Psychedelic Therapy – Are we ready for heaven and hell?
Psychedelic Therapy – Are we ready for heaven and hell?
The early psychedelic pioneer and psychiatrist Humphry Osmond originally coined the term "psychedelic" and shared the famous poetic insight, "To fall in Hell or soar Angelic, you'll need a pinch of psychedelic."
Now 70 years later, these ancient tools for expanding consciousness are advancing at a rapid pace through medicalization in the form of psychedelic therapies and are coming soon to a doctor’s office near you. The subjective experience of encountering some version of heaven or hell in a controlled setting is proving to be clinically efficacious at liberating people from many forms of psychological suffering. Given the quasi-religious/spiritual magnitude of such experiences, we can only wonder, is the medical/mental health system ready to dose individuals at scale with far more than “a pinch” (e.g. heroic doses of psilocybin or 5-MeO-DMT aka “The God Molecule”)?
Such an undertaking will effectively usher in hundreds of thousands of patients into states of heaven and hell, at scale. Is the mental health system ready to initiate individuals into hellish descents, angelic flights, and transpersonal and multidimensional landscapes of consciousness? We must keep in mind, peak psychedelic states are precisely the types of experiences that fall in the realm of peak mystical encounters spoken about by spiritual sages and initiates, and those who have encountered near-death experiences. These are states of peak awe which are often coupled with abject terror.
Behind the neat efficacy statistics of the news headlines of the outcomes from psychedelics such as ibogaine, MDMA, psilocybin, 5-MeO-DMT, or ketamine, lies a single soul who had to let go of reality and face some version of heaven and hell. In one example, GOP Congressman Rep. Morgan Luttrell and former Navy Seal traveled to Mexico to obtain psychedelic therapy with ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT for posttraumatic stress and traumatic brain injury, and described his experience as both “horrific” and feeling “I was reborn”, and “one of the “more miserable experiences” he’s ever been through.
5-MeO-DMT is one of the most potent psychedelics, now in phase 2 clinical trials with several drug developers, and may be accessible through mainstream medicine within 4 to 5 years. In 2017, I presented at a MAPS Scientific conference the first structured human reports of vaporized 5-MeO-DMT in the form of Sonoran Desert Toad bufotoxin from patients at our clinic (Crossroads/The Mission Within in Mexico). We observed in 44 patients, 86 percent experienced “a sense of awe or awesomeness” and 82 percent “experienced something profoundly sacred and holy”, perhaps akin to a “heaven” of sorts. However, 30 percent had a “profound experience of [their] own death” and felt as if they were “disintegrating or falling apart”, and 16 percent feared that they might “lose [their] mind or go insane” – maybe analogous to hell-type states.
It is revolutionary that such experiences of heaven and hell can reduce “symptoms” so reliably, however, they are doing so by abruptly pulling back the existential and spiritual veils of the psyche. Are patients ready for this? Are the commercial spaces constructed for “treating patients” intentionally designed for this? Is our mental health system ready for this? Are therapists and psychiatrists trained for this? Will providers have the experience, language and psychospiritual sensitivities to be full-time doulas for back-to-back spiritual rebirths in their offices and clinics? I believe we can and will rise to this transcendent occasion.
The relatively small segment of noble psychotherapists who are doing this work in clinical studies are often gaining competence to hold such massive psychospiritual experiences, and frequently pursue specialized training in domains such as Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness (NOSC), Spiritual Emergence, Transpersonal psychology, and Depth Psychology. However, this content is not required by the FDA, which does not regulate psychotherapy, but rather drug products and safety. The expansion of spiritual competencies in psychedelic therapy inspires me as a clinician and student of sacred studies, because I see it as a returning to ancient understandings, a swinging of the polarity back from the reductionism of modernity that has dominated mainstream psychiatry, to a more holistic understanding of the human psyche or soul. This could be viewed as a historical bridging of the initial rift between the materialistic atheism of Sigmund Freud, versus the more archetypal and mystical explorations of Carl Jung.
Incoming practitioners of psychedelic therapy may need to go outside of the confines of the training offered by FDA psychedelic drug sponsors (e.g., MAPS, Compass, Usona), and return to the roots of the psychedelic therapy tradition itself, which is spiritual, mystical, transpersonal, archetypal and draws from numerous wisdom streams. Psychedelic practitioners may need to return to our first wave roots in more ancient and global sources, such as the mystery schools of the Bwiti, Eleusius, or the Rosicrucian lineages, the religious poetry of the Vedas, Tibetan Buddhist frameworks for consciousness and the dying, and the oral traditions of the indigenous in the Amazon, or the Mazatec and Huichol of Mexico. The later modern second wave (in the 50s and 60s) and present third wave (2,000s+) emerged from a small cohort of psychiatrists and therapists who were steeped in such readings and experiences and dared to merge the science and the sacred.
The original godmothers and godfathers of the modern psychedelic therapy movement (like Humphrey Osmond, Leo Zeff, Ralph Metzner, Walter Pahnke, Bill Richards, Stan Grof, Alexander and Ann Shulgin, Mary Barnard, and many others) were distinct amongst their scientific contemporaries and peers because they were almost always deep mystics who understood the topography of psychedelic-induced states of ecstasy and terror. They were mystics largely because of their own extensive direct personal experience with psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness. Their knowledge and praxis emerged from first-hand contact with the ineffable, which undoubtedly formed their capacity to hold and doula their patients’ experiences of heaven and hell in the personal and transpersonal domains.
