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Tripping on magic mushrooms. What's that really like? Besides a number of things like set & setting, that's very much down to the dose. A "microdose" is not at all the same as a "heroic dose" of magic mushrooms. To adjust your expectations, warn you of what to expect and to keep you entertained, we've written this huge article for you. We are going to explain to you what it is like to take a very high or heroic dose of magic mushrooms.
What is a Hero Dose?
A hero dose is like jumping off the high diving board in a pool you don't know how deep it is. It can be the rush of a lifetime, but it can also have a nasty ending. We are talking, depending on your body weight, your susceptibility and your digestion, about a dose of around 5 grams of dried Psilocybe cubensis. Better known as the magic mushrooms from our mushroom grow kits.
Terence McKenna on the Hero Dose of Shrooms
Terence McKenna, along with his brother Dennis, was the leading advocate and supporter of the responsible use of psychedelic substances in the 80s and 90s. Mushrooms, ayahuasca and cacti containing mescaline would lead to spiritual transformation and a more harmonious society.
Researching shamanism as an ethnobotanist for 25 years, his path led him into the Amazon after studying at the University of Berkeley. In 1970, with a close-knit group of Westerners, the McKenna brothers set off by boat up the giant Putumayo River towards the town of La Chorrera, in the heart of the world's largest jungle. They were searching for the fabulous oo-koo-hé; a concoction said to contain DMT. Days, weeks passed as they trekked deeper into the jungle. Instead of finding oo-koo-hé, they found several tribes using ayahuasca as a spiritual medicine, as well as entire fields full of magic mushrooms. Wherever logging took place to make room for cows, the fellowship found fields full of Psilocybe cubensis. Warmth, moisture and cow patties are the best place for the growth of this species of magic mushroom. And so this adventure led to a succession of one psychedelic experience into another. At the urging of his brother Dennis, Terence took part in an experiment. Under the influence of what would later become known as a heroic dose of magic mushrooms, they tried to get in touch with the collective memory of all humanity by producing a certain loud noise with their voices. Instead, Terence found "The Teaching Voice" or "Logos". A sacred voice with whom everyone could get in touch when given enough magic mushrooms. Interesting? Check out this film on YouTube.
Safety first
According to McKenna, with such a high dose, it is impossible not to be impressed. We paraphrase from one of his many lectures that adorn the internet: "Anyone who claims not to be impressed by a magic mushroom trip is either lying or not taking enough".
But it is very important to point out here that taking a so-called heroic dose of magic mushrooms or any other psychedelic is definitely not without danger. You become completely detached from reality, so you no longer see the danger in very mundane things. Falling down, traffic, fire and electricity are some of the hazards you simply no longer recognise. Dehydration, whether through vomiting or by not drinking enough, is also among the risks. A heroic dose can also easily lead to a bad trip, making a negative experience seem endless. In short, consider this only if you:
- Have (a lot of) experience with psychedelics.
- Have a sober tripsitter with you who knows what he/she is doing and what it is like to trip.
- Are healthy and have no history in the family of mental illness.
- Are in a safe and pleasant setting.
- Feeling good and happy.
Set & Setting are incredibly important. Read about it in this blog.
Trip Report: Hero Dose McKennaii Magic Mushrooms (and possibly 2 types of ayahuasca)
What does a trip look like from the inside? How would you describe a trip in the first person? It's almost impossible to have someone else tell you about it. That's why we let Danny do the talking for one of the most bizarre trip reports we've read.
Foreword
After a few introductions to both magic mushrooms and magic truffles, I wanted to know if the nausea or foul taste of ayahuasca would be a problem for me too. I had the opportunity to make it myself. As it happens, I was away for the weekend with friends. Three of us had rented a cottage on the edge of the forest. With the help of descriptions I read on the internet, I started making ayahuasca myself at 3 o'clock in the afternoon with really only the aim of tasting it.
The Law on Ayahuasca
Unfortunately, I am not allowed to tell you how I made ayahuasca. This is because I don't want to encourage you to break the law. Ayahuasca is banned in the Netherlands, but the raw ingredients for it are not. On several forums you can find very detailed descriptions of how to make the psychedelic Amazonian brew. But there's a health risk attached to that as well as a risk of breaking the law. You just have to take the stranger on a forum at face value that the recipe is correct. The quantities are quite difficult to find and besides, it is mostly anecdotal evidence anyway.
