After the success of PsypressUK 2012, as an advert-free saddle-stitch freebie, which received orders from across the globe, the next edition has tripled in size and is a wonderful soft-bound paperback, making it not only an important source of features, articles, research and comment on psychedelics, but also a beautiful object that you’ll wish to keep on your bookshelf. Order a copy now! Filled with especially-commissioned illustrations – including a cover design by renowned Cornwall-based artist Lucy Brown – a matt finish and printed on high-quality paper, the anthology has, of course, remained advert-free. With so much extra space dedicated to content it is important to have a high calibre of words and this edition of PsypressUK has a host of excellent writers. 

Drewczynski, Dimka: More Real than Real – In his article, Dimka discusses various strategies in the brain that regulate information processing and consciousness, in order examine if our perception on psychedelics is presenting us with a more ‘real’ depiction of our surroundings.

Dimka Drewczynski has a BSc (Hons) in Biological Psychology, in which he focused his research on serotonin, schizophrenia and hallucination, and on endorphins, opiates and salvia. He has recently completed his MSc in Neuroscience at the University of Amsterdam; doing research on the effects of antidepressants and physical exercise on hippocampal neurogenesis, and on sex differences in learning strategy, plus immediate early gene activation. His main fields of interest are ethnobotany, altered states of consciousness and the hallucinogenic experience itself.

Flaherty, Mark: Release of the Black Demon – An extract from PsypressUK 2013Mark’s book, this passage describes a particularly intense healing session with ayahuasca, in which a demon deep within him is released.

Mark Flaherty is the author of Shedding the Layers, How Ayahuasca Saved More Than My Skin, which chronicles the years he spent living in the Amazon jungle healing a severe and supposedly incurable illness. Mark now lives in England and works as an astrologer with an international client base. Visit www.mark-flaherty.com to find out more.

Hunter, Jack: Beyond Castaneda – In part one of Jack’s history of anthropology and psychedelics, he discusses the period between 1859-1950 and such researchers as Weston la Barre and Richard Evans Schultes. Part two will appear in PsypressUK 2013 (Vol.2) – out this Autumn.

Jack Hunter is a PhD candidate in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Bristol. His research takes the form of an ethnographic study of contemporary trance and physical mediumship in Bristol, focusing on themes of personhood, performance, altered states of consciousness and anomalous experience. In 2010 he established Paranthropology: Journal of Anthropological Approaches to the Paranormal as a means to promote an interdisciplinary dialogue on issues of the paranormal. In 2010 he was awarded the Eileen J. Garrett Scholarship by the Parapsychology Foundation, and in 2011 he received the Gertrude Schmeidler Award from the Parapsychological Association.

Luke, David: A Psychedelic Trickster – Sadly, the psychedelic researcher Steve Abrams passed away late last year. In this obituary, Dave looks back at Steve’s life with great affection and humour, taking note of his research, brushes with the CIA and the great legalise pot rally in Hyde Park.

Dave is one of the five co-founders of Breaking Convention, the former President of the Parapsychological Association, and a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich, UK. He is also Research Associate at the Beckley Foundation, Oxford, UK, and he is a guest lecturer at the University of Northampton, UK, for the MSc in Transpersonal Psychology and Consciousness Studies. He is also Director of the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness lecture series at the October Gallery in Bloomsbury, London. As a writer and researcher he has a special interest in altered states of consciousness and he has studied ostensibly paranormal phenomena and techniques of consciousness alteration from every continent of the globe, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites.

Montagne, Michael: Nature and Meaning in Psychedelic Drug Experiences – In this synoptical survery, michael delineates the ways in which we understand our psychedelic/entheogenic experiences and create meaning within them.

Michael Montagne, PhD, works at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences. Educated in pharmacy and sociology, he has taught and performed research for 35 years on the social, cultural, and historical aspects of drug effects and drug use in mass media.

PsypressUK 2013 SpineRoberts, Andy: Reservoir Drugs – LSD historian Andy Roberts takes a look at the history of the ‘LSD in the water supply’ myth and how both the counterculture and the mainstream used it in their war of words.

Andy Roberts is an historian of Britain’s LSD psychedelic culture and author of Albion Dreaming: A Social History of LSD in Britain (Marshall Cavendish 2008, 2012). His other research interests include, listening to music, hill walking, beach combing, reading, landscapes and their mysteries, natural history and paranormal phenomena. Musically, he has been severely influenced and affected by the Grateful Dead and the Incredible String Band among a host of others. He first fell down the rabbit hole in 1972 and has been exploring the labyrinth of passages ever since. His views on the psychedelic experience are (basically) – You take a psychedelic and you get high. What happens after that is largely the result of dosage, set and setting.

Sessa, Ben: Portrait of a Psychedelic researcher – Against the backdrop of his own experiences, Ben discusses the perks and pitfalls of becoming a psychedelic researcher – the field, the public, the press and the future.

Ben is one of the five co-founders of Breaking Convention, the UK’s only psychedelic conference, and the author of several novels and non-fiction books, including The Psychedelic Renaissance. He is a pediatric psychiatrist and is coordinating Britain’s first MDMA/PTSD study. He began publishing in medical journals on the subject of psychedelics as a trainee and since then has spoken nationally and internationally to doctors in a campaign to see these fascinating substances return to the mainstream pharmacopeia where their lives began. In 2008 he became a Research Associate under Prof. David Nutt at Bristol University, where he consulted for the ACMD on MDMA before working on the UK’s only human hallucinogen study in modern times – being the first person to be legally administered a classical psychedelic drug in this country for 33 years.

Teitsworth, Scott: The Golden Apples of Immortality – In Scott’s article, the author looks at the connection beween Indian and Greek myths, which centres around the fruit that lay at the heart of their stories.

Scott Teitsworth is the author of Krishna in the Sky with Diamonds, a book detailing the guidelines for the use of psychedelics found in the Bhagavad Gita. He specializes in interpreting ancient myths in terms of modern psychology. He and his wife host a class on Indian wisdom in Portland, Oregon, USA. His website is: http://scottteitsworth.tripod.com

Tindall, Robert: You get Told Exactly what You Need to Hear – Robert has a “visionary summons from the deep rainforest”, in this revised exract from his book, and has an enlightening experience with ayahuasca that sends him on a long apprenticeship.

Robert Tindall, M.A. is a writer, classical guitarist, long-time practitioner of Zen Buddhism, and an inveterate traveller, whose work explores the crossing of frontiers into other cultures and states of consciousness. He is the author of two books on shamanism, The Jaguar that Roams the Mind and The Shamanic Odyssey: Homer, Tolkien, and the Visionary Experience, along with numerous articles on the practice of pilgrimage and the medieval quest. Robert and his wife Susana lead journeys into the Amazon rainforest to encounter the healing traditions there. He can be contacted through his blog: roamingthemind.com.

Yellow, About: Constructivism Can Cure – In her own words, “How an understanding of Radical Constructivism gained through the psychedelic experience can help fend off bad trips.”

About Yellow is a twenty-something, Cambridge, English Literature graduate and gardener who exiled herself from Britain in favour of Berlin. Her life is currently the broken streets of Neukölln, neon lights, kebab shops, hipster bars and cheap supermarkets. She is learning how to paint walls and grow gardens out of gutters.