Consciousness

for example, he cannot change his perspective so as to be able
to see what is behind objects in front of him. But other factors
result in a heightened, not a lessened, experience of reality.
Because ayahuasca visions are not mediated by the cornea, iris,
and lens, the gradations in acuity that shape the experiences of
normal vision (with resolution highest at the fovea and much
lower at the periphery) are absent: ‘everything in the inner field
of vision seems to be equally sharp, which may contribute to
the “more real than real” feeling that is so frequently reported
in ayahuasca experiences’ (p. 259).

Experienced ayahuasca users travel in this world or other
worlds, according to their traditions, and describe non-or-
dinary ways of seeing. They claim that the gods, demons,
heavens, and hells that they visit are as real as, or even more
real than, the ordinary world of normal vision. They describe
gaining spiritual insights and a deeper understanding of real-
ity and of themselves.

For Luna (2016), the experiences elicited by ayahuasca over-
whelm him with the feeling that much more is going on than
simply the constructions of his own mind. Drinking ayahuasca makes the idea
that consciousness is limited to humans seem ludicrous. ‘The feeling is rather that
consciousness permeates everything, that it might be primordial’ (p. 268), and that
sacred plants are just one way for humans to tap into its various manifestations.

Could this be?

BUT IS IT REAL?

What are we to make of all this? Like Castaneda in his sceptical anthropologist mode,
we may claim that the experiences are ‘all in the mind’: that they are imaginary and
not real. Indeed, it turns out that Castaneda’s books themselves were more works
of fiction than ethnographic records of research. Writer Richard de Mille made a
thorough study of Castaneda’s works and concluded that ‘Marked anachronisms
or logical conflicts in Castaneda’s work must argue that his text is an imaginative
fabrication rather than a factual report’ (1976, p. 197). The results were a mess: ‘The
wisdom of the ages folded into an omelet with the neurosis of the century’ (p. 18).
Yet Castaneda does force us to wonder about the nature of hallucinations.

A character is either ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’? If you think that, hypocrite

lecteur, I can only smile. You do not even think of your own past as

quite real; you dress it up, you gild it or blacken it, censor it, tinker

with it . . . fictionalize it, in a word, and put it away on a shelf – your

book, your romanced autobiography. We are all in flight from the

real reality. That is a basic definition of Homo sapiens.

(John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, 1969/2004, p. 97)

Take those luminous eggs and radiating fibres, reminiscent of the haloes of Chris-
tian saints and the auras of the Theosophical tradition. Auras are a good example
of something that is commonly reported, has consistent features, and yet is not

A

B

FIGURE 14.10 • The doorway test for auras. The

psychic claimant stands facing

the edge of an open doorway.

A target person, whose aura

the psychic says he can see

clearly, takes one of two

possible positions; perhaps five

times each, in random order.

At position (a) neither she nor

her aura should be visible; at

position (b) her body is not

visible but her aura should

easily be seen, sticking out

past the side of the doorframe.

On each trial the psychic must

say whether he sees the aura

sticking out or not. There is no

published evidence that anyone

has ever passed the doorway

test, suggesting that whatever

auras are, they are not

physically present in the space

around the body.