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Transnational yoga traditions are playing an increasingly important role in the culture of the 21st century “Psychedelic Renaissance.” The bodily disciplines and contemplative practices associated with yoga have long been in the orbit of psychedelic science and culture—as a precursor to, a skill set within, and as an integrative method in the wake of psychedelic journeys and lifestyles. The pioneering psilocybin researcher Roland Griffiths famously stated that meditation is the “tried and true method” and psychedelics the “crash course” in understanding the mind. Griffths’ own interest in the study of psychedelics was inspired, interestingly enough, by his own experiences practicing meditation, beginning with the practice of Siddha Yoga. The transnational culture of yoga has also seen, in recent years, a growing intersection between the worlds of “yoga tourism” and “psychedelic tourism.” This includes linkages between the cultures of postural yoga, Buddhist meditation, and ayahuasca, exemplified by workshops and trainings offered by programs with flowery titles such as “Ancestral Retreats,” “Aya Healing Retreats,” and “Lotus Vine Journeys.” Though purported historical linkages between yoga and the use of psychoactive substances have been a topic of considerable academic controversy—such as the notion of yoga being a substitute for the psychoactive effects of soma, as discussed by Doniger and Wasson—there is nonetheless a number of important points of intersection in the history and philosophy of yoga between the two. This includes the intimate relationship between Vedic ascetic/contemplative disciplines and the use of an elixir (soma), the import of the Vedic ascetic prototype of the long-haired one (keśin) as a consumer of an agent (viṣa) or “poision,” classical yoga and āyurveda concepts of the potency and powers yielded by the use of herbs (oṣadhi), and tantric concepts of initiatory drinks or substances (dravya). This history can be further expanded to include the prevalence of cannabis (bhangā) in contemporary Indic renouncer (sādhu and sādhvī) traditions and their satellites, and the unclear—but likely important—role that datura (dhattūra) has played historically in sectarian yoga and tantric traditions in India, especially within Śaivism. In this paper, I argue that the “classical” framework for understanding potency and power in yoga and in āyurveda with respect to the use of bioactive, if not psychoactive, herbs (oṣadhi) provides a number of insights into psychedelic science and culture in the contemporary context. These include the assertions that :1) yoga as a mode of practice operated within, if not incorporated, a range of both endogenous and exogenous techniques for achieving forms of extraordinary accomplishment (siddhi) and thereby special forms of knowledge and agency, paralleling the ways in which modern transnational yogas have hybridized with a range of practices, including the use of psychedelics; 2) Pātañjala yoga philosophy provides a structure for understanding psychedelic experience through the framework of the constructed mind (nirmāṇacitta), which can be expanded by referencing concepts of involution (pratiprasava) and emergence (vyutthāna), arguably being comparable to scientific conceptions regarding the Default Mode Network (DMN) and the increasing emphasis on the importance of “priors” in psychedelic science; and 3) these conceptions shed new light upon theories regarding yogic experience postulated by Gerald Larson and Yohanon Grinshpon, notably those regarding the nature of rarefied forms of contemplation (samādhi), and specifically their theories of the symbolic content of and parallels to the Near Death Experience (NDE) in the Pātañjalayogaśāstra, in the “section on powers” (vibhūtipāda). I conclude with an application of these points to the case study of contemporary scientific and ethnographic accounts of DMT-based psychedelic experiences. These cases illustrate the cultural proximity of yogic practitioners and psychonauts who inhabit adjacent, if not identical, worlds, parallelism between descriptions of the experience of physical and psychological dissolution and reassembly and ideas of yogic involution (pratiprasava) and emergence (vyutthāna), and echoes between the perceptions and experiences of “fantastic beings” and of physical and psychological “death” and descriptions of the phenomenology of yogic experience in classical sources.
Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
Transnational yoga traditions are playing an important role in the culture of the 21st century “Psychedelic Renaissance.” The bodily disciplines and contemplative practices associated with yoga have long been in the orbit of psychedelic science and culture—as a precursor to, a skill set within, and as an integrative method following psychedelic journeys and lifestyles. I argue that the “classical” framework for understanding power in yoga and in āyurveda with respect to the use of bioactive, if not psychoactive, herbs (oṣadhi) offers acute insights into contemporary psychedelic science and culture. These include 1) that yoga, historically, incorporated various endogenous and exogenous methods, paralleling the hybridity of modern, transnational yoga; 2) Pātañjala yoga philosophy provides a framework for understanding psychedelic experience that anticipates elements of psychedelic science; and 3) Contemporary descriptions of DMT-based psychedelic experience echo discussions of yogic experience by Larson and Grinshpon, with regard to “fantastic beings” and “near-death-experiences.”