Simon Powell - The Psilocybin Solution

In such a climate riddled with propaganda and disinformation, overshadowed by fear and suspicion, where users of illegal drugs are vigorously persecuted by public agencies, it is very difficult, and takes courage, to speak out about the possibly beneficial, mind-expanding, eye-opening, and consciousness-enhancing effects of certain illegal drugs. That, however, is precisely what Simon G. Powell has done in The Psilocybin Solution, where he makes the case for nothing less than the systematic, targeted use of psilocybin and other natural psychedelics to explore the fundamental mysteries of our own existence.

Psilocybin, Powell believes, has the power to open our consciousness to the communications of “the Other,” which he ultimately defines as the vast, guiding intelligence that underlies all of Nature and that has harnessed the entire universe to its cause—“a sentient and intentional agency made of information whose presence and teachings await us.” And he adds: “When one has encountered the Other through the visionary effects of a strong dose of psilocybin mushrooms it becomes quite evident that, whatever the Other’s ultimate intent, consciousness is an essential part of the plan.”

There’s a widespread assumption that the brain makes consciousness the way a factory makes cars. But there’s no proof that this is actually how things work. The brain could equally well be a receiver, or transceiver, that manifests consciousness on the physical plane. We simply do not know how these few pounds of jelly inside our skulls allow us to appreciate a sunset or a symphony, or experience love or joy. It’s the greatest mystery of science.

Into this mystery Powell steps with the radical suggestion that everything is information and that all the information accumulated by the universe in the fourteen billion years since the big bang is best understood as a sort of gigantic computation intentionally designed to result, somewhere, sometime, in the evolution of consciousness—just as it has done on earth. Most proponents of intelligent design focus on the apparent irreducible complexity of specific organs or organisms—a losing proposition, since evolutionary theory explains complexity quite well without having to call for a designer. But Powell focuses much more plausibly on the grand context in which evolution unfolds. That context, he contends, can only be the work of an intelligence of a far higher order than our own that wilfully endowed the universe with precursor conditions and laws of physics capable of nurturing the eventual evolution of consciousness.

These are provocative and powerful ideas that contribute to a growing debate in science and philosophy about the mysterious nature of reality. And while Powell’s thesis may be controversial, he is surely right that the targeted use of psilocybin and related entheogens offers our best hope for solving the mystery. These substances must be demythologized as the folk devils of the war on drugs and welcomed as valuable allies in our search for meaning in the universe. In precisely those areas of inquiry where science and all its instruments fail us we are fortunate indeed that “the sacred mushroom now beckons.”

Graham Hancock, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, is a British writer and journalist. His books, including Fingerprints of the Gods, The Sign and The Seal, and Heaven’s Mirror, have sold more than five million copies worldwide and have been translated into twenty-seven languages. His public lectures, radio, and television appearances have allowed his ideas to reach a vast audience, identifying him as an unconventional thinker who raises controversial questions about humanity’s past.

This book has passed through many hands and been subject to many revisions. To be sure, it has been a very long and laborious struggle to reach this stage. Now that the book has finally been accepted for publication, I should say a few brief words about its admittedly unusual content. Essentially, I present the reader with a series of bold ideas and concepts concerning the nature of the user-friendly Universe in which we find ourselves. In particular, I explore the significance of consciousness within the Universe, for consciousness is the very core of our being. And it is precisely the very core of our being that psychoactive fungi can so dramatically illuminate. This may explain why such fungi were more often than not venerated and deified by those historical cultures that employed them.

I have tried, to the best of my abilities, to make sense of my own personal experiences with one particular psychoactive fungus native to Great Britain (at a time, I might add, when possession of this mushroom in its fresh state was completely legal). These experiences involved dramatic changes in consciousness and the acquisition of what seemed to be a new kind of knowledge. The experiences were generally so profound as to make it difficult to integrate them into more traditional modes of thought. And yet it is undoubtedly this assimilation of what would appear to be higher knowledge that is so crucial if these kinds of experience are to have a lasting, positive effect. Hence my writing of this book. However, it would be ludicrous for me to suggest that I have written the “truth,” for truth is something that must be experienced personally. At heart, then, this book consists of a series of provisional hypotheses about the meaning of life, which have been formulated in the wake of certain extraordinary states of mind. The experiences themselves were real and were thus “true,” whereas, of course, my interpretation of them might well be in error.

One thing of which I am wholly convinced and that I should make clear at the outset is that the ingestion of traditionally deified plants and fungi can, in the long run, afford a benign change in our understanding and conception of Nature. It is evident that at the current time our relationship with the natural world is so alienated and so out of balance that only radical means may prevent global catastrophe. In this sense the sacred mushroom is, at least potentially, a very powerful eco-psychological catalyst able to heal our relations with the rest of the web of life. Of this, no one should be fearful.

It might be a decidedly curious way to begin a book, but humor me and ask yourself the following question: Who or what killed Einstein? What entity or force ended the life of perhaps the greatest mind of our era, that scientist whose name is synonymous with intelligence? Well, it was clearly not a butler who did it, nor, as far as we know, was it an assassin belonging to some sinister governmental agency. To put it bluntly, it was the reality process that killed the great Einstein.

Although this deceptively simple answer may seem reminiscent of a wry Woody Allen joke, what I mean to convey is that all of us, regardless of age, sex, race, or creed, are born out of, and are destined to die within, a massive ongoing process consisting not only of the evolution of life on Earth but of the evolution of the Universe as a whole. It is this relentless and all-encompassing process within which we are all so intimately embedded that we term reality . We might also refer to this process as Nature . Thus, another obvious way of answering my peculiar question is to say that natural causes killed Einstein. This means, in the final analysis, that Nature birthed Einstein, gave him seventy-six years of existence, and then summarily dissolved him.