Contemporary religious and political authorities tend to proscribe or discourage the use of psychedelic substances, and yet for many people these forbidden chemicals have served as “gateway drugs” to religion and spirituality themselves – to leading more integrative, contemplative, and compassionate lives. For this new Integral Stage series, INTEGRAL ENTHEOGENS, I have invited the most creative, intrepid, wise, and insightful psychedelic explorers I know to speak on the entheogenic and alchemical – the psychospiritually illuminating and transformative – roles of these medicines for contemporary healing and contemplative practices. What place should they have in 21st century psychology and spirituality?
In Episode 1, Layman Pascal takes listeners on a mind-bending journey through three of his most formative “trips,” and reflects on the entheogenic (sacredly generative), ethnogenic (culturally generative), and etho-genic (morally generative) roles these substances have played in significant human transformations or “upgrades.” How might they prepare us now to more flexibly and skilfully navigate the looming high strangeness and staggering complexity of our current global crises?