In 2014, Bob Jesse spoke at the Psychedelic Science conference about ongoing reorganizations within religion. He specifically pointed to a category that many identify with, Spiritual But Not Religious. Jesse wondered if our shifting of identities isn’t about a loss of religion, but instead, a letting go of irreligion. While his talk references religion as a global category, his stories and definitions appear to come primarily from a Christian background. Full disclosure, Jesse did not to locate himself in the context of how he has come to know, nor did he identify as Christian. With caution, I take some liberty to apply what I suspect is Jesse’s frame for the talk. I gather it’s Christian because he refers to Quakers and to a Christian Monk for his primary evidence.
His identity is important to note because an aspect of Christianity is a Christian identity that is often made invisible due to it’s privileged position in the west and it’s close connection with whiteness. A particular shape of whiteness is Christian hegemony, a way of thinking that presents itself as the one way to think while collapsing the many complex identities around it. So while I want to highlight Jesse’s story because I value his contribution to the conversation of religion and irreligion, as a white Christian feminist, I also want to do so with a critical eye on situations of power imbalance.
As he spoke about reorganization and reconstruction it became clear he was not referencing a kind of shift that occurs when something fails. Instead, he says that religion as whole, without movement and adaptation, can become a kind of failure of religion – a practice that becomes irreligious. This framing is important because he suggests that maybe those who are seeking mystical experiences with psychedelics, and identify as spiritual but not religious, are simply leaving irreligion for a religious practice that fosters an individual connection with what is most divine and sacred.
Jesse refers to David Steindl-Rast, a Christian monk and interfaith scholar for his definition of religion. Steindl-Rast has come to believe that the institution of religion must have three essential components: doctrine, ethics, and ritual. From within this definition, Jesse explores how one might move from a mystical experience triggered by psychedelics to an established religion. By describing a kind of closed loop, Jesse offers a systems approach to understanding religion as community practice of ongoing restructuring and reorganizing of meaning, ethics, and ritual.
As many of us know personally, the impact of a mystical experience often moves us to take new perspectives on ultimate reality. Jesse says these new perspectives can inform the creation of a doctrine which provides a discussion on the ethics of how to treat one another. Ethics inspires one to give thanks through ritual, and ritual creates a pathway back into direct mystical experience, altering perspectives on ultimate reality once again.
What makes this process religious, and also my favorite part about Jesse’s talk, is the necessary and repeated return from ritual to mystical experience. Each newly encountered experience provides an opportunity to reflect on doctrine, (a reflection that may lead to updates and corrections) to create new ethics, and make adaptations in ritual.
In other words, for religion to exist, Jesse posits, it must undergo constant adaptation – a movement built into a cycle of devotion and desire for connection with the divine. When mystical experiences cease to occur, it is an indication that the feedback loop is broken. In other words, he says, when ritual stops leading to mystical experience, doctrine freezes into dogmatism, ethics freezes into legalism, and ritual freezes into ritualism.
When I think about stagnation, immobilization, and a freezing of religion I can’t help but come back to Christian hegemony – a form of control that is often hidden. I grew up with parents who didn’t attend church and instead actively resisted any notion of formalized religion. Yet, as I reflect on my life and the intersection of white supremacy and Christianity – even despite my non-religious upbringing – I am becoming clearer as to how much Christianity has shaped me.
Jesse’s talk makes me wonder how aspects of Christian hegemony have contributed to a religion that has transformed into irreligion?
Psychedelics have fostered mystical experiences in ways that are difficult for many of us to explain. In the struggle for Christian domination, I continue to wonder about the ways of thinking and the words we have lost that might have helped us in this moment.
In his effort at exploring psychedelics, Jesse points out that mystical experience has less to do with the consumption of psychedelics and more to do with an individual desire for connection with what is sacred. He uses the psychological term, causal indifference. Causal indifference implies that we shouldn’t be too fascinated with the trigger for the mystical experience, instead we should be more fascinated with the mystical experience itself. I wonder if this conclusion lacks reflection on the role of plants in mystical experience?
It is challenging today to explain what a relationship with a plant looks like. By framing the plant as a tool hinders ones ability to explain because tools are objects and therefore not something to be in relationship with.
But considering plants as living, points to the possibility of a co-creation of meaning making between plant and spirit seeker. It also points to a third entity, the relationship between the spirit seeker and the plant.
For Gregg Castro, cultural director for the Ramaytush Ohlone, ceremonies are alive and are entities that exist. We don’t own them, rather they live on because we live in and within them. Castro is saying that relationships nurtured within ceremony are an entity in and of themselves and require tending to. For contrast, within a Christian frame, a ceremony might be Sunday service or Sunday prayer. This act is often understood as a sacred gathering of people in communion. But what if, like Castro, Jesse considered ceremonies as alive and exist because of the relationships that create them and exist within them? Might he encourage us to tend to our community gatherings and prayers differently?
Asking about the relationships held within ritual, transforms the ceremony and the plants into more than just triggers for an experience, but opens up the possibility for a plant to become a living and engaging accomplice in a collaborative and mystical moment.
I do not hope to demonstrate or prove that psychedelics are a requirement for mystical experience. Many have written about prayer, breathwork, and meditation as ways in which they have encountered non-dual consciousness, connection with God, and feelings of unity. At the same time, if we consider a plant as a living entity, the door opens for the possibility of a mystical experience from being in relationship with a plant. And, big bonus, if we consider the relationship as an essential element, then attention moves from a western practice of objectifying the “other” to being in relationship with one another.
All of this feels important because so many of us are looking for direction on how to integrate our mystical experiences. While Jesse’s frame gives us an opportunity to consider how to repair religion, many of us are still seeking metaphors and myths that can help to make sense of not just our own healing but also community healing. As westerners we are often guided to consider the individual before the relationship. Confused between an experience of ourselves and a sense of being connected to everything, many of us work to make meaning out of a sense of oneness that gets co-created between plants and ceremony. Integration can be even more discombobulating as we come back from the journey into Christian hegemony or into a society that reinforces narratives and myths of separation.
At the end of the day, it is not just the plants that heal. We do it too. And we do it in relationship with one another. We heal by healing one another.
Comments