“Have you ever considered writing about people who take
drugs to reach enlightenment?”
I’m not sure that’s an exact quote, but it’s close
enough; I wasn’t taking notes. I replied with something about how
I’d interviewed a Rastafari for our recent marijuana issue, but
as he explained about this more-or-less new tribe—not a religion,
but a loosely organized network of people who are using psychoactive
drugs in an almost scientific manner with the intention of individually
connecting with universal oneness—I realized this was completely
different.
I’ll call my new friend Jon Juan, and I’ll tell you from
the outset, he was earnest. His, in this context, is not recreational
drug use, although some of the drugs he mentioned, LSD and mushrooms,
for example, have been used for fun. Since his foray into metaphysics,
he considers recreational use of the spiritual media disrespectful.
But let’s get one thing straight from the outset: Use and
possession of most of the drugs Jon Juan talks about—psilocybin
mushrooms, peyote and mescaline, Salvia divinorum, Ayahuasca (a
combination of MAO inhibitors and DMT), DMT and 5-MeO-DMT—are
seriously illegal.
Jon Juan focused mainly on the use of DMT, which he described as a
wholly out-of-body, ego-eliminating experience of about a 15-minute
duration. DMT is difficult to acquire, taking Jon Juan a year to
procure it the first time. He’s only taken the drug twice, and,
as he said, only the second time mattered. He believes he underdosed
the first time. He described a trip that involved a lot of Jungian
archetypical images with a sincerity that certainly made me believe, if
he’s not going anywhere I’d care to go right now, at least
he’s going somewhere. This is one of those examples where I feel
better that I don’t participate in communion with every religious
participant I meet.
I’m not going to try to describe the images Jon Juan
described, but instead offer a disjointed description of the concepts
of the “movement” as I understood what was related to me in
the wide-ranging and disordered discussion. There’s plenty of
information on the internet, search “psychonaut
spirituality.”
First, somewhere between 200,000 and 90,000 years ago, anatomically
modern humans appeared on the planet. Although, nothing changed
physically in homo sapiens sapiens, something happened about 30,000
years ago that suggests humankind evolved in some fundamental way.
Psychonauts believe humanity discovered a psychoactive substance, and
through that substance, it discovered god or the universal mind.
Interesting, how that dovetails with new research, like the Nov. 15 New
York Times report, “The Evolution of the God Gene.”
Psychonauts draw from many sources and cultures, including Hinduism
and yoga, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, I Ching, Jungian archetypes,
Maya and farther South American cultures, ancient Egyptian ideas and
other shamanic practices. What they’ve noticed is the
beyond-coincidence iconography among many religious practices, like the
snakes from the Garden of Eden or the Mayan creation myth.
This movement developed many of its ideas from the LSD experience of
the 1960s, most notably the thoughts of people like Timothy Leary and
Aldous Huxley. Its newer prophets include authors and books like
Terence McKenna’s Food of the Gods and True
Hallucinations or Rick Strassman’s DMT: The Spirit
Molecule.
Frankly, the idea that mind-altering substances are acceptable
within religious practice is about as unconventional as wine with
supper.
“People may or may not have a religious experience in
church,” said Jon Juan, who was raised hardcore Baptist.
“It’s risky. When I go to church now, it’s an event.
I’m going to see god.”