ISSUE 14 • OCTOBER 22, 2022
TOWARDS A NEW RENAISSANCE
The Newsletter of the Scientific and Medical Network
EDITORIAL
Cleansing the Doors of Perception BY DAVID LORIMER
If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is, infinite. - William Blake
Right-hand column picture: Anna Khepri - annakhepri.artstation.com
The Doors of Perception is the title of a famous book by Aldous Huxley following his experience of mescaline in the 1950s. As readers will know, Huxley was famous for his book The Perennial Philosophy, but equally important is his Ends and Means showing how these need to be consistent if we are not to create vicious circles of violence. Indigenous cultures create a sacred space around entheogenic ceremonies, while clinicians seek to create a space of trust and openness. Their healers explain that they listen to plants to learn about their therapeutic qualities. Plants have also been shown to exhibit intelligence and sensitivity, as we found in Paco Calvo’s presentation at the online Mystics and Scientists conference last year. And Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life discusses fungal intelligence and communication by trees through root networks (see The Bookcast on page six for a review). It looks like sentience and intelligence are much more widely distributed than is allowed for by a mechanistic and anthropocentric worldview. Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine as well as Western Herbal Medicine Continued on page 2... TOWARDS A NEW RENAISSANCE
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This issue’s theme:
The Power of Plants to Heal and Awaken
In this issue: Steve Taylor on NDEs and psychedelics, p.2 Jessica Corneille on psychedelics research, p.3 Natalie Mears reports on the Medicine Festival, p.5 Michael Pollan, p.6 1