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Bad LSD is still a thing unfortunately. You can test a batch for purity now, though. I think what Evans did actually violated set and setting, but it's possibl
by oooyay 3y ago
Bad LSD is still a thing unfortunately. You can test a batch for purity now, though.
I think what Evans did actually violated set and setting, but it's possible this article is just poorly framed. He did enough LSD on his first trip in a packed club to experience depersonalization. To me a review of set and setting would've told me three of those things are a bad idea. He later then went to do a drug like Ayahuasca in a foreign country under a cultural practice he likely didn't appreciate. Again, things set and setting would tell me are likely not a good idea - at the very least that I should build up to. For the unfamiliar, I view both things he did like climbing Mt Hood and Mt Everest as an amateur with barely adequate gear.
I think he should continue to tell his stories, maybe even post them to Erowid or the Psychonaut wiki where there are similar warnings. That said, I'm not super convinced he's challenged the theory of set and setting.
- jtbayly 3y agoHis personal experience is not what that claim is based on, but rather the collected bad trips of hundreds of others, many of which were in a therapeutic setting.
- RupertEisenhart 3y agoBad LSD being "a thing" and bad LSD being "a thing that causes bad trips" are very very different. Among the things that people often sell as LSD, some have dangerously steep dose-response curves like 25I-NBOMe, some are pretty close analogues like AL-LAD. None outright cause bad trips, and most or all of them are also sold with their proper labels and enjoyed by enthusiasts.
- oooyay 3y agoYeah, I think I agree with you. In my head I hold space for the fact that bad trips can be resultant of three larger factors: - Overstimulation and a lack of "preparedness" for that level. That touches on my Mt Hood example. - Unmanaged triggers ahead of a psychedelic experience. You can feel this on something as simple as THC and certain terpenes. - Contaminants that defeat the expectation of what the substance "should be" and are potentially unsafe.