Psychedelics and Panentheism
A Whiteheadian Response to Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes
Sjöstedt-Hughes, P. (2025). Pantheism: One and all. Philosophical Psychology, 38(7), 3292–3317. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2025.2499627
Preliminary Note: This is a second version of "Psychedelics and Pantheism," having corrected the mistaken assertion, in the first version, that Sjöstedt-Hughes thinks Spinoza an Idealist. The correction was offered by Sjöstedt-Hughes in a brief Facebook exchange. I appreciate his correction and welcome more. My aim is to provoke discussion on his ideas. - Jay McDaniel
“Pantheism – All is God – is the hidden doctrine behind many reported psychedelic-occasioned experiences, both in the literature and in clinical trials, yet its meaning is little understood in the clinical and therapeutic spheres.”
So writes Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes in his essay “Pantheism: One and All.” His aim is to address this gap by offering a fresh outline of pantheism. He explores the etymology, history, and meanings of the words pan (all) and theos (God), and develops a typology that distinguishes two principal varieties: Monist Pantheism and Idealist Pantheism. He also discusses related doctrines, including Physicalist Pantheism, Partial Pantheism, Panentheism, and Panpsychism. The essay is a veritable trove of insights, particularly for its rich historical detail and linguistic depth. I encourage anyone interested in pantheism and psychedelic-occasioned experiences to read it.
Shortly, I will propose a Whiteheadian alternative to some of his claims—suggesting that panentheism (everything in God), rather than pantheism (everything is God), may offer a more helpful framework for interpreting certain psychedelic-occasioned experiences—namely, those that carry within them a feeling of love and a sense that, at the very heart of the universe, there is a field of love: not all-powerful, yet holding all things together and, to use Whitehead’s phrase, “transforming the world into beauty,” flooding back into creation again and again in a loving and providential way.
I suggest that, for Whitehead, the “universal mind” of which Sjöstedt-Hughes speaks is best understood as this field of love, which Whitehead called the consequent nature of God. It is not all-powerful; it does not know the future in advance; and it is not the source of everything that happens in the universe. It is not even the ultimate reality of the universe—for Whitehead, that role belongs to Creativity, not to God. Yet this divine field of love may well be experienced, at least in part, in certain psychedelic states, and such experiences may have a healing effect. That is the question I want to raise for readers interested in therapeutic psychedelics. But first, I want to present Sjöstedt-Hughes’s ideas on his own terms and in his own words.
So writes Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes in his essay “Pantheism: One and All.” His aim is to address this gap by offering a fresh outline of pantheism. He explores the etymology, history, and meanings of the words pan (all) and theos (God), and develops a typology that distinguishes two principal varieties: Monist Pantheism and Idealist Pantheism. He also discusses related doctrines, including Physicalist Pantheism, Partial Pantheism, Panentheism, and Panpsychism. The essay is a veritable trove of insights, particularly for its rich historical detail and linguistic depth. I encourage anyone interested in pantheism and psychedelic-occasioned experiences to read it.
Shortly, I will propose a Whiteheadian alternative to some of his claims—suggesting that panentheism (everything in God), rather than pantheism (everything is God), may offer a more helpful framework for interpreting certain psychedelic-occasioned experiences—namely, those that carry within them a feeling of love and a sense that, at the very heart of the universe, there is a field of love: not all-powerful, yet holding all things together and, to use Whitehead’s phrase, “transforming the world into beauty,” flooding back into creation again and again in a loving and providential way.
I suggest that, for Whitehead, the “universal mind” of which Sjöstedt-Hughes speaks is best understood as this field of love, which Whitehead called the consequent nature of God. It is not all-powerful; it does not know the future in advance; and it is not the source of everything that happens in the universe. It is not even the ultimate reality of the universe—for Whitehead, that role belongs to Creativity, not to God. Yet this divine field of love may well be experienced, at least in part, in certain psychedelic states, and such experiences may have a healing effect. That is the question I want to raise for readers interested in therapeutic psychedelics. But first, I want to present Sjöstedt-Hughes’s ideas on his own terms and in his own words.
