The lynchpin of the human ego system is the Diva, a sense of specialness, even superiority, over everyone who isn’t me. If not the master of the universe, I am at least the centre. Narcissism, whether overt or covert, is inevitably baked into the fabric of the human ego.

Babylon is what you get when you have a family, tribe, village, city, nation, world of egos living together. To accommodate each other, and co-exist with some degree of stability, however, people must take different roles. Obviously, not everyone can be a Diva all the time. The cat fights would be spectacular.

So we end up with all sorts of ego contortionists rubbing up against each other. Somehow, the wheel keeps on turning. It’s not ideal of course. People suffer from all sorts of physical, mental and emotional abuse and neglect, from other egos as well as their own. We put a brave face on it all, but are dimly aware that our self-centredness poisons everything, including our so-called happiness.

Is it possible to start again and establish society on a different basis, as the Israelites tried to do when they fled from Egypt and followed Moses into the wilderness in search of the Promised Land? As Buddha’s followers tried to do when they fled Samsara in search of Nirvana and the Pure Land? As Christ’s followers tried to do in search of the Kingdom of God? Is it possible to base your life, not on ego, but on no-ego?

Just as the Diva archetype is the lynchpin of the human ego, so is the Mystic archetype the lynchpin of the human no-ego. The very definition of a mystic is someone who has transcended their ego. Nobody has a monopoly on egolessness, and nobody has a monopoly on mysticism. As soon as you claim it as “yours”, the ego has slipped back in and you’ve lost it.

The egoless state can be expressed in different ways, whether theistically or non-theistically. The God Idea is very useful, but not essential. You can say “let go and let God” but you can equally say “let go and let Be”. If you insist on one or the other, you’ve lost it. Egolessness transcends all ideas and concepts.

To be a mystic, the important thing is not what you say, or even what you do, but what you are, which is nothing. To “be nothing” is to be a soul rather than an ego. The Soul Idea is very useful, but again, not essential. Buddhists prefer to stick with the idea of no-ego, anatta.

All the qualities and archetypes of the human soul system flow from this mystical state of no-ego. If they are well developed enough to outweigh their ego counterparts, so that the Mystic is stronger than the Diva, the Shaman stronger than the Demon, the Warrior stronger than the Victim, the Monk/Nun stronger than the Addict, the Philosopher stronger than the Muppet and the King/Queen stronger than the Muggle, you are technically a saint.

Sanctity must start with ego-dissolution. Some achieve this through prayer and meditation, spiritual practices and religious faith. Others need a little help from our mushroom friends. Either way, it’s not easy. You have to want it, for a start. But in peak Babylon, who wants to be a saint?

11 And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.

¹² He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return.

¹³ And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.

¹⁴ But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.

¹⁵ And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.

¹⁶ Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds.

¹⁷ And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.

¹⁸ And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds.

¹⁹ And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities.

²⁰ And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin:

²¹ For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow.

²² And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow:

²³ Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?

²⁴ And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds.

²⁵ (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.)

²⁶ For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.

²⁷ But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Luke 19: 11-27

Health warning: Before taking a substantial dose of any classic psychedelic please be aware that your metaphysical beliefs and commitments may be radically altered.

My mushroom metaphysics are summed up in this simple four-part mantra:

Remember God.

You are not Him;

He is all of you.

Parashiva-Shiva-Shakti.

Amun-Ra-Atum-Ka-Ba-Gaia-Jah.

1. “Remember God” implies monotheism.
2. “You are not Him; He is all of you” implies panentheism.
3. “Parashiva-Shiva-Shakti” implies trinitarian idealism.
4. “Amun-Ra-Atum-Ka-Ba-Gaia-Jah” implies evolutionary panpsychism.

You’re waiting for your bride-to-be at the Arrivals terminal; you’re the paparazzi waiting for Johnny Depp to come out of the club; you’re a sniper waiting for the President’s cavalcade to turn the corner; you’re a soldier waiting for the order to charge; you’re a goalkeeper waiting for the penalty to be taken; you’re a sprinter waiting for the starter gun.

You watch and wait. You are awake and ready. You’re poised. You’re filled with charged expectation. You are in a state of heightened alertness and focus. You don’t daydream or ruminate or look at your phone. Your mind is empty. You are all attention, fully in the here and now.

This quality of attentive, mindful waiting is also present when you wait for a big life event, a birth, a death, a marriage, an important job, an award ceremony, an initiation ceremony. The best preparation for death, and the best preparation for a ceremonial psychedelic journey is to enter as much as possible this kenotic state of expectant waiting. Kenosis comes before a psychedelic ceremony.

