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entries beginning with #101 are not essays but minimally-edited notes and
reviews from the files I've collected over the last few decades. I no longer
have the time and energy needed to sort out and put together into decent
essay-form the many varied ideas in these files, but I would like to share them
with all who are interested.
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#117 is about the relationship between drug use and sacred ritual.
===
The following is a summary of a summary, about the relationship
between drug use and ritual which I wrote it in a verse-like reflective style
in July 93 when I was attending a National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar
in D.C. The seminar was on the Victorian context, both scientific and
religious, of Darwin's Origin of Species, and since it lasted four weeks, it
was a wonderful opportunity to meditate and think about this book which I'd
originally read a year earlier. I am grateful to the author!
Drugs, Addiction and Initiation: The Modern Search for Ritual
by Luigi Zoja. (Boston: Sigo Press, 1989)
===
CHAPTER ONE
The modern world differs from the ancient
essentially
in that it lacks initiatory rites;
it lacks rites of communion with the sacred
via ritual passage from death to new life
for personal regeneration.
Other than by Eliade,
the problem has hardly ever been addressed.
Groups can offer initiation,
but they quickly become institutionalized;
they do not satisfy the seeker.
The seeker is someone who is unhappy with society.
He seeks fellowship ("All my relatives!")
and a master.
Authentic initiation
requires understanding of death as transformational.
It's no coincidence
that both perspectives are lacking in our society,
which is one of "psychological stasis,"
of immobilization within the individuation process
at the stage of conventional routine.
All hierarchical patriarchy is, in fact, static;
so initiation is intrinsically counter-hierarchical
if not [as well as?] counter-patriarchal.
Drug use and initiation are similar archetypal processes.
But drug use is ineffective as initiation;
because it omits the second of these three essential phases:
1)
awareness of the meaninglessness of one's current state.
2) death to
one's previous context, identity, routines.
3) rebirth,
facilitated by ritual and community.
(Just as Hopcke's work with gays--
Men's Dreams, Men's Healing, by Robert H. Hopcke
[Boston and London, Shambala, 1990], helps us
to understand non-gay non-patriarchal maleness--
so does this study of addiction.)
===
CHAPTER TWO
Addicts are prone to group phenomena.
They especially are lonely.
Like the rest of us, they seek connectedness
with "all our relatives,"
and the consequent 'meaningfulness.'
To brag about taking drugs is a step in the right direction.
Claiming identity, role, a personal sense of self
and one's social function,
are expressions of archetypes.
Males need initiation to a greater degree than do females. (Women
are "brought monthly to the door of the sacred.") Once-- indeed, for
98% of human history!-- all males everywhere experienced initiation.
Addiction is an attempt to be somebody,
not an escape from reality but an attempt to enter into it.
Addicts see the present cultural context as unreal.
Today it is almost impossible for young people
to feel useful or to have any hero-ic ego-identity--
because of the culture's rejection of death.
Without risk, life is dull; males need to fight to live.
For males, fullness of personhood is not given but won.
Archetype-spirits address individuals;
modern culture offers little possibility
of risk and responsibility.
Thus the resurfacing, ever more irrationally,
of the violent, destructive, repressed hero archetype.
===
CHAPTER THREE
Drug addiction is the mis-use of a substance,
the expectation of mystical/magic results
(of communion with the sacred).
The addiction process has three factors:
1)
physical, biological habit
2)
psychological habit
3)
presence of sacred (= "meaning" = identity/role).
Most drug treatment programs are ineffective:
they reduce addiction to the first two factors.
If an addict frees himself from #1 and #2
it is because he finds a new #3 within.
Otherwise, a new EXTERNAL #3 takes over
as religious fanaticism, compulsive overeating, etc.
Drug use is caused by the absence
of the experience of the sacred.
What is missing is the means of access to the sacred.
Kids turn to drugs in hope
of transformative/initiatory experience.
===
CHAPTER FOUR
Drugs function as messengers from the other world;
when a culture is collapsing, drug use becomes widespread.
Primitive cultures balance conscious and unconscious.
European invasion upsets the balance:
conscious and unconscious get polarized.
(The invaders take the pole of rationality,
tribal people are left with the irrational.)
Drugs seem to activate the need
for a ritual setting for their use.
Jungian/Archetypal psychology sees the mystical overtones
of drug use as the activation in the culture at large
of the need for renewal.
Three aspects of initiation rites:
purification;
isolation,
especially from the opposite sex; and
direct
relationship with nature, especially trees.
(This makes the sweat lodge the number one
desirable rite of our time! [At least for men.])
In the cultural crisis of the 1960/70s,
widespread use of hallucinogens was openly linked
with need for renewal
by turning to Native American cultures
founded on shamanic initiation/visions.
Having been betrayed by our leaders,
we seek regeneration where we can find it.
[Earlier] Military defeat and incarceration of NAs
led to the disappearance of hunting, battles,
and rites of the individuation process (VQ).
(How all this is so important especially for males!)
The results: sickness, alcoholism and suicide.
Drug addiction and suicide were a form
of minimal preservation of self-dignity: self-destruction.
A solution was sought in the Ghost Dance,
and after Wounded Knee in peyote cults,
both are highly symbolic spontaneous initiatory movements.
(Clearly, my own developments, too,
might go the way of the Ghost Dance.)
This is a good book:
with its interpretation (from Jungian viewpoint)
of the chaos of the 60s as need for recovery of initiation,
with its naming of NA shamanism
as the source turned to for help,
with its understanding of Wounded Knee,
with its emphasis on male needs,
with its insights into the kind of environment
conducive to initiation rites.
===
CHAPTER FIVE
Drug use is a rejection of the dominant culture.
But the pattern--
a "high" and release of tensions,
followed by "crash" and hangover--
is an inversion of the initiatory death-rebirth process.
Addiction is initiation into un-life.
It is darkness, passive self-destruction,
death without renewal.
It is like the manic-depression cycle.
Manic phase is empty vitality,
"like a new-born, greedy for life,"
seeking of ever-new experiences continually begun
at the expense of previous unfinished ones.
Depression phase is ego tied up in mourning and sadness.
Analogy: pathological consumerism is addiction,
like the manic inability to stop.
It cannot accept loss or decrease in goods or services,
it has only forward development:
constant growth, never ending accumulation of goods,
the in-ability to see meaning
in sadness, limitation, death.
The addict's continual need for bigger and better doses,
the empty vitality of the manic,
and the pathology of cultural consumerism are all one.
Especially for creative people
(an example of how complex all this is!),
the hangover, with its guilt, sadness and death,
may be desired as much as
the carefree stage of happy drunkenness.
Somehow, my earthwalk--
the earthwalk of the cosmos embodied as me--
makes the initiatory process available to others;
it is a Rupert Sheldrake-like breakthrough,
which somehow enables others to follow.
A condition laid on this one was
he may not start with the death experience
of sadness at the loss of sacred.
He sees why:
his earthwalk is the sacred becoming available.
===
CHAPTER SIX
Shamanism is the alternative
to the rationalism and pathological consumerism
of western culture.
The recovery of shamanism
goes hand in hand with male renewal,
the re-grounding of the male psyche.
===
CHAPTER SEVEN
The least destructive use of drugs
is found in primitive societies where--
protected by accompanying rites, traditions and guides--
it contributes to personal growth.
The most destructive use is in modern Western society
where there is no humility
and no reverence for traditional myths and teachers.
In the context of consumerism--
loss of the sacred and absence of ritual "containers"--
drug use tends to be solitary
and without cultural integration of any forthcoming visions.
Consumerism is born when
sacred gives way to profane,
ritual to obsession,
archetype to stereotype.
(! A one sentence summary
of what is most painful about contemporary society!)
In the manic/depression polarization,
the depression pole--
mourning, sadness, death-- is denied,
while the manic pole--
unlimited growth, indefinite and unending increase
of production and consumption-- is defined as goal.
The life-rhythm of enthusiasm and reflection is destroyed;
only the manic enthusiasm is permitted:
a denial of death which results in death,
like a psychological cancer.
The suicide of the addict is ultimate consumption.
The addict's slow suicide is a non-ritual
and non-productive (negative) sacrifice.
In our excessively one-sided world,
drugs can be a substitute for religious experience
in that a 'quasi-numinous' may be contacted.
But it is in fact a pseudo-numinous
in that it lacks 'meaning.'
(Gillette and Moore call the quasi or pseudo sacred the 'limnoid':
it feels good, it is refreshing and entertaining,
but it's not transformative.
It is pleasure without reorientation,
suffering without insight,
because it is located OUTSIDE the individual.
I.e., exactly as Zoja says,
that if the addict frees himself from the physical-biological
and the psychological habit,
it is because he finds a new transformation within.
Otherwise, a new EXTERNAL #3 takes over
as religious fanaticism, compulsive overeating, etc.)
===
CHAPTER EIGHT
Two main groups of drugs:
"more sacred" hallucinogens,
which activate symbols in the unconscious,
and "less sacred" (amphetamines, alcohol, etc.),
which "alter the ego-superego relationship."
Alcohol is more accepted socially in the West,
for its resultant highly valued extravert social behavior;
hashish is equally valued in the East,
but for its introvert effects.
