My name is Will and I cohost the podcast Wild Entheology with my friend, Kaylee. We are both psychology students with a passion for using psychedelics for personal and spiritual development. This podcast is dedicated to sharing our ever-evolving journey with psychedelics; whether that be growing in our knowledge of their application and benefits, our own personal experiences, or having conversations with others on similar paths.
In this episode we talk about Stage Red and how it can help you reclaim your power. As an example, we discuss Will’s recent mushroom trip in which he realized that becoming powerful is often about facing the ways in which we disempower ourselves. Although there were other realizations, in light of the MeToo movement we thought it best to discuss the realizations he had about his relationship to women.
Great sharing, Will.
My analogy is that psychedelics are like a battering ram that just obliterates the logical mind for a period of time and gives the unconscious mind freedom to run free for a while. This can be both great and terrible. I see it as facing one’s archetypes, both the ones we know about and the ones in the shadows - all the way down to the deep, dark abyss of Cthulhuesque black ink and tentacles.
My own opinion is that the more a person identifies with and operates from Orange or Amber world views, the more difficult both their experience and the later integration of their lessons will be. For example if they actually believe what they experience is literally real or some kind of universal truth, and the more they use psyches to try and return to that experience, then the deeper they will go down a rabbit hole. Someone who encounters entities and literally believes they are actual beings external to themselves that have some kind of superior universal truth for all mankind - whether insects, angels, Gods, or aliens - the more that person is going to have an impossible task integrating this into their lives. I call this “The Moses Effect”.
But yes, if a person is able to accept what their subconscious shows them, and understands that it is their subconscious and not actually God or Cthulhu or real transdimensional aliens - yes a lot of Integrative work can be done. I think for this it’s critical for people taking psychedelics to have another person help them integrate what they experienced to “level up”.
I know that many psychiatrists and therapists are licking their chompers at the idea of being the only people with a license to administer psychedelics to people and “cure” them - but funnily enough I see this more a shadow / dirty secret of Mental Health Practitioners than any kind of actual understanding of psychedelics. Unless they return to placing Jung’s works as a central component of Psychedelic Therapy, lol.
Definitely a good analogy for it haha, I love it. I view it like being a fish taken out of the waters they don’t even realize they’ve been swimming in. From that perspective they can compare their grimy pond to the cleaner ponds around them. Maybe they clean their own up or maybe they ditch it for something altogether new.
I would have to agree on this one. I started using psychedelics as an atheist (I’d describe myself as agnostic at this point, I just don’t know) and was also told that if you see any religious icons or figures you shouldn’t use them as a justification for religious belief. Point being, I had some protection against making this mistake. It just comes back to the advice that you should kill the Buddha if you see him on the road.
Again, I agree, especially as a future psychotherapist. I find myself already dealing with the dilemma of financial success and making sure the people who need these medicines the most actually have access to them. I think the integral perspective is to both/and it and realize the two are not mutually exclusive. I’ll let you know once I’ve figured that out haha.
@FermentedAgave Interesting. This would give a possible explanation for why people can become a lot more creative from taking drugs, but can also become somewhat slower and disjointed in their thinking - more connections allow greater access between different brain areas and so allow for more disparate areas to be connected, but fewer connections would make people more efficient and less easily distracted, and more likely to be successful in traditional terms https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180517102236.htm.
Of course one can be both creative and efficient, and many people would favour creativity over efficiency, but more connections don’t necessarily mean only a positive and could potentially make things more difficult for people.
@Julia248
Agreed that there could be or most likely will be downsides to Psilocybin therapy. Interestingly, our years of training to learn complex subjects or techniques like playing the piano or mathematics essentially create and strengthen certain neural connections to enable skills. It could be possible to “unlearn” these trainings with psychedelics.
Your included link is very interesting regarding IQ and sparsity of connections / activations. This might be something to seriously consider before tripping.
I do think that many times drugs can be viewed as a “really fast and easy” way to development. Perhaps unlocking the virtuoso that’s trapped inside all of us or unraveling our childhood scars in a single “trip”.
Very interesting subject “remapping” the mind so to speak.
I think it’s important to distinguish among various “drugs”. Psychedelics are very different from other categories, obviously. I can’t think of anyone I know who became “slower” from taking hallucinogens (and I know a lot, lol). “Disjointed” is common, yes.
What I find ironic about articles like this is that when I actually meet psychologists or licensed therapists who are curious about using psychedelics in therapy … they often want to treat it as a purely clinical medication. They have their list of disorders and corresponding treatments and want to fit psychedelics as just another chapter in that book. It’s rare to find the licensed therapist who has actually taken enough and high enough doses to understand “the rabbit hole”. This “rabbit hole” being increased capability for nonrational or transrational thought which the individual then has to reconcile with an society that is mostly schizophrenic, irrational and unable to integrate mythic religious beliefs with rational, logical and scientific ones.
Yes - psychedelics do increase neural connections and promote neurogenesis in doses from microdoses all the way to “breakthrough” doses - but since science is inherently unable to understand this brain completely, it’s kind of like a colorblind person trying to analyze the world’s greatest painting masterpieces.
Can you be more specific on “Disjointed”?
Are there certain areas (programming, art, engineering, medicine, relationships, overall well being, etc) where psychedelics have clear benefit or negative impacts?
Perhaps it creates bonding with a social group through shared experiences which directly impacts well being (I think, right?)? Perhaps even similar or shared mystical experiences?
Research in this area is or has been mostly illegal, so there is very little fact based research.
Anecdotally, though:
Much of the early IT sector’s development in the 1970’s were with people who used LSD. Microdosing is a fad now, usually with LSD because of the more reliable dosing.
Overall wellbeing is inconclusive due to a wide variety of factors. Many users / abusers experience a subjective improvement (1st quadrant) but this often does not transfer over to the other quadrants unless they are able to process their experiences (integration).
Bonding through shared experiences do happen, but are in the minority imo. “Tripping” with others increases the variables exponentially. So maybe sometimes, but it’s not consistent or even a usual benefit. Lots of people prefer to be alone during the experiences because another person can negatively affect the experience.
I HIGHLY recommend this podcast between Griffiths and Peterson. I have found it to be very profound across many areas that we have touched on here in IL.
Psychedelics to open the mind. Griffiths research found primarily an increase in Openness/Creativity traits as well as prosocial-gratitude with little or no negative impact on other functions. @Julia248 can enable shift in world view, which can impact established organizations.
Might potentially destabilize the world and lead to backlash against Psychedelics
Possible foundation of both Greek and Christian Mystics on Psychadelic mushrooms
Excellent discussion on God, Religion, psychology, as relates to mystic experiences
