(This post has nothing to do with psychedelics, btw)

How are these skillful means for working with our personal and collective karmic conditions? Late capitalism is a karmic minefield, and I think most of us already intuit that. We can only face it. Psychedelics can help us see it without the tight grip it puts on our minds.

What we need contemplative psychedelic practitioners AND psychological researchers working on is how to conduct that integration in psychospiritual awareness. There are countless examples throughout history worldwide. How and why do these work? What can work here and now?

of altered states is that the real work is within the long-term shifts that comes from 1. recognizing insight from experiences in altered states, and 2. rigorously integrating that insight through a disciplined ritual and ethical container.

The question isn't "What does a substance do?" and is more "What can mind do when worked with in altered states?" Too often we assume that the work of substances is primarily neurological, or found within the fireworks of a "trip." But with what I'm learning about the science and phenomenology...

No, these are not "karmically clean." They're implicated in addiction, colonialism, extraction, and, in Dharmic terms, clinging and delusion. In the wrong conditions, they foment suffering, psychic decay, or death. These are not "go-to" tools for insight. So, there's my disclaimer.

The truth is, in Western, North American culture, we live in a binarism between the rational & sublime, and the transgressive & irrational. "Drugs" are automatically conscripted to the latter, but they're also an immense part of our social realities and culture. They're part of our collective karma.

And while we're at it: get rid of tahna/trishna as "desire"