Psychonautics

The psychonautics is exploring one's own psyche and the unconscious , usually with the help of mind-altering techniques such as meditation , yoga or psychotropic substances . The motivation for this is individual and ranges from personal leisure activities with or without the intention of gaining knowledge to parapsychological endeavors or spiritual search. The term is a combination of the Greek psychḗ and the term seafaring, nautike , aeronautics analogous to astronautics . Just as astronauts move in space, psychonauts operate in their own psyche or in the neuronally networked brain . The term psychonautics seems to have been popularized by the media in the late 1970s or early 1980s , but has really been picked up by parts of the alternative and esoteric subculture , particularly in chaos magic or psychoarchitecture. The term apparently originally goes back to the writer Ernst Jünger (“ approximations ”). Well-known psychonauts are z. B. Aldous Huxley , Terence McKenna , Robert Anton Wilson , John C. Lilly , Albert Hofmann and Timothy Leary . Long before the hippies , Kurt Beringer dealt with drugs and awareness-raising in the 1920s ; He was of Werner Pieper as a pioneer of psychonautics referred.

Concerning an LSD experience report by Rudolf Gelpke with the title “Journeys into the outer space of the soul” Albert Hofmann notes in his book “LSD, my problem child”:

“The expression [Note: the title of the report is meant] is well chosen because the inner space of the soul is just as infinite and mysterious as the outer space and because the cosmonauts of outer and inner space cannot stay there, but on the Earth, have to return to everyday consciousness. Both trips also require good preparation so that they can be carried out with a minimum of risk and become truly enriching companies. "

literature

• Werner Pieper (Ed.): Kurt Beringer and the Heidelberg drug research of the 20s. Pieper & Die Grüne Kraft, Lörbach 2000, ISBN 3-930442-47-7 ( Edition Rauschkunde ), [1] .
• John C. Lilly : Programming and Metaprogramming in the human Biocomputer. Theory and Experiments. Julian Press, New York NY 1968 (later as: Programming the Human Biocomputer. Ronin Publishing et al., Berkeley CA et al. 2004, ISBN 1-57951-065-5 ).
• Peter Carroll : Liber Null & Psychonaut. Samuel Weiser, York Beach ME 1987, ISBN 0-87728-639-6 .
• Wolfgang Sterneck: Die Psychonautische Landkarte In: Hirsl, Radovan / Steiner, Claude (ed.), "Psychonautische Landkarte", Nachtschatten Verlag, Solothurn, 2003. ISBN 978-3-03788-115-6

See also

• Entheogen
• Entactogen
• Psychedelic
• hallucinogen

Web links

• PsychonautWiki - Wiki about mind-expanding drugs and their subjective effects