Questions that ran through my mind about ayahuasca were:
- Is it really different from my previous "trips" on psilocybin?
- Is the taste of ayahuasca doable, or is it as bitter as Calea zacatechichi (Mexican dream herb)?
- Does everyone get nauseous?
Set
Mind you, I haven't had a strong psychedelic experience before. That's why "trips" is in quotes above. Before this, I took at most 10 grams of fresh magic truffles or a few dried mushrooms. Therefore, this time I wanted to take a high dose for my weight (70 kilograms) before doing the hero dose or other psychedelics like the ayahuasca I was cooking up. Putting that weight into the Magic Mushroom Calculator, it works out to 4.28 grams of dried McKennaii mushrooms. I took 4.32 grams because it meant I didn't have to cut the one mushroom in half. I must say, though, that I am particularly sensitive to psilocybin. I see the most beautiful patterns even with just a few truffles.
Setting
This weekend seemed the perfect setting for both tasting ayahuasca and doing a first serious psilocybin trip. My friends and I rented an AirBnB on the edge of a holiday park. A log cabin at the periphery of a forest, with only a handful of neighbouring cabins, half of which were occupied. As is often the case with AirBnB places, we did not know exactly which location we ended up in. Therefore, it came as a surprise that the yard surrounding the hut is relatively secluded and dotted with young trees. The fence that separates the holiday park and the forest, had a footpath running alongside it where people walk their dogs. The yard seemed like a nice location to trip, although I was a little apprehensive about sober passers-by walking pretty close to me.
The Ayahuasca Brew
When my 2 friends arrived at the cabin late on Friday afternoon, I was busy preparing the ayahuasca. That led to hilarious remarks by them, because it was about time for dinner. By nature, I am very cautious, so I like to build up experiences rather than just jump into the deep end unsuspectingly. I took the opportunity and made two varieties.
5.30 PM - Intake 1: 2.5 mg DMT and 11.2 mg MAO inhibitors.
Brew 1 is the standard ayahuasca often served in the Peruvian jungle but also by the UDV and Santo Daimé churches. I took one sip of that the next day at 5.30. Again, I just wanted to taste it. Converted, this contained about 2.5 mg of DMT and 11.2 mg of harmala alkaloids (MAOIs). It seems like nothing, as a normal dose of DMT for my body weight should be around 25-30 mg. The reason I'm writing about it anyway you'll discover later in this story.
Surprisingly, I didn't find the brew revulsing or particularly bitter. I waited an hour before tasting the other experiment to see if I would grow nauseous or if it would have any effect. After all, in that case, I would not take any more and skip the mushroom trip too.
6.35 PM - Intake 2: 5 mg DMT and 17.6 mg MAO inhibitors.
Brew 2 is a commonly used so-called anahuasca, made from other plant extracts that together also contain DMT and MAOIs. I took 2 sips of that, which should have contained a total of about 5 mg DMT and 17.6 mg MAOIs. A microdose, in other words.
I found the taste of this drink not too bad either. I also noticed that it had almost no smell.
7:20 PM - Onset?
About 45 minutes after the 2nd dose, I thought I felt some very slight effects. My vision became a little blurry and I felt much more relaxed. When it got a bit colder, I made a fire in the wood stove out on the terrace. Thinking I was just tired from the walk in the afternoon sun, I saw no objection to taking the magic mushrooms after that as well. If anything, my inhibitions to proceed faded and my set was even better suited to ingest the psilocybin.
7:30 PM - Intake 3: 4.3 grams of dried McKennaii shrooms
Exactly two hours after I tasted the first homemade ayahuasca brew, I took a meal of magic mushrooms. My two friends and I were sitting in front of the fire, discussing one of the guys' trips. Not long after, I started yawning uncontrollably; the, to me, telltale sign of psilocybin metabolizing to psilocin as it crosses the blood-brain barrier.
7:55 PM - Onset in the garden
About 20 to 30 minutes later, I grabbed my blanket (trip blanky) and told my friends that I wanted to be alone for a while. I laid down in the garden on a lounger, which I had strategically placed next to a birch tree. At ease, I watched the sunset illuminating the tops of the trees as the world seemed to gradually become more colorful. It was not long before a couple walked by behind me on the footpath to walk the dog. And as I suspected, this was not without interaction. I lay wrapped in a white blanket, on a deck chair in the woods behind a fence. Naturally, they speculated whether I was all right. One of them thought out loud, "Maybe he's dead"! A little irritated at the interruption of my highest psychedelic dose so far, I said, "No, this one still works"! They laughed a little uncomfortably and walked on.
At that moment, I felt a warm feeling come over me, my legs and arms trembled slightly and my circle of concern tightened. I did not care what others thought; perhaps for the first time in my life. Suddenly, I felt a strong urge to look at the birch tree to my right, which radiated an unprecedented feeling of love towards me. My face about 30 centimeters from the tree, I noticed how the bark slowly came to life. All those little imperfections on the bark began to move orderly from right to left, all the while spinning around the tree. It didn't take much imagination to recognise eyes and faces in the random patterns.
I turned around and looked at the sky through the canopy and, to my surprise, there was nothing really special there. Often, just on plain surfaces, you can see some patterns emerging if you stare at it for a while. Then I suddenly noticed how the whooshing sound of the distant highway was slowly replaced by what sounded like the chanting of Tibetan monks. It was especially curious how the sound of a medium-sized gong suddenly became recognisable. Every few seconds it sounded again. Knowing full well that the mushrooms were responsible for this, I didn't make much of it. It was funny rather than alarming. Looking in the direction of the sound of that gong, I glanced at a clearing in the undergrowth behind the trail. Where twigs overlapped, geometric shapes emerged. I let my gaze relax and stopped trying to identify what I saw unfold. Then the whole thing slowly started spinning. Rings of twigs and trees turned into eyes that resembled the feathers of a peacock. In retrospect, I remember that it looked like a giant interdimensional portal, but I could still focus my gaze and still see trees again. I was still in control if I wanted to be. Although it all felt much more alive, the trip so far did not feel like anything different from anything I have experienced before on lower doses.
8:30 PM - Entities in the forest
That warm feeling gathered a bit more towards my private parts, making me feel quite aroused and also more relaxed. This was all love, followed by brief but passionate pleasure right there in that moment. I looked away from that wacky "stargate" to call it that. Suddenly, in the corner of my eye, I saw glimpses of a figure. At first it startled me considerably. I have never seen anything that looked like ghosts, aliens or even just people who were not there. The figure was colorful and transparent. Similar to soap bubbles. Then another one appeared on the other side of my lounger. And another one, right at the head end that looked at me appraisingly. When I say "figure", I don't want you to imagine physical people wearing masks or anything like that. They were barely visible. It was only when I relaxed my gaze that these translucent creatures were there. However, the strange thing is that when I looked away, they also stayed away. So they were not stragglers in my field of vision or anything. And when I looked back, they were there again. Fuck, this suddenly got really exciting. It looked like they were really here.
Yet I was not really stressed. The opposite of it actually. The loving feeling was still there. So was the excitement, for that matter. It's starting to get uncomfortable to describe this. In fact, I think I was about to have sex with all three of those creatures... Then one of my friends walked up. "How are you doing?" he asked. I replied that I was fairly comfortable and slowly tripping harder and harder and that I was "having sex with aliens". He laughed his ass off, said "OK, I'll leave you alone then...!" and went back to sitting with my other buddy by the wood stove. I heard him repeat to him what I said and my other buddy fell out of his chair laughing. I still shouted at him “screw you man!”, but I found it very funny as well.
8.50 PM - Lost time
At that point, I had lost track of time. I remember asking how long I was out. "About an hour," my friend said as he crawled back on his chair after that fit of laughter.
I just couldn't believe that at all. His phone would make a mistake right? It felt like I had been tripping for hours. Then I noticed it wasn't even dark yet. Dusk had just set in. Thank goodness, because I thought it was so cool. For you readers, you might think that interdimensional orgy was the highlight of the trip, but it definitely wasn't. I didn't even think about it anymore. I tried looking at the forest floor. Shit, that got completely out of hand. For one thing, the leaves looked like they were all the same. But really exactly the same. Like they were cloned there with Photoshop. Then they arranged in a grid-like pattern. Lines began to form between those grids. They began to vibrate and oscillate and then moved towards my feet. I watched intently without judgment. I was just curious about what I was seeing here. Then the lines condensed into dark tentacles or snake-like stuff. Yes, that Stranger Things stuff turns out to be real. After that, I felt a little anxious, hoping it wouldn't turn into a bad trip. I looked away in the direction of where the beautiful, enchanting gate or stargate was. It was still there! Rotating violently even. With shades of blue and completely covered in eyes. That was the moment when I found it difficult to distinguish real from fake.
Oh, I’m forgetting to tell you about the sound! That gong-like sound now became more musical. A distinct buzzing sound and some kind of electric crackling started popping up left and right. I could tell exactly from which direction. I noticed that sound and visual effects were also very closely intertwined. That gate was making that sound! It sounded metallic and atonal. Like hearing drums and cymbals in the distance, completely immersed in an artificial reverb dialed up to eleven.
9.10 PM - Finding another spot after the meeting
Then I heard a branch snapping. Somewhere near my feet, to my left. In the fucking direction where those tentacles seemed to be crawling. I looked in the direction of that sound and noticed that it was hard to see what was happening now through the twilight and among the dark trees. But then I saw it. A shadow was walking out from the undergrowth, trembling as it strode past the trees. The figure had long, slender limbs and an odd-looking head with antlers. The next day, I looked up what I saw. Five seconds of Googling and I found it. It looked exactly like this, dammit:
Apparently, here I was looking at the silhouette of a windigo or skinwalker. I didn't know that at the time, but I found it pretty terrifying. "That's it," I thought. "I'm out!" Funnily enough, I was still able to operate my senses and stand up. I also thought it was getting a bit cold, so I joined my friends at the crackling fireplace.
I tried to tell them what I saw while walking in that direction, but it was far from over. It was insanely difficult to walk. They very kindly asked if I was okay and pulled up a chair for me. I barely gathered my words and suddenly burst out laughing because their faces were all messed up. All stretched and distorted. I couldn't sit there for more than a few minutes without looking at their faces and laughing out loud.
9.20 PM - Patterns in the bathroom and total darkness
I took a bathroom break, not because I had to go, but because I couldn't take their faces anymore. It was quite manageable to go to the bathroom, but behind me one of the two trip sitters called out, "Don't lock the door behind you." Fine advice, I thought. I sat down on the toilet and the bath mat was already starting to turn into an incredibly fascinating living painting. It swirled and twirled and the color popped out at me (a dull gray bath mat). When I finished, I stood up and did my best not to look in the mirror for fear of what I would see. So I returned to the warmth of the fire. Soon it was even too warm. It was a warm summer evening. Besides, there was something else I wanted to try. "Guys, I'm going to lie in bed for a while. Please don't come in or disturb me for a while." I walked to my bedroom and lay down in the bottom bunk bed.
When the lights were off and the curtains closed, the room was BLACK. It was as dark as in the float tank; one of those salt baths you then lie down in for complete relaxation. Because it reminded me of that sensory deprivation tank, I also put in earplugs that I brought with me. Then I was completely cut off from reality and the journey really began.
9.30 PM - Elsewhere entirely
Immediately after plugging my ears, those rhythmic drums from earlier suddenly seemed closer. It must have been my heartbeat, but it was embellished into something of more significance because of the considerable amount of magic mushrooms I had taken about two hours earlier. Bizarrely, with my eyes closed, it was not dark at all! Swirling geometric patterns began to form. First at the periphery of my field of vision, later slowly filling the void. The more it moved towards the center, the brighter it became. Later in the trip, it turned out that that light in the center was very important.
Tired as I was, I dozed off occasionally. It was a bit like a dream world, but much more real. Fortunately, I had completely forgotten about the scary things in the forest. I felt safe because my friends were by the door and I was all snug in my blankets. All sensory input blocked by darkness and earplugs, I traveled down into the depths of my own psyche.
That started with actually feeling my energy centers or chakras. I have not engaged in spirituality for 20 years or more and have never been religious. I would call myself an atheist and someone who embraces science above all else. But I clearly felt a kind of vibration in the exact places where spiritual traditions would draw chakras. As I felt my throat chakra calling for attention, those drum sounds slowly turned into voices. At first whispers, later I could see where it seemed to be coming from, still with my eyes closed.
The patterns started swirling in a gigantic spiral as I noticed that I was now physically somewhere else. I found myself in the middle of a huge dark cylinder, with geometric patterns forming along the walls, gradually illuminating higher and higher areas. These were not plain walls. The walls were decorated with intricate details that had depth to them. A bit like a Hindu temple. I saw trees, divine figurines and all sorts of delicate shapes that seemed to be carved out of stone. It was taking shape as I watched. I also saw mushrooms everywhere in all shapes and colors. The cylinder rotated slowly, like the patterns around the tree where this all started. The longer I was in that space, the more detailed it became, but at this point only the side walls were well lit. Then I noticed that one of the figurines looked like it was alive, but was deliberately hiding. Like someone hiding in a wax museum. But this was not a person. It looked rather like a typical alien. Not gray, but this bright, almost neon pink.
I laughingly said out loud "I see youuuuuu!". His eyelids opened and these big cartoon-like almond-shaped eyes stared directly at me and he started grinning. Then ALL the figurines in the cylinder turned pink, cyan, blue and magenta and opened their eyes. The whole building or wherever I was, was full of these little grinning cartoon aliens. They all looked at me. "WE SEE YOU TOOOOOOOOOO!" they said telepathically. At that moment, my friend opened the door and I was out of it for a moment. The little light from the fire outside leaked into the room, leaving me to see only his silhouette in the doorway. "Are you okay? I heard you say something". "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, I was about to break through or something," I replied with the words I could find at that moment. "Nice dude! I'll leave you alone then".
10.00 PM - Out into space
As soon as he pulled the door shut behind him, I went right back in. Knowing that none of this was a lucid dream, but that I was tripping my balls off, I was still curious to interact more with these entities here.
I was again in the cylinder with the entities, but now the enlightenment also began to rise above me. More and more entities came in. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands... to the point that I could no longer distinguish individual entities and they were reduced to pixels that formed the larger structure of the cylinder. This led me to the idea that everything we know is made of structures or concepts that we create ourselves with our ideas and language, but that it is not actual reality.
Then the walls dropped down and I was suddenly floating in space. Propelled by some kind of chair on a lift, I felt like I was being launched. The darkness of space around me turned out not to be completely empty. To my left, I passed Joe Rogan who was doing his thing; meditating on a cloud. To the right was Terrence McKenna, sitting on a lotus flower with a few of his followers around it. I didn't really bother to think anything of it or talk to them. I was completely stunned by what I was witnessing.
There were stars here and there, but I expected more. Then I went even faster and it started to look like the warp-drive effect from Star Trek. It dawned on me that Gene Roddenberry, the founder of Trek, must also have been tripping as he imagined the finer details of the TV series. After all, so much of popular culture has been influenced by psychedelics.
Then suddenly I heard music out of nowhere. Low and dark at first; best described as instrumental heavy metal. I really like that stuff and am musical myself, so I tapped my fingers along with the rhythm. This made me hear through my earplugs my friends outside laughing. What will they have thought!
Not long after, I suddenly saw a Tool concert flash by, celebrating psychedelic journeys. Then the music changed to higher and higher notes. As if a scale was being played while the rhythm of metal was still echoing.
10.30 PM - Mystical experience
As the music reached its first crescendo, I arrived at a star on my journey through the universe. Insanely bright, as if looking straight at the sun. I say "first crescendo" because there were more to come. I had to tell my friends that through the thin wall. I removed my earplugs and shouted, "This is the way! Next time, lie down in a dark room too! This is great! I saw the light!" They laughed and asked what I saw. In vain, I tried putting it into words. As they spewed from my lips, none carried any meaning. It was completely pointless, so I said I went back in, smiling from ear to ear.
I put my plugs back in and concentrated on my breathing. I was afraid I was out of it now, but I soon managed to find my way back into the journey. Now I was back in the cylinder from before and that star was suddenly at the top. Far away and uncomfortably bright. Looking at it, the whole thing turned white and rainbow colors slid down the walls of the cylinder.
That was the moment when I got a mystical, deep-seated sense of right and wrong. As if there was some kind of wisdom present that could answer my questions. So I got the idea to put a few out there. But instead of getting an audible answer, I felt positive and negative feelings in every fiber of my being. I started by asking about alcohol consumption. At that point, I wanted to stop drinking. The feeling I got from it is that it hinders spiritual enlightenment. "It keeps you here". Was the answer I got in my head. Indescribable.
