Spiritual Competition, Shamanic Journey & Psychotropic Drugs

 I  will not pretend to be an expert on Shamanism, but I am no stranger to  it either. In my experience, the thing that I have found most satisfying  about Shamanism is that it doesn’t seek answers, it seeks a connection  to such an innate wisdom one realizes they already have the answers or  are guided to better questions. A Shamanic journey can be undertaken for  a number of reasons, my experience has been with journeying as a sort  of explorer bent on learning. Many people have different intentions,  such as healing or communication with a specific spirit or energy. What I  ponder is, how are journeys that are brought on with psychotropic drugs  different from journeys brought on in a more natural way such as with a  drum or rattle? I hear the voices of certain people I know in my head  saying, “Well, with the drugs the visuals are way better.” But that  isn’t really where I’m going with this, more to the point, I was  recently involved in a discussion regarding the validity of drug induced  experiences. There are people on both sides of the fence with this one  and both make some sense.    

Of  course the biggest argument for using drugs is that it’s “old school.”  Ancient tribes used hallucinogens to journey and commune with the  spirits for the betterment of the tribe. What isn’t addressed often is  the fact that anthropologists who have spent time with tribes that use  drugs to commune with the spirit world tell a different story. While it  is true that many of the Shamans rituals involve a drug induced altered  state, most do not. In the majority of the Shamans workings simpler  tactics are incorporated to achieve an altered state. So, in reality, in  the very, very old days, Shamanic journeying was done both ways. Of  course, we don’t live in those times any longer and things are a little  different now, especially when it comes to drugs. In the 60’s, despite  it's lack of the compound DMT (Dimethyltryptamine) which is a component  favored for Shamanic journeys, LSD was used by many in the same way  Shamans use peyote or ayahuasca. It could even be speculated that the  rise in interest in  Shamanism in the United States coincides with those  original psychonauts, Ken Kesey and his Pranksters, the Grateful Dead,  Alan Ginsberg, Terrance McKenna and Timothy Leary among others too  numerous to list.

The purists will tell you that LSD experiences  don't compare, the "purists" being those who claim to be Shamans or  those elitists who are constantly playing the "my psychotropics can beat  up your psychotropics" game. It's an ego based game where drug choice,  dosage, length of journey and whose metaphorical death was more dramatic  and laden with symbolism are all laid out and measured. It's also a  waste of energy and time. I say they "claim" to be Shamans because out  of all the people I have met who claim to be Shamans, and that's no  small amount of people, only three of them have been true Shamans. As to  comparing the experience one can have on LSD to the experience one  could have on DMT I would only ask, why? Why compare? If a purist were  to take LSD they might get absolutely nothing out of it because they  would be going into it expecting nothing. Rather than opening their mind  to the possibilities and perhaps even using their learned skills from  their past experimentation to enhance the experience, the ego steps in.  Where mysticism is concerned, ego can be a formidable enemy, among other  things. A journey is only as good as the person who is taking it  allows, no matter how their feet found the path.

Interest in  Shamanism has its ebb and flow and more recently an upsurge in the use  of ayahuasca to induce a shamanic state of consciousness. Ayahuasca is  most commonly associated with Peru where it is used by various tribal  people. However, many people from all over the world are now going on  retreats, many held in the U.S. where the sole purpose is to gather  together and ingest ayahuasca to induce an elevated spiritual awareness.  Of course these retreats are very expensive. There are things to  consider when taking on the idea of attending a retreat, such as  environment. Environment alone, of course, has many variables of its  own. What is the location?  Who will be in attendance? How many? And of  course how much? Just as expensive, or perhaps more so, are the retreats  you can go on to attempt a journey by listening to a drumbeat or  rattle. Workshops, lodging and meals included these can run up a hefty  bill. Now I don’t mean to meander from the main point here but there is a  reason for bringing up the cost of these events. There are those who  seem to believe that the more you pay, the more spiritual you are or the  more valid your experience is and that is a difficult concept for me to  wrap my head around. The bottom line is that it is all too often the  ego getting in the way again. 

Back to the point though, if we  assume a safe environment in both cases, natural and drug induced, and  all the variables to be within “normal” parameters, which makes for a  better experience? When this came up in conversation my first thought  was, why compare? I guess I wonder that a lot. Then of course there are  the variables. Every person has a unique experience depending upon  hundreds, maybe thousands, of those pesky variables. I have no intention  of writing a book however, so I won’t blather on about the variables.  Suffice it to say they are as numerous as are the stars in the sky. The  person I was speaking to was firmly on the drug induced is a better  experience side of the fence. I only took the opposing side to make for a  more intriguing conversation. I like it both ways. I suppose if I had  to choose though I prefer a drum or a rattle, both of which being much  easier to procure regularly than ayahuasca or peyote. There is also the  dependence factor. Many folks come to believe that they cannot have an  authentic experience unless they use drugs and that is their limitation,  I won't make it mine.

