How and Why Psychedelics Heal
An integral theory where science, psychotherapy, and spirituality merge.
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As children, many of us heard fairy tales that tendered some of life’s simplest, yet most profound, lessons. While less prevalent in modern society, storytelling is still a rich and valuable tradition in many cultures. The Tortoise and the Hare teaches us that slow and steady wins the race. (If you have a moment, go back and read that one again. It’s just as relevant for psychedelic healing as it was for doing your math homework.) The Ugly Duckling teaches us that true beauty lies within, and that self-acceptance is essential. (Wait. Maybe you should read that one again, too.) Little Red Riding Hood instructs us to be cautious of strangers. The Boy Who Cried Wolf teaches us that our actions have consequences, and The Three Little Pigs demonstrates that hard work and preparation leads to safety and security. (Come to think of it, maybe you should set this book aside, pick up a copy of The Complete Grimms' Fairy Tales or Aesop's Fables and start your healing there.)
Some of my personal favorite tales are those told about a man named Nasruddin. Nasruddin is a legendary Sufi mystic—one who practices a mystical form of Islam that emphasizes introspection and closeness with God— a folk character, and a wise fool known across the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of Europe. Nasruddin has the unfortunate ethos of teaching us that one can be foolish and wise at the same time. This is surprisingly similar to what we might refer to today as “dialectical thinking,” which involves examining and reconciling seemingly contradictory ideas or perspectives. Nasruddin recognizes that reality is complex and often contains inherent tensions between opposing forces. Growing your skills as a dialectical thinker allows one to consider multiple viewpoints and find a synthesis between them; essentially, it's the ability to see both sides of an issue and understand how seemingly opposite ideas can coexist. How about an example?
One evening, Nasruddin was crawling on his hands and knees near the sidewalk, frantically looking through the grass under the light of a lamppost. A friend walked by and asked what he was up to.
“I’m searching for my house keys,” said Nasruddin.
The friend offered to help, and the two spent considerable time searching under the light of the lamppost.
Finally, the friend asked, “Where did you last have your keys?”
“Oh, back at the house,” replied Nasruddin.
Exasperated, the friend shouted, “Then why are we looking here?!”
Nasruddin dryly stated, “Because this is where the light is.”
As with most tales describing Nasruddin’s antics, this one is illogical yet logical, rational yet irrational, bizarre yet normal, and simple yet profoundly wise. Filled with paradox, we chuckle but also feel a sense of understanding when we realize Nasruddin is both right and wrong at the same time.
This is how much of the modern world perceives psychedelics. So much of what’s being done and studied is both right and wrong at the same time. When I started my journey over a decade ago, I was confused by the available information. It was not until I began studying with an Indigenous maestro, or teacher, that I was fortunate enough to begin receiving wisdom from him and directly from the medicine.
Today, most scientists look to the brain to explain how psychedelics heal. Through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, we have a better understanding of the brain’s default mode network (DMN) and the responsibility the amygdala has for processing emotions, such as fear and anxiety, and tagging memories with those emotions.
Therapists often shift their focus away from the brain and look towards the mind/body complex for the source of trauma. In his bestselling book, The Body Keeps the Score, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk delves into how trauma affects the brain and becomes imprinted on the body. This concept suggests that the body’s tissues, muscles, and nervous system store traumatic experiences as memories. This explains why people with a history of trauma often experience chronic physical symptoms, such as IBS, fibromyalgia, lupus, or multiple sclerosis—even in the absence of a physical cause.
When we examine consciousness and healing from a spiritual perspective, we must look through a more subtle and esoteric lens. In Advaita Vedanta (the non-dual philosophy that underpins Hinduism), a samskara refers to mental impressions, psychological imprints, or habitual tendencies formed by past experiences, actions, or thoughts. Less regarded as “trauma,” samskaras are the seeds of future actions and behavior stored in the subconscious mind and are deeply rooted imprints left by past karmas, or actions. They become influential in shaping our personality, desires, and actions. These imprints are said to be stored in the sukshma sharira, or “subtle body,” which is transferred from one physical body to another during reincarnation.
In summary, many domains are looking for the keys to healing under different streetlamps, because that’s where their light is. None are inherently wrong, but in reality, their keys still haven’t moved from the house.
Modern Meets Ancient: The Increasing Subtlety of Science
Gravity is a fundamental force in nature. Scientific understanding of gravity started with Aristotle’s fourth-century BC belief that an object's natural place was "down.” In the 16th century, Galileo showed that gravity causes all objects to fall to Earth at the same rate. And it was Isaac Newton’s 1687 development of the Universal Gravitational Law that formed the modern understanding of gravity. Science can tell you how gravity works, but it still doesn’t know why it works.
A similar difficulty exists with the concept of matter. As early as the fifth century BC, Democritus suggested that matter consists of small, indivisible particles called atomos. Fast forward to the 19th century, and John Dalton revived and formalized the concept of the atom, offering that all matter is comprised of these miniscule particles. In 1911, Ernest Rutherford discovered subatomic particles and showed that an atom has a nucleus surrounded by electrons. In the 1970s, quantum mechanics came to believe in even subtler fundamental particles like quarks, leptons, and bosons.
As quantum theory expands, our understanding of these fundamental entities is no longer described as “particles,” but “strings.” These strings are waves of energy that manifest as particles in the physical world. In layperson’s terms, everything from humans to rocks to trees to the elements are composed of strings of energy so tightly braided together that they appear solid.
As time passes and technology increases, so does our knowledge of this phenomenon, allowing us to measure subtler forms of energy. One has to wonder when it will all end. What is more subtle than a string? The answer to that question actually lies in Ancient India.
Over 3,000 years ago, a group of Indian mystics known as Rishis received and transmitted the Vedas, the foundational scriptures of Hinduism. These enlightened sages had insight into the deeper truths of existence and the cosmos. As part of these teachings, they received profound insights into a fundamental concept they referred to as Brahman. They defined Brahman as the ultimate, infinite, unchanging reality that underlies and permeates everything. Brahman is the substratum of the entire cosmos. Humans cannot comprehend it, and they cannot grasp it through the senses or intellect alone. Brahman is the Source from which all creation arises, the creator and sustainer of the cosmos, and the ultimate goal of spiritual realization.
The Rishis used three words, “Sat-Chit-Ananda,” to describe Brahman’s unmanifest version, which exists beyond time, space, and causality.
Sat (meaning “existence”) signifies Brahman as the eternal, unchanging reality.
Chit (meaning “consciousness”) indicates that Brahman is pure awareness, self-knowing, and the Source of all consciousness.
Ananda (meaning “bliss”) reveals that Brahman embodies supreme, infinite bliss and fulfillment.
Finally, the Rishis emphasized that Brahman is not a personal God, but an abstract, formless, and all-encompassing reality. To personalize this understanding, they gave us the concept of Atman. Atman refers to the individual self or soul, while Brahman is the cosmic reality. The Rishis instructed that at the deepest level, Atman and Brahman are the same, encapsulated in the Vedantic dictum, “Tat tvam asi,” or “I am that” meaning that the individual soul (Atman) is ultimately identical with the universal soul (Brahman).
Let’s fast forward three thousand years. Stanislav Grof, a renowned Czech-born psychiatrist and one of the most influential pioneers in the field of transpersonal psychology and psychedelic therapy, along with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS; an organization seeking to legalize MDMA) began referring to an “Inner Healing Intelligence,” which I hypothesize the Rishis would have called Atman. This refers to our psyche, or soul. It represents the deepest, undamaged, and perfectly healed part of us whose only role is to express pure existence, consciousness, and bliss. No matter what you want to call it, Atman, soul, or Inner Healing Intelligence, it is this unseeable force that is our North Star and drives the deep and intrinsic sense of longing we all have to heal.
So, to connect all these dots, Brahman is the Source of everything we experience and has three fundamental attributes: universal existence, consciousness, and bliss. You and I, at our deepest level, are the same as Brahman, which also makes us Universal existence, consciousness, and bliss.
What the Rishis described millennia ago as the substratum of everything is not very different from how quantum physicists describe their twenty-first century version of string theory. Both, in their own ways, name the energy that makes up all of existence. While Brahman and quantum physics come from entirely different traditions, one metaphysical and the other scientific, they are remarkably similar in the way they describe the nature of reality, consciousness, and the universe’s interconnectedness.
We Are the Average of Our Emotions
Between 2000 and 2019, new diagnoses of autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, psoriasis, and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis have skyrocketed.[i] In his book, The Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté shares, “Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside you,” and continues with, “One of the things many diseases have in common is inflammation, acting as a kind of a fertilizer for the development of illness. We’ve discovered that when people feel threatened, insecure—especially over an extended period—our bodies are programmed to turn on inflammatory genes.”[ii]
In medicine, the term “conversion” refers to the psychological phenomenon where emotional distress or unresolved psychological issues manifest as physical symptoms. This can happen when a person experiences intense emotions or psychological conflict that their mind converts into psychosomatic manifestations in the body. These physical symptoms might include pain, paralysis, sensory disturbances, or other neurological issues with no underlying medical cause.
For example, someone might experience paralysis, seizures, or other physical symptoms with no identifiable neurological or physiological basis. These symptoms can be genuine and distressing for the individual experiencing them, but they rarely have an explainable origin. What we are learning is that psychological factors like stress, trauma, anxiety, or unresolved conflicts can cause inflammation in the body, and this inflammation is highly correlated with conversion symptoms.
So, how do we tie it all together?
In 2014, author, lecturer, clinician, physician, scientist, and pioneering researcher in the field of consciousness, David Hawkins, published Power vs. Force[iii]. In this book, he proposed a model of human consciousness on a scale ranging from one to 1,000, correlating with emotional states and qualities of being. Hawkins and his team conducted millions of muscle tests (applied kinesiology) over twenty years to determine the truth or falsehood of various statements (e.g. love is the most powerful force in the universe vs. lying and deception create lasting success), political views, and even foods. During his seminars, Hawkins would frequently distribute randomized envelopes containing either sugar or vitamin C. Without fail, tested participants holding envelopes of vitamin C would demonstrate stronger muscle tests. Tests like these were also devised to measure the level of consciousness of different people, ideas, and even entire civilizations. The outcome of these tests is called the Map of Consciousness (MoC).
The MoC ranges from shame at the lowest level (20) to enlightenment at the highest (700 - 1,000). Each level corresponds to a distinct emotional state, worldview, and life experience. Levels below courage (200) lie in what Hawkins refers to as the “Survival Paradigm.” These levels are destructive and are associated with force, control, manipulation, and resistance. Individuals operating from a level of 200 or below are driven by fear, guilt, shame, anger, and pride. These states drain energy and create resistance, often resulting in conflict, suffering, and limitations in personal growth. Indicators of sub-200 levels are “survival mode,” “victim mentality,” and living in a state of fear and control.
Conversely, levels above 200 are constructive, life-affirming, and generate energy. These levels are characterized by emotions and attitudes such as courage, acceptance, love, and peace. Hawkins suggests that power at these levels is self-sustaining (Brahman), originates from a place of inner strength (Atman), and aligns with truth and integrity rather than manipulation or control. Monikers of life lived in levels above 200 are empowerment, inner stability, connection, and contribution.
Returning to The Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté makes the connection that “chronic rage causes the body to release stress hormones for a longer duration than normal. Over the long term, such a hormonal surplus, whatever may have instigated it, can make us anxious or depressed; suppress immunity; promote inflammation; narrow blood vessels, promoting vascular disease throughout the body.” While Maté’s example focuses on the emotion of rage, I propose that any emotion below 200 on the MoC can produce the same outcome. The lower the vibration, the higher the potential for inflammation. Conversely, any emotion above 200 promotes greater health and well-being and decreases conversion symptoms.
So, how is it that we can be the Brahman/Atman yet still vibrate at a level lower than Ultimate Reality? This is one of the many paradoxes of spiritual work. The deepest part of our soul, which is perfectly healed, always vibrates at the rate of Ultimate Reality. But our human personality (often referred to as the “ego” in psychedelic parlance) resonates at a much lower vibration. Because we have accumulated so much residue (e.g. karma, trauma, memories, etc.) throughout our lives, we cannot see through the film of delusion that prevents us from recognizing or remembering what we truly are, sat-chit-ananda atma. The Hindu tradition blames our lack of self-recognition on maya, the cosmic illusion that prevents us from seeing the truth. Spiritual practices are the antipode to remembering who we are at our core.
Everything is a Vibration
String theory proposes that all particles are tiny strings of energy, each with a distinct vibration. If all we are is energy vibrating at a frequency, how does this relate to our health? I propose that our cells, thoughts, memories, traumas, samskaras, or whatever word we’d like to use to encapsulate these low-vibrational strings are all vibrating at a measurable frequency.
In his book, Waking the Tiger, Peter Levine, an American psychotraumatologist, biophysicist, psychologist, and developer of Somatic Experiencing®, approaches the concept from the position of somatic psychotherapy. He writes, “Sensations come from symptoms, and symptoms come from compressed energy; that energy is what we have to work within this process. Through sensation and the felt sense, this vast energy can gradually be decompressed and harnessed for the purpose of transforming trauma.”[iv]
Looking through the lens of Internal Family Systems, a popular therapeutic modality often used with psychedelic work, you can make the connection that each of our “parts” holds its own average vibration. From a more esoteric perspective, each imprint stored in our body’s tissues, muscles, and nervous system has a vibration. Each samskara, be it from this lifetime or one from the past, is a stored charge, waiting to be released through our future karma.
Overlaying the Map of Consciousness with quantum physics, psychotherapy, and spirituality, we can hypothesize that shameful, guilty, and apathetic, thoughts, memories, and trauma hold low vibrations. Thoughts of acceptance, reason, and love hold high vibrations.
If we compare our emotions to a sound wave, we can expand this metaphor visually using the concepts of frequency and amplitude. The high-pitched sound of a violin would be like the high frequency of love. Conversely, the low-pitched sound of a tuba would be like the low vibration of shame. The stronger the emotion in our system, the higher the amplitude and the louder the volume—and the more intensely it disrupts our present-moment awareness.
As we will discuss further in Chapter 17 – Activation, if our lives represent the average of our actions, then our consciousness is the average of all the vibrations stored in our body, mind, and spirit (BMS). I suspect that if science had instrumentation subtle enough to measure it, they could plot all the minute residue stored in our BMS on the Map of Consciousness. Unfortunately, this technology does not yet exist.
Healing Through Vibration
If we can appreciate that everything in our lived experience is just energy vibrating at different frequencies, and that the higher our average frequency, the better we feel, the natural next questions are, “How can we feel better?” and “How do we heal?”
Self-love is one of the most overused tropes in the fields of therapy, healing, spirituality, and psychedelics. I frequently hear practitioners say, “Just love yourself,” yet when I ask my clients, “Who taught you how to love yourself?” I am often met with a blank stare followed by the stark realization of, “No one.”
If this is you, don’t be alarmed. You make perfect sense. If you don’t know exactly what love feels like or how to love yourself, it’s not something you’ve done wrong, and it isn’t necessarily because of something traumatic that happened to you. Instead, it may be because of something that didn’t happen to you, or that your biological caregivers didn’t or couldn’t do for you.
Emotional neglect is a pattern of behavior often seen when a caregiver consistently cannot meet a child's emotional needs. This can be very difficult to detect and treat because it's an act of omission rather than an overt act of mistreatment or abuse. Neglected children grow to become neglected adults, moving aimlessly like fish swimming around without knowing what water is. They don’t realize they’ve been living without the felt sense of love because when their brain was open to receive it, the people who needed to teach them didn’t have it to give. We can never truly love others any more than we love ourselves, we cannot give away what we don’t have, and “hurt people hurt people,” often unintentionally.
To overcome this deficit, we must take two distinct actions. First, we must find a helping professional who knows what love is and is willing and capable of teaching us how to feel it within ourselves. Second, we must soften and become vulnerable enough to receive the love being offered.
The saying “If you cannot be vulnerable, you cannot feel,” refers to the idea that vulnerability is the basis of emotions and feelings. Most of the time, we cut off our vulnerability to protect ourselves when we’re young. But when we avoid being vulnerable, we also prevent ourselves from experiencing a full range of emotions that includes love, joy, empathy, and belonging.
Consider all your emotions as chords played on a guitar. Love is one of those chords. If our parents attempted to teach us the sound of love with their guitar, which was out-of-tune, ours would also become out-of-tune. Most of us find out later in life that the definition of love we learned was more about action than vibration and resonance. Someone taught us how to strum the guitar, but most likely, we have been listening to a distorted love chord since birth.
If we abandon the trope that love is solely an emotion felt by poets, artists, and musicians and respect that it’s actually a vibration (500 on the MoC), we can then begin the gradual process of re-tuning our guitar to play a chord that’s finally in tune. This goes for every one of our emotions, not just love.
In A General Theory of Love, author Thomas Lewis argues that our nervous systems are not self-contained and that our brains connect with the brains of people close to us from early childhood. This connection, called limbic resonance, creates a silent rhythm that can alter the structure of our brains, establish emotional patterns, and determine who we are.
Limbic resonance refers to how the emotional state of one person can be influenced or mirrored by the emotions of another. It explains how humans (and some other animals) can deeply connect emotionally with others. It plays a role in the nonverbal exchange of emotions, allowing people to feel empathy, form bonds, and attune to one another's emotional states.
For example, when you're with someone feeling joyful, your emotional state might uplift, reflecting that resonance. Conversely, when you’re with someone who is anxious, you may also feel anxious. Lewis says, “The first part of emotional healing is being limbically known—having someone with a keen ear catch your melodic essence.”
The discussion of limbic resonance frequently occurs in the context of close relationships, psychotherapy, and even spiritual or healing practices, since it underscores the significance of emotional connectivity for psychological and emotional well-being.
To visualize this vibrational concept, let’s use the method of heart rate variability (HRV) to see how this manifests in our body. The HeartMath Institute provides us with some fascinating research:
These graphs show examples of real-time heart rate variability patterns (heart rhythms) recorded from individuals experiencing different emotions. The incoherent heart rhythm pattern shown in the top graph, characterized by its irregular, jagged waveform, is typical of stress and negative emotions such as anger, frustration, and anxiety. The bottom graph shows an example of the coherent heart rhythm pattern typically observed when an individual is experiencing a sustained positive emotion, such as appreciation, compassion, or love. The coherent pattern is characterized by its regular, sine-wave-like waveform. It is interesting to note that the overall amount of heart rate variability is actually the same in the two recordings shown above; however, the patterns of the HRV waveforms are clearly different.[v]
The research continues to say, “…the magnetic field produced by the heart is more than one hundred times greater in strength than the field generated by the brain and can be detected up to three feet away from the body, in all directions, using SQUID-based magnetometers.”[vi] This adds credence that emotions are directly tied to our energetic field and that field can be felt and affect those around us.
Psychedelics as Cleansing Agents
We’ve come a long way, turning over nearly every piece of the healing puzzle. Now, we can flip over the last piece and learn how psychedelics complete this picture.
Consider this: When you take an ibuprofen, do you tell it where it needs to go to reduce inflammation? No. The stomach and intestines absorb the ibuprofen into the bloodstream, and it then circulates through the entire body. Since it is present throughout the bloodstream, it does not target a specific area but acts systemically. Wherever damaged tissues release inflammatory signals, the medicine eases pain and inflammation in those areas by inhibiting an enzyme that produces a chemical that causes inflammation.
If you sprain your ankle, that “traumatic residue” shows up as inflammation. Eventually, the body is smart enough to heal itself. Once the trigger of the inflammation is removed or healed, the lymphatic system carries the inflammation to the lymph nodes, where they process and remove it from the body.
At the risk of trying to over-simplify hundreds of years of psychotherapeutic theory, I propose that psychological trauma is not all that different from a sprained ankle, and that psychological “inflammation” is merely low-vibration energy stored in the BMS. Therapy and most spiritual philosophies, methods, and practices through the ages help us process and release these low-vibration patterns and integrate the Truth of our lived experiences. Each of these tools plays a similar role to the lymphatic system; cleaning out the traumatic residue of our BMS. The memory of a traumatic experience doesn’t disappear from our consciousness any more than a scar disappears from our skin. But the energetic charge of that memory can shift from one of anger and shame to forgiveness and love. The memory stays but the “inflammation” is now gone.
What I have come to experience is that psychedelics vibrate at a rate lower than Brahman (∞) but higher than human enlightenment (1000). Using the MoC as our guide, they show us which parts of us are inflamed and vibrating at a low frequency and help us release what is no longer in service to Brahman/Atman.
Psychedelics are frequently regarded as “non-specific amplifiers,” meaning they amplify whatever content is residing in our BMS. With this unique ability, they can shine a spotlight on whatever is hiding in our conscious or unconscious mind. I view them as a kind of powerful, energetic ibuprofen. They possess the unique ability to circulate through and scan our system, find low-vibration trauma, memories, and samskaras, and then transform, transmute, and liberate them from our bodies. With each release, our average vibration and level of consciousness increases. These substances have even been known to cure cancer[vii].
Step-by-step, we build greater strength in our BMS and raise our frequency. Because psychedelics operate solely on energy and vibrations, they have no interest in whether we call these things low-vibration patterns, thoughts, trauma, samskaras, imprints, illness, or disease. They don’t care which lamp post we’re standing under or how bright we think our individual light is. Words mean nothing to these substances, and are only necessary for humans who need them to describe their experience to others. Psychedelics heal outside of human understanding, and the only technology capable of measuring their effectiveness are the human bodies that experience their healing.
