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>> One of the more important and forgotten aspects
of psychedelic experiences is the shadow side of all people,
all events, and life itself.
The side of the coin less involved
with profound visuals, "aha" moments, and inner healing,
and more involved with hidden aspects
of the psyche, misguided, or under-educated use,
and even malicious intent.
Since the dawn of time, it's in the shadows that
lurk the predators and blind spots that have timelessly
intimidated humanity.
Some steer clear of the darkness and keep safe.
Others use the dark to cover their hidden agendas.
And a rare few venture into the dark shadows to bring light.
A tool that has been used since the dawn of art
and human expression to illuminate the darkness
is the judicious use of psychedelic plants.
But these plants are tools that can
be used for the light, the dark, and every gradient in-between.
So, what do psychedelic researchers and experience
psychonauts suggest for newcomers when considering
a plant-medicine experience?
>> I'm the faculty advisor for the psychedelic club at Naropa
University, where I teach herbal medicine.
And there's a concern that a lot of young people
are taking these substances and maybe
having a difficult or dangerous experience.
And personally, I think that when
you're doing these substances at a concert with thousands
of people and very loud music that may not have the highest
intentions, it might be music that's
coming from a place of ego and only junk food and alcohol
being served.
I see that as something that's going to not give you
a deep personal experience.
>> For me, I try to avoid festivals and concerts
in general when I'm on psychedelics.
I don't think that I get a lot of deep inner work done
when there's music blaring and a light show and all of that.
It can be fun.
It's not that I never do it, but it
can be a little overwhelming for a lot of people, I think,
or just not productive.
>> And you have to choose if you want to use the full potential
of psychedelics or if you want to play kind of psychedelic
roulette.
People have taken it under a lot of lousy circumstances,
of course.
The raves that people go and get it--
they don't know what they are taking,
how much they are taking.
They know they're doing something illegal,
the police can come--
just a lousiest possible setting I can imagine.
>> In the 1950s around London, wild Bohemian parties called
the raves began popping up in youth culture.
Their evolution moved through the psychedelic craze
of the '60s.
And once the '80s rolled around, drugs and dancing
became the mantra.
These raves have been the setting
for many psychedelic experiences gone wrong.
The music is typified by monotonous drums
and catchy hooks that go for extended amounts of time
to afford people long soundscapes upon which
to dance.
Others claim it's a revival of shamanic trance rhythms taught
to our elders by the plants.
Newer renditions of these scenes seem
less interested in community bonding and prayer
and more into recreational drug use.
However, there is also a resurgence of ceremony, prayer,
and oneness once you leave the typical rave scene
and enter festivals like Burning Man, Boom, Lucidity, Envision,
Spirit Weavers, and Symbiosis.
But as culture moves farther away from our shamanic past,
the safe containers for psychedelic journeys
are less understood by our youth.
>> A couple of years ago, I went to a Shpongle concert.
I was signing books.
It was in Austin.
And I smelled more DMT coming from the dance floor
than I smelled pot.
So, afterwards, I asked Simon Posford, one of the Shpongle
members, about that.
I said, well, I smelled more DMT than marijuana from the floor.
Does that happen?
He said, yeah, it seems to happen.
So, there's a lot of people smoking DMT at dance events.
And I asked one kid that I was signing a book for,
what was the deal on the dance floor.
He described that you would smoke a small amount
on the dance floor and it would just kind of enhance
your sensory experience.
And if you wanted the full-on DMT effect,
you would go outside, or you stay along
the wall of the hall, kind of out of the way.
>> Some believe that just as our ancestors had no rulebook
for the responsible use of psychedelics,
the youth today are finding their own ways to explore
the depths of consciousness while remaining in modern-style
gatherings.
But perhaps the biggest difference
is traditional ceremonies included
only those participants that the shaman would allow.
Today, anyone with any intention is just
a ticket fee and a few travel arrangements
away from being in your space, in your sphere of influence,
and therefore, in your psychedelic journey.
But gathering together for music, dance,
and psychedelic journeys is not new.
In ancient Greece, the Dionysia festivals
were a time for people to gather, dance, and sing, even
perform plays and partake in psychoactive herbs infused
in alcohol.
Across the Atlantic in present-day Mexico City,
the Aztecs worshiped the god of dance, pleasure, joy,
and psychoactive plants, named Xochipilli.
It's hard to know how safe the set and setting were
at these ancient festivals.
But we know they were highly celebrated as opportunities
to depart from daily labor.
So, in these moments when thousands of people
are unleashing their day-to-day stressors
onto the same patch of land, at the same time,
just like modern music festivals,
is there more in the air than meets the eye?
Modern-day regression therapist and healer,
Marion Boon explains the dangers of uncontained ceremonies.
>> What I do as an advanced-regression therapist
is postmodern shamanism, because we are doing, in fact,
similar of the shaman approach.
But we teach our client to go there under the right guidance.
So, when I'm opening up at a trance festival,
and thousands of people are doing the same,
and we go trance, trance and open up,
there is always some shadow that can enter.
And when you are hurt inside, you
will attract a similar kind of hurt from somebody else.
That is seen as darkness.
That is seen as shadow.
So, to work with this is what ancient shamanism does.
They have the courage, and the tools,
and techniques, and the focus to go into the darkness.
That doesn't allow fear.
There is no fear.
There is light to gain in the darkness.
And that light has to be retrieved.
That's a soul retrieval.
>> There hasn't been enough medical research to make any
scientific claims regarding the dangers of psychedelic journeys
around thousands of strangers.
But postmodern shamans see the damaging effects
and pick up the slack where modern health care lacks.
And the best methods seem to be the empowerment of others
to understand and engage with their own healing
by listening to their own words, and therefore,
their own subconscious.
>> The client is the expert of life--
not me.
My client is.
They only took the wrong exit on the highway.
And I am indicating how to go back.
But you cannot go back by ignoring the mistakes.
You go back by going into your mistake,
seeing how did it happen, regression in time,
back to where you still are good, onto the future,
and back on track.
And that's why it's so exciting, because it works.
People may say, I'm so sad.
I'm so sad.
My mother died, and I can't handle it.
Under the sadness is anger.
She went too soon.
She was supposed to stay here.
I'm so angry.
I'm all alone.
So, under anger is loneliness.
And then we go for the loneliness.
And we find inner children and probably past lives
where you have lost soul parts that need to be retrieved.
They can go there themselves.
So, when they leave, the side-effect
is they feel empowered, because they did it.
Of course, I guide them.
That's my job, but the client does it.
And that is the big difference in the postmodern shamanism,
as I use the term, as opposed to the shaman who travels for you.
>> By educating people about the energetic anomalies that are
yet to be scientifically proven, this calls them to rise
to the occasion of acknowledging just how much we don't know.
Once this is acknowledged, receptivity and sensitivity
to psychic phenomena can be addressed.
This is the first step to safeguarding
against life's shadow elements.
However, there is also the flip side of this coin.
Those who are overly fascinated by the world of psychedelics,
yet naive to the landscape, are in danger of delusion,
and vulnerable to the shadows that lurk therein.
It is believed by mystics, as well as some psychotherapists,
that people can be hypnotized by forces that work through them.
And it is believed that these individuals become
driven to climb corporate ladders
or inject themselves into positions of power.
As ayahuasca tourism is growing, newbies
are fascinated with medicine work
and believe they will be the next shaman.
Medicine worker, Boa Cowee has seen
many accounts of this naivety in ayahuasca communities.
>> It's kind of crazy.
In shaman, it's become almost a dirty word in a way.
People start doing medicine or maybe
drink ayahuasca for the first time,
and they want to become a shaman.
I've even met people who have never drank ayahuasca who said,
I'm going to become a shaman.
I'm going down to Peru, and I'm going to be that.
And drinking ayahuasca does not make you a shaman.
Working with your spirit helpers,
working with your people can make you a shaman.
But it takes so it takes a long time.
It takes five to seven years to get to that point.
And it's diets, yes, it's wisdom, it's learning.
But what happens is this psychic dredging.
And when you get to that point, you are that hollow bone.
You're that clear person that can be there
without judgment for somebody.
And people who are just drinking ayahuasca for the first time--
so what happens is that people are going down there,
and they're drinking ayahuasca.
They think that they're going to be the one that's
going to be the shaman.
But there is no relationship-building, there's
no association, there's no giving back.
Their ego gets inflamed, and they
think that they're the ones that are doing it.
And even if they are, the medicine
will teach you that you don't work like that.
The medicine works through you.
You are that hollow bone.
And to get to that point, it takes a long time.
>> The "hollow bone" is a term to represent the space
an authentic healer or facilitator must cultivate
within themselves--
an attentive presence with a focus on the illness
being healed rather than the appearance it takes on.
Being a hollow bone means to leave fear, excitement,
urgency, unnecessary judgment, astonishment, and even
hope, out of the equation.
