Molecules within plants, fungi, animals, and even our own brains have influenced human inner evolution since the dawn of prehistory through their potential to catalyze profoundly radical shifts in consciousness. Evidence exists, based on ancient artifacts, that Neolithic people used these consciousness expanding compounds, and entopic phenomenon in early cave art suggests altered states of consciousness were even valued by Paleolithic people. Our quest to understand these substances has taken many paths and research spreads throughout our conceptual disciplines. We group these substances under a variety of names, the most familiar being psychedelic from the Greek for “mind manifesting.” Historically, attempts to name these substances reflected the bias of the researchers, illustrated by such terms as phantasticants, schizogens, delusionogens, hallucinogens, psychomimetics, and recently entheogens.
Nearly all the hundreds of known psychedelic compounds have botanical origins and even some synthesized chemical compounds such as LSD have analogs found in nature. Distinguishing these compounds from the approximately 800,000 species of flora on the planet is a gift from the world’s indigenous shamans (from the Tungus verb “to know”), brought to modernity via anthropologists. Ethnobotanists then identify the specific plants or fungi referred to by indigenous people, while chemists work to isolate the active compounds, a bias toward what Paracelsus called the quinta essentia. Beside THC and salvinorum, all are alkaloidal and the largest two groups, phenethylamines and tryptamines, interestingly correspond to two categories of major neurotransmitters in our brain, dopamine and serotonin respectively. But even though there are over two million known tryptamines, there are no chemical indications as to which are psychedelic, thus human testing is required.
The term psychedelic does not describe a specific chemical or biological property, but describes that which elicits a certain subjective response. It is difficult to encapsulate what exactly makes a psychoactive experience psychedelic, as opposed to say, a stimulant or narcotic that may also cause hallucination. How are we to understand a substance that produces subjective experiences that are often characterized by their ineffability and subversion to systemization? Physically we know that, for the most part, psychedelics are non-toxic and don’t engender dependence or addiction. We know where the chemicals go and how they act on the brain, their metabolic path, and their interactions with neurotransmitters. Yet this knowledge tells us nothing of the psychedelic experience – the reason we care at all about these compounds.
Most of the published psychedelic research involves their role in psychiatric therapy, which has helped heal such conditions as cluster headaches, depression, anxiety in terminal cancer patients, OCD, PTSD, alcoholism, and drug addiction. We now understand that the subjective effects of these substances are not purely a function of dose but almost entirely depend upon the subject’s mindset and the setting in which the experience occurs.
Within a controlled set and setting, researchers have also shown psychedelics have the potential to generate mystical or religious experiences. This is significant especially since there is strong evidence that these compounds are found at the root of both Western and Eastern religious histories as an ingredient of kykeon (the visionary substance from the Eleusinian mysteries of ancient Greece) and soma (the Vedic ritual beverage). Psychedelic substances are currently being used around the world as religious sacraments in groups such as the Native American Church and the ayahuasca religions originating in Brazil.
But how are we to understand how psychedelics do what they do and the implications of the experiences they generate?
We require an investigation that takes seriously the subjective experience, yet employs a careful and nuanced method of interpretation using something like a Jamesian radical empiricism as a doctrine, and Husserlian phenomenology as an experiential approach. The psychedelic experience can provide an overwhelming variation to factors of experiential reality once thought unwavering – experiential stability being a working definition of what is deemed real.
This shift in our normal awareness can allow enough perspectival variance to prompt us to question, and then, to refine our ontological assumptions. So how might our ontological views change when confronted with the plasticity of elements of our reality thought resolute? Moving forward, we require an integral and interdisciplinary approach of study as the many diverse fields of historical investigation are blinded by their narrow focus.
Brian Kelch is a mathematician, permaculturalist, and student of Tibetan Buddhism and entheogenic cartography currently writing a doctoral dissertation as well as producing psychedelic electronic music under the name ‘Circus of Mind’.