I love the subtitle. It’s funny but I also feel that it grounds your essay in that reversal where you’re really feeling yourself but then get socially anxious and enter a hellscape. That reversal is such a vibe. I’ve experienced that in less dramatic ways during psychedelic experiences and also in daily life many a time! It’s interesting how drastic the reversal in your story is. Sexuality might be the part of being human most burdened with toxic cultural ideas. In your story, it seems you are enjoying yourself in an innocent way, and suddenly your thoughts take you back into the sphere of social awareness. For whatever reason, the joy you were just encountering completely vanishes. And it turns to shame, embarrassment, and intense horror.
During an experience I had with ayahuasca, I was having a really beautiful feeling and a voiceover informed me that this feeling was the devil according to the Europeans of the past. It said this without any judgement, only matter of factly giving this experience of magic and beauty a cultural, historical context. Perhaps you encountered something similar. I do not know so much about the history of witchcraft, but I imagine many of the murdered women probably encountered incredible beauty and joy during experimentations with consciousness. For whatever reason, this was considered evil and prompted hellish trials and death. Even in simpler terms, our culture has expectations about sex that in my opinion are restrictive and apparently arbitrary. Maybe you experienced something very pure and natural and then encountered the collective human mind’s confusion surrounding that kind of vibe. This calls to my mind the second chapter of genesis. Especially how once they know good and evil they become ashamed of their nudity! I appreciate this story’s fearlessness and power!
I have absolutely no experience with any psychedelics or drugs of any kind. I haven't even ever smoked a cigarette. (Saint emoji!) And I am pretty sure I never will - I just don't feel any need for it. These days I feel very much like the odd one out! But some things I've heard said in recent times confirm for me why I feel like this. In these times where I believe we are learning to step into our own authority and not outsource it to external parties, and speaking purely for myself, I see ingesting plant and other substances for spiritual purposes as being all part and parcel of this outsourcing. Most people I know who have had mind-blowing psychedelic experiences are very sure it was the substance that made them possible, and yet I do wonder if there was really no other way? One intuitive who talks about this is Gigi Young.
And have you come across Jaqueline Hobbs, otherwise known as "Oracle Girl"? She's recently been talking about the plant world and drew my attention to the fact that plants are part of the land where they grow. They grow in symbiosis with the soil life around them. So if we even drink a herbal tea made with plants that grew far away from us, can we know what we are really taking into our bodies and its full complexity and what interaction it will have with us?
Also, what are we trying to control by going down this path? Could it be part of that ultimate addiction Rami Shapiro writes about? Is the perception that handing oneself over to the plant is actually letting go of control? I've heard it described that way and at the same time is there not a control impulse behind the desire to do it? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I think the plants can help us drop the barriers to perceiving other realities. They are definitely not the only way, although the other ways (fasting, meditation, sensory deprivation, and solitude) take a lot more work, especially now that we've built a modern world that overwhelms our senses with artificial experience. So I think these plants have a use and purpose, although I definitely agree that many people use them as a crutch and even give over their sovereignty, and they're not something I feel the need to engage with often. It's kind of like using a rocket launcher when all you need is a hot-air balloon.
As for Jacqueline Hobbs, I haven't heard of her, but I would ask, do we really know the complexity of everything we're ingesting, even if the plants are grown in our backyard? Of course not. That's not a reason not to experience it. Of course, anything has a potential for addiction, including perfectly good and necessary things like food and relationships. Whether a substance is medicine or poison is all in the dose. For people who feel drawn to experience these things, I think they can offer benefits. For those who don't, or who have a lot of fear, that's fine! The plants are not panaceas, and to some extent, they only reveal what's already inside of you.
I see how they are waking people up to the larger reality of things, and making them more open and curious about spiritual matters, and on the whole, I think that's a good thing. I think some people need a rocket launcher to jolt them out of complacency. But they are not without risk, and I think everyone should take heed and consider carefully whether they are called to partake.
It takes courage to communicate with our "plant teachers." I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to go there again, perhaps even more so after reading your experience. I suppose it is human arrogance that brings forth the need to explain everything on heaven and earth. Then again, "what happens when I die?" is perhaps based on a deep longing to continue with our journey. Do I return to earth consciousness and become part of a much larger "being," do I maintain my own identity as a nonphysical being or ghost, do I fade into nothingness, or none of the above? There is also a joy in trying to piece some of the mysteries together and I look forward to reading your future posts!
