"The world was made up of jewels .... "

psilocybin molecule. ooooh, pretty.

Sometime during the Summer of 2001, I was in one of the local Borders stores (the one at White Flint Mall). I pulled a book on ayahuasca (a hallucinogen used as a religious sacrament by indigenous peoples throughout much of Latin America) off the shelf, and when I opened it up a piece of paper fluttered down to the ground. I picked the paper up, and I was quite surprised by what I read on it. It was an advertisement seeking volunteers for a study at Johns Hopkins University.

I felt like I had stepped into some kind of Woody Allen movie, or something. You see, this was a study of the effects of psilocybin, known to the Nahua (Aztec) people as teonanacatl: the flesh of the Gods. And they were looking for volunteers.

Naturally, I called the number on the flyer. I spoke to the Project Coordinator (I think that was her title) -- who had a very difficult job, which she did extremely well. I would hate to have the job of screening people who are volunteering for such a study! I imagine many calls must go something like: "Yeah, like, uh, you know, I'm callin' about the, uh, you know, 'shroom study? And, uh, I'd like to get in on that, you know?"

I can't remember exactly, or even approximately, what I said or what she said. Except that the result of the conversation was that we scheduled a time for a formal phone interview to determine if I was suitable for the study. Which it turned out I wasn't.

There were two primary criteria for the study. First of all they were looking for people who had a regular spiritual practice such as meditation. No problems there, since I'd been doing Zen meditation daily since the late 80's. Second, they were looking for people who had no previous experience with hallucinogenic drugs. Oooops.

Although I was very disappointed that I wouldn't be sampling any of their research-grade psyilocybin, I was nevertheless still very excited just to know that this was happening. Not only was it a hopeful sign that serious scientific study of hallucinogens was alive and well, but this study was specifically aimed at the relationship between spiritual practice and the use of hallucinogens, a cause very close to my heart.

I was especially pleased that even though I could not personally participate, I was encouraged to refer other people to the study, which I did (and at least few of these did end up being subjects).

Those events back in 2001 all came back to mind earlier this year, when a spate of news items appeared concerning a more recent study, in which psilocybin was administered to people with advanced and potentially life threatening cancer. The researchers wanted to test whether or not a one-time experience with psilocybin can bring about "dramatic shifts in consciousness and awareness that will lead to ... improvement in anxiety, depression, and pain associated with advanced cancer." (source)

And then I was reminded yet again today, when I learned about the fundraising effort to support the release of the new movie DMT: The Spirit Molecule on DVD. If you haven't already, please seriously consider making a donation to help out that worthy cause!

Here is an excerpt from one of those articles that appeared last April:

Psychedelic trips aid anxiety treatments in study
by MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer – Fri Apr 23, 9:40 am ET

NEW YORK – The big white pill was brought to her in an earthenware chalice. She'd already held hands with her two therapists and expressed her wishes for what it would help her do.

She swallowed it, lay on the couch with her eyes covered, and waited. And then it came.

"The world was made up of jewels and I was in a dome," she recalled. Surrounded by brilliant, kaleidoscopic colors, she saw the dome open up to admit "this most incredible luminescence that made everything even more beautiful."

Tears trickled down her face as she saw "how beautiful the world could actually be."

That's how Nicky Edlich, 67, began her first-ever trip on a psychedelic drug last year.

She says it has greatly helped her psychotherapeutic treatment for anxiety from her advanced ovarian cancer.

And for researchers, it was another small step toward showing that hallucinogenic drugs, famous but condemned in the 1960s, can one day help doctors treat conditions like cancer anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The New York University study Edlich participated in is among a handful now going on in the United States and elsewhere with drugs like LSD, MDMA (Ecstasy) and psilocybin, the main ingredient of "magic mushrooms." The work follows lines of research choked off four decades ago by the war on drugs. The research is still preliminary. But at least it's there.

