At Chacruna: Do Psychedelics Have the Power to Change Minds?

Alli Feduccia

Clinical trials of MDMA, psilocybin, ketamine, and ayahuasca are offering a glimpse that the future may hold psychiatric treatments far different from daily drug prescriptions currently used for anxiety and addictive disorders. Research is only beginning to unravel how these experiences in altered states of consciousness produce large shifts in psychological functioning. Although a purely biochemical model is not inclusive of psycho-spiritual or transpersonal explanations, here I describe what scientific explorations are reveling about how the brain responds when exposed to mind-altering compounds and how consciousness is intrinsically related to sculpting of neural networks... continue reading.