bread of life

Where everything meets.

A recent article titled Researchers Debate the Role of Mysticism in Psychedelic Science cites a paper titled Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science by two Dutch researchers who warn that “if science states that psychedelics induce mystical experiences that are key to their therapeutic action, this is too easily misinterpreted as research advocating a role for the supernatural or divine.”

The problem with “Psychedelic Science” is that it is based on scientific rationalism. The problem with scientific rationalism is that it is spiritually autistic because it doesn’t understand the importance of poetic licence. Scientific rationalists often pit science against religion, assuming that religion is nothing more than superstition, or outdated bad science. But the scientific metaphysical worldview (as opposed to the humble practice of natural science) is not so much the enemy of religion as the enemy of poetry.

This is a problem when it comes to the science of psychology or the science of psychedelics because although the human brain may be scientific, the human mind is not. The human mind is essentially poetic.

If you don’t understand the psychological importance of poetic licence, you don’t understand psychology; if you don’t understand psychology, you don’t understand psychedelics; if you don’t understand psychedelics, you don’t understand religion; if you don’t understand religion, you don’t understand God; and if you don’t understand God, you don’t understand love.

Any psychedelic research that doesn’t advocate a role for poetry, imagination, mysticism, magic, the supernatural or divine is completely missing the point. Shamanism and the sacramental use of psychedelics is an art, not a science.

“Your enjoyment of the world is never right till every morning you awake in heaven, see yourself in your Father’s palace, and look upon the skies and the earth and the air as celestial joys, having such a reverend esteem of all as if you were among the angels. The bride of a monarch in her husband’s chamber hath no such cause of delight as you.

You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars, and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God as misers in gold and kings in sceptres you never enjoy the world.

Till your spirit filleth the whole world and the stars are your jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all ages as with your walk and table; till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made; till you love men so as to desire their happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own; till you delight in God for being good to all, you never enjoy the world. Till you more feel it than your private estate, and are more present in the hemisphere, considering the glories and the beauties there, than in your own house; till you remember how lately you were made, and how wonderful it was when you came into it, and more rejoice in the palace of your glory than if it had been made but today morning.

Yet further, you never enjoy the world aright till you so love the beauty of enjoying it that you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it, and so perfectly hate the abominable corruption of men in despising it that you had rather suffer the flames of hell than willingly be guilty of their error. There is so much blindness and ingratitude and damned folly in it. The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a temple of majesty yet no man regards it. It is a region of light and peace, did not men disquiet it. It is the paradise of God. It is more to man since he is fallen than it was before. It is the place of angels and the gate of heaven. When Jacob waked out of his dream he said, ‘God is here and I wist it not. How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven.'”

Thomas Traherne, First Century 28-31

The teenage years are when we typically develop a taste for intimacy. This can take many forms. The most obvious is the burning desire to get laid, a common thread running through popular American teen movies, from John Hughes classics like Weird Science to American Pie.

Teens crave physical and sexual intimacy, but they also crave emotional and psychological intimacy. As a teenager, I wanted to get laid, and be intimate with a girl’s body, but I also wanted to be intimate with her heart and her mind. A girlfriend wasn’t just a “fuck buddy” but someone I could potentially get to know more deeply than anyone else, even deeper perhaps than social convention allowed for.

I was a hopeless romantic as a teenager. I read lots of poetry and novels. I wrote love letters. I listened to Billie Holiday. I felt that ordinary life was hollow and superficial and wanted to find something deeper and more meaningful. I was lonely. I craved intimacy. I felt special, set apart from the crowd, but really I was just a typical teenager.

Although I wasn’t explicitly aware of it at the time, most of my emotional and intellectual energy revolved around the idea of intimacy. My best friend and my girlfriend were my male and female “intimacy buddies”. We could explore deep feelings and ideas together. Marijuana was another “intimacy buddy”. It allowed me to be intimate with myself, with my senses and the inner workings of my mind.

Reading great writers and listening to great music afforded me a special intimacy with the great minds and souls of the past. Clubbing and raving on Ecstasy and LSD afforded me intimacy with strangers and a collective “hive mind”. Meditation retreats and long country walks deepened my intimacy with nature and silence.

Very soon it became clear to me that the world is divided between those who are open to intimacy and those who are closed. One of the questions that has haunted me throughout my psychotherapy career is why? Some people suffer because they cannot satisfy their buried desire for intimacy, but others seem to get along just fine without it. Why? There is no simple answer. Perhaps we are just born that way.

People clearly vary when it comes to the degree of emotional and psychological intimacy they can bear, but they also vary when it comes to spiritual intimacy. Some people heed the Delphic inscription Know Thyself and make it their life’s goal and mission. Some people burn with a holy desire to Know God and to be as intimate with Him who is “closer than your jugular vein” as Brother Lawrence and Thomas Traherne were. Some even smoke weed or drink ayahuasca to help them. Most people, however, are either indifferent or disapproving of this quixotic behaviour.

Socrates famously said, “the unexamined life is not worth living”. He was talking about an intellectual intimacy with life, which he, as a member of the class of teens and adults who are open to intimacy, could not imagine a meaningful life without. For those of us who value intimacy on all levels, and not just on the intellectual, philosophical level, I say rather, “the distant life is not worth living”.

Jah is the Father.

Gaia is the Son.

Amun Ra is the Holy Spirit.

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Parashiva is the Father.

Shiva is the Son.

Shakti is the Holy Spirit.

The Alone is the All-one.

If you want to walk with God, you must walk alone.

Only then is “the flight of the alone to the Alone” possible.

Beyond Ba, beyond Babylon, the soul must commune with Gaia and Jah in solitude.

The saint must walk alone.

Neither Here nor There.

Neither New nor Old.

Neither From nor Towards.

Neither Arrest nor Movement.

Neither Traditional nor Progressive.

Neither Establishment nor Anti-Establishment.

Neither Modern nor Postmodern.

Neither Enlightenment nor Counter-Enlightenment.

Neither Orthodox nor Unorthodox.

Neither Elitist nor Pluralist.

Neither Bourgeois nor Bohemian.

Neither Popular Culture nor Counter-Culture.

Neither Secular Humanist nor Transhumanist.

Neither Idealist nor Materialist.

Neither Gnostic nor Agnostic.

Neither Bond nor Free.

Neither Woke nor Anti-Woke.

Neither Politically Correct nor Politically Incorrect.

Neither Diva nor Demon.

Neither Victim nor Addict.

Neither Muppet nor Muggle.

Neither Literal nor Metaphorical.

Neither Rational nor Irrational.

Neither Lawful nor Unlawful.

Neither Visible nor Invisible.

Neither Secret nor Hidden.

Neither Real nor Imagined.

Neither Known nor Unknown.

Neither Credulous nor Incredulous.

Neither This-Worldly nor Other-Worldly.

Neither Finished nor Unfinished.

Parashiva eleison

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Amun

Ra

Atum

Ka

Ba

Gaia

Jah

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Shiva eleison

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Mystic

Shaman

Warrior

Monk

Philosopher

King

Friend

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Shakti eleison

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Peace

Love

Goodness

Beauty

Truth

Consciousness

Bliss

What you have seen you cannot unsee. And the eye with which you see God is the same eye with which He sees you. Once you have broken through to the heavenly throne of the Almighty, a portal between worlds has been opened that cannot be closed. Now you are God’s.

What does this mean? It means that you cannot return to “riotous living” because God is no longer just a metaphysical abstraction: He is now your Father. He will rebuke you if you put a foot wrong. And His rebuke is like burning coals heaped on your head.

The Father loves you with a fierce love, “for the Father loveth the Son” (John 5:20), and if you are not to suffer the beams of His love, you must love Him back: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind” (Luke 10:27).

If you don’t want to suffer you must align yourself with the loving energy of the Holy Spirit and get straight with God. And if being the Son of God goes to your head, God will have no compunction in humbling and humiliating and even crucifying your ego.

So be careful what you wish for…

A certain man had two sons:

And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.

And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:

And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

Luke 15: 11-24