The goal is, then, having attained that balance, that wisdom, that connection, to then rise up to a level of universal meaning; in other words, to break through the machinery of cultural conditioning, in the same way that the shaman does, and to attempt to discover something authentic—something authentic outside the self-generated language cloud. And to my mind, what this authentic thing is, is—it’s hard to know how to put it, but—it’s the animate quality that resides within the psychedelic experience—that the universal mind is alive, is sentient, is perceiving, is there to meet you when you come through from the other side. So we’re not talking about psychedelics as a spotlight to be turned on to reveal the detritus of our own personal unconscious. It is not a spotlight. It is not shining from behind you; it is shining ahead of you. It is actually that the same organizational principles which called us forth into self-reflection has called forth self-reflection out of the planet itself. And the problem then is for us to suspect this, act on our suspicion, and be good detectives and track down the spirit in its lair. And this is what shamans are doing. They are hunters of spirit.
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