“You know that psychedelics are making a comeback when the New York Times says so on page 1. In “Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In,” (April 11, 2010) John Tierney reports on how doctors at schools like Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UCLA and NYU are testing the potential of psilocybin and other hallucinogens for treating depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism—and for inducing spiritual experiences.” Scientific American, April 16, 2010, John Horgan
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An in-depth analysis of psychedelic drugs in light of current scientific, medical and cultural knowledge and on the validity of psychedelics as adjuncts to therapy, as crucial but neglected taboo medicines, and as technologies of consciousness.
In the last few years’ psychedelics have been given new respectability in science and in therapy. Universities in Zurich, at Harvard, at the University of California, at John Hopkins, are conducting human trials with psychedelics to treat a number of afflictions from posttraumatic stress disorder, cluster headaches, addictions, to end of life anxiety issues. The FDA, in April of 2010, has approved a phase two trial with MDMA for posttraumatic stress disorder. All of the patients in this trial will be U.S. army vets from the war in Iraq suffering from PTSD.
The taboo against these drugs is closely aligned with societies fear of the ecstatic state. A state of mind that loosens the self from the roles assigned to us by society and by language. Psychedelics are threatening drugs not because of harmful physical side effects, of which they have remarkably very little, but because they can so thoroughly throw into question the edifice of self identity and starkly confront the nature of consciousness itself.
My film is about the science of how these drugs effect the neurological system and how those effects are related directly to how we understand the world around us, how experiential they effect consciousness and what that means for our understanding of ourselves, our relationship with others, and our understanding of the world.
If you are in a position to make an investment contact me and I will send you further information on the work, the full treatment, list of individuals already interviewed and those we still need to interview, as well as the share breakdown. Find above a link to make a contribution of any amount via Paypal. We have confirmed commitment from a prominent theatrical distributor. All financial details are available on request.
Light,
Oliver
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Director/Producer: Oliver Hockenhull
Oliver is a Vancouver based filmmaker, writer, and media artist. In 2003 and 2004 he was the visiting filmmaker at Northwestern University, Chicago.
His films are iconoclastic, visionary meals, spiced by an intimate, poetic, and enlightening perspective into the complexity of issues and subjects under examination. He has concentrated on pivotal subjects; the social and intellectual import of the eminent writer, Aldous Huxley, an experimental film essay on evolution that features Richard Dawkins (and the gorillas of the London Zoo), and an essay on the built environment that extends from the early works of Mies van der Rohe to the steps of the Burning Ghats of Varanasi.
The films have shown at such festivals and venues as — the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (finalist for the IDFA Joris Ivens Award), the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Sao Paulo International Film Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival, MIT/Boston, the Contemporary Cultural Centre of Barcelona, the Vancouver International Film Festival (Finalist for the NFB Documentary Award), the Nouveau Cinema Festival Montreal, and the Chicago International Film Festival. Works have been broadcasted on Canadian and European television.
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