Gifts for the Aspiring Psychonaut
Before one can expand their mind, they should feed it: Here are suggestions for classes, books, and music to maximize tripping potential.
Gift Guide
Image: jhillphotography
By now, it should be clear that psychedelics aren’t only for the cool kids. Growing research shows that psilocybin, the psychoactive substance in “magic” mushrooms, can help relieve depression. (Ketamine, too.) Mushrooms have also been used to help terminal patients come to terms with death. On a fundamental level, ingesting a psychedelic and looking around your own mind can be a form of self-love: You may find yourself taken with the beauty and ingenuity of the imagery you see and then feel a surge of pride when you realize, “Hey, I’m making all this stuff myself!”
In short, the psychedelics revolution underway has revised the cliche of a bunch of hippies dropping acid at parties and freaking out. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that—we probably wouldn’t be where we are today without the brave internal explorers who came before us!) Psychedelics can have a beneficial and long-lasting impact on a user’s life, depending on how they are approached. These drugs are mighty and should be handled with strict care for the sake of avoiding bad trips (and they certainly aren’t for everybody, including people with different kinds of mental health conditions, so do your research before going anywhere near them). The concept of set and setting—the idea popularized by LSD evangelist Timothy Leary that the proper mindset and environment are crucial to a good trip—is as true now as it was in the ‘60s. Below are some suggestions that will hopefully facilitate a more comfortable and enlightening psychedelic experience for you or for a curious friend you’d like to support in their journey. We can’t tell you how to procure your supply, but we can tell you what to do with yourself before and after you have it.
How To Change Your Mind
How To Change Your Mind laid crucial groundwork for the current psychedelic profusion. Michael Pollan’s 2019 exploration of the history, philosophy, and practical usage of psychedelics demystifies its subject just enough to make them approachable, without taking away any of their magic. (As if Pollan even could if he tried!) But it’s hardly the only key text. Brian C. Muraresku’s 2020 book The Immortality Key takes readers on a search for the truth of whether the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist had psychedelic origins absorbed from Greek traditions (as part of the so-called “pagan continuity hypothesis with a psychedelic twist”). Terence McKenna (Food of the Gods), Paul Stamets (Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World), and Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception) are responsible for some classic psychedelic reads of yesteryear. Jim Fadiman’s The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide may be the practical how-to that budding psychonauts need. And though Carl Hart actually has some negative things to say about psychonauts in this year’s Drug Use for Grown-Ups, his book is excellent nonetheless for its even-handed philosophy on the destigmatization of recreational drug use of all sorts.
