Blockchain Papers

Samir A Nader

Psychedelic Minimalism: The Case Against Music in Psychedelic Therapy SettingsIn response to: Kaelen et al. (2018), “The Hidden Therapist: Evidence for a Central Role ofMusic in Psychedelic Therapy.”Introduction: Reframing the Role of SettingIn recent years, renewed attention has been given to the centrality of set and setting inpsychedelic-assisted therapy. The Reporting of Setting in Psychedelic Clinical Trials (ReSPCT)guidelines reflect an evolving consensus: therapeutic outcomes are not solely pharmacologicallydetermined but are heavily shaped by both the environment and the psychological state of theparticipant (Pronovost-Morgan et al. 2025). Within this evolving paradigm, music has assumed aprivileged role, framed as a therapeutic constant, typically curated to be emotionally supportiveor evocative, and especially emphasized during peak psychedelic states (Barrett et al. 2017).The prevailing assumption is that music facilitates safety, emotional access, and therapeuticalignment (Kaelen et al. 2018). However, this assumption has not been subjected to the samedegree of empirical or philosophical scrutiny that other elements of the setting have receivedIn this opinion, I offer a contrarian view: that the inclusion of music in psychedelic therapy maynot be benign or beneficial but could instead function as a confounding variable, altering,distorting, or displacing the very psychological material that therapy seeks to access. I arguethat music introduces external emotional content that may obscure the patient’s naturalpsychological flow, their set, thereby undermining the core objective of psychedelic therapy:unmediated engagement with the self. This perspective, which I call psychedelic minimalism,challenges the default assumption that additive features of the setting, particularly music, areinherently therapeutic. Rather than continuing to ask what kind of music, or how it’s played, bestsupports the psychedelic experience, I suggest we ask a more foundational question: whymusic at all? If the therapeutic goal is to access internal, unfiltered psychological material, thenany emotionally potent stimulus, no matter how well-curated, may interfere with that process. Ialso call for further research to fill this gap, exploring whether a minimalist setting, free ofemotional modulation, offers deeper, more authentic access to the self.Setting, Set, and the Risk of Emotional InterferenceIn psychedelic therapy, set refers to the totality of a patient’s internal state, their beliefs,thoughts, personality, and emotional tendencies, while setting denotes the external environmentwith its sensory, and interpersonal dimensions (Eisner 1997). Together, set and setting shapethe content, tone, and trajectory of the psychedelic experience (Hartogsohn 2016).Psychedelics generate non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSCs) not inherentlytherapeutic in themselves but filled with potential emerging from lowered psychologicaldefenses, allowing dissociated material to surface (Grof 2000). When this material is engagedwith, the therapeutic action of psychedelics obtains; the role of the setting should not be to guidethe patient away from this material, but to allow its unfolding with as little interference aspossible allowing for direct engagement.To that end, the ideal therapeutic setting is emotionally neutral, a vessel that supports theemergence of unfiltered psychological content without adding its own emotional coloration. Iargue that psychedelic therapeutic efficacy hinges most critically on preserving the primacy ofthe set, enabling the individual to encounter their psyche without distortion or displacement fromexternal stimuli; namely, that the goal of what I refer to as the pure set encounter is a settingdesigned to unconfound the set, where every additive feature of the setting is evaluated for howit alters the natural flow of cognition and introspection.Music as a Modulator of Emotion and MeaningAmong all components of the therapeutic setting, music stands out as a uniquely potentpsychological force. It is not ambient noise or passive background, rather, it is emotionallyloaded, temporally structured, and rich with meaning (Bonny and Pahnke 1972). Music inpsychedelic therapy is often justified for its ability to guide, ground, or emotionally stabilize thepatient during challenging experiences (Kaelen et al. 2018). Yet it is this very power thatwarrants caution.I propose that music operates as a phenomenological modulating influence, shaping thepatient’s emotional and cognitive flow during psychedelic sessions. Clinical data and emergingtheories in affective neuroscience and music therapy suggest two primary axes by which musicmay exert its effects: emotional provocativeness, or the ability to evoke strong affective stateslike awe, nostalgia, grief, or anxiety, and personal meaning, referring to the autobiographicalassociations embedded within particular songs (Barrett, Preller, et al. 2017; Barrett, Preller, andKaelen 2018; Strickland, Garcia-Romeu, and Johnson 2020). Music scoring high on eitherdimension, let alone both, I argue, risks overpowering the patient’s natural stream of thoughtand redirecting attention to emotionally charged content