The healer understands they are equivalent
to an electrical current that closes the loop in order
for universal currents of life to flow freely to the ones
seeking healing.
In this way, healing is not seen as being
done from one healthy person to a sick one.
Rather, illness is the result of disconnection
from the flow of life.
So, the dangers of psychedelic plants
is in their power to connect or disconnect you,
depending on the set and setting.
>> Set and setting is of paramount importance.
There's nothing more important.
I have seen also people 20 years in a back ward
because they bad a trip, which was also poorly handled
by psychiatrists.
They're given a big dose of tranquilizers in the middle
and then put on maintenance dosages
to make sure that the experience will never complete itself.
And there are people who get stuck in that in-between place.
>> Not only can the improper use of psychedelics lead
to psychological illness, but those who are genetically
predisposed to mental illness find that psychedelic plants
may cause the issue to surface.
>> In our studies, we screen out people that have any kind
of mental illness, psychosis in the family,
first-degree relatives just to prevent precipitation of sort
of an acute psychosis.
There are people out there--
you probably met them, we've all met them--
who, you look at that guy, and if you would think of them
taking a psychedelic, you go, that person should never
take a psychedelic.
They're just not all there.
There are people with bipolar disorder,
schizoaffective disorders, things
like that-- shouldn't be taking these,
because they're powerful psychoactive drugs.
Schizophrenia typically hits late adolescence, early
adulthood.
This is a time when a lot of kids
are experimenting with drugs.
And I get cases from email every once
in a while, where someone has taken a drug
and clearly, they've become schizophrenic.
And they go, did the drug do this to my son?
Did the drug do this to my daughter?
And what I say is, probably, this
would have happened anyway, because they're
at the right age.
And typically, stress will produce an onset of psychosis.
>> Psychedelic plants open the user up to far more unfiltered
information, and therefore, is akin to sending more
electricity to a light bulb.
Those with predispositions to mental illness
are perhaps unable to handle the sudden influx
of new experience.
And eventually, they burn out.
Even those without mental health issues
are at the risk of hidden dangers of psychedelic plants.
>> Some of the unknown dangers that psychedelics can have
for newcomers would include, being overly excited about it,
overly excited about the life-transforming nature of it,
having done it once, and then wanting to do it again
and again.
And regular use like that, overuse, is unhealthy.
And not a lot of people talk about that
in the psychedelic community, particularly
in like recreational settings.
They're non-addictive, generally speaking.
So, people think that they're always safe to use.
But there can be moments where you've
had fun every time you've taken them hanging out with friends,
and then all of a sudden, you take it one time,
and you drop into a space that you had no idea existed
and weren't prepared for.
And those can cause mental-health crises.
And in uncontained settings, the dangers
would be having the police called,
or trying to intervene unskillfully
in a situation that may look really weird,
but isn't dangerous in itself.
There are also people who use these medicines in unsafe ways
intentionally--
practitioners that might not have the best intentions
either to get money from someone or to manipulate them
emotionally, psychologically.
>> So, it only takes about a year--
not even-- to become a brujo, a witch, a witch doctor.
Somebody who practices sorcery can actually
really hurt somebody just by thinking about it.
>> "Brujo" is the Spanish word for witch, or magician.
There are benevolent brujas and white witches
that are basically shamans and medicine workers.
But in some ayahuasca circles, "brujo"
refers to a dark or black witch, meaning
they use the same medicine or methods as shamans,
but with deception, ill will, and harmful intent to gain
power over others.
But how are the newcomers to plant medicine
supposed to identify the ulterior motives of shamans
before deciding with whom to do ceremony?
>> I don't know if there is any way to spot somebody that you
can say, well, this guy is a brujo.
And I should not be here.
And you have to hang out with them for a while
before you really know that.
One sign, I think, in the context of Peru is
if they're putting toé, if they're putting Brugmansia
into their brew, that's a bad sign,
because Brugmansia is a drug of power.
And they use it sometimes by itself to essentially
make you very confused and very susceptible to suggestion.
>> Toé-- is from the Brugmansia of flowers of the Solanaceae
family, better known as angel's trumpets, Datura,
or thorn apple.
These contain scopolamine, which is a tropane alkaloid that
causes extreme suggestibility, and even paralysis, which
has been used in dark circles to convince people to give them
money, unwittingly accept sexual advances,
or even to induce harm.
There are accounts of young women from around the world
traveling to South America for ayahuasca
and waking up after being drugged and taken advantage of.
Even though these situations are not the norm,
it is important to know that dark magic
or deceitful medicine work exists.
