PSYCHEDELICS AND THE PATH

PSYCHEDELICS AND THE PATH

Code of Ethics for Spiritual Guides

Preamble
People have long sought to enrich their lives and to awaken to their full natures through spiritual practices including prayer, meditation, mind-body disciplines, service, ritual, community liturgy, holy-day and seasonal observances, and rites of passage. "Primary religious practices" are those intended, or especially likely, to bring about exceptional states of consciousness such as the direct experience of the divine, of cosmic unity, or of boundless awareness.

In any community, there are some who feel called to assist others along spiritual paths, and who are known as ministers, rabbis, pastors, curanderas, shamans, priests, or other titles. We call such people 'guides': those experienced in some practice, familiar with the terrain, and who act to facilitate the spiritual practices of others. A guide need not claim exclusive or definitive knowledge of the terrain.

Spiritual practices, and especially primary religious practices, carry risks. Therefore, when an individual chooses to practice with the assistance of a guide, both take on special responsibilities. The Council on Spiritual Practices proposes the following Code of Ethics for those who serve as spiritual guides.

[Intention] Spiritual guides are to practice and serve in ways that cultivate awareness, empathy, and wisdom.
[Serving Society] Spiritual practices are to be designed and conducted in ways that respect the common good, with due regard for public safety, health, and order. Because the increased awareness gained from spiritual practices can catalyze desire for personal and social change, guides shall use special care to help direct the energies of those they serve, as well as their own, in responsible ways that reflect a loving regard for all life.
[Serving Individuals] Spiritual guides shall respect and seek to preserve the autonomy and dignity of each person. Participation in any primary religious practice must be voluntary and based on prior disclosure and consent given individually by each participant while in an ordinary state of consciousness. Disclosure shall include, at a minimum, discussion of any elements of the practice that could reasonably be seen as presenting physical or psychological risks. In particular, participants must be warned that primary religious experience can be difficult and dramatically transformative.

Guides shall make reasonable preparations to protect each participant's health and safety during spiritual practices and in the vulnerable periods that may follow. Limits on the behaviors of participants and facilitators are to be made clear and agreed upon in advance of any session. Appropriate customs of confidentiality are to be established and honored.
[Competence] Spiritual guides shall assist with only those practices for which they are qualified by personal experience and by training or education.
[Integrity] Spiritual guides shall strive to be aware of how their own belief systems, values, needs, and limitations affect their work. During primary religious practices, participants may be especially vulnerable to suggestion, manipulation, and exploitation; therefore, guides pledge to protect participants and not to allow anyone to use that vulnerability in ways that harm participants or others.
[Quiet Presence] To help safeguard against the harmful consequences of personal and organizational ambition, spiritual communities are usually better allowed to grow through attraction rather than active promotion.
[Not for Profit] Spiritual practices are to be conducted in the spirit of service. Spiritual guides shall strive to accommodate participants without regard to their ability to pay or make donations.
[Tolerance] Spiritual guides shall practice openness and respect towards people whose beliefs are in apparent contradiction to their own.
[Peer Review] Each guide shall seek the counsel of other guides to help ensure the wholesomeness of his or her practices and shall offer counsel when there is need.

This draft for public comment was released 15 November 1999. The current version is available on the Internet at www.csp.org.

Copyright © 1995 - 1999 Council on Spiritual Practices

Box 460820
San Francisco, CA 94146-0820
USA

Permission is hereby given to reprint this Code, provided that the text is reproduced complete and verbatim, including the CSP contact information, copyright, and this notice of limited permission to reprint.

Your comments are invited and will be considered for future revisions. Endorsements of the Code are also welcome.

Books on Psychedelics and Drug Issues — HTML Editions
Book Reviews

Hidden Memories : Voices and Visions from Within by Robert A. Baker. Paperback (September 1996)
High Priest by Timothy Leary, Howard Hallis (Illustrator). Paperback (October 1995)
Illusion and Disillusionment: Core Issues in Psychotherapy by Stanley H. Teitelbaum. Hardcover (September 1999)
Psychedelic Prayers & Other Meditations by Ralph Metzner(Introduction), Timothy Leary. Paperback (May 1997)
The Psychology of Anomalous Experience : A Cognitive Approach by Graham Reed. Paperback (September 1988)
True Hallucinations : Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradise by Terence McKenna, Terrence McKenna. Paperback (April 1994)
Cognitive Therapy for Delusions, Voices and Paranoia (The Wiley Series in Clinical Psychology) by Paul Chadwick, et al. Paperback (April 1996)
CWF Children With Flashbacks - The Innocent Victims Of The Hippie Generation, Children That Had Yet-to-be Conceived by Marvis Hawkins. Paperback
The Ecstatic Imagination : Psychedelic Experiences and the Psychoanalysis of Self-Actualization by Dan Merkur, Daniel Merkur. Hardcover (February 1998)
Hallucinations in Clinical Psychiatry : A Guide for the Mental Health Professional (Brunner/Mazel Clinical Psychiatry Series, No. 2) by Ghazi Assad. Hardcover (December 1990)

The Psychedelic Experience : A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Citadel Underground) by Timothy Leary, et al. Paperback (February 1995)
The Anatomy of Hallucinations by Fred H. Johnson.
Art et fantasme
The Book of Highs; 250 Ways to Alter Consciousness Without Drugs. by Edward. Rosenfeld.
The content of hallucinations, delusions, and dreams among Zulu-speaking rural psychiatric patients by G. F. Borsten.
The cult of the seer in the ancient Middle East: a contribution to current research on hallucinations drawn from Coptic and other texts by Violet MacDermot.


Experiences: an inquiry into some ambiguities by John Michael Hinton.
Fantastic thought : all about dreams, daydreams, hallucinations, and hypnosis by Steven Starker.

Filosofâias del underground by Luis Racionero.
Fire in the Brain : Clinical Tales of Hallucination by Ronald K. Siegel.

Glaube, Ideologie und Wahn : das Ich zwischen Realitèat und Illusion by Werner Huth.
Hallucinations : Behavior, Experience, and Theory by Siegel.
Hallucinations and Their Impact on Art by Edmund Michael Rhys Critchley.
Hallucinations in Children (Clinical Insights) by Daniel Pilowsky, William Chambers (Editor).
Halluzinationen : ein Beitrag zur allgemeinen und klinischen Psychopathologie by Manfred Spitzer.
Hashish, wine, opium by Thâeophile Gautier.
The Illusion Trap : How to Achieve a Happier Life by William Knaus, Connie Handricks.
Illusions a Psychological Study by James Sully.

La perception extâerieure : texte inâedit by Alfred Binet.
Le livre des extases by Edward Rosenfeld.
Le râeel et son double : essai sur l'illusion by Clâement Rosset.

Nos illusions de psychanalystes
Of Two Minds : Poets Who Hear Voices by Judith Weissman.

On Being Stoned; A Psychological Study of Marijuana Intoxication, by Charles T., Tart.
Origin and mechanisms of hallucinations; proceedings of the 14th annual meeting ... New York City, November 14-15, 1969
Realms of the Human Unconscious : Observations from Lsd Research by Stanislav, Groff

Sensory deception : a scientific analysis of hallucination by Peter D. Slade.
Sensory Deception : A Scientific Analysis of Hallucination (Johns Hopkins Series in Contemporary Medicine and Public Health) by Peter D. Slade, Richard P. Bentall.