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 Shifting Gears
Geral T. Blanchard • August 20, 2023
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.
An important distinction has been made between readying shifts and a final triggering shift. Steve Taylor, author of The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening clarifies this. Over a period of years, a person might be preparing themselves for spiritual ascendency by reading books, meditating, talking the talk, or traveling the world to spend time with spiritual leaders or gurus. They are the committed ones who are making slow changes, but more importantly, readying themselves to shift gears, to transcend their normal level of consciousness, perhaps with the help of a medicine. In essence they are working to more fully imagine and eventually develop a new self-system.
When, however, life stressors catapult them into a desperate stage, some people will look to MDMA or a psychedelic to get them “over the hump.”
While a lengthy spiritual practice forms the fertile soil for a shift, something more might have to occur to move them more suddenly. Like many areas of human experience, readiness is important.
Because entheogens and empathogens are basically dissolutive, they may quickly dissolve one’s traditional way of thinking, at least momentarily, and lay the groundwork – create space -- for the emergence of a new self. The homework that precedes a drug experience is the real change agent. MDMA, as one example, like conventional forms of therapy can slowly do, may quickly unlock a person’s transformational potential that has been frozen in turmoil or trauma.
By itself, addictively seeking spiritual development, or an awakening effort itself, can be problematic. Too often it is a rigid egoic process during which a person sets their intentions on becoming godlike. For many it is comparable to setting other lofty goals, perhaps becoming a multimillionaire, developing into a world-renowned philosopher or author, or being recognized as a powerful and revered healer. There are many stories of spiritual seeking that boil down to an avoidant and diversionary tactic. In these instances, a person immerses themself in the intellectual pursuit of spiritual practices as a way of escaping more earthly difficulties, psychological issues, and oftentimes unresolved trauma. In such cases, spiritual seeking becomes counterproductive, taking these individuals even further away from internal harmony, human intimacy, and personal well-being. What is often missing is the courage to “bottom out,” the ability to surrender – to let their old scaffolding collapse into a heap when reconstruction can begin.
It may be that there isn’t such a thing as a drug-created and sudden spiritual awakening. It might be more accurate to conclude a drug can facilitate a gateway moment when there is a sudden envisioning of another way of living that was preceded by a longstanding desire to see the universe another way. It is an unnoticed incremental unfolding that is behind what looks sudden. Steve Taylor put it this way: “Even though awakening may seem to occur suddenly, the process is a gradual one…a long process of cooling takes place to reach the point when water ‘suddenly’ freezes. These changes may be so gradual that they are imperceptible, or they may take place unconsciously, below the surface. It’s only the final stage of the process – what appears to be the sudden moment of awakening – that is obvious or experienced consciously.”
Psychedelics, and even MDMA, can be deceptive. It is important to understand that entheogens and empathogens are not a permanent means of experiencing what they offer people temporarily. They simply show us, or clarify, the place we have been heading for, but they do not provide the means, nor do they do the work required to get us there. They offer a clearer vision of the destination but do not spell out the route. The map becomes a problem when we spend all our time looking at it. At this juncture we must act our way into a new way of feeling, a new way of arriving.
Taylor summarizes: “In my view, therefore, the idea that you can chemically engineer a state of wakefulness through technology or drugs – and the idea that wakefulness is fundamentally a neurological state – is as false as the idea that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance that can be cured by drugs.”
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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
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