Fwd: NP: Q re Jung Order

Tue Feb 16 18:45:52 CST 2016

A good demonstration of how far the public mind has changed about
psychedelic research in the last few years is author Tim Ferris' Crowdrise
fund raise for psilocybin research at Johns Hopkins. The best demonstration
is that Tim was seeking $80,000. he's already raised $87,000 and his crowd
sourced funding campaign is continuing, with the donations over $80k going
to other John Hopkins psilocybin research projects that remain underfunded.

Essentially, there are indications that a few good mushroom trips can lift
individual out of deep depressions that Western medicine isn't able to
remediate. Apparenly, many depressed older individuals have
taken psilocybin recently and gained a renewed appreciation for Life and
the World.

I know what they are talking out. I sincerely doubt that I would have made
it this far in life without the insights I gained about the Nature of
Reality from sacred plants or their laboratory analogies. Deluded? Maybe,
but it sure worked. (On the wonky side, one time when I was tripping, far
from any telephone, probably lying with my eyes closed on a bed somewhere,
Kurt Vonnegut called me. I recognized his voice instantly and will never
forget what he said to me: "Allan, How's that book coming along?" All sorts
of crystalline fractals raced through my nervous system from that one
question for I don't know how long but I do know this: Vonnegut's question,
real or imaginary, was enough to renew my motivation for writing enough to
keep me getting up hours before work every day to work on my book for
another six weeks.

I could use that sort of a jumpstart again right now, that's fer sure.

It's never dawned on me that they may not be getting enough volunteers for
the study at Hopkins. God knows I've got the depression diagnosis on a
sheet of paper somewhere around here already....

Important to know that Crowdrise, the inspired crowd funding site, is the
brainchild of actor Ed Norton (who, btw, claims to be 6 feet tall)  He
celebrates the freedom people are given when they can support ideas that
get zero support from existing institutions. In this way it's Norton who is
jumpstarting our co-evolution, leaping over the 50 year wait that
Buckminster Fuller said the establishment needs to act on a truly new idea.

Read about Ferris' fundraiser here:
https://www.crowdrise.com/timferriss/fundraiser/timferrissprofile

Or read a little about it here:

[NOTE: Any funds in excess of $80,000 will be applied to strengthening this
or other psilocybin studies at Johns Hopkins. They have several prepared.]

I am helping researchers in neuroscience and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine to conduct a pilot study of psilocybin in the
addressing of treatment-resistant depression.
A recent but still unpublished study at Johns Hopkins demonstrated rapid,
substantial, and sustained (lasting up to six months) antidepressant and
anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) effects of a single dose of psilocybin in
psychologically-distressed patients with life-threatening cancer
diagnoses.  This is incredibly exciting. What if we could decrease or avoid
altogether the known side-effects (and frequency of consumption) of current
antidepressant drugs like SSRIs?
This study could help establish an alternative.
Current popular antidepressant medications have significant adverse side
effects, with up to 50% of patients failing to respond fully and as many as
30% remaining completely resistant. Major depression is a common and often
devastating psychiatric disorder. Individuals with depression are at a much
greater risk of suicide than the general population.
Psilocybin has been safely consumed by humans for millennia. Despite this,
the study of entheogens like psilocybin was blocked for several decades due
to political rather than scientific factors.  Now, we can finally explore
the therapeutic and medical potential of these powerful compounds.
Besides me (Tim Ferriss), public supporters of this research include:
Eric Weinstein, managing director of Thiel Capital, Ph.D. in Mathematical
Physics from Harvard, research fellow at the Mathematical Institute of
Oxford University
Naval Ravikant, CEO of AngelList, renowned tech investor (Uber, Yammer,
Twitter, Postmates OpenDNS, etc.)
Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, lead developer of WordPress (powers ~25%
of the Internet)
And many other innovators in business and tech
The study on this page will determine the efficacy of psilocybin in
treatment-resistant depression, and will also use cutting-edge brain
imaging to clarify the mechanism of action of psilocybin's antidepressant
effects.
In the world of science, it is a rare opportunity to be able to conduct
such potentially groundbreaking work for a mere $80,000.  It’s almost
unheard of.  Psilocybin has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of
major depression that cannot be properly addressed with current
treatments.  This also applies to end-of-life care for terminally-ill
cancer patients (more on this in the Michael Pollan New Yorker feature
entitled “The Trip Treatment").
I hope you’ll join me— and the above thought leaders—in this campaign. It
could spark a huge shift in the national conversation about entheogens and
their place in medicine.
Contributions to this study are fully tax-deductible and each donor will
receive a tax receipt. Johns Hopkins is a 501(3)c organization.
I am personally committing at least $100,000 to entheogen/psychedelic
research this year (2016). A portion of that will go to this study.
If you prefer to donate appreciated securities, please email mdevito1 [AT]
jhmi {DOT} edu

 https://www.crowdrise.com/timferriss/fundraiser/timferrissprofile

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 5:39 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> I recently read One of Grof’s Books. Very worthwhile IMO. Interesting how
> the whole issue of birth trauma has faded almost completely from modern
> psychiatry/psychology.??? He too developed techniques to induce trance
> states but avoid the restrictions on psychedelics.
>
> I think some techniques work better on people who can be hypnotized.  Not
> everyone can be even if they might like to be.
>
>
>
> > On Feb 16, 2016, at 5:08 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> http://www.stanislavgrof.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/A_Brief_History_of_Transpersonal_Psychology_Grof.pdf
> >
> > A Brief History of Transpersonal Psychology
> > By Stanislav Grof, MD
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 3:37 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> > As far as  New Age, channeling, the lovely and vivaciously weird Shirley
> Mclaine etc., not much to say . I was headed in a different direction at
> that time.  As far as psychedelics and meditation, It would be a very
> intense form of meditation, but there is  a guy named Mike Siegel who is
> trying to engineer a biofeedback system that might guide people toward
> transcendent mind states( let’s not quibble about terms, if you have taken
> psychedelics you know that none are adequate). His preparatory work
> included monitoring brain states for psychedelic use and for advanced
> practitioners of yoga/meditation. There did seem to be signifigant
> similarities in his research but  these were serious yogis. .  I have only
> started meditating daily for 2 months thoghh qi gong does similar things
> and I have been practicing for 4 years this month). With meditation I have
> only had 2 experiences even remotely resembling psychedelics.  I am an
> artist and pretty good with visual imagination, and these 2 times were very
> pleasant and mindbending experiences but far less psychologically or
> visually intense than psychedelics.  They are also for me anyway harder to
> achieve. Buddhism opposes inebriants  and that clouds the issue. but I know
> at least one  decades long Tibetan Buddhist who uses psychedelics. So to
> indulge what may come off as new age lingo-  the idea that plant compounds
> have a role in the spritual ecology of humans and the larger planet does
> not seem the least bit far fetched or problematic to me. But I do suspect
> there are other routes into very intense altered states.
> >
> > One thing that is rarely discussed with psychedelics is the long term
> effects on a person’s outlook  and thinking. IMO the thrill ride is great
> but not the main show.
> >
> > Siegel:
> https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-456-engineering-enlightenment-2/
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Feb 16, 2016, at 12:33 PM, Allan Balliett <allan.balliett at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> The most misleading idea, though, would have to be the idea that
> meditation can be a replacement for psychedelics, if you ask me.
> >
> >
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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