The Totality
For Sjöstedt-Hughes, pan denotes the entire totality of what is—the full sweep of existence, encompassing both the physical or material and the mental (ideas, thoughts, desires). In his words, pan is the All: ""By “all” we mean existence in all and any of its guises." He turns to Spinoza as an example of this view, and notes Spinoza's idea of Substance as an underlying source:
For Sjöstedt-Hughes, pan denotes the entire totality of what is—the full sweep of existence, encompassing both the physical or material and the mental (ideas, thoughts, desires). In his words, pan is the All: ""By “all” we mean existence in all and any of its guises." He turns to Spinoza as an example of this view, and notes Spinoza's idea of Substance as an underlying source:
For Spinoza, “all” that exists is the one Substance which he names as Nature or as God. Matter, extension, or the physical is but one of an infinity of expressions, or Attributes, of this Substance. Mind is another expression of this same Substance. Matter and Mind are the two Attributes to which we humans are privy in our perception of existence.
For Sjöstedt-Hughes, then, Spinoza offers the most definitive presentation of what he calls Monistic Pantheism
In Monist Pantheism, mind and matter are two ways of expressing the one Substance that is God or Nature (Deus sive natura). That one substance is not merely matter, it is not merely mind, it is both and infinitely more – thus it is a neutral monism (as opposed to a physical monism, physicalism; or to a mental monism, idealism, below). One can do no better than to read Spinoza directly to become acquainted with this primary form of Pantheism.
Idealism
Sjöstedt-Hughes' discussion of Pantheism is linked both with Spinoza's monism and with other more Idealist philosophies, although he does not think Spinoza an Idealist philosopher. Concerning Idealism he writes:
Idealism has two main varieties: Firstly, it is the philosophical doctrine that mentality, or mind, consciousness, experience, is the fundamental stuff or substance of reality. Secondly, Idealism is the view that the reality we perceive is merely an appearance or mask of an unknown reality.
As I understand him, in developing the idea of Monistic Pantheism, Sjöstedt-Hughes is proposing three key ideas, some from Spinoza and one (the third) from Idalism: (1) that “pan” refers to the All, or the totality of what is real; (2) that the constituents of this All include both the material and the mental, thereby distinguishing it from a purely physicalist pantheism that includes only the material; and (3) that this All expresses an underlying reality of which these constituents are appearances.
If I am right in this reading, then the question then emerges: Is this underlying reality of which the constituents are appearances a universal Mind, otherwise named God? Does it have some kind of agency or purpose? In Monistic Pantheism, as conceived by Sjöstedt-Hughes, the answer is Yes. This is the point at which I offer a Whiteheadian alternative, namely that the underlying reality is better named Creativity and that God is different from Creativity, but its primordial expression. First, though, a word about the universal mind is in order.
The Universal Mind
Theos denotes, in his words, a “universal mind” that permeates the all. He writes:
Theos denotes, in his words, a “universal mind” that permeates the all. He writes:
“The universal mind is, respectively: (i) the essential quality of the theos in the word Pantheism, (ii) the mental quality of the universe itself, (iii) the mental quality that humans may attain—perhaps by drugs, as James and Watts stipulate, or by other means—that is temporarily numerically, thus qualitatively, identical to (ii), as it is a becoming one with the One, the fusing of the individual mind into the mind of God/Nature. This universal mind is not preferential or loving—for ‘God’ is not meant to be the personal monarch of the Abrahamic tradition, but rather ‘the God of the philosophers’, an abstract, permeating cosmic mind that cares not for earthly issues, let alone for those of a nation, people, or person.”
