Fire Erowid & Earth Erowid
Heaven and Hell: The Profound Range of Psychedelic Experience
There is no single “psychedelic experience”: A unique characteristic of psychedelics is their potential to engender states ranging from ecstatic bliss to terrifying despair. One of the biggest challenges in educating about these drugs is successfully communicating this diverse spectrum of effects and the variables that influence it. Although the concept of “set & setting” has been around for decades, new research has begun to identify how factors such as environment, dose, timing, expectations, and mental preparation can affect the chances of experiencing profoundly positive mystical states versus traumatic ordeals resulting in lasting difficulties. Over the past ten years, Erowid has received nearly 100,000 submitted experience reports that exemplify and help shed light on the amazing range of effects reported by users of psychedelics, and how even the most frightening ones can sometimes be integrated usefully into life. We will share from some of the most horrifying and most enlightening of these reports and propose a few lessons that can be learned.
Fire Erowid and Earth Erowid co-founded Erowid Center, a U.S.-based educational non-profit organization that collects, reviews, and publishes data about psychoactive plants, drugs, technologies, and practices. Their primary project is the Erowid.org website, established in 1995 as an independent public library of information about psychoactives. The site hosts more than 58,000 public documents and images and serves more than 90,000 unique visitors each day. Erowid Center also runs EcstasyData.org, an independent laboratory pill-testing program that analyzes anonymously submitted samples of ecstasy tablets and other recreational drugs and publishes the results online. Earth is Erowid Center's Technical Director and the Chief Software Engineer of Erowid.org. He designs and implements the custom software systems necessary for managing the large flow of information through the site and is the lead editor responsible for scientific information published by Erowid. Earth has worked in the field of psychoactive information distribution for more than 15 years and has written extensively on the topic. He has co-authored academic posters, been published in both large and small publications, and been interviewed by major news organizations about his work. Fire is Executive Director of Erowid Center and Head Archivist of Erowid.org. She is the site's primary information architect, designer, and editor as well as being responsible for fundraising and operations. Fire has more than 15 years experience studying psychoactive plants and drugs. She has written hundreds of pages of information about these materials, authored numerous articles, spoken at academic and professional conferences, and has had her work cited by newspapers, education programs, college classes, and seminars around the world.