As the words “Why compare?” were floating  around my head in one of those little thought balloons like you see in  the cartoons, I remember the woman I was talking to telling me she was  getting ready to host an ayahuasca gathering at her home. That led to us  talking about our own experiences. It  had been quite some time for me  but the last time I journeyed using psychotropics, which was pertinent  to the conversation, it had been peyote. Although we had just had a  conversation in which her comments demonstrated brilliantly that people  really do “take sides”  she said, “Well, peyote is only the grandfather  but ayahuasca is the grandmother and she won’t let you get away with  anything like granddaddy does.” Unfortunately, as the conversation  progressed I realized this person had become an elitist. I have known  her for years and for years many people, including myself, have looked  up to her. The conversation revealed an imbalance between connecting  naturally and connecting through the use of drugs, mostly it revealed an  imbalance in ego.

Then another thought occurred to me. How does  any of it pertain to the point of the journey in the first place? “It”  being the type of drug, or the amount of money spent or the shine on the  bobbles and trinkets or the time spent at expensive retreats or the  titles and certifications and accolades bought and paid for. How does  selling our experiences and profiting off of our gifts pertain to the  point of the journey? If we are attempting a connection in some way to  the divine or to “spirit” or to some other  realm of awareness in an  effort to become more enlightened, doesn’t it seem that having an overly  competitive (unbalanced) approach to it goes against what we are trying  to achieve? Would a spiritually enlightened person feel compelled to  compete in these ways over these petty things? Like who paid more or who  knows who or who has the shiniest bobbles or has gotten to the next  level or into the inner (more expensive) circle or who has the most  titles. But again, I digress. Perhaps I was over-thinking it as I am  wont to do. The point is, in mysticism, spirituality, religion and even  self help, you do not always get what you pay for, in fact, you almost  never do.

I suppose that like everyone, my own experience is the  only one I can speak to. I’ve done more than my fair share of  psychotropic drugs but will not sit here and pretend I’ve sampled them  all. When I was first taking psychotropics I listened to the Doors a  lot, among other bands and I have always been an avid reader. Jim  Morrison said, “I believe in a long, prolonged derangement of the senses to attain the unknown. Our pale reasoning hides the infinite from us.” And William Blake said, “If  the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as  it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things  thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.” And I took it upon  myself to bust out of my cavern and drugs were definitely an aid in  that. Recreationally as well as ritually I used psychotropic drugs to  achieve the unknown. As to the “Doors of Perception,” I blew them right  off the hinges until not a speck of saw dust remained. 

I suppose  I need to take my past into account when it comes to my conclusions.  Who’s to say my experiences with shamanic consciousness now and in more  recent years aren’t somehow affected by the myriad of drugs I once took.  More to ruminate on later I suppose. My main thought is this; when I  blew the doors off the hinges did I really need to? Once open would they  have locked up again when the drugs wore off? This part is different  for everyone I suppose and there are a lot of different paths one can go  down. None of them are wrong and all of them lead you to wherever  you're going. My own experience has shown me that, for me anyway,  continuing to take drugs after blowing those doors off their hinges was  counterproductive and that blowing them completely off the hinges was  total overkill despite how insightful it was at the time. 

If a  life of being truly present each moment, of being spiritual and  connecting  to the very universe is the sport and you are the athlete  and the desired goal is to have those moments, no matter how long or  short, of enlightenment that you feel through that connection, you have  to realize there is no finish line. However, since people like  competitive sports so much, I’ll go on. Think of that connection as a  muscle, to make it healthy and toned it must get a work out every now  and again and I guess my point is that it can be done without steroids.   Practice the sport, exercise the muscle. And on balance, think of what  would happen if you only worked out one side of your body. 

Perhaps  we feel somehow compelled to validate our experiences, it is human  nature after all. If there are people who attach validation to numbers,  like the amount of dollars they spent to jump through the number of circles or climb the number  of levels they had to in order to claim some obscure title, that’s  groovy. It really isn’t any of my business. I suppose my final point  would be that if those things like whether it was ayahuasca, peyote or a  drum or if stuff, like the titles and bobbles and such, validate a  person’s experience, then they validate it, for them, and that’s good  enough. The word “intent” is a once simply defined word that is  achieving buzz word status these days. The idea is that if the intent is  clear, much is possible. How that plays out in the “spirit world” may  not be the same as how it plays out in the physical world. If a person  has a strong enough intent to grow spiritually by paying a lot of money,  maybe they can. In the end, it all boils down to truth. Gandhi said, “My life is my message” those are good words to ruminate on when considering one’s own intent and its manifestation.