“In one of my early books I suggested that the potential significance of LSD and other psychedelics for psychiatry and psychology was comparable to the value the microscope has for biology or the telescope has for astronomy. My later experience with psychedelics only confirmed this initial impression. These substances function as unspecific amplifiers that increase the cathexis (energetic charge) associated with the deep unconscious contents of the psyche and make them available for conscious processing. This unique property of psychedelics makes it possible to study psychological undercurrents that govern our experiences and behaviours to a depth that cannot be matched by any other method and tool available in modern mainstream psychiatry and psychology. In addition, it offers unique opportunities for healing of emotional and psychosomatic disorders, for positive personality transformation, and consciousness evolution.”

— Stanislav Grof

Foreword to the MAPS edition of LSD: My Problem Child (October 2005) by Dr. Albert Hofmann

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Stanislav Grof 11

Czech pychiatrist 1931

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“LSD is a unique and powerful tool for the exploration of the human mind and human nature. Psychedelic experiences mediate access to deep realms of the psyche that have not yet been discovered and acknowledged by mainstream psychology and psychiatry. They also reveal new possibilities and mechanisms of therapeutic change and personality transformation.”

Stanislav Grof (1931) Czech pychiatrist

LSD psychotherapy (1980), MAPS 2001 edition, Epilogue, p. 299.

“LSD is a catalyst or amplifier of mental processes. If properly used it could become something like the microscope or telescope of psychiatry.”

Stanislav Grof (1931) Czech pychiatrist

LSD psychotherapy (1980), MAPS 2001 edition, Epilogue, p. 299.

“At one point consciousness-altering devices like the microscope and telescope were criminalized for exactly the same reasons that psychedelic plants were banned in later years. They allow us to peer into bits and zones of Chaos.”

Timothy Leary (1920–1996) American psychologist

As quoted in Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia : How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings (2005), by Rob Brezsny, p. 8

“And when you start using a lot of psychedelics, and particularly a lot of the natural psychedelics, my experience has been that I come in contact with some very old entities. And these entities have been around for a while, at least since humans first started experimenting with these plants.”

D.M. Turner (1962–1996) American drug researcher

Interview with Elizabeth Gips http://www.tripzine.com/articles.asp?id=dmturnergips

“Ritual use of psychedelic plants and substances has been a particularly effective technology for inducing holotropic states of consciousness”

Stanislav Grof (1931) Czech pychiatrist

The Cosmic Game - Explorations of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness (1997), ISBN 0-7914-3876-7, p. 260.

“Needless to say, if I knew my daughter would eventually develop a fondness for methamphetamine or crack cocaine, I might never sleep again. But if she does not try a psychedelic like psilocybin or LSD at least once in her adult life, I will worry that she may have missed one of the most important rites of passage a human being can experience.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, Drugs and the Meaning of Life http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life/ (5 July 2011)
2010s

“In my childhood I had natural interests. I got a microscope from someone, I made a telescope myself, very poor quality, but I could see the moon. First, I wanted to become an astronomer. I read books about astronomy of James Jeans, I even read Arthur S. Eddington, which I did not quite understand. On the other hand, a huge impression on me was made by Jan Dembowski's Natural History of One Protozoan.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

I decided that I would go in the biological direction that I would become a doctor.
Kobos, Andrzej (2009). Po drogach uczonych (in Polish). 4. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, pp. 383–398. ISBN 978-83-7676-021-6.

“[B]y banning psychedelic research we have not only given up the study of an interesting drug or group of substances, but also abandoned one of the most promising approaches to the understanding of the human mind and consciousness.”

Stanislav Grof (1931) Czech pychiatrist

LSD psychotherapy (1980), MAPS 2001 edition, Epilogue, p. 300.

“In the near future, neurobiology will address a matter of more general and fundamental importance: the biology of human mental processes. …Psychology and psychiatry can illuminate and define for biology the mental functions that need to be studied if we are to have a meaningful and sophisticated understanding of the biology of the human mind.”

Eric R. Kandel (1929) American neuropsychiatrist

Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and the New Biology of Mind (2008)

“And so much of these plant psychedelic entities are at least 4,000 years old. Now, when you experiment - when you work with these plant psychedelics, what I have found is that these entities are actually there. They are aware of you, they are aware that you are a person, and they are able to communicate with you.”

D.M. Turner (1962–1996) American drug researcher

Interview with Elizabeth Gips http://www.tripzine.com/articles.asp?id=dmturnergips

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Stanislav Grof 11

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