By John Horgan — 2014
I drank ayahuasca in 1999, in a ceremony led by two scholars with expertise in ayahuasca. What follows is an edited version of what I wrote about the experience in my 2003 book Rational Mysticism.
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In an appropriate context, ayahuasca can be a valuable therapeutic tool and can act as a catalyst that can render psychotherapeutic processes more effective in less time, and sometimes allow for critical interventions when several other therapeutic strategies have been unsuccessful.
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Psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and LSD can induce an experience known as oceanic boundlessness, which is characterized by a feeling of oneness with the world and a sense of awe.
Many people have a spiritual experience on psychedelics. How they make meaning of it could be influenced by the metaphysical beliefs of their therapists.
We talked to Stacia Butterfield, a Holotropic Breathwork facilitator with nearly two decades of experience through Grof Transpersonal Training, to learn what goes into a Holotropic Breathwork workshop and what people can expect to get out of the technique.
As we search for ways of understanding the possibly infinite resources of human consciousness, I suggest that the potential of psychedelics as tools for learning should not be ignored.
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Before we claim that spiritual experiences heal, we must agree on what a spiritual experience is.
Those of us who are professional counselors are perhaps most likely to recognize psychedelic drugs by their recreational or street names — acid, magic mushrooms, ecstasy — and to consider them to be drugs of abuse that may be dangerous to our clients.