that may not have otherwise emergedThe influence of provocative music has been observed clinically and acknowledged even in theReSPCT Guidelines (Item 11), which call for careful reporting of the music used, given itsevident impact on the therapeutic setting (“The ReSPCT Guidelines” 2025). One case studyparticipant described her psilocybin session as uncomfortable when accompanied by music, butcalming and insightful during silent periods that involved therapist-guided mindfulness andinterpersonal discussion. She ultimately chose to move to a quiet room, preferring a music-freesetting (Gloeckler et al. 2024). Another participant stated that “under psilocybin I felt almost thatI had no choice but to go with the music” (Kaelen et al. 2018), implying a surrender of agency tothe external structure of sound. These accounts suggest that music, far from universallysupportive, can inhibit introspection and redirect the therapeutic process away from self-generated insight.Proponents of music often argue that it enhances the psychedelic experience and supportspatients through difficult terrain (Kaelen et al. 2015). But this assumption is worth challenging. Inmany cases, meaningful breakthroughs occur not through comfort but through productivediscomfort: the slow processing of unstructured inner chaos, the confrontation with long-avoidedemotions, or the resurfacing of deeply repressed memory. One psilocybin trial participantdescribed her musical experience as overwhelming, reporting that she felt she was“suffocating,” and that the music was “too much” (Gloeckler et al. 2024). Only during a music-free period did she experience release from resistance and begin productive introspection.Even music that holds personal significance may be counterproductive. A song tied to thememory of a lost loved one may elicit genuine sadness, but that sadness is structured by themusic’s associative framework, not by the patient’s internal emotional terrain. While some mayargue that such triggers can facilitate emotional processing, especially when linked to trauma,the ability to identify and select such music in advance is clinically uncertain and not scalable.Many patients are unaware of how particular songs will affect them until they are in the alteredstate. Furthermore, music that appears helpful in one moment may overwhelm or displace morerelevant material that would otherwise emerge in silence. The risk here is not just distraction,but displacement: the substitution of an externally prompted emotional script for an internallydriven exploration.Gaps in Research, Future Directions, and Analysis of Conflicts of InterestDespite the central role music plays in most psychedelic-assisted therapy protocols, there is astriking lack of controlled research examining its specific effects. Music is often treated as adefault or essential component, not as a testable variable. This has left a significant gap in ourunderstanding of how therapeutic outcomes differ between music-enriched and minimalist(silent) settings. The assumption of music’s benefit remains largely unchallenged, limiting insightinto which aspects of the psychedelic experience are truly intrinsic and which are shaped byexternal influences.This oversight presents a valuable opportunity for future research. Clinically testable questions,such as whether music fosters emotional insight or deflects it, and whether insights gained insilence are more enduring, could inform more effective, scalable treatment models. Randomizedtrials, qualitative and neurophenomenological studies, and long-term follow-ups comparingdifferent settings could clarify whether music enhances or interferes with therapeutic goals.Rather than accepting tradition, researchers must begin to treat music as an active variablewhose inclusion requires empirical justification.It is also not without mention, notable to consider the potential conflict between author MendelKaelen, PhD, the first author of the dissented paper, and his role as CEO of Wavepaths, a“startup providing music both for and as psychedelic therapy” (ICPR by OPEN Foundation 2024;Wavepaths 2024). If Dr. Kaelen has a financial stake in the use of music in the setting ofpsychedelic assisted therapy, this invites scrutiny of potential influence over confirmation bias inhis research, especially given the nascent, subjective nature of current psychedelic medicineresearch.DiscussionPsychedelic therapy is most powerful when it enables unmediated access to the self. Yet music,widely assumed to be therapeutic, may disrupt this process by directing attention and shapingemotional response. As a modulating force, it risks overshadowing the very psychologicalmaterial therapy aims to access. Emotional experiences prompted by music may feelmeaningful but are often structured by the music itself, not by the patient’s own psyche. Aminimalist setting that is quiet, neutral, and non-directive, offers an alternative. Rather thanguiding or soothing, it allows internal content to emerge undisturbed. If the goal is authenticintrospection and lasting transformation, then silence may be more supportive than sound.Future research should directly test this, shifting the burden of proof onto any setting feature,especially music, that claims therapeutic value.

