Hallucinogens: Can Psychedelic Substances Heal?

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On a summer evening on a coastal path, a friend offered Amina some mushroom tea and told her she might see strange figures, or people with elephant heads. Instead she spent hours trapped in the darkest hole she had ever been in, begging to be let out. Pål-Esben, meanwhile, tells a story he has never told anyone except his wife: how his treatment-resistant depression finally lifted after many years.

In this forty-eighth episode, Amina and her teacher and guide, Pål-Esben Wanvig, talk about hallucinogens: what psychedelic substances can heal in a professional, therapeutic setting, who should never try them, and why they cannot take you to real oneness. It is part of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a podcast about the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to yourself.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

In this episode

Amina’s first experiences with mushrooms and ayahuasca, and the longing for home that followed
Why Pål-Esben calls them psychedelic substances rather than plant medicine, and what psilocybin, LSD, DMT, MDMA and ketamine are
Pål-Esben’s ketamine treatments on Mallorca, and the psilocybin therapy in Amsterdam that ended his depression
The default mode network, Pandora’s box and the encapsulated rooms of the psyche
The screening: who should never try these substances, and why
Why hallucinogens only lead you further into the dream, and how a hormone cocktail differs from a real experience of oneness
The hunt for insights, the space that “wasn’t closed”, and what happened when Amina did it again
Why some people feel nothing, why the dose can’t simply be increased, and what happens when the filters switch off

This podcast is for you if you:

Seek real depth in your spiritual practice
Want to understand yourself on a more fundamental level
Are curious about shamanism but tired of superficial “new age” spirituality
Have taken many alternative courses but still feel that something is missing
Feel an inner longing for freedom, love and wholeness

In a time when so many get lost in external methods and promises of quick fixes, this podcast invites you back to the only place where true answers can be found: your own heart.

Listen above, or read the full conversation below.

Transcript

A warm welcome to the podcast “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. This podcast is a collaboration with our favourite magazine, the health and lifestyle magazine Medium, and is devoted to exploring the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to oneself. We follow Amina, a student at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School, as she goes through a deep primordial shamanic process of development together with her guide and teacher Pål-Esben. It is a raw, unpolished journey of discovery towards true joy in life, deeper meaning, and a life that truly feels good to live.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

Pål-Esben: Hi, Amina, and a warm welcome to a new episode.

Amina: Hi, Pål-Esben. Thank you, likewise.

Pål-Esben: Thank you. And a warm welcome to you, dear listener. Today we’re going to talk about a somewhat sensitive topic. We love taking up the sensitive topics, the ones that are taboo and that many people have opinions about, often very strong opinions. And that topic is, Amina?

Amina: Psychedelic substances, plant medicine, drugs. It goes by many names. They may be slightly different things too, but within that sphere.

Pål-Esben: Yes, and it’s an important discussion. Let’s say it from the start: we want a reasonably balanced discussion about this. Because anything can be used for something good, but everything comes down to quantity and timing. So we’re not going to have a negative conversation about psychedelic substances. We’re going to have a balanced one. We want to talk about experiences, since we have experience with these things. We want to talk about what this can help with, and not least about the problems: that you can become seriously ill if this isn’t used in the right settings. You can actually ruin your life. So make yourself comfortable, dear listener. Fasten your seatbelt, and let’s start, Amina, with your experience of psychedelic substances.

Amina’s first experience: the mushrooms on the coastal path

Amina: OK, we’ll start there. Then we have to begin right at the start, because there’s a reason I came into that sphere in the first place. My first experience with psychedelic substances was in 2020 or 2021, I think. I’m someone who has never been interested in alcohol and drugs. I’m also very sensitive. But it was a summer evening, with a friend on a coastal path, and he said: “Hey, I’ve got some mushrooms. Do you want to try?” And I said: “OK, what is it? What happens?” “Well, you might see some strange figures, or people with elephant heads.” So I thought: “OK, maybe I’ll live a little, then.” There was no proper set and setting, no intentions, nothing. We found a spot on the beach by the coastal path, a bit out of the way, but not completely alone either. First we made a bit of food, and then we drank the tea with the mushrooms in it. I don’t quite remember which mushroom it was.

Then all I remember is that I disappeared deep into something. At one point my everyday consciousness woke up again. I looked around the place where I was sitting, took the knives that were lying there, and threw them far away. Looking back, I’ve understood why: something in me understood that they couldn’t be lying there during this session, because things went very badly. Then I was dragged down into the darkest, most hellish hole I’ve ever been in, with all my fears and demons. I didn’t understand a thing, because I’d never come across anything like it. Every time I came back to myself, I begged: “Please, get me out of this.”

I also went in and out of time. I was stuck in the same loop, hour after hour, from when it was light until it was dark. It turned into a situation where I was attacked by him several times. Every time I came back in, I had to work out where I was: “OK, the sun is there, I’m sitting here. He hasn’t strangled me yet, he hasn’t put watermelon in my mouth yet, he hasn’t thrown water on me yet. So it’s coming soon.” It was quite simply a really frightening business.

In the end I got hold of my phone and called a good friend who I knew had been involved in things like this. The way I sounded on the phone made him think I’d been kidnapped or raped or something like that. He said that what can often help is to contact the light, or Jesus. So I did. It ended in an exorcism that got pretty gory. You may have seen horror films, and it looked like that. Those who know my story know that I believed I was possessed by demons. It was imprints and trauma from childhood: my stepfather put on horror films about exorcism, and I was told that I was a demon, that I was dark inside. So that’s part of my story.

But there were also a few moments in all that blackness when everything became very bright. Those are some of the experiences I took with me from that first time. At one point I became completely weightless. I was just light, and a deep insight came: “When you leave this body, you won’t miss your children.” In other words, that there’s something more here.

Back in everyday life: the longing for home

Amina: When I came back to the physical world, first of all the friendship between him and me ended, because you can’t give eight grams of this to someone who has never touched it before. I didn’t know much about this, so we disagreed a bit there. But I wanted to know more about what had happened. I went straight back to everyday life, and I no longer saw any meaning in life. I wanted to die. I wanted to take my own life, not because life was dark and black, but because I’d had a few glimpses of what I really am, and I wanted to go back to it. I wanted to go home. I didn’t know where this home was. I looked at a black planet in the sky that wasn’t there, and thought: “I’m from somewhere else. I don’t know where, but I know I’ll get there when I die.”

It also became meaningless for me to pay bills, because I had the notion that I am everything, after all. I am the bill. I’m the one paying the bill. Oh God, I’m even the payment reminder. So it doesn’t matter if I stop paying bills. Then I had a few conversations with the good friend I’d called, who is fortunately clear-headed about things like this. He brought me back down to earth and said: “But Amina, there’s a reason you’re here.” “Yes, OK, I understand.”

Ayahuasca in Norway: insights, and an overwhelmed nervous system

Amina: But then I became keen to know more. What was it I’d experienced? I’d had a shocking experience of there being more between heaven and earth than we know, and of everything that lies in my psyche. That was when I sought out ayahuasca, to find out more about what I’d experienced. My first ayahuasca ceremony, which was here in Norway, really just became a continuation of what I’d experienced by the coastal path. Again I was dragged down into my darkest hole, and I howled and screamed for hours. Very difficult experiences. If I hadn’t had the strength I have in me, it wouldn’t have gone so well. There was no follow-up afterwards either, and I didn’t seek anyone out, because I didn’t understand much of this.

In a way it left me wanting more, because some incredible insights came: that I’m responsible for my own life, insights about belief systems, insights about all sorts of strange things. But when we talk about oneness and experiences of oneness, which many people talk about after ayahuasca ceremonies, that frightened me. I thought oneness was what I experienced: that suddenly I was a lamp post, and then I was melted down into the asphalt, and then I was cut open with a butter knife. That oneness was more me plus you plus this and that, in other words lots of pluses. That’s something completely different from the experiences of oneness I’ve had in rituals with you.

So it opened up new ways of thinking and new ways of seeing life. But it wasn’t healthy for my nervous system. It took a long time to recover afterwards, and I didn’t have the tools to deal with it either, everything from grounding to processing what had happened. I remember coming home after one of those times, and my children looked at me and said: “But Mummy, you don’t feel like Mummy any more.” They were quite small then, and children are very sensitive to changes.

So I have pleasant experiences and very unpleasant experiences. I tolerate very little. Part of it is that I’m sensitive by nature, but because of an operation on my stomach I also tolerate very little. If we compare it with alcohol: if I drink one beer, my body takes it as four beers. So I’m extremely sensitive, and that makes it very hard to get the dose right.

