Mexico and South America are the areas most associated with ritual entheogenic plant use. Apart from utilising over 20 species of psilocybin mushroom, native Mexicans are also known to have employed the peyote cactus, the morning glory plant, and various species of datura, all of which contain potent visionary substances. The appeal of these plants, like the appeal of the mushroom, is that they support a channel of communication between the shaman and the spiritual domain. As we have seen, this unusual state of affairs arises not from hearsay or dogma but from the numinous effect of such plants upon the human psyche, an effect equally reported by Westerners who might not necessarily be as spiritually inclined as native shamans.
In South America aboriginal Amazonians still prepare a highly effective psychedelic concoction called ayahuasca made principally from an indigenous species of Banisteriopsis jungle vine along with various other plant ingredients. This same potion is also taken as a sacramental tea by members of the Uniao Do Vegetal, an officially sanctioned church found throughout Brazil. The active principles in these potions are the substances harmine and dimethyltryptamine (DMT for short), the latter being a close structural relative of psilocybin. Shamans claim that ayahuasca facilitates communion both with mythological beings and the souls of their ancestors. Similarly, species of Virola tree - the resin of which also contains DMT - are used to prepare hallucinogenic snuffs in Amazonian Colombia which are taken in order to free the soul so that it may travel in the spiritual dimension.
Such rich shamanic traditions highlight the ultimate way in which the natural environment can inspire an individual, since an intimate link becomes forged between the human psyche and the transcendental dimension of reality. Once such an emotionally charged shamanic connection has been so established and is reinforced through ritual use of a particular visionary plant, the process will generally cultivate an enduring sense of spirituality as well as a religious cosmology as is the case surrounding the use of ayahuasca.
It is not surprising then that the profound psychedelic effect of these indigenous plants becomes firmly integrated into native culture, the shamanic knowledge so acquired reaffirming the culture's identity and their beliefs about the nature of reality. Furthermore, and perhaps of most importance, these kind of plant species aid the practice of healing, whether mental, social or purely physical. In native societies without a health service or subjugation to pharmaceutical conglomerates, the curative role of the shaman becomes an essential feature of daily life, with natural plant allies being very much a tool of the healing trade.
This kind of dynamic psychedelic relationship between Homo sapiens and Nature is relatively rare compared with, say, our close relational links to environmental resources like wood, grain, oil, or gas, Yet the natural psychedelic link leaves all others behind in terms of its impact upon one's sense of being. Whereas most of the relational ties that weave us into the living fabric of Gaia are purely utilitarian in material terms, the resource provided by entheogenic plants operates at a different level, offering us spiritual nourishment which, although seemingly intangible, can still have a cultural role to play as witnessed by the important role of the shaman or native healer within aboriginal societies.
Of course, we might object here and assert that we have no need for shamans or entheogens in our technological culture, that we should leave these ostensibly marginal phenomena to those academic anthropologists and ethnobotanists whose vocation it is to gather information on such matters. Indeed, over the last 30 or so years a wealth of research articles have appeared which describe in quite exacting botanical detail how various psychedelic concoctions are prepared by the native cultures who still use them. However, it is almost unheard of for the witnessing ethnobotanist or anthropologist to actually experience the visionary brew for themselves. All the surrounding paraphernalia associated with the alchemical preparation might well be attested to right up to the actual implements employed to administer the drug, yet the principal substance of interest will remain exempt from enquiry. This missing factor is that which is in actuality driving the researcher's interests, namely, the resulting psychological effect of the psychedelic preparation. After all, if the eventual experience generated by the sacrament were not in any way notable then there would be no shamanic legacy to study.
We can see then that although science might be commended for documenting what is after all a fast disappearing aspect of primitive culture, the most important ingredient - the experience - is generally not witnessed. Perhaps this is because the ethnobotanist feels there is no scientific banner under which one could reasonably and legitimately go ahead and sample the hallucinogen in question. But there is. Its called phenomenology - the study of immediate experience and its implications for the allied science of psychology. To actually personally partake of shamanic substances is to glean an insight into the psychological forces which they set in motion. From such an inside view, we might understand more about the role of the psychedelic experience within the belief systems of native cultures. More to the point, we might gain valuable insights into the mutable potential of consciousness thereby allowing us to make intellectual ground in otherwise intractable areas of human enquiry.