Gauripriya Babu, Ayush Bal, Purvi Singh, Abhiraj Das · 5 authors

In recent years, blockchain technology has witnessed significant attention and adoption across various industries due to its potential to revolutionize traditional systems. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), a unique form of digital asset authenticated and stored on a blockchain, have emerged as a novel application within this domain. This paper proposes ELYSIUMGATE, a conceptual framework that harnesses NFTs to enhance the organization and execution of events. By leveraging blockchain’s immutability, transparency, and decentralized nature, ELYSIUMGATE aims to address key challenges associated with event management, including ticketing, authentication, and engagement. This research explores the technical architecture of ELYSIUMGATE, its potential benefits, and implications for event organizers, participants, and stakeholders. Additionally, it discusses potential risks and limitations associated with implementing NFTs in event management. Through a comprehensive analysis, this paper demonstrates how ELYSIUMGATE can contribute to achieving event perfection by ensuring trust, security, and efficiency in event organization and execution.

Andrea Dei

In the Hippocratic conception, medicine is a synthesis of technique, philosophy and humanism, but in essence it is nothing more than the expression of the living being to counter predestination. Its foundation is the dose–response relationship that a living organism expresses when perturbed by an external agent. In practice, however, this interpretation is defined by the knowledge, thought, economic means, politics and religious sentiment of the community to which the organism belongs. Homeopathy, too, does not escape these considerations. It is a child of the vitalistic philosophy of the time when it was formulated by a giant of human history, Samuel Hahnemann. At that time, knowledge did not allow for the biological definition of disease, but simply the acceptance or rejection of the Hippocratic view of the symptom as an attempt at self-healing. As a therapeutic modality, therefore, homeopathy was formulated by its founder as an intervention aimed at promoting the self-healing of an organism, postulating that this act was defined by the response that the organism engaged to counter an anomaly. Consequently, the therapeutic method had a heuristic nature, independent of any knowledge of the nature of the homeopathic remedy or the biological mechanisms underlying the administration of such a remedy. In fact, the therapy implied a personalized intervention that did not necessarily foresee its definition within a general scheme. These foundations have two unfortunate consequences. The first is that the pursuit of homeopathy involves a self-limiting characteristic, not foreseeing the development of the therapeutic modality. The second is that homeopathy is not easily generalizable, not favoring its uptake in medical practice in places designated for the removal of anomalies in a large number of people, such as in a hospital. But what is more important is the fact that it a priori avoids conceiving a definition of reality, as the scientific method pursues with experiment and reproducibility, assuming as real what is exact and not necessarily what is true. This is the primary reason that causes the potential marginalization of homeopathy, because in a society that bases its evolution on the canons that defined the Scientific Revolution, a therapeutic modality that after two centuries does not strive to justify its foundations, limiting itself to the free subjective interpretation of those who pursued it, questions its own right to existence. Therefore, if Hahnemann promoted a view that was astonishing for its inherent foresight, anticipating many concepts of modern health care, the problem resides in the fact that he was unable to notice the fragility of his own perspective. The founding of experimental medicine by Claude Bernard, the misinterpretation of Pasteur's discoveries and the exaltation of Koch's discoveries rendered Hahnemann's vitalistic conception obsolete. In fact, they promoted the creation of an orthodoxy rooted in the social pact between public institutions and professional orders, defining an official medicine model that entails the adoption of a certain culture and not proven capability. From this, homeopaths were excluded or at most tolerated. Because if “science” was an inadequate word, it was enough to replace it with the locution “demonstration of efficacy”, which lent itself better to the interested intervention of some, but which the personalization of the homeopathic method did not allow to justify. Medicine did not consider that by adopting a Cartesian mechanistic model, it justified the absurdity of administering 10 million molecules of a drug per cell of an organism with predictable health damage. But to establish itself, it entrusted pharmacology with the task of establishing an efficacy criterion based on a certain minimum dose of the drug (threshold model), ideologically postulating the non-authentic nature of a methodological approach that envisaged dilutions and the action of infinitesimal doses.[ 1 ] [ 2 ] Indeed, in postulating the view of the organism as a machine, and valuing the preservation of the structure over maximum function, the disease was attributed to the malfunction of a mechanism, which must be inhibited (or removed). Therefore, the experimental evidence showing the existence of self-healing processes, stimulated by low-dose interference, was consciously disregarded. With this behavior, to affirm itself, biomedicine distorted experimental reality. But this conduct took place because neither the essence of the vital process nor the physiology of biological systems was then known. Their partial elucidation has occurred in the past 80 years. While homeopaths withdrew—as they still do, entrenching themselves in fideistic positions or displaying “bird of the woods” behavior in Hobbesian terms—homeopathy postulated a view similar to the “immobile motor” (unmoved mover) of the Western metaphysical tradition: “mover” because it is the final goal toward which the organism tends, thus justifying self-healing, and “unmoved” because it is an uncaused cause (i.e., the first primary cause). In this view, homeopathy does not need to improve its identity, being already realized in itself as a pure act in its ontological nature, as Hahnemann intrinsically postulated. Therefore, industries did not promote pleonastic investments for scientific research programs since they believed that the therapeutic modality of homeopathy did not require it. Indeed, homeopaths observed with indifference the fact that scientific progress explained the existence of life, the dimensions and functions of cells,[ 3 ] and the fact that the heart must beat.[ 4 ] This was achieved, along with biological research,[ 5 ] [ 6 ] through the Science of Complexity,[ 7 ] [ 8 ] Information Theory,[ 9 ] and the introduction of Far-from-Equilibrium Thermodynamics.[ 10 ] In fact, the new approach justifies the dose–response interaction of a living organism in aging, hormesis, premature senescence, apoptosis and necrosis as a function of the increasing intensity of a perturbation, such as the ingestion of a drug.[ 11 ] Having translated the dose–response into a more general framework, the following considerations are obtained. The world moves toward disorder, and the ordered features of living beings can be justified only by assuming that their existence constitutes a tool for facilitating the achievement of a more disordered status. In practice, being healthy means efficiency in exporting disorder, while disease represents a reduced efficiency to do so. The interaction of a xenobiotic with a living being always involves damage, but the software of living beings is programmed to counter this action through existing repair mechanisms and the evolution of more efficient ones. Therefore, therapeutic methods are aimed at stimulating self-repair mechanisms or inhibiting certain biological processes, thus allowing the restoration of optimal health. Premature senescence is a phenomenon that can result from an excess of drug molecules postulated by orthodox medicine to induce the inhibition of a certain biological mechanism that can cause a permanent alteration of cells' metabolic mechanisms, resulting in so-called adverse effects. Hormesis is the only process that can be beneficial, as it promotes the creation of more efficient modes of cell functioning in metabolizing, synthesizing and storing useful molecules, as well as facilitating the elimination of waste products, unlike biomedicine.[ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ] In practice, hormesis justifies evolution but also directs the organism to benefit from breathing, proper nutrition and physical exercise, promoting behavior that implies increased lifespan. It practically summarizes the concepts we condense into the word “well-being” but, more importantly, it promotes self-awareness about the meaning of existence and the interaction of a living being with the territory where it lives. Only in the case of a therapeutic modality was it not justified to talk about hormesis, primarily because it justified homeopathy,[ 1 ] [ 2 ] and therefore it had to be forgotten; but even today, when pharmacology has had to accept it because experimental evidence cannot be hidden for long, hormesis tends to be not talked about within the homeopathy community because many of its practitioners, in pursuing the abovementioned “immobile motor” belief, do not want to accept hormesis and thereby prompt an alliance with the holders of patents for drugs used by orthodox medicine.