Those attending the World Psychedelic Forum on Friday had a lot of information to digest. And while many attendees found parties at which they could perhaps have a more personal psychedelic experience, I was still trying to get used to the 6 hour time change. So the only contact I would make that night would be with my pillow.
Saturday, the Forum took a turn towards man's psychic history as the focus of the day would be Shamanism. I've written much about shamanism on these pages and about those special people throughout the ages who have been able to transcend this world by means of often painful personal shamanic crises.
In fact, shamans were arguably the most important agents of human intellectual and psychic evolution in history. You only need to view the cave paintings at Chauvet in modern day France, painted over 32,000 years ago, to realize that what was being depicted in those paintings was evidence of shamanic rituals. It is not hard to imagine the states of consciousness the shamans must have attained as they stared at the flickering images of their power animals so deep in the darkened depths of those mysterious caves.
I have learned that almost all indigenous shamans become shamans due to a crisis of physical or mental health, or through a near-death experience. Whether these people were epileptics, struck by lightning, gravely ill and recovered, or even clinically psychotic, indigenous societies recognized them as--like Superman--having powers and abilities far beyond those of the average man.
What shamans brought back from the caves, then, was information on where to hunt, how to defeat their enemies and how to heal. Another product of their expanded consciousness--as evidenced by the cave paintings themselves--was art. For man to have evolved to the point where we are today, there had to be a more evolved core of humans who were able to access a higher knowledge and lead early man toward his intellectual future. These were and are the shamans.
If we look at the many "ways of knowing" honored around the world today, it has to be recognized that whether we are speaking of religions or philosophies, the genesis of most of them originated with people who had experienced "shamanic crises" or other kinds of mystical states. One of the most complex frameworks of philosophical understanding of these issues is Buddhism, more specifically Tibetan Buddhism, which has its roots in an ancient shamanic tradition known as Bön. What Tibetan Buddhism formulated were methods of achieving the shamanic states without having to go through the physical and mental health trials of earlier times. This is similar to what Stanislav Grof has done with his Holotropic Breathwork method of achieving a shamanic state of consciousness.
For many attendees of WPF, their knowledge that much of what man knows about the psychedelic states come from shamans, the bow to the shamanism was an interesting and important diversion from the science and modern research into shamanic states.
Since much of my reading has either centered or touched on shamanism, many of the speakers for this day were of great interest to me.
Claudia Müller-Ebeling along with her husband, Christian Rätsch are two of the premiere German experts on shamanic pharmacopoeia. Müller-Ebeling is an anthropologist and art historian, while Rätsch is an anthropologist and author who has spent years living with indigenous peoples around the world including shamans of the Bön religion. His half-Mongolian heritage and long hair and fu-manchu give him a somewhat wild, if not shamanic, appearance.
The only true shaman at the Forum was Kajuyali Tsamani from the Columbia Kogi people. His overview at the Panorama session was translated and was quite a bit longer than the average overview of 10 or 12 minutes, but no one was about to tell this man that his time was up. He carried a cloth bag at his side and only when he was done did I see that he was giving everyone on the dais something from the bag. Since I saw one of the participants place the substance in his cheek, I guessed that he had brought some of his home-grown coca leaves to present as a gift to his fellow speakers. I know that I, for one, was hoping that he would have shared with the audience as well...but, sadly, that was not to be.
Next on the docket was a German-American Anthropologist/Ethnobotanist Wolf-Dieter Storl, whose external appearance is a mixture of Grizzly Adams and Harry Potter's Dumbledore...or perhaps Hagrid.
While Dr. Storl is a renowned scientist, his life and work since moving to a remote part of Germany has centered around shamanic plants and healing practices as well as the wider study of native European shamanism that was brutally supressed over the centuries by the Catholic and Protestant Religions. He is also an expert on Hindu spiritual teaching and has written a number of book on the god Shiva.
Speaking of the god Shiva, an authentic Hindu guru spoke at the Forum. What makes this guru very interesting to Westerners is his background. Baba Rampuri, known as "The Blue-Eyed Yogi", has this brief bio on his website:
Baba Rampuri, an American expatriate, has lived in India since 1970, when be became the first foreigner to be initiated into India's most ancient order of yogis and shamans, the Naga Sannyasis [or Naked Babas]. He is now a guru with a number of disciples within the order.During his long discipleship in this mystical and sometimes dangerous world, he received traditional teachings in Language, mantra, tantra, ayurveda, logic, ritual, and, encompassing all the above, the way of the yogi in the Yoga Tradition. Baba says, "Your tool of knowledge is language, because its boundaries establish the possibilities of the world."
After founding the Hari Puri Ashram in the Himalayan foothill town of Hardwar in 1984, Baba has since become a member of the Council of Elders of Datt Akhara, Ujjain, Central India, and the special envoy of its Pir. He divides his time between his ashram in Hardwar, Ujjain, and Goa. He hosts an international camp at Kumbh Melas (the most recent being the Ardh Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, 2007), hosts retreats, teachings, and initiations in India, and gives lectures and teachings throughout the world on consciousness and inner exploration.
One of the things Baba wanted to reveal to us was that about half of the devout Hindus in India have as their sacrament, bangh, which is "a derivative of the leaf and flower of the female Cannabis sativa plant...and...in imitation of Shiva, many sadhus use Bhang to boost meditation and achieve transcendental states. Bhang or cannabis is also believed to be popular amongst Sufis as an aid to spiritual ecstasy."
Ahhhh, so that's why this ex-pat American stayed in India while America has struggled with the questions of drug use ever since--or so thought many of us in the audience. But this, I'm sure, is giving short shrift to the dedication this man has to his spiritual practice and certainly does not negate his wisdom or "guruness". Regardless, I am intrigued by his life and plan to read Baba: Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Yogi as soon as possible.
Who to go see for the afternoon session was a very tough decision. One of the things both Scott and I wanted to attend was a "Rising Researchers" discussion--of which there were 5 with about 5 researchers at each session. Since the fifth and last session was that afternoon, we decided to go to that instead of one of the other talks; although we regretted having to make such a decision.
At this session--all were hosted by Dr. Thomas Roberts--our researchers discussed the following topics:
- Peyote Conservation and Indian Rights
- Evolution and Origins of Salvia divinorum
- Cannabis and the Afrobrazilian Tradition
- Hallucinogens or Lucidogens: The Debate is Open
- Communicating the Unspeakable? Linguistic Phenomena in the Psychedelic Sphere
- Enactive Cognitive Science: Toward a Scientific Re-Enchantment of the Concrete
The evening session we attended was "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Psychedelics: A Conversation between Experts and Users" and was fairly well-attended considering that it was over the supper hour.
The participants were Rick Doblin, Dennis McKenna and Dale Pendell. The moderator was Kathleen Harrison and the emphasis of the session was on the safe use of psychedelics.
First a bit about Kathleen Harrison. I'd heard of Kat previously only because of her marriage to Terence McKenna for 17 years, with whom she'd had two children. I also knew that together they had started Botanical Dimensions, a plant sanctuary located on the side of a volcano in Hawaii which sought out plant species in the tropical regions of the world, especially South America, and preserved them and the indigenous wisdom about them in a safe and conducive environment.
Since 1985, Kat has been the director of Botanical Dimensions and has quite an impressive résumé in her own right--one that I was unaware of.
But when I saw her talk at the Forum, I was immediately taken with this charming, attractive, and enthusiastic woman, in whom I felt a mother goddess vibe. Her talk emphasized healing and relationships vis-à-vis psychedelic substances and how people she has studied over the years--especially the Mazetec of Mexico--have used these substances as an integral part of their worldview.
I found this brief interview with Kathleen Harrison from the Forum on YouTube. Here she talks about Botanical Dimensions.
Kathleen Harrison at the World Psychedelic Forum - 2008
A couple of months ago I posted a YouTube video about Ayahuasca. At that time, I didn't know anything about where the clip was taken from, but I was impressed at the creativity. However I was somewhat dubious about its authenticity.
As it turns out, the clip came from a movie called "Other Worlds: A Journey Into the Heart of Shipibo Shamanism" and this movie was shown at the World Psychedelic Forum on Saturday night. In addition to the movie, its Dutch director, Jan Kounen was there to present it and answer questions about it afterwards.
The 75-minute film is a powerful depiction of the director's own experience with the sacred shamanic brew. Kounen introduced the movie by saying that when he first experienced Ayahuasca, "his world was shattered". The film shows the therapeutic power of the shamans and their plants, and the importance of their ability to function in both worlds; that of normal reality and that of the expanded reality of spirit and soul travel.
Kounen described his experience this way:
"Under [the shaman] Questembetsa's protective watch, I participated in ceremonies and experienced what can be characterized as a 'near death experience', where I crossed over to the other side of the mirror. Once my initiation began, it would continue for over a year. Having experienced this journey of intiation and learning, I am now able to speak about Shamanism."
It was at the end of the movie that the clip I'd spoken of was seen. Kounen said that it was important for him to visually recreate his visions as closely as possible. For anyone who has seen the clip, these visions are both powerful and at times horrific. It can be found here.
"Other Worlds" was a stunning homage to shamanism and a fitting end to a day devoted to the mystery and power of a line of special people who have shepherded humanity through the mental, emotional and cultural trials and tribulations of a natural world only man is able to marvel at and wonder about...as well as fear.
(Go to Part 4)