Fragmentation and Dislocation, Addiction, and Entheogens

November 12, 2015.  As I write these characters signifying the idea of 'today' on the page, I remember a few years ago, in November 2012, wondering if some quantum shift was going to go down before the end of the year.  Then, the moment just passed... like Y2K... and it appears that it's just more of the same, 'business as usual.'  I have not seen the promised metamorphosis of human consciousness.  If anything, I feel more depressed as the years go by and I get older, watching all the same (and sometimes even worse) stupid human tricks and wondering why?  What is this life for, anyway?  Will we - collectively - EVER wake up?  I have a hard time even going out shopping for things I need, as my heart's desire to be compassionate and non-judgmental towards every BEING vies with my observation and absolute loathing of humanity's collective faults.  I find myself saying things like "I love people - individual ones - but hate humans," and more often than not I stay home from public events, more of a hermit than I ever thought possible.  And yet there is STILL a spark in me, for example when I am in line at the grocery store waiting to check out, that inspires me to want to lift up the energy, to connect, to reach out.  Which I do.  Despite everything.  Confirming, for me,  that the world is not completely devoid of hope.  Even if it feels that way sometimes.

Interesting way to start this all up again!  Just wanting to be real, I guess, and speak to my current moment.  I started writing this blog last week (November 5th), thinking I was ready to be back in blogging mode, but instead I got caught up reading about fragmentation and dislocation, a subject worthy of attention here, as exploring the roots of addiction and 'how we got here' as a society is part of the larger conversation of what to do about the enormous problems besetting humanity and the array of solutions offered by the spiritually-motivated use of entheogens.

According to Bruce K. Alexander, author of The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit, the fragmentation of existing societies has been escalating for the last five centuries.  The basic definition of this term is hard to determine, as it has seemingly become a 'catch-all' word to describe many different aspects of the ills of modern society.  What I can glean from sifting through many diverse definitions is that fragmentation means dividing into smaller and smaller parts, a move away and apart from the concepts of unity and cohesiveness.  A fragmented society will not identify as a collective and will not share values, beliefs, social norms, etc, although each particular fragment will share these with intensity (ie white supremacists, religious sects, political parties, etc). The ultimate fragmentation is to strip all other groupings away till we just have individuals and everyone is 'doing their own thing' for their own betterment.  This is pretty much glorified by the 'me first' attitude of our culture, by the concept of 'rugged individualism' and even the 'American Dream,' and pointedly exemplified by corporations (run by individuals) who continue to destroy our Earth home for short-term financial gain at the expense of, well, everyone and everything else. 

This fragmentation of society has extreme costs to the individual, creating psychological devastation such as alienation, disconnection, and dislocation. The first two terms seem self-explanatory.  Mr. Alexander goes on to write the following abut the third term: "Dislocation refers to the experience of a void that can be described on many levels. On a social level it is the absence of enduring and sustaining connections between individuals and their families and/or local societies, nations, traditions, and natural environments. In existential terms, it is the absence of vital feelings of belonging, identity, meaning, and purpose. In spiritual terms it can be called poverty of the spirit, lack of spiritual strength, homelessness of the soul, or feeling forgotten by God." (1)

"Alexander sees this as an age of '...unprecedented, worldwide collapse of psychosocial integration.”' (2)  "However, prolonged, severe dislocation has a high price, because it eventually undermines the normal societal bases of belonging, identity, meaning, and purpose, leaving a unbearably empty and powerless experience of the world." (3)

I resonate with this.  I feel the lack of meaningful traditions, the lack of connection to 'place,' the lack of belonging to and sharing a deep connection with my extended family and community; I also feel outside of and at odds with this society, antagonistic to what I see our culture stands for.  In fact I feel our culture stands for 'no culture,' as evidenced by the gentrification of every region of America into Wal-Mart- and McDonald-Land.  Cheap, poorly made goods, with little to no aesthetic value; or cheap, poorly made 'food', with little to no nutritional value: this is how I view these hallmarks of American culture.  

In addition, I connect to the feeling of lack of meaning, especially when looking at life from my children's point of view.  They are young adults, recently out of the home - and what are they supposed to do now?  Go to college and get themselves $80,000 in debt?  Somehow find a way to pay rent and other bills while working a minimum wage job?  Not motivated by making money, they have also apparently inherited my lack of motivation to be identified by a career.  So what is the meaning of an 'undefined' life?  Does one have to have a career to find life meaningful?  What does my life even mean?  I have had a lot of labels over the years: homemaker, teacher, choir director, singer, performer, house-cleaner, office assistant - and not one of them defines me, really.  Is that what makes our lives meaningful, the labels we use to describe ourselves?

Obviously I don't think so, or I would have worked on having at least a more consistent one!  

I think it all has to do with a person's sense of purpose.  Partly it is the programming we receive from parents, family and community: the values we are taught and whether or not we ascribe to them.  In my case, I 'bought' the necessity of getting a college degree, even to the point of getting my Master's in Education - only to have the Federal laws change, making my teaching degree invalid (but not, unfortunately, invalidating my debt).  My children, despite being brought up to value education, are not making the same choices.  But honestly, their lack of choice is also a choice, and I have concerns about their futures (how mom-ish, I know - but true).

In my recent work with other youth, my children's' peers, I have been increasingly aware of a sense of lack of purpose.  These young people just don't seem to know what to do with their lives, apart from the present moment.  They know they need money to live but resent having to go do some meaningless job for low pay (don't blame them there).  From my point of view, they seem to exist for one reason only: to entertain themselves.  Feeling no connection to any tradition, alienated from this society as a whole (which to them is complete bullshit), and oftentimes not connected to their parents or family, or to any extended family, the youth turn to each other, making their social group their family, just to feel they belong somewhere.  It works, to some extent, to help them get by.  But in my opinion, and experience, the presence of - and prevalence of - addiction in the youth I know, and youth in general, speaks to the lack of purpose, connection and meaning they are experiencing.  

As mentioned before, the frequency of addiction in our modern world is increasing exponentially.  According to one statistic,"...the addiction treatment industry in the US alone has been estimated to have a $35 billion market, and to be “poised for accelerated growth” [Munro, 2015, quoted in (1)].  (I will admit to being shocked at that statistic.  Really,  wow.)  Now comes along a researcher like Bruce Alexander who feels that addictions are not just some chemical imbalance or genetic pre-disposition, but the result of a person's grasping to fill the gaping psychological void of dislocation.  "Addiction can provide dislocated people with some much needed relief and compensation for their bleak existence, at least for the short term." (3) This would be considered an 'adaptive function' of an addiction, in psych-speak.

"The adaptive function of addiction is often hidden. Many addicted people deny that they live in a state of dislocation, because they feel ashamed of their inability to find a secure social life, a sense of who they are, some values they can believe in, a place they can call their own, or a reason to get up in the morning, even though they live in a fragmented society that makes filling these needs problematic for everybody. They may deny their dislocation because it feels like an unbearable personal failure and they may be only dimly aware of the adaptive function of their addiction. (1) 

So, how does all of this relate to using entheogens in a spiritual context?  Well, first of all, and most obviously, entheogens have been shown to generate the Divine within - otherwise engendering what is known as Unitive Experiences: the experience of everything being ONE and all of it being LOVE.  "Unitive Experience historically was seen as the experience of becoming one with the Divine.  It is an experience which usually leads to a sense of clarity, inner quiet, and a new sense of being which transcends our usual experience of being a separate self." (4)

A person experiencing this state would feel immediate relief from feelings of alienation, disconnection and dislocation.   If in fact these feelings play into addictions, then the relief of such feelings should help reduce addiction.  This is, in fact, supported by research, and by my own experience.

To take it to the personal, for me, the feeling of being connected to everything inspired in me a renewed sense of purpose, and a re-commitment to living my own life, something that was not 100% before then.  Sometimes I used to wonder why I was alive, and why I should even stay here (ie stay alive).  Since I started praying with the medicine, I have been able to quit smoking tobacco, a habit of over twenty nine years, almost six years ago, and I also was able to finally quit drinking alcohol two and a half years ago.  I still have some addictions, compulsions, and other weird trips - but those two were the worst - and I view my experiences with the medicine as vitally important in supporting me to evolve past these addictions.  

If dislocation is the experience of the absence of belonging, identity, meaning, and purpose, and it is possible to safely and with intention have an experience of belonging, an expanded sense of connection to something greater than your small self, resulting in a renewed sense of meaning and purpose, wouldn't that be, like, the best thing, ever?  Too bad it is (for now) against the law!  THAT is just one more reason why I am writing this book! 

OK well it has been most of the day already.  Amazing how the time goes by!  I am excited about the next steps for this book project.  Please stay tuned for more, and share if you feel inspired!


(1) Alexander, Bruce K. "Healing Addiction Through Community: A Much Longer Road Than it Seems." http://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/healing-addiction-through-community-a-much-longer-road-than-it-seems2
(2) Skinner, Wayne.  "Homeless Souls: Addiction as Adaptation to Psychosocial Dislocation. Crosscurrents: The Journal of Addiction and Mental Health, 2010, Volume 14, Number 2.  http://www.brucekalexander.com/my-books/reviews-of-my-books/265-homeless-souls-addiction-as-adaptation-to-psychosocial-dislocation 
(3) Alexander, Bruce K. "Addiction, Environmental Crisis, and Global Capitalism."  http://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/283-addiction,-environmental-crisis,-and-global-capitalism
(4) http://www.jflory.org/contemplative_quaker/mys_eng.htm

Parents, Children, and Entheogens

Today I will diverge from straight research mode to talk about some personal aspects of this situation.  As is usual with these huge topics, it takes me a minute to figure out where to start.  So I will brainstorm.  Here are some questions: How do you (and should you) talk to kids about your spirituality when it involves the use of an illegal substance?  What is the role of parents in raising their children according to their own spiritual beliefs?  Do parents have the right to introduce their children to traditions that use entheogens?  When is it/ IS it OK to invite your children to participate in an entheogenic ceremony with you?  Why or why not?   (At another time I also want to cover parents' legal rights - or lack thereof - in this area.) What kind of complex situations might be facing your children when they have to keep their parents' spiritual beliefs secret from their friends/friends' parents/school/community, and is this fair to them? What are the ramifications in terms of credibility as parents if your (entheogenic) spiritual practice were to become known to the wider community of parents, school faculty, employers, etc?

It is with these questions in mind that I would like to begin with my own story, right after the healing episode with the medicine I wrote about in  Blog #7.   As a true and typical Aries woman, I did what you might expect when confronted by a profound and life-changing event: I jumped in whole-heartedly, with both feet, and included my children and my spouse in every way.  Now, my kids, ages 13 (boy) and 9 (girl),  had already been introduced to the visiting shaman from Peru: since my then-husband made musical instruments, our musician friend, his translator, had brought him over to our place to check out a churango - Peruvian guitar - the day before the ceremony.  The shaman met my nine-year-old daughter, and (through the translator) told us," If she ever wants to come drink medicine, she is invited to come to a ceremony, any time."  I was a bit surprised, not being familiar with the Peruvian culture or the Shipibo medicine tradition, but assumed that in his tradition, kids were welcome to drink medicine if they wanted to.  (This is true, by the way.)  I also knew that he could see the beautiful light of my daughter's spirit, and knew that her presence would be a blessing to any ceremony.  (To be fair, my son also has a beautiful spirit, but he is just not oriented toward the spiritual/ceremonial/mystical realms, and I think that was as obvious to the shaman as it was to me!)

Anyway, a few days after my intense healing with the medicine, I invited my kids to a picnic lunch with me on our lawn.  We ate some food, and I told them I had something important to tell them.  They were curious.  I told them that the shaman who they had met at our house had led an ancient ceremony that I attended, during which we drank a special plant medicine that could help a person let go of things like old hurts and anger, sore spots on the inside, from your life, when you felt like things were unfair, or wrong, or when bad things happened and you couldn't do anything about it.  We generated some examples of these kinds of things (which sadly I don't remember after all these years.  It was a rich discussion, though!).  I told them I had been carrying some emotional things like that from when I was a kid and that as a result of the ceremonies I attended, I had been able to let go of a LOT of heavy feelings that had been keeping me down, making me feel sad and unhappy, and that I was going to be happier and be able to have more fun in life from then on.

I then talked to them about how in their teen years, it was very likely that their peers (and perhaps they as well) would become interested in experimenting with substances that change a person's normal way of looking at the world - their consciousness - such as alcohol, marijuana, and other substances called psychedelics.  My son already had friends who smoked pot, so he knew what I meant.  My daughter, not so much.  But basically I let them know that experimentation like this is normal, and that they didn't have to hide these behaviors from me.  I told them that this was not me encouraging them to use these substances, but just acknowledging  that it seems to be a normal teenage thing.  I don't believe in the 'abstinence'  model of "Just Say No," either in the realm of sex ed. or in addressing the use of substances.  I believe education and information are essential.  I knew from my own past that the lies I was told in the drug section of our Health Ed. class made me want to discount everything the adults said.  I discussed with my children the many reasons why people take and use substances, and encouraged them to really think, IF they were going to do something, WHY they were doing it, instead of just going along with the group.  In other words, to bring conscious attention to their actions.  (In retrospect, quite honestly I am not sure these talks had any positive impact on my children, at all.  I plan on asking them about this when we do the interviews.)

I also let them know that if substances called 'psychedelics' started being used by their friends, and if they wanted to try altering their consciousness within a traditional setting, with elders and within a really safe container, they would be allowed to come to a ceremony with me and take ayahuasca there.  Open invitation.

My daughter took me upon this invitation right before her thirteenth birthday.  She came to a night of ceremony that fall (2007) and has continued to attend on and off now for the past eight years (she will be 21 this fall).  It is apparent that she both gets a lot out of the ceremonies, the medicine, and the medicine community, and also that her interest in/need for ceremony goes in cycles or phases, as her attendance over the years has not been consistent.   My son has attended ceremony twice, at age 18 and age 23, both times 'doing it for his mom,' because he knows it means a lot to me.  He has no personal agenda or philosophy of working on himself or trying to be a better person, or healing, or anything of the sort.  He likes who he is and is content with the way things are, and so really doesn't see the need to do ceremonies to 'be better,' as my teacher likes to say (about the reason we drink the medicine).

So, now to address some of those questions from the beginning of this blog.

Obviously, in my life I have exercised my perceived right to include my children in my spiritual beliefs.  I had done so way before ever using ayahuasca or yagé - I had been taking my children to sweat lodges since they were born.  I do not believe that children should be 'indoctrinated' into spiritual beliefs, however.  I would never make a child get into a sweat lodge or drink medicine if they didn't want to.  I believe in talking things through with kids, somehow working to communicate within their level of understanding, and inviting them to decide what they want - allowing them the experience of asking their own intuition, of knowing that they possess an inner wisdom that can be accessed and understood - and trusting their own inner authority on the subject.  I believe curiosity is our birthright and natural state, and that it is safe to expose children to things and let them explore as their interests guide them.  This is the philosophy of Montessori schools, incidentally.

I am sure there will be people who read this who scoff and start in with the 'what if's' and 'no ways' and so forth.  All I can say is that sure, there are times when a parent has to be authoritarian, and decide FOR the child (ie: when you have to grab their arm and not let them cross the street in front of oncoming traffic).  But I am not talking about those instances.

I believe that it was not only OK to invite my children to participate in entheogenic ceremonies with me, but that it was essential, given the immense growth and transformation I have experienced on this path.  I could not have been in authentic relationship with them if I had been forced to keep this part of my life a secret.  I believe their exposure to this medicine tradition was gradual, safe, respectful, and that their own inner wisdom told them when they were ready for such an experience.  I know that I never put any pressure on either of them to participate in medicine ceremonies (although admittedly I HAVE done this with sweat lodges, especially with my son - but that's a different story).  I feel fortunate that neither of my children's' fathers objected (or would have objected, in the case of my son's deceased father) to this path, and so I did not have to worry about custody battles based on my use of a Schedule One controlled substance and the potential claim of 'unfit parent' such use would engender at a legal level.

I want to point out the obvious here - that I believe talking to our children with authenticity about who we are is absolutely essential.  This includes talking about the things we do that don't follow 'inside the box' thinking.  It helps to support our children to be their own authentic selves.  It helps us to get out of worrying about what others think of us and to live within our own moral and spiritual code, true to our known and directly experienced higher truths, not on some externally imposed set of rules (laws) founded on erroneous assumption, prejudices, and even outright deceit.  I am not advocating for anarchy here.  I am only talking about actions I take as an individual that only affect me and my own life, such as the choice to take a substance that our country and indeed most of the modern world has declared illegal and dangerous.  I am not a conspiracy theorist but I do think there is something to be said for the theory that these substances have been vilified for a reason that has to do with how we operate in the world - in blind acceptance of and within the system, or with the ability to critically examine the system and call out bullshit when we see it.  It makes sense that the powers that be would frown on - and actively restrict access to - things that promote the latter perspective.

But back to parenting and being authentic... or not.   I don't know how many Dead Heads (followers of the Grateful Dead) who took quantities of psychedelics as young people who, when they became parents, suddenly became quite conservative on the subject and would never even consider talking to their teens about their experiences with these drugs, or the spiritual openings they received as a result of their use.  "Too risky!" they would exclaim when questioned, or "I can't tell them how wild I was!" I guess I can understand the hesitation.  But I chose to be open - again to the level to which I felt my kids could relate - about my past and ongoing activities with illegal substances.  I shared with them not only the good and transcendental side of the story but also how dangerous and scary the experiences could be, and how important it is to be in a good place within yourself, with people you trust, in a setting that is safe if you are going to take something that alters your consciousness.  I also shared quite honestly with my kids that I would probably lose my job (at the time I was a public school teacher) if they gossiped about me to their friends or if the word somehow got out in the community that I had all this exposure to psychedelics in my past and present life.  AND I shared why I thought these substances are so judged and misunderstood.

It is possible that my being open like this led to my kids' being more interested in substances than they might have been otherwise.  There really is no way to tell at this point, although I plan on asking them when I get to their interviews.  However I doubt it.  I believe that they would have been exposed one way or the other, and that my contribution as their parent was to help them be more educated, informed, thoughtful, and aware of the potential benefits and dangers of the various substances (the ones I knew about!) with which they would come into contact as teens in today's world.  If I had to do it all over again I would have these same discussions with them. I think the downfall or faults in my parenting came from 1. being a single working mother and not being able to supervise them as much as two parents would have 2. wanting them to have a place (their home) where they could be safe if they were going to get 'altered,' instead of cruising around in a car, for example, and then having that safe space be taken advantage of, and 3. being a great mom, ie being loving, creating a beautiful home with healthy meals, modeling conscious communication, etc, but being a completely shitty dad, ie not being consistent with enforcing rules, not having dire enough consequences for bad behavior, not disciplining enough, not making them do more healthy things like sports, etc).  No one's perfect, and I have spent a lot of years feeling bad over my short-comings as a parent.  However I feel good about what I was able to offer my children in terms of the conversations we had about consciousness, psychedelics, medicines versus drugs, ceremony etc.  I think it has helped them to be more thoughtful and conscious people, and to make more conscious and informed choices. 

I know from talking to my daughter over the years that there were some challenges resulting from her choice (and my offer) to participate in entheogenic ceremonies as a teenager.  On the one hand, she had as an example a community of (primarily) adult seekers, all working to better themselves.  For the most part, and obviously hugely generalized, these individuals practiced honesty and conscious communication, took responsibility for their emotions (having an internal responsibility for the things that happened to them), and carried a basically positive outlook on life.  On the other hand, she went to public high school, with all of the assorted unconscious drama, judgment, bullying, stereotyping, shitty teen-parent relationships, dishonesty, distrust from adults, general unconsciousness, and more.  She told me it was extremely difficult and confusing to be straddling two completely different worlds, with different rules, behaviors, expectations and outcomes; and at the same time, she was glad to know the ceremonial world existed, despite the strain it put on her.   At the time I never considered that exposing her to the ceremonial world might make her life harder, and definitely felt more than a few moments of guilt when I realized it.  I don't know that I can answer the question 'is it fair?' to put her in that position, because I already did, somewhat in ignorance.  One of the reasons I am writing this section is to let other parents know that this could be an unintentional effect of bringing your child into the ceremonial world.  It could make things harder on your teen.  However if there is a parent or parents there to discuss what is happening, to help their teen integrate and process what they are experiencing in the two different worlds, then I think it could ultimately only be of benefit, even if painful at first to realize the normal extent of unconsciousness in our world/families/relationships.  One other side benefit of my daughter's participation in ceremony: she pretty much became the "Lucy" to her circle of friends (as in Peanuts: the "Doctor is IN"). Again, we can't say this wouldn't have been so without ceremony - there is now no way to know who she might have been without it.

Well, darn, out of time again!  It goes by so fast!!  I plan on posting some interview questions starting next week.  If you are reading this blog and you or someone you know would like to be interviewed for the book, please let me know.   And thanks for reading!  Your comments are welcomed!

Legal Aspects of Entheogen Use in the US: Part Two

A note from my last blog: the following was a very important decision in this ongoing conversation, and was only referred to in brief last week as the 'Hoasca case.' 

Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Unaio do Vegetal (2006):

This case highlighted the question of religious freedom to partake in a substance (hoasca) containing a 'drug' prohibited by the Controlled Substances Act (DMT) during a religious ceremony. According to the courts, the government did not pass the compelling interest test, and the right of UDV members to take the brew was upheld.  "UDV argued that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prohibits substantial imposition on religious practices in the absence of a compelling government interest, established their right to use hoasca."(1)

Other things to note in today's discussion:

The Parental Rights Amendment: "The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children is a fundamental right."(2)  This has been proposed to include as part of an actual amendment to the constitution.  (See (3) for full text)

Troxel v. Granville (2000): the court concluded in this case that the "Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody and control of their children."(4)  Unfortunately in this case they abandoned the strict scrutiny test that required proof of harm before the government could interfere with parental rights, granting judges the power to decide this on a case-by-case basis.

OK, now that we are back into the legalese somewhat, I will get into some more legal matters from a conversation I had today with a lawyer (L), whose name I am keeping confidential as per her request.  I am paraphrasing her responses here at times, as I did not record the conversation and took notes as fast as I could (but not as fast as she spoke!).  I have also added some information into my comments, to make the flow more cohesive.  In spirit this is pretty much the conversation we had...

H.  First of all, what are we talking about here in terms of parents taking substances that are prohibited by federal law?

L.  This area of law is vast.  The main area is dependency and neglect laws, between state and federal levels.  Every state has a different flavor.  And then there are federal laws...

H.  Have children been taken away for the choices of their parents to participate in ceremonies using a Schedule One controlled substance?

L.  Children have been taken away from even a single use of 'drugs.'  Then there is constitutional law: parents have the fundamental right to the care, custody, and control of their children.  This is a standard to use before the state can interfere.  

In order for a child to be taken from their parent, the parent would have to be found unfit - which is a determination of the Child Protective Services (CPS) caseworker, local to the county where the incident (that brought the parent and child to the attention of CPS) has occured.  The way to get cases brought before a higher court is to then appeal this determination.  

'Drug' use is universally considered to be evidence of an unfit parent.  However with the legalization of marijuana (formerly a Schedule One controlled substance), courts are now considering marijuana use to be more like alcohol use.  The system can't take children away based on allegations that things are dangerous - there would have to be some sort of test proving danger to the child.  However they lump all 'drugs' together:  Using LSD is the same as using cocaine; using psilocybin mushrooms is considered to be the same as using heroin. 

H.  That seems ridiculous (not to mention that I disagree with the entheogens being labeled 'drugs' in the first place!)!  What about inviting a child to come to a ceremony, just to be part of it without doing the medicine?  What about allowing them to take some of the medicine? 

L.  Any 'drug' use in front of a child is held to be a very strong factor in proving unfitness on the part of the parent; allowing a child to use any 'drug' would (in her opinion) be conclusive of being an unfit parent.  I can't imagine a court that would find for the parent in this situation.

H.  What about any cases involving legalized churches that use plant medicines as sacraments?  Have you heard about any cases involving children or parents?

L.  No.  Never heard of a case where a child had been administered ayahuasca and been taken away.  It might be one of those cases where the plant medicine would win, because ayahuacsa and all of its aliases (caapi, huasca, yage, etc) are NOT listed under the Schedule One controlled substances.  DMT, one of the active ingredients in the preparations, is listed, however.  It is a grey area, and the laws around this are written very poorly.

H.  What about my story?  (I invited my underage children to partake in ceremony with me whenever they felt ready - and my daughter chose to do so right before turning 13, and has been attending ever since.  My son came to a ceremony at age 18, but discovered it wasn't really his thing.)

L.  You would have had your kids taken away, and might even have been thrown in jail.  You could have appealed and maybe gotten custody again (due to the fact that we have been participating in a legal church service).  The law is clear that ceremonially (as part of a religious endeavor), taking these medicines is protected.  

Also, there is a supreme court argument that states: "a parent has an unhindered right to inculcate their children in their spiritual practices." (NOTE: Please see (5) for a comprehensive list of case summaries defining the Supreme Court's Parental Rights Doctrine).  (Note: not sure which case states this... I looked but haven't found it yet.)

H.  What about the drug schedules?  Labeling all psychoactive substances as Schedule One controlled substances is completely missing the point on so many levels...

L.  The schedules are arbitrary and capricious, and are regulations at the agency level (H: a regulation is a legal norm intended to shape conduct that is a byproduct of imperfection - written by executive agencies as a way to enforce laws passed by the legislature. (6).   They are arbitrarily written and applied, and are capricious in that they eliminate the proper uses of entheogens, and don't acknowledge the fact that these substances have not been proven to be addictive.  This scheduling closes the door and says that all of these substances are bad, simply out of fear.  Yet we know that entheogens are helpful to many people.  It would be impossible to be addicted to using ayahuasca, for example.   No one would want to or even be able to abuse it...

H: ...because it is quite an ordeal to take it in the first place!  One of my main points here is that these entheogens are not correctly labeled as Schedule One substances, because they don't meet any of the criteria: they DO have medical uses (which would be accepted if research was allowed to continue), they do NOT have a high potential for abuse, and they do NOT cause psychological or physical dependence. That is why I am doing this - I want to be a part of the new conversation about these substances, bringing honest inquiry and science into the fear-based taboos our society has used as a basis for our policy and laws.  I think we need a complete revision of the drug scheduling! 

