Luminous Numinous

What is the relationship between shamanism and the numinous? What role do tryptamine-containing plant sacraments play in shamanism and how do these psychedelic substances help us to access our own inner divinity and to connect with the numinous Ground of All Being?  Was psychedelic shamanism the original way that our species connected to Gaia, to Spirit, to the vital force of the Earth and of the Cosmos? If so, is psychedelic shamanism an important pre-modern piece of the post-post modern Integral puzzle?  

I decided to sit down with the late, great Terence McKenna. I pored  over his books and constructed this posthumous Q & A. All of the “answers” to my questions are direct quotes taken from Terence’s books. References are included. Let us all be thankful that Terence was here with us today–in word and in Spirt.

LN: Does pre-modern shamanism really have any relevance in our post/modern world?

TM: The numinous motifs of shamanism can have relevance to modern humans…through understanding the fascinating and alien figure of the shaman, we can draw somewhat nearer to that numinous, archetypal living mystery that dwells within each of us. (IL, p.18)

LN: Shamanism seems a lot like mysticism in that the goal of each is to connect to the numinous within. How can the figure of the shaman help us to do this?

TM: The shaman is able to act as an intermediary between the society and the supernatural, or to put it in Jungian terms, he is an intermediary to the collective unconscious. Through the office of the shaman, the society at large is brought into close and frequent encounter with the numinous archetypal symbols of the collective unconscious. These symbols retain their numinosity, immediacy, and reality through their constant reaffirmation in shamanic ritual. (IL, 1975, p.12)

LN: The shaman is an artist insomuch as he’s a storyteller, he’s a healer insofar as he’s a psychotherapist, and he’s a priest because he brings people into contact with Spirit. Sounds like quite a bit to juggle. Who can become a shaman…what are the job qualifications?

TM: The shaman must indeed be possessed of of a superior flexibility and constitution, for not only must he attend to the needs of his patients in this world but he must also satisfy his spirits in the other. He is the technician of the numinous par excellence, and his vocation is a demanding one, consisting as it does of maintaining a constant equilibrium between ordinary reality and the supernatural realm. (IL, p.26)

LN: Getting back to the relevance of shamanism in the modern world, we have doctors and psychotherapists to heal us. Are there really ailments that a pre-modern shaman can address more effectively  than a modern psychiatrist? I mean, with all that we know about the physical mechanism of the brain, you’d think that we would be the happiest people in history, no?

TM: There appears to be occurring in modern life a progressive alienation from the numinous archetypal contents of the collective unconscious, which has engendered a gradually encroaching sense of collective despair and anxiety. (IL, p.16)

LN:  How exactly has this “progressive alienation from the numinous…” contributed to wide-scale fear and sadness in the human population?

TM: The alienation of modern humans from the numinous ground of their beings has engendered the existentialist ethic and the pre-occupation with the immediate historical situation.  Humans are regarded as leading a wholly profane existence within a wholly profane time, that is, within history; the reality of the sacred is denied or reduced to the level of psychology. In non-Western cultures, in “primitive” cultures particularly, humans are not conscious of living in historical time, but regard themselves as inhabiting a numinous sacral time. (IL, p. 17)

LN: So, specifically because he is a “primitive” or pre-modern figure, the shaman can bring our modern minds back into contact with ancient wisdom. It’s as though we have, in our ascent into modern and post-modern ideologies, thrown the pre-modern baby out with the bath water, right? So… while there are many important and valuable aspects of modernity, the fall into history and linear time–the “existential ethic” (the Orange vmeme?) has imprisoned us to an extent and shamans and shamanism can help us to make contact with “the kingdom of heaven,” with “dreamtime,” with eternity, which is not a really long period of time, but is actually a temporal dimension set apart from time entirely? Again, shamanism sounds a lot like mysticism in its philosophical premises. Terence, a lot has been said about the relationship between shamanism, psychedelics, and schizophrenia. Obviously you and your brother have a great deal of experience with the first two of these…What are your thoughts about the possible parallels?

TM: In each of these situations, experimental tryptamine psychosis and shamanic trance, what is involved are alterations and inhibitions of normal amine levels in the brain. The shaman manipulates this bizarre region for culturally valid reasons and with techniques of proven efficacy. The schizophrenic is an unwilling victim, a traveler through what, to him is a terrifying landscape.

LM: You say “the shaman manipulates this bizarre region for culturally valid reasons and with techniques of proven efficacy.”  It sounds like, in a sense, shamanism is a science. I wonder: is that how you and Dennis see yourselves…as shamanic scientists investigating shamanism and psychosis from the inside?

