Vital Zine #5 featuring observations from my studies and recent happenings in the space

The next stage of human consciousness is calling. Are we brave enough to answer?

Dr David Luke is the most intrepid researcher of the psychedelic renaissance - ‘the real new psychonaut’. Straight out of London but living “on the edge… of Sussex” his inspirational investigations include DMT space exploration, the psychedelic divine feminine, biophilia (tree hugging) and psionic powers – often conducted “in the field”.

David Luke dropped out of lecturing to study shamanism, and returned to Britain with consciousness expanded. Since he’s been at the vanguard of the psychedelic renaissance, consistently leading by example. Senior lecturer at all the best universities, co-founder of Breaking Convention, and director of the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness salon at the Institute of Ecotechnics which sounds incredible, he is a global figure in the transpersonal psychology movement. And he spoke to Vital students about it.

In the Zine this week:

Approach: Transpersonal psychology is back and this time it’s real

Therapy: The Psychedelic Divine Feminine

Space: Field Research

Medical: DMT Vs Death

Integral: Alchemy for the People

Plus! Graph/Visual Aid of the Week and second hand books

Transpersonal psychology is back and this time it’s real

In the 1980s transpersonal psychology staple and Way of the Psychonaut author Stanislav Grof found himself inventing holotropic breathwork out of necessity after LSD faded from grace.

Reflecting courageously on the flaws of transpersonal psychology, where science meets the super-normal, he nonetheless pointed out that the approach showed enormous potential for a range of treatment resistant diseases. And that it could be applied to other fields: like ecology, business, social work, maybe even medicine itself again someday.

“The psychology of transformative experience” is how Dr Luke describes ‘transpersonal psychology’. Back in polite conversation thanks to Iain McGilchrist’s philosophy blockbuster The Matter with Things it’s the shrinks’ most progressive field, big in the 60s at Esalen and back with a vengeance thanks to everyone from ecologists to talk therapy refuseniks and engineers of the zero-point field, to pharma giants and governments with nationalised healthcare and their eyes on psychedelics’ potential to cure disease and reboot productivity. 

“The only revolution that can work… is the inner transformation of every human being”

The transpersonal are “moments that evolve your current ego identity… by stepping outside normal consciousness to connection with a wider other,” explains Dr Luke. You’re in the realm of the transpersonal when you’re feeling warm and clear after meditating or making it to church: plus when acknowledging childhood trauma, or during a full revelatory, inner-visual spiritual experience… or being abducted by aliens, having a spontaneous DMT exprience, astral projecting, arguably dreaming and so on.

The discipline is “ethnogenic, cognicentric and pragmacentric” meaning entirely inclusive and accepting of other modes of consciousness. It evolved throughout the 20th century from William James’ ‘radical empiricism’ – scientific testing for the mysterious and hitherto unknown – to include Burke’s ‘cosmic consciousness’, Jung and Maslow’s pining for the mystic, and ‘post religious’ belief systems like Ken Wilbur’s integral.

You still have to do the graft though. “The only revolution that can work… is the inner transformation of every human being,” said Grof, and transpersonal psychology includes a faith in humanity’s ability to evolve not only physically but mentally, spiritually… and psionically. 

“The mycelium is the message” grins Dr Luke, “other societies have sanctioned altered states, while ours refuses their existence.”

Don’t confuse transpersonal psychology with quantuum psychology.

Psychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine

Dr Luke’s diverse body of work includes goddess energy. And not just the kind that cooks.

He co-edited of Psychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine: Creativity, Ecstasy, and Healing. To co-editor Maria Papaspyrou the psychdelic feminine represents self-expression, spontaneity, intuition, inclination towards change, mindfulness, connection, and acceptance. It isn’t gender-specific but archetypal: “the feminine is an elemental pattern we all carry within ourselves, whether we are men or women,” says Papaspyrou.

She cites Gareth Hill, a Jungian analyst who divided the feminine into ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ aspects. Static “serves the impersonal goals of life on Earth, species preservation and survival.” The dynamic “receives her wisdom by engaging with direct experience, and is receptive to knowledge that belongs to the deep inner worlds”.