Psychedelics are not the only tools for energetic cleansing. Therapy also cleanses and releases energy. Deep forms of meditation, such as Vipassana, cleanse and release energy. Dancing, Reiki, acupuncture, and massage can release energy. A primary difference is that each of these activities originates from (or runs through) human consciousness and will therefore vibrate lower than their original source.
As a simple example, Reiki energy is said to come from the universal life force, known as ki. This energy may be equally as powerful as a psychedelic, but in most cases, it is channeled through a human being that has their own personality, process, residue, and trauma. This residue will attenuate the original frequency and amplitude as it moves through the practitioner’s body, mind, and spirit. Conversely, the vibrational rate of a psychedelic substance is direct, so the speed and force with which it can clean our systems is higher.
To simplify, summarize, and illustrate this framework for healing, consider your BMS as a fishtank full of dirty water. The dirtier your water, the lower your vibration. Filter your water, and your vibration will rise.
The illustration above encapsulates the entire process. Let me explain:
The fishtank represents our body. Over time, the sides of our tank attract dirt and algae, making it difficult to see in or out. Most people start their healing journey at the physical level because dirty glass is easier to see and clean. Metaphorically speaking, we can clean the sides of our tank with time, attention, and good old elbow grease.
The water within the tank represents our conscious and subconscious mind. Peering down from the top of the tank, we can easily see the depth of our conscious mind, which consists of the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions we are fully aware of. Below that, the murkier water represents our subconscious mind, which includes the mental artifacts that we can bring into consciousness with some effort. Our water always has some debris, but the messier our life, the dirtier our water.
The layer of sediment at the bottom of our tank represents our unconscious mind. Over time, debris from our conscious and subconscious mind sinks to the bottom and builds up an ever-thickening layer of mud. Unviewable in ordinary consciousness, the thicker our layer of sediment, the more uncomfortable our lives become.
The sun shining on the tank represents the Brahman, or Infinite Source. It vibrates at the frequency of infinity (∞) and sends an unlimited amount of high-vibration existence, consciousness, and bliss to illuminate our tank and water.
The reflection of the sun’s rays represents our level of individual consciousness that can be measured with the MoC. A perfectly enlightened being would reflect a frequency of 1,000, but because our tank and water are dirty, what enters our system at a frequency of ∞ reflects at a far lower vibration. The dirtier our water, the lower the frequency of reflected individual consciousness. This level of individual consciousness is how we perceive ourselves and how the world perceives us.
The rock being dropped into our tank represents a situation or trigger in our lives. Depending on the size of the rock, once it hits the bottom, it might stir up a little (or a lot) of sediment, clouding our water and causing confusion and discomfort. If we ignore the sediment, it settles to the bottom again, eventually adding more debris and patiently waiting for us to start cleaning. If we address the sediment while it’s floating in our conscious mind, we clean up our BMS a little more, minutely increasing our vibration and level of consciousness.
Psychedelics act as a powerful filter. When inserted into our fishtank, they clean the debris in our conscious and subconscious mind and disrupt our unconscious mind, allowing built-up sediment to be dislodged and cleansed. It is a powerful process, and if our psychedelic dose is too high, the amount of disrupted sediment can cause such a disturbance that our lives may become unbearably cloudy and confusing for months—or even years. But with proper use, psychedelics can help clean our water and tank, increasing our frequency and our reflection of individual consciousness.
We are sat-chit-ananda atma (existence, consciousness, bliss), and over time, karma causes us to accumulate low-vibration residue from our current lifetime and our past lifetimes. Layer upon layer of residue builds up and negatively affects our body, mind, and spirit until that residue is cleaned and released. With each release, we remember the Truth: we are capable of infinite bliss. Until we make the conscious choice to clean our fishtank, we will continue to take actions that keep it dirty. Psychedelics have the remarkable power to help us turn that corner.
Now, before you decide to take a massive dose of psychedelics to filter all your debris, consider what it would be like for a kindergartner enroll in a college-level calculus class. Not yet knowing how to do simple addition and subtraction, calculus would be an impossible feat for a six-year-old. Depending on this youngster’s emotional resilience and personality, this overwhelming experience might feel incredibly scary or wonderfully empowering. With the right mixture of consciousness and personality, the experience could make them feel superior to their kindergarten classmates. On the other hand, not possessing the requisite knowledge to understand the content and do the work, it could also be a terrifying experiment, causing deep fear and shame.
This is what can happen when humans try to use psychedelics to move too quickly through higher planes of consciousness. Imagine meeting God (Brahman) with zero preparation. Suppose your system is vibrating at the level of shame (20), and you interact with an energy source vibrating at infinity. The delta between your vibrations would be so profound it could be shocking—if not traumatizing—to your system. You wouldn’t know what to do, how to feel, or even how to communicate on this level. Much like a kindergartener attempting calculus, you would not possess the consciousness required to understand and integrate the experience into your life. If you’re the kindergartner who develops a superiority complex, you experience ego inflation. If you’re the kindergartner who experiences fear and shame, you return to waking consciousness with an experience of ontological shock. Both are common risks of psychedelics that we will discuss further in Chapter 7 – Risks.
When used with proper guidance, psychedelics act as a bridge to higher vibratory states. They cleanse our systems and teach us, step-by-step, how to experience these higher frequencies. They function as emissaries of Brahman, serving as finely tuned sensors for our body-mind-soul system, scanning for low-vibration energy and helping us cleanse and release anything not aligned with sat-chit-ananda atma.
It may be helpful to think of each psychedelic substance (i.e. psilocybin, San Pedro, ayahuasca, and iboga) in the same way Hindus think of deities. Hinduism is often misunderstood as a polytheistic religion. In actuality, Hindus worship a single God (Brahman) that shows up in many aspects and with many names (Ganesha, Krishna, Shiva, etc.). I have found that psychedelics are very similar. While each of these substances may look and act differently, they all act as bridges to the same Infinite Source.
And if the thought of releasing old guilt or shame causes fear, don’t worry. The vibration that entered your body (and caused your low vibration) does not need to be the energy that leaves it. I have found the fastest way to heal low vibration emotions is with gratitude and forgiveness.
As our water becomes cleaner, our vibrations increase. As we vibrate higher, our strength grows, and our lives become happier. The greater our happiness, the more we can enjoy our lives. This is the fundamental reason for using psychedelics for healing: to reorient our lives away from external pleasure-seeking and towards a desire for freedom and true happiness. These medicines want you to be happy because that is your authentic nature.
An Enlightened Being Takes Psychedelics
Ram Dass, formerly known as Richard Alpert (of psychedelic lore and Harvard fame), was one of my earliest teachers on my spiritual path. Gv is actually short for Govind Dass, a name offered to me by Ram Dass in 2018 when I was studying with him in Hawaii. After being fired from his post at Harvard, Ram Dass became a well-known American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and writer. One of his often-told stories is that of giving his enlightened guru, Neem Karoli Baba (also known as Maharaji) LSD in India.
During his first experience, Maharaji ingested roughly 900 micrograms of acid. Ram Dass watched him for an hour, but nothing happened. Nothing whatsoever. After returning to the US, Ram Dass began to doubt what had really happened. Had Maharaji palmed the pills? Maybe thrown them over his shoulder? Three years later, when he returned to India, Maharaji once again ingested LSD. This time the dose was 1200 micrograms (an amount eleven times greater than an average recreational dose). Once again, absolutely nothing happened.
Maharaji himself said, “These medicines were used in the Kullu Valley long ago. But yogis have lost that knowledge. They were used with fasting. Nobody knows now. To take them with no effect, your mind must be firmly fixed on God. Others would be afraid to take. Many saints would not take this.”[viii]
In his own retelling of the story, Ram Dass estimates that because Maharaji was already such an enlightened being and his consciousness was already vibrating at such a high frequency, the drugs were powerless to alter it. Since Maharaji’s system was already free of all karmic debris, the psychedelics had nothing left to clean.
We rarely get to examine the intersection of such a high-vibration being with the high-vibrational power of psychedelics, but this story perfectly illustrates the theory being offered. If you’re already enlightened, there is nowhere to go and no higher frequency to experience.
The Healing Paradox
A fundamental element of every mystic tradition is paradox. Healing with psychedelics is no different. We are simultaneously one hundred percent human (with all our residue) and one hundred percent divine (perfect sat-chit-ananda atma). The process of healing is systematically cleansing and purifying our system. You don’t need to acquire anything new to heal; you only need to release the low-vibration energy that is not your true nature. This idea is reinforced by verse 47 of the Tao Te Ching:
The student learns by daily increment.
The Way is gained by daily loss,
Loss upon loss until
At last comes rest.
###
By letting go, it all gets done;
The world is won by those who let it go!
But when you try and try,
The world is then beyond the winning.
