Article updated on October 24, 2022
From hippies like John Lennon to researchers like Albert Hofman and Monnica Williams to psychedelic artists and writers like Allyson Grey, Zoe Helene, and Michael Pollan, countless people have laid the framework for the third psychedelic wave. Here we honor their contributions while continually updating these quotes to represent all voices, including minority and marginalized leaders making an impact in this space.
Continue reading to find the best psychedelic quotes on perspective shifts, meaning and purpose, industrialism, social justice, the skill of psychedelics, and more.
PERSPECTIVE
Perspective shifts are one of the most common themes surrounding psychedelics use. Scientists, poets, comics, and podcasters have all reported radical mindset changes from these powerful substances. Let’s compare their insights.
TERENCE MCKENNA
“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third-story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”– Terence Mckenna
“Part of what psychedelics do is they decondition you from cultural values. This is what makes it such a political hot potato. Since all culture is a kind of con game, the most dangerous candy you can hand out is one which causes people to start questioning the rules of the game.” – Terence Mckenna
“I think of going to the Grave without having a Psychedelic Experience is like going to the Grave without ever having Sex. It means that you never Figured out what it is all about. The Mystery is in the Body and the way the Body Works itself into Nature.” – Terence Mckenna
ALDOUS HUXLEY
“It’s a very salutary thing to realize that the rather dull universe in which most of us spend most of our time is not the only universe there is. I think it’s healthy that people should have this experience.” – Aldous Huxley
“I am not so foolish as to equate what happens under the influence of mescaline or of any other drug… with the realization of the end and ultimate purpose of human life: Enlightenment, the Beatific Vision. All I am suggesting is that the mescaline experience is what Catholic theologians call “a gratuitous grace,” not necessary to salvation but potentially helpful and to be accepted thankfully, if made available. To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and the inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large.” – Aldous Huxley
JESSE LAWLER
“Psychedelics prove to you that there’s more than one way of seeing the world”
ALDOUS HUXLEY
“The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which he tries, forever vainly, to comprehend. – Aldous Huxley
“The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which he tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.” – Aldous Huxley
ALAN MOORE
“LSD was an incredible experience. Not that I’m recommending it for anybody else; but for me, it kind of it hammered home to me that reality was not a fixed thing. That the reality that we saw about us every day was one reality, and a valid one but that there were others, different perspectives where different things have meaning that was just as valid. That had a profound effect on me.”
CARY GRANT
“I have been born again,” he told the astonished reporters. “I have been through a psychiatric experience which has completely changed me. I was horrendous. I had to face things about myself which I never admitted, which I didn’t know were there. Now I know that I hurt every woman I ever loved. I was an utter fake, a self-opinionated bore, a know-all who knew very little. “I found I was hiding behind all kinds of defences, hypocrisies and vanities. I had to get rid of them layer by layer. The moment when your conscious meets your subconscious is a hell of a wrench. With me, there came a day when I saw the light.”
DANIEL PINCHBECK
“Three hundred and fifty years ago, Shulgin notes, the Church proclaimed, “The earth is the center of the universe, and anyone who says otherwise is a heretic.” Today, the government proclaims, “All drugs that can expand consciousness are without medical or social justification, and anyone who uses them is a criminal.” In Galileo’s time, the authorities said, “We do not need to actually look through that mysterious contraption.” Now the government says, “There is no need to actually taste those mysterious compounds.” In the past, the Church said, “How dare you claim that the earth is not the center of the universe?” Today the government says, “How dare you to claim that an understanding of God is to be found in a white powder?”
GEORGE CARLIN
“Hallucinogens are a value changer…like it or not, it changes your values, it opens up windows, doors of perceptions was what Aldous Huxley called them.
MARY BARNARD
“Which… was more likely to happen first…the spontaneously generated idea of an afterlife in which the disembodied soul…experiences eternal bliss, or the accidental discovery of hallucinogenic plants that give a sense of euphoria, dislocate the center of consciousness, and distort time and space…?”
…The [latter] experience might have had… an almost explosive effect on the largely dormant minds of men, causing them to think of things they had never thought of before. This, if you like, is direct revelation.”
ZOE HELENE
“What if, through responsible exploration with psychedelics, we free our minds? Free-thinkers are more difficult to manipulate and control, which begs the question: Why are psychedelics illegal?”
