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How psychedelic renaissance revolutionize the world?

By Nuran MammadovPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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Timothy Leary holding the bough

These famous words were said by Harvard Psychologist Timothy Leary in 1966. In the following year, Harvard. In the following year, he gathered 30.000 hippies in Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco to start new counterculture revolution. Obviously, he wasn’t aware at that time that he was actually igniting something unfathomable.

Being Harvard Psychologist, he was always respected by his peers and students. But, his love and admiration for mind-altering drugs or a.k.a psychedelics wasn’t accepted by majority of public wholeheartedly. He was openly called “drug addict” and “cult leader”. In fact, it got to the point that he was forced to leave Harvard, and his family kicked out from their house.

He tried to keep playing his political and psychological chess, and educate people on intelligently taking psychotropic substances. He tried to show how this could be one of the ways to gain new perspective on life and significantly improve your perception of reality. Unfortunately, in this particular political situation, psychedelics were still categorized as a dirty and dangerous drug.

Since 1966, it’s not been possible to do a straight research on psychedelics. In fact, government and some universities managed to make it impossible to even research on their side effect and harmfulness. So, after half century, the truth about the beneficials such as psilocybin mushrooms proved to be worth it. It saved lives, treated depression, opened minds, and boosted creativity. Similar to LSD and MDMA, it had nothing to do with the government’s agenda. That’s what Timothy Leary wanted.

This is the story of how society and government never agreed on freedom of scientific exploration and education. How their power and authority can make mass of good things hide under the carpet forever. And how the power of psychedelics can help someone in need get up and open their eyes to the world.

The psychedelic Renaissance is a story of breaking chains, opening minds and spreading love. This is a story of how modern science and classic knowledge intertwine and support each other. It is a story of how psychedelics can make your life better. And how this power can be used to give hope for those who can’t find courage to go on.

There was another reason why Timothy Leary needed this revolution. Psychedelics had a tendency of empowering the people to fight for their rights, freedom and equality. He knew that psychedelics could easily become a political ground for forces opposed to government. And they could destabilize the government completely.

For him, the psychedelic revolution was more than a bill passed by legislator. Psychedelics was a political weapon which could be used against the government. So his mission was to pass the bill first, bringing a new vision of America, and after that, making it impossible for lawmaker to pass another bill about psychedelics.

The government and the scientific world just couldn’t understand the importance of psychedelics. For them, it was just for the “hippies” of the time and nothing more. In fact, this was a reflection of their own selfish way of thinking. They were afraid that the world would be opened, and their power would be exposed. So they fought back, making it illegal to research on psychedelics. Timothy Leary was a visionary. He knew what kind of fate would await future generation if we didn’t change our perspective. He knew that we needed to rewrite the history books.

One of the other critical steps of this revolution was a cultural shift. Since 1960 the Hippie movement brought new social and political perspectives to millions of people. At first, when the movement was peaceful and gave a feeling of freedom, they were welcomed, but sooner or later, their message of equality and love got to the government like a red flag. Now, it was too late. They could no longer find a way out. They tried to close the minds of millions of young people and took the whole generation back to war and struggle.

But this failed. The psychedelic renaissance was a new path of wisdom. It was a path with a different vision and a better future. It was a path which never meant nor implied war, violence, or struggle. It was a path which could cultivate love and harmony. From a spiritual point of view, psychedelics had to be rehabilitated for the masses, to give humanity a better future.

Timothy Leary knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but it was very necessary. Nowadays, we are systematically forgetting about the content of our history books and get our knowledge from shallow TV programs. Timothy Leary wanted to do something about it. And he had a big reason, of course.

Despite of government’s effort to imprison and discredit him, he managed to create a group of young, enthusiastic revolutionaries. In the later years, all his followers called themselves “psychedelic revolutionists”. They took his mission and expanded it to people’s history. Their mission was – to recover, rehabilitate and spread the knowledge of the psychedelic history, so that people would realize that psychedelics was a weapon of choice against war and suffering. It’s like tossing people away from the train of war, suffering and rebellion.

People tend to admire different revolutionary leaders, but there was something about Timothy Leary’s visionary agenda that attracted people more than others. He was an activist, open-minded, ecological and non-violent person. He was a perfect symbol of the change he wanted to bring to the new generation. He used to talk about love, self-acceptance and freedom. He was a scientist first and then a human. He knew how important it was for man to realize the truth about himself and to understand that the real power is in oneself.

He had a huge vision and it all started with his own personal story. He used to say – “We are all inhabitants of planet Earth. We are all citizens of the universe. Our profound indigenous cultures all over the world have agreed for thousands of years that plants are important in human spirituality. We have historically created indigenous practices that help us. We have used plant medicines to create transformative experiences. And finally, we have suffered under the oppression and eradication of American indigenous medicine by the government and mainstream medicine. I believe that an objective look at psychedelics will help us with the cure of all our psychic ills. And I believe that if we can find a way to use psychedelics wisely, and safely, and legally, it will be a massive key to improving our individual lives and the crisis of our global environment.”

psychology
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