Biohacking, Yoga, and Psychedelics
Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey
The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions.
In the fall of 2018, I attended the San Francisco Bay Area Awakened Futures Summit, which brought together the so-called consciousness hacker community to consider meditation, technology, and psychedelics. Psychedelics were having a moment. The enthusiasm was palpable, and the “psychedelic renaissance” was on full display. At the time, I was researching contemplative technologies, including electrical, magnetic, and ultrasound stimulation, biofeedback devices, and virtual reality “technodelics” as well as nutraceuticals and nootropics. Again and again, I was struck by how much this biohacking community, seeking to transform the body through technology, was configured like modern yoga communities: a network of sub-communities organized around the teachings and techniques of pioneering advocates. What about premodern yogis?
When researching my book Tracing the Path of Yoga: The History and Philosophy of Indian Mind-Body Discipline (State University of New York Press, 2021), I encountered in some Sanskrit sources oblique references to the use of psychoactive substances in yoga. Given the parallels between Indian mind-body discipline (yoga) and the techniques of consciousness hacking and biohacking, I needed to look more deeply. I am currently expanding my initial findings through archival research in Harvard’s Ludlow-Santo Domingo library, the world’s largest collection on altered states of mind. Maybe premodern Indian yogis were the original “consciousness hackers.” They certainly sought, like biohackers, to stack the effects of various means of self-transformation, including the use of meditation, asceticism, and psychoactive substances.
My current book project, “Tracing the Path of Soma: Psychoactives and Psychedelics in the History and Philosophy of Yoga,” challenges popular psychedelic narratives, such as Wasson’s famous and overdetermined theories about soma and psychedelics, by revealing the complex historical relationship between yoga and psychoactive plants in primary, premodern texts.
Consider how the Sanskrit expression “constructed mind” (nirmāṇacitta) seems to approximate the twentieth-century neologism “psychedelic,” which means something like “mind manifesting.” Patañjali’s third- to fifth-century CE Yogasūtra explains that the use of herbs (oṣadhi) can lead to extraordinary powers of action and perception (siddhi) through the “constructed mind.” The Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu’s fourth- to fifth-century commentary on the Abhidharmakośa, an authoritative Indian Buddhist philosophical text, makes parallel assertions. Both sources propose that herbs (oṣadhi) along with meditation (dhyāna or bhāvanā) give rise to particular mental “signatures” that are the basis for extraordinary mental states and capacities.
Presumably, the arising mental signatures vary depending on the substances or methods deployed, usually in combination, to generate variations of effects that include powers (siddhi), health (svastha), and longevity (dīrghāyus). South Asian sources refer to well-known psychoactives like cannabis (bhaṅgā), datura (dhattūra), and opium (ahiphena), and they also refer to other perhaps more subtly psychoactive plant ingredients like valerian root (tagarī), horse-essence (aśvagandhā), myrobalan (harītakī), and numerous spices.
Indian mind-body discipline (yoga) and the allied sphere of tantra prescribe uses of psychoactive elixirs, essences, and substances—referred to as soma, rasāyana, dravya, and more. Previous research has focused on uncovering and interpreting implicit references to psychedelics in India, often through interpretive appeals to narrative tropes in Indian literature and figures in Indian art. Contextual readings of explicit instructions and formulas in primary, premodern yoga sources suggest a more complex relationship between yoga and psychoactive substances. Exploring how contemporary psychedelic use overlaps with premodern South Asian notions about psychoactive plants requires a shift from focusing on the classic psychedelics like psilocybin, LSD, and DMT toward considering a wider range of psychoactive substances.
Undoubtedly, yoga and yoga discourses are found throughout the contemporary world of psychedelics. Yoga has relevance at all stages in the process of psychedelic facilitation: intake, journeying, and integration. Facilitators and facilitator trainings appeal to South Asian philosophical and religious ideas, such as nondualism, and to practices such as mindfulness, breath control, and mantras.
Pioneering figures in psychedelic therapy, such as Stanislav Grof and Roland Griffiths, were in the orbit of important Indian gurus, especially Swami Muktananda, the global guru in the 1970s and 1980s who founded Siddha Yoga. Grof’s influential Holotropic Breathwork system, which induces a psychedelic experience through breathing techniques, was at least in part inspired by his wife Christine’s experiences with Muktananda. Griffiths’ interest in researching psychedelics was inspired by experiences meditating in Siddha Yoga under the current guru, Swami Chidvilasananda.
The spiritual and recreational domains of modern psychedelic use have a longstanding relationship with South Asian philosophy, religion, and spirituality—from the twentieth-century author Aldous Huxley to the twenty-first century author and podcaster Tim Ferriss. Psychedelic retreats and emerging psychedelic churches increasingly feature yoga and meditation as essential components of practice. Contemporary Psychedelic Buddhists use psychedelic drugs to expand and enhance meditation practices.
Like present-day consciousness hackers, premodern Indian yogis were at pains to systematize and document their experiments in mind-body discipline. These concrete representations shed light on yoga’s historical links to both past and present psychoactive and psychedelic use.