As I understand Sjöstedt-Hughes, he is suggesting that the underlying reality of which all finite creatures are instances is a universal mind, otherwise named God or the One; and that in certain states of consciousness—sometimes induced by drugs—individuals can become immersed in or fused with this One, such that, in the moment at hand, they experience themselves as being one with it. In this way, certain psychedelic-occasioned experiences are openings into, and experiences of, the pantheistic heart of the universe, itself non-preferential with respect to particular entities, but nevertheless the vital, forever-differentiating consciousness/energy of which all things are expressions.
Complementary to this, for Sjöstedt-Hughes, is the notion that all expressions of this energy—atomic, molecular, cellular, biological, emotional, intellectual, planetary, galactic, or extraterrestrial, whether within three-dimensional space or in other dimensions—manifest the consciousness of the One in their own unique ways. The universe, then, is vibrant with energy and consciousness. Hence the doctrine of panpsychism. On this view, the creativity and sentience of the universe, in all its diverse expressions, is, as it were, God godding.
Panentheism
After developing his notions on Monistic Pantheism and its Idealistic underpinning, he turns to the variants, one of which is Panentheism, which he finds incoherent. He writes:
“‘Panentheism’ is supposed to mean ‘all in God’ (pan–en–theos), and thus God in all. But, in order to essentially distinguish it from Pantheism, Panentheism is the view that God is Nature and more.”
He then adds a note about its incoherence:
He then adds a note about its incoherence:
“Panentheism is then an incoherent idea for two main reasons, but ultimately it is coherent and distinctive for another reason: (i) In a strict sense Panentheism is an oxymoron because it proposes that God is existence and more than existence, implying the absurdity that there exists more than there exists. (ii) Panentheism can misconstrue Pantheism as Physicalist Pantheism (thus excluding a universal mind) and considers itself an advance upon that. But when we properly consider Pantheism in the Monist or Idealist forms, there proceeds no such advance. (iii) As actually distinct from Pantheism in the sense that God is ontologically distinct from the rest of Nature, Panentheism draws close to the notion of Classical Theism—however, Panentheism retains its distinctiveness from Pantheism and Classical Theism in that it proffers a non-providential God.”
Relational Panentheism
I turn, then, to a critique of Sjöstedt-Hughes’s treatment of panentheism. In my view, he is mistaken in claiming that panentheism is an oxymoron “because it proposes that God is existence and more than existence.” I propose, by contrast, that God is not the totality of existence, and that existence itself includes, but is more than God. It would have been better, I believe, if Sjöstedt-Hughes had distinguished God from the All of existence, recognizing that God is among the All, albeit not a located in a particular region of space but rather everywhere at once. Thus it can be meaningful to speak of God and the World, not simply of the World as God.
Here I am following Whitehead who, in Part V of Process and Reality, proposes that God and the World each have their agency, that they are immanent within each other, and also that they transcend each other and create one another. As Whitehead puts it:
Relational Panentheism
I turn, then, to a critique of Sjöstedt-Hughes’s treatment of panentheism. In my view, he is mistaken in claiming that panentheism is an oxymoron “because it proposes that God is existence and more than existence.” I propose, by contrast, that God is not the totality of existence, and that existence itself includes, but is more than God. It would have been better, I believe, if Sjöstedt-Hughes had distinguished God from the All of existence, recognizing that God is among the All, albeit not a located in a particular region of space but rather everywhere at once. Thus it can be meaningful to speak of God and the World, not simply of the World as God.
Here I am following Whitehead who, in Part V of Process and Reality, proposes that God and the World each have their agency, that they are immanent within each other, and also that they transcend each other and create one another. As Whitehead puts it:
It is as true to say that the World is immanent in God,
as that God is immanent in the World.
It is as true to say that God transcends the World, as that the World transcends God.
It is as true to say that God creates the World, as that the World creates God. (Pr, 348)
What Whitehead is expressing here is a relational panentheism as opposed to an emanationist pantheism.