The inadequacy of the scientific study of entheogens is doubtless bound up with the compartmentalisation of science into separate disciplines. Whilst it is rare for a scientist in any particular field to stray into another discipline, it could be argued that such cross-boundary study will nonetheless be useful for fertilising new insights and broader theories. In the case of entheogenic compounds, if we wish to properly understand the entire complex of the entheogenic experience - whether the experience of a native shaman or the experience of a Westernised experimenter - then a marriage simply must be made between psychology, phenomenology, anthropology, and ethnobotany (and even metaphysics) since the subject area can embrace all these fields. If we bear in mind that disciplines like ethnobotany are relatively new anyway, then such a new discipline which I am envisaging is a distinct possibility. Waxing lyrical, I would call such an enterprise neo-shamanic phenomenology. At least its has an impressive ring to it.
But perhaps we assume that we already know all there is to know about the psychological modus operandi involved in the action of a classic entheogen like psilocybin? Perhaps a complete and satisfactory explanation regarding the numinous heights of the psilocybin experience has already been delivered by mainstream psychological science, reduced perhaps to a handy set of 'merelys'?
Alas (or thankfully), this is not the case. Not only are substances like psilocybin relatively new to the West, empirical psychological research was effectively curtailed for almost 30 years. The Harvard Psilocybin Project merely scratched the surface of the phenomenon, yet that in itself was enough to cause consternation from the scientific elite. Not to mince words, psychedelic plants and fungi are immensely daunting to the scientific community, not just because of the multifarious disciplines potentially involved but also because their effects are just too hot to handle. Heads turn away. Cold shoulders are shrugged. As if they were B-movie alien species, these unusual forms of life threaten to subvert the collective human psyche and upset our most cherished assumptions about the nature of reality. It really is a jungle out there.
Yet despite the obvious dangers posed by the use of psychedelic substances - such as their capacity to induce intense psychical terror (the so-called 'bad trip') - native cultures have managed to 'tame' them through a learned appreciation of their scope of effect. Furthermore, such cultures have acquired a wealth of supra-mundane knowledge along the way. Hence, it is my belief that entheogenic Gaian flora and fungi have yet to make their full impact upon the Western psyche, that the knowledge still to be gained from them relating to our conceptions of reality and our theories about consciousness will prove to be of great value not only on an individual level but at the collective level also.
These are reasonable claims since we obviously base our value systems and mass cultural behaviours upon our tacit beliefs about the Earth, life, and our role in the whole caboodle. The alluring possibility with the psilocybin experience is that after initiation one can come to view the planet in a radically different light. Gaia ceases to be an intellectual theory, becoming instead an immediately felt holistic reality of the most extraordinary and exciting kind. One learns what shamans have always known, that Nature is somehow imbued with intelligence. The biosphere suddenly appears as being really alive, with visionary plants and fungi acting as a kind of living interface between what Terence McKenna calls the Other or Gaian Mind and the human mind. In this way, an experienced and receptive individual can access transcendental information loaded with cultural and personal significance.
Given their uplifting and profoundly informative properties, psilocybin fungi can be viewed as a potentially symbiotic partner with our species. The symbiosis involves the new range of conception and perception galvanised into operation through the mushroom's effect and, in return, our propagation of the species or at least action on our part that serves the biosphere's overall interests in some way. In any case, psilocybin, like other naturally occurring entheogens, are very much with us and here to stay. As far as we know, more people are familiar with psilocybin fungi today than at any other time in history, their use having grown in popularity since the late 60's and early 70's when it was discovered that they were readily available in Europe and North America.
Notwithstanding the saturation of the entire globe in selective fungicides, restricted access to wilderness areas, or other mad-cap responses to the presence of psilocybin fungi, we have a choice as to whether to investigate the Earth's alchemical skin further or to turn our backs for fear of the unknown. If we do decide to pick up the Gaian gauntlet, we might well be rewarded with a cascade of novel insights into the deepest mysteries of being. Official science can play a role in this noble venture as, indeed, can independent research at the behest and risk of no authority other than one's own.