"There is now more psychedelic research taking place in the world than at any time in the last 40 years," said Rick Doblin, executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which funds some of the work. "We're at the end of the beginning of the renaissance."

He said that more than 1,200 people attended a conference in California last weekend on psychedelic science.
But doing the research is not easy, Doblin and others say, with government funders still leery and drug companies not interested in the compounds they can't patent. That pretty much leaves private donors.

"There's still a lot of resistance to it," said David Nichols, a Purdue University professor of medicinal chemistry and president of the Heffter Institute, which is supporting the NYU study. "The whole hippie thing in the 60s" and media coverage at the time "has kind of left a bad taste in the mouth of the public at large.

"When you tell people you're treating people with psychedelics, the first thing that comes to mind is Day-Glo art and tie-dyed shirts."

Nothing like that was in evidence the other day when Edlich revisited the room at NYU where she'd taken psilocybin. Landscape photos and abstract art hung on the walls, flowers and a bowl of fruit adorned a table near the window. At the foot of the couch lay an Oriental rug.

"The whole idea was to create a living room-like setting" that would be relaxing, said study leader Dr. Stephen Ross.

Edlich, whose cancer forced her to retire from teaching French at a private school, had plenty of reason to seek help through the NYU project. Several recurrences of her ovarian cancer had provoked fears about suffering and dying and how her death would affect her family. She felt "profound sadness that my life was going to be cut short." And she faced existential questions: Why live? What does it all mean? How can I go on?

"These things were in my head and I wanted them to take a back seat to living in the moment," she said. So when she heard NYU researchers speak about the project at her cancer support group, she was interested.

Psilocybin has been shown to invoke powerful spiritual experiences during the four to six hours it affects the brain. A study published in 2008, in fact, found that even 14 months after healthy volunteers had taken a single dose, most said they were still feeling and behaving better because of the experience. They also said the drug had produced one of the five most spiritually significant experiences they'd ever had.

Here is a link to an article about those results that came out in 2008, referred to in the last paragraph excerpted above: Sacred Intentions: Inside The Johns Hopkins Psilocybin Studies. And here is a link to a 2006 article on the Johns Hopkins study: Mushroom drug produces mystical experience (duh).

DMT on DVD, or: Spirit Molecule, The Movie

LBJ took the IRT down to 4th Street USA.

When he got there, what did he see?

The youth of America on LSD.

Rick Strassman is a pretty damned amazing guy. If you are not already familiar with his master work, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, then, well, please, familiarize yourself with it! And now you don't even have to read the book, you can watch the movie!



The basic story is this: Rick Strassman is a neuroscientist who has done pioneering research on DMT, one of the main chemical compounds found in Ayahuasca, a mixture of naturally occurring hallucinogenic substances utilized by traditional Shamans throughout the Amazon rainforest. Strassman wrote about the initial phase of his research in his book DMT: The Spirit Molecule. Part of what made Strassman's work so revolutionary was that it was the first time since the 1960's that the US federal government had allowed human subjects to participate in research using "scheduled" hallucinogens. This has resulted in a new Renaissance of serious scientific research on the human mind using psychedelics as a unique and irreplaceable tool.


But don't just sit back and wait for the movie to come out on DVD. It's time to join the psychedelic revolution! (Or, as the case may be, to re-enlist!) You can support the movie by making donations in two different ways:

• via kickstarter (which is especially easy if you are on Facebook and have an Amazon account)
• via paypal

The movie itself features such psychedelic luminaries as: Ralph Abraham, Marlene Dobkin de Rios, Alex Grey, Huston Smith, and Martina Hoffmann.

Many thanks to the folks at The Daily Grail, which is where I heard about this!

If you found this post of interest, you might also want to check out LSD, Creativity and Spirituality.

[The image to the right is a poster for a 2008 exhibit by Martina Hoffmann (one of the artists featured in the film) at the Microcosm Gallery, while the image below is an art blanket, titled "Cusp", also by Martina Hoffmann -- it is available for purchase at artblanketsonline.com.]

