Jim Dekorne - Psychedelic Shamanism: The Cultivation, Preparation & Shamanic Use of Psychoactive Plants

Psychedelic Shamanism (Full Edition,Scanned by ReBorn .June.2006) The Cultivation, Preparation and Shamanic Use of Psychotropic Plants

1994 by Jim DeKorne

Cover photo from a painting by "Pedro D." in the author's private collection.

All photos courtesy of Jim DeKorne.

Illustrations 1994 by John Megahan/The Technical Sketch.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in any form whatsoever without the prior written consent of the publisher. Reviews may quote brief

passages without the written consent of the publisher as long as proper credit is given. Ooops! me bad!

Published by:

Loompanics Unlimited

PO Box 1197

Port Townsend, WA 98368

CONTENTS

This book makes no claim to be definitive; the scope of the subject is obviously too broad to accommodate any such expectation.The most I can hope for is to pique the reader's interest in exploring the realms of mind-space and sharing his or her findings with the rest of us.I have done my best to sift through a vast number of sources to select what seems to me to be true.The mythology surrounding the subject makes this a difficult task,and I hope all factual errors will be brought to my attention. Some of the material herein appeared in a different form in Gnosis Magazine,Spring,1992; Psychedelic Illuminations,Summer,1993;Psychedelic Monographs and Essays,#7,1994,and in both signed and anonymous pieces I wrote for The Entheogen Review, issues 1-5,1992 and 1993. I am deeply grateful to the large number of people who have generously shared their expertise and experience with me while I was writing this book. For obvious reasons I am not free to acknowledge them by name.They all know who they are anyway. Thanks, friends. I couldn't have done it without your help. There's just limited number of bitter substances one person can consume without getting burned-out!

Finally, it is impossible to write anything on the subject of psychedelics or shamanism these days without acknowledging the work of Terence McKenna. While I hope that my own experience and research may provide some useful new perspectives on these topics, it is very difficult not to tread on paths that Mr. McKenna hasn't already traveled, if not blazed himself. Indeed, my interest in these matters was rekindled after several years of dormancy solely because of my exposure to this man's brilliance.

Foreword

Shamanism goes far beyond a primarily self-concerned transcendence of ordinary reality. It is transcendence for a broader purpose, the helping of humankind. The enlightenment of shamanism is the ability to light up what others perceive as darkness, and thereby to see and to journey on behalf of a humanity that is perilously close to losing its spiritual connectedness with all its relatives, the plants and animals of this good Earth.1

We are tearing the earth to pieces, we are spewing out toxins -- and the entire planet is reacting. Psychedelics are going to play a major role in helping people to become aware of what is really happening.2

The draconian laws against psychedelic drugs, including the prohibition of legitimate research into their effects upon human consciousness are ultimately based upon our culture's fear of the new model of reality that they imply. To put it bluntly, if we took the psychedelic paradigm seriously, we would be forced to change our lives completely. It is hard to imagine anything more revolutionary, and hence (from the conventional point of view), more dangerous and worthy of repression.

Drug-induced alterations of consciousness are labeled as deadly, self-indulgent illusions in Western society, hence are seen as a challenge to the status quo and something to forbid for all eternity.

The intemperate panic fueling our anti-drug legislation reveals an appalling irrationality within the national psyche. Murderers routinely receive lighter prison sentences than people captured with

"unauthorized" plants in their possession!

The average sentence served for murder in the U.S. is six and a half years, while eight years with no possibility of parole is mandatory for the possession of 700 marijuana plants. It doesn't matter if the plants are seedlings or mature -- the federal government treats each as a potential kilo of product.3

Laws like these and the confused and impoverished value system which allows them to manifest are seriously dissociated from reality. The people who demand them and the people who enforce them have lost all humane perspective, and these appalling statutes long ago forfeited the respect and allegiance of rational minds. Injustice always breeds contempt for the law.

The irony of this, of course, lies in the distinct promise that psychedelic substances offer for the resolution of current human problems at both personal and collective levels. Here are medicines that could help us to grow, yet we make it all but impossible to obtain and use them. That, it seems to me, is a synonym for chronic illness at best, evolutionary suicide at worst. I am today a psychologically and spiritually enriched person because of psychedelic drug-experiences I had decades ago, yet I'd be the last person to proselytize the use of such materials as a path for everyone. These substances are powerful catalysts for personal insight, yet when absorbed into the metabolism of those who are not ready for them they have proven to be both individually and socially disruptive. Of course this is not a characteristic of the drugs, but of the consciousness of those who ingest them, and our reactionary laws against psychedelics may be seen as an index of how far we have to go as culture to attain even minimum levels of psychological sophistication in these matters.

Suffice it to say that I and countless other individuals have had deeply meaningful experiences with hallucinogens which almost certainly would never have occurred without them. I have learned that human awareness plays itself out between the of unity and multiplicity, and that within this multiplicity reside intelligences capable of becoming allies to human endeavor. What is most important it seems to me, is that such occurrences are not particularly unusual; others have received similar insights both with and without the use of a chemical catalyst.

Mystical writings the world over reveal comparable ideas, and data collected from researches in depth psychology, comparative religion and shamanism strongly suggest that these perceptions may actually constitute the hidden substructure of consciousness itself! To prohibit legitimate access to our deepest realms of awareness through rigid,fear-based legislation may be one of the most egregious errors of our contemporary culture,nothing less than a denial of our essence as human beings.

Denial, in the pathological meaning of the word,is an avoidance mechanism deeply embedded within the unconscious psyche; it is an irrational refusal to recognize legitimate challenges to our beliefs and addictions. Denial, for example, is a common response of alcoholics in avoiding the reality of their condition. Denial is a much larger problem in today's world than just a maladaptive tactic of addictive personalities. It is an endemic (and potentially fatal) cultural disease.

In her essay, "Denial in the decisive decade," Sandra Postel makes a direct connection between denial as a cultural non-strategy and the world-wide ecological crisis threatening the stability of our planet: Rather than face the truth, denial's victims choose slow suicide. In a similar way, by pursuing lifestyles and economic goals that ravage the environment, we sacrifice long-term health and well-being for immediate gratification -- a trade-off that cannot yield a happy ending.