Pieter Stokkink

Altered States: Buddhism and Psychedelic Spirituality in America. Douglas Osto. Columbia University Press, 2016. ISBN 978-0231177306

While many psychedelic enthusiasts claim to resonate with Buddhist insights, the overlap and interconnection between this group and formal Buddhism has not been studied extensively. This book is an attempt to fill this gap and it is the first one to combine statistical studies with an analysis of the different ways people regard the conjunction of the two. This is the second monograph in the series on psychedelics published by Columbia University Press, after William Richards’ Sacred Knowledge.

The book builds on information gathered from previous, less formal studies by Tricycle Magazine, which published a special issue on Buddhism and psychedelics, and Zig Zag Zen, a collection of essays and art inspired by psychedelics and/or Buddhism edited by Allan Badiner, of which a new and updated edition was released in 2015. It combines the data and views expressed in these publications with information gathered from interviews and a questionnaire carried out by the author.

The first chapter is the least exciting part of the book, as it elaborates on the statistics found in the aforementioned studies. The view emerges that there is an overlap between people that have done or currently still do psychedelics, and the people that are more or less formally involved in Buddhism. The author concludes that there is a tension between two opposing views within this overlapping group: those who believe that the two don’t mix, even if psychedelics may have led them to Buddhism, and those who believe that the two can work complementarily.

In the next two chapters, Osto goes on to elaborate on the history of these two movements in the United States since about the middle of the twentieth century. Both movements have had similar trajectories, with widespread early adoption, followed by a period of scandals, and ending in a rediscovery of their ground principles. For those who are familiar with the history of psychedelics (and/or Buddhism) in the US, these chapters will not bring much new information, except that it is interesting to notice that there has been an overlap since the beginning. Key figures in one movement often played an influential role in the other.

Then follow three chapters which discuss the role psychedelics play for Buddhists who have experienced them. Osto employs the metaphor of the door to show how some Buddhists see psychedelics as opening the door to their religious path. This is almost universally recognised by the group that is studied. Some however react later on by ‘them, refraining from using psychedelics after becoming seriously involved with Buddhism, while others ‘keep the door open’ and keep using psychedelics in conjunction with their Buddhist practice. Osto quotes extensively from the interviews he has done with many Buddhists and this strengthens the view espoused earlier that there are many opposing opinions. However, the interviewees generally agree that psychedelics have played a key role on their path and rarely judge them to be inherently negative.

The final chapter goes deeper into the debate within Buddhism surrounding altered states of consciousness. The author shows that even within Buddhist texts, there are multiple views on this subject. This chapter is the most interesting one of the book, as it dives deeper into the philosophical aspects of what constitutes experience, what altered states are (hint: meditation can also induce them) and how we can interpret one of the most important precepts within Buddhism, namely to abstain from intoxicants (the translation from Pali is imperfect, which makes the discussion even more complex).

The conclusions of the book are strengthened by the postscript in which Osto recounts some of his experiences with psychedelics and with meditation. By getting personal, he shows how these issues work out in daily life. This postscript gives the book a human face, one which is sympathetic to both Buddhism and psychedelics.

This book will be most interesting to people with a personal or academic interest in Buddhism, as it mainly deals with how Buddhists think about psychedelics and use or don’t use them for their spiritual growth. The more reflective parts in the second half of the book can be of interest to anyone who wants to explore the intersection between traditional religion and altered states of consciousness, be they induced by psychedelics or any other means.

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Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances: Chemical Paths to Spirituality and to God, Volume 2: Insights, Arguments, and Controversies, edited by J. Harold Ellens, Praeger, 2014.

This is part two of a two-part review of this publication in the Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality Series published by Praeger. Read part one here.

After the historical accounts and analyses of the first volume, the second volume consists of a collection of essays reflecting on current research into the spiritual aspects of the psychedelic experience from a broad spectrum of disciplines. Some of the theoretical problems of researching psychedelic-induced spiritual experiences are also addressed.

The book starts with three chapters by researchers involved with the Johns Hopkins group that studies psilocybin-induced mystical experiences. William Richards reflects on the difficulties of studying mystical experiences in a clinical setting and how entheogens provide a way to more deeply understand such experiences. He shows how they can be part of a healing program for patients suffering from end-of-life anxiety, addiction or depression and anxiety. He also touches upon one of the recurring themes of this second volume, which is the question whether the mystical experiences resulting from the use of psychedelics are genuine. Robert Jesse and Roland Griffiths give an overview of the research that has been conducted at Johns Hopkins with over 200 volunteers from different backgrounds. They elaborate on the relation between the mystical experience and its long-term effects on personality and the self-ascribed spiritual significance of the experience.

Then there are some anthropological essays on the use of psychedelics in modern-day religious and shamanic settings. Joseph Calabrese analyses the therapeutic use of peyote in the Native American Church, showing how for the Navajo the alteration of consciousness, the spiritual and the therapeutic are deeply connected. This is exemplary for many non-Western cultures. Evgenia Fotiou gives us an impression of the reasons people travel to the Amazon to partake in ayahuasca retreats, showing that such tourists are looking for a liminal experience and consider their journey somewhat of a pilgrimage. They look for personal transformation and healing, and display a conceptualisation of spirituality as both healing and transformational which is similar to the Native American Church’s.

Beatriz Labate and Rosa Melo write about the relation between an organized ayahuasca religion, the União do Vegetal (UDV), and scientific study. The UDV is actively involved with research into the therapeutic properties of Hoasca, their term for the beverage. This chapter is a review of a book they have published and a reflection on their motives for doing so, and it shows how the science is both formed by the group’s beliefs and simultaneously develops their beliefs and adds to them. The insights from science strengthen the group’s worldview.

An old essay by Walter Pahnke and William Richards, reprinted from a time when the use of psychedelics was not yet illegal, shows the promise these substances once held for science and society and reflects the idealism psychedelic science evoked in the sixties. The anecdotal chapter that follows is an interwoven personal history by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Stanley Krippner. It gives an interesting picture of the era and of some of its key figures.

We then read three chapters on the topic of the validity of psychedelic mysticism. Roger Walsh argues that these experiences are genuine and that psychedelics can, under certain circumstances and by certain people, be employed to attain mystical consciousness. Ralph Hood dives deeper into the science of measuring mysticism and shows that with the most elaborate rating scales we have developed, it is impossible to distinguish psychedelic mysticism from any other type of mysticism. In a wonderful essay, Dan Merkur attempts to elaborate a cartography of mystical experience, showing how the experience is coloured by beliefs and ‘overbeliefs’, a particularly insightful term he borrows from William James. He argues that such interpretation brings one away from the core mystical experience and closer to the cultural milieu in which one operates.

David Steindl-Rast makes a similar argument. The mystical core of religion is, according to him, the same wherever one looks and local interpretations have a tendency to stratify religion and turn the lived experience into dogmatic moralism. In his view, the mystical experience is always a challenge to the status quo of religion insofar as it has devolved into dogmatism.

The next four chapters can be regarded as interpretations of the mystical experience. Christopher Bache gives a highly personal account of his experience of death and rebirth under the influence of psychedelics, along with the insights and growth these experiences have enabled. This is then elaborated upon by Anthony Bossis, who is doing research into the use of psilocybin and mystical experience to alleviate existential distress in the dying, arguing that meaning provided by spirituality is essential to being at peace with one’s own end.

In a short essay, Thomas Roberts introduces the work around the perinatal theory of Stanislav Grof, who writes in the next chapter about the influence of psychedelics in science and therapy. This chapter resonates with Steindl-Rast’s, as it shows how the psychedelic experience shakes up certain dogmatic parts of academia and brings new insights to the fore.

The penultimate chapter by David Yaden and Andrew Newberg is about self-transcendent experiences by other means than psychedelics and the other classical ways to induce altered states of consciousness. They focus on the emerging field of non-invasive brain stimulation and show how such techniques will radically alter the way in which we think about spirituality on the one hand and healing and therapy on the other.

In the last chapter, Robert Fuller dives deeper into the arguments for and against the validity of chemical illumination, contending that the arguments against this idea are only partially true. He then goes on to link this debate to the one surrounding the legality of psychedelics and their spiritual applications. He concludes the book with an appeal to spiritual maturity, showing that we should only judge a certain form of spirituality by the way people are transformed by it and by the degree to which this transformation is beneficial for them personally and for society as a whole.

All in all, this second volume provides thought-provoking material. It shows both the promise and the limits of psychedelic spirituality and urges us to keep looking further towards a better understanding of both the psychedelic experience and our consciousness in general. Many essays emphasise, or implicitly argue from, the hypothesis that the mystical experience is the common core of all religions, which has often been stated before, but the literature that criticizes this idea is notably absent from these volumes.

