The Psychedelic Nietzsche
--What is the role of psychedelically induced mystical experiences in the
philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche?
--By Ricardo Williamson
--MA Philosophy, University of Amsterdam Supervisor: Jacques Bos
Introduction
Part 1 - Legitimacy, precedence and Nietzsche on drugs
Part 2 - Schopenhauer, Knowledge and the problem of life as meaningless suffering Part 3 - The Un-knowable nature of the Mystical Experience
Part 4 - The Denial of the Will as a means to The Mystical Experience Part 5 - Nietzsche on Art and the value of Truth
Part 6 - On how to Internalize External Truths Part 7 - Christian Morality
Part 8 - The Mystical Experience versus Christian Morality Part 9 - Overcoming the Truth of Life as Meaningless Suffering Conclusion
Bibliography
The mystical experience has been thrown out of modern, mainstream culture. Rational, materialist scientism has reigned as the worldview of choice for contemporary man following the Enlightenment; such a worldview leaves little room for anything ‘mystical’. Events are no longer the ‘will of God’, but acts of cold, dead matter. It was Friedrich Nietzsche who famously proclaimed the ‘death of God’ and he is largely regarded as the harshest critic of Judeo-Christian culture. Nietzsche played a key role in the destruction of the religious foundation at the heart of Europe. It was Nietzsche’s assertion that the death of God was a catastrophe, the effect of which would be felt around the world for millennia to come. With God gone, our belief in Him made untenable by the
Enlightenment, Nietzsche felt that man had no right to any of the morality of the Judeo-Christian teachings and would inevitably be thrown into nihilism. The Judeo-Judeo-Christian worldview provided a mode of being for mankind for almost 2000 years, so the
destruction of this worldview could not occur quietly. It stands in time as an event of boundless magnitude. Where do we go from here? Satisfactory solutions to this modern problem are hard to come by. Having dismantled religion, Nietzsche himself set out to replace it. He placed emphasis on the role of the individual. One should not, Nietzsche suggested, follow religious dogma or secular moral laws; instead, one should follow one’s own individual path. It is my contention in this work that a re-introduction of the mystical experience into our culture is able to aid in this deification of the individual by removing fixed-truth structures. Although Nietzsche rejected the decadent form of religion he saw in his contemporary Europe, Nietzsche is far from a militant atheist, or rational materialist. I will argue that Nietzsche’s so-called Dionysian experience refers directly to what we now call the mystical experience. Thus, although for Nietzsche, God is dead, the mystical is alive and kicking. Furthermore, I will show that Nietzsche seems to have known that the ancient Greeks took a psychedelic drug in order to bring about the mystical experience during their Eleusinian Mysteries. Indeed Nietzsche comments, “Might visions and hallucinations not have been shared by whole communities, by whole cult gatherings?”1 Nietzsche’s admiration of ancient Greek culture is well documented. However, the role psychedelic drug-induced mystical experiences played in the reason for this admiration is largely ignored. With a psychedelic renaissance currently taking
1 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy – Attempt at Self-Criticism, Penguin Books, 1886, p7
place, we must return to one of our most influential philosophers in order to examine what he has to say about these substances and these most peculiar of experiences, as well as the effect they will have on people and culture. Recent psychedelic studies have shown that the mystical experience is reliably producible under scientific conditions –
God, or what people for centuries have called ‘God’, is reliably producible under scientific conditions!2 Thus, even those adherents of rational, materialist scientism can no longer
hide away from the possibility of the mystical experience. European culture has thrown the baby out with the bath water, we have rejected the mystical experience with our rejection of religion; let us now recover the mystical.
The mystical experience we are discussing here is clearly defined; thus there can be little confusion about what counts as the experience. The classical mystical experience is defined by the following features; Unity, Noetic Quality (objective insight or truth is revealed), Transcendence of Space and Time, Sense of Sacredness, Deeply Felt Positive Mood, Paradoxicality and Ineffability.3,4,5 People describe the mystical experience as one of “Ultimate Reality”, “Cosmic Consciousness”, one of ‘union with God’, or nirvana, depending on their culture and preferred terminology, yet the phenomenology of the experience, as listed above, is the same.6,7 The strangeness of this experience cannot be overstated. The phenomenological aspect that is vital to understand for the purposes of this work, is that the mystical experience offers an, at least apparent, experience of mystical illumination, a mystical truth is revealed; yet, once the experience is over, this truth, and feeling of truth, is necessarily lost and forgotten. This classical mystical experience has been shown to occur during recent psychedelic studies. In these studies, questionnaires have been used in order to discover whether the classical mystical experience occurred, or whether simply peculiar experiences occurred.8 Thus, not just any experience counts as the mystical experience here, it is well defined and discounts
2 R. R. Griffiths et al, “Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance”,
Psychopharmacology (Berl) 2006 Aug;187(3):268-83; discussion 284-92.
3 Dr Ben Sessa, The Psychedelic Renaissance, p21-23, Muswell Hill Press, 2012
4 B. Richards and W. Pahnke, “Implications of LSD and Experimental Mysticism”, Journal
of Religion & Health, Vol. 5, 1966, pp. 175-208.
5 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Pantianos Classics, 1902 6 William A. Richards, Sacred Knowledge, Columbia University Press, 2016
7 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, 1819, Everyman, 1995, p261
many other out-of-the-ordinary experiences that one may, in everyday language, describe as being mystical. The following is not an attempt to fully explain the
psychedelic experience, which can include phenomena other than the classical mystical experience, or even to explain the whole contents of the classical mystical experience itself which, we will find, may be unknowable.
