You might sounds less like a 'hippie' if you avoid the phrase 'open your mind'. It implies that psychodelics provide users with some kind of enlightenment rather than just hallucinations and euphorea. Makes it seem like anti-drug politicians are trying to hide some sort of dark secret which can only be unlocked by taking LSD.
The common miscommunication here is that people perceive the statement as saying "psychedelics are the ONLY way of learning certain things", whereas what they should perceive is "psychedelics are ONE (very efficient) way of learning certain things".
The thing is that for people whose normal life does not include pursuing knowledge and understanding just for the sake of it (and I think this might be most people), it's unlikely that they'd end up with the right perspective shift through some other circumstance.
Which is quite remarkable given the stability these personality traits usually have.
Overall while it seems to be clear that people who take psychedelics don't become saints spreading love for the rest of their lives, there's some solid evidence accumulated by psychologists that psychedelics have some real effect.
I don't know what you'd consider "credible evidence". You can find tens of thousands of anecdotal accounts, but you're probably looking for something more formal.
It's likely a futile search: Research into these topics is difficult to get approval for, even when it's more "tangible" things like effects on depression or PTSD. In my opinion, we'll probably need another few decades to get there (though there has been some encouraging societal progress in some places recently).
We won't get anywhere in this conversation because we're on two different sides of a fence, and I certainly can't describe what being on this side is like and can only invite people to come over here. It'd be like asking you to describe what the colour green looks like to you.
Which path around, or over, the fence they choose is up to them ...
There's tons of evidence available online, but a big problem is a lack of agreement on what constitutes "credible evidence". There is a fairly significant amount of clinical evidence available (despite it being effectively banned from study for decades), but the vast majority of evidence available is anecdotal reports from users. It should be noted that while it's true that this class of evidence lacks a "proper" (standards double blind placebo-controlled, etc) approach, it does not logically follow that it is therefore incorrect.
As for where to point skeptical-minded people, I agree with others that Sam Harris is one of the better resources.
Here is an article on his recent 5g "heroic dose" mushroom trip:
> “There’s no denying that there were parts of the experience that felt like an encounter with something other than my own mind,” Harris says, something that guided him “across the landscape of mind.” Many trippers, Harris notes, interpret this something as god or a universal consciousness. Harris suspends judgment. “My day job is not to be fooled by spurious ideas passed down from our ignorant ancestors, so I’m very slow to make claims about what I think is going on here,” he says. “I’m just reporting the character of the experience.” In the end, Harris says, “I thought of this as the mushroom itself.”
> Thus Harris captures the magic and intrigue of psychedelics: the parsimonious explanation for the encounters you feel on a big mushroom trip is that you’re being guided by a fungus. Harris himself is astounded. “The fact that there are landscapes of mind this vast lurking on the other side of a mushroom is simply preposterous,” Harris goes on. “It’s as though we lived in a universe where, if you just reached into your right pocket with your left hand, rather than pull out your wallet, you’d pull out the Andromeda Galaxy.”
When I first heard of Harris about 15 years ago, back when psychedelic use was still a relatively underground phenomenon and the so-called Psychedelic Renaissance was just beginning, I never dreamed I'd ever see a militant atheist like him transform in to a psychedelic advocate taking "heroic" mushroom doses and having what could be described as powerful mystical experience, even if he's not comfortable using such terms for what he experienced.
I do wonder if his atheism would survive more such powerful experiences. Already, from this one experience, he speaks of understanding how such such an experience could be interpreted in religious terms by those who were already religious. Again, such empathy and understanding is not something I would have expected 15 years ago from such a militant atheist.
Even if he never trips again, I have to commend him for being open-minded enough and curious enough to try psychedelics multiple times, and once at a relatively high dose. Many more close-minded people, who feel completely confident in an extremely one-sided world view, would never chance having their perspective radically altered with psychedelics. Yet he did. Kudos to him for that. If more people were so inquisitive and open-minded the world might be a much better place.
That's not to say that I view psychedelics as a panacea, and I agree with Harris that they're not for everyone. Their use entails real risks, and they can easily be misused by taking them without an experienced guide, without preparation or respect, or in the wrong set and setting. But at the same time, when used constructively, they have a profound potential for encouraging empathy, open-mindedness, improved cross-cultural and cross-denominational communication and understanding. Harris' experiences and transformation are evidence of this.
I'm not such a big fan. To me, I am constantly baffled by how on one hand he has first hand knowledge of altered states and the deep, unusual perspectives that come with them, but then he goes right back to conceptualizing the world mostly at a simplistic object level. Perhaps he should trip on a more regular basis so some of the ideas stick better.
> about 15 years ago, back when psychedelic use was still a relatively underground phenomenon and the so-called Psychedelic Renaissance was just beginning,
15 years ago? Huh, I thought it had only started a couple years ago.
The central revelation, as I see it, isn't so much about facts or content (e.g. truth, purpose, ultimate meaning) but rather about how flexible the hardware/software package is that underlies our cognition and sense of the world - the experience of your mind behaving in novel ways.
I suppose there's nothing terribly transcendent for observers about seeing Doom run on an iPod, but it's definitely surprising to see how the flexible the hardware/software can be.
Subjectively, though, it can feel pretty transcendent when its your runtime being hacked in new and different ways.
If the iPod had a sense of self like we do then maybe it would be floored seeing itself run Doom (though hopefully it wouldn't confuse Doom for ultimate truth).
"The mind is vaster and more fluid than our ordinary, waking consciousness suggests. And it is simply impossible to communicate the profundity (or seeming profundity) of psychedelic states to those who have never experienced them. Indeed, it is even difficult to remind oneself of the power of these states once they have passed."
Open the mind is a figure of speech. If you think its hippie, you have your speech buried in the 1960s. Opening the mind is about accepting sensory data without mental heuristics (like concepts) titled over everything.
Opening the mind is used a lot in Buddhism and meditation to describe how consciousness is not inherently stuck in loops of negative thought, but that by opening the brain's perception of anything happening, we can see more clearly and without egocentric concern.
If anyone reading is thinking psychedelics and meditation are just hippie mumbo jumbo, check out Sam Harris or Dan Harris or Joseph Goldstein, who will show you how meditation is useful and not woo woo.