MARIA SABINA
“Before Wasson nobody took the mushrooms only to find God. They were always taken for the sick to get well.”
AMY EMERSON
“Do the work to keep the lines open. Do the work to reach out to communities. Don’t rely on just one group to do it, everyone has a role to play in the shaping of this [psychedelic] movement.”
STACEY WALLIN
“I believe that our ability to be strong, healthy, and self-aware is deeply connected to our ability to do good in the world and take care of ourselves and the people around us… And so, I view psychedelics–and more specifically– well-supported psychedelic psychotherapy, as being a wonderfully powerful tool for the kinds of changes we need as a society.”
BEATRIZ CAIUBY LABATE (Bia Labate)
PHD
“So Indigenous knowledge keepers have, in one way or another, informed the birth of the psychedelic movement and continue to do so. There’s multiple evidence to this, but in my mind, and this is a very important message, one shall remember that there is a continuity between what has been the shamanic use of psychedelic medicines… and the underground settings where people use these substances therapeutically or in some kind of mixed hybrid rituals and the above-ground from psychedelic-assisted therapy.” – Beatriz Caiuby Labate (Bia Labate)
“In many, many ways, all of us are indebted to Indigenous peoples and their traditions and their knowledge when we are interested in these medicines.”– Beatriz Caiuby Labate (Bia Labate)
GRAHAM HANCOCK
“It may be that DMT makes us able to perceive what the physicists call “dark matter”–the 95 percent of the universe’s mass that is known to exist but that at present remains invisible to our senses and instruments.”
ALEXANDER SHULGIN
“The potential of the psychedelic drugs to provide access to the interior universe, is, I believe, their most valuable property.”
TIMOTHY LEARY
“At one point, consciousness-altering devices like the microscope and telescope were criminalized for exactly the same reasons that psychedelic plants were banned in later years. They allow us to peer into bits and zones of Chaos.”
JOE ROGAN
“If life wasn’t real it would be the craziest psychedelic trip ever.”
K ALLADO-MCDOWELL
“You might not think about it while you’re waiting in line for coffee, but plants have language too. Somehow, we as a species decided that symbols were needed for our language. But plants don’t use symbols the same way that we do, at least not as far as we can tell from the outside. This is why we need an entrance into the plant world and awareness.”
ELSJE MARIA LAGROU
“The snake is one of those paradigmatic animals that changes skin and is therefore thought to possess eternal life as well as the secrets of healing. It is also the master of all liquids, from rain to menstrual blood to ayahuasca, the brew of transformation.”
MEANING AND PURPOSE
One of the most profound perspective shifts psychedelics can offer is a renewed sense of meaning and higher purpose. Helping individuals connect with their true Selves, psychedelics inspire people to pursue passions, live authentically, and affect change in the fleeting time they have on earth.
TERENCE MCKENNA
“Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego.” – Terence McKenna
“Through psychedelics, we are learning that God is not an idea; God is a lost continent in the human mind. That continent has been rediscovered in a time of great peril for ourselves and our world. Is this coincidence, synchronicity, or a cruelly meaningless juxtaposition of hope and ruin?”– Terence McKenna
CAITLIN THOMPSON
“There’s this illusion that science and spiritual practices are separate. I actually don’t think that’s true.”
ALEXANDER SHULGIN
“There is a wealth of information built into us … tucked away in the genetic material in every one of our cells … without some means of access, there is no way even to begin to guess at the extent and quality of what is there. The psychedelic drugs allow exploration of this interior world and insights into its nature.”
STANISLAV GROF
“Subjects see new dimensions in the universe, have strong feelings of being an integral part of creation, and tend to regard ordinary things in everyday life—such as meals, walks in nature, playing with children, or sexual intercourse—as sacred.” – Stanislav Grof
“LSD is a catalyst or amplifier of mental processes. If properly used it could become something like the microscope or telescope of psychiatry.” – Stanislav Grof
STEVE JOBS
“Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”
MARY COSIMANO
“…psilocybin can offer a means to reconnect to our true nature—our authentic self—and thereby help find meaning in our lives.”
ANTONIN ARTAUD
“In consciousness dwells the wondrous; with it, man attains the realm beyond the material, and the peyote tells us, where to find it.”
