Book Review - Decomposing The Shadow

After seeing James W. Jesso's byline on several articles on the web and stumbling across his podcast Adventures Through The Mind (highly recommended, by the way!), I decided to check out his book Decomposing The Shadow: Lessons from the Psilocybin Mushroom. I went into my reading experience with little understanding about what the book is all about, but from Jesso's descriptions of the book in the early podcast episodes, I knew that he considers psilocybin mushrooms to be his primary plant teacher and that the book is an attempt to develop a conceptual framework that can be used to better put into language the psychedelic experience.

The first part of the book covers his personal experiences with psychedelics, including a strong focus on the relationship that he has developed with psilocybin mushrooms. Jesso then goes into an brief explanation of magic mushrooms and a concise history of psychedelics, covering topics like Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna, the Good Friday Experiment, Ram Dass, and the psychedelic sixties. The middle section of the book is titled A Conceptual Framework, and it attempts to build a vocabulary of terms that can be used to define various aspects of the psychedelic experience. This section is definitely valuable, but it was a bit too academically-oriented for me and didn't hold my interest the same way a truly captivating piece of writing does. However, I did find it to be helpful for understanding various parts of a psychedelic experience and may incorporate some of the defined terms into my own psychedelic language. Ultimately, this particular section just felt a bit too textbook-like to me. The last few sections of the book focus on obtaining value from one's experiences and miscellaneous commentary about psychedelic-related topics, including an intriguing analogy between the psychedelic experience and the Dagobah scene from Empire Strikes Back that I quite enjoyed.

So—should you read this book? If you're interested in learning new terms to describe your psychedelic experiences, the history of psychedelics, spiritual work, or the formative psychedelic experiences that the author had, then the answer is yes. However, if you're not into any of those things then you may not get much out of this one. Ultimately, I found it to be a really well-written book and I'll definitely be checking out the rest of the author's works.

4/5 stars. 154 pages.

Weekend Thoughts - 6.24.17

Image by Hilari, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. Andy Puddicombe, a former Buddhist monk and the co-founder of the meditation app Headspace, has explained how and why mindfulness has been thriving under President Donald Trump. For example: the day after Trump was elected, the app saw a 44% increase in SOS sessions, a feature designed to help people navigate through sudden meltdowns. Numbers like these beg the question: could Trump's reign motivate a shift of global consciousness for the better?

2. New DNA research has shown that contrary to humans' experience with domesticating wolves into dogs, cats essentially domesticated themselves by hanging around humans for thousands of years. In other words, it's not that people put cats into cages—rather, we allowed them to domesticate themselves. Cats were attracted to mice and rats that showed up after human civilizations started producing crops and other agricultural byproducts, and just stuck around. And as a cat lover, I'm really glad they did.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

This Week in Psychedelics - 6.23.17

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• Philando Castile's 'Audacity To Smoke Marijuana' in Front of Child Doomed Him, Says Cop Who Killed Him (Reason)
• Air Fresheners as Probable Cause? A New Jersey Lawyer Talks Garden State Cannabis Access (Leafly)
• Study: Adult Use Marijuana Laws Do Not Adversely Impact Traffic Fatality Rates (NORML)
• Roger Stone Wants Donald Trump to Legalize Marijuana (TIME)
• Study: CBD Administration Reduces Blood Pressure (NORML)
• Vermont: House Blocks Marijuana Depenalization Bill From Further Consideration (NORML)
• The Search for a Place to Toke Up (Reason)
• Colorado County Gives High School Graduates $420K in Cannabis-Funded Scholarships (Leafly)
• Two Major Victories For Student Rights In Federal Courts (NORML)
• How Medical Marijuana Can Help Solve the Opioid Epidemic (Psychedelic Times)
• Should Alcohol and Cannabis Have Separate DUI Laws? (Leafly)
• Contaminated Cannabis Still Hitting the Shelves in Oregon, Report Finds (Leafly)
• Why Industry Reps Out For Cannabis Vs. Marijuana (KUNR)
• New Report Shows New Jersey's Cannabis Laws Failing Its People (Leafly)
• Portland Now Has a Pop-up Cannabis Dinner Series (The Potlander)
• This Meme Nails What People Don't Get About Working in the Marijuana Industry (ATTN:)
• Getting stoned with the Weed Nuns (Boing Boing)
• Medical cannabis group raises $4.75 million (St. Louis Business Journal)
• Could weed be used to treat period pain? (The Guardian)
• As Cannabis Comes Out of Black Market, Regulators Face Scrutiny (Leafly)
• Medicinal cannabis: Doctors, nurses and Nimbin 'elders' trade marijuana tips (ABC)
• Check Out These Weekly Cannabis Live Streams on YouTube (Leafly)
• Medical cannabis workshop: 'incredibly difficult' to get drugs to patients (The Guardian)
• The US weed rush and white-collar cannabis CEOs (The Sun Daily)
• The 'Green Rush' Went Next Level at Last Week's Cannabis Business Summit and Expo in Oakland (East Bay Express)
• Medical Marijuana Continues To Work Miracles (Disinfo)
• Teenagers should stop rolling their cannabis joints with tobacco if they don't want CANCER, researcher wants (Daily Mail)

