THE SOUL OF REASON

The material presented here is taken from a working paper titled The Soul of Reason:  An Argument for a New Post-Modern Realism in Social Theory and Philosophy.  (D. H. Bowles 2020)

VII.  Psychedelic Drugs and the Experience of Altered States

For the final chapter in our accounting of altered states of consciousness, we return to Michael Pollan (2018) and his story of the 21st century renaissance in research on the clinical efficacy of psychedelic drugs.  Not coincidentally, we find that Pollan’s story actually begins where Wright’s concludes:  with William James and The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902).  In his prologue, Pollan quotes from the chapter on “Mysticism,” where James is discussing the use of intoxicants to induce what he calls the mystical state:

Nitrous oxide and ether, especially nitrous oxide, when sufficiently diluted with air, stimulate the mystical consciousness in an extraordinary degree. . . . Some years ago, I myself made some observations on this . . . and reported them in print.  One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken.  It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. . . . No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded . . . they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality. (388)

“James is speaking,” says Pollan, “of the unopened door in our minds. [1] . . . The first time I read that sentence, I realized James had my number:  as a staunch materialist, and as an adult of a certain age, I had pretty much closed my accounts with reality.  Perhaps this had been premature.  Well, here was an invitation to reopen them.” (17)

The story of the 21st century renaissance that Pollan sets out to tell cannot, of course, be effectively told without the telling, to at least some degree, of its antecedents:  the pre-modern history of the role of psychedelic substances in human society and culture; some reporting on psychedelic pharmacology; and–not least–the story of the 20th century counter-cultural experience.  While Pollan devotes a chapter of his book to each of these, we find that Grinspoon & Bakalar (1979)—also cited by Pollan–provides us with more definitive coverage of these topics, at least so far as the pharmacology and pre-modern history are concerned.  The introductory chapter deals with definition and classification, pharmacological structure, effective dosage, and symptoms.

Everything about the psychedelic drugs has been a subject of angry controversy; the argument begins with the question of what they should be called, and what substances are properly classified as belonging to the group once it is named . . . all the available names and definitions were unfortunately molded into ideological weapons during the political-cultural warfare of the 1960s.   . . . (Grinspoon & Bakalar, 5)

A definition is offered, with caveats:

a psychedelic drug is one which, without causing physical addiction, craving, major physiological disturbances, delirium, disorientation, or amnesia [emphasis added], more or less reliably produces thought, mood, and perceptual changes otherwise rarely experienced except in dreams, contemplative and religious exaltation, flashes of vivid involuntary memory, and acute psychoses.  But this is no more than a rough guide; in the end, no definition is adequate, because the psychedelic drugs have a vague family resemblance rather than an easily described set of common features.  (9)

Psychedelics can be best classified, Grinspoon argues, through comparison to what he specifies as the “central or prototype” case:  lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, which, he identifies as the most potent psychedelic agent ever isolated or synthesized.  It is capable, he tells us, of producing “all of the effects that any of the other produce, and at much smaller doses.  Falling into the central or core classification group orbiting LSD are found the other principal known psychedelic agents:

1.   mescaline (derived from the peyote cactus),
2.   psilocybin (derived from the psilocybe mushroom family),
3.   the interactive plant-based harmala alkaloids and dimethyltryptamines (DMT), which are the psychoactive ingredients of various native ayuhausca preparations), and
4.   the synthetic methoxylated amphetamines group (MDA, MDMA, primarily represented by the popular street drug called ecstasy).

On the periphery of these are all the different compounds that have been known to produce altered states of consciousness bearing a similarity to the core group, but much less reliably and much more variably.[2]  In this group, Grinspoon includes:

1.   tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which is the psychoactive component of marijuana
2.   general anesthetics, specifically ether, chloroform, and nitrous oxide
3.   the “dissociative” anesthetics, phencyclidine (PCP) and ketamine
4.   the anticholinergic deliriants, principally scopolomine (encountered in belladonna and deadly nightshade)
5.   methamphetamine (meth, or speed) and cocaine
6.   alcohol
7.   morning glory (containing ergot alkaloids, from which LSD is derived)
8.   nutmeg (containing compounds related to THC)

