The European Psychedelic Renaissance

[mr peabody]

The European Psychedelic Renaissance: Interview with Dr. Henrik Jungaberle

by Wesley Thoricatha | Mar 19, 2019

Dr. Henrik Jungaberle is the founder and executive director of MIND European Foundation for Psychedelic Science. In this conversation we discuss the cultural climate in Europe pertaining to psychedelics, efforts and resistance to mainstreaming psychedelics, what MIND is working on, and the upcoming conference in Germany, InSight 2019.

Thanks so much for speaking with us, Henrik. We haven't had much coverage of the European side of the psychedelic movement, so I'm very excited to speak with you today. To start off, can you tell us about yourself and MIND?

I'm from Berlin and I've worked at the University of Heidelberg for 18 years. Two years ago I founded the MIND Foundation together with 26 people, and we've now grown to be an organization of about 270 members. It's a charitable European organization based in Berlin, but we have people from Lithuania, Italy, Portugal, UK, The Netherlands and many other countries. At the beginning, we formulated a vision that we focus on in our work: establishing the psychedelic experience as a tool for personal and societal development. We have since developed a few studies without the direct use of psychedelics and are now part of a university network that works for starting a psilocybin depression study in Germany this year.

That's awesome. Can you share a little bit more about that study?

There are a couple of psilocybin studies going on. Worldwide, we have 6 teams working on it in New York, Baltimore, in the UK, in Zurich and Basel, and hopefully soon we are going to start in Mannheim and Berlin. In this study, we intend to treat 100 people with severe indications of depression who couldn't be helped with other therapies. So, like in other studies, we are going for the hardest section of the therapeutic spectrum. This is going to be the first study of its kind in Germany. Although we have a lot of things starting in Europe, Germany is one of the last in the queue and there are reasons for that.

Would you care to elaborate on some of those reasons?

I think there are a couple of such reasons. In the committees of the academic ethics boards, there still is a memory of those experiments that the Nazis did during the Second World War. Although that's a long time ago, we have people who try to make sure that researchers are not wildly experimenting. Everywhere in academia here, psychedelics are not well understood. There might not be a deep understanding of how psychedelics work in some of these ethics boards.

Another factor in the German-speaking countries such as Germany and Austria is that we have quite a large underground therapy scene, and there have been some accidents and deaths in the last years, so the press has been disproportionately reporting a lot about that. So there is a public climate that still has to be balanced with information about the potentials and benefits weighed against the risks, and that is not widely happening yet.

Just two weeks ago, we succeeded in having a very nicely done newspaper article, which for the first time doesn't focus on those underground cases, so that is already progress. Also, I don't know if you ever thought about it, but a lot of drugs come from Germany or Switzerland, German-speaking countries. Things like heroin and methamphetamine have been developed here, that had a largely difficult impact on public health, so there is a certain skepticism in politics about drugs in general. Like anywhere, it's also about a new generation filling the field and finding their place, and not being attached to the old narratives only.

Having said that, now a new generation is in politics and in academia and I can really feel that the psychedelic renaissance is just beginning to happen in Germany too. I've been in contact with a lot of researchers who are writing grants and writing science applications trying to start something.

That's fascinating to hear. In the US, we've taken it for granted that the stigma and the public opinion has really shifted quite a bit. Almost every day now, we're seeing news articles talking about psychedelics as the next breakthrough in mental health medicine, and there are virtually no reports of underground deaths or dangers.

Is that true for the whole of the United States or is that a California and San Francisco phenomenon?

The media is mostly based on the coasts and that's where a lot of the media opinion is set, but I'd say it's across the US. Of course, the more metropolitan areas you go into, the more likely people are to have heard about psychedelic science and the benefits. Interestingly, most of the concerns about over-exuberance and dangers have actually been raised from within the psychedelic community itself, because the press seems to be having a field day that this is the next big thing. It sounds like that's not the case in Europe.

What's also different between the United States and Europe or Germany is that you have more than 30 million people who have at least once taken a psychedelic in the United States. It's about a tenth of that in Germany. So you don't have that huge group of people with personal experience. That adds to the fragile public climate about that. And things do change: Michael Pollan's book has been translated and published 6 or 8 weeks ago, so that's also going to be a big success over here. Let's see what happens.

