The Secessionist Option: Why Now?

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It is a strange coincidence that just as the ship of the United States is groaning on the shoals of bankruptcy, leaking dollars like massive jets of seawater, at this precise moment a charismatic black American has risen out of relative obscurity in the lower decks to captain the ship.

But look! Are those phantoms I see, or real men, those masked Neo-Cons, dual-flag-lapel armchair warmongers, weapons and security services execs, rollicking banksters, all clambering overboard, their stern miens barely disguising their smirks, their pockets stuffed with loot, hoisting sail — but for what safe haven? Look again! Some of those tricksters are standing close by the bold new captain, up on the bridge, shouting commands — or is it advice? Ah, they're raising the rosy flag of Hope, "Change We Can Believe In," smacking the wind hard beneath the Stars and Stripes Forever.

What's going on?

Here in Vermont I voted for Barack Obama, not out of political conviction, but for many other reasons. Entangled by history, by family and friends, by a sense of justice and honor toward those fellow humans my Euro-American tribe first enslaved and then segregated as non-equals. Even if you are not an African American, but have friends who are, you know how deep, absolute, and complete a victory Barack Obama's election to the office of the U.S. presidency has been, an achievement unbounded by words, and unshakeable in the hearts of all African-American brothers and sisters.

There are other reasons I voted for our president. I am a lone secessionist in a large community of family and friends, almost all of whom (not quite all), starting with my own walk-beside, my own wife, do not share this peculiar dream of mine: to be free at last from the tyranny of what political scientist Sheldon Wollin calls "inverted totalitarianism" (aka "democracy in America"). To be free of the media lies daily flung in my face like spit, lies that extol violence and control as freedom and democracy. I long to be peaceably bounded in a small-scale polity, shorn of taxation for endless arrays of weaponry, ever-mounting war debts, insurance blackmail schemes for illnesses incurable and expanding, and free at last of my country's ceaseless chase after loot in all corners and every crevice of the globe. This is my dream. And Vermont seems a place where it could be realized.

And your dream? Is it like mine or like most other Vermonters', who "believe" and are stirred by the sight of that rosy flag of Hope & Change raised over their heads on January 20, 2009, as their ship of state was racing its huge turbo-charged engines to loosen itself from the hidden shoals it'd stuck itself on? The overwhelming majority of Vermonters are Americans first, firm believers in the humane possibilities of Big Government, its capacity to restore us, even now, to the nakedly materialist version of the American Dream. The version that in the wake of WW I was hatched by an out-of-work war propagandist and Big Business, and then unveiled bright and noble at the dawn of the Age of Advertising. That version of the American Dream now lies shopworn and bereft of purpose on the nation's doorsteps.

Americans first, true believers in the frozen-solid American Dream, elected President Ronald Reagan of Hollywood to rekindle "Morning in America." Still morning, still roseate inside the world's oldest democracy, more than two centuries' ripened. Ageless. Like a nation of Peter Pans we will not be responsible for our own inward growth. We will not grow up. Daddy can, and must, and will rise to the occasion. He will let us slide past the flaming post unsinged.

In the end we Americans have been burned. Now it's time to waken. Our dream has ended. It's time to make a new story to guide us forward.

Most of my family and my friends live elsewhere, outside Vermont, on the great North American landmass, even in the lands across the shining seas. For all their sakes, too, I pulled the lever for Obama. The unrelenting post-9-11 rollback of Constitutional guarantees of freedom seemed less likely to worsen under the captaincy of a youthful, hip black man than under a sclerotic old white guy shadowed by a wild-eyed, six-gun-toting gal who waited in the backroom for his untimely demise. After all, Michele is digging up the south lawn for a latter-day Victory Garden. Imagine Laura doing that? Or what's-her-name? No, you can't.

Theater? Maybe. Tell me then, what isn't theater right now? Theater is about belief, the willing suspension of belief in "reality," about opening yourself to the exploration of a new narrative.

Secession is the birth channel for that new narrative.

