Promise of psychedelics… better than cannabis?

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There’s ongoing buzz these days about psychedelic substances and their promise of setting society straight. Some are calling it the “Psychedelics Revolution” in that these substances are emerging as solutions to the raging mental health crisis that the U.S. is experiencing.

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But it’s complicated – especially when you take into account the fleeting nature of these transcendent experiences. The work of the late David Hawkins, MD, PHD is very instructive in this matter.

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The best way to start this off is by introducing you to the work of David R. Hawkins. He was a modern day psychiatrist who died in 2012. He was often referred to as a mystic. And if you want to know more about mystics, I did a recent video about that titled “Are You a Mystic (or one in training)?”.

Anyway, Dr. Hawkins left us with a huge body of work around the intersection of mental health and spirituality. His crowning achievement, I believe, is the classic in the field of the study of consciousness called the “Map of Consciousness.” Through a whole range of research, he gauged the vibration of various emotions.

So the map or chart looks like this …. Going from the lowest of low emotions, that of Shame, which is Self-doubt and a sense of deep unworthiness …. Moving up through Depression, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and then getting into the higher vibrational range, where we’re talking about Love and Joy and Peace …. Where life becomes progressively more and more effortless … Right into pure consciousness, which he called “Enlightenment”.

Okay, you got an idea of that. So Dr. Hawkins had a lot to say about psychedelics and why people feel so good in using them.

He reported that the reason for that is that psychedelic drugs “sedate”- his word- sedate these lower levels of consciousness and  when you let go of the lower levels of consciousness, emotions like shame, Depression, Sadness, Fear, Anger, when you let go of them, you move into the higher vibrations … Love, and Joy, and Peace.

Dr. Hawkins describes it as if the psychedelic blots out those lower vibrational energies – and now you can experience the reality of who you really are.

So you take a psychedelic … and experience those higher vibrations during your journey, right? But the issue is how can you do it without the hallucinogen, and let go of those lower levels of consciousness on your own?

During a psychedelic journey, you may very well believe you’ve reached new heights, but once you are no longer under the influence, the effects can be very uneven and what you’ve experienced or learned during your psychedelic journey can slowly slip away – and you’re back to where you started, that is enmeshed in the lower vibrational emotions. Dr. Hawkins believed that you can get a taste of what this is like during such psychedelic trips – but you need to do something more to crystalize it in your life. It was his suggestion that that’s not going to happen during a psychedelic journey. In his words, “You can’t transcend the world until you master it.”

What he describes is the process of letting go of those lower vibrational, difficult emotions- which in doing so, he says, evolves your Soul. See, Dr. Hawkins very much walked that line between Western Science and spiritual teachings and traditions. Evolving our Soul is the nature of human consciousness and the purpose of our life here.

I see many people who do regular psychedelic journeys because they long to be in that transcendent space.

And I know there is a very real movement in the psychedelics community to put an emphasis on integration after the journey. That is, digesting what you learned about yourself during a psychedelic journey, grounding it and taking it out into your world, your relationships, moving toward crystalizing the changes.

I’m glad that’s happening because I believe it’s pivotal to using psychedelics for emotional healing, as a lot of people are. Personally, I don’t do psychedelics anymore and I haven’t for a number of years since I began practicing and teaching the release work we do in Emotional Liberation. We work with cannabis … in the context of cannabis-assisted emotional liberation.

Cannabis has some big benefits. Foremost is that it’s legal (that is, in many places) and so my students and clients have easy access to it, unlike psychedelics. It’s clean, when you can get it legally, it’s been tested for contaminants and additives. And the biggest benefit is that cannabis is extremely safe. If you take too much, you just sleep it off. So it’s easy to experiment with. Next time do it differently, perhaps less THC, more CBD. Or for heightened results, more THC.

This Inner exploration I believe is a pioneering path toward awakening – or Enlightenment, as Dr. Hawkins calls it, in this century. My favorite is doing this exploration in community, as we have the opportunity to leverage the energetic strength of the group for deep individual Inner work. That’s why I continually offer gatherings as my gift to our awakening community.

What’s your take on what I’m saying? Perhaps you’re a psychedelics devotee, or you’ve been there and moved on. Drop down to the comments section and let me know.

I’m Becca Williams and I want you to lead your most magnificent life and I want to help you do it.

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1 thought on “Promise of psychedelics… better than cannabis?”

  1. What I have to say here is directly related to individual emotions and the value in being very clear about what you’re feeling.

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