A brief story of ecodelics

Plants that produce ecodelic effects are known to humanity for millennia. Reports of the use of these substances can be found in the history of Native American civilizations, ancient Egypt, India, China; also in tribal cultures from Africa and Oceania, and even in ancient Greece, the cradle of western philosophy.

But these molecules have caught the attention of the western mind after the “accidental”* synthesis of LSD by chemist Albert Hofmann in the 40s, while attempting to isolate active compounds from species of funghi for the Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz. The story that followed is filled with a lot of controversial episodes, intriguing discoveries, incredible promises and a lot of disinformation.

Ecodelics have been on the background of some of the most significant developments of modern civilization, such as the discovery of DNA, Apple’s “think different” style of functional design in computing, environmentalism, the interest in oriental techniques such as yoga and meditation by the western culture and the revolution in arts that took place in the sixties and beyond.

But it was not only in the background that they made history. Ecodelics have been in the center of the countercultural revolution in America, the hippie movement and the protests against the Vietnam War. They were also used in experiments with military purposes, a not so noble endeavor, we must say.

Finally, all this publicity led them to be categorized as Schedule Type I drugs in the USA through the Controlled Substances Act in 1970. Ecodelics were soon prohibited all over the world, and banned from the scientific field. Lined side by side with drugs that have “high potential for abuse” and “do not offer any medical benefit”, like heroin and crack cocaine, their potential benefits were soon buried alive by a polarized and warfare-oriented worldview.

Besides the low toxicity and insignificant potential for abuse (research is suggesting the opposite: some ecodelic compounds have been used experimentally to treat chemical addiction), these substances are currently considered illegal worldwide by United Nations international treaties, with a very few exceptions (as with ayahuasca in South America and peyote in Central and North America, usually for religious purposes).

* Hofmann had a hunch for this particular compound – among many others he was simultaneously working on. After having filed and discarded it from further research, and without any previous knowledge of its ecodelic effects, he intuited that there was something special about this particular chemistry, as if it was somehow “calling” him to be researched more thoroughly. This intriguing fact correlates with what spiritual traditions say: that the knowledge we are able to access through non-ordinary states belongs to a higher hierarchy than our individual minds alone; and is actually being mediated by these plants and/or molecules (instead of the general academic assumption that consciousness is solely produced by neurochemical processes in the brain).

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