The Ecstatic Imagination: Psychedelic Experiences and the Psychoanalysis of Self-Actualization

by Dan Merkur

The Ecstatic Imagination provides the first general theory of psychedelic experiences. Merkur refutes several theories that have been used to explain single categories of psychedelic experience, and offers instead a unitary theory that is applicable to all varieties. The book treats self-reports of psychedelic experiences as a wealth of neglected data which forms the basis to expand the psychoanalytic model of human imagination. An exhaustive phenomenology of the varieties of LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin experiences in Western and Native American cultures is joined together with psychoanalytic theories drawn from the classical, ego psychological, and object relations schools. Where existing theories prove inadequate to the discussion of data, original formulations are offered. The result is a rigorously psychoanalytic approach to the process of self-actualization.

Genres: Psychoanalysis, Spirituality, Psychology

226 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[joey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was Merkur's thesis, and is a little gem for understanding the commonly accepted theories of how and why psilocybin and other psychedelics mutate perception and emotion: presents an interesting theory as to why core cognitive functions of identity seemingly "break down" during a trip, causing, often, a kind of participation mystique in which the boundary between Subject and Object blurs. Merkur adduces that this chemical scumbling of Subject/Object--this feeling of interconnectedness which he says is, literally, an infantile regression--would be what we in the west term "an ecstasy," i.e., encounter with the divine. Take this a step farther, and you have McKenna's theory that it was psilocybin that played a key role in humanity's evolution.