LSD, Creativity, and Spirituality (Marlene Dobkin de Rios)

"Boundaries Dissolve"
Everyone has heard of Carlos Castaneda. (I mean, well, haven't they?!?) But how many people have ever heard of Barbara Myerhoff or Marlene Dobkin de Rios? Myerhoff was actually a friend and fellow graduate student of Don Carlos back in the day. She is even credited with talking him out of burning his PhD thesis, which was later published as The Teachings of Don Juan, a Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Like her friend Carlito, Barbara also did field work on the spiritual traditions of indigenous people whose religion involved the ingestion of mind altering naturally occurring substances, i.e., entheogens. And Myerhoff also crossed the line that separates detached objective observer from shaman's apprentice.

But Barbara Myerhoff managed to not only bridge the divide between doing research and going native, she also did not burn that bridge once she had crossed it. In a very real sense this makes her a far greater Shaman than Carlos ever was, for she was truly able to "walk between the worlds", whereas Castaneda simply left one world for the other, and pretty much stayed there (never mind that he continued to attempt to play the objective, skeptical, analytical observer: no one was fooled). The best introduction to Myerhoff's life and work, in my opinion, is her wonderful book Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians. (And I also talked about her a while back in my post on Chasing Waterfalls.)

But the person I really wanted to talk about is the extraordinary Marlene Dobkin de Rios. She was yet another young adventurer-cum-graduate-student back in 1960's who went out among los indios to study their primitive, pagan, "primary" religions. But like Myerhoff she managed to retain her grounding in and connectedness to her own world while entering fully into theirs. Really it's not going too far to say that de Rios went far beyond merely blurring the dividing line that is supposed to cleanly separate the neatly fenced in and manicured mental garden of the modern, western academic scholar from the luxuriant psychic jungle of le pensee sauvage: she obliterated it and then did a little dance, scattering the remaining debris. And she did it all without the slightest hint of bravado or bluster, let alone megalomania or messianism. There is not even a hint of exaggeration in what I am saying here.

But for now I'm not going to say any more about her remarkable biography (which you can read more about on her website if you like). Instead I want to dive right into one of her more recent writing projects (I believe her first major book was Visionary Vine: Hallucinogenic Healing in the Peruvian Amazon, published in 1972).

In 2003 de Rios published, together with Oscar Janiger (and with a forward by Rick Strassman), the book LSD, Spirituality and the Creative Process. Here is an excerpt:

Contemporary writers of the psychology of religion characterize both mystical and religious experiences in terms such as unity, which is the direct perception of connectedness or oneness. Thus in mystical states there is a complete lack of differentiation between the self and the object of awe and reverence, and boundaries dissolve. Opposites such as good and evil, justice and injustice, and god and humanity disappear, and all things tend toward a unified, undifferentiated oneness. Additionally, such experiences often include the transcendence of time and space and a sense of sacredness, which may present emotions ranging from awe (fascination, wonder, or terror) to a deeply felt positive mood. Profound insights can occur and are described by religious practitioners as epiphanies, theophanies, moments of illumination, and states of grace. Often people experience both understanding and redemption. Sometimes enduring changes in a person's emotional well-being, beliefs, values and behaviors occur....

As Anthony Wallace, an anthropologist, points out (Religion: An Anthropological View, 1966), religious behavior universally makes efforts to induce an ecstatic spiritual state by crudely and directly manipulating physiological processes. These include drugs as well as sensory deprivation, mortification of the flesh by pain, sleeplessness and fatique, and deprivation of food, water, or air. As early as 1959 Wallace argued that the use of LSD and other psychedelic drugs lay in what he called a folk interpretation based on the basic phychophysiological reaction to the drug, so that the ecstatic experience is phrased for the individual as communication with the divinity. Wallace argues convincingly that the physiological manipulation of the human body, by any means available, to produce euphoria, dissociation, or hallucination is one of the nearly universal characteristics of religion. The ecstatic experience is a goal of religious effort, and whatever means are found to help the communicant reach it will be employed!

