Sacred Symbolism in Psychedelics
The Flying Sage Journal #2
Hello Psychedelic Magicians 🧙
Welcome to the second edition of The Flying Sage Journal. As with the last edition, I would like to start off with a direct excerpt from my journal…
May.11.2015
I am starting to believe that I am not my mind and this all started when I began looking into spirituality, personal development and more recently, the nature of consciousness.At this moment, I think I can pin-point two reasons why this belief is valid:
I can view my thoughts; they are observable. If I am able to be in direct witness to their appearance, then how can my thoughts be what I am?
My beliefs, many of which I have identified with for a long time now, are starting to fall away. At first it was subtle but now the process seems to be speeding up.
If my previously conditioned thought patterns and belief systems are evaporating, where does that leave me? I am not sure but I don’t think it supports the idea that I am my mind. It’s like my beliefs have been propping something up and now there is space being made for a different kind of presence.
Looking back, this passage really speaks to a certain level of instability that I had in my life at the time. Psychedelics acted as a force that produced some of this instability, but simultaneously, they were also a tool I used for navigation.
One tool I did not have at my disposal was proper integration. Integration is arguably the most important aspect of psychedelic work. It takes courage and intention to show up and take medicine, but really, showing up is all you need to do. Show up. Surrender. Feel. Experience.
Of course, this part of the process can be difficult for many and in some cases it can be VERY challenging, yet the most difficult part of the journey really comes after the drugs wear off and the psychedelic experience is over. There are many tools that can assist in integration but today I would like to share why I believe community is an essential piece to this process.
Integration Depends on Community 🈁
Psychedelic wellness is about becoming an integrated being. In general, healing involves integrating pieces towards wholeness. This is especially true of psychedelic healing as often through this powerful work, pieces break into smaller pieces as you are surrounded by the reality of your multidimensional nature.
Every psychedelic experience is unique but there are common patterns to human behaviour and human experience. We can integrate by ourselves, but when we do this, we miss out on a deep richness that is available. Community integration can afford us greater depth because it allows us to:
Build on the work of others and not start from scratch. I believe that consciousness is a force that is constantly making efforts to fully express and recognize itself. If we do all come from the same source, let’s empower where others have been and seek to draw light from their learnings.
Weave our experience into the collective unconscious. Psychedelics help to reveal our minds. The word psychedelic literally means mind-manifesting. But in addition to our personal conscious experience, psychedelics bring forth content from the collective. When we integrate in community, we are able to offer healing on that collective level. We have the chance to literally imbue our cultural fabric with an upgrade as we access another layer to peel away. (I will dive deeper into this in the next section)
Reach our highest level of actualization. I personally vibe a lot with Maslow and his hierarchy although in reality, it is more circular than is typically endorsed. The path towards self actualization is somewhat misleading though because the other also needs to be actualized. We need to recognize the roles we play in our immediate community and social environment and I don’t believe you can actually be self-actualized without attending to this. I would go as far to say you can’t be self-actualized without being of service to your community in some way.
We each hold more wisdom and knowledge than we know and when we integrate together, we heal together. Look for an integration circle happening near you! The Flying Sage hosts some in-person and bi-weekly in Vancouver but there are many resources out there.
Sacred Symbolism ☦️
Building on the idea of the collective unconscious brought up previously, I would like to share insights and leave you with an open question from one of my favorite books Sacred Knowledge by William Richards.
Richards is a psychologist in the Psychiatry Department of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and from 1967 to 1977, he pursued psychotherapy research with LSD, DPT, MDA and psilocybin at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. This particular book dives deep into the intersections of psychedelics, religion and mystical experiences and brings up a very interesting idea around collective experiencing.
Psychedelics speak to us through symbols of the subconscious but it becomes apparent fairly quickly that not all of these symbols belong to us. There is often a felt distinction between what is mine (my traumas, my experiences, my sensations) and what is identified as other (those voices, those images, those sounds).
In his book, Richards goes even further to suggest that “what is experienced typically feels universal and belongs to all” (Richards 17). During the decades that Richards spent guiding hundreds of clinical psychedelic sessions through his research, he noticed a very strange phenomena which is elucidated here with a clear example.
Richards recalls one volunteer that came through an LSD trial who grew up in a poverty stricken area of the inner city of Baltimore. Coming out of his psychedelic journey, he reported “strange, partially naked figures dancing with funny hats like crowns on their heads”. A few days later during a follow-up session, the volunteer saw a photo of Vishnu and the dancing Shiva on the table and exclaimed that this was the image that he had seen during his journey.
How did the dancing Shiva get into the mind of a culturally deprived American narcotic addict?
”There are now sufficient data in the descriptive records of psychedelic researchers to consider Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious empirically validated”
“What is so fascinating in psychedelic research is the discovery that volunteers not uncommonly report visions of religious and cultural content that is unexpected and sometimes is claimed to be totally foreign to what they have learned in life thus far.”
- William Richards
Sage Wisdom 🌀
Xunzi 荀子 (Xun Kuang) was a Confucian philosopher, sometimes reckoned as the third of the three great classical Confucians (after Confucius and Mencius). He is known for his belief that ritual is crucial for reforming humanity's original nature. He also has interesting thoughts around virtue. To Xunzi, becoming virtuous means convincing all of your senses, through practice, to love being good.
He argues that one should get to the point where they love saying good, love smelling good and love being good. Through the act of learning, he argues we can reach a point where we sense the good in everything and always act from a place of wholesome goodness.
“Men of all social stations live together: they are equal in their desires, yet vary in their methods; they are equal in their passions, yet different in their intelligence; that is their nature-given vitality.”
- Xun Kuang
Farewell Until Next Time
Thanks for making it to the end. I hope you have enjoyed this second free edition of The Flying Sage Journal. If you would like to read more things like this, please consider subscribing and sharing this with a friend.
I would LOVE to hear any feedback you have on this newsletter or the opportunity to simply discuss things brought up. Please feel free to reach out to me directly: michael@theflyingsage.ca
With psychedelic love and gratitude,
- Michael 🤍