Let it be noted that Whitehead himself does not use the term panentheism to describe his perspective. Sjöstedt-Hughes observes that, at one point, Whitehead referred to himself as a pantheist. If this is the case, I suspect that Whitehead did not mean Monistic Pantheism as described by Sjöstedt-Hughes above. Rather, he likely meant panentheism of a more relational type, but was unfamiliar with the term. Sjöstedt-Hughes is mistaken in claiming that panentheism, at least of the relational kind, is an oxymoron “because it proposes that God is existence and more than existence.” So much depends on what "existence" means in this sentence.
Two Meanings of Existence
For some people, existence is used synonymously with reality, whereas for others, it refers to actuality. In a Whiteheadian context if "existence" means "reality," then it refers to anything that can be experienced in any way and, more specifically, to the eight kinds of existence adumbrated in Process and Reality: actual entities, eternal objects, prehensions, subjective forms, propositions, nexuses, contrasts, and multiplicities. Any object of experience, even if illusory, 'exists' as an object of experience, as does the emotional tone (subjective form) of experiencing (prehending) that object. Likewise any proposal for understanding the world, understood as a series of ideas (propositions) exists, even if out of touch with the the world, 'exists,' as do the 'contrasts' it has with the world.
However, if 'existence' refers to actuality, it has a narrower meaning. It refers to the actuality of a given moment of experience, a given actual occasion. Here it refers to the very act of 'actualizing possibilities' through decisions, which is itself an act of self-creativity. Eternal objects and propositions and contrasts do not actualize possibilities; only actual entities do. Thus 'existence' happens wherever there is an act of decision-making, This act is the very essence of actuality, and it is not the result of divine activity or, for that matter, of any monistic One of which the universe may be an expression. This means that any consideration of the All must be complemented by attention to the Each: that is, to the unique individuality of all that is actual.
Whitehead on Spinoza
Here it is instructive to consider what Whitehead says of Spinoza's monism.
In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents. It is only then capable of characterization through its accidental embodiments, and apart from these accidents is devoid of actuality. In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed ‘creativity’, and God is its primordial, non-temporal accident. In monistic philosophies, Spinoza’s or absolute idealism, this ultimate is God, who is also equivalently termed ‘The Absolute.’ In such monistic schemes, the ultimate is illegitimately allowed a final, ‘eminent’ reality, beyond that ascribed to any of its accidents. In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought. One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate. (PR, 7)
Creativity as the Ultimate Reality
Taken into context with other ideas found in Process and Reality, Whitehead is saying:
- There is an ultimate reality: Creativity.
- It is analogous to Aristotle's prime matter, yet devoid of any hint of passivity. It is the activity of which all things are manifestations.
- It is not “the Absolute” of Spinoza or of absolute idealism, because it is actual by virtue of its actualizations, not apart from them. It is not more real than the universe.
- God is not the ultimate reality itself but rather its primordial accident: its primordial self-actualization. One analogue, not made by Whitehead, is to think of Creativity as the creative abyss of which all things are expressions, itself not a being among beings but the activity of all beings.
- Other actualities are likewise expressions of the ultimate, not reducible to the divine expression.
In this view, there are instances of the ultimate reality, or Creativity, which are not God, while God is the primordial instantiation of such Creativity. This means that the totality of existents—the All—is more than God. We cannot look around us or within us, cannot gaze upon hills and rivers, trees and stars—and at everything that happens as a result of their agency, including the unnecessary violence in creation—and say, “Ah, that is God.” The totality includes more than God.