To begin this work I will outline Nietzsche’s problem, our problem. This problem is man’s core problem, it may be our only problem: life is meaningless suffering. I often wonder whether the philosophers who grapple with this problem are merely isolated depressives, whether life for the majority isn’t all that bad. In all seriousness; were our famous philosophers clinically depressed? Speaking from my own experience, lasting happiness has proved sufficiently elusive for me to conclude that the philosophers in fact represent the few who are honest. In support of this conclusion, one may also note that suffering is the central tenet of much of the world’s religion. The Bible begins with Adam and Eve being thrust out of paradise and ends with a crucified Messiah. Buddhists
explicitly define life as suffering. Finally, our focus on suffering can be justified by simply looking around; it is sickness unto death. (Admittedly I wrote this when I was in a state of depression, life often appears quite good to me; too much of life is mood.9 However, I will continue on, for we ought to address our hardest, most evil, problems.) The
formulation of the problem of suffering that we will work with here comes from Nietzsche’s educator Schopenhauer. Thus, to begin, Schopenhauer’s pessimistic
worldview will be outlined. Following this, Schopenhauer’s response to the problem of suffering will be examined. Schopenhauer recommends a denial of the will to life, a denial of desire. This prescription, Schopenhauer claims, if taken to its absolute, leads to the mystical experience.10 This claim will be examined and shown to be accurate with reference to research into meditation and psychedelic drugs leading to mystical
experiences – meditation and psychedelic drugs representing, I will argue, methods for denying the will. This denial of the will to life, which can be thought of as a prescribed rejection of life, an anti-life philosophy, is also, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche claim, the core teaching of Judeo-Christian morality as well as Buddhism. The mystical experience, produced by the denial of the will, may be the inspiration at the core of many religions. In line with this, Tom Roberts realised, following a psychedelic-induced mystical
9 Taken from Milo, “Too Much of Life is Mood” (a rap album) 10 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World As Will and Idea, p261
experience, that, “Religion really is about something. It’s about an experience people can have” – a profound realisation to the rational materialists of today who often reject religion out-of-hand.11 Religious mysticism is widely documented and is a key area of study in the history and philosophy of religion.12 Religion and mysticism appear to be clearly related, although it is clear many do believe in religious dogma without ever having the classical mystical experience. Outlining the relationship between these two areas nicely, Henri Bergson stated that “Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science.”13 Schopenhauer’s life-denying morality then, is not exclusive to him, but is also the dominant message at the heart of the world’s religions. Although this denial of the will, if completed properly, leads to the mystical experience, it is important to note that this is not always the case – some denial of the will can take place without the mystical experience following it. A person can live ascetically for some time and nothing much could happen. Nietzsche rejects this denial of the will to life as the correct solution to the problem of suffering, placing himself in direct opposition to Schopenhauer and religion. Schopenhauer’s solution requires a turning away from life and rejection of it; Nietzsche takes issue with this. Thus, following the outlining of Schopenhauer’s formulation of and solution to the problem of suffering, I will examine Nietzsche’s rejection of this proposed solution. Nietzsche argues that the denial of the will to life stems from a weakness, from an inability to bear suffering as a necessary aspect of life and continue on living nevertheless. However, Schopenhauer’s, or more specifically, religion’s solution has been drilled into man via 2000 years of conditioning, thus the inclination to deny life is strong in man – including modern man who has apparently rejected religion, and yet, for Nietzsche, continues to live by religion’s life-denying morality. Thus, in order to overcome the denial of life, we must overcome the moral teachings ingrained in us over 2000 years, as well as, we will find, the lessons ingrained in us over the course of our individual lives – such as patterns of behaviour learned due to past traumatic experiences and the like. I will argue that the mystical experience can aid in the overcoming of this life-denying dominant mode of being. This overcoming is achieved in three ways, with the central motif being the rejection of truth and the will to truth, being replaced by a will to art. The mystical experience, I will argue, leads to the 11 Tom Roberts, The Psychedelic Future of Mind, Park Street Press, 2013, p62
12 William Ralph Inge, Christian Mysticism, 1899, BibloBazaar, 2006
13 Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, 1932, Andesite Press, 2015, p204
rejection of (1) internal (psychic) and (2) external (worldly) authorities, leading to (3) a final affirmation of individuality – the overcoming of authorities synonymous with the overcoming of fixed truth-structures. Instead of denying the will to life, as prescribed by Schopenhauer, we ought instead to deny the will to truth, as prescribed by Nietzsche. Having the mystical experience through psychedelic intake, instead of ascetic practice, can play a key role in this change from the denial of life to the denial of truth.
The ancient Greeks routinely partook in festivals during which a psychedelic drug was taken. The effects of routinely having the mystical experience through psychedelic means played a role in inspiring this ancient culture that Nietzsche so admired. With a surge of recent research into the effects of psychedelic drugs having largely positive results, it will not be long before psychedelic drugs are reintroduced into our culture, leading to the simultaneous reintroduction of the mystical experience. The effects of reintroducing the mystical into our rational materialist culture are unpredictable. We need to study the mystical experience and we need to educate people about it. Thus, we need an examination in all areas of study of the mystical experience in order for its coming resurgence not to come as a shock to the system, as may have been the case in the 1960s. Away from all reasons, the mystical experience represents a profound wonder that ought to be at the very least discussed! Such a discourse is largely missing from the mainstream; this absence is partly responsible for man’s current spiritual
disenchantment. Mainstream philosophy, in its apparent love of wisdom, must cease its rejection and ignorance of the psychedelically induced mystical experience, the
experience that may allow man’s only real access to the highest wisdom and to truth as such.
The significance of this work is wide reaching. We live in a world in which half the population writes off God as a fairy-tale, and the other half worship Him as though he were a sky-tyrant, and even continue to kill in His name. This split between rationalists and fundamentalists leaves two incommensurable groups talking past each other. The reliability with which the mystical experience, which often includes an experience of God, can be brought about under scientific conditions, provides an opportunity for these two sides to understand and empathise with each other to a far greater extent. It’s the hippie dream, but maybe world peace is only an LSD tab away. As well as the killing currently taking place in the name of God, much of the killing that took place in the 20th
century, it is often theorized, occurred due to the lack of Him.14 The Nazi and Communist genocides occurred when God was replaced by the deification of the State. Man’s need for purpose, lost through the death of God, was replaced by men who imitated God. The mystical experience, reintroduced into our culture by psychedelic means, represents the opportunity for us to chemically re-birth God, following his death, not as a sky-tyrant, or state-tyrant, but as part of an individual’s experience. Finally, the role that psychedelic induced mystical experiences played in the thinking of one of our most influential
philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche, is a topic that has been unjustly ignored. It is my claim in this work that such experiences are central to his philosophy and central to bringing about the deification of the individual, which he prescribed.
14Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self: The Problem of the Individual in Modern Society, 1957, Routledge, 2002, p24
Legitimacy, precedence and Nietzsche on drugs
Legitimacy
Having met expected resistance towards this topic, I feel it is necessary to defend this work’s legitimacy, explain the precedence set by past and present research into mystical experiences and psychedelics, and also show Nietzsche’s connection to this subject which is largely ignored and unknown. First, legitimacy. In modern society, drug use is associated with criminal behaviour, jumping out of windows, stupidity, laziness, insanity etc. The view is almost wholly negative. Thus, I must quickly say a few things in order to repair this image. After years of newspaper headlines and scare stories, this will take some effort, and it is likely the reader will still be left unsure, which I can and do understand. I first would like to remove the assumption that any experience, which occurs on drugs, is in some way nebulous. The thought is something like, “well, it was
just the drugs”. You have ingested something that has temporarily, or, as is often thought,
permanently, ruined your brain-function15 and thus all experiences on drugs are
superficial. However, this thinking is mistaken. Firstly, psychedelic drugs are extremely well tolerated by the body and brain; hence, concerns regarding body or brain damage taking place are misplaced. Moreover, one is mistaking the cause, ‘I took drugs’, with the effect of the cause, the experience. The reason I had the experience, the drugs, does not explain the experience itself. But this is exactly the thinking when one says, “it’s just the drugs”. Yes, the drugs caused this effect to happen, but this cause of the effect does not explain or negate the effect itself. I know this is all very simple, but this explanation seems to be required which speaks volumes towards the confused thinking around drugs in our culture. This argument also helps to remove the assumption that all drugs are good for is stupidity and jumping out of windows. In fact, the vast majority of people don’t jump out of windows after taking psychedelic drugs, the experiences that actually occur are much more varied. By focusing on the experience rather than the drug taken, we can begin to focus on the actual effects of these substances, instead of the negative connotations, which have been built up around the substances themselves. Now, moving onto a problem much of society is unaware of, including eminent scientists whom
15 As is the mistaken view of top scientists, as is shown in this interview with Avi Loeb, a Harvard professor. http://www.duncantrussell.com/episodes/2017/5/31/avi-loeb , 2017
society goes to for its wisdom in the modern world. I am speaking of the mind-body problem and the hard problem of consciousness. In much of society, it is often thought that mind, or consciousness, emerges from the brain, from matter, as an epiphenomenon. However, we do not know this to be the case; it is a wildly misplaced assumption. A feeling or an experience cannot be reduced down to explanations referring only to matter. One cannot explain the experience of pain by referring only to the firing of C-fibres.16 My feeling of pain may occur at the same time C-fibres are firing, however, the pain I feel is much different to your physical description of this pain. One can describe the feeling of pain in all sorts of ways; however, one will not know what pain feels like until pain is felt for oneself. Scale this thinking upwards and one finds that all experiences, consciousness itself, cannot be explained by references to matter. You could conceivably collect all the physical data relating to another person and still not know if that person is conscious. There is an explanatory gap. The only being that one can know for sure is conscious is oneself. You are conscious, but with regards to anybody else, you can’t be sure. Other people may appear to be conscious, and they may have bodies like your own, however, one cannot know whether others are conscious, as explaining everything about them physically tells us nothing about their consciousness. Consciousness is what it feels like to be you. You cannot know what it feels like to be someone else, therefore, you cannot know if they are conscious, because consciousness is what it feels like to be you, and you are not them, and cannot become them. It seems to be the case though, that consciousness, although not caused by brain activity, is at least correlated with brain activity. If one experiences a brain injury, for example, one’s conscious experience often changes. Thus, it does seem that the physical structure of the brain is related, in some way at least, to consciousness. To go back to drug use then, it is unsurprising that by introducing a new chemical (a drug) into one’s system, thus temporarily changing the physical structure of the brain, one can alter one’s consciousness. When one realises that all consciousness is correlated with some form of physical brain structure, one ought not to discredit forms of consciousness occurring due to drug use, merely because brain structure has been altered in some way. ‘Normal’ brain structure is just one particular structure correlated with one particular ‘normal’ form of consciousness. Drug-induced brain structures differ from the norm, and the form of consciousness they induce too
16 Joseph Levine, “Materialism and qualia: The Explanatory Gap”, Pacific Philosophical
differs from the norm; but things outside of the norm are not automatically nebulous. People often discredit experiences occurring under the influence of drugs, claiming, “it was just my brain creating this stuff”. However, explanations for conscious events referring only to the brain, as we have found, are bad, vastly incomplete, explanations. Therefore, one cannot discredit these experiences with reference to the brain, as this leaves the whole of consciousness itself out of the explanation. Consciousness is not reducible to brain-activity; and thus, neither are drug-induced experiences. By ending the out-of-hand rejection in our culture of drug-induced experiences we will see, I predict, improved thinking regarding the mind-body problem. Drug-use has been documented across the world for millennia in many different cultures; our modern European all-out rejection of drug-use (at least in the mainstream) is, in fact, a relatively rare phenomenon.17
Precedence
Now, we move onto the precedence for this examination into the effects of the mystical experiences on truth and the will to truth. Recent research into psychedelics is
suggesting that having the mystical experience is allowing people to break out of their habitual, fixed modes of thinking – suggesting fixed truths are being overcome. A study by Katherline Maclean (et al.) reported that participants in their study reported a significant increase in the Big Five personality domain of the trait Openness – Openness refers to the willingness to try new things, be intellectually curious, imaginative, creative etc.18 Thus one can see that an increase in this trait seems to suggest a higher willingness to break out of one’s fixed-truth structures. In line with this, people with high Openness are commented to be “permeable to new ideas and experiences” and “motivated to enlarge their experience into novel territory”.19 Personality traits are mostly fixed by the age of 30 and the trait of Openness typically decreases as one gets older – as one
becomes ‘more stuck in their ways’. This increase in Openness then is quite 17 Robert A. Halberstein, “Medicinal Plants: Historical and Cross-Cultural Usage Patterns”, Annals of Epidemiology. 2005 Oct;15(9):686-99
18 McCrae R. R., John O. P, "An introduction to the Five-Factor Model and its applications". Journal of Personality, 1992 Jun;60(2):175-215.
19 DeYoung CG, Peterson JB, Higgins DM. “Sources of openness/intellect: cognitive and neuropsychological correlates of the fifth factor of personality”. Journal of Personality, 2005 Aug;73(4):825-58.
unprecedented after a singular event in a controlled study. In part, this work is an attempt to explain why this increase in Openness takes places. The only other
experimentally controlled change in personality traits in healthy adults, as will become important for our work here, occurred in a study involving hundreds of hours of solitary meditation over the course of three months.20 In both experiences, it will be my
contention, one learns not to automatically believe one’s own thoughts. Psychedelic studies, in which mystical experiences reliably occur, although small, are also showing that these drugs are helping people with depression, anxiety, OCD and addiction. Two trials from Johns Hopkins University and New York University gave cancer patients suffering from depression and anxiety doses of psilocybin in conjunction with psychotherapy. 80% of the patients given psilocybin showed clinically significant reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms and reported increased quality of life – showing much greater success rates than other treatments. Furthermore, in both trials the intensity of the mystical experience correlated with the degree of the reduction in depression and anxiety.21,22 Thus, it seems it is the mystical experience in particular, not the therapy, that helps to relieve these patients. The overcoming of depression and anxiety relates to the overcoming of fixed truths because each refer to a mode of being in which the sufferer is fixed and can’t escape – for, if one is depressed and anxious, if one could choose not to be so, then one would surely choose this option. Thus depression and anxiety are modes of being that a person is stuck in; similarly, when one feels something to be true, one is stuck with this feeling, as the truth of the feeling precisely requires it. This relates to the overcoming of internal (psychic) authorities mentioned previously. The depressed and anxious mind is one that offers thoughts such as “this is hopeless” or “there is danger here”. One often becomes stuck in this mind-set and thus associates with these thoughts; believing them true. Thus, with the mystical experience
20 Sahdra BK, MacLean KA, Shaver PR, et al. “Enhanced response inhibition during intensive meditation training predicts improvements in self-reported adaptive socioemotional functioning.” Emotion. 2011 Apr;11(2):299-312
21 Ross S, Bossis A, Guss J, et al. “Rapid and sustained symptom reduction following psilocybin treatment for anxiety and depression in patients with life-threatening cancer: a randomized controlled trial”, Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2016 Dec; 30(12): 1165– 1180.