While scholars have identified many different types of religious experiences, the key elements and essential categories of universal religious behavior as defined by Wallace include the following:

1 . Prayer: addressing the supernatural
2. Music, dancing, singing, and playing instruments
3. Physiological exercise: the physical manipulation of psychological states including the use of drugs, sensory deprivation, mortification of the flesh by pain, sleeplessness, fatigue, deprivation of food, water or air
4. Exhortation: addressing another human beings, particularly as a representative of divinity
5. Reciting the code: mythology, morality, and other aspects of the belief system
6. Simulation: imitating things in ritual explicitly oriented toward the control of supernatural beings
7. Touching things believed to contain supernatural power, such as laying on of hands in religious healing
8. Taboo: not touching sacred objects, refraining from certain behaviors
9. Feasts: a sacral meal, or eating or drinking materials that containe a supernatural force or power
10. Sacrifice: immolation, offerings, and fees
11. Congregation: processions, meetings and convocations
12: Inspiration: a temporary union with a god or spirit
13: Symbolism: manufacture and use of symbolic objects that may represent the divinities themselves

For many, the sense of unity or awe is one of the most arresting aspects of the mystical-religious experience, as Wallace points out in his discussion of the physical manipulation of the psychological states. The concept of an absolute unitary state of being as one in which all perception of multiplicity of being is eradicated has been nicely delineated by the anthropologist Eugene D'Aquili and his colleagues. In this state individuals directly apprehend absolute unity with themselves, others, and the universe. Subject and object merge and boundaries to the self are weakened. Reality itself is perceived as oneness. Attached to this experience is a profound and intrinsic sense of underlying beauty and goodness. That is, the universe is perceived as a whole, good, and purposeful. When people leave this state, they do not perceive it as having been an illusion, hallucination, or delusion. Rather, they see it as the fundamental reality that underlies all reality.

It is important to note that this sense of reality differs enormously from that traditionally validated by scientists. Psychologist Charles Tart makes a distinction between baseline states of consciousness (b-SoC) and discrete altered states of consciousness (d-ASoC). He argues convincingly that rational consciousness is merely one type of consciousness, equally valid with that induced spiritually, or one, for that matter, induced by LSD. Science arises from our rational, baseline state of consciousness that perceives reality as an amalgam of multiple discrete beings in emotionally neutral subject-object relationships.

The absolute unitary state, on the other hand, arises from discrete altered states of consciousness. The absolute unity of being can be considered an ultimate trance state. For D'Aquli and Newberg, the trance stage progressively becomes intense, with a blurring of the boundaries of individuals until they perceive no spatial or temporal boundaries at all and experience absolute unity, devoid of content. The self-0ther construct is obliterated. Ultimately, the person experiences a movement from a baseline orientation in an external reality to a more intense sense of unity with the rest ofthe world and an increasing loss of a sense self and other. The person now can lose individuality and experience a sense of absorption into the object of focus or the universe in general. As D'Aquili and Newberg argue, a person reaching the absolute unity of being not only becomes one with that object and experiences a breakdown 0f the self-other dichotomy, but also "the object that he is absorbed into is also broken down, which gives rise to an experience of unity with all things .... D'Aquili points out that common result of this experience is freedom from fear of death.
[pp. 116-119]

Chasing Waterfalls

"little precious has a natural obsession . . . ."

As I mentioned in a recent post, I was driving home one day last week when the song "Waterfalls", by TLC, came on the radio. This is one of the truly great popular music songs of all time in my opinion (well, of course it's not just my opinion!). Hearing it on the radio gave me the idea of maybe posting a video of it to my blog, and then I found some crazy ukulele covers that I liked, so I posted two of those.

But for the first time I started thinking about what the song actually says: "Don't go chasing waterfalls, please stick to the rivers and the lakes you're used to." This made me think (for reasons that will become clearer in a moment) of Ramon Medina Silva, who was a mara'akame of the Wixáritari people. The Wixáritari are more commonly known as the Huichol, and a mara'akame is something like a shaman or a traditional healer. Really what a mara'akame is is someone who trains (for at least 10 years) in the religious traditions of the Wixáritari people. If you have no idea what I am talking about, then do a google search on Barbara Myerhoff, an anthropologist who has studied and written about the Huichols and their religious beliefs and practices.

One of the things that Ramon Medina Silva had to learn in the process of his education as a mara'akame was how to dance along the rocks on the high cliffs dramatically overlooking local waterfalls found in the part of Mexico where the Huichol live. Barbara Myerhoff describes her first encounter with this impressive display of shamanic power in her seminal study Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians:

One afternoon Ramon led us to a steep barranca [a deep ravine or gorge], cut by a rapid waterfall cascading perhaps a thousand feet over jagged, slippery rocks. At the edge of the fall Ramon removed his sandals and told us that this was a special place for shamans. We watched in astonishment as he proceeded to leap across the waterfall, from rock to rock, pausing frequently, his body bent forward, his arms spread out, his head thrown back, entirely birdlike, poised motionlessly on one foot. He disappeared, reemerged, leaped about, and finally achieved the other side. We outsiders were terrified and puzzled but none of the Huichols seemed at all worried. The wife of one of the older Huichol men indicated that her husband had started to become a mara'akame but had failed because he lacked balance.

Compare the above to the famous story from Carlos Castaneda's Separate Reality (on pages 100-103 in the 1991 Simon and Schuster edition). In that passage, Carlos is with his teacher, Don Juan, and another shaman named Don Genaro, and two other men. They are outside walking and they come to the bottom of a waterfall. Everyone sits down, except for Don Genaro who proceeds to climb up the cliff to the top of the waterfall. At the top of the waterfall Don Genaro proceeded to leap from rock to rock starting on one side of the waterfall until he got to the other. Don Juan later explained to Carlos that "tentacle like" "fibers of light" that emanate outward from the navel were "the secret of Don Genaro's balance".

Barbara Myerhoff and Carlos Castaneda were friends and fellow graduate students in anthropology at UCLA. In fact, Myerhoff helped convince Castaneda to not burn the PhD thesis he was working on, which was later published as the inter-galactic best-seller, The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge.

Separate Reality was published in 1971, the same year that Paul McCartney formed the band Wings. In 1980 Paul McCartney released a solo album, McCartney II, his first solo album since the formation of Wings. On that album was a song titled Waterfalls, here is the video:



Here are the lyrics to Paul McCartney's Waterfalls:

Don't Go Jumping Waterfalls
Please Keep To The Lake
People Who Jump Waterfalls
Sometimes Cam Make Mistakes

And I Need Love, Yeah I Need Love
Like A Second Needs An Hour
Like A Raindrop Needs A Shower
Yeah I Need Love Every Minute Of The Day
And It Wouldn't Be The Same
If You Ever Should Decide To Go Away

And I Need Love, Yeah I Need Love
Like A Castle Needs A Tower
Like A Garden Needs A Flower
Yeah I Need Love Every Minute Of The Day
And It Wouldn't Be The Same
If You Ever Should Decide To Go Away

Don't Go Chasing Polar Bears
In The Great Unknown
Some Big Friendly Polar Bear
Might Want To Take You Home

And I Need Love, Yeah I Need Love
Like A Second Needs An Hour
Like A Raindrop Needs A Shower
Yeah I Need Love Every Minute Of The Day
And It Wouldn't Be The Same
If You Ever Should Decide To Go Away

Don't Run After Motor Cars
Please Stay On The Side
Someone's Glossy Motor Car
Might Take You For A Ride

And I Need Love, Yeah I Need Love
Like A Castle Needs A Tower
Like A Garden Needs A Flower
Yeah I Need Love, Said I Need Love
Like A Raindrop Needs A Shower
Like A Second Needs An Hour
Every Minute Of The Day
And It Wouldn't Be The Same
If You Ever Should Decide To Go Away

Don't Go Jumping Waterfalls
Please Keep To The Lake

And here are the lyrics to TLC's Waterfalls:

Verse 1

A lonely mother gazing out of the window
Staring at a son that she just can't touch
If at any time he's in a jam she'll be by his side
But he doesn't realize he hurts her so much
But all the praying just ain't helping at all
Cause he can't seem to keep his self out of trouble
So he goes out and he makes his money the best way he knows how
Another body laying cold in the gutter Listen to me
Chorus

Don't go chasing waterfalls
Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to
I know that you're gonna have it your way or nothing at all
But I think you're moving too fast
Verse 2

Little precious has a natural obsession
For temptation but he just can't see
She gives him loving that his body can't handle
But all he can say is baby it's good to me
One day he goes and takes a glimpse in the mirror
But he doesn't recognize his own face
His health is fading and he doesn't know why
3 letters took him to his final resting place
Ya'll dont'hear me
Chorus

Rap

I seen a rainbow yesterday
But too many storms have come
Leaving a trace of not one God-given ray
Is it because my life is ten shades of grey
I pray all ten fade away
Seldem praise Him for the sunny days
And like His promise is true
Only my faith can undo
The many chances I blew
To bring my life to a new
Clear blue and unconditional skies
Have dried the tears from my eyes
No more lonely cries
My only bleedin' hope is for the folk who can't cope
With such an endurin' pain that it keeps 'em in the pouring rain
Who's to blame for shootin'caine into you're own vein
What a shame you shoot and aim for someone else's brain
You claim the insane and name this day in time
For fallin' prey to crime
I say the system got you victim to your own mind
Dreams are hopeless aspirations
In hopes of comin' true
Believe in yourself
The rest is up to me and you
Chorus

Both songs have the same plaintive pleading message: please don't go get yourself killed, or simply: please don't go!!

Castaneda's books were such a powerful cultural influence in the '70's that I feel certain that McCartney's "don't go jumping waterfalls" was, directly or indirectly, inspired by Don Genaro's fictional waterfall jumping, which, in turn, was directly inspired by Ramon Medina Silva's actual waterfall jumping.

A sad irony is that Ramon died not while demonstrating his shamanic flying skills, but rather in a way much more reminiscent of the TLC Waterfalls lyrics. In June of 1971 he got drunk at a party, got into a heated argument that became violent and led to an exchange of gunfire, and he was shot dead.

Barbara Myerhoff died suddenly of cancer at the age of 49 in 1989. She used to tell people that unlike her friend Carlos she would never become a shaman herself, but that she would become a little old Jewish lady instead.

Carlos Castaneda died in 1998 under appropriately mysterious circumstances. Most people were unaware that he had died until an obituary appeared two months later in the Los Angeles Times entitled A Hushed Death for Mystic Author Carlos Castaneda.

Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes of TLC died in a car accident in Honduras on April 25, 2002. 30,000 people attended her funeral, and her tombstone was engraved with lyrics from the song:

Dreams are hopeless aspirations, in hopes of coming true, believe in yourself, the rest is up to me and you.

Paul McCartney is still very much alive. He is, of course, aware of the striking similarity between his Waterfalls and TLC's. But as far as I know no one has ever asked whether or not he was influenced by Castaneda.

When I was twelve years old my friends and I had a seance on Halloween night in 1969 to see if we could determine whether or not it was really true that Paul McCartney was dead.

Finally, here's Weird Al Yankovic's "Phoney Calls":