Kundalini and Psychedelics – Some thoughts ...

It is 12 September, 2023. I’m journeying on high dose psilocybin at a psychedelic training retreat in Holland. Overwhelming waves of energy seize me, pushing the ‘I’, I know as myself, aside. My body is moved into strange positions which I strain to hold until I can no longer. Although the force and intensity are hard to bear, I offer myself to what feels like possession by a divine, feminine consciousness flowing through me. It is a demand, an exhortation. She claims me. 

                                (44gr Psilocybin truffles)

You know how you can have a really interesting conversation, and then think about all the things you didn’t say? That’s how I’m feeling this morning, after yesterday’s podcast on kundalini and psychedelics. So I just want to give you a bit more of what I found out about the link between psychedelics and kundalini, in case that’s helpful.

People taking psychedelics need to know about kundalini.

I want to write about this because my sense is that, while it’s acknowledged, the interface between psychedelics and what Claudio Naranjo calls the ‘kundalini phenomenon’ is not routinely covered in preparation for psychedelic journeys, or even much on psychedelic training courses.

That worries me. The energy could come up for people without them knowing what it is. They might be frightened and try to resist or control the experience.

They might think they are going ‘mad’ as they can’t function in their lives the way they used to, and other people may not understand their experience and even mis-diagnose it. People have been hospitalised and medicated.

Psychedelics, Naranjo suggests, are ‘kundalini activators’. So let’s look at what that means …

First - what is kundalini?

As members of the Kundalini Collective, I’m guessing you know this already, but just some thoughts.

Our default may be to think of the classic descriptions of kundalini from ancient Hindu and Buddhist Tantric texts. Kundalini-shakti is seen as a universal, autonomous, subtle (non-physical), creative force. She is a feminine, energetic presence or consciousness – an archetypal process of embodied, self-directed, psycho-spiritual transformation. In the West she is sometimes called our inner healing tendency.

The traditional path of spiritual development is seen as linear. We can have experiences of prana (our life-giving force), but to have a full kundalini awakening, you have to live a particular, disciplined life and spiritually practice for a long time.

While that may be right, across the world and throughout time, many people have had kundalini-like experiences, and now, increasingly, such experiences are being reported in the West.

Naranjo talks about the ‘kundalini phenomenon’ to capture this wider range of experiences. Lee Sannella (1987) interviewed Westerners about what he called physio-kundalini experiences, and others, like Dana Swain, have done so since. A fairly consistent set of experiences is reported, although curiously, they don’t completely match the classical descriptions.

Jung and kundalini – a psychological perspective.

Carl Jung looked at kundalini and the tantric tradition from a psychological perspective. He saw it as a symbolic theory of the psyche, and the kundalini process as similar to what he called ‘individuation’ – an inner drive towards psycho-spiritual evolution. This process was also reflected in Western Alchemy.

Under its influence, we gradually come to see ourselves more objectively, as embedded in a much larger, impersonal dimension of being - the Self. For people and society to be well, Jung thought, they had to align themselves with that larger whole.

Tantric texts mention chakras - subtle energy centres in our body. For Jung these represented qualities of experience which relate to stages of psychological development. 

Jung gives us two helpful concepts in understanding what may be happening during kundalini activation – archetypes and complexes.

Archetypes are ‘a priori’, universal, formative principles or patterns in the personal and collective psyche. They structure the way we encounter the world, and have a deeply meaningful, numinous quality. We can never know them directly. The main, central archetype is that of the Self - a kind of ‘god-image’ inside of us.

Complexes are unconscious clusters of memories, associations, and other psychic content around a core element with a strong emotional charge. An example might be an unbearable memory of a trauma that happened to us. This core draws in material from the personal and collective psyche, in line with archetypal patterning. Complexes are more or less autonomous and can exert a strong influence over our lives without us realising it. We often register them in an embodied, as well as a mental way.

As kundalini energy is activated it energises the chakras and engages the complexes lodged there. That way we come to know them, and they lose their hold over us.

This gave me a way to think about the sometimes bizarre and frightening experiences I had while the energy was active – a sense, for instance, of being possessed by something with an intelligent purpose, or my terror at encountering an entity. These could be the activation of psychological complexes.

Eventually I learned to relate to these experiences as a spontaneous form of what Carl Jung called active imagination.

Perspectives are coming together.

Each of the traditions in different ways gives its own understanding of experiences of what seems to be a universal drive towards growth and transformation.

I wonder whether these different cultural ‘lenses’ might even shape the way people experience the energy. Some describe kundalini in a more forceful, physically embodied way, for instance, while others write more in terms of a circulation of light through the body, which may be a more mental way.

Maybe, also, with the coming together of all these traditions, something new is emerging.

Might we, in the West, be forming a new cluster of thoughts, feelings and associations around a core, powerful, archetypal, and often numinous kundalini experience, creating a new, Western version of a ‘kundalini complex’?

Might that make it easier for us to become aware of the energy and talk about it, and might that explain the increasing number of Westerners experiencing the energy, and the variations in the experiences reported?

Perhaps, also, there is a recovery of something we have lost.

Maria Papaspyrou talks of ‘femtheogenic consciousness’ – the way expanded states can help us reconnect with feminine consciousness, which has been denied and repressed by patriarchy. This strengthens our ability to connect with deep psyche and see the way consciousness suffuses matter and connects all things. This is a profoundly ecological perspective.

We need to balance masculine and feminine ways of knowing, and to restore the link between matter and soul.

Psychedelics and kundalini.

Taking psychedelics can activate kundalini in the same way meditation and breathwork can, because they relax our ego-control and body armour.

They suspend our usual perceptions and ways of thinking, the way we defend and hold ourselves, and our sense of who we are (our ‘default mode network’). This clears blocks in our system and allows the energy to flow more freely, bringing the potential of healing and transformation, individually and collectively.  

Jessica Corneille and David Luke (2021) showed that psychedelics give the same mystical experiences, therapeutic potential, and improved wellbeing as spontaneous spiritual or kundalini awakenings do. They suggest, though, that we get a stronger sense of meaning from these latter experiences, and that the changes that come from them are more permanent.

Although Naranjo sees use of psychedelics as a legitimate spiritual practice, and the energy flow that comes from it as part of the larger kundalini syndrome, he also sees the experience as being more temporary in nature. He doesn’t think it represents a full ‘kundalini awakening’. It doesn’t give the stable ability to access deeper states of awareness a consistent meditation practice might.

Even when triggered by psychedelics, though, experiences of kundalini can be an important initiation, and they can provide a powerful motivation to continue on our inner journey.

I wonder whether, when with the help of psychedelics, we drop into layers of deep psyche where our ego is less relevant, something in us changes. Maybe new neural pathways are formed which allow us to find our way back there more easily.

Apollonian and Dionysian approaches.

Naranjo warns of the Dionysian power of kundalini.

Different spiritual practices, he suggests, lie on a continuum between two poles. At one end we have the Apollonian, more yogic approach. This has a solar quality, and aims at states of tranquillity, mindfulness, and non-attachment.

At the other end lies the Dionysian, more religious approach. This has a more lunar quality and aims at inducing states of letting go, God-mindedness and love.

While spiritual traditions that focus on the experience of kundalini tend to emphasize a Dionysian path of devotion and surrender, in fact, Naranjo says, you need both. These traditions pre-suppose a foundation in practices of austerity and restraint to help hold the path of surrender.

Different psychedelics tend towards different psycho-physiological effects.

Different types of psychedelic substances, Naranjo says, impact on different parts of our ego, body- and character-armour, so that experiences fall closer to one or the other end of the continuum.

Hallucinogens (LSD-like psychedelics) have a more Dionysian aspect. They tend to dissolve the cognitive ego and stimulate the higher chakras. People often have experiences of love.

Feeling enhancers (like MDMA) offer experiences that sit somewhere in the middle of the continuum. They give a more heart-based experience of our physical and emotional life. They melt away the passional ego, which can get in the way of authentic communication and love.

Fantasy enhancers (like Ayahuasca, the harmala alkaloids and Ibogaine) impact most strongly on our instinctual life. They activate the lower chakras, and their spiritual experiences are more visionary, with less intellectual or emotional content. People tend to connect more with cosmic indifference (non-attachment).

Cannabis (THC), Naranjo says, is a ‘wide spectrum’ psychedelic, offering pranic, emotional, visionary and spiritual effects.

Some final thoughts.

We need better awareness of the way psychedelics can trigger kundalini.  

I have felt the powerful draw of the numinous as kundalini swept me up. I can’t stress enough the importance of good preparation, and of having a supportive holding environment – before, during and after using psychedelics.

Work to integrate what happens into our worldview and everyday life is essential. I have myself carried encapsulated experiences I could find no place for, until I was finally able to process them years later.

I am deeply grateful for what the medicine has given me. It has changed my life and filled my deepest longings for an experience of connection with something vast, numinous and, it felt like, divine. It has opened me to the experience of kundalini.

At the same time, maybe Naranjo is right that we need to balance use of this powerful tool with a stable spiritual practice, like meditation.

Without that, we might be taken out faster and further than we can hold or integrate. It may be more difficult to manage the opening and integrate what comes.

When psychedelics open us to kundalini this can release an inner flood of ecstatic energy with such force and power as to take us to the limits of endurance. Equally, experiences can be utterly terrifying.

To honour these gifts, we must value ourselves enough to find the support we need to hold us through these experiences. We need that to fully surrender to the changes they bring, and to bring back as much as we can from our journeys, for ourselves and for our world.

Images: Other then the first image (my mandala - part of non-verbal integration following my journey) the images in this blog are shared with kind permission from visionary artist, Ted Wallace - https://tedwallaceart.com/ .