(Photo by Ursula Noboa. Manu National Park, Cusco, Perú)
Introduction
The year is 2016 and I am compelled to write about ethics. There is something inside of me that burns with a curiosity and thirsts to know what actions and thoughts will help me, and other humans, be happy. This part of me wants to separate, categorize, judge. Better actions, better techniques, better humans, a better world. Something nicer for my eyes to see, more beautiful melodies for my ears to hear. This part of me urges me to be a light in the darkness, to exchange frowns for smiles, to favor and seek the truth over what is false… I allow this voice to have a say, and I listen… I have seen so much suffering, so much pain, so much darkness… I am sure that even if I do just a little bit to ease some of it, my soul will be able to rest. I will tackle the deepest questions of time and the answers I shall wield as darkness illuminating lightsabers... What a fulfilling story! What a noble endeavor! What a meaningful life…
I was born and raised in Peru, a very catholic country. There, ethics, morals, social expectations, values and rules of conduct play a very important role in the lives of people. The preoccupation with ideas of this nature inevitably creates a bridge from our culturally dependent subjectivity to equally culturally dependent spiritual realms. The nature of these spiritual realms rests upon the experiences and insights of mystics, prophets and various forms of incarnations of the divine. All are messengers, bringers of laws, paths and truths. Oh! What a blessing! I am not alone in my heart’s desire for peace on earth… interrupts my friend. But now I know that all messages are not the same, and all paths don’t lead to Rome, as I once thought. Some messages make my heart tremble, others make me want to rebel and with others, yes, there is some peace. Peace… what a concept. If only someone had the ingredients… If only the recipe were written somewhere. What a world would it be… If only we all did what the divinely inspired ones tell us to do. Right? There have certainly been many recipes written down, and many people continue to concoct new variations while others try to start from zero. But if something is clear to me it is that peace hasn’t been able to reign over war in our world, so I wonder if universal peace is actually the goal, our goal… God’s goal. With excitement and fear, I am inclined to think it’s not.
Of course there is a part of me that would like to bring an end to all my personal suffering, as well as the suffering of all beings, but as I let this feeling settle for a bit, a very boring image arises: How would life be with no struggles? Would there be nothing else to do but to chant praises in ode to God’s benevolence, compassion and love? Wouldn't this reality/creation look more like a drawing hanging from God's wall - a finished product - rather than a living show with no particular goal but to satisfy it's own desire for creativity. People have called this downplaying of the uncomfortableness of life in favor of warm and fuzzy feelings, “spiritual bypassing”. The awareness of this has become very important to me. I wonder if God wouldn't be a little sad if we favored positive over negative, beauty over ugliness, good over bad. Aren’t all of these God’s creations? Aren’t all of them equally necessary for the manifestation of reality as it is divinely intended? But still, we pass judgement, we categorize, we use hierarchies, all in what could be seen from the outside as a bunch of ungrateful creatures complaining about half of what has been freely given to them.
A brief overview of participatory philosophy
In the present moment, I find that the participatory approach proposed by Jorge Ferrer offers some interesting insights into these dilemmas. Also, it is my personal opinion that a participatory philosophy offers us a fair ground upon which we explore the meanings and roles of mystical experiences, and particularly for this paper, those facilitated by entheogenic substances. In explaining the basis of participatory philosophy, Ferrer (2009) mentions that “different spiritual ultimates can be cocreated through intentional or spontaneous participation in a dynamic and undetermined mystery, spiritual power, and/or generative force of life or reality” (p.142). This shows Ferrer’s clear intention to propose an alternative to the traditional perennialist stance, which is based on the idea of a single ultimate truth or reality that is accessible through many different paths. A deciding issue with perennialism to me, is that it lays the foundation for an understanding of reality and spirituality in a hierarchical manner. Here I must stop and try to stay on track for there can be and has already been ample debate on the topic of participatory philosophy versus perennialism and similar proposals, like Ken Wilber’s model (Ferrer, 2011).