22 Griffiths R, Johnson M, Carducci M, et al. “Psilocybin produces substantial and
sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial.” Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2016 Dec;30(12):1181-1197.
seen to be able to help treat depression and anxiety, I will go on to argue, that this is caused by a realisation that one need not necessarily believe their thoughts to be true – one overcomes the feeling of truth related to one’s own thoughts. In line with this, psychedelics have been shown to help people overcome OCD and addictions (smoking, alcohol)23,24,25 – two conditions which are, similarly to depression and anxiety,
characterized by being stuck in patterns of thought and behaviour. One can use brain scans done on people under the influence of psychedelics to help to explain this. As noted earlier, brain activity does not cause consciousness, but it is correlated with it. Thus, we can use brain activity to help in part to explain what is going on in the mystical experience and its effect on truth, although this explanation, as suggested, cannot do all of the work. With this in mind; recent studies conducted by Robin Carhart-Harris show that “psychedelics reduce the stability and integrity of well-established brain networks26 and simultaneously reduce the degree of separateness or segregation between them;27 that is, they induce network disintegration and desegregation.”28 This altered brain activity following psychedelic intake results in a correlated change in consciousness; the reduced stability of brain networks resulting in the reduced stability of consciousness, possibly explaining some of the phenomenology of the mystical experience (this will be explored later). Often reported in psychedelic studies is ego-dissolution (one’s sense of self disappears, one feels unity with the universe) and altered meaning29 (“some
unimportant things acquired a special meaning” and “things in my surroundings had a new or alien meaning”)30. One can see already that this relates to overcoming fixed 23 Francisco A. Moreno, M.D et al, “Safety, Tolerability, and Efficacy of Psilocybin in 9 Patients With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder”, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 2006, 67: 1735-1740.
24 Garcia-Romeu A, Griffiths R, Johnson M. “Psilocybin-occasioned mystical experiences in the treatment of tobacco addiction.” Curr Drug Abuse Rev. 2015; 7(3): 157–164.
25 Johnson M, Garcia-Romeu A, Griffiths R. “Long-term follow-up of psilocybin-facilitated smoking cessation.” Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse. 2017 Jan;43(1):55-60.
26 Carhart-Harris RL, et al. “Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin.” Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Feb 7;109(6):2138-43. 27 Roseman L, Leech R, Feilding A, Nutt DJ, Carhart-Harris RL, “The effects of psilocybin and MDMA on between-network resting state functional connectivity in healthy
volunteers.” Front Hum Neurosci. 2014; 8: 204.
28 Carhart-Harris RL et al, “Neural correlates of the LSD experience revealed by multimodal neuroimaging”, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016 Apr 26;113(17):4853-8 29 Ibid.
30 Kapur S, “Psychosis as a state of aberrant salience: A framework linking biology, phenomenology, and pharmacology in schizophrenia.” Am J Psychiatry. 2003
truths as one is removed from one’s ordinary consciousness to a conscious state out-of-the-ordinary, leading to new insights, new truths. If what one considers to be true is correlated with one’s normal brain-state, then by getting out of this brain state, and seeing even its contingency, one can come to new truths through seeing the relative nature of even the form of their consciousness – all this will be more closely argued in what follows. For now, these studies are presented to give precedence to this
examination of the ability of psychedelics to overcome fixed truth structures.
Psychedelics are helping people overcoming depression, anxiety, OCD and addiction. Brain scans taken during psychedelic sessions are showing the destabilisation of well-established brain networks. What one takes to be true relates to fixed habits of thought and the well-established brain structures they are correlated with. It would not be a mistake to regard this work, in part, as a philosophical examination into the reason these studies are having the results they are. Instead of the focus being on the physical brain, as is the case in these scientific studies, here we are beyond and behind science, and thus I will be examining these psychedelic effects from a philosophical standpoint. The focus in society on brain-imagining studies is misplaced. I contend it is predominantly the experience, not the physical effects, which cause the results we see in psychedelic research. This type of ‘psychedelic philosophy’, it will now be shown, was also an important, yet ignored, aspect of the work of Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nietzsche On Drugs and the Psychedelic Dionysian
First of all, Nietzsche used drugs. It is well reported that Nietzsche suffered from various ailments during his life and spent much of his life in ill health.31,32 Less well reported is the fact that Nietzsche used an array of drugs in order to deal with these ailments and that the drugs he used are known to have psychoactive effects. It is known Nietzsche used, at the least, opium, potassium bromide and chloral hydrate.33,34 These drugs can
31 Hemelsoet D et al, “The neurological illness of Friedrich Nietzsche”, Acta Neurol Belg. 2008 Mar;108(1):9-16.
32 Rüdiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, W. W. Norton & Company, 2003
33 Letter to Lou Salome and Paul Ree, mid-December 1882, quoted in Peter Sjöstedt-H,
Noumenautics, 2015
34 H Goring, Conversations with Nietzsche, in Sander L. Gilman, Conversations with
induce intense hallucinations35; to claim that these drugs had no effect on his consciousness would be to claim that Nietzsche was extremely out-of-the-ordinary. Indeed, there is an account of Nietzsche hallucinating “an abundance of fantastic flowers… constantly growing and changing forms”36 – inspiration for his philosophy of the eternally in-flux, forever creating will to power, perhaps? (we will get on to such topics). Nietzsche himself even credits taking a “huge dose of opium” for allowing him to “come to reason”.37 Comically, Nietzsche often acquired his drugs by pretending to be a medical Doctor, using his title as an academic Doctor as cover.38 Here then we have the biographical evidence of Nietzsche’s drug use – for more on this see Peter Sjostedt-H’s essay on this subject titled ‘Anti-Christ Psychonaut’, which I must credit for the collection of the above research.39 Nietzsche’s drug-use throughout his life, I will now make the case, almost certainly made its influence felt in his philosophy – yet, even if
biographically Nietzsche had never taken drugs, the references to drugs and the
important role they play in his philosophy would remain undeniable. Nietzsche’s works contain many references to Dionysus and the Dionysian. Dionysus is the ancient Greek god of madness, religious ecstasy, intoxication and the union of paradoxes.40 The god Dionysus thus has much in common with features of the mystical experience; in both there is religious ecstasy and the union of paradoxes.41 In Nietzsche’s examination of Dionysus and the Dionysian in The Birth of Tragedy he includes further suggestions that the Dionysian experience is the mystical experience. Nietzsche speaks of the Dionysian revealing the “Oneness amidst the paroxysms of intoxication”42, and in the Dionysian experience there is a “complete forgetting of the self”43. Here again there are clear parallels between the Dionysian and mystical experience; the “Oneness” refers to the Unity in the mystical experience, there is the union of paradoxes, there is the ego death of the mystical experience or the “forgetting of the self”44. Elsewhere, Nietzsche
comments that, “In Dionysian intoxication there is… the retardation of the feelings of 35 Oliver Sacks, Hallucinations, Picador, 2013
36 H Goring, Conversations with Nietzsche
37 Letter to Lou Salome and Paul Ree, mid-December, 1882 38 H Goring, Conversations with Nietzsche
39 Peter Sjöstedt-H, Noumenautics, Psychedelic Press, 2015
40 Walter Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult, Indiana University Press, 1995 41 Dr Ben Sessa, The Psychedelic Renaissance, p21-23
42 Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, p1 43 Ibid.