ALLYSON GREY
“We don’t do psychedelics all the time, not in the least. It’s an experience, though, that never leaves you. It stays with you for your whole life, and the learning and the lessons just grow and evolve.”
JOHN LENNON
“Surrealism to me is reality. Psychedelic vision is reality to me and always was.”
HARMS OF INDUSTRIALISM
Modernism, for all its incredible benefits, has created a sense of separation from the self, the natural world, and each other. According to several psychedelic scholars, industrialism has deprived humanity of essential resources that psychedelics can help replenish.
TERENCE MCKENNA
“Our estrangement from nature and the unconscious became entrenched roughly two thousand years ago, during the shift from the Age of the Great God Pan to that of Pisces that occurred with the suppression of the pagan mysteries and the rise of Christianity. The psychological shift that ensued left European civilization staring into two millennia of religious mania and persecution, warfare, materialism, and rationalism.
The monstrous forces of scientific industrialism and global politics that have been born into modern times were conceived at the time of the shattering of the symbiotic relationships with the plants that had bound us to nature from our dim beginnings. This left each human being frightened, guilt-burdened, and alone. Existential man was born.”
RICK DOBLIN
Founder of MAPS
“If we recognize the power of entheogenic substances to open us to the universal truth and full dimension of human experience, and if we accept the role of the shaman as hierophant and psychopomp into this realm, as enacted for example by the Huichol mara’akame, we have to conclude that today in Western society we are deprived of two key resources for complete human growth. Young people, in their hunger for meaning, will still gravitate toward entheogens. The more experienced among us may try to ease their journey, but in the absence of qualified guides not all will benefit from their experience.”
DANIEL PINCHBECK
“The modern person is drawn to the shamanic archetype—the vision of sacred earth, revelatory word, and multidimensional cosmos—finds himself horrified by contemporary society and the accelerating processes of global destruction it has unleashed.”
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Psychedelics are not broadly available in the Western world. These substances remain a privilege for a fortunate minority due to the war on drugs and enduring social prejudices. At the same time, as psychedelics use expands worldwide, indigenous cultures fear they’ll soon lose access to these sacred plants. Overcoming simultaneous issues of inaccessibility and over-accessibility is a challenge that social justice advocates tackle head-on.
AYELET WALDMAN
“In the course of American history, criminalisation of drugs has always been closely tied to oppressive government’s response to people of color, and particularly assertion of civil rights’ entitlement.” – Ayelet Waldman
“If you’re an African American 19-year-old with profound depression and you found that LSD helps you, your risk of arrest and incarceration is much higher than me, so I would never say that someone like that should put their body on the line. I’m in a privileged position with, you know, ‘with great power comes great responsibility’– Ayelet Waldman
ALDOUS HUXLEY
“How odd it is that writers like Belloc and Chesterton may sing the praises of alcohol (which is responsible for about two-thirds of the car accidents and three-quarters of the crimes of violence) and be regarded as good Christians and noble fellows. Whereas anyone who ventures to suggest that there may be other and less harmful shortcuts to self-transcendence is treated as a dangerous drug fiend and wicked perverter of weak-minded humanity.”
BETTY ALDWORTH
“Early research on the use of psychedelics to treat trauma has focused primarily on combat veterans, a vast majority of whom are men. Without careful attention paid to make psychedelic therapy safe and inviting for women and people who are genderqueer or transgender, norms which make it safer for cisgendered men to participate in such healing will only intensify.”
GEORGE CARLIN
“Fuck the drug war. Dropping acid was a profound turning point for me, a seminal experience. I make no apologies for it. More people should do acid. It should be sold over the counter.”
ZOE HELENE
“We women need to rise to the occasion. The ayahuasca experience rebirths, inspires, empowers, and ignites us to do that.” – Zoe Helene
“What if, through responsible exploration with psychedelics, we free our minds? Free-thinkers are more difficult to manipulate and control, which begs the question: Why are psychedelics illegal?.”– Zoe Helene
AMY EMERSON
“We don’t want to just get MDMA approved, we want to do it in a way that tackles misinformation and stigma around mental health and psychedelics, and makes them accessible to underserved, marginalized communities.”
INDIGENOUS PEYOTE CONSERVATION COMMUNICATION COMMITTEE
“Individual, state or local decriminalization efforts that include peyote can be disruptive to the nation-wide strategy driven by Native American people to protect, conserve and ensure the spiritual and ecological sustainability of peyote.”
BEATRIZ CAIUBY LABATE (Bia Labate)
PHD
“More power to us and to all our descendants hopefully to bring a new world for the future females that are born after us. And so we’re focusing on bringing the voices of queer people, women, people of color, Black people, Indigenous people, and voices from the global South into the mainstream psychedelic conversation.”
DAVID BRONNER
“It’s incumbent on all of us to be respectful allies and show deference and respect to the Indigenous-led preservation effort already underway.”
ALBERT EINSTEIN
“The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws that cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.”
POSITIVE CHANGE FROM PSYCHEDELICS
Psychedelics invariably affect profound change by healing the wounds that divide humanity and nourishing people’s capacity for love and respect. This process is by no means easy. Positive change from psychedelics requires conscious use and commitment. But according to most psychonauts, psychedelics are unmatched catalysts to a more loving and peaceful world.
GRAHAM HANCOCK
“I am convinced that the way forward for the human race is to recognize and protect the fundamental right of sovereignty over consciousness, to throw off the chains of our divisive religious heritage, to seek out forms of spirituality (or no spirituality at all if we so prefer) that are truly supportive of liberty and tolerance, to help the human spirit to grow rather than to wither, and to nurture our innate capacity for love and mutual respect. The old ways are broken and bankrupt and new ways are struggling to be born. Each one of us with our own talents, and by our own choices, has a part to play in that process.”
GARY FISHER
“With psychedelics, if you’re fortunate and break through, you understand what is truly of value in life. Material, power, dominance, and territory have no value. People wouldn’t fight wars, and the whole system we have currently would fall apart. People would become peaceful, loving citizens, not robots marching around in the dark with all their lights off.”
BILL HICKS
“How about a positive LSD story? Wouldn’t that be news-worthy, just the once? To base your decision on information rather than scare tactics and superstition and lies? I think it would be news-worthy. ‘Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we’re the imagination of ourselves’ . . . ‘ Here’s Tom with the weather.’”
JAMES OROC
“These days, when I knock on the doors of the Tryptamine Palace, I am no longer greeted with unconditional love, but instead, I am reminded of the responsibility that comes with ultimate knowledge: an undeniable responsibility to myself, to my tribe, to my species, to my planet.”
STANISLAV GROF
“After having personally conducted over the last fifty years more than four thousand psychedelic sessions, I have developed great awe and respect for these compounds and their enormous potential, both positive and negative. They are powerful tools and, like any tool, they can be used skillfully, ineptly, or destructively. The result will be critically dependent on the set and setting.”
MONNICA WILLIAMS
“Using psychedelics can not only bring pain points to the surface for healing, but can reduce the anxiety or response to these [traumatic] memories and allow them to speak openly about them without the pain they bring.”
LYNN MARIE MORSKI
M.D.
“…ideally also the mass population knows about [psilocybin] because only then can people make informed decisions about what is really best for them rather than just a doctor prescribing a pill.”
MARIA SABINA
“Heal yourself with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon. With the sound of the river and the waterfall. With the swaying of the sea and the fluttering of birds. Heal yourself with mint, neem, and eucalyptus. Sweeten with lavender, rosemary, and chamomile. Hug yourself with the cocoa bean and a hint of cinnamon. Put love in tea instead of sugar and drink it looking at the stars. Heal yourself with the kisses that the wind gives you and the hugs of the rain. Stand strong with your bare feet on the ground and with everything that comes from it. Be smarter every day by listening to your intuition, looking at the world with your forehead. Jump, dance, sing, so that you live happier. Heal yourself, with beautiful love, and always remember … you are the medicine.”
NISHA KHANNA
M.D.
“If there’s something that you’re holding in the subconscious or the unconscious, something that isn’t serving you that needs to be let go, psychedelics can blast through that.”
RACHAEL PETERSON
“I think that [clinical] trial was the single most effective thing I’ve done to manage my mental health, and I had tried almost everything. And it leads me to believe that we need to radically change how we think about mental health.”
MICHAEL POLLAN
“… a motion center is talking directly to your visual cortex, which could allow you to see things you’re feeling. It could result in hallucinations. Those new connections may […] manifest as new perspectives, new ideas, new means, new metaphors. But the point is that by temporarily disrupting the order of the brain, a new order forms. And that order may have incredible value at either the level of mental health and psychology or the level of creativity.”
