The principal risk of working with these powerful tools which change perception and elicit altered states of consciousness is that people often mistake a temporary change in their state of consciousness for a change in their level of being (I.e., a change in enduring personality traits). Without having undertaken serious and sincere inne…
The principal risk of working with these powerful tools which change perception and elicit altered states of consciousness is that people often mistake a temporary change in their state of consciousness for a change in their level of being (I.e., a change in enduring personality traits). Without having undertaken serious and sincere inner work of self-examination and a struggle to gain mastery of the lower impulses of sexual desire, desire for fame/recognition, and desire for material advancement, these tools can easily result in exposure to opportunities for engaging in abusive/exploitative behaviors driven by the activation of base appetites. That is why in traditional cultures the use of these tools are constrained by limiting them to application in a sacred space by elder individuals who are celibate and have gained the approval of the community as bona fide practitioners who do not charge for their services and have earned a reputation in their community of demonstrating moral integrity. Taking an ethics course and being able to answer test questions correctly, completing an internship, post doctoral training, and being granted a license to practice is simply not sufficiently adequate to assure ethical conduct. Sanctioning practitioners after engaging in unethical conduct is simply too little, too late. Having observed a range of such behaviors over the past 45 years, I have become very sceptical of our ability to implement use of these tools within our cultural context. The only way forward is to conduct the work within a very carefully controlled and highly monitored clinical setting with multiple checkpoints to assure the integrity of the practitioners and the safety of the clients. A privately run institution conducting this work greatly increases the risk for potential problems. The science thus needs to be pursued within the context of publicly funded educational institutions at the university level. Even then, as any study of the history of the field reveals, the risks for abuse remain very concerning. We also need a model of the stages of development of self-knowledge and self-mastery to begin to assess the qualification of a practitioner that goes beyond our current models of adult development. This is a project that would require interdisciplinary collaboration across religious, psychological, psychiatric, and neurobiological fields, at a minimum. The MAPS debacle reveals that much work remains to be completed before these tools can begin to be used effectively with some minimal measure of safety.
The principal risk of working with these powerful tools which change perception and elicit altered states of consciousness is that people often mistake a temporary change in their state of consciousness for a change in their level of being (I.e., a change in enduring personality traits). Without having undertaken serious and sincere inner work of self-examination and a struggle to gain mastery of the lower impulses of sexual desire, desire for fame/recognition, and desire for material advancement, these tools can easily result in exposure to opportunities for engaging in abusive/exploitative behaviors driven by the activation of base appetites. That is why in traditional cultures the use of these tools are constrained by limiting them to application in a sacred space by elder individuals who are celibate and have gained the approval of the community as bona fide practitioners who do not charge for their services and have earned a reputation in their community of demonstrating moral integrity. Taking an ethics course and being able to answer test questions correctly, completing an internship, post doctoral training, and being granted a license to practice is simply not sufficiently adequate to assure ethical conduct. Sanctioning practitioners after engaging in unethical conduct is simply too little, too late. Having observed a range of such behaviors over the past 45 years, I have become very sceptical of our ability to implement use of these tools within our cultural context. The only way forward is to conduct the work within a very carefully controlled and highly monitored clinical setting with multiple checkpoints to assure the integrity of the practitioners and the safety of the clients. A privately run institution conducting this work greatly increases the risk for potential problems. The science thus needs to be pursued within the context of publicly funded educational institutions at the university level. Even then, as any study of the history of the field reveals, the risks for abuse remain very concerning. We also need a model of the stages of development of self-knowledge and self-mastery to begin to assess the qualification of a practitioner that goes beyond our current models of adult development. This is a project that would require interdisciplinary collaboration across religious, psychological, psychiatric, and neurobiological fields, at a minimum. The MAPS debacle reveals that much work remains to be completed before these tools can begin to be used effectively with some minimal measure of safety.