So you’ve had a psychedelic or psychedelic adjacent experience. What comes next? This week we sit down with Beni Summers, Rabbinic Intern at Shefa: Jewish Psychedelic Supports, to discuss psychedelic integration, float tanks, Buddhist psychology, and Jewish mysticism as we cultivate a deeper understanding of ecstatic states and the fruits they bear.
"Something that floating taught me was that I have, or that we as people, have the whole keyring with every key attached to our being. I used to think that you had to go out and find the keys, in a book, in a pill, in a song - and yes, they're out there but they are already inside of us." - Beni Summers
Jewish Psychedelic Integration
- Rachel intros Shefa and the Jewish Entheogenic Society and how it supported her during her psychedelic explorations
- Aaron shares his early experience with floating and how it reminded him of his first mushroom journey
- Beni explains Shefa’s origins in a John Hopkins study where high doses of psilocybin were given to clergy of different faiths
Beni’s Story of Awakening
- Beni shares an early experience of spontaneous awakening that occurred after getting lost in the Sahara desert
- Beni’s horrific experience with hash cookies and how it led to a deep curiosity around the nature of consciousness
- How Beni turned to the contemplative arts of mindfulness and meditation in order to integrate his experiences of expanded consciousness
Floating into Revelation
- Beni’s introduction to float tanks, his initial disappointment, and the opening he discovered after his third float
- How Beni became interested in altered states of conscious through doing research on Dr John Lily, the investor of the float tank
- How the Buddhist orientation to the mind describes what is happening to the self when we have spontaneous endogenous awakenings
- How the sensory deprivation of the float tank allows the mind to focus on areas that are normally attention deprived areas and allow for personal revelation
- Beni shares his advice on how to have a powerful float tank experience
- Rachel and Aaron share their own experiences of spontaneous awakening