The Psychedelic Renaissance
Images: Maria Sabina (Mazatec curandera) by Timothy White; Mestre Irineu Serra (founder of the Santo Daime), artist unknown
With all the talk of a “psychedelic renaissance” (spurred on by books like Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind and the recent Johns-Hopkins psilocybin study with clergy), I’ve been pondering the use of entheogenic plant medicines and their place on the spiritual path. Increasingly, a new wave of spiritual seekers, as well as people in search of healing (from PTSD, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, etc.), are turning to psychedelics. Based on conversations with colleagues (and my own experience), as this trend grows, clergy and spiritual directors are being increasingly approached by those they serve with questions—arising from their interest/curiosity in exploring psychedelics or from their own first-hand experiences (and often the resulting need for integration). What’s clear to me is that this trend is not going to show any sign of slowing over the coming years, and that clergy need to be ready to respond in ways that are nuanced, sensitive, and informed. And we’re certainly not being prepared for this by seminaries!
What’s a priest to make of it all? Are psychedelics dangerous? A spiritual cheat? A helpful catalyst for the journey? Allies in healing? So, full disclosure on my part: I have experienced work with both ayahuasca and psilocybin in traditional religious contexts—the Santo Daime and Umbandaime traditions from Brazil (which work with ayahuasca, called “Daime”) and the Mazatec tradition from Oaxaca, Mexico (which works with psilocybin mushrooms, called Los Niños Santos, “The Little Saints”). These are both syncretic traditions that work with plant medicines sacramentally, blending Christian and indigenous ritual and worldviews (for example, ceremonies in both traditions included praying the Our Father and Hail Mary, often in the context of the Rosary, singing hymns with Christian themes, etc.). While this work has not been a primary part of my path, I'm profoundly grateful to have experienced these medicines in the context of worship and ceremony, and I also recognize in the shamanic element of these traditions something that often seems much closer to Jesus the visionary-healer, so deeply in touch with the Spirit-world, who I encounter in the pages of the New Testament. As someone also rooted in Islamic Sufi spirituality, which eschews the use of intoxicants on the spiritual path, it’s become clear to me that these substances, when used ceremonially in traditional medicine contexts, are of a different class and order than, say, alcohol, and should not be automatically labeled haram simply because they have consciousness-altering effects.
What I’ve found in both the Daime and Mazatec traditions is a knowledgeable, respectful, and sacred use of these plants, held in the context of lineage, tradition, eldership, and prayer. As sacred medicines, they are not approached recreationally, haphazardly, or lightly, but with deep intention and reverence. These traditions convinced me that work with plant medicines can be a valid and authentic part of a spiritual path, and that these plants have profound teaching and healing abilities. I also found that both provoked spiritual insights and lessons that I had already experienced in my own contemplative journey through my daily prayer practices (related, for example, to surrender, humility, nonjudgment, forgiveness, the interconnection of all life, etc.)—although in the medicine context those lessons tended to come in a concentrated and/or accelerated way. These medicines clearly have the potential to open people to unitive states and experiences that very much resemble the terrain explored by classical religious mysticism and contemplative prayer; as one clergy colleague said to me recently, “Before mushrooms, I intellectually believed I was ‘one with everything,’ but now I know I am one with everything.”
What to make of this? Some spiritual teachers have written off spiritual awakening through entheogens as “cheating” or a “shortcut” (cast in a negative light). Increasingly though, I’ve come to think of such a perspective as rooted in human hubris and anthropocentricity—basically, a kind of capitalist, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality that fails to acknowledge that we live in an utterly interwoven web of life, that we are each intimately supported by an entire ecosystem, and that none of us do or achieve anything by ourselves. We are all held up by others—human, animal, and plant. Ultimately, the desire to say, “Well, I got there without the help of a plant!” seems like just one more ego-grab. (And heck, just maybe, the plants actually want to help us—maybe they’re invested in the survival of the planet just as much as we are, and are attempting to ally with humanity in our awakening before it’s too late.)
For a person who has never experienced the overwhelming love of God, and perhaps has built up a strong wall of resistance to that experience, I see how these medicines have the potential to bring those walls down and catalyze a transformative journey. I am grateful to have known that kind of experience in my own prayer (sometimes overwhelmed by it to the point of tears). So, when I experienced the same thing while working with sacred plants, I recognized an experience I already intimately knew. And because of the order of those experiences, it was obvious to me that plants aren’t necessary to “get there.” But I also saw that they can get people there—and I see how, at this crucial moment in the life of the planet, we may not have time to get everyone there by having them first put in twenty years on the meditation cushion! If the plants want to help, I say let them.
My own experiences with plant medicines have led me to believe that they hold a valid, and perhaps needed, place in the spiritual landscape. I also see that they are not magic bullets, but need to be coupled with regular spiritual practice, mentorship, and community—and in the contexts in which I’ve experienced them, they are. That, I think, has often been lacking in the usual Western (non-indigenous) dallying with these substances. The lessons learned in a medicine setting have to be integrated into daily life in a stable, human way; seeing is rarely arriving. What's seen in the medicine is a starting point, something to live out of and work towards. A contemplative practice and grounded spiritual community go a long way in making that work both practical and possible.
I get that the kinds of experiences I’m describing are far from what comes to mind for many people when they hear the word “psychedelics.” They more likely think of “party drugs” and people recreationally “tripping” outside of any sacred context or container. And it does seem to me that there are “higher” and “lower” uses of these substances, and that they can and often are used for lesser purposes than are possible. Having experienced them in traditional, sacred contexts, I’m admittedly saddened to think of them used without those high intentions (and that includes pharmaceutical companies trying to use them for profit, which is probably a greater sacrilege than college students using them naively in a dorm room). Even then, however, they are non-addictive substances, and, in fact, many of them have the power to break addictive habits and patterns—and stories of “recreational” psychedelic-use becoming an unexpected and life-changing agent of grace do abound. That said, they need to be used safely, and are not without any dangers. But the dangers and deaths associated with the pharmaceutical industry are far higher.
So, ultimately, I see the overall movement towards the reevaluation and decriminalization/legalization of psychedelics/entheogens/plant medicines as an overwhelmingly positive one. Both inside and outside of the sacred context, I’ve seen firsthand the healing that can come from these medicines when used carefully and intentionally. I’ve known multiple people who have found healing from depression through microdosing (or macrodosing a few times a year) psilocybin mushrooms, sometimes coupled with therapy and/or a meditation practice. I’ve also known folks who have found similar healing from working with ayahuasca. These are people who no longer need daily pharmaceutical antidepressants to survive and function in the world (sometimes after having been dependent on them for years). That’s huge.
More than that, psychedelics can promote and catalyze actual healing, while antidepressants are mostly about maintaining. And don’t get me wrong—antidepressants can save lives, but on their own, they mostly address surface symptoms, not underlying issues (ideally, that work is done in therapy, coupled with the antidepressants). Psychedelics, however, have the ability to bring up fragmented aspects of the psyche, hidden parts of our egos, our shadow, and move them towards integration. They can also open a person to levels of selfhood (beyond ego/mind/body) and experiences of love, meaning, and beauty that allow old emotional baggage to be released like clouds dissolving in sunlight. With that kind of healing, certain symptoms can be resolved, rather than suppressed. In addition, these medicines open windows of neuroplasticity in which the release of old habits and conditioning and the development of new, healthier patterns of behavior becomes more easily possible.
And, of course, healing and spiritual awakening go hand in hand. The spiritual journey is not separate from the healing journey. Much of the spiritual work of this moment (well, all moments) is healing work. We are all carrying deep wounding—ancestral wounding, passed down through epigenetic memory in our bodies; emotional and psychological wounding from simply living in the world; and the deep trauma we all share from life in these pandemic years, during a time of deep cultural and political polarization and ecological collapse. People need to know themselves again as souls—not simply ideologies, categories of thought, or collections of wounds. We need to ease the psychic contraction in the atmosphere all around us. And that’s the work of prayer, contemplative practice, and, yes, sacred plant medicines. And we need all the allies we can get right now.
I feel compelled to write this, and to share a bit of my own personal experience, because the stigma around these sacred medicines needs to go. We are at a moment of cultural opening where that possibility seems to be happening, and for that I am grateful. But at the same time, this moment also needs to be engaged carefully, skillfully, ecologically and spiritually—we can’t let it be owned and controlled by capitalism, corporations, and the pharmaceutical industry. We need to turn to the sacred lineages that have held these medicines in trust, and who know how to use them wisely. These are not just “drugs” to be powdered and prescribed. They are sacred processes, and there are generations of elders and communities who hold wisdom about the journeys and healing they make possible—and it goes well beyond what our reductionist, materialist worldview can imagine.
