"Our knowledge of how quantum mechanics works with state vector
collapse on observation ties in with a quantum mechanical picture of
consciousness, consciousness arising out of the very observer-dependent
processes that go on in the brain as they do in the laboratories of
physicists, in the hearts of atoms, and in the cores of stars. And with an
observer in the brain, this consciousness selects the things that happen in
the external world. Out of this arises a special picture of what the fabric of
reality is. Because of that signal-to-noise disparity between the will and
the consciousness of our mind, only about a thousandth of what could
happen happens out of an ostensive correlation with what we would wish
for. All the rest is stochastic or moves inexorably forward under the laws
of physics for microscopic bodies. Matter, objects - a physical domain
exists that is governed by immutable laws. But these laws leave open a
range of happenings that are left to the selection of the mind. Behind this
selection is the will. The will works much like a communication channel
that links all of us to a common control center. Within the power of our
combined will lies the power to do essentially anything. Within the power
of this will lies any knowledge - of anything known, or knowable - of the
past or of the future. And it is a power that is always present. This is the
collective will of all sentient beings with the power of determining the state
of all events, with the knowledge of a seer. This is the Omnipresence, the
Omniscience, the Omnipotence of Abraham's God, at once personal and
supreme. This is a God of our collective will and of the collective will of
the universe. This is a God that has the potential of any knowledge that we
know. A God that has the power to make any event occur and yet it
restrained by the limits of our own minds. A God that pervades all things
and yet acts through our vision."
collapse on observation ties in with a quantum mechanical picture of
consciousness, consciousness arising out of the very observer-dependent
processes that go on in the brain as they do in the laboratories of
physicists, in the hearts of atoms, and in the cores of stars. And with an
observer in the brain, this consciousness selects the things that happen in
the external world. Out of this arises a special picture of what the fabric of
reality is. Because of that signal-to-noise disparity between the will and
the consciousness of our mind, only about a thousandth of what could
happen happens out of an ostensive correlation with what we would wish
for. All the rest is stochastic or moves inexorably forward under the laws
of physics for microscopic bodies. Matter, objects - a physical domain
exists that is governed by immutable laws. But these laws leave open a
range of happenings that are left to the selection of the mind. Behind this
selection is the will. The will works much like a communication channel
that links all of us to a common control center. Within the power of our
combined will lies the power to do essentially anything. Within the power
of this will lies any knowledge - of anything known, or knowable - of the
past or of the future. And it is a power that is always present. This is the
collective will of all sentient beings with the power of determining the state
of all events, with the knowledge of a seer. This is the Omnipresence, the
Omniscience, the Omnipotence of Abraham's God, at once personal and
supreme. This is a God of our collective will and of the collective will of
the universe. This is a God that has the potential of any knowledge that we
know. A God that has the power to make any event occur and yet it
restrained by the limits of our own minds. A God that pervades all things
and yet acts through our vision."
This site is dedicated to the idea that we live our lives "over and over again" for
Eternity. It is my belief that when we die, we effectively realize this (if we are so capable*)
and subsequently, we forget everything so that we may experience our lives all over again,
anew. (In reality, we repeat our lives infinitely, so it is really just "once" that we live in
relation to time, but as we have recently come to understand with the help of Einstein; time
doesn't really exist, hence the inherently paradoxical nature of this concept.) I have been led
to believe, by experiences that I will later explain, that we are all microcosmic reflections of
the macrocosmic Eternal Universe and by default of this relation, we are to experience the
very same fate of cyclical repetition. This is the idea of the eternal recurrence; a concept
recently revived by Nietzsche and shared the world-over, however esoterically, by our
multitudinous religions.
*"O Friend, hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live, understand whilst you live; for
in life deliverance abides. If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of deliverance in
death? It is but an empty dream that the soul shall have union with Him because it has passed
from the body; If He is found now, He is found then; If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of
Death." -Kabir
The Greatest Weight
"What if, one day or night, a daemon were to slide up after you in your loneliest loneliness and
say to you: 'This life, as you now live and have lived it, you will have to live again and
innumerable times over; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every pleasure
and every thought and sigh and all the unspeakably small and large things in your life must come
back to you, and all in the same order and sequence - and likewise this spider and this moonlight
between the trees, and likewise this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence
will be turned over again and again – and you with it, you tiny speck of dust' – Would you not
throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the daemon who talked this way? Or have
you once experienced a tremendous moment in which you would answer him: 'You are a God
and never have I heard anything more divine!' If this thought were to gain power over you, it
would transform you as you are, and perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing,
'Do you want this once more and innumerable times more?' would lie upon your actions as the
greatest weight! Or how well disposed to yourself and to life would you be, to long for nothing
more than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?" Friedrich Nietzsche, 'The Gay Science'
"...when the game has gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and
remember that we are all one single Self–the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever
and ever." Alan Watts, 'The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are"
As a disclaimer, let it be noted that I am acutely aware that by making such statements, I
am obliged to clarify my position absolutely so as to save any misunderstanding on the part
of my readers. I understand to the fullest extent of my being that all truth is utterly subjective
and that the existential beliefs discussed herein are just that; a subjective understanding that
I have reached as a result of my idiosyncratic experiences. I am not claiming to know the
Truth, nor am I attempting to convince anyone that this is the end-all, be-all understanding
of human consciousness; in fact, I am painfully aware of my perpetual naiveté in relation to
the ineffable process of the Universe, and I encourage people to first and foremost think for
themselves. I know fundamentally that I will continue to evolve my existential awareness
until the very day that I cross the final threshold of bodily death and this site is a reflection of
that, as it is constantly evolving toward higher states of order.
It is only in light of the universality and sheer antiquity of these ideas of Eternity and God
that I feel comfortable enough to share with my fellow man what I have discovered about
myself and the world. For I truly believe that we are all One single Self when it comes
down to it and the only way to effectively realize this is through a direct confrontation with
our existential awareness, i.e., in order to awaken to our Universal nature, we must perturb
our culturally sanctioned understanding of reality, because it is this view of reality which has
led us to believe that we are separate beings inhabiting a pointless Universe. We have to
confront the Unknown, the Other; that which is the basis of our fears and uncertainties
about life; the Other that we have been made to deny by our cultures. In order to do this,
we must perturb our consciousness with an objective frame of reference. A frame of
reference which, in order to be truly objective and therefore effective, must be absolutely
divorced from the inherited paradigms that have made us hopelessly complacent and
unconscious of our existential heritage. Thus, I seek to provide such a frame of reference
with these relatively esoteric concepts, though it must be understood that they can only get
you so far, as you must be acquainted with these ideas experientially in order to truly
appreciate them, as I will get into later. All of this, of course, is solely my opinion and only
that.
"For many years I hesitated to do this [give an explicit "answer" to the problem of God and evil]
because I was quite conscious of the probable consequences, and knew what a storm would be
raised. But I was gripped by the urgency and difficulty of the problem and was unable to throw
it off. Therefore I found myself obliged to deal with the whole problem, and I did so in the form
of describing a personal experience, carried by subjective emotions. I deliberately chose this
form because I wanted to avoid the impression that I had any idea of announcing an "eternal
truth." The book (Answer to Job) does not pretend to be anything but the voice or question of a
single individual who hopes or expects to meet with thoughtfulness in the public.
On account of its somewhat unusual content, my little book requires a short preface. I beg of
you, dear reader, not to overlook it. For, in what follows, I shall speak of the venerable objects
of religious belief. Whoever talks of such matters inevitably runs the risk of being torn to pieces
by the two parties who are in mortal conflict about these very things. This conflict is due to the
strange supposition that a thing is only true if it presents itself as a physical fact. Thus some
people believe it to be physically true that Christ was born as the son of a virgin, while others
deny this as a physical impossibility. Everyone can see that there is no logical solution to this
conflict and that one would do better not to get involved in such sterile disputes. Both are right
and both are wrong. Yet they could easily reach agreement if only they dropped the word
"physical." "Physical" is not the only criterion of truth: there are also psychic truths which can
neither be explained no proved nor contested in any physical way." Carl Jung, 'Answer to Job'
Admittedly, it is with great intellectual courage that I am attempting to compose an explicit
reflection upon my intuitions regarding our existence. So before delving into such a topic, I
must first address the main issue with its discussion. As it is considered excessively taboo
and anathema to the status quo, it is extremely difficult to introduce such dialogue into
public discourse and be taken seriously, if at all (especially when covering such subjects as
psychedelic plant shamanism). In our governmentally sanctioned modern civilization of
scientific materialism, it is quite commonplace for the vast majority of its adherents to
denounce unconditionally anything that does not fit into their prescribed reality, as it is
viewed as a direct threat to their complacent way of life. In other words, our predisposed
temperaments – as determined by our genetics, cultures, and especially governments –
make us inherently ignorant to concepts which violate our paradigmatic view and this makes
contrary discourse incredibly difficult to integrate for the average person. I am most aware
of this vast impediment to the reception of my ideas; all that I ask is that you try to keep an
open mind.
I would also like it to be understood that I aim not for the mass dissemination of these
ideas, as I am conscious of the fact that you simply cannot make esoteric knowledge
exoteric. I am by no means trying to reach the most people possible, as other writers often
do, because I know that the only people who will actually understand and appreciate this
message are those who will actively seek it out for themselves by the grace of Divine
Providence. This is to say that, those who will ultimately find this page and get anything out
of it will do so for a reason, i.e., chances are, if you are resonating with these ideas, it is
because you have already had similar experiences that you can relate this text to, otherwise
you wouldn't have a frame of reference upon which to weigh the validity of these ideas and
therefore would be left feeling indifferent, at best.
This is due to the fact that text, at its most fundamental level, is most useful for reflection
upon our respective catalogs of experience, especially in areas that are of great importance
to us emotionally. It must be acknowledged that text cannot be truly effective - that is, truly
grasped - unless the reader has, at the very least, some prior experiential knowledge of the
concepts being discussed. A reader with little to zero relative reference to a text is denied
intellectual entry by default of their inexperience. Just think about it; you could read a book
on psychedelic plants before using them and have absolutely no clue what is really being
discussed. However, after having tripped yourself, if you read the same book again you
would have no problem relating your experiences to the material and therefore, you would
be able to understand experientially what is being talked about. It is in light of this
understanding that I am seeking to relate to those who have already breached the event
horizon of consciousness, so to speak, but this is not to say that the "inexperienced" cannot
get something out of this text as well; in fact, I'm sure that quite a lot of people who are
"inexperienced" could actually relate to this text, only they must learn to look at their life
experiences under a different light; this I will also go into later (déjà vu).
And so, without further ado: We Die to Remember What We Live to Forget
Essentially, we die to remember what, while living as a separate entity, we have forgotten.
And what we have forgotten is our eternal connection to the Supreme Ground of All Being
(God), which is Eternity (the Eternal Universe), or what the Buddhists call, Nirvana, the
existence that we enter upon death which is the sum total of the All. When we depart from
this plane of existence, we are made aware of our most fundamental nature as God, and
after we come to this consummation, we choose to forget everything in order to do it all
over again, because we effectively realize that we are One with the Universe, which is an
eternal, unchanging process of which everything is interconnected and cyclical. Thus, we
are merely living our lives anew when we are born, because being born is just having died;
we effectively cause ourselves (the Ouroboros*; we are the First Cause). Life is a dream
that death wakes us from; the Universe is a broken record. Ultimately, this kind of thinking
leads to the inevitable conclusion that we are all God (the Universe), pretending to not be
itself for a purpose beyond our ability to fathom while alive (this is essential Alan Watts). In
making such bold assertions, I will provide, to the very best of my limited writing ability, an
in-depth explanation as to why this idea seems so plausible to me. Therefore it is my sole
aim to provide others with a point of view that is quite to the contrary of our culturally
sanctioned view of reality and in so doing, I hope to strike a relative chord deep within your
unconscious. Pretentious, of course, but to quote the late, yet timelessly brilliant Alan Watts:
“I am neither a preacher nor a reformer, for I like to write and talk about this way of seeing
things as one sings in the bathtub or splashes in the sea. There is no mission, nor intent to
convert, and yet I believe if this state of consciousness could become more universal, the
pretentious nonsense which passes for the serious business of the world would dissolve in
laughter.” 'This Is It'
*"The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation
process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the
snake that eats its own tail. The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or
wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and
turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the
prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the
integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feed-back' process is at the
same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and
brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who
proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima
materia which [...] unquestionably stems from man's unconscious." Carl Jung, 'Collected
Works' Vol. 14
The particular experience which led to these eschatological conclusions first occurred
on September 29, 2006 while I was tripping on seven dried grams of psilocybin
mushrooms. Since that time I have spent a little over three and a half years integrating the
experience by reading into its implications and, perhaps most importantly, by revisiting the
experience via psychedelic tryptamines such as DMT (psilocybin mushrooms are often
considered "oral DMT"). It was only after relating my experiences to many other accounts
of near-death and mystical experiences that I finally decided to put down in writing just
exactly what I experienced on that night in September, and since then, on several other
occasions. I feel that at that time, I had no way of hallucinating such an event with my
simply limited personal collection of intellectual concepts, as I was at the time, still quite
young; not yet nineteen and nowhere near well read. It took me years of researching to
figure out that what had happened to me was not merely a shizophrenic episode brought on
by psychedelics, but an apocalyptic mystical experience, which have occurred to many
others throughout history.
(For the record, I DO NOT advocate the use of consciousness-expanding plants. To me, it is a
personal freedom which I feel to be utterly sacred. Frankly, I believe great caution must be
observed while using these sacraments, because if you are careless, you will be taught a lesson;
however, if you are relatively "together" psychically and capable of letting go, you will
experience something quite extraordinary indeed. I have learned to have great respect for these
plants and you must as well, if you are to truly get anything out of them. Recreational use will be
met with disaster; these are tools, not toys; try to keep that in mind at all times.)
Prior to this experience I had experimented with psilocybin mushrooms several times up to
the five gram range, but had not yet fully experienced ego death. On September 29, 2006,
that all changed when I took seven dried grams. I fasted for a full twenty-four hours before
I ate them and after about thirty minutes I knew that this was going to be "it." Amazingly, I
have since repeated the experience with DMT (smoked); the only difference is that with
mushrooms, the experience can last for hours, whereas with DMT it occurs over about five
minutes. The thing that is really unbelievable about it, is that each time, I experience the
same thing.
The following is the account of an experience that I had on June 6, 2007:
As the experience unraveled, I realized that "I" and everything associated with me, myself
was about to end. At first, I definitely felt a distinct fear of dying (this fear expressed itself
through macabre visions/thoughts), but my fear gave way (along with the demonic visions)
as I eventually came to complete acceptance of death (which was seemingly inevitable,
although I could see how some people would resist this flow of events and have a bad
experience as a result. It was, admittedly, overwhelmingly intense; a center in my head –
and this is only a vague metaphor – built up pressure somewhat alarmingly as all of this was
going on, but it was thankfully released when I finally let go). After I came to accept death,
I was sucked through what can only be described as a "worm-hole*" of sorts; time ended
and space became dimensionless. An apocalypse of my entire life up until that point played
out in my mind as I was prepared to undergo absolute dissolution.
*The closest thing I have found that is similar to this experience is the following image: SCP
I "melted" into my surroundings as I witnessed every event of my life condensed into a fully
interactive timeless moment. The most powerfully emotional moments were given the most
"attention" and comprehensive understanding permeated the entire "showing." (I definitively
understood that each moment of my life was synchronistically predestined and thus
absolutely necessary for both my evolution and the evolution of the entire Universe.) Final
thoughts of my parents, friends, and things left undone flooded my mind, but everything was
okay and I knew what was coming, as I had already done this before, but forgot (I chose
to, in order to do it all over again, anew). After the life review "ended", I saw each of my
parents beside me, along with every important figure in my life (especially my Sophia),
helping me along toward this bright funnel of light (there was also an unindentifiable
"presence" that seemed to be watching over me throughout the experience, guiding me
along and supporting me with telepathic rapport). As I got closer to the light, I realized that
I would be born again into complete ignorance of my life that I had just lived (the white light
could be coming out of the womb again; that is only a guess). I knew that I would live the
same life over and over again and I wanted to; in fact, I willed it, because I am God.
I effectively realized that I was It; God; The First Cause; the Eternal Universe reflecting
back upon itself; I was merely God playing a cosmic joke on my Self. (At the height of this
realization I was looking down upon the Earth from space, as if my frame of reference had
become the entire world; I didn't feel like I had a body, but "my" consciousness was still
present. I had, for what seemed to be Eternity, a truly Universal frame of reference which
was entirely ineffable.) I was overwhelmed by the painful beauty of Life; the necessity of
Evil to bring about Good; the eternal reciprocity of the Universe that dissolves itself in
Love; the realized interconnectedness of the All; Enlightenment; the freeing of energy from
matter. (The sheer amount of "information" that I was being "presented" was incalculably
intense and it came at a speed that defies physics; it was, to put it lightly, otherworldly.)
“Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and
of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain
and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of
largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise
perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection
which is likely to be practically useful.” Aldous Huxley quoting Dr. C. D. Broad, 'The Doors of
Perception'
"Some people flatter themselves that there will be no last judgment. . . . I will not flatter them.
Error is created; truth is eternal. Error or creation will be burned up, and then and not till then,
truth or eternity will appear." "The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the divine
bosom into which we shall go after the death of the vegetated body. This world of imagination is
infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation, of vegetation, is finite and temporal. There
exist in that eternal world the permanent realities of everything which we see reflected in this
vegetable glass of nature." William Blake
As the experience ended, I was sucked back through the "worm-hole" in reverse,
experiencing everything I had prior, but in reverse; it was extremely peculiar, to say the
least. I was sucked down from my perch above the Earth, toward North America, where I
eventually came back into the top of my head. Within a mere few minutes after it began, I
was back, sitting in my room, shaking and breathless (still tripping, nonetheless, as my ego
slowly regained its posture). The experience led me to realize that death is a timeless
moment at the end of life that affirms our existence and enlightenment is our conscious
ability to transcend fear (unconsciousness) into Love (the acknowledged acceptance of the
All). We live the same life over and over again for Eternity and we are completely
unconscious of this due to our biology. We die to remember what while living we have
forgotten and what we have forgotten is the psychic fact that we are God (the Eternal
Universe); we just don't realize it until we die (or nearly die).
This particular experience lasted a little over 5 minutes; the experience that I had on
September 29, 2006 lasted for 4 hours and it really shook me down to the bone. After
quite awhile of not being able to make sense of what happened to me, I chose outright
denial of the experience and stopped using psychedelics (which was exactly the right
impulse, as I definitely needed time to integrate the experience before I immersed myself
again). However, the experience still lingered in my consciousness and, over time, I began
to read everything I could get my hands on regarding psychedelics and esoteric knowledge
(it was as if the experience itself were pulling me toward integrating it). Slowly, after much
devoted research, relative metaphors emerged that I could use to explain my experience
and as I went along, I was able to integrate and make more sense of the symbolism
involved in the experience.
I have come to realize that there are many possible interpretations of what I experienced.
One being that it was entirely a construct of my mind; merely a hallucination rich with
symbolism. The biggest problem with this view to me, personally, is that when it was
actually happening I distinctly remember knowing first hand (as if my consciousness were
left untouched) that the Universe exists within my mind and that what I was experiencing
was more real and intense than anything I had ever encountered. Not only this, but I had no
way of hallucinating such an event from merely my personal unconscious; this is what led
me to formally investigate the theories of Carl Jung. When I later experienced DMT, I was
brought to the exact same place that I was during my seven gram mushroom trip, which led
me to take the interpretation that I was indeed experiencing something that exists
autonomously. And so I definitely do not believe that this was a mere hallucination; it was
much more than that. Coming out of these DMT trips I have had the distinct feeling that
what I was experiencing was my actual bodily death occurring sometime in the future and
that each experience is merely overlaid upon this Eternal moment of dissolution; the
Eschaton; the death of I.
“Access to the holographic reality becomes experientially available when one’s consciousness is
freed from it’s dependence on the physical body. When one is freed from the body, one
experiences it directly. That is why mystics speak about their visions with such certitude and
conviction, while those who haven’t experienced this realm for themselves are left feeling
skeptical or indifferent.” Kenneth Ring, ‘Life at Death’
"In so far as analytical treatment makes the "shadow" conscious, it causes a cleavage and a
tension of opposites which in their turn seek compensation in unity. The adjustment is achieved
through symbols. The conflict between the opposites can strain our psyche to the breaking
point, if we take them seriously, or if they take us seriously. The tertium non datur (there is no
third) of logic proves its worth: no solution can be seen. If all goes well, the solution, seemingly
of its own accord, appears out of nature. Then and then only is it convincing. It is felt as
"grace." Since the solution proceeds out of the confrontation and clash of opposites, it is usually
an unfathomable mixture of conscious and unconscious factors, and therefore a symbol, a coin
split into two halves which fit together precisely. It represents the result of the joint labors of
consciousness and the unconscious, and attains the likeness of the God-image in the form of a
mandala, which is probably the simplest model of a concept of wholeness, and one which
spontaneously arises in the mind as a representation of the struggle and the reconciliation of
opposites. The clash, which is at first of a purely personal nature, is soon followed by the insight
that the subjective conflict is only a single instance of the universal conflict of opposites. Our
psyche is set up in accord with the structure of the universe, and what happens in the macrocosm
likewise happens in the infinitesimal and most subjective reaches of the psyche. For that reason
the God-image is always a projection of the inner experience of a powerful vis-a-vis (face to
face)." Carl Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections; Late Thoughts (Italics mine)
"You superior humans, what do you think? Am I a soothsayer? A dreamer? Drunkard? A dream
interpreter? A midnight-bell? A drop of dew? A haze and fragrance of eternity? Do you not hear
it? Do you not smell it? Just now my world became perfect, midnight is also midday -- Pain is
also a joy, curse is also a blessing, night is also a sun -- be gone! or you will learn: a wise man is
also a fool. Did you ever say Yes to a single joy? Oh, my friends, then you said Yes to all woe as
well. All things are chained together, entwined, in love -- if you ever wanted one time a second
time, if you ever said 'You please me, happiness! Quick! Moment!' then you wanted it all back!
-- All anew, all eternally, all chained together, entwined, in love, oh then you loved the world --
you eternal ones, love it eternally and for all time: and even to woe you say: Be gone, but come
back! For all joy wants -- Eternity!" Friedrich Nietzsche, 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'
And so let it also be known that I haven't come to these conclusions through merely
reading others ideas; I have come to these conclusions through years of testing the
boundaries of my consciousness with psychedelic experiences and then reflecting upon
them with relative literature. My psychedelic experiences certainly didn't take what I had
previously read and manifest it as psychic truths; it is actually the exact opposite. I
experienced these ideas first and later I confirmed them as psychically valid by reading the
vast consensus of mystical literature that we have at our disposal. I tripped and then
studied religion and philosophy, because what was happening during my trips was
something that I couldn't understand. I was having experiences of the Divine, literally
hearing, "I am God" during mushroom trips and I was a staunch atheist. I started taking
mushrooms as a way to test reality because I didn't believe in anything. Then I started
realizing that "I" was God. Everything is. I was having revelations, that with my extremely
limited catalog of concepts and experiences, were frankly impossible. As I have already
said, I was far too young and naive to be having the experiences that I was, and yet I had
them. I had to study Carl Jung, Nietzsche, Alan Watts and numerous philosophers and
religions to understand that I wasn't crazy. I was merely becoming aware of my divinity; a
divinity which lays latent inside of all of our minds.
One final relative experience that is of note is the first time I ever had a "mystical" moment
while tripping:
One night during the height of my atheism when I was 18, I had a vision of Christ while
tripping (January 21, 2006). I was walking up a forested hill, looking down, when I
suddenly looked up to the moon, and instead of seeing the moon, I saw Christ's face. I
couldn't make any sense of it, but it happened. Granted I was tripping, but as Jung clearly
states, religious revelations are merely confessions of the psyche. My psyche was
attempting to tell me something and I firmly believe it was telling me that I was being
ignorant. I did not become a Christian, but I certainly began to look deeper into my beliefs
(for the record, I find beauty in all of the religions of the world, as I would consider myself
to be a pantheist). It is in light of idiosyncratic events such as the ones I have mentioned that
I was led to write about our existence in hopes of getting others to question their beliefs, as
I was obliged to by my experiences. That is my true goal with all of this and frankly, I
believe that we all will need to do quite a bit of soul searching in the near future as Mother
Nature seeks to reclaim what is rightfully hers. And so, Godspeed and forgive us All; in the
End everything will be revealed, again.
As a way of warning to those of the tepid or easily perturbed intellect, this text is what is to
be considered as absolute heresy, so make your exit now if that is what you feel the impulse
to do (if I haven't already lost you). For what is to follow is the acknowledged psychic
confession of my attempt at integrating my psychedelic experiences, which opened my mind
to a world beyond time and description. It should then be of no surprise, that in using
somewhat archaic symbols to relate my subjective experience, I should find myself alone in
the often idiosyncratic world of esoteric thought. However, it is my chief argument and
reason for sharing this, that, under closer inspection, these very esoteric archetypes that I
was drawn to are, in actuality, universally relative; it is only that they lay unrealized in our
unconscious because we lack the psychology to effectively perceive them (hence why we
need catalysts to help us; once again, more on this later). It is my belief that these recurring
archetypes of Eternity and God are present in our minds for an evolutionary reason, and we
must open our minds to them before it is deemed too late by Mother Nature, whom by the
very law of reciprocity is gearing up to put us back in our place. It is for this very reason
that I seek to provide a light for those searching in the existential darkness of our spiritually
hapless times.
Shamanism, Religion, and Civilization
"If I sometimes make statements in an authoritative and dogmatic manner, it is for the sake of
clarity rather than from the desire to pose as an oracle." Alan Watts
Our existential beliefs, as determined by our environment and subsequent social
conditioning, have played an unequivocal role in the development of civilization, and
therefore human consciousness, for thousands of years. In light of today’s increasingly dire
circumstances in which the very fate of our civilization hangs in the balance, we must take
the time to formally reflect upon our beliefs and how we came to hold them if we are to
make any sense of how we got here and why. Because I am I aware that I cannot do
absolute justice to all of the various factors which have contributed to our various beliefs
within the limited scope of an essay, I will concern myself only with what I feel to be the
most fundamental factor of all; that which is our disposition as inherently "bipolar" beings:
Each human soul is capable of Good and Evil; in fact, it is our inner reciprocity that has
defined our advance toward Self consciousness. However, due to the mechanics of the
ineffable Universe, we often deny our dark qualities at the expense of our light and this
causes great suffering to be brought upon us (this in turn leads to our inherent uncertainty as
to the meaning of our existence, i.e., is the Universe inherently Good or Evil?). This
suffering, however unfortunate it may be, is ultimately necessary for our realization that we
cannot separate the dark from the light, as they are necessary reciprocals. This process is
the very essence of self reflection; Self consciousness. Unfortunately for us, this clashing of
the opposites has recently resulted in the decimation of the very biosphere that supports us.
This relatively recent development signifies that an event of great change - whatever that
may be - is coming in our not-too-distant future. Our denial of our dark side is manifesting
itself on the global level as a lurking catastrophe; one which, when it strikes, will leave all
those in its wake utterly destitute. It will take such a global event to make us all realize our
interconnectedness and unfortunately, such an event is bound to be one of utter dissolution.
However, there is a reason behind all of this; hence this essay.
"Since dogma holds that God is wholly present in each of the three Persons, He is also wholly
present in each part of the outpoured Holy Spirit; thus every man can partake of the whole of
God and hence of the filiation. The complexio oppositorum of the God-image thus enters into
man, and not as a unity, but as conflict, the dark half of the image coming into opposition with
the accepted view that God is "Light." This very process is taking place in our own times, albeit
scarcely recognized by the official teachers of human whose task, supposedly, is to understand
such matters. There is the general feeling, to be sure, that we have reached a significant turning
point in the ages, but people imagine that the great change has to do with nuclear fission and
fusion, or with space rockets. What is concurrently taking place in the human psyche is
overlooked." Carl Jung, 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections' (Italics mine)
Due to the fact that as "bipolar" beings we are inherently uncertain as to the meaning of our
existence, we are often compelled to rely upon culturally sanctioned ideas for our
understanding of our purpose in life. Unfortunately, as a result, we are instinctually led into a
state of credulous complacency, which if taken advantage of by power hungry individuals,
can lead us down a very destructive path collectively. This is the tragic quirk of human
nature that set the stage for our current ideological crisis: we are primarily reliant upon our
community to provide us with an idea of our existential purpose, both individually and
collectively, and when corruption emerges, as it always does, large scale tragedy and
subsequent revelation is unquestionably imminent. This is because our livelihood depends
upon our consensus as to what we are here for and when we lose that collective vision,
proverbial darkness falls upon human consciousness, obliging us to take a good hard look
in the mirror. Sadly, all too often a great tragedy is necessary to wake us up to our
unconsciousness, so we may be headed for a very dark future indeed.
"The Greeks believed that hubris was always followed by nemesis, that if you went too far you
would get a knock on the head to remind you that the gods will not tolerate insolence on the part
of mortal men. In the sphere of human relations, the modern mind understands the doctrine of
hubris and regards it as mainly true. We wish pride to have a fall, and we see that very often it
does fall. To have too much power over one's fellows, to be too rich, too violent, too ambitious
- all this invites punishment, and in the long run, we notice punishment of one sort or another
duly comes. But the Greeks did not stop there. Because they regarded Nature as in some way
divine, they felt that it had to be respected and they were convinced that a hubristic lack of
respect of Nature would be punished by avenging nemesis." Aldous Huxley, 'The Perennial
Philosophy
However, this is not all "bad" per se, as the Universe does nothing in vain and to have faith
is to understand that despite our misfortunes, there is a reason behind everything, including
our current unconsciousness. In fact, it is times like these that ultimately oblige us to look
within and therefore find a "solution" to our ills, i.e., such a tragic period is ripe for a
revolution of mind. We must understand that despite our current situation, what has
happened was absolutely necessary for the unfolding of a purpose beyond our ability to
currently comprehend, so we must not succumb to denial and ignorance; we must rise
above our corrupt leaders to see the true picture emerging on the horizon of human
consciousness. To do this, we must reflect upon ourselves and our collective actions with a
fresh understanding of our purpose, one divorced from the very institutions that brought us
here. Essentially, we have to look back into our forgotten past to find an understanding that
reveals our present for what it truly is. Then, and only then, may we begin to see just where
this whole process seems to be heading and most importantly, we may finally have some
peace of mind as to our uncertainty about the meaning of our existence.
Every person whom has ever had any influence upon our psychology has appealed to our
inherent uncertainty about life by providing us with their understanding of our purpose while
here on Earth. Some of these influential figures have provided a context that is inherently
spiritual – like the founders of our religious traditions – while others have sold a purely
material agenda without any true moral grounds – like our governments. Both appeal
equally to our collectively shared uncertainty as to the meaning of our existence and so most
importantly, they tend to balance eachother out reciprocally. Unfortunately for us, our
civilization has become overtly materially minded as a result of an ever increasing level of
governmental influence, therefore offsetting this eternal balance. In the process, our
spirituality has become almost entirely corrupted. As a matter of fact, despite of all the
supposed progress of our civilization with all its innovations and powerful institutions, today
we are left with very little idea as to the meaning of our lives and it is directly related to our
materialist leaders lack of spirituality.
Morally, we have very little to show for all of our material accomplishments because all we
have to guide us are these governmentally sanctioned institutions which, due to internal
corruption, have become spiritually irrelevant, leaving us with very little understanding of our
purpose. As a corollary, the whole of Modern Civilization is undermined by a feeling of fear
and doubt as to what awaits us in our increasingly murky future and many are so
disillusioned with the present that they pray for a better life in the future (this idea of heaven
is the type of "spirituality" that has been supported by the perpetuators of inevitable
progress, which we are now beginning to realize was nothing, but a false dream). Our push
toward technological civilization was fueled primarily by this underlying desperation to
achieve dominion over our fate, and consequently Nature, before we pine away into an
unknown future; as if we are somehow running out of time.
This sense of urgency is the direct result of our inherent lack of understanding, which if
alleviated, would allow us to step aside and properly evaluate our actions, but since it is the
very agenda of corrupted institutions to sustain this unconsciousness for the purpose of
maintaining their control, we are perpetually manipulated into going with whatever they
decree. Historically, we inhabit a very desperate situation and if our actions are to be any
guiding light on upon this matter, we are found to be entirely in the dark, as made obvious
by our subjugation of Mother Nature. As a civilization, we have managed to be nothing, if
not the most caustic force imaginable upon the planet, and this is, without question, due to
our lack of understanding in regards to our relationship to the world. Some would argue
that this was necessary for the propagation of technologies which could allow us to leave
the planet and colonize space, which may be somewhat true; however, the debt accrued by
our recklessly unsustainable actions is going to paid with the lives of billions; this cannot be
doubted. In light of this, we are living in a truly 'dark age' for consciousness in which our
ideas of spirituality, God, and existence have morally failed us due to corruption and
misguidance. However, this mystery of our existence can be illuminated still and
subsequently, we can still "save" ourselves from our seemingly bleak fate; the only problem
is that the method for gaining this kind of insight has become terribly taboo due to
governmental policies, hence our current ideological dilemma. And so in order to
understand why all of this happened and therefore lift ourselves above our past
unconsciousness, we must go beyond publicly sanctioned reality to find an answer to this
perennial mystery before it is deemed too late by Nature. Otherwise, we will surely pine
away into this ever darkening future, without any hope for a coming dawn.
"Non-rational creatures do not look before or after, but live in the animal eternity of a perpetual
present; instinct is their animal grace and constant inspiration; and they are never tempted to live
otherwise than in accord with their own animal dharma, or immanent law. Thanks to his
reasoning powers and to the instrument of reason, language, man (in his merely human
condition) lives nostalgically, apprehensively, and hopefully in the past and future as well as in
the present; has no instincts to tell him what to do; must rely on personal cleverness, rather than
on inspiration from the divine Nature of Things; finds himself in a condition of chronic civil war
between passion and prudence and, on a higher level of awareness and ethical sensibility,
between egotism and dawning spirituality. But this "wearisome condition of humanity" is the
indispensable prerequisite of enlightenment and deliverance. Man must live in time in order to
be able to advance into eternity, no longer on the animal, but on the spiritual level; he must be
conscious of himself as a separate ego in order to be able consciously to transcend separate self-
hood; he must do battle with the lower self in order that he may become identified with that high
Self within him, which is akin to the divine Not-Self; and finally he must make use of his
cleverness in order to pass beyond cleverness to the intellectual vision of Truth, the immediate,
unitive knowledge of the divine Gound. Reason and its works "are not and cannot be a proximate
means of union with God." The proximate means is "intellect," in the scholastic sense of the
word, or spirit. In the last analysis the use and purpose of reason is to create the internal and
external conditions favourable to its own transfiguration by and into spirit. It is the lamp by
which it finds the way to go beyond itself." Aldous Huxley, 'The Perennial Philosophy' (Italics
mine)
And so, the big question: What happens to our consciousness when we die? Do we merely
cease to exist and fade to black, or do we experience a continuity beyond our ability to
imagine? To effectively answer this question, you must first and foremost have an
experiential frame of reference upon which to base your deductions, otherwise any effort
made will ultimately be stifled by the conceptually limited scope of merely inferential
knowledge. This is because inferential knowledge cannot replace first hand experience,
especially in this case where we are dealing with such a proverbial black hole as death.
Induction via the scientific method doesn't stand a chance to provide a definitive answer to
this perennial question because this experience cannot be observed objectively and it most
certainly cannot be reduced to mere mechanics of biology, as made clear by Near-Death
Experience research. This is to say that, in order to truly understand death, you must be
formally acquainted with it experientially; literally, you must experience death and somehow
live to tell about it. Understandably, the vast majority of people lack this prerequisite for
forming a conceptually deep understanding of death and so they are obliged to seek higher
council, so to speak, when confronted with such questions beyond their ability to answer. It
is for this very reason that we have depended upon enlightened individuals* to provide us
with a relative frame of reference upon which to base our beliefs about our existence. When
such individuals are lacking, or are disposed of for their influential nature by corrupted
individuals, our collective understanding suffers greatly and all too often we are coerced into
a state of unconscious malaise, such as the state we inhabit right now. Our only way to
combat this unfortunate unconsciousness is by consulting individuals whom have
experienced enlightenment, otherwise we are sure to remain in the dark with our
governmentally sanctioned view of reality.
*It must be noted, that by merely saying "enlightened individuals", I am leaving a lot open to
interpretation. So, to make myself perfectly clear; enlightened individuals are people who have
come to have a Universal frame of reference due to experiences in their lives that, over time,
directed them toward integrating their psyche with the world. Some individuals experience
enlightenment during certain instances, such as mystical, near-death, or psychedelic experiences,
often changing their lives forever; some come to experience it through years of devoted self
searching, without the need for such a psychic catalyst.
Regardless of means, all of these individuals report startlingly similar experiences: It is this
historical psychic consensus that we must investigate if we are to make sense of our current
unconsciousness, first and foremost because it is the only frame of reference that cannot be
tainted by our leaders despite their efforts because of its fundamentally archetypal, psychic
nature, but most importantly, because of what it reveals about our future; in fact, many
enlightened individuals saw these dark times coming. Many argue that the emergence of
psychedelics in the modern Western world was a cue for a much needed reflection on our part.
I tend to agree; though taboo, psychedelics can provide a truly consciousness-expanding
experience that, if properly integrated, can lead to a drastic revolution of mind. The kind of
which we so desperately need right now.
Enlightenment is a rare, often fleeting state of consciousness during which a truly Universal
frame of reference is bestowed upon an individual. Men isolated by geography and
thousands of years have been having this same experience throughout the history of our
civilization and even further back into our prehistory. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the
archetype experience that ultimately laid the foundation for our oldest spiritual traditions
which sought to definitively answer that which we do not know. This is due to the fact that
the those whom are predisposed to experiencing such a state of consciousness often have a
great sphere of influence upon their respective communities by default of the inherently
sought after and universally relative knowledge that they possess and willingly distribute.
And although relatively few have experienced enlightenment, the multitude are able to relate
to these spiritually minded men because enlightenment has two microcosmic parallels which
nearly every person whom has ever lived has experienced. These experiences are, of
course, that of déjà vu – the distinct feeling of knowing that you have done something
before – and synchronicity – the experience of realizing a highly peculiar coincidence that
could not be merely due to chance, but must owe its occurrence to a purpose beyond our
ability to make sense of (it must be accepted that human beings have been having these
experiences for tens of thousands of years at least, as we are no different today
biologically than we were during the last glacial epoch which began 100,000 years ago. So
it can be safely assumed that, unlike today where these experiences are marginalized as
merely peculiar due to our lack of felt spirituality, these experiences once held a very sacred
place to our ancestors, who, I would imagine, believed such experiences to be divine
revelations).
"The sentiment du déjà vu is based, as I have found in a number of cases, on a foreknowledge in
dreams, but we saw that this foreknowledge can also occur in the waking state. In such cases
mere chance becomes highly improbable because the coincidence is known in advance. It thus
loses its chance character not only psychologically and subjectively, but objectively too, since
the accumulation of details that coincide immeasurably increases the improbability of chance as a
determining factor. (For correct precognitions of death, Dariex and Flammarion have computed
probabilities ranging from 1 in 4,000,000 to 1 in 8,000,000.) So in these cases it would be
incongruous to speak of "chance" happenings. It is rather a question of meaningful coincidences.
Usually they are explained by precognition – in other words, foreknowledge." Carl Jung, 'On
Synchronicity'
"...when an external event touches on some unconscious knowledge, this knowledge can reach
consciousness. The event is recognized as a déjà vu, and one remembers a pre-existent
knowledge about it." Carl Jung, 'Answer to Job'
"...Meaningful coincidences are thinkable as pure chance. But the more they multiply and the
greater and more exact the correspondence is, the more their probability sinks and their
unthinkability increases, until they can no longer be regarded as pure chance, but for lack of a
causal explanation, have to be thought of as meaningful arrangements . . . Their 'inexplicability'
is not due to the fact that the cause is unknown, but to the fact that a cause is not even thinkable
in intellectual terms." Carl Jung speaking of synchronicity
These peculiar experiences of predestination and highly unlikely coincidence last for mere
seconds, but if experienced repeatedly, are enough to open ones consciousness to the
possibility of a higher intelligence. Inversely, enlightenment is a consummative experience of
predestination and beyond-chance coincidence that can last anywhere from a few minutes
to a few hours and it often changes a person forever. The climax of the experience involves
a full blown epiphany of the Oneness of the Universe: time ends, Eternity is effectively
realized, and subsequently, death is experienced as a transition of being; not the end of our
existence, eliminating any fear of dying. The person thus raptured experiences the death of
his ego; his merely limited sense of self is totally dissolved, enabling him to comprehend for
the first time the Ground of All Being; the Eternal Universe of which he understands that he
is. All that was previously unconscious is revealed to consciousness: it is as if the entire
mystery of life dissolves before ones eyes, leaving one to comprehensively feel and
understand the predestined purpose and synchronistic order behind all things and events.
The concept of God presents itself as a divine totality symbol of Oneness and
paradoxically, reciprocity (Good/Evil etc). Life is seen to be an eternal search for love and
understanding, despite all evil and unconsciousness that befalls us; it is all understood to be
necessary for a purpose beyond our merely self-conscious awareness. The realization
dawns upon consciousness that, "I am God." (This is precisely why Christ equated Himself
with the Father, because He was acutely aware that He is the Father; He is God, of which
we All are, which, by the way, was his principle teaching.)
"When you make the two one, and
when you make the inner as the outer
and the outer as the inner and the above as the below ...
then shall you enter [the Kingdom]....
I am the Light that is above
them all, I am the All,
the All came forth from Me and the All
attained to Me. Cleave a [piece of] wood, I
am there; lift up the stone and you will
find Me there."
Jesus
This experience presents itself as fundamentally absolute and psychically self-affirming; in
fact, it is felt to be the most important experience of the subject’s life, often obliging them to
lead a life devoted to the dissemination of their newfound knowledge. It is for this reason
that, for millennia, we have depended upon these rare individuals who were granted this
insight to help us understand that which we are incapable of understanding by ourselves.
This is the very basis of religion: the inexperienced multitude follow by an act of faith a
predisposed few whom are sanctioned as the arbiters of esoteric knowledge about our
existence (God) by default of their divinely imparted wisdom. However, as previously
mentioned, this dynamic puts us as adherents in a position of great vulnerability, hence the
need for faith in regards to what we are made to believe about our existence by our divinely
chosen representatives of the Truth.
The distinct need for an honest intermediary to the divine has long been fulfilled by the
ancient vocation of the shaman, who by the very nature of his position must be of a pure
heart, otherwise he would not be able withstand the constant dissolution that his work calls
for. This is because in order for a shaman to attain enlightenment, his ego must be totally
destroyed and for this enlightenment to be lasting, this dissolution must be maintained. Thus
it is the primary role of a shaman to ritually immerse himself in the death state, so as to
understand it to the highest degree possible and to keep his ego at bay. For this reason, a
shaman is an individual, whom because of a predisposed psychic problem, isolates himself
from the rest of his community for the purpose of contemplating his relation to the Universe
through acts of dissolution and asceticism; acts such as sensory deprivation, fasting, and
especially the ingesting of consciousness-expanding plants.
Through these acts of dissolution, a shaman's will is effectively crucified and subsequently
reborn with a new purpose; this is precisely how he is made to be a vessel for the Divine,
by perpetually emptying himself of all worldly ambition. A shaman would be spiritually unfit
for this job unless he was, in essence, a clean mirror upon which to reflect the Divine and he
is able to purify himself for this purpose by directly confronting the contents of his
unconscious through these consciousness-perturbing acts. So, essentially, a shaman is a
man who extinguishes his earthly will so that the Logos may speak through him. This is the
sacrifice that a shaman makes to heal his people; he sacrifices his will for the greater of his
community because he is made acutely aware of his great responsibility to uphold the Truth
by default of his predisposition to receive it.
He is a master of ecstasy; that which accompanies the total dissolution of all boundaries;
ego death (let it also be noted that it is often a near-death experience that calls a person to
shamanize; usually a "mystical death-rebirth" experience). In experiencing death many times,
a shaman becomes the foremost authority on all things related to it, which, because of its
universal nature, encompasses nearly all of reality, hence his position as a revered Great
Teacher. He is "chosen" to fulfill this position because he has managed to heal himself
through his works; therefore he holds the keys to healing all others as well. It is by default
of possessing such a gift that the shaman has such a great weight upon his shoulders to
alleviate psychic illness, which he understands to be a spiritual neurosis. Carl Jung once
noted that the whole phenomenology of spiritualism belongs to shamanism: meaning that all
of our religious traditions owe their existence to the position of the practicing shaman and
his esoteric knowledge. In fact, the shaman is the precursory figure to the modern mystic,
prophet, alchemist, scientist, teacher, and doctor. Arguably, he is the very progenitor of
human civilization and morality.
"Although the particular motifs may vary between cultures and even individuals, the general
symbolism is clear: The novice shaman undergoes a symbolic death and resurrection, which is
understood as a radical transformation into a superhuman condition. Henceforth, the shaman
enjoys access to the supernatural plane; he is a master of ecstasy, can travel in the spirit-realm at
will, can cure and divine, can touch red-hot irons with impunity, and so on. In short, the shaman
is transformed from a profane into a sacred state of being. Not only has he effected his own
cure through this mystical transmutation, he is now invested with the power of the sacred, and
hence can cure others as well. It is of the first order of importance to remember this, that the
shaman is not merely a sick man, or a madman; he is a sick man who has healed himself, who is
cured and who must shamanize to remain cured." Terence Mckenna, 'The Invisible Landscape'
"...Aboriginal medicine-men, so far from being rogues, charlatans or ignoramuses, are men of
high degree; that is, men who have taken a degree in the secret life beyond that taken by most
adult males - a step which implies discipline, mental training, courage and perseverance . . . they
are men of respected, and often outstanding, personality . . . they are of immense social
significance, the psychological health of the group largely depending on faith in their powers . . .
the various psychic powers attributed to them must not be too readily dismissed as mere
primitive magic and 'makebelieve,' for many of them have specialized in the working of the
human mind, and in the influence of mind on body and of mind on mind . . ." A.P. Elkin,
'Aboriginal Men of High Degree'
"The shamanic enlightenment is the literal ability to lighten the darkness, to see in that darkness
what others cannot perceive. This may, in fact, be the most ancient meaning of "enlightenment."
For example, the special ability of the Iglulik Eskimo shaman to see is called his qaumanEq, his
"lighting" or "enlightenment," "..which enables him to see in the dark, both literally and
metaphorically speaking, for he can now, even with closed eyes, see through darkness and
perceive things and coming events which are hidden from others; thus they look into the future
and into the secrets of others." - Michael Harner, 'The Way of the Shaman'; nested quote is from
Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos, by Knud Rasmussen
A shaman serves the Divine will by actively maintaining his communities link to planetary
consciousness, i.e. Nature (God), via visionary plants, which allow him to access esoteric
knowledge within the collective unconscious of mankind (this is how he acquires knowledge
about our existence that we would otherwise have no access to; consciousness-expanding
plants dissolve his ego without really killing him, leaving him to roam a state of
consciousness beyond death for information). The shaman uses this knowledge first to heal
the malady which compelled him to shamanize, and then to heal the people of his
community. He is able to do this, because in healing himself, he has the epiphany that God
is his innermost Self; in fact, everyone's innermost Self is God, so it is his great responsibility
to help people remember this fact for themselves and therefore heal them of their divine
uncertainty about life (a shaman typically gives a sacrament of consciousness-expanding
plants to individuals to catalyze such a "mystical" experience; he actively partakes in the
ingesting of the plants so as to direct them on the "other side" ). Our earliest pagan fertility
religions, and even our later institutionalized monotheistic religions, all stem from this
common belief that we are all God; we just lack the capacity to realize it for ourselves,
hence why we need divinely chosen men to act as our conduit to the ineffable by providing
us a glimpse of it. However, as I explicitly point out above, such a situation is susceptible to
corruption and as a result, this esoteric knowledge of our divinity often gets lost in the
process.
The shaman's universal teachings of Oneness and reciprocity, which are the result of his
acute understanding of man's relation to Nature and the Universe, ultimately laid the
foundation for our religious institutions which we have depended upon for our worldview
for the past several thousand years. The only problem is that our religions have been
corrupted by governmental influence and this has tainted their doctrines, and our ability to
properly interpret their true meaning, irreparably. In fact, Western civilization has managed
to cast out the shaman-prophet figure entirely as a heretic, while keeping his esoteric
teachings for institutional purposes. This ostracization of the shaman figure in turn caused a
gross misinterpretation and misuse of our oldest religious teachings and in the end, it
severed our ancient link to Nature with the loss of psychedelic plant use. As a direct result,
our religious institutions have become dangerously corrupt with temporal power while
continuing to provide us with the context upon which we base our beliefs, leaving us with
very little spiritual recourse. Due to this corruption, our beliefs have largely become inert
and no longer psychically relative, ultimately depriving us of any true existential
understanding. This is all because we have abandoned the position of the shaman – and
with him our connection to Nature – leaving us with seemingly very little we can do to
amend our current existential crisis.
"The suppression of the natural human fascination with altered states of consciousness and the
present perilous situation of all life on earth are intimately and causally connected. When we
suppress access to shamanic ecstasy, we close off the refreshing waters of emotion that flow
from having a deeply bonded, almost symbiotic relationship to the earth. As a consequence, the
maladaptive social styles that encourage overpopulation, resource mismanagement, and
environmental toxification develop and maintain themselves. No culture on earth is as heavily
narcotized as the industrial West in terms of being inured to the consequences of maladaptive
behavior. We pursue business-as-usual attitude in a surreal atmosphere of mounting crises and
irreconcilable contradictions." Food of the Gods, Terence Mckenna
Despite this fall from grace and sanctioned tradition, we have recently begun to once again
appreciate the truly incalculable importance of our beliefs and their influence upon us. With
the catalyst of modern technology, we have rediscovered that our fate is entirely dependent
upon our relationship with Nature and in light of this, we must change the way we have
been made to view the world. For how we act upon what we believe unequivocally
determines our subsequent mortality, and we can now see – perhaps more clearly than ever
– that, collectively, modern man has had very little understanding of his place in the world,
and has acted unconsciously toward his environment as a result. This estrangement from
Nature is currently forcing an existential crisis upon mankind and undoubtedly, our belief
systems, with their widespread influence upon our collective psychology, landed us in this
position. Why is this happening, and most importantly, what does it reveal about the
mystery of our existence? I will attempt to answer these questions despite the obvious
impediments in doing so, for I believe that I have stumbled upon a recurrent, yet often
forgotten way of viewing the world, and it is by its very unitive nature that I am obliged to
share its however esoteric message. This message, which is universally relative and
therefore psychically valid, has the potential to answer many, if not all, of our questions
about reality and right now, as a world united by duress, we urgently need this kind of
understanding more than ever. It is for this reason that I feel compelled to outline the figure
of the shaman for those who have ears for such a reexamination of our beliefs and their
origin.
"If there is anything like the spirit seizing one by the scruff of the neck, it is the way this book
came into being" Carl Jung on his book, 'Answer to Job' in a letter to Aniela Jaffe, July 18, 1951
"The writing of a book which purports to explain all and everything, as this one does, is a task
best left to the young, for whom such pedestrian considerations as scientific rigor and credibility
are mere impediments." Dennis Mckenna, 'The Invisible Landscape'
"I am acutely aware, as many of my readers will be, of the surreal, prophetistic, and even
grandiose aspects of many of these ideas. I have come to hold the opinions expressed here based
on a lifetime of peculiar experiences. Those experiences occurred at the edge of sanctioned
reality, and in the absence of those experiences there would be no basis for my heretical
opinions. But I have found the universe of psychedelic shamanism to be a corpus delecti for
those seeking evidence that all is not well with the sunny world of materialism and scientific
rationalism." Terence Mckenna, 'The Archaic Revival'
Carl Jung and the Collective Unconscious
In the words of Alan Watts, this is “a book about books.” That is to say, this work is
largely supported by a homogeneous mixture of minds and ideas so as to express as
objectively as possible an otherwise entirely subjective understanding. It is with
complimentary accounts that this understanding takes on an unquestionable objective
autonomy that spans millennia and defies critical analysis. This historical consensus is the
result of recurring archetypes within the collective human repository of experience that Carl
Jung called the collective unconscious.
"A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal. I call it the
personal unconscious. But this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not
derive from personal experience and it is not a personal acquisition but it is inborn. This deeper
layer I call the collective unconscious. I have chosen the term "collective" because this part of
the unconscious is not individual but universal; in contrast to the personal psyche, it has contents
and modes of behavior that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals. It is, in
other words, identical in all men and thus constitutes a common psychic substrate of a
suprapersonal nature which is present in every one of us."
"While the personal unconscious is made up essentially of contents which have at one time been
conscious but which have disappeared from consciousness through having been forgotten or
repressed, the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and
therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to heredity.
Whereas the personal unconscious consists for the most part of complexes, the content of the
collective unconscious is made up essentially of archetypes. The concept of the archetype,
which is an indispensable correlate of the idea of the collective unconscious, indicates the
existence of definite forms in the psyche which seem to be present always and everywhere."
Carl Jung, 'The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious'
These embedded psychic contents preexist autonomously within the human mind; however,
they lie entirely beyond our cognition, hidden within our unconscious. Yet, despite this
impediment, archetypal contents are capable of making themselves present to
consciousness when occurrences perturb our normal day to day consciousness away from
our merely self-orientated awareness. A window of opportunity is provided for
unconscious contents to reach consciousness whenever we are so perturbed; this is the
method of the shaman, who uses all sorts of catalysts to perturb his consciousness in order
to retrieve information from his unconscious; catalysts such as fasting, drumming, and
especially, ingesting psychoactive plants which activate parts of his mind that are otherwise
dormant. In this way, these seemingly latent contents are "remembered" or realized as being
preexistent; as if they were always there (this is precisely how the shaman remembers his
forgotten divinity and it is also why the experience of enlightenment itself is very déjà vu-
like). This type of recollection may seem incommensurable at first but with time the
experience attains a highly peculiar, idiosyncratic familiarity that ultimately calls into question
all that is assumed about reality and the nature of time. It is in light of this that we may
understand the archetypes to be transcendentally esoteric; i.e., they point towards a reality
that is much greater in scope than ours, making it nearly impossible to communicate or even
fully understand such concepts with absolute confidence.
I quote Carl Jung extensively for his sheer intellectual might and brilliant lucidity in explaining
this esoteric dynamic of the psyche.
"The fact that religious statements frequently conflict with the observed physical phenomena
proves that in contrast to physical perception the spirit is autonomous, and that psychic
experience is to a certain extent independent of physical data. The psyche is an autonomous
factor, and religious statements are psychic confessions which in the last resort are based on
unconscious, i.e., on transcendental, processes. These processes are not accessible to physical
perception but demonstrate their existence through the confessions of the psyche. The resultant
statements are filtered through the medium of human consciousness: that is to say, they are
given visible forms which in their turn are subject to manifold influences from within and
without. That is why whenever we speak of religious contents we move in a world of images
that point to something ineffable. We do not know how clear or unclear these images,
metaphors, and concepts are in respect of their transcendental object. If, for instance, we say
"God," we give expression to an image or verbal concept which has undergone many changes in
the course of time. We are, however, unable to say with any degree of certainty – unless it be by
faith – whether these changes affect only the images and concepts, or the Unspeakable itself.
After all, we can imagine God as an eternally flowing current of vital energy that endlessly
changes shape just as easily as we can imagine him as an eternally unmoved, changeable
essence. Our reason is sure only of one thing: that it manipulates images and ideas which are
dependent on human imagination and its temporal and local conditions, and which have therefore
changed innumerable times in the course of their long history. There is no doubt that there is
something behind these images that transcends consciousness and operates in such a way that
the statements do not vary limitlessly and chaotically, but clearly all relate to a few basic
principles or archetypes. These, like the psyche itself, or like matter, are unknowable as such.
All we can do is to construct models of them which we know to be inadequate, a fact which is
confirmed again and again by religious statements...
If, therefore, in what follows I concern myself with these "metaphysical" objects, I am quite
conscious that I am moving in a world of images and that none of my reflections touches the
essence of the Unknowable. I am also too well aware of how limited are our powers of language
– to say nothing of the feebleness and poverty of language – to imagine that my remarks mean
anything more in principle than what a primitive man means when he conceives of his god as a
hare or a snake. But, although our whole world of religious ideas consists of anthropomorphic
images that could never stand up to rational criticism, we should never forget that they are based
on numinous archetypes, i.e., on an emotional foundation which is unassailable by reason. We
are dealing with psychic facts which logic can overlook, but not eliminate."
"It is, in fact, impossible to demonstrate God's reality to oneself except by using images which
have arisen spontaneously or are sanctified by tradition, and whose psychic nature and effects
the naive-minded person has never separated from their unknowable metaphysical background.
He instantly equates the effective image with the transcendental x to which it points. The
seeming justification for this procedure appears self-evident and is not considered a problem so
long as the statements of religion are not seriously questioned. But if there is occasion for
criticism, then it must be remembered that the image and the statement are psychic processes
which are different from their transcendental object; they do not posit it, they merely point to it.
In the realm of psychic processes criticism and discussion are not only permissible but are
unavoidable." Carl Jung, 'Answer to Job'
It is for this reason that we are dealing with something ineffable that the role of the shaman
is so incredibly important to us. Because, without the shaman to submerge himself into the
unconscious and report back, we have very little, if at all, input into our unconscious
archetypal contents which motivate our actions. They are either too inaccessible or too
esoteric to be grasped by the common man, therefore the shaman acts as the arbiter to the
collective unconscious and its archetypal contents. The shaman brings esoteric knowledge
out of the collective unconscious into consciousness via his use of psychoactive plants
which provide altered states of consciousness; this is the symbiotic relationship of Nature
and Man. Mankind uses plants to learn about himself and in turn, mankind reveres Nature
with reciprocated respect. The archetypes of God and Eternity impart an understanding that
Nature is inherently holy and that it must be worshipped as such, because we are all One
interconnected whole of which Nature is our Mother and womb. Unfortunately, we are
beginning to learn the often painful lesson of why we should never turn our back on Nature
and it is all because we have shunned the importance of the shaman and psychedelic plants.
Without the shaman figure to provide us with existential understanding via the collective
unconscious, we have managed to sever our link with Nature and in the process, we have
forgotten our heritage; our Oneness with Nature and ultimately, the Universe.
"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 for the society through their constant reaffirmation in shamanic ritual and
through the shaman's epic narration of mythical scenarios and his artistic production. The
shaman does more, however, than just recite the myths or express the religious symbolism in
making ritual artifacts; the shaman lives the myth. By virtue of his superhuman, transformed
state, he enacts the role of the mythical hero: He can fly through the air, talk to the gods, see
everywhere, understand the animals, and perform other feats characteristic of a semidivine
entity. Thus, the shaman is the exemplar in the present epoch, which is regarded by primitives as
a profane, historical time, of the condition supposed to have been accessible to all humans before
the fall. In his ecstasy, the shaman reenters that mythical, paradisiacal condition that existed
before the fall and thus reasserts, for the entire culture, the reality of that mythical time. Thus,
the validity of the archetypal motifs, which presumably describe the human condition in the
paradisiacal era, is reaffirmed.
The shamanic function also includes psychoanalytical capability. That the shaman can cure
illness of a psychological or psychosomatic nature is well established. "The shaman is
undoubtedly, perhaps essentially, a doctor – but the factual medical knowledge of the primitives
is very small; the shaman's medical function seems to be confined to psychological, perhaps
psychoanalytical techniques, and his successes fall mainly within the psychological domain"
(Lommel 1967, pg. 25). By what exact mechanism he is able to do this is not completely
understood. It is as though the shaman, in his capacity of ecstatic psychopomp, practices a
participation therapy of the most sophisticated type; by means of his ecstatic capacity, the
shaman "plunges" into the collective unconscious and restores the patient's self-identity
(equivalent to "finding his soul") by taking onto himself the unconscious contents that have
inundated the patient through the principle of transference (cf. Jung 1954)... The shaman, then,
acts as a doctor of the soul, both the individual and the collective soul, and he is also a real and
living exemplar of the primordial, mythical human condition, and in being so maintains the reality
and the immediacy of the sacred. He is able to carry out these functions because he is master of
the techniques of ecstasy, and it is by virtue of this that he maintains his suprahuman state. "
Terence Mckenna, 'The Invisible Landscape'
"If we are to draw a conclusion as to how we can profit from the study of shamanism, is it this:
Perhaps, 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."
Terence Mckenna, 'The Invisible Landscape' (Italics mine)
"Shamans - whom we in the "civilized" world have called "medicine men" and "witch doctors"" -
are the keepers of a remarkable body of ancient techniques that they use to achieve and maintain
well-being and healing for themselves and members of their communities. These shamanic
methods are strikingly similar the world over, even for peoples who cultures are quite different
in other aspects, and who have been separated by oceans and continents for tens of thousands
of years. These so-called primitive peoples lacked our advanced level of medical technology, so
they had excellent reason to be motivated to develop the non-technological capacities of the
human mind for health and healing. The basic uniformity of shamanic methods suggest that,
through trial and error, people arrived at the same conclusions. Shamanism is a great mental and
emotional adventure, one in which the patient as well as the shaman-healer are involved.
Through his heroic journey and efforts, the shaman helps his patients transcend their normal,
ordinary definition of reality, including the definition of themselves as ill. The shaman shows his
patients that they are not emotionally and spiritually alone in their struggles against illness and
death. The shaman shares his special powers and convinces his patients, on a deep level of
consciousness, that another human is willing to offer up his own self to help them." The Way of
the Shaman, Michael Harner (Italics mine)
Millions throughout history are given faint glimpses into the contents of their unconscious;
only a precious few experience them long enough to come back and report upon them;
even then, these explanations are realized as mere groping in the dark compared to their
psychic reality. However, even with this acute understanding of utterly hopeless esoteric
nature of our unconscious archetypes, "fools" of all ages have taken "the weight of the
world" upon themselves to "save mankind" by revealing the highest psychic truth of the
collective unconscious. These prophets or mystics all had a common goal: to reveal to
mankind all that is unconscious, so that we may all experience enlightenment. This is no
small task, however, as it is a very difficult job to convey the seemingly ineffable to the
common man; in fact; that is why mystics are likewise considered to be fools. This is the
realm of the shaman healer; the progenitor of the religious prophet and mystic. It is he who
has the penetrating insight into reality that bestows upon him a great responsibility to spread
enlightenment and yet he is viewed as being mad because he is so misunderstood. He
reveals to all that which is hidden, yet he himself realizes that it is he who is ultimately the
one hiding it, because he is God; the divine trickster.
"God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside God, he has no one
but himself to play with. But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This
is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the
world, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way he has strange
and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad
dreams, for when he wakes up they will disappear. "Now when God plays hide and pretends
that he is you and I, he does it so well that it takes him a long time to remember where and how
he hid himself. But that's the whole fun of it—just what he wanted to do. He doesn't want to
find himself too quickly, for that would spoil the game. That is why it is so difficult for you and
me to find out that we are God in disguise, pretending not to be himself. But when the game has
gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and remember that we are all one
single Self—the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever and ever." Alan Watts, 'The
Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are'
Eternity. It is my belief that when we die, we effectively realize this (if we are so capable*)
and subsequently, we forget everything so that we may experience our lives all over again,
anew. (In reality, we repeat our lives infinitely, so it is really just "once" that we live in
relation to time, but as we have recently come to understand with the help of Einstein; time
doesn't really exist, hence the inherently paradoxical nature of this concept.) I have been led
to believe, by experiences that I will later explain, that we are all microcosmic reflections of
the macrocosmic Eternal Universe and by default of this relation, we are to experience the
very same fate of cyclical repetition. This is the idea of the eternal recurrence; a concept
recently revived by Nietzsche and shared the world-over, however esoterically, by our
multitudinous religions.
*"O Friend, hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live, understand whilst you live; for
in life deliverance abides. If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of deliverance in
death? It is but an empty dream that the soul shall have union with Him because it has passed
from the body; If He is found now, He is found then; If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of
Death." -Kabir
The Greatest Weight
"What if, one day or night, a daemon were to slide up after you in your loneliest loneliness and
say to you: 'This life, as you now live and have lived it, you will have to live again and
innumerable times over; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every pleasure
and every thought and sigh and all the unspeakably small and large things in your life must come
back to you, and all in the same order and sequence - and likewise this spider and this moonlight
between the trees, and likewise this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence
will be turned over again and again – and you with it, you tiny speck of dust' – Would you not
throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the daemon who talked this way? Or have
you once experienced a tremendous moment in which you would answer him: 'You are a God
and never have I heard anything more divine!' If this thought were to gain power over you, it
would transform you as you are, and perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing,
'Do you want this once more and innumerable times more?' would lie upon your actions as the
greatest weight! Or how well disposed to yourself and to life would you be, to long for nothing
more than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?" Friedrich Nietzsche, 'The Gay Science'
"...when the game has gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and
remember that we are all one single Self–the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever
and ever." Alan Watts, 'The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are"
As a disclaimer, let it be noted that I am acutely aware that by making such statements, I
am obliged to clarify my position absolutely so as to save any misunderstanding on the part
of my readers. I understand to the fullest extent of my being that all truth is utterly subjective
and that the existential beliefs discussed herein are just that; a subjective understanding that
I have reached as a result of my idiosyncratic experiences. I am not claiming to know the
Truth, nor am I attempting to convince anyone that this is the end-all, be-all understanding
of human consciousness; in fact, I am painfully aware of my perpetual naiveté in relation to
the ineffable process of the Universe, and I encourage people to first and foremost think for
themselves. I know fundamentally that I will continue to evolve my existential awareness
until the very day that I cross the final threshold of bodily death and this site is a reflection of
that, as it is constantly evolving toward higher states of order.
It is only in light of the universality and sheer antiquity of these ideas of Eternity and God
that I feel comfortable enough to share with my fellow man what I have discovered about
myself and the world. For I truly believe that we are all One single Self when it comes
down to it and the only way to effectively realize this is through a direct confrontation with
our existential awareness, i.e., in order to awaken to our Universal nature, we must perturb
our culturally sanctioned understanding of reality, because it is this view of reality which has
led us to believe that we are separate beings inhabiting a pointless Universe. We have to
confront the Unknown, the Other; that which is the basis of our fears and uncertainties
about life; the Other that we have been made to deny by our cultures. In order to do this,
we must perturb our consciousness with an objective frame of reference. A frame of
reference which, in order to be truly objective and therefore effective, must be absolutely
divorced from the inherited paradigms that have made us hopelessly complacent and
unconscious of our existential heritage. Thus, I seek to provide such a frame of reference
with these relatively esoteric concepts, though it must be understood that they can only get
you so far, as you must be acquainted with these ideas experientially in order to truly
appreciate them, as I will get into later. All of this, of course, is solely my opinion and only
that.
"For many years I hesitated to do this [give an explicit "answer" to the problem of God and evil]
because I was quite conscious of the probable consequences, and knew what a storm would be
raised. But I was gripped by the urgency and difficulty of the problem and was unable to throw
it off. Therefore I found myself obliged to deal with the whole problem, and I did so in the form
of describing a personal experience, carried by subjective emotions. I deliberately chose this
form because I wanted to avoid the impression that I had any idea of announcing an "eternal
truth." The book (Answer to Job) does not pretend to be anything but the voice or question of a
single individual who hopes or expects to meet with thoughtfulness in the public.
On account of its somewhat unusual content, my little book requires a short preface. I beg of
you, dear reader, not to overlook it. For, in what follows, I shall speak of the venerable objects
of religious belief. Whoever talks of such matters inevitably runs the risk of being torn to pieces
by the two parties who are in mortal conflict about these very things. This conflict is due to the
strange supposition that a thing is only true if it presents itself as a physical fact. Thus some
people believe it to be physically true that Christ was born as the son of a virgin, while others
deny this as a physical impossibility. Everyone can see that there is no logical solution to this
conflict and that one would do better not to get involved in such sterile disputes. Both are right
and both are wrong. Yet they could easily reach agreement if only they dropped the word
"physical." "Physical" is not the only criterion of truth: there are also psychic truths which can
neither be explained no proved nor contested in any physical way." Carl Jung, 'Answer to Job'
Admittedly, it is with great intellectual courage that I am attempting to compose an explicit
reflection upon my intuitions regarding our existence. So before delving into such a topic, I
must first address the main issue with its discussion. As it is considered excessively taboo
and anathema to the status quo, it is extremely difficult to introduce such dialogue into
public discourse and be taken seriously, if at all (especially when covering such subjects as
psychedelic plant shamanism). In our governmentally sanctioned modern civilization of
scientific materialism, it is quite commonplace for the vast majority of its adherents to
denounce unconditionally anything that does not fit into their prescribed reality, as it is
viewed as a direct threat to their complacent way of life. In other words, our predisposed
temperaments – as determined by our genetics, cultures, and especially governments –
make us inherently ignorant to concepts which violate our paradigmatic view and this makes
contrary discourse incredibly difficult to integrate for the average person. I am most aware
of this vast impediment to the reception of my ideas; all that I ask is that you try to keep an
open mind.
I would also like it to be understood that I aim not for the mass dissemination of these
ideas, as I am conscious of the fact that you simply cannot make esoteric knowledge
exoteric. I am by no means trying to reach the most people possible, as other writers often
do, because I know that the only people who will actually understand and appreciate this
message are those who will actively seek it out for themselves by the grace of Divine
Providence. This is to say that, those who will ultimately find this page and get anything out
of it will do so for a reason, i.e., chances are, if you are resonating with these ideas, it is
because you have already had similar experiences that you can relate this text to, otherwise
you wouldn't have a frame of reference upon which to weigh the validity of these ideas and
therefore would be left feeling indifferent, at best.
This is due to the fact that text, at its most fundamental level, is most useful for reflection
upon our respective catalogs of experience, especially in areas that are of great importance
to us emotionally. It must be acknowledged that text cannot be truly effective - that is, truly
grasped - unless the reader has, at the very least, some prior experiential knowledge of the
concepts being discussed. A reader with little to zero relative reference to a text is denied
intellectual entry by default of their inexperience. Just think about it; you could read a book
on psychedelic plants before using them and have absolutely no clue what is really being
discussed. However, after having tripped yourself, if you read the same book again you
would have no problem relating your experiences to the material and therefore, you would
be able to understand experientially what is being talked about. It is in light of this
understanding that I am seeking to relate to those who have already breached the event
horizon of consciousness, so to speak, but this is not to say that the "inexperienced" cannot
get something out of this text as well; in fact, I'm sure that quite a lot of people who are
"inexperienced" could actually relate to this text, only they must learn to look at their life
experiences under a different light; this I will also go into later (déjà vu).
And so, without further ado: We Die to Remember What We Live to Forget
Essentially, we die to remember what, while living as a separate entity, we have forgotten.
And what we have forgotten is our eternal connection to the Supreme Ground of All Being
(God), which is Eternity (the Eternal Universe), or what the Buddhists call, Nirvana, the
existence that we enter upon death which is the sum total of the All. When we depart from
this plane of existence, we are made aware of our most fundamental nature as God, and
after we come to this consummation, we choose to forget everything in order to do it all
over again, because we effectively realize that we are One with the Universe, which is an
eternal, unchanging process of which everything is interconnected and cyclical. Thus, we
are merely living our lives anew when we are born, because being born is just having died;
we effectively cause ourselves (the Ouroboros*; we are the First Cause). Life is a dream
that death wakes us from; the Universe is a broken record. Ultimately, this kind of thinking
leads to the inevitable conclusion that we are all God (the Universe), pretending to not be
itself for a purpose beyond our ability to fathom while alive (this is essential Alan Watts). In
making such bold assertions, I will provide, to the very best of my limited writing ability, an
in-depth explanation as to why this idea seems so plausible to me. Therefore it is my sole
aim to provide others with a point of view that is quite to the contrary of our culturally
sanctioned view of reality and in so doing, I hope to strike a relative chord deep within your
unconscious. Pretentious, of course, but to quote the late, yet timelessly brilliant Alan Watts:
“I am neither a preacher nor a reformer, for I like to write and talk about this way of seeing
things as one sings in the bathtub or splashes in the sea. There is no mission, nor intent to
convert, and yet I believe if this state of consciousness could become more universal, the
pretentious nonsense which passes for the serious business of the world would dissolve in
laughter.” 'This Is It'
*"The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation
process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the
snake that eats its own tail. The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or
wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and
turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the
prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the
integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feed-back' process is at the
same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and
brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who
proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima
materia which [...] unquestionably stems from man's unconscious." Carl Jung, 'Collected
Works' Vol. 14
The particular experience which led to these eschatological conclusions first occurred
on September 29, 2006 while I was tripping on seven dried grams of psilocybin
mushrooms. Since that time I have spent a little over three and a half years integrating the
experience by reading into its implications and, perhaps most importantly, by revisiting the
experience via psychedelic tryptamines such as DMT (psilocybin mushrooms are often
considered "oral DMT"). It was only after relating my experiences to many other accounts
of near-death and mystical experiences that I finally decided to put down in writing just
exactly what I experienced on that night in September, and since then, on several other
occasions. I feel that at that time, I had no way of hallucinating such an event with my
simply limited personal collection of intellectual concepts, as I was at the time, still quite
young; not yet nineteen and nowhere near well read. It took me years of researching to
figure out that what had happened to me was not merely a shizophrenic episode brought on
by psychedelics, but an apocalyptic mystical experience, which have occurred to many
others throughout history.
(For the record, I DO NOT advocate the use of consciousness-expanding plants. To me, it is a
personal freedom which I feel to be utterly sacred. Frankly, I believe great caution must be
observed while using these sacraments, because if you are careless, you will be taught a lesson;
however, if you are relatively "together" psychically and capable of letting go, you will
experience something quite extraordinary indeed. I have learned to have great respect for these
plants and you must as well, if you are to truly get anything out of them. Recreational use will be
met with disaster; these are tools, not toys; try to keep that in mind at all times.)
Prior to this experience I had experimented with psilocybin mushrooms several times up to
the five gram range, but had not yet fully experienced ego death. On September 29, 2006,
that all changed when I took seven dried grams. I fasted for a full twenty-four hours before
I ate them and after about thirty minutes I knew that this was going to be "it." Amazingly, I
have since repeated the experience with DMT (smoked); the only difference is that with
mushrooms, the experience can last for hours, whereas with DMT it occurs over about five
minutes. The thing that is really unbelievable about it, is that each time, I experience the
same thing.
The following is the account of an experience that I had on June 6, 2007:
As the experience unraveled, I realized that "I" and everything associated with me, myself
was about to end. At first, I definitely felt a distinct fear of dying (this fear expressed itself
through macabre visions/thoughts), but my fear gave way (along with the demonic visions)
as I eventually came to complete acceptance of death (which was seemingly inevitable,
although I could see how some people would resist this flow of events and have a bad
experience as a result. It was, admittedly, overwhelmingly intense; a center in my head –
and this is only a vague metaphor – built up pressure somewhat alarmingly as all of this was
going on, but it was thankfully released when I finally let go). After I came to accept death,
I was sucked through what can only be described as a "worm-hole*" of sorts; time ended
and space became dimensionless. An apocalypse of my entire life up until that point played
out in my mind as I was prepared to undergo absolute dissolution.
*The closest thing I have found that is similar to this experience is the following image: SCP
I "melted" into my surroundings as I witnessed every event of my life condensed into a fully
interactive timeless moment. The most powerfully emotional moments were given the most
"attention" and comprehensive understanding permeated the entire "showing." (I definitively
understood that each moment of my life was synchronistically predestined and thus
absolutely necessary for both my evolution and the evolution of the entire Universe.) Final
thoughts of my parents, friends, and things left undone flooded my mind, but everything was
okay and I knew what was coming, as I had already done this before, but forgot (I chose
to, in order to do it all over again, anew). After the life review "ended", I saw each of my
parents beside me, along with every important figure in my life (especially my Sophia),
helping me along toward this bright funnel of light (there was also an unindentifiable
"presence" that seemed to be watching over me throughout the experience, guiding me
along and supporting me with telepathic rapport). As I got closer to the light, I realized that
I would be born again into complete ignorance of my life that I had just lived (the white light
could be coming out of the womb again; that is only a guess). I knew that I would live the
same life over and over again and I wanted to; in fact, I willed it, because I am God.
I effectively realized that I was It; God; The First Cause; the Eternal Universe reflecting
back upon itself; I was merely God playing a cosmic joke on my Self. (At the height of this
realization I was looking down upon the Earth from space, as if my frame of reference had
become the entire world; I didn't feel like I had a body, but "my" consciousness was still
present. I had, for what seemed to be Eternity, a truly Universal frame of reference which
was entirely ineffable.) I was overwhelmed by the painful beauty of Life; the necessity of
Evil to bring about Good; the eternal reciprocity of the Universe that dissolves itself in
Love; the realized interconnectedness of the All; Enlightenment; the freeing of energy from
matter. (The sheer amount of "information" that I was being "presented" was incalculably
intense and it came at a speed that defies physics; it was, to put it lightly, otherworldly.)
“Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and
of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain
and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of
largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise
perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection
which is likely to be practically useful.” Aldous Huxley quoting Dr. C. D. Broad, 'The Doors of
Perception'
"Some people flatter themselves that there will be no last judgment. . . . I will not flatter them.
Error is created; truth is eternal. Error or creation will be burned up, and then and not till then,
truth or eternity will appear." "The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the divine
bosom into which we shall go after the death of the vegetated body. This world of imagination is
infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation, of vegetation, is finite and temporal. There
exist in that eternal world the permanent realities of everything which we see reflected in this
vegetable glass of nature." William Blake
As the experience ended, I was sucked back through the "worm-hole" in reverse,
experiencing everything I had prior, but in reverse; it was extremely peculiar, to say the
least. I was sucked down from my perch above the Earth, toward North America, where I
eventually came back into the top of my head. Within a mere few minutes after it began, I
was back, sitting in my room, shaking and breathless (still tripping, nonetheless, as my ego
slowly regained its posture). The experience led me to realize that death is a timeless
moment at the end of life that affirms our existence and enlightenment is our conscious
ability to transcend fear (unconsciousness) into Love (the acknowledged acceptance of the
All). We live the same life over and over again for Eternity and we are completely
unconscious of this due to our biology. We die to remember what while living we have
forgotten and what we have forgotten is the psychic fact that we are God (the Eternal
Universe); we just don't realize it until we die (or nearly die).
This particular experience lasted a little over 5 minutes; the experience that I had on
September 29, 2006 lasted for 4 hours and it really shook me down to the bone. After
quite awhile of not being able to make sense of what happened to me, I chose outright
denial of the experience and stopped using psychedelics (which was exactly the right
impulse, as I definitely needed time to integrate the experience before I immersed myself
again). However, the experience still lingered in my consciousness and, over time, I began
to read everything I could get my hands on regarding psychedelics and esoteric knowledge
(it was as if the experience itself were pulling me toward integrating it). Slowly, after much
devoted research, relative metaphors emerged that I could use to explain my experience
and as I went along, I was able to integrate and make more sense of the symbolism
involved in the experience.
I have come to realize that there are many possible interpretations of what I experienced.