time and space”45, again this echoes the transcendence of time and space in the classical mystical experience. With the focus by Nietzsche on intoxication it too seems clear that Nietzsche knew that drugs were a possible means to attaining the Dionysian/mystical experience. In line with this he states, “Under the influence of narcotic potions hymned by all primitive men and peoples… those Dionysiac urges are awakened”.46 Since
Dionysus is also the god of wine, it may be argued that Nietzsche is talking about alcohol here, and one does not usually associate alcohol with the mystical experience. One may argue that Nietzsche is talking about standard alcohol-induced drunkenness, not a psychedelic mystical experience. On the other hand, although as stated we don’t usually consider alcohol to be mystical, William James, studier of religious experiences, does claim that alcohol intoxication is a mystical state. James claims, somewhat in line with Nietzsche’s life-affirming philosophy, that “drunkenness expands, unites and says yes”.47 The complete mystical experience, as defined in recent psychedelic studies, however, is rarely achieved through alcohol consumption alone. Furthermore, Nietzsche is known to have had a distaste for alcohol.48 Nietzsche’s descriptions of the Dionysian are much more in line with some kind of psychedelic intoxicant rather than alcohol; “one dreams and at the same time experiences the dream as a dream”49, “nature discloses itself in pleasure and suffering and insight all at once”50, parallels again here with the mystical experience, paradoxes and the ‘noetic quality’ of the mystical experience, where ‘noetic’ refers to the feeling that a mystical insight is gained. Finally, it is now widely accepted that the ancient Greeks in their Eleusinian mysteries, in which the god Dionysus was celebrated, consumed, not alcohol, but kykeon, a substance with psychedelic properties, which would have been able to produce the mystical experiences Nietzsche describes in The Birth of Tragedy.51 It is this ancient Greek culture that Nietzsche pays homage to in The Birth of Tragedy, and it is the Greek god Dionysus that runs through his whole philosophy as a central theme, thus it seems that the mystical experience, and
psychedelic drugs, played a key role in Nietzsche’s thought. Nietzsche, writing mostly 45 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, Vintage Books, 1968, §799
46 Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, p1
47 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, p132 48 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist, 1895, Penguin, 1968, §60
49 Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Dionysian Worldview” (1870), Journal of Nietzsche Studies, No. 13, 1997, p82
50 Ibid. p83
51 Wasson and Hoffman, The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, North Atlantic Books, 1978
before William James coined the term ‘mystical experience’, instead called it ‘the Dionysian experience’. The experience itself, though, refers to the same experience, which we now call the classical mystical experience.
The Dionysian against the Christian
The following will be an examination of how psychedelic-induced mystical experiences allow one to overcome fixed truths, particular the fixed truths of Christian morality, rather that a textual examination attempting to prove that Nietzsche held the same view – although it is my contention that he did indeed hold this view. Hints of this feature throughout his work, to provide some evidence for this thesis, which some may find controversial, I will now offer brief textual evidence to support this claim. Above we have textual evidence showing that the Dionysian experience is the psychedelically induced mystical experience. In line with the view to be argued in this work, Nietzsche, on
several occasions, sets up in opposition Dionysus and the Dionysian against Christianity. The most notable of these occasions occurs at the end of Nietzsche’s autobiography (of-sorts) Ecce Homo, in which he signs off, “- Have I been understood? – Dionysos against
the crucifed”52. Nietzsche here is almost summing up his philosophical career as the process of setting up the Dionysian against Christianity, taken in the form of
Christianity’s crucified messiah. Elsewhere Nietzsche states, “the Christian doctrine for the counter doctrine to the Dionysian”.53 Again, it is clear that Nietzsche finds
Christianity and the Dionysian mystical experience to be directly hostile to each other. Once more, it is my aim in this work to argue why the Dionysian, why psychedelically induced mystical experiences, are hostile to Christianity; not to argue that Nietzsche held this same view. However, one can see from the brief outline above, that the opposition between Dionysus and “the crucified”54 was central to Nietzsche’s thinking, and given his placing of this opposition at the end of his autobiography Ecce Homo, this opposition may even sum up his whole philosophy.
52 Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Home, 1908, Penguin, 1979 53 Nietzsche, The Will to Power, §1051
Schopenhauer, Knowledge and the problem of life as meaningless suffering
The Problem
Now that this introductory work is complete, we can move onto the bulk of this work proper. The problem we are addressing here is the problem of life as meaningless suffering. For Schopenhauer, the essential nature of reality is the will to life. Everything
in existence is constantly striving to survive and secure its survival. We know this most inner nature of reality, for Schopenhauer, because, we are it; we are in bodies, thus we have inner access to reality. This provides us with access to knowledge of the will to life, because we can feel this will to life as that which we ourselves are. Life, it is clear
through this inner access to reality, is characterized, for Schopenhauer, by will, or, in other words, desire. This essential character of reality leads to suffering, which is a similarly core feature in Schopenhauer’s worldview. Desiring something is only possible if we lack something, and this lack is the cause of suffering. We are without something we desire and thus we suffer. Furthermore, once we gain something we lack, it soon becomes boring and dull to us, thus we begin desiring something else, leading to more suffering. Or else we lose something we have, good health for example, and thus begin desiring to have it back. This desire takes the form of an endless cycle, there is no final goal, no final desire which if quenched would put an end to the suffering of the world. This lack of a final goal is that which makes the suffering essentially meaningless. Life, man’s suffering, is not for anything, hence it is meaningless. Albert Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus, offers a fitting description of man’s predicament. Sisyphus, representing man, is damned to push a rock up a hill, only for that rock to roll back down again; this is repeated eternally.55 This represents man’s meaningless cycle of desire. A desire is striven for, the rock is pushed up the hill, only for a new desire to appear, the rock rolls back down. The cycle of desire, and the suffering it brings, is perpetual. The problem of suffering is also central to the world’s religions – here we will focus on Christianity and Buddhism. The Bible begins with the fall of Adam and Eve out of paradise, due to the advent of self-consciousness via the eating of the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Thus, man is a fallen creature; a creature which lacks the ideal state of paradise, and is instead thrown into the suffering of the world as punishment for Adam and Eve’s original sin. Buddhism similarly focuses on suffering as a central tenet of its religious teachings. In line with this, the First Noble Truth of Buddhism states that life is “incapable of
satisfying”.56 There are clear parallels with Schopenhauer’s thought, then. For Schopenhauer, Christians and Buddhists, the essential character of life is suffering.
