Hallucinogenic Drugs And Plants In Psychotherapy And Shamanism.pdf

*Professor of Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco.

Please address correspondence and reprint requests to Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., Green Earth Foundation, P.O. Box 327,

El Verano, California 95433. e-mail: rmetzner@svn.net.

Hallucinogenic Drugs and Plants in

Psychotherapy and Shamanism

Ralph Metzner, Ph.D.*

Abstract —Western psychotherapy and indigenous shamanic healing systems have both used psychoactive drugs or

plants for healing and obtaining knowledge (called “diagnosis” or “divination” respectively). While there are

superficial similarities between psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and shamanic healing with hallucinogenic

plants, there are profound differences in the underlying worldview and conceptions of reality. Four paradigms are

reviewed: (1) psychedelic psychotherapy within the standard Western paradigm—here the drug is used to amplify

and intensify the processes of internal self-analysis and self-understanding; (2) shamanic rituals of healing and

divination, which involve primarily the shaman or healer taking the medicine in order to be able to “see” the

causes of illness and know what kind of remedy to apply; (3) syncretic folk religious ceremonies, in which the

focus seems to be a kind of community bonding and celebratory worship; and (4) the “hybrid shamanic therapeutic

rituals,” which incorporate some features of the first two traditions. There are two points in which the worldview of

the shamanic and hybrid shamanic ceremonies differs radically from the accepted Western worldview: (1) the

belief and assumption (really, perception) that there are multiple realities (“worlds”) that can be explored in

expanded states of consciousness; and (2) the belief that “spirits,” the beings one encounters in dreams and visions,

are just as real as the physical organism.

Keywords —hallucinogens, psychedelics, psychotherapy, shamanism, states of consciousness

By way of introducing a comparative overview of the role of psychoactive drugs in psychological healing

practices, a brief personal note might be permitted. As a psychologist, I have been involved in the field of

consciousness studies, including altered states induced by drugs, plants and other means, for over 35 years. In the

1960s I worked at Harvard University with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, doing research on the possible

therapeutic applications of psychedelic drugs, such as LSD and psilocybin (Leary, Metzner & Alpert 1964). During

the 1970s the focus of my work shifted to the exploration of nondrug methods for the transformation of

consciousness, such as those found in Eastern and Western traditions of yoga, meditation and alchemy (Metzner

1971). I also studied intensively the newer psychotherapeutic methods, many deriving from the work of pioneers

such as Wilhelm Reich, that involve deep altered states induced by breathwork and bodywork. During the 1980s I

came into contact with the work of Michael Harner (1980, 1973), Joan Halifax (1982), Peter Furst (1976, 1972),

Terence and Dennis McKenna (1975) and others, who have studied shamanic teachings and practices around the

globe. These shamanic traditions involve non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by a variety of methods

including ingesting hallucinogenic plants, but also drumming, fasting, wilderness vision questing, use of sweat

Journal of Psychoactive Drugs

Volume 30 (4), October – December 1998

Metzner

Hallucinogens in Psychotherapy and Shamanism

lodges and others.

Realizing that there were traditions reaching into prehistoric times of the respectful use of hallucinogens

for shamanic healing and divination, I became much more interested in the plants and mushrooms that have a

history of such use. Indigenous people are known to have a profound knowledge of plants and herbs and their

effects on the body and mind; they are well able to distinguish harmful from beneficial medicines. For this reason

the vision-inducing plants that have a tradition of shamanic usage are much more likely to be safe, in contrast to

newly discovered and synthesized drugs, the use of which may often involve unknown long-term risks.

It became clear to me, as a result of these explorations, that while Western psychotherapy and indigenous

shamanism may sometimes use the same or similar psychoactive substances for healing and obtaining knowledge

(called diagnosis in the West and divination in traditional cultures), there are profound differences between them

in underlying worldview and assumptions about the nature of reality. In this article I propose to compare the use of

psychoactives, as well as the underlying worldviews, in four systems of consciousness transformation: (1)

psychotherapy within the standard Western paradigm, (2) shamanic rituals of healing and divination, (3) syncretic

folk religious ceremonies, and (4) what I call hybrid therapeutic-shamanic rituals, which represent a blending of

indigenous shamanic and Western psychotherapeutic approaches.

A note on terminology: I use the terms “psychedelic,” “hallucinogenic” and “entheogenic”

interchangeably. “Psychedelic,” the term coined by Humphrey Osmond and Aldous Huxley and popularized by

Leary and the Harvard group, means “mind-manifesting.” “Hallucinogenic” is the term most often used in the

psychiatric research literature for these substances. The main objection to the term hallucinogenic is that these

drugs and plants do not in fact induce hallucinations, in the sense of “illusory perceptions.” But the term

hallucinogen deserves to be rehabilitated. The original meaning of the Latin alucinare is to “wander in one’s

mind”; and traveling or journeying in inner space are actually quite appropriate descriptive metaphors for such

experiences, which are referred to colloquially as “trips.” The term “entheogen,” proposed by R. Gordon Wasson

and Jonathan Ott, has the same root as “enthusiasm,” and means “releasing or expressing the divine within” (Ott

1995).

PSYCHOTHERAPY WITHIN THE STANDARD WESTERN PARADIGM

When the fantastically potent mind-altering qualities of LSD were first discovered, at the height of World

War II in a Swiss pharmaceutical lab, they were characterized as “psychotomimetic” and “psycholytic.” The

prospect of unhinging the mind from its normal parameters for a few hours to simulate madness interested a small

number of daring psychiatric researchers as a possible training experience. Predictably, this possibility also

intrigued the military and espionage agencies of both superpowers, especially the Americans. Considerable

research effort and expense was devoted for about 10 years to determining the most effective surreptitious delivery

systems to unsuspecting enemy soldiers, agents or leaders, for maximum confusion, disorientation or

embarrassment (Lee & Shlain 1985). Ironically, and fortunately, it was the capacity of LSD to tap into the hidden

mystical potentials of the human mind that ruined its applicability as a weapon of war. Rather than making

subjects predictably submissive to mind-control programming, LSD had the unnerving propensity to suspend the

existing mental programming and thereby release one into awesome worlds of cosmic consciousness. The military

was not prepared to have soldiers or espionage agents turn into mystics.

The first research papers that came out of the Sandoz labs, where Albert Hofmann had synthesized LSD

and accidentally discovered its astounding properties, described it as bringing about “psychic loosening or

opening” (seelische Auflockerung). This was the psycholytic concept that became the dominant model for LSD-

assisted psychotherapy in Europe. In psycholytic therapy, neurotic patients suffering from anxiety, depression, or

obsessive-compulsive or psychosomatic disorders were given LSD in a series of sessions at gradually increasing

doses, while undergoing more or less standard analytic interactions using a Freudian perspective (Passie 1997;

Grof 1980). The rationale was that through the psycholysis , the loosening of defenses, the patient would become

more vividly aware of his or her previously unconscious emotional dynamics and reaction patterns (presumably

acquired in early family interactions), and such insight would bring about a resolution of inner conflicts. The

Czech psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, working within this model, made the startling discovery that in such a series

(involving increasing doses) there could be an even deeper psychic opening—to birth and prebirth memories. After

resolving the conflicts stemming from the Freudian dynamics of early childhood, patients would find themselves

reliving the significant sensory-emotional features of their birth experience—patterns to which Grof gave the name

perinatal matrices (Grof 1985).

More or less simultaneously with the psycholytic approach being developed in Europe, the psychedelic

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Hallucinogens in Psychotherapy and Shamanism

model became the preferred approach in Anglo-American psychological and psychiatric circles. The English

psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond, who worked in Canada with Abram Hoffer on the treatment of alcoholism with

LSD (and who provided Aldous Huxley with his first mescaline experience, immortalized in The Doors of

Perception (Huxley 1954), introduced this term in an exchange of letters with Huxley. First used in the treatment

of alcoholics, where it was thought to simulate the often life-changing “bottoming out” experience, psychedelic

therapy usually involved one or a small number of high-dose sessions, during which the contents of the

unconscious mind would be manifested in the form of vivid hallucinatory imagery, leading to insight and

transformation (Passie 1997). A second center for psychedelic therapy and exploration developed in the early

sixties in Southern California, where Sidney Cohen, Oscar Janiger and others began providing psychedelic

experiences to their clients in the Hollywood film, arts and media community (Novak 1997)—work that brought

considerable publicity and notoriety to psychedelics.

The term “psychedelic” was adopted by Timothy Leary, Frank Barron, Richard Alpert and the Harvard

research project, which did one of its first research studies on the production of behavior change in convicts, and

started publishing the Psychedelic Review . Apart from the prison project, Leary’s work focused not so much on

treatment or therapy, but rather on exploring the possibilities and values of the psychedelic experience for

“normals” (mostly graduate students) as well as artists, musicians, poets and writers, when provided in a relatively

unstructured but supportive, home-like setting. The concept of “consciousness expansion” was introduced for these

experiences, which could be usefully contrasted with the contracted, fixated awareness characteristic of narcotic

addictions, as well as obsessions and compulsions in general (Metzner 1994). Leary was also responsible for

introducing and popularizing what became known as the “set and setting” hypothesis, according to which the

primary determinants of a psychedelic experience are the internal set (intention, expectation, motivation) and the

external setting or context, including the presence of a guide or therapist (Leary, Litwin & Metzner 1963).

The psychological research on psychedelics, as well as the psycholytic and psychedelic psychotherapy

applications, have been well summarized and reviewed by Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1979/1997) in

their book Psychedelics Reconsidered . The history of the introduction of LSD and other hallucinogens into

American culture with its many extraordinary and unforeseen social and political consequences has been described

by Jay Stevens (1987) in his book Storming Heaven . Leary’s own story of these events in which he was centrally

involved is told in his own unique, provocative and tricksterish style in his several autobiographies, most

particularly in High Priest (1968/1995) and Flashbacks (1983).

A significant extension of the field of psychoactive-assisted psychotherapy occurred with the discovery by

chemist Alexander Shulgin of a variety of phenethylamines, such as MDA, MDMA, 2-CB and others, which bring

about an expansion and centering of awareness primarily on the emotional or heart-level, with minimal or no

perceptual changes or other-worldly consciousness (Shulgin & Shulgin 1991). For this reason, to distinguish them

from the classical hallucinogens, some have suggested the name empathogens (“generating a state of empathy”) for

this class of substances. In particular, MDMA (which also became known as Ecstasy or E, and as such has come to

play a central role in the hugely popular rave culture) was used with impressive success in psychotherapy—often

facilitating a significant opening of relationship communication and helping in the healing of disabling trauma

(Saunders 1993; Eisner 1989; Adamson & Metzner 1988).

Despite the seeming theoretical and practical differences between the psycholytic and psychedelic

approaches, there are a number of significant fundamental conclusions and directions which they share, and which

I would now like to summarize. These are all features of psychoactives-assisted psychotherapy that distinguish this

modality from other uses of mood-altering drugs such as tranquilizers or antidepressants, in which the patient or

client takes a pill and goes home:

(1) It is recognized that psychotherapy with hallucinogens invariably involves an experience of a

profoundly expanded state of consciousness , in which the individual can not only gain therapeutic

insight into neurotic or addictive emotional dynamics and behavior patterns, but may come to

question and transcend fundamental self-concepts and views of the nature of reality.

(2) It is widely accepted in the field that set and setting are the most important determinant of experiences

with psychedelics, while the drug plays the role of a catalyst or trigger. This is in contrast to the

psychiatric or other psychoactive drugs (including stimulants, depressants and narcotics) where the

pharmacological action seems paramount, and set and setting play a minor role. The set-and-setting

model can also be extended to the understanding of other modalities of altered states of consciousness,

involving nondrug triggers such as hypnosis, meditation, rhythmic drumming, sensory isolation,

fasting, and others (Metzner 1989).

(3) Two analogies or metaphors for the drug experience have been repeatedly used by writers both in the

psycholytic and psychedelic paradigms. One is the amplifier analogy, according to which the drug

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Hallucinogens in Psychotherapy and Shamanism

functions as a nonspecific amplifier of psychic contents. The amplification may occur in part as a

result of a lowering of sensory thresholds, a “cleansing of the doors of perception,” and in part be due

to not-yet-understood central processes involving one or more neurotransmitters. The other analogy is

the microscope metaphor: it has repeatedly been said that psychedelics could play the same role in

psychology as the microscope does in biology—opening up to direct, repeatable, verifiable

observation realms and processes of the human mind that have hitherto been largely hidden or

inaccessible.

(4) Again in contrast to the use of other psychiatric or psychoactive drugs, it is widely recognized that the

personal experience of the therapist or guide is an essential prerequisite of effective psychedelic

psychotherapy. Without such prior personal experience, communication between the therapist and the

individual in a psychedelic state is likely to be severely limited. This principle implies also that a

significant role for psychedelic experience could be in the training of psychotherapists. The vast

majority of psycholytic and psychedelic therapists would of course not sanction the taking of the drug

by the therapist together with the client.

(5) Access to transcendent, religious or transpersonal dimensions of consciousness can be attained . That

mystical and spiritual experiences can and often do occur with the use of psychedelics was recognized

early on by most researchers in this field, thereby posing both challenge and promise to the

psychological disciplines and professions. Albert Hofmann has testified that his ability to recognize

the psycholytic properties of the LSD experience was based on its similarity to his childhood mystical

experiences in nature (Hofmann 1979). Stanislav Grof found that after resolving biographical

childhood issues, and then the perinatal traumata, individuals would often find themselves in realms

of consciousness completely transcendent of time, space and other parameters of our ordinary

worldview (Grof 1985). He gave the name “transpersonal” to these realms of consciousness and

“holotropic” (“seeking the whole”) to the predominant quality of consciousness in these realms, as

well as to other means of accessing these realms, such as certain breathing methods (holotropic

breathwork).

Timothy Leary, stimulated by his association with Aldous Huxley, Huston Smith and Alan Watts, devoted

considerable time and energy to exploring and describing the spiritual and religious dimensions of psychedelic

experience. This work resulted in adaptations of the Tibetan Buddhist Bardo Thödol (Leary, Metzner & Alpert

1964) and the Chinese Taoist Tao Te Ching (Leary 1997) as guidebooks for psychedelic experience. Based on his

initiating experience with Mexican magic mushrooms, it would also be true to say that Leary was the first person

to recognize and articulate that the fundamental mystical vision that emerges in these states is an evolutionary

remembering —an experience of reconnecting with our biological and cosmological evolution. In other words, he

realized the experience went beyond the personal and cultural developmental issues that usually concern

psychologists, and that the language of mystics and shamans in our time was basically going to be the scientific

language of evolution.

SHAMANIC RITUALS OF HEALING AND DIVINATION

Synchronistically with the revelations and insights emerging from psychedelic research in psychology and

religion, a generation of students and researchers in anthropology and ethnobotany was inspired to explore the

roots of humankind’s involvement with psychoactive plants in shamanism. These works ranged from Wasson’s

rediscovery of the pre-Columbian magic mushroom cult, and Harner’s early work on the role of hallucinogens in

European witchcraft-shamanism, to the work of sober researchers like Weston LaBarre, Richard Evans Schultes,

Claudio Naranjo and Peter Furst, as well as the more fantastic and imaginative writings of Carlos Castaneda and

Terence McKenna. It is fascinating to realize, in hindsight, that the two texts which seemed to lend themselves

most readily to psychedelic adaptation (the Bardo Thödol and the Tao Te Ching ) come from religious traditions in

which shamanic elements were strong. In Tibetan Buddhism, as in Chinese Taoism, practices of connecting with

spirits of nature through special visionary states were integrated into the teachings concerning spiritual

development and liberation.

If we accept the idea, growing out of scientific research, that set and setting are the crucial determinants of

the content of a hallucinogenic experience, then the use of these substances in a ritual setting, with careful

attention paid to conscious intention, is in fact the logical as well as the traditional approach. Shamanic rituals

involving hallucinogens are the intentional arrangement of the set and the setting for purposes of healing and

divination. Traditional Western psychotherapy, with or without psychedelics, can also appropriately be seen as a

ritual—i.e., an experience formally structured according to the intention of healing or problem-solving. The

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traditional shamanic ceremonial form involving hallucinogenic plants is a carefully structured experience, in

which a small group of people (six to 12) come together with respectful, spiritual attitudes to share a profound

inner journey of healing and transformation, facilitated by these powerful catalysts. A “journey” is the preferred

metaphor in shamanistic societies for what we call an “altered state of consciousness.”

There are three significant differences between shamanic entheogenic ceremonies and the typical

psychedelic psychotherapy session. One is that the traditional shamanic rituals involve very little or no talking

among the participants, except perhaps during a preparatory phase or after the experience to clarify the teachings

and visions received. The second is that singing, or the shaman’s singing, is invariably considered essential to the

success of the healing or divinatory process; furthermore the singing typical in entheogenic rituals usually has a

fairly rapid beat, similar to the rhythmic pulse in shamanic drumming journeys (widespread in shamanistic

societies of the Northern Hemisphere in Asia, Europe and America). Psychically, the rhythmic chanting, like the

drum pulse, seems to give support for moving through the flow of visions, and minimizes the likelihood of getting

stuck in frightening or seductive experiences. The third distinctive feature of traditional ceremonies is that they are

almost always done in darkness or low light—which facilitates the emergence of visions. The exception is the

peyote ceremony, done around a fire (though also at night); here participants may see visions as they stare into the

fire. I should point out that the hybrid therapeutic forms that have been developing in the past few decades (to be

discussed below) have incorporated these three features from the shamanic model.

As mentioned above, psychotherapists working within the psycholytic and psychedelic model quickly

came to the consensus that the therapist working with these substances had to have prior experience with them.

This is so widely assumed in shamanic societies that it is hardly even discussed. Typically, a shamanic healer

working with entheogenic plants undergoes a lengthy initiation and training (sometimes lasting years) under the

guidance of an experienced elder before working with others.

I will briefly mention some of the variations on the traditional rituals involving hallucinogens. In the

peyote ceremonies of the Native American Church in North America, participants sit on the ground in a circle

around a blazing central fire in a tipi. The ceremony lasts all night and is conducted by a “roadman,” with the

assistance of a drummer, a firekeeper and a cedar-man (for purification). A staff and rattle are passed around and

participants sing the peyote songs, which involve a rapid, rhythmic beat. The peyote ceremonies of the Huichol

Indians of Northern Mexico also take place around a fire, with much singing and story-telling, after the long group

pilgrimage to find the rare cactus (Pinkson 1995; Myerhoff 1974; La Barre 1964).

The ceremonies of the San Pedro cactus in the Andean regions are sometimes also done around a fire,

with singing; but sometimes the curandero sets up an altar, on which are placed different symbolic figurines and

objects representing the light and dark spirits which one is likely to encounter (Calderon et al. 1982).

The mushroom ceremonies ( velada ) of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico involve the participants sitting or

lying in a very dark room with only a small candle. The healer, who may be a woman or a man, sings almost

uninterruptedly throughout the night, weaving into his or her chants the names of Christian saints, spirit allies and

the spirits of the Earth, the elements, animals and plants, the sky, the waters and the fire (Estrada 1981; Wasson

1980).

Traditional Amazonian Indian or mestizo ceremonies with ayahuasca also involve a small group sitting in

a circle, in semidarkness, while the initiated healers sing the songs ( icaros ), through which the healing and/or

diagnosis takes place. These songs also have a fairly rapid rhythmic pulse, which keeps the flow of the experience

moving along. Shamanic “sucking” methods of extracting toxic psychic residues or sorcerous implants are

sometimes used (Luna & Amaringo 1991; Dobkin de Rios 1984).

The ceremonies involving the African iboga plant, used by the Bwiti cult in Gabon and Zaïre, involve an

altar with ancestral and deity images, and people sitting on the floor with much chanting and some dancing. Often,

there is a mirror in the assembly room, in which the initiates may “see” their ancestral spirits (Samorini 1995;

Fernandez 1982).

Certain common elements can be found in the anthropological literature on the experiences of shamanistic

indigenous societies with hallucinogenic plants. These features are also found in accounts of shamanic journey

experiences with other modalities, such as drumming, vision questing, or conscious dreaming. It is clear that these

experiential features imply the existence of a radically different worldview (than the Western) in entheogenic

shamanic practitioners. I will simply list these features, since there is not the space here to document them

extensively.

(1) The role of the guide, curandera or healer is always described as central and essential. This must be a

person with extensive personal experience in the use of these medicines, who agrees to provide an

initiatory experience to a seeker or training to an apprentice. In virtually all entheogenic rituals, the

Journal of Psychoactive Drugs

Volume 30 (4), October – December 1998

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