For an attentive observer it is clear that the psychedelics have a close relationship with the developement of consciousness and spirituality in human beings. They represent one of the aspects of our symbiosis with the vegetal realm. We owe our awareness to the delicate equilibrium of our biosphere and the psychedelics connect us directly to this vegetal wisdom that speak to us if we are ready to listen. Used smartly and with respect, they allow us to better understand the mechanism of the psyche and the knowledge about being harmonious. The psychedelics are not THE solution, but they are certainly A solution. We have to learn how to play with that wonderful tool.

The majority of the psychedelics offer virtually no risk of dependence or physiological toxicity unlike hard drugs (cocaine and heroin), cigarettes and alcohol. It’s time to lift the veil that keeps us ignorant.

Ignorance keeps the human race in suffering. Ignorance only stops when you wake up. I n this essay I will put the psychedelics in their context, I want to point that throughout history they were always with us, that there is knowledge and wisdom stored in them and that we can use them to be happy.

1. Definition
2. History
3. Ethnobotany
4. Psychotherapy
5. Spirituality
6. Conclusion

1. Definition

Humphry Osmond invented the term psychedelic in 1967 to describe the experience of seeing the psyche manifesting itself. The term is derived from the Greek psyche (mind) and delein (to manifest), translating to mind manifesting.

The term enthoegen - literally generation of God inside- appeared in 1979 in reaction to the fact that the word psychedelic was starting to be contaminated by association with revolutionary and deviant groups and the pop culture of the 60’s.

The contemporary study of entheogenic plants is defined as enthnobotany or entheobotany.

2. History

For thousands (perhaps millions) of years on this planet, humanity has had a symbiotic relationship with plants. The ethno-mycologist R. Gordon Wasson suggested that the accidental ingestion of hallucinogenic plants, probably a mushroom, triggered the first spiritual experience in human and has directly lead to the formation of the concept of divinity and supernatural.

The relationship of humanity with the psychedelics and the myths surrounding them is as ancient than universal. In every native culture they were considered as gods, protectors, guides, allies and teachers. Agents of change, the psychedelics, incorporated in the human diet have manipulated the human DNA for thousands of years. Therefore they are responsible for unique contributions in our genetic heritage.

From 3500 BC, frescos of dancing shamans holding mushrooms were painted on rocky surfaces of the Plateau Tassili in South Algeria. Many historians have found evidences of the use of rye ergot or psilocibe mushrooms in the Eleusinian and Dionysian rituals of the ancient Greek between 1100 & 400 BC. Rocks in form of mushrooms, dating back from 300 to 500 BC, were discovered in Guatemala. Frescos containing drawings of mushrooms dating 300 AD were discovered in Mexico indicating the existence of psychedelic cults at this epoch.

Its R. Gordon Wasson who discovered in 1927 the ritual use of magic mushrooms in Oaxaca in Latin America. In 1955, Wasson and Allan Richard were the first American to participate in a mushroom ritual. The mushrooms were taken under the supervision of Maria Sabina, a Mazatec healer. But it’s the publication of Wasson’s book “Mushrooms, Russia, and History” in 1957 that precipitated the public interest on this type of rituals.

In 1938, The Swiss chemist Dr Albert Hoffman synthesized LSD-25 and in 1943 discovered his psychedelic effect. He then proceeded to distribute it rapidly to psychologists and psychiatrists to examine its potential to understand and treat mental disorder.

In the 50’s some poets and writers, Aldous Huxley, William Burroughs, Allan Ginsberg, Carlos Castaneda and other personalities like Dr Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Dass) favorised the penetration of the psychedelics in universities and then in the popular culture.

In 1966, the US government terrorized by this powerful reaction, decreted illegal the majority of the psychedelics with a law that in itself is ant constitutional. He used all the physical, financial and political forces in his control to instigate fear and discredit the virtues of the psychedelics, even though multiple studies had demonstrated the positive potential and relative security link to there use.

In 1967, ZAP Comix published the psychedelic comics of Richard Crumb, Robert Williams and Rick Griffin. Many painters were influenced by the visions triggered by entheogens: Robert Venosa, Vali, Vassarelli, Pablo Amaringo, etc.

In 1968, a new generation in making love at Woodstock, getting high on the sound of the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Sanatana and many others. The Beatles started taking LSD in their Yellow Submarine and Jim Morrisson opened the Doors of perception.

Contrasting this artistic revival, practically every scientific research about psychedelics were stopped, rendered illegal. Dr John Lilly had to reorient his career to go deeper in his research with dolphins and he invented the isolation tank. Dr Stanislav Grof, one of the most active researcher in the field of LSD, invented the Holotropic Breathwork, a technique producing states of consciousness similar to those experienced with psychedelics.

One of the few to keep his permit for the production of psychedelics was Dr Alexander Shulgin, the genius chemist who rediscovered MDMA and created more than 200 psychedelic compounds. However, he had to keep secret the experimentations of his new inventions with a close group of friend until the moment where he was too old for this. Him and his wife Ann Shulgin then wrote their famous books PHIKAL and THIKAL relating all those years of experimentation and creation. He gave over 200 recipes of psychedelic molecules that he invented throughout the years.

Since the beginning of the 90’s we are experiencing a second wave of research about entheogens, less extravagant, more constructive and mature. Between 1990 and 1995, Dr Rick Strassmann (DMT, the Spirit Molecule), psychiatrist at the New Mexico University, obtained all the necessary authorizations to study the effects of dimethyltryptamine (DMT) on human beings.

The Heffter Research Institute (HRI) and MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) are non-profit research and educational organizations. They assist scientists to design, fund, obtain approval for and report on studies into the risks and benefits of MDMA, psychedelic drugs and marijuana.

Marc Emery, activist and president of the British Colombia Marijuana Party (BCMP), does everything to help legalize pot and psychedelics. On top of working at the political level, his organization finances and puts online a website with audio/video archives freely accessible (conferences, news, workshops, special events, etc.) For example we watch Entheogenesis, an annual conference hosted by some of the most important intervenants in the psychedelic community. The BCMP also financed and helped the creation of the Iboga Therapy House which use ibogaïn to help cure the dependency of substances like heroine, methadone, cocaine, crack, alcohol and methamphetamine.

This rehabilitation of the psychedelics, which McKenna calls the Archaic Revival, favors the convergence of many domains such as ethnobotany, spirituality and psychotherapy toward an integral vision of human being.

3. Ethnobotanie

Ethnobotany is an effervescent phenomena today. Indeed, with the quantity and quality of information available today it is possible to study and cultivate a wide variety of entheogenic plants.

Amator enthnobotanists can learn to recognize psychedelic plants. Morning Glories, mushrooms and Datura grows everywhere, one only needs to know how to spot them to get them for free. And with a minimum of effort we can also grow mushrooms, marijuana and tobacco, to name just a few, directly home.

With internet, we can order entheogens directly from their original countries and share information in forums and websites. Erowid’s website, for example, contains clear and precise infos, tricks, recipies, advices and art. More and more Ethnobotanical shops are opening all over. In Montreal (Quebec) it is possible to legally buy powerful psychedelics such as SanPedro, Salvia, Iboga and Ayahuasca.

As long as the synthetic substances will be illegal, it is safer to turn toward ethnobotany and use psychedelic plants. This eliminates paranoia and maximize the chances of having a positive and enriching experience.

4. Spirituality

Entheogens were used as spiritual tools since the origin of humanity; theories situating them at the genesis of religions and spiritual traditions are winning more and more credibility.

Religious traditions have used the psychedelics as a physical aid for religious and sacramental practices. For example, the Vedas, the oldest sacred scriptures on earth, relate to the Soma, an elixir using mushrooms (Amanita Muscaria or S. Cubensis) as a basic ingredient. In India, Patanjali quotes the herb containing light yoga as a valid path to enlightenment. Many Native American religions use peyote, mushrooms, datura and morning glories. Ayahusca is used in Perou and Bresil to communicate with the gods and keep the community healthy. Rastafari use marijuana in their day to day life.

Still to these days, the spiritual use of those substances raises very dynamic debates. Since the beginning of the 60’s more and more people are lead to Buddhism by a transcendental experience catalysed by a psychedelic. One of the recommendations of Buddha is to not abuse intoxicants. Some believe that one shouldn’t take intoxicant, they think that one can become prisoner of this type of experience and that the experience is not the non-experience pursued by Buddhism and zen. Others rather believe that one shouldn’t abuse intoxicants, the middle path.

It’s nevertheless undeniable that Buddhism will therefore have to live in symbiosis with the psychedelics. Indeed, LSD catapults us behond our conceptual structures. He releases us. He passes over our habits to identify with our thoughts and puts us in a non-conceptual mode very rapidly. Mystical states obtained with the help of entheogens are so similar to those obtained by traditional methods like yoga that it is impossible to differentiate them. This one of the fiew quotes were Ken Wilber is doing reference toward the psychedelics.

