What is the relationship between psychedelics and meditation? Experientially, they seem to cover similar ground and have significant overlap, suggesting they may be two different vehicles to get to the same place. At the same time, there are important ways in which these techniques can complement and support each other.
Meditation and psychedelics are united in the mystical experience. This is a state of consciousness that involves the transcendence of time and space, a sense of sacredness, and unity — often, this includes the collapse of previously established dualities, such as between self-other, inner-outer, and sacred-profane. These experiences, which can come about spontaneously or as the result of a contemplative discipline such as meditation, have been described by mystics and experienced meditators for millennia.
In The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley reported having such an experience after ingesting mescaline. As soon as he published this influential report, religious scholars began debating whether this could be considered a true mystical experience. Illumination could come as a gift of grace or as the result of years of discipline, but to some the idea that such an experience could be induced by ingesting a minute amount of a compound seemed to cheapen and detract from the experience.
Alan Watts is an excellent case study for the question of drug-induced mysticism. A passionate student of the psychology of religion, he became deeply immersed in the study of Zen Buddhism for a significant part of his life and, through lectures and writing, made Eastern spiritual philosophies accessible to the Western mind. He underwent more than one mystical experience prior to trying psychedelics, giving him a unique vantage point for the experimentation that was to come.
Following his first psychedelic experience, he remarked that it had been quite interesting and largely aesthetic, though certainly not a spiritual experience. Shortly after, he was convinced by a psychiatrist that his experience may not have shown him all there was to see, and that a certain degree of skill in the use of these substances was needed to reach the states described by Huxley and others.
Taking this into consideration, he opted for a second session, about which he later said: “And lo and behold, I had what I simply could not deny being an experience of cosmic consciousness, the sense of complete, fundamental, total unity, forever and ever with the whole universe. And not only that, but […] that the energy behind the world was ecstatic bliss and love. Well, I was very embarrassed by this, because I thought, ‘Gee, you can’t get mysticism out of a bottle. That’s degrading it!’ But yet I couldn’t deny the fact that it had happened.”
The mystical experience is not the only experience one can have on a psychedelic, but it does happen. A 2008 article in the Journal of Psychopharmacology reported that nearly 60% of participants given a high dose of psilocybin during a study had a “complete mystical experience.”
To be sure, the preparation and setting afforded to participants in these studies undeniably contributes to the prevalence of these transformative experiences. They take place in a clinical setting with the assistance of a highly trained psychotherapist. Nonetheless, one thing does seem certain: the experience of mystical consciousness reported by these participants is the same as that reported by the mystics of our past and present. As philosophical authority on mysticism, W. T. Stace said about the drug-induced experience, “It’s not a matter of its being similar to mystical experience; it is mystical experience.”
Having established this, in what ways can a meditation practice complement psychedelic exploration?
Artwork by Jono Hislop.
As Zen Priest Vanja Palmers notes in an article called “Psychedelics and Meditation” in the Fall 2001 MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) Bulletin:
“It is quite obvious that skills in meditation, the practice of being at peace within one’s body and mind, even in uncomfortable places, can be of great help in the course of a psychedelic session.”
Learning to focus on one’s breath as an anchor to return to the present can also be of assistance. In a psychedelic session, having these skills in your toolkit can be the difference between losing your ground when challenging material arises, and being able to remain present and receive the experience in its full intensity and richness.
The usefulness of this sort of deep mental training is described in academic literature. In 1982 in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, psychiatrist Roger Walsh interviewed five people about their psychedelic experiences. Most of them were teachers of psychology or a consciousness discipline, with strong national or international reputations in their given field. All of them met criteria for exceptional psychological well-being and were advanced meditators.
These individuals agreed that psychedelics, used skillfully, can facilitate psychological growth — in particular, they emphasized the importance of “a deep involvement in an ongoing psychological or consciousness discipline aimed at deep mental training,” as described in the journal. Such a discipline not only provides useful skills for navigating the experience, but also a framework within which to comprehend and integrate these experiences.
If a meditative practice can facilitate psychedelic exploration, it makes sense that the converse is also true. All of Walsh’s interviewees felt that their psychedelic experiences had resulted in “an increased interest in depth psychology, religion, spirituality, and consciousness, as well as related disciplines and practices such as meditation,” in addition to an enhanced ability to understand these areas. Three of them felt that psychedelics had been instrumental in commencing some type of mental discipline such as meditation.
They also reported that psychedelics had had the effect of continuously revealing further realms of experience and exploration. It was common for them to have “experiences that some months or years later would recur in the context of their mental training discipline, and sometimes after that would arise into awareness spontaneously during daily life,” as the journal article notes. This is a particularly salient point which demonstrates that the mind states achieved on psychedelics are not unique to these substances, but innate to the mind itself.
In this sense, psychedelics are able to demonstrate what is possible without showing us the way there. Andrew Weil, medical doctor and founder of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, used a personal anecdote to highlight just this aspect of psychedelics. In this interview, he recounted a time during which he had encountered significant difficulty in achieving a challenging yoga pose. Having worked on it for two months with little progress, he was close to giving up on his attempts altogether, resigning that his weary twenty-eight-year-old body just couldn’t do it.
Then one day after taking LSD with some friends, he noted feeling very happy and like his body was very elastic, so he decided to try this difficult pose. To his amazement, he was able to enter into the pose without any of the pain or discomfort he had previously experienced.
The following day, he tried the same pose again, to no avail. The pain and discomfort were back, but his mindset had changed. He had seen that his body could in fact do it, and that gave him the motivation to continue trying and working at it. The LSD had shown him what was possible, but had not given him easy access to get there again — that would require his own effort and perseverance.