For all of these, especially the core group, Grinspoon documents chemical formulas, molecular structure, and physiological and psychological symptoms.  Toward the end of this cataloging exercise, he notes the following:

The fact that a simple compound like nitrous oxide [N₂O] as well as the complex organic molecule of a drug like LSD [C₂₀H₂₅N₃O] can produce a kind of psychedelic, mystical experience suggests that the human organism has a rather general capacity to attain the state, and can reach it by many different biological pathways.  (36)

Taking LSD as the definitive, prototypical exemplar for the core class of psychedelic drugs, Grinspoon’s documentation of its psychological symptoms are instructive:

The enormously variable effects have been described as an unspecific intensification of mental processes.  They can be classified, roughly, as changes in perception, changes in feelings, and changes in thought, although carving up the experience in this way is essentially arbitrary, and although this particular experience often has the special property of making such distinctions seem meaningless.  Perceptually, LSD produces an especially brilliant and intense impact of sensory stimuli on consciousness.  Esthetic responses are greatly magnified.  Other common effects include heightened body awareness, and synesthesia (hearing colors, seeing sounds, etc.)

          The emotional effects are even more profound than the perceptual ones.  The subject becomes extraordinarily suggestible . . . everything in the field of consciousness assumes unusual importance, feelings become magnified to a degree of intensity and purity almost never experienced in daily life . . . Introspective reflection with a sense of deep, sometimes painful insight into oneself or the nature of man and the universe is common.

          Advanced states of intoxication produce transformations in consciousness that affect thought, perception, and feeling at once.  Subjects may become children once again, reliving their memories, or becoming protagonists in symbolic dramas . . . Actions, persons, and images may become so intensely significant and metaphorically representative that they take on the character of symbols, myths, and allegories.  Subjects may believe they are encountering gods or demons, or that they have left their bodies, looking down on themselves, or traveling instantly to far-away places.

          There are also profound changes in the sense of self:  the ego may separate from the body, so that feelings and perceptions seem to belong to someone else, or to no one, or the boundary between self and the environment may dissolve so completely that the user feels ‘at one’ with other people, animals, inanimate objects, or the universe, culminating in the experience of an eternal present moment that is felt to define ultimate reality:  boundless, timeless, and ineffable.  (12-14)

Grinspoon’s second chapter reviews the pre-modern history of psychedelics in human society and culture.  Two points in particular emerge clearly from this review that I will emphasize here.  The use of various psychedelic substances is both:

1.   ubiquitous and integral to the shamanistic, religious, and ceremonial practices that characterize tribal and other pre-modern societies, and
2.   knowledge of, access to, and use of these substances is invariably controlled and channeled in a way designed to assure that the experience will ultimately be culturally integrative and supportive of social hierarchy.

The second point bears directly on our ability to understand the 20th century counter-cultural experience in its proper context.  Pollan expresses it succinctly:  “It’s often been said that in the 1960s, psychedelics ‘escaped from the laboratory,’ but it would probably be more accurate to say they were thrown over the laboratory wall.”  (197)

Footnotes

[1] Notice Pollan’s use of the “unopened door” metaphor, both here, and in the prologue’s title (“A New Door”).  This is no accident; it is a deliberate allusion going straight back to Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception (1954), in which he reports his experience with the use of mescaline.  Huxley’s title, of course, is famously drawn from the work of the English mystic poet, William Blake.  The employment of that metaphor in conjunction with the experience of altered states is common:  remember what Morpheus says to Neo:  “I can only show you the door–you’re the one who has to walk through it.”  The metaphor also served as proximate inspiration for the name of Jim Morrison’s legendary psychedelic rock band, The Doors.

[2] Omitted–somewhat inexplicably–from Grinspoon’s inventory of peripheral agents (although not from his narrative treatment of the subject) appears to be the opiate family of drugs derived from the poppy–opium, morphine, codeine, heroin, et al.  This would of course also include the contemporary synthetics such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, etc., which are principally responsible for the current widespread epidemic of opiate abuse and addiction in the United States.

VIII.  ‘Counter-Culture’ Consciousness

Table of Contents

Conceptual Schematic of the Argument

Abstract

Download Working Paper (PDF)