L.  How could we draft a drug schedule that works?  We should measure the Schedule One drugs based on their addictiveness and destructiveness.  The latter is measured on the social, personal and interpersonal impacts on society.  If you look at alcohol and tobacco, for example - two substances which are legal in this country and which are both psychoactive substances - if these were measured in terms of addictiveness and destructiveness, they would go to the top of the list of Schedule One substances!  Millions of people use them, with incredible negative impacts to society measured in the high numbers of deaths, health care costs, accidents, and so forth (H. and the high cost of alcohol addiction in terms of the psychological and economic detriment to families and children). 

When 'drugs' are involved there is a cultural bias, and a HUGE barrier of fear.  I had that barrier until I tried it (ayahuasca) myself.  Then I realized 'Oh my God there's a whole other world!'  I personally know many lawyers who have participated in medicine ceremonies, but they have to be very secretive about this in their profession. (H: because of the potential ramifications to their professional lives if they were ever "outed.")

 Note: L also has two children, one underage and one legally an adult, with whom she does NOT share about her experiences with the entheogens, despite her feeling that one of them would really benefit from an experience with the medicine.  She fears that if her ex-husband found out what she was doing, he would sue her for custody and try to take her kids away.  

What a world we live in.  Here is a professional woman who has found a path that helps her to be 'better' in her life, in every way - more conscious, more centered, happier, healthier, lighter (not as burdened) - and she has to live in fear of being discovered in her 'nefarious' activity of taking an entheogen for spiritual purposes.  (Just to be clear - I am also talking about using entheogens in a very strict setting, as part of a church service - not just recreational use by an individual.)   THIS is why I want to write this book.  Entheogen users need to be able to come out of the closet and not be discriminated against, shunned, or prosecuted for the ignorance of the policy- and law-makers who have vilified - and mislabeled - these substances.  It is time to revise the collective thought, and more importantly, the laws around the use of entheogens for spiritual purposes.

My thanks to L for the generous donation of her time and expertise for this interview.   

(1)  http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2005/2005_04_1084

(2)  http://www.parentalrights.org/index.asp?SEC=DE675888-E60A-4219-8A5E-000083244D13 

(3) http://www.parentalrights.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={4771B53E-D345-4753-BEF4-68C1CA71CE13}

(4)  http://www.oceanetwork.org/currents/Court.pdf 

(5)  http://www.parentalrights.org/index.asp?SEC=12D52BF9-1D6D-4EEC-B83B-F74B3F91BDF6&Type=B_BASIC 

(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation

Legal Aspects of Entheogen Use in the US: Part One

While I still have not spoken with a lawyer about the legal aspects of raising children in the US while participating in a spiritual path that employs the use of (currently illegal) entheogenic medicines, I want to begin the discussion of this very complex and important topic today with a review of some of the information available online.  I have found a number of valuable online resources from the Council on Spiritual Practices (CSP) (1) and the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics (CCLE) Entheogens and Drug Policy Project (2).  Numerous other writers have added their perspectives in journals and blogs.

The prevalent attitude on this topic can be summed up as follows: "Unfortunately, the courts and law enforcement in the United States are rarely sympathetic toward the use of psychoactive sacraments."(3)

Questions to answer
1.  What are the existing laws around the religious use of entheogens?
2.  What are the exceptions to these laws - legal churches that use entheogens as sacraments? 
3.  What commonalities do the existing legal churches share?
4.  What do the courts have to say and what is the current legal climate?
5.  What are the legal rights of parents in terms of being able to participate in the religious use of entheogens as part of their First Amendment rights within - or without - the context of these churches? 
6.  What are the legal precedents in terms of children being able to be present at these religious ceremonies?  In terms of children being able to choose to consume the sacraments at their parents' church?
7.  What is the history of legal proceedings against parents who have made religious entheogen use the basis of their spirituality, in particular in terms of custody battles, incarceration, and Child Protective Services?  Are there parents who have (legally) fought for the right to include their children in these traditions?


As you can see there is a lot of territory to cover!
**********************************************************************************
1.  Existing laws around the use of entheogens

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” - First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

As has been mentioned elsewhere in this blog,  the following entheogenic substances - ayahuasca, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, ibogaine, and wachuma - contain ingredients that are illegal to possess or consume (wachuma is legal to own but not to ingest) unless you are part of an organized entheogen-based church.  Specifically, the illegal compounds are DMT,  ibogaine, mescaline, peyote, psilocybin, and psilocybin (there are more but for the purposes of this book I am sticking to these few).  (For a discussion about other entheogenic substances, see https://www.erowid.org/entheogens/ or http://entheopedia.org/plants)  These are Schedule One controlled substances, meaning:

(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision. (4)

2. Exceptions (that I know about - still looking into this topic)
These churches have fought legal battles to protect their religious rights to use entheogenic sacraments: the Santo Daime Church and the Unaio de Vegetal Church (both ayahuasca churches), and the Native American Church (NAC), which uses peyote.  Current law requires members of the NAC to have at least 25% American Indian ancestry, although some churches allow Caucasians to become members. (5)  (Note: I am part of a legal church in the US that uses yagé as a sacrament, but as I have mentioned before, as requested by my elders, the name and members of this church will remain private.)  I also have a local friend who has a church group dedicated to the sacramental use of wachuma, which operates as an official church through the NAC.

3.  Commonalities
In order to become a church that employs the use of an illegal entheogen as a sacrament, in the past, an organization had to prove that the use of the sacrament in question was "...fundamental to the practice of their faith,"(6) and that they were a "REAL" church and not just an excuse for a bunch of people to get together and get high.  This was done in a variety of ways, including proving their use of the sacrament came from a long-standing tradition, with elders and a lineage; condemning the use of their sacrament outside of the confines of their particular tradition (leading to a fairly conservative or fundamentalist perspective); and proving to the satisfaction of the court that the use of the entheogen/sacrament is "...THE CENTRAL practice in the religious life of the group." (6)  This has proven quite difficult to prove, hence the very few numbers of organizations who have done so.

4.  In the Courts:
I am not going to review all of the religious freedom court cases here.  If you are interested in that topic please see The Entheogen Law Reporter - https://www.erowid.org/library/periodicals/journals/journals_telr.shtml; or The Hoasca case - http://www.journalofpsychoactivedrugs.com/Articles/Bullis%20402.pdf; or the countless other references available with the help of google!

However, the Supreme Court ruling in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), where two employees - also members of the NAC - were denied unemployment benefits after being fired for testing positive for mescaline (peyote) deserves special mention.  This case left the religious freedom of entheogenic use in serious question.  From the decision: "Although states have the power to accommodate otherwise illegal acts done in pursuit of religious beliefs, they are not required to do so."  Basically the argument was that a person was not legally able to use their religious motivation to use peyote to defy the state of Oregon's neutral laws against possession of peyote.

This case precipitated the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which was passed by Congress in response to the needs of the NAC, as an attempt by the courts to restore the meaning of the First Amendment rights that had previously been held up by the courts. (See http://thefederalist.com/2015/04/01/how-rfra-works-explained-in-one-chart/ for a succinct summary of this act).    This law reinstated the "Sherbert Test," the 'strict scrutiny' litmus for whether or not the free exercise clause guaranteeing a person's religious freedom had been violated.  Interestingly, the RFRA was held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, who said it is not "... a proper exercise of Congress's enforcement power." (7) As a result, twenty states have also passed State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, to localize legislation.

My friend over at Psychedelic Parenting (http://www.psychedelicparenting.org/) makes a really good point about all this: that while, for example, a born-again Christin can prove their faith by simply affirming that they have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior and talking about prayer, it is exceedingly difficult for someone to prove that their use of entheogens IS their religion.  As he writes, "...those Americans who subscribe to a personal spirituality involving entheogenic plants often fear to even pass on those values to their own children, for fear that the kids will tell the wrong teacher or friend, and the family will be divided, parents in prison, children in foster care.  Should they wish to have the protection of the law to express their religious and spiritual beliefs, they must first be arrested, and then “prove” to a judge that they are, in fact a 'real religion'." "(Parents) have failed to pass on to their kids the source of their peacefulness, the sacrament that brings them understanding, the font of their joy, simply because they have been rightly afraid of the wedge that the law has put between them and their children."(6)   The prevalent attitude is that people take these 'drugs' to get high.  Period... and despite all evidence to the contrary!  Even 'spiritual' people doubt the use of entheogens as a valid religious path, somehow thinking that people who become more enlightened using 'substances' are somehow cheating the process. 


To close for the day, on the topic of the political climate of the use of entheogens, and in response to many of my friends' genuine concern in regards to my using my own name on this project (and their fear of repercussions), here is a quote from Martin Ball (see also http://www.entheological-paradigm.net/).  I couldn't have said it better myself:

“The State has the power to destroy your life. There’s absolutely no question about that, and so the state is incredibly dangerous in that sense. And it’s vindictive, it’s misguided, it’s built on illusion upon illusion upon illusion. The problem is that these illusions can still come to get you, even if they’re illusions. It’s a difficult call that ultimately people have to judge for themselves. But the other side of that is this: If no one stands up, nothing’s going to change. Someone’s got to do it. Personally, reality is more important than anything I might want to protect, such as my own personal well-being or comfort, so I’m not going to hide myself in any way. Although there are certain details I’ll avoid discussing on podcasts. But if they really wanted me, the data is all right there. I’m all-in at this point. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and the last thing I want would be to be separated from them, and although prison would profoundly suck, I’m not going to edit myself in order to avoid something that I don’t have any real certainty is actually going to happen. Reality will always win, eventually.” (8)

I will be posting more, sooner than next week, I hope (I mean... I intend!).

(1) http://www.csp.org/society/docs/telr-free_exercise.html
(2) http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/proj_entheo.html
(3) Stuart, R.  "Entheogenic Sects and Psychedelic Religions." http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v12n1/12117stu.html
(4) http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/21cfr/21usc/812.htm
(5) http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v12n1/12117stu.html
(6) "Religious Freedom in a Post - "Burwell v. Hobby Lobby" World." http://www.psychedelicparenting.org/?cat=7
(7)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Freedom_Restoration_Act
(8) Interview with Martin Ball.  Psychedelic Parenting.  http://www.psychedelicparenting.org/?cat=7

Movie Reviews and more...

I have decided to organize some of my 'offline' research that is currently filling many notebooks here in my office, starting with the reams of notes I have taken from relevant movies.  This information has been baffling me in terms of how to synthesize and distill the important bits while letting the rest go, kind of like panning for gold dust in a very muddy river.. Anyway here goes! My comments are going to be kept in parentheses, to distinguish them from the information I am reporting from the films.  

Neurons to Nirvana: Understanding Psychedelic Medicines, (2013): directed by Oliver Hockenhull
(Through a series of interview with leading experts in their respective fields, this film discusses five medicines of interest to psychedelic research:  LSD, Cannabis, Psylocybin, MDMA, and Ayahuasca.)

" The film explores these socially taboo substances as adjuncts to psychotherapy, as crucial but neglected medicines, and as technologies of consciousness. ""...Neurons to Nirvana looks into why our society has created such a social and political bias against even allowing research to continue the exploration of any possible positive effects they can present in treating some of today's most challenging afflictions."(synopses both written by anonymous) (1)

"This film does not endorse, intentionally or otherwise, the use of any medicine of substance outside of legal, traditional and bona fide therapeutic contexts."

"In the popular press, hallucinogenics have been portrayed as a recreation, an escape, or as a dangerous invitation for abuse, but there is another side to the story... The truth is that more people die from taking simple pain relievers than from all illegal drugs combined, ...and almost none are due to psychedelics."

LSD
In the 50's, there was great hope that LSD might revolutionize psychiatric care.   After it became popular among young people, the feeling in the 60's was that things were getting out of control, and there was a need to 'put the genie back in the bottle,' to restore social control which seemed to be on the verge of breaking down.  "You do see out of the box with LSD," and so people started questioning the war in Vietnam (and other societal 'norms' having to do with racism, sexism, etc).

One researcher, Dr. David Healy, said, "...to ban a (medicine) you have to paint it as having extreme dangers linked to it."  (This is the essence of the societal taboos we see in place against anything that alters consciousness in unpredictable ways.  Alcohol, tobacco and coffee all alter our consciousness, but they are accepted because their effects are known - even though people can get hooked on these.  The main danger of these substances was the (unfounded and completely unscientific) fear that people would get hooked or addicted to them.  Secondly, the media hyped up fear that taking these substances would lead to people completely losing control and going insane.  This campaign of fear worked, and laws and restrictions started being imposed on this entire category of substances, leading to a complete ban on all research.)

How does LSD work?
Serotonin is part of the neurotransmitter system which modulates or regulates all other systems.  All senses except smell go through the thalamus, the gateway to the cortex, which is what puts your reality together.  LSD resembles serotonin in its effects on this system, and psychedelics stimulate connections between the emotional and the behavioral aspects of the brain, leading to understandings, insights, epiphanies, shifts in awareness, unitive states: these are all due to the serotonic connections.  In addition, the part of the brain that regulates information uptake - or the screening out of so much of what we experience - this is turned off.  Psychedelics are psych-integrators.  They change serotonin inhibition so that you 'get it all,' (all of the sensory data available to the brain instead of the censored version.)  As Ram Dass says (about unity states), "There is no other.  It is all one."

Psilocybin Mushrooms
Another researcher, Dr Steven Ross, MD, from NYU, is using mushroom therapy in the treatment of cancer.  He has found that in both the short term and over time, people with cancer who have undergone therapy with psilocybin mushrooms have experienced a lessening of anxiety.   People who came to the study were normal people looking to get through the suffering they were experiencing.  

Rick Doblin, PhD helped create the Good Friday experiment, which aimed to answer the question "Can (using) psilocybin catalyze a religious/mystical experience?"  The answer?  Unequivocally yes!  Here are a few quotes: "The experience that day demonstrated to me the reality of God's presence in all the world... I would say yeah, it did change my life."  "When you have this unitive mystical experience, because it's unitive, you identify with people who you might normally not... there is this core element that binds us together."   (It helps us to identify with "other" deeper than all the limiting/defining terms - gender, race, age, sexual orientation, nationality.)  Roland Grifftihs, PhD, reported that "...the experience at it's core is more real, and more true, than everyday waking consciousness."  "Most people are still endorsing that this experience is among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their entire lives." 

This mystical/transcendent/transpersonal experience can now be studied, scientifically.  (Dennis McKenna).  "We are just relearning how to let it be OK to call these kinds of experiences real," says Kathleen Harrison, MA, director of Botanical Dimensions.

MDMA

(MDMA, street named Ecstacy, was a legal drug until the 80's.  Today one of the main issues with it is that kids get it off the black (illegal) market - they are going to use it regardless of its legality - but black market ecstasy is often very impure, cut with heroin, speed, and other substances.  And kids don't learn about using these substances in a safe way due to prohibition (and the mentality that teaching abstinence is the only proper approach to these substances.  In my opinion that's about as rational as telling a bunch of horny teenagers not to have sex.  A few might listen - but most of them are going to ignore you and think of you as an old prude - and then go and do what they want without any kind of supervision or instruction from their elders.)

MDMA is not an hallucinogen.  It floods the brain with serotonin and decreases anxiety, making it a good catalyst for psychotherapy.   Most scientists in the field insist that more and immediate clinical research is needed!  One such researcher says, "There is no other drug like this one.  It floods the brain with serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine, making it an immediate acting depression and anti-anxiety drug.  There is no other known immediate acting, non-sedating, anxiallytic (reliever of anxiety).   This substance has been helpful in the treatment of PTSD, where the normal problem is too much anxiety or too much emotional numbing.  MDMA helps people revisit the trauma in a therapeutic way, and face their fears without being overwhelmed, while t the same time maintaining an emotional connection.  MDMA also enhances oxytocin, which is involved in bonding and empathy."

We need to be able to do clinical research on this in order to fully understand the risks and benefits. 

Marijuana
(This medicine has been known to reduce anxiety, promote sleep, and help with Parkinsons, Alzheimer's, nausea, arthritis, cancer, glaucoma, and childbirth.  Marijuana IS medicine - and yet it is still regulated as a Schedule One Controlled Substance, which means there is no scientific evidence that it has medical benefits. This is FALSE.  Requests to conduct studies determining its medical benefits have been denied - and then the government claims that there are no studies proving any health benefits!) "It's beyond hypocrisy..." says one researcher.

"Tobacco is the only substance that we sell in the US that when used as directed causes death.  Shouldn't we be incorporating tobacco into our drug policies?"

Some people feel that the reason these medicines are villainized is that they constitute the ultimate threat: they have the ability to 'break consensus trance' (under which our culture lives).  "It's not marijuana, the mildly mind-altering substance.  It's marijuana, the antithesis of the state..."

"It's a tragedy that our youth can only get that type of marijuana (high THC).  It can be a real problem for kids taking these substances without the proper set and setting.  There's a lot of learned knowledge that can be more readily be passed on in a regulated system.  On one hand we decry the scourge of drugs, then on the other hand we medicate the kids instead of dealing with their bad behavior, to control them,  instead of parenting, etc, basically teaching them to turn to drugs for every problem.  Then they find out that the drugs that are prohibited are much more effective than the prescription ones, so of course they use them!"  (This is a paraphrase)

Kathleen Harrison, from Botanical Dimensions, says, "Not all the rules are here to protect us."

To sum it up: "We fund studies on harm - we don't fund studies on benefit."  (In other words, studies showing the negative effects of these substances would probably be funded - studies showing the positive benefits are not even considered.  I remember reading about a doctor in England who carelessly remarked that more people have died from tobacco and alcohol use in one year than from marijuana in the entire record of human history - and he was ridiculed and threatened with the ruin of his reputation, just for speaking his truth!)

Ayahuasca/Yage

Jeremy Narbe talks about how the knowledge of these sacred plants came from the hallucinations of their shamans.  Dr Gabon Mate (accents on the a and e) talks about plants as teachers.  "Plants have substituted biosynthesis for behavior. They can be used to form a symbiosis between humans and plants." (Dennis McKenna) 

Ayahuasca has become popular in the Western world, but it is definitely not a party drug.  It is not anything you would do lightly.   No one uses this medicine frivolously (since it can make you suffer from extreme nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, and can cause you to have to look at the darkest aspects of your psyche). Many people agree that this medicine has to be used respectfully, in a safe set and setting.   "But after it happens there's a kind of a clarity and lightness that's powerful, because what 's being purged are psychic contents you've been holding onto.  You're purging anger; you're purging pain; you're purging some false story about the self." Dr. Mate.

SSRI's - (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) - feel good drugs.
(These were included here to show the difference between taking a medicine like ayahuasca and a drug like Prozac.)
"The idea that we can medicate ourselves into a state of happiness encourages drug dependence and also people not to examine the foundations of the problems that make them feel bad in the first place because you can simply mask the symptoms."  Companies are not interested in something that can be given one or two times with huge (beneficial) effects.  "All these substances (peyote, LSD, marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA, etc) are in the public domain and so can't be patented.  Prohibitive substances (like SSRI's) bring in much more money.  The government stance is if we can't patent it, let's prohibit it.  This creates a black market and it helps some people make a lot of money."

Gillian Maxwell, Keeping the Door Open, says these substances - medicines - are the antidote to the lack of meaning (in our culture).   Medicines: let's explore what I am, and let's understand it.  Drugs: let me get out of this reality. 

These drugs are misclassified as being addictive.  They are actually more helpful in curing addictions (one study of 2000 alcoholics were treated with LSD and 45% of them stayed off alcohol after 1 year - AA only has an average 10%  sobriety rate after one year.)(2)

The research and study of these substances has been completely shut down, not based upon scientific evidence but based on a prohibitic policy, and "...despite the evidence that these substances have been used for medical purposes for tens of thousands of years, ...because of government regulations, we're denying major aspects of our population access to medicines that they dearly need." 

It is possible and it would be interesting to use (psychedelics) not just for disease states but for the exploration of one's consciousness, for spiritual exploration, to enhance spiritual growth and empathy, to be better people.  "We are potentially the salvation of the planet and also potentially the destruction of the planet." Terrence McKenna.

"We're talking about transformation at every level: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual."

"In order to use these medicines you have to be 'rebel' enough against the taboo to look at the taboo, and the whole nature of a taboo is that it's an area of culture where we are told 'don't look there, it's not good to even look there.'" Kathleen Harrison

(If you are still reading, you can see why I am quoting so much from this movie! Good stuff, good information.  I will have to review it again to get the manes on some of the other quotes.  After they introduced a person one time, they didn't put up their name again - and so I have some quotes whose authors I have missed.  Will fix later.)

Ayahuasca - Vine of the Soul (2010): directed by Richard Meech
Kenneth Fupper talks about the globalization of Ayahuasca.  He says users are not criminals associated with illegal drug use.  Over the past 10 years thousands have tried this, and their spirituality and healing has been excised.  "Our culture is empty - it doesn't give people what they really need."  This medicine, "...can open up energetic barriers to help one live more optimally."  Another quote, "You just know that you are connected to something larger."

Religions demand faith.  But with ayahuasca you don't have to have faith - you have direct experience of the divine.  "Learning through plants is a cultural tradition that goes back hundreds if not thousands of years."  "It is a very powerful medicine that has to be placed and used in a proper way.  If not, it can create a psychological shock that can leave a trauma.  "Addiction is trying to complete yourself from the outside, to fill the void."

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the film: "Mysterium Tremendum - the feeling of being at one with the universe.  Religions say that this is not for the ordinary person.  But ayahuasca says no - it is!"  "It was the most spiritual thing I have ever felt in my whole life."   "I felt a kind of love I have never felt in my life."  "That literally broke me open - annihilated me..."  "It allows you to have a second chance at being yourself."  "It is very much about love.  Period."

DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2010):

DMT (dimethlytriptamine) has profound effects on human consciousness.  it is 2 steps away from tryptophan, one of our amino acids.  All organisms have this plus two enzymes that lead to the DMT molecule.  Graham Hancock reports, "No one knows why it is there - why is it in our bodies/mammals/plants?"

Dennis McKenna says, "Wake up you monkeys - you are really screwing things up!" (I don't remember the reference for this quote but include it here as a bit of comic relief!  I am sure he was referring to the fact that the use of DMT is said to (potentially at least) expand one's consciousness into a unitive state, where 'we' realize in a profound way that everything in existence is connected, or is ONE - and then, presumably, with this consciousness we (humanity) could stop raping, plundering, killing, and ruining everything on this planet and instead use ALL of our resources to work together to reestablish balance and (possibly) avoid the impending apocalypse.  Just sayin'...) 

Jeremy Narby, PhD, has this to say: "With the help of two concepts which are traditionally opposed - science and spirituality - we humbly reintroduce psychedelics back into the cultural dialogue."  (What a quote!)

DMT is said to foster the entering and exiting of the soul from the body, much in the same way as fasting, chanting, meditation, and near-death experiences.  It is the active ingredient in the Ayahuasca brew, made available to digest by the addition of a plant which inhibits the body's naturally occurring MAO inhibitor.

So why is it and other substance like it illegal?  "In the Western world, we value alert problem-solving consciousness; a production and consumption mentality only.  We allow drunkenness as a respite but stigmatize and condemn other states of consciousness that don't conform to this." (paraphrasing here).

Daniel Pinchbeck, author, says that the era of the 60's was a failed initiation attempt.  People wanted to push to a new level of consciousness but there were no elders, no medicine men, etc (no one but the blind leading the blind.)

There is a part of the brain that is keyed to trigger and mediate the experiences of the transcendent -   the pineal gland - which some say is the interface between Spirit and matter.  In our culture, we have severed our natural connection with Spirit (and with the natural world).  We need the help of these plant teachers at this time to reestablish our natural wisdom: to investigate the biological basis of moral and ethical behavior; to better understand the universe (in all its dimensions); to discover new forms of medical treatment (free from greed, bias and fear/propaganda); to have life-changing spiritual revelations; and to use these natural tools which offer us the ability to seek greater knowledge.

"What we are looking for out there... is really in here... (pointing at brain)."  (We have to evolve in consciousness if we want to change the world - that old Einstein quote about how you can't correct a problem in the level of consciousness in which it was created...)

(My main take-aways from watching these three films: 1.  There are a LOT of very intelligent, knowledgeable and educated people in this country and in the Western world who are devoting their lives to scientifically studying these medicines despite the prohibitive laws, fear-based propaganda, and the potentially career-damaging jeering of their peers.  2.  There is a wealth of already amassed scientific evidence that in the very least supports further scientific study of these medicines and clinical trials to create viable treatment options for the diverse groups who would most benefit from their use; 3.  While many people include LSD, MDMA, and marijuana in the discussion of entheogens, in my personal definition, I only include naturally occurring, psychoactive plant-based substances.  So even though marijuana is naturally occurring, and while I believe it to have tremendous medicinal benefits, I am not including it in the scope of my book, mostly because in my experience with those who use it , it seems to often be (psychologically) addictive in nature, and also I do not have any traditional elders from whom to learn its proper use.  LSD and MDMA are both synthetic substances, and are therefore excluded from my considerations for the book.  Finally, I am debating about including psilocybin mushrooms in the book. Although they are entheogenic and completely natural, I do not know of any traditional ceremonies or elders who can teach me to use them properly (I have heard the Huichol in Mexico use them, but have not had the opportunity to participate there with that tribe).  Most of the mushroom experiences I know or have heard about range from a person taking some and going into nature alone, to taking them with a group of friends, to going to see a Dead show and partying and dancing their asses off.  I have experience with all of the above - and none of it compares to the intentional purposefulness of taking an entheogen for spiritual growth.  AND at the same time I did grow from my mushroom experiences, unguided and seat-of-the-pants as they were. So the jury is still out on that one;  4.  Things in this country are changing in respect to the legitimacy of studying and even using these medicines... (but not fast enough for me, I might add!), and the field of psychedelic research is gaining proponents, momentum, validity, and profound results.  May it continue to be so!)


(1) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2195566/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl
(2) "The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous." The Atlantic.  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/

Entheogens: Wachuma (San Pedro) and Ibogaine

Switching gears, and going for a more strictly research-based post this time.

The San Pedro Cactus, aka Wachuma, Huachuma, Achuma

The San Pedro cactus, named after a Christian Saint who holds the keys to the gates of Heaven (Saint Peter) (1), is a plant native to the high altitude regions of the Andes, primarily in the countries of Peru and Ecuador.  Known as Wachuma, Huachuma, or Achuma to natives, it contains the alkaloid mescaline, the same entheogenic substance found in the peyote cactus, of which it is in the same family.

The earliest images featuring use of this plant medicine come from Peru, between 4000 - 3,500 years ago (2, 3), after which there are many examples, featuring both male and female healers and animal helper spirits, such as the jaguar, deer, snake, and condor.   