The Essence of Actuality as Decision
A corollary to this concerns the idea of agency itself. For Whitehead. The agency of an actuality is not reducible to the patterns it displays or reception of influences from whatever world it encounters. Agency is an act of decision: that is, of cutting off certain possibilities for responding to influences and actualizing others, thereby becoming a concrete existent: an actual entity. Thus cutting off is at the heart of each and every actuality, divine or otherwise. angelic or demonic, galactic or microscopic, biological or extraterrestrial. Whitehead writes:
But ‘decision’ cannot be construed as a casual adjunct of an actual entity. It constitutes the very meaning of actuality. An actual entity arises from decisions for it, and by its very existence provides decisions for other actual entities which supersede it. (PR, 43)
It should be emphasized that this act of decision - this momentary act of self-creativity - is unique to the entity at issue, and not derived from God logically or ontologically. It emerges from, or perhaps better is, the activity of Creativity. This means that the God, if understood as a universal mind, has self-creativity of its own (the primordial nature) and also that God arises out of decisions made by others (the consequent nature). Here as well. the Totality is more than God.
Still another implication of this is that, for Whitehead, God is "in the grips" of Creativity, Whitehead writes:
Neither God, nor the World, reaches static completion. Both are in the grip of the ultimate metaphysical ground, the creative advance into novelty. Either of them, God and the World, is the instrument of novelty for the other. (PR, 349)
God as a Field of Love
It is in the context of God not being the Absolute or the source of all that exists, but rather one among the many within the universe—also in the grip of Creativity—that Whitehead speaks of another side of God, namely, God’s love.
This is the consequent nature of God: that aspect of the divine reality which feels the feelings of all beings, like a Buddhist bodhisattva, with a tender care that nothing be lost, and which - or who - can rightly be described as “a fellow sufferer who understands,” embracing each as well as the all. Indeed, it is this side of the universal mind that is love energy —which transforms whatever is received from the world into whatever beauty is possible, and which recycles whatever love is received back into the world. As Whitehead puts it:
For the perfected actuality passes back into the temporal world, and qualifies this world so that each temporal actuality includes it as an immediate fact of relevant experience. For the kingdom of heaven is with us today. The action of the fourth phase is the love of God for the world. It is the particular providence for particular occasions. What is done in the world is transformed into a reality in heaven, and the reality in heaven passes back into the world. By reason of this reciprocal relation, the love in the world passes into the love in heaven, and floods back again into the world. In this sense, God is the great companion—the fellow-sufferer who understands. (PR, 390)
Needless to say, this side of the universal mind—this side of God—is not all-powerful. All-loving, yes, but not all-powerful There are events in life, in the world, and indeed in the universe that are painful and tragic, even, and perhaps especially, to the divine mind, which shares in their suffering.
The Present Immediacy of Love
This side of God is what was most religiously important to Whitehead. When it came to his own sense of God, it was love, not power, that meant the most to him, as evidenced in his well known appreciation of Jesus;
The Present Immediacy of Love
This side of God is what was most religiously important to Whitehead. When it came to his own sense of God, it was love, not power, that meant the most to him, as evidenced in his well known appreciation of Jesus;
The history of theistic philosophy exhibits various stages of combination of these three diverse ways of entertaining the problem. There is, however, in the Galilean origin of Christianity yet another suggestion which does not fit very well with any of the three main strands of thought. It does not emphasize the ruling Caesar, or the ruthless moralist, or the unmoved mover. It dwells upon the tender elements in the world, which slowly and in quietness operate by love; and it finds purpose in the present immediacy of a kingdom not of this world. Love neither rules, nor is it unmoved; also it is a little oblivious as to morals. It does not look to the future; for it finds its own reward in the immediate present. (PR, 343)
A Different Kind of Tenderness
However, it should also be noted that there are aspects of the divine mind to which Whitehead alludes in Process and Reality that are not loving in this way—namely, what he calls the primordial nature of God. In its primordial decision to order the realm of eternal objects, this aspect of God is indifferent to the plight of the world and appears driven only by a hunger for satisfaction. Again, in Whitehead’s words:
A Different Kind of Tenderness