Thirty-five years ago, during the OPEC oil crisis, I read two little books that changed how I looked at the world and its possibilities. The Limits to Growth (1972) convinced me to leave my job and work for the new environmental organizations that were starting to do battle in the federal courts on behalf of the commons (lakes, wetlands, rivers, air, non-human species, and the like) that our lives depended on, but which the economists insisted were mere "externalities." (Not to worry: the free market, abetted by Aladdin's Lamp of Technology, will protect us.) Of course the economists, then and now the ritual-driven ruling priesthood, won the argument.

But in winning the argument, the econ priests have at long last lost the story, or wrought its premature end. The human population explosion, ecosystem degradation, species extinction, climate change, agricultural shortfalls, epidemics, peak oil, and exponential free-market debt-and-credit-driven bubble economics have combined their disparate forces to bring closure to the mega-project we call Western civilization (now fully globalized). Exponential growth has reached, as Malthus had more or less predicted two centuries ago, its end point: collapse. The growth story no longer has a future (see Charles Eisenstein on Reality Sandwich for further clarifications).

And the growth story and the story of America are inextricably mixed together — impossible to untangle. Ponder this.

The year after Limits was published, and roundly condemned by the hapless left as well as the fervid right, E. F. "Fritz" Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful came out. I was so impressed I travelled to London to meet the author. We became friends. Here was an economist who thought like a humanist; he understood the a priori necessity of metaphysics! Fritz asked the ultimate questions, questions pertaining to meaning, to the purpose of life, whose answers had to inform how economics should work in the real world. "…[B]y considering goods as more important than people and consumption as more important than creative activity [modern economics has been] shifting the emphasis from the worker to the product of work, that is, from the human to the sub-human, a surrender to the forces of evil" (p.53).

A surrender to the forces of evil: that is, to ideas, beliefs, notions. Evil resides not in a barren heart or an ignorant mind. Its way must be prepared. And so we in America have surrendered, bit by inexorable bit, aided and abetted by our media, our leaders, and our institutions of "higher" learning. Worse still, the world, at first a reluctant lover, has followed us straight into our cul de sac, our "dream."

But not all of us, and not all the world, have made that blind journey of faith.

When the Declaration of Independence was penned and signed by our forefathers in 1776, some 18,000 sovereign political bodies existed on earth, when almost 1 billion of us humans then lived. A mere 200 or so years later, with six almost seven times the number of human beings, that incredibly diverse panoply of sovereign bodies had been destroyed, largely by a few imperially driven nation states, and brutally crushed into less than 200 states – less than a mere dozen of which control, directly or indirectly, the lives of every human being on earth.

This trend toward massive centralization is, without doubt, the most notable thing about human society that has occurred in the last several hundred years.

Impelled by the story of Her Majesty's Empire, of the Union, of the Reich, of all the Motherlands and Fatherlands, and all the promises of a wide variety of demagogic leaders, humanity has left the diversity of the small for the uniformity of the big. The wars fought to attain this state of affairs have consumed lives as a raging fire consumes dry kindling. Their fatalities dwarf those of the earlier, pre-Napoleonic, pre-Civil-War eras, as towering mountains dwarf their misty foothills.

Schumacher (himself a student of Leopold Kohr, author of The Breakdown of Nations) taught me to think about scale, especially as it relates to the potential for the degradation or elevation of human beings. To what caused violence and what birthed peace. He set me on the path of being a decentralist. And in becoming a decentralist I unwittingly took my first fateful step toward becoming a secessionist.

Thirty years later, in 2003, a full two years and more since the empire's plan for war against Iraq and disaster capitalism for the whole of the Arab and Muslim world had been hatched in the fetid obscurity of the Vice President's Energy Task Force, I awoke to the full savagery of the times. Mute citizens were being gorged into stupefaction on Fox's and CNN's shock-and-awe spectacles and swallowing official lies that piled up in front of them like indigestible spaghetti with no discernible ends or beginnings. A presidential election had been stolen, the theft inscrutably sanctified by the unelected and unaccountable Third Branch, with no recourse available to the voting citizenry. A Nazi-nomenclature-inspired "Homeland Security Department" had mushroomed overnight into putrid life and fed like a band of bloated sewer rats on the nation's once solid moral foundations.

