Psychedelic Renaissance and Spiritual Conundrums pt. 2
Musings on psychedelic spirituality continue. Which psychedelic path to take?
The problem with psychedelic mysticism
Mystical experiences are often contradictory, so it's a problem of mysticism in general. There are many psychedelic substances with different effects. Different effects cause different mystical experiences and ultimately different metaphysical implications. Naturally this leads to a philosophical concern whether psychedelics can cause implausible or outright false beliefs about nature of reality. Should you find yourself digging in the right places on the internet you’d find countless exotic or just plain weird metaphysical ideas of many psychonauts.
Of course, we can look at psychedelics in the spirit of perennial philosophy - there is only one universal truth and means to achieve it vary vastly, hence the plethora of religions and spiritual practices around the world, all equally valid in their approach, including the psychedelic path.
Setting aside philosophical status of psychedelic experiences, let’s now look at the original question - how to make sense of psychedelics and spirituality?
Psychedelics as a standalone religion
Many suggest psychedelics could easily be “ancient religion with no name”. Religious historian Huston Smith (being perennialist himself) once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. If one chemical such as psilocybin or LSD can cause mystical experience of such intensity why bother with other lengthy spiritual practices? Terence McKenna jokingly remarked: "psychedelics are for Joe Ordinary, I can't go sweep around the ashram for eighteen years." If perennialists are right, then I can only agree with Terence and say let’s discard other religions and take heroic doses of psychedelics and see what happens, right? It seems like very efficient and less-time consuming approach (welcome to the 21st century and spiritual consumerism).
In any case, psychedelic experience without proper integration may lead to confusing experiences and potentially chaotic and dangerous headspaces. What makes psychedelics-assisted psychotherapy powerful is that psychedelic experience is followed by series of therapeutic sessions in order to process and integrate it. Therefore I believe that having some spiritual practice on your own can serve in similar fashion as grounding agent, as a framework for processing substance-induced experience.
Psychedelics combined with spiritual practice
Another approach is to look at psychedelics as a tool, not the end goal or standalone religion. Psychedelics are good on their own, using them in the context of spiritual practice can make both more powerful. As Thomas Hatsis, the author of Microdosing and Magic put it, healthy diet and excercise are good for you, however combining them together will produce greater results. Even rigorous science supports the notion that psychedelics have the ability to induce valid mystical experiences and thus play a significant role in supporting spiritual development.
Psychedelics are potent catalysts of mystical experiences and they can certainly shed new light on inquiries of the seeker. This could be of of great importance to someone already having spiritual practice, it can help to get unstuck or even experience breakthroughs and open new doors. Afterwards, psychedelics might no longer be needed. Needless to say, danger of this path lies in getting lazy, too reliant or even obsessed with entheogens to enter spiritual realms.
Leaving the psychedelics out of the discussion altogether
On the other hand, some shun psychedelics as inferior to other means of mysticism. If you cannot achieve altered states of consciousness without the usage of drugs, then you are considered a beginner on your spiritual path. For instance, Buddhist monks take a formal vow to avoid use of intoxicants. Reasonable question to ask is whether psychedelics can be considered intoxicants or substances that cloud the mind or whether they do the exact opposite. Dalai Lama himself hasn't condone psychedelics, although he encourages cultivation of natural properties of the mind. Nevertheless I still find it particularly interesting, that many people are drawn to Buddhism after having mystical experience induced by entheogens, including myself.
In my previous article I tried to shortly document history of psychedelics. More and more evidence emerges, that they may have played an important role even in the world religions. Aside from previously mentioned soma in Hinduism or possible psychedelic sacraments of early Christianity, there are entheogenic hypotheses about psychedelic substances in Tibetan Buddhism as well, what might be just another well-kept secret. So it seems that entheogens are common factor of many religious practices, they disrupt their differences and ultimately tie them together.
Ethics and morality of psychedelics
Spirituality and its metaphysics is naturally intertwined with ethics and morality. This is yet another important area of concern and inquiry. For this reason, psychedelic research gave birth to a field called “moral psychopharmacotherapy”. This article is a good summary on the current challenges present in this field, however in short, the main take-home message is: the moral effects of psychedelics largely depend on the context. In other words, extra-pharmacological factors are significant contributor to moral outcomes. In the light of this information I find the question of psychedelic spirituality all that more relevant.
Choosing one’s own path
To conclude, choosing your own path obviously comes down to your personal preference. Some people are interested in path of tradition, so pilgrimage to Amazonian rainforest may become inevitable, because there resides a heart of psychedelic tradition. Others may have no problem with eclectic approach or so called “religious syncretism”, meaning combining religious practices to create something entirely new and personal. Many will use hallucinogens couple of times and then shift to a non-psychedelic path. There are many ways and each one has its own pros and cons. What matters in the end is the ulterior motive of doing it and consequent moral choices we make. Seeing the state of the world as of now, it isn’t the worst idea to examine our system of values.
In the next article, I will delve into more obscure areas, namely psychedelics and occultism. Stay tuned!