Ego Death & the Fool
"The one who embarks on the path of enlightenment, will not be the one who finishes it."
Quote from Wild Mind by Bill Plotkin
In psychedelic medicine, the concept of "ego death" gets thrown around quite a bit. Ego death is an elusive, initiation of the soul that allows us to experience dissolution, union, and ultimately merges us with our authentic self. Ego death has been reported through the use of psilocybin, ayahuasca, ketamine, meditation, breath work, and even spontaneous mystical experiences. However, we can seek out ego death, but there is no guarantee that we will find it. This experience seems to occur when the soul is ready for the journey.
But, what is an ego death? And more importantly, what is the spiritual significance of this experience? Why is this often terrifying, disorienting event so revered in the field of psychedelic medicine for its healing potential? How can we ready ourselves for this transformative experience so that we are able to surrender when it happens?
Read on to discover the power of ego death and its relationship to the maturation of the human soul.
What is an "Ego Death"?
From early childhood we are in a process of evolving and defining our sense of self. We are taught early to self-identify with our "ego". We are taught to understand who we are, by identifying what we are. For example, "I am Alex Carelli. I am a woman. I am a teacher, a guide, and an artist." Further still, we evolve our sense of identity through our relationship to what we have or how we are situated within our environment. For example, "I live in Nevada City. I run my own healing business. I have a dog and a partner." These definitions form the basis of our ego-identity.
An ego death occurs when we have a spiritual experience strong enough to release our grip on our self-identity and merge us with the collective, or cosmic, consciousness. When someone is having an experience of ego-death, they may identify with concepts such as, "I am love.", "I am everything.", or "I am one." For a period of time - whether the duration of a psychedelic experience, or a longer process of spiritual awakening - we de-identify with the material aspects of our "self" and become "one" with the universe.
Depending on how firm our grip is on our ego-identity, this process can be challenging, scary, disorienting, and painful OR pleasurable, relaxing, and reassuring. I have personally had experiences of ego death that swing across the full range of this spectrum. Some have been beautiful, while others have been terrifying (I will talk about this a bit more later on).
What is the spiritual significance of an "Ego Death"?
In Bill Potkin's book, Wild Mind, he explains how a soul goes through the process of ego death again and again along the journey to maturation. As we mature and age, we need to deconstruct aspects of our identity that were given to us by our family, community, and culture and re-define ourselves by what we discover to be our authentic truth. This is the journey of coming into resonance and alignment with our soul's journey and purpose.
In the tarot, this process is embodied in The Fool. The fool is setting off on a great adventure with all of his worldy possessions slung over his shoulder. But he is naive, full of ideas and hopefulness, but lacking true wisdom. The journey that The Fool will undertake through the major arcana will teach him the lessons of the underworld and upperworld. It will show him the path of the student, force him into challenges that unfold into transformation, and finally exalt him into his fullest expression and knowing of place in the universe. However, just as soon as The Fool finds stable footing within his reality, Ego Death knocks on the door and the cycle begins again. Each time we go through the spiritual process of allowing our Ego to die, surrendering to the teachings and lessons of life, and then emerging into the upperworld with a deeper well of wisdom we find ourselves closer, and closer to still, to an understanding of the nature of reality. This is a process of refinement and atunement. Ego Death is an opportunity to confront ourselves again and again so that when it is our moment to meet the Big Death - we are ready.
"If you die before you die, you won't die when you die".
- Greek Inscription at Mount Athos
How can an Ego Death be a Healing Experience?
Thousands of years ago, in the time of Asklepios in Ancient Greece, people would pilgrimage to the Dream Temples to seek healing. The Dream Temples were called on when one had a chronic, or otherwise "incurable" illness that physicians at the time had no medicine or remedy to treat. The seeker would walk many miles from their home village to the sacred spring waters of the temple, where they could potentially meet Asklepios in their dreams and receive instruction on how to heal themselves. Once the seeker arrived at the temple, they would undergo a process of cleansing in the sacred waters, and then spend their days exercising or resting within the temple walls awaiting the call of Asklepios from the dream realm. This process was designed to induce a dream-like, trance state that opened the seeker's consciousness to accessing mystical experiences. Once they received their dream, they would meet with the Dream Therapists who would support the inquiry of meaning-making of the messages received. The people of Ancient Greece knew that the power to heal was inside of their own subconscious and that this ability could be activated by pilgrimage and surrender to the great power of the mystery.
A modern Ego Death can provide a similar experience to the ancient Dream Temples. When integrated with the power of natural medicine (water, food, sleep, and exercise) and proper facilitation to allow for interpretation, an Ego Death can provide powerful insight on how an individual can heal themselves. Through getting out of the way of creation, we are able to access a universal wisdom from deep within our own bodies and minds. In addition, an Ego Death can support the dissolution of distorted perspectives on the self that are create limiting belief systems for the individual [1]. These distortions could have been generated through traumatic experience and were a protective mechanism of the brain for a period of time. Dissolving these beliefs of self and connecting with a larger understanding of "I" can support the perspective that we are not what happened to us - we are so much more than that.
How can I prepare for an Ego Death?
While Ego Death in modern culture is most commonly associated with psychedelic medicine, they are actually produced through a variety of spiritual and mystical experiences such as: childbirth, disease or illness, and times of deep transformation. An Ego Death can be a frightening experience if one has not properly prepared and even with adequate preparation, we can be taken off guard by the complexity and find ourselves trapped in a fear response. There is interesting research [1] that suggests that a reduction of glutamate in the brain (which we see as a result of a thorough ketamine protocol) can trigger a positive experience of Ego Death. While higher levels of glutamate (as seen in depression patients) can trigger a more challenging experience. However, there is no way to truly know what to expect - and that is part of the magic of an Ego Death. It is a risk. In ancient shamanic knowledge, it is understood that when we journey to the other realms we will meet our fear of death and our fear of losing our minds. Confronting these fears, and overcoming them, are part of what gives an Ego Death so much power to fuel transformation.
I experienced my first Ego Death when I was 16 years old. I had been having experiences with psychedelic medicines for a couple years, but up to that point my dosages had kept me at a reasonable level that allowed my ego to stay intact. Until one night I was with a circle of friends and we decided to smoke a large amount of DMT. For anyone unfamiliar with DMT, it is an organic substance found in the brain that is released during the actual human death process. In a psychedelic setting, DMT can mimic a near-death experience [2] and prompt an ego dissolution. I vividly remember the process of allowing everything to dissolve, until all I could see was the vastness of space. I wish I could report a life-alter realization from this trip, but in truth I was terrified and found myself coming out of the experience literally screaming and crying, fearing for my life. I have come to understand that while this early experience of Ego Death was challenging, it set me up with a foundation of knowledge of how far we are able to travel in the human consciousness. It gave me a first-hand account of what a challenging Ego Death can look and feel like, and I can pull on that knowledge for my current work as a facilitator of psychedelic medicine experiences.
In adulthood, I have had many, many more experiences of Ego Dissolution through psychedelics, transformation, and even meditation. And quite frankly, I expect there are many more to come as I journey through this lifetime. Now that I am well-resourced in body and breath, I am able to meet these moments with a depth of surrender and appreciation that supports me to find healing and knowledge in the process of letting go – rather than resistance and fear.
What I love most about the embodiment of The Fool tarot is the child-like innocence he carries into his journey. When we can approach life with curiosity, meet challenge as a student, and allow ourselves to die with our eyes wide open - we make available our capacity to hold the depth and breadth of the mystery. In the way a child will giggle when you nibble at her feet 100 times in a row, we must learn to meet the cyclical nature of death and rebirth with the same loving joy. This is the lesson that we bring back from the other side time and time again. We are love. Life is beautiful.
Trust the process.
REFERENCES
Plotkin, B. (2013). Wild mind: a field guide to the human psyche. Novato, California, New World Library.
[1] Mason, N.L., Kuypers, K.P.C., Müller, F. et al. Me, myself, bye: regional alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin. Neuropsychopharmacol. 45, 2003–2011 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-020-0718-8
[2] Timmermann C, Roseman L, Williams L, Erritzoe D, Martial C, Cassol H, Laureys S, Nutt D, Carhart-Harris R. DMT Models the Near-Death Experience. Front Psychol. 2018 Aug 15;9:1424. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01424. PMID: 30174629; PMCID: PMC6107838.