Yeah, that book has been a game changer for sure. Half the people who reach out to us now start out with 'I just read How To Change Your Mind'?

A lot of people in the addiction field here have read the book and now address me and invite me for talks and things. They say, "We didn't know there were these new things going on in the field!? People who are not in a social media bubble with psychedelics aren't confronted with this information all the time.

More and more in the US, people are feeling free to speak about their own personal psychedelic experiences, even though they were mostly illegal when they happened. It's more common to hear "I took LSD and it changed my life" or "Mushrooms cured me of my depression." How is the climate in Europe for people to be open about these things?

When it comes to mainstream TV or radio or newspaper, very few people have done that. I could count them with 10 fingers, and I was among them. What helped in my case is that I was for many years known as a prevention and harm reduction expert, so I have a voice in that field and that helps a lot in creating credibility.

Within our psychedelic communities and drug policy reform community, like over there [in the US] it's pretty common to talk about your own experience. In academia at professional conferences of psychiatrists and other medical professions, I haven't heard a lot of people speak about this. I've hardly ever heard anybody present subjective experience on the podium or in a talk. But something has changed since we organized conferences in the last years. We invited some philosophers and neuroscientists to speak, and they sometimes include the subjective experience. It's a legitimization for people to talk about the structure of their own experience, the individuality and the commonalities in experience. There's another group of public speakers building credibility, and these are philosophers like Chris Letheby from Australia. He has written a doctoral thesis about psychedelic experience and how you can philosophically understand it.

I recently connected with some people from Amsterdam where psilocybin truffles are legal, and they seem to have a quickly growing scene there. In the context of what you said about Europe being behind the US in mainstream acceptance, is The Netherlands seen as an outlier?

Things are starting to grow there, yes. That reminds me of a program that might be interesting to talk about. One thing that we created is workshop at the intersection of self-exploration, education and harm reduction: the workshop is called Beyond Experience. That workshop is addressed to people who either have psychedelic experience or are intending to dive into that soon, and it's all about not only knowledge but experientially finding out what this is all about. We took the ACT theory (acceptance and commitment therapy theory) to that, and we are doing a lot of training about dealing with avoidance, letting go, acceptance, so that people can really make use of the psychedelic experience beyond just taking the drug. So it's all about motifs and also competencies. That's a focus of mine in research, that I'm trying to find out how to support people in developing the competencies to have sustainable effect. Because I don't believe that it's the psychedelic substance that make the effect. Psychedelics create an experience that might be received and interpreted in a certain way by a personality, and there are skills involved in that. And that is a paradigm we are just developing.

I thought of this because we have a Beyond Experience group in Amsterdam, and we have one in Berlin, and we'll soon train people to get it out into other countries in Europe.

That's great, preparation and integration are as important, if not more important, than the experience itself.

It's on our horizon, too, to create an intersection between psychedelic treatment and addiction treatment. We're just in the process of writing an ethics application to get things out into the academic world. Another difference between the US situation and the European situation is that in the States for many years, MAPS was the lonely wolf in the landscape, and now the universities are starting to conduct research - Baltimore, New York, and some others. In Germany and Europe, you have a growing number of universities that have started. There hasn't been a strong organization like MAPS pushing it forward, so it began a little bit more though researchers, often connected to MAPS and the Beckley Foundation and other organizations, but who are still working in the academic field. And I like that, maybe because I'm an academic too, but I also like it because it provides a certain sense of integrating with the mainstream: bridging these experiences to the public, and translating what people experience there. Translating the new integration-based paradigm into the treatment of psychiatric disorders is extremely important I think, and not to just fall back into creating another bubble in society. So this is certainly something that we at the MIND Foundation are working on, to build those bridges.

I'd like to get into this concept of building bridges with the mainstream. Within the US, this has been a subject of debate. There are people who are all on board with MAPS. bring it into the mainstream, legalize it. We have for-profit companies entering the space now like Compass Pathways, who have been a little bit controversial for a few reasons. And there seems to be a vocal minority in the psychedelic community that says screw the mainstream, these substances should have always been legal, prohibition is terrible, and one of the great things these substances do is deprogram us from the imperialism and the social structures that are ruining the world. So there are some that are very against mainstreaming.