However, it should also be noted that there are aspects of the divine mind to which Whitehead alludes in Process and Reality that are not loving in this way—namely, what he calls the primordial nature of God. In its primordial decision to order the realm of eternal objects, this aspect of God is indifferent to the plight of the world and appears driven only by a hunger for satisfaction. Again, in Whitehead’s words:
The primordial appetitions which jointly constitute God’s purpose are seeking intensity, and not preservation. Because they are primordial, there is nothing to preserve. He, in his primordial nature, is unmoved by love for this particular, or that particular; for in this foundational process of creativity, there are no preconstituted particulars. In the foundations of his being, God is indifferent alike to preservation and to novelty. He cares not whether an immediate occasion be old or new, so far as concerns derivation from its ancestry. His aim16 for it is depth of satisfaction as an intermediate step towards the fulfilment of his own being. His tenderness is directed towards each actual occasion, as it arises. (PR, 105)
It is striking—and also a little perplexing—that Whitehead uses the word tenderness to describe a side of God that is “indifferent alike to preservation and novelty.” My own interpretation is that he is right to use the word, but that it challenges our usual assumptions about what the divine mind is concerned with. We tend to imagine “the world” as consisting primarily of solid objects or, if we are more expansive, as including the various forms of material reality—liquids, gases, and plasma—and also as encompassing the subjective lives of persons and other sentient beings who exist as experiential sequences over time: unfolding lives with pasts and futures. On Whitehead’s view, however, the tenderness of God is not directed toward enduring objects, nor even toward the streams of consciousness that constitute a human life, but rather toward moments of experience themselves. It is the here and now that lies at the heart of the divine heart-mind. "It does not look to the future; for it finds its own reward in the immediate present."
Varieties of Psychedelic Experience
Might some psychedelic-occasioned experiences include an awakening to this loving side of God? The straight answer is: I don't know. Let me be clear that a Whiteheadian worldview is open to many kinds of consciousness—many modes of experience—including those that differ from ordinary waking consciousness and are sometimes, for lack of a better term, called mystical.
Here are six imaginable kinds of mysticism that make sense in a Whiteheadian context:
Not all of these forms of mysticism are pleasant; some may be awe-inspiring, disorienting, or even frightening, revealing dimensions of reality that unsettle as much as they illuminate. Yet they need not be mutually exclusive. In lived experience, they can be woven together—interlacing divine love, cosmic vitality, archetypal depth, and creative emptiness into a single, multifaceted tapestry of awakening
Moreover, it is possible that some of these experiences, even if not about a God of love, may nonetheless be inwardly guided by God—understood as an inwardly felt lure toward wisdom, compassion, and creativity: a lure toward healing and wholeness in human life. Such a divine lure can be a living presence within a person’s life, working in and through these experiences much as it does in therapy, where insight and healing often emerge from within the very process of transformation.
Additionally and importantly, it should be added that psychedelic-occasioned experiences may not be "about" any of these things - not about God, not about Emptiness, now about spirits and entities in other dimensions, not about pure potentialities, and not about panpsychism. They may be about psychological and social dynamics that are non-of-the-above, some of which may be positive and some negative. The content of given psychedelic experiences is much dependent on the setting and context and on the past a actual world of the experiencer. With this in mind, however, it may help to imagine a psychedelic experience in the spirit of relational panentheism.
A Psychedelic Experience of God
Recall that the word "panentheism" does not mean "God in everything" but rather "everything in God." The phrase speaks to the immanence of the world in God. What might this be like?
To experience being in a divine Mind, in Whiteheadian terms, would not be to observe it from the outside—as though peering into a vast intelligence—but to awaken within it. It would be like realizing that one’s own thoughts, feelings, and movements are occurring inside a larger field of awareness. The experience would feel participatory rather than spectatorial. Every perception, even of the most ordinary kind, might be sensed as simultaneously God’s perception, felt through the particular lens of one’s own subjectivity. One would be feeling the feelings of God. A complement to this love mysticism would be the capacity to feel the feelings of others, too, just as the universal mind feels them—an intense empathy in which, like God, one becomes a “fellow sufferer who understands.”
