Most Acacia trees can look very similar, seeming to appear in the bush only when they flash their bright and fluffy fluorescent yellow flowers. There are almost 1,500 species of Acacia in the world, and the vast majority of these can be found in Australia – most people here call them wattle. Many wattles contain the powerful psychedelic alkaloid DMT, and some appear to contain other psychedelics, such as 5-MeO-DMT and the underexplored NMT.  Harvesting wild plants can create real threats to the environment, but this isn’t the reason many Australians who consume Acacia choose to import Aca ..read more

In this article, I will share some key insights into the notable varieties of Amazonia’s enigmatic visionary vine, Banisteriopsis caapi, specifically related to the Indigenous science of yagé, as known and practiced by the Western Tukanoan speaking Siekopai people of the northern Ecuadorian Amazon. The information I received about these plants was imparted to me by the kind-hearted traditional elders, stewards of this ancestral sacred knowledge, whom I befriended during my sojourn of five years (1995-2000) while living at the home of traditional elder Cesáreo Piaguaje. A focus on the indi ..read more

Philosophy and psychedelics might seem like obvious siblings, but they have been estranged in academic contexts. Thinker and author Chris Letheby has begun to remedy this. An Australian philosopher working closely with neuroscientists and psychologists, his work suggests how a “naturalistic spirituality” can honour both scientific research and the more intangible or mysterious dimensions of psychedelic experiences.  Chris’s discipline bending book Philosophy of Psychedelics was published by Oxford University Press in 2021. Thinking about the spectacular mysterious of psychedelics while co ..read more

When we think of the effects of psychedelics, it is often in terms of the alterations they cause in cognitive processes and visual perception. Changes in auditory perception are often secondary, but have a very significant place, particularly in the context of entheogenic healing and psychedelic ritual. Anyone familiar with psychedelic dance parties will know that virtually everything sounds amazing on LSD, but we tend not to think about how and why this is the case. Music is integral to psychedelic journeys among the many entheogenic traditions across the world. The Mazatec in Mexico, for ex ..read more

With a smile so bright it could illuminate a continent, female shaman Adela Navas de Garcia is a vibrant healer from Iquitos, Peru. Mother to 8 children, she has treated patients throughout her local community for more than 50 years, and more recently she sometimes treats Westerners interested in ayahuasca too. Her speciality is “arkanas” or spells for healing and for protection against the black arts of brujeria. She is also an ayahuasquera trained in different plant medicines. In 2006 I interviewed Adela in Iquitos. She was 69 years of age at the time. We spoke about ayahuasca and her lon ..read more

When used carefully and responsibly, psychedelic substances can inspire a variety of positive health outcomes among both mental health patients and healthy individuals. This curious fact inspires a range of medical questions. In a recent scientific article published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, my colleagues and I explored whether psychedelics might target some common factor of health and be able to help prevent mental illness from occurring in the first place. Research is increasingly suggesting psychedelic therapy is an effective treatment for different types of disorders. Why do pe ..read more

Hallucinations occur during what doctors call psychosis, but they can also manifest outside the corridors of what is considered sick and dysfuctional. They can occur across a broad spectrum of non-ordinary changes in perception and play an important role in spiritual and creative arts around the world. At the virtual opposite space to hospitals and biomedical contexts, indigenous groups in the Americas voluntarly seek hallucinations by drinking psychoactive brews such as ayahuasca. In such types of shamanic contexts, hallucinations are valued as social, religious, and theraputic aspects of lif ..read more