ego death

ego death, in psychoanalysis, mysticism, and some religions, the disappearance of an individual’s sense of self, or the removal of one’s perception of oneself as an entity separate from one’s social or physical environment. Ego death as a practice can be traced to early shamanistic, mystical, and religious rites in which subjects sought ego death as a way of communion with the universe or with God. Such unity was thought to be realized in prolonged meditation or religious ecstasy—exemplified in the latter case by St. Teresa of Ávila (1515–82), according to some interpretations of her Christian mysticism. Ego death is also associated with Zen Buddhism, which emphasizes enlightenment, or unity with the Buddha, as practiced in dedicated meditation. In addition, it is associated with Muslim Sufism, specifically the state of fana, or the complete annihilation of the self in preparation for union with God. Since the mid-20th century, ego death has frequently been referred to as a consequence of the use of psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide).

Ego death was first defined in psychological terms by the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung. In The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1959; 2nd ed., 1968), Jung characterized ego death (which he referred to as “psychic death”) as a fundamental reordering of the psyche with the liberating potential to reset human consciousness so that it might better align with the “natural” self. To achieve the transcendence promised by psychic death, an individual must reconcile conflicting archetypes (primordial images and ideas that form part of the collective unconscious of humankind), a process that can occur only during a period of intense suffering.

The best-known early exploration of the relationship between ego death and psychedelic substances in the West is The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead (1964) by the American psychologists Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert. The Psychedelic Experience openly borrows from the Tibetan Book of the Dead (the Bardo Thödol) as it breaks down the components of a “trip” (i.e., a hallucinogenic experience induced by a psychedelic drug). According to the authors, it is during the trip’s first step—the “First Bardo”—that ego death is achieved and the psyche can thus be reborn.

The pioneering research of Leary and his colleagues found further scientific footing in the work of the Czech-born psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, who argued for the existence of additional levels of the unconscious that are not detectable by means of traditional psychotherapeutic methods but that can be revealed through the use of psychedelics or specific forms of breath work. Grof identified ego death as a level of the unconscious associated with the perinatal experience of the human fetus as it is expelled from the womb and pushed through the birth canal immediately prior to birth.

More-recent research has grounded the causes and effects of ego death in the physical topography of the brain. One study has shown, for example, that ingesting psilocybin can alter glutamate levels in the brain and that increased levels in the medial prefrontal cortex were associated with negatively experienced ego dissolution, whereas decreased levels in the hippocampus were associated with positively experienced ego dissolution.

Since the 1960s, prominent psychologists, social critics, and spiritual practitioners have raised concerns and doubts regarding whether such experiences as ego death can or should be the result of, or be reduced to, pharmacology and brain chemistry. Some have regarded psychedelics and other such technologies as being, at best, a means for experiencing an analog of ego death, awakening one to the possibility of authentic enlightenment. In that role, it is argued, they may initially help motivate and inform long-term regular spiritual practice, such as daily meditation and compassionate service to others, but they cannot substitute for the realization of ego death that can come only through that practice.