Who is it that we meet on our psychedelic sojourns? As in, who are the Others that seem to dwell within the experience? Spirit guides? Extra-terrestrial, extra-dimensional beings?
With the upcoming Visionary Dialog happening here on RS on September 15th — Is Ayahuasca an Alien Intelligence? — let’s take a look at a helpful (but) mind-bending point of view shared by the late psychedelic philosopher Terence McKenna. “The real trick with an extra-terrestrial is to know when you’re in the presence of one… because it is going to be so strange.” Instead of looking to the skies for visitors, might we do better to look to our journeys to innerspace? Hyperspace? Could it be that drinking the brew brings us face-to-face with ETs?
“The problem is one of modeling and intelligence. There is an alien. We are in the cultural process of meeting this alien, but they do not come in 1000-ton beryllium ships from Zanebo-Ganubi to trade high technology for human fetal tissue. That’s an intelligence test folks. That’s not how it works. Our own hysteria makes it very difficult to deal with the presence of the alien, and the alien knows that. That’s why it has disguised itself as a psychedelic experience, i think. Somehow we must let them know we welcome them by building a landing area. I think that the alien is a creature of pure information. It’s purely information. It’s non-local. It comes out of the Bell, non-locality part o the universe, distributed through hyperspace. The alien is real, but it is only made of information. And therefore, the only dimension in which it can be encountered is a dimension of pure information!”
This, of course, begs the question: why would aliens disguise themselves as psychedelics?
“Isn’t it obvious that an alien would hide it’s presence on intoxication? This is the respectful, tasteful way to have intercourse with another species. You put yourself into a plant. You put a barcode into a molecule. Then the shaman intoxicates himself and says: Aha! It’s an ancestor spirit. It’s the soul of the plant. But whatever it is, it’s giving me good information. Where the reindeer went. What the weather will be… and, it’s telling me, who among the ill members of my tribe will live and die.”
The whole darned thing forces us up against the invisible wall of our own worldview, and makes us question… become receptive to, the reality of the Other. Be they spirits or aliens or whatever kind of being they are, they are. And so what do we do with them? How do we say ‘hello?’
The Alien Other also has a message. Many who have tasted the Ayahuasca vine’s brew have developed a deep appreciation for nature and the rest of the biosphere. So, does this mean Ayahuasca has an intention? Is it communicating with us to save the biosphere? Maybe fixing human consciousness before we wreck the planet. Do other psychedelics have their own… entities? Intelligences?
That’s where our Visionary Dialogs come in.
To go further down the alien wormhole, we’ve gathered some of Reality Sandwich’s most knowledgeable and insightful writers on the subject of ayahuasca and other plant spirit teachers. Become a Conscious Agent and join Chris Kilham, Dani Katz, Diana Slattery and Jonathan Talat Phillips for September’s Visionary Dialog: Is Ayahuasca an Alien Intelligence?