One being that it was entirely a construct of my mind; merely a hallucination rich with
symbolism. The biggest problem with this view to me, personally, is that when it was
actually happening I distinctly remember knowing first hand (as if my consciousness were
left untouched) that the Universe exists within my mind and that what I was experiencing
was more real and intense than anything I had ever encountered. Not only this, but I had no
way of hallucinating such an event from merely my personal unconscious; this is what led
me to formally investigate the theories of Carl Jung. When I later experienced DMT, I was
brought to the exact same place that I was during my seven gram mushroom trip, which led
me to take the interpretation that I was indeed experiencing something that exists
autonomously. And so I definitely do not believe that this was a mere hallucination; it was
much more than that. Coming out of these DMT trips I have had the distinct feeling that
what I was experiencing was my actual bodily death occurring sometime in the future and
that each experience is merely overlaid upon this Eternal moment of dissolution; the
Eschaton; the death of I.
“Access to the holographic reality becomes experientially available when one’s consciousness is
freed from it’s dependence on the physical body. When one is freed from the body, one
experiences it directly. That is why mystics speak about their visions with such certitude and
conviction, while those who haven’t experienced this realm for themselves are left feeling
skeptical or indifferent.” Kenneth Ring, ‘Life at Death’
"In so far as analytical treatment makes the "shadow" conscious, it causes a cleavage and a
tension of opposites which in their turn seek compensation in unity. The adjustment is achieved
through symbols. The conflict between the opposites can strain our psyche to the breaking
point, if we take them seriously, or if they take us seriously. The tertium non datur (there is no
third) of logic proves its worth: no solution can be seen. If all goes well, the solution, seemingly
of its own accord, appears out of nature. Then and then only is it convincing. It is felt as
"grace." Since the solution proceeds out of the confrontation and clash of opposites, it is usually
an unfathomable mixture of conscious and unconscious factors, and therefore a symbol, a coin
split into two halves which fit together precisely. It represents the result of the joint labors of
consciousness and the unconscious, and attains the likeness of the God-image in the form of a
mandala, which is probably the simplest model of a concept of wholeness, and one which
spontaneously arises in the mind as a representation of the struggle and the reconciliation of
opposites. The clash, which is at first of a purely personal nature, is soon followed by the insight
that the subjective conflict is only a single instance of the universal conflict of opposites. Our
psyche is set up in accord with the structure of the universe, and what happens in the macrocosm
likewise happens in the infinitesimal and most subjective reaches of the psyche. For that reason
the God-image is always a projection of the inner experience of a powerful vis-a-vis (face to
face)." Carl Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections; Late Thoughts (Italics mine)
"You superior humans, what do you think? Am I a soothsayer? A dreamer? Drunkard? A dream
interpreter? A midnight-bell? A drop of dew? A haze and fragrance of eternity? Do you not hear
it? Do you not smell it? Just now my world became perfect, midnight is also midday -- Pain is
also a joy, curse is also a blessing, night is also a sun -- be gone! or you will learn: a wise man is
also a fool. Did you ever say Yes to a single joy? Oh, my friends, then you said Yes to all woe as
well. All things are chained together, entwined, in love -- if you ever wanted one time a second
time, if you ever said 'You please me, happiness! Quick! Moment!' then you wanted it all back!
-- All anew, all eternally, all chained together, entwined, in love, oh then you loved the world --
you eternal ones, love it eternally and for all time: and even to woe you say: Be gone, but come
back! For all joy wants -- Eternity!" Friedrich Nietzsche, 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'
And so let it also be known that I haven't come to these conclusions through merely
reading others ideas; I have come to these conclusions through years of testing the
boundaries of my consciousness with psychedelic experiences and then reflecting upon
them with relative literature. My psychedelic experiences certainly didn't take what I had
previously read and manifest it as psychic truths; it is actually the exact opposite. I
experienced these ideas first and later I confirmed them as psychically valid by reading the
vast consensus of mystical literature that we have at our disposal. I tripped and then
studied religion and philosophy, because what was happening during my trips was
something that I couldn't understand. I was having experiences of the Divine, literally
hearing, "I am God" during mushroom trips and I was a staunch atheist. I started taking
mushrooms as a way to test reality because I didn't believe in anything. Then I started
realizing that "I" was God. Everything is. I was having revelations, that with my extremely
limited catalog of concepts and experiences, were frankly impossible. As I have already
said, I was far too young and naive to be having the experiences that I was, and yet I had
them. I had to study Carl Jung, Nietzsche, Alan Watts and numerous philosophers and
religions to understand that I wasn't crazy. I was merely becoming aware of my divinity; a
divinity which lays latent inside of all of our minds.
One final relative experience that is of note is the first time I ever had a "mystical" moment
while tripping:
One night during the height of my atheism when I was 18, I had a vision of Christ while
tripping (January 21, 2006). I was walking up a forested hill, looking down, when I
suddenly looked up to the moon, and instead of seeing the moon, I saw Christ's face. I
couldn't make any sense of it, but it happened. Granted I was tripping, but as Jung clearly
states, religious revelations are merely confessions of the psyche. My psyche was
attempting to tell me something and I firmly believe it was telling me that I was being
ignorant. I did not become a Christian, but I certainly began to look deeper into my beliefs
(for the record, I find beauty in all of the religions of the world, as I would consider myself
to be a pantheist). It is in light of idiosyncratic events such as the ones I have mentioned that
I was led to write about our existence in hopes of getting others to question their beliefs, as
I was obliged to by my experiences. That is my true goal with all of this and frankly, I
believe that we all will need to do quite a bit of soul searching in the near future as Mother
Nature seeks to reclaim what is rightfully hers. And so, Godspeed and forgive us All; in the
End everything will be revealed, again.
As a way of warning to those of the tepid or easily perturbed intellect, this text is what is to
be considered as absolute heresy, so make your exit now if that is what you feel the impulse
to do (if I haven't already lost you). For what is to follow is the acknowledged psychic
confession of my attempt at integrating my psychedelic experiences, which opened my mind
to a world beyond time and description. It should then be of no surprise, that in using
somewhat archaic symbols to relate my subjective experience, I should find myself alone in
the often idiosyncratic world of esoteric thought. However, it is my chief argument and
reason for sharing this, that, under closer inspection, these very esoteric archetypes that I
was drawn to are, in actuality, universally relative; it is only that they lay unrealized in our
unconscious because we lack the psychology to effectively perceive them (hence why we
need catalysts to help us; once again, more on this later). It is my belief that these recurring
archetypes of Eternity and God are present in our minds for an evolutionary reason, and we
must open our minds to them before it is deemed too late by Mother Nature, whom by the
very law of reciprocity is gearing up to put us back in our place. It is for this very reason
that I seek to provide a light for those searching in the existential darkness of our spiritually
hapless times.
Shamanism, Religion, and Civilization
"If I sometimes make statements in an authoritative and dogmatic manner, it is for the sake of
clarity rather than from the desire to pose as an oracle." Alan Watts
Our existential beliefs, as determined by our environment and subsequent social
conditioning, have played an unequivocal role in the development of civilization, and
therefore human consciousness, for thousands of years. In light of today’s increasingly dire
circumstances in which the very fate of our civilization hangs in the balance, we must take
the time to formally reflect upon our beliefs and how we came to hold them if we are to
make any sense of how we got here and why. Because I am I aware that I cannot do
absolute justice to all of the various factors which have contributed to our various beliefs
within the limited scope of an essay, I will concern myself only with what I feel to be the
most fundamental factor of all; that which is our disposition as inherently "bipolar" beings:
Each human soul is capable of Good and Evil; in fact, it is our inner reciprocity that has
defined our advance toward Self consciousness. However, due to the mechanics of the
ineffable Universe, we often deny our dark qualities at the expense of our light and this
causes great suffering to be brought upon us (this in turn leads to our inherent uncertainty as
to the meaning of our existence, i.e., is the Universe inherently Good or Evil?). This
suffering, however unfortunate it may be, is ultimately necessary for our realization that we
cannot separate the dark from the light, as they are necessary reciprocals. This process is
the very essence of self reflection; Self consciousness. Unfortunately for us, this clashing of
the opposites has recently resulted in the decimation of the very biosphere that supports us.
This relatively recent development signifies that an event of great change - whatever that
may be - is coming in our not-too-distant future. Our denial of our dark side is manifesting
itself on the global level as a lurking catastrophe; one which, when it strikes, will leave all
those in its wake utterly destitute. It will take such a global event to make us all realize our
interconnectedness and unfortunately, such an event is bound to be one of utter dissolution.
However, there is a reason behind all of this; hence this essay.
"Since dogma holds that God is wholly present in each of the three Persons, He is also wholly
present in each part of the outpoured Holy Spirit; thus every man can partake of the whole of
God and hence of the filiation. The complexio oppositorum of the God-image thus enters into
man, and not as a unity, but as conflict, the dark half of the image coming into opposition with
the accepted view that God is "Light." This very process is taking place in our own times, albeit
scarcely recognized by the official teachers of human whose task, supposedly, is to understand
such matters. There is the general feeling, to be sure, that we have reached a significant turning
point in the ages, but people imagine that the great change has to do with nuclear fission and
fusion, or with space rockets. What is concurrently taking place in the human psyche is
overlooked." Carl Jung, 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections' (Italics mine)
Due to the fact that as "bipolar" beings we are inherently uncertain as to the meaning of our
existence, we are often compelled to rely upon culturally sanctioned ideas for our
understanding of our purpose in life. Unfortunately, as a result, we are instinctually led into a
state of credulous complacency, which if taken advantage of by power hungry individuals,
can lead us down a very destructive path collectively. This is the tragic quirk of human
nature that set the stage for our current ideological crisis: we are primarily reliant upon our
community to provide us with an idea of our existential purpose, both individually and
collectively, and when corruption emerges, as it always does, large scale tragedy and
subsequent revelation is unquestionably imminent. This is because our livelihood depends
upon our consensus as to what we are here for and when we lose that collective vision,
proverbial darkness falls upon human consciousness, obliging us to take a good hard look
in the mirror. Sadly, all too often a great tragedy is necessary to wake us up to our
unconsciousness, so we may be headed for a very dark future indeed.
"The Greeks believed that hubris was always followed by nemesis, that if you went too far you
would get a knock on the head to remind you that the gods will not tolerate insolence on the part
of mortal men. In the sphere of human relations, the modern mind understands the doctrine of
hubris and regards it as mainly true. We wish pride to have a fall, and we see that very often it
does fall. To have too much power over one's fellows, to be too rich, too violent, too ambitious
- all this invites punishment, and in the long run, we notice punishment of one sort or another
duly comes. But the Greeks did not stop there. Because they regarded Nature as in some way
divine, they felt that it had to be respected and they were convinced that a hubristic lack of
respect of Nature would be punished by avenging nemesis." Aldous Huxley, 'The Perennial
Philosophy
However, this is not all "bad" per se, as the Universe does nothing in vain and to have faith
is to understand that despite our misfortunes, there is a reason behind everything, including
our current unconsciousness. In fact, it is times like these that ultimately oblige us to look
within and therefore find a "solution" to our ills, i.e., such a tragic period is ripe for a
revolution of mind. We must understand that despite our current situation, what has
happened was absolutely necessary for the unfolding of a purpose beyond our ability to
currently comprehend, so we must not succumb to denial and ignorance; we must rise
above our corrupt leaders to see the true picture emerging on the horizon of human
consciousness. To do this, we must reflect upon ourselves and our collective actions with a
fresh understanding of our purpose, one divorced from the very institutions that brought us
here. Essentially, we have to look back into our forgotten past to find an understanding that
reveals our present for what it truly is. Then, and only then, may we begin to see just where
this whole process seems to be heading and most importantly, we may finally have some
peace of mind as to our uncertainty about the meaning of our existence.
Every person whom has ever had any influence upon our psychology has appealed to our
inherent uncertainty about life by providing us with their understanding of our purpose while
here on Earth. Some of these influential figures have provided a context that is inherently
spiritual – like the founders of our religious traditions – while others have sold a purely
material agenda without any true moral grounds – like our governments. Both appeal
equally to our collectively shared uncertainty as to the meaning of our existence and so most
importantly, they tend to balance eachother out reciprocally. Unfortunately for us, our
civilization has become overtly materially minded as a result of an ever increasing level of
governmental influence, therefore offsetting this eternal balance. In the process, our
spirituality has become almost entirely corrupted. As a matter of fact, despite of all the
supposed progress of our civilization with all its innovations and powerful institutions, today
we are left with very little idea as to the meaning of our lives and it is directly related to our
materialist leaders lack of spirituality.
Morally, we have very little to show for all of our material accomplishments because all we
have to guide us are these governmentally sanctioned institutions which, due to internal
corruption, have become spiritually irrelevant, leaving us with very little understanding of our
purpose. As a corollary, the whole of Modern Civilization is undermined by a feeling of fear
and doubt as to what awaits us in our increasingly murky future and many are so
disillusioned with the present that they pray for a better life in the future (this idea of heaven
is the type of "spirituality" that has been supported by the perpetuators of inevitable
progress, which we are now beginning to realize was nothing, but a false dream). Our push
toward technological civilization was fueled primarily by this underlying desperation to
achieve dominion over our fate, and consequently Nature, before we pine away into an
unknown future; as if we are somehow running out of time.
This sense of urgency is the direct result of our inherent lack of understanding, which if
alleviated, would allow us to step aside and properly evaluate our actions, but since it is the
very agenda of corrupted institutions to sustain this unconsciousness for the purpose of
maintaining their control, we are perpetually manipulated into going with whatever they
decree. Historically, we inhabit a very desperate situation and if our actions are to be any
guiding light on upon this matter, we are found to be entirely in the dark, as made obvious
by our subjugation of Mother Nature. As a civilization, we have managed to be nothing, if
not the most caustic force imaginable upon the planet, and this is, without question, due to
our lack of understanding in regards to our relationship to the world. Some would argue
that this was necessary for the propagation of technologies which could allow us to leave
the planet and colonize space, which may be somewhat true; however, the debt accrued by
our recklessly unsustainable actions is going to paid with the lives of billions; this cannot be
doubted. In light of this, we are living in a truly 'dark age' for consciousness in which our
ideas of spirituality, God, and existence have morally failed us due to corruption and
misguidance. However, this mystery of our existence can be illuminated still and
subsequently, we can still "save" ourselves from our seemingly bleak fate; the only problem
is that the method for gaining this kind of insight has become terribly taboo due to
governmental policies, hence our current ideological dilemma. And so in order to
understand why all of this happened and therefore lift ourselves above our past
unconsciousness, we must go beyond publicly sanctioned reality to find an answer to this
perennial mystery before it is deemed too late by Nature. Otherwise, we will surely pine
away into this ever darkening future, without any hope for a coming dawn.
"Non-rational creatures do not look before or after, but live in the animal eternity of a perpetual
present; instinct is their animal grace and constant inspiration; and they are never tempted to live
otherwise than in accord with their own animal dharma, or immanent law. Thanks to his
reasoning powers and to the instrument of reason, language, man (in his merely human
condition) lives nostalgically, apprehensively, and hopefully in the past and future as well as in
the present; has no instincts to tell him what to do; must rely on personal cleverness, rather than
on inspiration from the divine Nature of Things; finds himself in a condition of chronic civil war
between passion and prudence and, on a higher level of awareness and ethical sensibility,
between egotism and dawning spirituality. But this "wearisome condition of humanity" is the
indispensable prerequisite of enlightenment and deliverance. Man must live in time in order to
be able to advance into eternity, no longer on the animal, but on the spiritual level; he must be
conscious of himself as a separate ego in order to be able consciously to transcend separate self-
hood; he must do battle with the lower self in order that he may become identified with that high
Self within him, which is akin to the divine Not-Self; and finally he must make use of his
cleverness in order to pass beyond cleverness to the intellectual vision of Truth, the immediate,
unitive knowledge of the divine Gound. Reason and its works "are not and cannot be a proximate
means of union with God." The proximate means is "intellect," in the scholastic sense of the
word, or spirit. In the last analysis the use and purpose of reason is to create the internal and
external conditions favourable to its own transfiguration by and into spirit. It is the lamp by
which it finds the way to go beyond itself." Aldous Huxley, 'The Perennial Philosophy' (Italics
mine)
And so, the big question: What happens to our consciousness when we die? Do we merely
cease to exist and fade to black, or do we experience a continuity beyond our ability to
imagine? To effectively answer this question, you must first and foremost have an
experiential frame of reference upon which to base your deductions, otherwise any effort
made will ultimately be stifled by the conceptually limited scope of merely inferential
knowledge. This is because inferential knowledge cannot replace first hand experience,
especially in this case where we are dealing with such a proverbial black hole as death.
Induction via the scientific method doesn't stand a chance to provide a definitive answer to
this perennial question because this experience cannot be observed objectively and it most
certainly cannot be reduced to mere mechanics of biology, as made clear by Near-Death
Experience research. This is to say that, in order to truly understand death, you must be
formally acquainted with it experientially; literally, you must experience death and somehow
live to tell about it. Understandably, the vast majority of people lack this prerequisite for
forming a conceptually deep understanding of death and so they are obliged to seek higher
council, so to speak, when confronted with such questions beyond their ability to answer. It
is for this very reason that we have depended upon enlightened individuals* to provide us
with a relative frame of reference upon which to base our beliefs about our existence. When
such individuals are lacking, or are disposed of for their influential nature by corrupted
individuals, our collective understanding suffers greatly and all too often we are coerced into
a state of unconscious malaise, such as the state we inhabit right now. Our only way to
combat this unfortunate unconsciousness is by consulting individuals whom have
experienced enlightenment, otherwise we are sure to remain in the dark with our
governmentally sanctioned view of reality.
*It must be noted, that by merely saying "enlightened individuals", I am leaving a lot open to
interpretation. So, to make myself perfectly clear; enlightened individuals are people who have
come to have a Universal frame of reference due to experiences in their lives that, over time,
directed them toward integrating their psyche with the world. Some individuals experience
enlightenment during certain instances, such as mystical, near-death, or psychedelic experiences,
often changing their lives forever; some come to experience it through years of devoted self
searching, without the need for such a psychic catalyst.
Regardless of means, all of these individuals report startlingly similar experiences: It is this
historical psychic consensus that we must investigate if we are to make sense of our current
unconsciousness, first and foremost because it is the only frame of reference that cannot be
tainted by our leaders despite their efforts because of its fundamentally archetypal, psychic
nature, but most importantly, because of what it reveals about our future; in fact, many
enlightened individuals saw these dark times coming. Many argue that the emergence of
psychedelics in the modern Western world was a cue for a much needed reflection on our part.
I tend to agree; though taboo, psychedelics can provide a truly consciousness-expanding
experience that, if properly integrated, can lead to a drastic revolution of mind. The kind of
which we so desperately need right now.
Enlightenment is a rare, often fleeting state of consciousness during which a truly Universal
frame of reference is bestowed upon an individual. Men isolated by geography and
thousands of years have been having this same experience throughout the history of our
civilization and even further back into our prehistory. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the
archetype experience that ultimately laid the foundation for our oldest spiritual traditions
which sought to definitively answer that which we do not know. This is due to the fact that
the those whom are predisposed to experiencing such a state of consciousness often have a
great sphere of influence upon their respective communities by default of the inherently
sought after and universally relative knowledge that they possess and willingly distribute.
And although relatively few have experienced enlightenment, the multitude are able to relate
to these spiritually minded men because enlightenment has two microcosmic parallels which
nearly every person whom has ever lived has experienced. These experiences are, of
course, that of déjà vu – the distinct feeling of knowing that you have done something
before – and synchronicity – the experience of realizing a highly peculiar coincidence that
could not be merely due to chance, but must owe its occurrence to a purpose beyond our
ability to make sense of (it must be accepted that human beings have been having these
experiences for tens of thousands of years at least, as we are no different today
biologically than we were during the last glacial epoch which began 100,000 years ago. So
it can be safely assumed that, unlike today where these experiences are marginalized as
merely peculiar due to our lack of felt spirituality, these experiences once held a very sacred
place to our ancestors, who, I would imagine, believed such experiences to be divine
revelations).
"The sentiment du déjà vu is based, as I have found in a number of cases, on a foreknowledge in
dreams, but we saw that this foreknowledge can also occur in the waking state. In such cases
mere chance becomes highly improbable because the coincidence is known in advance. It thus
loses its chance character not only psychologically and subjectively, but objectively too, since
the accumulation of details that coincide immeasurably increases the improbability of chance as a
determining factor. (For correct precognitions of death, Dariex and Flammarion have computed
probabilities ranging from 1 in 4,000,000 to 1 in 8,000,000.) So in these cases it would be
incongruous to speak of "chance" happenings. It is rather a question of meaningful coincidences.
Usually they are explained by precognition – in other words, foreknowledge." Carl Jung, 'On
Synchronicity'
"...when an external event touches on some unconscious knowledge, this knowledge can reach
consciousness. The event is recognized as a déjà vu, and one remembers a pre-existent
knowledge about it." Carl Jung, 'Answer to Job'
"...Meaningful coincidences are thinkable as pure chance. But the more they multiply and the
greater and more exact the correspondence is, the more their probability sinks and their
unthinkability increases, until they can no longer be regarded as pure chance, but for lack of a
causal explanation, have to be thought of as meaningful arrangements . . . Their 'inexplicability'
is not due to the fact that the cause is unknown, but to the fact that a cause is not even thinkable
in intellectual terms." Carl Jung speaking of synchronicity
These peculiar experiences of predestination and highly unlikely coincidence last for mere
seconds, but if experienced repeatedly, are enough to open ones consciousness to the
possibility of a higher intelligence. Inversely, enlightenment is a consummative experience of
predestination and beyond-chance coincidence that can last anywhere from a few minutes
to a few hours and it often changes a person forever. The climax of the experience involves
a full blown epiphany of the Oneness of the Universe: time ends, Eternity is effectively
realized, and subsequently, death is experienced as a transition of being; not the end of our
existence, eliminating any fear of dying. The person thus raptured experiences the death of
his ego; his merely limited sense of self is totally dissolved, enabling him to comprehend for
the first time the Ground of All Being; the Eternal Universe of which he understands that he
is. All that was previously unconscious is revealed to consciousness: it is as if the entire
mystery of life dissolves before ones eyes, leaving one to comprehensively feel and
understand the predestined purpose and synchronistic order behind all things and events.
The concept of God presents itself as a divine totality symbol of Oneness and
paradoxically, reciprocity (Good/Evil etc). Life is seen to be an eternal search for love and
understanding, despite all evil and unconsciousness that befalls us; it is all understood to be
necessary for a purpose beyond our merely self-conscious awareness. The realization
dawns upon consciousness that, "I am God." (This is precisely why Christ equated Himself
with the Father, because He was acutely aware that He is the Father; He is God, of which
we All are, which, by the way, was his principle teaching.)
"When you make the two one, and
when you make the inner as the outer
and the outer as the inner and the above as the below ...
then shall you enter [the Kingdom]....
I am the Light that is above
them all, I am the All,
the All came forth from Me and the All
attained to Me. Cleave a [piece of] wood, I
am there; lift up the stone and you will
find Me there."
Jesus
This experience presents itself as fundamentally absolute and psychically self-affirming; in
fact, it is felt to be the most important experience of the subject’s life, often obliging them to
lead a life devoted to the dissemination of their newfound knowledge. It is for this reason
that, for millennia, we have depended upon these rare individuals who were granted this
insight to help us understand that which we are incapable of understanding by ourselves.
This is the very basis of religion: the inexperienced multitude follow by an act of faith a
predisposed few whom are sanctioned as the arbiters of esoteric knowledge about our
existence (God) by default of their divinely imparted wisdom. However, as previously
mentioned, this dynamic puts us as adherents in a position of great vulnerability, hence the
need for faith in regards to what we are made to believe about our existence by our divinely
chosen representatives of the Truth.
The distinct need for an honest intermediary to the divine has long been fulfilled by the
ancient vocation of the shaman, who by the very nature of his position must be of a pure
heart, otherwise he would not be able withstand the constant dissolution that his work calls
for. This is because in order for a shaman to attain enlightenment, his ego must be totally
destroyed and for this enlightenment to be lasting, this dissolution must be maintained. Thus
it is the primary role of a shaman to ritually immerse himself in the death state, so as to
understand it to the highest degree possible and to keep his ego at bay. For this reason, a
shaman is an individual, whom because of a predisposed psychic problem, isolates himself
from the rest of his community for the purpose of contemplating his relation to the Universe
through acts of dissolution and asceticism; acts such as sensory deprivation, fasting, and
especially the ingesting of consciousness-expanding plants.
Through these acts of dissolution, a shaman's will is effectively crucified and subsequently
reborn with a new purpose; this is precisely how he is made to be a vessel for the Divine,
by perpetually emptying himself of all worldly ambition. A shaman would be spiritually unfit
for this job unless he was, in essence, a clean mirror upon which to reflect the Divine and he
is able to purify himself for this purpose by directly confronting the contents of his
unconscious through these consciousness-perturbing acts. So, essentially, a shaman is a
man who extinguishes his earthly will so that the Logos may speak through him. This is the
sacrifice that a shaman makes to heal his people; he sacrifices his will for the greater of his
community because he is made acutely aware of his great responsibility to uphold the Truth
by default of his predisposition to receive it.
He is a master of ecstasy; that which accompanies the total dissolution of all boundaries;
ego death (let it also be noted that it is often a near-death experience that calls a person to
shamanize; usually a "mystical death-rebirth" experience). In experiencing death many times,
a shaman becomes the foremost authority on all things related to it, which, because of its
universal nature, encompasses nearly all of reality, hence his position as a revered Great
Teacher. He is "chosen" to fulfill this position because he has managed to heal himself
through his works; therefore he holds the keys to healing all others as well. It is by default
of possessing such a gift that the shaman has such a great weight upon his shoulders to
alleviate psychic illness, which he understands to be a spiritual neurosis. Carl Jung once
noted that the whole phenomenology of spiritualism belongs to shamanism: meaning that all
of our religious traditions owe their existence to the position of the practicing shaman and
his esoteric knowledge. In fact, the shaman is the precursory figure to the modern mystic,
prophet, alchemist, scientist, teacher, and doctor. Arguably, he is the very progenitor of
human civilization and morality.
"Although the particular motifs may vary between cultures and even individuals, the general
symbolism is clear: The novice shaman undergoes a symbolic death and resurrection, which is
understood as a radical transformation into a superhuman condition. Henceforth, the shaman
enjoys access to the supernatural plane; he is a master of ecstasy, can travel in the spirit-realm at
will, can cure and divine, can touch red-hot irons with impunity, and so on. In short, the shaman
is transformed from a profane into a sacred state of being. Not only has he effected his own
cure through this mystical transmutation, he is now invested with the power of the sacred, and
hence can cure others as well. It is of the first order of importance to remember this, that the
shaman is not merely a sick man, or a madman; he is a sick man who has healed himself, who is
cured and who must shamanize to remain cured." Terence Mckenna, 'The Invisible Landscape'
"...Aboriginal medicine-men, so far from being rogues, charlatans or ignoramuses, are men of
high degree; that is, men who have taken a degree in the secret life beyond that taken by most
adult males - a step which implies discipline, mental training, courage and perseverance . . . they
are men of respected, and often outstanding, personality . . . they are of immense social
significance, the psychological health of the group largely depending on faith in their powers . . .
the various psychic powers attributed to them must not be too readily dismissed as mere
primitive magic and 'makebelieve,' for many of them have specialized in the working of the
human mind, and in the influence of mind on body and of mind on mind . . ." A.P. Elkin,
'Aboriginal Men of High Degree'
"The shamanic enlightenment is the literal ability to lighten the darkness, to see in that darkness
what others cannot perceive. This may, in fact, be the most ancient meaning of "enlightenment."
For example, the special ability of the Iglulik Eskimo shaman to see is called his qaumanEq, his
"lighting" or "enlightenment," "..which enables him to see in the dark, both literally and
metaphorically speaking, for he can now, even with closed eyes, see through darkness and
perceive things and coming events which are hidden from others; thus they look into the future
and into the secrets of others." - Michael Harner, 'The Way of the Shaman'; nested quote is from
Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos, by Knud Rasmussen
A shaman serves the Divine will by actively maintaining his communities link to planetary
consciousness, i.e. Nature (God), via visionary plants, which allow him to access esoteric
knowledge within the collective unconscious of mankind (this is how he acquires knowledge
about our existence that we would otherwise have no access to; consciousness-expanding
plants dissolve his ego without really killing him, leaving him to roam a state of
consciousness beyond death for information). The shaman uses this knowledge first to heal
the malady which compelled him to shamanize, and then to heal the people of his
community. He is able to do this, because in healing himself, he has the epiphany that God
is his innermost Self; in fact, everyone's innermost Self is God, so it is his great responsibility
to help people remember this fact for themselves and therefore heal them of their divine
uncertainty about life (a shaman typically gives a sacrament of consciousness-expanding
plants to individuals to catalyze such a "mystical" experience; he actively partakes in the
ingesting of the plants so as to direct them on the "other side" ). Our earliest pagan fertility
religions, and even our later institutionalized monotheistic religions, all stem from this
common belief that we are all God; we just lack the capacity to realize it for ourselves,
hence why we need divinely chosen men to act as our conduit to the ineffable by providing
us a glimpse of it. However, as I explicitly point out above, such a situation is susceptible to
corruption and as a result, this esoteric knowledge of our divinity often gets lost in the
process.
The shaman's universal teachings of Oneness and reciprocity, which are the result of his
acute understanding of man's relation to Nature and the Universe, ultimately laid the
foundation for our religious institutions which we have depended upon for our worldview
for the past several thousand years. The only problem is that our religions have been
corrupted by governmental influence and this has tainted their doctrines, and our ability to
properly interpret their true meaning, irreparably. In fact, Western civilization has managed
to cast out the shaman-prophet figure entirely as a heretic, while keeping his esoteric
teachings for institutional purposes. This ostracization of the shaman figure in turn caused a
gross misinterpretation and misuse of our oldest religious teachings and in the end, it
severed our ancient link to Nature with the loss of psychedelic plant use. As a direct result,
our religious institutions have become dangerously corrupt with temporal power while
continuing to provide us with the context upon which we base our beliefs, leaving us with
very little spiritual recourse. Due to this corruption, our beliefs have largely become inert
and no longer psychically relative, ultimately depriving us of any true existential
understanding. This is all because we have abandoned the position of the shaman – and
with him our connection to Nature – leaving us with seemingly very little we can do to
amend our current existential crisis.
"The suppression of the natural human fascination with altered states of consciousness and the
present perilous situation of all life on earth are intimately and causally connected. When we
suppress access to shamanic ecstasy, we close off the refreshing waters of emotion that flow
from having a deeply bonded, almost symbiotic relationship to the earth. As a consequence, the
maladaptive social styles that encourage overpopulation, resource mismanagement, and
environmental toxification develop and maintain themselves. No culture on earth is as heavily
narcotized as the industrial West in terms of being inured to the consequences of maladaptive
behavior. We pursue business-as-usual attitude in a surreal atmosphere of mounting crises and
irreconcilable contradictions." Food of the Gods, Terence Mckenna
Despite this fall from grace and sanctioned tradition, we have recently begun to once again
appreciate the truly incalculable importance of our beliefs and their influence upon us. With
the catalyst of modern technology, we have rediscovered that our fate is entirely dependent
upon our relationship with Nature and in light of this, we must change the way we have
been made to view the world. For how we act upon what we believe unequivocally
determines our subsequent mortality, and we can now see – perhaps more clearly than ever
– that, collectively, modern man has had very little understanding of his place in the world,
and has acted unconsciously toward his environment as a result. This estrangement from
Nature is currently forcing an existential crisis upon mankind and undoubtedly, our belief
systems, with their widespread influence upon our collective psychology, landed us in this
position. Why is this happening, and most importantly, what does it reveal about the
mystery of our existence? I will attempt to answer these questions despite the obvious
impediments in doing so, for I believe that I have stumbled upon a recurrent, yet often
forgotten way of viewing the world, and it is by its very unitive nature that I am obliged to
share its however esoteric message. This message, which is universally relative and
therefore psychically valid, has the potential to answer many, if not all, of our questions
about reality and right now, as a world united by duress, we urgently need this kind of
understanding more than ever. It is for this reason that I feel compelled to outline the figure
of the shaman for those who have ears for such a reexamination of our beliefs and their
origin.
"If there is anything like the spirit seizing one by the scruff of the neck, it is the way this book
came into being" Carl Jung on his book, 'Answer to Job' in a letter to Aniela Jaffe, July 18, 1951
"The writing of a book which purports to explain all and everything, as this one does, is a task
best left to the young, for whom such pedestrian considerations as scientific rigor and credibility
are mere impediments." Dennis Mckenna, 'The Invisible Landscape'
"I am acutely aware, as many of my readers will be, of the surreal, prophetistic, and even
grandiose aspects of many of these ideas. I have come to hold the opinions expressed here based
on a lifetime of peculiar experiences. Those experiences occurred at the edge of sanctioned
reality, and in the absence of those experiences there would be no basis for my heretical
opinions. But I have found the universe of psychedelic shamanism to be a corpus delecti for
those seeking evidence that all is not well with the sunny world of materialism and scientific
rationalism." Terence Mckenna, 'The Archaic Revival'
Carl Jung and the Collective Unconscious
In the words of Alan Watts, this is “a book about books.” That is to say, this work is
largely supported by a homogeneous mixture of minds and ideas so as to express as
objectively as possible an otherwise entirely subjective understanding. It is with
complimentary accounts that this understanding takes on an unquestionable objective
autonomy that spans millennia and defies critical analysis. This historical consensus is the
result of recurring archetypes within the collective human repository of experience that Carl
Jung called the collective unconscious.
"A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal. I call it the
personal unconscious. But this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not
derive from personal experience and it is not a personal acquisition but it is inborn. This deeper
layer I call the collective unconscious. I have chosen the term "collective" because this part of
the unconscious is not individual but universal; in contrast to the personal psyche, it has contents
and modes of behavior that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals. It is, in
other words, identical in all men and thus constitutes a common psychic substrate of a
suprapersonal nature which is present in every one of us."
"While the personal unconscious is made up essentially of contents which have at one time been
conscious but which have disappeared from consciousness through having been forgotten or
repressed, the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and
therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to heredity.
Whereas the personal unconscious consists for the most part of complexes, the content of the
collective unconscious is made up essentially of archetypes. The concept of the archetype,
which is an indispensable correlate of the idea of the collective unconscious, indicates the
existence of definite forms in the psyche which seem to be present always and everywhere."
Carl Jung, 'The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious'
These embedded psychic contents preexist autonomously within the human mind; however,
they lie entirely beyond our cognition, hidden within our unconscious. Yet, despite this
impediment, archetypal contents are capable of making themselves present to
consciousness when occurrences perturb our normal day to day consciousness away from
our merely self-orientated awareness. A window of opportunity is provided for
unconscious contents to reach consciousness whenever we are so perturbed; this is the
method of the shaman, who uses all sorts of catalysts to perturb his consciousness in order
to retrieve information from his unconscious; catalysts such as fasting, drumming, and
especially, ingesting psychoactive plants which activate parts of his mind that are otherwise
dormant. In this way, these seemingly latent contents are "remembered" or realized as being
preexistent; as if they were always there (this is precisely how the shaman remembers his
forgotten divinity and it is also why the experience of enlightenment itself is very déjà vu-
like). This type of recollection may seem incommensurable at first but with time the
experience attains a highly peculiar, idiosyncratic familiarity that ultimately calls into question
all that is assumed about reality and the nature of time. It is in light of this that we may
understand the archetypes to be transcendentally esoteric; i.e., they point towards a reality
that is much greater in scope than ours, making it nearly impossible to communicate or even
fully understand such concepts with absolute confidence.
I quote Carl Jung extensively for his sheer intellectual might and brilliant lucidity in explaining
this esoteric dynamic of the psyche.
"The fact that religious statements frequently conflict with the observed physical phenomena
proves that in contrast to physical perception the spirit is autonomous, and that psychic
experience is to a certain extent independent of physical data. The psyche is an autonomous
factor, and religious statements are psychic confessions which in the last resort are based on
unconscious, i.e., on transcendental, processes. These processes are not accessible to physical
perception but demonstrate their existence through the confessions of the psyche. The resultant
statements are filtered through the medium of human consciousness: that is to say, they are
given visible forms which in their turn are subject to manifold influences from within and
without. That is why whenever we speak of religious contents we move in a world of images
that point to something ineffable. We do not know how clear or unclear these images,
metaphors, and concepts are in respect of their transcendental object. If, for instance, we say
"God," we give expression to an image or verbal concept which has undergone many changes in
the course of time. We are, however, unable to say with any degree of certainty – unless it be by
faith – whether these changes affect only the images and concepts, or the Unspeakable itself.
After all, we can imagine God as an eternally flowing current of vital energy that endlessly
changes shape just as easily as we can imagine him as an eternally unmoved, changeable
essence. Our reason is sure only of one thing: that it manipulates images and ideas which are
dependent on human imagination and its temporal and local conditions, and which have therefore
changed innumerable times in the course of their long history. There is no doubt that there is
something behind these images that transcends consciousness and operates in such a way that
the statements do not vary limitlessly and chaotically, but clearly all relate to a few basic
principles or archetypes. These, like the psyche itself, or like matter, are unknowable as such.
All we can do is to construct models of them which we know to be inadequate, a fact which is
confirmed again and again by religious statements...
If, therefore, in what follows I concern myself with these "metaphysical" objects, I am quite
conscious that I am moving in a world of images and that none of my reflections touches the
essence of the Unknowable. I am also too well aware of how limited are our powers of language
– to say nothing of the feebleness and poverty of language – to imagine that my remarks mean
anything more in principle than what a primitive man means when he conceives of his god as a
hare or a snake. But, although our whole world of religious ideas consists of anthropomorphic
images that could never stand up to rational criticism, we should never forget that they are based
on numinous archetypes, i.e., on an emotional foundation which is unassailable by reason. We
are dealing with psychic facts which logic can overlook, but not eliminate."
"It is, in fact, impossible to demonstrate God's reality to oneself except by using images which
have arisen spontaneously or are sanctified by tradition, and whose psychic nature and effects
the naive-minded person has never separated from their unknowable metaphysical background.
He instantly equates the effective image with the transcendental x to which it points. The
seeming justification for this procedure appears self-evident and is not considered a problem so
long as the statements of religion are not seriously questioned. But if there is occasion for
criticism, then it must be remembered that the image and the statement are psychic processes
which are different from their transcendental object; they do not posit it, they merely point to it.
In the realm of psychic processes criticism and discussion are not only permissible but are
unavoidable." Carl Jung, 'Answer to Job'
It is for this reason that we are dealing with something ineffable that the role of the shaman
is so incredibly important to us. Because, without the shaman to submerge himself into the
unconscious and report back, we have very little, if at all, input into our unconscious
archetypal contents which motivate our actions. They are either too inaccessible or too
esoteric to be grasped by the common man, therefore the shaman acts as the arbiter to the
collective unconscious and its archetypal contents. The shaman brings esoteric knowledge
out of the collective unconscious into consciousness via his use of psychoactive plants
which provide altered states of consciousness; this is the symbiotic relationship of Nature
and Man. Mankind uses plants to learn about himself and in turn, mankind reveres Nature
with reciprocated respect. The archetypes of God and Eternity impart an understanding that
Nature is inherently holy and that it must be worshipped as such, because we are all One
interconnected whole of which Nature is our Mother and womb. Unfortunately, we are
beginning to learn the often painful lesson of why we should never turn our back on Nature
and it is all because we have shunned the importance of the shaman and psychedelic plants.
Without the shaman figure to provide us with existential understanding via the collective
unconscious, we have managed to sever our link with Nature and in the process, we have
forgotten our heritage; our Oneness with Nature and ultimately, the Universe.
"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 for the society through their constant reaffirmation in shamanic ritual and
through the shaman's epic narration of mythical scenarios and his artistic production. The
shaman does more, however, than just recite the myths or express the religious symbolism in
making ritual artifacts; the shaman lives the myth. By virtue of his superhuman, transformed
state, he enacts the role of the mythical hero: He can fly through the air, talk to the gods, see
everywhere, understand the animals, and perform other feats characteristic of a semidivine
entity. Thus, the shaman is the exemplar in the present epoch, which is regarded by primitives as
a profane, historical time, of the condition supposed to have been accessible to all humans before
the fall. In his ecstasy, the shaman reenters that mythical, paradisiacal condition that existed
before the fall and thus reasserts, for the entire culture, the reality of that mythical time. Thus,
the validity of the archetypal motifs, which presumably describe the human condition in the
paradisiacal era, is reaffirmed.
The shamanic function also includes psychoanalytical capability. That the shaman can cure
illness of a psychological or psychosomatic nature is well established. "The shaman is
undoubtedly, perhaps essentially, a doctor – but the factual medical knowledge of the primitives
is very small; the shaman's medical function seems to be confined to psychological, perhaps
psychoanalytical techniques, and his successes fall mainly within the psychological domain"
(Lommel 1967, pg. 25). By what exact mechanism he is able to do this is not completely
understood. It is as though the shaman, in his capacity of ecstatic psychopomp, practices a
participation therapy of the most sophisticated type; by means of his ecstatic capacity, the
shaman "plunges" into the collective unconscious and restores the patient's self-identity
(equivalent to "finding his soul") by taking onto himself the unconscious contents that have
inundated the patient through the principle of transference (cf. Jung 1954)... The shaman, then,
acts as a doctor of the soul, both the individual and the collective soul, and he is also a real and
living exemplar of the primordial, mythical human condition, and in being so maintains the reality
and the immediacy of the sacred. He is able to carry out these functions because he is master of
the techniques of ecstasy, and it is by virtue of this that he maintains his suprahuman state. "
Terence Mckenna, 'The Invisible Landscape'
"If we are to draw a conclusion as to how we can profit from the study of shamanism, is it this:
Perhaps, 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."
Terence Mckenna, 'The Invisible Landscape' (Italics mine)
"Shamans - whom we in the "civilized" world have called "medicine men" and "witch doctors"" -
are the keepers of a remarkable body of ancient techniques that they use to achieve and maintain
well-being and healing for themselves and members of their communities. These shamanic
methods are strikingly similar the world over, even for peoples who cultures are quite different
in other aspects, and who have been separated by oceans and continents for tens of thousands
of years. These so-called primitive peoples lacked our advanced level of medical technology, so
they had excellent reason to be motivated to develop the non-technological capacities of the
human mind for health and healing. The basic uniformity of shamanic methods suggest that,
through trial and error, people arrived at the same conclusions. Shamanism is a great mental and
emotional adventure, one in which the patient as well as the shaman-healer are involved.
Through his heroic journey and efforts, the shaman helps his patients transcend their normal,
ordinary definition of reality, including the definition of themselves as ill. The shaman shows his
patients that they are not emotionally and spiritually alone in their struggles against illness and
death. The shaman shares his special powers and convinces his patients, on a deep level of
consciousness, that another human is willing to offer up his own self to help them." The Way of
the Shaman, Michael Harner (Italics mine)
Millions throughout history are given faint glimpses into the contents of their unconscious;
only a precious few experience them long enough to come back and report upon them;
even then, these explanations are realized as mere groping in the dark compared to their
psychic reality. However, even with this acute understanding of utterly hopeless esoteric
nature of our unconscious archetypes, "fools" of all ages have taken "the weight of the
world" upon themselves to "save mankind" by revealing the highest psychic truth of the
collective unconscious. These prophets or mystics all had a common goal: to reveal to
mankind all that is unconscious, so that we may all experience enlightenment. This is no
small task, however, as it is a very difficult job to convey the seemingly ineffable to the
common man; in fact; that is why mystics are likewise considered to be fools. This is the
realm of the shaman healer; the progenitor of the religious prophet and mystic. It is he who
has the penetrating insight into reality that bestows upon him a great responsibility to spread
enlightenment and yet he is viewed as being mad because he is so misunderstood. He
reveals to all that which is hidden, yet he himself realizes that it is he who is ultimately the
one hiding it, because he is God; the divine trickster.
"God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside God, he has no one
but himself to play with. But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This
is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the
world, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way he has strange
and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad
dreams, for when he wakes up they will disappear. "Now when God plays hide and pretends
that he is you and I, he does it so well that it takes him a long time to remember where and how
he hid himself. But that's the whole fun of it—just what he wanted to do. He doesn't want to
find himself too quickly, for that would spoil the game. That is why it is so difficult for you and
me to find out that we are God in disguise, pretending not to be himself. But when the game has
gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and remember that we are all one
single Self—the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever and ever." Alan Watts, 'The
Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are'
Forgive me Father for I know what I do. I want to hear the last Poem of the last Poet. Jim Morrison |
| The Book of Enoch dates from the third through first centuries before Christ and its Messianic content was utilized extensively in both the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, notably in the titles of the Messiah: Christ [the Anointed One], the Righteous One, the Elect One, and the Son of Man. In two places the last of these titles is in the context of what are virtually verbatim quotes from the Book of Enoch. The book tells of a great chastisement that will come from the heavens to judge mankind during some remote generation which has yet to come. |
I Return Eternal From calculated sleep To find my Self Again Living this All Anew I choked I learned to eat I set the trap that's catching Me And in combing Eternity I have found that It was in my back pocket the entire Time I merely forgot I was always here Thou art That I Am White Red Black Stoned |
Microcosm of the Macrocosm: A 110 million year old ammonite fossil displays an eerily similar
spiral structure to that of our own galaxy.
spiral structure to that of our own galaxy.
Drawing by Theodoros Pelecanos
Alex Grey
Ω
G
D
G
D
Nietzsche and the Eternal Recurrence
The Revelation of Eternity: Enlightenment
A Scientific Model of Eternity
The Eschaton
The Trickster Archetype: The Shadow
Forthcoming
Shamanism and Schizoprhenia
Forthcoming
The DMT Entities
Forthcoming
A Psychology of God: The Individuation of Man
Forthcoming
Answer to Job
Forthcoming
Shiva and Shakti
Forthcoming
Gunas: The Divine Triad
Forthcoming
Death, Dissolution, and Evolution
Forthcoming
Cyclic Existence
Forthcoming
DMT and the Psychedelic Experience
Forthcoming
Near-Death Experiences
Forthcoming
The Experience of Death
Forthcoming
The Meaning of Life: Love
Forthcoming
Destiny: The Universe's Inescapable Will
Forthcoming
Modern Mysticism and The Importance of Music
Forthcoming
Nature vs. Man
Forthcoming
What About Human Ingenuity?
Forthcoming
Religious Precognition
Forthcoming
Esoteric Knowledge and Astronomy
Forthcoming
The End of Modern Civilization
Forthcoming
Christ Eschatology
Forthcoming
Satan
Forthcoming
The End of Time
Forthcoming
The Revelation of Eternity: Enlightenment
A Scientific Model of Eternity
The Eschaton
The Trickster Archetype: The Shadow
Forthcoming
Shamanism and Schizoprhenia
Forthcoming
The DMT Entities
Forthcoming
A Psychology of God: The Individuation of Man
Forthcoming
Answer to Job
Forthcoming
Shiva and Shakti
Forthcoming
Gunas: The Divine Triad
Forthcoming
Death, Dissolution, and Evolution
Forthcoming
Cyclic Existence
Forthcoming
DMT and the Psychedelic Experience
Forthcoming
Near-Death Experiences
Forthcoming
The Experience of Death
Forthcoming
The Meaning of Life: Love
Forthcoming
Destiny: The Universe's Inescapable Will
Forthcoming
Modern Mysticism and The Importance of Music
Forthcoming
Nature vs. Man
Forthcoming
What About Human Ingenuity?
Forthcoming
Religious Precognition
Forthcoming
Esoteric Knowledge and Astronomy
Forthcoming
The End of Modern Civilization
Forthcoming
Christ Eschatology
Forthcoming
Satan
Forthcoming
The End of Time
Forthcoming
Everything on this page is constantly evolving, so check back
regularly for updates, as I hope to finish these forthcoming
sections in the relatively near future. Its all in my mind; I just
need the time to get it all out and edited. Thank you for reading.
regularly for updates, as I hope to finish these forthcoming
sections in the relatively near future. Its all in my mind; I just
need the time to get it all out and edited. Thank you for reading.