LSD and the new map of the psyche

‘My journey to understanding LSD and other holotropic states of consciousness resembled an exciting and challenging treasure hunt.’

‘Psychedelics have shown us that the mechanistic materialistic worldview that we have inherited from the seventeenth century is seriously outdated and needs to be replaced by a post-materialistic philosophy and cosmology that can account for the observations of psychedelic therapy and bridge the gaping chasm between science and religion.’

These are the words of the Czech-born psychiatrist Stanislav Grof who looms large in the annals of psychedelic explorations.

The first quote is from his foreword to LSD: My problem child (2005/2009) by Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD, and the second from an illuminating interview conducted by Grof’s wife Brigitte which is the centrepiece of her warm and welcome tribute to her husband’s life’s work, Stanislav Grof, LSD Pioneer: From Pharmacology to Archetypes.

Originally published in German and French in 2021 to mark Grof’s 90th birthday that year, this celebratory volume has now appeared in its first US edition (Park Street Press, September, 2023).

Honouring Grof’s importance as a ‘psychedelic elder’, the book presents testimonies from many luminaries in the psychedelic and psychological fields…