The best advice from those deeply invested in healing
with plant medicine is to do your homework.
Travel with friends.
And use your intuition about the people you meet
and the situations you fall into.
And remember that the best dark magicians
will be the best at disguising their intentions
and getting close under the guise of friendship or wisdom.
But when the invisible forces you're experiencing
seem too great to withstand, remember that even
the most powerful shadows are obliterated
by the smallest hint of light.
>> We are more than meets the eye, especially--
and usually our limited sensory world of the third dimension--
that we often, unless we can see spirits--
there are some individuals-- but most of us
are limited in our five senses until we
take a psychedelic or something happens
that opens up our perception.
But in that moment where we might be having a difficult
time, people from the beginning of time have found that there
are other energies that exist that we cannot necessarily see,
but that exist nonetheless, and that if we asked
for their help, that they can guide us and assist us.
In some cultures, we call them the angels.
Or it could be Michael or Gabriel.
Or it could be even Yahshua or Buddha in some cultures.
In the Native American, it might be the spirit
of the bear or the elk.
>> Spirit guides, angels, patriarchs,
and matriarchs from timeless myths--
all of them serve the same purpose.
Human consciousness is free of all form,
yet becomes most powerful in this world when it's given form
to work through.
This is how our limited minds grasp unlimited power
and give it direction.
No matter which guides or helpers we choose,
the importance is to acknowledge that we, too, all of us
are capable of directing consciousness
for harm or protection.
And psychedelic plants amplify this innate power.
So, how is it that the same plants can be used
for two polar opposite results?
>> I now have the feeling that science,
current materialistic science, no matter how sophisticated,
is naive if it does not include these hidden dimensions
of reality.
We had years ago, a wonderful conference where
Humphrey Osmond was present.
And he addressed this issue.
And he said, can you imagine a discussion about a knife?
Is the knife this very diabolical weapon,
or is it a useful tool?
And imagine that you would have a debate where
one of these persons who would be present
would be Chief of New York Police who would be talking
about all the murders that were committed in back lanes in New
York City.
And you would have the Surgeon General
who would say, wait a minute.
With the right kind of training, you can do fantastic things
with a knife.
And you would have a housewife who
would be thinking about it as a tool
to cut salami or a vegetable.
And you would have an artist who would think about carving
beautiful things from wood.
That we would understand that we are not
talking about the knife.
The knife is a tool that can be used in many different ways.
And the same with psychedelics-- there are used for healing.
They are used for inducing spiritual experiences.
But they're also used by the military--
horrible experiments.
The CIA-- including experiments on our own population
and in San Francisco and so on.
I have tremendous awe and respect
for what psychedelics can do on both sides, depending
on the set and setting, depending how they are used.
They are powerful tools.
Aside from dark magicians or medicine workers
using these plants as personal power moves,
it must be noted that psychedelics
have been used by governments experimenting
on their own people.
In the mid-1900s, the Central Intelligence Agency
was fascinated with psychedelics for mind control,
as well as other wartime tactics and began
conducting experiments on soldiers and college students.
Then on August 16 of 1951, the town of Pont-Saint-Esprit
was dosed with LSD.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- The CIA funded Fort Detrick to an experiment
there involving aerosol LSD sprayed in the small village.
That affected 500 people in that village.
There were three suicides.
And about 40 people were carted off to a nearby insane asylum
as a result of that experiment.
[END PLAYBACK]
>> Although much of these accounts can be frightening
to accept, by taking a sobering look at human behavior
throughout the ages, we shouldn't be surprised that
those with ill intentions will seek advanced means of getting
what they wish.
So, the way forward, in a safe and intelligent manner,
is to understand the protections we have available to us.
The power of psychedelics to open the mind
to new information is not simply to make the world look
better than it is.
It's to address the shadow side of all life.
In Buddhism, there are three steps to truly honoring
the whole of existence.
First is right sight.
Second is right understanding.
And thirdly is right action.
Even though action is the way to bring change into this world,
that action will always be polluted
if you do not see the world as it truly is.
And if you don't see it clearly, understanding it is impossible.
Psychedelics help achieve this goal.
They don't spoon-feed us the answers,
but they do dismantle unhealthy beliefs that muddy our vision.
They offer new perspectives to worldviews.
And because of this, a new and more relevant
understanding of the actual world we live in
can organically assemble itself.
So, how did the spiritual traditions
of the ancient past view and deal with the shadow side?
>> Well, the concept of the shadow side and the way that
you talk about it is big in many different cultures.
