MDMA and Heart Intelligence

Geral T. Blanchard • Dec 05, 2021

Over millennia, ancient traditional healers have developed ways to enhance their intuitive intelligence, to divine and predict what is happening in their immediate environment and beyond

They have looked to their hearts for counsel. More recently, in the 1990s the HeartMath Research Institute was developed to scientifically explore the role of the human heart in guiding us. This organization has broadened our understanding of the heart as an information processing center, a second brain that can influence the cranial brain upstairs, as well as the entire body.

One of the pioneers in this realm of study is Doc Childre who has written: “Picture heart intelligence as the flow of awareness, understanding, and intuitive guidance we experience when the mind and emotions are brought into coherent alignment with the heart. This intelligence steps down the power of love from Universal Source into our life’s interactions in practical, approachable ways which inform us of a straighter path to our fulfillment.”


Observing people in clinical settings who have previously been administered MDMA suggests to me that there is something akin to a heart awakening that occurs when the medicine is onboard. In addition to the oft-mentioned increase in compassion, empathy, and love, MDMA seems to activate the heart in such a way that they develop greater mental clarity and cultivate greater intuition. And with intuition comes enhanced intra- and interpersonal connectivity, synchronicities, and paraphrasing Childre’s words, a downloading of guiding forces and knowings that come from Universal Source.


Deborah Rozman, a psychotherapist, developed an exercise that helps psychonauts add coherence between their upper and middle brains – the cranial and the heart located brains. She developed an exercise that when employed can aid us in accessing and employing an additional intellectual resource. Combining two forms of intelligence can spawn a third.


Here’s how Rozman’s exercise goes: Place two pillows on the floor -- not on your bed -- as you will be trying to do something special on the pillows beyond sleeping. One pillow will represent the head and the other pillow the heart, both sources of intelligence. While sitting on the head pillow Rozman encourages you to close your eyes and ask head to communicate an important issue to heart. After sharing head’s thoughts, worries, and judgments you move to the heart pillow and tell head what the heart’s view of the problem is, what your heart is sensing. It is often like two entirely different people exist within us, two very different reference points of awareness that may not yet be in coherence or alignment. Next, you are encouraged to go back to the head pillow and respond to your heart.

After moving from pillow to pillow in this fashion three or four times, you are likely to settle into heartspeak and find more artful ways of seeing and addressing your issue. Usually this is not only a wiser perspective but a much kinder and gentler way to resolve problems.

Turns out this complex heart of ours sends information to the upper brain and other body parts through four different pathways:


1) A neurological communication system via neuronal pathways in the autonomic nervous system.


2) Bio-physical communication via pulse waves, one wave system among countless waves continuously flowing through the universe.


3) Biochemical messaging via the secretion of hormones like oxytocin which is being produced during an MDMA treatment.


4) Electromagnetic field created by the heart, which, by the way, happens to be the biggest producer of electricity of our three brains – heart, cranial, and intestinal.


Additionally, it is also important to remember that there is a feedback loop between our skin-suited bodies and the bigger body, Mother Earth, with Her synchronizing and healing energetic/magnetic emanations. So our body is part of an even bigger body. We are invited to know and take care of it all.

************


“The earth and myself are of one mind.”

- Chief Seattle


“Your brain is part of a larger brain. Give thanks for that.”

- Glenn Aparicio Parry


“The heart has its reasons that the mind will never know.”

- Blaise Pascal


“My heart knows what my mind only thinks it knows.”

-Noah Benshea


“There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.”

- Nietzsche

Download Article as PDF

*********


Additional Reading:

Original Thinking by Glenn Aparicio Parry

Heart Intelligence by Childre, Martin, Rozman, and McCraty


Geral Blanchard, LPC, is a psychotherapist who is university trained in psychology and anthropology. Formerly of Wyoming and currently residing in Iowa, Geral travels the world in search of ancient secrets that can augment the art and science of healing. From Western neuroscience to Amazonian shamanism, he has developed an understanding of how to combine old and new healing strategies to optimize recovery, whether from psychological or physical maladies.


