Science and religion eye each other warily as they circle around the topic of non-ordinary awareness. As well they should, for the perspectives of both science and religion seem to be uncomfortably, hopelessly intertwined when it comes to this complex of issues. And whereas some presenters at the Conference attempted to tease these threads apart, some attempted to show how science and religion naturally interpenetrate within the altered states topic. The umbrella term "altered states" encompasses such scientific hot potatoes as experiences where the dualistic categories of "subjective" and "objective" break down, as well as those relationships to the natural order that can seemingly cause synchronicities to begin to arise. Also on the table for debate in this context are latent abilities, higher capacities for information usage and storage, unused capacities, instances of communion with something other than ourselves, spontaneous healing, and ritual / ceremonial techniques and technologies for accessing altered states which have been kept intact by indigenous cultures.
The eastern traditions bring "enlightenment" to the discussion, drawing upon a wealth of information about the navigation of inner space. Then there are the "entheogens," those plant and synthetic substances that by definition "bring forth god from within" (such as ayahuasca and DMT, both members of the tryptamine family). "Shamanism," which received lots of scrutiny at the Conference, refers to the techniques of ecstasy, dialogue with the spiritual world, and healing that are found nearly universally among indigenous people. And lastly, "peak experiences" may be the least controversial and most widely recognized area of interest addressed at the Conference: sports are full of accounts of "being in the zone," that is, of experiencing a kind of spontaneous genius fueled by intuition and teamwork. Some altered states reflect only a slight movement away from ordinary awareness, like simply quieting one's mind or hovering in the liminal state between wakefulness and sleep. Then there are states so intense as to be overwhelming. In trance possession, for instance, the experiencer is said to become a temporary host to a descending spirit. And like the techniques of trance possession, the high produced by the tryptamine hallucinogen family (like ayahuasca and DMT) reliably produces experiences of contact with other beings; those intelligences that the late ethnopharmacologist Terence McKenna termed "the Other." Science has never encountered a more vexing subject than how to handle the accounts of those who enter altered states with plant sacraments and their derivatives. The scientifically relevant point about tryptamines is that, in terms of qualitative analysis from a community of psychedelics researchers these substances reliably cause the experience of being projected into another space in which non-human entities are encountered. Both trance possession and the tryptamine hallucinogen high are linked together by their respective claims of contact with such discarnate entities. Are the entities mere hallucinations? Some suggest that these entities represent autonomous parts of the psyche, loosed on the one hand by the drugs, and on the other hand by the rituals and ceremonies of trance possession. The most exciting possibility, and the most scientifically vexing one, is that the experiences provoked by both the tryptamines and the techniques of trance possession are actually real.
Are the trance possession experiencers merely filling a cultural need? For some perspective on this question we turned to Nigerian master drummer Onye Onyemaechi. Onyemaechi is in a unique position to explain some of the cultural context surrounding possession as well as the techniques necessary to achieve this altered state. Onyemaechi explained that whereas a profound cultural shift has taken place across much of Africa over the last few generations, the phenomenon of trance possession remains. As Onyemaechi describes it, his own grandparents never knew Christianity, and in their indigenous religion, "You have people dancing around the fire, or just dancing and drumming together, and chanting and singing. . .When that activity is heightened, then the deity of that particular village comes. . . into the body of the person that is possessed. And this person would then prophesize in these hallowed rites. . . and those around are also equally affected or ‘trance induced' in the same manner; probably not as in-depth as the person that had been possessed, but in most cases, they are influenced by this experience taking place. So, those are the cultural aspects of it in that religious sense."
Onyemaechi goes on to describe how the phenomenon of trance possession stubbornly endures: "Now you have the Christians, (and) the religions that are now Christian; they no longer wanted to practice the traditional English Christian worship, like the Baptists and the Methodists and so forth and so on. They would like to create their own church called the African Church … So they would create their own church where they have the flexibility and the opportunity to worship god and praise god in ways that touches people and links them to divinity, direct. . . . In these spiritual worship practices, the drums are used as well as the integration of the biblical text. . . So church begins so through the time of worship, praises and songs drumming and dancing, during that time, people are possessed. And they'll term it ‘in the holy spirit'. You're not possessed by the deity of the village, because you're now in a whole different context.. . . Usually when you're possessed you are seeing the future, you are telling about the future of what is going to happen for those members of the group at that particular time."
In these African based religions, the descending spirit displaces the personality of the host to the point where they have no memory of the possession. Is it fair to ask if this is the same as the "lost time" of the UFO abductee? It makes at least a small degree of sense to suppose a connection here, as alleged "UFO entities" are also reported to deliver "prophecies" much like the deities of the trance possession state. Inasmuch as this connection is valid, and inasmuch as the possession experience and the tryptamine high lie along the same continuum, we might do well to ask: are trance possession, the tryptamine high, and other reports of entities in fact describing the same "other" as viewed from different angles? Why should there be congruence among such widely different types of experiences unless there is some underlying connection? Does this connection merely reflect deep neurological structures, or something far more gonzo? Recommended reading: Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna and Ecstasy: The MDMA Story by Bruce Eisner.
(This piece, in slightly modified form, is also found in our book Gonzo Science: Anomalies, Heresies, and Conspiracies .)