I don't really share that view. I think that mainstreaming is great and necessary, and even though it will be imperfect, we have to do it in order to help people from a harm reduction perspective, and also just to start shifting consciousness, bringing more ecological awareness and so forth. So I'm curious if in Europe there is this same dichotomy, where some are against bringing these substances into the mainstream.

Very much so, and especially in Berlin. We have a leftist-socialist-anarchist scene here, and this is very much interwoven with psychedelic festivals and psychedelic parties, and you can hear that attitude a lot from there. My personal attitude is, well, these groups very much stick among themselves; I don't see that they are growing a lot, and I think it's unethical not to bring some of these substances to patients or people who simply want to develop their lives. Also, I think that some people in those groups fighting for more radicalism often don't see that it's not the psychedelics that develop that radical attitude or environmental attitude, it's only a glimpse of probability in the psychedelic experience that people experience connectedness, but then you have to make something of it.

It's very improbable that a consciousness movement alone, without any technical changes or political changes in the larger sense, will save the planet, if it can be saved. It's simply not quick enough. If you look at the numbers of climate change and the dying of insects and everything else, conscious change only coming from the bottom up will simply not do it. So that's one of my arguments I bring to this field.

Having said that, I still think it makes a lot of sense to invite leaders in companies and in the political field to share this experience and explore another kind of thinking, another kind of relating to people, that makes a lot of sense to me. But I'm not simply hoping in a religious way for psychedelics to change the world. Does that make sense?

Yes absolutely, and I agree. I do have a level of belief that psychedelics can change the world, just looking at the generalized effects of the psychedelic experience: freer thinking, breaking down unhelpful patterns, increased environmental awareness and sense of connection with others. I have faith that as psychedelics and quality education about them reach more people, those generalized effects will become more common, and those are the shifts in attitudes and perspectives that we need in order to create an environment in which people are more supportive of the actions we need to take.

Using the language of Tim Leary or Ralph Metzner from the 60s-like "deprogramming" might not really be helpful in terms of finding out what people really need to create real change after a psychedelic experience. There are a lot more factors to change than consciousness, such as relationships, community, equal opportunities, and so on. There are also a group of people who simply withdraw from the political and societal game of building a valuable society worth living in. They just take the inner way and don't balance this with building something on the outside.

Speaking of building something on the outside, tell us about your upcoming psychedelic conference InSight 2019 and any other projects you're working on at MIND.

We're making a very special conference on September 5-7 here in Berlin. It's a pretty academic conference and we're also bringing a lot of people in from fields not often related to psychedelics, following our path of bridging to mainstream society. I've been to many psychedelic conferences and I found that some of them are extremely beautiful, and I've met wonderful people, but in terms of telling a story to people in more mainstream institutions, they have not been very successful. So we're trying to change that with our conference in Berlin.

I think at MIND we are pretty much trying to build structures top down for people who want to do bottom up work. That's why in our organization we organize in committees and provide people with structure, digital systems and conceptual structures and invite people to create projects. I think that really starts to be very fruitful. We had a number of papers written that come from a more public health perspective, not only focusing on therapies, but also addressing self-development and harm reduction (e.g. Positive Psychology and Psychedelics), and people are starting to change their methods of harm reduction at festivals in a pragmatic sense.

What I also like is that we are not just going the German way. From the beginning we said, "We are Europeans. We are living in a world where people are traveling and building identities beyond their nation state." That's what I like about this approach of people coming together. It surprises me that for a workshop or event, people are flying in from Lithuania or Lisbon or other places. It's amazing, and it makes us so happy.

https://psychedelictimes.com/2019/0...aissance-interview-with-dr-henrik-jungaberle/

 

[mr peabody]

Interview with French Psychedelic Society founder Vincent Verroust

Lana Baumgartner | Psychedelic Times | Oct 25, 2018

During a recent trip to France, Psychedelic Times co-founders Joe Mattia and Lana Baumgartner met with psilocybin researcher and French Psychedelic Society founder Vincent Verroust. The following is a transcript of an in-person discussion between Lana and Vincent about the past, present, and future of psychedelic science and culture.

It was such a pleasure spending time with you in Paris. It was especially inspiring to learn about your passion for psychedelics and to see how you’ve dedicated your time to research. Can you speak a bit about how you transitioned from your previous profession to what you’re doing now?