“The realms beyond that space belong to the feminine, and there we meet what is beyond words”

It is the dynamic in particular that we deny at our disservice and peril: “The dynamic feminine represents spaces that can be fascinating and ecstatic as well as terrifying and disorienting, that as a society we have learned to resist.” This is represented in myth by tantric goddess Kali who tramples men that gaze ecstatically up at her as a result, as she finally frees from the constraints of ego. We’ve all been there chaps.

The feminine is psychedelic in that it encompasses concepts like cosmic union, timelessness, rebirth, and ego death. “The realms beyond that space belong to the feminine, and there we meet what is beyond words and immediate perception,” says Papaspyrou. Never mind that many sectors of the psychedelic renaissance are, or will, be served by women from social work to psychotherapy and luxury tourism.

Out in the Field

“What can the medical sector learn from the psychedelic subcultre? Everything.”

“It’s citizen science at its finest – but tragically illegal,” further replied Dr. Luke to my question.

‘Field research’ is his term for the surveys and private research projects he’s conducted on the fringes of everyday reality.

“I’ve invented ‘psychograms’ to represent all sorts of altered states. I have about four art-stroke-science virtual reality projects on the go right now rangng from inducing synaesthesic meditation to interplanetary inter-connectedness and the tarot,” says Dr Luke, “It’s the inverse – you alter your perception to change your brain, rather than alter your brain to change your perception. We have things like that at the festivals, they supposedly replicate the effects psychedelics… at least on paper according to the tests. I slightly don’t believe it, but there is massive potential.”

While keen to stress that “psychedelics are not a panacea” like all authentic experts, extensive surveys conducted by Dr Luke and his team “show that they can be good for all kinds of things actually, from autism to Parkinson’s.”

“This is the intersection of science, and genuine transcendence of time/space to bring back information”

In the suburban living rooms of Britain something stirs. “We go round to people’s houses, it’s much more pleasant for the subjects. We did some experiments with precognitive individuals, and put shared experiences declared by ayahuasca users under the microscope: two people, experienced users who didn’t know each other, weren’t allowed to talk beforehand, attempted to join each other in the experience, and were interviewed separately afterwards. I haven’t fully evaluated the data as indepenent judges are interpeting the reports and images. But just eyeballing the material, I thought it was a long shot but… it looks like we’re going to get something quite significant. Albert Hoffman saw the doctor coming with an obsidian knife and feathered headdress. He knew where the provenance; his colleagues in Basle had similar visions, but no idea of any connection to Mexico or the Inca.”

This is the intersection of science, “and genuine transcendence of time and space to bring back information,” declares Dr Luke, “I’ve been looking into creative problem solving with scientists in DMT, bridging the gap betwen shamanism and science. It speaks to the very nature of reality, the meeting point between worldviews. And nobody’s asking these questions. They’re asking ‘What does it do in the brain?’ questions. And they’re getting ‘What it does in the brain’ kind of answers. They don’t engage with the glaring ontological questions about the nature of reality.”

He believes the obvious experts to turn to, like many actually do, are the DMT explorers of the Amazon. “Collectively as a culture they have thousands of years of expertise They were the original keeps of the wisdom and the substances. They haven’t been invited to the table at these multi billion dollar conferences.”

DMT Vs Death

Is DMT space the afterlife, and do we go there when we die… to be an entity?

According to a recent paper by proper brainbox Dr Christopher Timmerman, DMT replicates the near death experience (NDE).

Judging by his own enthusiastic research “the truth is “going to be more complex,” says Dr Luke, who has studied more than one shamanistic tradition first hand in detail. “There are features of the DMT experience you don’t get with NDE. Intense geometric patterns and colours for example, which are fundamental. Encounters with deceased relatives, and premonition [predicting the future] are less common in DMT. But 4-5% of people who take DMT have a ‘deceased encounter’ – but no ‘life review’ or ‘tunnel’. Then there are the encounters with little people that have been around for a long time. Graham Hancock made a direct comparison to modern-day alien abduction experiences. Although traditionally they were associated with the world of the dead. There’s many layers - the two not the same, I would say. They may be related. DMT may be ‘released’ at death. It may be created in the pineal gland. But we don’t have enough hard evidence.”

There are many other hypotheses: “I have colleagues who believe DMT entities are ‘intro-ceptive.’ You’re encountering your own micro-biome, mitochondria or other internal structures. Interesting theory, but it doesn’t account for the 25 -foot tall preying mantises.”

DMT is prevalent at much higher levels in the human body than previously believed. Maybe to the same extent as serotonin, to which it is increasingly compared

So should we, like our mate says, avoid taking DMT in case it uses up all our death high, and our eventual moment momet of union with cosmic whole is, like, a dud? According to hardcore research where scientsists monitored the brain activity in rats while they died, DMT is produced at six times the normal level at the moment of extermination. But other chemicals, including serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine are blasted at many more times the normal levels.

“There’s very good reasons to think DMT is produced in the human pineal gland,” says Dr Luke, “but it could be made in the body.” In 2019 a heavyweight paper from the DMT Quest organisation concluded DMT is prevalent at much higher levels in the human body than previously believed; even to the same extent as serotonin, to which it is increasingly compared. The pineal gland is tiny, points out Dr Luke, and said expirements on rats were also conducted on another set of rats who’d had their pineal glands removed. DMT was still produced at large quantities upon death.

While we’re asking questions like ‘are entities real?’ in the pub, more ambitious brains are looking into the relationship between the pineal gland, DMT and autism (upon which Dr Luke has conducted surveys suggesting “extremely promsing data”) while dudes like Andrew Gilmore and Anton Bilton are talking about setitng up a DMT hyperspace station for extended exploration and communion.

Alchemy for the People

Stanislav Grof said “It would be nice to see people be able to go for hikes, or go swimming.” Albert Hoffman insisted LSD was experienced in the wild.

“I used to go surfing, I’m a big fan of watersports on psychedelics,” giggles Dr Luke, “A lot of the outdoor-wilderness extreme sports have gone hand in hand with psychedelic culture.” James Oroc was the Burning Man face and 5-MEO author better known to extreme sports fans as paraglider ‘Kiwi’ Johnston, who passed away doing what he loved in 2020.

“Ecologists in Europe have druids involved, which is my fault,”

Morphic resonance – relating to the consciousness of others, said to be a skill of shipibo ayahuasca healers – is strong in ceremonial groups. “Will I ever be able to conuct forest therapy with a hundred, maybe ten thousand people?” dreamed aloud one Vital student in the Q&A. “Ecologists in Europe have druids involved, which is my fault,” was all Dr Luke could unfortunately offer, with acceptance on that scale being so far away.

Although what with MDMA apparently being a psychedelic now, we’ve been in ceremony outdoors, admittedly with the drumming updated, for a while now. Here’s to James Oroc and all the rave ancestors.

Kool-Aid Corner

To finish: trippy clippings, merry pranks, and psychedelic student life

Graph/visual aid of the Week

Comparison of entopic phenomena with the cave art of the San, the Coso and of Upper Paleolithic Europe

After Lewis-Williams and Dowson, 1988

From: Visionary: The Mysterious Origins of Human Consciousness (The Definitive Edition of Supernatural) (2022) by Graham Hancock

My bookshelf weighs a ton

Notable new purchases for the occult library. Strictly second hand snap-ups only

This week: The Secret of the Yamas by that John McAfee

Before he invented anti-virus software and became a tech billionaire John McAfee was a meditation teacher. He wrote this book, considered a classic amongst aficionados.

Eventually there was the whole thing in Belize. The abyss claims another: “Arrakis has seen men like you come, and go.” Non-duality is not necessarily peaceful. The anima works in notoriously, poetically mysterious ways.

Next issue: Contemporary Philosophy of Psychedelics

This blog is not affiliated to Vital beyond my study on the course. The content shouldn’t be taken as representative as it’s a personal reflection and includes my own lived experience of the sector too.

Psychedelic drugs are prohibited in the UK, other countries and most US states. I do not condone their use nor am I evangelising for, or recommending them to you. There are more qualified people you can turn to in the Resources section but if you are considering psychedelic treatments the best person to speak to is probably your own therapist, counsellor, or doctor.