I was forced awake. I could no longer avoid knowing where and who I was, an American citizen whose taxes and personally-voted-for representatives were funding the terrors of Gitmo, Abu Gharib, Baghram, Diego Garcia — the whole vast despicable global gulag of extradition, rendition, and death, whose victims, innocent and not, were dumped, dead or half-alive, on the outskirts of the U.S.-led "Free World." Orwell's prophetic dystopia was being resurrected not in the Soviet empire, but in the American — O'Brien, the Inquisitor in Room 101, represented us, not "them" (1984, Part 3). Irony is a labored, whorish term for this piece of trickery.

I became despondent, enraged. Become an ex-patriot I whispered to myself. No sooner than the liberating thought lifted me, it plummeted me like a rock from a ledge. My mother, how could I leave her? Mother and the land seemed inextricable, identified or woven together as one in my heart. I did not think first of my children, but of my one living ancestor, my mother. My ancestors had been in America for almost 400 years, and fought in every war of consequence for the nation, beginning with the Revolutionary War. I remembered next my children, my grandchildren. My wife, my brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews. What of them?

Then a compassionate friend and neighbor, listening to me grieve and rant, invited me to attend a meeting of secessionists, but an hour's drive north.

Secessionists?

Lincoln's genocidal victory for the "eternally" [sic] indivisible union of all the states into one supreme nation state eradicated ancient norms and attitudes in the northern psyche. Especially in New England, where a mere generation earlier secession had been a palpable, actionable option, more than once almost acted out (e.g., the Hartford Convention). After 1865 the United States were no longer referred to in the plural. The right of secession, capstone of the residual 10th Amendment rights of the states now gathered involuntarily under the roof of one nation under one commander-in-chief, went underground. Its very naming underwent deep etymological tissue surgery; it vanished from the living body of discourse by which we disparate Americans weigh our present and futures as communities of free human beings.

As a northerner born and bred, I could not grasp the idea of secession at first. It didn't exist but floated insubstantial somewhere beyond my groping thought. Southerners have never forgotten this archaic American birthright. It sits like an undigested, heavy fruit inside their bellies. And at that March 2003 mud-season meeting I met the Second Vermont Republic movement's founder, Thomas Naylor, born and raised in Mississippi, and like me a liberal-minded transplant to Vermont. That late March day seated round a wood stove the candle of secession was unexpectedly lit inside me. I began my journey of rediscovery of a basic American right, planted smack in the heart of the Declaration of Independence, and more murkily in the Constitution's 10th Amendment.

The economic decentralist had arrived home, at last, arm-in-arm with the political secessionist. They were one and the same all along.

To be small scale requires small-scale sovereignty, or the ideas associated with small scale — accountability, transparency, familiarity, co-dependence and co-operation, mutual respect and toleration, self-reliance and independence — are but chimeras wholly dependent on the whim of an authority resident far outside the bounds of the community. They are mere "feel-good" ego boosters, substanceless. The transfer of state sovereignty to Washington is now virtually total: The U.S. president controls the Vermont militia (its "National" Guard) and can dispatch Guardsmen and women 8,000 or more miles east or west at his own discretion, with nary a murmur from an impotent governor. The state cannot even determine the age at which its citizens may drink, lest all funds for its highways be withdrawn. Nor resurrect an old and valuable crop like hemp, lest the USDA helicopters leap in, fully armed, as though our farmers were rightless peasants in a distant outpost of the empire. And so the state has become an abject, groveling castrate, eager to serve the whims of Washington for crumbs and good marks in the service of an empire from which it amorally presumes it benefits.

What then of the rascals' safe haven? The one for which the tricksters who have looted us believe they are setting sail? The shores to which these pirates have set sail will be ruled by a transnational oligopoly — a secretive cabal of bankers, merchants of death, security analysts, intelligence gatherers and enforcers, bureaucrats, and politicos — more formally organized into alliances and no longer sworn to the allegiance of any single hegemonic state. Of course the world does not surrender itself so easily to formulaic thought. One thinks immediately of the U.S. military, which costs its citizens more than all the other militaries of the world's states combined cost their citizens. To whom will it be answerable? Though the process of globalization of force may be ambiguous and messy, the trends have been unmistakable. Following the prescriptions of Zbigniew Brzezinski (The Grand Chessboard) the U.S. and NATO now ring Eurasia with military bases and missile sites strewn across many thousands of miles. NATO assists the U.S. in waging its and Europe's (and Japan's) imperial wars there. Who controls Eurasia, controls the world. Or so go the dreams of old men. (And maybe too of our young captain.)

Thus do the usual suspects — brandishing their Pavlovian shibboleths of "defense" and "national security," and the "war against terror," the globalized war against the peoples whose states just happen to control the lion's share of the sacred black gold — presume to rally us into loyal ranks inside their new regional alliances. But to achieve their new New World Order they must first humiliate the rancorous American people, believers in their own exceptionalist destiny, as well as their overweening federal government. This step is all but taken: the basis of American power is the supremacy of its currency, the dollar, in international trade. This supremacy was solidified at Bretton Woods (1944) and twenty-odd years later modified by Nixon and Kissinger as the petro dollar. That supremacy will end within months, at the latest toward the end of Obama's first term. The U.S., as Nouriel Roubini and other commentators have noted, is "effectively insolvent." Bankrupt. The exponentially growing debts of all Americans and their institutions are unpayable, and insure the dollar's demise as the exclusive or dominant currency for world trade. In effect a long-enjoyed tax levied by the American people upon the rest of the world will soon cease to exist.

Bankruptcy does terrible things to the arrogant and prideful.

Gathered on the darkening shores of the "safe haven" are legions of Neo-Keynesian White Knights and blood-soaked Friedmanite Black Knights. Do they array for battle, one against the other? I think not. Look, they gather at the dying vats and throw their costumes in, et voilá!, they re-anoint themselves, newly garbed in grey. Boldly seizing the laundered banner of their One True Paradigm, behold the priesthood form its ranks for its final defense of Capitalism.

They are a doomed company committed to a doomed paradigm. Like their slavish government clients they remain essentially clueless wandering their new "safe" shores, arrogantly betting on their tried-and-true armamentarium of Technology, Thought Control, and Monetary Hocus-Pocus. Their shock-and-awe stock-in-trade.

And so we now all depart for terra incognita. The Grey Priesthood and its monarchial clients will not succeed with their newly packaged schemes of capitalist totalitarianism, though they will continue to test their panoply of social-control technologies aimed at us — we the people. We who stand, still enthralled by bigness, by the miracle and promise of the Daddy security state, the house built by Hamilton, Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, and Reagan.

A house whose timbers now creak loud in a hungry wind.

It's true the new New World Order, the safe haven, with its reliance on an ever more centralized global system of regulation and enforcement, does not yet confront an organized and powerful human constraint, other than perhaps Chinese and Russian recalcitrance, and Islamic intransigence. It does, however, confront non-human constraints now too powerful for it to control. Unfortunately for these elites, but not necessarily for those of us who choose to align ourselves differently, the relentless build-up of several greenhouse gases will continue to unleash massive climate alterations that will raise inexorably the cost of global capital's staying in business. The need for vast infrastructural repairs, increased insurance and recapitalization, for more expensive oil, natural gas, and other strategic minerals and resources, for ever-greater security and military "preparedness," and for credit generally to support the nutritional, housing and health requirements of a still-exploding world population, all these costs will implode the governments that shoulder them. The growth model — a purely mental construct, however consequential — will collapse along with the political systems and unfortunately many of the natural systems that enabled it in the first place.

It is a mark of our character as a national people that peak oil was neither debated, nor discussed, nor even mentioned in our most recent presidential debates. Who have we become that the most fundamental facts of our lives cannot be openly talked about in public forums available to all citizens? A nation of Peter Pans.

Whatever the terminus of the current world deflationary spiral — and remember its depths have yet to be plumbed, as that accountant's nightmare called the global derivatives market exceeds world GDP by a factor of 10 or more — the cost of maintaining a Western standard of living is going to inexorably rise on a diminishing base of strategic resources and of eroded, formerly free sinks for its growing and globally dispersed pollution.

Whether it comes now, as many believe is occurring, or later (but before 2020), the Greatest Depression will not be a cushy time for any. It will nonetheless be an opportune time for secessionists. The heart of a secessionist is committed to the place where she lives, to the land or landscape where she enacts her daily life, be it a townscape, a cityscape, an agricultural setting, or a woodland habitat. Without cheap oil the thread of globalization will unravel the entire carpet of the American Dream (now exported to the whole world).

The world's dream must be redreamt.

The new dreaming will be "a fantastic time for artists, visionaries, mad scientists and seers to step forward and present a well-defined alternative" yes (Pinchbeck "The Intentional Economy" this site), but it will also be the work of local farmers, winter harvesters, bakers, cheese-makers, vintners, soil engineers, water conservationists, technologists, group process facilitators, researchers, legal and money counselors, energy systems geeks, inventors, carpenters, masons, volunteers for public service, seed savers, repair men and women (plumbers, electricians, etc.), cloud gazers, recyclers, ombudsmen-and-women, negotiators, puppeteers, actors, couriers, veterinarians, health-givers, masseurs and masseuses, singers, landscapists and permaculturists, fire and police people, knitters and seamstresses, psychotherapists, hunters, smiths and welders, among countless others. Their common denominator will be their commitment to living well locally, living fully and creatively, locally; to local self-sufficiency; to local sustainability. And finally, and willy-nilly so, to local sovereignty.

In the end they will have come round full circle to be what their ancestors in this once-great nation once were: secessionists.

Only this time the "revolution" will be won without a shot fired.

 

 

 

Ian Baldwin is a founder of the E.F. Schumacher Society (US), co-founder with his wife Margo of Chelsea Green Publishing Company, a co-founder of http://www.metahistory.org/ and http://www.futureprimitive.org/, and
a founder and contributing editor of Vermont Commons (http://www.vtcommons.org/). He lives in
Vermont, in a woodland habitat.

 


This article is based on an earlier piece published in the January 2009 issue of
Vermont Commons.

Image courtesy of Creative Commons license.