Such an experience would involve a release of the self-preoccupied ego and, with it, a loosening of the sense of isolation or not belonging to a greater whole. Yet individuality would not be dissolved; it would be deepened. One might feel transparent to a love or wisdom that holds all things, while still remaining distinctly oneself—like a single note within a complex musical chord. In Whitehead’s sense, each actual occasion enjoys its own perspective, yet all perspectives are harmonized within the divine life. To be in God, then, is to feel one’s finitude embraced by a larger intelligence that is always responding but never coercing.
One might also experience all boundaries as porous—not erased, but shimmering. The wind, the voices of others, the pulse of the body, the memories of the past, and the possibilities of the future could all appear as unfolding within a field of divine consciousness in which one also participates. The “inside” of the universe would reveal itself as relational, full of feeling and communication.
Finally, when conjoined with panpsychism—that is, the recognition of the sentience and spontaneous self-creativity present in every moment of the universe—one might become aware of the cosmos as wholly alive with vibrant energy. The divine Mind and the living universe would be seen as dancing together in a dynamic relationality: a relational, panpsychist panentheism. This vision would not imply that all events are good or meant to be, nor that they are mere expressions of the same divine activity, “God godding.” Evil, tragedy, and sorrow would remain, as would horror. Yet somehow all of it would appear as held within a field of love that is more than any of it—and more than oneself—a Life in whom the universe unfolds.
As intense as such an experience might be, it is only the beginning of a life concretely lived with others, in which traces of this sensibility might permeate and become more embodied in the rhythms of the everyday. Clinging to memories of the experience would be beside the point, as would a craving for repetition or escalation. The proof of the experience lies in the pudding of relationships—with other people, with the more-than-human world, and with the heavens. Cosmic consciousness comes to nothing unless it is concretized in daily life. As Whitehead put it, the kingdom of God is today. It may not be “of the world,” but it is by all means “in the world”—and nowhere else.
My purpose in imagining this experience and its follow-up is to reiterate a question: Might some kinds of psychedelic experience awaken a person not to pantheism, but to panentheism as it is disclosed in such moments?
I cannot answer this question, but it seems to me that it is well worth asking and put to people who have amazing experiences that are occasioned by psychedelics. I am grateful to Sjöstedt-Hughes for writing an essay that, at least for me, brings the question vividly to mind.
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Here are six imaginable kinds of mysticism that make sense in a Whiteheadian context:
- Divine Love Mysticism (Relational Panentheism): An experience of God as a loving presence—both immanent within and transcendent beyond the world—whose tenderness and compassion are felt in the intimacy of relationship and the interconnectedness of all things.
- Panpsychic Mysticism: An attunement to the sentient vitality of all things—the “vibrating intensity” of the universe—experienced as a communion of self-creative actualities, each alive with feeling and responsiveness.
- Pure Potentiality Mysticism: An awakening to the realm of pure potentiality residing in the primordial nature of God, independent of the world—a mysticism of mathematical order, eternal forms, or emotional possibilities that exist prior to concrete actuality.
- Archetypal Mysticism: An awakening to energies and archetypes within the collective unconscious of humanity, as described in depth psychology and symbolic traditions.
- Transdimensional Mysticism: A sensitivity to the presence and reality of spirits or entities inhabiting other domains of the extensive continuum—or other regions of the cosmos.
- Creative Emptiness Mysticism: An awakening to the fathomless abyss of Creativity itself—the groundless, self-originating source from which all entities arise and through which all self-actualize, a mystery beyond both God and world.
Not all of these forms of mysticism are pleasant; some may be awe-inspiring, disorienting, or even frightening, revealing dimensions of reality that unsettle as much as they illuminate. Yet they need not be mutually exclusive. In lived experience, they can be woven together—interlacing divine love, cosmic vitality, archetypal depth, and creative emptiness into a single, multifaceted tapestry of awakening
Moreover, it is possible that some of these experiences, even if not about a God of love, may nonetheless be inwardly guided by God—understood as an inwardly felt lure toward wisdom, compassion, and creativity: a lure toward healing and wholeness in human life. Such a divine lure can be a living presence within a person’s life, working in and through these experiences much as it does in therapy, where insight and healing often emerge from within the very process of transformation.
Additionally and importantly, it should be added that psychedelic-occasioned experiences may not be "about" any of these things - not about God, not about Emptiness, now about spirits and entities in other dimensions, not about pure potentialities, and not about panpsychism. They may be about psychological and social dynamics that are non-of-the-above, some of which may be positive and some negative. The content of given psychedelic experiences is much dependent on the setting and context and on the past a actual world of the experiencer. With this in mind, however, it may help to imagine a psychedelic experience in the spirit of relational panentheism.
A Psychedelic Experience of God
Recall that the word "panentheism" does not mean "God in everything" but rather "everything in God." The phrase speaks to the immanence of the world in God. What might this be like?
To experience being in a divine Mind, in Whiteheadian terms, would not be to observe it from the outside—as though peering into a vast intelligence—but to awaken within it. It would be like realizing that one’s own thoughts, feelings, and movements are occurring inside a larger field of awareness. The experience would feel participatory rather than spectatorial. Every perception, even of the most ordinary kind, might be sensed as simultaneously God’s perception, felt through the particular lens of one’s own subjectivity. One would be feeling the feelings of God. A complement to this love mysticism would be the capacity to feel the feelings of others, too, just as the universal mind feels them—an intense empathy in which, like God, one becomes a “fellow sufferer who understands.”
Such an experience would involve a release of the self-preoccupied ego and, with it, a loosening of the sense of isolation or not belonging to a greater whole. Yet individuality would not be dissolved; it would be deepened. One might feel transparent to a love or wisdom that holds all things, while still remaining distinctly oneself—like a single note within a complex musical chord. In Whitehead’s sense, each actual occasion enjoys its own perspective, yet all perspectives are harmonized within the divine life. To be in God, then, is to feel one’s finitude embraced by a larger intelligence that is always responding but never coercing.
One might also experience all boundaries as porous—not erased, but shimmering. The wind, the voices of others, the pulse of the body, the memories of the past, and the possibilities of the future could all appear as unfolding within a field of divine consciousness in which one also participates. The “inside” of the universe would reveal itself as relational, full of feeling and communication.
Finally, when conjoined with panpsychism—that is, the recognition of the sentience and spontaneous self-creativity present in every moment of the universe—one might become aware of the cosmos as wholly alive with vibrant energy. The divine Mind and the living universe would be seen as dancing together in a dynamic relationality: a relational, panpsychist panentheism. This vision would not imply that all events are good or meant to be, nor that they are mere expressions of the same divine activity, “God godding.” Evil, tragedy, and sorrow would remain, as would horror. Yet somehow all of it would appear as held within a field of love that is more than any of it—and more than oneself—a Life in whom the universe unfolds.
As intense as such an experience might be, it is only the beginning of a life concretely lived with others, in which traces of this sensibility might permeate and become more embodied in the rhythms of the everyday. Clinging to memories of the experience would be beside the point, as would a craving for repetition or escalation. The proof of the experience lies in the pudding of relationships—with other people, with the more-than-human world, and with the heavens. Cosmic consciousness comes to nothing unless it is concretized in daily life. As Whitehead put it, the kingdom of God is today. It may not be “of the world,” but it is by all means “in the world”—and nowhere else.
My purpose in imagining this experience and its follow-up is to reiterate a question: Might some kinds of psychedelic experience awaken a person not to pantheism, but to panentheism as it is disclosed in such moments?
I cannot answer this question, but it seems to me that it is well worth asking and put to people who have amazing experiences that are occasioned by psychedelics. I am grateful to Sjöstedt-Hughes for writing an essay that, at least for me, brings the question vividly to mind.
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