Yes, it was such a pleasure for me too! Funny how I strangely insisted to show you Phyllomedusa bicolor at the vivarium at the Paris Museum, unaware of your special relationship with this species…

Yes! We are still in awe of that divine moment when you introduced us to our precious Kambo, in person. We are so grateful for that introduction, so thank you again.

The pleasure was all mine. I love it when I get this impression of having accidentally guessed something meaningful for others…

To answer your question about the transition between my previous work- which was in the field of popularization of science for the public service- and my current investigations in the history of science, well… even though I was deeply enjoying passing on to grade school children my fascination for the living world and weird science stuff, I wanted to get back to research. Actually, my training is in ethnobiology research. I specialized in the study of the symbolic and technical use of nature by the residents of a nature preserve in Guinea, near Ivory Coast and Liberia. When I had the opportunity, I somewhat hesitated to go back to this because of the tragic Ebola outbreak in this region. Also, field research in anthropology can be really exhausting. For instance, I was not adamant to, again, share a bathroom with a poisonous snake, or to catch two different strains of malaria at the same time, or to eat a hard-boiled giant frog with a super spicy slimy sauce for breakfast.

Moreover, and more seriously, after I became a husband and a father, spending long periods of time away for field work became a problem. Also, I knew that the archives of Professor Roger Heim concerning his work on psilocybin mushrooms had remained unexplored. This is how the idea of starting a PhD in the history of science to focus on “the early stages of the research on psilocybin mushrooms and their consequences on the production of knowledge” began to germinate in my mind. I wrote a proposal, which fortunately was very well received by two renowned laboratories in Paris and Lausanne, where I found two wonderful supervisors. I strategically approached this so that my employment contract with the civil service administration would not be renewed, to avoid it becoming a permanent contract. Basically, I used my unemployment benefits to fund my PhD research. I like to say that it’s academic research hacking, in a sense.

It’s clear that you’re resourceful and very dedicated to the cause, which is so inspiring.

Thanks! Actually, France is still set back in terms of the psychedelic renaissance, despite the historical works of Rouhier, Ey, Delay, Heim… It is something that we want to change with the French Psychedelic Society, especially within academia thanks to my dear fellow doctoral researchers.

So what is it that inspired you to begin your research?

Back in 2003, I was a postgraduate student in environmental sciences at the French National Museum of Natural History. During that year, I did a short stay at a remote scientific station in Dinard, on the coast of Brittany. This scientific station of maritime biology was used as a kind of holiday resort by Professor Roger Heim, who was the director of the French National Museum of Natural History from 1951 to 1965. Well, during that stay, while rummaging around in the antique library, I happened to push a door and there I discovered some personal scientific papers of Roger Heim concerning the hallucinogenic mushrooms. Can you imagine my excitement? I photocopied all of it, read it entirely, and kept it like a treasure until I decided, 13 years later, to quit my job in environmental education to dive into doctoral research. I now have access to even more archives- like Heim’s voluminous correspondence with Wasson and Hofmann, for instance. It is so fascinating!

I’d love to pursue my career in academia, and would jump at the chance. But I’m also aware that it’s quite a challenge to achieve, because of the lack of funding in the social sciences. Sometimes I like to compare the situation of unfunded doctoral researchers to that of broke artists living the bohemian lifestyle: in the same way, they experience instability but enjoy doing passionately what they truly want to do… in between periods of stress! To better answer your question: as many do, I want to speak up for the integration of psychedelics in our unsustainable post-industrial societies. In the context of France, speaking up as a “learned guy” with a PhD stamp on the brow is easier- and safer- than speaking up as a user, whose opinion will unfortunately be easily overlooked. Consider the situation we have in France with cannabis policy, or with supervised injection sites, or with a compassionate approach to illegal substances abuse. It’s all so, so backward… I also have the strong desire to revive the memory of Roger Heim’s work and thoughts, for he is not only a forgotten pioneer in the multidisciplinary psychedelic sciences, but also a pioneer in whistleblowing in the area of the current global socio-environmental disaster.

I agree wholeheartedly and love your passion. When did you decide that you wanted to start the French Psychedelic Society?

