The Science of the Sacred by Nicole Redvers N.D

Author:Nicole Redvers, N.D.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781623173371
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Published: 2019-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

This report and the words of many Elders demonstrate that we have a long way to go in ensuring that our Elders are looked up to not only for their years of lived experience, but also for the support they are able to give many people in our communities.

In modern medicine, many clinical trials are being conducted using mind-altering substances to assess the treatment effectiveness for mental illness. Interest in this approach has surged in the last few years with more exploration being done into often difficult-to-manage conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and treatment-resistant depression.393 Studies utilizing lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD),394,395,396 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetaimine (MDMA),397,398,399 and psilocybin400,401,402 are being done more frequently in the field of psychiatry. Looking back, “archaeologists have provided fossil evidence that shows humans have used psychoactive plants for 10,000 years during ritual ceremonies, [and] psychoactives were important in the development of human society … [with] historical evidence of cultural use over the past 5,000 years.”403 Specifically in certain areas of North America, it has been shown that Native Americans collected mescaline-containing peyote buttons that were carbon dated to 3780–3660 bce.404

In certain areas of the Americas, healers such as shamans have often been associated with the use of psychoactive plants. It must be noted that not all Indigenous groups refer to their healers as shamans, and apart from the Inuit, many Indigenous groups in Canada and the United States do not use the word shaman at all. In addition, modern “neo-shamanism” has had a controversial history, whereby non-Indigenous people calling themselves shamans teach and perform ceremonies they may have learned from local Indigenous groups. The commodification and consumption of shamanistic views and practices can be risky if it involves the use of traditional psychoactive substances out of the context of true traditional Indigenous ceremonies, which have strict protocols that experienced healers follow.

The traditional uses of psychedelics were often for specific ceremonial or healing purposes. These agents often brought on a state of altered consciousness in order to deal with specific events or to gain a greater connection with and understanding of the universe as a whole. In certain ceremonies, healers would support the inhibition of the part of the brains of their students or “patients” that is responsible for logical thinking, and activate the part that is responsible for intuition. This would facilitate a deeper understanding of the world for those who were learning to be healers and for those who were working through personal issues or health crises. Turning to modern-day Western medicine, as previously mentioned, chemically altered psychedelics such as MDMA and pharmaceutical drug forms of cannabis are being studied and used for conditions such as PTSD, yet in a very different format from that described above. Here we see their modern-day use in a structured clinical environment, with Western-trained providers monitoring them rather than healers on the land using specific ceremonial plants and tools.

A deep understanding of the complexities of using chemically altered agents is needed to determine the harms and benefits to people

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