An Occultist Untangles Psychedelics & Magic
Chris Lyon, founder of the esoteric learning platform Mystai, provides a historical and practical framework for exploring psychedelics.
The following interview is an attempt to answer a question that’s still forming in my mind. The first iterations: Where do magic & psychedelics overlap? Historically? Culturally? How can they inform each other?
“Magic” is a word so big that I struggle to offer a concise definition — although Chris attempts to in the following interview. The word “psychedelics” refers to conscious-altering substances – although there’s far more to that word too.
What do magic practitioners have to show us about exploring the terrain of psychedelic landscapes? To this end, Chris Lyon—who is many things, but for these purposes, I will introduce him as a practicing magician and scholar—provides wisdom and guidance on this process of birthing a question.
CV Henriette: Let’s start with the basics. What’s your background? What did you study?
Chris Lyon: I originally got my degree in Archaeology from the IoA in London, and specialised in Near Eastern religion and ritual. I actually began my interest in Egypt, but gradually moved east and ended up in the Early Bronze Age Levant, studying Southern Levantine (Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria etc) indigenous religious and cultic practices. A lot of my Thesis was centred around the Great Temple at Megiddo during the Early Bronze Age, especially its architecture and role in the landscape. Since leaving university, I continued my research into cultic architecture (mainly temples and tombs back in Egypt and Mesopotamia), and also took an interest in Late Antiquity, especially the mysticism philosophies of Hermeticism & Neoplatonism. A lot of my current research is now on Hermeticism and its links with older Egyptian traditions and religious thought.
CVh: How would you describe your magical practice?
CL: I’m pretty heavily into Traditional Astrological Magic these days. I started about 10 years ago, as a lot of occultists do, with basic grimoires—Lesser key, Chaos Magic, Golden Dawn stuff and Crowley etc—but as I got deeper into things, I found my wheelhouse in Medieval and Renaissance Astrological Magic, mainly Agrippa, Lilly, the Picatrix and stuff like that. From my research I’m also pretty big on historical Egyptian magic, especially the Greek & Demotic Magical Papyri. I’m interested in reconstructing Theurgic practice largely, anything rooted in Iamblichus’ stuff.
CVh: What is your experience with Psychedelics?
CL: As far as personal practice goes, I have most of my experience with Psilocybin. I haven’t really ventured too far out of that since I’ve never really been called to or felt a draw to. I’ve helped to facilitate Ayahuasca Ceremonies and trip sat at a few retreats and for friends, but never done it myself. I generally take a bit of a nuanced approach to it all in that I feel Psilocybin is the most “natural” psychedelic, in the sense that you don’t have to do anything extra to make it have an effect on you. You can go out to the field, pick the mushrooms straight out of the soil and consume them and have the Journey. A lot of the other psychedelics, while powerful, all require human or otherwise unnatural intervention to “work.”
Ayahuasca, for example, needs to be mixed with MAO inhibiting harmala alkaloids in order to make the DMT orally active. I take the approach of following what nature intends, although some people might disagree with me there. Plus, Shrooms are a much gentler trip. LOL.
“We take it for granted that only the kind of sober consciousness we have during ‘normal’ waking hours is the ‘true’ one that can be relied on for true or accurate knowledge.”
The inspiration behind this interview is to push through a certain discourse that frequently happens when people discuss psychedelics in a therapeutic setting. People will talk about past lives, entities, synchronicities etc., but rarely does anyone bring up the subject of magic. People will acknowledge there’s something *else* out there while still maintaining what Christopher Warnock might call a “modern atheistic/materialist/nihilist worldview.”
Which feels particularly strange because most of the substances people are seeking for these experiences come with histories of cultures where their use was inextricably linked to magical practices: Iboga, psilocybin, ayahuasca.
On the other hand, there is the danger of appropriation. There are plenty of people who see ‘those people as having magic’ without actually believing in magic as something accessible to their everyday lived experience.
CL: I agree completely. I think there is a huge danger of exoticising psychedelics. The common term used nowadays is Plant Medicine, largely to distance them from the stigma of the word “drug,” but there’s an issue with it. A “Plant Medicine” can be any kind of herb, usually even ones that are in your back yard. Yet, if you were to ask most people what images come to mind when they hear the term “Plant Medicine” or Psychedelic, you’ll usually find people's first impression is of some kind of Amazonian Shaman or tribal figure living in the jungle. There is a very subtle amount of “Othering” at play there, where people assume tribal cultures have some kind of better access to Entheogenic substances while denying their use or influence in the “much more sophisticated western world.”
This obviously isn’t true at all. Across Prehistorical Europe (and elsewhere) we have numerous instances of Canaboids (cannabis residues) being found at ritual sites. Ancient Greek culture has a strong Psychedelic component, whether in Kykeon, the drink of the Eleusinian Mysteries (which is thought to have been made from Ergot fungus, which produces a compound nearly identical to LSD). Then we have someone like Iamblichus who mentions “potions and herbs” drunk or consumed during theurgic ritual that enables the practitioner to see or interact with the gods or spirits they call or invoke (although he never mentions which substances). A lot of modern Classicists want to play down any kind of psychedelic influence because the Greeks and Romans still have this reputation of being the big rational founders of Western Society, so god forbid they ever do anything that might offend “rational thinking.”
The issue with scholarship and research like this in the West is that we largely operate in a Monophasic Paradigm of Consciousness by default because of that Atheistic Materialist bias. We take it for granted that only the kind of sober consciousness we have during “normal” waking hours is the “true” one that can be relied on for true or accurate knowledge. Anything outside of this (largely Beta level) consciousness is deemed irrational and therefore not true. In other words, we don’t acknowledge dreams, meditative awareness or psychedelic states as “valid” sources of information. We assume that they’re just some kind of “other funny state” that doesn’t have any real meaning or value to us.
“The question is really what’s the distinction between magic and religion? “Magic” has historically been used as a term of Othering.”
This is part of a much wider debate in Philosophy that ended up shaping modern culture. The Early Modern Philosophers, from Descartes onwards, created what’s known as the Crisis of Reason by trying to redefine Reason through the lens of Rationalism. Descartes argued that nothing that cannot be recognised by the intellect (or reason) can be classified as knowledge. This ended up creating a Crisis of Meaning when — as time went on — they realised Matter actually had no meaning in itself, which just creates Nihilism. Rationalism inherently struggles when its idealised concepts of truth and belief collide with some random aspect of the world. Proof that a formal system works correctly internally is irrelevant to the question of how it relates to the concrete external world.
This Crisis of Meaning is the inherent cause of the current mental health crisis imo.
Talk to someone like Plato, and he argues the complete opposite, that Reason is Divine. It’s from the Artificer and the Divine Mind. Reason is the higher (divine) faculty of our awareness/consciousness (nous), and is imbued in everything.
The term Plato uses, Psyche, to him means soul, he defines it simply as the organ of perception or awareness. What we call the “mind” in the modern western world is exactly the same as Psyche to Plato. A lot of modern materialist scientists will try and get away from the word “soul” because they want to distance themselves from anything religious (again, because of the current Materialist paradigm and fear of judgement by colleagues).
I think another part of the issue comes down to how we define magic. This is a huge debate, even in academia, there is no definition that’s agreed upon. As you said, a lot of people seeking out these substances snuff magic or religious worldviews and only want the experience the psychedelic gives them. The question is really what’s the distinction between magic and religion? “Magic” has historically been used as a term of Othering. It’s the word that denotes the weird and exotic religious practices from your view point, i.e one man’s religion is another’s magic. So then, are the cultural practices around, say, the preparation and use of psychedelics magical or religious practices? We have no solid definition.
Take Ayahuasca again as an example. The traditional making of ayahuasca follows a ritual process that requires the user to pick the lower Chacruna leaf at sunrise, then say a prayer before they pound it all down to a fibre. While not stated, it’s easy to assume then there are likely astrological or weather (i.e natural cycle) conditions at play that determine the right time to pick the herbs. We have parallels in the Greek Magical Papyri for picking herbs in the exact same way, which we identify as magic. However, while some cultures in the Amazon do use ayahuasca for shamanic purposes, it’s also drunk socially among friends or in order to learn more about the natural environment, and even just to visit friends and family who are far away from you in visions. None of which are inherently religious or magical. So it’s really tricky. I think part of the reason people ignore these debates (and the role of magical paradigms in general) is because questions like this are hard to answer… and people don’t want hard questions, they just want to trip quickly, get some answer to their question and come slightly closer to solving that Meaning Crisis they’re feeling. They don’t want to put in the hard work to ask themselves why they’re in need of “psychedelic healing,” because it’s uncomfortable.
CVh: Walking backwards from conversations I’ve had with magicians who cite psychedelic experiences as being profound to their understanding of magic, I’m curious to learn how a magical framework might help prepare one for psychedelic use.
CL: I think using a magical or religious framework inherently prepares you by altering your Set, which in this sense is synonymous with World View. By having a pre existing magical paradigm in place, it gives you a reasonable vocabulary and means of identifying signs, symbols and meaning in any visions or experiences you might have. We have to adopt a paradigm like this because our “normal” one is the atheistic materialist one in the West. Ancient cultures had a naturally, culturally ingrained magical worldview which acted an explanatory framework for anything they experienced. In general, I think having a good vocabulary and the means to describe experiences not only makes them more vivid, but allows us to take more from them in terms of inspiration and meaning because we can conceptualise them. It also enables us to share those experiences better with other people and get our point across.
I think there’s also an element of respect that comes into it. If you are preparing a substance ritually, you are inherently going to be treating it more reverentially and respectfully. If we take an animistic approach to this, and argue that the plants or substances are themselves alive and have souls or a consciousness of their own (i.e Fungi Spirits/Grandmother Ayahuasca), then developing a closer relationship with them, will — in theory — increase the potency of our experience or vision as we work with them.
CVh: Do you see an inherent or even useful connection between magic and psychedelics?
CL: Absolutely, I think they have the potential to push us across the line when we can’t necessarily get into that visionary state ourselves. You have to think, in the ancient world, people had entire ritual procedures and frameworks even outside of taking substances that included fasting, asceticism and withdrawal of the senses, meditation and abstinence, and isolation, a lot of which were much easier to do back in the day. For us, since we struggle with a lot of the before-ritual preparations that would have psychologically conditioned the old practitioners to get into the necessary state of mind naturally, we can use psychedelics to get there instead. Although that’s not without dangers, especially if there is a lack of integration, and preliminary research and preparation.
CVh: Do you see having a magic practice useful for psychedelic use? How might it enrich the experience?
CL: I think so, again, I think it gives us a vocabulary. I think it also goes a step further towards de-exoticising the psychedelic experience. Right now, because magic isn’t a mainstream spiritual practice, the only time most spiritual practitioners will have a mystical or visionary experience will be while on psychedelics. So it’s natural to glorify them and believe they’re the only way to have those experiences if you’ve never gotten that visionary state from somewhere else. Having a stable ritual practice makes visionary states more common. Numerous magicians I speak to have visionary trances during ritual all the time, many of which aren’t on psychedelics. While I don’t think it de-sacralizes the Visionary State, I do think having a magical practice where those states are more accessible and common makes people less prone to get carried away with psychedelic use, because the Trance State is more normalised for them. I might also argue that if you have training and experience in navigating visionary states (i.e meditative control of breath, mindful control of thoughts and passions etc) especially those you get from magical or ritual experiences, you will naturally be able to navigate a psychedelic experience better when the time comes, which means you’ll be able to direct the experience and get more of what you want out of it.
CVh: What are some of your protocols for cultivating a magic practice?
CL: The first one is to decide what kind of rituals and practices feel good to you. The two common options are either Daily Ritual practice (usually smaller rituals), or practicing bigger rituals at major events like Sabbat Days or Astrological Times. Those are two different kinds of ritual. For me, I do both. I do a daily invocation to the planet that rules the day (using the Orphic Hymn), during its hour, and I’ll celebrate Sabbats or do bigger rituals like making talismans during Astrological times. I think it’s important to find a culture you resonate with and stick to that. Research their worldview, how they define things. I’m honestly not a huge fan of the Chaos Magic approach, I’m pretty traditionalist. I like the Medieval Worldview. The other thing I’d say is spent time in contemplation. The Platonists called this Theoria, it’s not necessarily the same as meditation, it’s more directing the mind toward something to observe and contemplate. A lot of my other practice outside of ritual is more in the field of Mysticism. I contemplate Divinity and God, mainly, I go into meditation every couple of days and think only of God, I direct all of my attention, awareness and emotion towards it (or “him” or whatever, I always use “it” for god, I’m also pretty Panentheistic) and I think about God, and see what comes through. I think having a mixture of both really helps me in my practice.
CVh: How do you define set and setting?
CL: Set is your worldview largely. It is your upbringing, your past experiences in life, how you conceptualise the world. It’s the books you’ve read, the language you use, the people you hang around with. It determines how you perceive the MEANING of a psychedelic experience by giving you the vocabulary that you use to interpret the sensations or visions. Setting is the place you have the experience. I think it’s largely psychological honestly. Although, we as humans have a very strong relationship with space and environment, so I do think there’s something deeper to it too, but I don’t know if I fully know how to explain it just yet. Setting is the place itself, but also the people around you during the experience.
CVh: What are your protocols for a psychedelic experience?
CL: There’s really two sides to it for me, the Pre and Post. During, while you can guide the experience with intention and desire, you’re largely at the mercy of the substance or spirit behind it. Before a session I’ll set a firm intention of what I want to get out of the experience, and I’ll ask/intend to receive it through a particular sense (so, if I want an answer to a question that is visual, I’ll intend to “see” something, if I want to understand a feeling, say, “love”, I’ll ask or set an intention for the experience to be more sensual and communicated to me through emotion and touch). If I’m working with a particular spirit, I’ll research a lot about them before hand, their names, sounds, symbols, animals etc. That way, if some kind of weird vision appears to me during the experience, I’ll know and have a vocabulary to understand what’s going on.
I’ll usually also have some kind of tape recorder or phone voice note going during the experience so I can just verbally talk about what I’m seeing or feeling like a verbal diary. I tried writing stuff down during once and I ended up just seeing the pen turn to liquid, so that didn’t work so well lol.
Post experience, I make a rule of not talking to anyone about what I saw or experienced until a few days after, or even then, sometimes not at all. My experience is my experience, it will have little to no bearing on how you experience the psychedelic, and as far as I’m concerned, in magical practice at least, its a UPG (unverified personal Gnosis). The determining factor of what distinguishes UPG from VPG (verified Personal Gnosis) is how well your experience fits into an established tradition, i.e historically or from other perspectives. In the PGM for example, one of the most common signs a spirit or god is present is that there will be a light fluctuation (like sparkling air) in the room. The author mentions this in numerous papyri, and I can attest to having the same experience, as can a lot of other magicians I’ve trained to use the system. I equally make a habit of only talking about my experience with people who I know will have a similar vocabulary or history of similar experiences. Especially if the experience is transformative for me, I’ll often treat it as almost as sacred, I’m not going to dumb it down or sacrifice some part of it to explain it to someone who won’t understand it anyway.
CVh: What role do you think magic plays in the concept of integration?
CL: Again, I think magic can serve as a great worldview that helps us process and have a vocabulary for our experience. If I go into a psychedelic experience with the intention to see Ra or Horus because I’m working with Egyptian stuff and I end up seeing different kinds of birds, I’ll know that was a successful experience because I know those gods’ theophanies and manifestations. There are also numerous banishing and grounding rituals that I think are appropriate after a psychedelic experience. Something like the LBRP or Star Ruby can be very useful in integration as it balances the elemental natures in the psyche and removes any lingering thoughtforms or parasitic entities that may have attached to you during the experience.
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