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work, that a girl won't love us, that they won't give
us the best appointments at the university, that
they say I am a homosexual, that don't have I
Claudio Naranjo
SBN 345-24328-5-150
This edition published by arrangement with Pantheon Books
BALLANTINE BOOKS
A Division of Random House, Inc.
201 East 50th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022
Simultaneously published by
Ballantine BocAs, Ltd., Toronto, Canada
Dedication
And
Foreword:
Probe INTO Inner Space xiii
V Ibogaine: Fantasy
AND Reality 171
Index 227
Stanislav Grof
Chief of
Psychiatric Research
FOREWORD: PROBE
INTO INNER SPACE
Claudio Naranjo
Kensington, California
March 1973
THE
HEALING JOURNEY
CHAPTER I
THE HEALING
POTENTIAL OF
AGONY AND ECSTASY
DRUGS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY
MDA, THE
DRUG OF ANALYSIS
Gusano
UN
UNA
NANA''
felt. Guilt for not having stood up for his nana, not de-
fending her, not leaving with her. Now it seems to him
that this was the point. He wanted to leave; further-
more, he was planning to leave the house, but his
parents did not allow him to. "It was horrible ... a
sense of weakness, weakness!" But now he also re-
members that after this he pretended to be weak, he
just played the good, weak boy, because when he didn't,
there was something very disgusting, something very
unpleasant that they did to him. "They came up with
all this stupid thing of guilt and hell. I had a very real
conception of the world, clear and clean. I feel it . • .
that the process that had begun with the session was
not complete and insisted (unsuccessfully) on remem-
his
bering more of the circumstances assodated with
MDA, the Drug of Analysis 45
mother's death. As time went by, the feeling of reality
of the sexual episode increased, and this paralleled the
disappearance of his doubts with regard to his mas-
culinity. His security (self-assurance) also increased
greatly in his contact with people in general, and he
felt that he could be more spontaneous, though now
he was burdened by an unconscious feeling of guilt.
He did not care much whether he was a homosexual
or not and for the first time in his Ufe could discuss
the matter openly with others. His real guilt now lay
in feeling that he was a murderer and tihat he could
not confess. A dream that he had some days after the
session impressed him very much. In an episode of this
he was at his mother's funeral, and tigers came in
through the window. He felt that these were expressions
of his own anger, an anger that he had buried early in
his life, and only now was beginning to sense through
a curtain of symbols and memories.
The change that took place in this patient's under-
standing of his life and feelings may be noted by com-
paring the first paragraph of an autobiography written
before the treatment with the beginning of another
version of it written about a week after the session.
Before the session he begins as follows:
"I was bom on the 1st of August of 1930 in the
home of a businessman who was very respected in our
circle and belonged to one of the oldest families in
town."
This is an attitude reminiscent of that which the
previous patient displayed in speaking of the dining
room at home. There die subject initially ignored his
real feelings for this place, which had been the major
torture room of his Hfe, and had replaced them with
pride in his parent's social standing, conveyed by the
polished table and fine cups. In this opening, too, the
patient highlights his parents' "respectability" and, in
so doing, looks at them in terms of the values which
were most important to them. Into these values they
have also molded him to a very high degree, as he,
too, has had to "abdicate from himself," and when a
child abdicates from his real feelings and thoughts he
is left at the mercy of external influences, For this
46 The Healing Journey
particular boy, "being himself" meant such frustration
and anger at his mother and older brother that he could
not possibly cope, especially in the absence of a strong
father to take sides with him. His father did show some
understanding for his son, and so we can understand
the boy's great attachment to him, but he was weak
and submissive. After the session, the patient no longer
speaks of him as a respectable man who took great
care of him and was expressive of his affectionate feel-
ings, but says, "I see him as a very weak man whom
I —
have always dominated ^whom I have even scolded
on many occasions. He does not know what he wants
and is very cowardly. That is, he has all the defects
that I see in myself. I have never been able to speak
openly with him because he is very gossipy and would
not hesitate to tell others of my affairs. He never sup-
ported me in anything."
This view of his father is without doubt closer to
his real feelings, and the shift in point of view is prob-
ably related to the fading away of his perception of
hirnself as homosexual. It may be expected that, as he
grows more open to his real feelings, he will experience
less need to be supported by father or father-figures in
the mascuhne world. He is one step closer to tiiis, but
a sense of guilt sttQ prevents him from reconciling the
unknown state of his childhood with his present view
of his mother. It is enlightening to trace the feelings
toward the woman in his family throughout the time
of his treatment. All that he says of his mother in his
first autobiographic report is in a paragraph that has
been already quoted: "As to my mother, though I be-
lieve that she loved me, she never expressed this affec-
tion, in contrast to my father, who was much more
expressive than she was." His frustration here is al-
most unexpressed, not only in that he does not speak
of his own reaction, but in that he does not blame his
mother. Instead, he constructs the view that a character
trait of hers —
not being expressive —
caused her not to
show her affection.
Elsewhere in his account, he tells of his reaction to
his mother's death: "When I was nine years old, my
mother died from a long-standing heart disease. I re-
MDA, the Drug of Analysis 47
member, or I believe recalling, that I did not cry and
that I did not want to leave the house of a cousin where
I had been sent to keep me away from the funeral
rites, and where I was having a good time."
Of his stepmother, he openly says, "I hated her.
This woman never loved me and she separated us from
one another —
except me from my older sister, who
always showed me great love and whom I love very
much."
During the session it became apparent to what de-
Criminals!"
MDA, the Drug of Analysis 57
By the middle of the third hour he explained how he
remembered that in his first or second year of school he
found a smaU jewel (a diamond apparently), which he
kept without knowing its value. He was accused of
theft and he swallowed the stone. He clearly remem-
bered that he was given an enema and forced to vomit,
in order to retrieve the jewel. Now he had the fantasy
of still having something inside. He vaguely distin-
guished two packages. A
small one behind his sternum,
and a larger one below. He opened the smaller one
and found the diamond. "The other, which I scarcely
saw and forgot, is still unopened," he stated later, and
added: "In having discovered all this, I felt free from
something very big and heavy, as if I could breathe
deeply and for the first time in many years. But this
desire to breathe deeply and violently pointed at some-
thing which I was not able to grasp." During the rest
of the day, he interacted with others instead of with-
drawing, as in the past group sessions. After the effects
of the drug had worn off, he said goodbye to the other
group members, and while doing so was brought to
the verge of tears. Especially when saying goodbye to
me, he felt very moved and kissed me on the face as
a son would kiss a father. This was a dramatic contrast
to the feelinglessness which had made him seek treat-
ment.
On the following day, he was overcome by an in-
tense sense that he really had no father or mother, and
this made him feel as if he had killed them. He felt,
too, that the pieces of a huge puzzle were falling into
place: dreams, fears, life situations. Yet in the course
of the week it seemed that a curtain was being drawn
over his sight, his feelings were dampened again, and
the story brought to mind during the session appeared
to him as less and less real.
One further session was proposed to the patient for
reasons similar to those which precipitated the previous
one, and it is worth reporting that this particular one
was to be both the least remembered and the most
effective. In brief, during the first hours of the ses-
sion, the patient felt like a woman and enjoyed this
role; after this, he discovered that early in his life he
58 The Healing Journey
had taken on a feminine identification on the assump-
tion that he would thus attract his father's love. To be
a woman meant, principally, to be feeling and sensitive,
like his mother. But at some point in his life he had
told himself, "Men do not cry," —
this phrase came up
repeatedly in his MDA
experiences —
and he became
anaesthetized. On this occasion, too, his feelings state
led into a brief period of feelinglessness, incoherence,
and then indifference. "The value of this was to see a
caricature of myself," he later said. "What I am al-
ways, to some extent, I was then to the extreme." What
happened in his unconscious while he was feeling like
a woman or being incoherent or indifferent is hard to
know, but only after this session did the patient feel
that he had taken a definitive step toward emotional
sanity. A
fleeting state of anxiety made him realize that
this was the condition in which he had Uved all his
life before the treatment and which he had not even
remembered for some months. And furthermore, it
seemed to him that the whole world had changed, even
though he felt himself the same person. When ques-
tioned on the nature of the change, he said that it was
difl&cult to put into words, but was something Uke
"being related" to others. "I don't have to control
others, for I no longer depend on their acceptance or
rejection. I can accept them regardless of whether they
accept me or not. K they do, fine; if not, too bad; but
I have no need to spend energy in a sort of CIA ac-
tivity to detect how I am to others." In addition, his
efficiency at work has improved, according to his es-
timate, 1,000 per cent
Some months after the beginning of his treatment,
he summarized these changes in a letter, on the oc-
casion of my last days in the country. Toward the end,
he posed the question: "What happened during the
last session that brought about the crystallization of
this deUcate upper crust of sanity, which I nevertheless
feel is permanent? I could go on answering, "Nothing
. • simple. While I was there, the world was replaced
.
by a different one."
"Some facts I see. During the first stage of the ses-
sion, I lived in a closet, my hell. But now that I re-
MDA, the Drug of Analysis 59
He told his alter ego, "No. I cannot bear you. You are
too heavy." Then he looked at the heater in the room
and own'self once more
felt his —
not just his ordinary
self, but his recently acquired sense of "I": "Knowing
that I listen, I do, I move, gives me an incredible
power."
The issue became clear only after his arrival at
home. He searched for photographs of his grandfather,
and looking at them he felt again the same nausea
that he had experienced while thinking of the Nazi.
He saw his grandfather as dirty and lecherous. Then,
looking at the photograph of a youth with a swastika,
he later explained, "My face contorted, and I saw my-
self as on the day when I raped her." He felt a great
relief and then set out to understand what had hap-
pened to him. Had he raped somebody? He was quite
sure that physically he had not. Had he morally raped
somebody? Had he destroyed somebody? Then mem-
ories started flowing from his mind. The way he had
frightened his little brothers and enjoyed their fear,
the way he had kissed that Uttle girl ... These and
other recollections were the source, he now knew, of
that feeling of dirtiness and nausea. For all that he
was feeling toward his grandfather, he now felt toward
himself. He now saw that he had been using the Nazi
and his grandfather as screens to protect his guilt
upon, since he had been unable to take responsibility
for himself.
In a note that he sent to me in the following days
he ends with these words:
"I did these wrongs, and I must compensate for
them with good.
"Here I am. /, with the responsibiUty for this /.
"I take it. I fully take responsibility for my /. I take
my responsibility."
I think that this account is of interest not only for
the light that it may shed on many other "past-life
memories" obtained in hypnotic or mediumistic states,
but in terms of an understanding of the effects of
MDA, as is my concern in this chapter. As with hyp-
nosis, the MDA
state is favorable to hypermnesia and
time regression, but it also appears to bring about the
66 The Healing Journey
emergence of false memories ("screen memories") and
particularly the identification with them in what may be
seen as a state of temporary shift in identity. The
quality of these age regressions or shifts in identity is
more often than not Aat of dissociation, in that the
ordinary personality tends to forget, deny, or feel an
incompatibility between its premises and values and the
validity of the events "recalled."
Yet, paradoxically, the experience of I-hood or in-
dividualized selfhood that crowns a successful MDA
experience is the very opposite of dissociation. It is
precisely a state of psycWc cohesion or unity, out of
which a person may say, as in the last example, "I
take responsibility for myself."
The whole process, therefore, may be seen as one
of integration via dissociation, or, more teleologically,
one of dissociation in the service of integration. As in
hypnotic states, only by forgetting his ordinary identity
and pretending, so to say, that he is not there as a
witness, can the person allow himself to experience his
life from a different point of view, habitually sup-
pressed. But this temporary lie of "This is not myself'
is the way to the realization of the truth.
Just as a shift in identity to a previous lifetime was,
in our last illustration, covering up (and indicating)
aspects of his real identity in this lifetime, we may
wonder whether this is not always the case with mem-
ories, however true they may be. For, in being con-
cerned with the past, we are most likely being con-
cerned with an indicator of our present. When our pa-
tient felt suddenly relieved of the heaviness that had set
in on him in going beyond his birth, this relief was his
reaction now to a change taking place in his present
condition. This change was expressed to his conscious-
ness at that moment as the notion of having raped
someone, which takes the place of a disgust toward
his grandfather or his previous life conduct and per-
sonality. Once his disgust is directed at his own ac-
tions, he not disgusted or overwhelmed any more,
is
but relieved, for he can take responsibiUty, and his
crimes are not so great after all. More than that, we
may be right in assuming that it is not his past actions
MDA, the Drug of Analysis 67
NOTE OF CAUTION:
The years that followed the writing of this chapter
have shown that MDA is toxic to certain individuals
MMDA SYNDROMES
in Minerva's shield.^
Photographs are useful to this end, since the cues
oflEered by them are valuable startmg points for asso-
ciation with life experiences, in contrast with the
stereotyped views that are often elicited by verbal
questions.
Whenever a new approach or feeling is expressed
which breaks the vicious circle of neurotic attitudes,
the expression of it may be encouraged in order to
^ it in the mind as part of the enlarged repertoire of
. . • I remember
lying on the carpet in the
room, enjoying a warm, glowing, soft sense
fully
of well-being. Dr. N. came to me and suggested
that we talk together. I told him about my love
for Jeanne and the hurt I felt. He suggested I
write down my feelings on paper. I wrote as
though writing a letter to Jeanne. I told her how
much I loved her. And that I was waiting for her.
During this time, I experienced the most acute
sexual response, especially in the pelvic area. I
was thoroughly immersed in the joyful fantasy of
loving Jeanne. Loving her in a quiet, tender way,
caressing her ever so gently. I felt, perhaps for
the first time, that my desire to be tender and
loving toward her was the power that would
break through her sexual anesthesia.
Only there? . • .
Just despair? . . .
Now I am
almost an incubator.
Doctor. Would you concentrate a bit more on
that —^how it feels to be an incubator.
Patient. How it feels to be an incubator? Some-
how it doesn't seem to be enough. I'm having
trouble identifying with it, because what I was
doing before was half looking at it. Now I'm
trying to be it completely, and the action of
HARMALINEAND
THE COLLECTIVE
UNCONSCIOUS
1 TMA: trimethoxyamphetamine.
122 The Healing Journey
One of the first subjects to experience the effects
of the alkaloid was a young man who had spent five
years in rather unsuccessful psychoanalytic treatment
for an anxiety neurosis. His reaction after five or ten
minutes, soon after I had finished injecting the drug
into his vein,^ was an exclamation of wonder: "It is
unbelievable! Everything I do, everything I say, is a
distortion! I have been living for years without sus-
pecting what I really am. I must have forgotten as a
child, and only now can I feel myself again, my real
self!"
This realization was the most important of the day
and one of the most important in his life. It was not
arrived at through reasoning, or analyzing a life situa-
tion, nor was it the outcome of any therapeutic inter-
vention on my part. The following is a description of
the subject's experiences during these moments:
His first sensation upon receiving the injection he
describes as "an internal buzzing and physical anxiety,
as if I were to burst out through my nose, or my blood
were to explode out of my arteries; it also had a tran-
quility, like that of feeling a strong sun for the first
time in my life, or at the last instant, something like
seeing peace and life in the moment of death. It was
physical despair, as if my faculties would not respond
— neither my voice, nor my movements, nor my
thoughts."
After this which may have lasted only
initial stage,
five minutes, he lost the fear and gave in to a rapid
flow of imagery which he scarcely reported, since his
effort to talk only interfered with the experience (and
he did not feel like interfering with it). Very soon,
while he was having imagery related to his childhood,
he achieved the insight that accounted for the ther-
apeutic benefit of the day: "I see myself as I am, and
this has no relation to the way I am living. I behave
in contradiction to myself, because I don't acknowl-
edge myself."
2Harmaline may be used in intravenous injection if an
immediate onset and somewhat shorter duration of effects are
desired.
Harmaline and the Collective Unconscious 123
Patient. No.
Doctor. Assume you have a lion in yourself. You
would like to play with the children as they
are playing with the lion. have a wild ani- You
mal as weU {Rest of sentence inaudible.)
. . .
Then her father came alive and smiled, and she coul<
see his whole body. They embraced and kissed on th
Harmaline and the Collective Unconscious 151
IBOGAINE:
FANTASY AND REALITY
with vomiting.
Acomfortable couch or bed must be considered part
of the setting for the treatment, for most patients want
to lie down during the first few hours, or even through-
out most of their session, and feel nauseated when they
get up or move. However, others feel the desire to
move or even dance at some point in the session (35
2 With such dosages taken orally in a gelatin capsule, the
symptoms become manifest about forty-five to sixty minutes
after ingestion. These may extend from eight to twelve hours,
and some patients have reported subjective after-effects even
twenty-four (20 per cent), thirty-six (15 per cent), or more
(5 per cent) hours later. Yet even in such instances, the patient
is usually able to function normally after six to eight hours
from the beginning of the effects. In the majority of instances,
I have ended the therapeutic session in seven hours or less,
leaving the patient in congenial company.
Ibogaine: Fantasy and Reality 173
was his contact with the external world that was per-
meated with peak-experience characteristics, for others
it is the symbolic medium of imagery that reflects such
I am on. How
have I fallen in here? I cannot
explain. I did not realize when I feU ... I must
get out of here. ... I must get out! Going up is
impossible. It must be down. Through the bars I
see a deep darkness. It must be down. Through
that tube of emptiness ... It doesn't matter ... I
must get out of here, away from this wheel that
is suspended m
this tunnel with no walls. Perhaps
through the mechanism of the axle ... I know
that tiEis wheel can go up and down. Desperately,
I seek among the parts of the mechanism. I hear
the doctor's voice telling me: ''You be the axle.'^
Surprise. I begm to feel like the axle. Steely, hajrd,
turning, turning, turning, with a noise. I am the
axlp for hours, hours . . . There is no time, bemg
the axle. I turn and make a noise. I turn, I turn,
I turn ... I feel that I am lifting my right-hand
axle, which turns. I rise slowly to the limit of
stretching —
always an axle. My
hand then moves
forward. I have a dagger in my hand, and I am
going to I am going to kill! I step forward
kill!
to kill. am going to loll a ... a ... a ..
I .
"Imitate it. Be
that animal," the doctor says. I
can see that I be able to do so. I put my
will not
legs together and try, but I do not succeed. I re-
sist it, I don't want it, I cannot. I tremble. That
is impossible. / ieel that he wants me to dance.
Did he say so, or did I imagine that? I do not
want to dance. I don't feel like it. He insists: "Be
that trembling." I end up trying to obey. I lift my
arms, surrendering to what may come. I start to
tremble and I feel that my two arms are one
flame, and they emit light. An energy that has
come from above moves them, has put them to-
gether, and now they turn and turn as if electri-
fied, beyond my power to $top them . .My .
the bully, the one who wanted to be the big man, were
hiding unacceptable weakness and much guilt. Much
of the weakness was that of wanting, needing, and
feeling afraid to expose his needfulness. And most of
his guilt was about sex. Most of the life history that
he had presented to me was the history of his sexual
life, and the theme had run through the whole of his
session. "How can I reconcile sex with the sun?" he
said now, feeling in the presence of two incompatible
worlds, one of pure spirit and the other of the flesh.
But his doubt did not last very long, his change in view
being reflected in the remark that followed: "But the
penis in erection also points toward the sun!" This
was not mere playing with words and ideas, but the
expression of a change in feelings toward sex, which
suddenly became clean and holy in the measure that
it, too, was aiming at the sun — just like the airplane in
the vision discussed before. The light was the ultimate
end or beginning of the sexual urge, and, this being
so, sex was itself luminous.
I find this session interesting because of how it shows
a gradual transmutation of psychological energy, par-
alleled by the opening up of its tubelike channel. It
may be said that, in the beginning, the patient was
a closed tube and even wanted to be like that. At one
point, he pictured a tube stretching beyond his field
of vision and described it with a feeling of dissatisfac-
tion or discontifort at its lack of beginning or end. "A
tube, a tube, a tube, tube, tube ... It never ends!"
And then he commented that a tube with no limits is
nothing, I find this rejection of the tube's "beyond-
ness" noteworthy, because it is precisely a tube's end-
lessness and openness that seem characteristic of
ibogaine peak experiences. But this openness to the
rigid little ego is like death; it is "nothing." Therefore,
the assertive bully kept pushing his head against the
ceiling. The image tells us that the tube's closedness
and the man's rigid defensiveness were the same. The
tube's opening would be the smashing of the man's
head, and that would amount to his death. In f^ct, that
man eventually disappeared.
So what first wanted to go through the tube was
222 The Healing Journey
gorilla-like assertiveness, and that could not go through.
The tube cannot be permeable to a form of energy
which, after all, seeks separateness. In identifying with
this phony image of himself, the patient was prevent-
mg the flow of his life. But what is this life that wants
to flow? On several occasions, he saw tubes coming
from underground, or rising from a basement. At some
point, water flowed out from it —
^not gushing, just
barely leaking. "Now, now, now!" he exclaimed in
great excitement. And then "Ouch, ouch, ouch!" The
image changed to that of somebody being crucified,
and then he could not remember any more. Not only
the underground but the context in which these images
are embedded suggest that it was "dark" instincts that
wanted out, for the rest of the visions are of muddy
ponds, crocodiles, Negroes. Then the transformation
occurred by which the darkness and animal life became
light —and not only light, for the sun heats, convey-
ing great energy. In fact, it is the source of all energy
and life. The sun is, quite literally, the father of plants,
animals, and men, and the patient only had to be-
come a child to know this.
The present example shows only an amplification
of what we have seen in many others. When we con-
sider, for instance, Gail's sight of the light coming in
through the window while she lay in her crib ("K
was God"), or how the experience of light followed
each contact of another patient with the animal forces
portrayed in her imagination, or how in Jacob's case
the threads-worms-animals commg out of his mouth
became the bird that flies toward the sun ^m all of —
these instances it would seem that the drive that is
232 Index
repression, 8, 39-40, 49-50, 61, spontaneity, 37, 82, 88, 145,
74-75, 89, 144, 159-60, 197, 147
207, 208 Stokowski, Leopold, 6
resistances, 18-19, 28, 37, Stravinsky, Igor, 175
104, 125-26, 200 substitutive symbolic expres-
reve eveille, x sion, 8, 66-68, 99, 135
Rite of Spring, The (Stravin- super-ego, 100
sky), 175 symbols recurrent, 14-15, 120-
role-playing, 36-37 21, 125, 128, 135-38, 149,
Rolf, Ida, X 166, 220
Romans, 30 symptom substitution, 68
234
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DRUG EXPERIENCE
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