The world of psychedelics is in formation. Many factions wants to claim it for themselves. Neo-shamans want to claim indigenous practices, and powers. The medical community wants to explain how psychedelic chemistry affects the brain. Psychologists want psychedelics to end up in their clinics, with its users on their couches. I’m going to turn psychedelics over to the example set by surfers, who pursue ecstasy through alignment and balance within an invisible force of nature.
Psychedelics don’t work because they come from the amazon, or because of their impact on neural functioning. These are red herrings. Psychedelics work because the consciousness of almost any person, when placed within the proper aperture of experience, will self correct. It does not self correct because of the chemistry of the substance they use. It does not self correct because of the insights of the person they are working with. It does not self correct because of brain changes(This is actually the tail wagging the dog.) Consciousness self corrects because the majority of it exists outside of space and time, beyond the brain, and its conditioned. Psychedelics align a timeless consciousness with the awareness field of a consciousness limited by space, time, biography, and history. When utilized properly, psychedelics open an aperture into a sub atomic, trans physical reality, that is the actual source of each person’s existence.
In the barrel, is where historical consciousness aligns with its transpersonal origins, and is transformed by it. It is the place where conditioned consciousness realizes that it is not just the result of it experiences, but beyond its usual state, animated by the source of it. When the historically conditioned consciousness is aligned within a the barrel of its origins, the unconscious awareness that lies outside conditioned states, releases its treasures. As the experience of one’s origins take their proper position alongside history and biography, the historically conditioned consciousness is reshaped to incorporate its new posts of orientation. As consciousness moves toward fuller awareness, the brain reacts. The pre-psychedelic position is relativized, and the brain is animated toward the new awareness. Just as it had once had been animated by history, biography, successes, trauma, and transformations.
Psychedelics don’t require shamans. They don’t require burning sage(though it smells nice). They don’t require clinicians, or futurists, or experts on flow experience. They require understanding and humility. They require a respect for the timeless and compassion for the suffering, born from its absence. They require the humility to track that suffering as a pathway to our origins. Those who work with psychedelics successfully need take little credit for their efficacy. They will simply bear witness to the awesome power of a consciousness that exists outside of space and time making itself known to a conditioned awareness. Physical life is not seen as an arbiter of all experience, but a platform where quantum consciousness can be experienced and shared, for personal and collective benefit. In the barrel, is where it happens.