The cause of the current of the problem of palliative medicine in the “mirror” of shmerian-akkadian mythology
Bioethics Journal November 30, 2024 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.19163/2070-1586-2024-17-2-21-26 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
Modern treatments for existential distress in incurable patients are often unreliable, leading some specialists to consider using entheogens to induce a symbolic death-rebirth experience that combats thanatophobia. Society views psychedelic therapy for the dying warily, a cultural taboo traced to ancient Sumer and Akkad. Analysis of mythological works suggests the original ban on entheogens arose because the symbolic rebirth experience produced psychological wholeness—a state of inner serenity that reduced the need for external adaptive activity, threatening archaic society's security. This raises questions about the ban's applicability to incurable patients for whom palliative care fails.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | The historical taboo on entheogens originated from their ability to induce psychological wholeness, which reduced adaptive activity and threatened archaic society, warranting reconsideration for incurable patients unresponsive to palliative care. |
Abstract
The unreliability of modern methods of treating existential distress in incurable patients draws the attention of a number of specialists to the possibility of using such an effective means of combating thanataphobia as gaining a symbolic experience of death – rebirth in palliative care, the simplest and most effective way of generating which is the use of entheogens. However, the topic of psychedelic therapy of the dying patients causes a wary attitude of society, despite the habitually high level of narcotic saturation of the field of palliative medicine. This attitude seems to be clearly conditioned by the cultural tradition of the prohibition of eating fruits from the Tree of Life, traced back to the era of Sumer and Akkad. Interpretation and analysis of the content of the mythological works of this ancient civilization give grounds to assert that the initial reason for the historical taboo on entheogens was the effect of the experience of symbolic rebirth in the form of the formation of the so-called psychological “wholeness”, i.e. a state of complete inner serenity, accompanied by a sharp decrease in the need for “external” adaptive activity. This circumstance, without a doubt, posed a fundamental threat to the well-being and security of society in the conditions of the archaic availability of this class of psychotropic substances. Such an “adaptive-civilizational” nature of the ban raises the question of its expediency in relation to those incurable patients for whom palliative means of distress therapy used by modern medicine turn out to be untenable.