The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience

by Benny Shanon

This is a pioneering cognitive psychological study of Ayahuasca, a plant-based Amazonian psychotropic brew. Benny Shanon presents a comprehensive charting of the various facets of the special state of mind induced by Ayahuasca, & analyzes them from a cognitive psychological perspective. He also presents some philosophical reflections. Empirically, the research presented in this book is based on the systematic recording of the author's extensive experiences with the brew & on the interviewing of a large number of informants: indigenous people, shamans, members of different religious sects using Ayahuasca & travellers. In addition to its being the most thorough study of the Ayahuasca experience to date, the book lays the theoretical foundations for the psychological study of non-ordinary states of consciousness in general.
Benny Shanon is a Psychology professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem & holder of the Mandel Chair in Cognition.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Drugs, Spirituality, Philosophy, Plants, Science

496 pages, Paperback

First published November 7, 2002

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have generally found phenomenological studies, however vital they be at the foundations of empirical science, to be boring. This was an exception. Professor Shannon's personal, sometimes almost chatty, style carried me through the dense thickets of detail.

Shannon is a 'cognitive psychologist', a subdiscipline just beginning--and never once mentioned--while I was studying psychology. Although he describes the field, he is also at some pains to note that he is not a typical cognitive psychologist, normative studies of the domains of consciousness apparently being founded upon information systems models.

This book focuses on the phenomenology of ayahuasca-induced states of consciousness. Ayahuasca, a brew concocted from a DMT-rich shrub and a MAO-inhibiting jungle vine, provides, by his account supported by the thousands of other accounts upon which his study is founded, an experience which appears to bear a strong family resemblance to the altered states of consciousness afforded by other psychedelics like LSD. Yet, speaking with some considerable knowledge of these substances and the literature about them, there also appear to be significant differences. Here I would have appreciated some greater attention paid to comparing and contrasting the drugs, especially if data sets comparable to those he provides were available for these other substances.

What is most notable about this study is Shanon's data base and how he handles it. In addition to taking ayahuasca hundreds of times himself, he has also interviewed something like 2500 other users, many of them comparably experienced. Then, taking up various characteristics of the experiences, he has coded the data, providing statistical analyses in a lengthy appendix. This is a laudable achievement which should be replicated by others studying the various means by which such altered states may be induced--or inspired.

How Shanon interpreted his data was, for me, provocative. I found his reading of Jung--as analytical psychology might be applied to such phenomenological studies (would that it was!)--to be much too simplistic. I found his rejection of psychological models which allow for an unconscious domain (how better to explain parapraxes?) to be unconvincing. I found his appeals to 'creativity' and 'meaning' as being hallmarks of the ayahuasca experience to explain very little. Still, I appreciated very much his willingness to spend some considerable effort on the philosophical, the ontic and epistemic, implications of such extraordinary states of mind and I certainly agreed with some of his arguments against reductionism in psychology.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a cognitive psychological study of the ayahuasca experience, expect it to get technical at times. It is so worth it though. This is a one of a kind study. For the most part the academic literature on these topics are one of two classes. Either they are pharmacological/botanical or cultural anthropological. Upon his initial research into ayahuasca the author made just such an observation and decided that the proper academic discipline for studying the EXPERIENCE of ayahuasca was in the field of cognition.

Some readers might be worried that a strictly scientific approach would deny the experience of it’s spiritual significance. Not so, at least not with this book. The reason it does not is in the approach. The author sets out to chart the phenomenology of the experience, strickly. In doing so certain metaphysical questions are raised but cannot be answered. If the discussion switched gears to metaphysics it would cease to be a phenomenological study now wouldn’t it? (People have visionary spiritual experiences induced by the ritual ingestion of ayahuasca. That is a phenomenological fact.) This approach actually facilitates the articulation of philosophical questions; that, without such a study, could not be constructed.
The questions the ayahuasca experience brings up don’t stop there. The study undertaken within these pages lead to ramifications upon our very understanding of consciousness itself.

[Timothy Delaney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book.
Shanon is a science man...a psychologist, and after evaluating hundreds of Ayahuasca experiences of his own and others' - his conclusion is simply: Hallelujah!

[Jubz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does exactly what it says: charts the phenomenology [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomen...] of the ayahuasca experience, and does it quite well. If you're interested in the psychological states that ayahuasca produces, this is the book for you.

[Andrej · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the greatest and most extensive book on the subject... 10 years of first hand experiences and cognitive psychology research. Wealth of information, well written. Mind = shattered... ;)

[Mauro]

Albeit non-orthodox, my view both of cognition and of psychology keeps to the fundamental assumption that the subject matter of the science of cognition is the human mind and that it is in the province of this mind that all matters cognitive take place. But perhaps this assumption is not warranted. Perhaps consciousness, especially non-ordinary consciousness, cannot be conceived while maintaining this assumption. For this, it might be necessary to resort to some sort of a supra-personal mind, to some intelligence that transcends the human, to a cosmic consciousness of which our individual consciousness is only a pale, derivative reflection. Recently, such non-orthodox conceptualizations have been proposed by several scientists. Remarkably, not one of them is a psychologist—practically all are physicists... Significantly, what people feel when under the Ayahuasca intoxication is very much in line with these non-orthodox ideas... many drinkers come to believe that Ayahuasca brings them in touch with the anima mundi or the Divine consciousness which is the Ground of all Being, the source of all knowledge, the fountain of all wisdom. In a direct, non-mediated fashion drinkers also feel that it is this consciousness that is the source of the visions and the insights associated with them. When the force of the inebriation is especially strong, drinkers feel that the boundaries between this consciousness and their own individual one are less and less defined. In the limit, I and God become one. All that can be known is part and parcel of the Divine mind, hence also of my mind. (pp. 384-385)

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a shame this book is so expensive and hard to find! There is a growing mountain of woo-woo publications about Ayahuasca, but this psychological and phenomenological study is a clear bell tolling logic and rigor while leaving the brew's many mysteries intact. Anyone (like me) who is turned off by paranormal explanations of Ayahuasca's effects will deeply appreciate what this book has to offer, provided that they're willing to wade through some thick academic terminology. Its bibliography alone is a great resource for further reading.

[Gregory Nixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Note: Professor Shanon died in 2025.]
Introduction
What happens when a worldly Israeli cognitive psychologist goes to the Amazon Basin where he ingests the famed psychotropic concoction Ayahuasca (the ‘vine of the dead’) again and again and again? Our intrepid philosophical psychologist is no longer a sprightly youth, maddened for adventure. He is instead an accomplished theoretician with widely published articles and a noted book (Shanon, 1993) that speak the from the perspective of cognitive (or phenomenological, for Shanon) psychology against the reductive tendency to view the mind’s activities as created by the brain’s activities. Even before his Amazonian quest, he placed himself in the Gibsonian camp, seeing the mind as dynamic intermediary between organism and environment and active participant in both. What did happen is this extraordinary book, a scientific analysis of his own visions and the education of both Shanon’s views and, perhaps, his soul.

Benny Shanon’s accomplishment in this unique and carefully written treatise is nonpareil. In his landmark attempt to chart and classify the experiences that follow ingesting the Amazonian brew, Ayahuasca (always capitalized by Shanon), he demonstrates a will to observe and explain as relentless as carbon steel, but his seeing and experiencing also require him to be as flexible as tungsten when he must shape his interpretations within experiences that have all but overthrown the pretence of objective observation. Indeed, as he becomes ‘educated’ through his journeys with this brewed plant compound, apparently beginning his own shamanic initiation, his will, his very self must capitulate to experiences beyond words. Later, back at his desk, Shanon will use his notes and memory to discover the order of things. This breakthrough study will achieve the respect and renown it deserves, but it is has caused a stir in certain circles and amongst the openminded international intelligentsia.

Shanon has written a slow-rising classic that should stay aloft for the duration of our era, not just as cognitive psychology or even as another narrative of the psychedelic experience, but as the revelation of the boundless potentials within the human journey itself. Since its release, it appears to have received universal praise from other critics and readers. However, word has not filtered out into the hungry minds of the general public or surely Antipodes1 would be on a bestseller list. Either its subject matter — pharmaceutically induced altered states of consciousness — is still considered too politically threatening or Benny Shanon needs to hit the talk show circuit. His book enters deep waters yet never loses its way. It may be a challenge for some to wade through his classifications but in doing so may find their thinking clarified. Shanon’s writing is clear as a mountain brook. He wastes no words for grand effect but always goes straight and true for the point of the topic he had begun. This makes for a very satisfying read, which is helped immensely by the greater story lurking within it to do with one man’s awakening from the sleep of self-consciousness. Antipodes is neither obscure nor excessive, so it might make a good selection for a book-of-the-month for educated readers. Oprah, are you listening?

Nothing exactly like this has ever been written before,2 beautifully rendered and incisively analyzed yet finally superseding its own analytic. The reader joins a dedicated scientist on a journey that most would consider well beyond the possibility of scientific data gathering, except in terms of chemistry or anthropology. This journey is a phenomenological analysis, Shanon’s close observation his own experience. He wastes no pages speculating on what the neural correlates of his visionary experiences might be, not even taking much time to explain the active ingredients of the ‘brew’ or how it changes the brain. Within this work (but not always within his own experience), the phenomenological-analytical approach seldom wavers. Such an approach still requires a certain distance, so when the object of study is his own earthshaking visions or emotional tsunamis rising up to lay bare every suppressed anxiety, guilt, or self delusion (not even to mention the digestive trauma often encountered3), one finds oneself in mute admiration for this stalwart scholar who steadily perseveres, refusing to be swept away from his purpose. He admits to making wrong choices in his early Ayahuasca journeys, lingering at banquet or resisting the lure of jaguar metamorphosis when he should have continued his quest, but he learns and begins again. As new worlds open before him, sometimes terrifying, he never retreats in a desperate attempt to turn the experience off. But he also learns when to surrender. Song pours from him amongst strangers, but he knew he must allow the joy to have voice. Though only briefly alluded to, it seems his perseverance and purity of purpose allowed him to finally transcend the limits of knowledge altogether by surrendering his cognition and his very self in a metanoia beyond the realm of words, memory, or interpretation. Needless to say, this experience is not described.

It is in this sense that Antipodes may find itself attacked (or ignored) from two opposed positions at once. Most hard science does not consider phenomenology a respectable undertaking since one’s subjective experiences can neither be observed by anyone else nor shown to produce repeatable effects. One attempting to draw up analytical structures for drug-induced visions is likely to be dismissed out of hand as delusional, taking hallucinations for reality.4 On the other hand, true believers — religious followers, mystic esotericists, New Agers — will be annoyed, for though Shanon puts the stamp of ‘reality’ upon his altered-state journeys, he continues to be skeptical about the existence of supernatural deities behind the metaphysical curtain. In his captivating prologue, he states: ‘For years I characterized myself as a “devout atheist”. When I left South America I was no longer one’ (p. 9), but he later explains that his ‘theism’ is more related to a Spinozan pantheism grounded in creative dynamics than to anybody’s pantheon or hierarchy of static divinities. He also rejects as unlikely the many reports of enhanced psi powers during the Ayahuasca intoxication (noting that increased perceptual sensitivity and interpersonal attunement can explain the ‘mind reading’ he has experienced and heard reported). He remains open, however, expressing the wish that reports like that involving the remote viewing of an actual European city by an Amazonian native who had neither seen pictures nor heard stories of such a place should be objectively investigated.

Others will argue, and have done so, that immersion in the vision quest involves the suspension of the judgmental, cognitive faculty. Shanon seems to have learned the right steps to his dance between reception and cognition. When the moment presents itself, he allows the imagery or ambiance to take over; but when he returns, he makes note of all that can be circumscribed. Such imagistic encouragement is similar to Spinoza’s intuitive mode of knowing, as Shanon notes (p. 205), but he also stands by the need for subsequent careful analysis in the same way elucidated by Whitehead (1978): ‘The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes a flight in the thin air of imaginative generalization; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation’ (p. 5). Whether this ‘rational interpretation’ infects that which is so interpreted, thus standing on the primary ontological ground beyond that of visionary experience remains an open question, to be asked again below.

In what follows, I will attempt the briefest of summaries though such is an injustice to this groundbreaking psychological cartography of what is terra incognita to most of us. I will then share my perplexities and a personal response, before concluding.

Summary
As a reader, I was hooked immediately by the dramatic prologue as well as the few selected illustrations, all details from the artwork Planos by Brazilian ‘shaman-turned-artist’ Céu. Each detail is a picture unto itself — a ‘frame of reference’ — yet ‘the big picture’ reveals them all as aspects of a greater dynamic spiralling out from or in towards a core of light that no doubt ‘passeth all understanding’. The plates seemed to be metaphor for The Antipodes of the Mind, frame of reference within frames of reference, each part structured by the whole, while the whole is changed by the activity of the parts.

