by Zoe Pollock

Vaughan Bell reports on visions of a psychedelic future, by imbibing a muddy brown brew known as yagé:

In a hut, in a forest, in the mountains of Colombia, I am puking into a bucket. I close my eyes and every time my body convulses I see ripples in a lattice of multi-coloured hexagons that flows out to the edges of the universe.

Bell's spirit quest was in response to an article in September’s Nature Reviews Neuroscience, which tries to assess the growing research on the potential of hallucinogens to treat depression and anxiety. Mo at Neurophilosophy adds more:

The criminalization of LSD in 1970 was evidently a knee-jerk reaction by governments to the sensationalist media reports about the dangers of the drug that occurred without proper debate. A similar situation arose earlier this year, when the British government banned mephedrone. Examination of the reasons why the early LSD trials were brought to an end so abruptly could therefore provide valuable lessons about how controversial drugs could be effectively incorporated into modern medicine.