Beware of Unearned Wisdom

Adam Stansbury
3 min readAug 28, 2023

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Beware of Unearned Wisdom said the famous Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung. Which I heard recently via the famous modern Canadian version Jordan Petersen when speaking about the potential pitfalls of the psychedelic experience.

It was further underlined in the following passage from an incredible book I’m reading, that documents over 70 LSD journey’s a scientist took over 20 years called ‘LSD and the Mind of the Universe’ by Christopher Bache (which my dad passed on to me, thanks Dad)

“Psychedelics give us temporary access to realities beyond our pay grade, allowing us to experience things beyond our normal capacity.

It’s all too easy to think that because we have had a deep and profound experience, we have become a deep and profound person, but this is a fool’s delusion.

Even when psychedelics allow us to experience the person we are in the process of becoming, we have to face the fact that we have not become this person yet, nor have we fully internalised the wonderful qualities we may have temporarily touched.”

LSD and the Mind of the Universe by Christopher Bache

Living is Learning

You can’t bypass the lessons of life and the power and integrative effects of the lived experience.

But psychedelics give you a glimpse beyond the veil, an acknowledgment of ‘there’s more to life than meets the eye’.

They open the door and give you enough of a glimpse of what’s on the other side to fuel you with inspiration with which to continue your journey, but ultimately, you’re the one who must walk through it.

When you come back from a psychedelic experience, I believe it’s good to ground yourself back into reality by realising that the hard work has only just begun, if you really want lasting change in your life.

My own experiences with psychedelics and plant medicine have gifted me with the awareness of the transformative process of life itself outside of the sacred psychoactive experience. They have also equipped me with the wisdom and inner strength to help navigate the choppy waters of existence.

These psychoactive medicines have taken me to wonderful places both internally and externally around the Earth.

My 9-year exploration led me to the most profound realisation I’ve had so far and that required me to ‘hang up the phone’.

It came in the form of an internal message that I didn’t need anymore ‘medicine’, what I needed now was to bring awareness to the areas of my life where self-acceptance was not present.

This non-psychoactive journey has been longer and deeper than any of my psychedelic experiences, it started nearly a year ago last September in the Colombian Amazon and continues to this day in the English countryside.

I feel that I’m finally getting to the core of who I am and the ability to finally feel and see the value within me, without the need for anything external to validate me.

It’s been a lifelong journey, with new layers that appear just when I thought I’d broken through the final one. I like to call these layers of the ‘Infinite onion’.

The uncut gem is gradually emerging, and is being cleaned and polished, ready for display.

The journey started in 2014 with much needed psychedelic assisted to crack open my self-awareness but it is concluding through the continual day to day, real life, hard inner work, self-awareness, reflection, and contemplation of who I am and who I want to be.

So, I’ll be forever grateful for what plant medicine has given me, the journey it’s taken me on, the mind-bending experiences I’ve had and the trajectory it’s sent me off on but as with many of life’s rewards, there’s no substitute for hard work.

Bon Voyage, hard work pays off.

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Adam Stansbury

Helping to shine a light on your path, so that you may see the way more clearly.