The Use of Entheogens..

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The Use of Entheogens..
An Assessment of Capacity and Efficiency.
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Types of Common Entheogens
Lophophoria williamsii (Mescaline)
DMT (Ayahuasca)
Psilocybin Spp.
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• How important is the role of
• plant-produced hallucinogens
• in manifestations of mental
• expansion?

Is the perceptual change endowed by
psychoactives achievable through the human mind
alone?
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• What is this Higher Plane ?

Based loosely on arguments presented in Kants
Critique of Pure Reason, the idea that there
exists a transcendent aspect to experience
which exists separate form and independent by the
forms of sensation, space, and time, which we use
to understand it. The realm in which these
objects are based, outside of our dimensional
constraints, would be termed the Higher Plane.
Many entheogen-using cultures believe that
this plane simply exists outside of our innate
perception, and that we are assisted by drugs
in experiencing this realm consciously.
While other cultures believe that the passage to
a higher plane cannot be perceived, and instead
must be found through focus and concentration
in the unconscious.
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Enlightenment Without Drugs

• Most successful school of thought is Buddhism,
  although even Buddha was required to evoke help
  from his environment (Bodhi tree)
• Western culture preaches abstinence from
  drugs, but also only address enlightenment as
  something that occurs after cessation of
  conscious experience (a.k.a. death)
• Methods of unaided mind expansion include
  meditation, sensory deprivation, martial arts and
  yoga.

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3 Levels of Enlightenment

• Arhat (sra aka) Buddhist saint, one who follows
  the path of enlightenment and has achieved minor
  enlightenment
• Pratyeka (prateyka-buddha) A solitary Buddha,
  one who has obtained enlightenment and travels
  the depths of understanding.
• Samyak (samyak-sambuddha) A perfectly awakened
  Buddha, one who has attained enlightenment
  without knowledge of the Buddhist (mainly Gautama
  Buddhas) teachings
• - a requirement is that one must awaken other
  Buddhas

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3 Types of Mystic Experiences

• Proposed by Zaehner, R. C. (1961)
• 1) Natural mysticism - soul is united with the
  natural world
• 2) Monistic mysticism - soul merges with an
  impersonal absolute
• 3) Theistic mysticism - soul confronts the
  living, personal God

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Enlightenment Through Drugs

• Published reviews (Smith, 1964) have found that
  approx. ¼ of people will have a religious
  experience after using entheogens
• If given in a religious context more than ¾ will
  (Smith, 1964)
• Many of the visionaries behind modern science
  and social thought have all recorded experiences
  of enlightenment on entheogenic substances

• Countless cultures use drugs, and in every
  geographical region of the world.
• Tucano and Yanomamo (Brazil) and every other
  South American Tribe
• Aztecs
• Arabs, South and Central Americans
• Apache
• and pretty much every documented culture

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Pahnke's "Good Friday Experiment

• Good Friday, 1962
• 20 Protestant theology students, screened, and
  given psilocybin in a randomized, matched group,
  double-blind experiment using an active placebo .
• Hypothesis That psychedelic drugs would
  facilitate a "mystical" experience in religiously
  inclined volunteers who took the drug in a
  religious setting
• And that such experiences would result in
  persisting positive changes in attitudes and
  behavior.

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Results
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Husserl proposed that the explicit world, and the
ways in which wedirect ourselves toward and
perceive objects is normally conceived of in what
he called the "natural standpoint", which is
characterized by a belief that objects materially
exist and exhibit properties that we see as
emanating from them.
Perceptual Changes From Entheogenic Experiences
Perceptual Changes From Entheogenic Experiences
Carlos Castaneda first published a similar idea
in his mention of the assemblage point, which is
the focusing lens which selects from the
emanations produced by another world underlying
what we perceive as ordinary reality
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Discussion

• Proper use of entheogenic substances, with proper
  mental training is undoubtedly more effective
  then attempting mental expansion without
  substances.
• Both types, drug-induced or self-induced, require
  preparation and faith, the same as would be
  involved or expected of someone in any modern
  religion.

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References

• Doblin, R. (1991) Pahnke's "Good Friday
  Experiment" A Long-Term Follow-Up and
  Methodological Critique. The Journal of
  Transpersonal Psychology, 23
• Forman, R. K. C (1999). Mysticism, mind,
  consciousness. New York State University of New
  York Press
• Pahnke, W. (1966). Report on a pilot project
  investigating the pharmacological effects of
  psilocybin in normal volunteers. Unpublished
  manuscript. http//www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/l
  sd/pahnke.htm, accessed March 30th,2006
• Sánchez, V. (1995). The teachings of Don Carlos.
  Santa Fe, NM Bear Co.
• Smith, H. (1964) Do Drugs Have Religious Import?
  The Journal of Philosophy, LXI (61)
  http//www.psychedelic-library.org/hsmith.htmbac
  k7, accessed March 30th, 2006