In an interesting bit of synchronicity, I was thinking about the role of mind-altering drugs in magickal/shamanic work, when I ran across a posting on the "alt.pagan" newsgroup advocating abstinance from such chemicals--largely because they're illegal. Well, that got me to thinking more.
As I alluded to in "Afterthought the First" above, drugs and the pagan paths are fellow-travelers of long-standing. The "Bacchic frenzy" was in essence a drunken orgy/brawl. Native Americans fight the government for the right to consume peyote, but tobacco as well has been used ceremonially for centuries. Michael Harner, in THE WAY OF THE SHAMAN, recognizes mind-expanding drugs as one of the gateways to Otherworld journeying (along with drumming, singing, pathworking, etc.). Recent scholarship has advanced the notion of a witches' "flying ointment" (active ingredients include the potentially-lethal aconite) used to alter consciousness during medieval times.
Why all this drug use? In some of my writings above, I believe I make clear my opinion that truly letting go of mundane consciousness is difficult enough in the best of circumstances. To access what Harner calls "the Shamanic State of Consciousness" (or, if you prefer, "non-ordinary reality") requires total submission of the conscious. By either suppressing inhibitions or inducing a hallucinatory state, drugs ranging from alcohol to LSD, in theory at least, jumpstart the process.
The keyword here is process. Getting to an altered state is one thing; functioning productively there is another. I have always been unwilling to play with hallucinogens for this very reason--loss of control. There's a better-than-average chance that you, Gentle Reader, have used alcohol to lower sexual inhibitions (and nothing wrong with that in my book). But did you behave in a safe and constructive way? The key is that someone must act as a monitor. It could be one of the participants in the drug-taking who maintains a degree of sobriety, but that seems pretty silly, doesn't it. That leaves an abstaining partner. Shamans in any number of cultures have assistants to look out for their physical well-being while they are in the Otherworlds. The same should be true for any contemporary pagans doing legitimate magickal or celebratory work with drugs. Including alcohol.
We've got enough of a bad rap as it is.
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