The SHN #31: Jamie Wheal, Awareness of Self, and Alcohol

Welcome back to The Synergetic Health Newsletter! 

In this edition, we’ll explore Jamie Wheal’s book, Recapture the Rapture, and how it is contributing to self-transcendence.

After that, a short look into where all self help eventually leads.

Then comes an investigation into the great alcohol debate.

Finally, I’ll include some links to things I’ve found particularly interesting recently.

Joe Burt

🙏 Recapture the Rapture

Jamie Wheal is the co-author of the popular book “Stealing Fire”, founder of the Flow Genome Project, and a member of Austin’s “alpha radical scene”.

His 2021 book, “Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex, and Death in a World That’s Lost Its Mind” is a grand undertaking into “hedonic engineering”— combining the best of neuroscience and optimal psychology.

In it Wheal talks about society’s meaning crisis, how to democratize transcendence, and “ethical cult building.” In this post, I want to mainly focus on Wheal’s suggestions on how to evolve out of our meaning crisis and into a more felt connection with each other and the Divine.

The Five Potent and Accessible Physical Drivers to Shape Consciousness and Culture (according to Wheal):

1) Breathing—Our biological programming ensures a constant oxygen supply, making the modulation of breathing a highly effective method to alter both physical and mental states.

Wheal writes about a “Vital Respiration Protocol” that includes a mix of box breathing, vagal breathing, holotropic hyperventilating, and gas-assisted static apnea with a specific blend of elements. He leaves the execution up to the reader or for someone else to take the information and run with it, which is laid out in detail in the book.

2) Embodiment—The fundamental controllers of our parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system play a crucial role in our overall health, well-being, and ability to handle stress. They act as the guiding rhythm for our physiological processes, shaping our lived experiences.

Increased embodiment can be achieved by modulating the endocannabinoid system, using specific doses of CBD and THC. It can also be achieved by engaging and align spine, pelvis, limbs, and soft tissues for a full range of motion and proprioceptive integration.

3) Sexuality—The imperative to procreate is ingrained in our survival instincts. Recognizing the neurochemical mechanisms behind this drive allows for a significant reorientation toward this essential life-sustaining activity.

Wheal cites studies that show that sex can illicit mystical states of being, comparable to states achieved with a moderate dose of psilocybin (found in magic mushrooms).

This holds significant significance for the wider population. Mystical states, which have been a fundamental human longing throughout history, are now demonstrated to have a robust connection with well-being, healing, and existential balance.

Achieving these states doesn't necessitate traveling to the Amazon to drink ayahuasca or meditating in the Tibetan mountains for months on end.

Instead, it involves the straightforward act that initially brought us all here. When pursued with purpose and an aim not solely focused on procreation but on integration, these states become accessible through an approach that is affordable, low-tech, and readily available.

4) Substances— Humans, like many other animals, instinctively seek to shift their states as part of the natural processes of learning, growth, and healing. According to Ron Siegel at UCLA, intentional intoxication can be seen as a "fourth drive"—a profound desire to experience a rapid change in one's state, inherent in the human condition alongside sex, hunger, and thirst.

“Every culture has found such chemical means of transcendence, and at some point the use of such intoxicants becomes institutionalized at a magical or sacramental level,” NYU neuroscientist Oliver Sacks says. “The sacramental use of psychoactive plant substances has a long history and continues to the present day in various shamanic and religious rites around the world . . . some people can reach transcendent states through meditation or similar trance-inducing techniques, or through prayer and spiritual exercises. But drugs offer a shortcut; they promise transcendence on demand. These shortcuts are possible because certain chemicals can directly stimulate many complex brain functions.”

Wheal rightly points out the downsides of relying on substances to seek insights and breakthroughs. It is entirely possible to be addicted to the states without ever raising your stage, according to Wheal. This can be said of not just substances but also breath work, sound healing, tantra, etc.

5) Music— From age-old fireside chants to majestic cathedrals, from chain gangs to contemporary concerts, music has been a constant companion throughout the evolution of human civilization. Music molds our physiology, influences our sense of connection, and expands our capacity for awe.

Wheal writes about one study that found that “didgeridu sound meditation is as effective as silent meditation for decreasing self-perceived negative arousal, tiredness, and energy and more effective than silent meditation for relaxation and acute stress.”

