Cosmic Midwifery

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Psychedelic therapy sets the stage for new life to flourish

Leonora Carrington, ‘The Temple of the Word’

The psychedelic therapist offers presence, but doesn’t require reporting on behalf of the client. “At a very high dose, we are beyond words anyway,” advises Dr Richards.

Guides are “like midwives, they create a container” to encourage the voyager’s “own choreography of the experience.”

Voyagers should be prepped to “dive into the pupil of the monster” lest one pounce from the shadows of their psyche. Challenging experiences are actually quite unusual (only 40% of users say they’ve had ever one) but “we all have our cross to bear - our trauma” reminds Dr Richards.

“We are primarily dealing with human consciousness,” says the Maryland and Spring Grove veteran, “a meaningful process unfolding from within.” He says objects to examine and inspire, personal or otherwise, can be offered to the voyager who appears inquisitive.

“We are primarily dealing with human consciousness”

Guides practising in legally permitted conditions from my study group say music is a fine changer of mood, especially with those who may have difficulty expressing their mystical sides. These “external routes to mystical consciousness” as Dr Richards dubs them, like the rose bud of lost era lore, or family photos used by silver age guides, can ‘make the energy dance’ like Alfred North Whitehead suggested. Suddenly everything is important, but somehow irrelevant, and both are absolutely fine. Unless they’re not.

“Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity,” wrote Whitehead in Process and Reality: An Essay on Cosmology, “[it] may not neglect the multifariousness of the world — the fairies dance, and Christ is nailed to the cross.“ Quite.