pretzelbender

Let me say first that I see MAPS doing good work, but questions:

(1) Many societies that incorporate hallucinogen use have been extremely violent, have incorporated violence and psychedelics simultaneously (eg Aztecs) or at least have not given up war/tribal violence/gender violence - so are people who expect a world of peace via psychedelics being naive ?

(1b) If not, why not ? Or is it not a concern or responsibility of MAPS ?

(2) There was successful work on shell shock sufferers in hospitals during world war 1 (eg. Craiglockhart War Hospital, Scotland), and the military saw successful treatment as a reason to send troops back to the front. Will this happen with latterday PTSD treatments ?

(2b) If not, why not ? How would you stop it ?

Thanks.

If you don't mind (and I appreciate you may not have time to answer all this), but your point "I would be concerned about helping someone to open up, then allowing them to go right back into a potentially traumatic life situation." is something I have been wondering about. Do we know that psychedelics will always make people sensitive to traumatic situations ? I may lack the correct anthropology reading here, but didn't the priests of South American cultures perform human sacrifice time after time, almost as a career, in conjunction with psychedelic plants (Moche etc.) ?

Presumably they weren't too traumatised by this to carry on. So why not ? Most people would think cutting live people up while under the influence would be a bad trip, but is this always the case or can it actually be a facilitator if the motivation is there to continue ? I don't expect that study to pass an ethics board any time soon, but we do have historical account so i wonder if that tells us what is possible ?

Thanks.