Simon Powell - The Psilocybin Solution

Universally powerful visionary symbols can be thought of as expressions in the dictionary of a “higher” language connected with the human psyche. What I mean by “higher” is that the visual elements in this language are far more rich in meaning and informational content than the words of our spoken language. Moreover, seeing visionary symbols choreographed together in a movielike fashion—as occurs in the psilocybinetic state—is to experience meaning in perhaps its purest, most informationally rich way. To partake of a visionary dialogue is to be overwhelmed by the direct apprehension of pure, unadulterated meaning, which arises as a consequence of the highly integrative informational processes liberated by entheogenic compounds.

In the metaphorical and visual language emanating from the most integrated information processing of the human psyche, the serpent therefore appears to be a significant “word” or icon, itself derived from the natural environment. There are many such universally potent icons derived from the natural environment. Try now, if you would, to imagine in glorious Technicolor a volcano erupting, a butterfly emerging from its pupa, or a hand reaching into a flame. Further imagine all of the ways that potent symbolic images like these could be meaningfully put together by some agency dissociated from the self or ego to convey some message or idea to us. And finally, imagine an informationally rich creation like this being experienced directly by one’s consciousness with no interference whatsoever. Here we begin to understand what the shamanic visionary experience is like, that it consists essentially of a communication transmitted in the higher language expressed by the Other, a language of symbols embodied in animated imagery.

Seeing, it seems, is the most direct form of perception. This is why one comes to “see the truth.” It also explains why art is powerful. A great painting is unworded yet it may well speak volumes to us. Visual symbols and images can be truly effective in their capacity to inform. It is in this sense that I refer to a higher language of the psyche, a language not of words but of concentrations of information visibly beheld.

To really see something is to see what something really means, and to see what something really means is to instantly access all of its inherent relations to other things. To see a powerful symbol, whether in a shamanic vision, a dream, or a spiritual piece of art, is to behold a concentration of information, a supercondensed concrescence of meaning.

The idea then is that very large amounts of information can cohere and coalesce into symbols, and, since all brains work in the same way, universal symbols might emerge in a language of symbols, just as universal expressions and meanings emerge in all worded languages. But it should be stressed that universal symbols are related to real objects in the shared world. Even if they are not deified, snakes, for example, are generally at least feared the world over, and for good reason, since their venom can prove fatal. This automatically means that the real-world snake is going to be a good candidate for playing a role as a universal symbol wherever symbol-generating processes arise.

In the case of entheogenic visions (or dreams), it might well be that they contain not only universal symbols, but culturally determined symbols that can be fully understood and appreciated only on a personal level. In the case of much of South American shamanism, like that practiced by the ayahuasca-using Tukanoan Indians of Colombia, we do indeed find culturally determined symbology in the visions experienced by the shamans, often related to powerful and revered jungle creatures like the jaguar, as well as the ubiquitous serpent. These Tukanoan shamans also experience imagery related to their particular brand of cosmology, which is known and fostered by all members of the tribe. An analysis of the varied pieces of artwork inspired by their psychedelic visionary experiences reveals a striking commonality, for the Indians invariably portray the spiritual entities encountered in the same way and in the same style. This clearly testifies to the culture-bound nature of their visions; that is, they experience one particular kind of visionary dialogue with the Other.

From the perspective of the informational approach being taken here, such culturally determined visionary dialogues still result from information integration within the psychedelically altered brain, with the attendant fact that the information used in the visionary communication derives, in part, from the shamans’ personal store of knowledge. Because these native South Americans share the same culture and experience the same environmental forces, certain symbols and images will be highly significant to them in a way that an outsider would not be able to fully understand. It appears then that, in common with spoken language, there exist regional “visionary dialects” expressed in the psychedelic state, the dialect being determined by the tribe’s unique physical and cultural environment.

Claudio Naranjo, a researcher who spent many years investigating the shamanic use of ayahuasca in the Amazon, reached a similar conclusion about the commonality of the shamans’ visions. Naranjo wrote of visionary symbols as follows:

The superimposition of the reptile, the feline’s fangs and claws and the bird’s wings (as well as the fish’s watery environment and scales) results in the image of the dragon [synonymous with the mythical serpent]. Furthermore, through an examination of dragon myths and the content of subjects’ reports, I concluded that the consciousness stimulated by ayahuasca involved an intuition of the inseparability of life and death, an apprehension of life as a self-consuming and self-devouring living-into-death or dying-into-life—and observed that just as mythical dragons may be symbols of good and evil, ayahuasca animals may be terrifying or friendly according to the readiness of the psyche to accept life-death or to reject, not only the “internal animal” but a greater Life, along with its deadliness and mortality. {31} 31 2. Naranjo, “Ayahuasca Imagery and the Therapeutic Property of the Harmala Alkaloids,” 133.

Whether Naranjo is wholly correct in his particular interpretation is not important. The point is that this kind of interpretation, in which the visionary elements are considered to be symbols replete with meaning, matches the theoretical approach being taken here. Visionary symbols can be understood as deriving from the forced confluence of vast amounts of information . In my own experience, psilocybin visions are accompanied by the unmistakeable sensation that huge amounts of psychological information are indeed being forced to fold, merge, and cohere and, moreover, that this process of forced coalescence mimics over a brief period of time what Nature at large is doing over a long period of time. In each case, self-organization is involved—whether of information or matter and/or energy.

It really is as if individual films of the utmost sophistication are forged by the Other and are forcibly screened before the mind’s eye while one is in the psilocybinetic state. The visions well up magically from the depths of the psyche as though woven out of some undulating multicolored dream fabric, as if one’s visual cortex were directly interfaced with some megapowerful intentional computer. Obscure items from memory are often strung together in some new creative fashion, or perhaps one witnesses scenes never before encountered but that are nevertheless immediately understood. In either case, the visions fairly burst with an overwhelming amount of information.