TM: Using analytical premises and…operational constructs, we [my brother and I] sought to carry ourselves, as modern humans, into the same numinous landscape [inhabited by shamans and schizophrenics] and to offer a report of interest to empirical investigators. (IL, p. 107)

LN: So you were rational about your sojourns into non-rational realms! I wonder how much of that was you attempting to culturally validate your proven, efficacious techniques…integrating pre-modern sacraments with modern rationalism. That brings up an interesting point. There is a lot of talk about being “integral” or “holistic” these days and there is a strong developmental-evolutionary current running through contemporary consciousness studies communities. Are we, in fact, evolving spiritually as a species….and if we are, what is the next step? How do we become “Integral” or “cosmo-centric”?

TM: The next step toward a planetary holism is the partial merging of the technologically transformed human world with the archaic matrix of the vegetable intelligence that is the Overmind of this planet. I hesitate to call this dawning awareness “religious,” yet that is surely what it is (AR, p. 136).

LN: So an important aspect of consciousness evolution will be integrating the positive aspects of the modern, industrial, technological world with certain truths of the primitive world–panpsychism, panvitalism, a connection to Gaia–via pre-modern or ancient techniques and methods. What, specifically would this involve?

TM: It will involve a full exploration of the dimensions revealed by plant hallucinogens, especially those structurally related to neurotransmitters already present in the brain. Careful exploration of the plant hallucinogens will probe the most archaic and sensitive level of the drama of the emergence of consciousness: the plant-human quasi-symbiotic relationship that characterized archaic society and religion and through which the numinous mystery was originally experienced (AR, p. 136).

LN: That’s interesting; you think that tryptamine alkaloids found in plant hallucinogens provided the initial impetus for the religious impulse…and you think they were responsible for the advent of human consciousness as such. That would mean that psychedelics are literally “second nature” to humans as a species. So, in part, what you are suggesting is that  perhaps what’s wrong with the modern world is not so much the existence or presence of technological advancements like nuclear energy…or television….or industrial agriculture,  which are often much maligned by retro-romantics, but the absence or lack of inclusion of ancient psychedelic plant “technologies,” which were used by aboriginal peoples circumglobally to connect to the numinous Overmind of Mother Nature?

TM: The abandonment of the original catalyst for the emergence of self-reflection and language, the  Stropharia cubensis psilocybin-containing mushroom, has been a process with…stages. Each stage represents a further dilution of awareness of the power and the numinous meaning resident in the mystery. (FOG, p. 121)

LN: I see.  When people stopped using ayahuasca, morning glories, moldy rye, mushrooms, and other tryptamine-rich plants as sacraments they lost their contact to the numinous, to the Divine Ground, to what you call the Overmind? It’s as though the development of the rational separate ego, marvelous and necessary as that evolutionary advancement is, has cut us off from non-rational, non-egoic, experiences of union. Well what exactly happens during a mystical or psychedelic or shamanic experience that corrects this?

TM: The Overmind breaks through the oppressive screen thrown around it and comes to meet the individual. It is like an interview with an angel or a demon. It is laden with intense psychological resonances for the person experiencing it; it is a profoundly numinous experience (AR, p. 65).

LN: But how can psychedelic experiences help people to make contact or re-connect with what is holy, sacred, or divine?  Wouldn’t it be much safer and more real to experience the divine through more traditional methods–through liturgies and rituals and sacraments that do not contain drugs? Aren’t psychedelic experiences just bizarre, subjective, hallucinatory, delusional states induced by intoxication?

TM: Certainly these states are strange–they are not mere phantasms drifting before our closed eyes, but complete immersions in higher topological manifolds and experiences potentially incomprehensible or frightening. Individuals may take power to themselves by boldly, even recklessly, exploring these dimensions. But even though these places are the heart and soul of shamanism, they are too numinous and energy-laden to be accessible through a tradition. Instead they must be personally discovered in the depths of the psychedelically intoxicated soul. (AR, p.136)

LN: Thank you, Terence, for  helping us to get a better  handle on the relationship between tryptamines, shamanism, and the numinous. May you frolic freely in “The Devil’s Paradise.”

(In references, “IL” is The Invisible Landscape; “FOG” is Food of the Gods; and  ”AR ” is The Archaic Revival.)

I would like to begin a new series of posts that looks at the issue of Ken Wilber, Integral (writ large), and the AQAL model from a perspective that both honors the brilliance of Wilber and his work, while also critically analyzing what needs to be refined, elaborated, fixed, or jettisoned as the integral community moves forward.

Ken will not be with us forever. When Ken has shuffled off the mortal coil of his earthly body, it will be up to us to decide how “his” ideas will evolve.

