The waves of mass psychedelic utopianism have come and gone, but the hippie movement of the late ’60s echoes in the rave scene of the ’90s. And there’s a small but devoted community of scientists, spiritual seekers, artists and grown-up hedonists exploring the value of these drugs. The ‘Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics’ conference, held in New York Sept. 19-21, sought to present an older and wiser psychedelic movement, focusing on medicine, art, spirituality and culture. It drew around 300 people, a mix of academic and hippie types, with the white button-down shirts slightly outnumbering the dreadlocks and the NASA T-shirts. Psychedelics are ‘the most powerful psychiatric medicine ever devised,’ said psychotherapist Neal Goldsmith, who curated the speakers. But because the way they work as medicine — when used in the proper setting — is by generating mystical experiences, ‘science has to expand.’ Solid research, he added, could change government policy, which classifies psychedelics as dangerous drugs with no accepted medical use. The most promising current medical research, said Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, is in coupling MDMA (Ecstasy) with intensive psychotherapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Preliminary studies, he said, have had ‘very […]