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Comment by johnwyles | Hacker News Reader

I'm not saying you're wrong per se but what evidence do you have that there are no beneficial analogs and triggers for similar biochemical pathways that perhaps are not marked by a substantial or profound classically psychedelic experience?

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One bit of evidence is that in the JHU studies, improvement correlated strongly with whether the person had a "mystical-type" experience. When you go through an incredibly cathartic experience of remorse and redemption and come out of it a more loving person, it's a good hypothesis that it was the experience that caused the change.

My understanding is that much of mental illness is caused by unprocessed trauma and the way in which we process trauma is in altered states.

This is why various pathways like ayahuasca, mushrooms, LSD, mdma, Holotropic Breathwork, EDMR etc all work from vary different pathways — they all enduce an altered state, in which the nervous system releases the experience and forms new pathways.

Many of those (specifically ayahuasca, psilocybin, and LSD) all work on very similar pathways and structures. MDMA works on different ones and produces are markedly different experience and isn't usually considered a psychedelic.

And yet, the altered state in a therapeutic setting is the thing that helps.

It's much harder to prove a negative. What evidence do you have that there are? If you consider the way these drugs must be administered to be effective - with a co requisite therapy session - it seems obvious that the conscious effects are the beneficial ones.

There is sufficient evidence for both, and there is probably good reason to split them out (body and mind) and see them as different things that also work combined (body + mind). In this you might compare something like kambo to ayahuasca and ibogaine. They have many similar effects but have different ways of getting there (some more physical some more spiritual ,Kambo is probably not going to help with your childhood abuse, but it may help your high blood pressure, ayahuasca may help you process your childhood abuse and as a result lower your blood pressure.) If you look at something like 2cb vs lsd, lsd is found to be considerably more productive/creative than 2cb at subthreshold doses, but people often experience a much better "therapy trip" on high dose 2cb.

Some great books are:

The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide- James Fadiman

Acid Test - LSD, Ecstasy, and the Power to Heal - Tom Shroder

Sacred Knowledge - Psychedelics and Religious Experiences - William Richards

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