[ 15 ] [ 16 ] Indeed, hormesis entails an enantiodromic effect (stimulatory at low doses, inhibitory at high doses) as a function of the intensity of perturbation, such as the number of molecules of a drug, which, justifying the principle of “Similia similibus curentur”, would provide a specific foundation to a method that, being holistic, is considered not to require specific justification. Therefore, the fact that two groups of researchers have independently demonstrated with DNA arrays that homeopathic remedies have a biological action consistent with that supported by manuals and that this action follows the rules of hormesis,[ 17 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ] should not constitute proof. Those who hold the patents, on the other hand, see it as “smoke in the eyes” because they might find out that their drugs, due to unfavorable pharmacokinetics, could go from being inhibitors to stimulators, with non-exciting effects for those who use them. But for Dr. Peter Fisher, former Editor of Homeopathy , it was enough to promote interest, and after attending a scientific session dedicated to hormesis, which I organized 12 years ago at an international conference, he decided to ask me to act as Guest Editor for a special issue of this journal dedicated to the topic of hormesis. For the average homeopathic practitioner, however, the existence of drug molecules in a homeopathic remedy may be acceptable, but there has always been the problem that an effect of ultra-diluted solutions cannot readily be explained because from 12C potency onwards it has been taught that there can be no molecules. Therefore, to justify the action of ultra-diluted homeopathic remedies, there must be another mechanism. Better to think of two homeopathies: one “hormetic” with molecules; and one without, which envisages the existence of another biologically active agent. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the action of a drug is singular and essentially involves the allosteric alteration of the receptor, which triggers a certain response after interaction with a drug. This is true for all living beings, from the amoeba to the elephant, as stated by Monod,[ 6 ] because the cell only presents optimal responses. The objection often made that homeopathy is limited to gene activation is the result of those objectors' personal interpretation of biology. Gene activation involves an interaction between genes and a molecule, exactly as in the case of the drug–receptor interaction: they are different processes, I agree, but they follow the same paradigm, and the distinction is specious. Therefore, the homeopath is inclined to introduce hypotheses, even strange ones, to justify the action of the drug, in most cases keeping an eye on the solvent. But if the solvent plays a determining role, it would not be possible to justify the fact that a homeopathic remedy has the same effect when prepared according to different pharmacopeias; nor would it be possible to understand the effect of dilution, as hormesis justifies. Of course, there is always the possibility of the existence of paraphernalia properties, invoking electromagnetism, for example, as some hypothesize.[ 20 ] [ 21 ] Unfortunately, faith can help existence, exemplified in the person who “can't change his mind and won't change the subject” (a Churchillian aphorism). However, it is also true that science is demented like democracy, based on dissent; but science also implies the correctness of the experiment and the measurement. Electromagnetism in homeopathy has not been verified in the experiments publicized so far. Those who conducted them forgot to check Google, and the supposed devices that were assumed to demonstrate such a claim were rejected by the patent offices because they could not work.[ 22 ] Fortunately, however, there are also expressions of wisdom, as summarized by the principle of Ockham's razor, which has led people to argue that the effect of homeopathic remedies does not lie in the solvent but, as with all drugs, in the molecules of the drug.[ 23 ] [ 24 ] Unfortunately, in the eyes of fundamentalist homeopaths, this is the result of ethically unjustifiable observations, as they result from experimental evidence, in blatant contradiction to the principle that “the holistic approach of homeopathy as healing system goes far beyond any specific information”. In the past 10 years, three independent research groups (Jayesh Bellare, Iris Bell, and Alexander Konovalov) have convincingly demonstrated that highly diluted drug solutions contain nanoparticles,[ 23 ] [ 24 ] [ 25 ] [ 26 ] [ 27 ] [ 28 ] [ 29 ] [ 30 ] [ 31 ] [ 32 ] [ 33 ] [ 34 ] much like the drugs used in modern pharmacology to reduce adverse therapy effects and improve membrane transport.[ 35 ] [ 36 ] [ 37 ] These nanoparticles, measuring 100 to 300 nm, start forming from a certain dilution threshold (10 −5 to 10 −7 M) following succussion, which facilitates the transfer of metasilicates from the container walls and the dissolution of air, thereby requiring a certain gas molecule/drug molecule ratio. Metasilicates are necessary to form a coating around a core of drug molecules,[ 33 ] and the air helps create a more structured “cage” compared with the solvent alone. Gases dissolve in water forming clathrates (cages),[ 38 ] and these clathrates, along with metasilicates, stabilize the core of the drug particles. These findings lead me to define a homeopathic remedy as a “clathrate of clathrates of gas molecules”, present as nanobubbles. This is confirmed by the fact that heating to 70 °C causes the nanoparticles to disappear along with the remedy's efficacy,[ 21 ] as the gas solubility decreases when heated. It is astonishing that something so elementary had not previously been highlighted in over two centuries of history, underscoring the poverty of scientific research in homeopathy and the superficiality with which production industries have addressed the subject. The chemical–physical characterization of these nanoparticles indicates that their properties are ideal for overcoming the barriers that cells possess to prevent the passage of external agents. The great merit of these studies remains their finally shedding of light on the nature of homeopathic remedies and the key role of succussion, which Hahnemann had introduced, though he misinterpreted its significance (and could not have done otherwise). Moreover, the use of technology has promoted a new perspective on the significance of ultra-diluted solutions, the primary source of the nightmare that has plagued homeopaths since Avogadro's number was defined approximately 70 years after the founding of homeopathy. Alexander Konovalov, the Russian academic chemist long overlooked by homeopaths, stated that it is practically impossible to obtain a solution with zero concentration by successive dilution.[ 30 ] Bellare's research team[ 23 ] has shown with high-speed video sequences how gas bubbles developed by succussion lead to the partial levitation of nanoparticles to the surface of the solution, forming a flotation film familiar to those who work in laboratories and commonly used in the extraction industry for processing about a billion tons of minerals annually. Thus, a non-solution is created, as the system is not homogeneous.[ 39 ] When the ratio of nanoparticles on the surface to those within the solution reaches a certain value, sampling with usual methods always implies taking a greater number of molecules than expected. Therefore, succussed solutions are always much more concentrated than anticipated.[ 40 ] Recently, a study by Dandapat's group on Arsenicum album 30C (10 −60 M) showed a significant presence of di-arsenic trioxide nanocrystals of 15 nm size, allowing for structural analysis via diffractometry.[ 41 ] In other words, these studies have shown that ultra-diluted solutions indeed contain drug molecules in the order of nanograms per cubic centimeter, which is several molecules in the same order of magnitude as the cells in our body. This perspective, comprising a drug molecule-based full justification of homeopathy,[ 42 ] [ 43 ] [ 44 ] renders unnecessary the various other hypotheses advanced to explain the action of homeopathic remedies under the assumption of molecule absence. However, many homeopaths cannot accept such justification of their therapeutic modality, and simultaneously they do not realize that this rebuttal induces the marginalization of their role in society. The aforementioned arguments show that the foundations of homeopathy have a well-defined coherent scientific basis. They implement a view outlined some years ago and, once accepted, may be helpful to promote a new perspective of this therapeutic modality. I am old, but I consider myself fortunate to have spent my life in a laboratory of excellence, surrounded by many intelligent people. I am a chemist whose life led me to interact with homeopathic doctors, who professed ideas that my profession viewed with scepticism. This was a great fortune because homeopathy gave me a valuable lesson, and it saddens me to see how the fundamentalism of some of its proponents leads to the marginalization of the discipline and the loss of an enormous cultural heritage over the past two Homeopathy have scientific research is researchers have and some homeopathy industries have had to change their to be by the But what is most is that many people have to their in a cultural that does not the of as by the fact that are from pursuing this In homeopathy is at a to a that justifies its existence. This is due to the fact that many of its have to a philosophy that did not consider such approach that does not help one see far have not their in a world made by the progress of scientific research and In the cause of in the fact of postulated an (i.e., the of the over the of its in the holistic view, to define the properties of the I that the progress of in a place like the of where different and was when people the to in in the place of I that and the can be with the of this I am not to my nor am I but at the of to change them. 14 20 of This is by

Patrick Rosenberger

No abstract is available for this record.