Psychedelics, the self, and the collapse of materialist assumptions
Reading | Neuroscience
Christophe Morin, PhD | 2025-07-25
Materialist assumptions often ignore or dismiss the role of consciousness in shaping brain activity itself, argues Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Christophe Morin. Neuroplasticity forces us to reconsider this oversight. The brain does not merely react; it is re-organized in response to intention, attention, and behavior. Studies in mindfulness and trauma recovery demonstrate that new neural pathways can form when individuals shift their patterns of thought and belief. These changes are not trivial: they suggest that mind—and the awareness behind it—is a causal force, Dr. Morin maintains.
For much of my scientific career, I operated within the dominant materialist framework. According to this view, consciousness is nothing more than a byproduct of neural complexity, an emergent property of the brain’s biochemical activity. The mind, in this paradigm, is simply what the brain does. As a trained media psychologist and neuroscientist, this was the paradigm I inherited and taught for decades. It was only when direct experience collided with theory that I began to see the cracks.
Years of research into neuroplasticity, immersive psychedelic work, and spiritual inquiry have forced me to reconsider these foundations. Today, I regard consciousness not as something the brain produces, but something the brain participates in. This shift has not only shaped my recent books and academic inquiry, but also inspired the development of a transformative practice called the OPEN model, which blends neuroscience with ritual and spiritual reflection.
In this essay, I argue that psychedelics, neuroplasticity, and intentional practice offer compelling evidence for a new paradigm—one that reclaims consciousness as a fundamental, organizing field of reality. This is not a rejection of science, but a more expansive integration of its scope.
The crumbling edifice of materialism
Materialism has served science well. It has enabled life-saving medical advances and a clearer understanding of physical systems. But it has reached its limits, particularly in explaining subjective experience. The “hard problem of consciousness,” famously articulated by philosopher David Chalmers, remains unresolved: how does brain activity give rise to felt experience—our inner world of thoughts, emotions, and meaning?
More importantly, materialist assumptions often ignore or dismiss the role of consciousness in shaping brain activity itself. Neuroplasticity challenges this oversight. The brain does not merely react; it reorganizes itself in response to intention, attention, and behavior. Studies in mindfulness and trauma recovery demonstrate that new neural pathways can form when individuals shift their patterns of thought and belief [1]. These changes are not trivial. They suggest that mind—and the awareness behind it—is a causal force.
If the brain can be rewired by focused consciousness, then we are no longer dealing with a closed-loop system. We are dealing with a relational model in which mind and matter interact, but are not reducible to one another.
Psychedelics and the field of mind
Psychedelic substances such as psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca further complicate the materialist model. Under their influence, individuals routinely report profound shifts in identity, perception, and meaning. Common themes include the dissolution of ego, a felt sense of unity with all life, and encounters with what are described as “higher intelligences” or archetypal energies [2].
These experiences are often dismissed as hallucinations. But that position ignores both their consistency across cultures and the durable psychological benefits they produce. Studies from institutions like Johns Hopkins University and Imperial College London have shown that a single psychedelic session can lead to lasting reductions in depression, anxiety, and addictive behavior [3].
If psychedelics were simply disrupting normal brain function, why would they result in greater coherence and well-being afterward? A more plausible explanation is that they allow access to broader aspects of consciousness—layers of mind that are typically filtered out by our waking ego. The brain’s default mode network (DMN) has been described as a sort of “neural gatekeeper” [4]. Psychedelics temporarily quiet the DMN, thus suspending the ego, a process through which expanded awareness arises and deeper integration of unresolved emotional content is possible.
What we call “altered states” may in fact be closer to baseline consciousness—before it is narrowed by cultural conditioning and the brain’s filtering systems.
Consciousness as primary: A non-materialist model
These findings support the notion that consciousness is not generated by the brain but accessed through it or even embodied in all of us. This view aligns with philosophical idealism, which posits that mind is the fundamental substrate of reality. It also echoes quantum interpretations that suggest observation (or awareness) plays a role in shaping reality [5].
Neuroscientist Mario Beauregard has long argued that the mind cannot be reduced to brain activity alone and that spiritual experiences have real neural correlates without being reducible to them [6]. Similarly, physicist James Glattfelder contends that consciousness may be best understood through the lens of information theory, where subjective experience emerges from deep patterns of encoded relational meaning—far beyond the capabilities of purely mechanistic models [7].
As Bernardo Kastrup and others have argued, treating consciousness as the foundation—rather than a late-emerging property—resolves many of the logical inconsistencies in current models [8]. If the brain is more like a receiver or interface for consciousness, then the insights accessed through psychedelics and altered states are not anomalies; they are glimpses into the wider field from which we arise.
This shift has practical consequences. It encourages us to view psychological suffering not merely as brain dysfunction, but as disconnection from a deeper field of coherence. Healing, then, involves not just symptom reduction, but reconnection—to self, to meaning, to what some traditions might call soul.
OPEN: A framework for neurospiritual transformation
To translate these insights into everyday life, I developed the OPEN model—a practical system that helps individuals raise consciousness and rewire the brain through intentional rituals [9]. The model is built around three aspects of self: the Primal (body and instinct), the Rational (thought and logic), and the Spiritual (meaning and transcendence).
Each of these selves can be balanced through targeted rituals. Primal rituals include movement, breathwork, and grounding practices. Rational rituals involve engaging with music, stories, learning, creative expressions. Spiritual rituals may include prayer, meditation and entheogens. These practices are not symbolic. They are neurospiritual tools that alter brain structure by engaging in the emotional and energetic fields of the practitioner.
As a scientist and a practitioner, I do not claim these rituals “prove” any metaphysical truths. What they demonstrate—repeatedly—is that consistent, intentional action can rewire the neural and narrative architecture of the self. I have personally observed over 1000 participants in such rituals reporting increased resilience, emotional stability, and a sense of coherence in their lives. There is no doubt that these changes are measurable and reproducible.
But they also point to something deeper: the self is not a fixed identity, but a fluid interface between consciousness and form. Through ritual, we participate in the unfolding of that interface. We become both authors and observers of our own emergence.
Toward a unified field of consciousness
I believe we are approaching a new paradigm—one that integrates the empirical rigor of science with the introspective depth of contemplative practice. This is not a return to mysticism, but a reclamation of what science originally aimed to do: describe reality as it is, not just as it appears through a limited lens.
A unified field model of consciousness does not require abandoning rationality. It requires expanding it. It means allowing room for experience, for mystery, for the possibility that awareness itself precedes form. It invites us to see healing not just as recovery, but as remembrance—of who and what we truly are beyond conditioning.
This is the invitation of psychedelics. This is the message of neuroplasticity. And this is the practice of OPEN: not to escape the self, but to open it—layer by layer, ritual by ritual—until what remains is not an object, but a field. Not a name, but a knowing.
References
- Davidson, R. J., & McEwen, B. S. (2012). Social influences on neuroplasticity: Stress and interventions to promote well-being. Nature Neuroscience, 15(5), 689–695.
- Griffiths, R. R., Richards, W. A., McCann, U., & Jesse, R. (2006). Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. Psychopharmacology, 187(3), 268–283.
- Carhart-Harris, R. L., & Goodwin, G. M. (2017). The therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs: Past, present, and future. Neuropsychopharmacology, 42(11), 2105–2113.
- Carhart-Harris, R. L., et al. (2012). Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(6), 2138–2143.
- Rosenblum, B., & Kuttner, F. (2011). Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
- Beauregard, M., & O’Leary, D. (2007). The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul. HarperOne.
- Glattfelder, J. B. (2019). Information—Consciousness—Reality: How a New Understanding of the Universe Can Help Answer Age-Old Questions of Existence. Springer.
- Kastrup, B. (2019). The Idea of the World: A multi-disciplinary argument for the mental nature of reality. Iff Books.
- Morin, C. (2025). OPEN: A Neurospiritual Guide to the Life You Want. Honolulu, Hawaii: Depth Insights Press.
Essentia Foundation communicates, in an accessible but rigorous manner, the latest results in science and philosophy that point to the mental nature of reality. We are committed to strict, academic-level curation of the material we publish.
Recently published
|
Anil Seth is a world-leading neuroscientist who has made important contributions to our understanding of reality as a controlled hallucination. According to the concept of active inference, our perception of reality is not a direct reflection of the world but, instead, the most accurate guess that our brain can muster, which it continually checks and updates with incoming sensory information. But strange things happen when neuroscientists play around with sensory input in unexpected ways. Anil Seth and his team at Sussex University created the Dream Machine, a stroboscopic device that syncs flickering light to music to induce vivid, often complex, hallucinatory visuals in the viewer. In group sessions, exactly the same white light and music gives rise to a tremendous diversity in perception.
|
Prof. Larry Nazareth recounts the fundamental difference in perspective that underlies the Cartesian and Bergsonian views of life and world. The former’s dictum states: ‘I compute, algorithmically, therefore I think, symbolically, therefore I am, experientially.’ The latter, however, reverses this dictum: ‘I am, experientially, therefore I think, symbolically, therefore I compute, algorithmically.’ Depending on which of these views we choose to base our understanding of nature and life, we may or may not have a future, Nazareth argues.
From the archives
|
In this conversation, neuroscientist Dr. Christof Koch, philosopher Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, and Hans Busstra explore what it means to take mystical experience seriously without abandoning scientific rigor. Both Koch and Kastrup emphasize that some psychedelic experiences exhibit a striking degree of specificity and convergence across individuals, pointing toward possible archetypal universals. While this raises clear ontological questions—suggesting that the contents of mystical experience may, in some sense, be real—the deeper lesson may be epistemic: alongside knowledge gained through scientific experimentation, there may also exist a form of direct acquaintance with truth; a ‘hyper-real’ mode of knowing that can leave the experiencer puzzled for years, or even a lifetime, and can inspire groundbreaking new science.
