Unofficial Vital Student ‘Zine
Notes from Vital Psychedelic Training class of ‘23
Transpersonal psychology with Dr David Luke: Vital Student Zine #5
Dr David Luke is the real ‘new psychonaut’ pushing the boundaries of research here in London.
My unofficial Vital Study Zine #5 with observations from Vital Psychedelic Training and recent happenings in the space
Mary Jacoob, ‘Constellation 01’ via Gallery 46 Whitechapel
The next stage of human consciousness is calling. Are we brave enough to answer?
Dr David Luke is the most intrepid researcher of the psychedelic renaissance - ‘the real new psychonaut’. Straight out of London but living “on the edge… of Sussex” his inspirational investigations include DMT space exploration, the psychedelic divine feminine, biophilia (tree hugging) and psionic powers – often conducted “in the field”.
David Luke dropped out of lecturing to study shamanism, and returned to Britain with consciousness expanded. Since he’s been at the vanguard of the psychedelic renaissance, consistently leading by example.
Senior lecturer at all the best universities, co-founder of Breaking Convention, and director of the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness salon at the Institute of Ecotechnics which sounds incredible, he is a global figure in the transpersonal psychology movement. And he spoke to Vital students about it.
In the Zine this week:
Approach: Transpersonal psychology is back
Therapy: Psychedelic mysteries of the feminine
Space: Out in the field with citizen science
Integral: Alchemy for the People
Air provides an overview of psychedelic use, Fire concerns therapeutic applications, Water covers ‘space holding’ – the art of keeping it together, Earth is where you’ll find medical matters, and Ether discusses integration, the process of bringing psychedelic power into regular life. Click straight through to your pet subject above or browse the whole thing via the Vital Study Zine main page.
See Dr Luke interviewed here plus a bunch more videos I put on this YouTube resource channel.
Transpersonal psychology is back and this time it’s real
Science meets the super-normal in Stanislav Grof’s school of mental health study developed around psychedelic therapy.
Approach
Science meets the super-normal in Stanislav Grof’s school of mental health study
Stanislav Grof’s 1972 wedding to ‘Jiko’ Joan Halifax in Iceland
In the 1980s transpersonal psychology staple and Way of the Psychonaut author Stanislav Grof found himself inventing holotropic breath work out of necessity after LSD faded from grace.
Reflecting courageously on the flaws of transpersonal psychology, where science meets the super-normal, he nonetheless pointed out that the approach showed enormous potential for a range of treatment resistant diseases. And that it could be applied to other fields: like ecology, business, social work, maybe even medicine itself again someday.
“The psychology of transformative experience” is how Dr Luke describes ‘transpersonal psychology’. Back in polite conversation thanks to Iain McGilchrist’s philosophy blockbuster The Matter with Things it’s the shrinks’ most progressive field, big in the 60s at Esalen and back with a vengeance thanks to everyone from ecologists to talk therapy refuseniks and engineers of the zero-point field, to pharma giants and governments with nationalised healthcare and their eyes on psychedelics’ potential to cure disease and reboot productivity.
“The only revolution that can work is the inner transformation of every human being”
The transpersonal are “moments that evolve your current ego identity… by stepping outside normal consciousness to connection with a wider other,” explains Dr Luke. You’re in the realm of the transpersonal when you’re feeling warm and clear after meditating or making it to church: plus when acknowledging childhood trauma, or during a full revelatory, inner-visual spiritual experience… or being abducted by aliens, having a spontaneous DMT exprience, astral projecting, arguably dreaming and so on.
The discipline is “ethnogenic, cognicentric and pragmacentric” meaning entirely inclusive and accepting of other modes of consciousness. It evolved throughout the 20th century from William James’ ‘radical empiricism’ – scientific testing for the mysterious and hitherto unknown – to include Burke’s ‘cosmic consciousness’, Jung and Maslow’s pining for the mystic, and ‘post religious’ belief systems like Ken Wilbur’s integral.
Grof and Halifax exchange vows. They published The Human Encounter With Death together in 1977
You still have to do the graft though. “The only revolution that can work… is the inner transformation of every human being,” said Grof, and transpersonal psychology includes a faith in humanity’s ability to evolve not only physically but mentally, spiritually… and psionically.
“The mycelium is the message” grins Dr Luke, “other societies have sanctioned altered states, while ours refuses their existence.”
Don’t confuse transpersonal psychology with quantum psychology.
Mysteries of the psychedelic divine feminine
To Maria Papaspyrou the psychdelic feminine represents self-expression, spontaneity, intuition, inclination towards change, mindfulness, connection, and acceptance.
Therapy
Both genders can embrace spontaneity, intuition, change, connection and acceptance
Heidi Taillefer, ‘Angels of our Nature’ there’s a print going here
Dr Luke’s diverse body of work includes a blast of goddess energy.
He co-edited of Psychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine: Creativity, Ecstasy, and Healing. To co-editor Maria Papaspyrou the psychedelic feminine represents self-expression, spontaneity, intuition, inclination towards change, mindfulness, connection, and acceptance. It isn’t gender-specific but archetypal: “The feminine is an elemental pattern we all carry within ourselves, whether we are men or women,” says Papaspyrou.
Papaspyrou cites Gareth Hill, a Jungian analyst who divided the feminine into ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ aspects. Static “serves the impersonal goals of life on Earth, species preservation and survival.” The dynamic “receives her wisdom by engaging with direct experience, and is receptive to knowledge that belongs to the deep inner worlds”.
“The realms beyond that space belong to the feminine. There we meet what is beyond words”
It is the dynamic in particular that we deny at our disservice and peril: “The dynamic feminine represents spaces that can be fascinating and ecstatic as well as terrifying and disorienting, that as a society we have learned to resist.” This is represented in myth by tantric goddess Kali who tramples men that gaze ecstatically up at her as a result, as she finally frees from the constraints of ego. We’ve all been there chaps.
The feminine is psychedelic in that it encompasses concepts like cosmic union, timelessness, rebirth, and ego death. “The realms beyond that space belong to the feminine, and there we meet what is beyond words and immediate perception,” says Papaspyrou. Never mind that many sectors of the psychedelic renaissance are, or will, be served by women from social work to psychotherapy and luxury tourism.
Strength of street knowledge
“What can the medical sector learn from the underground?’ Eveything,” says Dr David Luke.
Space
What can the medical sector learn from the space? “Everything,” says Dr Luke
If you like this there’s another Grant Morrison reference in the issue
‘Field research’ is Dr Luke’s term for the surveys and private research projects he’s conducted on the fringes of everyday reality.
“It’s citizen science at its finest – but tragically illegal,” expanded Dr Luke in answer to my question, ‘What can the medical sector learn from the psychedelic subculture?’
“I’ve invented ‘psychograms’ to represent all sorts of altered states,” he offers by way of an example, “I have about four art-stroke-science virtual reality projects on the go right now ranging from inducing synaesthesic meditation to interplanetary inter-connectedness and the tarot,” he says. “It’s the inverse – you alter your perception to change your brain, rather than alter your brain to change your perception. We have things like that at the festivals, they supposedly replicate the effects psychedelics… at least on paper according to the tests. I slightly don’t believe it, but there is massive potential.”
While keen to stress that “psychedelics are not a panacea” like all authentic experts, extensive surveys conducted by Dr Luke and his team “show that they can be good for all kinds of things actually, from autism to Parkinson’s.”
“This is the intersection of science, and genuine transcendence of time/space to bring back information”
In the suburban living rooms of Britain something stirs. “We go round to people’s houses, it’s much more pleasant for the subjects. We did some experiments with precognitive individuals, and put shared experiences declared by ayahuasca users under the microscope: two people, experienced users who didn’t know each other, weren’t allowed to talk beforehand, attempted to join each other in the experience, and were interviewed separately afterwards. I haven’t fully evaluated the data as independent judges are interpreting the reports and images. But just eyeballing the material, I thought it was a long shot but… it looks like we’re going to get something quite significant. Albert Hoffman saw the doctor coming with an obsidian knife and feathered headdress. He knew where the provenance; his colleagues in Basle had similar visions, but no idea of any connection to Mexico or the Inca.”
This is the intersection of science, “and genuine transcendence of time and space to bring back information,” declares Dr Luke, “I’ve been looking into creative problem solving with scientists in DMT, bridging the gap between shamanism and science. It speaks to the very nature of reality, the meeting point between world views. And nobody’s asking these questions. They’re asking ‘What does it do in the brain?’ questions. And they’re getting ‘What it does in the brain’ kind of answers. They don’t engage with the glaring ontological questions about the nature of reality.”
He believes the obvious experts to ask, like many actually do, are the DMT explorers of the Amazon. “Collectively as a culture they have thousands of years of expertise,” Dr Luke says, “They were the original keeps of the wisdom and the substances. They haven’t been invited to the table at these multi billion dollar conferences.”
DMT vs Death
Is DMT hyperspace the afterlife and do we become an ‘entity’ when we die?
Medical
Is DMT hyperspace the afterlife and do we become an ‘entity’ when we die?
Mary Jacoob ‘Nexus 02’ via Gallery 46
DMT is produced in the body at the moment our physical existence ends.
And, according to a recent paper by proper brainbox Dr Christopher Timmerman, DMT replicates the near death experience (NDE). So is DMT intended only for that final event in our lives? And is a DMT trip a ticket to the realm beyond?
Judging by his own enthusiastic research “the truth is “going to be more complex,” says Dr Luke, who has studied more than one shamanistic tradition first hand in detail.
“There are features of the DMT experience you don’t get with NDE,” says Dr Luke, “Intense geometric patterns and colours for example, which are fundamental. Encounters with deceased relatives, and premonition [predicting the future] are less common in DMT. But 4-5% of people who take DMT have a ‘deceased encounter’ – but no ‘life review’ or ‘tunnel’.”
‘DMT entities’ are also unique to substance, Dr Luke adds. “Then there are the encounters with little people that have been around for a long time,” he says, “Graham Hancock made a direct comparison with them to modern-day alien abduction experiences. Although traditionally they were associated with the world of the dead. There’s many layers - the two not the same, I would say. They may be related. DMT may be ‘released’ at death. It may be created in the pineal gland. But we don’t have enough hard evidence.”
There are many other hypotheses: “I have colleagues who believe DMT entities are ‘intro-ceptive.’ You’re encountering your own micro-biome, mitochondria or other internal structures,” says Dr Luke, “Interesting theory, but it doesn’t account for the 25 -foot tall preying mantises.”
DMT is prevalent at much higher levels in the human body than previously believed. Maybe to the same extent as serotonin, to which it is increasingly compared
So should we, like our mate says, avoid taking DMT in case it uses up all our death high, and our eventual moment of union with the cosmic whole is, like, a dud?
According to hardcore research where scientists monitored the brain activity in rats while they died, DMT is produced at six times the normal level at the moment of extermination. But other chemicals, including serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine are blasted at many more times the normal levels.
“There’s very good reasons to think DMT is produced in the human pineal gland,” says Dr Luke, “but it could be made in the body.” In 2019 a heavyweight paper from the DMT Quest organisation concluded DMT is prevalent at much higher levels in the human body than previously believed; even to the same extent as serotonin, to which it is increasingly compared. The pineal gland is tiny, points out Dr Luke, and said experiments on rats were also conducted on another set of rats who’d had their pineal glands removed. DMT was still produced at large quantities upon death.
While we’re asking questions like ‘are entities real?’ in the pub, more ambitious brains are looking into the relationship between the pineal gland, DMT and autism (upon which Dr Luke has conducted surveys suggesting “extremely promising data”). While dudes like Andrew Gilmore and Anton Bilton are talking about setting up a DMT hyperspace station for extended exploration and communion.
Alchemy for the People
The psychedelic revolution is already happening.
Integration
The psychedelic revolution is already happening
By Brian Bolland from Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles
It’s time to take the psychedelic destiny that is rightfully ours. Which doesn’t have to involve anything too jarring.
Stanislav Grof said “It would be nice to see people be able to go for hikes, or go swimming.” Albert Hoffman insisted LSD was experienced in the wild.
“I used to go surfing, I’m a big fan of watersports on psychedelics,” giggles Dr Luke, “A lot of the outdoor-wilderness extreme sports have gone hand in hand with psychedelic culture.” James Oroc was the Burning Man face and 5-MEO author better known to extreme sports fans as paraglider ‘Kiwi’ Johnston, who passed away doing what he loved in 2020.
“Ecologists in Europe have druids involved. Which is my fault”
Morphic resonance – relating to the consciousness of others, said to be a skill of Shipibo ayahuasca healers – is strong in ceremonial groups.
“Will I ever be able to conduct forest therapy with a hundred, maybe ten thousand people?” dreamed aloud one Vital student in the Q&A after Dr Luke’s speech. “Ecologists in Europe have druids involved, which is my fault,” was all the esoteric scientist could offer unfortunately, with acceptance on that scale being so far away.
Although what with MDMA apparently being a psychedelic now, we’ve been in ceremony outdoors, admittedly with the drumming updated, for a while now. Here’s to James Oroc and all the rave ancestors.
Kool aid corner #5
Your five-corner round-up of trippy clippings, merry pranks, and psychedelic student life.
To finish: trippy clippings, merry pranks, and psychedelic student life
Graph/visual aid of the Week
Comparison of entopic phenomena with the cave art of the San, the Coso and of Upper Paleolithic Europe
After Lewis-Williams and Dowson, 1988
From: Visionary: The Mysterious Origins of Human Consciousness (The Definitive Edition of Supernatural) (2022) by Graham Hancock
My bookshelf weighs a ton
Notable new purchases for the occult library. Strictly second hand snap-ups only.
This week: The Secret of the Yamas by that John McAfee
From a Buddhist centre in Birmingham for £9
Before he invented anti-virus software and became a tech billionaire John McAfee was a meditation teacher. He wrote this book, considered a classic amongst aficionados.
Eventually there was the whole thing in Belize. The abyss claims another: “Arrakis has seen men like you come, and go.”
Non-duality is not necessarily peaceful. The anima works in notoriously, poetically mysterious ways.
Next issue: Dr Sjöstedt-Hughes and psychedelic philosophy
Each ‘Zine features the most mind-blowing bits I scrawled down during each of Vital’s exclusive live lectures by the finest minds in the space. Browse them by issue or go straight to the introductions with lecturer details.
And search by the topics: Traditional and Modern Approaches, Therapy, Space Holding, Medical and Clinical, and Integration. Funnies at the end too.