The overwhelm of epistemic and ontological shock might push people to quickly adopt a new overarching belief to replace the one that just crumbled. Filling up the void can make us feel better, as order is restored and we regain a sense of control. In my case, that never happened, and the loss of certainty is perhaps the greatest psychedelic gift I’ve received.
When we think of wisemen and sages, we often associate them with scholarship, with the accumulation of knowledge. In Daoism, the spiritual road is one of unlearning. Recognizing your own ignorance is the first necessary step, which is considered a higher sort of knowledge. In the words of the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu: “To know that you do not know is the best. To not know that you {do not} know is a defect.”
Like a psychedelic trip, experiencing the Dao is considered ineffable, and by applying words to describe it, we only get further away from it. Striving for cognitive understanding, we cling to words, concepts, and theories, but spiritual experiences cannot be fathomed by the intellect and cannot be faithfully expressed in words. Daoism goes further and applies the same inability to conceive the world and translate experience into words to everyday life. As the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi puts it: “the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman”. We keep slicing the universe (and the self) into categories, and make distinctions and valuations based on our limited and partial knowledge, and knowledge that we attribute to our ancestors. We constantly mistake societal and cultural distinctions for natural ones, and our own subjective judgments for objective truths. When we look at the world, we see it through our self-made categories. This is why we need to unlearn.
In Finding Your Way in Daoism, Marcus Leroy explains that people have an intense need for certainty about everything – from the little things in our daily routines to the meaning of the universe. We need to know that we have things under control, and this need is so dominant that we continuously convince ourselves that we actually do know. To keep that feeling going, we cling to beliefs which reinforce it. Leroy quotes psychologist and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, who explains that leaning on false understandings is part of human nature, as contemporary science informs us:
You cannot help dealing with the limited information you have as if it were all there is to know. You build the best possible story from the information available to you, and if it is a good story, you believe it. Paradoxically, it is easier to construct a coherent story when you know little, when there are fewer pieces to fit into the puzzle. Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.
When our understanding of the world crumbles following a trip, we feel like we are losing control. The truth is that we never had it. What we are really losing is the illusion of certainty that we have been nurturing for years. This lesson can induce intensely different feelings for different individuals. So rather than labelling knowledge-related experiences as positive, negative, frightening, or existential (more categories, anyone?), we can try to describe them neutrally, highlight the variance in people’s emotional reactions, and discuss expectations. Terence McKenna’s humorous yet serious advice nails it just right:
You see, what the psychedelic is going to do is it’s going to destroy your whole world, your whole conception of your world. And for some people that’s tremendously liberating, they say: ‘wonderful, at last I’m free of it!’ Other people say: ‘My God, now I’m hopelessly mad, I have nothing to cling to, I’ve really done it this time.’ So that’s almost an aesthetic judgement whether you like watching your world shredded before your eyes and made into nonsense. If that makes you feel liberated and secure then you can sign up for this carnival. If that alarms you, you are best to stick to the tried and true. It’s not for people with weak psychic constitution.
Annabelle Abraham | Community Blogger at Chemical Collective
Annabelle is one of our community bloggers here at Chemical Collective. If you’re interested in joining our blogging team and getting paid to write about subjects you’re passionate about, please reach out to Sam via email at samwoolfe@gmail.com
share your toughts
Join the Conversation.
What you’re describing has been true for me as well. Black and white has been replaced by shades and spectrums. Having a sense of certainty about things made me placid and stagnant. Uncertainty, on the other hand, makes me stop in the moment, reach deep inside of myself and say: “huh. I wonder what I think about this? What do I feel?” I’d say certainty = dissociation and autopilot. While uncertainty = being in the moment.
What’s more boring than observing one’s own bubble? For me the only option is to expand that bubble. Shaking foundations might be frightening, but are a sign of growing! In a way that can make fear rewording.