Last month, I came out of the psychedelic closet (or rabbit hole) on facebook. I had many positive reactions from friends and family, so wanted to share it here. Let it inspire those who are still feeling repressed because of their drug use.
(Tears of Joy - Alex Grey)
This is going to be one of my more personal posts. Many of you already know that which I will talk about, but some of you don’t and I would like to once and for all put it out in the open. While I have spoken quite openly about the subject, I never explicitly mentioned my personal involvement with it. So for those who didn’t connect the dots just yet: For the past 12 years, I have been working with psychedelics. I have used several of them and use one of them – ayahuasca – on a regular basis. With many of you, I have had conversations about what they mean to me and why I use them, but out of fear of judgment, I have been hiding this fact from some of you.
In April of this year I was part of a beautiful ceremony with Iboga, an African plant medicine that produces a strong dreamlike state in the user. This plant can help one to face the past and release whatever pain, fear, sadness, etc. you have been carrying with you. It helped me to release fear and sadness that have been with me all my life, for almost 35 years. This post is partly the result of the experience, because I decided not to hide any more. I am who I am and who I should be. The fear that I was carrying caused me to hide part of myself for all my life. Hide my feelings, my desires, my struggles and imperfections. In the last few months, I allowed these to come out more and the Iboga really helped me to accept them for what they are.
I have been involved with the OPEN Foundation (Stichting OPEN) for almost a decade now. This organization, as some of you know, aims to increase our scientific understanding of psychedelics and their therapeutic potential. Subconsciously, I joined this organization partly because I wanted to justify my personal use of psychedelics and I believed that science was the way to convince others that my personal choices were not necessarily negative. But of course the proof is in the pudding: I don’t consider myself a bad person and I don’t think the people around me think that I’m a bad person. I also don’t consider myself less than others who don’t use any drugs (although there is a stigma on drugs in our society, while this stigma escapes those who use alcohol and to a lesser extent tobacco). I am not a worse person because I use drugs to learn things about myself and the way I relate to others. And I don’t consider other people worse for using drugs, even when they use them in a way that can be considered self-destructive. For me drug use is an expression of underlying mechanisms and when it is self-destructive it inspires compassion rather than judgement (although I must admit that I have not always looked at it this way). In my case, I think the use of psychedelics is the expression of a sincere wish to get to know my own consciousness and a desire to broaden the spectrum of my experience.
I consider psychedelics powerful tools that can be used for both personal and spiritual development (which in the end might be the same). This doesn’t mean that they cannot be abused and that one has to be careful in using them, making sure that one is properly prepared to face both very beautiful and very difficult experiences, and that the environment in which one chooses to partake is safe and supportive. These factors have a tendency to become a ritual, in which the drug, the setting and the mindset become interconnected vectors that help one to transcend one’s normal waking state of consciousness and experience something that lies beyond one’s normal idea of self. Such an experience can provide perspective on past experiences, on who we think that we are and can help us re-evaluate our attitudes and actions, inspiring us to act differently and transform our lives. It is my conviction that this transformation can be very positive, although there are always cases in which it can go wrong and people lose themselves to a certain extent. The latter is exacerbated by the lack of social integration surrounding psychedelics. Because of prohibition and the absence of social structures that can help one think about and experience psychedelics without prejudice, the risks are increased. And because in the media one only hears the negative experiences, I think there are subconscious mechanisms that prevent people from admitting the positive outcomes that psychedelics in a large variety of cases definitively have.
Current research suggests that psychedelics might help with a broad spectrum of problems: addiction, autism, anxiety, PTSD, depression, eating disorders, the fear of death in terminal patients and others. The latest event I have helped organize for the OPEN Foundation (the Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelics Research, 3-5 June 2016 in Amsterdam) featured researchers from all over the globe doing active research into these substances in relation to these and other subjects. The promise of this research stands in stark contrast with the common idea embedded within laws and treaties that psychedelics have no medical benefit. The results are so impressive in many cases, that it warrants state funding and a strong move towards making psychedelic therapy possible for patients that are currently not helped by our health care system. Further research has to be done to chart both the risks and possible benefits of psychedelics, so that we can show that these laws and treaties need reform in order to accommodate the benefits and minimize the harm. Prohibition has not served us well in either respect.
But again, this is not a justification of my own personal use. I did not have major psychological problems when I started using psychedelics, although I, like almost everyone, have had some traumatic experiences in my life. Psychedelics have helped me to become more open and less fearful, they have helped me to accept myself and others, allowing myself to love and be loved, they have helped me to see things clearly, without trying to impose my viewpoint on whatever it was I tried to look at. At the same time, they have helped me to see my limitations and the general human condition, by which we are bound to our point of view and our personal history. The experiences were not always easy, and were I not in a safe space, some of them would have been considered a bad trip, while now they have been amongst the most important experiences of my life. Psychedelics have given me more than just a healing on a psychological level, they have helped me to experience peace of mind and a deep love for myself and others, something that I have no other words for than divine.
Psychedelics are used by doctors and lawyers, accountants and artists, professors and therapists. I have witnessed many of them healing deep traumas, making decisions that will improve their well-being and expressing themselves in new and creative ways. These are not the people generally associated with drug use, they have jobs, are committed to contributing to society and often actively promote the health and well-being of people, animals and the environment. These people often cannot speak publicly about their use, for fear of consequences. I hope this semi-public announcement will help to bring about a safe space for people to discuss their use of psychedelics and ways in which they can be integrated within society in a safe way, so that the practical benefits can be maximized. Psychedelics have and continue to inspire me. I hope that we can work together so that this remains a possibility for myself and others. I thank you for reading and if you have any questions, I am more than happy to answer them.
=======
This was my post on facebook. I'd like to share a video as well, made by the artist Ben Ridgway, that really gives an impression of the visuals I see on ayahuasca: