Substance Abuse and Alternative Medicine
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Consciousness StudiesThe study of consciousness has remained a difficult topic in the sciences Winkelman's article, “Psychointegration: The Physiological Effects of Entheogens” addresses neurotheology perspectives on sacred plants. Scientific Approaches to Psychointegrators For regular updates on recent research on entheogens, ask Tom Roberts to
add you to his listserve. His e-mail address is P80TBR1@wpo.cso.niu.edu. The Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona holds The Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness holds annual DMT: The Spirit Molecule From 1990 to 1995, Dr. Rick Strassman conducted DEA-approved clinical
research at the University of New Mexico in which he injected sixty volunteers with DMT (N, N-dimethyltryptamine), one of the most powerful
psychedelics known. His detailed account of those sessions is an Therapeutic Approaches with Psychointegrators Psychedelic Medicine and Consciousness The treatment of substance abuse, particularly cocaine and opioid addictions, is among these novel applications of the psychointegrators. These substances have also open exploration of the transpersonal realms of consciousness and provided new understandings of the nature of the transpersonal realms of consciousness and the unconscious structures of the mind. Takiwasi (http://www.takiwasi.com/indexing.html ) is an organization in Peru led by Dr. Jaques Mabit that has pioneered the use of ayahuasca in the treatment of addictions, particularly cocaine. Luis Eduardo Luna provides experiential studies in entheogens; see his website for the Research Centre for the Study of Psychointegrator Plants, Visionary Art, and Consciousness at http://www.wasiwaska.org. Michael Bailot runs a shamanistic ayahuasca healing center in the highlands of Brazil. He can be reached at www.southerngate.net. Applied Consciousness Studies: Hank Wesselman, Spirit Walker: Messages from the Future (Bantam Books, 1995); Medicine Maker: Mystic Encounters on the Shaman’s Path (Bantam Books, 1998); Vision Seeker: Shared Wisdom from the Place of Refuge (Hay House Inc., 2001). Hank Wesselman is a physical anthropologist (UC-Berkeley) whose career activities include research with teams in Africa’s Great Rift Valley where Lucy and other early human ancestors have been discovered. His background as a physical anthropologist concerned with long-term ecological change plays a role in these books, but their real import has to do with a very different path--one of spontaneous and then deliberate shamanistic experiences that reveal a dramatically different future for humanity. Wesselman’s journey began in the early 1980’s while finishing graduate As Wesselman’s spontaneous shamanic initiation and sporadic learning about
Nainoa and the future expands through deliberate activities, he also has
other transcendent experiences and develops other contacts with the spirit
world and non-ordinary reality. Many of these involve a spontaneous Wesselman’s second book Medicine Maker follows Nainoa’s return to his people and his development as a kahuna, paralleling Wesselman’s own move to Hawaii and engagement with the local traditions and powers. Medicine Maker recounts Nainoa’s rise to power within his group, and Wesselman’s growth as a healer and spirit walker in non-ordinary reality. Wesselman turns increasingly to deliberate training with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies (FSS) and meditative retreats for activities that help him develop and refine natural faculties that might have otherwise remained dormant. (The FSS can be found online at www.shamanism.org.) In the third book Vision Seeker, Wesselman incorporates further visions of Nainoa and other visions that followed further fieldwork in Ethiopia, where he establishes contact with what he perceives to be humanity’s ancient ancestors from millions of years ago. He also follows Nainoa’s training as a kahuna, and incorporates this Polynesian perspective with those of core shamanism (FSS) and Buddhist esoteric traditions. His contacts with Nainoa become joint journey’s to levels of reality in which they access unfathomable levels of the universe--the great beyond, the source of all being. Here he connects with mythic and archetypal sources of knowledge that span human pre-history and the future. His shamanic developments contribute to an expanding public profile, catapulting him into a career of teacher and healer as he communicates his experiences and messages. He claims not to heal himself, but to be a vehicle that enables healing through contact with the transcendent self of the patient. In the context of his healing activities, he reports what many other contemporary spiritual healers claim--the spontaneous arrival of the spirit of Jesus with a healing power that enables miraculous cures. Vision Seeker contextualizes Wesselman’s experiences within the “hero’s Wesselman considers the future of humanity to be dependent upon those who
engage these developmental trajectories. He expands our concepts of the
potentials for shared consciousness, time travel, knowledge of the future
and learning through spirit contact in dream time. He addresses notions
of other forms of spirit beings and powers, particularly what he calls
dorajuadiok, represented as a hugh dark obelisk that is a source of Wesselman illustrates the continued relevance of the ancient shamanic paradigms for understanding his experiences and the future of humanity. He examines his spontaneous and deliberate shamanic experiences from the perspective of a scientist, integrating his psychic and spiritual experiences with a cutting edge understanding of the forefronts of DNA and molecular biology, quantum theory, evolutionary biology, ecology and climate change. The unusual physiological nature of Wesselman’s altered states of consciousness are confirmed neurologically. They exhibit the super fast 40 Hz brain waves (gamma rhythms) that have been occasionally documented in other advanced meditators. This 40 Hz pattern is hypothesized to reflect activation of the midbrain thalamic circuits that are aroused in the bonding of sensory information, memory, and motor patterns. These brain patterns play a fundamental role in the physical generation of consciousness and produce a “hyperaroused gateway to transcendent experience.” Wesselman views this access to an “inner threshold” that permits expanded consciousness as derived from a genetically based biophysical-energetic program. This program was evoked by many experiences, including: his work
as a paleontologist concerned with the origins of humanity that linked his
consciousness with our earliest forebearers; fantasy play in childhood For those familiar with the traditions of “anthropologists gone shaman,” a Wesselman tells the reader, “There is no fiction in my book,” and "everything that I recount in this book I experienced as real,” rejecting any boundaries between the “real world” and his shamanistic experiences. He suggests we apply the anthropological principles of cultural relativism, understanding these experiences on their own terms. If merely seeking novelistic New Age entertainment, readers will find themselves deeply engaged with Wesselman’s books. But there is more to his books than entertainment, and they should not be confused with fiction. Wesselman wrote these books to inspire people to find their “inner doorway” and embark on the classic hero’s journey that enables them to engage the “Master Game” of expanded development of consciousness. The books provide useful descriptions of practices for accessing non-ordinary reality and provide a wealth of information that integrates shamanic and other traditions of the Master Game of evolving consciousness. The books carry the potential to evoke alterations of consciousness and awareness, eliciting one’s own potentials and memories. His experiences can provide a template for organizing and focusing attention on one’s personal consciousness development. Perhaps the most fundamental and most difficult implications of Wesselman’s books for many to accept is that they are primarily based in his prophetic awareness of a future 5,000 years from now when Western civilization and high technology no longer exist. Paradoxically, Wesselman suggests that he does not see this as inevitable. Perhaps with this warning humanity can correct their sins of environmental destruction and live within the fragile ecological balance and carrying capacity of planetary resources. To do this we must reign in the multinational corporations that are destroying the global ecology in their relentless search for resources and wealth. Wesselman suggests that the roots for addressing this destruction lie in the ongoing spiritual reawakening occurring in North America and Europe, reflected in a resurgence of interest in shamanism. These “evolutionary sleepers” are awakening to bridge to the next stage of human evolution, with the contemporary neoshamanic movement part of a broad revitalization that is changing our relationship with self, others the environment and spirit. The basic message that Wesselman has is that humanity needs to change to survive. The real message is not that we can escape the cycles of nature and the planet that involve warming trends followed deluges and ice ages. Rather, he sounds a wake-up call for those who are to participate in the next stage of human evolution, surviving the impending global destruction due to the catastrophic consequences of the melt down of the polar ice caps and their contribution to the next glacial cycles produced by global superstorms (e.g., see Bell and Strieber’s The Coming Global Superstorm). In this sense, Wesselman may have brought us the most important “applied anthropology of consciousness”--using shamanistic potentials to adapt to the greatest catastrophe humankind will have encountered. It certainly is easier to treat his books as fiction. References to Winkelman’s Publication on Consciousness 2007 Psychedelic Medicine: New Evidence for Hallucinogenic Substances as Treatments [2 volumes, edited by Michael J. Winkelman and Thomas B. Roberts. Portsmouth, NH: Praeger Press/Greenwood Publishing Group. 2005 Cultural Awareness, Sensitivity and Competence. 2005 Drugs and Modernization. A Companion to Psychological Anthropology:
Modernity and Psychocultural Change. Conerly Casey and Robert Edgerton, eds. 2004 Divination and Healing: Potent Vision. 2004 Spirituality and the Healing of Addictions: A Shamanic Drumming Approach. In: Religion and Healing in America, Edited by Linda L. Barnes and Susan S. Sered. 2004 Spirits as Human Nature and the Fundamental Structures of Consciousness. In: From Shaman to Scientist Essays on Humanity’s Search for Spirits, J. Houran, ed. 2003 Psychointegration: The Physiological Effects of Entheogens. 2001 Psychointegrators: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the 2000 Altered States of Consciousness. In Encyclopedia of Human 2000 Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing. Westport, Conn.: Bergin and Garvey. 1997 Altered States of Consciousness and Religious Behavior. In 1996 Sacred Plants, Consciousness and Healing: Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives Yearbook of Cross-cultural Medicine and Psychotherapy. Berlin: Verlag. Michael Winkelman and Walter Andritzky, eds. 1996 Neurophenomenology and Genetic Epistemology as a Basis for the Study of Consciousness. Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, 19(3): 217-236. 1993 The Evolution of Consciousness: Transpersonal Theories in Light of Cultural Relativism. Anthropology of Consciousness. 4(3): 3-9. http://www.public.asu.edu/~atmxw Page last updated: March 21, 2007 Webmaster: kdevault1@cox.net ASU Disclaimer |