I think both the Psychedelic Society of the UK and a text of Albert Hofmann inspired me to start the French Psychedelic Society, but I don’t remember exactly when I discovered these two different things. In 2017, I attended two psychedelic weekends directed by Stefana Bosse, and I was really impressed by this approach. It was so good. The society allows for people to have a meaningful spiritual experience: isn’t this the exact definition of sanctity? Actually, I think that the way the event was set up is perhaps what Albert Hofmann was calling for in his text “The Message of Eleusis for Today’s World.” As for me, I’ve always enjoyed sharing with my loved ones what I appreciate: music, movies, art, food, places… Now that, thanks to some life-changing spiritual experiences, I love everyone (well, unfortunately, of course not all the time, to be honest!), it seems that I want to share the fact that some interesting substances exist out there with… everyone! Hence, the foundation of a psychedelic society. I remember cooking rice at a “Psychedelic Weekend” in the Netherlands in March 2017, and asking Stefana “Do you know of any French people wanting to start a Psychedelic Society in France?” And she said: “Yes, maybe-I met a guy, Rojwan, in Prague, at Beyond Psychedelics 2016, who was already thinking the same thing.” Thanks to some emails I sent, I was finally able not only to get in touch with him, but also to find other cool people willing to take part in the foundation of a French Psychedelic Society. We had our first meeting in the summer of 2017. Quite quickly, we started organizing our first events.

This is incredible- I love how all of this aligned. What is your vision for the society? What purpose will it serve?

The French Psychedelic Society is mostly about popularizing psychedelic science and culture. So far, we have focused on science, having organized lectures, screenings and a wonderful colloquium last May with great speakers like Robin Carhart-Harris and other young French researchers in psychedelic studies (namely Zoë Dubus, Martin Fortier, Élise Grandgeorge, Vittorio Biancardi and myself) and also great discussants like Jelena Martinovic and Pascal Rousseau, among others. We want to help build local psychedelic communities by holding space for discussion amongst the users. But also and primarily, we want to speak with the “outside world”: physicians, journalists, fellow citizens, and hopefully politicians. By communicating about the topic, we aim to increase the probability of a wider cultural acceptance of psychedelics, and finally, clinical research with psychedelics in France.

Beautiful! We are happy to support this mission in any way we can. What is your dream for the future of psychedelics?

Well, I dream of psychedelics quietly being part of a society which has evolved to become truly socio-environmentally friendly. Or, maybe better: socio-environmentally affectionate. But I’m afraid it might be in a distant future. Short term, I can definitely imagine psychedelic initiation centers that would look similar to parachuting centers. Your doctor says you can do it, you learn about the risks and how to avoid them beforehand, and you are accompanied by a professional who is savvy with jumping into the unknown. When you have jumped a certain amount of times, you will have validated a license, and then you can do it by yourself.

I do believe we are moving in this direction, and I share your vision. What has been the most exciting discovery for you thus far, in your research with psilocybin?

Well, when I discovered the videotapes of a scientific documentary from 1964 about the hallucinogenic mushrooms of Mexico that was supervised by Roger Heim, yeah, I was really excited! I already had the first half of it, thanks to the video library of my former anthropology lab, but the entire movie was lost. Nobody at the Paris Museum knew where it was, and even the people who knew of it were scarce. Even the foundation that produced it didn’t have a copy- only the original reels trapped in round metal boxes, with moldy labels, double-locked by rust. A kind fellow researcher copied for me a pirate version that had discreetly circulated in Belgium ten years ago, but it is of poor quality. A few months ago, at the Audiovisual Service of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, I’d been shown walls of cassettes, given a ladder, and wished good luck. I then spent quite some time searching through dusty shelves that no one had touched for a long, long time. I coughed and sneezed a lot, sullied my hands, and soiled my clothes with patrimonial dirt before I was finally able to find two old Betacam tapes. The whole documentary lasts one hour and forty minutes and seems to drag on in some moments; nevertheless, it contains some quite fabulous sequences, like the sublime very first footage of Maria Sabina ever taken, in 1961. There are also some amazing experiments conducted in Paris in 1959 with volunteers who had ingested mushrooms, and the super fascinating follow-up study of the human guinea pigs four years later. One of the volunteers became interested in mystic philosophy, and another claimed that she became kind of psychic! I look forward to potentially translating this from French into English, and subtitling the whole documentary.

