My partner recently turned me onto a funny quote that goes, “Youth is wasted on the young”. Awe yes, Adolescence, the seemingly  endless chasm of angst where many of us experimented with psychedelics in one form or another. I myself experimented with them a handful of times under the neon transient beats of a rave.  The experience with what Carlos Castenada described as a “separate reality” definitely left a watermark on my consciousness.

When I first moved to the Bay Area, I went on a date with a landscape architect who dropped acid in the 70’s & had an all encompassing transcendental spiritual experience which he wrote a book about. “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” conjures up  images of crazy characters hopped up on various illicit substances  in a Dayglow bus tripping around the country.

The psychedelics of late, as represented by the studies that have come down the pipeline from various institutions,  paint quite a different story. One that coincides with a mental health trajectory. These studies have taken place over the course of decades with many of them emanating from veterans groups. Ketamine,LSD and mushrooms have  proven to be allies in the fight against PTSD, Major Depression and other various forms of anxiety disorders. There is a lifetime of research and data supporting this contention to the degree that a new certification has risen up in the mental health field for MFT’s who want to get their feet wet in psychedelic therapy (whilst doling out sugar cubes perhaps?)

Whether you subscribe to this type of research or not the fact remains many individuals are experiencing radical reversals in their diagnosis and/or the subsequent side effects therein.