The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action

Hey all, happy new year! Now back to the ever growing process of understanding this wierd thing we call Reality...Scotto, thanks for engaging in this crux discussion on the significance of the psychedelic. First a comment on your comment: dont you think the subjective 'delusional psychosis' of an individual, currently that of George Bush (as an ex.) is shaping social/ cultural dynamics in a big way? And if we are talking about subjective delusions, I personally would rather follow, say Terrence Mckenna's or Leary's for that matter, then that of most world politicians. As wild as these psychonauts claims were, they fundamentally included the notion of love; something vastly lacking in 90% of our world leaders whose subjective delusions we are, militarily, forced to follow.
On the individual level, but of course our individual experiences shape our reality....what else if not?? (I suppose there are all those mindless sheep shopping at Wal-Mart, but we are talking about consciousness here.)
Back to the discussion initiated by Kent. The experiences derived by the psychedelic ingestion ARE transformative; period....just read the literature...even the freak-outs are transformative. Now what is it that transforms, seems to be in question. The label seems somewhat irrelevant as I write this, but if engaged as if an Other (spirit world, aliens, whatever) there is an inherent depth and dynamism that just isn't there when reduced to mere neurological fireworks. I appreciate your (Scotto) humor and light making of the spychedelic trip, a la "Tales from the Tripzine," but after laughing my ass off I am left with a feeling that you and your team trivialize the experience with a somewhat adolescent attitude of "oh, I'm tripping dude, I'm so loaded, look at the pretty colors...hehe.." which was the case in the earlier experiments...but as the use of these tools began to reveal deeper aspects of our psyche, the experiences were spiritual in the truest sense of what that could mean for a human. I have noticed some rideculing of some current authors, such as Pinchbeck, only backed up by the growing neurosciences....I think the most valuable approach is the integral and non-dual...both neuroscience AND indweling spirit forces, for the inner dimensions of subjective experience of inner realities can never, I dare say, be reduced to mere materiality. I think in the internal realms we access spaces that lie outside of language, so in the depths of the experience, what you say about it is NOT it. Whether you call it iteration feedback loops in the temporal lobe or dancing with the Hyper-elves, the experience itself transcends both of those wordings. Psychedelics show us that our awareness can function in vastly different domains of experience which simply transcend any type of verbage we choose to overlay on it. And if you look at the brain during the trip, of course you'll find neurotransmiiters and electric wave patterns....but ask the explorer and the info may even challenge the consensus reality tunnels we so happily accept as real.....what do we really know anyways..

At first I did not see where James Kent were at when I read this text. Well after it has settled in my mind for some time, it makes sense.

If I want to invoke spirits, I can do this with various rituals. But as I do this, it is only a part of my mind that represents this spirit. I make the spirit conscious through my own mind, it is a part of my own mind. Like a child making its teddy bear conscious and communicating with it. The spirit of the teddy bear doesen't exist when it's at the factory, but the mind make it real. The spirit of the teddy bear is only an aspect of the childs own mind.

To me it seems like the whole existance is a reflection of the mind, each cloud in the sky, each person in my life, each situation i am at, is a reflection of my current situation of mind. I have been at a place this fall where i have "seen" spirits shaking the trees, and doing all sorts of weird shit. But I guess, when i sum it all up, it is only parts of my mind entertaining my imagination.

I would indeed still see DMT as the spirit molecule. The first time i smoked DMT, I saw this spirit as I have seen it several times before. It is this vast being, creator of all, punisher of all. And when i sum it all up, it is my own mind, my own self, even if not all action is fully conscious (well I guess it is all conscious, but its not allways that easy to understand).

We are the creators of our own realities.

"The Mind is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."

geneall offers some nice points, but:

in the final analysis, the personal revelation is the only thing that fully matters at the subjective and social level

Nice try, but especially at the social level, that's just not true. You might be able to regulate your experience of the world such that personal revelation rules your own reality, I suppose, but at that point, you have to start giving as much credit to delusional psychosis as you do to psychedelic revelation, and at the social level, I'm not jumping on that train myself.

In reading James Kent’s deconstruction of millenia old beliefs, it occurs to me that there are a couple of basic assumptions that he is making that are grounded in a materialistic paradigm that prides itself in dualistically, if not arrogantly, claiming what is real and what is not. I am not sure if he is disputing the existence of a spirit realm period, or just the psychedelic access. Either way, the only evidence against it is but the empirical observations of brains in psychedelic states, and the inability to register these ‘spiritual frequencies’ through technological instruments. Sure, all you see are excited neural circuits when you peer into the tripping brain, but to reduce the experience to simple neural fireworks simply does not hold in relation to the breathless visual vistas being observed by the explorer . These experiences transform lives, period. There is evidence for this agnosium…and in the final analysis, the personal revelation is the only thing that fully matters at the subjective and social level.
It is also clear that existence has an internal, subjective dimension that is systematically studied by the inner sciences of mysticism and shamanism, and an objective external empirical expression that is studied by our modern empirical sciences…to reduce one to the other flattens and unnecessarily limits our understanding of reality. In saying that the psychedelic visions are imaginal in nature to me is synonymous to saying that they are spiritual. What’s the difference other then semantics? This I believe is a useless distinction. Whether talking about the imaginal realm, the spirit realm, or dream time, the laws of strict duality dissolve, and the universe becomes much more quantum in nature. Meaning that the relationship between observer and observed become much deeper and interconnected. What is the spirit realm made out of? Consciousness of course, as is physical reality; both inner and outer realm experiences being expressed neurologically and neurochemically. In this area it becomes useless to speak in either/ or terms, requiring a more non-dual awareness to fully grasp what is going on. The most interesting and mysterious aspect of existence is our direct moment to moment experience, whether in 3-D space, or inner space (which is verbally expressed as spirit realm, hyperspace, or astral realm).
The Tibetan Bardos are a good example….you meet the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities (these monks did not use psychedelics to access the bardos, by the way), beings that are according to them both autonomous AND emanations of mind. In a dream there are other beings one interacts with, but simultaneously being projections of the one dreaming consciousness. And if our mind is in fact the fractal product of the One Universal Mind, when we meet another human being, they are both, quantumly simultaneously autonomous entities (particle), AND other aspects of our Self (wave)!
So, if we are to continue extracting wisdom and information from our inner being, we need language that allows for deeper engagement. To just flatten it to neural fireworks and rambling imaginal images disconnected from anything that is “real,” seems like an intellectual dead end to me. Yes, don’t take the elves so seriously, and then again don’t take your beliefs in science that seriously either…..how it applies to your day to day subjective experience of life is a richer question…. And an integral exploration of the entire spectrum of experience in what ever way it expresses itself, hyper-elves and all, is I believe the most Tantric and potential saturated path to take….loving every quantum bit.
With Total Love,
Geneall

After reading just the blurb, i was somewhat offended by the conclusion it reached. Now, after reading the PIT article, as well as the dosenation reply and comments, I have come to the conclusion that I agree. The main idea I think is that by attributing insights and experiences to external sources, we may cheapen them, or lose the point of the information, and worship the external source. This does not mean that no spiritual entities exist, but only that supposing the psychedelic experience is a link to some external worship-worthy source, when in fact, the experience is internal, is counter productive from a scientific standpoint. Now, the experiences, which seem real at the time, from what i can tell, are something like a dream, but with more 'distortion effects' caused by drugs altering the electrical activity in the brain.

Perhaps it might help to explain that the world you know doesn't exist to anyone else. It is a construct created by your brain to allow you to survive in the 'real' world(whatever that is). So what appears as a distortion to 'the world', is in fact, a distortion of your perception of reality. So that chair isn't really an avator of god capable of transforming into an angel, that's you doing some creative dreaming over distorted perceptions. The brain is capable of amazing pattern recognition.

I do not suppose that no god exists, only that if one exists, it certainly seems to prefer if we acted like it didn't, and take care of ourselves and each other. To dwell on the source rather than the insight is to lose the insight altogether. We can't be guaranteed existence beyond this life.

That said, the experiences are often terrifying and great, and we should still share them and even our interpretations, if for no other reason, for the sheer entertainment value. Who doesn't want to hear about the time you turned into a puddle, or the time you held on to the guard rail to keep from getting sucked into the sky. It's like a crazy dream. Why don't we go with that, and keep dreaming. Enjoy it for what it is.

it's no secret that human spirituality and altered-states of the psychedelic nature are inherently intertwined. from the eleusian mysteries and kykeon, to ska maria pastora. for the most part, I'm inclined to believe the spiritual visions are mental constructs, however, the mind also acts as a receiver of electromagnetic information. under the influence of certain ligands, percetual "distortions" resonate with frequencies not typically observed in 'normal' states. there is no tangible way to test for the existence of paranormal anomalies, but that's not to say there never will be. I'm agnostic on the matter.

This sort of thing seems to happen a lot in various fields. People find a model of something that works pretty well for a large dataset (capitalism, string theory, MRIs, any given religion, etc), and after a while they start to believe that the model is a right and true reflection of reality. As you say, a spiritual theory of psychedelics is not without value or merit, but it's still just one interpretation.

"When we designate psychedelic content as spiritual in origin we dismiss the wondrous capacity of the human imagination."

This seems ridiculous to me. I take issue with some of the ideas expressed in Psychedelic Information Theory - particularly with the voracity in which the counter arguments are criticized. Why does one view of the psychedelic experience (ie the spiritual) have to be demolished & almost mocked ("It Has To Stop", "Let It Go", etc) in order for the other to be explored? We can learn much & appreciate the experience via both these interpretations. I personally celebrate the wonderous capacity of the human imagination, but I've also had *profoundly* spiritual experiences. I'm not cheapening anything by thinking of these trips in spiritual terms, and I don't like blanket dismissal of these matters because they lack a rational base to view them from. Especially when viewed in the glow of 20,000 years of rich, shamanic exploration of these territories.

A lot of us have had extensive psychedelic experience, and a lot of us have explored these issues up and down and so forth. I'd prefer to see a more balanced exploration, in light of the undeniable fact that (and this is the crux of the issue) all we have to go on is our own personal experience. There seem to be no overarching truths in these areas, except for personal ones. Personal experiences and interpretations.

The jist of P.I.T seems to me to be an unflinching focus on the rational and materialistic side of psychedelics, and damn the rest, get your head out of the clouds, stop deluding yourselves, etc. I'm exaggerating of course, but, come on, man. Their "true function" is a personal thing for each individual tripper. Just because you personally can't relate to the mystical, spiritual interpretations doesn't preclude them from shaping other peoples lives, or from being a valid way of looking at the matter.

This ain't personal - I'm a big fan of Tripzine, etc. I just can't really resonate with the James Kent reality tunnel when it comes to psychedelic interpretation. ;)

"The psychedelic space is not autonomous, it is a reflection of who we are."

Exactly!