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, Maslow, and Peak Experiences
Geral T. Blanchard • December 31, 2021
Almost six decades ago a leader in the field of Third Force (humanistic) Psychology wrote about an interesting phenomenon, the peak-experience.
Abraham Maslow, in his book, Religions, Values, and Peak-experiences shared observations of patients who underwent awakenings characterized by awe, rapture, and transcendence, none of which were drug-induced.
What is very striking about his early research is that it appears to capture the same experiences commonly reported by individuals following MDMA psychotherapy-assisted treatments. Maslow realized that the sacred wasn’t only found in the venue of cathedrals nor was it the sole responsibility of priests. Rather it was often a highly personal and truly natural excursion into one’s private religion developed out of private revelations.
Often the sacred followed the profane, a way of saying trauma is often followed by post-traumatic growth (PTG).
As you recount (or anticipate) your transcendent moments with MDMA it may be consoling, or even heady, to contrast your experiences with the patient outcomes he chronicled in the 1960s. Many of your predecessors watched their anxiety, strong obsessional thinking, and suicidality disappear – often immediately and permanently following a peak-experience. Here are the top 25 aspects Maslow observed:
- The whole universe was perceived as an integrated and unified whole. There was tremendous concentration of a kind which did not normally occur. It was described as non-evaluating, non-comparing, or nonjudgmental cognitions – an understanding acceptance of everything.
- Individuals became more detached, more objective, and were more able to perceive the world as if it were independent not only of the perceiver but even of human beings in general. It was a little like talking about a god-like perception -- superhuman perceptions in which they could see in a higher than usual way. They felt like larger, greater, stronger, and bigger people, seeing things accordingly.
- It was an ego-transcending, self-forgetful, egoless, and unselfish event.
- At the same time, and upon reflection, it felt self-validating, giving meaning to life itself, helping in some instances to prevent suicide.
- A conclusion was that there are ends in the world to yearn for which are worthwhile in themselves.
- They experienced universality and eternity. The person, during the peak-experience, felt the day passed as it were minutes. They may also have experienced an enlarged consciousness when they could be locate themselves in different places.
- The world was seen as beautiful, good, desirable, but never as evil or wrong; it was accepted. Somehow they became reconciled themselves to what they had once called “evil” which came to be understood and seen in its proper place, as a part of the whole, as belonging there, as unavoidable, necessary, and, therefore, as proper. The “bad” things about life became accepted more totally than at previous times.
- Some reported feeling god-like which prevented feelings of blame and condemnation. Their only possible emotions were charity, kindness, and perhaps sadness or amusement with life.
- They perceived moments of eternal truths, high spiritual and religious values. People’s spirit, and even their bodies, were seen as sacred vessels.
- They felt more passive, receptive, and humble than normal – more ready to listen and much more able to hear and understand others.
- Childlike emotions of wonder, awe, reverence, surrender, and even worship before the greatness of the experience were often reported.
- Dichotomies, polarities, and conflicts of life tended to get resolved. There was a movement toward fusion, integration, and unity, and away from splitting and oppositions.
- There was a loss of fear, anxiety, inhibition, of defense and control, perplexity, confusion, delay, and restraint. Profound fears of falling apart, disintegration, of insanity, and of death, all tended to disappear for the moment if not longer.
- After effects were often so profound and so great as to seem similar to a religious conversion. Often, it forever changed the person. Therapeutic achievements, which increased thereafter, were seen as important and valuable, but lesser effects.
- It was if they discovered and visited their own personally defined heaven and then returned to earth. This provided a naturalistic meaning to the concept of heaven. Peak-experiencers concluded they could re-experience heaven thereafter, always being able to step into it for a little while at least. Internally derived comfort could be accessed thereafter.
- There was a tendency to humbly move more closely to a perfect identity, or uniqueness, to become a more real person.
- They felt more, than at previous times, to be responsible, active, more self-determined, more a free agent with more free will, and as the creators of their own life and activities. They were actors, not just reactors.
- Those who had the clearest and strongest identities were the ones who were most able to transcend the ego or self, to become selfless.
- Peak-experiencers became more loving, compassionate, more accepting, spontaneous, honest, and innocent.
- They were less an object, less a thing. Less inclined to live under the laws of a strictly physical world. They became more a psyche, more a person, more subject to psychological laws, especially the guidelines of what people have called the “higher life.”
- They were non-striving, non-needing, non-wishing, asking less for themselves, in other words, less selfish. In this way they felt more god-like and at one with the divinity.
- After the peak-experience most reported feeling blessed, fortunate, and graced. Feelings of gratitude greatly increased.
- A unitive consciousness was experienced that was infused with the sacred and permeated the momentary, the secular, and the worldly.
- The gap or polarity between humility and pride tended to resolve. They could easily feel both proud and humble. Maslow coined the term “self-actualizing” to describe these persons.
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“The peak-experience itself can often meaningfully be called a ‘little death,’ and a rebirth in various senses.”
- A.H. Maslow
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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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