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.
MDMA - Indigenous Appropriation or Appreciation
Geral T. Blanchard • Oct 11, 2022
MDMA is one medicine among many that has been shown to foster significant personal growth.
Personal observation has revealed that when an indigenously-inspired and soul-based approach is integrated (not stolen or taken out of context), one that includes reverent rituals within a healing ceremony, results will be amplified.
In preparing this article a “thank you” goes out to Dine’ (Navajo) Elder, Belinda Eriacho who inspired much of what will be shared here. Primarily, this piece will be about spirit. That is to say we live in an animated world where everything is alive, singing its own unique song, and seeking harmony with all other energies that can be felt, and yes, heard. Science is catching up with Native American cosmology in that devices now can pick up on sounds from some of the least expected sources, like plants. Among plants brimming with spirit include San Pedro (mescaline), ayahuasca, peyote, iboga, mushrooms, tobacco, and many more.
Belinda’s way of languaging the sacred use of plants and medicines is helpful. As an example she speaks of arriving at an innerstanding vs. understanding, a way of going deep inside and far outside with the help of medicines to gain knowledge. This is not about gathering information as much as it is about formulating wisdom which comes from experience. It is one thing to speak of evidence-based and statistically supported information, quite another to be open to intuitive knowings arrived at in other realms. Belinda gives voice to the Native American idea that non ordinary states are actually ordinary when medicines are used in a sacred way. Mystical states are common when consciousness expands.
Further, Belinda can appreciate the Buddhist emphasis on a not-knowing mentality which leads to a knowing once we relinquish, or unlearn, some of our more cherished notions of contemporary thinking and merge it with traditional ways of understanding the universe we live in. When we are less caught up in the business of everyday living and escape into reality from time to time, we can better appreciate the gifts of other realms.
And when we are gifted in this way, sacred reciprocity is our responsibility. First, however, we must give, then we may receive. That is the order of sacrality, a sacred way of being on Mother Earth. Reciprocity is an exchange of energy, a grateful thank you in advance of receiving gifts. In the Q’ero culture of Peru they have a word for this, ayne, which boils down to: Today for you Pachamama, tomorrow for me.
When we practice under the influence of the old ways, and under the influence of plant and synthetic medicines, humility must guide us. It is indispensable to the healing process that we appreciate and give thanks for the ancient traditions. We appreciate rather than appropriate. Then, upon seeing the results from blending old and new ways, we refuse to become puffed up with personal importance, but quite comfortable with a quiet confidence or authoritativeness that comes from experience, from wisdom. Borrowing from old traditions is guided by humbleness and modesty which is not contradicted by exhibiting confidence in these ways.
In Navajo culture there is a practice called the beauty way. It is about walking in beauty on the Mother with a good heart, clean and clear intentions, balanced, and without shame, envy, or greed.
It is the way of soft harmony that understands that a gentle benevolence, or beauty, surrounds us. We simply need to experience and then merge with that spirit. Sometimes MDMA can assist us with its heart-opening gifts.
Healing requires a sacred space. To create such an environment – ideally close to Nature -- pure hearts are needed. It is also important to clear the space, purifying it by smudging with a variety of plants – maybe sweetgrass, tobacco, or cedar of the north, or the imphepho herb used by African Zulu sangomas. Once a person and the healing environment have been cleansed, energies can be further moved in ways like drumming, dancing, or chanting. Then, after a healing or transformation has occurred, people unfamiliar with these practices are inclined to say a miracle has transpired and that magic has been used. This type of magic can better be understood as sacred magic, a mysterious way of healing that science has yet to fully comprehend, so it gets diminished by unbelievers.
MDMA is about honoring and restoring relationships with everything on the planet. As the Lakota say, mitakuye oyasin – all my relatives. Buddhists refer to right relationship. It is about a respectful connectivity that becomes much clearer upon ingesting entheogens and empathogens. We relinquish some of our self-importance, supplanting ego with a wider perspective. An entanglement with all of existence leaves us feeling less isolated, less helpless, less self-important. Unity consciousness or one-mindedness is the merging, or subsuming, of all relationships which allows us to walk in beauty.
For more information about Belinda, go to: Kaalogii.co
(Kaalogii means butterfly in Dine’)
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Other Topics
Basics of MDMA
Rituals and Ceremony
Brain and MDMA
Trauma
Heart
Energy Movement
Quantum Physics
Native Cosmologies
Nature
Spirituality/Enlightenment
Kogi Tribe
Books written by Geral T. Blanchard
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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?
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?”
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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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.”
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