Pubdate: Fri, 23 May 2003 Source: Guardian, The (UK) Copyright: 2003 Guardian Newspapers Limited Contact: http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175 Author: Karen Armstrong, The Guardian Note: Karen Armstrong is the author of A History of God (Vintage) and Buddha (Weidenfeld). Note: To access other items in this series, click this link: http://www.mapinc.org/source/Guardian ECSTASY GONE AWRY The Restless Search for Bliss That Now Fuels the Drug Industry Is Part of Human Nature Britain is losing the drugs war and there is still no sign of a reduction in the demand for drugs. This is hardly surprising, because the restless search for bliss that fuels the drug industry is an inescapable part of our human condition - - as deeply rooted as the instincts for sex and self-preservation. Previous societies that were more attuned to traditional spirituality understood this: they devised highly sophisticated means of satisfying this yearning for an enhanced state of consciousness, and ensuring that it did not become destructive. Until we understand the disciplines of ecstasy at a deeper level, and legislate accordingly, we will fight a losing battle against drugs. Ever since they fell out of the trees and became recognisably human, men and women have had intimations of what the Greeks called ekstasis, in which they seemed to "stand outside" themselves. The ability to have ideas and sensations that transcend our mundane experience is one of the peculiar characteristics of the human mind. During the Palaeolithic Age, around 20,000 to 8,000BC, people developed mythologies of flight and ascent, which symbolised a psychic journey to an enhanced state of consciousness and an absolute freedom from the constraints of time and space. To this day, shamans fall into a trance and embark on a spiritual flight, bringing back news of a fuller, more potent existence. From the very start, therefore, human beings sought ecstasy. In traditional societies, religious ritual catered for these yearnings, orchestrating them, giving them shape and helping people to integrate transcendent experience into their daily lives. To this end, they employed the techniques of what we now call art: dance, music, painting, drama and song. Before the advent of the printed book, the CD or the public museum, most people could experience art only under the auspices of religion. Today in Britain, only about 6% of the population attend a religious service regularly. Most of us no longer find ekstasis in conventional faith, but we go out of our way to experience rapture in other contexts. In listening to music or poetry, we feel deeply touched and lifted beyond ourselves. At such moments we feel fully alive, so we seek out such peak experiences in art, music, theatre, sex, rock, sport and, increasingly, in drugs. Shamans probably used drugs to achieve their trance, but they were expert in the spiritual technology of transcendence. The most extreme states of ecstasy were not for the rank and file, and, indeed, in the course of their training shamans often experienced psychotic breakdown. Most people could cope only with the moderate rapture induced by ritual. An early Talmudic text tells the story of four distinguished rabbis who attempted the mystical flight to paradise: one went mad, one died, one became a heretic and only Rabbi Akiva emerged in peace and unscathed. Not everybody is psychologically capable of the more exotic states. In all the world religions, anybody who aspired to the mystical life had to work with a guru, who closely monitored his progress and prevented him from getting out of his depth. You had to be exceptionally balanced and mature to succeed. Zen masters said that if you were mentally ill, meditation would only cause you to deteriorate. Masters of Kaballah insisted that their disciples were at least 40 and married: there must be no unresolved sexual tension. In ancient India, yoga enabled skilled practitioners to achieve extraordinary states of liberation and bliss that were regarded as entirely natural to human beings. When Buddhists and Jains refined these yogic techniques in the sixth century BC, they gave them an ethical foundation. Aspirants could not even begin their training until they had achieved habitual serenity, benevolence, abstinence from drugs and stimulants, and absolute truthfulness. This, as it were, earthed ecstasy, prevented it from becoming selfish and self-indulgent, and gave it moral direction. All the major traditions have taught that peak experiences are unhealthy unless they can be integrated kindly, peacefully and truthfully into our ordinary lives. In our secular society we tend to dismiss these mystical systems as outmoded and irrational. But they contained wisdom that we need today, because our desire for transcendence and unfettered bliss has got out of control. We have now developed technology that yields instant rapture. Today young people can simply swallow a pill and enjoy states of mind that were formerly the preserve of a very few highly trained and talented mystics, but without any of the traditional safeguards. In the old days, mystical teachers such as Teresa of Avila (1515-82) deplored the harm that was done by unskilled spiritual directors, whose inept understanding of the psyche made their disciples mentally ill. Today the situation is much worse. The purveyors of ecstasy are no longer uneducated, but well-meaning, priests. They are often unscrupulous dealers who have no concern for their victims, many of whom become addicted and even die in their search for joy, liberation and transcendence. Even religious people, who do not use drugs, have fallen prey to unbalanced ekstasis . Protestant reformers decried mysticism as unbiblical and elitist, and so people lost the mystical expertise that would have enabled them to manage religious intensity. Puritans underwent wrenching conversion experiences that sometimes left them chronically depressed and even suicidal. During the Great Awakening in 18th-century New England, whole towns succumbed to a pious hysteria, which they believed to be the work of the holy spirit. When this frenzied joy subsided, many fell into despair, and a few killed themselves. It is interesting to compare this with the ecstasy drug culture that developed in Britain towards the end of the Thatcher years. The typical ecstasy cycle begins with a honeymoon period. Once the initial excitement fades, some people accelerate into excess or abuse, taking stronger drugs and becoming psychologically or physically ill, as they try to regain the lost paradise. It was precisely this kind of instability that worried the mystics. Today we see plenty of examples of ecstasy gone awry. Without the ethical grounding prescribed by the Buddhists, rapture can become self-destructive or even violent: ravers fight police and dealers shoot one another. Even if not drug induced, the ekstasis of sport can lead to football hooliganism or racial hatred. People will always seek to experience these heightened states but, if deprived of proper guidance, there will always be some who cannot sustain such mental extremity without suffering or inflicting damage. The government is right to point to poverty as a source of drug abuse. But providing people with jobs, which are often tedious, will not quench the yearning for ecstasy that is built into the human condition. At a time when traditional religion seems dead and art caters only for an elite, an increasing number will turn to the chemical technologies of bliss. We have to acknowledge the need for ekstasis, find more creative ways of satisfying it and acquaint ourselves anew with ways of managing the peak experiences that we seem to need to give our lives meaning and value. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake