The Second Psychedelic Revolution, Part Five: A Short Psychedelic History of Humanity
A note to readers: This series was originally intended as a five-part series, but as it has evolved over the past few months, it has become clear that this extra ‘chapter’ was required. A Part Six will thus follow to summarize my conclusions. Access Parts 1-4 here.
Over the course of the past four articles of this series, I have proposed that a new “Second Psychedelic Revolution” has arisen phoenix-like at the end of the 20thcentury out of the ashes of the original 1960’s LSD-and rock n’ roll “revolution”; and that the foundations of this new, “Second” revolution (new psychedelic analogues, organic tryptamines, techno-shamanic tribalism, and “Visionary” art) have mostly emerged from the published work of its three principal architects/authors — the chemist Alexander Shulgin, the mycologist and philosopher Terence McKenna, and the mystic-artist Alex Grey.
This is, of course, something of a generalization, designed to elucidate the point that there is a new psychedelic “ground-wave” moving through our contemporary society. There are of course other factors and other people who have contributed greatly to this ongoing process and who also deserve mention; most importantly Rick Doblin and MAPS[1] who have almost single-handedly led the fight to get psychedelic research back into the Universities; Dr Rick Strassman, for conducting the first DEA approved psychedelic trials in the USA in over thirty years[2], and most recently, for creating the Cottonwood Institute; Roland Griffith, for his repeating of the “Marsh Chapel Experiment” at Harvard, perhaps the most important event in psychedelic academia since Timothy Leary’s original tenure;[3] and Stanislav Grof, for his sustained examination of the transpersonal realms and its relationship to the human psyche.[4] There is also a new entheogenic generation emerging, with visual artists such as Android Jones and Amanda Sage creating their own followings, authors like myself and Daniel Pinchbeck who have managed to have books on psychedelic culture widely published despite a virtual ban on the subject in general society, and popular DJ’s with evocative names like Mimosa and Run DMT.