Our bodies are designed to be temples of the Holy Spirit and we have physical wiring that lights up in the presence of spiritual beings. So physical substances can affect that wiring. Decades ago I became enamoured with the herb Angelica archangelica. A common name for it centuries ago was The Root of the Holy Spirit. I grew a bed of the herb and it grew into splendid five foot tall plants. It is a member of the celery/fennel family and has thick celery like stalks and a fragrance like celery crossed with frankincense. One day I was slicing a pile of the stalks and the air was filled with the fragrance. Suddenly I was filled with the sensation that I term the Holy Place Feel, that can happen when the Holy Spirit manifests as a felt presence in a group of people in prayer. It lasted only for moments and I said to myself, “So that’s why they called it the Root of the Holy Spirit” for it had touched that part of me that responds with a feeling in the Presence.
You probably know that the word translated as “sorcery” in the New Testament is pharmakeia - enchantment with drugs.
Yes, there are marvels both good and bad that modern western thinking has difficulty accommodating in its system.
To experience vomiting as ecstasy... Now there's something you don't consider every day. Thank you for sharing this meditation on how attention mediates experience.
What follows might sound at first like a criticism but please consider it instead as an invitation into a new perspective.
You quote a neuroscientist who speaks of "circuits" in the brain. In the neuroscience literature, this is perfectly typical, and yet it also a profoundly limited -- and limiting -- perspective: our brains are not machines and the metaphor of the machine cannot explain their nature. Indeed, the metaphor of the machine cannot well explain anything in Nature besides machines that we ourselves have created.
There is too much to say on the subject to reasonably fit into a comment, but if you sense that there is a truth to this perspective, that we share enormously more of our nature with plants or rivers or animals than we do with any machine, look into the work of Iain McGilchrist.
His contributions to the discussion can best be understood by reading his two books, The Master and His Emissary and The Matter With Things. Both books, especially the second, are somewhat intimidatingly long, but I think they are more than worth the effort for anyone who seeks to more deeply know themselves.
Elizabeth Oldfield did a wonderful interview with him not too long ago if you'd like a preview of what his work touches upon without cracking open a tome.
I don’t think there’s anybody at this point that’s not familiar with the work of Iain McGilchrist, which I do think is very helpful, although far more popular with philosophers and the general public than it is with fellow neuroscientists. At any rate, language is inherently reductive and profoundly limiting and yet we must make use of it anyway. No metaphor can fully explain the nature of something, but there’s a good case to be made for using this mechanistic language. As Gurdjieff said, we humans are prone to mechanistic behavior, and that is precisely the thing we must break out of. My experiences on ayahuasca have always given me insight into that mechanical, mimetically programmed aspect of my nature, and there’s a reason I reach for that language.
yikes. that sounds like an unfairly challenging setting for an ayahuasca journey, and an inexperienced shaman. if the only place to see clients is an apartment with no space to spread out while they're turning themselves inside-out—why not just do one-on-one sessions? why cram a bunch of strangers in together? and "chill the fuck out, you're bothering people" is THE WORST thing to say to somebody on *any* psychoactive—even something as mild as cannabis!—let alone *ayahuasca*. christ almighty. i'm sorry you had to go through that.
thanks for sharing this, and i can't wait to read more of your explorations in this direction.
I agree she was somewhat inexperienced and I think it could have been handled differently. But I also know a lot of people who had very good experiences with her. And I’m very skeptical of the western impulse to want to smooth and sanitize and standardize everything. I do think the medicine (and life) might call us to different situations that challenge us and won’t always be safe, and that circumstances won’t always be perfect. I think she was going through her own journey of learning to become proficient at what she was doing. There are definitely some things I wish had been different, but I’ve never blamed her. For me, the medicine was a wake-up call to take responsibility for my own life. I got what I needed.
that's fair enough. at the same time—like your note from the other day—as these practices are metabolized, we have to be candid about the fact that Grandmother's lessons will sometimes be harsh, from the perspective of an unprepared culture. the psychospiritual guardrails that make ayahuasca sustainable were built up by traditional cultures over thousands of years; bringing it out of the jungle without those cultural guardrails carries great risk for new shamans and new patients. new shamans in particular should be prepared to uphold the highest possible standards, in order to minimize harm. modern people forget that everything sacred is hazardous.
Agreed. But I think if we try to hard to police all of that, we risk squeezing something essential out of it. We have a mythical concept that these traditions have emerged out of a pure context, but even in traditional societies, there are all kinds of trickster and shady shamans.
Ironically enough, I now feel embarrassed I said that!
In fact I do worry about what the neighbours will think and about spoiling it for everyone else but my perception is that women generally have this much worse.
I felt that... the shame women carry in and about their bodies... Around the world our very lives at stake based on our bodies. Are they "pure"? Are they covered properly?
