Entheogenic Entity Encounters

Disembodied eyes revisited: An investigation into the ontology of entheogenic entity encounters

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All that glitters is not gold. Such a maxim might well serve any psychic voyager on a journey into the weirder realms of psychedelics. After all, out here on the edges there is seldom any firm evidence that the beatific or hellish visions beheld whilst chemically neurohacking your wetware have any basis in consensus reality. Indeed these visions are often so extravagantly strange and terrifyingly ineffable that reminding yourself that they are not real can serve to keep one’s sanity on a short leash when madness looms. Nevertheless, as John Lilly put it, how does one recognise one’s in-sanity from one’s out-sanity? And in any case how would anyone even begin to try and prove the ontological credibility of the psychedelic experience if they are to visit some other world or meet some alien entity? No one has yet put forward a solid method for testing these supposed realities within the domain of science, despite some admirable attempts recently[i] (e.g., Rodriguez, 2007), so all we have left to rely on is anecdote and phenomenology. This story lies somewhere between the two but also takes on a new dimension that has urged me to depart momentarily from the fruits of science into the “foamy custard” of folklore, myth, cultural studies and related disciplines[ii], but it seemingly has enough semblance of objectivity to warrant a whisper of truth - whatever that may be...