An Interview with Ann Shulgin on Psychedelics and Self-Discovery

[mr peabody]

An Interview with Ann Shulgin on Psychedelics and Self-Discovery

MAPS: Can you discuss the influence of psychedelics on your own personal growth? Are there specific psychedelics that you consider particularly helpful tools for self-discovery?

Ann Shulgin: Every single human body has a different chemistry. So, just because a particular drug or visionary plant is my favorite, or has taught me a great deal, doesn't mean it's going to be so for anyone else. In one recent case, I said often, too often, that something called 2CB Fly was absolutely great for me. To me, it's the loveliest thing, especially for eroticism. But I found out that it's not interesting to anybody else. I realized that having said that, I was putting things in motion. The Internet was full of 2CB Fly, and people were asking about it and I thought “uh-oh.” It turned out that it's a disappointment to most other people. So if I say what my favorite psychedelics are, it's almost meaningless for other people, because they have to find their allies very carefully.

For example, 2CB, I think, is one of Sasha's really great inventions, and I think that 2CB is a pretty good friend to most people. But you come to something like ayahuasca--a close relative of mine feels that it's the greatest teacher that she's ever come across in the psychedelic world and I can't take it. Sasha and I had two interesting experiences with ayahuasca. We went to a special place where the ceremony was conducted by very dear friends of ours, and it was a lovely experience. Sasha has totally different kinds of experiences than I do, but both of us felt that it was not going to be a dominant thing in our lives, although it was pleasant and we had enjoyed it. So we were quite ready to try it again six months later. We went to the same place with the same people, and we took a very small amount. We were being very cautious, because we usually are. I spent the entire time holding onto my seat, hoping that I was going to survive, because I was being run over by a train. There was no way to learn anything, except how to stay alive. Sasha had a totally different experience, which was just as negative in its own way. He did a lot of vomiting, while I did none at all. Toward the end of my train ride, a voice in my head said, “Don't come here again.” I thought, “Uh-oh, well I'm not liable to, actually.” The next day, when everyone was having the second session, we decided we would participate. But, we decided to take a minuscule amount, just a half or third of what we took the day before, which was a pretty minor amount in the first place. The train started coming at me again, and the whole thing repeated for both of us, except it didn't last quite as long. And the voice came back, and it said, “Didn't you hear me the first time?”At which point I said, “Okay, alright!” I've never taken it again, and don't intend to do so. Ayahuasca is one of the best allies of a lot of people I know, but it's not ours.

Marijuana is the same thing. It would be great to be able to enjoy marijuana, because you could take it everyday, and we know a lot of people who do. Also, I don't like alcohol at all, so there's nothing I can take every evening if I feel like it. But marijuana is also something that neither of us can enjoy. Sasha feels that it's a waste of time because he doesn't learn anything. I finally found out from my daughter, what I had not understood, which was that not everybody has my marijuana experience. What happens to me is that I have a full blown psychedelic experience, only with paranoia. And that's not much fun. So all I'm learning is, number one, how to get out as soon as possible, and number two, not to take it again. Yet, marijuana is the favorite plant or drug of a tremendous number of people.

So, it comes down to experimenting, carefully, on yourself. Please always have a babysitter, no matter how experienced you are-always. I won't go into the things that can happen to hard-headed people with great experience who think that they can do it all by themselves and run into trouble. Always have a babysitter who is familiar with the territory, and who can come in and hold your hand, or say the right thing. I think that psychedelics are great spiritual tools, but like a lot of spiritual experiences, they can take you to very, very dark places, and you can spend quite a lot of time wondering if you're going to get through some of these experiences. So, be careful and be very respectful of your mental, emotional, and physical health. Take care of your body, and don't take a powerful drug or plant if you're not well. As for the effect of psychedelics on my life, I couldn't begin to tell you, because I have no idea what my life would be like without them. Since I had major spiritual experiences starting when I was an infant, I assume I would have found my way to some sort of spiritual searching or exploration without their assistance.

Psychedelics teach you about time. They teach you about the different levels of reality that aren't available to your conscious mind most of the time. They teach you that you're much saner than you thought, and that you probably are much stronger, mentally, than you suspected, and that you are capable of quite extraordinary things. I think that psychedelics are wonderful. But they are also not for everyone. Not everyone finds them an ally, and keeping that in mind those people should study hypnotism and learn the trance state, which opens the same doors. No human being is limited to one means of self-discovery. Use psychedelics only if you are quite sure that they are your path.

