States vs. Stages

Do psychedelics send people too high, too fast?

Once upon a time, I did psychedelics on TV—psilocybin specifically. It was not a massive dose and I was able to keep myself largely under control (not the point, I know). Besides trying mushrooms once in high school where I fainted and really freaked myself out, I’ve barely, barely dabbled with drugs. I did three rounds of MDMA therapy with a therapist, which was very powerful for accessing some early sexual trauma (I write about this a little bit in On Our Best Behavior), but MDMA is not particularly psychedelic—if anything, it’s the opposite, driving you deep within yourself. And I’ve also tried ketamine, a legal analgesic that can have a profound affect on clinical depression and suicidal ideation. While I’m not depressed and can’t speak to its neuro-chemical impact (if you are depressed, I highly recommend exploring ketamine—I’ve interviewed Dr. Jeffrey Becker about this before), it was very psychedelic. I didn’t enjoy it particularly, but I did find the experience fascinating. (It was only 45 minutes, but I felt carsick for a few hours after.)

Pipilotti Rist: “Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor,” Poster, $30, MOCA

On the whole, I’m a huge fan of MAPS and their pioneering research into PTSD and MDMA—I believe it can be life-changing and should absolutely be available. I’m hopeful that drugs like Ibogaine (sourced from the Iboga shrub in Africa) will find their way into addiction treatment centers, with medical staff. (Ibogaine sends people on a big, psychedelic journey—most miraculously, it can also erase withdrawal symptoms, stop cravings for months, and give people a real shot at recovery. That said, it can interfere with the heart and needs to be done with appropriate medical monitoring.) And I certainly think there’s an important place for other psychedelic medicines—particularly if we understand that they are exactly that. Medicines. (The etymology of medicine is medicus (Latin) for physician; the etymology of physician is physica (Latin), “things relating to nature.”) They should be administered with caution and care, either in the place from which they come (typically at the hand of a shaman from a long lineage of shamans), or by well-trained professionals and trauma-informed therapists. As you’ll hear again and again from people in this space: Context is critical, these are serious tools, and the journey is one thing…but the integration after is everything. Psychedelic drugs might offer a revelation, or open a locked door in your mind, but if you are not in a position to therapize the experience and harness it for growth, then the magic is lost.

While taking a lot of psychedelics is potentially harmless (or helpful), I do have concerns—something I’ve observed in a lot of psycho-spiritual groups. This might be my own bias, but I had thought that these drugs should be used ceremonially—maybe once or twice a year. Or even once or twice in a lifetime. But my sense is that many are using them all the time, as a shortcut to a higher state. Now, I think everyone could probably be served by having their consciousness spiked open—to have a transcendent experience where they’re exposed to the oneness of the universe, the animation of nature, the existence of other realms. (Some do not need drugs for this realization.) But I’m concerned that many people—including a lot of men in the psycho-spiritual realm—mistake access to these states as a symptom of their own divinity. And not in a yes-we-are-all-divine-way, but in a I’m divine, I’m special way. Rather than doing the work of evolving their consciousness through gradual development and psychological work, they’re cutting the line and thinking that they’re there.

Before we get into this (specifically the states versus stages work of Ken Wilber), I want to say something about guru energy in our society. I’ve written about this before, and made videos about this before, but I’m alarmed by our willingness to hand over our own sovereignty to healers who profess to know or have the thing. It’s easy to watch healers who profess to know or have the thing become distorted over time—to go from seeing themselves as a vehicle for whatever wants to come through them, to believing themselves to be the thing that’s coming through. People get very confused.