I don’t presume, by any means, to be the first person or for this to be the first website which attempts a balance or middle ground between Wilberphilia and Wilberphobia. In point of fact, I am quite sure that every site dedicated to Wilber and his work sees itself as fair and balanced. No doubt.

And yet, most of the sites, in the end, do tend to fall into one dualistic category or the other: those who think Wilber is wrong and those who think he is right.

What I would like to do here is create a forum for people across the spectrum to respectfully dialogue.

Because I am an Integral Psychology and Integral Theory student at John F. Kennedy University, I have the privilege of knowing a great many people who are familiar with Ken and his work. These people cover the entire spectrum from extreme Wilberphilia to extreme Wilberphobia.

But if we are, in the end, integralists, synthesizers, and integrators, then surely we must try to create a working synthesis of Wilberphilia and Wilberphobia. We must honor the truths evident in each perspective and work to create a meta-perspective that weaves these truths together. That is what Integral should be all about.

And so, rather than getting into all the muddy details myself, I would simply like to start with a few premises that I think are more or less given or self-evident. And then let’s collectively see where we go from there.

My first premise is that Wilber is necessary. To attempt to create an Integral philosophy that ignores or refutes Wilber’s work and ideas wholesale would be seriously misguided. There are simply too many treasures in the AQAL model for us to throw the baby out with the bathwater: the clarification of the differentiation between lines, levels, and states;  Integral Methodological Pluralism and the refinement of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person perspectives and  the novel introduction of  zones; and the differentiation between “pre-” and “trans-”  in terms of conventionality, rationality, archetypes, and absorption.

My second premise is that Wilber is insufficient. It is not enough to take Wilber’s ideas as gospel truth. If we are truly advocates of consciousness evolution, then clearly we must aim for a Trans-Wilberian perspective, a Post-Wilberian perspective–even if such a lofty goal is unattainable in the next, say, five minutes or so. It could and should be our eventual goal. Because brilliant though he is, I think we can all intuit that Ken has something less than the “complete package.”

Restated, my first premise is that a great deal of Wilber’s thinking must be included in any Trans-Wilberian model or system of Consciousness Studies.

My second premise could be reworded thus: Wilber’s work must be transcended. Evolution is not stagnant. The Cosmos is always in flux. Ken is a far cry from the end-all-be-all. He is neither alpha nor omega (though one gets the impression sometimes that he’d like us to believe otherwise). He is merely an interesting and beautiful stop on the road from non-verbal caveman to the angelic superhumans into which we can only hope Nature is evolving us.

The greatest homage we can pay to Ken is not to follow in his footsteps, but to seek what he sought. And on the other hand, the greatest defeat you could hand him would be to one-up him by fitting his ideas into an even more complete model.

So love him or hate him, your goal should be the same.

What would Ken Wilber do if he met Ken Wilber on the road? He would synthesize him. Just as he has with all of his heroes–Habermaas, Aurobindo, Baldwin, James, Watts, Maslow, etc.

And so let us do likewise.

Let us synthesize. Let us dialogue.

How is Wilber necessary? What must we include?

How is Wilber insufficient? What must we transcend?

On your marks, get set, go!

I was helping my friend Jolie, who is getting her MA in Philosophy from San Diego State, prepare for a paper and a presentation that she was working on. She asked me about the “problem of evil.” She wanted to know if I believed in “evil.” Is there such a thing? One of my (two) responses was that evil is a developmental issue. Using the chakras as developmental stage-structures, I argued that there are different perspectives on evil from each level as follows:

At the first Chakra, evil is anything that hurts or harms my physical body. If I have a headache, the headache is evil. If I am getting rained on and don’t like it, then the rain is evil.

At the second chakra, evil is anyone who has sex with (or tries to have sex with) my girlfriend/wife or boyfriend/husband. Evil is my sexual competitors.

At the third chakra, evil is anyone who has different membership values or explanatory myths than I. If I am Catholic, Protestants are evil. If I’m an Israeli, Palestinians are evil. If I’m a Democrat, then Republicans are evil. If I like the Lakers, then the Celtics are evil.

At the fourth chakra no ONE is evil. (Hitler needs a hug). Only power structures are evil; and they all are!

At the fifth chakra, evil is a linguistic construct that exists (only) in relation to other linguistic, cultural, and inter-subjective constructs.

At the 6th chakra, I can SEE (literally envision, but within my mind’s eye) that evil and good come from the same wellspring.

At the 7th chakra, evil IS good IS chaos is order is creator is creature/creation is evolution is destruction is Brahman, Buddhamind, Abraxis, is the I AM is the Clear Light is The Bright is the Luminous Numinous….all dualities collapse in the singularity of the Void.