Contact Geral ⤳



Other Topics


About the Author

Books written by Geral T. Blanchard

  • Epidemic Book Cover

    Sexual Abuse in America

    Photo By: John Doe
    Shop ⤳
  • More Articles

    male baby dark hair
    By Geral T. Blanchard 25 Aug, 2023
    In recent years psychotherapists have become increasingly aware of the risk of transmitting trauma intergenerationally. By examining the impact of the Holocaust, or the experiences of Native Americans who were systematically abused by colonizers including the Catholic Church, it becomes obvious that indirect passage of depression, despair, anxiety, and damaged self-regard are but a few of the ancestral legacies of uninterrupted abuse. If, however, trauma can be passed from generation to generation without direct experience, could it also be possible for the reverse to happen? Just as we have started to witness the reality of individual post-traumatic growth (PTG) – not just bouncing back after trauma but bouncing forward – could we entertain the concept of intergenerational growth (IG) – in other words, thriving from generation to generation?
    close up of eye green amber
    By Geral T. Blanchard 25 Aug, 2023
    There can be two levels at which trauma is processed. The first tier may be a time of quiet denial or the dissociation of nearly all thoughts of how painful the past was. The body feels it, but the mind does not speak it. On the second level a person awakens to the entirety of it, often an unpredicted and sudden onslaught of previously suppressed details with extensive associated pain. When trauma is reconstituted at the second level it often happens unwillingly. A person may be swept away by an awakening that seems very ugly. It feels like too much to absorb in its entirety. The result is often to feel afraid, even shattered – at first. Now with everything out in the open, what must be done with it? At the second level of awareness, it is almost impossible to go on pretending that everything is fine. No longer can the visuals and emotions be kept submerged. One wonders, “Damn it, will I ever get better?”
    man gambling drinking
    By Geral T. Blanchard 21 Aug, 2023
    Traumatized persons, with their pervasive pain, typically seek mood altering experiences. This can include ascetic restrictions, hedonistic over-eating, chemical dependency, sexual dependency, sexual anorexia or celibacy, romance addiction, relationship dependency, compulsive gambling, TV or movie binging, rock climbing, auto racing, reliance on antidepressants and/or antianxiety medications, religious addiction, and so much more that can serve to pacify, distract, and avoid unpleasant thoughts and feelings. By thrill-seeking, the higher the risks being engaged, the greater mood alteration one can experience. It’s a big dopamine splash and more. These are the adult versions of childhood thumb sucking, according to Dr. Harvey Milkman, the author of Craving for Ecstasy (the feeling of ecstasy, not the drug). Harvey pointedly said, “Growing up consists of finding the right substitute for your thumb.”
    older white man and woman smiling
    By Geral T. Blanchard 20 Aug, 2023
    There are many emotional reactions to a drug-free spiritual awakening experience and a ceremonial MDMA journey. While this article focuses on empathy – both the feeling and the cognitive component – it is obvious to those who have awakened from a spiritual emergency that a variety of related emotions arise. It is one thing to imagine how another person feels. Psychopaths, despite what the general public believes, are very good at empathy on an intellectual level. Even criminal psychopaths can put themselves in another person’s position and understand their perspective. It is bigger, better, and far healthier when empathy, in its deepest sense, allows us to “feel with” other people by recognizing a sense of oneness with them, what’s called unity consciousness. To hurt others would be to hurt ourselves.
    black and white projector old picture woman slides
    By Geral T. Blanchard 20 Aug, 2023
    It’s impossible to talk about projection without incorporating a discussion about Sigmund Freud and Donald Trump. In this article I will skip Donald but throw in a little Carl Jung. Freud, of course, named several distinctive defense measures – reality distorting strategies to keep us safe. Two of the big ones are displacement and projection. First, a definition of projection: This is evident when an individual attributes their own unacceptable impulses onto others. For example, a person might accuse others of engaging in thievery when, in fact, they are swindling money from their employer. Some of the behaviors and thoughts we are most ashamed of could be called shadows. We can see them first in other people before we can “call them out” in ourselves. We are defending against humiliation and mortification lest we be exposed.
    black car gear shift - stick shift
    By Geral T. Blanchard 20 Aug, 2023
    Does this empathogen work in a similar manner as psychedelics, blasting us off to a sudden and dramatic awakening of the mind and soul? Not necessarily. Much like massive stress, psychedelics and MDMA can knock people off an unhealthy path and offer them an entirely different trajectory, but there is a lot of arduous individual work that must follow the use of these propellants. So, could it be concluded that MDMA is a transcendent spiritual event -- a chemical event, or perhaps a neurological experience? By themselves, both seem unlikely. They can change activity in the brain, but enlightenment comes from hard work before and after their use. Entheogens and empathogens likely have a catalytic but not a primary casual effect in awakening.
    man words help me quit on hands
    By Geral T. Blanchard 20 Aug, 2023
    Many events in life can change us, some in profound ways, others somewhat superficially. Some positively, some negatively. Some temporarily, some permanently. Let’s break it down. With the “help” of psychology and the diagnoses of PTSD and C-PTSD, an entire trauma industry has developed. Much help has been delivered and, unfortunately, in many instances the assigned labels stick like glue and there can be difficulty relinquishing the newly imposed identity of “breakage.” Many life events are transformative:
    purple aqua cells
    By Geral T. Blanchard 20 Aug, 2023
    Many great minds have come out of India. Like countless spelling bee champions, Mahatma Gandhi, and Aurobindo Ghose who later took on the name of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo became a highly regarded spiritual teacher and author in the twentieth century. His main insight was that what many humans experience during altered or higher states of consciousness are glimpses of the future of evolution. And, he contended, one day these states of expansion will be normal for the whole human race. Countless numbers of people are seeking the unity consciousness that MDMA can offer. It can make them feel bigger. And more deeply connected and powerful. Like many billions of tiny ants inching a fourteen-wheeler up a hill, every tiny bit of effort pulls the big rig along. Similarly, each one of the eight billion or so people residing on our planet today may, via a combined assemblage of singular efforts, raise their individual consciousness, while tugging the entire race forward.
    several clocks on a wall beads hanging orange sun
    By Geral T. Blanchard 20 Aug, 2023
    “Where did all the time go?” That is the ubiquitous question every patient asks after a treatment. They ingest the medicine at 9 a.m. and, after what seems like perhaps an hour or so but was actually five or six, and once the eye mask comes off there is bewilderment as to just how much time has passed. Of course, this is all built on the bedrock notion in Western culture that time is a straight line and linear manifestation. And that there is such a thing as time! Stepping out of existing paradigms, even if for a brief “time” can be eye opening while your eyes are closed. Traditional Native American cultures have long believed that time is a circular phenomenon. Remotely like the movie Groundhog Day suggests, every day is very similar and reoccurring like the last. In indigenous worldviews, the sun rises and the sun sets, routinely; we always have a predictable reset of sorts, the start of what we call a “new day,” or what Arapahos called “sleeps,” both reflecting measurements of time.
    dark forest
    By Geral T. Blanchard 20 Aug, 2023
    Dark nights of the soul as Saint John of the Cross called those long, despairing periods of our life, are never easy, in fact they are usually dreadful. They are so necessarily awful and so damn long because some of us don’t do subtlety very well. If we are open to these moments, even a tiny bit, they can serve as an internally calculated and blaring wakeup call that will guide us to solace. John Nelson, in Healing the Split, refers to a fleeting or ephemeral sense of a higher purpose, not fully conceptualized, but compellingly near the heart. It holds answers to life’s pain but isn’t quite within our grasp…at least until the dark clouds engulf us. Then, with great staying power and inexperience matched with trust, a spiritual emergence nears surface awareness. And it always happens, as psychiatrist Stan Groff defined it, around the time of a blurry spiritual emergency.
    Show More
    Share by: