Why shouldn’t cannabis get the same recognition as psychedelics?

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In most people’s minds there are essentially two different categories of how to consume cannabis… recreational (or “adult use”) and medical.

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Of course, since you get my emails, I know you know better than that, but really, wouldn’t you say that’s basically how the plant is framed in our society?

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It totally edges out the concept of cannabis being a potent channel of connection to spirituality and mysticism.

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Yet there’s a steady hum these days about the wonders of psychedelics and their promise of transformative experiences. So in this video I’m excited to share details with you of a study that’s finally giving cannabis its due as an agent of higher consciousness.

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I got a story for you. One of my students was telling his wife about the online gatherings that I do with cannabis and he’s attended several. And she says to him, “Ok, let me get this right,” she said with a raised eyebrow. “So you get on Zoom with a group of strangers, you smoke weed, and you do like ancient meditations?”

And he says: “Yeah basically that’s it!”

And she was like, “OK – just make sure it’s not a cult.”

And my student tells me this, and we both laugh over it because I have an antenna for that culty kind of thing for several reasons and the most prevalent being that I came from an upbringing that was fairly religious, once I got into college, I turned and ran…  I wanted none of it.

So I have no adherence to any belief except in the individual and that YOU have the ability to heal yourself from being stuck in your life – and whatever that looks like to you. And that’s why I value cannabis so much because this plant medicine, used in intentionally or spiritually, if you want to say that, can be hugely beneficial in getting you unstuck. That is what my work is all about.

So I’m very excited to tell you about a new study that’s come out regarding the spiritual use of Cannabis. Of course, not out of the United States… this study from a researcher in Norway at the University of Bergen.

This study aimed to explore the characteristics of spiritual-cannabis-use as compared to recreational use AND compared to using psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin mushrooms.

So let me tell you a little about it and I’ll put a link in the comments section so you can review the whole study if you’d like.

There were 319 participants and they were recruited from a variety of online forums that discussed cannabis and psychedelics, where else would you get participants for a purpose like this? And the participants, over a period of 2 to 4 weeks, were interviewed about various aspects of their use of cannabis and psychedelics.

Their identifies were all kept anonymous to the researcher. The average age of participants was 33 years old and the group was more than 80% male. The group include people working in education, journalism, IT consulting, accounting, retail, and college students.

So what happened?

Well, first, only 25% of the participants said they had a spiritual motivation for using cannabis. One-quarter of the group. Intriguingly, that’s compared to 69% who said they used other substances for spiritual motivation. 69% – that’s nearly 3-quarters of those using psychedelic substances – not cannabis for higher consciousness pursuit.

The 25% using cannabis for higher consciousness said that included having insights, connectedness, joy, love, and unity with “transcendent forces”.

There were some big take away messages from this study I believe. One is that the study reported that those who used cannabis as a spiritual guide approached the plant much differently than those using cannabis for recreation or relaxation.

And, very interesting, this group that used cannabis spiritually, reported experiences with the plant that they said RESEMBLED spiritual experiences they had had with psychedelics.

Another notable observation was the frequency of participants using cannabis with spiritual intent…  They said that using cannabis less frequently enhanced their experiences – that the experiences were more intense and more meaningful when they created space between the times they used it.

And finally, participants talked about their motivations for using cannabis. And there were 3 distinct groups. One group said they used cannabis for socializing, partying and having fun, which certainly has its place.

Another group were very clear that they were on a quest to obtain spiritual experiences. The last group expressed a general curiosity about the psychological effects – not explicitly spiritual but wanting to explore the realm of inner experience.

The conclusion of the research, which is pretty much standard operating procedure for published scientific studies is that it deserves further study. Sure, bring it on!

By the way, keep an eye out for details… we’re going to be taking the deep dive with cannabis in some Psychedelic cannabis events coming up. So if you’re wanting to explore the realm of inner experience with cannabis in a very deliberate way, you should join us. Details to come.

Again, I’ll put the link to the study down below in the comments section. And I invite you also to share your thoughts about this. I’d love to hear where you stand with your use of cannabis.

I’m Becca Williams, and I want you to lead your most magnificent life, and I want to help you do that.

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6 thoughts on “Why shouldn’t cannabis get the same recognition as psychedelics?”

  1. Very informative, research and data now being obtained
    Certainly for me the intention directs the experience. I look forward to what you have planned in the psychedelic realm. Thanks Becca.

    Reply
    • Thanks for asking! I’m all about working with the EL framework because it’s the “anchoring” modality. That’s where the magic happens! And when the magic can happen faster with outside agents then I’m all ears! In short I want ppl to heal!

      Reply
  2. I have had experience with psilocybin and cannabis. Properly used, they both have great spiritual enhancement potential. In my early days of spiritual search cannabis was a frequent partner. Maybe a little too frequent, but I was young, without guidance, and trying to figure it out. There is no doubt, that properly focused, cannabis can be a great help.

    Psilocybin came much later in my life as it was not available to me. When it was, I embarked on about a half dozen or more explorations. It was far more impactful than cannabis. The interesting thing though, was that many months after my time with psilocybin, upon taking cannabis, it took me almost to the same depths of awareness as did the ‘shrooms’. It felt amazingly similar. Again, it had to be used in appropriate fashion to get the same insightful results.

    I think that somehow the psilocybin rewired my internal systems to be receptive to a greater potential for cannabis. My partner also cited a similar experience.

    Reply
    • That’s wild, isn’t it?! Thanks for your insightful “field report”. The operative term here, as you so eloquently point out, is “properly used” … in my emotional liberation work, we embrace cannabis in an already developed framework. One of my students describes it well: “It’s not the engine … it’s like the motor oil for your engine” (https://emotionallibe1.wpengine.com/success-stories/ ).

      Having said that, I honor the trajectory of psychedelics for healing. However, I believe that we can effect the same emotional healing with a cannabis-assisted approach. Cannabis is (mostly) legal, easy to access, clean (because of required testing) and little or no fear of “difficult trips”. In my estimation, we can do this work without “difficult trips”.

      I’d like to know about your shrooms – micro-dosing? mini-dosing? regular dosing?
      Thanks! Becca

      Reply
      • In my initial forays into shrooming I was taking between 1.6 and 2.5 grams of dried psilocybi cubensis. They were pure and clean as I grew them myself. I never attempted any ‘heroic’ doses. These days, years later, I occasionally microdose shrooms with cannabis in the range of .2 grams. I don’t particularly like the 6 hour commitment of a larger dose of the shrooms.

        I use cannabis recreationally in the micro dose range. The stuff out there today is damn strong so it doesn’t take much. If I’m going to go deeper, I combine micro shrooms with a little stronger than micro cannabis to get that deeper shroom effect. Still works.

        Reply

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