LSD

• Study finds LSD produces dreamlike states in awake humans by stimulating serotonin receptors (PsyPost)
• LSD to lift your mood or performance? Microdosing could become commonplace (Genetic Library Project)
• Tripping up: The real danger of microdosing with LSD (New Scientist)
• Inside the 1950s LSD Therapy That Changed Cary Grant's Life (Vulture)
• Ice Cube To Produce Movie About Dock Ellis' LSD No-Hitter; O'Shea Jackson To Star (HotNewHipHop)
• Don't Take LSD There for the First Time and Other Top Glasto Tips (Noisey)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• Carrie Fisher Had Cocaine, Heroin and Ecstasy in Her System, Autopsy Shows (TIME)
• Canadian Study Shows Psychedelic Drugs Like Ecstasy Reduce Suicide Risks, While Meth Increases Risk (Inquisitr)
• MDMA Moves Closer to Being PTSD Treatment (Vital Updates)
• Father Sues Insomniac Events After His Son's Death From Ecstasy During EDC Las Vegas (EDM Sauce)
• Jersey Police warn users over 'particularly strong' ecstasy tables (BBC)
• Teen dies after taking 'Ikea' ecstasy pills as cops warn of deadly batch (The Sun)
• Woman still in hospital after taking Ecstasy on night out in Sheffield (The Star)
• Arlington Police Seize 1,000 Ecstasy Tabs Shaped Like Flintstones Vitamins (CBS DFW)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• Ayahuasca: Coming to a Clinic Near You? (AlterNet)
• Dr. Gabor Mate: Ayahuasca Is The 'Antidote To Western Psychological Distress' (The Fix)
• Drug investigators say "dangerous drug lab" in Douglas County was making DMT (Yakima Herald-Republic)

Iboga/Ibogaine

• Vendor Letter: An alternative addiction treatment (Real Change)

Dissociatives

• Inside the Los Angeles Clinic That Uses Ketamine to Treat Depression (Los Angeles Magazine)
• Ketamine Not Effective Against Postoperative Delirium, Pain in Older Adults (Practical Pain Management)
• There Could Be Ketamine in Your 'Natural' Chicken (Bloomberg)
• Police: Wrong-way driver had PCP and 9-year-old nephew in vehicle (KVUE)

Opiates/Opioids

• Heroin Addiction Costs US More Than $50 Billion Per Year (Newsweek)
• Opium use booms in Afghanistan, creating a 'silent tsunami' of addicted women (The Washington Post)
• Former Surgeon General Says Trumpcare Will Be a Disaster for the Opioid Crisis (ATTN:)
• Veterinarians are Starting To Look for Drug-Seeking Behavior (ATTN:)
• New Resource to Help Fight Heroin, Opioid Epidemic (U.S. News & World Report)
• Why every cop should carry naloxone (Police One)
• US fentanyl crisis: It's become a relief to only find heroin, says police officer (The Independent)
• Number of women in hospital for heroin and prescription opioids spikes 75% in a decade (The Independent)

Kratom

• Supplements To Get Rid of Kratom and Opiate Withdrawal Symptoms (Kratom Guides)
• Kratom - a jolt like coffee, a painkiller like a pain pill (TG Daily)
• How I Made an Extremely Potent Sleep Cake That Could Knock Out An Elephant (Men's Health)
• Can these 8 Herbal Teas Boost your Immune System (Alverno Alpha)
• Little-known illegal drug being sold to sick, desperate Australians (The New Daily)

