Salvia divinorum and Encountering Being - Ernie Stanley

Preface: Before continuing, I do not encourage or discourage the use of psychedelics such as salvia. I do however discourage use of anything, be it psychedelic or otherwise, without knowing what it is and how to use it safely. Salvia divinorum finds its roots as one of the three divine plants (the others being Teonanácatl (mushrooms) and Peyotl (peyote)) of Mazatec shamanic practice as a spiritual and medicinal aid. However, salvia is an atypical psychedelic and has no relation chemically to the Schedule I hallucinogens. It is legal to consume, cultivate and sell within the state of Virginia and has no recorded physical dangers associated with safe use and no record of causing medical problems or injuries. I must also stress that salvia has no euphoric effects or “high” and any use towards this end will be met with very bitter disappointment.

Upon exhaling vision faded, the mind swirled and the world melted. And there no longer was I. And the framework of consciousness disappeared. There were no physical sensations. There was no thought or idea. There was only an oneness of Being.

Being as I (which has since been restored) encountered came as what I would describe as cosmic energy. There was no form to it, no trappings, no end and no beginning. The very concepts which describe reality, form, concept, understanding, experiential perception were all destroyed and replaced by exchange. And with this exchange came what could be called in the loosest sense, a “feeling” of suffering.

I could say that time passed and I returned to conscious existence, but there was no time. I did return, but my mind reacted harshly. It seemed to punish me for leaving reality behind. I was left a mental newborn. I had no immediate memory of what had been before, and could not determine if the reality I had returned to was indeed what had been before. And though, after hearing the word “salvia”, my memories quickly began reconstructing what had occurred and had been, my mind struggled with the new feeling of the surreal exchange which had occurred and I was left in intense discomfort with the realization that I had completely destroyed my “self”. I was also left so exhausted that within minutes I fell into sleep.

While this description of my experience may sound like it left me insane, this is assumably not the case. After sleeping I awoke with full acceptance of the world in which I consciously exist and though the discomfort I felt was not eliminated, it had largely been replaced by what I believe to be spiritual understanding. And though I feel deep analysis deals some injustice to my encounter, I feel it appropriate to at least loosely do so in order to provide some clarity in the epistemic sense. What I was precipitated into by Salvia would be called Ego (self) death by psychologists, and is the complete deconstruction of the self resulting in the removal of all barriers to the presence of true essence, be that God or otherwise. Martin Buber, however, would call it an Ich-Du encounter between myself and the essence of Being (which Buber believed to be the Tetragrammaton).

It would not be for awhile afterward that I began deep research (our discussion on Buber’s I-Thou relationships began this research ) into the concepts behind my encounter. Prior to this I only understood salvia as a shamanic aid in spiritual awakening. It did not occur to me that my encounter was a form of spiritual awakening that may take place, thus leaving me at first shocked. And while I do acknowledge that prior frameworks of thought could possibly have been latent in the encounter and corrupted it, the sense of spiritual understanding that was inspired by my encounter is deep and internally revolutionary enough that I readily discount such notions.

However, separate from the spirituality induced by salvia is the respect I now carry for the plant. The encounter it facilitated what I consider to be one of the most profound occurrences of my life and has definitely altered my perception. And while I will not claim that psychedelics such as salvia are the only way to achieve such spiritual awakening, I find it disturbing that there is currently an ignorant and irresponsible movement to assign it as dangerous and useless. Soon salvia may very well fall victim to the western religious paradigm which renders the entirety of nature solely as material resources and devoid of soul and the holy. Salvia may soon find itself illegal and demonized alongside the other “divine” plants (and fungi) of Shamanic culture, its spiritual traditions and properties ignored in the name of a status quo mentality.