Molecular Mysticism: The Role of Psychoactive Substances
in the Transformation of Consciousness
Ralph Metzner
an essay appearing in The Gateway to Inner Space, Christian Rätsch, editor.
Published by Prism Press, Dorset, U.K., 1989.
There is a question that has troubled me, and no doubt others,
since the heyday of psychedelic research in the 1960s, when many
groups and individuals were concerned with the problems of assimilating
new and powerful mind-altering substances into Western society.
The question, simply stated, was this: why did the American Indians
succeed in integrating the use of peyote into their culture, including
its legal use as a sacrament to this day, when those interested
in pursuing consciousness research with drugs in the dominant
white culture succeeded only in having the entire field made taboo
to research, and any use of the substances a criminal offense
punishable by imprisonment? The use of peyote spread from Mexico
to the North American Indian tribes in the latter half of the
nineteenth century, and has found acceptance as a sacrament in
the ceremonies of the Native American Church. It is recognized
as one kind of religious ritual that some of the tribes practice;
as well as being acknowledged by sociologists for its role as
an antidote for alcohol abuse.
This intriguing puzzle in ethnopsychology and history was personally
relevant to me, since I was one of the psychedelic researchers
who saw the enormous transformative potentials of "consciousness
expanding" drugs, as we called them, and were eager to continue
the research into their psychological significance. It would be
fair to state that none of the early explorers in this field,
in the 1950s and early 1960s, had any inkling of the social turmoil
that was to come, nor the vehemence of the legal-political reaction.
Certainly Dr. Albert Hofmann, that epitome of the cautious, conservative
scientist, has testified to his dismay and concern over the proliferation
of patterns of abuse of what he so poignantly called his "problem
child" (Sorgenkind). Thus resulted the strange paradox
that substances regarded as a social evil and a law-enforcement
problem in the mainstream dominant culture are the sacrament of
one particular sub-culture within that larger society. Since the
Native American sub-culture is a much older and ecologically more
sophisticated culture than the European white culture which attempted
to absorb or eliminate it, and since many sensitive individuals
have long argued that we should be learning from the Indians,
not exterminating them, the examination of the question posed
above could lead to some highly interesting conclusions.
The answer to the ethnopsychological puzzle became clear to me
only after I started observing and participating in a number of
other American Indian ceremonies, such as the healing circle,
the sweat lodge, or the spirit dance, that did not involve the
use of peyote. I noted what many ethnologists have reported: that
these ceremonies were simultaneously religious, medicinal, and
psychotherapeutic. The sweat lodge, like the peyote ritual, is
regarded as a sacred ceremony, as a form of worship of the Creator;
they are also both seen and practiced as a form of physical healing,
and they are performed for solving personal and collective psychological
problems. Thus, it was natural for those tribes that took up peyote
to add this medium to the others they were already familiar with,
as a ceremony that expressed and reinforced the integration of
body, mind, and spirit. In the dominant white society, by contrast,
medicine, psychology, and religious spirituality are separated
by seemingly insurmountable paradigm differences. The medical,
psychological, and religious professions and established groups,
each separately, considered the phenomenon of psychedelic drugs
and were frightened by the unpredictable transformations of perception
and world-view that they seemed to trigger.
Thus, the dominant society's reaction was fear, followed by prohibition,
even of further research. None of the three established professions
wanted these consciousness-expanding instruments; and neither
did they want anyone else to have them of their own free choice
The implicit assumption is that people are too ignorant and gullible
to be able to make reasoned, informed choices as to how to treat
their illnesses, solve their psychological problems, or practice
their religion. Thus, the fragmented condition of our whole society
is mirrored back to us through these reactions. For the Native
Americans, on the other hand, healing, worship, and problem-solving
are all subsumed in the one way, which is the way of the Great
Spirit, the way of the Earthmother, the traditional way. The integrative
understanding given in the peyote visions is not feared, but accepted
and respected. Here, the implicit assumption is that everyone
has the capability, indeed the task, to attune themselves to higher
spiritual sources of knowledge and healing, and the purpose of
ceremony, with or without medicinal substances, is regarded as
a facilitating of such attunement.
Psychedelics as Sacrament or Recreation
Several observers, for example Andrew Weil (1985), have pointed
out the historical pattern that as Western colonial society adopted
psychoactive plant or food substances from native cultures (most
of which are now regarded as belonging to the Third World), the
pattern of use of such psychoactive materials devolved from sacramental
to recreational. Tobacco was regarded as a sacred, or power plant,
by Indians of North, Central, and South America (Robicsek 1978);
it is still so regarded by Native Americans, even though in the
white Western culture and in countries influenced by this dominant
culture, cigarette smoking is obviously recreational, and has
even become a major public health problem. The coca plant, as
grown and used by the Andean Indian tribes, was treated as a divinity
—Mama Coca—and valued for its health-maintaining properties;
cocaine, on the other hand, is purely a recreational drug and
its indiscriminate use as such also causes numerous health problems.
In this and other instances desacralization of the plant-drug
has been accompanied by criminalization. Coffee is another example:
apparently first discovered and used by Islamic Sufis who valued
its stimulant properties for long nights of prayer and meditation,
it became a fashionable recreational drink in European society
in the seventeenth century, and was even banned for a while as
being too dangerous (cf. Emboden 1972; Weil & Rosen 1983).
Even cannabis, the epitome of the recreational "high",
is used by some sects of Hindu Tantrism as an amplifier of visualization
and meditation.
Since originally sacramental healing plants were so rapidly and
completely desacralized upon being adopted by the West's increasingly
materialistic culture, it should not be surprising that newly
discovered synthetic psychoactive drugs have generally been very
quickly categorized as either recreational, or "narcotic",
or both. Concomitantly, as the indiscriminate, excessive, non-sacramental
use of psychoactive plants and newly synthesized analogues spread,
so did patterns of abuse and dependence; predictably, established
society reacted with prohibitions, which in turn led to organized
crime activities. This in spite of the fact that many of the original
discoverers of the new synthetic psychedelics, people such as
Albert Hofmann and Alexander Shulgin, are individuals of deep
spiritual integrity. Neither they, nor the efforts of philosophers
such as Aldous Huxley and psychologists such as Timothy Leary
to advocate a sacred and respectful attitude towards these substances,
were able to prevent the same profanation from taking place.
The newly discovered phenethylamine psychedelic MDMA provides
an instructive example of this phenomenon. Two patterns of use
seem to have become established during the seventies: some psychotherapists
and spiritually inclined individuals began to explore its possible
applications as a therapeutic adjuvant and as an amplifier of
spiritual practice; another, much larger group of individuals
began using it for recreational purposes, as a social "high"
comparable in some respects to cocaine. The irresponsible and
widespread use in this second category, by increasing numbers
of people, understandably made the medical and law-enforcement
authorities nervous, and the predictable reaction occurred: MDMA
was classified as a Schedule I drug in the United States, which
puts it in the same group as heroin, cannabis, and LSD, making
it a criminal offense to make, use, or sell, and sending a clearly
understood off-limits signal to pharmaceutical and medical researchers.
When Hofmann returned to the Mazatec shamaness Maria Sabina with
synthetic psilocybin in order to obtain her assessment of how
close the synthesized ingredient was to the natural product, he
was following the appropriate path of acknowledging the primacy
of the botanical over the synthetic. The argument could be made,
and has been made, that perhaps for every one of the important
synthetic psychedelics, there is some natural plant that has the
same ingredients and that this plant is our connection to the
larger lost knowledge of indigenous cultures. Perhaps it should
be our research strategy—to find the botanical host for the
psychedelics emerging from the laboratory. In the case of LSD,
research on the use of morning glory seeds in ancient Mexico and
baby woodrose in Hawaii, each of which contain LSD analogues,
would allow us to discover a shamanic complex involving this molecule.
If Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck are correct in their proposal that
an LSD-like ergot-derived beverage was used as the initiatory
sacrament in Eleusis, the implications are profound (Wasson et
al 1978). Using Rupert Sheldrake's theory of morphogenetic fields,
one could suppose that by re-growing or re-hybridizing this particular
plant, we could tune in to and re-activate the morphogenetic field
of the Eleusinian mysteries, the ancient world's most awe-inspiring
mystical ritual.
There is no inherent reason why sacramental use and recreational
use of a substance, in moderation, could not co-exist. In fact,
among Native Americans, tobacco often does play this dual role:
after a sacred pipe ritual with tobacco or other herbs, participants
may smoke cigarettes to relax. We know the sacramental use of
wine in the Catholic communion rite; and we certainly know the
recreational use of wine. We are able to keep the two contexts
separate, and we are also able to recognize when recreational
use becomes dependence and abuse. One could envision similar sophistication
developing with regard to psychoactive plant products. There could
be recognized sacramental and therapeutic applications; and certain
patterns of use might develop that were more playful, exploratory,
hedonistic and yet could be contained within a reasonable and
acceptable social framework that minimizes harm.
The "abuse" of a drug, in such a relatively enlightened
system, would not be a function of who uses it, or where it originated,
or whether doctors or other authorities condone it, but rather
of the behavioral consequences in the drug user. One becomes recognized
as an alcoholic, i.e., an abuser of alcohol, when their interpersonal
and social relationships are noticeably impaired. There should
be no difficulty in establishing similar abuse criteria for other
psychoactive drugs.
Psychedelics as Gnostic Catalysts
In 1968, in a paper "On the Evolutionary Significance of
Psychedelics" published in Main Currents of Modern Thought,
I suggested that the findings of LSD research in the areas
of psychology, religion, and the arts could be looked at in the
context of the evolution of consciousness:
If LSD expands consciousness and if, as is widely believed, further
evolution will take the form of an increase in consciousness,
then can we not regard LSD as a possible evolutionary instrument?...
Here is a device which, by altering the chemical composition of
the cerebro-sensory information processing medium, temporarily
inactivates the screening-programs, the genetic and cultural filters,
which dominate in a completely unnoticed way our usual perceptions
of the world.
From the perspective of almost twenty years reflection, I now
propose to extend and amplify this statement in two ways: (1)
the evolution of consciousness is a transformation process that
consists primarily in gaining insight and understanding, or gnosis;
and (2) the acceleration of this process by molecular catalysts
is not only a consequence of new technologies, but is also an
integral component of traditional systems of transformation, including
shamanism, alchemy, and yoga.
In psychedelic research, the "set-and-setting hypothesis",
which was first formulated by Timothy Leary in the early l 960s,
has become accepted by most workers in the field. The theory states
that the content of a psychedelic experience is a function of
the set (intention, attitude, personality, mood) and the setting
(interpersonal, social, and environmental) and that the drug functions
as a kind of trigger, or catalyst, or non-specific amplifier or
sensitizer. The hypothesis can be applied to the understanding
of any altered state of consciousness when we recognize that other
kinds of stimuli can be triggers, for example, hypnotic induction,
meditation technique, mantra, sound or music, breathing,
sensory isolation, movement, sex, natural landscapes, a near-death
experience, and the like. Generalizing the set-and-setting hypothesis
in this way helps us to understand psychoactive drugs as one class
of triggers within a whole range of possible catalysts of altered
states (Tart 1972; Zinberg 1977).
An important clarification results from keeping in mind the distinction
between a state (of consciousness) and a psychological trait;
between state changes and trait changes. For example, psychologists
distinguish between state-anxiety and trait-anxiety. William James,
in his Varieties of Religious Experience (1961), discussed
this question in terms of whether a religious or conversion experience
would necessarily lead to more "saintliness", more enlightened
traits. This distinction is crucial to the assessment of the value
or significance of drug-induced altered states. Only by attending
to both the state-changes (visions, insights, feeling) and the
long-term consequences, or behavioral or trait changes, can a
comprehensive understanding of these phenomena be attained.
Having an insight is not the same as being able to apply that
insight. There is no inherent connection between a mystical experience
of oneness and the expression or manifestation of that oneness
in the affairs of everyday life. This point is perhaps obvious,
yet it is frequently overlooked by those who argue that, on principle,
a drug could not induce a genuine mystical experience or play
any role in spiritual life. The internal factors of "set",
including preparation, expectation, and intention, are the determinants
of whether a given experience is authentically religious; and
equally, intention is crucial to the question of whether an altered
state results in any lasting personality changes. Intention is
like a kind of bridge from the ordinary or consensus reality state
to the state of heightened consciousness; and it can also provide
a bridge from that heightened state back to ordinary reality.
This model allows us to understand why the same drug(s) could
be claimed by some to lead to nirvana or religious vision, and
in others (for example, someone like Charles Manson) could lead
to the most perverse and sadistic violence. The drug is only a
tool, a catalyst, to attain certain altered states; which altered
states being dependent on the intention. Rather, even where the
drug-induced state is benign and expansive, whether or not it
leads to long-lasting positive changes is also a matter of intention
or mind-set.
The drug indeed seems to reveal or release something that is in
the person; which is the factor implied in the term "psychedelic"—mind
manifesting. In my opinion, the term "entheogen" is
an unfortunate choice because it suggests the god within, the
divine principle, is somehow "generated" in these states.
My experiences have led me to the opposite conclusion: the god
within is the generator, the source of life energy, the awakening
and healing power. For someone whose conscious intention is a
psychospiritual transformation, the psychedelic can be
a catalyst that reveals and releases insight or knowledge from
higher aspects of our being. This is, I believe, what is meant
by gnosis—sacred knowledge or insight concerning the
fundamental spiritual realities of the universe in general and
one's individual destiny in particular.
The potential of psychedelic drugs to act as catalysts to a transformation
into gnosis, or direct, ongoing awareness of divine reality,
even if only in a small number of people, would seem to be of
the utmost significance. Traditionally, the number of individuals
who have had mystical experiences has been very small; the number
of those who have been able to make practical applications of
such experiences has probably been even smaller. Thus, the discovery
of psychedelics, in facilitating such experiences and processes,
could be regarded as one very important factor in a general spiritual
awakening of collective human consciousness. Other factors that
could be mentioned in this connection are the revolutionary paradigm
shifts in the physical and biological sciences, the burgeoning
of interest in Eastern philosophies and spiritual disciplines,
and the growing awareness of the multi-cultural oneness of the
human family brought about by the global communications networks.
Psychedelics in Traditional Systems of Transformation
In my earlier writings, I emphasized the newness of psychedelic
drugs, the unimaginable potentials to be realized by their constructive
application; and I thought of them as first products of a new
technology oriented towards the human spirit. While I still believe
that these potentials exist, and that synthetic psychedelics have
a role to play in consciousness research and perhaps consciousness
evolution, my views have changed under the influence of the discoveries
and writings of cultural anthropologists and ethnobotanists, who
have pointed to the role of mind-altering and visionary botanicals
in cultures across the world.
One cannot read the works of R. Gordon Wasson on the Mesoamerican
mushroom cults ( 1980), or the work of Richard E. Schultes and
Albert Hofmann (1979) on the profusion of hallucinogens in the
Americas, or the cross-cultural work of such authors as Michael
Harner (1973), Joan Halifax (1982), Peter Furst (1976), and Marlene
Dobkin de Rios (1984), or the cross-culturally oriented medical
and psychiatric researchers such as Andrew Weil (1980), Claudio
Naranjo (1973), and Stanislav Grof (1985), or more personal accounts
such as the writings of Carlos Castaneda, or Florinda Donner (
1982), or the McKenna brothers (1975), or Bruce Lamb's biography
of Manuel Cordova (1971), without getting a strong sense of the
pervasiveness of the quest for visions, insights, and nonordinary
states of consciousness; and, further, the sense that psychoactive
plants are used in many, but by no means all, of the shamanic
cultures that pursue such states. Thus, I have been led to a view
closer to that of aboriginal cultures, a view of humanity in a
relationship of co-consciousness, communication and cooperation
with the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the mineral world.
In such a world-view, the ingestion of hallucinogenic plant preparations
in order to obtain knowledge for healing, for prophecy, for communication
with spirits, for anticipation of danger, or for understanding
the universe, appears as one of the oldest and most highly treasured
traditions.
The various shamanic cultures all over the world know a wide variety
of means for entering non-ordinary realities. Michael Harner (1980)
has pointed out that "auditory driving" with prolonged
drumming is perhaps as equally widespread a technology for entering
shamanic states as hallucinogens. In some cultures, the rhythmic
hyperventilation produced through certain kinds of chanting may
be another form of altered state trigger. Animal spirits become
guides and allies in shamanic initiation. Plant spirits can become
"helpers" also even when the plant is not taken internally
by either doctor or patient. Tobacco smoke is used as a purifier,
as well as a support to prayer. Crystals are used to focus energy
for seeing and healing. There is attunement, through prayer and
meditation, with deities and spirits of the land, the four directions,
the elements, the Creator Spirit. Through many different means,
there is the seeking of knowledge from other states, other worlds,
knowledge that is used to improve the way we live in this world
(through healing, problem-solving, etc.). The use of hallucinogenic
plants, when it occurs, is part of an integrated complex of interrelationships
between Nature, Spirit, and human consciousness.
Thus, it seems to me that the lessons we are to learn from these
consciousness-expanding plants and drugs have to do not only with
the recognition of other dimensions of the human psyche, but with
a radically different world-view; a world-view that has been maintained
in the beliefs, practices, and rituals of shamanic cultures, and
almost totally forgotten or suppressed by twentieth century materialistic
culture. There is of course a certain delightful irony in the
fact that it has taken a material substance to awaken the sleeping
consciousness of so many of our contemporaries to the reality
of non-material energies, forms, and spirits.
In discussing alchemy as the second of the three traditional systems
of consciousness transformation mentioned above, I would like
to emphasize first that we have only the minutest shreds of evidence
that ingestion of hallucinogens played any part in the European
alchemical tradition. The use of solanaceous hallucinogens in
European witchcraft, which is related to both shamanism and alchemy,
has been documented by Harner (1973:125-130). Likewise, in Chinese
Taoist alchemy, the use of botanical and mineral preparations
to induce spirit-flight and other kinds of altered states has
been discussed by Strickmann ( 1979). A complete account of the
role of hallucinogens in alchemy has not as yet been written.
Possibly our ignorance in this field is still a consequence of
intentional secrecy on the part of the alchemical writers.
Mircea Eliade, in his book The Forge and the Crucible (1962),
made a strong case for the historical derivation of alchemy from
early Bronze Age and Iron Age metallurgy, mining, and smithing
rites and practices. One could argue that alchemy is one form
of shamanism: the shamanism of those who worked with minerals
and metals, the makers of tools and weapons. Many of the concerns
and interests of the alchemists parallel shamanic themes. There
is the strong interest in purification and healing, in discovering
or making a "tincture" or "elixir" that will
give health and longevity. There are visions and encounters with
animal spirits, some clearly from the imaginal realms. There are
stories and visions of divine or semi-divine figures often personified
as the deities of classical mythology. There is the recognition
of the sacredness, the animating spirit, of all matter. And there
is the integrated world-view, which sees spirituality, religion,
health and illness, human beings, the natural world and its elements,
all interrelated in a totality.
It might be objected that there does not seem to be the equivalent
of a shamanic journey in alchemy; no clear indication of an altered
state of consciousness in which visions, or power, or healing
abilities are attained. It appears to me that the alchemical equivalent
of the shamanic journey is the opus, the work, the experiment
with its various operations, such as solutio, sublimatio, martificatio,
and the like. The focus is more on the long-term personality
and physical changes that the alchemical initiate has to undergo,
just as the shaman in training does. The experiments in alchemy
were regarded as meditative rituals, during which visions might
be seen in the retort or furnace, and interior psychophysiological
state changes triggered by the observation of chemical processes.
Furthermore, in an interesting recent work, R.J. Stewart (1985)
has argued that in the Western tradition of magic and alchemy,
which has roots in pre-Christian Celtic mythology and beliefs,
and of which traces can still be found in folklore ballads, popular
songs, and nursery rhymes, the central transformative experience
was an underworld journey. This underworld or otherworld initiation
involved taking a "journey" into other realms, encounters
with animal and spirit beings, attunement with the land and the
ancestors, meditative rituals centering around the tree of life
symbolism, and other features that place this tradition clearly
into the ancient stream of shamanic lore found in all parts of
the globe.
Turning now to yoga as the third of the traditional systems of
evolutionary transformation of consciousness, we need not concern
ourselves with the question of whether the use of visionary botanicals
is a decadent or debased form of yoga, as Eliade (1958) seems
to believe; or whether the use of hallucinogens was primary, in
the Vedic-Indian tradition as the Soma cult, as Wasson (1968)
has proposed. Sometimes, with the latter view, the corollary is
proposed that yoga methods were developed when the drug was no
longer available as an alternative means for attaining similar
states. Suffice it to say that in the Indian yoga traditions,
in particular the teachings of Tantra, we have a system of practices
for bringing about a transformation of consciousness with many
parallels to shamanic and alchemical ideas.
The use of hallucinogens as an adjunct to yoga practices is known
to this day in India, among certain Shivaite sects in particular
(Aldrich 1977). Those schools and sects that do not use drugs
tend to regard those that do as decadent, as belonging to the
so-called left-hand path of Tantra, which also incorporates ritual
food and sexuality (maithuna) as valid aspects of the yogic
path. Under the influence of nineteenth century Western occult
and theosophical ideas, this left-hand path tended to be equated
with "black magic", or "sorcery". In actuality,
the designation left-hand path derives from the yogic principle
that the left side of the body is the feminine, receptive side;
and thus, the left-hand path is the path of those who worship
the Goddess (Shakti), as the Tantrics do, and incorporate
the body, the delight of the senses, nourishment, and sexuality
into their yoga. Thus, as in shamanism and alchemy, we find here
a strand of the tradition that involves respect and devotion to
the feminine principle, the mother goddess, the earth and its
fruit, the flesh and blood body, and the seeking of ecstatic visionary
states.
It is true that the Indian yoga traditions seem not to have the
same concern for the natural world of animals, crystals, and plants
as is found in shamanism and alchemy. The emphasis is more on
various inner and subtle states of consciousness. Nevertheless,
there are interesting parallels between the three traditions.
The focusing of inner light-fire energy in different centers and
organs of the body, as practiced in Agni Yoga and Kundalini Yoga,
is similar to the alchemical practice of purification by fire,
and to shamanic notions of filling the body with light (Metzner
1971, 1986). The Indian alchemical tantric tradition had the concept
of rasa, which is akin to the European alchemical concept of "tincture"
or "elixir". Rasa has internal meanings—feeling,
mood, "soul", and external referents—essence, juice,
liquid. Rasayano was the path or way of rasa, the way of
fluid energy-flow, that involves both external and internal essences.[1]
As a third parallel, I will only mention the
Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana system, which is a remarkable
fusion of Tantric Buddhist ideas with the Tibetans' original Bon
shamanism: a system in which the various animal spirits and demons
of the shamans and sorcerers have become transformed into personifications
of Buddhist principles and guardians of the dharma (Govinda 1960).
Conclusions
It appears incontrovertible that hallucinogens played some role,
of unknown extent, in the transformative traditions of shamanism,
alchemy, and yoga. If we regard psychotherapy as the modern descendant
of these traditional systems, then a similar, if limited, application
of hallucinogens could be made in various aspects of psychotherapy.
And this has in fact already occurred, as the various studies
of psychedelics in alcoholism, terminal cancer, obsessional neurosis,
depression, and other conditions testify (Grof 1985; Grinspoon
& Bakalar 1979). It seems likely that these kinds of applications
of psychedelics as adjuncts to psychotherapy will continue, if
not with LSD and other Schedule I drugs, then with other, newer,
perhaps safer psychedelics.
What appears unlikely to me is that this kind of controlled psychiatric
application will ever be enough to satisfy the inclinations and
needs of those individuals who wish to explore psychedelics in
their most ancient role, as tools for seeking visionary states
and hidden forms of knowledge. The fact that the serious use of
hallucinogens outside of the psychiatric framework continues despite
severe social and legal sanctions suggests that this is a kind
of individual freedom that will not be easy to abolish. It also
suggests that there is a strong need, in certain people, to re-establish
their connections with ancient traditions of knowledge in which
visionary states of consciousness and exploration of other realities,
with or without hallucinogens, were the central concern.
It may be that such a path will always be pursued by only a very
limited number of individuals; much as the shamanic, alchemical,
and yogic initiations and practices were pursued by only a few
individuals in each society. I find it a hopeful sign that some,
however few, are willing to explore how to reconnect with these
lost sources of knowledge, because, like many others, I feel that
our materialist-technological society, with its fragmented world-view,
has largely lost its way, and can ill afford to ignore any potential
aids to greater knowledge of the human mind. The ecologically
balanced and humanistically integrated framework of understanding
that the ancient traditions preserved surely has much to offer
us.
Furthermore, it is very clear that the visions and insights of
the individuals who pursue these paths are visions and insights
for the present and the future, not just of historical or anthropological
interest. This has always been the pattern: the individual seeks
a vision to understand his or her place, or destiny, as a member
of the community. The knowledge derived from altered states has
been, can be, and needs to be applied to the solution of the staggering
problems that confront our species. This is why the discoveries
of Albert Hofmann have immense importance—for the understanding
of our past, the awareness of our presence, and the safeguarding
of our future. For, in the words of The Bible: "where there
is no vision, the people perish."
Footnote
1. We may say that the physico-chemical processes
of the rasayana serve as the vehicle for psychic and spiritual
operations. The elixir obtained by alchemy corresponds to the
'immortality' pursued by tantric yoga (Eliade 1958 283). (back)