Collective Shadow Work & Turning Toward Our Pain

Interviewer: I mean, for listeners who don't know, it might not be obvious that this conversation is couched in your 20-year journey as a philosophy professor and a 20-year journey with high-dose LSD sessions. The book we were referring to earlier is the one you wrote on those journeys, as well as other books. I'm just curious because what I'm seeing in the world—mostly mediated by screens—isn't where I want to be. I don't want to be a part of a system that behaves the way it does. I don't like the fact that I'm part of this distorted thing. There's a lot to be said about how social media algorithms, isolation, and mental health crises contribute to this. I see a lot of toxic behavior, self-righteous moralism, the good versus the evil, where disagreeing makes you the devil to be cast out. I don't feel good about what I'm seeing, and it makes me want to hide away. But looking at this as a large psychedelic—air quotes for listeners—process on a global scale, not just humans but also birds, salamanders, and whales, it's a planetary experience, right? When I see these parts of myself in a psychedelic session, it's no more comfortable. It's equally as ugly. I want to hide from that, too. Yet, in your book, you talk about learning not to turn away from our pain in the psychedelic journey. Can you comment on that?

Chris Bache: The starting point of serious psychedelic work is taking complete responsibility for one's own shadow. You go into a room, close the door, lock it, and you're inside by yourself. Nothing there but you and your mind, and you explore the parts of your being that are daunting, intimidating, frightening—those parts we'd least like to acknowledge. But the commitment is to enter into it. When we see ugliness manifested in the world by people who haven't taken responsibility for themselves, and they see the shadow as external, it creates a very different world. The breaking down process we're experiencing is essentially dismantling the defense that places good on our side, and evil outside. Eventually, we'll have to admit we've created this imbalance, continue to generate it, benefit from it in the cars we drive, the lifestyles we pursue. We will have to take individual and collective responsibility for the pain alive within us and around us.

This pivot point comes when we stop blaming the other, previous generations, etc., and settle in. Some of us are there already. The psychedelic community understands this because facing the shadow is essential to progress in psychedelic work. The more you purify, the deeper the reward, the ecstasy, the teaching. You become comfortable facing the shadow, embracing pain and suffering, not because you like it, but because you know what's on the other side.

You'll embrace pain not counting whether it's yours or someone else's, but from compassion, like a parent or teacher. If you're willing to take on more than your fair share of suffering, you'll reap more than your share of benefit. The universe responds. Generationally, this will be happening. This and the next generations will endure more suffering than previous ones. But when they get down to taking it on, they'll experience blessings from that generosity and existential choice to embrace the given, even when it's terrible, when it crushes personal life but is dedicated to the good of the whole.

This process shifts something inside, and the more complete the surrender and commitment, the deeper and faster the transformation in our lives. As we move deeper and come through this, generationally we will learn what every psychedelic journeyer learns—that confronting the shadow leads to riches on the other side of the ordeal. You end up where you began, but cleaned out, living a different life, unburdened, compromised no more, something new in place. I think that's where we're headed. It will take time.