Customer Reviews

The Healing Journey - New Approaches to Consciousness

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The Healing Journey gives the reader a look into early psychedelic psychotherapy using XTC type molecules. The book was done when these (eg. MDA, MMDA) substances were as legal as sea salt. Naranjo was one of the first to explore these magical molecules. "The MMDA peak experience is typically one in which the moment that is being lived becomes intensely gratifying..." Naranjo further states, "I believe that self-awareness is contagious, and moments of self-discovery, once adequately communicated, can be a gift of consciousness to others."

Dr. Naranjo is a good writer (or the person who helped him with this publication). However, his sentences tend to "go on forever" which makes it hard for an amateur reader like myself to follow his looong sentence-paragraph concoctions!

I found what he was trying to tell me absolutely fascinating; about human consciousness and the plants and chemicals (Schedule I in the USA) he used to help heal the patients he encountered. Mental illness resides in the mind and psyche. These chemicals "allowed" his patients to step outside of their normal consciousness and/or fears and see their problems in a "different light", thus helping them to heal themselves.

Whether we know it or not, all mental healing comes from within - from within the patient. The psychotherapist, or spiritual healer in other cultures, is only a facilitator. This "self-healing" concept was dramatically illustrated to me during a three-day conference I attended on April 15-18, 2010, in San Jose, Calif. entitled "Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century".(see:[...] for further details)

Maybe even the USA will make into prescription medicines some of these powerful plants, plant extracts, and chemicals, rather than ban them as "bad medicine" due to the actions of a few people (idiots) like Timothy Leary!