Psychedelics and the mental health journey
While the past 60 years have certainly obscured it, psychedelics were once explored for a plethora of mental health disorders, including a few that would shock people. Childhood schizophrenia, autism, addiction — considering the cultural excesses and the resulting stigmas attached to psychedelics now, it’s hard for many to imagine doctors ethically treating these illnesses with them today. But research either was or currently is being conducted for these and many other conditions, and we’ve got a public mental health crisis in sore need of new breakthroughs. In short, the Medicine Box needs refilling, and an entirely new means of health maintenance needs to accompany it. That’s the major holistic health care project in front of us today.
This project has for the most part laid dormant for decades. Before the late ‘60s hit, LSD was the most studied psychiatric drug of its day. You’d be hard-pressed to distinguish Cary Grant’s proclamations about his psychedelic experiences apart from Joe Rogan’s if you were asked to match them to either personality. Even Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill W. famously advocated for LSD’s use in the treatment of alcoholism, a treatment that at the time was convincingly advanced in clinical studies by the Canadian psychiatrist Dr. Humphrey Osmond (the man who also coined the term “psychedelic,” FYI). However, it is only now that actual healing systems, as well as newer innovations like microdosing, are being constructed to meet the unmet needs of suffering people everywhere. Speaking of AA, our supplementary system is directly inspired by their 90-day system for effecting lasting change. But before we get into details on that, it’s important to note WHY change is so desperately needed.
Questioning mental health care
Mind’s Eye consumers don’t need to be sold too strongly on the idea of an alternative to the SSRIs and benzodiazepines that are usually prescribed for practically everything nowadays. Matter of fact, most of the big boys throwing money into the psychedelic industry are betting that psychedelics will turn the page on the Prozac era. “They might be better than nothing, but there are studies that indicate continuous use of benzos and SSRIs make you worse. They definitely make you addicted,” says Christian Angermayer, who is investing in both Compass Pathways and MAPS for their psilocybin and MDMA trials. “It shows that [mental health care] went the wrong way [with these substances].” Conversely, psychedelics are eminently non-addictive, and as Osmond and Bill W. have noted, their use as an addiction treatment has been known for decades.
Moreover, the healing people will receive in their lives isn’t coming from a factory, but from where it traditionally came from — nature, and the plants that serve as its emissaries. These plants, whether they’re cannabis, rosehips, valerian, psilocybin or chamomile, have an altogether different agenda for our lives, and the closer we can get to the cultural source of their healing, the better. Medicine Box CEO Brian Chaplin’s sister, who works as a mental health-focused nurse practitioner, routinely expresses her own frustrations with modern health care, and our mentor Michael Hollister even left his job as a psychiatric nurse out of disgust for what he had seen. They know their patients deserve more and often aren’t getting the relief they seek. It is for these long-suffering people that we have created our 90-day bundle.
Based on our own collective experience as well as the lessons Brian has gleaned from 12-step and workshops with mindfulness legends such as John Kabat-Zinn, Mind’s Eye has not only created an ideal blend of mushrooms and herbs to accommodate one’s transformational journey with adaptogenic mushrooms and microdosing, but a 90-day package that guides you towards the changes you wish to make in your life.
While its effects are subtle, we at Mind’s Eye have found microdosing to be just as spiritual and as healing as its therapeutic equivalents. Working with the right blend of supplements and lifestyle changes is key for reaching your destination, however — one of the main reasons we also do consultations with our product line. Our Medicine & Mentorship 90-day bundle stems from 12-step, which recommends a 90-day commitment to lock in lasting change. We invite you to try it for yourself.
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