Geral Blanchard, LPC, is a psychotherapist who is university trained in psychology and anthropology. Formerly of Wyoming and currently residing in Iowa, Geral travels the world in search of ancient secrets that can augment the art and science of healing. From Western neuroscience to Amazonian shamanism, he has developed an understanding of how to combine old and new healing strategies to optimize recovery, whether from psychological or physical maladies.
MDMA and Fear
Geral T. Blanchard • June 26, 2022
Most everyone in search of empathogen treatment wants their inner fears quieted.
Fears that commonly originated in relationship hurts and betrayals, hence the desire for a relational medicine.
Simply put, fear arises from unfamiliarity and unpredictability, from unexamined aspects of the psyche. Hafez, the 12th century Persian poet wrote, “Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.” And by the “cheapest room” I think he meant the place in our thinking where we have expended the least amount of energy and invested insufficient attention -- it is like viewing the world from the distant cheap seats.
When I’ve camped in the wild country of Wyoming, particularly in the dark of night when it was difficult to see clearly, my imagination could run wild. Fear – when it arose mainly from my thoughts and imagination – sometimes conjured images of a nonexistent grizzly. As Sophocles, the Greek playwright of tragedies clarified, “To him who is in fear everything rustles.”
Fear is natural and necessary for our survival. Our two amygdalae are like highly caffeinated sentries always on the lookout for possible danger, principally after being roused by unexpected traumas, especially those that came early in life. The amygdalae tend to form instantaneous judgments without any reflection: Danger! Danger! Run, scurry, seek shelter! Long lived and little examined fears lock us inside ourselves, shutting social doors behind us. And we don’t even have to travel to a wilderness area to feel it running up our spine and raising our hackles.
Sometimes love and fear dwell in regions beyond proof of their reality. The former offers promise, the other peril. Both can cause us to be lost in the wild country of our minds, only later to be awakened to the confounding sense that maybe nourishing love never was present in the first place and calamity isn’t waiting in the wings when a hurtful person departs the scene. Intensity, when misperceived as intimacy, frequently leads to feelings of betrayal, going from fantasy to reality very fast. Betrayal can then trigger fear, even propagate terror, and ultimately conceive an ongoing, unregulated near-panic state.
At some point this rowdy group of feelings takes on a life of its own in the bodymind despite what is actually happening in the moment. It can develop into a persistent day-to-day hypersensitivity no longer requiring any ongoing direct stimulation and seemingly with no “shut off” switch. To thwart this process, the amygdalae may have to be momentarily calmed allowing clear thinking to prevail; then we can make sense of what just happened, or
didn’t.
Sticking with the wilderness metaphor, someone at the Wyoming Outdoor Leadership School once very wisely opined about being lost:
“You have to find your mind first, before you can find your way out of the woods. The first thing you can do is elect to coolly open your ‘jar of calm’ and pour it over everything.”
With that visualization a mini decision is made to ground yourself in reality, not obsessing about the boogeymen of unfamiliar terrain, or the residual imagination and unchallenged machinations still persisting well after long ago scary escapades ended.
The 16th century Spanish mystic, Saint John of the Cross, was always easily smitten by beauty, yet formed his character because of his suffering and loss. He wrote about his dark nights of the soul. More recently Thomas Merton, Thomas Moore, and others have written about these cataclysmic and catalytic times in life. In those lingering painful moments (what some would call “depression”) we are inclined to feel deserted and fearful. In those aching moments of abandonment and loneliness we long to be met by someone who can assuage our emotional pain. Frequently, no one arrives, at least not immediately. There is something we must figure out about ourselves first before we instinctively look outward for answers, especially from people who don’t know us as well as we do, or soon will.
The hormone oxytocin (9 linked amino acids) is produced during an MDMA treatment. It has the uncanny ability to increase our accuracy for recognizing fear (up to 20%) which can lend some calm. It is during a treatment that one is able to discern if old fears are still legitimate threats, if their original purpose is kaput, and if we need to hold onto them any longer. At that time the emotional amygdalae gets to take a nap; the two will wake up again if legitimately needed. Meanwhile we strive to remain on intellectual alert, rather than in primal emotional panic, able to determine if we want to stay attached (addicted) to our fear.
*********
“No great art has ever been made without the artists having known danger. Grief and terror are spaces for transformation.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke
“Theology has to be done in the face of danger.”
- Johann Baptist Metz
“We weren’t made for pavements and escalators, but for thunder and mud.”
- Jay Griffiths
“The only thing to fear is fear itself.”
- FDR
*********
Other Topics
Basics of MDMA
Rituals and Ceremony
Brain and MDMA
Trauma
Heart
Energy Movement
Quantum Physics
Native Cosmologies
Nature
Spirituality/Enlightenment
Kogi Tribe
Books written by Geral T. Blanchard
More Articles
In recent years psychotherapists have become increasingly aware of the risk of transmitting trauma intergenerationally. By examining the impact of the Holocaust, or the experiences of Native Americans who were systematically abused by colonizers including the Catholic Church, it becomes obvious that indirect passage of depression, despair, anxiety, and damaged self-regard are but a few of the ancestral legacies of uninterrupted abuse. If, however, trauma can be passed from generation to generation without direct experience, could it also be possible for the reverse to happen?
Just as we have started to witness the reality of individual post-traumatic growth (PTG) – not just bouncing back after trauma but bouncing forward – could we entertain the concept of intergenerational growth (IG) – in other words, thriving from generation to generation?
There can be two levels at which trauma is processed. The first tier may be a time of quiet denial or the dissociation of nearly all thoughts of how painful the past was. The body feels it, but the mind does not speak it. On the second level a person awakens to the entirety of it, often an unpredicted and sudden onslaught of previously suppressed details with extensive associated pain. When trauma is reconstituted at the second level it often happens unwillingly. A person may be swept away by an awakening that seems very ugly. It feels like too much to absorb in its entirety. The result is often to feel afraid, even shattered – at first. Now with everything out in the open, what must be done with it?