After experiencing a decade of nervousness before every psychedelic journey, learning that psychedelics were only cleansing my system changed everything for me. It removed all my fears about doing deep work with these powerful medicines. I hope that it may also help ease some of your trepidation.
For years, I went into every psychedelic experience with some level of fear and anxiety, wondering what long-forgotten traumatic memory would be unearthed, requiring me to walk through the gates of hell to see it and purge it. Today, I know it’s all just energy, and that these substances are healing. It is rarely the substances that should concern you—far more often the real concern comes from the humans who are serving them (a lot more on that in Chapter 10 – Facilitation).
Anton Chekhov, a Russian-born playwright from the late 19th century, believed that when many remedies are proposed for a disease, it indicates that the disease cannot be cured. Modern allopathic medicine has repeatedly proven this accurate. Chronic autoimmune and inflammation-based illnesses have become pervasive in our culture, and no matter how many medications we try, the root cause remains unresolved—because these medications never remove the low-vibration energy causing the inflammation.
Humans have become drunk with the power of their intellect. Power and possessions have become the measure of a well-lived life, and colonialism and late-stage capitalism prioritize being smart and successful over being peaceful, joyous, and free. To heal, we must decouple net worth from self-worth. We need to remind ourselves to separate our packaging from our essence and clear away anything that isn't authentically us (sat-chit-ananda atma).
We’ve forgotten our true nature and how to find it, but psychedelics offer us something we cannot usually access in ordinary waking consciousness. Healing in this way is like remembering. Psychedelics provide an expansive awareness for us to remember who we are at our core.
I propose that psychedelics operate at a level of consciousness far above the streetlamps of science, psychotherapy, and human spirituality. I believe that all these “lamps” are shining on something partially true, but none address the fundamental how and why of psychedelic healing. Scientists might argue that psychedelics affect the brain, and that is the source of your healing. I theorize that what is happening in the brain is a downstream byproduct of the healing that comes before it. We don’t need to know anything about the brain to heal with psychedelics. The billions of dollars spent to fund the ever-increasing body of research around psychedelics is merely mental masturbation supporting a medical and political structure that must crumble for true, large-scale healing to ever occur.
Today, science does not possess instrumentation that is sensitive enough to measure what is happening during psychedelic healing. The same was true before Rutherford discovered subatomic particles in 1911 or before Copernicus discovered the Earth revolved around the Sun. The only fundamental difference between science and spirituality is the subtlety and sophistication of our instrumentation.
For clarification, my theory is not new, nor is it actually mine. I received the broad concepts from my teachers, who learned from their teachers and directly from the medicine. My hope is to draw a through-line between the known principles of three completely different disciplines to give psychedelics and spirituality, rather than science and psychotherapy, the long-deserved credit they are due.
Consider this: the most basic definition of spirituality is “self-knowledge.” There doesn’t need to be anything “woo woo” about it. You don’t need to believe in a giant marshmallow man in the sky or be fearful that if you don’t behave, you’ll end up spending eternity with Satan. Spirituality is only the process of self-remembering. When we direct our consciousness inwards, we remember who we are. The more we remember, the more we can experience the bliss that is our True nature.
Psychedelics have the unique ability to help us clean the dirty water of our consciousness. It’s not a fast process. (If you’re expecting it to be, you will be sorely disappointed.) Regardless of the path you choose to walk with psychedelics, remember this: You can take the psychedelics out of spirituality, but you can never take the spirituality out of psychedelics.
Illustrations by Timothy David Cooper
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[iii]. Hawkins, David R., MD PhD. Power Vs. Force. Hay House, Inc, 2014.
[iv]. Levine, Peter A., PhD. Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences. North Atlantic Books, 1997.
[v]. HeartMath. “The Science of HeartMath - HeartMath,” October 4, 2024. https://www.heartmath.com/science/.
[vi]. HeartMath Institute. “Chapter 06: Energetic Communication - HeartMath Institute,” n.d. https://www.heartmath.org/research/science-of-the-heart/energetic-communication/.
[vii]. Schenberg, Eduardo E. “Ayahuasca and Cancer Treatment.” SAGE Open Medicine 1 (January 1, 2013): 205031211350838. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050312113508389.
[viii] Rachael. 2020. “Ram Dass Gives Maharaji the ‘Yogi Medicine.’” Ram Dass. August 14, 2020. https://www.ramdass.org/ram-dass-gives-maharaji-the-yogi-medicine/.