The entheogenic path
What is significant for this paper, is that in cultures where entheogens are not common, mystical experiences are found mostly in religious texts about the lives of mystics, who usually only experience them after long periods of intense spiritual practice and devotion. On the contrary, “the psychedelic path, while much more intense than many other disciplines is in a sense easier because it often provides an earlier and more profound contact with the numinous” (Stolaroff, 1993, p. 30). I think it very important to consider the implications of what we mean by a “psychedelic/entheogenic path”. First, if we are talking about a “path”, it means that it is leading us somewhere. This “somewhere”, as I have briefly mentioned above, can be substantially different, and the factors influencing the differences between these “goal states” are mostly cultural. For example, Clarke (1994) contrasts Jung’s concept of individuation with the goals of predominant eastern traditions:
The Hindu concept of moksa means the final liberation from all worldly bonds, from death and the cycle of rebirth through union with Brahman. The Buddhist concept of nirvana similarly implies the release from the wheel of rebirth and freedom from attachment to illusions and desires. In contrast with this, Jung distanced himself from any concept of ultimate perfection or release, for, as he put it, ‘complete liberation means death’. The path of individuation, though parallel in some respects to the path that leads to moksa or nirvana, differs in at least one fundamental respect: no ultimate perfection is possible for man. (p.76)
It is important to point out how Clarke uses the word “similarly” to talk about mokśa and nirvana, for they are actually quite different. In Buddhism, due to the teaching of anātmā or “no self”, there is really nobody who attains nirvana in the end. Advaita, on the other hand recognizes the personal soul or atman as being one and the same with Brahman, the all-pervading infinite and non-dual conscious being which all beings essentially are.
As a second point concerning the entheogenic path, I think it’s important to talk about two qualities that are certainly aiding in the popularization of entheogenic shamanism in the west. As has been cited, Stolaroff describes the psychedelic path as “easier” and “more intense”; one can only assume that he is contrasting it with more traditional spiritual paths, but it is once one starts getting into the specifics of these claims that the problems and loose ends start to become evident. Tart (2001) mentions that “entheogens don’t automatically guarantee an entheogenic experience. They don’t automatically guarantee growth or love or light or revelation. They can be used in the service of other systems, and used in a very nasty kind of way” (p.53). So, one issue to me, is the difficulty to demarcate the limits of an entheogenic path, given that most entheogenic plants have traditionally been used by specific cultures with very particular cosmovisions stemming out of their intimate relationships with these “plant teachers”.
Dobkin de Rios (1972) gives the example that “it is quite interesting to note how much such ‘bad trips’ can be minimized or controlled by healing techniques when the presence of a belief system sets such activity within an ongoing magical framework” (p.79). As westerners, we surely can’t escape being influenced by our own containing myth when it comes to our expectations and interpretations of entheogenic experiences. This can create an ideological incompatibility between western participants in shamanic rituals and the cultures for whom these plants and rituals are native to. A clear example of this is evident if we consider, like Luna (1986) describes, that
for the mestizo population of the Peruvian Amazon, especially in the rural areas, the universe is inhabited by a host of spirits dwelling in the air, the water and the jungle, which together with the world occupied by human beings, constitute the four worlds of which the universe is composed (cf. Regan 1983:I:146). The spiritual world is seen basically as hostile to human beings. Only experienced vegetalistas are able to relate to these spirits in such a way as to derive benefits from them. (p.120)
This animistic cosmovision clearly differs substantially from the western containing myth, which is still largely influenced by Judeo-Christian symbols and ideas of the order of reality. It is important here to bring to attention the complexity of the Amazonian cosmovision, which excluding a few remaining indigenous tribal groups, has allowed for an interesting and complex symbiosis of native and Christian elements. Nevertheless, the cultural differences significantly alter the understanding of the etiology of illness from more “developed” cultures to that found in “developing” ones. Fotiou (2012) mentions that