Kava

• Largest kava bar in the US lands a spot in Asheville (WLOS)

Khat

• Tanzania: 48 Acres of Khat Rhazed in Operation (All Africa)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• The Silk Road Is Dead, But the Internet's Illicit Drug Economy Is Alive and Well (Reason)
• Uniting Shamanic Healing and Western Medicine (Reality Sandwich)
• Read Jeff Sessions' Utterly Illogical Defense of Tough Drug Sentences (Reason)
• New Report Contradicts Jeff Sessions' Claim That 'Soft' Drug Sentences Led to More Crime (Reason)
• Q&A With Psychedelic Stand-Up and LaughFest Headliner Shane Mauss (Flagpole)
• More Evidence That Eric Holder's Charging Memo Helped Drug Offenders (Reason)
• Psychedelic Drugs Enhance Consciousness (Medical News Bulletin)

Disclaimer: "This Week in Psychedelics" does not censor or analyze the news links presented here. The purpose of this column is solely to catalogue how psychedelics are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation.

Weekend Thoughts - 6.17.17

Image by Zervas, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. Working in and following the technology industry for many years has made me no stranger to company acquisitions, but I didn't see this one coming: Amazon plans to acquire Whole Foods for $13.7 billion later this year. However, this move makes a lot of sense for both companies. The 431 Whole Foods Market store locations will provide Amazon with a larger physical retail footprint that it can use to develop and test its various retail experiments, which include novel shopping mechanics like augmented reality and automation. Those brick-and-mortar stores will add to Amazon's existing 70 U.S. fulfillment centers which should result in quicker delivery times and a wider range of available products for the Prime Now service. Whole Foods has experienced seven quarters of declining sales, an overhaul to its Board of Directors last month, and vocal grumblings from unhappy investors. This acquisition may end up saving the company from going out of business. Amazon also gains yet another advantage over competitors like Walmart, Google Express, and Instacart. And finally, adding a new selection of grocery items to its catalog may end up boosting sales of Amazon's smart speakers, creating a stronger presence in the home. Imagine walking into a store and making a purchase without interacting with another human being, or talking to a device in your home and receiving any product you desire within minutes—those are just two scenarios that Amazon may be able to deliver on in the near future.

2. Two teenagers were rescued from Paris' catacombs after wandering lost for three days in the pitch-black underground tunnels. They were treated for hypothermia after being found by search teams and rescue dogs. A section of the 150-mile maze of underground tunnels is open to the public, however entering the rest of the underground burial ground has been against the law since 1955. Still, people have accessed the illegal portion through secret access points. I wouldn't normally cover a news event like this, but it comes close to home for me. In 2006, during an extended European adventure, I met up with a group of Parisian teenagers for what I assumed was a legal tour of the catacombs, but turned out to be a nine-hour trek in the illegal section. My experience included a leader with a hand-drawn map who carried speakers blasting French music, narrow hallways and low ceilings (we crawled through a 50-foot section that was roughly knee-high), unexpected drop-offs and cavernous pits, beautiful and thought-provoking graffiti, running into seemingly-lost individuals and a dog, and wading through rat-infested water. Even at the age of 19 and only spending less than half a day underground, I considered the possibility that I might not make it out alive—I can't even imagine what it would be like to be down there without a working flashlight or other people who knew where to go. It was one of the most rewarding risks that I have taken thus far, and I'm extremely grateful that I survived the experience. When I read the news about these teenagers' experience, I was relieved to learn that they survived and recognized that it afforded me an opportunity to give a brief glimpse into my own catacombs story. Perhaps I'll expand on it sometime in the future...

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

This Week in Psychedelics - 6.16.17

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• In Private Letter, Jeff Sessions Asks Congress for Permission to Go After Medical Marijuana (Reason)
• This Bill Would Protect Medical Marijuana Suppliers From Jeff Sessions' Whims (Reason)
• Study: No Increase In Problematic Cannabis Use Following Passage Of Medical Marijuana Laws (NORML)
• UK gets first publicly available dedicated cannabis research facility (The Independent)
• Rand Paul And Al Franken Come Together For Weed (Daily Caller)
• Oregon's Young Cannabis Market Already on Pace With Washington, Colorado (Leafly)
• Deputy AG: Marijuana is federally illegal and has no medical use (NORML)
• Why Don't Many Dispensaries Sell Pre-Ground Cannabis? (Leafly)
• Cannabis expo draws entrepreneurs, as state lawmakers pass marijuana bill (Sun Sentinel)
• Massachusetts Bill Would Double Cannabis Tax, Globe Reports (Leafly)
• California Lawmakers Rush to Set Cannabis Regulations (Leafly)
• Seminole Leader Jim Billie Joins Florida Cannabis Rush (Leafly)
• Three men admit converting nuclear bunker into huge cannabis factory (The Guardian)
• Oregon Researchers Find More College Students Consuming Cannabis Since Legalization (Leafly)
• How to Successfully (and Legally) Advertise Your Cannabis Business in Nevada (Leafly)
• The War On Cannabis Heats Up (Forbes)

LSD

• LSD king Owsley Stanley's 'Sonic Journals' surface after 50 years (SFGate)
• LSD or REST? How Float Tanks Mimic the Therapeutic Effects on Psychedelics (Psychedelic Times)
• LSD could help treat depression and anxiety (Metro)
• Scientists once gave dolphins LSD in attempt to communicate with them (The Independent)
• O'Shea Jackson Jr. Will Throw His Own LSD-laced No-Hitter as Dock Ellis in a New Biopic (Okayplayer)
• LSD 'Microdosing' Is Trending In Silicon Valley – But Can It Actually Make You More Creative? (IFLScience)
• Cary Grant was one of the first to benefit from LSD therapy (Quartz)
• John Lennon's First Acid Trip – Animated (Disinfo)
• Oakland Man Convicted Of Murdering Best Friend During LSD Camping Trip (CBS)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• Why Dr. Bronner's Soap is Paying Millions on MDMA Research (Inverse)

Iboga/Ibogaine

• Ibogaine Can Reduce Opioid Use, But May Be Fatal For Some (The Fix)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

• Man selling fake drugs at Bonnaroo doing 'God's work' (Newshub)
• Young British woman dies in Paris 'after taking notorious N-bomb drug' (The Local)

Dissociatives

• Should ketamine be used to treat depression? (Tribune-Review)
• Depression with ECT Therapy Does Not Benefit From Ketamine (Psychiatry Advisor)
• Man On PCP Evaded Officers Before Getting Naked Outside Hartford Store, Police Say (Hartford Courant)
• Woman found dead outside home after using PCP, police say (WFMZ)
• Man picked up in park after allegedly smoking PCP (Fairfield Citizen)

Opiates/Opioids

• Heroin Vaccine Could Turn Body's Defenses Against the Drug (Live Science)
• With opioid epidemic raging, calls grow for cheaper access to heroin overdose-reversing drug (Los Angeles Times)
• The FDA Wants This Opioid Drug Pulled From the Market (TIME)
• The DEA's Opium War with the Taliban (Motherboard)
• Five Things To Know About Heroin's Curious Chemical History (Forbes)
• Maryland removes restrictions on sale of naloxone at pharmacies (Capital Gazette)
• The Increasing Cost of the Heroin Epidemic (WebMD)
• More fentanyl being found in MDMA, crystal meth in Victoria (Saanich News)
• Who caused the opium war? British merchants of Canton, argues new book by Singapore academic (South China Morning Post)
• How heroin moves from Mexico's drug cartels to U.S. street corners (Hamilton Journal-News)
• Massive Poppy Bust: Why Home-Grown Opium Is Rare (Live Science)

Kratom

• Will New Laws Punish Pain Patients? (Pain News Network)
• The drug addictions devastating Thai villages (BBC)

Kava

• Is Kava A Healthier Alternative To Alcohol? (Garden Collage)

Khat

• Kenya takes the fight for lost UK miraa market to United Nations (Business Daily)
• Airline passenger caught with khat and forged residence permit (Times of Malta)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• The DEA's Warrantless Cash Grab (Reason)
• Teens Are Getting More Depressed But Using Fewer Drugs (TIME)
• 'Changing Our Minds' explores psychedelic drugs and spiritual healing (Religion News Service)
• U.S. Customs Seizes Combination Locked Travel Bags as Drug Paraphernalia (Reason)
• Ontario man says he was tortured, given hallucinogenic drugs at mental-health centre (Global News)
• Drugs are Big Business in Bali (Bali Discovery Tours)

Disclaimer: "This Week in Psychedelics" does not censor or analyze the news links presented here. The purpose of this column is solely to catalogue how psychedelics are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation.