The Psilocybin Solution

experience could lead to a change in behavior for the good. If so, this would reinforce the maxim of eminent psychologist William James that a spiritual or mystical experience be judged pragmatically through its consequences upon the life of the experiencer. If the psychedelic visionary state can enrich one’s life, then, by definition, it is for the good.

In Island, which was Huxley’s final novel, his fictional Edenic islanders use “moksha-medicine,” an entheogenic mushroom, as part of their religious rites. Indeed, the mushroom supports the islanders’ paradise. This invented mushroom was almost certainly based upon the psilocybin mushroom, as Huxley had tried psilocybin on a number of occasions.

The issues raised in his earlier work The Doors of Perception are discussed by his islanders, in particular, whether the effects of moksha-medicine are illusory or real. Through one particular piece of fictional dialogue we are asked to consider the idea that perhaps the brain transmits consciousness rather than produces it. In other words, perhaps moksha-medicine allows a larger volume of what Huxley refers to as Mind at Large (Mind with a big “M”) to enter one’s individual mind (mind with a small “m”). Later, I will have much to say on this deceptively simple remark, as it bears heavily upon the whole notion of the stuff of consciousness.

As the islanders who champion moksha-medicine assert, even the bottom line places value on the experiences engendered by their mushroom, for if there is no objective content at all in the experience, it is still life-enriching and provides a “blessed transformation.”

At one point in the story, the archetypal skeptic and disbelieving character Murugan receives the following rejoinder.

You’ve been told that we are just a set of self-indulgent dope-takers wallowing in illusion and false samadhis. Listen, Murugan—forget all the bad language that’s been pumped into you. Forget it at least to the point of making a single experiment. Take four hundred milligrams of moksha-medicine and find out for yourself what it does, what it can tell you about your own nature, about this strange world you’ve got to live in, learn in, suffer in, and finally die in. Yes, even you will have to die one day—maybe fifty years from now, maybe tomorrow. Who knows? But it’s going to happen, and one’s a fool if one doesn’t prepare for it.^{20}

Arguably the greatest, most eloquent, and most passionate spokesperson for the intelligent use of psychedelics during the 1950s and early 1960s, Aldous Huxley was unaware that his beloved moksha-medicinal fungi were, even as he wrote Island, spreading their mycelial networks throughout the wild unfarmed soil of most of the planet’s Temperate Zone, their presence stretching across vast tracts of unspoiled land. In the autumn months, this secret underground arrangement was yielding countless psilocybin mushrooms, and Huxley never lived to discover this most astonishing of truths. All but forgotten by the mid-1960s, the psilocybin mushroom would eventually rise and fruit again.

FOUR Investigating the Earth’s Alchemical Skin

Mexico and South America are the areas most associated with ritual entheogenic plant use. Apart from utilizing over twenty species of psilocybin mushroom, native Mexicans are also known to have employed the peyote cactus, the morning glory plant, and various species of datura, all of which contain potent visionary substances. The appeal of these plants, like the appeal of the mushroom, is that they support a channel of communication between the shaman and the spiritual domain. As we have seen, this unusual state of affairs arises not from hearsay or dogma, but from the mind-expanding effect of these plants on the human psyche, an effect equally reported by Westerners who might not necessarily be as spiritually inclined as native shamans.

In South America, aboriginal Amazonians still prepare a highly innervating psychedelic concoction called ayahuasca, made principally from an indigenous species of Banisteriopsis jungle vine, along with various other plant ingredients. This same potion is also taken as a sacramental tea by members of the UniA?o do Vegetal, an officially sanctioned church found throughout Brazil. The active principles in these potions are the substances harmine and dimethyltryptamine (DMT for short), the latter being a close structural relative of psilocybin. Shamans claim that ayahuasca facilitates communion with mythological beings as well as the souls of their ancestors. Similarly, species of Virola tree—the resin of which also contains DMT—are used to prepare entheogenic snuffs in Amazonian Colombia, which are taken to free the soul so that it may travel in the spiritual dimension.

These rich shamanic traditions highlight the ultimate way in which the natural environment can inspire an individual, as an intimate link is forged between the human psyche and the transcendental dimension of reality. Once such an emotionally charged shamanic connection has been so established and is reinforced through ritual use of a particular visionary plant, the process will generally cultivate an enduring sense of spirituality as well as a religious cosmology, as is the case surrounding the use of ayahuasca.

It is not surprising then that the profound psychedelic effect of these indigenous plants becomes firmly integrated into native culture, the shamanic knowledge so acquired reaffirming the culture’s identity and the people’s beliefs about the nature of reality. Furthermore, and perhaps of most importance, these plant species aid the practice of healing, whether mental, social, or purely physical. In native societies without a health service or subjugation to pharmaceutical conglomerates, the curative role of the shaman becomes an essential feature of daily life, with natural plant allies being very much a tool of the healing trade.

This kind of spiritual relationship between Homo sapiens and Nature is relatively rare, compared with, say, our close relational links to environmental resources like wood, grain, oil, or gas, yet the natural entheogenic link leaves all others behind in terms of its impact on one’s sense of being. Whereas most of the relational ties that weave us into the living fabric of the biosphere are purely utilitarian in material terms, the resource provided by entheogenic plants operates at a different level, offering us spiritual nourishment, which, although seemingly intangible, can still have a cultural role to play, as witnessed by the important role of the shaman or native healer within aboriginal societies.

Of course, we might object here and assert that we have no need for shamans or entheogens in our technological culture, that we should leave these ostensibly marginal phenomena to those academic anthropologists and ethnobotanists whose vocation it is to gather information on such matters. Indeed, over the past thirty or so years a wealth of research articles have appeared that describe, in quite exacting botanical detail, how various entheogenic concoctions are prepared by the native cultures who still use them. However, it is almost unheard of for the witnessing ethnobotanists or anthropologists to actually experience the visionary brew for themselves. All the surrounding paraphernalia associated with the alchemical preparation might well be attested to right up to the actual implements employed to administer it, yet the principal substance of interest remains exempt from inquiry. This missing factor is what is actually driving the researchers’ interests, namely, the resulting psychological effect of the preparation. After all, if the eventual experience generated by the sacrament were not in any way notable, there would be no shamanic legacy to study.

We can see then that although science might be commended for documenting what is, after all, a fast- disappearing aspect of aboriginal culture, the most important ingredient—the experience—is generally not witnessed. Perhaps this is because ethnobotanists feel there is no scientific banner under which one could reasonably and legitimately go ahead and sample the entheogen in question. But there is. It’s called phenomenology—the study of immediate experience and its implications for the allied science of psychology. To actually personally partake of shamanic substances is to glean an insight into the psychological forces that they set in motion. With an inside view, we might understand more clearly the role of the entheogenic experience within the belief systems of native cultures. More to the point, we might gain valuable insights into the mutable potential