Gnosis is the gift of the psychedelic ceremony itself; pistis is the post-trip process of integration; and kenosis is the self-emptied expectant waiting for the next one. For you never know when the next one will be the big one, the breakthrough, the unveiling, the apocalypse.

“Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.” (Matthew 24:42)

What’s the point of having a deep psychedelic experience if you can’t integrate it into your everyday life? But then again, as Marc Bolan sang, “life’s a gas”. At the end of the day, it’s all experience, isn’t it? Art for Art’s sake and all that. Not everything has to have a point.

If nothing else, we can learn to appreciate the wonder of present lived experience on psychedelics without looking to exploit it for utilitarian ends. We can learn the art of flow. And there are subtle ways, below the threshold of conscious awareness, in which these mysterious compounds change us, almost imperceptibly, from the inside out. In the aftermath, we may sense a curious shift in our outlook and demeanor that we can’t quite put our finger on.

However, for those who want to reap the abundant fruits of the psychedelic experience, there is the added dimension of conscious integration. This conscious integration can be described in three steps: gnosis, pistis and kenosis.

When people in the psychedelic community talk about integration, they usually mean something like, “absorbing and applying the insights gained from the altered state”. This has two main components: one philosophical, the other psychological.

First, there are ontological and epistemological questions of reality and worldview, our pictures of reality. We typically see the world through the filters of deep-seated assumptions and beliefs, inherited for the most part from our family and culture, but also individually constructed through reflection and inquiry. These will be to varying degrees challenged and/or confirmed by the insights arising from the psychedelic experience.

Second, there are personal questions relating to the self in isolation and in relation to significant others. Who we are, who other people are, and what our relationships are, are also questions that challenge our assumptions and beliefs. If we hold negative self-beliefs which limit us in particular ways or make us anxious or depressed, for example, powerful, compelling insights which explode these personal stories have clear psychotherapeutic value.

Human beings are of course story-telling animals. We can’t really live without stories. But the stories we tell about ourselves and the world can be endlessly refined and updated, enabling us to live by more positive, helpful stories as well as more truthful ones, ones that fit better with the reality that reveals itself to us in moments of clarity and insight, those “spots of time” that afford us a glimpse into the heart of Truth.

The process of revising and refining our pictures of reality is what I call pistis. It takes a lot of careful thought and mental effort. It usually involves some form of study, reading, discussion, etc., perhaps with a therapist, perhaps with a mentor or tutor, perhaps with a partner, perhaps with friends. We find our way in artfully and skillfully adapting our working models of reality to accommodate our new insights.

If we don’t do this, the insights are simply forgotten. They evaporate and disappear into the ether (“life’s a gas”). However, if we do it rashly or clumsily, we end up confusing ourselves and constructing a mental Frankenstein’s monster. We may adopt bizarre beliefs and superstitions and turn into a woolly-headed hippy. Or we may cling to certain apparently inalienable revealed verities and turn fundamentalist. Either way, we are not integrated. We have started thinking outside the muggle box only to find that we are now thinking inside a muppet box.

When people in the psychedelic community talk about integration, they usually mean good pistis. This is certainly an important part of it. However, there’s not much scope for good pistis without good gnosis (revelatory insight). If you don’t have the insights, what exactly are you integrating?

For good gnosis, we need both quality and quantity. Plenty of good insights. Both the quality and the quantity of our insights would appear to be outside of our conscious control (and they are), but they can be encouraged and facilitated through the conscious application of a third element, kenosis.

Kenosis means “self-emptying”. It implies the suspension of our assumptions and beliefs, but also of the habitual use of all our human faculties of perception and cognition. Insight comes most powerfully when you clear a space for it. Kenosis is “space-clearing”. It is really the same thing as Zen (or Cha’an or Dhyana), which really just means “meditation”.

So good integration depends on three things: good meditation (kenosis), good insight (gnosis) and good re-appraisal of life, the universe and everything (pistis). It should also be noted that the integration process is not a one-off thing that ends when the insights gained in the psychedelic experience are exhausted. Insights don’t stop once you’ve come down from the revelatory summits of your trip. If you nurture them through good pistis and kenosis, they just keep on coming.

If done right, the integration cycle following a profound psychedelic experience typically lasts for a few weeks. But the effects last a lifetime.