Among healers San Pedro is also known by the name "El Remedio," the Remedy, since it can "... help us to let go of the illusions of the world."  (3) As one author relates:

     "Cactus ceremonies are held today for the same reasons as ever: to cure illnesses of a
     spiritual, emotional, mental, or physical nature; to know the future through the prophetic
     and divinatory qualities of the plant; to overcome sorcery or saladera (an inexplicable run 
     of ‘bad luck'); to ensure success in one's ventures; to rekindle love and enthusiasm for life;
     and to experience the world as divine."   And "...those who drink it can heal, discover their
     divinity, and find their purpose on Earth."(3)

One of the authors (3) interviewed a female shaman, Lesley Myburgh (known as La Gringa, "the outsider woman") who has led ceremonies with San Pedro for almost 20 years.

'"It is a master teacher", she says. "It helps us to heal, to grow, to learn and awaken, and assists us in reaching higher states of consciousness. I have been very blessed to have experienced many miracles: people being cured of all sorts of illnesses just by drinking this sacred plant. We use it to reconnect to the Earth and to realize that there is no separation between you, me, the Earth, and the Sky. We are all One. It's one thing to read that, but to actually experience this oneness is the most beautiful gift we can receive."'

Of course, as with all entheogenic medicines, when the Christian church conquered the Andean territories, they concluded that this sacred plant teacher was a tool of the Devil, used to deceive the ignorant and lead them further into sin.  They tried, without much success, to suppress its use.  Currently, in the US and in many other western countries, it is illegal to extract the mescaline (ie make the tea) from the cactus, since it is a Schedule One controlled substance, unless you have membership in the Native American Church, who have permission to use mescaline in their religious ceremonies. However it is legal to grow the cactus for ornamental purposes.

Ibogaine

Ibogaine is an entheogenic plant medicine, an indole alkaloid,  that comes from a central West African shrub named Tabernanthe Iboga.  It has been used for thousands of years for a variety of reasons, mostly for spiritual development and also to initiate youth into adulthood in rites of passage ceremonies.  In the modern world, since the 1960's ibogaine has gained recognition as an addiction interrupter, helping addicts quit such varied substances as heroin, cocaine, alcohol, tobacco, and methamphetamine.  However it is a Schedule One controlled substance in the US, and so is illegal to use in this country (see below (*)for exceptions).

(Side note: from what I have heard, no one would EVER want to take ibogaine as a recreational substance.  It is reportedly the most intense of the substances I am covering in this blog

The way ibogaine works is that it cleanses the body of the drug in question while at the same time chemically resetting the addictive pathways in the brain, balancing out the different neurochemicals in the brain, such as dopamine and serotonin, setting them back to pre-addicted levels.  After ingestion, the converted ibogaine is stored in fat cells which helps to curb future cravings, also helping reduce depression and negative thought patterns.

On a psychological level, ibogaine helps a person see, examine, and clear the roots of their addiction, leading one author to state the following: "In effect, years of therapy can be replicated in a matter of hours."(4)

Ibogaine has been approved for clinical trials in the US since the early 1990's (*),  but due to lack of funding, the treatment remains largely undeveloped. (5)  The National Institute on Drug Abuse was at the center of these clinical trials in the early '90's, and made the final decision to not continue funding their own protocol.  Interestingly, "Opinions of consultants from the pharmaceutical industry were a significant influence in the NIDA decision not to fund human efficacy trials." (6)

Many private clinics offering ibogaine therapy can be found in Central America and Mexico.  I may be accompanying a friend to one of these in the near future: if so, I will have more first-hand information to report later on! 

(Well, it had been almost 4 hours here at the old computer desk.  Time to go make some kale chips and blackberry cobbler!  See you next time!)


(1) "What is a San Padro Ceremony, or Huachuma?" Gaia Sagrada, http://gaiasagradaspiritualretreatcenter.com/Ayahuasca-San-Pedro/What-is-San-Pedro-Huachuma.php
(2) Samarco, F (trans). " Huachuma, Wachuma, Achuma, San Padro: Cacuts of the Four Winds." El Mundo Magico.  http://www.elmundomagico.org/huachuma-wachuma-achuma-san-pedro-cactus-of-the-four-winds/
(3) Heaven, Ross.  "San Pedro, the Miracle Healer."  https://www.erowid.org/plants/cacti/cacti_writings1.shtml
(4) "What is Ibogaine?" http://www.awakeninginthedream.com/ibogaine.html
(5) http://www.ibogaine.co.uk/
(6) http://www.ibogaine.desk.nl/history.html

Collecting the loose ends - and more about addiction

Just want to put this out there - I was away from home, and then house-sitting without internet, for the past 2 weeks, since the last publish date (7/23).  Feeling stressed that I didn't write last week! Today is already Thursday and while publishing once a week at this point seems like a good goal, I am finding it sometimes difficult to maintain.  Also aiming to keep in mind the practice of not entertaining stress in my body, mind or experience.  I choose to relax in this moment.  I choose to accept that my writing could not happen last week, and relax into my knowing that it is all happening in divine timing.  I choose to trust myself to write in a structured way whenever possible, and to accept when that cannot be so.  To those of you who are following this blog - thank you! - and just know that I will do my very best to write something good here every week. 

There are many loose ends in my previous posts: the legal aspects of using Schedule One controlled substances - which is one aspect that will have to wait until I am able to schedule an appointment with a lawyer;  the other entheogens I have not yet written about (San Pedro and Ibogaine); the cultural taboos and vilification of entheogens in general; the possible dangers of using, and misusing these medicines; rites of passage; elders and eldering; and a deeper look at what is known about how these substances do what they do for us.  After clearing up some of these loose ends, I want to take a look at some of the world cultures that use entheogens, specifically looking at how they raise their children around these medicines. There may be a few more subjects arising as this research is completed, after which I plan to begin interviewing people who are raising or who have already raised their children in the US as members of an indigenous spiritual tradition.

Just a note on staying focused: it has been hard these past few weeks to get in the state of mind I feel I need to achieve in order to write.  I have found myself performing avoidance maneuvers - like this morning I was going to focus for 3 hours on writing and instead deep-cleaned the bathroom (it needed it!) and went to work on my other home project an hour early.  Tired myself right out with five hours of labor, troweling concrete onto the exterior and interior walls of our addition/ greenhouse.  Now it is 10 pm, I am beat, and I still have not gotten this blog written.  I feel like I am falling short.  Just admitting this in writing feels like a good step.  However I will not be satisfied until I get into some real content here.  My coach, the one who initially advised me to start this blog, recommended I write (or research, or focus on this project) from 9-12 every Tuesday and Thursday.  Starting next week, I am going to hold to that.  I am definitely a morning person when it comes to thinking!

Before continuing on with my list, I want to share about an article I recently read: "The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered and it is Not What You Think, ",(1) by Johann Hari, author of a book on this subject entitled Chasing the Scream.   In his article, the author mentions some of the drug studies done on rats which seemed to prove that addictions are completely self-destructive, even unto death, and that the "War on Drugs" is completely necessary for our continued survival.  Researchers put a rat in a cage, alone, with two water bottles.  One bottle contained regular water, and the other water with cocaine added.  The rat would quickly become obsessed with the cocaine water and would drink it until it died.  These results seem to point to the fact that access to drugs causes addiction.

Then along comes another researcher, a Psychology professor from Vancouver named Bruce Alexander, who noticed that these rats were all alone in their plain cages with nothing to do all day but take the offered drugs.  He designed an alternative experiment, where rats got to live together in "Rat Park," a special environment where there was stimulation, exercise, games to play, good food, and other rats to hang with, as well as regular water and cocaine water.  Lo and behold, the rats in Rat Park did not drink the cocaine water very much, consuming less than a quarter of the amount that rats in isolation drank.  And they did not get addicted!  According to the article, "Professor Alexander argues this discovery is a profound challenge both to the right-wing view that addiction is a moral failing caused by too much hedonistic partying, and the liberal view that addiction is a disease taking place in a chemically hijacked brain. In fact, he argues, addiction is an adaptation. It's not you. It's your cage."

The prevalent view in our culture on addiction has been that people get addicted because drugs 'hijack their brains.'  But with these studies, and further studies showing that even addicted rats can stop using the cocaine water if they get moved into Rat Park, the view of addiction as the result of chemical hijacking is coming into question.  The new paradigm looks at the bigger picture, seeing that the addict is not finding what they need in their life to be happy and fulfilled, like the rat in the barren cage. What is needed is a new cage (aka environment).  And what many people are starting to realize is this new 'cage' needs to be one where bonding and deep connections are made.  Professor Peter Cohen, also quoted in the article, says people will connect with whatever they can.  If there isn't a person or people available to connect with, the addict will connect with a drug, or with a behavior, searching for that (missing) comfort and sense of belonging..

 In the words of the article's author: 
"So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection."

If this perspective were adopted, the treatment for people with addictions would begin with the view that addiction is just a symptom of a much greater issue - and the addiction itself would NOT be the focus of the treatment!  Instead, treatment would focus on teaching people how to find connection and meaning in the world: how to connect with themselves, how to connect with their emotions, how to connect with others, and how to connect with the sacred and discover a purpose for their lives.

This is the essence of the medicine work of which I have been a part for the past 10 years.


(1) http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/the-likely-cause-of-addiction-has-been-discovered-and-it-is-not-what-you-think/

Addiction, Suffering, and Compassion

If you have been reading along so far, it should be pretty clear that we live in a very addicted country (world?). I looked up "Types of Addictions" online and up popped a website, listing them A - Z!(1)  Seriously.  Besides things I have discussed in previous blogs, like television, alcohol, and sugar, and the obvious villains, the 'bad drugs' like heroin, cocaine, crack,  and PCP, and tobacco, there are SO many other things to which we can be addicted: food, shopping, shop-lifting, sex, gambling, gaming, porn, plastic surgery, exercise, risky behavior, and on and on and on...

Addictions and the Brain

Before we go farther down this road, let's take another look at brain chemistry.  In the last post I was talking about the dopamine-reward brain circuitry.  This circuit developed to guide evolving humans towards natural rewards like food, sex, and bonding.  In today's world, however, "extreme versions of natural rewards have a unique ability to capture us." (2)   When we are exposed to high calorie foods, or the constant novelty of endless numbers of beautiful, potential 'mates' having sex on a screen, or anything on the above list, each occurrence gives us an extra dopamine hit to the brain, too much of which can override our natural satiation mechanism.  In addition, there is a protein which Wilson (see reference 2) describes as a molecular switch, called Delta Fos B, which is released when dopamine surges.  This protein accumulates in the brain's reward circuit over time, and causes cravings for more... of whatever 'it' is.  This cycle - excessive consumption and dopamine surges, followed by accumulation of Delta Fos B, followed by cravings for more - ends with structural changes to the addict's brain: it numbs their pleasure response, it gives them a hyper-reactivity to whatever they're addicted to, and it erodes their willpower. (2) 

Why?  What do ALL of these 'things' have in common?  Some of them are behaviors, and some are substances.  Some people can use these substances and/or participate in these behaviors without getting addicted - but many cannot.  For example, there are an estimated 2 out of 3 Americans who are overweight (this statistic is shock to me, btw), and about half of them are obese.(3)   So the rate of becoming 'addicted' to food seems pretty high.  On the other hand, hard drugs like cocaine, crack and heroin only hook about 10% of people who try them.  So the things in and of themselves are not necessarily the cause of the addiction. What is going on that makes some people more likely to become addicted?

What Causes Addiction? 

Dr. Gabor Maté has an excellent You Tube video out entitled "What is Addiction?" (4)  that answers precisely this question, in my opinion, anyway.  His view is that all addictions are attempts to soothe the pain of life, to get away from distress.  Interestingly, according to Maté, the brain does not distinguish between physical pain and emotional pain.  When a person suffers from an emotional rejection, it lights up or activates the same part of the brain as if they had been stabbed with a knife.  

In his work with severe addicts, Dr. Maté begins not by asking "Why the addiction," but instead, "Why the pain?"  And in this work, with thousands of addicts, this question is always, every single time, answered by emotional loss or trauma experienced as a child.  In his video, Maté quotes Keith Richards, guitarist (and famous heroin addict) from the Rolling Stones, who says, "All the contortions we go thorough (are) just not to be ourselves for a few hours."  So why would anyone not want to be themselves?  Because of the pain.  Because it hurts.  Because anything is better than having to face THAT...

Or is it?  Sadly, trying to get away from the pain, to escape or avoid it, just causes more pain.  The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying says "Whatever you do, don't try and escape from your pain, but be with it."  My medicine tradition is big on teaching about surrendering to 'what is' in the moment, believing that by surrendering (as opposed to fighting against), we can move through the pain.  Easy to say - and NOT so easy to do, especially when we feel our pain is going to overwhelm us.  I can remember years ago worrying that if I started crying I would NEVER be able to stop.  I would just shut it down if tears came up, get angry, push it away, and then reach for that next cigarette, next shot, etc...

We are also not taught how to do this - how to be with our pain, with ourselves.  Our parents didn't know how, or if they did, it was minimal.  Nor did their parents before them.  So each new generation gets to hold the unresolved pain of the last one, plus the layers passed down from our lineage, as well as our own stuff layered on top, with no tools with which to cope.  We are not taught emotional intelligence as kids in school, and are in fact more likely to be further traumatized by bullies, gossip, cliques, and negative stereotyping.  My peers mostly taught me about rejection, and to be more mistrustful of others and protective of myself.  I can't speak for every religious tradition, but speaking personally, I was not taught how to be with myself and my pain in my Methodist church groups or though sermons.   We live in a culture, as already written about in this blog, that is about instant relief, ' a pill for every ill.'   We live in a culture that prizes distraction, surface beauty, and external symbols of success.  As Dr. Maté says, "...we live in a culture that is based on, both economically and psychologically, on not supporting people to be with themselves."    Thus, we live in a culture of addicts.

Scientists are still looking for the reasons why some people become addicted and some don't. 

How Can People Be With Themselves (with their Pain)? 

Buddhists believe that the way to start to end suffering (dukkha) is to first admit to oneself that suffering is unavoidable and is a natural part of life. (5)  Christians believe (in part) that the way to end suffering is to turn over ones troubles to God, letting the burdens go, then praying and remembering to be thankful for all of it.  

Compassion

 

Dr. Maté says that people CAN learn to be with their pain, but only if there is an 'other' present, from whom they can sense some compassion.   He says, "So addicted people need a compassionate presence which will permit them to experience their pain without having to run away from it." 

Compassion means "to suffer together." (6)  It basically let's the sufferer know that they are not alone.

I like this treatment of the issue: 

(7)

Benefits of Suffering

A good friend once commented on suffering (and I am paraphrasing here), "Suffering is like water flowing through a canyon: the more water that flows, the deeper the canyon is gauged into the rocks; the deeper the suffering, the more it gauges out your heart, making more room for you to be filled with empathy, compassion, joy, happiness, faith, hope, and gratitude."  Most spiritual traditions agree that suffering has many benefits, including teaching us greater humility, expanding our natural capacity for wisdom, increasing our creativity and resourcefulness, providing us with greater compassion, and (in our best moments) helping others who are struggling by our example. (8)

A Way Out

If you or someone you know is addicted, consider using a mindfulness technique to focus on the present moment, and not on regrets from the past or worries about the future.  "Where we put our focus on is what our mind grabs onto," says Dr. Paul Gilbert. (5)  If we are always focusing on the problems in our lives, we will feel worse and worse.  If we instead can focus what is true in this moment ("I am safe," "I have a warm home," I have food to eat," etc), and even better, on what we are grateful for in the moment, our minds will start working like that - towards the positive.   One very simple and helpful mindfulness practice: noting thoughts that come through as 'past,' 'present,' or 'future,' whenever you think of it during your waking hours.  This can help to connect our conscious mind to our unconscious mental habit of living in the past or the future.  I also highly recommend The Presence Process by Michael Brown as a mindfulness primer and as a way to get in touch with and release stored negative emotions.(9)

Finally, remember that none of us - and yet paradoxically, all of us - are alone.  We all feel alone with our pain, but we are not.  There are people who can understand how it feels, who can listen, who can empathize without criticism or judgment.  And this small grace can help us, can shine a tiny ray of light into the darkness of our pain.  Sometimes that's all it takes.  If you are addicted and want help, or you're suffering and are not sure how to cope, please reach out to your neighborhood community, to your religious circle, to your co-workers; go to the library and look for support circles, for meditation classes, for a way to connect with others.  If you are not addicted or suffering, reach out and find someone who needs a supportive, compassionate presence in their life.  Become a mentor, a hospice worker, a meals-on-wheels driver... there are many opportunities to give back to the world when we are in a place of fullness.  And this just in: listen to a great spiritual teacher speak on the subject of compassionate listening. (10)

This tradition of which I am part is one such supportive community.  And this medicine path, although not for everyone, is one way to learn how to be more present with all of it.   May all sentient beings find and share compassion in this lifetime!


(1) http://www.addictionz.com/types-of-addictions/
(2) Wilson, Gary. "The Great Porn Experiment."   TED Talk,  TEDxGLASCOW.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU
(3) "Overweight and Obesity Statistics." NIH.  http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx
(4) Mate, Gabor, PhD.  "What is Addiction?"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5sOh4gKPIg
(5) http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhism/bs-s03.htm
(6) Scharff, Constance, PhD.  "Cultivating Compassion in Addiction Recovery."  Psychology Today, 9/9/13.  https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ending-addiction-good/201309/cultivating-compassion-in-addiction-recovery
(7) http://www.robot-hugs.com/comics/2013-05-20-Nest.png
(8) "Benefits of Pain and Suffering."  http://www.whypain.org/benefits_of_pain.html
(9) http://www.namastepublishing.com/products/book/presence-process-revised-edition/9781897238462
(10) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyUxYflkhzo