May
11
In addition to what we call psychedelics, the terms we apply to the people involved in their use also impact set and setting, and therefore drug response. As one who takes the drug, are we research subjects or volunteers? Clients or celebrants? As the one giving them, are we guides, sitters, or research investigators? Shamans or scientists?
Try this mental exercise: Consider how you might look forward to your day as a “research subject” under the influence of a “psychotomimetic agent.” Then reconsider: How would you feel about your role as a “celebrant” in a “ceremony” involving an “entheogenic sacrament”? How would these different contexts affect your interpretation of the hallucinations and intense mood swings brought on by the drug? Would you be “going crazy” or having an “enlightenment experience”? Rick Strassman, “DMT: The Spirit Molecule”
Try this mental exercise: Consider how you might look forward to your day as a “research subject” under the influence of a “psychotomimetic agent.” Then reconsider: How would you feel about your role as a “celebrant” in a “ceremony” involving an “entheogenic sacrament”? How would these different contexts affect your interpretation of the hallucinations and intense mood swings brought on by the drug? Would you be “going crazy” or having an “enlightenment experience”? Rick Strassman, “DMT: The Spirit Molecule”
