12 June 2024
Allegory of a Rave
Using Depth Psychology to Explore the Role of Music in the Future of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy
by James Kalupson, MA, AMFT, APCC
MAPS Bulletin: Volume XXXIV Number 1 • 2024
Photo Courtesy of Midsommar & James Kalupson
My fascination with the role of music within the psychedelic experience began not in the well-lit, meticulously arranged room of a psychedelic research lab, but in the dark, chaotic dancefloors of the underground rave scene where I spent much of my early adulthood. It was here where I, along with my friends, first experienced the unbelievable power of music and psychedelics, facilitated not by therapists or shamans, but by DJs whose mind-bending performances had the capacity to render one utterly speechless at the power of music delivered in such settings. The profound influence of those early experiences–both on myself and those around me–ultimately served as the inspiration for my graduate thesis, Symphonies of Consciousness: A Depth Psychological Investigation Into the Role of Music in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy, from which the present essay is adapted. At the center of this investigation is the firsthand account of “Kennedy,” a close friend whose experience invites us–no, compels us–to make deep inquiries into the nature of music and its relationship to the psychedelic experience. Kennedy’s updated account is being published here with permission, with any identified details omitted or changed to preserve her confidentiality.
As this particular segment of music approached, I began to feel a warm, tingling, anticipatory feeling throughout my entire body that gradually began to concentrate in the center of my chest. The only word that accurately describes this phenomenon thus far is “orgasmic,” in the sense that the energy and feelings in my body were building and concentrating in ways that were completely out of my conscious control. Moreover, it felt as though every aspect of my experience in those moments was being entirely driven by the music, like an energy beam that completely overwhelmed every ounce of my conscious awareness. Eventually, the concentration of these feelings reached a critical point, and I suddenly experienced what seemed like a physical sensation in my chest, as if someone was reaching their fingers into the center and began gently tugging my heart out of my chest cavity. This feeling was indistinguishable from the sensation of physical touch, despite the fact that I was the only one present in my room and my hands were on the floor by my side. As this happened, a liquid, golden light began to explode out of my chest from the exact location where I felt the tugging sensation. It felt as if my entire heart was nakedly exposed to the outer air, radiating this golden light.
The extraordinarily bizarre nature of this experience caused me to sit up suddenly to ensure I wasn’t experiencing some sort of medical emergency. Just as I began to feel reassured about the safety of my present state, I immediately experienced an internal vision that carried a level of vividness and clarity that I had never experienced before, and have not since: It was an image of myself approximately 10 years into the future, posed as if for a portrait in an exquisite evening gown. I was a mother with three beautiful children whose names were Monica, Persephone, and Charles, and I had a look of soft, loving warmth in my eyes. This look radiated outward and profoundly soothed the painful struggles around the lack of purpose and direction that had occupied that time of my life. I was struck by a subtle recognition that this future version of me was merely an image, yet I could distinctly feel her presence as if she were in the room with me. After a few moments, the image disappeared and I suddenly found myself with the indescribable sensation of now being that person. It was as if the objective vision I had just seen was transmuted into a subjective, felt experience, and instead of seeing an external image of future events, I was experiencing the internal memories of the same events which had already come to pass. When I looked at my hands, it was with the eyes of the person whose soft gaze had soothed my anxieties moments earlier, and whose children had grown up and had families of their own. Eventually, this sensation faded, and I found myself called back to the present moment by the very music that seemed to have catapulted me out of it just a few minutes earlier. The visceral impact of this experience left me with a feeling of speechless bewilderment at what had just occurred.
In reflecting on this experience now, I find two specific aspects to be most remarkable and worth mentioning. Of course, the fact that I have recently given birth to triplets – two girls and one boy – in perfect accordance with the vision I experienced all those years ago is something most astonishing. Despite never having intended to have children, my struggle to find purpose in my life via career success has been completely absolved by the profoundly meaningful sense of joy I now experience in being a mother. Notably, I will never forget the inexplicable way that the music served to catalyze the entire experience. Though I cannot even begin to explain how, I am absolutely convinced that this entire experience was brought about by the music, and without it, this event never would have occurred.
Photo Courtesy of Midsommar & James Kalupson
On the surface, it is difficult to meet Kennedy’s experience with anything but a high degree of skepticism. After all, what are the odds that her present life circumstances seemed to be perfectly predicted by a music-induced psychedelic vision nearly a decade ago? As uncanny as Kennedy’s experience appears to be, all of us can identify with the experience of being touched by a seemingly impossible coincidence at some point in our lives. Whether it is a chance encounter with a perfect stranger, or finding ourselves at precisely the right place at the right time, these experiences force us to ponder–even if just for a moment–was this really just a coincidence? Even if we hold personal beliefs in some greater orchestrating force that influences such events, the overwhelmingly rational sentiment of our modern Western scientific paradigm tends to dismiss these events as nothing more than the inevitable coincidences of a random universe.
Amidst the baffling improbability of Kennedy’s experience, it is easy to overlook her assertion that the entire experience was not merely influenced by, but entirely induced by the music to which she was listening. Within the fields of contemporary psychedelic research, the role of music is being increasingly recognized the play a crucial role in the induction of mystical experiences like the one described here (Kaelen et al., 2018). The strength of the empirical support for this recognition, however, is not matched by an understanding of how music influences the psychedelic experience of an individual. Indeed, there exists virtually no understanding of the underlying mechanisms by which music exerts its profound influence on one’s inner world as demonstrated in the case of Kennedy.
In order to truly comprehend the role of music in psychedelic-assisted therapy, it is necessary to look to the myriad of shamanic traditions around the world in which the sounds of the shaman are used to induce and guide altered states of consciousness. One well-known example is the Shipibo ayahuasca tradition of the Amazon in which icaros–consisting of hums, whistles, and melodies sung by the shaman–are likened to magic spells that are used with precision to heal specific emotional and psychological ailments of the participants (Beyer, 2010). Indeed, I have heard anecdotes from individuals that describe this experience as “psychological surgery” in which the shaman’s musical technique is most accurately described as that of a surgeon using a scalpel to remove a tumor. The precision with which shamans are able to utilize music in their healing ceremonies reveals a functional understanding of music and psychedelic states that far exceed anything our Western scientific institutions have discovered with regard to the therapeutic application of music. If cases such as Kennedy’s reveal the profound knowledge gaps in this existing scientific paradigm, traditions like those of the Shipibo hint at the possibilities of what awaits us if we can find a way to reach beyond the narrow confines of scientific rationalism privileged by our modern Western culture.
Early in the 20th Century, such a reach was made by famed Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung, who introduced the concept of archetypes as a way to incorporate the mystical aspects of the human experience within the field of Western psychology. Jung conceived of archetypes as deep psychological structures that shape the patterns of our perception and emotion, the most fundamental of which is the archetype of the Self which contains the totality of one’s unrealized potential. Most importantly, Jung believed that music–and music alone–has the capacity to penetrate the archetypal levels of the psyche in ways that nothing else can, and for this reason should be a part of every therapeutic process (Tilly, 1977). Jung’s theoretical framework offers a compelling explanation for Kennedy’s experience in which music and psychedelics may have catalyzed a conscious activation of her unrealized future potential–the archetype of her Self (Kalupson, 2023).
In many ways, Kennedy’s case is representative of the unrealized potential of musical applications in the field of psychedelic-assisted therapy. As is demonstrated by the well-documented use of music within shamanic traditions, this unrealized potential is not due to the ineffable nature of music itself, but to the blind spots resulting from our narrow, scientific perspective of reality that privileges intellectual rationality above all else. Trampled under the boot of this rationality are not just the flowers of shamanic healing traditions, but also the tradition of Jungian psychology which to this day remains marginalized by mainstream Western psychology. Kennedy’s case illuminates a vast chasm of understanding that must be bridged in order to fully realize the potential applications of music in psychedelic-assisted therapy, and Jungian psychology suggests that such a realization is possible. The only remaining requirement, it seems, is that we summon the courage, humility, and determination to do so.
References
Beyer, S. V. (2010). Singing to the plants: A guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the upper Amazon. University of New Mexico Press.
Kaelen, M., Giribaldi, B., Raine, J., Evans, L., Timmerman, C., Rodriguez, N., Roseman, L., Feilding, A., Nutt, D., & Carhart-Harris, R. (2018). The hidden therapist: Evidence for a central role of music in psychedelic therapy. Psychopharmacology, 235(2), 505–519. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-017-4820-5
F. Kalupson, J. (2023). Symphonies of Consciousness: A Depth Psychological Investigation into the Role of Music in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy [MA Thesis, Pacifica Graduate Institute]. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2788429750/abstract/42E24D13BE054748PQ/1?sourcetype=Dissertations%20&%20Theses
Tilly, M. (1977). The therapy of music. In W. McGuire & R. F. C. Hull (Eds.), C. G. Jung speaking (pp. 273–275). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1956)
James Kalupson, MA, AMFT, APCC
James Kalupson holds a B.S. in Engineering Science and Mechanics from the Pennsylvania State University and an M.A. in Counseling and Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. James is registered as an AMFT and APCC in the state of California, and currently resides in Treasure Beach, Jamaica.