I think, as it relates to yoga, it tends to be talked about
in a kind of new-agey way, that from my experience,
from the traditional yoga standpoint,
I would say that the shadow side is more this idea
of the unconscious or the subconscious--
the idea of Samskara.
In yoga, the word "Samskara" means a habit or a pattern.
It's like this deep, grooved pathway
that we just tend to fall into.
The mannerisms that we do, the way that we speak,
the emotional habits that we have,
the things that we keep having show up in our life over,
and over, and over again, we're like,
how am I still in the same thing--
that's a Samskara.
It's this it's almost like we're being ruled by another force.
But in yoga, we would say that we're just being
ruled by our unconscious self.
>> It might seem that if the shadow side is merely our own
subconscious mind, then other individuals or entities cannot
penetrate this realm and complicate our experience.
However, it was postulated by Carl Gustav Jung
that there is a collective, unconscious realm
that all people share.
If this is true, the landscape of the unconscious
would be a shared territory that other sentient beings can
use to enter other subconscious minds, meaning that the yoga
perspective might fit perfectly with psychic attacks reported
by shamanic and spiritual practitioners.
Even though there is currently no technology
to verify the existence of these realms,
countless people are still imbibing
psychedelic substances, entering the unknown,
and coming back with tales of spirits and entities
with all kinds of motives.
University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist Dr. Andrew
Newberg has been studying the relationship of brain function
and states of consciousness.
He found that the parietal lobe of the brain in Tibetan
Buddhist monks becomes deactivated while
in meditation.
This area of the brain is said to be
responsible for giving us a sense of our orientation
in time and space.
So, as meditation causes this brain region to go offline,
the sensation of leaving the body and the suspension of time
ensues.
Dr. Newberg has called this the "neurotheological model."
In other words, brain function is the phenomenon
which gives rise to mystical or religious-type experiences.
However, some believe that mystical events
are not caused by the brain, but simply correlated.
Symptoms in the brain are seeing at the same time
as the experience.
So, if there are really shadow entities
with their own capacity to think,
or if these are just unknown compartments
of human intelligence, what communication mechanism
allows us to become aware of them at all?
Ancient and shamanic cultures may have proposed the idea
that through cycles of time and in vibrations of matter,
these may account for all phenomena and the unity
between our individual conscious minds and the Universal Mind.
>> Many indigenous cultures had an idea that the basis of all
of manifested creation is either sound, or certain geometries,
or certain frequency patterns-- certain numbers.
And the Mayans and the Aztecs--
they encoded this into not only their calendar,
but in their system of how they structure their society.
And they recognize that our body is a set of vibrations.
Our part is pulsing, our breath, our brain waves,
every cell of our body is vibrating.
And then we have all the rhythms.
And if they knew that there was a certain set of frequencies
that were the fabric, that just these certain notes or numbers
were what we encoded into our system of culture, then
we would be in harmony with the cosmos.
They would even use breathing practices,
along with meditation and intention,
to align themselves with these patterns.
And from this, they would achieve
altered or expanded states.
This is where yogis, just like other shamanic traditions,
actually start to use sound.
So, there's an understanding that sound is vibration
and that vibration is at the essence of everything.
And usually, our awareness is caught in all this noise
and sound of the outside world.
So, as we sit, we breathe, we start to draw awareness in,
and then we focus the awareness on something--
one-pointed concentration.
So, we work with quieting the mind, withdrawing the senses,
and merging with and resting in this place of awareness that
is beyond just the ups and downs of the mind and the emotion.
And while both are real--
because your mind still exists, your emotions still exist,
they're never going to go away--
we just start to step away from that
that's our only identification.
>> There are some that say identifying with darkness
and shadow is the way we hand over power to it.
But the traditional practices that
have survived thousands of years acknowledge
that the shadow side is a phenomena that
will never go away.
It's merely the way that light works
in a world of objects and form.
Day fades to night, and light goes into hiding.
The daily activity falls into sleep.
And waking consciousness goes dormant.
Light touches a leaf and casts a shadow.
These are natural and beautiful phenomena.
And when all is said and done, the dark aspects of life
are our greatest teachers.
The sages and adepts of times long ago,
as well as wise gurus and savants today,
have only one thing to say when they
peek behind the veil of their own mind
and see the darkness of the world.
Thank you.
Thank you for calling attention to my blindness
and giving me the gift of right sight
so that I may rightly understand what lurks in the shadows
and act in love and protection of all life.
Up next, join us as we shed light
on the expanded states of consciousness in the dream
state and what this can teach us about psychedelic experiences.