“Our aim ought to be to teach and impress the reality of Spirit, its regnancy in human life, whilst the mind is alert and supple: and so to teach and impress it, that it is woven into the stuff of the mental and moral life and cannot seriously be injured by the hostile criticisms of the rationalist. Remember that the prime object of education is the moulding of the unconscious and instinctive nature, the home of habit. If we can give this the desired tendency and tone of feeling, we can trust the rational mind to find good reasons with which to reinforce its attitudes and preferences. …

Did we know our business we surely ought to be able to ensure in our young people a steady and harmonious spiritual growth. The ‘conversion’ or psychic convulsion which is sometimes regarded as an essential preliminary of any vivid awakening of the spiritual consciousness is really a tribute exacted by our wrong educational methods. It is a proof that we have allowed the plastic creature confided to us, to harden in the wrong shape. But if, side by side, and in the simplest language, we teach the conceptions: first, of God as the transcendent yet indwelling Spirit of love, of beauty, and of power; next, of man’s constant dependence on Him and possible contact with His nature in that arduous and loving act of attention which is the essence of prayer; last, of unselfish work and fellowship as the necessary expressions of human ideals – then, I think, we may hope to lay the foundations of a balanced and a wholesome life, in which man’s various faculties work together for good, and his vigorous instinctive life is directed to the highest ends.”

Evelyn Underhill

When we were little children, we couldn’t tell the difference between goodness and obedience and badness and disobedience. If we were “good” it was because we did what we were told. If we were “bad” it was because we didn’t.

The problem with being a good little boy or a good little girl soon became apparent when we crossed paths with less good boys and girls. Because the “bad” boys and girls discover a very useful secret: you can tell good boys and girls what to do! they are so obedient!

The result of this discovery is covert or overt bullying. The victims either suffer in silence like good little victims or else they learn to stand up for themselves, which means that they learn to be disobedient. They learn how to say “No”.

Those who can’t say “No” are used and abused by others. We generally find out this basic fact early in life. Then we find that we can say “No” to a huge variety of things. Perhaps we are like those rebellious types who say “No” to practically everything. No-one dares take advantage of us or tell us what to do.

It’s good to be a bit of a rebel. You are more self-reliant and independent and people don’t mess with you. However, there is a sting in the tail of disobedience. After years of habitual rebelliousness and disobedience, you realize that not only do you struggle to follow the instructions of those who are trying to help you, but you can’t even obey yourself.

“Relax!” you say to yourself.

“No!” you reply.

Some people struggle more with “Yes” and some more with “No”. And sometimes you just don’t know when to say “Yes” and when to say “No”, or you can’t let your “Yea” be “Yea,” and your “Nay,” “Nay.”

In theological terms, the best way (Te) to live is simple: say “Yes” to God and “No” to the Whisperer.

A skeptic might retort, “Yeah but your instructions to yourself that you think of as coming from god are just the internalization of things you’ve read in your holy books!”

“Exactly!”

Be still and know that you are God.

There is much talk in psychedelic circles about preparation and integration. You should prepare yourself and your environment beforehand so that you have the right set and setting for a good trip. You should integrate the experience into your life so that you can grow and mature spiritually and psychologically.

That’s all well and good for a moderate experience. But breakthrough experiences are different. The tables are turned. Instead of integrating the psychedelic vision into your ordinary life, you feel compelled to integrate your ordinary life into the psychedelic vision. This is precisely what Saint Augustine was getting at in relation to the Eucharist (the body of Christ) when he said:

I heard Thy voice from on high: “I am the food of grown men: grow and you shall eat Me. And you shall not change Me into yourself as bodily food, but into Me you shall be changed.”

This is the difference between the psycho-therapeutic approach to psychedelics, seeking wholeness, and the spiritual approach, seeking holiness. Do you change the mushroom into yourself like bodily food, or do you change yourself into the mushroom spirit?

And what is the Mushroom Spirit but the Holy Spirit? And what is the Holy Spirit but God? And what is the man or woman changed by the Holy Spirit but a Son or Daughter of God? (This explains the Trinity).

“The world is not saved by evolution but by incarnation. The more deeply we enter into prayer the more certain we become of this. Nothing can redeem the lower and bring it back to health, but a life-giving incursion from the higher; a manifestation of the already present Reality. ‘I came forth from the Father and came into the world’: and this perpetual advent – the response of the eternal Agape to Eros in his need – is the true coming into time of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Pentecostal energy and splendour is present to glorify every living thing: and sometimes our love reaches the level at which it sees this as a present fact and the actual is transfigured by the real.”

Evelyn Underhill

When you realize that the psychedelic experience is holy and sacred, you treat it with respect and trust. You treat it with reverence. When you take a high dose, you are on holy ground. So you are very careful. Careful to be quiet, careful to pay attention. Careful to behave yourself. This is true sacred ceremony. Your left brain gives up the reins and your right brain takes the lead. The experience is whole and holy. If the left brain refuses to surrender, the experience is fragmented and frightening.

