Dr. Richard L. Miller on the Potentials and Pitfalls of Psychedelics
Are They a Shortcut to Enlightenment and Mutant Healing Powers?
Neurologists and psychologists have long believed that we humans are only using a fraction of our brain’s potential. With more than 50 years’ experience as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Richard L. Miller is one of the more well-versed professionals who share this opinion. He distinguishes himself from the mainstream, however, with a fairly major — and controversial — “other shoe” to this view: He believes psychedelics are a critical tool to unlocking the brain’s potential.
“Absolutely, yes, psychedelic medicine is a tool,” Miller explained. “They unlock parts of the mind that, heretofore, we are unable to access. It is a tool for wisdom and a tool for looking deep inside yourself and searching out fear.”
At 79 years young, Miller is an interesting case study in the landscape of psychedelic scholars. He is not some recovering hippie who managed to parlay a youthful commitment to Leary’s “Turn on, tune in, drop out” into a career along the fringes of the mainstream. Instead, his résumé is as straight as an arrow and as solid as steel. He has been on the faculty at both Stanford University and the University of Michigan, was a consultant for the U.S. Department of Justice and an advisor to the President’s Commission on Mental Health, and is the founder and director of Cokenders Alcohol and Drug Program. It is the latter venture that perhaps has earned Miller the most esteem, as it was remarkably successful in helping people break their cycles of addiction.
