Psychedelic substances have been known to induce powerful self- transcending experiences (Strassman 2001, Griths et al. 2006, Strassman et al. 2008). It had been assumed that they did so by exciting parts of the brain. Yet, recent neuroimaging studies have shown that psychedelics do largely the opposite (Carhart-Harris et
al. 2012, Palhano-Fontes et al. 2015, Carhart-Harris et al. 2016).2 In an article he wrote for Scientic American Mind, neuroscientist Christof Koch (2012) expressed his surprise at these results. Carhart- Harris (2012: 2138), for instance, reported “only decreases in cerebral blood ow” under the inuence of a psychedelic. Perhaps even more signicantly, “the magnitude of this decrease [in brain activity] predicted the intensity of the subjective eects” of the psychedelic (Ibid.). As such, the signicant self-transcending experiences that follow psychedelic intake are—counterintuitively— accompanied by reductions of brain activity
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The projection of responsibility here is clear and the corresponding release described by Harris himself: “Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic—in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal“ (2012a: 46, emphasis added). Indeed, under the ethos of such a worldview, there is no concrete reason for guilt or regret, for we allegedly are not what we experience ourselves to be. We are not responsible for what happens here because we are not—and have never been—really here. We are not ghosts in the machine but ghosts conjured up by the machine. In a signicant sense, we do not really exist.
As a matter of fact, some proponents of the physicalist narrative go as far as to deny that consciousness exists. “Consciousness doesn’t happen. It’s a mistaken construct.” These words of neuroscientist Michael Graziano (2016) should give anyone pause for thought. Here we have consciousness—whatever it may intrinsically be— denying that consciousness exists. Philosopher Daniel Dennett (1991) also claimed that consciousness is an illusion, a claim that seems to immediately contradict itself. After all, where do illusions
occur if not in consciousness?3 By appealing to metaphysical abstractions fundamentally beyond experience, such denials of our felt selves achieve a form of deliverance somewhat analogous to religious absolution. Surprisingly, as we will later see, they even help restore a sense of meaningfulness in life, following what I will call ‘ontological trauma
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