"Molecules of mysticism" and Wikipedia

by Konstantin Kuteykin-Teplyakov, PhD

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Last years the popularity of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, is rising up: more and more people use it. Many journalists consider it as basic information source, and even scientists use it increasingly. Certainly, at the moment the quality of information in many Wikipedia articles is still not ideal, but situation going to be better and better. The reasons are the open access and neutral point of view, as well as the possibility to improve and constantly update information (anyone can edit), so the final text represents the consensus, the balanced opinion. However, we must always keep in mind, that Wiki does not say “the absolute Truth” or “expert testimony”, but represents a vox populi. Wiki serves as “the shared memory”, keeping the common knowledge of society, and it makes Wikipedia an excellent information source about dominating/popular opinions and their evolution. Since Wikipedia has articles on the same subject often written independently in different languages, there is option to use Wiki even for ethnographical studies. The advantages of internet-based approach are especially noticeable for the controversial cases and hot topics, where public opinion has not jelled yet. Another important advantage of Wikipedia is a possibility to trace the evolution of knowledge.

The "Molecules of Mysticism" (chemical agents that are able to induce mystical experience, like psychedelics/entheogens and empathogens/entactogens) are an excellent example: this subject is in bitter dispute, and Wikipedia reflects this polemic very well, allowing to compare versions of the same article corresponding to different time points: some sentences remain unchanged over the editing by many persons (like idea that “psychedelics are chemical substances”), while some questionable utterances have been corrected many times, oscillating as a pendulum between polar opinions.

In consciousness of most people the word psychedelic is associated primarily with LSD, and Wikipedia precisely reflects this situation: on 20.03.2008 the article “LSD: Lysergic acid diethylamide” was available in 43 languages. Some versions are written very well, very informative and really represent many opinions from neutral point of view and contain verifiable information based on modern scientific findings and published results of research with original citations: chemistry, pharmacology, history, effects, social impact, potential risks of use, examples of feelings, legal status, and links to other recourses etc. (good example - an English version), what allow to build up one's own opinion. Versions on some other languages just repeat the well-known myths of “Drug War” without any indication of sources and without any citations (Bulgarian, Estonian, Swedish), reflecting not so high awareness of society. The English and French articles about LSD are considered to be the featured articles among all articles in English and in French respectively (as determined by Wikipedia's editors). Whereas version on English says something like "LSD is a Wonder Drug, only seldom recognized as Problem Child", German version of the article contains not so much scientific information, focuses primarily on negative effects and harms and sounds similar to "LSD is a Problem Child, producing a lot of troubles, however, if you are very lucky person, it might serve as Wonder Drug". In my personal opinion as pharmacologist, English version is nearly ideal and based on modern scientific data, so I would recommend anyone who would like to improve the article about LSD in his mother-tongue to use the article on English as basic. The earlest version of the Wiki-article about LSD in English dated 14 December 2001 was one among first 10.000 articles (now more than 2,2 millions Wiki-articles are available on English), that represents the high interest of internet community to the topic.

The next after LSD topline psychedelic is Marijuana: the Wikipedia articles dedicated to Marijuana, Cannabis (as drug) and Hemp were available in 40 languages. In my eyes, the more informative and reliable are in English, Russian and Dutch.

Articles MDMA, Methylenedioxymethylamphetamine and Ecstasy (as drug) at the moment are available in 29 languages (Some languages have 2 articles: MDMA as chemical substance and Ecstasy as party pills). Most informative and reliable version is in English (almost translated to German, French, Bulgarian, Russian, Norwegian). and in Hebrew marked as featured article among Hebrew-Wikipedia.

In November 2001, one of the first special Wiki-project “Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants” was founded, integrating information about 20 substances. On 20.03.2008 this project includes more than 400 articles in English about different psychedelics and empathogens-entactogens: most of substances described in Shulgin's PIHKAL and TIHKAL books (about 200), some most popular other “designer drugs” (>20), both legal and scheduled, as well as many psychoactive organisms used by shamans (>120 plants, 46 mushroom species and one toad). French Wikipedia contains info about more than 70 psychedelics. Japanese, German and Polish Wikipedias mentions about 50 substances, Chinese - about 30, Russian - 25, and Dutch and Spanish less than 20! Wikipedia in other European languages has less then 10 psychedelic substances each.These data clearly correlate with prevalence of psychedelics in different world regions.

Wikipedia is not only the educational resource providing information about psychedelic substances itself, but also quite good tool for anthropological study, that allows to extract the information about popularity of different psychedelics in different cultures and to reveal the attitude and tolerance of society towards different ideas and policies. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, is an excellent instrument to spread information about psychedelics on different languages, when everyone may contribute.

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