Thomas B. Roberts - Psychedelics and Spirituality: The Sacred Use of LSD, Psilocybin, and MDMA for Human Transformation

This book is dedicated

to Susan

with many, many thanks for putting up

with me while I worked on the Vallombrosa conference and on this book.

I couldnt have done them without your patience and understanding.

You are the foundation of my life.

Love, Tom

to Becca

with hopes that you and your generation will someday

legally be able to enhance your spiritual development with entheogens.

You light up my life.

Love, Dad

PSYCHEDELICS AND SPIRITUALITY

A powerful testimony from pioneers of consciousness research, spiritual teachers, and scholars about the potential of psychedelic plants and their compounds to bring spirituality to modern society and help alleviate the dangerous alienation that has brought humanity to the brink of destruction.

Stanislav Grof, M.D., author of LSD Psychotherapy, Psychology of the Future, andWhen the Impossible Happens

A useful reference work that presents the current state of understanding from the relevant scientific, practical, and judicial perspectives.

Dennis McKenna, Ph.D., founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute and coauthor of The Invisible Landscape

Explains all aspects of the psychedelic experience as a tool for spiritual evolutionfrom personal accounts to detailed information and practical instructions. A key book.

Dieter Hagenbach, president of Gaia Media Foundation

Essential reading for people interested in humanity's efforts to experience the divine. This is an outstanding collection of essays and studies on mystical experience.

Michael Nielsen, professor and chair of psychology, Georgia Southern University, and coeditor of Archive for the Psychology of Religion

A tour de force of the history of the Western reencounter with these perennial sacred plants, written by leading figures from many disciplines. The broad coverage exemplifies the importance of psychedelic plants for many disciplines and their diverse potentials for personal and social transformation.

Michael Winkelman, Ph.D., author of Shamanism: A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing and editor of Altering Consciousness

This essential collection forces a reexamination of the legal status of controlled substances in view of the benefit that mind-altering sacramental entheogens offer for psychotherapy and spiritual growth.

Carl A. P. Ruck, professor of classical studies, Boston University, and author of Mushrooms, Myths, and Mithras

Tom Roberts is the keeper of the flame for the study of psychedelics, the chief librarian of the entheogenic archive. In this soul-nourishing book he's compiled the wisdom, humanity, and technical expertise the world just might be ready for now in order to provide us legally accessed soul-manifesting sacramental experience via psychedelics.

Charles Hayes, editor of Tripping: An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures

For those who value profound religious experiences and who wish to become increasingly well informed about how entheogens could become responsibly integrated into meditative practices and the offerings of spiritual retreat centers, there is much to be learned from the well-chosen essays in this book.

William A. Richards, S.T.M., Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins Bayview School of Medicine

Some of the most serious, sustained, thoughtful, and mature voices on the subject of entheogens and religion. The contributors reflect on the historical trajectories of this conversation, address the common stereotypes and misconceptions, and offer new directions of thought and vision, reminding us again of what this conversation has always been about: the extraordinary cosmic being we so casually and carelessly call the human being.

Jeffrey J. Kripal, professor of religious studies, Rice University, and author of Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal

Makes the case for primary religious experience through entheogens as a way to experience the sacred and realize personal transformation.

Bruce Sewick, LCPC, RDDP, CADC, therapist and addiction counselor

Acknowledgments

Thank you, Rev. Kenneth Smith, retired President of Chicago Theological Seminary, and thank you CTS for co-sponsoring the Vallombrosa Conference-Retreat. By recognizing the social injustice being done to entheogen users and by expressing the spiritual courage to support an unpopular expression of religious exploration, your cosponsorship made it possible to attract some of the best minds to this meeting. Personally, I am proud that CTS is a seminary of my denomination, CongregationalistUCC, and we are once again in the forefront of human rights.

Thank you, contributors to this book, for the dedication and care you gave to your chapters through many revisions. They show careful thought and precise wording. I hope youve experienced this as traveling a path of personal growth, as I have. Your writings have helped me over rough spots and around impediments in my path as well.

Thank you all participants at the Vallombrosa Retreat for recognizing the importance of entheogenic religious expression by participating so avidly in our discussions, for asking insightful questions, for listening with open hearts and open minds, and for taking time away from your families and jobs. Thanks to you, this was one of the spiritually richest and psychologically most meaningful weeks of my life. I hope it was for you, too.

A special thank you to the conference benefactors: Jeffrey Bronfman and the Aurora Foundation, Eric E. Sterling and the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, Melisa Richardson, E. A. (Sandy) Sandling, and M. and Peter Normal. Your support allowed us to organize the conference, and your ongoing funding of CSP helped us complete the thousands of tasks that go into producing a book. When you read this book, I hope youll feel the satisfaction of proud accomplishment and human service that you deserve.

Thank you to the staff of the Vallombrosa Retreat Center. Your unobtrusive efficiency and friendly skillfulness are another aspect of Vallombrosas beauty.

Thank you, Grey Six at the Council on Spiritual Practices, for shepherding this book though to completion. Your calmness and attention to a snowstorm of details is neverending.

Thank you, Bara Bonnet, for a proofreaders sharp eye. I know this book and my chapter are enormously improved thanks to your editors ear for words and finesse in phrasing.

Thank you, Sam Shirley, for turning words on disk into this book.

Thank you, Rae Erowid, for your help with the index. Not being able to find something in a book because theres no index is one of my pet aggravations. Your indexing makes this book more usable to readers and saves us all from that frustration.

Thank you, Dave Wilson and Craig Comstock, who are both tillermen and lookouts for CSP. Bon Voyage!

And an endless thank you, Bob Jesse, CSPs president, for your steadfast energy, devoted endurance, detailed focus, personal dedication, and exemplary standards. None of this could have happened without you.