I am presenting this book to my professional colleagues and to the general public with somewhat mixed feelings and not without hesitation. I am fully aware how unusual and surprising some of its sections must seem to a reader who has not had a firsthand experience with psychedelics or some other type of altered state of consciousness. I know from my own personal development how difficult it was for me to consider seriously and accept the implications of some of the quite extraordinary observations from LSD sessions. I had resisted the influx of the revolutionary new data that I was exposed to in my everyday clinical work and kept trying to explain them within the accepted theoretical frameworks, until my tendency to defend traditional ways of thinking was defeated and overwhelmed by an avalanche of indisputable clinical facts. Whenever I violated the boundaries of tradition, conventional thinking, and commonly shared assumptions, it was only because rather convincing evidence made the old concepts incomplete, unsatisfactory, implausible, or untenable. I would like to emphasize in this context that I did not indulge in iconoclastic pleasure in opposing the existing concepts and theories. On the contrary, having been rather conservative by nature, I experienced a considerable amount of discomfort when the accepted systems proved inadequate. I had to suffer through a long period of rather unpleasant conceptual chaos, with a painful lack of any meaningful guidelines. This lasted until I developed a broader theoretical framework that seemed to introduce new order into the research data and made possible a simplifying integration and synthesis of the most important observations.
Looking for an appropriate form to communicate my findings, I rejected what seemed to be a tempting alternative, namely censoring or truncating some of the most unusual observations in order to avoid disapproval and harsh criticism. In addition to being personally and professionally dishonest, such an approach would have defeated the very purpose for which this book was written. It seemed important to share the data in their true form, including the challenge that they represent to our common sense and to scientific thinking. I have therefore decided to take the risk of attacks, fierce criticism, and possible ridicule for the sake of integrity and accurate reporting.
I do not anticipate that it will be easy for the reader to accept the ideas expressed in this book; it is reasonable to expect that the skepticism of others in regard to the data will not be less acute than that which I experienced myself. The most conclusive confirmation or rejection of the presented material will have to come from similar studies conducted by other researchers. Theoretically, of course, the research described in this book is replicable, even if the present political and administrative situation in regard to drug investigations makes such a task rather difficult. Indirectly, the validity of the presented concepts can be tested in the situation of the uncontrolled experiment happening on a large scale in the contemporary United States, namely the unsupervised use of psychedelic drugs. The persons who have taken LSD and those mental-health professionals who have worked with such individuals will be able to judge to what extent the described cartography of the unconscious is congruent with their experience. Another indirect way of testing the new conceptual framework is to apply it to various states in which the activation of the unconscious material is induced by powerful nondrug techniques. Numerous examples can be found in religious scriptures, mystical writings, and anthropological books and journals, as well as in contemporary literature on experiential psychotherapeutic techniques and laboratory mind-altering procedures.
The significance of the LSD observations transcends the framework of psychiatry and psychology and extends to many other scientific disciplines. It is far beyond the capacity of a single individual to outline and evaluate all the implications and consequences of the findings in their entirety. Detailed study of psychedelic phenomena would require a long-term systematic team cooperation of experts from diverse disciplines, such as psychology, psychiatry, neurophysiology, neuropharmacology, ethnobotany, modern physics, zoology, ethology, genetics, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, anthropology, history of art, theology, philosophy, and comparative study of religion and mythology.
At the present time, the future of psychedelic research is problematic, and it is uncertain whether it will be possible to replicate the study of serial LSD sessions described in this book. In any case, it will undoubtedly take a long time before such studies will be completed and will generate new data. In the meantime, I would like to offer the material on which this book is based for detailed analysis to every serious researcher who finds it of interest from the point of view of his own discipline. In turn, I would appreciate any critical comments and suggestions from the specialists of various disciplines that would help to clarify the findings described in this volume.