Seriousness and piety. Conviction that work with entheogens, previously called psychedelics, to be meaningful, must be a toil full of struggle and suffering seems to be shared by some of “science based” new psychedelic therapy and quasi religious New Age practitioners or followers alike. One will argue that it is a reaction to craziness of the 60s, but to vilify Learys of then and now, as “not adult enough”, unfortunately leads sometimes to premature gentrification of attitudes and evaporation of joy, and actually makes the healing process more difficult, when “patient” is attached to the suffering, attached to the difficulty of the process.
I will argue this : of course, sometimes you have to earn your place in heaven. But it is not a sin to be there : here and now, despite what certain religions teach us. Because my feeling is that this attachment to struggle, excessive value placed upon “hard work” is nothing but a legacy of Christian “bearing of the cross”, of dualistic seeing of the world, where work is a virtue, and Dionysian celebration suspicious. From this stems distrust of “recreational” use of psychedelics or even marijuana, which seems to be like a insult, differentiating it from venerable “therapeutic” or “ceremonial” use.
Running very disciplined processes of plant dieta and traditional ayahuasca ceremonies I am all aware about the value of certain structure. But then every priest needs the trickster, inside as well. So I do dance, enjoy yoga or push ups, stupid jokes and all kinds of improvisation within this structure of ceremony. It is for me, almost always, a psychedelic celebration. Remember what these always were, techniques of ECSTASY. If you only relive your trauma, clean and clean your impurities, work again and again through psychological complexities, and have yet to know the ineffable joy of being, you have some … work? or maybe fun to do.
And for those who consciously, or subconsciously, because of burden hidden deep within the culture, keep carrying that cross with heaviness and seriousness of the mission, try to balance it with more important teaching from Jeshua himself : be like children. Because it is not only our right, but our obligation to come back to that primordial joy, paradise lost, but within reach, inside.