Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, argued that the concept of the self as a ‘simple substance’ is wrong, and Hume talked about the self as a ‘bundle’ of perceptions. Much more recently, the German philosopher Thomas Metzinger wrote a very brilliant book called Being No One – a powerful deconstruction of the singular self. Buddhists have long argued that there is no such thing as a permanent self and through meditation have attempted to reach entirely selfless states of consciousness. Ayahuasca ceremonies in South America, and increasingly elsewhere, strip away people’s
