54 Spirituality Studies 10-1 Spring 2024 Each person is at each moment… capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening anywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful. The notion that entheogens offer a quick and easy shortcut to wholeness is mistaken. People are cautioned that “everyone who pursues the use of psychedelics for personal growth must be prepared for the ‘dark night of the soul’ experiences” (Stolaroff 2022, xiii). It seems that entheogenic therapy provokes a disturbing confrontation between our nescient egoic self and our True Self, which has fully integrated the human psyche into the Spirit. Although the full benefit of entheogens can only be gained within their sacred traditions, they have some therapeutic value even when used in conjunction with secular psychotherapy. It has been shown that psychedelics can aid the ego in getting out of its own way in service of its healing: “For the moment that interfering neurotic who, in waking hours, tries to run the show, was blessedly out of the way” (Huxley 1990, 53). Entheogens have reportedly “reduced defensiveness and fear of emotional injury, therapy facilitating more direct expression of feelings and opinions, and enabling people to receive both praise and criticism with more acceptance than usual” (Greer 1985, 58). The entheogenic therapist asks the person to reflect on themselves openly and without fear. Psychedelic researcher Myron Stolaroff (1920–2013) exhorts the people he worked with as follows: “Look at what you’re afraid of, just look at what you’re afraid of. All you have to do is just look at it; don’t do anything about it, just look at it. Just keep on looking at it and just tell me what you experience when you’re looking at it” (2022, 25). Another modality of therapy observes that “[t]he psychological problem solving that occurs is… most frequently a shift in perspective, a reframing of a belief that may also be healing” (Adamson and Metzner 1988, 59). There is also potential for repairing family ruptures: “A characteristic of such transcendental experiences is that family relationships, in the nexus of which personality is formed, become present to one with intense vividness” (Munn 1973, 105). Huxley, in correspondence with British psychiatrist Humphry Osmond (1917–2004), noted: “People will think they are going mad, when in fact they are beginning, when they take it, to go sane” (Aldous Huxley quoted in Smith 1969, 729). Entheogens could also be a valuable teacher for understanding psychosis as they allow the therapist to “enter the illness and see with a madman’s eyes, hear with his ears, and feel with his skin” (Osmond 1970, 22). It has often been stressed that a central factor in therapy is the experience rather than the chemical. This is something that Sidney Cohen (1965, 71) recognized in an article published in 1965 when he coined the expression “therapy by self-transcendence”. It is with a more expansive sense of identity informed by humanity’s spiritual traditions that we can understand entheogens (Sherwood et al. 1962, 77): The individual’s conviction that he is, in essence, an imperishable self rather than a destructible ego, brings about the most profound reorientation at the deeper levels of personality. He perceives illimitable worth in this essential self, and it becomes easier to accept the previously known self as an imperfect reflection of this. The many conflicts which are rooted in lack of self-acceptance are cut off at the source, and the associated neurotic behavior patterns die away. With an expanded understanding of ourselves, we can be more aware of our dualistic identity that separates us from ourselves, others, and the natural world. The terms ego and self are interchangeable as they represent the horizontal order of our personal reality. The founder of the “talking cure,” Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), supports this view: “The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense” (Freud 1989b, 19); likewise, “there is nothing of which we are more certain than the feeling of our self, of our own ego” (Freud 1989a, 12). At the same time, he observes that “the Ego is not master in its own house” (Freud 1955, 143). In psychedelic therapy, one often reports the experience of the ego’s “dissolution” or “death,” yet undergoing such a radical transformation is dangerous outside the protective measures afforded by a sacred tradition. It is the transpersonal order that provides a safe enclosure in which a therapist may safely work. Entheogens function as an impetus – even as “gnostic catalysts” (Adamson and Metzner 1988, 61) to support us in working through our mental health struggles, and to see who we really are beyond our psychological challenges. They are also referred to as a powerful “unspecific amplifier” (Grof 1980, 52) of mental processes – so that when we experience something difficult, it may feel intensely sad,
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