Psychedelics, Medicine and Mysticism
Psychedelic Therapy: The miracle cure for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and anxiety, etc. There is though another, much less talked about, aspect of the experience that has enormous significance and far-reaching implications. It's the remarkable effects it has on people suddenly forced to confront their impending mortality, for example through illness. Having had a glimpse of what awaits them after death, they no longer have any fear of death whatsoever, quite the opposite.
Never do the words medicine and mysticism appear in the same sentence. Just putting the two together makes medics go solemn and silent. This doesn’t though apply to hospice and palliative care workers. They’re only too aware of what happens close to death, and have been for decades. They’ve just learnt to keep their mouths shut.
Scientific discovery moves on regardless of prejudice, and the adage that science doesn’t pander to sentiment has now reared its head as never before. Like it or not, the mystical aspect of psychedelics is providing a remarkable path to new hope and creating a paradigm shift in psychiarty, psychothreapy and well-being treatment. The main drug used in clinical trials is synthesised psilocybin. No needles, just a couple of pills washed down with water. The initial trials were instigated by Professor Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore nearly half a decade ago and research is now expanding rapidly around the world.
The psychedelic experience provides a very rapid path out of truly debilitating levels of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. After years, decades even, of traditional therapies, many subjects make truly remarkable steps towards being cured in just two sessions; some need only one.
An essential component of a psychedelic ‘trip’ is the mystical experience. A mystical experience can be described as one that is otherworldly and transcends all human understanding. Subjects have a sense of being outside time, beyond the past and the future. They know they encountered the ultimate reality, and interacted with something profoundly sacred and holy.
It’s vitally important to understand that the mystical experience is pivotal to the success of the psychedelic treatment. In other words, no mystical experience, no success.
Mysticism is a rude word in the scientific community. Nevertheless, psychedelic therapy is having annoyingly spectacular results. To add insult to injury, science can, for the moment at least, provide absolutely no explanation as to how it works, and many have said that it's very unlikely to do so for decades to come.
That said though, just recently, a group of quantum physcists from as far afield as India, Austria and the UK got together to start testing reality. There are two possible outcomes. If the first outcome is true then reality as we know it will be safe and secure. However, if the alterantive outcome is true - the one many physicists think the most likely - then our reality we will be seen as very far from how we perceive it, and most probably much closer to the reality seen during a near-death experience. Quantum mechanics has always been weird, but it might be about to become far weirder than anyone could possibly imagine.
Watch this space.
During a psychedelic experience one is drawn into what can only be described as a realm of extreme peace and beauty. However, it can happen that you are forced to confront some challenging aspects of your life. For this reason, you must be prepared for the ‘trip’ by a suitable trained psychotherapist. These experiences are very similar to the well-documented near-death experience life review.
Despite very strong similarities between near-death and psychedelic experiences, differences are reported. While the beauty of the realm itself, the feeling of oneness and the interaction with something truly sacred is the same and very intense, with psychedelics there’s a shortfall in the level of communication, if any, with deceased relatives.
Communication with dead relatives is strong during a near-death experience. In palliative care units and hospices, communication with dead relatives during the moments, hours or days leading up to death is extremely common. In fact, care workers say that it’s far more unusual if they don’t occur than if they do. Such communications are called Deathbed Visions. Sadly, such communication and visions of the next realm is blocked by painkillers such a morphine. Why then, is the after-death communication so weak, non-existent even, during psychedelic trips? Research on the topic is ongoing.
There’s a similar story with psychedelics and out-of-body experience (OBE). The OBE intended here is of the type in which people float above their body and can move freely around the environment in which they find themselves. Verifiable OBEs have not yet been reported using psychedelics. They have though been confirmed using Ketamine.
Another possibility has been suggested. The idea is that psychedelics provide limited access to the afterlife realm solely for the purpose of confirmation and reassurance. This is certainly borne out by the tremendous comfort brought to people for whom, and for whatever reason, the end of life is rapidly approaching. They see what awaits them after their transition, (transition is a more descriptive word than death and is growing in use).
Extensive training schedules are being put in place for doctors and psychotherapists in the use of psychedelic drugs. It'll be interesting to see if, in the long run, they eventually recommend psychedelics for general use: To have a trip just to see what the afterlife is like.
Is that really a good idea though? Surely, humans are here to learn by making mistakes and consequently adapting themselves over the duration of however many years of life have been allocated to them.
On the other hand, might it not be of benefit to have a life progress check every ten years or so, or when the need arises? It would be a pity to arrive at the end of life and find out that, with the best intentions, you had in fact got your priorities a bit wrong. That a rethink of certain aspects of your life would have made all the difference.
Where is research taking place?
This list should not be considered as being anywhere near complete. Centres are being announced worldwide almost on a weekly basis. The top three were among the first. Johns Hopkins being the very first under Prof Roland Griffiths.
1. Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Baltimore, USA
2. New York University, USA
3. University of New Mexico, USA
4. Imperial College Medical Centre, London, UK
5. Oxford University, UK (formation in progress)
6. Toronto University Hospital, Canada (formation in progress)
The drugs used
Several drugs are used. Here we take a brief look at the top two. It’s important to note that none of the drugs come directly from their origins, but have been synthesised by pharmaceutical organisations. Apart from making the drugs more easily available, this also removes unpleasant toxins, especially in DMT (see below).
1. Psilocybin
Psilocybin is a substance found in psilocybe fungi, of which there are about 180 species. Their popular name is magic mushrooms and they have a very long history. Current evidence suggests they may have been used for religious ceremonies as far back as 10,000 years BC.
2. Ayahuasca (N, N-Dimethyltryptamine, DMT for short)
This drug has a very interesting path to discovery. It’s the active substance in the psychedelic called Ayahuasca, which means Vine of the Soul. There is evidence of its existence in Bolivia over 1,000 years ago, although it is best known for being used by the Shamans of Peru. A side-effect of ayahuasca taken as a broth, is extreme nausea and vomiting. The shamans claim this is part of the healing and self-realisation process. This doesn't happen with synthesised DMT.
Two plants are needed to produce Ayahuasca, which are then boiled together to produce a broth. Both plants are essential to functionality. The main vine, the one containing DMT, is quite easy to find in the rainforest and looks very similar to the coffee plant. The other is a plant containing a Mono Amine Oxidase Inhibitor. However, the two plants are almost never found growing near each other. And the probability of finding and combining them by chance alone has been calculated as about 1 in 14 billion against. How then did the indigenous tribes know that both plants were vital to the broth? When asked, the people of forest will answer by saying that, quite simply, the plants told them.
This is something that people from the West have absolutely no way of comprehending. That said, a psychedelic trip often shows the way to such communication or oneness. For the technically minded, the substance contained in the harder-to-find plant is a Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitor.
Other psychedelics include:
MDMA : 3, 4-Methelenedioxymetheamphetamine also known as Ecstasy
Mescaline: derived originally from a cactus 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine
Ketamine: originally used as a non-associative aneasthetic, has been proven to induce an Out-of-Body Experience