Claudio Naranjo (1932–2019)

A scientific treatment of meditation that makes sense. Restores connections between Yoga, Sufism, Christianity, and Tibetan Yoga.

Before Ecstasy there was MDA, and while that is NOT the focus of this book, it did introduce me to that substance. This was before MDA was illegal and was still being used therapeutically by psychologists Ornstein/Naranjo. Therapy is the focus in this book and specifically what was then (the 70s) breakthrough work being done to forge new techniques in their counseling practice.

This book discusses the therapeutic effects of several psychoactive drugs that were legal when the research was conducted in the mid 1960’s. The book is composed of 5 chapters. The first is an essay that had been previously published. The next four chapters each cover the effects of a different psychoactive compound (MDA, MMDA, Harmaline, Ibogaine). The author uses his session notes and the journal entries of his patients to show the therapeutic effects of each drug.

In the authors own show more words: “The four drugs with which this book deals fall, both chemically and in terms of their subjective effects, into two groups. That of the phenylisopropylamines, comprising MDA and MMDA, is characterized mainly by its effects of feeling enhancement, sharpening of attention, increased fluency in associations and communication. The other, that of the polycyclic indoles (ibogaine, harmaline) could well be called, for its effects, “oneirophrenic,” the term that Turner suggested for the harmala alkaloids. Their effect on most subjects is that of eliciting vivid dreamlike sequences which may be contemplated while awake with closed eyes, without loss of contact with the environment or alterations of thinking. Yet the quality that makes the drugs in both groups valuable to psychotherapy is that of facilitating access to otherwise unconscious processes, feelings, or thoughts, a quality that deserves to be called “psychedelic” in the sense of the word intended by Osmond: “mind-manifesting.” (pg. 3).

The negatives of this book were for me fairly minor. First I found the essay from chapter 1 to be a little too academic and dry. Second, some of the session notes were too long. I ended up skimming these and instead focused on the authors interpretations which were for the most part fascinating.

Claudio Naranjo is a Chilean psychiatrist who became an early member of the Esalen Institute in the 1970’s. His full biography can be found on his website: www.claudionaranjo.net/index_english.html show less

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