 

[Volsam]

Very good post, thank you mr peabody!

I too, realized after my first ever mushroom trip, how sane and strong I am, my deep 2C-P trip showed me that other people know about life and reality pretty much just the same as me, or in many cases, even less, but do pretend all the time like they do know it fully... Lots of life realizations made possible because of psychedelics to me. Just like Ann Shulgin said: "As for the effect of psychedelics on my life, I couldn't begin to tell you, because I have no idea what my life would be like without them."

 

[pupnik]

I feel very close to her way of being, thinking, speaking.

 

[Morninggloryseed]

Ive discovered that with the 2cs in general....we all have our own allies. For me 2ct7 is as perfect a psychedelic as there could be, but most people don't find that there...even in my circle who like 2ct7... Most are just as happy for 2cc or 2ce...but I'd always take the t7.

 

[Xorkoth]

Great post, what a great woman. We are all lucky to have had the Shulgins pave the way for us, with a really awesome blend of scientific methodology and the ability to explore and validate the subjective, non-clinical experience of psychedelics.

 

[psykolab]

Nice..

 

[mr peabody]

A New Class of Criminals
A therapist laments the loss to science of MDMA

When I first met and married Dr. Alexander Shulgin, known to everyone as "Sasha," he was still publishing his discoveries about psychedelics in the scientific journals. I had spent about three years working as a lay therapist, which means I had no proper credentials, no formal training and no reason to believe I wasn't nuts. I'd had no classic training in psychology, clinical or otherwise. During my first year of self-training, I sat with a few friends, a psychiatrist, a person who worked in state government, and then with a couple of patients I inherited from the psychiatrist. We administered MDMA at the usual psychotherapeutic dose of 120 milligrams, often with a supplement of 40 or 50 milligrams at the one-and-a-half-hour point. (In a few special sessions, we used another drug Sasha invented, a psychedelic -- which MDMA is not -- called 2-CB, which has a clean, uncluttered effect on the emotions.)

I learned a lot. Every new person was a new universe, and I had to listen carefully with both mind and heart and be prepared to make mistakes. And I had to learn that, when I did make those mistakes, it was vital that I admit them to myself and to the patient as soon as I realized I'd been wrong. In other words, I learned a lot of humility.

All this time, of course, MDMA was legal. Or, to be exact, it was not yet illegal. It was being used by a great number of psychologists and psychiatrists, all across the country and in Europe. But since it was an experimental form of psychotherapy, completely unrecognized and certainly unapproved by the medical and psychological establishment, there were no papers published in peer-reviewed journals, and most of us didn't really know what other therapists lay or professional were doing. Gradually word was getting around, and at social events some of us were beginning to compare notes about the best ways of using this magical insight drug.

The second and third year of my work as a lay therapist were different. I met, worked with and then became co-therapist with an extraordinarily skillful hypnotherapist. It was the most exciting work I've ever done. It was also exhausting. Sessions would last a minimum of six hours, and if there was a need for extended work because something important was trying to break through, we would keep going until the breakthrough was accomplished. I learned to limit these sessions to twice weekly because of the amount of energy it took to concentrate on one person for six or more hours with no more than bathroom breaks and perhaps a quick bite to eat, remaining ompletely receptive and keeping one's intuition active and all one's antennae wiggling efficiently.

In the 1980s, the legal departments of the scientific journals in which Sasha had been publishing his research got cold feet and his work with them came to an end. But we decided that this knowledge still had to be made available, especially to the scientific community. If we couldn't count on the cooperation of the journals while this new hysteria called the War on Drugs was obscuring common sense, we would have to get the information out in a book. We began working together on PIKHAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved): A Chemical Love Story.

There were no journal articles published on the use of MDMA in therapy. When the government decided to hold hearings on the possibility of scheduling MDMA, all the therapists who had been using the drug had been postponing writing about it, waiting for the time when they thought there might be more receptivity in the professional societies. Of course, as we now know, this was a tragic mistake. If there had been just a few good papers submitted to the most respected journals, we would have been able to use those papers as proof that MDMA had "medical utility," which would have kept it from being slammed into Schedule I, where the DEA categorizes drugs with "high abuse potential and no recognized medical use."

In 1985, MDMA was made illegal. I wasn't the only person who cried. This is a drug that for some clients could save months of time and expense in psychotherapy, a drug that allows insight into the parts of oneself that are unacceptable, unlovable and unbearable while at the same time in some way we still don't understand making it possible to see and acknowledge all these aspects of one's soul without self-rejection, self-hatred and self-loathing. This drug, I felt then and still feel now, could be the answer to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), especially in the case of war veterans. Research on the use of MDMA in the treatment of PTSD is just now beginning in Israel and Spain. This is research that should have been conducted 20 years ago.

When Sasha and I began writing our books, I gave up doing the therapy sessions not just because MDMA had become illegal, but because I knew I wouldn't be able to give the best of myself to either work if I tried to do both. Now, having stopped doing this kind of therapy for well over 10 years, I can lecture in public and write openly about it, while fully trained and credentialed therapists who continued using MDMA underground can say nothing without risking a charge of committing a felony. A strange, new class of criminal: psychotherapists who refuse to give up using a compound that helps rescue strained marriages, traumatized victims of assault and rape, war veterans who cannot come to terms with the hellish memories that haunt them, and people in search of expanding their spiritual world.

I detest the use of the term Ecstasy for MDMA, as does Sasha. Not only has Ecstasy come to be associated with raves, street sales of questionable product and lurid disaster tales on television and in the press, but the stuff sold as Ecstasy is not always MDMA -- there are, apparently, many people willing to risk the lives of eager young adults by selling them truly dangerous drugs under the name of Ecstasy. Also, the highest and best use of MDMA is in therapy and for personal insight, which is somewhat discouraged by noise and strenuous physical activity, like dancing. But considering that most large raves are held not far from big cities, and that the young people growing up in those cities learn very quickly to be suspicious of strangers, the use of MDMA at a rave is not entirely negative. Under those circumstances, sophisticated, street-wise young adults can let their guards down and for a few wonderful moments have a sense of euphoria and participation with people they've never met before. And euphoria is good for you.

Sasha is looking for tools with which to attempt an understanding of the human mind. (Not brain, but mind.) My search is a bit different. Psychedelics and visionary plants are, for me, tools for spiritual growth however you might understand that word, spiritual. My true aim in life is simple: I want to get as close as I can to understanding not just the human mind, but the mind of God and I want to be able to live with what I find. I believe that every human being wants exactly the same thing, only most of us don't manage to articulate the wish to ourselves. We don't realize that that's what we're all trying to do. Psychedelics are my way, but they are certainly only one of a multitude of ways, all deserving of respect.

-Ann Shulgin

 

[relbatnrut]

Ugh tearing up a little bit reading that. I admire her and Sasha so much.

 

[Goodwalt]

I find her words deeply moving. I'm extremely grateful to her and Sasha. They changed my life for the better.

 

[Xorkoth]

Wow, I teared up as well.

 

[Morninggloryseed]

Excellent read. Humans will be fighting for sensible drug policy for a long time to come. I hope the casualties can be kept to a minimum. Bless the Shulgins for the knowledge they have fosterer.

 

[Morninggloryseed]

^^^^^

No words, other than (note to self) be mindful to never give up on life and love ( or remember MGS, your Ann is out there).


Mmm mm m, love those guys, love u guys, pray I can love again one day.

 

[Xorkoth]

You will man, just do you, and be open.

 

[drseltsam]

What I find really interesting about Alexander's work is that he had the courage to try it out. I am not sure how much in his books is really his invention ir by others (like Nichols). Shulgin never talks about this in his books.

What he did was very obvious to do if you studied chemistry and the way he did it (the synthesis) is far from special- he was short on money and proper equipment.

What I admire is the fact that he saw it, probably like many before him, and tried it out. I like people who are brave

 

[ClarityPSY]

I got to meet her at PsychedelicScience this year! Such an honor. I got a copy of the Shulgin Index and she signed it! Exchanged a few words about Buddhism too, which is a major interest of mine. Unforgettable experience for sure.

 

[Volsam]

Awesome picture, love it!

 

[opiatekrzy]

Mods: why was my post deleted off this thread?

 

[busted.produk]

Great read(s)!!
Thank you mr peabody for the posts...
Also, with true gratitude(abundant and pure), thank you universe for the shulgins.

 

[mr peabody]

some photos of the Shulgins you may not have seen

 

[Volsam]

^^^ These are great, thank you! :D