I remember one of the first conversations we had in the first year, about psychedelic substances and plant medicine. I had a longing for something more, something bigger. And you said that what I was longing for, I’d also be able to find here, through the Yggdrasil Shamanic School, when I walk an authentic and wholehearted path. The way you said it gave me a great deal of hope, and not least, along the way I found that it actually turned out that way. Today I don’t have that longing for plant medicine or psychedelic substances. There’s no need for it, where I am now. And that’s a very nice thing to think about.

So that, in short, is some of my experience. It’s pretty intense, and it could actually have ended fatally. Many times I’ve thought about what would have happened if I hadn’t hidden those knives. I don’t think it would have ended well at all.

Psychedelic substances, not plant medicine

Pål-Esben: Here we have an example of how reckless use of these highly potent substances can lead to a full-blown crisis, and in the worst case to extreme situations. Many people like to call it plant medicine, because it sounds so harmless. Use the term psychedelic substances instead, because that’s what this is. Plant medicine sounds as if you go out and pick a few herbs that will help you. It’s a harmless word for something that is really hard-hitting. So my suggestion is that we call them psychedelic substances in this episode, because then at least we know what we’re talking about. This isn’t going out into nature and picking a few herbs, chanterelles or a bit of bark to do something good for your health. These are heavy, heavy things, which human beings have used for many thousands of years, ever since the human brain was developed enough for it. Animals take these substances too. They find them in nature, and you find elk and other animals that are intoxicated because they’ve eaten something containing psychedelic substances. But let’s talk about human beings here.

On the one hand, psychedelic substances have an enormous positive potential when it comes to healing particular illnesses. On the other hand, they can lead a human being into a permanent psychosis, literally, which you have great difficulty coming out of, even after one, two or three years. That’s the other side. And what you describe is what’s often called a classic bad trip. You’re dragged into the deepest darkness, and it can be experienced as extremely problematic if you’re not in the right setting, with the right guide, the right preparation and the right follow-up work.

Before we get into the problems that can arise, and how a human being can literally ruin their whole life, permanently, let’s start with the positive sides of these substances. They’re a bit nicer, and they give us a balanced discussion of the topic.

The classic psychedelics: psilocybin, LSD and DMT

Pål-Esben: By psychedelic substances I mean, first of all, the classic psychedelics, which typically act on the serotonin receptors, such as 5-HT2A, I think it’s called. They activate the serotonin receptors, which we also know from antidepressants, which act on the same receptors. Perhaps the best-known psychoactive substance we find in nature in Norway is the liberty cap mushroom. It contains psilocybin, which is the psychoactive substance that produces the effects we’re discussing. Another substance is LSD, which is also very psychoactive. LSD is a chemical substance that became very well known through the hippie movement in the USA in the sixties. If you take LSD in the correct amount, you get the same psychedelic experiences as with liberty caps.

Another well-known substance is DMT, dimethyltryptamine, and it’s the tryptamine in DMT that makes the psychedelic effect kick in. Where do we find DMT? Among other places in ayahuasca, which has a very strong DMT component. Many people also smoke DMT. Then you get an intense trip where you’re completely out of it for five to fifteen minutes before you come back again. Then you have other types, such as 5-MeO-DMT, which comes from the secretion of certain toads. You can also mix that and smoke it, and get these extreme trips. All of this belongs to the classic psychedelics.

MDMA and ketamine

Pål-Esben: Then you have psychedelics that act even more intensely and directly on the serotonin receptors, such as MDMA. It’s a chemical substance, also known as ecstasy. MDMA is a very powerful hallucinogen, which typically opens up the emotions a great deal. In Norway, for example, the hospital in Østfold, in the south-east of the country, is now doing studies with MDMA in the treatment of treatment-resistant depression, and I think in trauma therapy too. What’s interesting is that when it’s used correctly, it can have a tremendously healing effect. The problem is when it’s used as a party drug, as ecstasy in extremely high doses. Then your serotonin stores are emptied, and you’re left almost entirely without serotonin for a period. You go from an emotional peak to deep depression. That’s why you often hear that young people who take high doses of ecstasy are at great risk of suicide. The danger doesn’t come from the peak, but from the crash afterwards.

You also have dissociative hallucinogens, such as ketamine. Ketamine is also a chemical substance, used for decades now, since the 1960s, as an anaesthetic. If you take your pet to the vet for an operation, it’s often given ketamine as an anaesthetic, so that it loses consciousness. What’s interesting about ketamine is that it has a very dissociative effect: you dissociate from yourself. In Norway there are several clinics, in addition to the hospital in Østfold, that use ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for treatment-resistant depression, actually with very good results. In addition you have substances such as fly agaric, which you’re definitely not advised to experiment with, because it can poison your nervous system.

The research: treatment-resistant depression and PTSD

Pål-Esben: What’s happening in Norway now is that we’ve finally caught up with the research that has been done for many years in the USA, on psychoactive substances in the treatment of severe disorders such as PTSD, treatment-resistant depression and deep, serious trauma. A great deal of research has been done in the USA, and also here in Europe, for example at Imperial College in England, I think it’s called. I don’t remember the name for certain, but anyway there’s a hospital or a clinic there that has carried out massive research on psilocybin, that is, magic mushrooms or liberty caps, for treatment-resistant depression. And what is treatment-resistant depression? It’s depression that hasn’t got better, no matter how much your doctor has treated you, how many medications you’ve taken, and how much psychotherapy you’ve had. Nothing helps. That’s when they start on this. I’ve followed the research of several institutions, because I’m fascinated by how we can use nature in treating severe disorders that ordinary treatment doesn’t work on.

Pål-Esben’s story: the depression and the ketamine treatments

Pål-Esben: As I’ve talked about before, depression has been a theme I’ve carried with me throughout my life. Severe depression: bipolar type 2 with an irregular cycle, and on top of that the worst diagnosis within depression, major depressive disorder, whatever its number is in the ICD. So I have all these fine diagnoses. I’ve always been preoccupied with how I could get out of this. I was in therapy for many years, and nothing helped. None of the medications the doctors gave me helped. But many years ago I began to study ketamine, and I came into contact with a clinic in Spain. I travelled down and had a short series of ketamine treatments.

It was an extreme experience. When you get ketamine, it’s mixed with saline and goes straight into your veins. For me it became one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had, because nobody had prepared me, even though I did this with a psychiatrist. I think I’ve written an article about it. At any rate I have a chapter about ketamine in my new book, which is coming out soon, about the way out of burnout.

I remember flying down to the clinic on Mallorca. The needle was put into one of my veins, and it began to drip. It takes a good while, and I had no idea what was waiting for me. First of all, the room was dark. There was noise from outside, from cars and people. Then the dissociative experiences began: you slide further and further away from yourself. You lose control of your body. You lose control of your thoughts. You lose control of who you are. You dissociate completely from your body and from what you are.

For me it was a shock to lose control. I was completely helpless. And the challenge with ketamine, and with many psychoactive substances, is that your senses become so sharpened. What would have been ordinary noise from outside became like extremely loud music. I got nervous. I had no control over my body and couldn’t move. I hardly knew where I was. I looked up into the room, and it was completely dark. The psychiatrist walked back and forth checking, and I think I was about to freak out completely. When it was over, I gradually came back to myself and thought: “What the hell was that?”

I was supposed to go through more treatments; that was the plan. So I discussed it with the psychiatrist and said I couldn’t do it again that way. Then I got help from someone else, a woman with a bit more sense. She lit candles and created the setting that’s necessary when you go into a state like that. We’ll talk more later about why set and setting, preparation and follow-up work are so exceptionally important if you want to try these things.

Free of depression for a while, and then back in the hole

Pål-Esben: The next treatments went better, and it was actually a fascinating experience. The depression was almost constant for me. I could spend many months in a deep, depressive hole, completely paralysed, where I had to force myself out of bed every day to get on with things. Then, overnight, I was suddenly in top form and in top spirits. It could last a few days, sometimes a little longer, and then I went straight back into the hole. Even though it sounds terrible, that was what gave me hope: if I could have days when I was completely clear and completely well, there had to be a way out of my black hole.

After a few ketamine treatments the veil of darkness was gone. My brain came alive, the brain fog was gone, the depression was gone, and I thought: “Wow, this is a miracle.” I had some other treatments there too, but ketamine was the core. And it lasted. It really lasted! That had never happened before in my adult life. I was completely out of the depressive hole for a good while, and then it came back. Then my dear wife said: “You must fly down again and get a new treatment.” So I travelled down to the clinic and had another round of treatments. That helped for a while too, but not for as long. Later I made one last attempt, and this time it didn’t help at all. I thought: “Once again it’s gone wrong. Once again you’ve hit the wall. Why do you never find the way out of this dark hole?” By then the desperation was even greater. Ketamine doesn’t work, so what do you do then? Then you become even more desperate.

