Latest Issue Of Psychedelics Mag DoubleBlind Plays With The Tension Between Old And New

Three years after the DoubleBlind team first began working on the psychedelics-focused magazine, Issue 6 is dropping.

It’s been a long, strange trip and DoubleBlind’s most recent print edition captures that, playing with the tension between old and new, both within the lifespan of the magazine and in the psychedelic community at large. Staying true to its roots and mission, DoubleBlind uses psychedelics as a jumping-off point to explore mental health, spirituality, science, policy, culture and nature. 

“What an honor it’s been to tell stories of psychedelic exploration. In this issue, our focus was how beautifully diverse they are. From baby boomers to club kids in Brooklyn, people all over the world are turning to these powerful medicines to seek joy, connection, and healing,” shared DoubleBlind co-founder Shelby Hartman. “There’s no more important time to remember that now, as the psychedelic ‘industry’ grows.” 

Amplifying The Experience

DoubleBlind has expanded upon what it means to experience a print magazine, incorporating a QR code so that readers may enjoy some psychedelic beats while flipping through the pages of Issue 6.

The narratives speak to psychonauts spanning a variety of age groups —from a young curandero to a flower child of the boomer generation— as well as a variety of perspectives on politics or culture, challenging mainstream paradigms about where the psychedelic space is going.

Take the underground space holders who see the benefits of prohibition outweighing the costs, or the Brooklyn club kids who prefer to trip spontaneously without all the pomp and circumstance of ceremony or premeditated intention setting. The issue explores psychedelic history, from the lens of untold stories about psychedelics in Africa, R. Gordon Wasson’s discovery of psilocybin and the role of women behind the scenes that fueled the Sixties counterculture. 

This issue looks at where psychedelics are headed, from treating stroke victims with DMT to advice on talking to loved ones about tripping for the first time. Whether you’ve been following DoubleBlind from its genesis, or you’ve recently hopped on board, the DoubleBlind team says they hope everyone has enjoyed the ride as much as they've enjoyed serving the community with content that will hopefully shift perspectives and push the culture forward. 

“It’s important for me to challenge what the mainstream paradigm thinks about psychedelics, and I hope that we are able to do that in our most recent issue. For me, as a writer, that meant getting to speak with characters of the old guard, like Rhoney Stanley, one of LSD chemist Owsley Stanley’s lovers, about the role of women behind the scenes of the Sixties counterculture revolution,” said DoubleBlind co-founder Madison Margolin. “As psychedelics go mainstream, stories like Rhoney’s are close to my heart, preserving the culture that psychedelic pioneers have stewarded all these decades; at the same time, we hope that the diversity of perspectives in this issue expand upon the mainstream stereotypes about the psychedelic space, and where it’s heading into the future—with the mission, I’d say, to bestow an audience of new or curious psychonauts with some psychedelic consciousness and new ideals.”

Encuentra el contenido de DoubleBlind en español en El Planteo.