Maybe humanity is not a lost cause

Is this our planet's Dark Night of the Soul?

There are many reasons to believe that humanity is stuck in a downward spiral.

The planet is warming. We’re depleting natural resources and sacrificing biodiversity at an alarming rate. Global mental health is deteriorating, particularly among Gen Z. We are addicted to our phones and disconnected from ourselves and the people around us — loneliness has become an epidemic. Economic inequality is growing. Ongoing geopolitical conflicts take the lives and safety of millions. Politics have polarized to a point where the best option for many Americans appears to be the reelection of Donald Trump.

The way we live is not sustainable. Any alien intelligence observing planet Earth must be scratching their heads. No intelligent life there!

There’s no one to blame but us — we are destroying the world and each other. Maybe we deserve extinction. We were gifted a home abundant in resources and beauty and hearts with an unparalleled capacity for love and connection. And here’s what we did with it. We even built a whole second world online, only to then fill it with ads, as

Hamish McKenzie

points out.

It would be fair to think that humanity is a lost cause.

But to the trained spiritual eye, this smells like the good old Dark Night of the Soul — but on the collective level. The concept, originating from mysticism, denotes deeply challenging spiritual experiences marked by isolation and desolation. But those who know the Dark Night of the Soul also know what follows it: enlightenment.

All our worldly problems are merely a mirror of our collective insides. What’s happening in the world (and to the world) is a large-scale reflection of our collective shadow, which harbors greed, fear, judgment, and compulsive individualism.

The Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth, nestled into the Vermont mountains, holds quite a radical belief: that in order to change the systemic issues present in our society, we must change the minds of all the individuals inhabiting it.

As long as individuals are still living under the illusion of separation, they will continue to build structures that benefit the individual but harm the collective. The only solution, the Academy teaches, is mass awakening.

While this may be impossible, reaching a tipping point seems much more feasible. Perhaps we don’t need to evolve the consciousness of every single person, we just need a critical mass.

Many are already fighting for justice, equality, peace, and planetary health, but their efforts are not enough because there is insufficient resonance in the collective, especially among decision-makers. But decision-makers, should our democracies work as intended, represent the collective, so it is not simply that we can blame those in a position of power. Capitalism may manipulate political forces and blur the purity of democracy, but it has not (yet) destroyed it.

There is hope if we grow in numbers.

The real problem with many of our solutions, whether they emerge from philanthropy or the free markets, is that they do not address the real root causes of our problems.

During my time at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), I was eager to apply my critical problem-solving skills to solutions for planetary preservation. But when I ended up consulting bankers on how to monetize the carbon credit market, I could no longer deny the truth: this was symptom management, at best. It may help, but we are not addressing the root of the problem — the consciousness that created it.

The root of the problem, the root of all our problems, is the illusion of separation. It is why we knowingly destroy nature, fight each other, discriminate against each other, let each other starve, and are depressed, addicted, anxious, and unfulfilled.

Michael Pollan

likes to point out how odd it is that we talk about our relationship with nature because we are nature. And he’s right. It reflects how far the illusion of separation has taken us.

Our disconnection from the natural world is emblematic of our deep disconnection from ourselves. We evolve unaware of our essential nature, which is that of unity. This seems to be the curriculum of earth school: the moment we arrive here, we forget this essential fact. Human life is an invitation to remember. Some are ahead of the curriculum — the yogis, Sufis, Taoists, and Buddhists have known for millennia. But the majority of the modern world remains unaware.

The Dark Night of the Soul — what once was a bittersweet, spiritual journey, an enthralling plot — has now become a race against time.

The question is: Will enough of us remember soon enough to help enough of those around us remember as well? Will we reach a critical mass in time?

It will continue to get worse before it gets better. That’s the fate of the Dark Night of the Soul. It is only once we’re on the floor, on our knees, that light streams in and penetrates the darkest corners of our being. Addiction, trauma, and grief are gateways to personal awakening. Are war, terror, and destruction gateways to collective awakening?

Too many continue to be blinded by the illusion, and so it hasn’t gotten bad enough yet. We are not yet on our knees.

There are several modalities for waking up, the most reliable tools we have happen to be psychedelics, which occur abundantly in nature — in fungi, plants, and animal species. No matter how poorly we treat nature, she still takes care of us. She has given us the solution, a fail-proof tool for bursting the bubble and helping us remember.

A few decades ago, the spirit of the plant medicine Ayahuasca instructed shamans in the Amazon to bring her out of the jungle and into the Western world, not because she wanted to, but because she had to. We now have an army of neo-shamans, for better or worse, serving medicine in underground ceremonies across the globe.

Ayahuasca is not the only medicine to intervene. The master plant Iboga from West Africa is helping us combat the opioid crisis, another systemic manifestation of our disconnection. Ibogaine interrupts physical withdrawal systems and heals the underlying trauma in those ripe for awakening — they are already on their knees, not because of personal failures but because of the failures of our society and capitalism.

Mass use of psychedelics inadvertently catalyzes mass awakening, as demonstrated by the LSD-fueled anti-war movement of the 60s. It is the threat to ‘the establishment’ of such awakening that motivated policymakers to criminalize a movement fueled by unity and love. But this time it will be different: too many of us already know the truth.

People like me, who made a 180° pivot from a path into the pinnacle of corporate greed — private equity — into philanthropy for consciousness evolution. It was an initial LSD experience that gave me a glimpse into the interconnectedness of all being and prompted a deeper investigation into truth.

My story is reflective of the general path of the intentional psychedelic user. Psychedelics have been shown to promote connection to nature and openness. The psychedelic experience is a catalyst — many begin meditating and practicing yoga, return to what makes us human (art), and shift into more purpose-driven, selfless work.

Of course, the psychedelic resurgence is not all roses, it, too, has its shadow. Psychedelics are no magic bullets, there is abuse and harm, and an influx of spiritual narcissists. But on the collective, the positives far outweigh the negatives.

We don’t need everyone to wake up or take psychedelics. We just need a critical mass. A critical mass that must contain people in positions of power — leaders, politicians, changemakers. If we can equip enough decision-makers to move from wack-a-moling the symptoms to addressing the root causes, we begin the crawl out of the downward spiral.

It is already happening. If just one dose of MDMA can transform white supremacists, imagine what mass access can do. The FDA is anticipated to approve MDMA as a medication for PTSD within the next few months, but underground, MDMA is already spreading like wildfire. Oregon and Colorado have legalized psilocybin, more states are on track to follow.

Personal stories reach far and beyond, producing the most unlikely psychedelic advocates such as former Republican Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, “historically a very anti-drug person”.

Personal stories combined with science move decision-makers to take action: Just a few weeks ago, the Veteran Administration’s Under Secretary laid out the VA’s efforts to integrate psychedelics into their healthcare system (the largest in the nation) — a historic milestone.

I wish I could agree with those who say “we don’t need psychedelics to wake up!” — but I can’t. Because here’s one thing that’s not abundant on this otherwise abundant planet: time.

We don’t have time to sit around and wait until we tip into momentary experiences of unity consciousness after years of meditation. We are sliding down into a burning pit, the lava is rising below our feet, we cannot crawl out. We need help.

When nature reaches out with a helping hand, we cannot reject it, we no longer get to “do it our own way”. It is time we bow down and listen, so we can surrender to the only force that can save us: the unified field of intelligence that birthed everything in existence.

Thank you for reading,

“Man stands over his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark.” — Zen proverb