris & G.M.Goodwin
ncbi.nim.nih.gov/once/articles/PMC5603818/
Have fun reading
Research Papers
Psychedelics, Mystical Experience, and Therapeutic Efficacy: A Systematic Review (2022) Ko, K., Knight, G., Rucker, J.J., Cleare, A.J.
A meta-analysis that looked at 12 studies of psychedelic therapy using psilocybin, ayahuasca, or ketamine. They were all studies to test the effects of psychedelic-assisted therapy on certain afflictions, including treatment-resistant depression, MDD, cancer-related stress, tobacco addiction, alcoholism, and cocaine dependence.
Psychedelics Alter Metaphysical Beliefs (2021) Timmerman, C., Kettner, H., Letheby, C., Roseman, L., Rosas, F.E., & Carhart-Harris, R.L. Nature
A survey study performed on 866 volunteers who were planning on attending a psychedelic retreat, ceremony, or guided journey. The participants filled out online questionnaires about their metaphysical beliefs before their psychedelic use, and at timepoints afterward. The survey was also given to individuals in a psilocybin trial at Imperial College in London. FINDINGS: In general, participant metaphysical views shifted from a materialist, or naturalistic, view of the world (physical matter and energy and the known laws of physics are the only factors affecting our reality) to a dualist, fatalist, or panpsychist view.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acschemneuro.1c00815
5-HT2A SNPs Alter the Pharmacological Signaling of Potentially Therapeutic Psychedelics (2022) Schmitz, G.P., Jain, M.K., Slocum, S.T., Roth, B.L. ACS Chem Neurosci
Research on different 5-HT2A serotonin receptors resulting from genetic diversity present in the human population. Found that these receptors can interact differently with psychedelics, including 5-MeO-DMT, LSD, psilocin and mescaline, compared with normal (wild-type) 5-HT2A receptors.