The two volumes together provide an overview of and reflection on the various ways in which psychoactives were and are used within spiritual and religious contexts. It is the broadest-ranging academic publication to date on the subject. It will shape the debate for years to come.

Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances: Chemical Paths to Spirituality and to God, Volume 1: History and Practices, edited by J. Harold Ellens, Praeger, 2014.

This is part one of a two-part review of this publication in the Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality Series published by Praeger.

The idea that psychoactives play a significant role in many historical and contemporary religious practices is not radically new, but the fact that their use is so widespread and that they are practically everywhere one dares to look may come as a surprise to many readers of this tome. The first volume of this brilliant collection of essays by a wide variety of authors is dedicated to the history and practices regarding the use of psychoactives in religion.

The volume starts with an essay by the eminent scholar Thomas Roberts, who argues for three main ideas: 1) that in the current era, religion is changing from the word propagated through scripture to increasingly democratised, personal sacred experiences cultivated within the lives of individuals; 2) that the common core of all religions is mysticism, in other words the idea of a perennial philosophy; and 3) that psychedelics can cause mystical experiences. If we follow this line of argument, the essays in this volume are either illustrations or explanations of these principles.

To start with the latter, we find two essays by Michael Winkelman detailing the way in which shamanic consciousness played a key role in human evolution. He argues that altered states were selected for by the process of evolution, because they allowed for the knitting together of groups of early hominids, making them more resilient. He finds neurological correlates of all the major components of the psychedelic experience within the evolutionary development of the human brain, extending to well before humans separated from other species, but highly developed only within them. These essays show that humans were primed to have these experiences and are sensitised to a wide variety of substances in order to further their survival.

The historical examples extend all the way into antiquity and even prehistory, showing that various sacred substances were part of important cultures worldwide from a very early point in history. The spread of cannabis throughout Europe and Asia, for example, stretching almost over the entire Eurasian continent in a time when cultural exchange was previously thought to be limited, is remarkable (essay by Chris Bennett). Similarly, the use of psychoactives within Greek and Roman cults extends beyond the large-scale rituals at Eleusis, and furthers the idea that psychoactives provided the bass drone that reverberated throughout religious life within the roots of Western culture (essays by Carl P. Ruck and David Hillman). There are even arguments for the use of psychedelics within some sects in medieval Roman Catholicism, showing that even organised religions – whose history we now consider to be free of such drug use – were at some point influenced by them (essay by Dan Merkur).

In modern times, of course, psychoactives played a large role in the spirituality of the hippies, to which a two-part chronology is dedicated. They also influenced the spread of Buddhism and other Eastern spiritualities in the West. The former is discussed in some of the most interesting essays in the book. Author Dan Merkur strikes a good balance between dutifully reporting the phenomenon and maintaining a critical stance towards it. The essay on the latter subject is a transcription of a discussion between James Fadiman and Buddhist scholar Kokyo Henkel, which is a great way to approach the subject in a lively manner. Their exchange shows the importance of psychedelics in the growth of Buddhism in the US, giving one of many examples of how the psychedelic experience inspires people to start their own spiritual practice.

Two of the chapters stand out because they are descriptions of personal experiences and thereby examples of how psychoactives can be used within modern post-secular religious practice (essays by Julian Vayne and Clark Heinrich). While these are not necessarily the most interesting, they do illustrate the way in which rituals can be devised around the use of psychoactives in order to engender spiritual experience.

The last two chapters, by Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast and professor of psychology of religion Ralph W. Hood, respectively, are more reflective. Steindl-Rast argues that psychedelics provide a genuine path towards spiritual experience and that we shouldn’t prevent anyone from walking this path in a conscientious way. Hood argues that the study of the spiritual aspects of the psychedelic experience should be methodologically careful, and he shows that trying to isolate the spiritual experience from its surrounding ritual and community can distort the results. Both propose that the use and study of psychoactives be embedded in spiritual communities, bound by rituals and mutual compassion.

The broad scope of the essays in this first volume urges one to reconsider the long-held belief that psychoactives merely ‘played a role’ in the history of religion. Instead they suggest that this role was extensive and might even have been decisive in the formation of the spiritual faculty in man. With the obvious exception of the two essays on personal experience, all essays are well-documented and provide a plethora of references for those wanting to double-check if the authors don’t read too much into the available evidence. This volume provides a wealth of ideas and knowledge for anyone interested in the spiritual aspects of the psychedelic experience.

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Entheogens, Society & Law: Towards a Politics of Consciousness, Autonomy & Responsibility by Daniel Waterman, edited by Casey William Hardison, Melrose Books, 2013.

Psychoactive substances are strongly intertwined with society. They produce highly subjective effects, and are simultaneously highly politicized. Likewise, the cultural and societal context determines to a large extent the content and interpretation of the experience. Daniel Waterman’s ‘Entheogens, Society & Law’ is about this interplay. In his book, he discusses the interrelation of consciousness and ethics and argues that a reconsideration of regulatory choices is necessary for a more beneficial way of dealing with these substances. It is a broad-ranging book that addresses a large variety of subjects.

After a brief personal introduction, Waterman shows how the way we talk about psychoactive substances influences not just the experience, but also its interpretation and whether the outcome is beneficial. Similarly, he argues that law stratifies such beliefs we hold about psychoactive substances and that this in turn influences both the way we see them and the way we see ourselves.

The second chapter is an elaboration on the different ways in which psychoactives have been conceptualised throughout history, and the results of these conceptualisations. Drugs and drug users have many faces and Waterman gives a thorough analysis of all the different roles they play within society, both positive and negative. He shows the complexity of these concepts and how many different interpretations are possible. This analysis contributes to a fuller understanding of psychedelics and the psychedelic experience and has not been published elsewhere to such an extent.

In the third chapter we find a large section on the work of Professor Jan Bastiaans, a Dutch psychiatrist who treated people suffering from what was then called ‘concentration camp syndrome’ with LSD. Concentration camp syndrome would later be incorporated into the more recent category PTSD. Bastiaans was educated in classical psychoanalysis and went on to apply these techniques in psychedelic therapy. In the late eighties, Bastiaans would come into disregard for not maintaining proper archives, preventing anyone from evaluating the effectiveness of his treatment. Although largely based on the work of Stephen Snelders and the biography by Bram Enning, this book provides one of the first extensive reviews of Bastiaans’ work in English and it is a welcome addition to the historical study of psychedelic research.

The book continues with a section on the transpersonal psychology of Stanislav Grof. While a giant in the field, Grof is not often compared and contrasted to his predecessors, starting with Sigmund Freud and his heirs Carl Jung, Otto Rank and Wilhelm Reich, and with peers like Abraham Maslow. This comparison helps us understand Grof as part of a lineage of psychoanalysts. By placing Grof in this lineage, we can see how he both learned from his tradition and elaborated upon it by working intensively with LSD in the Czech Republic and the US.

In his final chapter, the author shows how the transpersonal experience is central to a variety of religions and argues that these experiences help people integrate on a personal and social level. In that sense, Waterman posits, they are the epitome of ethics itself, because they require us to take responsibility for our actions on a grander scale. Conversely, prohibiting (some ways to achieve) such experiences prevents people from becoming more conscious and, consequently, more compassionate and kind.

The book is not neutral and doesn’t claim to be. Both author and editor are outspoken proponents of cognitive liberty and the freedom to alter consciousness. However, their claims are supported by relevant research and their political stance is rooted in a strong tradition of scientific research and philosophical thought, although conservatives might label it as radical.

The book does have flaws, the biggest of which is that it is often unclear where the argument is taking the reader. Because many subjects are dealt with extensively, it is easy to lose track of the line of reasoning. More elaboration on how digressions fit in with the general argument would have allowed for a more focused book. As it stands, the book’s topics, while interesting in themselves, often remain unconnected. The effect is that the reader has to piece the argument together himself, which makes for a sometimes challenging read, requiring a strong focus on the part of the reader.

Another flaw is that some ideas are explained in both footnotes and in the main text. This unnecessary repetition, along with some mistakes and sloppiness in the footnotes, stain an otherwise well annotated text. Both these issues should have been mended in the editorial process.

But there are enough diamonds in the rough. This book broadens one’s perspective well beyond the boundaries of what is normally found within the literature on psychedelics. The author discusses many questions that are usually left unanswered and still manages to fit everything together. It is a book for those interested in the interplay between how we think about altered states and the substances that induce them, how this influences the experience, and how these feedback loops influence the way we deal with them as a society.

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Xenolinguistics – Psychedelics, Language, and the Evolution of Consciousness by Diana Reed Slattery, with a foreword by Allyson Grey. Evolver Editions, 2015.

Psychedelic research always in some way evokes what David Chalmers has called the “hard problem of consciousness”. How does experience arise from physical activity in the brain and, to apply this problem to psychedelics, how does the alteration of the chemistry of the brain alter this experience? Most published research into psychedelics does not address this question directly. Diana Reed Slattery, however, combines both her subjective experiences, those of several other people, with scientific insights from linguistics, biology and psychology. The result is a richly illustrated philosophical work rather than a scientific attempt at proof and explanation. Her work opens up new avenues for further scientific and philosophical inquiries.

The focus of the book is xenolinguistics, which is defined as the study of alien (i.e. strange) languages. Slattery further limits the scope to previously non-existing languages that have been “received” during psychedelic experiences. Although this is a fringe phenomenon even within , understanding it might shed light on other aspects of the psychedelic experience and consciousness in general. Slattery’s aim is twofold. On the one hand she wants to show how psychedelic practices, the use of psychedelics within a certain ritualistic (secular, spiritual or religious) context, can be a “powerful means of gathering knowledge about consciousness”. On the other hand, she examines the results of her own and others’ psychedelic practice in the light of theories of the evolutionfrom a variety of disciplines, with a continuous focus on languages learned during the psychedelic experience.

The book is divided into three parts. The first deals with the practices used for xenolinguistics. The discussion of rituals and the philosophical segments on what can be considered “self” and “other” are among the most interesting of the book, as they pose questions about the way psychedelic experiences are interpreted; is the thing one communicates with the Self, subconscious, Other or even alien? Slattery argues that psychedelic practice hinges upon the setting of a clear intent, controlling the set and setting and the focus that one brings to the experience. Her practice is simple in the sense that no elaborate ritual or belief system accompanies the experience. The idea is to ingest the psychedelic (Slattery mostly uses psilocybin mushrooms, 2C-B, MDMA and cannabis) in solitude, experience and report as fully as possible. She got a “download” of the language she calls Glide quite early on in her practice and continued to explore the details in the years that followed. Glide is an aesthetically pleasing and purely visual language that meanders in all directions. It consists of glyphs, each comprising three rounded strokes. Combining these glyphs results in a ‘Maze’, where glyphs flow into each other. Meaning is multidimensional and reverberates throughout the field of meaning that is created. The result is non-linear and unbounded, much like the psychedelic experience. It is interesting to note that here, the focus on healing that we find in much research on psychedelics is largely absent, in order to focus on knowledge acquisition and creativity. This perspective is very welcome in a field that has become focused on one or just a few aspects of the psychedelic experience, namely the therapeutical applications and the neurobiological effects of psychedelics.

The second part of the book is more theoretical, as Slattery frames xenolinguistics within some scientific theories. This evaluation is far from complete and theories that do not support the possibility of xenolinguistics are not considered. The mere fact that people sometimes receive or develop strange languages under the influence of psychedelics disqualifies any theory that precludes this possibility. In this sense, a more dialectical approach would perhaps have been more beneficial. As it stands, however, it is a collection of fascinating scientific theories that all somehow fit in with the practice of xenolinguistics. Slattery refers to many key actors in psychedelic research; the extensive 16-page bibliography stands witness to this achievement and provides a wealth of information for those who want to dig further into the material. The theoretical ideas are interwoven with notes from her personal journal that support or illustrate the hypotheses about how perception, reality, language and consciousness are, to use one of the beautiful key concepts of the book, intertwingled.

The third part focuses on language, natural and unnatural, constructed and living. Slattery gives examples from a variety of xenolinguists of how meaning is put into language in the psychedelic experience. The role of language in society is also elaborated upon. Strange languages serve many purposes, according to Slattery: they help us express new ideas, new emotions; they enable us to convey these to others or alternatively to keep them private while still being expressed; and they allow us to experience reality in a different way, showing how the creative use of language can alter the way we see the world. Slattery refers to the idea put forth by Richard Doyle that the psychedelic experience is an ecodelic experience, which gives us the opportunity to see ourselves as part of nature and to see how things are interconnected.

Xenolinguistics is a book for those interested in the interplay between psychedelics, language and consciousness. The overall picture that emerges shows that psychedelics can shed light on the way in which language and consciousness interact and co-evolve, by providing us with new languages that stretch our awareness beyond that which we are accustomed to. While the scientific theories in the book are interesting and support the ideas put forth by the author, those looking for pure science will probably be disappointed. The strength of the book lies in its exploration of new ideas and their synthesis into an overarching worldview that invites the reader to think along. The role language plays in our ongoing search for meaning and connection needs further study. This book is an inspiring and inspired attempt to open up this new field.

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