Rachael is a writer and environmental consultant who advises nonprofits and foundations on climate change. With an expertise in tropical forests, Rachael has conducted fieldwork in the Brazilian and Ecuadorian Amazon, Borneo, Uganda and elsewhere. After almost a decade in climate policy, Rachael has turned her attention to the spiritual implications of our current ecological crises. Rachael stumbled into psychedelics as a participant in a psilocybin clinical trial for major depression. Her writing excavates the potential risks, rewards, and societal implications of medicalizing and commercializing mysticism. Her work interrogates the intersection of the mystical and the moral, and envisions the role of non-ordinary states of consciousness in current and future forms of religion. Rachael explores these themes as a Junior Fellow at Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions.
August 15, 2017
Paul Lee Corbett is facing a potential prison sentence of five years for possession of psilocybin mushrooms.
August 16, 2017
There’s a beauty and sense of wonder that comes from knowing how the world works, and the nature of the psychedelic experience dovetails almost perfectly with that awareness.
August 18, 2017
One tagline for the movie was “the ultimate trip,” so clearly Kubrick, or at least the film’s marketing team, were very aware of the psychedelic implications of the film.
August 22, 2017
“Did you ever pick mushrooms off of cow poop when you were biking in Hawaii?” I ask her. “Actually, yes,” she admitted. I take advantage of the ease at which a conversation like this flows with my mom.
September 5, 2017
I chose to learn Grof’s methods for working therapeutically with LSD and use them in my private life to systematically explore my own mind and the mind of the universe as deeply as possible—73 high-dose sessions over 20 years.
September 6, 2017
Eight tips for after the medicine is over.
September 7, 2017
A group of cannabis activists held a demonstration outside the White House. They made a Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, non-sectarian, and Rasta prayer over the plant, seeking to highlight the spirituality of cannabis use.
September 8, 2017
Just as the drug war makes drug-taking more dangerous and disproportionately affects the most vulnerable, the War on Sex Workers makes sex work more dangerous too. Here are 10 reasons ending the War on Sex Workers makes as much sense as ending the War on Drugs.
September 12, 2017
We locked eyes for what felt like an eternity...like he and I had done this many times before.
September 14, 2017
Cluster headaches to me feel like someone has my eyeball in their fist, steadily putting more and more pressure on it until it threatens to pop like a grape.