Sat Jan 29, 2022 12:39 AM
I’m writing this because I see a problem in the psychedelic community, susceptibility to misinformation, those being against vaccines and masks being the prime examples. It’s not just limited to the psychedelic community, it’s infected the wellness community and others across the world. The psychedelic community faces a greater hurdle to public acceptance than the wellness community though.
I want people to know that YOU ARE NOT JUST YOUR THOUGHTS. You are more than your thoughts, and not all your thoughts or powerful insights represent what is real. We have all kinds of thoughts, some good, some bad, but we don’t act on all of them. When you have a powerful psychedelic insight, write it down, but later examine it with a critical mind and decide if it’s good or bad, healthy or not healthy, just to be sure.
Psychedelics free us from the analytical gatekeepers in our brains, and allow us to explore things that we haven’t yet explored, but maybe they can also make us more susceptible to audible suggestions, like hypnotic commands. What happens after that? There hasn’t been studies of psychedelic users post-trance regarding gullibility and suggestions. It’s great to free your mind, but be careful about the new thoughts that you allow to come in. Not all thoughts or eureka insights represent the truth or reality.
Psychedelics temporarily inhibit the part of the brain that judges fact from fiction, true or false, reality or dreams. It is a wonderful gift to escape reality and our own self criticisms and to freely explore new worlds within our own minds, but after that we need to be cautious of the information being presented to us that is intended to manipulate us and control our behavior and actions.
The psychedelic community faces an uphill battle of acceptance among mainstream society. If others see weaknesses such as gullibility and QAnon conspiracy tendencies, this growing movement will fail to reach acceptance among the rest of society and they will not support legal reform in regards to psychedelics. Political efforts will face growing opposition because people will rightfully fear the impact of misinformation on society, family, and friends.
I’m relating this to the wellness community because they are the closest of examples I can think of about how misinformation and conspiracy theories are infecting the people within. The 5 tactics mentioned in this article: Encouraging skepticism of institutions Framing themselves as truth-seekers Taking science out of context Appealing to natural and holistic health interests Building community, example: “After a while, you have this online family where you can post a paragraph and then five minutes later you’ve got all these replies and all this advice and all this support,” Greene said. “You come to value their opinion and their thoughts and their approval even. It gets deep really quickly.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/10/22/wellness-vaccine-misinformation-social-media/
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