FRANÇOISE BARBIRA FREEDMAN
“The central place that shamanism occupies as medicine and religion within the popular culture of the Upper Amazon precludes its reduction to ‘folk psychiatry’ or cheap medicine. Once again, through the use of ayahuasca, the Forest as cosmos is likely to provide a new source of symbols to express and resolve social perceptions of enemies, out there and within, close by and in cosmopolitan capitals. In wider power fields, Forest shamans, whether native, of mixed blood or gringos, guide the visions of the poorest and the richest sometimes sitting side by side to ‘get straightened’ […] in the center of the caduceus.”
CONNECTION WITH OTHERS
Connection to the self and others is a universal theme in transformative psychedelic experiences. Many people report feeling part of a collective consciousness, that they are not confined to their own skin, and that their minds and bodies operate on a shared natural frequency. Entheogens are inextricably linked to human connection.
RAY MANZAREK
“Through all of history, mankind has ingested psychedelic substances. Those substances exist to put you in touch with spirits beyond yourself, with the creator, with the creative impulse of the planet.”
JAMES OROC
“Entheogens (or psychedelics, to be more historically correct) have now been recognized as the mother of our Western ecology and conservation movements, as well as the entire field of transpersonal psychology and our apparent desire to return to some firsthand spiritual and/or mystical understanding of G/d (rather than blindly accepting traditional religious dogma without an experiential basis.” – James Oroc
“The collective unconscious, the same as other transpersonal phenomena, is evidence that our mind is not an isolated entity but is constantly in touch with other minds as well as with the world around us. We are never entirely detached from the outside world; never entirely enclosed within our skin. Our mind and our body resonate with our environment, including other people in our environment. Our mind is coherent with the world, and when we do not repress the intuitions that link us with other people and with nature, we can become aware of our oneness with the universe.”– James Oroc
“The collective unconscious, the same as other transpersonal phenomena, is evidence that our mind is not an isolated entity but is constantly in touch with other minds as well as with the world around us. We are never entirely detached from the outside world; never entirely enclosed within our skin. Our mind and our body resonate with our environment, including other people in our environment. Our mind is coherent with the world, and when we do not repress the intuitions that link us with other people and with nature, we can become aware of our oneness with the universe.”– James Oroc
MARY COSIMANO
“I believe this theme—love, the need to reconnect with our true selves—addresses the underlying outcome of our psilocybin studies. Yet very often we’re afraid to open ourselves to this connection so we put up barriers and wear masks. If we are able to remove the barriers, to let down our defenses, we can begin to know and accept ourselves, thus allowing ourselves to receive and to give love.”
MARCELA OT’ALORA
I think a lot of times with trauma, we try to change the experience… And the reality is that healing begins when there is no need to change the experience, but that we can actually hold that pain… and, at the same time, there’s this other part that is the connection, the interconnectedness, the effect that we have on each other, the love that… is so universal… And I think that’s really felt in psychedelic experiences that you’re holding both of those exactly at the same level.”
RACHAEL PETERSON
“I experienced this kind of unity, of resonant love, the sense that I’m not alone anymore, that there was this thing holding me that was bigger than my grief. I felt welcomed back to the world.”
DR. ROSALIND WATTS
“In a forest, you can see one third of it, which is the trees. But two-thirds are underground. It’s like the roots that go down. And the way trees communicate with each other is through mycelium. And mycelium is a mushroom. It’s a fungus. The whole of the forest communicates through this layer of mushrooms. Mushrooms are a great connector and you can think about that analogy… imagine yourself as a tree. And you’ve got your trunk, which is your connection to yourself. And you’ve got your branches which are your ideas going out. And then you’ve got your roots and you’ve got this layer of mycelium and you’re connected to all these other people. And so to make your tree grow really strong, it’s about your place in the forest. You’re not standing alone.”
DANIEL PINCHBECK
“The visionary plants are the guiding spirits of archaic cultures. They are sacred because they awaken the mind to other levels of awareness. They are gateways to a spiritual, or multidimensional, universe.”
TAKING PSYCHEDELICS
Psychedelics have the potential to effectively support mental health and personal growth. At the same time, psychedelics are not panaceas, and mind-expansive journeys can be challenging due to the uncomfortable emotions and memories they unearth. That reality is why most experts describe psychedelics as a skill that people must learn and harness for positive change.
JAMES FADIMAN
“For some people, it is helpful to identify your goals. Your goals may be spiritual: to have direct experience with aspects of your tradition or another tradition, to transcend prior beliefs, even to transcend belief itself. You may hope to have what is called a “unity experience,” in which there is no separation between your identity and all else. Your goals may be social: to improve relationships with your spouse, children, siblings, parents, colleagues, friends, and spiritual and secular institutions. Your goals may be psychological: to find insight into neurotic patterns, phobias, or unresolved anger or grief.” – James Fadiman
“The rule of thumb is the more profound the experience, the longer you should wait before doing it again. The Guild of Guides suggests a minimum of six months between entheogenic journeys because it takes at least that long for the learning and insights to be absorbed and integrated into your life.”– James Fadiman
“Thus began a third phase of psychedelic research that continues to this day. Whereas, in the first phase the participant’s experiences tended to be controlled and delimited, even if inadvertently, by the experimenter’s and the subject’s preconceptions, and in the second phase to be more uncontrolled and wide-ranging in scope, the emphasis now was on the selection of specific kinds of psychedelic experience and of specific ways to produce and maintain them.” – James Fadiman
RICK STRASSMAN
M.D.
“Psychedelics show you what’s in and on your mind, those subconscious thoughts and feelings that are hidden, covered up, forgotten, out of sight, maybe even completely unexpected, but nevertheless imminently present. Depending upon set and setting, the same drug, at the same dose, can cause vastly different responses in the same person. One day, very little happens; another day, you soar, full of ecstatic and insightful discoveries; the next, you struggle through a terrifying nightmare. The generic nature of psychedelic, a term wide open to interpretation, suits these effects.” – Rick Strassman, M.D.
“If you want to have fun, take them alone or with friends and spend the day in a beautiful setting. If you want to learn something about yourself and your relationships, take them with a therapist. If you want to feel part of humanity, take them at a concert, rave, or other large gatherings. If you want to experience a deeper relationship with the divine and its creations, take them with a religious teacher, community, or in Nature. If you want to contribute to the research endeavor, volunteer for a scientific study. These categories are somewhat arbitrary, and all sorts of effects might occur in any one of these possible settings; spiritual experiences may occur in a research study, for example, and psychotherapeutic ones in a religious context.”– Rick Strassman, M.D.
PAM KRYSKOW
M.D.
“Although psychedelics may have the potential to be an effective therapy for a variety of ailments, it is in everyone’s best interest to incorporate strategies for safe use, managed use, abstinence, non-judgement, and addressing conditions of use along with the use itself.”
KATHERINE CODER
PHD
“I found in my previous work with psychedelics and also with plant medicines that the community piece is huge. There’s not a substitute for that, working on one’s own can be extremely helpful but community is paramount.”
JENNIFER SODINI
“When San Pedro begins to affect your consciousness, it first feels as though a subtle wave of change occurs, and can best be described as a vibration of sunlight penetrating your energetic field. The medicine’s spiritual correspondence relates to masculine energies, the energy of the sun, and (in my personal experience) serves as a vehicle for remembering light through a presence of warmth.”
ANN SHULGIN
“Every person’s body chemistry is different. The effect of one single drug that appeals to me might have a different effect on someone else. There’s no way to tell what the perfect psychedelic drug would be, because it would be perfect for only you.”
NATASJA PELGROM
“One of the most important questions to ask is always, why do you want [to try psychedelics]? Is it because it’s hip and happening and people in your surroundings are doing it? Really question yourself. Educate yourself on the consequences of any of the plants and psychedelics. Read up. Then if you are forwarded to a facilitator, ask questions. Ask a lot of questions.”
JANET MACUNOVICH
“Take care with manufactured chemicals, certainly. Your safety and long-term health are more important than anything. Yet don’t forget that if you grow even a dozen different plants, you are surrounded by chemistry. Inside their cells even the most ordinary plants create potent fungicides, insecticides, irritants, balms, hallucinogens, sedatives, nerve toxins, cell repair stimulants, lures, repellents… you name it. Treat all plants with respect!”
