Birth as a Psychedelic & Alchemical Experience

The term psychedelic means causing

‘unusually strong experiences of colour, sound, smell, taste, and touch, and other mental effects such as feelings of deep understanding’.

The psychedelic experience simply means ‘mind altering’ or ‘soul-revealing’. 

Usually when we hear of psychedelic experiences we immediately think of the flower power 60’s and 70’s. However with the resurgence of incredible psychedelic research in the fields of psychotherapy & healing from trauma, it has gained popularity and in some countries has become legalised. Leaders in the field of psychedelics include Timothy Leary with his famous saying 

‘turn on, tune in, and drop out’, 

Stanislov Grof, Terence McKenna, Michael Pollin,  & Gabor Mate among a few great names.

Stan Grof  a pioneer of Holotropic breathwork (rebirthing) & Psychedelics described basic characteristics of the Cosmic Unity Experience as: 

“exceptionally strong positive affect (peace, tranquillity, serenity, bliss) a special feeling of sacredness, transcendence of time and space, experience of pure being, and a richness of insights of cosmic relevance”

Psychedelic medicines can include the likes of our native Irish medicine Psilocybin mushrooms, as well as Ayahuasca (DMT), Huachuma (Mescaline), LSD, MDMA, Peyote and so on.

From my experience both in Midwifery over the last 13 years, as well as a Psychonaut myself working with a range of psychedelics and exploring the otherworld of altered states of consciousness, I began to realise that birth IS a psychedelic experience, and it has been designed as a rite of passage for women to cross.

Rite of Passage & Birth as Alchemy

The term rite of passage is as old as human beings (and beyond) and literally refers to a ceremony or a ritual where an individual leaves one aspect of them behind and enters into another. Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey” explain the stages of a rite of passage as

Preparation, the Ordeal, and the Return.

Maureen Murdock has coined the term the ‘Heroine's Journey’ as the feminine aspect of this journey and this has a little bit more of a dance, but it includes the same concepts of separating from the community and slaying the demons and returning with the gold (I make it sound simple!)

Rite of passage ceremonies have been seen across cultures as ceremonies of maturation. They can be seen when a young maiden menstruates for the first time or a young boy is stepping into manhood as well as marriage and death as the more well known rite of passages that are still marked symbolically in ceremony today. The psychedelic experience is a rite of passage, it is a great adventure, something we enter into the unknown to find the pieces of ourselves that were fragmented, then to face the demons and slay the dragons and return to the community or return home changed forever. 

In West Africa, where I lived, the Iboga plant was used as a rite of passage ceremony for young boys stepping into their warrior. This is a strong psychedelic and not for the faint hearted, hence why they are warriors after integrating the experience.

We can also look to Alchemy to understand the transformations we go through in a rite of passage or peak experience. In traditional alchemy, this was the process of transmutation of lead into gold. Our evolved consciousness being the Gold at the end!

In alchemy there is the 4 phase of transformation of a substance. 

Nigredo (blackness), which represents putrefaction and spiritual death (this can be seen in the stage of entering into the labyrinth of birth, of the unknown and facing fears and slaying the dragons.)

Albedo (whiteness), which represents purification; which can be experienced during the quietude and deep rest phase of birth, happens just as the head descends into the pelvis and the cervix opens fully. A period of deep rest.

Citrinitas (yellowness), the solar dawn or awakening. This is the Gold that you return with, both within, in personal power, as well as your new baby, and the creation of a family and you as a Mother.

Rubedo (redness) - this is the Philosopher's Stone, the completion. Immortality. 

We can see that Birth is an alchemical rite of passage. An opportunity for transformation.

In birth we go in as an aspect of a maiden, and we then face parts of ourselves that are disempowered, afraid, victimised, we face our own death, we descend to the shadows of the goddess & we transform & alchemise into gold. Into sovereignty. 

In the same way after a psychedelic experience or a rite of passage, a time of integration has to happen to really integrate and embody this new version of you. To understand the experiences you had were non ordinary and mystical. This may change your worldview. 

