The Hero’s Journey

Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey was created after studying countless works of mythological and religious texts in an attempt to generalize the global panacea of cultural history. To keep it simple for this post, we can break the hero’s journey into its most basic components: a hero ventures away from home, is challenged by an unfamiliar world, dies and is reborn to rise up against that challenge, and returns home to share the rewards with their companions. When looking at the existence of a generalized form of the spiritual experience, we are presented with a question that has implications for neuroscience and biology: Is there a wired system for spiritual experience?

Psychedelics provide us a unique opportunity to study the spiritual experience. With historical ceremonial use of psychedelics, consistent reports of spirituality and meaning from research on psychedelics, and the very etymology of the word “psyche delos” meaning “soul manifestation”, we can respect the tight relationship between these compounds and spirituality. This offers a unique opportunity to study the spiritual experience, which can, with psychedelics, be invoked in the laboratory.

Psychedelic experiences align closely with the hero’s journey: a world of unfamiliar supernatural forces is encountered, a dramatic ego death takes place, and the renewed individual must integrate their growth with the rest of their psyche and the world around them. Further, the most commonly discussed finding from psychedelic neuroscience is the stimulation of neuroplasticity. It is possible that the deeper biology of a spiritual transformation, normally triggered by certain conditions of life, is activated by psychedelics.

The hero’s journey allows us to interpret psychedelics through the lens of our respective religions and mythologies. The suggestion that there is a biologically rooted system for spirituality does not negate, but rather augments the importance of developing a system of belief. I encourage you to journey into the world of mystery and eternally refine your own explanations for it. This transformational learning journey appears to be the very meaning of life.

With Love,

Michael