Simon Powell - The Psilocybin Solution

Having defended the idea of humanity-saving technology, I would once more remind the critical reader that psilocybin is not a technological product anyway (at least not in the traditional sense). Koestler perceived it so because his psilocybin came in the form of a Sandoz pill, the perfect symbol of a modern technological fix. This is in direct contrast to the overtly organic symbolism of the wild mushroom.

When Koestler left Leary’s company to return to New York, it was wryly noted that he did not walk back but got a plane. Leary concluded that to ignore psilocybin as a psychological tool would be akin to rejecting the microscope because it made seeing too easy, a good analogy since both tools uncover the hidden riches of Nature.

I think it safe to conclude that Koestler’s negative attitude stemmed principally from his painful store of POW memories and the unresolved conflicts lying in the depths of his psyche. In particular, I would suggest, as did Leary, that Koestler’s Catholic guilt played a large part in his rejection of the mushroom.

This same type of traditional religious guilt, which seems to have plagued humans from time immemorial and which easily transforms into an oppressive drive against other people’s freedom, was also displayed, among others, by the French poet Baudelaire. Like other nineteenth-century poets and writers, such as Byron, Shelley, Balzac, De Quincey, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (who reputedly wrote Kubla Khan after an opium reverie), Baudelaire once used “trendy” psychoactive plant products like opium and cannabis for creative purposes. Yet he later came to utterly despise them, as if they were the root of all that is evil and misleading, no less than the most cunning of the Devil’s tools for thwarting humankind from reaching God.

The point is missed, almost deliberately it seems. Psychoactive plant substances are not inherently evil; rather they can become destructive if used in excess or for the wrong reasons, much as any benign substance can become harmful if used beyond moderation. Had Koestler been in the possession of the right frame of mind and received the ultimate gift of the psilocybin mushroom, that is, had he perceived a direct communion with the transcendental Other and realized that this was a wholly natural phenomenon, then perhaps he would have embraced psilocybin’s cultural healing potential.

It seems, then, that if the potentially spiritual effects of the mushroom are likened to a stream, the stream can “hit” the wrong human mind, or at least the wrong state of mind, causing the stream to be blocked. Where it cannot flow on and blossom, psilocybin’s numinous potential will remain unrealized. God’s Flesh is clearly not for everyone. This fact must perforce be considered at length before any kind of nontrivial investigation commence.

In his noted book The Ghost in the Machine, written in 1967, Koestler had a wonderful opportunity to praise the virtues of entheogenic agents. Among other things, the book is concerned with humankind’s violent, paranoid, destructive streak and how this evil can be overcome. After documenting the awful historical effects of our “schizophysiology,” as he terms it, Koestler argues that our only hope for survival is to develop techniques that supplant biological evolution. He reminds us of all the ways we have tampered with Nature—like birth control, disease prevention, and artificial environment creation—in order to simulate and control the process of evolution for our own adaptive advantage. So, asks Koestler, can we not invent a remedy for the human tendency toward destruction?

Unable to ignore Aldous Huxley’s popular advocacy of psychedelics as cultural healing agents, Koestler opposes that kind of solution, claiming that it is fundamentally wrong and naive to expect drugs to confer free gifts upon the mind. In other words, Koestler asserts that drugs cannot put into the mind something that is not already there. He argues that the “psycho-pharmacist” cannot add to the faculties of the brain, at best we can only eliminate obstructions that might impede the brain’s proper functioning.

Koestler finally envisages a “mental stabilizer” or hormone that can integrate the psyche. He even goes as far as fearing that his readers will be disgusted by the idea of relying upon salvation through molecular chemistry rather than spiritual rebirth. This is an astonishing claim, even the more so since he refuses to advocate natural entheogenic substances as his “mental stabilizer.”

Contrary to Koestler’s beliefs, Nature and the evolutionary process have not let the human race down; rather, we have been blind to Nature’s subtle ecological solutions. Nature works in mysterious ways, one of which is the production of plants and fungi possessing vital shamanic power through which the web of life, which includes human culture, can continue to function healthily.

Although it might sound somewhat archaic to seek curative help from plants and fungi in our modern era, we should keep in mind that shamanism is perhaps the oldest form of religious psychotherapy and that the knowledge gained by visionary shamans was used precisely to help heal the tribe. There is no reason to assume that such psychedelic shamanism is now impotent or irrelevant, especially if we consider the interconnectedness of the biosphere. In ecological terms, the shamanic ingestion of plants and fungi is an entirely natural process that—when we take into account the ecological system of shaman, tribe, and plant—is essentially homeostatic in that one part of the environment acts upon another to restore balance and health; in this case certain plants and fungi yield aid through their psychological effects and the higher knowledge that they convey. This “eco-psychotherapy,” as we may call it, highlights just how much we are connected to the rest of life’s web and how the solutions to our problems are often to be found growing around us (including, of course, potential botanical cures for cancer and AIDS still to be discovered in what is left of the Earth’s great rain forests).

Entheogenic species of plant and fungus still offer us a wealth of psychotherapeutic power if we choose to look their way, not to mention the information they reveal about the chemical mutability of human consciousness and the possible transformation of our models of reality. Like most philosophers, Koestler seemed far removed from the natural botanical world, but with the advent of ecological awareness movements and a renewed interest in all things Green and environmentally friendly, our deep connection to the rest of Nature looms ever more apparent and a Green cultural ethos is already establishing itself. By radical means, Nature itself may yet cure our destructive streak.

Another well-known writer at the time of psilocybin’s first wave of Western use was the revered author and poet Robert Graves, who also wrote publicly of his mushroom experience. Actually, Graves had been intrigued by mushrooms ever since he had licked a species of fly agaric as a young boy and had consequently experienced burning sensations on his tongue. Perhaps the incident was a symbolic biospherical kiss of sorts, or at least a taste of things to come. At any rate, as the reader will recall, it was Graves who originally notified Wasson of the secret mushroom ceremonies still extant in Mexico. It comes as no surprise then that Graves eventually went on to write speculative articles on entheogenic mushroom use in ancient Greece (his speculations remain contentious) after he tried the sacrament in Wasson’s New York apartment in 1960.

Graves was, it transpires, understandably apprehensive about his first brush with psilocybin, especially worried that he might perceive “demons” behind his closed eyes. Being the author of the acclaimed The White Goddess, a book about a historical cult of goddess worship, was no guarantee that Gaia’s mushroom would shower him with grace (Gaia was originally the name of the Greek Earth goddess).