If you have spent any time at all researching psychedelics, you will surely have come across the phrase “ego death” or “ego dissolution”, usually as a prelude to some kind of spiritual rebirth. The death-rebirth motif can of course be found all over the ancient world, not least in the central story of the death and resurrection of Christ. For an ancient Greek, an ego death and rebirth will have reminded them of Persephone or Dionysus. For a Christian, it will likely have reminded them of Easter.
Although I have experienced this a few times myself, primarily on ayahuasca, it doesn’t quite fit the bill with mushrooms. It’s very unusual to lose all sense of your self on mushrooms, even at higher doses (heroic doses and above are a different story). Generally speaking, instead if a death-rebirth experience, mushrooms feel more like just a rebirth, that is, like being “born again”.
Jesus tries to explain what this means to Nicodemus in John’s gospel:
“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
(John 3: 3-8)
William Law wrote about the need for Regeneration in the eighteenth century. He also insisted that the serious Christian had to be born of the spirit:
“When therefore the first spark of a desire after God arises in thy soul, cherish it with all thy care, give all thy heart into it, it is nothing less than a touch of the divine loadstone, that is to draw thee out of the vanity of time into the riches of eternity.
Get up therefore and follow it as gladly, as the wise men of the east followed the star from heaven that appeared to them. It will do for thee as the star did for them, it will lead thee to the birth of Jesus, not in a stable at Bethlehem in Judea, but to the birth of Jesus in the dark centre of thy own fallen soul.”
(The Spirit of Prayer)
Mushroom regeneration is more like Christmas than Easter. It’s like a spiritual reset, as well as an opportunity for life reviews and resolutions, a bit like Christmas and New Year rolled into one. For some people, once a year is enough. For others, once a month is about right. Either way, as Philip Larkin sang (on behalf of the trees), “begin afresh, afresh, afresh.”
bread of life 