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The Interpretation of Psychedelic Experience in Light of the Psychology of Meditation


Pages: 75 - 90

Abstract

Various contentions are put forward in this paper. First it is proposed that psychedelics are "Kundalini activators." The nature of the "Kundalini phenomenon" is examined as a high level of organismic self-regulation that results from a relative suspension of the ego at the body level. Secondly. it is claimed that psychedelic experiences may be understood in terms of the same processes that are involved in meditation. Thirdly, it is proposed that psychedelics are somewhat more conducive to the Kundalini related or Dionysian aspects of meditation (letting-go, God-mindedness and love) than to the Apollonian or yogic aspects and states (of tranquility, mindfulness and non-attachment). Additionally a view is offered that the similarities between meditative and psychedelic experiences do not imply similar consequences for the individual inasmuch as the former involve the gradual development of a capacity while the latter may be elicited extrinsically and do not necessarily bring about a comparably stable ability. In the fifth place it is argued that the congruence between the meditative and psychedelic domains suggests the appropriateness of training in traditional forms of meditation as a vehicle to navigate psychedelic space. In conformity with the view that the different "inner gestures" of meditation (stilling the mind, letting-go, non-attachment, etc) converge upon the suspension of the ego (in the transpersonal sense of a characterological identity) and make possible the unveiling of Being, it is suggested that both an orientation toward self-annihilation and a concentration on the sense of Being may be just as relevant to psychedelic subjects as to practitioners who follow one or another traditional path.