With the presence of various species of psilocybin fungi growing throughout most wild places of the world as I write (at least 89 species are now known to flourish across the globe), and bearing in mind their illuminating properties which more and more people are becoming familiar with, one cannot help but suspect that some innervating Gaian cultural alchemy is at hand. As we shall see in more detail later, paradigms - conceptual belief systems - crumble and are rebuilt in the wake of the psilocybin experience. This kind of paradigm shifting is not simply an instantaneous event transpiring after ingestion, rather the process can continue long after the original experience almost as if some process of long-term digestive refinement was taking place. By this I mean that if we reflect upon the experience in terms of, say, how the mushroom works chemically, then we gain exceptional knowledge about the underlying chemistry of the brain and the potential parameters of consciousness. The very real possibility of perceptual enhancement is also at stake in which case our dialogue with Nature might be raised to new levels never dreamed of by conventional science and philosophy.
It is through these new conceptual tools, or new improved lenses to borrow from an earlier metaphor, that old paradigms will perforce be challenged. If these old paradigms cannot deal with the entheogenic experience then they must either be adapted or be confined to the past. It is in this way that psilocybin and its effects become gradually absorbed by our culture.
By now, the reader might assume that mainstream science only skirts around the issues we are most concerned with, that the only extant high-spec research revolves around ethnobotany and the like. Indeed, with the American government's illegalisation of LSD in 1966 and with the subsequent illegalisation of almost all psychedelic drugs (Europe followed suit), human-based studies stopped dead. Everything on the experimental front went into cold storage. You could almost hear the bolts and locks sliding into place. The politics of consciousness reigned supreme.
However, after all these years the locks have been surreptitiously picked and the politics of consciousness challenged. Despite my bemoaning of science, a new kind of psychedelic research is gradually becoming apparent. This time around the scientists involved do not throw wild parties, nor do they exhort young persons to "tune in, turn on and drop out". Dressed in traditional lab-coats and sensible shoes, firmly buttoned and tied, the second generation of psychedelic scientists have got their empirical act together. Human-based hallucinogen science is now returning to the academic fold, only with far less publicity than 30 years ago and with a lot more caution and circumspection. This time around, science is taking it step-by-careful-step.
Leading the resurgence are two American organisations: The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) which I briefly mentioned in the last chapter, and the Heffter Research Institute (HRI). Founded in 1986, MAPS actively funds psychedelic research (as well as medical cannabis research) and helps scientists draw up their research protocols, a tough job when you have to approach notoriously conservative governmental agencies for permission to do your study. The HRI is a more recent organisation inaugurated in 1993 and named after Arthur Heffter who, a century ago, became the first scientist to isolate and systematically study a psychedelic compound from a plant - in this case mescaline from the peyote cactus. This name reflects the tone of approach to psychedelics taken by the HRI.
The main thrust of both MAPS and the HRI is upon finding a clinical use for psychedelics. In other words, today's psychedelic researchers are primarily concerned with putting psychedelics to use as medicinal agents, a practical agenda which is more easily accepted by the various officiating bodies who control the availability of psychedelic agents to science. In reality, I believe that both organisations are acutely aware of the role that entheogens can play in the study of consciousness. They are, perhaps wisely, less vocal about this 'other' agenda. Despite wishes to the contrary, politics and science invariably mix and this is the main reason why the medical application of entheogens gets priority funding. Perhaps we are witness to paradigm shifting by stealth.
One such psychedelic drug presently receiving much scientific scrutiny over its possible medical utilisation is ibogaine, an alkaloid derived from the West African plant Tabernanthe iboga. The plant is employed in situ by members of the Bwiti cult, a secret society found in Gabon and the Congo who use it in much the same way psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca are traditionally used. The aim is to free the soul to connect with God and the ancestors. Here is a typical report from a native African user:
"I wanted to know God - to know things of the dead and the land beyond.... I walked or flew over a long, multicoloured road or over many rivers which led me to my ancestors, who then took me to the great gods."
Ironically perhaps, scientists have now established that the psychological effects of ibogaine can be used to break hard drug addiction. In the mid 1980's Howard Lotsof, an ex-junkie previously cured through his experiences with ibogaine, formed a company to promote the medical use of ibogaine. So assured was he of ibogaine's capacity to break drug addiction, that Lotsof patented ibogaine treatments in the mid-80's. Apparently, it is the unusually intense and personally significant visionary effects of ibogaine that can break the curse of hard drug addiction. Lotsof describes the visions induced by ibogaine in patients he has treated as being like movie-clips:
"The presentation of visual material is rapid. Some patients have described it as a movie run at high speed. Others describe it as a slide-show, each slide containing a picture of a specific event or circumstance in the viewer's life."
Once more, we see the capacity of entheogens to instigate dramatic visionary experiences within the human psyche. Lotsof refers to these movie-clip visions as having Freudian and Jungian connotations as if they could convey deep and significant meaning to the experiencer, and infers that it is this process which lies at the heart of ibogaine's efficacy in breaking patterns of addiction. Lotsof believes that ibogaine is able to make patients re-evaluate their lives and see the mistakes that they may have made and which may have led them into uncontrollable bouts of drug-taking. After treatment with a single dose of ibogaine, the majority of patients remain free from chemical dependence for 3 to 6 months which indicates that ibogaine therapy needs to be on-going and, if possible, be accompanied by other treatments.
Perhaps the leading figure in this second wave of psychedelic research is Rick Strassman, a psychiatrist who carried out some remarkable studies at the University of New Mexico in the mid-90's. A look at his groundbreaking research reveals the spirit of a scientist determined to break through political bureaucracy in order to advance the frontiers of knowledge and add to the pharmaceutical armoury of the practising psychiatrist.
Strassman's work has centred around the prototypical entheogen dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Recall that DMT is a naturally occurring substance employed for millennia in the botanical potions and snuffs utilised by native Amazonian shamans. Classed as an ultra-short acting hallucinogen, DMT, when administered intravenously to humans (as opposed to the drinking of an ayahuasca brew), causes fantastic alterations in consciousness and yet is completely inactive within 30 minutes (the effects of ayahuasca can last for hours). If smoked, the DMT experience is even shorter, lasting less than 5 minutes.
Since DMT is believed, strangely enough, to occur naturally in the human brain (it has been found in blood, urine and spinal fluid and precursor enzymes for it have been found in brain tissue), it was apparent to Strassman that an understanding of its action might shed some light on the development and possible treatment of endogenous hallucinatory conditions like schizophrenia. It is in this way that clinical science comes to make anti-psychotic drugs, substances which can block pathological forms of thought as evident in conditions like schizophrenia. Once you understand the neurochemical events which accompany abnormal states of mind, then you are in a position to develop drugs to treat such conditions.
Despite his purely clinical leanings, Strassman was also interested in using DMT to explore the evermore popular brain/mind issue. This murky area of science - which we shall be returning to in later chapters - is concerned with how the physiochemical brain (the unsightly mass of grey porridge-like stuff in our skulls) is related to the non-physical mind with all its attendant thoughts, ideas, fears, beliefs and so on. What exactly is the connection? Strassman argues that psychedelic drugs, since they alter consciousness, should be able to tell us something about how consciousness is formed in the normal brain. In other words, since psychedelics alter higher cognitive functions connected with what it is to be human, then they can essentially be employed as probes to study the mind/brain interface. This is, of course, exactly my point outlined in the prologue of this book.
It took Strassman a long 2 years to secure permission to carry out DMT studies with humans (experienced psychedelic users were used as this is deemed to be a more ethical approach to such studies). Indeed, it was probably this magnitude of necessary effort which explains the extant lack of human-based hallucinogen research. A look at Strassman's struggle reveals the horrendous bureaucratic forces (a kind of lingering cultural symptom of the 60's) that face the potential psychedelic researcher. He had to get permission from all sorts of official bodies such as the formidable Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), not to mention the numerous ethical bodies which serve to monitor human-based experimentation.
Two years of uphill struggle and Strassman finally acquired all the necessary permission to perform a DMT study, The remarkable results were subsequently published in reputable but specialised scientific journals, a bit like planting the seeds of a new paradigm underground. Perhaps the most interesting finding concerned the subject's reports on what the (intravenously injected) DMT experience was like. As with psilocybin, the effects of DMT warrant our attention if we are interested in the latent potential of human consciousness to transcend 'normal' reality. In Strassman's own words:
"Several aspects of DMT's effects are interesting, The rapidity of onset is quite remarkable; nearly instantaneous when given intravenously. Also the short duration is remarkable; people are quite over the inebriation within 20 to 25 minutes. Many people describe an "intelligence" within the DMT state, which is either just "felt" or "sensed" and sometimes actually "seen" with the mind's eye. People often lose insight into their participation in a drug study for several minutes, forgetting how they got into the mental state they find themselves so suddenly thrust into."
As with its close structural relative psilocybin (molecules of these two compounds are only a few atoms different from one another), subjects reported that the DMT experience felt more real than normal reality. Indeed, it is presumably this novel reality encountered through DMT, especially with regard to the perceived contact with an 'intelligent Other', that has led to the use of DMT-containing plants by Amazonian shamans. As already noted, shamans consistently claim that their DMT-containing concoctions put them in direct contact with a transcendental dimension infused with intentionality. Which makes it even more intriguing that Western DMT users report similar experiences. Strassman concludes that:
"The commonality of experience described by various religious traditions makes one wonder if the biological concomitants of these experiences are also similar {and} this has religious/spiritual significance."
Indeed. It would seem then that the chemistry of the brain is indubitably bound up with consciousness. Both are mutable. And, moreover, certain realms of consciousness can be generated in which a seemingly external intelligence is apprehended. If ever there was a 'hard' approach to spirituality, this is it.
Although the study of mystical experiences and neurochemistry might seem like compelling science, the fact of the matter is that most scientists exercise great caution when it comes to explaining, in scientific terms, something as precious and as guarded as the mystical experience. Those who tend to police communion with the divine like religious leaders are quick to react when science attempts to reduce an epiphany to neurochemical events occurring in the brain. Indeed, recall the reaction to Walter Pahnke's findings in the 60's at Harvard. Many religious authorities felt their toes being stepped on and Pahnke was refused further funding. Yet science, with its expanding interest in the nature of human consciousness, is surely mature enough to take on the issue and it thus remains to be seen what science can teach us about the potentialities and extraordinary capacities of the human brain/mind.
Again, I hasten to add that science is not the only valid approach to studying altered forms of consciousness. As I have repeatedly implied, direct self-experimentation according to one's own terms and at one's own risk is also an option. At the end of the day, data is needed. From data we can thence derive theories. Since all entheogenic experiences carry data, we should not be in a rush to dismiss any self-report, whether garnered from a native shaman, an official study subject or an independent researcher (the internet, for example, is abrim with self-reports on the effects of entheogens, most of which relate spiritual aspects).
There was another finding of Strassman's which proved provocative. Strassman found that the human brain does not develop tolerance to DMT. Whereas the brain normally develops tolerance to psychoactive chemicals (repeated use means you need to use more to get the same experience), Strassman found that tolerance does not develop to the repeated administration of DMT. This suggests that, in the normal brain, DMT has some kind of function - i.e. that the brain recognises DMT and repeatedly utilises it instead of developing tolerance to it. So far this putative function of endogenous (and illegal) DMT remains unknown but it might well be involved in the process of dreaming. This is a tenable hypothesis because we must repeatedly dream every night. If we are selectively denied that part of the sleep cycle in which we dream - known as REM sleep - then we will subsequently have more dreams at some later time (known as the REM-rebound effect). And so if there are indeed dream-inducing chemicals like, for instance, DMT, then the brain would by necessity have to not develop tolerance to DMT since tolerance would stop dreams from taking hold. It is also the case that both dreams and DMT-induced visions are of a fairly similar nature. Both are conditions which, willy-nilly, an experiencer finds themselves utterly involved in.
However, Strassman has other ideas about DMT's putative function:
"Maybe it mediates near-death experiences, or other 'psychedelic' experiences which are elicited without drugs. Maybe it is released at death and birth..."
Well, these are certainly interesting suggestions which Strassman declines to elaborate further. Returning to more down-to-earth speculation, Strassman also recognised a new clinical use for DMT. He found that he was able to administer DMT every half hour to his subjects and after each session was able to discuss their experiences with them. He found that their "psychological resistance's" gradually wore down through these sessions suggesting that DMT has therapeutic potential. Indeed, since DMT is only active for 30 minutes, then it has an advantage over other therapeutic drugs whose effects last much longer and which require more in the way of supervision from the therapist.
Although the medical application of psychedelics seems clear enough, with regard to how these substances work and their full range of implications, this is less clear. At the very least, psychedelics alter consciousness in a dramatic fashion, and at the most extreme, as we have repeatedly seen, such substances can elicit a transcendental experience in which one communes with an intelligence of some kind. Indeed, there is a popular belief amongst many of today's psychedelic researchers that the very origin of mankind's religious impulse is bound up with our ancestor's discovery of hallucinogenic fungi, a notion which, as you may recall, was first introduced by Gordon Wasson. Professor David Nichols, president of the of the Heffter Research Institute, puts it this way:
"One can imagine an early hominid accidentally ingesting a hallucinogenic mushroom while foraging for edible foodstuffs. Knowledge of these drugs was handed down through the generations and led to the creation of rituals around their use. We have the hymns written to Soma in the Rig Veda, or the ancient Eleusinian Mysteries of Greece, as only two examples of the extreme importance attached to these substances.... Whatever you believe in this regard, it is a simple fact that the use of psychedelic drugs can profoundly alter one's understanding and belief about life and its meaning. Man has been on an age-old quest to find his place in the Universe, and these drugs can be important tools both in understanding this quest, and in gaining meaning about ourselves as conscious creatures."
Whether or not these speculations about mushrooms are correct is not the main issue. The main issue is the conceptual paradigm which sees a naturally occurring psychedelic agent of some kind lying at the heart of humanity's sacred traditions. And if it be doubted that the aforementioned traditions go far enough back in time to be considered instigators of the religious impulse, then one need only observe certain rock paintings found at Tassili in Northern Algeria. Dating from before 6000 BC. (a long, long time before the Mexican use of psilocybin mushrooms described in chapter 2), these ancient Neolithic images show mythical shaman-like beings covered in mushrooms. These mushroom motifs are very distinct. Many have therefore argued that the Goddess-worshipping peoples who inhabited Tassili and who eventually migrated to other parts of the globe, used locally gathered psilocybin mushrooms (such as the large species Stropharia cubensis) and that psilocybin influenced their beliefs about Nature and helped evolve many of those aspects of human consciousness (like language, ritual, art etc) which make our species so unique. Indeed, psilocybin might well have been the natural environmental catalyst that launched human civilisation and human history into being in the first place. At any rate, its use in the archaic past is sure to have influenced human perception and conception.
Whilst the debate on the prehistorical relevance of psilocybin and its effects continues, we can end this chapter with a comment by Dr. Strassman. The comment concerns the value of researching the entheogenic experience so as to aid our understanding of human consciousness. With regard to the mystical claims made by native peoples who employ entheogens, he says:
"Scientists ought to take all claims about the mind seriously. The DMT and psilocybin states....are basically non-material. They are not dependent upon the body moving through space, or interaction with other material objects. Thus, they are windows into consciousness, which, while it may have structural underpinnings, is essentially a movement of energy, rather than of matter......So, at the very least, any claims by non-western people {e.g. shamans} about consciousness might prove very valuable....for speculation about how the mind works. In addition, these 'non-literate' cultures are how we found out about DMT and psilocybin in the first place."