(I was incredibly honoured to interview Dr. Rick Strassman on my podcast- The Naked Dialogue. Here are some reflections that arose in my psyche during our conversation.)
I. Aesthetic Appreciation & Eye-Consciousness
Human Eyes are psychic in nature as such that they continuously are driven towards satisfying those aesthetic needs- which they procure after scanning their immediate external environment. The drive nature permeates the eye-consciousness, hence allowing the eyes to focus on the aesthetics of the environment as opposed to the environment itself.
II. Morality & Ethics: The Sophists, Shamans & Mystical Prophets
The Sophists, from the pre-socratic traditions, were deemed *un-virtuous* on the basis of delivering the knowledge of art of persuasion and rhetorics for a fee. So, what is even a true shaman? Who is a true Guru or a teacher? The Shamans traditionally deliver the healing and guidance for the very virtue in healing others- those who seek spiritual assistance. However, contemporary shamanism is a return to the sophist tradition- as the Shaman becomes *un-virtuous* in delivering the mystical experience with the rightful and moral intent. Therefore, a false Guru figure, its very archetype, implies delivering the false message (the *impure-unvirtuous* message) to their students and spiritual-patients.
III. Bardo Resemblances in Higher Psychedelic States
To what degree does higher LSD & Psilocybin States resemble the DMT-Hyperspace Realm? The Tibetan Book of Dead, as per Timothy Leary- the Bardo Thodol, explains the common different states of a psychedelic experience. The very stage of the loss of ego-consciousness- the peak- the rise of the emergence of the white light signifying the three Bardos, seems to translate into the highest self-actualised realisation possible. And if often times within subjective accounts these higher-potent or higher-dose LSD, Psilocybin & Mescaline (along with other phenethylamines) are said to induce this white-light transcendental state, then what gives N, N-Dimethyltryptamine & 5-MeO-DMT its own unique hyperspace dimension? My speculations from an outsider-perspective (non-experiential) rests upon the hypothesis that this hyperspace dimension is rather an alternate visual dimension that exists within the compounds of the same reality the body resides in. One way to explain this maybe by imagining the continual replication of the hallucinated OEVs & CEVs (Open-Eye Visuals & Closed-Eye Visuals)- this could possibly induce a sense of existing within an alternate dimension from a perceptual view-point.
IV. Jacques Lacan’s Borromean Knot & the Psychedelic State
Jacques Lacan’s conceptualisation of the Borromean Knot between the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real can be translated into the sketch of the objectives components of the Psychedelic State. The psychonaut existing within the compounds of the Real, witnesses the assimilation of the Imaginary and the Symbolic through the ethnopharmacologic effects of the Psychedelic State- thereby, inducing the hallucinatory states. As these hallucinatory states, alongside several other effects like distortion of time, from a pharmacological viewpoint can be thus concluded as the objective components of a Psychedelic trip- as they are shared, and hence, collective in essence.
V. On Jungian Unconscious & its significance within a Psychedelic Experience
Through the lens of Jungian Analytical Psychology, the significance of the Unconscious can be roughly bifurcated, pertaining to its respective affects within a Common Psychedelic Experience. The Jungian Personal Unconscious can be identified in the emotive aspects of the psychedelic experience, through a close examination of the personal archetypes and their distinction from the psychedelic experience itself. Archetypes, in as much as they are collective, can also have a personal significance to them- i.e., the projection of the personal significance onto the archetypal pattern. In contrast, the Jungian Collective Unconscious can be recognised within the objective components of the psychedelic experience i.e., the common and shared ethnopharmacologic effects (distinct from affects)- in forms of cultural, religious and geometric archetypal patterns.
-Sanjana Singh//14.02.2021
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