In the prologue, Shanon tells the story of his first encounters with the Ayahuasca brew and the questions that brought him to begin his mammoth research project. In his first experience of any consequence he had visions that included jaguars and snakes. He learned later that this was commonplace for Ayahuasca drinkers and his professional curiosity as a cognitive psychologist was roused: ‘Snakes and jaguars seem to be just too specific to define cognitive universals’ (p. 7). But he also underwent horrible visions of human cruelty throughout history, including what must have been especially wrenching, the Jewish Holocaust. But rather than back away or fall into bitter cynicism, he countered it with contemplation of the beauty that humans had brought into the world: ‘However evil and petty human beings are, I thought, they are also the creators of some of the most beautiful things that exist in the universe. With culture and art, as well as with religion and spirituality, humankind can be redeemed’ (p. 5). The anguish or fear evoked by unexpected and shocking presentations of evil must be the gate that has turned away many other first time drinkers from further pursuing this course. Through his faith in life and the human journey, Shanon himself emerged beyond the gates in a centre of serenity within which it seemed the world and himself was born anew: ‘It seemed this was the first day of creation’ (p. 6).

After these first world-changing experiences with the Santo Daime Church (daime=Ayahuasca), he was thrown into a period of critical self-analysis. He knew he had to further study this vine and its power, but how? It seems he first had to accept who he already was, an accomplished cognitive psychologist; he confirmed this identity by ending his self-analysis and beginning his journey to other realities found through Ayahuasca and then a long, critical, objective, and categorical analysis of the Ayahuasca experience. This book is the fruit of his labours. It is clear, however, that he had also personal motivations to discover a way to confront the human dilemma of good and evil, as well as facing (or ‘being faced by’) the everpresent questions of a spiritual nature.

Shanon set the time aside, returned to the Amazon, underwent prescribed purifications, and became a dedicated student of the School of Ayahuasca, a mystes into its mysteries. He knew from the first that he would never ‘graduate’ as the result of a handful of Ayahuasca sessions, so he took his work seriously indeed. He travelled to gatherings among the three churches (two Christian-inspired, one an offshoot of the Umbanda movement) in Brazil that use Ayahuasca as their sacrament and participated in their organized sessions. He sat with Amazonian tribespeople under the jungle canopy, often with the guidance of an ayahuasquero, the ‘specialist of the sacred’, a shaman. Later, as he began to master his visions, he journeyed with a few others among accomplished shaman-healers. He shared the brew with experienced users in urban settings, and, when he felt ready, flew solo. At the time of publication (2002), he had gone on over 130 Ayahuasca journeys, though the ‘core corpus’ of his phenomenological research work is his first 67 sessions. Each session was summarized at its conclusion. Beyond that, he read everything he could find on the brew, from early reports of missionaries or explorers to current extended scientific analyses. None combined scholarly analysis with extended personal experience. Finally, he set out in good cognitive psychological fashion and interviewed others who had just concluded their own sessions or anyone in general who also had extensive experience with the brew: ‘My estimate is that, all told, the data discussed here are based on about 2,500 Ayahuasca sessions’ (p. 410).

Then Shanon got back to his desk to reveal the structure of the world (perhaps that should be ‘worlds’). The bulk of the book consists of prolonged exegeses, enumeration and elaboration of steps, systems and subsystems, categories of subcategories within supercategories, and lists of effects and affects. His point of departure is the phenomenology of his ‘core corpus’. I will not summarize here his structural program, central to his topic as he deems it to be. Strange to say, I rarely found this approach tedious. For one thing, as noted above, the objects of his classifications are confrontations and participation with other realities, so there is a veritable tale of wonders interwoven within the data. Running through the exposition like an unruly stream upon well-manicured fields is the underlying narrative of the paradigmatic hero’s journey into meaning. Furthermore, Shanon’s mind, as expressed in his writing, is so refreshingly clear and organized that one feels perfectly secure in boarding his ‘aeroplane’ to survey mysteries of terror and delight well beyond most of our experience or comprehension. It may be, however, that Shanon needed this comprehensive organization as a grounding for his more ultimate revelations. Perhaps it was necessary for him ‘systematically to chart the various phenomena that Ayahuasca may induce and to establish order in them’ (p. 48, my italics), so he could at least recall the pathway back toward the Source, the ‘still point of the turning world’.

Shanon learns there are stages of advancement into these mysteries: The novitiate begins passively watching wonders unfold as on a screen, but with experience and courage, learns to enter the vision and explore its reality from within. Then there comes a stage where a certain degree of control over the unfolding reality is possible, though such ‘control’ is always partial and participatory — Shanon often uses the metaphor of playing an instrument or being played as such: ‘Thus, I say that the Ayahuasca experience is like music played on an instrument which is the soul and that this music is a perfect mirroring of one’s entire being’ (p. 380). Indeed, the final stage seems to involve gaining the power to engage many worlds (or realities) simultaneously, but also the power to act in this world in ways never previously attained or attempted, such as the expressive arts or guidance and healing. The ‘grades’ of the School of Ayahuasca are summarized thus:

"First there was an exposition. ...the second course was discipline. ... The third course of my schooling was primarily concerned with healing and disease. ... The grades that followed focused on the sacred and involved powerful spiritual experiences. Then I had a long period—coupled with my partaking of Ayahuasca with traditional Amazonian healers—that focused on shamanism. ... The subsequent course ... focused on a variety of more specific issues" (pp. 302-3).

To get this far, the novitiate or mystes has endured many trials and temptations, yet s/he must be bold enough to know when to surrender to the reality that presents itself and wise enough to know when to actively alter it. One must have overcome the narcissistic limitations of one’s fears while not inflating vanity over one’s piloting control or expanding knowledge. Such hubris, as myths have taught us, may lead to the pride that goes before a fall.

Shanon found the pure heart and ‘empty centre’ to be accepted amongst the healers of the Amazon rain forest. He mentions that now he feels his role has become more performative than explorative as guide, hierophant, and something of an ayahuasquero himself. In terms of powers, Benny Shanon emerges as ‘Benny Shaman’ (though I doubt he would admit this or appreciate the wordplay). In terms of wisdom, he states his conviction that the most expressive gesture of ontological truth is found simply in songs of praise for all creation, in the Hallelujah of his ancestors. As to the ontological question of what exactly is being so praised, Shanon avers it is not anything at all but the joy of the eternal dynamic process — neither God as an entity (or any other form of the supernatural), nor is it humanity or nature, as such. Creation is what the name implies, an ongoing unfolding of the infinitely potent creative core of all things, including ourselves.

Obviously, such ‘knowledge’ cannot be attained either through phenomenological or analytic reduction. It is everpresent beyond the edge of the ‘known world’, that is, beyond the conscious mind ‘Wherefrom words turn back,/Together with the mind not having attained…’ (Tattirïya Upanishad 2.9). It is at this point that Shanon the scientist must give up on science and even knowledge in any usual sense and admit that such direct communion exceeds communication: ‘Yet, there were occasions that it was clear to me that I had to make a choice—if I really wished to undergo the experience presenting itself to me, I would have to forgo my future recollection of it and give up any thought of ever talking about it’ (p. 355).

Furthermore, even the path to the edge of this unspeakable awakening is one not of ordered signposts and structured roads but of intuitive knowledge, well beyond categorical reasoning. After all his phenomenological analysis, Shanon at last confesses that

“…very poignantly, I realized how limited the scientific approach is. It was evident to me that [in] pursuing this stance, there are realms of knowledge that can never be attained. I further comprehended that there are levels of knowledge that demand one to let go and relinquish all critical, distanced analysis. ... In this respect, despite all its limitations in terms of sociological power and cultural permanence, the indigenous stance has the upper hand” (p. 356).

[C.G. Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

An academic style accounting of the psycho-hallucinatory effects of entheogens (ayahuasca in specific) in contemporary settings. For those wishing to dig deeper into the ayahuasca experience, this book has proven to be an invaluable resource to me.

Not a book to be read as a novel, it is full of deep information and academic prose, but if you can read through this style of writing, the information is well worth the effort.

[Hal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhat technical yet fascinating exploration and theorizing on the effects of an important entheogen.

[Rediheem · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is exceptionally excellent.

[Alienne Laval · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just after the symposium NASA revealed what it called the best ‘baby picture’ of the Universe ever taken, by scientists using the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). They found that the contents of the Universe include only 4% atoms (ordinary matter, stars, planets, water, plants, animals, our bodies etc.), 23% being of an unknown type of dark matter, and 73% a mysterious dark energy. The composition of this remaining 96% of the universe is unknown, beyond material, as yet resisting further explanation. Are the 4% ordinary matter perhaps those ‘Islands of Tonal’ immersed in a vast ‘ocean of Nagual’, as the shaman Don Juan once explained to the anthropologist Carlos Castaneda? Will we find there the roots of consciousness itself? Is this the realm of gods, dreams, contemplation, synchronicities and drug experiences? Are the possibilities for star gates, artificial wormholes and time travels are situated there? Is this dark ‘Nagual’ beyond the walls of recent measurement in the physical sense perhaps to be explained as some kind of macro quantum vacuum state?

[Mark]

Mentioned by Thomas Roberts, PhD on Bulletproof Radio ep 702

[Adi Oros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty damn good in terms of making sense of it all.

[Bryce Haymond · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most enlightening books I've ever read.

[Brodyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

not a research book as i thought, nor is it a fun or "amusing or adventurous read" - simply vaguely charts what is the "tendency" to happen and outlines motifs, themes etc. on ayahuasca.