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How Much Does LSD Cost? When shopping around for that magical psychedelic substance, there can be many uncertainties when new to buying LSD. You may be wondering how much does LSD cost? In this article, we will discuss what to expect when purchasing LSD on the black market, what forms LSD is sold in, and the standard breakdown of buying LSD in quantity.   Navy Use of LSD on the Dark Web The dark web is increasingly popular for purchasing illegal substances. The US Navy has now noticed this trend with their staff. Read to learn more.   Having Sex on LSD: What You Need to Know Can you have sex on LSD? Read our guide to learn everything about sex on acid, from lowered inhibitions to LSD users quotes on sex while tripping.   A Drug That Switches off an LSD Trip A pharmaceutical company is developing an “off-switch” drug for an LSD trip, in the case that a bad trip can happen. Some would say there is no such thing.   Queen of Hearts: An Interview with Liz Elliot on Tim Leary and LSD The history of psychedelia, particularly the British experience, has been almost totally written by men. Of the women involved, especially those who were in the thick of it, little has been written either by or about them. A notable exception is Liz Elliot.   LSD Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety LSD, Lysergic acid diethylamide, or just acid is one of the most important psychedelics ever discovered. What did history teach us?   Microdosing LSD & Common Dosage Explained Microdosing, though imperceivable, is showing to have many health benefits–here is everything you want to know about microdosing LSD.   LSD Resources Curious to learn more about LSD? This guide includes comprehensive LSD resources containing books, studies and more.   LSD as a Spiritual Aid There is common consent that the evolution of mankind is paralleled by the increase and expansion of consciousness. From the described process of how consciousness originates and develops, it becomes evident that its growth depends on its faculty of perception. Therefore every means of improving this faculty should be used.   Legendary LSD Blotter Art: A Hidden Craftsmanship Have you ever heard of LSD blotter art? Explore the trippy world of LSD art and some of the top artists of LSD blotter art.   LSD and Exercise: Does it Work? LSD and exercise? Learn why high-performing athletes are taking hits of LSD to improve their overall potential.   Jan Bastiaans Treated Holocaust Survivors with LSD Dutch psychiatrist, Jan Bastiaans administered LSD-assisted therapy to survivors of the Holocaust. A true war hero and pioneer of psychedelic-therapy.   LSD and Spiritual Awakening I give thanks for LSD, which provided the opening that led me to India in 1971 and brought me to Neem Karoli Baba, known as Maharajji. Maharajji is described by the Indians as a “knower of hearts.”   How LSD is Made: Everything You Need to Know Ever wonder how to make LSD? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how LSD is made.   How to Store LSD: Best Practices Learn the best way to store LSD, including the proper temperature and conditions to maximize how long LSD lasts when stored.   Bicycle Day: The Discovery of LSD Every year on April 19th, psychonauts join forces to celebrate Bicycle Day. Learn about the famous day when Albert Hoffman first discovered the effects of LSD.   Cary Grant: A Hollywood Legend On LSD Cary Grant was a famous actor during the 1930’s-60’s But did you know Grant experimented with LSD? Read our guide to learn more.   Albert Hofmann: LSD — My Problem Child Learn about Albert Hofmann and his discovery of LSD, along with the story of Bicycle Day and why it marks a historic milestone.   Babies are High: What Does LSD Do To Your Brain What do LSD and babies have in common? Researchers at the Imperial College in London discover that an adult’s brain on LSD looks like a baby’s brain.   1P LSD: Effects, Benefits, Safety Explained 1P LSD is an analogue of LSD and homologue of ALD-25. Here is everything you want to know about 1P LSD and how it compares to LSD.   Francis Crick, DNA & LSD Type ‘Francis Crick LSD’ into Google, and the result will be 30,000 links. Many sites claim that Crick (one of the two men responsible for discovering the structure of DNA), was either under the influence of LSD at the time of his revelation or used the drug to help with his thought processes during his research. Is this true?   What Happens If You Overdose on LSD? A recent article presented three individuals who overdosed on LSD. Though the experience was unpleasant, the outcomes were remarkably positive.

The Ayahuasca Experience
Ayahuasca is both a medicine and a visionary aid. You can employ ayahuasca for physical, mental, emotional and spiritual repair, and you can engage with the power of ayahuasca for deeper insight and realization. If you consider attainment of knowledge in the broadest perspective, you can say that at all times, ayahuasca heals.

 

Trippy Talk: Meet Ayahuasca with Sitaramaya Sita and PlantTeachers
Sitaramaya Sita is a spiritual herbalist, pusangera, and plant wisdom practitioner formally trained in the Shipibo ayahuasca tradition.

 

The Therapeutic Value of Ayahuasca
My best description of the impact of ayahuasca is that it’s a rocket boost to psychospiritual growth and unfolding, my professional specialty during my thirty-five years of private practice.

 

Microdosing Ayahuasca: Common Dosage Explained
What is ayahuasca made of and what is considered a microdose? Explore insights with an experienced Peruvian brewmaster and learn more about this practice.

 

Ayahuasca Makes Neuron Babies in Your Brain
Researchers from Beckley/Sant Pau Research Program have shared the latest findings in their study on the effects of ayahuasca on neurogenesis.

 

The Fatimiya Sufi Order and Ayahuasca
In this interview, the founder of the Fatimiya Sufi Order,  N. Wahid Azal, discusses the history and uses of plant medicines in Islamic and pre-Islamic mystery schools.

 

Consideration Ayahuasca for Treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Research indicates that ayahuasca mimics mechanisms of currently accepted treatments for PTSD. In order to understand the implications of ayahuasca treatment, we need to understand how PTSD develops.

 

Brainwaves on Ayahuasca: A Waking Dream State
In a study researchers shared discoveries showing ingredients found in Ayahuasca impact the brainwaves causing a “waking dream” state.

 

Cannabis and Ayahuasca: Mixing Entheogenic Plants
Cannabis and Ayahuasca: most people believe they shouldn’t be mixed. Read this personal experience peppered with thoughts from a pro cannabis Peruvian Shaman.

 

Ayahuasca Retreat 101: Everything You Need to Know to Brave the Brew
Ayahuasca has been known to be a powerful medicinal substance for millennia. However, until recently, it was only found in the jungle. Word of its deeply healing and cleansing properties has begun to spread across the world as many modern, Western individuals are seeking spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical well-being. More ayahuasca retreat centers are emerging in the Amazon and worldwide to meet the demand.

 

Ayahuasca Helps with Grief
A new study published in psychopharmacology found that ayahuasca helped those suffering from the loss of a loved one up to a year after treatment.

 

Ayahuasca Benefits: Clinical Improvements for Six Months
Ayahuasca benefits can last six months according to studies. Read here to learn about the clinical improvements from drinking the brew.

 

Ayahuasca Culture: Indigenous, Western, And The Future
Ayahuasca has been use for generations in the Amazon. With the rise of retreats and the brew leaving the rainforest how is ayahuasca culture changing?

 

Ayahuasca Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
The Amazonian brew, Ayahuasca has a long history and wide use. Read our guide to learn all about the tea from its beginnings up to modern-day interest.

 

Ayahuasca and the Godhead: An Interview with Wahid Azal of the Fatimiya Sufi Order
Wahid Azal, a Sufi mystic of The Fatimiya Sufi Order and an Islamic scholar, talks about entheogens, Sufism, mythology, and metaphysics.

 

Ayahuasca and the Feminine: Women’s Roles, Healing, Retreats, and More
Ayahuasca is lovingly called “grandmother” or “mother” by many. Just how feminine is the brew? Read to learn all about women and ayahuasca.

What Is the Standard of Care for Ketamine Treatments?
Ketamine therapy is on the rise in light of its powerful results for treatment-resistant depression. But, what is the current standard of care for ketamine? Read to find out.

What Is Dissociation and How Does Ketamine Create It?
Dissociation can take on multiple forms. So, what is dissociation like and how does ketamine create it? Read to find out.

Having Sex on Ketamine: Getting Physical on a Dissociative
Curious about what it could feel like to have sex on a dissociate? Find out all the answers in our guide to sex on ketamine.

Special K: The Party Drug
Special K refers to Ketamine when used recreationally. Learn the trends as well as safety information around this substance.

Kitty Flipping: When Ketamine and Molly Meet
What is it, what does it feel like, and how long does it last? Read to explore the mechanics of kitty flipping.

Ketamine vs. Esketamine: 3 Important Differences Explained
Ketamine and esketamine are used to treat depression. But what’s the difference between them? Read to learn which one is right for you: ketamine vs. esketamine.

Guide to Ketamine Treatments: Understanding the New Approach
Ketamine is becoming more popular as more people are seeing its benefits. Is ketamine a fit? Read our guide for all you need to know about ketamine treatments.

Ketamine Treatment for Eating Disorders
Ketamine is becoming a promising treatment for various mental health conditions. Read to learn how individuals can use ketamine treatment for eating disorders.

Ketamine Resources, Studies, and Trusted Information
Curious to learn more about ketamine? This guide includes comprehensive ketamine resources containing books, studies and more.

Ketamine Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
Our ultimate guide to ketamine has everything you need to know about this “dissociative anesthetic” and how it is being studied for depression treatment.

Ketamine for Depression: A Mental Health Breakthrough
While antidepressants work for some, many others find no relief. Read to learn about the therapeutic uses of ketamine for depression.

Ketamine for Addiction: Treatments Offering Hope
New treatments are offering hope to individuals suffering from addiction diseases. Read to learn how ketamine for addiction is providing breakthrough results.

Microdosing Ketamine & Common Dosages Explained
Microdosing, though imperceivable, is showing to have many health benefits–here is everything you want to know about microdosing ketamine.

How to Ease a Ketamine Comedown
Knowing what to expect when you come down from ketamine can help integrate the experience to gain as much value as possible.

How to Store Ketamine: Best Practices
Learn the best ways how to store ketamine, including the proper temperature and conditions to maximize how long ketamine lasts when stored.

How To Buy Ketamine: Is There Legal Ketamine Online?
Learn exactly where it’s legal to buy ketamine, and if it’s possible to purchase legal ketamine on the internet.

How Long Does Ketamine Stay in Your System?
How long does ketamine stay in your system? Are there lasting effects on your body? Read to discover the answers!

How Ketamine is Made: Everything You Need to Know
Ever wonder how to make Ketamine? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how Ketamine is made.

Colorado on Ketamine: First Responders Waiver Programs
Fallout continues after Elijah McClain. Despite opposing recommendations from some city council, Colorado State Health panel recommends the continued use of ketamine by medics for those demonstrating “excited delirium” or “extreme agitation”.

Types of Ketamine: Learn the Differences & Uses for Each
Learn about the different types of ketamine and what they are used for—and what type might be right for you. Read now to find out!

Kitty Flipping: When Ketamine and Molly Meet
What is it, what does it feel like, and how long does it last? Read to explore the mechanics of kitty flipping.

MDMA & Ecstasy Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
Our ultimate guide to MDMA has everything you want to know about Ecstasy from how it was developed in 1912 to why it’s being studied today.

How To Get the Most out of Taking MDMA as a Couple
Taking MDMA as a couple can lead to exciting experiences. Read here to learn how to get the most of of this love drug in your relationship.

Common MDMA Dosage & Microdosing Explained
Microdosing, though imperceivable, is showing to have many health benefits–here is everything you want to know about microdosing MDMA.

Having Sex on MDMA: What You Need to Know
MDMA is known as the love drug… Read our guide to learn all about sex on MDMA and why it is beginning to makes its way into couple’s therapy.

How MDMA is Made: Common Procedures Explained
Ever wonder how to make MDMA? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how MDMA is made.

Hippie Flipping: When Shrooms and Molly Meet
What is it, what does it feel like, and how long does it last? Explore the mechanics of hippie flipping and how to safely experiment.

How Cocaine is Made: Common Procedures Explained
Ever wonder how to make cocaine? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how cocaine is made.

A Christmas Sweater with Santa and Cocaine
This week, Walmart came under fire for a “Let it Snow” Christmas sweater depicting Santa with lines of cocaine. Columbia is not merry about it.

Ultimate Cocaine Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
This guide covers what you need to know about Cocaine, including common effects and uses, legality, safety precautions and top trends today.

NEWS: An FDA-Approved Cocaine Nasal Spray
The FDA approved a cocaine nasal spray called Numbrino, which has raised suspicions that the pharmaceutical company, Lannett Company Inc., paid off the FDA..

The Ultimate Guide to Cannabis Bioavailability
What is bioavailability and how can it affect the overall efficacy of a psychedelic substance? Read to learn more.

Cannabis Research Explains Sociability Behaviors
New research by Dr. Giovanni Marsicano shows social behavioral changes occur as a result of less energy available to the neurons. Read here to learn more.

The Cannabis Shaman
If recreational and medical use of marijuana is becoming accepted, can the spiritual use as well? Experiential journalist Rak Razam interviews Hamilton Souther, founder of the 420 Cannabis Shamanism movement…

Cannabis Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
Our ultimate guide to Cannabis has everything you want to know about this popular substances that has psychedelic properties.

Cannabis and Ayahuasca: Mixing Entheogenic Plants
Cannabis and Ayahuasca: most people believe they shouldn’t be mixed. Read this personal experience peppered with thoughts from a procannabis Peruvian Shaman.

CBD-Rich Cannabis Versus Single-Molecule CBD
A ground-breaking study has documented the superior therapeutic properties of whole plant Cannabis extract as compared to synthetic cannabidiol (CBD), challenging the medical-industrial complex’s notion that “crude” botanical preparations are less effective than single-molecule compounds.

Cannabis Has Always Been a Medicine
Modern science has already confirmed the efficacy of cannabis for most uses described in the ancient medical texts, but prohibitionists still claim that medical cannabis is “just a ruse.”

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