Near Death Experiences, Heidegger, and Psychedelics
This past week, former president Donald Trump had an attempt made on his life by a lone gunman. Not only did Trump survive– but his reemergence seemed to catalyze a massive cultural drift to the Right. But what is more peculiar than the masses marveling at Trump’s survival is the difference in his demeanor post-assassination attempt.
Appearing at the RNC, Trump was described by witnesses as “ethereal,” “existential,” “serene,” “spiritual.” For the first time ever, I heard him give thanks to God (which God he is thanking is unclear) for his life. American evangelicals are perhaps too quick in assuming that he means the Triune God. Could we see Trump ever give credit to Jesus Christ? I digress.
In Heidegger, we learn that the self is in some sense always in preparation for death, but only inauthentically, subconsciously– one is typically only really able to think of death as something that happens to others. I’m reminded of a time as a child sitting in the bathtub when, to my dread, my mother revealed that, in fact, death was not solely the result of tragic accidents– that we all die someday, eventually, inevitably, even from something as mundane as aging.
Man is, essentially, always convinced he will die in his sleep, in his bed, unexpectedly, without fear– that things will go to plan and there’s no need to change anything about the way he lives his life or thinks about Being, or his existence. The acceptability of such a position in our culture is the cause/effect of rampant nihilism. Life, to the modern, matters only insofar as I want to avoid death (or worse, discomfort!) and to continue along with the petty trifles that constitute my daily existence, never fully actualizing my potential. To actualize one’s potential would require the work of continually striving for what one ought, and that burden would seem too much for modern man.
But this is man at his least; man unaware of his death. Critically lacking in that essential essence of meaning-making– finitude– he is eternally suspicious of his own potential. He no longer walks with God but hides from Him in vanity.
Anyone who has ever narrowly succumbed to death is almost invariably changed in some radical sense by the experience. Life more than ever before is able to be properly evaluated.
Russian novelist Dostoyevsky, charged with treason, narrowly escaped mock execution mere seconds before his death by the Tsar’s orders. Later, he would describe that moment as perhaps the defining moment in his life and career, forever reorienting his understanding about the meaning of his life and work.
For my own experience, I admit that there are two instances in which I was met with the certainty of my death and was transformed as a result.
The first was when I was a seventeen year old cross country runner diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy– a condition producing an enlarged left ventricle, in extreme cases causing total obstruction of blood flow. At the time, all of the literature on this disease constituted its own urbane genre of psychological horror– football players dropping dead on the field with no symptoms, etc.
My fear, even then, was perhaps shallow– less than being afraid of death I was afraid of leaving an embarrassing legacy as the kid who collapsed during seventh period. I was required to quit running, at least for the duration of the study being done on my heart. At the time, cross-country had been my ultimate passion, stress relief, and social activity. Now, all of that had to be rethought. What else was there for me to do around here? Thoughts of me dying seemed inextricable from every odd twinge of the leftmost chest area. The looming threat of sudden death was always in the back of my mind, perhaps pathologically, but not entirely without reason.
Then, in college, that chronic ambient dread sort of dissipated, and I began experimenting with the psychedelic class of drugs. My friends had taken them as just another way to get high ( I admit I wasn’t above that either), but for me the spiritual aspect of these drugs were more intriguing.
One morning, I procured a particular strain of psilocybin mushrooms known as “Penis Envy,” the one designed by Terence McKenna, known to be 2.5x more potent per gram than standard strains. I took what appeared to be a particularly malevolent cap, twisted and 4-dimensional. The prescription for a fast-onsetting shroom-induced stomachache came from my stoner roommate who insisted, “a little weed will help the nausea.”
Before I knew it, reality melted in front of me– everything before my eyes and in my mind became wholly undifferentiated. My roommates tried shaking me, yelling at me, but nothing they said made sense or pierced through. Nothing inside or out of me seemed to cohere into anything intelligible. I screamed over and over “nothing makes sense!”
Eventually, the distinction between me and everything else dissipated. My perspective was null. My ego panicked as it dissolved. It was like I died– I (or whatever was perceiving the experience) was fully aware there had never been a “me,” so to speak. “I” really had died– had been dead– was never. In those moments, which felt like years, there was only darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth. I seemed cast into an outer darkness, the primordial chaos everything had been and would eventually return to.
Every evil thing I’d ever done– things I’d done or thought (that I previously hadn’t even believed to be evil, but now realized were incontrovertibly so) were returned to me sevenfold in the form of invisible fire.
After what felt like a sentence certain of eternity, my roommate opened the door. I was alive. A young 21st century American, not yet a born-again Christian (that wouldn’t happen until years later), I was no longer convinced that I could live my life however I wanted and get away with it. I was convinced of the reality of death, and something after death– perhaps not of heaven but certainly of hellfire.
For a time after, I believed psychedelics to be some critical component in inducing this. Now, I am not so certain that psychedelics are anything but a very dangerous gateway into a world we were not meant to trespass. Now my belief is that the Jesus Christ of the Bible really did come to tell us everything we need to know, and we ignore him at our peril. But aside from all of that, my momentary encounter with death was enough to radically change my perspective and personality permanently.
Near death experiences, without a doubt, will change you. And if you are an artist, or thinker, or ruler, perhaps you could benefit from the acknowledgement of the fact of your own mortality. It doesn’t need to happen via psychedelics or heart disease– it can be as simple as earnestly striving not to fool yourself with fantasies of earthly immortality.