At the second level of awareness, it is almost impossible to go on pretending that everything is fine. No longer can the visuals and emotions be kept submerged. One wonders, “Damn it, will I ever get better?”
Traumatized persons, with their pervasive pain, typically seek mood altering experiences. This can include ascetic restrictions, hedonistic over-eating, chemical dependency, sexual dependency, sexual anorexia or celibacy, romance addiction, relationship dependency, compulsive gambling, TV or movie binging, rock climbing, auto racing, reliance on antidepressants and/or antianxiety medications, religious addiction, and so much more that can serve to pacify, distract, and avoid unpleasant thoughts and feelings. By thrill-seeking, the higher the risks being engaged, the greater mood alteration one can experience. It’s a big dopamine splash and more.
These are the adult versions of childhood thumb sucking, according to Dr. Harvey Milkman, the author of Craving for Ecstasy (the feeling of ecstasy, not the drug). Harvey pointedly said, “Growing up consists of finding the right substitute for your thumb.”
There are many emotional reactions to a drug-free spiritual awakening experience and a ceremonial MDMA journey. While this article focuses on empathy – both the feeling and the cognitive component – it is obvious to those who have awakened from a spiritual emergency that a variety of related emotions arise.
It is one thing to imagine how another person feels. Psychopaths, despite what the general public believes, are very good at empathy on an intellectual level. Even criminal psychopaths can put themselves in another person’s position and understand their perspective. It is bigger, better, and far healthier when empathy, in its deepest sense, allows us to “feel with” other people by recognizing a sense of oneness with them, what’s called unity consciousness. To hurt others would be to hurt ourselves.
It’s impossible to talk about projection without incorporating a discussion about Sigmund Freud and Donald Trump. In this article I will skip Donald but throw in a little Carl Jung. Freud, of course, named several distinctive defense measures – reality distorting strategies to keep us safe. Two of the big ones are displacement and projection.
First, a definition of projection: This is evident when an individual attributes their own unacceptable impulses onto others. For example, a person might accuse others of engaging in thievery when, in fact, they are swindling money from their employer. Some of the behaviors and thoughts we are most ashamed of could be called shadows. We can see them first in other people before we can “call them out” in ourselves. We are defending against humiliation and mortification lest we be exposed.
Does this empathogen work in a similar manner as psychedelics, blasting us off to a sudden and dramatic awakening of the mind and soul? Not necessarily. Much like massive stress, psychedelics and MDMA can knock people off an unhealthy path and offer them an entirely different trajectory, but there is a lot of arduous individual work that must follow the use of these propellants.
So, could it be concluded that MDMA is a transcendent spiritual event -- a chemical event, or perhaps a neurological experience? By themselves, both seem unlikely. They can change activity in the brain, but enlightenment comes from hard work before and after their use. Entheogens and empathogens likely have a catalytic but not a primary casual effect in awakening.
Many events in life can change us, some in profound ways, others somewhat superficially. Some positively, some negatively. Some temporarily, some permanently. Let’s break it down.
With the “help” of psychology and the diagnoses of PTSD and C-PTSD, an entire trauma industry has developed. Much help has been delivered and, unfortunately, in many instances the assigned labels stick like glue and there can be difficulty relinquishing the newly imposed identity of “breakage.”
Many life events are transformative:
Many great minds have come out of India. Like countless spelling bee champions, Mahatma Gandhi, and Aurobindo Ghose who later took on the name of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo became a highly regarded spiritual teacher and author in the twentieth century. His main insight was that what many humans experience during altered or higher states of consciousness are glimpses of the future of evolution. And, he contended, one day these states of expansion will be normal for the whole human race.
Countless numbers of people are seeking the unity consciousness that MDMA can offer. It can make them feel bigger. And more deeply connected and powerful. Like many billions of tiny ants inching a fourteen-wheeler up a hill, every tiny bit of effort pulls the big rig along. Similarly, each one of the eight billion or so people residing on our planet today may, via a combined assemblage of singular efforts, raise their individual consciousness, while tugging the entire race forward.
“Where did all the time go?” That is the ubiquitous question every patient asks after a treatment. They ingest the medicine at 9 a.m. and, after what seems like perhaps an hour or so but was actually five or six, and once the eye mask comes off there is bewilderment as to just how much time has passed. Of course, this is all built on the bedrock notion in Western culture that time is a straight line and linear manifestation. And that there is such a thing as time! Stepping out of existing paradigms, even if for a brief “time” can be eye opening while your eyes are closed.
Traditional Native American cultures have long believed that time is a circular phenomenon. Remotely like the movie Groundhog Day suggests, every day is very similar and reoccurring like the last. In indigenous worldviews, the sun rises and the sun sets, routinely; we always have a predictable reset of sorts, the start of what we call a “new day,” or what Arapahos called “sleeps,” both reflecting measurements of time.
Dark nights of the soul as Saint John of the Cross called those long, despairing periods of our life, are never easy, in fact they are usually dreadful. They are so necessarily awful and so damn long because some of us don’t do subtlety very well. If we are open to these moments, even a tiny bit, they can serve as an internally calculated and blaring wakeup call that will guide us to solace.
John Nelson, in Healing the Split, refers to a fleeting or ephemeral sense of a higher purpose, not fully conceptualized, but compellingly near the heart. It holds answers to life’s pain but isn’t quite within our grasp…at least until the dark clouds engulf us. Then, with great staying power and inexperience matched with trust, a spiritual emergence nears surface awareness. And it always happens, as psychiatrist Stan Groff defined it, around the time of a blurry spiritual emergency.