Schopenhauer and Religion’s Proposed Solution
55 Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, Penguin, 1942 56 Samyutta Nikaya LVI, 11
Schopenhauer’s proposed solution to the problem of suffering is the denial of the will, the denial of desire. If the suffering of life is caused by desire, then in order to put an end to this suffering, one need only put an end to desire. This ending of desire is the denial of the will. Denial of the will to life is achieved, for Schopenhauer, only through
knowledge.57 It is man’s self-consciousness, his self-knowledge, and therefore,
knowledge of the will as the will is his self fundamentally, which allows him to deny the will, deny himself. Instead of chasing one’s desires, such as sexual urges, one ought to reject desire and live ascetically. This proposed solution through the means of ascetic will-denial, is also a central feature of Christianity and Buddhism. In both of these religions sexual abstinence, fasting and meditation are core practices.58,59 Each of these techniques represents a rejection of core human desires; the desire for sex, for food… and, what is meditation rejecting the desire for? This final practice appears more
complex; this will be explored shortly. For now, one can see the proposed techniques put forward by Schopenhauer and religion for the overcoming of the meaningless suffering of life. Life is characterized by desire, thus one ought to reject life, deny desire, and thus one is liberated from suffering. As Schopenhauer says, “Resignation… removes its owner for ever from all anxiety”.60
The role of Knowledge
The role played by knowledge here is important for this work. Schopenhauer claims, “The will to life cannot itself be suspended except through knowledge”.61 By knowledge, we mean here the human intellect. That capacity, apparently exclusive to our species, which allows us to create concepts, create abstract thought and create judgements with 57 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, p253
58 Elizabeth A. Clark. Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early
Christianity, Princeton University Press, 1999
59 Hajime Nakamura, Indian Buddhism: A Survey with Bibliographical Notes, Motilal Banarsidass, 1980
60 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, p245 61 Ibid. p253
truth-values. What is seen to be true in this work will be judged in line with the
correspondence theory of truth. That is, something is true if it corresponds with reality. Simply, “to say of what is, that it is… is true”.62 For example, if I say there is a cup in front of me, and there is a cup in front of me, my statement is true. For Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche63,64,65 the capacity for knowledge relies on the subject-object distinction; for there must be a knower (a subject) and something to be known (an object). The subject, however, is considered to be the primary source of possible knowledge. For Schopenhauer specifically, the world is only ever “in relation to something… the one who conceives [it]… which is himself”.66 Thus, one starts with one’s self, and then has ideas about the world through the world’s relation to one’s self – the subject here being the self and the object being the world. Notice, this reflects the correspondence theory of truth, as for this theory to work there must be some correspondence between at least two things (subject and object) taking place. The human intellect, thinking in Darwinian terms, is a means for survival; that is, a means for the increased efficiency of the will to life. By virtue of this intellect, mankind has risen to the top of the food chain and secured that place dominantly. The will to life, one can notice, is normally blind (not
self-conscious) in nature; this blind will can be seen in microorganisms and animals. However, the human intellect, through the development of self-consciousness, is no longer blind; the will has, in man, achieved the capacity for knowledge. Importantly, for Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, it was self-consciousness first, before the knowledge of other objects. One must have recognised oneself as an object, before being able to recognise other things as objects. This is similarly due to the relation previously mentioned, that all objects are objects for a subject. Without any recognition of the subject there can be no recognition of objects, for how could one posit something other than oneself without knowing where oneself begins and ends? In a state of consciousness, I am effectively at one with the world – this state of
non-self-consciousness is present in children, what Freud calls the oceanic state.67 Therefore, in order to recognise objects in the world, and even to recognise the world as an object separate from myself, I must first achieve self-consciousness, in order to have any sense 62 Aristotle, Metaphysics, Penguin, 1998, Book IV, Part 7
63 Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, 1781, Pacific Publishing, 2011 64 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will as Idea
65 Nietzsche, The Will to Power
66 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will as Idea, p3 67 S. Freud, Letter to Romain Rolland, 1927
of what ‘separate from myself’ means. The intellect, as stated prior, acts as a weapon against the rest of nature, acting as a subordinate aid to the will to life. However, in mankind, the intellect has achieved the ability to detach itself from this subordinate position in relation to the will to life, and thus, it is through the intellect, through
knowledge, that the will can be denied, as knowledge no longer has to answer blindly to the will to life. Instead of using the intellect to achieve the aims of the will to life, the intellect has gained the ability to turn against life, making asceticism, the rejection of the will to life, possible. One rarely sees ascetic animals,68 humanity however, through
knowledge, can be ascetic; thus Schopenhauer’s claim that it is only through knowledge that the will can be denied.
Meditation as the Denial of the Will to Truth
As previously discussed, examples of ascetic practices include sexual abstinence, fasting, and meditating. In the first two cases it is quite clear which desire is being denied (food and sex), but the situation is not so clear regarding the latter, meditation. However, with our examination of knowledge behind us, I would like to suggest that it is man’s intellect, one’s desire to acquire knowledge, which is being rejected in meditation. The key,
common feature of meditation practices, it is my claim, is the rejection of the intellect. In meditation practices, one’s judgement-forming mind is either disassociated from
(through a change in attention) or drowned out (by using a mantra or chanting). The aim is “a specific non-judgmental awareness of present-moment stimuli without cognitive elaboration”.69,70 Thus, I argue that it is the desire for knowledge, the will to truth, which is being rejected in meditation. The intellect, thinking Darwinianly, uses the judgment of present-moment stimuli and cognitive elaboration as a survival technique. For example, if the present-moment stimulus is the sound of a breaking stick in the foliage behind me, then the intellect makes a judgement about what the stimulus is (a predator creeping up on me perhaps). This ‘perhaps’ is a recognition of the possibilities of what the breaking
68 However there may indeed be some cases of ascetic animals and animals committing suicide. http://www.oddee.com/item_98725.aspx
69 Sara W. Lazar et al, “Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness”, Neuroreport. 2005 Nov 28; 16(17): 1893–1897.
70 Goldstein J, Kornfield J. Seeking the heart of wisdom: The path of Insight Meditation, Shambhala Publications, 1987
stick could indicate. I use my imagination, my “cognitive elaboration”,71 in order to mentally scan the possibilities of what the breaking stick could be, and if these
possibilities involve some danger, I must take defensive measures to defend myself. The scanning of possibilities is a search for the truth, knowledge, of what the stick breaking indicates. My chances for survival are much better if I know what it is I’m up against, for I can use defensive measures better suited to the specific danger. Thus, finding the true (in the correspondence sense) danger is much more useful than reaching a false
conclusion about what the danger is. If I think the predator is a bear, but instead it is a snake, then my defensive measures will be extremely inappropriate for the danger at hand. This shows how the intellect is used as a weapon for defence (and in many cases attack) against the threats of the world. Present-stimulus is taken in, runs through the intellect, one diagnoses the situation, possibilities for action present themselves to the intellect, and then a decision is made as to which action to take in line with that
diagnosis. The possibility for successful action is strongly correlated with a successful (true) diagnosis of the circumstance. In a Darwinian sense, this is what the intellect is doing all of the time. Every day-dream is a possible future scenario, used to scan the environment for possible modes of action. Every remembering of past events is a scanning of some lesson to be learned from the past to be used in future action. This search of the environment for knowledge is in a sense always active, we are always thinking, we are caught up in thought. The only time the intellect is deactivated from this search for knowledge – is meditation. One no longer scans the environment and searches for modes of action (mantra or chanting), or one still does this scanning, but merely disassociates from the process (change in attention). The desire to find and use truth for the benefit of the will to life is denied. Meditation is the ascetic denial of the desire for knowledge; the denial of the will to truth.