The Birth Journey

Preparation: The Pregnancy Journey. 

The gestation of new life.  In the same way as when you sign up to a psychedelic experience you already feel the medicine working and weaving in your life. Teaching you, showing you, and bringing up the shadow aspects of yourself that need to be seen. This may show up as fears and insecurities, relationship issues etc. This is the same in your pregnancy, in pregnancy we enter into a more theta brain wave state which is the state governed by our senses. This is why we are more sensual & sexual. This is also our ability to sense beyond the veil of this reality. In the lead up to birth as the days approach many women will experience vivid dreams or guidance coming through in the same way as a psychedelic experience. 

The Ordeal: The Birth Experience

Grof describes the “Cosmic Unity Experience”. This is experienced in the labyrinth of birth. The thing about the psychedelic experience that is so transformative is that the psychonaut has to journey alone. However finds the support of spirit in the altared state, but ultimately finds a personal power and sovereignty within themselves that cannot ever be taken away.

As we see in the Hero & Heroine’s journey as well as in Alchemy - the ‘Separation’ phase is the first phase.  

Carl Jung would describe it as the “process of individuation”. 

“The mother reaches a point in her travelling where it is time for her to go alone. The endorphins released by her body during her embarking have begun to change her consciousness and she enters, more deeply, the realm of the altered state. She travels to the edge of her normal reality, parts the Veil and goes beyond. The Veil is my nomenclature for the curtain that separates ordinary reality from the deep altered state.” - Whapio Diane Bartlett - Midwife.

This is also seen across many cultures as the rite of passage. He or she must cross the threshold alone, they must slay the dragons alone and only then can they return with the gold. Birth is no different. We must go there alone. We must cross that threshold and find the personal power and strength within to return alchemised. 

In Pam England’s book “The Labyrinth of Birth”,  England says, 

“The journey into the labyrinth’s centre is symbolic of letting go and death (psychic or physical), and the journey from the centre out of the labyrinth represents birth and rebirth.”

This letting go in alchemy is the dissolution phase. In a way we let go of all we were, we crumble our old identities, the ego goes through their death experience.

The Return: Birth & Rebirth (and integrating it all!)

In birth we go through the transition phase. Some call this phase “quietude” or the “rest & give thanks phase”. This is a phase that all falls away and usually you enter into a pause moment. In medical terminology this is the 'latent phase of labour'. Sometimes an hour or two. In modern midwifery and the medical model a lot of the times when labour stalls you are artificially induced with oxytocin. However from speaking to women when entering consciously into the transition phase they experienced deeply shamanic experiences and initiations for example crossing a veil and being given guidance from their ancestors or meeting their baby, collecting their baby and bringing them earthbound, entering into a tree and out the other side (usually a Celtic shamanic portal into the otherworld). Some women report seeing windows opening, veils opening, all of the symbolism of a threshold. 

Once in their visuals they cross this threshold the waves and sensations of birth return, they return to their body and birth their baby into physical form. 

Who are we to take this experience away from someone? 

Integration after a psychedelic experience is the most important aspect. Integration is a space of processing and alchemising the experiences you had during your birth experiences, near death experiences or psychedelic medicine journeys and harnessing the gold. 

In the same way as the Hero’s journey that Campbell wrote about, you have to meander your way back to ordinary reality, back from the labyrinth and there may be challenges there also. You may meet challenges in the final hurdle before returning. This can refer to the postnatal phase, after birth & your first 40 days. Where we can experience the exhaustion, baby blues or a deep experience of loss and grief at who you once were. 

In the same way after a psychedelic experience there can be a moment of “who am I now?” Or a feeling of spaciousness or unfamiliarity. This is the same after the birth experience. Integrating this new version of you. This new chapter of your life and also grieving the version of you that you left behind. 

This is what my dear friend, elder midwife and teacher Whapio would refer to as “weaving the story”. We continue to weave and weave and weave. 

In the same way psychedelic experiences need to be treated with a trauma informed approach, so too does the integration of a birth experience. 

Birth as a Psychedelic Experience

The similarities between birth and the psychedelic experience include that both happen in an altared state of consciousness, both work with the polarities of facing both shadow and light aspects of yourself, both are alchemical processes of transformation and both are rites of passage. The most important aspect and similarity is that both cannot be stopped once begun, and both have to be done alone.

Interestingly, in many cultures the use of psychedelic mushrooms was present at births and is seen in many cave paintings. There is a definite resurgence in women taking microdoses of psilocybin during their pregnancy and feeling the benefits in terms of mood, connection and a reduction in postnatal depression. My own dear friend, who is a Brazilian mother, in both her births, ingested Ayahuasca, and connected deeply to the birth and the great cosmic mother.

The whole aspect of birth is that we leave ordinary reality and enter into non ordinary reality. The journey of birth must take place in an non ordinary reality or what our Celtic ancestors called “the otherworld”. A psychedelic experience lifts the veils between ordinary and non ordinary reality in the exact same way as birth does.

With the cocktails of hormones dancing through a woman through her birth it becomes a psychedelic and mind altering, soul revealing experience.

The presence of DMT during birth (and orgasm and death for that matter) is evidence enough that birth is meant to be a pleasurable, transformative, transcendent & a psychedelic experience of love.

“There is a reason that scientists believe that the mother’s brain, as well as her baby’s, produces DMT, ‘The God [Spirit] Molecule,’ during the birth process. The purpose of birth is to connect us to heaven. Birth is the zenith of orgasm. It’s sheer gorgeousness, and it’s made for our thriving.” - Yolande 

‘It is almost as though the creation of the baby within the mother is the seed of the psychedelic medicine itself. The baby contains the spark of life just as a plant does.’

If we interrupt, or talk to a woman during her Labour, we continuously bring her back to ordinary reality. Ordinary reality or beta brain wave state is where her physical pain, exhaustion and mental blocks are. Theta & Delta brain waves is where the pain dissolves into waves of sensation and you are one with the cosmic mother. You are in the psychedelic space. 

Grof, compared the similarities between LSD and birth/rebirth. He said:

‘It sure is a good thing we have psychedelics to help everyone process said birth trauma. If only we’d facilitated the psychedelic birth that was their birthright all along; then maybe they could have avoided a fear-based life of disconnect and suicidal ideation. ‘

Peak Experiences:

As well as psychedelic ceremonies, near death experiences (NDE) bring us to these places. Birth has that same aspect in that birth brings us to the edge of life and close to death. It is this dance with death and birth that transforms life. What is birth but a transformation?

Birth provides, in the words of psychologist Abraham Maslow a peak experience 

‘powerful moments of clarity, joy, or religious ecstasy’

Maslow described peak experiences as

 ‘rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhila-rating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality, and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the experimenter’.

Even the baby is having a psychedelic adventure post-birth, as it has recently been acknowledged that an adult’s brain on LSD functions in a similar way to that of an infant.

Women’s Psychedelic Birth Experiences:

In Ina May Gaskin’s book Spiritual Midwifery, many similar psychedelic birth experiences are described. For example, 

“We were riding the rushes like a surfer rides the waves”, ‘The energy would swell up and Janet’s eyes would grow deeper until it seemed like I could look through them like peepholes and see the vastness of the cosmos out beyond her pupils; endless space’” 

‘I laid down on the bed and began to rush and everything got psychedelic’ ‘I began having beautiful, rushing contractions that started low, built up to a peak, and then left me floating about two feet off the bed’, ‘It felt like

I was making love to the rushes and I could wiggle my body and push into them and it was really fine’.

‘I felt higher than I ever had in my life. It was such a heavy spiritual experience, and so much fun. In between rushes I’d laugh at how telepathic it was’

Mary Louise came over and paid her attention totally to me. She and I swapped bodies’

‘It was far out. I felt myself leave and enter Mary Louise’s and she came over and did a few

contractions for me’, she continued, believing that this process renewed her strength.

It also transported her to another dimension. Then she added: ‘I found myself in a beautiful place with a green field and a house. It was a place I’d never seen before. I could still tell my body was contracting, but I was detached from it. I told Mary Louise what happened and she said she’d been doing that contraction and had been able to feel it all We kept passing the energy between us, and Mary Louise knelt near my legs and Carol and Edward were on either side of me’, ‘I’d rush and the energy would move up their spines and they’d arch their backs and straighten as they’d rush’.

‘I felt One with everyone in the Universe’

Kate Kaiden described her birth as a “wild ass acid trip”

“Time is altered—that’s a common experience in birth. You have no idea how long you’ve been labouring or when the baby is coming, you’re just on your body’s own timetable.” Kate Kincaid 

I retrieved her from the depths of my soul, where hers was entangled with mine, a depth I had never before accessed. She led me there. I could feel her tiny legs propelling her deeper and deeper into the portal, asking me to assist with the expulsion she so desperately wanted. She was ready to traverse the realms and breathe the air, as opposed to the waters of her own private ocean. 

One woman experienced a sense of cosmic unity after her daughter was born, writing: 

‘Her eyes opened right away and it looked like the Universe being unfolded before my eyes’

“I went on the deepest trips of my life during Nuala and Griffin's births. [I remember when] the DMT of birth was beginning to kick in. I experienced a flashback to a psychedelic experience I had in the past. DMT is one of the chemicals released by a woman's brain when she gives birth. It is a hallucinogenic tryptamine that occurs naturally in many plants and in our brains. The realms I accessed during my children's births taught me about the wildness and the power within me. That same wildness and power is within us all.”

She continued: “I felt the presence of the beings from my past psychedelic experience. I was happy they were with me. I had learned from them last time and I welcomed the familiar feeling of being comforted by their presence… Then, I centred myself. I suddenly flew away from irritability to a blissful state of altered consciousness. I was making my way deep down the path of labour with sensuality, courage, and glee.” - River Shannie

‘I was somewhere on the astral plane, feeling all the forces of the Universe, it felt like, pounding my body’,  I flashed wild stallions, thunder and lightning, and the ocean. I felt like my brain and upper body were separate from the rest of me, and were looking down on the action’.

Set & Setting

In all of the research around psychedelic therapy, we can see the importance of the correct set and setting on the outcome of an experience. This refers to the mindset of an individual entering a psychedelic experience (set) and by the environment including the people present in the space (setting).

Because of the similarities between birth and psychedelic experiences the same approach to having the correct ‘Set & Setting’ could be applied to the birth experience. 

Studies indicate that there are strong connections between the beliefs and perceptions of the birthing woman before the event of birth concerning the birth process and experiences and birth outcomes.

So in conclusion, the process of birthing our babies and bringing their souls earthside was always designed as a psychedelic, mind altering, soul revealing experience, with a cocktail of hormones and systems designed for it to be an orgasmic and pleasurable experience. If we can be prepared, in the same way as a psychedelic experience or an intense rite of passage ceremony, as well as supported through in the correct set and setting, as well as supported after to integrate, it will definitely have an impact on birth experiences and complete the process of alchemical transformation.

References 

1. Gaskin, I.M. (1977). Spiritual Midwifery: Revised Edition. Summertown: The Book Publishing Company.
2. Gaskin, I.M. (2003) Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. New York: Bantam Books.
3. Grof, S. (1972). Varieties of Transpersonal Experiences: Observations from LSD Psychotherapy. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 4:1, p. 51.
4. Campbell, J. (2014). The Hero’s Journey. New World Library.
5. England, P. (2010). Labyrinth of Birth. Seven Gates Media.
6. Bartlett, W. D. (2021, July 18th) Holistic Stages of Birth. The Matrona. https://thematrona.com/the-holistic-stages-of-birth/
7. https://www.fatnugsmag.com/featured-nugs/birth-the-psychedelic-trip-of-a-lifetime?format=amp 

8. https://psychedelic.support/resources/birth-potent-psychedelic-space/ 

9.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9947299/ 

10. https://www.birthundisturbed.com/the-series