And what about psychedelics? Mushrooms allow you to achieve enlightenment, right? Then my body started shaking briefly. Bzzzzt. Like a dualshock fucking Playstation controller telling me it was the wrong question to ask. I got the feeling that whatever answer followed was indeed very wise. But what was it that answered? Was it myself? One of those aliens? God? Wait a minute, I'm an atheist, remember?
11.00 PM - Deep questions
I became more and more curious. I wanted to know what was beyond the confines of this space I was in. What was this stuff made of? What is beyond the walls of what I can see? I made my way to the edge and poked into it. It felt solid but had a very open fabric-like structure. Like a latticework or fence. I tore a hole in it and peered out. True enough, there was another huge space there. But like the previous one, it too had walls and was made of a patchwork of patterns, colors and crazy intricate structures. Naturally, I wanted to see what was behind it again. The more I did, the brighter the light became and the music reached its next peak. But I never really got to the light. Not really. And the music hushed, as the frequency decreased. Suddenly I realized that maybe this was the answer to the question I asked earlier. Maybe with psychedelics you can see what structures reality consists of, but you never really get to enlightenment to see what lies behind it. So I then asked about meditation. Then this feeling of "you're already doing that" overwhelmed me and I decided I wanted to pick up meditation. If I ever return to Earth.
00.00 AM - Still?
I pulled out my earplugs once more and shouted through the walls to my friends. Concerned, they replied, "are you still in it? It's much longer than usual on magic mushrooms". By now I appeared to be still heavily tripping 4.5 hours after taking the 4.3 grams of magic mushrooms. But I momentarily forgot that I had also taken a total of three sips of ayahuasca.
Again, I tried to get back into the deep, spiritual experience and closed myself off from the outside world once more. It became much harder to find that place again. Gradually I descended to earth and our constructed reality. The cylinder became a painting of a cylinder and the insanely bright light was obstructed by more and more layers of reality until eventually that too faded away. Yet there was still one question I wanted to ask. What is my place in all this? What does everything I saw have to do with me? A wave of positive energy filled me and for a moment tears started streaming down my cheeks. I was doing pretty well. Don't worry too much, was the overwhelming message I got from that.
01.00 - 02.00 AM - Come down
Everything I experienced felt so real. It took another hour or so to get out. At two in the morning, I could talk again. For that reason, I think that little bit of DMT did deepen the experience. Or maybe it was the MAOIs that pushed me through a nearly eight-hour psychedelic journey. Either way, it was one of the most significant experiences of my life.
Looking back, I can recommend such a trip to anyone in their right mind, but I won't be doing it again anytime soon myself. It was incredibly intense and I felt the need to talk about it for days, but I couldn't really. My friends didn't have the same meaningful experience. With them it always remained somewhat 2-dimensional and distant. Maybe it has to do with individual sensitivity after all. The effects I got from it you see more often in a level 5 trip; moments of spiritual enlightenment and unification with my surroundings were definitely there.
Is a hero dose for you?
Without pasting that paragraph about "Safety first" here again, after reading these different sides of tripping, you might be better off weighing up whether you are ready to eat a bag of shrooms. Some may not be ready for it for a long time, if ever. After all, you are guaranteed to lose control and that is not for everyone. If you can surrender to it, a step down is also very interesting. It is easier to be inside the trip and out of it with just a shift of attention. You can change the setting yourself by switching on the light for a while, turning off the music or sitting in another room. When the dose, depending on your body weight and the kind of magic mushrooms, is around 5 grams, it is no longer possible to occupy yourself with such earthly matters. If you can let go and don't care so much about your ego, you can have an unparalleled experience. But if you cling to your identity or have deep-rooted past traumas that you don't share with anyone, you might be in for some unpleasant surprises.
We hope these experiences and information give you an idea of what is possible with magic mushrooms and magic truffles. Let's close out this article with an appropriate quote.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Sources
In writing this article, we interviewed and spoke to several experts by experience. We also recall passages from books and hundreds of hours of video footage from the likes of Terence and Dennis McKenna, Alan Watts, Sam Harris, Charles Grob, Paul Stamets, Rick Strassman, Roland Griffiths and Rick Doblin; some of the key figures in the world of psychedelics.