PSYCHEDELICS - Sciencemadness.org

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____________________________________________________ Psychedelics
effort, to earn the right to have and to keep this reality. I
know that I, too, may become the way, the truth, and the
life."
To many it seems strange that the ingestion of a cactus can
change one's outlook on life so dramatically, but modern
chemistry has produced many compounds that modify the
mind of man by changing the chemistry of the body. Tran-
quilizers—chemicals that relieve tensions, neuroses, and even
psychoses—are well known. The psychedelics, however, when
properly used, have a more constructive effect in that they
may help produce understanding, and thus, unlike the tran-
quilizers, can remove the cause of the tensions, occasionally
in a single dose. They have the unusual effect of opening
wider the doors of perception and self-understanding. On the
physical level, they enable one to see with new vision and to
hear with new appreciation. A great many who have been
through this experience find a much keener enjoyment of na-
ture, of flowers, trees, mountains, and a greater appreciation
of the arts. On an extended level, one may develop an aware-
ness of an all-inclusive spiritual reality, which, the masters
have told us, is the substance, the Ground of Being, that
underlies the world of both the senses and the "extra-senses."
Our explorations with peyote went on, and we were more
and more impressed with the importance of the effects of this
substance when taken by people with a motivation toward
better understanding of themselves and of life, and when
given by one with similar motivation and an awareness of the
hazards of improper use. Later we experimented with the use
of mescaline, the psychedelic alkaloid present in the peyote
cactus, and found the effects to be identical with those we
had obtained through the use of peyote itself.
We were not alone in our explorations, and soon found
others with similar interests in the religious use of these substances.
In 1962 and 1963 the public was beginning to develop
a very negative image of the psychedelics, especially
LSD, as a result of sensationalism in the news media when
reporting some of the unfortunate results of their unsupervised
use. We were disturbed by the possibility that indiscriminate
use for sensational purposes was likely to bring
about restrictive legislation that would interfere with their