Hallucinogenic effects don't fade so quickly,
don't result in (physiological) addiction,
and don't mimic the manic/depression cycle.
They allow an extended dialogue with the symbols produced;
more accurately, with the archetypes behind the symbols.
Thus they can be initiatory and healing.
The non-hallucinogens result only
in "hypertrophy of the ego":
the experience of power or treasure once held but now lost,
inflation followed by feeling of exile from the Garden.
Since ancient times, initiatory drug use
is almost exclusively for males.
Drug abuse appears primarily in individuals
who do not know how to accept life or "the human
condition."
They can't face it. And can't face that they can't face it.
Thus they substitute consumerism for initiation.
Results: job & income loss, ruined health,
damaged emotions, damaged spirit.
Widespread contemporary alienation and despair
is accounted for by the absence in our society
of transformational ritual.
===
HOW RESTORE THE INITIATORY PROCESS?
Initiation always exists as a need.
It is more likely to be sought by individuals,
alone and in unique situations,
especially by those with "restless natures"
urged on by "gut instincts."
Basic stages of human life-- birth, mating and death--
are still 'observed' or 'attended,'
but have lost much of their initiatory overtones;
they tend to lack one or more of the aspects
necessary for initiatory rites:
the sacred, irreversibility, and lack of alternative.
However (and what an awesome statement this is!),
the archetypal nucleus of transformational ritual
is waiting for a more auspicious time
to achieve harmony with the dominant culture.
And neither lack of initiatory institutions
nor the loss of the sacred
can weaken it.
Eventually it will cause the creation or restoration
of appropriate channels
able to provide the ritual framework needed and desired
if not by society as a whole,
at least by some, the truly interested.
What can I say!
Here is this one's situation clarified
as a condition of the universe,
not just as a deficiency on his part!
===
Other possibilities...
#1: Falling in love
can also be initiatory.
It is not an ego activity
but an activity of the unconscious,
a compensation for what has been repressed
by our society's ubiquitous rationalism and positivism.
It is initiatory in that is does not so much
unite one with the beloved
as renew the one who loves.
It even shows a profound, if frustrated, need for ritual.
While not yet sufficiently culturally adapted
to satisfy the need for initiation,
it can help to counter-balance
the one-sidedness of our culture.
With will power and ego strength, falling in love
can become real and irreversible,
one's beloved a sacred object.
===
Possibility #2: Faithfulness to one's everyday life.
Being neither sentimental nor pessimistic,
the details of one's everyday life,
even soul-less, repetitive activities,
-- 'owned'--
can become sacred.
It is hardly a new idea
that faithfulness to routine can be sacred ritual.
But its is new that it can also be transformational.
===
Possibility # 3: The long, gradual and difficult process
of self-discipline needed to undergo psycho-analysis.
===
NOTES: CONTEXT, NEEDS, PERSONAL, WONDEROUS QUOTE, ???, MORE!
THE CONTEXT. Ours is a non-transformational culture.
No initiation. Psychological stasis.
Instead of dynamic life-giving union
of consciousness and unconscious,
we have one-sidedness.
The irrational goes underground and finds expression
in violence and addiction:
the external and internal self-destruction
of negative heroes.
Violence, vandalism and addiction result
when people, males especially, lack ritual context
for initiation to adulthood.
Persons unhappy with the culture
seek regeneration via drugs
because they don't know about initiation.
Drug addiction and pathological consumerism are one:
they are the manic pole alone,
lacking the reflective pole of the manic/depression rhythm.
The culture is one-sidedly manic
as well as one-sidedly rationalistic.
Creative people may seek the depression pole
as a way of balancing the only-manic.
The constant growth called for by pathological consumerism
is accumulation, "development" in the real-estate sense,
not individuation via the death/rebirth experience
of initiatory transformation.
The culture has cancer and is dying of its illness.
Some kill themselves:
the addict's suicide is ultimate consumption.
To a great extent, the dying culture's patriarchal religion,
with its emphasis on important aspects of one's life
having already been done by another,
is at fault.
===
NEEDS: Initiation, rituals of transformation:
regenerative rites of death/rebirth.
Communion with sacred, with "all my relatives,"
the resulting sense of meaning (identity/purpose)
given via archetypes.
The alternative to cultural stasis and empty 'vitality'
is Paleolitihic shamanism, as preserved in NA traditions.
Our greatest need: recovery of a grounded/sacred manhood,
via initiatory rites (like vision quest).
Without visions, men die.
Manhood is not automatic, it has to be 'owned.'
Males intrinsically need initiation.
Both shamanism and non-patriarchal manhood
need recovery simultaneously.
Together, they are the alternative
to the pathological consumerism
and patriarchal stasis of our culture.
Because it focuses on purification by same sex groups
in a natural setting, the sweat lodge
is the "rite of choice" for our time.
We know that it is in fact becoming widespread,
that the universe is calling forth sweat lodge leaders!
===
PERSONAL. My archetypal image, shamanic trickster,
which also can be expressed as axis mundi and bear-walker,
has a two-fold focus,
for a long time he's called it the "double round"
(in contrast to the great round or retort of alchemy,
usually interpreted as maternal).
Clearly, such a focus, as weird as it has sometimes seemed,
is apparently right on target for our present situation.
Faithfulness to a contemporary shamanic vocation
is itself initiatory.
I have a very strong injunction against allowing myself
the indulgence of choosing the depression pole only
as a way of balancing the one-sided manic-ness
of the culture.
Ordered to "not mourn or hate"
but to walk the earth with the sacred pipe
is to be ordered to not be in un-balance,
but to be in balance
and thus make balance present/available.
Concerning the identity of earth-walk and pipe rites:
I am to choose, own,
accept in freedom moment to moment--
not just endure--
the details of my life as sacred:
to en-soul the soul-less,
to give my 'yes' in freedom to the concrete details
of the life I have be given.
Those details are in fact the mystery's self-givings
no less than the archetypal spirit-powers of sacred visions,
their acceptance is indeed no less transformational.
(9 July 93: And that specifically applies to HRHS.)
At an auspicious time, the INITIATION archetype
will provide its own appropriate channels.
I'm to be one of them,
called to provide the context of initiatory rites
for owning sacred manhood.
Those interested need to know, somehow;
but I am not to act on my own.
I must wait for the universe to act.
I'm no longer embarrassed by all this,
but I still think it is outrageous.
(10 July 93. I no longer think it's outrageous.)
===
A WONDEROUS QUOTE: "The archetypal nucleus
of transformational ritual
is waiting for a more auspicious time
to achieve harmony with the dominant culture."
From Chapter 2: As shaman-trickster--
life-giving axis mundi, bear-walker--
his path is the Good Red Road of the sacred pipe.
Somehow pipe rite and earth-walk are one and the same:
proclamation, actualization and celebration
of the archetypal image of life-giving transformation.
Once he is cheered,
he will be radiant epi-phany, glowing phallos.
===
In the cultural crisis of the 1960/70s
widespread use of hallucinogens was openly linked
with need for renewal
by turning to Native American cultures
which are founded on initiation/visions of shamanism.
(Having been betrayed by our leaders,
we seek regeneration where we can find it.
(This sense of betrayal, until fairly recently.
is not one I've been especially conscious of.
(In the male renewal literature,
there is great emphasis on one's woundedness.
This betrayal is a major aspect of my wounding.
(9 July 93, NEH/Darwin, DC. I recognize betrayal,
especially by the religious institutions,
as an aspect of alienation
which I've come to recognize as my 'wound.'
(The alienation is precisely because of the need
for connectedness with All, specifically via ritual;
this alienates me from the culture and, alas,
from the religious tradition as well.
I express a fear: that, clearly,
my developments, too,
might go the way of the Ghost Dance.
The addict's continual need for bigger and better doses,
the empty vitality of the manic,
and the pathology of cultural consumerism
are all one.
Especially for creative people
(an example of how complex all this is!),
the hangover, with its guilt, sadness and death,
may be desired as much as
the carefree stage of happy drunkenness.
(I don't think this is me,
but it could have been.)
Somehow, my earthwalk--
the earthwalk of the cosmos embodied as me--
makes the initiatory process available to others:
a breakthrough which somehow enables others to follow.
A condition laid on this one was
he may not start with the death experience
of sadness at the loss of sacred.
He sees why:
his earthwalk IS the sacred becoming available.
Just now-- it was 9 July 93-- he realizes
how significant this book was for him.
===
One more note.
Drug use is caused by the absence
of the experience of the sacred.
WHAT IS MISSING IS THE MEANS OF ACCESS TO THE SACRED.
Kids turn to drugs in hope
of transformative/initiatory experience.
See essay "Women’s Stories, Women’s Symbols: A Critique of
Victor Turner’s Theory of Liminality," by Caroline Walker Bynum, in Anthropology
and the Study of Religion, edited by Robert L. Moore and Frank E. Reynolds. (Center
for the Scientific Study of Religion, Chicago, 1984).
The author, a professor of History at U of Washington interested
in medieval female mystics, makes an excellent case for the fact that while
transformative experience may be absolutely necessary for male growth and
development, it isn’t for women, for whom Turner's ideas about liminality, etc.
don't apply.
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