The Basic Premises of Ecstatic Aging
This is an introductory summary of the material in the Ecstatic Aging: Love, Sex, Psychedelics, and Wonderment book. First, this is more than just another self-help book, as useful as those can be at earlier stages of healing. It’s about how to live a further evolving stage of human life. It’s about how to permanently eliminate most of the deeply imprinted dysfunctional patterns that control people’s thoughts and feelings. This leads to a qualitatively different life experience as we gain the wisdom to create fewer and milder self-imposed problems. This is incredibly satisfying in the ever-increasing depth of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual experiences in our most intimate relationships.
The Gifts of Conscious Aging
In my elder years and those of some boomer friends and peers, I’ve seen a natural progression into more subtle levels of consciousness available to those who have done their personal growth work. Imagine how different human lives can be if most of the old troubling neuroses about abandonment, betrayal, control, shame, guilt, humiliation, disappointments, personal appearance, etc., have been healed.
This state brings greater sensitivity to our inner and outer environments. This allows more skillful being and acting in all areas of life. Yet, since increased sensitivity makes good things better and bad things worse, this can create conundrums. There’s a tendency among older people for the happy ones to become happier and the unhappy ones to become more unhappy.
In this book, I talk about ways to increase that happiness, that sense of contented well-being, so that these last years can truly be the Crowning Glory of our lives. This is the natural design for mature aging.
Some of the ways to improve the quality of our lives are well-known. I discuss some of the ones that have most helped me. This is far from being an exhaustive list. More importantly, I discuss newer emerging tools and ideas that make this new quality of life possible and why it wasn’t available to humans until recently.
As boomers led the exploration of the changes in the dramatic changes in the1960s, we are now leading the way again. These paths, once recognized and open, are then available to others.
The Use of Life-Enhancing Substances
Since this may be the most controversial part so let’s start here. These include psychedelics, MDMA, cannabis, and some others. For the first time in human existence, direct access to these consciousness-expanding, heart-healing medicines has become available to the masses.
Stronger psychedelic journeys through direct experience can turn hardcore agnostics and atheists, like I was, into knowing that spiritual realms are fundamental to all existence.
Psychedelics and MDMA, especially when combined, have often brought profound healing of the deepest wounds, the ones that are not accessible any other way. All I can say to doubters of either or both of the above assertions is: “If you had been there with me, you would know with certainty that it is true.”
We now increasingly have solid science confirming these assertions. Some of this can be explained through biochemistry, neurologically, and biophysics. Some may forever elude us. We’ll see.
Stages of Socio-Cultural and Personal Development
A number of psychologists and sociologists have researched and expounded on these in slightly different ways. I’m especially indebted to Ken Wilber and others’ work in this and related areas.
Societies have moved from being able to identify with a small circle of included people in tribal societies (50,000 -10,000 BCE) to the larger ones in early civilizations (10,000 – 3000 BCE). In these cases, the focus was first-person. It’s all about an ‘us’ versus a ‘them’.
The Traditional Stage (3000 BCE – 1500 CE) brought a second-person in which all people should be treated well. Think of the Ten Commandments.
Then came Modern (1500 CE), which brought a third-person perspective, seeing the ‘it’ of the world around us. This allowed the rise of science, technology and more.
The Egalitarian-Pluralistic / Postmodern (1950s on) rapidly became stronger in the boomers youth. Underneath the civil rights, gender equality, environmental concerns, healthy lifestyles, etc., was a fourth-person perspective. This is the ability to see how one’s mind works. With this came the potential for a deeper healing of trauma issues than was available to previous generations. In my parents’ era, the suggestion that one should do therapy was an insult, in spite of, from the Egalitarian perspective, how useful that could have been if they were open to that level of insight.
The Integral Stage is now coming in as boomers’ are maturing into their old age. It is rare for humans to live when one new worldview is coming in. To have two in one lifetime is radically unique. I imagine this is because humanity really needs it if we are to survive. Integral brings a fifth-person perspective, which, for the first time, enables people to see all of the worldviews with their strengths and weaknesses. This requires insight into, and healing of, a level of imprinting from not just our family and community but from the entire socio-cultural ones. Doing this can bring understanding and compassion for those at other stages. This is desperately needed at this time of dramatic social upheaval.
Stages of Personal Development
Individuals have the potential to mature from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric, to cosmoscentric perspectives, which are further expansions of mature consciousness. As in each worldview stage, these personal stages open us to greater awareness and inclusivity. Given this and the above, some boomers have successfully healed most of their dysfunctional emotional and mental wounds, and have found a new quality of beauty, goodness, and truth in their lives.
These healthy mature integrated boomers moving or having moved through their 60s into their 70s, naturally developed finer sensitivities to their internal and external environments. This allows a previously unknown dimension of aging, a depth of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual intimacy.
This is an especially awe-inspiring experience in conscious couples as two individuals can more and more become one in their most intimate moments, and in evermore novel and pleasurable ways. There’s no equivalent experience of pleasure in human lives. Our nervous and hormonal systems are wired for this. Those who have gotten to this depth of intimacy know it’s true.
While all manner of troubles will inevitably come, they will be dealt with skillfully with intelligence and equanimity. A mature, integrated old age is one primarily of contentment, satisfaction, humor, pleasure, and wonderment. The inherent human design is that people’s last years can be the crowning glory of their lives. As boomers are defining this new aging, they are also pioneering how to greet the inevitable decline of their physical vitality and life with acceptance and perhaps joy. They may even have certainty that their future beyond this life has infinite potential.
The Synergy of Ecstatic Aging
A synergy is defined as the interaction or combination of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. There are many kinds. Ones in the natural realm as hydrogen and oxygen gases, combining to form water. Artistic ones as in the creation of music by a group. Business ones, etc.
Ecstatic aging is a synergy. When someone has been blessed with a healthy enough life situation, has used the most effective practices and insights for conscious maturation, and inhabits a more integral worldview, something extraordinary happens. The state of ecstatic aging could not have been predicted, cannot be imagined. It has to be lived. Its qualities are manifest, as discussed in the book.
A special synergy, given our human condition, is the depth of pleasure available to mature integrated couples. It appears that there is no end to the ever-increasing depth and exquisite sensitivity of sexual and emotional pleasure we can experience. Humans only very recently have been able to have this quality of experience.
This is the Gift of Conscious Embodiment.
The Behaviors of Those Living a Mature Integrated Life
- They live with few and mild self-imposed dramas.
- Act competently, knowing their strengths and weaknesses, and deal with them appropriately.
- Can deal as well as possible with whatever life challenges arise.
- Know when and how to shift their energy through soft and receptive, energetic and active, focused and determined, or even ferocious.
- Have healthy lifestyles physically, psychologically, mentally, spiritually, and sleep well.
- Use the insights and sensitivity from using life-enhancing substances as catalysts to bring forth greater wisdom and compassion for self and others.
- No longer fear their ego. A healthy ego is a good friend and ally to one’s higher self.
- Act freely upon their impulses and desires because they are healthy and life-affirming.
- Have tamed their inner critic and are satisfied with who they are, how they feel and relate with their internal and external environments.
- Have no need to be other than they are; no need to hide who they are; no need to pretend to be other than they are.
- Greet most days with optimism and enthusiasm.
- Feel content and comfortable with their overall life experience.
- Feel gratitude for their lives, knowing that most of what they once thought of as mistakes were necessary lessons.
- Are able and willing to acknowledge and embrace the suffering and grief when those arise in their lives.
- Acknowledge their inherent existential fears and vulnerabilities.
- Live playful lives, laughing easily and often at their foibles.
- Spend most of their time doing things they want to do and enjoy.
- Enjoy helping others, taking pleasure in others’ good fortune and success.
- Have lives of creative novelty, pursuing their passions wherever they may lead.
- Find ample time to leisurely enjoy their relationships and other pleasurable pastimes.
- Have finer awareness and discrimination in their emotions, thoughts, and behavior.
- Have deeper, more profound relationships with others as they’ve become more skilled in knowing when and how to share their intimate space; feel comfortable saying ‘no’ when appropriate.
- If coupled: have found that the spontaneous mutual receiving and giving of embodied love is a profound physical, emotional, and spiritual experience.
- Experience ever more loving, sensual relationships and sexual pleasure; finding that love and sexual pleasure are open-ended, that there is no limit to how refined and exquisite these can become.
- Know that in love and pleasure, it’s the depth of the receiver that determines the strength and quality of what can be given; it’s the potency of the negative pole that determines the strength of the energy flow.
- And finally, welcome the ending of their lives with a full, rich sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, and perhaps with the assurance that more extraordinary beauty, goodness, and truth are their soul’s true destiny. These are the beginning pages of the this first chapter:
The Who, Why, and What of Ecstatic Aging
(Chapters 2, 3, and 6 go into the How.)
‘Until one is committed, there is the hesitancy, The chance to draw back—Concerning all acts for initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it.’
Goethe
Through grace and good fortune, many members of the baby boom generation have had the opportunity to lead healthier lives materially, physically, psychologically, and spiritually than any previous generation. Many individuals in the countercultural movement have sought and accessed the healing personal and spiritual growth tools uniquely available during adulthood. They may be living quite satisfactory lives with these advantages. This is to be appreciated and celebrated.
We don’t know why some of these already relatively successful individuals are motivated by a desire to strive further, why they have a mysterious inner drive for something even more, something beyond getting their basic needs met, even well met. This is a further personal evolution into the extraordinary gifts of conscious aging and mature love. Among the cohort of relatively well-functioning seniors, for whatever reasons, some felt called to seek even more. They took further steps in healing and expanding their awareness. As they became more conscious, they could see even better that more was available. Those who pursued this, thru intention and the diligent use of the resources available, have resolved most of their childhood and later adverse conditioning and traumas.
Their thoughts and behaviors are no longer driven by the common neurotic behaviors of denial, rationalization, projection, fear of abandonment, guilt, shame, and all the rest. No longer burdened by the distractions of a past litany of poor motivations and choices, they’ve become more competent individuals, partners, and citizens. With fewer projections and other filters, they can more accurately see the reality of others’ personas. This reduces their stress as they aren’t often surprised by the quality of the character in others’ actions. My partner paraphrased Marion Woodman as saying as we age, the edge of our sword of discernment becomes sharper and sharper because life becomes so precious we don’t want to lose any of it. They have more fun and satisfying lives. They are more capable of creating the quality of life they want.
In this stage, daily life has many moments of delight and humor. It’s a flourishing life. It’s a life full of savoring precious experiences. There will still be difficulties of all sorts and degrees in one’s life, and individual and collective resources will be challenged. Being less churned by unconscious reactivity makes one more transparent about what’s happening and more discriminating about how to best deal with situations as they arise. Lives will need to be serious and focused at such times. If you are blessed to have peers with similar strengths and consciousness, it will help lighten your load.
This book is for mature, loving couples, those who aspire to be in one, and those who aren’t in, or necessarily interested in being in a committed couple. What maturity is, individually and in couples, is discussed throughout this book. This presumes you have good physical health, comfortable circumstances, and a mature, psychologically and spiritually integrated life. I like this Arnold Toynbee quote when applied to us:
‘The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.’
My original book title was Living a Post-Healed Life: The Unique Gifts of Conscious Aging with the Wise Use of Life-Enhancing Substances. I still like it, but I was dissuaded from using it. Ecstatic Aging: Love, Sex, Psychedelics, and Wonderment sounds a lot more fun and interesting, well, for the people who don’t recoil from it. Nonetheless, the original title still seems like a helpful way to further this discussion. So, what do I mean by these terms?
The term post-healed, if taken literally, doesn’t make sense. If one is healed, how can they be post-healed? The problem is that I haven’t found a word or term for the category of experience I’m living and writing about. I’ve thought about it and have asked others, but we have yet to find a better term. A post-healed life isn’t enlightenment. It isn’t a life free of mistakes, stress, crises, suffering, and all the other difficulties that occasionally arise in a human life. So why bother? Well, because in this condition, the number and severities of these are much reduced. At its simplest, post-healed is the state in which one has deconditioned oneself from the unhealthy personal and sociocultural conditioning of one’s youth and healed one’s fundamental life traumas. I’ll be getting into this in much more detail.
Can you imagine no longer being driven consciously, or more likely unconsciously, by the results of emotional traumas — because these have been all or mostly healed? Can you imagine no longer being affected by poor parenting, tough neighborhoods, betrayals by others who’ve had power over you, failed relationships, being afflicted by violence, and other significant life traumas? I couldn’t have imagined quality of life until I did the necessary work.
These deepest, most profound, and permanent emotional healing tools are now available to the general public for the first time. The use of these substances can free us from the unconscious reactivity of many old, unhealed wounds. Once accomplished, it allows for a more satisfying, fulfilling, and content self-directed life than was previously possible. This is a post-healed life with its gifts of conscious aging.
Increased consciousness and healing are the complementary agents of evolutionary change. The paradox of which comes first is it the chicken or the egg feeds into the other’s utility. Under the influence of psychedelics, this healing process may become almost instantaneous. One can become aware of a wound complex, and in that very moment, it dissipates and is gone, gone forever. It’s like shining a laser into a dark room full of cobwebs and dissolving them into vapor that wisps away. These may come individually or in a healing cascade.
I know this is a controversial claim and will surely irritate some readers. That is fine. I invite skepticism, with the caveat that it is essential to keep an open mind and not devolve into the trap of cynicism. Much personal and clinical evidence is in the text to support this assertion.
My personal experiences, informal research, and observations of the world around me have led me to the conclusion that few people attain this stage without some wise use of life-enhancing substances — psychedelics, MDMA, cannabis, and perhaps a few others. This statement isn’t as controversial now as in the past because, over the last decade, there has been ever more media attention on the scientific research demonstrating that these substances have uniquely effective healing potential. Initial studies have found that using these substances is safer and more effective in treating depression, anxiety, addiction, and more than any other known medicines or practice. More studies are underway and planned. Government and medical guidelines and regulations need to catch up with this so the progress can proceed more efficiently. Our world, more than ever, needs more effective healing tools.
My focus is slightly different than what these studies are focused on accomplishing. Rather than using these substances to help heal mental disorders, I’m advocating for working with already quite emotionally healthy people wanting to take a step further. Individuals who use these substances find they work best with optimism, clear intention, wise support, and courage. Going deep into one’s wounds is as challenging as it is worthwhile. This is a true adventure that provides unique benefits.