SUSANA BUSTOS
PHD
“[S]inging [during an ayahuasca ceremony] expresses a deep communication between healer and client, the healer sensitively in touch with the client’s needs […] The [client] feels s/he has access to, is met, and addressed at the very core of his/her healing issue in a novel way. Though it might sometimes appear unsettling due to its foreignness, the perception is that the process is essentially secure and guided by a beneficial sentience that often entails a depth, care, and precision never experienced before. All this supports trust and surrender.”
BEATRIZ CAIUBY LABATE (Bia Labate)
PHD
“The idea of a plant teacher is that these plants are in fact beings. They have agency. They have intentionality. They are alive. So these plants are like humans in the sense that they have a culture, and they have their own rituals. They have their own kin. They have their own wishes, and if you will, their idiosyncrasies as well. They can be capricious, or they can be severe. They can be comforting. They can teach you. They can inspire you. They can punish you if you don’t follow their instructions.”
FRANÇOISE BARBIRA FREEDMAN
“In this relaxed state [from altered states of consciousness], the body and mind are free to follow their deepest impulse: to seek wholeness and flow. The resolution of inner conflicts is possible through accessing a more resourced state than the one in which a conflict or pattern of tension was created […] The psyche, like all things natural and wild, strives for balance, and when attended to and listened to, will intelligently communicate and move toward what it needs to reestablish the highest level of health possible.”
MYTHS
Originating mostly during the 1960s and 70s drug wars, psychedelic myths have pervaded society for decades. Let’s explore some of the most harmful misconceptions that still linger today.
JAMES FADIMAN
M.D.
“We have heard claims that LSD sequesters in the brain, spinal cord, and body fat, and can leak out at later times—even years later—to produce adverse effects (such as “flashbacks,” which are the re-experiencing of some aspects of the drug-intoxication experience in the absence of the drug). Recently, we heard from a medical student that she learned this “fact” in a class at one of the country’s leading medical schools. There is no basis in reality for this because there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that LSD remains in the body for extended periods of time.”
We hope you enjoyed our psychedelic quotes selection and would love your feedback on how to make this article even more comprehensive.
Keys To The Kingdom
You are a light being with unimaginable powers.
Your celestial body resides at the stellar location you came into existence.
Your physical body is merely an astronomical instrument engaged in the expression of free will from your celestial body.
Over many lifetimes, we who are born into the evolving worlds of time and space attain the maturity necessary for star birthing.
You have advanced to the celestial nursery. Find your beloved, and prepare for the next chapter of your great adventure.
Psychedelics are the key to life’s deepest secrets. Use them wisely.
Never take a street drug.
Never eat anything cooked at a higher temperature than boiling water.
Never smoke or inhale anything, your lungs are far too delicate!
Use alcohol in extreme moderation.
Never pay attention to politics or religion.
Practice forbearance diligently.
Forgive those who have hurt you.
Acknowledge the gatekeeper, and pass.
Always be there for your people.
Live with honor and grace.
Newuses for LSD veryinteresting
“Tripping is an active experience,
not a passive one. In short, it’s not like
going to the cinema, paying for your
ticket, and watching a specified movie.
Everyone’s trip will be different,
with set and setting being crucial factors.
A useful metaphor to help you understand
this point is to view tripping as like getting
on a horse and going into a strange
landscape. You can let the horse take
you where it wants, hauling you up hills
and back down into valleys, galloping for
miles and then stopping and grazing – or
even running round and round in circles.
Alternatively, you can grab hold of the reins,
and direct the horse into those parts of the
landscape that interest you most – riding at
your own speed, and in your own style. The
more disciplined your mind is, the more
you prepare for the trip, and the more
experienced a tripper you become – the
more likely it will be that you can control
your trip – rather than it controlling you”
– Dr Nuke ‘Tripology’ (2004)
Not everyone will accept the validity of psychedelics in evolving consciousness, but that matters little to those of us who have even briefly trespassed on the greater reality.
– Amokedas
In favor of neural diversity! 🙂
“Thank you for sharing this inclusive list of psychedelic quotes! It’s always fascinating to see how different people throughout history have approached the topic of altered states of consciousness. Reading through these quotes has been both thought-provoking and inspiring. I especially appreciated the diverse perspectives, from artists and philosophers to scientists and activists. Overall, this was a great resource for anyone interested in exploring the world of psychedelics.”