The Conscious use of Drugs

What on earth  has the use of drugs to do with Enlightenment Masters? Historically many of the people involved in the emergence of Eastern spirituality in the 1960s were also engaged with drugs, particularly LSD. Alan Watts and Ram Dass are obvious examples, they were both deeply spiritual. According to Charles Berner there is a much longer history of the use of drugs and spiritual seeking in India. But this is not the focus of what I want to share here.

 I noticed that participants who had prior experience with drugs, particularly hallucinogens, tended to do better on Intensives. I attributed this to the fact that their drug experiences had left them more open to something as strange as a change of state of consciousness. Although I have known many people who have claimed to have direct experiences whilst under the influence of a drug, I have never been satisfied that this was the case. It seemed to me that whilst they were both in an altered state and became aware of something that could be the content of a direct experience, there was no evidence of a direct experience – it was always through some process. So I remain sceptical as to whether the Divine can be accessed through the use of drugs.

But I am not at all sceptical about the increase in a person’s openness that can occur with the conscious use of drugs, the same drugs as those usually associated with parties and raves. Personally I have found them extremely useful in solving difficult interpersonal problems and in accessing my unconscious. As such I regard them as key tools in my growth kit.

All tools can be used positively and negatively, i.e. in ways that enhance growth and understanding or in ways that close off understanding and awareness. Communication can be used to lay trips on someone, share love, clear attitudes and  blame or analyse other people and so on. Drugs can be used to avoid difficult feelings, be more open to self and others,  lose control and become incoherent, explore one’s unconscious and improve mutual understanding. The key difference in the ways that tools are used is in the intention of the user. The vast majority of drug users are not doing so to enhance their awareness, their intention is to have a good time and “get out of it”. What I am advocating here is a process where the intention is very clearly to enhance awareness and mutual understanding – “to get into it”.

The key factors involved in the responsible use of drugs are as follows:

1. Control the dose, the amount of the drug,  so as to increase openness whilst avoiding incoherence. This is different from one person to the next and depends upon body weight and personal sensitivity.

2. Set up the context to be conducive to the aim of the process and so that everyone involved feels safe. This may require a level of isolation from the external world and interruptions.

3. As already mentioned, set a clear intention. If there is more than one person involved in the process, discuss your joint intentions as well as any personal ones. It is surprising the degree to which you get what you intend.

4. Arrange some sort of recap and integration process fairly soon after the drug process – usually the next morning. Without this follow up, some of what was discovered is likely to be lost. Also discussing the insights and understanding later, when sober, helps ground them and puts them more into context. I have never found drug induced insights to be erroneous, but I have found that their relative importance could be inflated when under the influence of the drug.

If these factors are all followed then, in my experience, the drug experience will be one that enhances your awareness in some way. Actually there is one other important factor that I have not yet mentioned – namely the actual drugs involved. I have never used, nor heard of anyone else using, the following drugs for increasing awareness; alcohol, caffeine, cocaine, amphetamines and opiates of all types. The drugs that I have used quite often  for increasing my awareness are cannabis, ecstasy and the hallucinogens psilocybin and mescaline. I know of other people who have used LSD and ayahuasca in a similar fashion.

In my personal experience I have found that cannabis is excellent for helping me be more intellectually open and emotionally sensitive to other people. These properties enable me to gain a “bigger picture”, one that includes but transcends my starting point. If I am using cannabis on my own I will set things up so I am not disturbed and will use a pen and paper to have a conversation with myself – starting by stating my intention(s). When Eva and I use cannabis together we start the process by doing a dyad sober, then inhale a modest amount and start talking about what it is we wish to address or better understand. In both cases significant results are obtained within 30 minutes, but deeper insights can continue appearing for an hour or two longer.

Ecstasy (MDMA) has been called an empathogen because it enables two people to be far more open to each other. It is not a drug to take on one’s own; the ideal is with one other person with whom you wish to improve your relationship. It has been called a ‘heart opening’ drug because under its influence people are more able to say and hear difficult things as well as express loving, caring feelings. As a result ecstasy has a long history of being used for couples counselling. A protocol developed by Eva and I for this purpose is included in the Resources section (link). A typical ecstasy session begins 30-60 minutes after ingesting the drug and continues for a further 3 to 5 hours, depending on whether an additional ‘top-up’ dose is taken after 90 minutes.

Hallucinogens, particularly LSD and psilocybin, have a long history of helping people become aware of their unconscious. See for example Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD research by Stanislav Grof first published in 1975. For more recent research using psilocybin, see for example https://hopkinspsychedelic.org/. Typically sessions using hallucinogens are undertaken alone and may last anything between 4 and 10 hours, depending upon the dose taken. For these sessions a very clear intention and a safe setting are essential.