58 Spirituality Studies 10-1 Spring 2024 in which the patient integrates the insights of their experience into their life” (Gorman et al. 2021, unpaginated). Moreover (Eisner and Cohen 1958, 533), [t]he integrative experience should be described further because it has not been a matter for scientific scrutiny and the semantic difficulties are considerable. There is usually a perceptual component which consists of looking upon beauty and light. Affectually, there is a feeling of great relaxation and hyperphoria. The patients describe an insightfulness into themselves, an awareness of their place in the environment, and a sense of order in life. These are all fused into a very meaningful episode, and it is believed that this can be significantly therapeutic. Other definitions include references to revisiting and working through what occurs during a therapeutic session: “Different aspects of a process that includes making sense out of the experience, filtering the content, assimilating and accommodating the experience psychologically, and implementing insights into lasting changes” (Loizaga-Velder and Loizaga Pazzi 2014, 148). Again, the general idea here is that “Integration is the process of bringing separate elements together into a whole… and anchoring them into our lives” (Bourzat and Hunter 2019, 179). Another way of thinking about the “integrative experience” is “a state wherein the patient accepts himself as he is, and a massive reduction in self-conflict occurs” (Eisner and Cohen 1958, 533). An attempt to synthesize a number of existing definitions has led to the following (Bathje et al. 2022, unpaginated): Integration is a process in which a person revisits and actively engages in making sense of, working through, translating, and processing the content of their psychedelic experience. Through intentional effort and supportive practices, this process allows one to gradually capture and incorporate the emergent lessons and insights into their lives, thus moving toward greater balance and wholeness, both internally (mind, body, and spirit) and externally (lifestyle, social relations, and the natural world) As thorough and useful as this definition may sound, its inclusion of the spiritual dimension cannot readily be accommodated within current models of modern Western psychology, seeing as their ontological foundations are bereft of a transcendent perspective that validates sacred forms of therapy and healing. Without access to the spiritual dimension, the full potential inherent in the psychic and corporeal realms will not be fulfilled, thus limiting the mental health treatment possibilities available to us. The First Peoples use entheogens in a ritual context so as to infuse spiritual norms into the cultural fabric of daily life. A steadfast focus on the sacred radiates through each individual into the collectivity as a whole. In effect, such integration is self-sufficient and does not require anything outside itself in order to render traditional communities complete. Key to understanding the integration offered by entheogenic therapy are the perspectives of complementariness and the union of polarities. Through a metaphysical lens, we may discern the existence of binaries at one level of our experience; yet, from another angle, we might not perceive them in the same way. The existence of complementarity is not only important to understanding our own mental health challenges, but is also significant in the context of both female and male therapists working together to enhance the healing process: “growth happens best in the presence of yang and yin” (Eisner 1997, 215) consisting of “two sitters, a male-female therapeutic dyad” (Grof 1980, 152). Joseph Epes Brown (1920–2000), renowned scholar of Native American traditions and world religions, outlined the following transformative process which appears to be universal (Brown 2007, 34): All true spiritual progress involves three stages, which are not successfully experienced and left behind, but rather each in turn is realized and then integrated within the next stage, so that ultimately they become one in the individual who attains the ultimate goal. Different terms may be used for these stages, but essentially they constitute purification, perfection or expansion, and union. Across the diverse religious traditions of the world, these stages are present in sundry forms: “Despite the many differences of technique and approach in various paths of spiritual realization, there is in every process of realization the three grand stages of purification, expansion, and union. Something in man must die, something must expand, and only then the essence of man is able to achieve that union” (Nasr 1989, 330). If this is the final goal of all spiritual disciplines, then the impure must not be conjoined with the pure. For this reason, a purgative process is necessary. A prominent teaching in the world’s religions is the injunction to “die before you die” (Ar. mūtū qabla an tamūtū; quoted in Schimmel 1975, 135), which is an exhortation to seek a “spiritual death” in this life. As Eckhart (1981, 216) made clear, “a truly perfect man should be accustomed to regard himself as dead”; or, as found in the Jewish tradition, one
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