Professor Costello kindly referred me to my interviewee. Their spiritual experience with entheogenic substances have revealed glimpses at an interconnected world, and we corresponded about what they believe an interconnected world could look like as well as what attitudes are needed to achieve this interconnectedness.

​

_

​

​

Q: My project was inspired by a book called “Darwin’s Pharmacy” written by Richard Doyle, an English professor at Penn State University. 

 

“Darwin’s Pharmacy” is Doyle’s attempt at changing the rhetoric that governs our relationship with the planet. In “Darwin’s Pharmacy,” he builds this image of the ecosystem of the universe, that is people, animals, plants and everything in-between as being interconnected, and interconnectedness is his central theme. However, this book is not just about climate change, it’s an exploration of both the visible and invisible realms that connect us to the planet, physics as well as consciousness, connecting the scientific with the mystical. And to build this image of a web of matter and natural laws and everything else, he calls on different disciplines, physics, biology, rhetoric, philosophy, religion, etc. 

 

For example, he delves into the psychedelic experience as a most direct manifestation of the cosmic consciousness that exists within everything in the universe, binding it together. He points at how you are more spiritually aware when ingesting a psychedelic drug, and you are able to see the world as interconnected. He calls these psychedelic “epiphanies” as the way the consciousness of the universe speaks through you, a higher eloquence. Did your experience with psychedelic substances yield any moments that changed your view on the world in any way? Did those experiences change your perspective in any way?

 

“You mentioned how psychedelic epiphanies allow one to see interconnectedness. Yes but not really. It depends on your spiritual work and your spiritual journey, how far you worked in this life and previous lives. It’s the interconnectedness to yourself that happens first, that then allows you to see your role in the world.”

 

everyone’s experience is different. These experiences heighten where you’re at, so if you’re depressed, it can amplify the root of the depression, and the problems that led there. If you want to experience interconnectedness, you have to find yourself, explore your inner world first. When you start seeing how vast you are, and who you really are, then you are able to see others as universes akin to yourself and perceive interconnectedness. This does not happen until you have done your “spiritual inner world”. 

 

Every psychedelic gives you a different effect. Mushrooms are more gentle, they show you how to work through your life. They help you navigate your problems. Ayahuasca for example focuses on your soul, and the wounds that you carry as a soul through eternity. This is part of the reason why people experience past lives in their ayahuasca journey.

 

And yes, psychedelics have totally changed my worldview. I remember the time when I first tripped, I saw this rock and I started balling my eyes out. And for context, I have a very ancient soul. I was with someone and I was telling him “How could I forget where I am, what this is, why I’m here. I was sad because I lived a life where I’ve completely forgotten my true nature. I was very upset about that. The next day I was in a completely different dimension, I felt so limited in my previous worldview, like a robot. I started seeing people as vast universes, something so intense, amazing and beautiful. When you start seeing the world through this different lens, you start feeling more compassion from a genuine place, rather than for keeping an appearance and satisfying other people. 

 

What we see with our eyes is very superficial. So when we close our eyes and look at the energy within us, we can begin to see that other people are just as vast and eternal as ourselves, which is crazy.

 

 

 

Q: In “Darwin’s Pharmacy,” the author uses the term “noösphere,” the collective consciousness of everything in the universe, to reinforce the argument on interconnection. How does someone within your professional field see this possibility or even lack thereof?

 

A: I’m about to become a dietitian in December. The collective consciousness is a very loaded phrase. It means that we are all thinking of universal values that we should follow, like a guide to our journey, and we are all interconnected. Unfortunately, in order to experience that you really have to work on yourself on the daily. 

 

In the dietitian’s world, I could see this gap that we have created between mind and body. And even though we are getting better with the spiritual part, there is still a lot of work to be done. In my field, I could see that this lack of awareness has an impact. For example, we have a lot of people who compete against each other, which creates a lot of fake research, fake news, fake diets. Instead of building each other up we compete. Instead of creating fields, we create polars in these fields. Something that I see in my field is that lack of connection bleeds into patient care. I see a lot of practitioners who aren’t compassionate, all they see is this appearance of obesity, eating disorders, of just the physical world, and they make the treatment sound as easy as a prescription. And we are seeing the horrible consequences, we have health epidemics, obesity, cardiac disease. And it is really sad to see, because if we were more in tune with our connectedness, we would treat people with more compassion. 

 

If we learn to be aware of this interconnectedness, this really can take patient care to a more compassionate place.

 

 

 

Q: Lastly, let’s imagine that people learn to adopt this vision of a world interconnected physically and mystically, after Doyle’s model. What can we do with this, where do you think it would lead us, as a society or as a species?

 

A: This question was very interesting. This semester I am taking a stress management class, and I have been reading this book called “Mind, Body and Health.” And there is this chapter that talks about the healing properties of religion and spirituality, which surprised me as a healthcare professional. It talks about how we can activate spiritual healing and how we can be more open to this treatment. And you asked what we should do with interconnectedness, and I think that we should take it home. Interconnectedness started in the medical system , in the power system. It was in the time when civilizations were led by the person who was the spiritual person, the guide, the teacher. It wasn’t these broken systems, the medical and political system that we have today. It was during a time when the soul had the power. 

 

The easiest place to start incorporating spiritual healing is the medical system. We already have meditation, and there is research that explores how these practices are impacting body and mind. Once we start incorporating interconnectedness, people will also start feeling more in control of their lives. We pay a high price for this lack of interconnectedness, which is that people feel that they have no control over their lives. We have so much anxiety and depression because the general belief is that “life happens to you.” And while this is true, there is a level of power that we have over our lives. How we perceive obstacles can be a game-changer. Bringing spiritual awareness and interconnectedness can bring us together and make us realize that the power is in the people’s hands, not the system’s. We can evolve as a more compassionate, loving and serving society. I personally strive for this. 

 

Most importantly, we can always start incorporating interconnectedness in our lives. Practicing self-care regularly are not helps people feel more connected to themselves and promotes self-love. Taking care of your body can really impact your perception of interconnectedness. Change starts on the individual level, person by person not system by system. And self-care doesn’t have to highlight the presence of the ego. What I learned throughout the years is that ego should be befriended, you should know how to live with ego. The problem with that is that people don’t know the difference between self and ego, and don’t know themselves enough intimately. I believe self-care, personally, is the most intimate thing you can do for yourself, it can be the cornerstone of building a foundation for spirituality. If you try to renounce the self, you end up in a very different direction, which is sacrifice.  You will drain yourself, people with drain yourself, we won’t know how to build boundaries and that’s how we can get into toxic relationships.