Entheogenic Psychotherapy

Introduction: definition and origins

Before going into depth about entheogenic psychotherapy, I will define the root word of entheogenic, "entheogen", as being derived from the Latin: "en" means "within, inside"; "theo" is from "theos" or "God, the divine"; and "gen" is originally derived from Indo-European "gen-", "to give birth, beget - referring to procreation, the family and the tribe."

However, within the context of entheogenic psychotherapy, based on their original use as agents to talk to God and to reach a higher spiritual consciousness, the meaning is clear: entheogens help one reach a higher level of conscious, possibly moral development and to pass from a lower stage of moral development into a higher one.

Before the moralistic teetotaller seeks to condemn me for what amounts to pushing illegal drugs on psychiatric patients, I will point out that prior to the 19th century and the reforms made in regard to mental illness since then, along with the development of psychotropic pharmaceutical drug to relieve the symptoms of such illnesses, the attendant medical opinion that such illnesses are incurable, and, like legislated poverty, the establishment of legislated mental illness, mentally ill people who were originally highly esteemed as shamans and visionaries, are today relegated to the same status as the poor by citizens of the State who consider themselves to be normal.

Indeed, the mentally ill had an integral part in proto-historical communities as figurehead of pagan cults. In those unsophisticated days, the shaman would become possessed by spirits, often by ingesting entheogens. While under possession, they would help in diagnosing illness, find game, and predict where to hunt best.

Thus, entheogens were used to alter consciousness in the shaman so s/he could become a passive agent for a spiritual deity whose presence could effect a change in illness, access information based on life experience whose content would not normally be relied upon by the tribe, and bring spiritual meaning to the lives of her/his tribe.

It wasn't until the establishment of the Church in the 4th century CE that the mentally ill were demonized as agents of Satan, when in actual fact, their bizarre behavior may be due to disease, injury, or malnutrition.

After 1500 years of marginalization, human civilization degraded to the point where the mentally ill were treated as though they were subhuman.

Proposal of the Term Entheogenic Psychotherapy Based on Interest by Neurologists and Psychiatrists

According to the New York Times ("Scientists Test Hallucinogens for Mental Ills", Tue, 13 Mar 2001), correspondent Sandra Blakeslee wrote that:

"Hallucinogenic drugs like LSD and peyote - derided as toys of the hippie generation - are
increasingly drawing the interest of neurologists and psychiatrists who want to test the
idea that they may be valuable tools in treating a range of mental disorders.

"Although there are anecdotal reports that psychedelic drugs can help some people with mental illness, the idea has never been substantiated by mainstream psychiatry and remains highly controversial -- some would say outlandish.

"And even the researchers involved in the new work are not suggesting that people start medicating themselves with hallucinogens..."

If you substitute "entheogen" for "hallucinogen", then psychotherapy that substitutes often dangerous psychoactive pharmaceutical drugs with entheogens may augment, or replace when necessary, faiths, philosophies and religions that provide relief from boredom, pain, and stresses of modern life.

If this therapy made exclusive use of entheogens, then I would call this kind of psychotherapy entheogenic.

However, just as orthomolecular therapy is considered by orthodox medical doctors and associations as quackery, it is possible that without a change in the public's awareness of the safety issues involved with entheogens, entheogenic psychotherapy will not go beyond what I will try to expound in this article.

Get Back... to the Psychedelic Era: Recreational Use Versus Sacred Use

It should be noted that quite possibly, the neurologists and psychiatrists quoted in Blakeslee's article may have grown up in the Psychedelic era (1969-1979), after the Beatles blew the minds of Americans through John Lennon's flip remark that they're "just as popular as Jesus."

It is ironic that the same era saw the disintegration of major rock bands and the tragedy of rock stars fighting substance abuse from Jerry Lee Lewis' battle with the bottle and other illegal drugs, Janis Joplin's death due to heroin overdose, John and Yoko's week-long drug binges, Paul McCartney's bust for marijuana in Japan, Ringo Starr's ill-advised Hollywood days, the Who losing band members due to drug overdoses, and other musical legends like Elvis dying from an aneurysm due top being constipated from pharmaceutical drug abuse.

Obviously, such celebrities, treated like new gods, are as human as their adoring fans, many of whom also may suffer from lack of self-esteem and quite possibly, a mild to incapacitating inability to handle stress well in their mundane lives.

Celebrity Excesses, Recreational Abuse

Likewise, the typical celebrity, once a nobody, may undergo plenty of stress from the pressures attendant to success. As a result of such stress, it is possible that family issues that were never properly resolved with closure may come back to haunt them. They may choose alcoholic beverages on the mistaken belief that the intoxication helps them to decompress from stress, and thus begin the spiral into substance abuse, buoyed by the delusion that "everybody does it."