On Religion

“Most religious traditions are inherently conservative. At some point in a distant past, a founder, and possibly an elect group of initiates, had access to revelation. After that, the veil closed, history turned, a priest class grew, and the rest of us had to settle for hand-me-downs and Just So stories.”

This was my experience of religion growing up. A complete reverence for the ruling class of the church and a God-fearing mentality without any actual connection to God.

Seeking out and having “revelatory” experiences, which can be had during deep meditation, ecstatic experiences, when taking certain substances, is frowned upon by religious organizations.

However, more and more people seem to be seeking out these experiences, which often result in an actual encounter with something not-of-this-world, and can often be described as sublime, mystical, wonderful, magical, and life-changing.

Wheal writes: “we need to create a list of widely available ‘essential substances’ that grant inspiration, healing, and connection. Experiences that deliver us to the Sublime with little more than a driver’s license or a doctor’s note.”

Wheal Summarizes His Recipe

“Maximize endocannabinoids, endorphins, dopamine, nitric oxide, oxytocin, and serotonin. Increase vagal nerve tone and heart rate variability. Shift your brain into baseline alpha and theta activity, with dips into gamma or delta waves. Trigger a global reset of your brain stem with compounds such as nitrous oxide or ketamine or cranial-nerve stimulation (all these correlate with delta wave EEG induction). Load your nervous system with pulses of energy in the form of electrical current, magnetism, light, sound waves, pain, or orgasm. Align your spine, and engage your pelvis, limbs, and fascia for flexible movement and integration. Alter the ratios of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen in your bloodstream through deliberate organic or gas-assisted breathwork. Play high-fidelity polyrhythmic music that entrains you out of your default mode network and serves as a carrier wave of your subjective experience. Experience anamnesis—remember what it is that you forgot. Stay awake. Build stuff. Help out.”

Overall, in his wide-ranging book, Wheal tries to show the reader that we now have a physiological understanding of how to reach what used to be considered metaphysical or metaphorical. Using a mix of the five drivers listed above, we have the launch codes for connecting deeply with one another and also with the Divine.

I enjoyed the book and I believe its main utility is getting the conversation started on how to bring a new understanding of mystical experiences, and their manifold benefits, to the masses.

We can all use a unique mix of the five drivers to help ourselves and humanity change course and guide to a harmonious and sustainable future.

Listen to Wheal on The Finding Mastery Podcast and in a conversation with Tom Bilyeu.

🧘‍♂️ All Roads Lead to Awareness of Self

Self-help is big business. Marketdata estimates that the self-improvement market was worth $13.4 billion in 2022, in the USA alone!

People continue to try to “improve” their lives— whether that is losing weight, furthering their career, seeking out a coach, searching for their soulmate, or using a meditation app— which is a worthy and admirable pursuit. I can’t even estimate how many self-help books I’ve read, inspirational podcasts and videos I’ve watched, or new diet and exercise tweaks I’ve implemented.

Ultimately, all those disparate roads to personal growth narrowed into a singular one, the road to awareness of self.

This often-times lonely road is the one being pointed to by almost every spiritual teacher and tradition out there. The road that involves discovery of the truth of who you really are.

It is not found until you understand that things in your external environment are impermanent. Both in their inherent nature and their ability to affect you.

External circumstances can only trigger a transient shift in state. You soon rebound to exactly where you were before the external circumstance presented itself.

The crux of the matter lies in the recognition that, no matter how fervently we seek external sources to transform us, bring happiness, alleviate pain, or fulfill our deepest desires, we find ourselves caught in a perpetual chase.

This realization is the pivotal key unlocking the gate to self-realization.

Interestingly, it's not a path 'out there' but a path leading 'in here’.

The expedition that follows is both a confrontation and an embrace of the self, with all its intricacies, shadows, and potential for growth.

You encounter various facets of your being—some familiar, some concealed in the recesses of your consciousness. Each step becomes a moment of revelation, peeling away layers of conditioned beliefs, societal expectations, and personal narratives.

Amid the bustling marketplace of self-help, the most rewarding journey is not a quest for external solutions but an exploration within. The realization dawns that seeking external validation is a perpetual chase, and true “personal growth” lies in understanding and embracing the capital “S” Self.