“ If we look at data of Stan Grof or of people who do a series of intense psychedelic sessions in the right place and in the right state of mind, what we find is that some, and not all, but some people will have the experience of the pure causal state, a One Taste, a true experience of the Samadhi state, and that is what makes it worth.”

5. Psychotherapy

Jean Gebser was the first to notice the integral structure of human consciousness, this has lead to the development of a new branch of psychology: transpersonal psychology. It studies non-ordinary states of conscience: parapsy phenomena, trance, meditation, paroxystic and psychedelics experiences. Other therapeuts and thinkers like Maslow, Carl G. Yung and Ken Wilber came after to enrich the transpersonal field who now represent the fourth force of psychology, the tree others being behaviorism, psychoanalysis and humanism.

The benefic potential of the psychedelics, used consciensciously by professional, is undeniable in the domain of psychotherapy. Clinical researches have demonstrated that psychedelics are useful to relieve from alcoholism, drugs abuse and dependance, relational problems, obscessive-compulsive disorder, criminal recidive, post-traumatic stress and depression. They are also a great help for the psychotherapy of cancer in terminal phase, stimulation of meditative state and to trigger mystical experiences.

Many therapists have subrepticely used the psychedelics, in spite of their illegal status. Once they had discovered the effectiveness of such substances, they weren’t able, in good conscience, to refuse such an efficient treatment to their patients, in spite of risk of incarceration. We think here of Alexander & Ann Shulgin, Ralph Metzer, Richard Alpert and Dr Timothy Leary, to cite only I fiew because the list is long. One of the bad consequences of such a situation is that the results and experiences weren’t published and shared publicly, this deprive the public as much as the professionals of a big mass of precious information.

Entheogens, used in the appropriate context, by qualified individuals, with a suitable goal, with appropriate doses and with the interior state manifest a great potential to relieve the different type of suffering generated at the different existential levels of human being. They facilitate the emergence of higher state of consciousness, states that can be integrated after in the totality of that person who is doing the experience and also in his quotidian life.

Since they dissolve the logico-rationnal mind’s ferm grip on the perception of reality, the psychedelics precipitate, on one side, the apparence and observation of contents emerging from prepersonnal levels, and on the other side, the apparence and observation of contents emerging from transpersonnal levels.

A major exigency to obtain an enriching experience is honesty, as long as one is ready to confront and resolve any uncomfortable sensation felt through such a confrontation, a learning of great value can take place. One of the major cause of discomfort during a psychedelic session is the tentative by the subject to maintain an image of himself which is not in harmony with his authentic Self. The more the investment in this created image is strong – and thus, the more the repugnance toward change is big- the more the discomfort is big. The disparity can be so big and suffering that the subject will use psychotic episodes to escape discomfort. The will to abandon one self to the experience and to allow the resolution of the conflict result most of the time in an apprenticeship of a great value about those repressed feelings, hidden values, compulsions and aspirations, and inappropriate comportments. On top of that, since the repressed psychic content is decharged, the interior essence of our transpersonal nature can manifest. This can lead to profound and ecstatic realizations of one’s true nature and the also the true nature of the cosmos.

Inside every one of us there is a self-healer, that is what the psychedelics have been teaching us for such a long time. Use carefully and with wisdom they allow us to wake up and change.

6. Conclusion

Since the beginning of history, homo sapiens has neglected his relationship with the biosphere, thus putting in danger stability of this delicate system and the survival of the other species which make it so rich and beautiful. We are living now one of the most important moment of humanity. If our attitude doesn’t change radically, nothing will stop our self-destruction. Our ignorance lead us to this critical situation; pollution, crises, suffering, injustice are eating us like a cancer.

As a suggested earlier in this essay the psychedelics are not THE solution but they certainly are A solution to this problematic. They can be used to raise our state of consciousness to a more subtle level and help us understand the non-linearity of reality. They can also help us go back to sane spirituality without dogma or intermediary and can heale us from a multitude of desises.

It is imperative to decreminalize the psychedelics so that they can take back their place with us. They were always part of our culture, in spite of the fact that it is invisible for so many people right now. It is thus plausible to believe that the psychedelics will sooner or later defeat taboos, prohibition and ignorance and will know how to be appreciated and respected again for their true value.

“The quality of rhetoric emanating from the psychedelic community must improve radically. If it does not, we will forfeit the reclamation of our birthright and all opportunity for exploring the psychedelic dimension will be closed off.”

-Terence McKenna