Peruvian externalizing explanatory models place the cause of a patient’s problem outside of themselves and treatment requires manipulation of forces external to the patient (…). Sorcery or spirits can be responsible for disease, and ayahuasqueros manipulate these forces and treat external cosmological as well as social problems. (p.7)
On the other hand, Westerners tended to seek the source, as well as the solution to their problems, inside of themselves (…) indeed, many Westerners that seek ayahuasca today do so for psychological healing. (p.8)
Comparing the intentions and motivations that drive people to use entheogens from the originary cultures with those of people from external cultures is to me worth looking into. In his book about his ordeal and experience with the Huni Kui tribe in the Amazon rainforest, Manuel Córdova-Rios describes how ayahuasca is used primarily as a directive of tribal life. Understanding the cycles of the seasons and their effects on agriculture, learning about better hunting grounds, practical animal and plant knowledge, sociopolitical and issues of tribal defense, etc.; all of these play a very important role in the very survival of the tribe in the jungle environment, and the entheogenic ritual with ayahuasca is seen as the facilitator of this important knowledge (Córdova-Rios & Lamb, 1971). Curiously, tribes like the Huni Kui, who have depended on ayahuasca for their survival for generations, live by a very distinct ethics than what could be considered ideal or even acceptable in the west. Córdova-Rios and Lamb (1971) describe how the Huni Kui accept jealousy, vengeance, murder, violence, cannibalism, patriarchy, sexism, and other questionable practices as part of their societal manifestations.
Based on this particular example, we could say that the entheogenic experience facilitated by ayahuasca doesn’t necessarily impose or even offer a culturally independent ethics. To be more precise, killing for vengeance is accepted in tribal communities, when in the west it is seen as a clear transgression of the moral values of our society and hardly a desirable practice in the context of spiritual development. This creates a problem when we talk about an “entheogenic path”, for it seems to imply that entheogens offer us humans access to an objective and culturally independent ethics which, if followed, represents an advancement in our integral development. This way of understanding the numinous experiences offered by entheogens and other shamanic practices would easily fit into a perennialist paradigm, where a transcendent and objective ultimate can be accessed through various ways. This can easily generate a valorization of spiritual practices and traditions from their efficacy in making available this ultimate truth to their followers. Those that don’t grant their followers an effective access to the “ultimate truth” can be judged as inferior, or even false, and we all know where that could lead - fundamentalism as a cause for violence, wars and other countless atrocities in the name of God. Znamenski (2007) cites Jonathan Horowitz - one of Michael Harner’s students - about ‘core shamanism’, that “the varnish of culture is skin deep. These ancient methods lead directly into our innermost world, to the archaic layer which is common to all people” (p.238).
To me, this is a naïve way of understanding our psychological dynamics and how we relate as humans with any sort of experience, be it mystical or ordinary. Entheogenic, from Greek origin, means that ingestion of these plants produce an experience of the divine within. This is certainly an exciting idea but I can’t help but think of Jung’s famous quote that “it is a psychological rule that the brighter the light, the darker the shadow”. This is especially a delicate issue, for the ways we understand divinity can take many forms. Shanon (2002), in his attempt to chart the phenomenology of the ayahuasca experience, concludes, in line with the participatory proposal, that
the cross-personal commonalities exhibited in Ayahuasca visions, the wondrous scenarios revealed by them, and the insights gained through them are perhaps neither just psychological, nor just reflective of other realms, nor are they ‘merely’ a creation of the human mind. Rather, they might be psychological and creative and real. (p.401)
Continuing with this argument, Ferrer (2011) then mentions that “cocreated spiritual realities: (a) can become ontologically ‘given’ in the cosmos; (b) are not fixed but are dynamic and open to human participatory endeavors; (c) are not mandatory; and (d) are always options among other new pathways that can be potentially enacted” (p.12). If one adheres to such a scenario, then the complexity of the implications of entheogens and their potential to serve as aides in our development as individuals, or even as a species, grows exponentially. What is relevant for this paper, however, is the relationship of ethics and the use of entheogens.
As has been explained before, it is my hypothesis that entheogens don’t impose a particular ethics on participants of these types of shamanic rituals. The issue becomes complex when supporters of entheogenic shamanism lightly try to describe the entheogenic experience. For example, Walter and Neumann Fridman (2010) mention that “the ingestion of entheogens makes the celebrant consubstantial with the deity, providing a communion and shared existence mediating between the human and the Divine” (p.111). The authors continue saying that “this ecstatic experience is interpreted as a pure and primal Consciousness, which brings the individual into direct contact with the root of being” (p.112). At first glance, this sounds like the Holy Grail, but these to me are also bold and somewhat irresponsible claims. First, when we tell people that an entheogen will put them in direct contact with ‘the deity’, this deity will, under a participatory lens, be a manifestation of the participants’ own culturally dependent understanding of ‘the deity’, plus whichever ‘personal’ manifestation the entheogen decides to reveal this particular time. This means that an entheogenic experience can offer an alternate cosmological symbolism to our very own, but it will also by no means bypass our personal subjectivity. Tart (2001) explains this his from his point of view:
I have tremendous respect for the revelations, visions, whatever you want to call them, that can occur with the use of entheogens. I also feel it’s essential to practice humility about them. Revelation may come from the highest possible source, but I’m the one hearing it, I’m the one putting it into my memory, I’m the one unknowingly working it over with my belief system. (p.53)
Thus, a ‘direct contact’ with a deity that is considered vengeful or judgmental could end up being a frightful or shameful experience. On the other hand, a direct encounter with a god that is deemed loving and compassionate could serve as a masking agent on our shadow material. This is not to say that entheogenic experiences are negative or have no value at all. On the contrary, I think that, like Tupper (2002) says, they have a lot of “power and capacity as tools. Just as a sharp knife can be used for good or ill, depending on whether it is in the hands of a skilled surgeon or a reckless youth, so too can entheogens be used or misused” (p.510). This distinction between entheogens as tools and them as revealers of the ultimate truth is to me essential to a correct approach to their use. As a second important response to Walter and Neumann Fridman’s claims I wish to address the already exposed idea that an entheogenic experience can bring “the individual into direct contact with the root of being”. I definitely understand the lure to support claims of this nature, for many of the most respected shamans have described similar experiences. Estrada (1981) records María Sabina’s words as she says: “the mushrooms give me the power of universal contemplation. I can see from the origin. I can arrive where the world is born” (p. 56). This is a delicate subject, and claims like these shouldn’t be taken lightly. The dissection of the depth and metaphysical implications of this is beyond the scope of this paper, but nevertheless I feel compelled to comment from my own questions and in light of a participatory framework.
Metzner (1998) mentions that use of psychedelics grants us “access to transcendent, religious or transpersonal dimensions of consciousness” (p.336). Peluso (2014) supports this idea when she says that “a person’s behavior in ayahuasca visions is not considered to be exclusively hallucinatory, but rather a crossing over of one’s self from one reality to another – realities that have implicit effects on one another” (p.234). I think the key here is the use of the word ‘self’. When we refer to who is actually granted access to other dimensions or realities, the answer will surely always be: me, you and whoever has these experiences. There is an undeniably personal character to any sort of experiences that we have, be them mystical or ordinary. It is our ego that experiences divinity, communion and other descriptors of the numinous. Carl Jung was an adamant defender of the necessity of striving for balance between our ego and the ‘Self’. “He says that without the ego or ahamkara, there is nothing to register what is happening (…). There must be a balance between the goal of self as final goal (entelechy of the self) and the ego” (Friesen, 2005, pp. 18-20). Ferrer (2009) clarifies potential conceptual misunderstandings as he describes this from a participatory perspective:
it is important to sharply distinguish between the modern hyper-individualistic mental ego and the participatory selfhood forged in the sacred fire of spiritual individuation. Whereas the disembodied modern self is plagued by alienation, dissociation, and narcissism, a spiritually individuated person has an embodied, integrated, connected, and permeable identity whose high degree of differentiation, far from being isolating, actually allows him or her to enter into a deeply conscious communion with others, nature, and the multidimensional cosmos. (p.146)
With this in mind, I wonder if whether from our divinely gifted selfhood we can actually experience the ‘root of being’ or ‘universal contemplation’ without necessarily having to surrender our individuality as a prerequisite. Is a complete dissolution of our individuality even possible? Is such an attempt something desirable? If we think of any sort of mystical experience, no matter how expansive and blissful it is, this doesn’t stop it from being anything but an experience. Its truth and real existence are limited on both sides (beginning and end) by this, our ordinary and time-space bound reality. At the same time, because this experience is dependent on our individual ego to be registered, the claim that we can actually elevate ourselves from the matrix of reality(ies) and have a complete, unbiased and objective “view” of all creation while claiming that it is us to whom it happened sounds to me a little arrogant. Whether something akin to this is possible in death surely escapes any effort from my part, and frankly nor does it interest me for the time being. There is something about my present condition, about the gift of my subjectivity, that seeking to do away with it sounds like an ungrateful stance to God’s most precious gift to us.
Another issue about to the nature of the entheogenic experience in regards to whether it grants us access to a transcendent ultimate, is the much discussed “personal qualities” that many agree that entheogens possess. Peluso (2014) mentions that “Amazonians take great precautions to abide by notions set forth by animal and plant personhood (…). The ayahuasca vine is widely recognized as being a female spirit and, in relation to shamans-in-training, is often referred to as being ‘jealous’” (p.236). Without going into a description of plant-spirit character, what matters here is that I understand entheogenic experiences as inherently relational. Whichever the plant-spirit with whom we enter into relationship with, this dynamic will inevitably be affected by our own individuality and the particular way that the plant-teacher manifests in the encounter. In comparison to a human-human interaction, in a human-plant interaction, only the quality of the interaction changes, and not the nature of it. In other words, it is still an interaction. Since it doesn’t cease to be an interaction, the knowledge and experiences shared can only be an intersubjective phenomenon between plant-spirit and human and not a direct experience of the whole of creation.
Ethics in entheogenic shamanism
Lastly, and going back to the subject of ethics in entheogenic shamanism from a participatory perspective, I wish to talk about relying on entheogens as something from which to derive an ethical code. I am inclined to think that we cannot do so. Peluso (2014) describes that “shamans using their special status to exploit women in a state of vulnerability within the ayahuasca ritual and its ceremonial spaces is part of a broader trend of South American-based men who prey on female tourists by using the currency of cultural legitimacy” (p.249). The simple fact that more use of entheogens doesn’t equate with more spiritually or ethically developed humans is the basis of my worry about an entheogenic path as a substitute for other traditional spiritual paths. Stolaroff (1993) points out the importance of an “ongoing discipline” and says that “experts in the field now generally agree that it is wise to conduct psychedelic explorations within the framework of a spiritual discipline or growth program that will continually call attention to fundamental values and goals” (p.28). To me, these values and goals are of great importance, and I am curious about their source.
A participatory framework falls short here in that it refrains from talking about a universal ethics as it nobly tries to validate the multiplicity of human manifestations and approaches to daily life and spirituality. It is exactly the relational quality of our reality which asks for the drawing of ethical lines that can be shared by all humans (if not also all beings) and respond to the universal desire to self-actualize. I argue that these lines are not to be found outside of us, in any relationship with an other, be it spirit or human, but that the source of ethics is to be found in the honest relationship with that which is closest and dearest to all: our Self. Only once we favor and honor our ever-present condition - with all its lights and shadows - over any image, symbol, idea or experience that takes us away from the richness of this meaningful “ordinary” state, can our daily lives become an entheogenic experience that can be shared with others as such.
References
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Córdova-Rios, M., & Lamb, F. B. (1971). Wizard of the upper Amazon. New York: Atheneum.
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