Entheogens
The word was coined in 1979 by a group of
ethno-botanists and scholars of mythology (Carl A.P. Ruck, Jeremy
Bigwood, Danny Staples, Richors Evas Schultes, Jonathan Ott and
R. Gordon Wasson)(4). The literal meaning of the word is "that
which causes God to be within an individual". It was coined as a
replacement for the term "hallucinogen" and "psychedelic". Ruck
et al, argued that the term "hallucinogen" was inappropriate due
to its etymological relationship to words relating to delirium
and insanity. The term "psychedelic" was also seen as
problematic, due to the similarity in sound to words pertaining
to psychosis and also due to the fact that it had become
irreversibly associated with various connotations of 1960"s pop
culture.
Since 1979, when the term was proposed, its use has
become widespread in certain circles. In particular, the word
fills a vacuum for those users of entheogens who feel that the
term "hallucinogen", which remains common in medical, chemical
and anthropological literature, denigrates their experience and
the worldview in which it is integrated.
In the Christian tradition the Eucharist plays a
symbolic role in religious tradition that has occasionally
attracted the label of "entheogen" or "placebo entheogen", even
though it does not conform to the original definition involving
the use of vision-inducing substances. It is interesting to note
that our body also produces endogenous entheogens like
cannabinoids and DMT.
Entheogen
studies
A double blind study conducted by Roland Griffiths(5) of
Johns Hopkins University on 36 volunteers revealed that
psilocybin produced a self-described mystical experience in 22 of
the volunteers, and 27 of them rated it as among the most
meaningful of their lives, comparing it with the birth of a first
child or the death of a parent. These latter-day psychonauts were
participating in research designed to explore the pharmacological
and psychological effects of psilocybin as compared with an
active control-methyl phenidate hydrochloride, commonly known as
Ritalin. In follow-ups, they continue to report positive changes
in attitude and behaviour.
The Griffiths work is part of a resurgence in the
exploration of the psychological and physiological effects of
psychedelics that seem to mimic the neurotransmitter serotonin.
Charles Grob of the Harbor – U.C.L.A. Medical center has
been testing psilocybin"s effect in easing the anxiety of
terminally ill cancer patients. Francisco Moreno of the
University of Arizona has studied its ability to alleviate the
symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
This resurgence actually started in 1990, when the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration ended a two-decade long moratorium
by approving an investigation of the effects of
DMT(dimethyltryptamine), a quick-acting, short lived and powerful
hallucinogen – in humans, according to Rick Doblin, founder of
the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic studies, an
advocacy group for such research. The FDA was willing to fund it
because, as Grob puts it: "sufficient time had elapsed from the
time when there was so much turmoil".
In the appropriate setting, with adequate supervision,
psychedelics such as psilocybin may prove effective in treating
existential angst in the terminally ill patients or even drug
addiction, by providing the type of spiritual experience that
programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous rely on. Already psilocybin
has shown some therapeutic potential in other health areas:
researchers at McLean hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, found
that the compound seemed to halt cluster headache attacks. And
the hallucinogenic anaesthetic ketamine proved fast and effective
in alleviating depression in patients who had not responded to
other treatments, according to a recent study at the
NIMH.
A lifting of the government ban on psychedelic research
in Switzerland between 1988 and 1993 allowed a brief
recommencement of psycholytic psychotherapy using LSD and MDMA
for patients with personality disorders, affective disorders and
adjustment disorders. There are currently projects under
development in Spain, Israel and the USA looking at MDMA-
assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of post-traumatic stress
disorder and as a treatment for anxiety and depression associated
with cancer. Between 1990 and 1995 extensive studies of DMT were
conducted with human participants in the USA (Strassman )(6).
Other research includes a double-blind placebo controlled study
in Russia using ketamine in the treatment of heroin addiction,
which has demonstrated improved rates of abstinence, maintained
at 2 year follow-up (Krupitsky et al, 2002)(7).
Concluding his editorial in the BJP(June 2005)(8) on the
role of psychedelics in psychiatry Ben-Sessa states: "Perhaps it
is surprising that there remains such considerable ignorance
about the potential of these substances from within psychiatry
itself. As with Galileo"s telescope and Darwin"s suggestion of
our ascendancy from apes, radical scientific challenges tend to
take the form of an attack on the anthropocentric model of the
world. In the light of this, research that explores alternative
states of consciousness and then offers a viable neurobiological
substrate for the very human experience of religious encounter is
bound to meet with objection from a generation of psychiatrists
who have been conditioned to consider such work as "mysticism".
Perhaps a more dispassionate criticism based upon scientific
reasoning and not influenced by social or political pressures is
called for if we are truly to investigate whether, these
substances can have a useful role in psychiatry
today".
The difference between psychedelics (entheogens) and
other psychotropic drugs is that entheogens work as "non-specific
amplifiers of the psyche", inducing an altered or non-ordinary
state of consciousness. [Grof, 2000)(9). Using insights from the
use of LSD and holotropic breathwork in thousands of people, Grof
(1975)(10) proposed an extended model of the psyche with
psychodynamic, perinatal and transpersonal layers.
Humankind has historically used meditation, exercise,
fasting, chanting, dancing,breath-control,drumming and even sex
to induce transforming internal changes. What all these states
have in common is the final goal of increased awareness and a
loosening of the ego,facilitating personal exploration and being
useful therapeutically to aid psychotherapy.
Psychosis and
transpersonal states
Failure to evaluate one"s perception and experience of
reality and to integrate them into a coherent worldview seems to
be central to psychosis. In Psychiatry people are diagnosed as
psychotics, not only on the basis of their behaviour but on the
content of their experiences or what they communicate to us using
the language they have. These experiences, typically, are of a
transpersonal nature and in sharp contradiction to all common
sense and to the classical western world view. Many of them are
well known to mystics, occur frequently in deep meditation, and
can also be induced quite easily by various other methods
(entheogens).
The inability of some people to integrate transpersonal
experiences is often aggravated by a hostile environment.
Immersed in a world of symbols and myth, they feel isolated and
unable to communicate the nature of their experience.
Transpersonal experiences involve an expansion of
consciousness beyond the conventional boundaries of the organism
and correspondingly, a larger sense of identity. This mode of
consciousness often transcends logical reasoning and intellectual
analysis, approaching the direct mystical experience of reality.
The language of mythology, which is much less restricted by logic
and common sense, is often more appropriate to describe
transpersonal phenomena than factual language.
The only way to overcome the existential dilemma of the
human condition, ultimately, is to transcend it by experiencing
one"s existence within a broader cosmic context(11).Creative
experience, religious conversion, and other peak experiences may
involve much of the form of inner experience, which can accompany
an acute psychotic reaction.If an individual (psychotic) does
"return" and fairly completely, he is usually much better
adjusted- he feels more capable, more open to the world and less
defended.The "successful" schizophrenic episode (where one
returns "healed") seems to be a precise example of true
regression in service of the Self,in the Vedantic sense. It is a
creative type of psychic readjustment and growth, a type of death
and rebirth experience.
Conclusion
Schizophrenia may be considered a pre-mystical state.
Some schizophrenics if guided by therapists who have experienced
ASC"s and in an appropriate setting, may become mystics- the
therapist as Guru. The tools of meditation and medication
(entheogens) may be used but the ultimate outcome depends on the
personality of the therapist. All schizophrenics may not become
mystics but by changing the nomenclature, we change the way we
see psychosis. Then some progress towards cause and cure may open
up.
Mysticism is not regression in service of the ego, but
evolution in transcendence of the ego. True sanity entails in one
way or another the dissolution of the normal ego, that false self
competently adjusted to our alienated social reality: through
this death a rebirth and the eventual reestablishment of a new
kind of ego-functioning (12). We may conceptualise normality and
mysticism as a continuum with schizophrenia/ psychosis as a
creative regression, before ascending to a higher level in a
spiralling evolutionary process, symbolized in many traditions as
a serpent ascending the tree of life.
Implication
1. Rename schizophrenia as a pre-mystical
state(PMS).2. The personality of the therapist and the
setting and context of the treatment determines the
outcome.3. Meditation, Yoga and other spiritual
exercises can serve as important adjuncts and a possible
preventive.4. ENTHEOGENS may be used in the future, after
controlled studies are undertaken.5. We may have to embrace a wider theory,
including the existence of a transpersonal
reality.
References
1.Parnas,J.(2005).Clinical detection of
schizophrenia-prone individuals.BJP,187(suppl.48)
s111-s112.
2.Sass, L and Parnas,J.(2003). Self,Consciousness and
Schizophrenia,Schiz.Bull,29,427-444.
3.Bleuler,E.(1950).Dementia Praecox or the Group of
Schizophrenias.Translated by Joseph Zinkin .New
York,International Universities Press.
4.Ruck,C.A.P.Bigwood,J.Staples,D.Ott,J.Wasson,R.G.(1979).Enth-eogens,
Journal of Psychedelic Drugs11,145.
5 Griffiths, RR. Richards,WA.McCann,U. Jesse,R.(2006)
Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having
substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual
significance. Psychopharmacology (Berl),187(3):268-83.
6.Strassman,R.(2001).DMT:The spiritmolecule
Rochester,VT:Park Street Press.
7.Krupitsky,E.Burakov,A.and Romanova,T.(2002) Ketamine
Psychotherapy for heroin addiction.Journal of Substance Abuse
Treatment,23,273-283.
8.Sessa,B.(2005) Can psychedelics have a role in
psychiatry once again? BJP,186.457-458.
9. Grof,S.(2000) Psychology of the Future:Lessons from
Mordern Consciousness Research.Albany NY:State University of New
York Press .
10.Grof,S.(1975) Realms of the Human Unconscious:
Observations from LSD Research.New York:Viking Press.
11.Capra,F.(1982).The Turning
Point.London:Flamingo.
12. Wilber,K.(1980) The Atman Project.
Wheaton,Ill.:Quest.
Autor:
Ravi Pisharadi
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