Are Psychedelics Changing the Way We Think?
PSYCHEDELICS AND THE COLLECTIVE MIND
Q: Are Psychedelics Changing the Way We Think?
A: Soon, traditional therapy will have a slate of offerings including poison of toad, psilocybin, and synthetic constituents such as MDMA (created to mimic nature’s sassafras) to open the heart center. In fact, many clinics are already pioneering this work underground while legislation is catching up. In other words, modern-day accessible psychotherapy is about to get much more colorful and multi-dimensional which could literally change the collective mind forever.
After 20 years of working with plant medicines (not synthetic derivatives), I have witnessed and experienced both the incredible miraculous effects of amplifying consciousness with their help and the inevitable dangers that exist when they are abused by the provider with malicious intent. Even basic ignorance of the powers of these plants could result in devastating consequences including death if not attended to with great respect and care.
THE VERY BEGINNING
Exploration of consciousness through these substances began in the time of our ancient hominid ancestors. There is even conjecture, as found in the stoned ape theory, that language itself was born from the expanded creativity from our earliest ancestors ingesting psilocybin mushrooms.
Other researchers have explored the relationship between the development of the human mind and human culture as intertwined with the use of psychedelics. Many world traditions have worked with various substances, sometimes referred to as soma, which allows humans to transcend their limited thinking. Western civilization arose from the Greeks and whose psychedelic sacraments were integral to their culture and religion. In the ancient world, these entheogens, as psychedelics are referred to, were always held within a container of a lineage with trained guides in often temple-like settings. In ancient Greece, the Eleusinian mystery schools persisted for centuries and they would utilize these experiences as a rite of passage to initiate the inner hero and heroines on one’s personal journey of inner life.
PLANT MEDICINE AND SCIENCE
The integration of psychedelics into psychotherapy, originally explored at Harvard by Doctors Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), Timothy Leary, and Ralph Metzner represents the reemergence of the container found in these religious traditions but in the secular realm of medicine and science. This watershed moment and return/merging of the sacred into the secular will likely have very profound implications - reconnecting people to their internal worlds and potentially healing our personal and collective traumas right on time.
Can they change the way we think? When I sit with this question, I explore the deeper layers of my own experience with plant medicine. In my twenties I traveled to and from the Amazon for several years to heal, learn, and expand my knowledge base as well as to transform my path from one of illness to wellness. In my thirties, I traveled the world living a circuitous path of travel to Asia, South America, Europe, Australia, and North America sharing the gifts of this work with thousands and thousands of human beings. I reflect on the continuous effort that it takes for inner work with or without psychoactive support. The way I think, what I think about, and how I feel - each a different layer or strata within my own consciousness. From my perspective, they can invite us to think differently, they can even show us how, but ultimately we have to be willing to do the hardest thing a human can do and that is to change our mind.
As I gaze upon the horizon of this revolution within the psychotherapeutic practice, I look forward to the radical shifts in the collective realm of thought and simultaneously brace myself for the epic and proportional challenges that will ensue. For example, think our current times of social unrest have been crazy? Just wait until copious amounts of people begin to think they are enlightened or Jesus Christ. What next?
We cannot change the world until we accept we are the world. This is the new conversation.
