Simon Powell - The Psilocybin Solution

Now that I have acquainted the reader with the distinctly mystical nature of the psilocybin experience, it is time for us to focus our attention on psilocybin’s physical modus operandi. If we can come to grips with how alkaloids like psilocybin work their spectacular effects within the brain and mind, then we will be one step closer to a preliminary understanding of the nature of consciousness and the underlying factors governing the switch from normal awareness to the mystical perception of an intelligent Other.

At this point, consciousness lies smack-dab at the center of our inquiry. All our paths of investigation lead directly to it. The psilocybin cultural history covered in the first few chapters of this book arose solely because of the radical change in consciousness induced by the mushroom in the Mayan and Aztec psyche. The pre-LSD investigations at Harvard were likewise galvanized into action by psilocybin-induced states of consciousness. Indeed, the whole 1960s thing happened, in part, precisely because of the new ranges of conscious experience originally kick-started into existence by the mushroom. The growing second wave of psychedelic research has likewise appeared on account of the compelling nature of entheogenic states of consciousness. One cannot escape the mystery of consciousness. Psilocybin simply highlights the boundless nature and mystical potential of the human mind lest we allow this fortunate state of affairs to pass us by.

As I pointed out at the very outset of this book, if we are interested in apprehending the ultimate nature of the reality process, it makes sense to focus on consciousness because consciousness represents the interface that links us to the “world out there.” If we can understand what consciousness is, we might also understand how consciousness is able to be transformed and whether such a transformation can yield bona fide insights into the subtle nature of Nature. Nothing less than reality is up for grabs.

In the chapters that follow, I hope to develop a new, nontechnical, and user-friendly theoretical framework that can explain both normal consciousness and entheogenic consciousness. Essentially this conceptual framework derives from Aldous Huxley’s reasonable assertion that the psychedelic experience results from an influx of information not normally available to us—hence the “doors of perception” being opened after ingestion of substances like, in Huxley’s case, mescaline. What I eventually hope to show is that consciousness is actually a form of information; that physical matter can be described in terms of information also; and that reality ultimately consists of a flow of self-organizing information, with human consciousness occupying a significant functional role in the entire process. However, before we can explore the exciting ramifications that an informational model of reality yields, we must start from the beginning, that is, we must look more closely at the obviously important physical relationship between psilocybin and the human brain.

In any serious attempt to elucidate the brain processes underlying the psychological effects of entheogenic agents, one must utilize whatever relevant scientific data is at hand. In our case this means neuropsychological data, of which much has become available since the 1950s era, when Huxley wrote The Doors of Perception .

Neuropsychology is a modern scientific discipline based on the study of the nervous system, which consists of the body’s entire network of nerve cells. These nerve cells, or neurons as they are more formally known, allow us to sense, transmit, and process information. Whereas other cells in the body are designed to form tissues and organs, neurons exist solely to transmit information in the form of discrete signals, or impulses. We are able to see, touch, smell, hear, taste, feel, and think because we possess a vast network of these neurons, which manage to continually process and communicate information about both the external state of the world and the internal state of the body.

Of particular interest to neuropsychologists is the detailed study of the brain (one component of the nervous system) and the way the brain’s particular neurons function to produce thinking and behavior. Because psychoactive substances are known to influence the way brain neurons process information, neuropsychology has made some headway into understanding the chemistry of the brain and the actual way in which psychoactive substances work. Thus, we now know something about how common psychoactive substances like coffee, nicotine, and alcohol interact with the brain’s neuronal architecture to cause their desired psychological effects of stimulation or stupor.

However, the study of psychoactive substances is far from being neuropsychology’s key research area. Of perhaps most prominence is the study of the effects of brain trauma, a condition in which parts of the brain are damaged. A brief look at the rationale governing this kind of research reveals that we can approach the phenomenon of the entheogenic experience in much the same theoretical way.

For instance, medical patients with brain tumors and a corresponding psychological deficiency are, despite their misfortune, of great interest to neuropsychologists because a causal relationship can be ascertained between the area of the tumor and the particular psychological disturbance. This is equally true of brain-damaged victims of accidents, for where there is localized brain damage one invariably finds psychological disturbances of a definite kind that are associated with that area of the brain.

As an example, damage to the part of the brain known as Broca’s area often leads to language problems associated with speech production. Patients of this type have no difficulty in understanding speech but have noticeable difficulty in producing speech, even to the point of being mute. The point of interest is that a specific area of the physical brain is damaged with an associated specific psychological disruption. Once the neuropsychologist has gathered a wealth of such examples, then psychological functions like language (which is often disrupted after brain injury) can be divided into various subsystems or “modules” operating in different areas of the brain, each of which can be differentially affected.

The upshot of this methodological enterprise is that scientists are now able to speculate about normal brain function and to link localized physical brain mechanisms with aspects of the mind. This is quite an achievement, resulting directly from the prevailing localization paradigm governing a major part of neuropsychology. It is therefore not unusual to come across references to the mapping of the human brain whereby different areas are associated with different psychological functions.

Bearing this in mind, it is clear that we could examine the entheogenic experience in a similar way. That is, by looking at the specific changes to consciousness arising from the presence of specific substances in the brain, we should be able to theorize about how normal consciousness arises. In other words, just as we can analyze abnormal language production and then speculate about how the language system works in normal people, so too can we analyze altered states of consciousness and speculate about the nature of normal consciousness. At any rate, by examining chemical changes associated with changes in consciousness, we ought definitely to come to some understanding about the nature of mind stuff and the ways it is possible to modify mind stuff through chemistry. On the face of it at least, this area of study promises a wealth of relevant psychological data with which to understand the elusive nature of mind.