The podcast doesn't produce any sound here, unfortunately.

The functioning of our brain, which depends on chemistry, is complex and not completely understood.

Personally I prefer to not shake it up too much by using psychedelics!

Gnostic Media has a download link which might work in places where the streaming application is broken.

I agree that science has more to unravel when it comes to understanding the brain and consciousness...yet medical science via the pharmacuetical industry seems to act as if they're magic pills are something other than wreckless trial and error.

Dr Fadiman spoke of an interesting case study concerning folks who suffer from "cluster headaches". According to him this condition is the worst kind of headache and medical science can not seem to come up with much to help much less stop it.

The case study was a guy who was cured all of a sudden....and the only thing he did different was take a controlled dose of LSD one time. He posted his results on some cluster headache forum and several other people who suffer from this were able to cure themselves with a one time dose of LSD.

Chemically speaking the drug leaves the body in a matter of hours. Dr Fadiman is speculating that maybe the brain can somehow get "re-wired" during a proper experience or to use your term "shaken up".

I feel like anyone with reservations about such an experience should listen to their intuition and stay away.

The first time I ventured into the LSD experience was nothing short of mystical. A true gift that I still value to this day because I feel like something did indeed change. Maybe something got re-wired up in my brain, or maybe my imagination unleashed some new material. The result was a broadening of my 19 year old horizons with a new outlook that includes feeling more connected to the people around me. I felt a new level of comfort in my own skin which resulted in a much needed increase in my self esteem. Afterward color seemed to be richer and deeper than before.

The problem with LSD is the distribution. You really have to trust whoever made it that it's pure, which in most cases greed sets in and it gets dilluted for more profit. That's why psyocibin mushrooms are a good safe alternative, yet illegal in most parts of the world.

The podcast quotes a US government survey to track drug use in the United States. The survey concludes that over 600,000 people admitted that they tried LSD for the first time in 2009. What about all the other folks who didn't want to confess to a survey taker such a personal piece of informaiton?

The War on Drugs is more like a War on consciousness exploration in my opinion. I see no good reason for such substances to be illegal when we've proven as a society that it's just impossible to prohibit such a basic behviour.

You make it sound like trial and error is wrong. Why? It's been the single most important driver of progress thoughout human history! Even though it has evolved somewhat into what we now would call the scientific method.

These days though, medical experiments must usually attain a somewhat higher standard than pure trial and error. Usually double blind tests are done to prevent influence of patient and researcher bias.

This touches on your next point as well. It is very nice to hear about a person who was cured of cluster headaches after taking LSD. But how will we know that this was not an incident, or even that the LSD affected the cure? To really understand the effects of LSD on cluster headaches, a double blind study would have to be carried out. Only if the group receiving LSD instead of a placebo sees a larger fraction of cured people can we be relatively sure there is an effect.

As to the re-wiring of the brain, it is my understanding that every experience you have essentially rewires your brain to some extent. This is how memories are formed. But it is also well-known that some drugs (e.g. ethanol) when taken in large quantities can destroy brain cells.

The wikipedia article on LSD lists studies that it can trigger schizophrenia in the small fraction people who are susceptible. It may be only one in a thousand, but it sure sucks if it is you! I know people who suffer from schizophrenia, and I find it hard to describe how debilitating it can be. You do not want to have it!

As to the "mystical" and "spititual" experiences of the use of halucinogens, the fact that you can get them from using these drugs (or e.g. lack of oxygen) confirms that they are a product of your brain chemistry, and as such unremarkable. Could it not also be that your life's experiences (other than using LSD) have broadened your horizons and enhanced your empathy?

After witnessing my late father's personality change after a cerebral haemorrhage, I started reading about the link between our self and our brain. This experience and what I've read on e.g. traumatic brain injury has lead me (because of overwhelming evidence) to the conclusion that what we perceive as our self is bound to our brain and cannot exist without it. This puts paid to all hypothesis about our "soul" persisting separate from the body and beyond death, in my opinion. By the same token it makes it extremely important to be careful with your brain. Screw it up and you could literally destroy your self.

This for me is sufficient reason to not use hallucinogens! I kind of like my brain un-scrambled.

As for magic mushrooms, I think it is right to discourage their use. Mushrooms are easily mis-identified, and their strength can vary considerably. There have been multiple cases of drug tourists in Amsterdam dying after consuming them, most because they jumped out of windows. In some of these cases innocent bystanders were severely hurt. In 2007 a 28 year old Frenchman staying in Amsterdam killed his dog under the influence of mushrooms and weed, in order to "free the dog's spirit". I think it is reasonable that substances like these should not be used without medical supervision.

I heartily agree that a "war on drugs" is stupid. Enforcing laws is a matter for the police, not the military. It's like swatting flies with a sledgehammer. It looks impressive, creates lots of damage and is unlikely to produce significant results. (The same goes for the "war on terror", BTW. To the best of my knowledge most succesful preventions of terrorist acts were carried out by police forces. The best defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized.)