|
This eye-opening and important essay argues that Analytic Idealism could help overcome the current conceptual impasse in psychiatry. Dr. Veltri explains how all the major psychiatric disorders can be reinterpreted, in a more therapeutically conducive manner, under the light of an idealist ontology of mind. Indeed, he reframes mental disorders as disturbances in the dissociative boundary between the individual “alter” and universal consciousness, a change of perspective that leads to strong “eureka” moments. The resulting framework makes possible a deconstruction of neuroscientific data and suggests a shift in therapeutic focus toward boundary modulation.
|
Professor of physics Ivette Fuentes is doing groundbreaking work at the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity. At the heart of Fuentes’ work are Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs)—ultra-cold states of matter in which millions of atoms behave as a single quantum system. These systems are exquisitely sensitive to gravitational effects, making them ideal candidates for probing whether gravity plays an active role in quantum collapse, as Roger Penrose has long suggested. In this conversation with Hans Busstra, Fuentes reflects on her original, cross-disciplinary approach to physics by drawing on her background as a dancer: first, one must fully master the classical forms—the established fields of physics—but true novelty only emerges when one dares to break the rules.
Reading
Essays
|
In this conversation with Hans Busstra, the legendary CPU inventor explains his quantum theory of consciousness in more detail and outlines some of his novel ideas, to be presented in his upcoming new book. He discusses, for instance, how we should regard our material universe: “spacetime and matter are the permanent memory of the experience of the self knowing of One.”
|
In this remarkably observant essay, Brian Fang shows that the mathematics of the ubiquitous Fourier transform—which ties the words of events and frequencies together—provides a formal grammar for understanding how temporality is a facet of eternity, and vice-versa. As such, perhaps what we call “the world” is not fundamentally made of matter unfolding in time, but of patterns that admit atemporal readings. This does not prove idealism, but makes it less strange. If being can be fully captured in structural terms, then perhaps the ultimate constituents of reality are not particles in motion, but intelligible patterns that merely appear temporal when viewed from within.
|
In this conversation, neuroscientist Dr. Christof Koch, philosopher Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, and Hans Busstra explore what it means to take mystical experience seriously without abandoning scientific rigor. Both Koch and Kastrup emphasize that some psychedelic experiences exhibit a striking degree of specificity and convergence across individuals, pointing toward possible archetypal universals. While this raises clear ontological questions—suggesting that the contents of mystical experience may, in some sense, be real—the deeper lesson may be epistemic: alongside knowledge gained through scientific experimentation, there may also exist a form of direct acquaintance with truth; a ‘hyper-real’ mode of knowing that can leave the experiencer puzzled for years, or even a lifetime, and can inspire groundbreaking new science.
|
This eye-opening and important essay argues that Analytic Idealism could help overcome the current conceptual impasse in psychiatry. Dr. Veltri explains how all the major psychiatric disorders can be reinterpreted, in a more therapeutically conducive manner, under the light of an idealist ontology of mind. Indeed, he reframes mental disorders as disturbances in the dissociative boundary between the individual “alter” and universal consciousness, a change of perspective that leads to strong “eureka” moments. The resulting framework makes possible a deconstruction of neuroscientific data and suggests a shift in therapeutic focus toward boundary modulation.
|
Professor of physics Ivette Fuentes is doing groundbreaking work at the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity. At the heart of Fuentes’ work are Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs)—ultra-cold states of matter in which millions of atoms behave as a single quantum system. These systems are exquisitely sensitive to gravitational effects, making them ideal candidates for probing whether gravity plays an active role in quantum collapse, as Roger Penrose has long suggested. In this conversation with Hans Busstra, Fuentes reflects on her original, cross-disciplinary approach to physics by drawing on her background as a dancer: first, one must fully master the classical forms—the established fields of physics—but true novelty only emerges when one dares to break the rules.
Seeing
Videos
|
In this superbly written essay, psychoanalyst Jamey Hecht engages in a virtual trialogue with philosophers John Searle and Thomas Nagel. He cogently argues, without any appeal to religious thinking and through a rigorous analysis of Searle’s and Nagel’s philosophical viewpoints, that naturalism is intrinsically inadequate to account for the totality of human experience, and that Dualism, too, must remain on the table as a reasonable hypothesis.
|
In this conversation with Natalia Vorontsova, Francis Lucille explains that Advaita Vedanta is grounded in a single axiom: there is only one reality, which he equates with consciousness. The apparent multiplicity of selves, worlds, bodies, and minds is an appearance arising within this one consciousness. An important value of Advaita Vedanta, in the myriad of idealist spiritual traditions, is that it focuses not so much on achieving altered states of consciousness, but rather offers a method to recognize that consciousness is the single, universal reality.
|
This short and powerful essay argues that the widespread dismissal of the Hard Problem of Consciousness is an unintended consequence of science education itself. Our pedagogy first encourages us to project the language of intention onto mindless processes, cheapening the concept; then, it swiftly debunks that intention as a mere metaphor. After years of this training, we reflexively apply the same logic to ourselves, trivializing the one form of interiority that is undeniably real, argues Brian Fang.
Let us build the future of our culture together
Essentia Foundation is a registered non-profit committed to making its content as accessible as possible. Therefore, we depend on contributions from people like you to continue to do our work. There are many ways to contribute.