The “first holy” is the psychedelic experience with the right brain in charge. This is why we meditate in preparation for the trip. The “second holy” is religion with the right brain in charge. When the left brain is in charge, religion is absurd, whether you are religious or not. If you are religious, you embrace the absurdity; if you are atheist, you reject it. Either way, it is not holy. The holiness of religion – the scriptures, the music, the art, the ritual – is only experienced as holy when the right brain is in charge.

The “third holy” is everything. Life. Every moment of existence. Again, this sense of the holiness of everything is only possible when the right brain is in charge. But how to surrender the comforting control of the left brain hemisphere in everyday life? How to give up the picture of reality in exchange for reality itself? Reality is too scary. It’s too real. Anything might happen.

It’s very difficult to leave the safe houses of the left hemisphere. It takes faith. But where can we find this faith? In the “first holy”, faithful surrender to the holy mushroom, and in the “second holy”, faithful surrender to religion.

When you train yourself in right brain dominance through sacred psychedelic ceremonies and religious study, worship, prayer, meditation, etc., when it comes to being right brain dominant in the rest of your life, it’s not so difficult. It’s just one more step. The “third holy”. The third leap of faith.

When you have faith, you can let go and be here now. You can stand firmly in the right brain hemisphere, in direct, unmediated, open zen awareness. Only then, with the third holy, with the three holies of psychedelics (gnosis), religion (pistis) and zen (kenosis), are you truly a holy man or holy woman. You are whole and holy indeed when the rightful Master, the deposed King, the crucified God, is returned to the throne. You are a child of God in the kingdom of Heaven.

The default mode for the ceremonial use of psychedelics is hippy paganism, or shamanic hippy paganism. This approach circles around three principal elements: Nature, Story and Ritual. The spiritual core is nature mysticism or nature worship, which in modern times has taken on a certain political urgency, as it has inevitably been coupled to the environmentalist movement.

This spiritual core can be further subdivided into Nature, the Body and the Feminine (although the men have rightly insisted on also including the Masculine). The idea is that modern Westerners are chronically dissociated from Nature, the Body and their Feminine/Masculine essence and need to reconnect in order to restore the lost balance and harmony of natural man and woman. This is done primarily through Story and Ritual.

Story can be subdivided into Myth, Fairy Tale and Poetry/Song. The favoured stories are naturally folkloric (or “indigenous”) and the favoured music is traditionally folk music (or “world music”), with a lot of drumming. The main themes revolve around ideas of connection to and disconnection from Nature and/or Tradition, with the accompanying tinge of joy and sadness. A nostalgic, pining mood is evoked by the psychodrama of exile and home-coming.

Ritual can be subdivided into rituals of Time, Place and Magic. Time rituals are related to seasonal festivals (such as Beltane or Sukkot). Place rituals are related to specific places and natural features (particular forest glades, river crossings, mountain views). Magical rituals conjure up the latent esoteric energies within Nature for the purpose of healing, divination, etc.

The Pagan Hippy ceremonial use of psychedelics can be very powerful and very beautiful. Participants invariably come away from the ceremonies feeling more connected to each other, to the natural world, to their own bodies and to their femininity or masculinity. To a greater or lesser extent, Shamanic Hippy Paganism does actually deliver. Which is wonderful, as far as it goes.

But there is more to psychedelics than is dreamed of in hippy philosophy. There is more gnosis, more pistis, more kenosis. There is a deeper vision, deeper knowledge, deeper surrender. Part of the problem, I suppose, is the result of a kind of unacknowledged, unconscious “class war” attitude. Hippy paganism is a folk religion, a grass-roots, oral tradition of stories and songs around the camp fire. Its acolytes typically define themselves in opposition to establishment elitist religion.

In her book, The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture, Robyn Faith Walsh argues that the gospels were written not by illiterate peasants in Judea but by highly educated Roman elites conversant with Greek philosophy and literature. It may be that the gospels were the products of early Christian mystery schools. It may even be, if Carl Ruck and Brian Muraresku are to be believed, that they were all drinking a psychedelic spiked wine sacrament, as they almost certainly did at Eleusis.

In England, the study of the Bible and Classics (Latin and Greek) have, since Victorian times at least, been associated with public schools and the upper classes, the cultural and economic elites of our time. Thus the rejection of this rich Western canon by pagan hippies is largely a consequence of class consciousness, combined with the often fervent belief that these works (especially the Bible) are largely to blame for all the ills of the modern world.

This is a self-limiting belief. The antipathy between folk religion and elitist religion helps no-one. For the psychedelic spiritual renaissance to truly take hold and move beyond the Sixties, we need to reach across the ideological divide and make friends.