Stan Grof and Christina Grof wrote in Beyond Death - The Gates of Consciousness:
In psychedelic sessions, in spontaneous visionary states, and in the practice of experiential psychotherapy, one encounters ecstatic and hellish experiences of an entirely abstract nature as well as concrete and specific images of heavens and hells. It is fascinating to find that occasionally the eschatological symbolism appears to be from a cultural frame entirely unknown to the subject. . ." (p. 14)
The Grofs concluded from extensive direct experience with thousands of patients, (in particular, those administered high doses of LSD) that these individuals were experiencing actual and abstract visions of heaven and hell-type realms and symbolism outside of their own cultural frameworks. For current mental health providers and systems to hold such experiences, it may require therapists to become competent in multiple theologies, spiritual frameworks, and transpersonal conceptions of reality.
Surfing heaven & hell - in the here and now
What would it mean to face one’s version of heaven or hell? How might one apply the fruits of such a heroic psychological and spiritual quest from a peak psychedelic experience into pragmatic daily, moment-to-moment experiential mindful awareness?
Stephen and Ondrea Levine (not writing about psychedelics) share in their Investigation of Conscious Living and Dying - Who Dies?...
"Hell is the stiff resistance to what is, Heaven is our loving openness. Hell is resistance. Heaven is acceptance. The variance between heaven and hell is the fluctuation of the mind between thinking of itself as fortunate or unfortunate… When anger arises in the mind, when fear becomes present, it can either make life hell or reveal another opportunity to enter into heaven. It can be another moment of resistance, pushing away, and becoming lost in the mind. Or it can be a reminder to let go gently into the vastness, into the openness of the heart, into the essence of acceptance itself.”
Our more expansive nature lies within and on the other side of our resistance to opening our hearts to embrace infinity. Each frame that passes through our perception is a saturated opportunity to embrace and accept it all, as it is. What are the "hells" that we have unconsciously created? What are the prisons we have made that are waiting to be liberated? How can we embrace our lower states or the chaos in the world with unconditional love? These are some considerations in how we might metabolize exposure to such expansive states from the psychedelic experience.
In the burgeoning medical context, individuals may seek psychedelics to reduce suffering or symptoms, only to be confronted with deeper wounding or pain. However, it is also true that a seeker may be bathed in a seemingly unending ocean of infinite bliss, and every state in between. In ingesting a high dose of a psychedelic, one is opening the bandwidth of consciousness to perceive all that is. Before one imbibes a high dose of psychedelic medicine, it is wise to be prepared to embrace life and death with full acceptance - both the heights of heaven and the depths of hell, within and without. And this is why a safe container, context, and experienced guide are prerequisites.
Looking forward
I would argue the readiness of “the system” will be predicated upon the direct experiential knowledge of those who will be frontline administering these therapies. An instructor of yoga, martial arts, medicine, or sailing must know the topography. The implementation and design of psychedelic care models must come from first-hand “swimming in the sacred” in these peak mystical and non-ordinary states of consciousness. The neutral and detached blank-slate Freudian objective observers and uninitiated rational scientists may be spiritually anemic in initiating patients in and through the great mysteries, or the gates of heaven and hell. In the Jesus parable in Luke 6:39, we are reminded, “One blind man cannot lead another one; if he does, both will fall into a ditch” and the baseball player Gene Mauch is frequently quoted as,” You can't lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself”.
I believe therapists and psychiatrists can rise to the occasion and return to their archetypal roots as doulas, mirrors, and space holders for spiritual emergence. However, we must walk the talk and be competent to shepherd individuals both through the corridors of hell, as well as the veils of divinity, as they arise in each moment, in the windows of perception.
When given the proper context and integration, psychedelics can provide an unparalleled cauldron for spiritual initiation and growth. However, with improper expectations or framing, psychedelic therapists and guides might unwittingly perpetuate the avoidance that feeds the smallness of the egoic drive to maintain its version of hell in an overly controlled reality, in which pain is avoided, and divinity is denied. The real value of the psychedelic experience lies in the amplification of the mind, in expanding all sides of experience to reveal to us who we truly are, and how we create our versions of heaven or hell now, in each real-time frame on the projected movie screen in our minds.
I am inviting us here in the psychedelic medical context to return to our mystic godparents and our psychedelic work, to expand our phenomenology, our vocabulary, and our empathic experiential awareness of the tapestry of these experiences. This knowledge will not likely be found in the mainstream medicalization of psychedelics. Or will it? There is no greater teacher than direct experience, and these catalysts for the road less traveled are coming soon to a doctor's office or center near you.
As a parting reference on this path, my wife and partner Tricia Eastman and I co-founded Psychedelic Journeys and have led psychedelic retreats for the past decade. I have worked in multiple psychedelic clinical trials and advise numerous psychedelic clinics and retreat centers. Tricia and I have compiled a list of some of our favorite resources at the intersection of psychedelics and spiritual development, for your enjoyment. Enjoy the waves!
https://bookshop.org/lists/consciousness-spiritual-development?
https://bookshop.org/lists/sacred-science-and-metaphysics?
https://bookshop.org/lists/psychedelics-spiritual-development?
https://bookshop.org/lists/death-and-dying-psychedelic-journeys
Art by Michael Divine - https://www.tenthousandvisions.com/shop/the-birth-of-venus-ltd-ed-archival-canvas-print/