When any drug abused, and used with the intent to make oneself happy and to please others, it's like looking for the Buddha in a temple in Dharamsala rather than seeing God in the beauty in the world as the result of self-reflection. Even if the intent of drug use is as simplistic as "having fun" or "a night out with the girls", then its potential for abuse is present.

For what happens when life is no longer fun? Does one drink more? And, does one go on to try another drug at a party because, so far, no one has died or "freaked out?"

I am not saying all of this to rant about substance abuse, but to demonstrate that the abuse of controlled substances, namely illegal drugs, is a maladaptive way of coping with stress and the attendant loss of self-esteem.

Usually, the user has exhibited maladaptive behavior prior to drug use and his/her behavior has either attracted her/him (to) "the wrong crowd." In the end, substance abuse becomes a daily ritual done alone by a lonely person lost in his/her world, a delusion of her/his own making, made of choices that will never guarantee any long-lasting success based on the depth of his/her happiness.

Country and Rock Music: Recreational Use Figures Prominently

Just as Elvis is an example of such a person, so too is Elvis' early life an example of the kind of upbringing that would lead to such a tragic end. For the King of Rock and Roll loved his mother dearly, and missed his other half as dearly, the twin that died at his birth. One could imagine what it was like growing up wondering what might have happened if one's twin lived and one was dead. Being from a multiracial family, humbled by poverty, may have also played a minor role in Elvis Aaron Priesley's life. However, the largest influence on his life was his mother as nurturer and reflection of his self-image growing up around Memphis, Tennessee - the Deep South, home of country music, and jazz and its brother, blues.

It is interesting that, since its popularization in the 1920s, country music tends to create a world of broken hearts and broken homes in its lyrics, the bitter-sweetness that may drive the foolish to a lifetime battle with "booze." In contrast, jazz was hated by the director of the Narcotics Control Bureau (now Drug Enforcement Agency) who demonized marijuana, Mr. Anslinger.

Elvis' choice of combining elements from blues with antics that rivaled Jerry Lee Lewis' certainly legitimized rock music since he represented the status quo where alcoholic beverages, tobacco and firearms were considered necessary to "the pursuit of happiness" and "the right to bear arms" as protected by the First Amendment.

Punk, Grunge and Today's New Music Fueled by Recreational Drug Abuse

In contrast, the woman who became Wendy O Williams, of the Plasmatics, grew up on the East Coast and while she certainly exercised her First Amendment right to free speech, she did so to shock her audience's parents. A mother of all American punk bands to come, Wendy had also starred in pornography as part of being a performance artist.

Punk music is anti-music in the sense that the artist does not sing so much as scream, and the musical instrument is a tool of subverting the mind through a full-frontal assault of the ear. This should explain why Wendy once sported a Mohawk haircut and often performed with her breasts exposed by ripping out holes in her black T-shirt with electrician's tape obscuring her nipples. Often she paraded around topless on stage, tape still in place with the lights shining hotly on her as she stood there screaming profanities into the microphone while sweating profusely. At one concert that I saw on TV, she took a chainsaw and sawed a television in half, an anti-consumerist act that probably scared a lot of TV executives when they got wind of it.

Courtney Love of Hole is another performance artist who went from stripper at the Number Five Orange in Vancouver to rock musician. She hooked up with grunge rock musician Kurt Cobain of the now-defunct band Nirvana and began a love-hate relationship that ended with Kurt's brains splattered on a wall in their bedroom in the suburbs of Seattle. At the time, Courtney was on tour with her band, which was getting rave reviews while Nirvana's fame was overshadowed by often violent antics on the stage. Sometimes fights would break out between band members onstage, with Cobain aggravating retaliatory assaults from them. At a recent girls only festival put on by Sarah McLachlan's company in Vancouver, Courtney Love punched out a rival girl band member for critiquing her performance.

My purpose for relating all this dysfunctional behavior exhibited by rock music celebrities is to demonstrate how even celebrities (the new gods of consumer culture) sometimes may become psychologically unstable pursuing game as they risk death by using recreational drugs. Their success often leads to risk-taking behavior that could expose them to cancer, heart attacks, strokes and even death.

You would think that for the amount of money rock musicians could make today at a five thousand person concert at $50 a head, 104 cities a year for a total of $26,000,000 gross that they would have a street-smart manager to keep them on the straight and narrow away from the gritty underbelly of society.

Guess again!

Few rock musicians and performance artists have resisted the temptation to drown their sorrows in booze, only to freebase or light up, toke up, toot up, or what have you, often blowing ten grand in a day to escape the boredom and chase away the ghosts of their misspent youths.

Thus, regarding recreational use of drugs, the user's aim is to "get high", usually as quickly and as often as possible. What usually begins as a tradition of like-minded people communing, and "having fun", soon degenerates into wild parties.

Sacred Use of Drugs: the Key to Entheogenic Psychotherapy

On the other hand, the sacred use of entheogens requires a less hedonistic game plan with a greater emphasis on social responsibility for the participant. The following entheogenic ethical code of conduct carefully outlines such responsibilities:

Individual Code of Conduct for Primary Religious Practices

* DRAFT *

When I engage in spiritual practices designed to bring about profound changes in
consciousness, I will consider my intentions and will choose carefully the occasion
and location for the practice.

I will be well informed about the mental and physical effects, anticipate reasonably
foreseeable risks to myself and others, and employ safeguards to minimize these risks.

Safeguards may include:

Ensuring that my setting is reasonably free of hazards.

Ensuring that I will not operate automobiles or other potentially dangerous machinery.

Taking myself `off duty' from responsibilities.

Arranging for someone to be `on duty' (a `guide' or `sitter') to keep the session safe
and respond appropriately to any exigencies that might arise.

(from http://www.erowid.org/entheogens/entheogens_ethics.shtml)

Any user of entheogens who ignores the spirit contained in this code of conduct is not a serious practitioner. Consequently, recreational use that violates the spirit of this code should be discouraged since its aftermath in the community may be linked to the breakup of the family and the stresses that places on the community itself. Thus, having read the above code of conduct, practitioners are encouraged to incorporate its spirit into their entheogenic activities along with any positive results from such sacred activity.

Of course, the code of conduct for primary religious practices implies by its very nature that recreational drug use be considered a religious activity, despite its secular component and its implicit denial that recreational use is indeed religious. One should not assume that religion is a bad thing, save in excess particularly of the fundamentalism that leads to intolerance and prejudice. However, the code of conduct previously mentioned is necessary to promote a responsible state of mind that balances the hedonism inherent in recreational drug use.

For when one uses drugs for religious practices, the profound changes in consciousness are apt to likewise profoundly transform one's religious life, perhaps one's whole life. Knowing that the set and setting greatly influence by the outcome of a mystical and spiritual trip aided by entheogens, one should prepare the setting so no danger presents itself during such a journey.

Likewise, the consensual use of entheogens in group ritual practice in a religious setting requires the participants to be ever conscious of their obligations to each other. Thus, entheogens can augment a religious experience for the benefit of all people within the religious group.

The Religious Context

Although religion has been superseded by a secular humanism where consumerism is endorsed by commercial media and corporate giants, all catering to the needs of free-market capitalism and endemic globalism with all the suffering that such a crazy lifestyle brings into our lives, it has greater value than what money can buy.

Humanity is not yet so dehumanized that it cannot instinctively feel an echo of spirituality. Given the wide variety of faiths and religions, some very popular and fewer still that are nameless yet deeply spiritual, one is free in most Western nations to worship as one pleases. Even in countries where freedom of worship is severely limited, the people still find religion to be a comfort from abject poverty.

Out in the desert of southwest America and in north-central Mexico, the peyote culture thrives, both within the new Native American Church tradition as rehabilitation from alcoholism and within the web of shamanism in Mexico. Meanwhile, the ayuhuasca culture of Brazil has also reached the shores of America, only to be restricted in use, not so much due to the risk of abuse as due to the militancy of a few of its members. Despite all of this, entheogens have an important part to play in invigorating religious worship.

It has been suspected that entheogens played an important part in ancient religious worship, but became banned by the Catholic Church, in order to keep power within church hierarchy. If each person was responsible for her individual rapport with Jesus, and could immediately worship God, developing an individual oneness with Him, then the Church could not control how the spiritual insights developed during entheogenic rituals. Thus, entheogens stopped being religious sacrament, as various religions cautioned against intoxicating drugs and the abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and even coffee!

Cannabis too, was demonized - at first to consolidate religious power and then later corporate power. In today's post-modern world, the corporate power of the Church has been transferred to multinational corporations. Yet the control over so-called "dangerous" drugs continues. This is also seen in the way the drug industry gets their petrochemical-based pharmaceuticals into market, while natural herbs and alternative therapies are ignored in medical literature. Though, the antipathy towards alternative therapies is now decreasing.

While medical marijuana is being dispensed in Canada, it is subject to restrictions. In contrast, the entheogenic use of marijuana is discouraged with the legal community not distinguishing between religious and recreational use. Indeed, they cannot make any discrimination at all between them, due to the drugs laws in Canada regarding marijuana. The law courts will throw out any challenges to the Canadian Charter of Right and Freedoms that attempt to define the entheogenic use of marijuana, despite the right to freedom of religion.

Thus, the State has control over just what is religious practice, and restricts religious practice to rituals that do not involve entheogens. It is quite possible that there is an overwhelming fear that entheogenic use, by cutting out a human intercessor such as a priest to communicate with God, will place control over religious practice in the hands of the people. A people-centred religious practice that encourages the use of entheogens is a threat to people in control of many religions today because they are not in control of that process. It could lead to less money into the church coffers, and more money into the illegal network of marijuana cultivation, a network that was forced underground by draconian drug laws which are destroying a culture.