The trail that led to psilocybin

Pål-Esben: The woman who guided me through the last sessions on Mallorca then said: “But this isn’t the most potent way of healing depression.” “Oh, really,” I thought. “But we’re not allowed to do those things here,” she said. “What are you talking about, then?” “Certain mushrooms,” she said. “Mushrooms,” I thought, “what kind of mushrooms is she talking about?” She was a young psychotherapist who had just qualified. She came from a university in Germany and was going to work at the clinic for a year. “What kind of mushrooms are you talking about?” I asked. “Magic mushrooms,” she said. “What’s that?” “Well, you can look it up yourself.”

I thought: “OK, ketamine doesn’t work. What do you do then?” So I began to search. This is many, many years ago. I began to study the universities in the USA, that is, serious universities with serious people, and Imperial College and the others here in Europe, which had exceptional results treating treatment-resistant depression with psilocybin, another word for magic mushrooms.

And what do you think young Wanvig did then? “OK, then you have to do it.” But even back then I had enough sense to understand that this was hyper-potent stuff, and that I had to find a professional, therapeutic setting. Dear listener, you must forgive me if I get the name wrong, whether it’s Imperial College or something else. But at any rate there’s a large institution in England that is doing massive research on psilocybin and depression. I studied them, and they had found the following: when they gave psilocybin to a patient without doing therapy in parallel, the treatment only worked for anything from a few weeks to a few months before the depression came back. So through massive trials they found that treatments like this don’t work particularly well without a therapeutic setting around them.

Then I understood that I had to find a qualified therapist who was an expert in using psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. I wasn’t so empty-headed that I just rushed off to an ayahuasca retreat and thought it would all just go away. I understood from the start that things like this can be extremely harmful, because I’d familiarised myself with what happens to those who come out of it. I already had several years’ experience with students who had been on ayahuasca retreats in the jungle and came to me completely broken. Completely broken. I’ll tell a few stories about that afterwards.

The psilocybin treatment in Amsterdam

Pål-Esben: To cut a long story short: some years ago I ended up in a professional treatment programme with psilocybin. There were several months of preparation before the session itself, and the session was carefully designed. They work on making sure you’re prepared for what happens, that you bring the correct intention with you into the setting, and that your set, your mindset, is balanced, safe and calm. You have a suitable guide beside you, in this case a qualified therapist with psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy as their speciality, as it’s so nicely called. Then comes everything that happens during the session itself, and finally the follow-up work, which is done in therapy for several months afterwards. That’s what I embarked on.

I flew to Amsterdam, where the institution was. I went through a couple of rounds like this with them, and the depression lifted. For me it was a miracle: the treatment-resistant depression, which for many, many years I had tried everything humanly possible to get rid of, was finally gone. And it has never come back since.

Amina: But what did you experience there that made it work so well?

Pål-Esben: If you’re properly prepared and have really skilled guides around you, you’re prepared for where your intention is going to go. And the intention has a great deal to do with how hallucinogenic experiences like these affect your system. During the experiences, or the trip, or whatever you want to call it, someone sat beside me the whole time and made sure everything was safe. When I got stuck, for example when my psyche was spinning in circles on a hamster wheel, the psychotherapist beside me put a hand on my shoulder and led me on, out of it. A bit different from what you experienced.

The experience itself was of course extreme, even though the dose was medium. In Amsterdam they use magic truffles. The dried mushrooms aren’t legal there, so you take what are called truffles, which aren’t as potent as the various kinds of dried mushrooms, which are hyper-potent. You took eight grams of dried psilocybin mushrooms. That’s an extreme dose. A normal starting dose is considered to be around three grams, and the real psychonauts, as they’re called, go higher. But doses vary, and too much can be dangerous. You can go straight into a psychosis, and you don’t want that. The first time, I ate the truffles, and they tasted awful. They make you incredibly nauseous. The next time they’d chopped them up and made tea from them.

The hamster wheel that was broken

Pål-Esben: The experience itself was very interesting. In therapy-assisted psilocybin treatment, the therapist plays an important role as a stabiliser during the experience itself, which for me lasted around eight hours, and in the follow-up work, where you discuss the experiences. The reason this can work for treatment-resistant depression is that certain chemical processes are set in motion and affect your brain and your neural network. We’re talking about serotonin receptors, but the way I believe it happens, a certain rewiring also takes place in the brain. It’s not something I can prove, but that’s how I’ve experienced it. Say you have cycles or hamster wheels in your head, and that one hamster wheel is a cycle that takes you into the dark place that depression is. My feeling is that through the experiences, which were extreme, I broke out of this and got completely different reference experiences, like the ones you talked about.

The therapist built on the reference experiences from the sessions. We discussed them and worked with them, and that’s how I managed to break out of the dark room. Both because my brain was physically rewired, as I felt it, and through the reference experiences: coming face to face with my depression, being able to see what it was, and seeing that I wasn’t the depression. It’s the same thing you’ve been through with me, without psychedelics, where we dissociate ourselves from our thoughts and feelings. We separate ourselves from them and experience it clearly and distinctly: you are not your thoughts, you are not your feelings, you are not your depression. You are not your schizophrenia. You are not bipolar. All of this is a product of the construct, which we’ve discussed inside out in our episodes about the path to oneness.

So it’s a long, long time since I came out of this, through professional use of psychoactive substances, in this case psilocybin from magic truffles. Since then I have of course not used it, because there’s no reason to. Otherwise you just mess things up, and it has nothing to do with experiences of oneness. We’ll talk a bit about that afterwards, because it’s a misconception that you experience oneness. You can see many things in these settings. You can see colours, you can see beings, you can see the light. But it’s often an extreme hormone cocktail that is generated in the body and comes up to the surface. It has terribly little to do with a real experience of oneness, and terribly little to do with real spiritual development. For that you actually have to do some work.

The students who came back broken

Pål-Esben: That’s my background. In addition I’ve had many students who have told me about their experiences, both good and problematic, and many who have come to me seriously ill after things like this, completely in psychosis and completely broken. The chakra system, if we’re to use that word, has been completely broken. The third chakra hasn’t worked at all. They haven’t been able to set boundaries for anything at all; they’ve just been in a daze, with nothing but fog and muddle in their heads. They don’t see clearly and they don’t hear clearly. Just like you said: “I don’t need to pay the bills any more.” And it can go on for months, if not years, if you’re predisposed to it. Heavy stuff.

So we’re not talking about this topic because we’ve read about it in a book or heard about it. We’re speaking from our own experience, and from many other people’s experiences. That was a bit about the positive things that can happen when psychedelic substances are used in a correct setting.

A story I’ve never told

Pål-Esben: I surprised myself, because I’ve never told this story to anyone. The only person who knows it is my dear wife. In my book that’s coming out now, about the way out of burnout, I talk about ketamine, how it helped me, and how in the end it didn’t help. And then in the last lines there I write: “But then I found a way to a permanent treatment and healing of my depression.” That’s where I put a full stop in the book. I hadn’t intended to talk about this here either, because it’s my personal experience. But since we’re discussing the topic now, I thought: “Why not?” I’m not ashamed of it, because I’ve recovered from an illness that seriously lowered my quality of life. Why should anyone be ashamed of that? But there’s a difference between using this the right way and the wrong way, and we’ll discuss that too. So what do you think about this, Amina?

Amina: You once said something that made me think there might well be more behind that story than what you’d said out loud, but the thought came and went. Everything in its own time and with the right timing. And as you say, it’s important to have someone who can help you out of the patterns and onwards. Because I think it’s right to say that the default mode network is shut down during the process.

The default mode network: the autopilot that shuts down

Pål-Esben: What is the default mode network? Not everyone knows. It’s a part of the brain. If you search for it on Google or ask your AI, you’ll find out what it is. It’s the part of the brain that runs our autopilot. Most people operate from it all day, all their lives, on autopilot, as we’ve talked about in earlier episodes, about how the construct works. The default mode network is mainly what governs how the construct plays itself out: we live on the basis of our imprints and the opinions that have been drilled into us. For most people, all of this runs more or less on autopilot. It’s called the default mode network, and you can see it on brain scans, such as fMRI. You can see pictures of what it looks like when it’s active. On top of the head you see a kind of motorway running from the front of the head towards the back, and on each side you have six points, like eyes, that light up.

One of the things that happens when you take psychoactive substances is that the default mode network is calmed down. It’s switched off and numbed, so that the rest of the brain comes to life and becomes active. That’s not exactly how it happens, but metaphorically speaking. The autopilot keeps you going in daily life, with all your masks, all the encapsulated behaviour, all the encapsulated traumas and feelings you carry around behind the masks. When the default mode network is switched off, absolutely all of this becomes accessible. You’ve experienced that. It’s one of the experiences you describe here: what happens when Pandora’s box is opened.

Amina: Yes, it is. When the default mode network is dampened, everything you normally have control over in everyday life, all your thoughts and feelings, is let loose. Of course you don’t have control over everything that happens in the subconscious, but everything you’ve put away in these boxes, this box here and that box there, is no longer locked. You let loose all the wild animals in you. That’s my experience, at least, and it has also given me a greater awareness of all these wild animals. But as you so nicely touched on: you need someone who can be present with you, preferably one to one, and guide you through it. And as you say, this business of calling it medicine, plant medicine: “Yes, I take medicine every weekend.” Perhaps it’s really a cover for a kind of addiction.

Many truths, no ultimate truth

Amina: You can get very confused by everything that happens, because you might be told: “Oh no, you have to become a vegetarian.” Or: “You have cancer.” “Yes, but Jesus exists, Muhammad exists.” Everything that lies in us is let loose, and you think: “This plant has given me this insight.” Or: “The plant is telling me that I’m a healer, or that I’m going to become a shaman, or that now I’m going to heal everyone in this room.” There are so many truths in a human being that come out, but none of them is the one, ultimate truth.

I became very curious about that. At the time I thought this was the new, big, wonderful thing, and that this was where you found the truth, because it was the closest to the truth I’d experienced. At least, that’s how it felt. But I also became interested in the fact that we all have different experiences. There was even a Christian man in that setting, and he went to church afterwards. When we have such different experiences, it must mean that it’s the notions living in ourselves, the thought patterns sitting deep inside us, that come out. But how are you supposed to navigate through that and understand it? That’s why it’s so important to have someone who can guide you through it. Otherwise you can come back with some extreme delusions that can ruin your life.

A psychosis, for better and for worse

Pål-Esben: And that’s a problem. Let’s call what happens a psychosis. A psychosis doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In my case it was a psychosis-inducing therapy, but it’s still a psychosis. You’re brought into a state that has nothing to do with material reality, where you don’t know which way is up. And as a rule, you come across parts of yourself, not higher beings.

That’s one of the big challenges for those who aren’t prepared, and who haven’t learned what this is good for, and what it’s definitely not good for. They go into a trip like that, a psychosis like that, and experience extreme things. Perhaps they meet a being they believe is God, or Jesus, or the archangel Raphael. The being says you don’t need to pay your bills, and that you must leave your family and your kids and quit your job, because you don’t need it any more. The problem is that they believe these are really intelligent beings they’re meeting, and then they make decisions that ruin their lives.

Can you meet intelligent beings out there? Of course you can. As shamans we know there are many intelligent beings out there, but it depends on how well trained you are. For beginners it’s mostly about what’s going on in your own head, which is set free. I often call it rooms that are stored in your own psyche, and that get opened.

The encapsulated rooms in the psyche

Pål-Esben: An example: in what you’re telling us, there are certain encapsulated psychological rooms that are connected to trauma, as we discussed in the early episodes of our podcast. These are rooms your psyche has encapsulated and hidden away. We often hear it from people who were exposed to serious abuse as children and don’t remember it as adults. The psyche has encapsulated it, because this is dangerous stuff we need to shield ourselves from. Our brilliant brain and our brilliant psyche encapsulate it. It’s like when you have cancer and are lucky enough that the body encapsulates the tumour, as can happen with certain types of brain tumour. Then it isn’t dangerous, because it’s shut in by your body. It’s the same with psychological rooms.

What you experienced is what happens when you expose yourself to a setting where Thor’s hammer is driven into your head with a bang. The protective mechanisms around the psychological rooms, the traumas and the suppressed parts of your personality suddenly open, bang, without you being prepared, and without you having a therapist who can help you there and then and in the follow-up work. That can have serious consequences if a person is predisposed to it. So a warning to everyone listening to this episode: this is hyper-potent stuff, which you need professional help to deal with, if that’s what you want. And in cases like the one you told us about at the start, it can go really, really wrong.

In our tradition: stay well away

Pål-Esben: If we change the subject a little, to the path to oneness as we walk it at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School: there we use absolutely no psychoactive substances. In our tradition we advise all students to stay well away from them when it comes to any form of spiritual development. First, there’s no need for them, and second, they often create bigger problems for a real path of development than if you leave them alone. The only exception is a student who has serious problems with depression, PTSD or something similar. Then I say: “OK, seek out a professional therapist in Norway and get therapy, for example at the hospital in Østfold, where they do this under controlled conditions.” But otherwise, when people ask me: “Pål-Esben, do you recommend that I try psychoactive substances?”, I say: “Absolutely not.” Because there’s no need for it in order to walk a real path of development.

What I often notice, and this applies to humanity in general today, is that people want to take shortcuts all the time, with everything. Then you get an idea: “Oh, now I’m going on an ayahuasca retreat in the mountains, and through that I’ll get a breakthrough in my spiritual process of development.” And then you think: “Oh, this was exciting, so I’ll do this every month, or every week.” They believe they can take a shortcut past a truly profound process of development. I’ve never seen that. The only thing I’ve seen is the opposite: that people have lost their way in their own psychosis. They believe they’ve developed, but when you look at their lives, how they treat their kids, themselves and their partner, and how they interact with the world, not a damn thing has changed. That’s what I react to: that people lose their way in this idea and believe they can do a deep process of development by using these substances.

How older cultures used it

Pål-Esben: Is it possible? Of course it’s possible. But not the way it’s used, at least from what I know of it here in Europe, in Germany and Norway, where you’re invited up into the mountains and have your trip, without any process around it. So how can these substances be used for real spiritual development, that is, in a profound process of development? Well, the way they were used in older cultures, in nature cultures, before modern humans came along with the idea that everything has to go so fast.

An example of how it was used: they went through rituals half a year in advance. There were preparation rituals of various kinds. Then there was often a long march to the ritual site, perhaps one, two or three days, and there they took a portion of mescaline from the peyote cactus, if we’re talking about Mexico and Central America, the indigenous peoples and the ancient cultures there. Then they lay there in the experience, and afterwards they walked the three days back again. Then followed half a year of follow-up work, in their way, and this happened at most once a year.

Then it’s a different matter. Then you need a professional guide who does the work with you in the months before, prepares you and goes through all the steps of development: what does it mean to take self-responsibility for your life? What does it mean to come closer to your heart? What is the Path of the Heart, and what are the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart? Because if a human being isn’t willing to take self-responsibility for their life, how is it going to get better? Through intoxication? Definitely not. So the guide does the preparatory work, then leads the person or the group through the process, and then come six months of follow-up work, and possibly preparation for the next time in twelve months. In that way this can be used as part of a process of development, but not the way I see it used in our society today.

Amina: And then there’s this business of shamans from another country bringing ayahuasca, for example, which has become very popular, to Norway. Norwegians are, after all, different from the people who live down there. I can’t quite put it into words, but I think it can also be far too harsh for us. And not least, the preparatory work and the follow-up work are important. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has also become more and more popular, I see. There’s a programme to follow there, and training to go through. That looks much better, as long as you’re not put in an office with lots of noise, without the right set and setting. If you have an illness or something else this can work for, you need to find a suitable therapist who has experience and knows what they’re doing. I wouldn’t put myself in anyone’s hands without having checked them out thoroughly, because the consequences can be severe.

The screening: who should definitely not try

Pål-Esben: Where I was at the time, there was an extreme screening, or filtering, of those who came in and were to be given the chance of treatment. It was a tremendous filtering process. And I think that’s something that’s completely missing. So I’d like to say a few words about the filtering: who should definitely not try these things, and why it can go badly wrong if they do. I remember signing up and applying for admission to the therapy. The people in charge got in touch and interviewed me. First of all, they wanted to check whether I was reasonably stable psychologically. This is an extreme psychological strain, so you need a stable personality and a stable psyche.

Then they filter for what is absolutely taboo, where you don’t get to go any further. The first is psychotic disorders. That means that you yourself, or your mother or father, in other words your family line, have had diagnosed psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia. That was the first criterion they looked at, and it’s completely unacceptable. Because if you’re predisposed to psychotic disorders, it’s highly likely that an experience as extreme as the one we’re talking about here can trigger an extreme psychosis, and in the worst case a permanent psychosis. A permanent psychosis means you don’t come out of the psychotic state you described at the start, after your experience on the beach. Then you would still be in that state, and probably have been admitted to hospital, unless you had harmed yourself or done something else first.

The second thing they filter for is severe bipolar disorders, and especially those who have mania. I had no mania. I have bipolar type 2 with an irregular cycle, plus major depressive disorder linked into it. I was deeply, deeply depressed for months, and then I’d come up and be mentally sharp, but not manic. If you have mania, or one of your closest relatives, your parents or grandparents, has the diagnosis bipolar with mania, you’re filtered out straight away. Because if you put a human being through such an extreme psychological strain as a trip like this really is, you can also trigger mania in an extreme way. Uncontrolled mania. So that’s absolutely taboo.

Something else that is absolutely taboo in professional filtering, among those who have really trained in this: I know a place in Amsterdam that trains therapists and guides like this. There you learn that if the person sitting in front of you has had suicidal thoughts, or has attempted suicide in some form, either actively, by harming themselves, or passively, by threatening it, that’s absolutely taboo. Then you’re filtered out and not admitted. Because if you have suicidal thoughts, this can also trigger intense suicidal thoughts, and in the worst case you take that step, as you might have done if the knives had been lying there.

Heart, epilepsy, liver and addiction

Pål-Esben: Something else people are filtered out for is cardiovascular disease. When you go into a trip like this, with ayahuasca, psilocybin or mescaline, for example, the trip lasts for several hours. DMT isn’t so bad, but the others last a long time. Your emotions and your nervous system are often so extremely triggered that your blood pressure can rise considerably during sessions like these, and it often does, because it’s a big strain on the body. If you have cardiovascular disease, or are predisposed to it, that is, it runs in the family, and you perhaps also have challenges with your blood pressure, it’s completely taboo to do things like this. If you’re on beta blockers, it’s completely taboo. Then you need a doctor present who can restart your heart if it stops. Where I was, they also had a doctor present, and that’s why they took me in.

I just have to admit that I wasn’t entirely honest with them, because I knew I’d be filtered out otherwise. So I said I get a bit low now and then. With bipolar type 2, I was in a state where they would simply have filtered me out. The same applies to cardiovascular disease and problems with blood pressure: if you’re on medication that regulates your blood pressure, or you have arrhythmia, that is, your heart beats a bit unevenly, with double beats and so on, you’re filtered out. And especially if you have an ECG and it shows a prolonged QT interval, which typically shows that you have problems with your heartbeat: you’re out. That applies particularly when MDMA is used. You’re filtered out, or else there has to be a doctor present who can handle a health collapse, which can happen with things like this. I’m not saying this to scare anyone. I’m saying it because you as a listener, if you’re thinking of exposing yourself to this, really should know what you’re doing.

Epilepsy is also completely unacceptable in a setting with ayahuasca, psilocybin and the like, where the trips are often intense and last a long time. It can trigger extreme epileptic seizures. The same of course applies to liver disease. The liver is very hard hit, because breaking down these psychoactive substances, psilocybin, liberty caps, ayahuasca and so on, makes massive demands on the liver. If you already have a weak liver or a liver disease, you’re filtered out. You’re also filtered out if you have a substance addiction, even though some of these substances can also work very effectively in treating substance addiction. But then you need a suitable therapist who knows what they’re doing.

I very much doubt that any of this is done when you’re invited by one of the foreign shamans up into the mountains in Norway. I doubt there’s much filtering or many health checks. But I haven’t been there. You have.

The health form, and those who don’t tick the box

Amina: Actually, it is done. Not everywhere, but the health check is starting to become more important: you fill in a form in advance and send it in. But I don’t know how much is followed up after the form has been sent in, or whether you’re simply cleared or not. I’m a bit unsure about that. Personality disorder is also on that form, among other things. I have to honestly admit that when I’ve looked at forms like these, I’ve thought that it’s really only these people who seek this out: those with depression, bipolar disorder, personality disorder, anxiety, these mental health challenges in particular. So it’s interesting that it isn’t recommended when you have these diagnoses. At the same time, I think quite a few people choose not to tick the box for certain things they have, so that they can take part. That can be extra problematic in a mountain setting in Norway, where there are no doctors, no supervision of that kind, and no medical check. So you should think carefully.

Pål-Esben: Yes, because when this is done in a therapeutic setting, it’s with a trained psychotherapist who has additional training in using hallucinogens as part of the therapy. Notice what I’m saying: a qualified psychotherapist with additional training, not an amateur psychologist who has read a few books and taught themselves a bit. When it’s done professionally, there’s definitely a doctor in the house. Then they can also take in people who have some of these health problems, because there’s a doctor, a defibrillator and antidotes that stop the trip. It’s a bit difficult to stop a psilocybin trip, but in my experience, if you inject a large amount of glucose, you can slow it down. In a therapy setting like that, they usually use MDMA and psilocybin, and sometimes LSD too.

To round this off: for those who want to try these things, a tremendous amount of self-responsibility is required. If you have disorders like the ones we’ve talked about, are emotionally unstable or have a personality disorder, you’re exposing yourself to a real danger of it going badly wrong. In that case, that’s a responsibility you have to take, and you have to take the consequences of the choices you make.

Amina: I have to say something about that. I’ve also heard stories from several people who have developed physical illnesses after experiences, journeys or trips like these: problems with the nervous system, and other physiological illnesses that have been brought up to the surface through this.

Pål-Esben: Yes, you can activate latent things, since the nervous system is so extremely activated during these trips. If you have something underlying, it can come up to the surface, and in the worst case it becomes permanent. The same goes for underlying heart conditions that suddenly come to the surface: then there’s no going back, and then you have a problem.

Only for illness, never as a spiritual path

Pål-Esben: That’s why I don’t recommend that anyone use hallucinogens in a spiritual process of development. It’s absolutely not necessary. We’ve talked about that throughout the podcast: how you’ve walked a real path of development without these substances, and got to the point where you have contact with your Sahara and know what a real experience of oneness and real bliss are.

I only recommend it for those who are struggling with illnesses like the ones we’ve talked about: persistent anxiety, depression, PTSD, that is, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the like. For them it can be a very potent alternative, if they find a suitable and competent therapist, and not a shaman you travel to in the mountains, who’s there for a weekend and goes home again. Not on your life.

I’ve had many students who have tried these things. My experience, based on all these students over the years, is that as a one-off experience it’s perhaps like doing a parachute jump: a wild experience. It can, for example, make an atheist stop being an atheist. So certain things can happen as a one-off experience, if you find a good setting and feel very drawn to it. But otherwise I would definitely not recommend this as a way of doing a personal or spiritual process of development. And especially when we get to the point where we start the process towards oneness and our Sahara, using psychoactive substances is the same as blocking that process.

What the gurus say, and what Daniel experienced

Pål-Esben: It’s interesting to study this a little. If you take the best-known gurus in India, you’ll hear that they advise everyone to stay away. Now and then I mention the best-known guru in the world, who goes by the name Sadhguru and has millions upon millions of followers. If you listen to interviews with him, he says clearly and distinctly: “Stay well away from all forms of psychedelic substances. They create a problem for your spiritual process of development, and they block you from experiencing yoga, that is, oneness.” So there’s a reason the older cultures think this way too.

Then we have those who believe they can take shortcuts. I have a student whom we’ve already interviewed, Amina, in episode 40: Daniel André. He tells how, back in the day, he used DMT almost every weekend. He used everything, ayahuasca and psilocybin, over and over again, because he believed it would lead to a radical spiritual process of development. In the interview he says that this is definitely not how it is. No process of development happens with these things. There’s no oneness to be experienced in it. He only understood that when he began to have real experiences of oneness, and to experience what real bliss is. He explains why what he experienced through psychedelic substances has nothing whatsoever to do with the real bliss, the real Sahara, the real oneness. So I recommend going back to episode 40 and listening carefully to what Daniel says about using psychedelic substances in a process of development like this.

Amina: A while back I heard an enlightened master talk about this. He’d been asked about hashish and drugs, and he said: “Yes, it can make you relax, and you can become more present, but ultimately it’s still a dream drug.” You’re still in the dream. That made a lot of sense to me.

Still in the dream

Pål-Esben: Perfect. You’re still only in the dream. I’d say it just brings you into a psychosis, which has nothing to do with the real reality. And again, there’s nothing wrong with a psychosis when it’s used the right way, as we’ve talked about. But you just lose your way further into the dream. That’s the reason people get blocked on their path of development when they use these substances over and over again: they believe their fantasy world, this dream, is reality. And when you believe the dream is reality, you don’t stand a chance of waking up from it.

Then someone might say: “Oh yes, but what about the Indian guru who was given a large dose of LSD?” The story is that some Westerners gave him LSD, because they wanted to bring him into a psychotic state. And then he says, and this is freely paraphrased, not exact, that he sits there under the influence of the LSD and observes his construct going into a spin, while he himself sits in Atman and observes the madness in silence. That also says a lot about what this is. Because when you take psychoactive substances, it’s the construct that goes into high gear, often in a fanatical mode. The construct is our false identity, which consists of our intellect, our ego, our imprints, our opinions and our traumas, and everything we discussed when we talked about the path to oneness. That’s what takes a beating. When the default mode network shuts down, kaboom, then the construct becomes the real reality for you.

That’s what the enlightened master you mention is talking about: the only thing that happens is that you lose your way further into the dream. Of course that may seem provocative to some, because there are many out there who believe this is the path to oneness and enlightenment. No, it’s the path to believing your dream is real, and that belief just gets stronger. Everyone who has experienced real, genuine oneness will tell you that. Because it feels very different from a psilocybin trip, I can tell you from my own experience. The trip has nothing to do with standing with one foot in the Sahara, even though it can feel like that when the hormones are flowing. During a session like that, the nervous system can be so triggered that part of the kundalini energy shoots up. It produces even more dopamine, serotonin, DMT and whatever else, in addition to what you already have. And suddenly you experience an extreme form of bliss. But it has nothing to do with the real bliss experienced in a deep state of oneness.

Amina: Once you’ve experienced both, you see a big difference between the two. They’re not even close to each other. That’s my experience, at least. Sometimes people ask me: “What is it you’re doing, what have you done?” Then I share a bit, for example about Spidsbergseter, a mountain hotel in Norway, and things like that. And then they say: “Yes, yes, but I experience that too. It’s like that for me too.” And I’ve learned that it’s OK; it’s fine that you think we’ve experienced the same thing. But when you have nothing to compare it with, it’s very easy to believe it’s the same, oneness and bliss and things like that. But it’s of a completely different calibre.

Pål-Esben: How would you describe this to someone who has experienced neither a hallucinogen-induced trip nor a conscious experience of oneness?

Two experiences of completely different calibre

Amina: Oh, yes. An experience with psychedelics, a journey like that, is a lot of feelings, a lot of emotions. It can be fear, it can be joy, it can be: “Oh, now I see light.” You can also feel a lot of love on journeys like that, a love that supports the idea that we are love and that everyone is one. But it’s often very outward-facing, more yang, with more action in it. An experience of oneness is a deep calm, a deep knowing. There’s calm in it, there’s yin in it, there’s bliss in it, but it’s very calm, while at the same time it’s a much stronger and more powerful experience, or state, than an experience on psychedelic substances. I don’t want to use the word state either, but I have to use something. It’s like the difference between heaven and earth.

And not least, it applies to the way you experience the consciousness that lies behind all of this. It isn’t an outward thing like in my experience with psychedelic substances: “Oh, I am you, and you are me, and we are all one, and everything is love, and we are connected through love.” In a state of oneness, my experience is that the consciousness behind all of this is all that is. It isn’t me plus you. It is that. Or, this is me, in a way, but it shines out in everything. I don’t know if I’m managing to explain it in an understandable way, but anyway it’s a much deeper calm and presence. You don’t need a million images, words and sentences. You don’t need all these insights coming one after another. There, I tried as best I could.

Pål-Esben: I think you’re incredibly good at describing something that can’t be described. Because that’s the challenge with a real experience of oneness: it isn’t possible to put it into words. Words are tied to our construct and to four-dimensional space. In the timeless and spaceless, there is no time and no space. No language can describe what the timeless and spaceless is, since language is made out of time and space. That’s what makes this so difficult to describe. But what you can say is that the two experiences have nothing to do with each other. One is a very yang-dominated experience, where a hormone cocktail spreads through our system. Most of the emotions a human being in our society experiences today are more or less a hundred percent hormone-driven.

The hormone cocktail of falling in love, and real love

Pål-Esben: Take an example: when you’ve just fallen in love, it’s very easy to understand that what you’re experiencing is hormone-driven. It’s a cocktail of oxytocin, which is the bonding hormone, where you feel bonded to and close to the person in front of you. Then you have serotonin and dopamine, the so-called happiness hormones, and so on. Four, five, six different hormones are powerfully activated in the physical and emotional attraction between two people who have just fallen in love. This is what people usually call love, but it’s hormone-driven. Real love is the kind that isn’t hormone-driven. It often comes afterwards, when the hormones have calmed down, and when the process between the two people has deepened and deepened. Then you feel a different kind of attraction, which is so much deeper, stronger, broader and wider than the hormone cocktail you experienced in the first one to six months. That’s lovely too. We’re not saying the hormone cocktail is negative. It’s a spectacular experience. But it’s a hormone experience, and not real love.

I heard a researcher on German-language TV, in Austria. It was a debate about esotericism on one of the biggest Austrian channels, where a researcher, a university professor, took part together with some esotericists. The researcher provoked the esotericists, who were talking about love, and about love coming from the depths. Then he says: “What you experience as love is just hormones.” Then they hit the roof, and it turns into a completely wild discussion. But he was of course completely right that most of the feelings a human being experiences can be traced directly back to hormones.

What lies before the hormones

Pål-Esben: It’s only when you begin a real process of development that you begin to feel what lies before the hormones. That’s what creates our primary feelings. If we’re to put a word to it, it’s the impulse that comes from our soul and our higher self. But that impulse doesn’t send out hormones from the timeless and spaceless and teleport them into our body. It’s a completely different impulse that comes from there. We can call it real love, or the real foundation of our primary feelings, such as happiness, love, pleasure and joyfulness.

You have to manage to calm your thoughts and feelings down enough and begin to create stillness in the mind. When you’ve come out of the numbness, become a feeling human being again and calmed the system right down, you can begin to gain access to these spheres of our existence. That’s where what is real lies. The real experience of oneness you talked about is not what the Indian yogic system often calls an energetic experience of oneness. The energetic experience is typically when the kundalini energy rises, and you get a tremendous, hormone-induced yang experience that can feel like tremendous bliss. This experience has been explained as an energetic experience of enlightenment, but it has nothing to do with enlightenment. It has to do with an energetic, hormonal state that you bring yourself into.

The pineal gland and the hormone-induced experiences

Pål-Esben: The same thing happens when people do guided meditations and use the breath and the muscles to push the energy up into the pineal gland. That way you can activate the production of serotonin, dopamine and DMT, which the pineal gland also secretes. There are certain breathing exercises where you push the energy up and press it around the pineal gland. Just go on YouTube, and you’ll find loads of them. Then people believe it’s an experience of oneness. No, it’s a hormone-induced experience that has nothing to do with an experience of oneness. Then people say: “Oh, I’m experiencing oneness.” Yes, you’re experiencing your dream. And the problem is that when you believe the dream is real, you are by definition completely blocked from the path ahead.

If you’re searching for the real reality, the real truth, you have to look deeper. And to be able to look deeper, you have to have created enough calm in the system for the construct to settle down, so that you become able to separate yourself from your construct. Once that’s done, the real reality opens up for a human being. But it doesn’t happen through shortcuts. It happens through a real process of development that you engage in. It doesn’t have to take 30 years, but can happen in one, two or three years if you’re really authentic, as in your case.

That’s something I find a bit sad in the alternative, esoteric world today: many have lost their way in this dream and believe it’s real. That’s how they block themselves, because of course they don’t get any further. They sit working on their pineal gland every day and have lovely experiences and feelings, which there’s nothing wrong with, and then they believe they’re something they’re not. I find that sad.

Amina: On top of that, you keep finding something new to heal, and more angles to heal the same thing from, again and again, and you never get any further.

Pål-Esben: When you observe a human being in daily life, what they think, what they feel, and how they interact with themselves and the people around them, you see what real development is, and what it isn’t. That’s where you see the truth. Not in what people say, but in how they live. That’s where you see the truth about how a human being’s process of development is going. Have you experienced that yourself?

Amina: Yes. It isn’t always so pleasant to see the truth in the details. But again: look at it with joyfulness and fascination, and think: “Oh, yes, so that’s how things stood. OK, interesting. Let’s see how we can do it better next time, or what we should focus on.”

The advice for those who want to try at any cost

Pål-Esben: Let’s sum up what we’ve talked about so far. Say that you as a listener are very eager and say: “I want to experience this at any cost, a hallucinogen-induced state.” What advice do we have for that person?

First of all, and then you can give your advice afterwards: go through the list we’ve been through, with emotional instability, personality disorders, psychotic disorders and cardiovascular disease. All of this is really taboo unless you have medical staff beside you. If you’re struggling with things like this, I definitely wouldn’t throw myself into it if I were you, because that’s playing roulette with your health. What do you think about that in particular?

Amina: I think it’s very important. What do you have in mind?

Pål-Esben: Whether there are other things to be aware of, and what you need to think about. If you have that problem, you should absolutely not go into this without professional help.

Amina: Right. You have to make sure that the person or the place you seek out has enough people on hand to be present and help, so that things like this don’t arise. And they have to do the filtering in a good, responsible and professional way.

Pål-Esben: If you want to go to a place that’s hyper-professional, with professional therapists and a professional setting, you can go to a professional retreat in the Netherlands. The good ones do this in a very serious way. They even train sitters to work with this in a professional setting. Of course, it isn’t cheap, but it’s the safest way of doing this, if you have the money for it, and if you absolutely need it.

And if you’re struggling with the illnesses we’ve talked about, you can of course check out clinics in Norway, for example if you want to try ketamine, which many people are helped by. Ketamine, definitely, for depression and treatment-resistant depression. Find a clinic, perhaps try a couple of treatments, and see how it works. But don’t do it without psychotherapy in parallel to follow it up. If you’re struggling with other things, you can ask your doctor to refer you to the hospital in Østfold, which works with both MDMA and ketamine. It’s paid for by the Norwegian health service if you’re properly ill. I have students who have received very good help at the hospital in Østfold, especially with depression.

One foot in the Sahara, one foot in the grain of sand

Pål-Esben: If you intend to use this as part of your spiritual process of development, something completely different is required. Then it requires a process that runs over a year, and very few people are interested in that. That’s why I advise most people to stay away, because you can do a real process of development without it. You can learn to talk to the beings of light without it. You can learn to shift your state of consciousness in a few seconds and go into your shamanic dream state. You can learn to make contact with your Sahara within one to two years, if you commit to it. And you can learn to have permanent access to your Sahara, in the middle of daily life.

In my eyes, that’s the most meaningful thing a human being can experience. Because then the anxiety, the insecurity and everything that makes you sad come to an end. You notice that you are not your anxiety, you are not your fear, you are not your sadness, you are none of this. You are something completely different, and you experience that permanently throughout the day, because you have one foot in your Sahara. The other foot you have in the grain of sand, that is, in the material world, where life takes place. And that’s something you definitely can’t achieve with the help of hallucinogens.

That was my input. Are there other things we haven’t talked about that we should take up today?

The hunt for insights

Amina: There’s one thing I want to ask you about. Often someone comes to me and says they’d like to take part in an ayahuasca ceremony, a liberty cap ceremony or a session with a sitter. When I ask why, and what they want to get out of it, the answer is often: “I get completely different insights, in a completely different way, than when I don’t do it.” People really want these deep insights. But then we also talk about this: “OK, now you’ve experienced it a few times, but you’re still sitting in the same hole a year later, because you haven’t managed to do much with the insights.” Do you have any thoughts on that, for those who want this? I’ve experienced it myself, after all. You can get deep insights and just think: “Wow, OK, so that’s how it is. Am I like that? Yes, OK.” That can make people want to try, or go back. Especially those who have experienced it before miss that way of getting the insights, because it feels so direct and strong.

Pål-Esben: Correct, it feels so direct. It’s the experience itself people are hunting for. The insights are part of your construct. Most of the insights you can’t even remember afterwards, and as a rule you definitely can’t do anything with them. But when I was in the Netherlands, I met people who came into these therapeutic settings after suffering from massive anxiety all their lives. After a round like the one I went through, they told me they didn’t feel anxiety any more. But then we’re back in therapeutic territory.

My experience with the so-called psychonauts, of whom I meet quite a few, that is, those who do this over and over again, is different. In England they often use the word psychonaut for them. No matter how many insights they get, nothing happens in their lives. And by that I mean that the insights are meaningless in themselves. If your life doesn’t change, why should you hunt for insights? People aren’t hunting for the insights. They’re hunting for experiences, often extreme experiences.

Then I’d rather say: why don’t you do a real process of development? Learn to talk to your soul and your higher self, which is the very chess master of your life, and which knows absolutely everything about what your path in this incarnation is. Of course, there’s work you have to do to come into contact with the highest part of yourself, which knows everything about you, which is the master over you, and which of course is really a part of you. But why don’t you do that work? Then you get real impulses from the real chess master, who knows what you need and don’t need, and what you need to do to untangle any knot you have in life. That’s more sensible, I think, than searching again and again for some extreme experience or other that doesn’t change your life at all. That’s my comment on that.

Everything now: the loan instead of the savings

Pål-Esben: The way I see it, this is one of the reasons I don’t recommend that anyone use psychoactive substances, unless there’s an illness to be healed: you have no need for it. You don’t need it. You can have even more extreme experiences if you’re willing to do your process of cultivation. But that’s the problem for many: people aren’t willing to do the work that’s necessary, which takes a year or two. People want everything now. It’s the same as modern people being taught to take out loans instead of saving up for the iPhone, the PC, the TV or the new kitchen. They take out loans instead of saving, because they want it straight away. That’s how you become a slave in today’s society, which is run by the banks. A free human being has no loans, not a single penny. Then you’re free. Otherwise you have to work, get money and do things you might not like, to keep paying off the loan all the time. But that’s another story, for another time.

“The space wasn’t closed”

Amina: There’s one more thing I want to bring up, which I often hear, and which may be interesting for some. Let’s say you’re in a shamanic setting, with a shaman who comes from abroad, or you go abroad, to Peru or somewhere else. The shaman creates a space and holds the space. Then many people say: “I’ve been told by someone that the space wasn’t closed properly, so there’s something in me that isn’t closed.” Or that entities can come in because the space isn’t closed. This business of entities and energetic cords is a big topic in itself, which we talked about in an earlier episode, if you want to go into it in depth. But do you have anything to say to those who have been through a situation like this, and who still feel that the space is open? Because of course they’ve gone to someone afterwards, who has said: “The shamanic space you were in isn’t closed, so now you’re open.”

Pål-Esben: There are several reasons for this. Reason number one is the after-effect of the psychosis. You’ve gone into a psychosis. We call this hallucinogen-induced state a psychosis, because that’s really what it is. And you carry parts of it with you in your life for weeks, for months, sometimes for years afterwards. That means you believe something is there that doesn’t exist. You believe you have a problem that doesn’t exist. That’s also an example of a psychosis.

The second reason is that the nervous system and the chakra system have been under high voltage and become overloaded. Perhaps they’ve reached the point where they’ve gone past their limits and imploded, so that the filtering mechanisms in your aura system don’t work so well any more. Then it becomes difficult for you to tell the difference between yourself and others. Think of people who are hypersensitive, who sit on the bus and take in other people’s thoughts and feelings. It’s simply that the filtering system in the light body and the aura system is too weak. And that’s one of the side effects of going into a session like that: you can mess up your whole filtering system, which works energetically in you and around you.

The third reason is that psychological rooms may have been opened in you, so that things that have lain encapsulated come up to the surface. Depending on what kind of imprints you have, what comes up can show itself as a demon, as dark thoughts or as other psychotic things. In episode 13 we talked about the golems, and about how anxiety and these demons are created in a human being. I recommend going back to episode 13, where I explain in detail how people create this themselves, and how the psychological rooms can open through a trauma, or for example through a hallucinogen-induced experience. Once these golems have been created, as the term goes, they can show themselves as beings, demons and everything you’re talking about. But it’s your own fantasy world we’re talking about, and nothing that’s real.

The psychotic echo, and the room inside you

Pål-Esben: The problem is that if you carry this psychotic echo with you after an experience like that, you believe it’s real. And then it’s the psychosomatic reaction to believing the psychosis is real that’s the actual problem. A psychosomatic reaction happens in the system, which affects both the body and the psyche even more negatively. Then you have a vicious circle: you believe the fantasy is real, and your body and your psyche believe what you believe and create a psychosomatic reaction. Then you hear someone else out there say: “Oh, the space after that session wasn’t closed.” And I think: “Hello? That has nothing to do with a space not being closed.” It’s the room inside you that’s open. It’s not the space, it’s you that’s the problem. You’re the one who exposed yourself to something you now have to take the consequences of. It’s your fault, and you’re the one who has to take responsibility for both the good and the bad that come out of it. As long as you’re willing to do that when you go into a session like that, I say: “Good luck.” But then you also have to be willing to take the crap. And the point is that you don’t know whether the crap will come or not. In my experience, the chance of it happening is between 10 and 15 percent.

So it has nothing to do with whether a space was closed in the session. It’s the individual who has the problem. Then you need either a sensible therapist to help you out of it, or a suitable guide or mentor who knows what they’re doing. But chakra healing and exorcism don’t help. That isn’t the problem. It’s completely different things: it’s the psychological rooms, which we need to understand. What is this, and why is it like this? And we need to know how to process it and bring it out. That doesn’t happen by taking the feather and the smoke and saying: “Hoo, hoo, hoo, now it’s gone.” That doesn’t work. People regularly come to me with this kind of problem. It’s the same every time, and it’s the same process you have to go through. But there’s hope of coming back to yourself again. If you’ve experienced this once, you should never have a psychoactive experience like that again.

Amina did it again

Pål-Esben: But you were born stubborn, and in one way that’s one of your strengths. I remember one of our earlier discussions, where I said to you: “Yes, Amina, what you’ve experienced, you’ve experienced. But I recommend that you don’t do this again.” And what did Amina do then?

Amina: I did it again. Then I came to you: “Pål-Esben, I’ve done something. I have a problem. I have a problem, Pål-Esben!”

Pål-Esben: At first you only told me about the problem: the severe instability, where you didn’t properly come back to yourself. And I thought: “What has Amina done now?” Then you had to come out with it.

Amina: That was no fun. I had to come cap in hand. But it was important that I said it out loud.

Pål-Esben: It’s very difficult to fool me when it comes to things like this. Certain things can’t be set off without certain kinds of triggers. A radical energetic experience could have done it, but you weren’t capable of creating one of those there and then. So there weren’t really many candidates for what had set this off. But then you had to go through the process. It took a few weeks, and then you were back to yourself again. In our tradition we never scold anyone who does stupid things. We say that everything is good for something, as long as we learn from it and don’t do the same crap again. That’s what we say, and it’s what we do too.

That applies especially to people like you, Amina, who are very sensitive. Yes, you have backbone and grit, so you can pull yourself together to an extreme degree when it’s needed, but you’re still a very sensitive human being. And if you are, you have to be very careful with these things. If you’re numb, as many out there are, on autopilot, an experience like this might shake up the numbness. It’s possible. But basically, I would stay away. That’s my last word on this, the way I think and feel.

Those who don’t notice anything

Amina: Can I ask you one more thing before we finish?

Pål-Esben: Fire away.

Amina: There are also some people who don’t experience anything on psychedelic substances. In an ayahuasca ceremony they can take cup after cup after cup and not notice anything. What’s the reason for that?

Pål-Esben: There can be many reasons. Remember that one of the things we affect is our serotonin receptors, with something that resembles serotonin a little, such as DMT. If the serotonin receptors in the brain don’t work normally in a person, the substance will of course have less effect. There may be an illness or some other reason for that. A hallucinogenic, psychotic experience depends on the serotonin receptors working reasonably normally; otherwise DMT has nowhere to attach itself.

Some people can take certain kinds of drugs and hardly feel anything. Others have physical predispositions that make the substances work very intensely. Take your case: your absorption system is a bit different from most people’s. In addition, you have very alert serotonin receptors, since you’re a sensitive human being. You’re an emotionally balanced human being, but with strong swings up and down. That suggests your receptors are reasonably up and running. A person who is typically very flat is equipped a bit differently genetically. That’s one of the reasons it doesn’t work. If I were in a situation like that, I’d first find out what the problem was and do something about it, and not just triple the dose next time. Then you can break through to a point where you’re poisoned, and that’s not good at all. Because with doses that are too high, you can die from this too.

Why the dose can’t simply be increased

Pål-Esben: Take a normal dose of dried mushrooms as an example, and here I’m talking about magic mushrooms. There are different strains of them, depending on where in the world they come from, and some are cultivated specially to be even more potent. With a normal strain that has been harvested and dried, you should never go over three grams at the start. You took eight grams, and that’s extreme for a sensitive person. If you go far beyond that, you can literally die. The brain can short-circuit completely, and the blood pressure can get so high that the heart simply stops. In therapy, where for example they use magic truffles, the doses are different again, and they vary from person to person. In extreme cases people take far more. I know people who have gone to real extremes too, but they’re the kind who do it over and over again and believe it’s the path to becoming enlightened or spiritually developed. I know many people around the world who do this. I’ve met many, and I have a lot of experience with both the good and the less good sides of it. Are there other things people wonder about when it comes to this?

Amina: I think we’ve been through most of what I’d planned for today. Another thing I’ve often heard is this: “What I experienced in that setting wasn’t mine; it was just everyone else’s.” Can that be right, that you don’t experience your own, but everyone else’s in the room?

When the filters switch off

Pål-Esben: Remember that our energy system has a filtering mechanism that helps us relate to what’s our own, and sort out what isn’t our own, that is, what belongs to others. A simple proof of that is hypersensitive people, who don’t have this filter up and running. They have a weak or non-existent filter. You often hear them say that they sit in a gathering and draw in other people’s energy, thoughts and feelings. If they have negative people around them, they feel the negativity in themselves, physically and emotionally. It’s the same here: in a setting like that, it isn’t only the default mode network that is switched off. The filters in your energy system and chakra system are also switched off to a high degree. You become very dissociated from what you are and aren’t, so that you can float around and pick up other things. Your senses become more open, as we talked about, for example your hearing, but also your sight, and they pick up larger parts of the spectrum out there, which our five senses normally can’t pick up. That’s also something that happens.

Remember that our five senses perhaps pick up a few billionths of the frequency spectrum out there. Think of hearing, which only lies between 20 and 20,000 hertz. The spectrum is much bigger than that. It goes from zero to tera-, tera-, terahertz. So our range of hearing is only a few billionths of what it’s possible to hear. It’s the same with light, and with everything else around us. When you switch off the default mode network, you also switch off much of the filter system that naturally looks after you in daily life, so that you can live a normal life and not pick up everything around you all the time.

In addition, the senses open up, and not only the five senses, because we have many more than five. The sixth sense is the sense of balance, and then we have the extrasensory senses, a huge spectrum, which let us see what lies behind the curtain, and more metaphysical things. All these senses open up more and more. But under the influence of a hallucinogen there’s wild chaos among all of them. Everything is chaotic, and you don’t know what’s what. So yes, of course you can pick up other people’s stuff, if you’re not trained and prepared. How to deal with this is also part of the preparation process. So you need to be healthy energetically too, not just physically and emotionally, to go into something like this.

Amina: So then perhaps it’s not the smartest idea to have 20 to 30 people in one room?

Pål-Esben: That can have strong effects too, because then you have a group dynamic. That applies, mind you, if the group is prepared, has a suitable head guide and enough junior guides sitting with each individual, and there’s a safe setting and a safe framework around it. Then the state one person slips into can spread to all the others. You can see that during a session like this when the substance has kicked in for the whole group: one person starts laughing for some reason or other, and suddenly the whole group is laughing. One starts screaming and shedding tears, and the rest of the group follows. So it’s a psychosis induced by mass suggestion that arises in a group like that. I use my own words, which perhaps aren’t so popular out there, but that’s how it is. And there’s nothing wrong with it, as I said, because it can heal depression, and it can help a human being with addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder and all of that. Very fascinating stuff.

Amina: Very. It’s very exciting. If anyone has more questions about the topic that we haven’t covered today, just send them in, by email, Instagram, Facebook or the comments section on Spotify. Perhaps one day we’ll do an episode where we answer follow-up questions from the various episodes, who knows. It depends on how many we get.

Self-responsibility and words of wisdom to wrap up

Pål-Esben: The most important thing is that each person takes full self-responsibility for their own health, whatever they do. After all, it’s every human being’s free choice. But then you also have to be willing to take everything that comes after the choice you’ve made. We’ve shed light on some positive sides of this, some negative ones and some life-threatening ones. So this has to be treated with care and with a great deal of self-responsibility. That’s the motto I’m trying to express.

And again: when students come to me and say they want to try these things, and ask whether I recommend it, I always say: “Absolutely not. Stay away. It will create bigger problems for you than it will help you.” That’s how I see it, as long as they’re not struggling with depression, anxiety and the like. Then they should go to a professional therapist. And if they can’t find one in Norway, I recommend the Netherlands, where there are several skilled ones. Heavy stuff. Words of wisdom to wrap up, Amina?

Amina: Words of wisdom to wrap up, yes. I just hope this episode has been useful, and that it can help people think twice. Perhaps you can think through your own experiences with psychedelic substances, or the thoughts you have about them. Perhaps you’ve wanted to try, but been unsure. Then I hope you really listen to my experiences, to your experiences and to all the fact-based things we’ve put forward here. I don’t know if those count as words of wisdom to wrap up with; I never quite get the hang of that, but those were my closing words. What about you, Pål-Esben?

Pål-Esben: Everything can be used for something good if it’s used the right way. Too much water can be dangerous too. And it can become a problem if it isn’t used sensibly. A human being can be saved by water, but can also die from drinking too much water. Those were our words of wisdom to wrap up. I hope this has been an interesting episode, and as I said: if you have questions or comments, just leave them. We’re not saying we have the ultimate factual answer to everything. We just have experiences and opinions about where we stand, and today we’ve tried as best we can to shed light on this broadly, and not just say that everything is this way or that way. That’s our intention, at any rate. And I have no idea what Amina will choose for next week. Thank you so much for staying with us all the way, dear listener. We really appreciate your feedback, and a five-star rating on Spotify helps our podcast reach more listeners. And thank you so much for being here with me, Amina. I really appreciate it.

Amina: Likewise, Pål-Esben.

Pål-Esben: Thank you for being with us, dear listener. I hope you’ll join us again in the next episode. And until then: have a truly wonderful day, evening, night or morning, wherever you are listening from. Take care.

Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. We hope Amina’s story has inspired you to explore your own journey of self-discovery and development. Remember that the path from suffering to self-realization can be demanding, but with courage, patience and support from a competent guide, mentor, teacher or therapist, almost anything is possible. We wish you all the best on your journey, and we’ll talk again in the next episode.