Gateway to The Invisible World
It is no secret that psychedelics are experiencing an explosion of interest and research mirroring its heyday from the 1960’s. As we speak, the FDA is classifying psilocybin as a ‘breakthrough therapy’ whose uses are hoped to become legal within the next year. And therapists are readying themselves for this next wave. It is truly an exciting time for mental health care.
What do psychedelics do and how do they relate to consciousness?
One common definition of psychedelics is that they speed up the unconscious processes of the mind. Or as famed mushroom’s researcher Paul Stamets said, ‘they extend out the neural networks of the mind.’ Essentially, they heighten whatever is happening in your mind, for better or for worse.
Each psychedelic shares a magical property: they bring us out of the mind and into the present moment.
Or, as my best friend said after I dosed her with half of a weed gummie, ‘Son, the little brain inside. It’s not there anymore.’
Yes, my dear friend, the little brain inside, or our egos, has finally been put on mute and an ego on mute is… BLISS!
Psychedelics short cut the road to bliss in that they each, in their own way, bring us out of the mind and into the present moment. They do this, I believe, firstly, by helping us to feel more safe in our bodies. People who have done MDMA especially know what I am speaking to. They make us feel good - really good! And a body feeling good is a body that feels safe, and a body that feels safe is capable of experiencing miraculous things.
Psychedelics bring us out of the thinking mind and into the present moment. The part of us that is still awake and experiencing the whole grande show is what I call consciousness. It is the thought without the thinker or as Ram Dass named it, loving awareness. For the purposes of these writings, this state is being named as presence.
What mental health has been lacking, until now, is a distinction between the two worlds. Therapy has helped us to understand every dang nook and cranny of that door, from the kind of hinges, wood, optimal angles, locks, size and color. Hell, we’ve even carbon-dated the door and learned how to clone it! You can now have twice the doors of trouble you had before. What it hasn’t done is asked, who, what or why is it there?
Consciousness, whose interest has been greatly magnified through the use of psychedelics, is the key to finally unlocking the door to bliss and to the invisible world of our thinking minds.
