The Seba library treats Set And Setting in 7 passages, across 3 authors (including Grof, Stanislav, Strassman, Rick, Gendlin, Eugene T.).
The enormous significance of the therapist or sitter during the LSD sessions has its consequences for psychotherapeutic practice. On the one hand, the role frequently presents serious problems for the therapist
Grof argues that the therapist/sitter constitutes a central element of the setting whose relational qualities shape the entire phenomenological and therapeutic trajectory of the session.
, LSD Psychotherapy: Exploring the Frontiers of the Hidden Mind, 1980thesis
The enormous significance of the therapist or sitter during the LSD sessions has its consequences for psychotherapeutic practice. On the one hand, the role frequently presents serious problems for the therapist
This parallel passage reinforces Grof’s sustained claim that the human setting — embodied in the guide — is therapeutically inseparable from the pharmacological agent.
, LSD Psychotherapy: The Healing Potential of Psychedelic Medicine, 1980thesis
mystical experiences result from a mature and conscious effort toward obtaining them. The practitioner seeks them out. there is an intellectual and moral context supporting and encouraging them, and their expression is socially sanctioned and acceptable.
Strassman distinguishes genuine mystical experience from psychopathology on the basis of intentionality, intellectual framing, and social legitimacy — a functional redescription of set and setting as differentiating variables.
, DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences, 2001supporting
mystical experiences result from a mature and conscious effort toward obtaining them. The practitioner seeks them out. there i- an intellectual and moral context supporting and encouraging them, and their expression is ><xiall\ sanctioned and acceptable.
Strassman’s parallel text reinforces that context — set (intentionality, maturity) and setting (social sanction, intellectual framework) — distinguishes therapeutic from pathological non-ordinary states.
, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, 2001supporting
The highly publicized abandonment of scientific research principles by Timothy Leary, Ph.D., and his research team at Harvard University ultimately resulted in their dismissals.
Strassman’s account of Leary’s methodological collapse implicitly frames the failure of set-and-setting discipline as the proximate cause of the derailment of legitimate psychedelic research.
, DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences, 2001supporting
The highly publicized abandonment of scientific research principles by Timothy Leary, Ph.D., and his research team at Harvard University ultimately resulted in their dismissals.
This parallel passage treats Leary’s disregard for controlled research conditions as the historical cautionary instance of what happens when set and setting are neglected.
, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, 2001supporting
You put yourself into a state of mind and body in which the other focusing movements can take place freely… There are many ways to approach the first movement, many different inner acts that can produce the needed positive set — or body-mind receptivity.
Gendlin’s description of ‘positive set’ as a preparatory body-mind condition in Focusing practice resonates structurally with the set dimension of the set-and-setting dyad, applied to somatic rather than psychedelic work.
, Focusing: How to Gain Direct Access to Your Body’s Knowledge, 2010aside