Positive and Negative Knowledge
The denial of the will is achieved through knowledge, and an ascetic will-denying practice (meditation) is the denial of the will to knowledge. If we are denying the will to knowledge, how can knowledge be used to deny the will? There is no contradiction here, although there may appear to be one at first glance. In order to rid ourselves of this 71 Ibid.
apparent contradiction we, along with Schopenhauer, must differentiate between
negative and positive knowledge.72 Negative knowledge refers to the knowledge we have of concepts and that knowledge that can be expressed in language. Thus, Schopenhauer’s whole philosophy as laid out in The World as Will and Representation, for example, is a form of negative knowledge. We have words on a page, representing concepts, which transfer these concepts into our own minds via the act of reading, giving us negative knowledge of these concepts. Positive knowledge, on the other hand, is the knowledge gained with direct experience of something. For example, I can gain negative knowledge of the taste of chocolate via someone describing to me what chocolate tastes like.
However, I can only gain positive knowledge of the taste of chocolate by experiencing eating chocolate myself. Negative knowledge of pain can be known through reference to C-fibres, positive knowledge of pain can be known when I experience pain for myself. This distinction between negative and positive knowledge helps us to sort out the apparent contradiction above. We can edit the assertions leading to the apparent
contradiction above: The denial of the will is achieved through positive knowledge of the will, and an ascetic will-denying practice (meditation) is the denial of the will to negative knowledge. In meditation, one attempts to gain “non-judgemental awareness” and stop “cognitive elaboration”. Cognitive elaboration and making judgements are forms of acquiring negative knowledge. In the normal mode of thinking, one is abstracting from the “present-moment stimuli”, sorting out and rearranging concepts and thoughts in one’s head (cognitive elaboration), attempting to acquire negative knowledge through this process of sorting out and rearranging these abstractions and concepts.73 However, in meditation, as previously discussed, this process of acquiring what we now call negative knowledge is denied. On the other hand, when Schopenhauer claims that the denial of the will is only achievable through knowledge, he is speaking of positive knowledge. This is clear because the denial of the will is not achieved through a process of sorting out or rearranging concepts. One cannot play any language-game and thereby achieve will-denial. Instead, practices are required (sexual abstinence, fasting,
meditation), the will must be actively denied, will-denial must be experienced for
oneself. Will-denial cannot be known second-hand, through negative knowledge; it must be experienced, known through positive knowledge. That is not to say, however, that 72 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World As Will and Idea, p260
73 Sara W. Lazar et al, “Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness”, Neuroreport. 2005 Nov 28; 16(17): 1893–1897.
negative knowledge does not provide the basis for beginning ascetic practices. In fact, such knowledge, as discussed above, appears necessary (animals are not ascetic as they have no capability for negative knowledge). The human ability for concepts and
abstraction (negative knowledge) allows for the understanding that the denial of the will is possible and, for Schopenhauer, preferable. Will-denial itself is only achieved, however, through ascetic practices which lead to positive knowledge of the denial of the will. However, as we are about to find, the form of positive knowledge gained with the complete denial of the will is unlike any other form of knowledge.
The Un-knowable nature of the Mystical Experience
Schopenhauer states that positive knowledge of “what philosophy can only express negatively as [complete] denial of the will” can be gained through “that state
experienced” which has been given names such as “’ecstasy’, ‘rapture’, ‘illumination’, ‘union with God’”. However, this experience “cannot properly be called knowledge, because it has no longer the form of subject and object”.74 One can recall from previously, that knowledge requires a subject in relation to an object, thus, when this subject-object dichotomy breaks down, so too does the capacity for knowledge. Hence, Schopenhauer claims that this type of positive knowledge of the mystical experience “cannot properly
be called knowledge”.75 The breakdown of the subject-object dichotomy refers to the ‘Unity’ feature of the classical mystical experience – as well as the ego dissolution or ego death feature noted previously. The subject and the object (one’s self and the world) are unified in the mystical experience; thus, one can no longer decipher where one begins and ends as one’s feeling of being a separate subject in a world of objects has broken down. One becomes both subject and object inseparably. Knowledge requires a knowing subject and a known object; without the subject-object dichotomy there can be no knowledge. Thus, we are left in the position of positive knowledge of the mystical experience not really being knowledge at all, as usually defined.
Ineffability
The idea that the mystical experience cannot be something known in a standard
understanding of knowledge is central to this work. As shown above, the breakdown of the subject-object dichotomy means that knowledge of the mystical experience is impossible, as knowledge requires the subject-object distinction. The notion that the mystical experience is un-knowable extends to the ineffability and paradoxicality
features of the mystical experience. Schopenhauer claims that the mystical experience is only “accessible to one’s experience and cannot be communicated at second hand”76 – hence the phrases above (ecstasy, rapture) are only placeholders. No language can properly communicate the experience. This ineffable aspect of the mystical experience can also be explained by the breakdown of the subject-object dichotomy. Language is used to make reference to something. For example, by the word ‘cup’, I refer to the cup next to me. However, if, as is the case in the mystical experience, myself and the cup are one (subject-object unification), then there is nothing to refer to as the possibility for reference has broken down. Reference requires a two-ness, the thing referring, and the thing referred to. However, when the thing referring and the thing referred to are one and the same, no reference can be made and thus no language can be used, hence the ineffability feature of the mystical experience. P. Appleby argues against the notion that the ineffability feature of the mystical experience is due to the breakdown of the
subject-75 Ibid. p260 76 Ibid. p260
object dichotomy.77 He argues, for example, that during sexual intercourse, or when one is focused on an activity, self-consciousness too breaks down; yet, one rarely claims that sexual intercourse is ineffable. In response to this, we must highlight that the mystical experience is much different to any other experience (sex or being lost in the moment) in which self-consciousness may be lost. Sexual intercourse is never described as ‘union with God’, for example.78 Sexual intercourse never leads to the ‘transcendence of space and time’ either (except on occasions when a sexual encounter leads to the mystical experience itself). During sexual intercourse, it is true that one may be less self-aware than usual. However, in the mystical experience, the self is “completely forgotten” and one merges with the “primordial Oneness”.79 Thus, Appleby’s argument doesn’t work because it underestimates the extent to which the subject-object dichotomy breaks down in the mystical experience versus merely experiences with lessened
self-consciousness. There is a huge difference between losing some self-consciousness and the subject-object dichotomy breaking down completely, the subject becoming united with the object. It can be noted that, in a certain sense, everyday experience is ineffable. Language is a signpost to something; ‘the cup’ indicates the cup in front of me. However, the word ‘cup’ is not the cup itself, and does not encapsulate all that the cup is (a
collection of atoms, a thing for drinking from etc.) However, rarely is the claim made that everyday experience is ineffable. This suggests that the ineffability of the mystical
experience is of a different sort to the ineffability of experiences like sex. Not only is the experience hard to describe, the very ability to describe things (which relies on the subject-object dichotomy as suggested) breaks down. The ineffable nature of the mystical experience means not only that it cannot be known, but also that it cannot be described in language or communicated to anyone second-hand.
Paradoxicality
We can now move on to the paradoxicality feature of the mystical experience adding further to the un-knowable nature of the experience. As described by William James, “It
77 Peter Appleby, “Mysticism and Ineffability”, International Journal for Philosophy of
Religion, September 1980, Volume 11, Issue 3, pp 143–166
78 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, p260 79 Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, p1
is as if the opposites of the world, whose contradictoriness… were melted into unity”.80 One cannot know, in any standard sense, a paradox. In fact, it is often by deducing paradoxes from arguments that we show such arguments to be false.81 Knowledge requires that we know some particular information, over and above another possible piece of information. For example, ‘the cup is in front of me, therefore, it is not behind me.’ I can have knowledge of this statement; there is a world with a cup in front of me that corresponds to this statement. However, when two contradictory things are apparently united, ‘the cup is both in front of me and behind me’, my ability for
knowledge of this statement breaks down due to the paradox. The cup, in any standard sense, cannot both be in front of me and behind me. Thus, there is no way for me to know that the cup is in front of me and behind me, for there is no standard reality for this to correspond to. If something is impossible, then I cannot know it, for the
possibility of the thing is required for any knowledge of the thing in the first place. If something is impossible then there is no corresponding reality in which that thing is taking place, and thus our correspondence view of truth breaks down. Hence, the paradoxicality feature of the mystical experience is another feature that makes the contents of the experience unknowable.
The Noetic Quality
Yet, in addition to these arguments suggesting the mystical experience is unknowable in any standard sense (subject-object breakdown, ineffability and paradoxicality), a key feature of the mystical experience is the noetic quality (a mystical truth is revealed) – this feature is shown in the term ‘illumination’ used by Schopenhauer. Thus, we are left with the (appropriately) paradoxical situation that, in the mystical experience, a mystical truth is revealed and yet cannot be the subject of knowledge. In the mystical experience one feels as though one is receiving illumination of truth as such, and yet once the experience is over, this truth is forgotten and lost. It must be addressed that people often
80 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, p388 81 I.e. Russell’s paradox
come out of psychedelic and mystical experiences claiming to have had some knowledge imparted on them, and that religious conversions can even take place following these experiences.82 Thus, is this not knowledge of the mystical experience? I argue it is not. I do not contest that psychedelic and mystical experiences can lead to novel new ideas; in fact this certainly appears to be the case.83 Furthermore, following the mystical
experience, in which God may be experienced, religious conversion certainly can and does occur due to this experience. Instead, my claim is that knowledge of the central truth, or feeling of truth, that features in the mystical experience is that which cannot be known. Thus, some truths can be come to through the insight and change in thinking which mystical states can lead to, but the truth of what the mystical experience itself is and shows is that which cannot be known. Hence, we are indeed left with the
circumstance that the mystical experience shows us a mystical truth, but this mystical truth cannot be the subject of knowledge.
The Denial of the Will as a means to The Mystical Experience
It is quite clear that Schopenhauer is talking about the classical mystical experience at the end of his work, The World as Will and Representation. Thus, his claim is, that if the complete denial of the will to life is achieved, the classical mystical experience occurs. The terms Schopenhauer uses to describe the mystical experience, and the
phenomenology of the experience he describes (no subject-object dichotomy,
illumination), match the definition of the classical mystical experience as used in recent psychedelic studies. For example, the term ‘illumination’ refers to the noetic quality (a mystical truth is revealed) of the mystical experience. The transcendence of the subject-object dichotomy refers to the feeling of unity in the mystical experience (the unity being 82 William A. Richards, Sacred Knowledge, p33
83 James Fadiman, The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide, Park Street Press, 2011, p132 quoted in Tom Roberts, The Psychedelic Future of Mind
between the subject and the object). Further, the fact the experience “cannot be communicated at second hand” refers to the ineffability feature of the mystical
experience. Finally, Schopenhauer’s claim that the denial of the will is prescribed by the world’s major religions appears legitimate, when we note that religious people in both Christian and Buddhist traditions have reported having the mystical experience
following periods of ascetic practice.84,85 Schopenhauer’s description of the mystical experience also uses the same terms that Nietzsche uses to describe his Dionysian experience, giving further weight to the claim that the Dionysian experience is the classical mystical experience. Schopenhauer calls it “ecstasy”, Nietzsche describes “blissful ecstasy… prompted by the fragmentation of the principium individuationis”86; this latter part – “fragmentation of the principium individuationis” (meaning the fragmentation of the feeling of being an individual, a subject) refers once more to the breakdown of the subject-object dichotomy and the feeling of unity. Nietzsche, it appears evident, claims that the mystical experience can be caused by psychedelic intake, or as he calls it “narcotic potion”87 intake, and yet for Schopenhauer the mystical experience is achieved through the denial of the will to life through asceticism. Therefore, due to the same resulting experience, the question can be asked: is taking psychedelics a means to the denial of the will to life?
Denial of the Subject
Here, I will argue that psychedelic intake is a means, other than asceticism, for the denial of the will. Firstly, however, why does the denial of the will to life lead to the mystical experience? The mystical experience, as we have found above, is characterised by the breakdown of the subject-object distinction, the breakdown of one’s feeling of being a separate self in a world of objects. The subject and the object are brought together in a unity. Why might the denial of the will to life lead to this breakdown of the feeling of being an individual? I argue, because it is precisely the individual will to life, which is being denied. When partaking in an ascetic practice as Schopenhauer recommends, one is not denying anyone else’s desire for sex (sexual abstinence) or food (fasting) or 84 William Ralph Inge, Christian Mysticism
85 Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, Wisdom Publications, 2000 86 Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, p17
knowledge (meditation); one is only denying one’s individual desires. How could I even go about denying the desire of another? If I starve someone, for example, I do not remove his or her desire for food as in fasting. Instead, I just remove the food, and their desire for food remains. Thus, it is only the desires of the individual that can be denied by the individual. The mystical experience occurs with the complete denial of the individual will, because the subject-object dichotomy breaks down with the complete denial of the individual, the subject. With the individual denied, we are left only with the whole, hence the unity in the mystical experience.
The Psychedelic Denial of the Will
Psychedelics have been shown to produce this same breakdown of the subject-object dichotomy, the same classical mystical experience. Therefore, does taking psychedelics lead to the denial of the will as ascetic practices like meditation? To show that the two do indeed lead to the same denial of the will, we can first turn to brain scans taken of people having taken psychedelics and the brain scans of meditators. As discussed prior, brain scans offer insight into the correlating brain states of subjective experiences. Thus, if the brain scans are similar in psychedelic takers versus meditators, when the same
subjective mystical experience is taking place, this will support the claim that taking psychedelics and meditation are doing similar things – that is, denying the will. It turns out that in people after taking psychedelics and meditators both display lowered brain activity in the default mode network (DMN), the network associated with one’s sense of individual subjectivity.88,89 Thus, we here have evidence that psychedelics and meditation have similar effects on the brain matching their similar effects on consciousness and ability to produce the mystical experience. It is clear how meditation and ascetic
practices are practices that are denying desires, denying the will; it is less clear, however, how taking a psychedelic denies desires. In order to understand how could be the case, we must return to an evolutionary, Darwinian framework. One can understand that the structure of the brain has evolved over millennia into its current structure; the current 88 Brewer J et al, “Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity”, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2011 Dec
13;108(50):20254-9.
89 Carhart-Harris RL, et al. “Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin.” Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Feb 7;109(6):2138-43.