For many people, this is what happens with meditation as well. Taking up a meditative practice requires a certain faith in the existence of mind states one has not yet experienced. But a psychedelic session in which one experiences a state of one-pointed focus or present-mindedness or the power of centering one’s attention on the breath can have the same effect that doing yoga on LSD did for Dr. Weil: it demonstrates what is possible, and helps to point our compass for the work to come outside of the session, without the aid of the psychedelics.
Gonzo Nieto has a B.Sc. in Psychology & Neuroscience. He is a Montreal-based writer, psychonaut, and board member of the Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy. He writes a column on drugs and the mind called Turning Inward for The Link newspaper, and has contributed pieces on psychedelics for Reset and AskMen. Find him on Twitter @gonzebo or check out his Facebook page.
Well written article thank you. Just stumbled into this site from a link in reddit / meditation. But I recognised the name of the site from a recent Joe Rogan Podcast.
I am interested to try psychedelics, but no of no legal way to obtain particular substances, so tend to avoid them because of penalties etc.
Hey John-I understand your concerns. Salvia is legal in several states and is a wonderful plant healer. Ayahuasca is legal in many South American countries.
Perhaps gardening would be more suitable for you? There are certain beautiful cacti that you may wish to grow. They are not illegal to grow and to keep around as ornamental plants, but shockingly they are illegal to consume due to the mescaline contained within them. I suspect some people do consume them so they can reach mystical states, but that would be illegal. Unfortunately it is very difficult to catch the crooks who do consume them as such activities are within the confines of the person’s home. Or there are certain other plants, like Hawaiin Baby Woodrose and Morning Glory, that one could attempt to grow with interesting seeds. I must warn you that silly individuals attempt to consume these seeds even though it is illegal to. I could never condone such illegal activity and it scares me that people can do such things so very easily. I suggest to help you understand the legality in regards to such substances, so you can better advice your friends on the folly of such illegal activity, you should go onto erowid.org. If you have friends who ever choose to go down such paths, you must enlighten them with what you have read as education on the matter is of the utmost importance, otherwise they might have a bad time.
Lol, this is like a guide on using silkroad.
1. Don’t do illegal things on silkroad
2. This is how to do ‘any’ thing on silkroad
3. Be careful
In my experience there has been a circular relationship between the two; on the one hand, meditation has gotten me out of quite a few binds (in terms of difficult trips), and on the other psychedelics (very consciously, it seems) have taught me the importance of meditation, a practice I now keep daily. It’s been said before, but I truly feel that both experiences emanate from the same primordial source.
Hi. I to have started a meditaion practice, albeit still young, as a result of a psychedelic experience. I don’t know how or why, it just sort of felt right. Do you think you could elaborate on how meditation has helped you during difficult trips?
If you have a long-term meditation practice and are interested in participating in a study of the interaction between meditation and psilocybin, please visit hopkinsmeditation.com for more information
There is most definitely a relationship between the states psychotropic substances such as LSD and naturally occurring meditative states. Psychedelics can lead to very profound insight but there is a real danger of becoming psychologically addicted to them in a way that is much less likely to happen with meditation. They are not a substitute for an informed, grounded meditation practice and in themselves rarely ever lead to lasting insight or happiness. It may well be entirely appropriate for a person to go through phases of their use in which they could be very healing. But the tendency of many users is to push healthy usage and into often quite unstable and ungrounded territory. In short, they can fuck you up.
Trapped by the establishment religion of the current self-appointed illuminati – science – everyone seems to be ignoring the integration of mind-altering plants with indigenous cultures for millennia before European culture and all its madnesses, including science, took over the world a relatively short time ago. The plants are here and have these properties for a reason, even if it can’t (or maybe shouldn’t) be analyzed, or isn’t ultimately knowable to us (though they might just be here for cosmic harmony, right? – that quality mostly absent in human culture which we want to attain?), so of course we use them. If they make us feel good and find unity and peace, why not?
Plants are no more, and arguably less artificial than a conjured up human state of mind, except as interpreted, like in this article and by so-called Western gurus, in a version of adopted non-Western religion twisted by science, by some kind of Calvinist work ethic, and by an elitism that only a few get to know. And there’s supposed to be some sort of validity or hard-won true realization to that approach? Please. Like you’re enlightened, or want to be and to proclaim it, but not enough to know you aren’t that special, and that anyone can be with the proper attitude and tools.
The fact that it’s rare doesn’t necessarily mean it’s hard, only that the materialism and greed which rule most the world are much more attractive lures and thus always in the way. On the political front there are things we can do about that which would make better states of mind more common.
Medicine, meditation, why does it matter how we get there? And why play these two methods (and there are probably more) off against each other? This sort of argumentative duality gets us nowhere, and neither will using the thinking methods, like science etc. – the whole Western array – that are part of the problem, in the delusion that this will lead us away from it to a solution. The method determines the results, the process leads to, and is not different than, the goal.
Our species at at the edge of either destruction or a breakthrough, and neither I nor anyone else knows exactly what that new way will be, but we had better be looking for it and following every promising clue, rather than relying only on what we already know, all of which is from antiquated systems, and which clearly isn’t working. One of those clues, I think, is returning to the earth, which either physically or philosophically we’ve bee trying in vain to escape for several millennia, and there are still people around who have the right tools – in their heads, thanks in part to plants.
i literally did both of these last night and the experience was profound. It does feel spiritual but I could have just been tripping, heightening the state of mine i was focusing on looking to achieve..real or just drugs it doesn’t matter the experience is something i wish everyone would try once.. its such a beautiful thing but peoples mind and thinking view all drugs in the same class and stigma this is just plain ignorance
Wow! Very informal and great article! Thanks for sharing with Αποφραξεις Τμές. Looking for more infos from your site!