Lattin - Changing our minds: psychedelic sacraments and the new psychotherapy

Praise for Changing Our Minds

Accurate, Comprehensive, and Powerful; If you want to understand the responsible use of psychedelics and feel its pulse, this book is for you.

William A. Richards, PhD, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Author,
Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences

Don Lattins Changing Our Minds is far and away the best book on psychedelic use and research available today. Although Im supposed to know all this stuff, my copy is cluttered with underlinings, the margins speckled with exclamation points and emoji, and the front empty pages filled with notations of why I need to return to numerous pages. Through a combination of personal friendships, experiencing what hes writing about, and just plain old-fashioned superior journalism, Lattin not only fully describes the important trends in research, but includes valuable back stories of the major researchers, and why they have given so much of their professional lives to such risky endeavors. Now, when people ask me, is there one book I can read about the multiple dimensions of current psychedelic research, I can say, Changing Our Minds will give you everything you need.

James Fadiman, PhD, author of The Psychedelic Explorers Guide:
Safe, Therapeutic and Sacred Journeys

Don Lattin has done compassionate service by bringing together the current work on the profound potential of psychedelics to treat addiction, fear of death, and physical and mental struggles. It has taken years, but now researchers are able to use these methods to inquire into some of our most challenging issues, including, in fact, what it means to be human. This riveting report of these diverse explorations will certainly encourage others to expand the field.

Mirabai Bush, Senior Fellow, Center for Contemplative Mind in Society

Don Lattin tells the amazing stories about the rise of psychedelics, their benefits, and their colorful and inspiring champions, all the while retaining his journalistic voice. Changing Our Minds will be an important reference for generations to come.

Allan Badiner, Author and Activist,
Coeditor, Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics

Changing our Minds is both a great read with flowing prose and a highly-referenced and comprehensive history of the recent resurgence of psychedelic research. Don goes directly to the sources here, capturing rare and detailed firsthand accounts from all the leaders in this growing endeavor.

George Greer, MD, Cofounder and
Medical Director, Heffter Research Institute

Changing Our Minds expertly explores the healing and spiritual journey catalyzed by psychedelic psychotherapy through the courageous voices of those who are pioneering the study of these treatments. An essential read for those interested in the expanding field of psychedelic research for therapeutic and spiritual uses, this volume lands at a crucial time during the re-emergence of psychedelic research as we approach the mainstream, scientific acceptance of psychedelic psychotherapy and the reintegration of the legal use of psychedelics into Western culture.

Rick Doblin, PhD, MAPS Founder and Executive Director

Copyright 2017 by Don Lattin. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo-copying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in reviews.

Published by Synergetic Press

1 Bluebird Court, Santa Fe, NM 87508

24 Old Gloucester St. London, WC1N 3AL England

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lattin, Don, 1953- author.

Title: Changing our minds : psychedelic sacraments and the new psychotherapy / by Don Lattin.

Description: Santa Fe, NM : Synergetic Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017005638 (print) | LCCN 2017009874 (ebook) | ISBN 9780907791669 (pb (pbk.) : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780907791676 (E-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Hallucinogenic drugs--Therapeutic use. | Psychotropic drugs--United States. | Substance abuse--Treatment--United States. | Hallucinogenic drugs and religious experience--United States. | Psychotherapy--United States.

Classification: LCC RC483.5.H3 L37 2017 (print) | LCC RC483.5.H3 (ebook) | DDC 615.7/883--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017005638

Front cover design: Landon Elmore

Interior design consultant: Ann Lowe

Senior Editor: Linda Sperling

Associate Editors, Michael Gosney and Stephanie Joelle Smolarski

Copy Editor: Ken Goffman

Printed by Bang Printing in the USA

Typefaces: Minon Pro & Lato

Printed on SFI Certified 60# Offset

Dedicated to the usual suspects...

How two therapists used MDMA to help an emotionally destroyed veteran of the war in Iraq. Features Nigel McCourry and Michael and Annie Mithoefer.

Examines the rise and fall of above-ground psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Features Sasha and Ann Shulgin, Leo Zeff and George Greer.

Can the use of drugs like MDMA and psilocybin free people from addiction to other drugs like alcohol and nicotine and heroin. Features researchers Michael Bogenschutz and Matthew Johnson, and two of their research subjects: recovering alcoholic Carroll Carlson and former nicotine addict Gordon McGlothlin.

How psychedelic drug research is helping us understand the nature of religious experience, and how other consciousness explorers have begun experimenting with microdosing. Features researchers Bob Jesse, Bill Richards, Roland Griffiths and Rick Strassman, along with research subjects Stephen Warres, Lila Diaboha and the Rev. Mike Young.

How does the rapidly developing field of cognitive neuroscience explain the mysteries of psychedelic spirituality? Features Swiss researchers Franz Vollenweider and Katrin Preller, Amanda Feilding of the British based Beckley Foundation, and Dieter Hagenbach, the biographer of Albert Hofmann.

One of the nations leading clinical trials uses psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to treat the anxiety and depression that can accompany the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness. Features therapists Mary Cosimano, Anthony Bossis and Stephen Ross, along with donor/therapist T. Cody Swift and cancer patients Judith Goedeke and Richard Cone.

Rick Doblin, the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) hopes to begin the new era by cornering the market on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. Dave Nichols, the veteran psychedelic chemist and president of the Heffter Research Institute, has more modest goals for the psilocybin research his organization is sponsoring. Also, features donor/filmmaker Robert Barnhart.

Andy Gold, an attorney with cancer, and John Saul, a yacht broker with an equally terrifying disease, sat together on the tripping couch of the cozy psychedelic psychotherapy center, talking about life, death, and Ecstasy. An in-depth look at one study conducted by researchers Phil Wolfson and Julane Andries, and two other volunteer subjects, Nikki Dohn and Wendy Donner.

Features a critique of the medical model and the current research strategy through profiles of psychedelic veterans Ralph Metzner and Richard Yensen, who admit they and their brethren made their own share of mistakes along the way.

Charles Grob and Alicia Danforth at UCLA talk about their work with MDMA and autistic adultsand their concerns about the wrong people getting into this emerging field.