Why Have We Never Seen Aliens? Ayahuasca and a Conscious Civilization
Advanced planetary civilizations may have discovered that development of their species wasn’t about conquering outer space but rather inner space, and sacred plants of the Amazon and ancestral practices may hold an answer. (Sep 26, 2020)
Fermi’s paradox questions: Making the lowest possible estimate, there could be 100,000 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy alone. So why have you never seen an alien?…Where is everyone?
Scientist Nikolai Kardashev developed a method for ranking entire civilizations, based on that the most advanced ones handle a higher level of energy use.
But when we question it, this assumes that civilizations will progress catalyzed by curiosity, greed, or desires for exploration and expansionism. I understand Kardashev for proposing this, as he has had to rely on the standard we have historically evidenced in our human society as the only sample source. He manages the scenario that in order to grow as a species, more energy needs to be accumulated, forcing advanced civilizations to explore outer space to capture energy from great stars to supply the expansion.
But what if we don’t see aliens because advanced civilizations don’t need to explore outer space?
A hypothesis for the “paradox”
This expansionist and energy-centered progress has historically proven to be a flawed, aggressive and ultimately destructive system.
What if the answer to Fermi’s Paradox is that no civilization in the universe that progressed did so by accumulating more energy and expanding outwards? Then, it could be possible that civilizations that became advanced enough understood the importance of being conscious, of not needing so much energy, so many resources, so much money, so much procreation, so many things…And maybe that’s why we don’t see spaceships conquering galaxies, because space exploration could have been done inwards and discovered that the reality of existence and the universe does not depend on things that occupy a physical volume in space, but on elevated states of consciousness whose importance in the progress of a species we still cannot understand.
If you have had a profound experience with Ayahuasca, mushrooms, or some equivalent method to access expanded states of consciousness, perhaps you have felt that increase of mindfulness capacities and “inward expansionism” and accessed through your consciousness to some kind of understanding about the universe. Why those who have revealing psychedelic experiences talk so much about the universe? About the reality of existence? About the unity of everything and feeling “being the universe”?
A theory my team is working on is that these entities or beings that we see in psychedelic journeys or dreams have something to do with beings from other parts of the universe. That it’s in that invisible world where we connect with everything and that’s how we travel through the universe, not using a physical machine that will never exceed the speed of light.
The curious thing is that Kardashev associates the progress of humanity with energy, and that may be so. Only that it might not be about accumulating electrical energy to power machines to improve our lives, but on channeling other types of internal energy that connect us in a harmonious way with our environment to power our lives in ways that escape our current understanding.
The Unconscious Human Problem
Most of society is regulated upon humanity's inability to be conscious. We allocate tools, funds and laws based on the premise that we have to conform to a system where the component of less conscious humans won't allow for "in an ideal society" scenarios. For instance, global hunger today is not a production problem but a management problem, situation that might be different if some humans behind the system were more conscious.
Every and each one of these problems could be easier to solve if we had more conscious humans in the world.
The Unconscious Human Problem is an important one and there are many instruments to confront this, from educational programs to tougher regulations, but our species might need a quicker solution. As most hippies would say: The world would just be a better place if people were genuinely good to others.
If you’ve had a psychedelic experience you may also have felt self-transcendent phenomena like your ego dissolving and the sense that you are everyone and that everyone is connected. If we could get to the bottom of this and truly understand this concept on why we are all one, why would we do stuff that would damage others? This doesn’t mean the solution is giving psychedelics to everyone, but to study what’s behind this and similar tools to better understand how we could help fostering this mindset to people, especially the ones making important decisions.
Ayahuasca in small doses has shown interesting results regarding this topic in our users (Microhuasca, Oct 2020)
Unraveling the nature of existence through ancient practice
Accessing expanded states of consciousness may help us understand how to become more conscious with others and the environment, and also give us a better understanding of the so-called invisible world, allowing us to come into contact with other dimensions, spaces or entities, which studied under the right perspective could bring us closer to understanding the nature of reality and existence.
Many initiatives seek to understand the nature of existence from fields such as biology, cosmology or quantum physics, and during sessions with our team we often realize that we are still limited to the axioms that modern science has established for us, and we cannot explore certain spaces in a way that cannot be evidenced with the instruments that we have all agreed to use.
While we talk about molecules and atoms, the Shipibo-Konibo indigenous people talk about spirits and dimensions.
The Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous Nation, in the Peruvian Amazon, has existed for more than 4,000 years and is one of the multiple ethnic groups that have been experimenting with sacred plants such as Ayahuasca. Elder healers are constantly in states of expanded consciousness, and carry intriguing approaches about existence that are not limited to healing but that can find parallels in fields as cosmology or other modern sciences, in which humans, nature and the cosmos are strongly related and are acknowledged as one.
What modern scientists explain with molecules and atoms, native healers “onanyabo” explain with spirits and dimensions, although it’s really way more complex than that. What some indigenous communities in the Amazon call Ancestral Science is a form of empirical practice, developed by smart people who also want good for this world.
Nevertheless, in this age, indigenous healers who are the actual stewards of this knowledge are not remotely taken into consideration when building companies in the psychedelic space and if they do, many see them as social responsibility components and have the good-hearted initiative of learning and giving back. But we shouldn’t just be “including” natives in our work but truly uniting and taking their practices seriously as real science. Including traditional approaches shouldn’t just be seen as a cultural or symbolic asset to account for our need for inclusion or to feel better about ourselves.
4,000 years of indigenous practice uniting with psychedelic science
The complexity of this larger holistic perspective is by nature rarely integrated by scientists in the western world, which was a challenge that motivated us to start a team of founders and collaborators we call Endocosmic Foundation.
Panshin Nima, President of the Shipibo-Konibo Ancestral Healers Association, on how 2020 led them to further research and experiment with sacred plants, and making a call for unity between modern and ancestral science. (Video: The Bridgekeepers)
We believe if conventional scientific approaches and native practices truly look for spaces to complement each other, disruptive possibilities may reveal themselves for the progress of humankind.
Today, groups of conscious native healers from the Amazon are making a call for unity. To find together a path to help our world heal and develop, to use their ancient knowledge to work together on healing body and spirit, understanding reality, and achieving the much needed global change that starts with empathy, equality and acceptance of points of view, which are some of the gifts sacred plants can teach us.
In this way, Endocosmic started exploring this vision on early 2020 through Microhuasca, our initiative on Ayahuasca microdosing in non-ceremonial contexts, aiming to address treatment-resistant mental health conditions and nurture self exploration through an assisted process. Today, results show that 71% of our users accomplish their main microdosing intention in their first month. Intentions can range from “get better from my depression” to “be more focused at work” and are measured. Other daily measured variables show that in one month, they feel 54% more focused, 48% more self-sufficient, 34% more calmed, 21% more energetic and 23% more conscious of their spirituality, compared to their base lines.
Microhuasca is Endocosmic’s first effort on exploring humanity’s future by building or backing initiatives around indigenous ancestral practices, expanded states of consciousness and sacred plants, and help them transition to the lab and into the public. This year, we hope to accept a first batch of initiatives led by indigenous founders in unconventional spaces such as:
Ego dissolution and collective consciousness: That sense of everyone being connected. Applications might help in fostering care, compassion and equality in society.
Interdimensionality: Accessing other dimensions or spaces through expanded states of consciousness. This might help us on applications for genetic memory analysis or space travel/communication (“inner space exploration”).
Unconventional uses of sacred plants: Applications of power plants used in non-ceremonial contexts to address treatment-resistant conditions or disease.
Music and healing: Shipibo healers are known to sing “icaros” in Ayahuasca ceremonies to access the spirit world and invoke healing power, diagnostics or treatment instructions. Applications might help in incorporating music as a healing mechanism.
If you’re a scientist, investor or enthusiast that would like to join or collaborate to the cause, please contact me at alvaro@microhuasca.com and I can send you a detailed analysis of what we’re up to. Please share! We’re a self-funded nonprofit and all aid we can receive will help us go on.
Álvaro Zárate is co-founder and CEO at Endocosmic Foundation, where they build or back initiatives exploring humanity’s future through consciousness expansion and ancestral practices. One of their initiatives, Microhuasca, works on Ayahuasca microdosing for mental health and self-exploration.
Previously, he’s worked 10 years developing entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems in LatAm and leading independent initiatives that helped build the Peruvian startup ecosystem. He founded Startup Academy, first private incubator in Peru, City Incubators, where they supported a portfolio of +2,000 early stage startups and Doer, smart guide for accelerators and related institutions.