I also look forward to publishing all of the funny anecdotes and stories that I gathered through exploring old papers and collecting oral archives with old chaps. I found, for instance, that during the ‘50s Roger Heim’s scientific beliefs were shaken by his own self-experiments, and by his encounter with Maria Sabina, the seer. He became interested, yet maintaining discretion and prudence, in parapsychology. I mean, he was forced to consider the idea of a true divinatory power of psilocybin. I love so much this word that David Luke has coined: “psychedelomancia.” Now that everybody’s talking about microdosing, it would be so much fun if psychedelomancia became the new “most under-researched area” in psychedelic science! But to address this particular topic, one must be intrepid or crazy (and even stupid, some spoilsports might sarcastically add.) After all, divination was the traditional function of psilocybin when the Wassons rediscovered the hallucinogenic mushrooms!

If I may, I’d like to make a public announcement here: if somebody, somewhere in the world, plans to trip and would like to take part in a small ESP experiment, like remotely guessing an image, please write me! And again, if you have money to fund ESP research with psilocybin, please send me some! I have some side projects going on, apart from my PhD in History of Science…

What keeps you going? What inspires you to continue doing this work?

Enthusiasm! Obviously, psychedelics can not only be entheogens, but also enthusiasmogens. [Laughter] Hey, I must coin this term! By the way, “entheogen” and “enthusiasm” have some etymology in common.

[Laughs] This certainly resonates with me: we are pretty enthusiastic over here at Psychedelic Times as well. Can we wrap up with your most meaningful experience with psychedelics?

Well, it’s hard to choose between all the experiences that have had this particular feeling of encountering something sacred. But one of my first strong experiences, back in 2005 I think, allowed me to live my whole life again – which seems hard to believe, because you can’t make your past life fit into a few hours, right? This recollection included repressed memories of being a victim of violence and other painful memories that I was able to view as an observer without reliving the pain. It allowed me to quietly understand why, in certain situations, I had behaved in this or that manner. I better understood a lot of things about myself. It was incredibly psychotherapeutic. I remember being flabbergasted by the simple feeling of being at ease with myself, weeks and weeks after this particular experience. I can’t stress how life-changing this particular trip has been. So, I’d pick that one.

I would be happy to share other memorable moments, like being at a spiritual banquet…

[Laughs] Yes! Please continue!

I was apparently in Heaven, feasting with Egyptian gods, meeting entities, greeting Christian figures like Mary… and then I was given the permission to ask a question to “God” – and my question was answered! I’m still astounded by the fact that I clearly heard a response in my head (it was quite a loud solemn voice by the way, and a very helpful and deep thing to hear.) Also, sharing visions with partners never failed to amaze me, even though I mostly trip on my own. Having the sensation of being temporarily possessed by dead relatives and friends wanting to use my earthly body in order to see this world again through my eyes was very striking and moving too.

There was also another time when my spouse greeted me back at home after I had spent my day alone in the forest, tripping in a hammock. She asked me to guess a number, and I successfully figured out a three-figure number she was thinking of, without any clues! Isn’t this crazy? This brings me back to “psychedelomancia.” I will definitely address this particular topic in my PhD dissertation, and connect to Heim’s allusions to it. It is too fascinating! Oh, another thing… I was in Kurdistan last month, and I had my coffee cup read by a cousin of my spouse. The fortune teller said that sometimes, I see things that others can’t see. She then proceeded to accurately describe the memorable open-eyed visuals I had once of giant, colorful stained-glass windows in the sky. I was shocked! Can you get tired of being stunned and awestruck?

If you’re moved or inspired by Vincent’s work, you can donate here (https://paypal.me/VincentVerroust) or you can contact Vincent directly ([email protected]). The focal point of his current personal research is Psychedelics and ESP, and his academic research addresses the history of psilocybin science. In addition, Vincent is diligently working to build the psychedelic community in France through events and gatherings. Your support of this work contributes directly to the psychedelic renaissance in France.

Interview with French Psychedelic Society Founder Vincent Verroust

During a recent trip to France, Psychedelic Times co-founders Joe Mattia and Lana Baumgartner met with psilocybin researcher and French Psychedelic Society founder Vincent Verroust. The following is a transcript of […]

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