I love the subtitle. It’s funny but I also feel that it grounds your essay in that reversal where you’re really feeling yourself but then get socially anxious and enter a hellscape. That reversal is such a vibe. I’ve experienced that in less dramatic ways during psychedelic experiences and also in daily life many a time! It’s interesting how drastic the reversal in your story is. Sexuality might be the part of being human most burdened with toxic cultural ideas. In your story, it seems you are enjoying yourself in an innocent way, and suddenly your thoughts take you back into the sphere of social awareness. For whatever reason, the joy you were just encountering completely vanishes. And it turns to shame, embarrassment, and intense horror.
During an experience I had with ayahuasca, I was having a really beautiful feeling and a voiceover informed me that this feeling was the devil according to the Europeans of the past. It said this without any judgement, only matter of factly giving this experience of magic and beauty a cultural, historical context. Perhaps you encountered something similar. I do not know so much about the history of witchcraft, but I imagine many of the murdered women probably encountered incredible beauty and joy during experimentations with consciousness. For whatever reason, this was considered evil and prompted hellish trials and death. Even in simpler terms, our culture has expectations about sex that in my opinion are restrictive and apparently arbitrary. Maybe you experienced something very pure and natural and then encountered the collective human mind’s confusion surrounding that kind of vibe. This calls to my mind the second chapter of genesis. Especially how once they know good and evil they become ashamed of their nudity! I appreciate this story’s fearlessness and power!
Oh yes, the Edenic parallels are really interesting!
Thanks for sharing this, Rebekah.
I have absolutely no experience with any psychedelics or drugs of any kind. I haven't even ever smoked a cigarette. (Saint emoji!) And I am pretty sure I never will - I just don't feel any need for it. These days I feel very much like the odd one out! But some things I've heard said in recent times confirm for me why I feel like this. In these times where I believe we are learning to step into our own authority and not outsource it to external parties, and speaking purely for myself, I see ingesting plant and other substances for spiritual purposes as being all part and parcel of this outsourcing. Most people I know who have had mind-blowing psychedelic experiences are very sure it was the substance that made them possible, and yet I do wonder if there was really no other way? One intuitive who talks about this is Gigi Young.
And have you come across Jaqueline Hobbs, otherwise known as "Oracle Girl"? She's recently been talking about the plant world and drew my attention to the fact that plants are part of the land where they grow. They grow in symbiosis with the soil life around them. So if we even drink a herbal tea made with plants that grew far away from us, can we know what we are really taking into our bodies and its full complexity and what interaction it will have with us?
Also, what are we trying to control by going down this path? Could it be part of that ultimate addiction Rami Shapiro writes about? Is the perception that handing oneself over to the plant is actually letting go of control? I've heard it described that way and at the same time is there not a control impulse behind the desire to do it? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I think the plants can help us drop the barriers to perceiving other realities. They are definitely not the only way, although the other ways (fasting, meditation, sensory deprivation, and solitude) take a lot more work, especially now that we've built a modern world that overwhelms our senses with artificial experience. So I think these plants have a use and purpose, although I definitely agree that many people use them as a crutch and even give over their sovereignty, and they're not something I feel the need to engage with often. It's kind of like using a rocket launcher when all you need is a hot-air balloon.
As for Jacqueline Hobbs, I haven't heard of her, but I would ask, do we really know the complexity of everything we're ingesting, even if the plants are grown in our backyard? Of course not. That's not a reason not to experience it. Of course, anything has a potential for addiction, including perfectly good and necessary things like food and relationships. Whether a substance is medicine or poison is all in the dose. For people who feel drawn to experience these things, I think they can offer benefits. For those who don't, or who have a lot of fear, that's fine! The plants are not panaceas, and to some extent, they only reveal what's already inside of you.
I see how they are waking people up to the larger reality of things, and making them more open and curious about spiritual matters, and on the whole, I think that's a good thing. I think some people need a rocket launcher to jolt them out of complacency. But they are not without risk, and I think everyone should take heed and consider carefully whether they are called to partake.
Thank you for this, Rebekah.
It takes courage to communicate with our "plant teachers." I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to go there again, perhaps even more so after reading your experience. I suppose it is human arrogance that brings forth the need to explain everything on heaven and earth. Then again, "what happens when I die?" is perhaps based on a deep longing to continue with our journey. Do I return to earth consciousness and become part of a much larger "being," do I maintain my own identity as a nonphysical being or ghost, do I fade into nothingness, or none of the above? There is also a joy in trying to piece some of the mysteries together and I look forward to reading your future posts!
Our bodies are designed to be temples of the Holy Spirit and we have physical wiring that lights up in the presence of spiritual beings. So physical substances can affect that wiring. Decades ago I became enamoured with the herb Angelica archangelica. A common name for it centuries ago was The Root of the Holy Spirit. I grew a bed of the herb and it grew into splendid five foot tall plants. It is a member of the celery/fennel family and has thick celery like stalks and a fragrance like celery crossed with frankincense. One day I was slicing a pile of the stalks and the air was filled with the fragrance. Suddenly I was filled with the sensation that I term the Holy Place Feel, that can happen when the Holy Spirit manifests as a felt presence in a group of people in prayer. It lasted only for moments and I said to myself, “So that’s why they called it the Root of the Holy Spirit” for it had touched that part of me that responds with a feeling in the Presence.
You probably know that the word translated as “sorcery” in the New Testament is pharmakeia - enchantment with drugs.
Yes, there are marvels both good and bad that modern western thinking has difficulty accommodating in its system.
To experience vomiting as ecstasy... Now there's something you don't consider every day. Thank you for sharing this meditation on how attention mediates experience.
What follows might sound at first like a criticism but please consider it instead as an invitation into a new perspective.
You quote a neuroscientist who speaks of "circuits" in the brain. In the neuroscience literature, this is perfectly typical, and yet it also a profoundly limited -- and limiting -- perspective: our brains are not machines and the metaphor of the machine cannot explain their nature. Indeed, the metaphor of the machine cannot well explain anything in Nature besides machines that we ourselves have created.
There is too much to say on the subject to reasonably fit into a comment, but if you sense that there is a truth to this perspective, that we share enormously more of our nature with plants or rivers or animals than we do with any machine, look into the work of Iain McGilchrist.
His contributions to the discussion can best be understood by reading his two books, The Master and His Emissary and The Matter With Things. Both books, especially the second, are somewhat intimidatingly long, but I think they are more than worth the effort for anyone who seeks to more deeply know themselves.
Elizabeth Oldfield did a wonderful interview with him not too long ago if you'd like a preview of what his work touches upon without cracking open a tome.
I don’t think there’s anybody at this point that’s not familiar with the work of Iain McGilchrist, which I do think is very helpful, although far more popular with philosophers and the general public than it is with fellow neuroscientists. At any rate, language is inherently reductive and profoundly limiting and yet we must make use of it anyway. No metaphor can fully explain the nature of something, but there’s a good case to be made for using this mechanistic language. As Gurdjieff said, we humans are prone to mechanistic behavior, and that is precisely the thing we must break out of. My experiences on ayahuasca have always given me insight into that mechanical, mimetically programmed aspect of my nature, and there’s a reason I reach for that language.
yikes. that sounds like an unfairly challenging setting for an ayahuasca journey, and an inexperienced shaman. if the only place to see clients is an apartment with no space to spread out while they're turning themselves inside-out—why not just do one-on-one sessions? why cram a bunch of strangers in together? and "chill the fuck out, you're bothering people" is THE WORST thing to say to somebody on *any* psychoactive—even something as mild as cannabis!—let alone *ayahuasca*. christ almighty. i'm sorry you had to go through that.
thanks for sharing this, and i can't wait to read more of your explorations in this direction.
I agree she was somewhat inexperienced and I think it could have been handled differently. But I also know a lot of people who had very good experiences with her. And I’m very skeptical of the western impulse to want to smooth and sanitize and standardize everything. I do think the medicine (and life) might call us to different situations that challenge us and won’t always be safe, and that circumstances won’t always be perfect. I think she was going through her own journey of learning to become proficient at what she was doing. There are definitely some things I wish had been different, but I’ve never blamed her. For me, the medicine was a wake-up call to take responsibility for my own life. I got what I needed.
that's fair enough. at the same time—like your note from the other day—as these practices are metabolized, we have to be candid about the fact that Grandmother's lessons will sometimes be harsh, from the perspective of an unprepared culture. the psychospiritual guardrails that make ayahuasca sustainable were built up by traditional cultures over thousands of years; bringing it out of the jungle without those cultural guardrails carries great risk for new shamans and new patients. new shamans in particular should be prepared to uphold the highest possible standards, in order to minimize harm. modern people forget that everything sacred is hazardous.
Agreed. But I think if we try to hard to police all of that, we risk squeezing something essential out of it. We have a mythical concept that these traditions have emerged out of a pure context, but even in traditional societies, there are all kinds of trickster and shady shamans.
for whatever it's worth, my first thought on reading this was 'I've never felt so glad I'm not a woman.'
I'm not sure how to take thet, lol.
Ironically enough, I now feel embarrassed I said that!
In fact I do worry about what the neighbours will think and about spoiling it for everyone else but my perception is that women generally have this much worse.
That's all I meant.
It’s true! I do think women have evolved to be more sensitive to everyone else’s opinion and emotional state and it’s a blessing and a curse.
I felt that... the shame women carry in and about their bodies... Around the world our very lives at stake based on our bodies. Are they "pure"? Are they covered properly?