In this space, outer circumstances wield less influence, and the road to self-awareness becomes the gateway to a resilient, authentic, and interconnected existence.

🥃 Extra, Extra: Alcohol Edition

🥃 Can You Drink and Still Sleep Well? This article aims to answer than question. In it, Brady Holmer discusses that drinking at night ruins sleep, but that daytime consumption doesn’t have the same detrimental effects. Fairly obvious conclusion. To lessen the impact alcohol has on your sleep, give yourself 3-4 hours from your last sip of alcohol. Good luck with that 🙃

🥃 Is There a Safe Level of Alcohol Consumption? Chris Masterjohn has a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and is one of my favorite follows on X. His interpretation of the research on drinking alcohol differs from Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Peter Attia, and others. Among his points he made from reading the research is that “Consumption of ‘low’ levels of alcohol, meaning up to one drink per day, is associated with a 26% lower risk of heart disease and 24% lower risk of all-cause mortality.”

🥃 Scientists Involved In Discredited Alcohol Study: The New York Times recently wrote about how a $100 million study into the effects of moderate drinking on health was halted by the National Institute of Health. They did so because officials from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism lobbied beer and liquor companies to fund the trial. The N.I.H. found that “the trial had been designed in a way that biased the study in favor of showing a beneficial effect from moderate drinking.” Bias finds its way into science all the time.

🥃 Huberman Has Done More To Curb Drinking Than Anyone: I believe that Huberman’s podcast episode on “What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health” has had the greatest impact on getting people off the drink since prohibition. Whether or not his read on the science is accurate or not is up for debate.

🥃 Alcohol + Seed Oils = Liver Injury: This science-laden post from @anabology explains how alcohol and seed oils compete for neutralization, which could be why ingesting them together could lead to liver pathology. If you have low polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) peroxidation, you can handle much more acetaldehyde (byproduct of alcohol)

🥃 THIS HITS HOME 📉

🥃 The Latest Alcohol Meta-Analysis I Could Find: A March, 2023 review in JAMA found that “daily low or moderate alcohol intake was not significantly associated with all-cause mortality risk, while increased risk was evident at higher consumption levels, starting at lower levels for women than men.” This implies that there is no reduction in death with even light alcohol consumption.

𝕏 Thread of the Week

🤸🏻 Top 5 Mobility Drills of 2023: My favorite internet physical therapist, Zac Cupples, is back with a post about his top mobility drills from last year. I recommend trying some or all of these out before any type of exercise or just while sitting in front of the TV and see if notice some improve movement.

🍄 Are Mushrooms the Social Drug of 2024? An Investigation: This article talks about how “shrooms appear to fit into the lives of those who want to cut back on the booze, but still socialize and let loose.” I’ve seen this trend accelerate over the last five years or so. For me, using <0.5g of psilocybin, is an easy way to make the world “brighter, softer, and funnier”, to quote the article.

⏰ Do You Wake Up in the Middle of the Night? There May Be a Spiritual Meaning: This article discusses what could be the underlying spiritual reason why you are waking up at 1AM, 2AM, 3AM, 4AM, or 5AM. For example, if you often wake around 1AM, the articles states that “your heart has accumulated all your worries and resentments and are now giving you a hard time during the night.”

💦 Sweat From Men is Beneficial to a Woman’s Mood: This study showed that underarm perspiration from a male decreased tension, decreased stress, and boosted the mood of the female study participants. Maybe it is better if men left the cologne at home.

📚 “Sit in a room and read— and read and read…”

🧘🏻‍♀️ “In a special sense, suffering is almost a time or rejoicing, for it marks the birth of creative insight. Suffering, then, is the initial movement of the recognition of false boundaries.” -Ken Wilber

🚶 The 80/20 for whether I’ll end up friends with someone is:
1. Do they like walking
2. Do they read books
*found on X but I agree

🤓 Circadian health and blue blight blockers ftw

📚 Every smart person I know is a voracious reader who also says, “every smart person I know is a voracious reader.” -Morgan Housel

📅 My Scheduling Page: Go here to book a 15-minute free call to chat about my awareness coaching and energy healing services.

✔️ That will do it for this time! Hopefully you got some value out of it. If you have any questions/comments/things you’d like to learn more about please don’t hesitate to reach out.

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📰 To read all past newsletters, go here.