MAPSPsychedelic comments on I am Rick Doblin, Ph.D, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). Ask me and my staff anything about the scientific and medical potential of psychedelic drugs and marijuana!

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2021-06-05 10:00:06

I am Rick Doblin, Ph.D, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). Ask me and my staff anything about the scientific and medical potential of psychedelic drugs and marijuana! (self.IAmA)

Hey Matt! If psychedelic research had not been shut down in the 1970s, and if the cultural crackdown had not taken place, I believe there is a very good chance that the United States would never have invaded Iraq and that the War on Drugs would have ended. The reason I say this is that the whole process of scapegoating and finding external enemies is in part because of our inability to handle our own flaws and imperfections, which we then project outward. Also, the process of dehumanization, the demonization of others, is reduced if we have a culture where spiritual experiences and a sense of unity are more widespread, and where we realize that we share more in common in other people than we have differences.

The UNESCO charter says, “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” I think the psychedelic mystical experience is one of the strongest defenses of peace that can be constructed. Albert Einstein said that the splitting of the atom changed everything but our mode of thinking, and that as we “drift toward unparalleled catastrophe,” what shall be required by mankind to survive is a whole new mode of thinking. This new mode of thinking is, I believe, a spiritual orientation.