Encounters with the Cosmic Jesters

Being apart of many facebook groups surrounding psychedelics, I've gotten to know common themes that emerge during peoples experiences. DMT, being one of the most powerful visual psychedelics, often immerses people into a realm outside of our own reality. Many people report encountering intelligent otherworldly beings often described as being, well, indescribable. Some people, however, describe what they believe to be encounters with extraterrestrials, Angel's, demons, gods and goddesses, as well as a slew of other "beings" including elves, insects, tricksters and so on. One of the most common experiences is a feeling of familiarity with the beings they encounter. Unfortunately people often also experience great discomfort during some of their encounters and a sense of "I shouldn't be here" as opposed to belonging. Whether these experiences are, as Carl Jung would suggest, archetypes of the collective unconscious, or true encounters with sentient beings outside of this realm of existence, is not what I came here to discuss. Instead, I am going to share my own encounters with the Jester "archetype" or "beings" over the course of the last couple of years.

*The term "being" will be used to better describe my experiences as, in my opinion, the term archetype doesn't capture the communication that had occurred between myself and these manifestations

First Encounter

Encounters with jesters are commonly reported as being unpleasant. Before having my own experience with them I read about experiences where people were laughed at, and ridiculed by these beings. I think this narrative had instilled a certain level of fear in me which greatly influenced my first encounter with this "realm".

Probably closer to two years ago now me and my partner were invited to an underground Ayahuasca ceremony. Normally the ceremony would last two nights, but due to the expensive price of participation, we decided to only join in on the second. I won't go into details of the entire ceremony or else this would make for a long read so I'll get right to the point.

For general information on Ayahuasca check out this webpage:

https://thethirdwave.co/psychedelics/ayahuasca/

I also want to clarify that the ceremony I participated in was NOT traditional. It was facilitated by a white person, in a city basement.

For more information on the colonization of Ayahuasca practices check out this article by Charcuna.net:

https://chacruna.net/you-will-never-get-traditional-ayahuasca-treatment/

Okay. Now I will get to the point.

Probably a couple of hours into the experience, I unexpectedly found myself immersed in a sort of cartoon world. I was more or less confused by this experience but decided to let myself go deeper. I eventually found myself immersed in another reality. Like many others, I felt like this wasn't my first visit, except this familiarity brought discomfort as opposed to comfort. I did not see any other beings with me, but the familiar patterns I was immersed in made me aware that I had found myself in the realm of the jesters. I immediately wanted to avoid any sort of encounter with them and began to pull myself out of this realm, back into the cartoon world I was previously immersed it. This is where I essentially remained trapped for the rest of the night.

*Obviously there was a lot more detail to the experience than this but I am trying to stick to the point of this story, and that is the Jesters

I personally am a believer that every psychedelic experience has meaning, but this one I had difficulty wrapping my head around. I left the experience very confused and quite frankly disappointed. I knew that integrating this experience would take a long time (I have since learned that integration is an ongoing lifelong process) and a lot of deep reflection would be needed before I got anything out of it. Little did I know it would take over a year before I finally started to explore what this experience meant to me. Until then, I mostly went on with my life, the experience remaining nothing but a confusing distant memory. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I started thinking about the jester realm again.

Everywhere I went it seemed that reminders of this experience were coming into my life. This was around the same time the movie Joker came out, one of the big triggers for me, but it started even before the movie hit theaters.

I couldn't stop seeing and thinking about jesters.

The tipping point for me was during a trip for our honeymoon. Me and my partner decided to visit a small art gallery (for those who know me this was out on Manitoulin Island). One particular piece caught my attention. It was simply a picture of Chief Sitting Bull (for the sake of the story all you need to know is that he is an important person in my partners life that frequently comes to him in his visions), with a joker card underneath.

I HAD TO KNOW WHAT THIS MEANT

We decided to ask the owner about the intention behind creating this piece, only to find out it was created by her deceased husband and that she was unfamiliar with his intentions behind it. Once again, I eventually started looking into peoples experiences with these realms only to find out that not everyone thought of them as having bad intentions. I noticed some people believed that being ridiculed by these beings exposed personal insecurities or parts of oneself that were previously repressed. Others argued that their encounters taught them not to take life so seriously and to essentially lighten the fuck up. I decided it was time to pay them a visit again and to find out what they wanted with me.

Second Encounter

It had been awhile since I had journeyed with any plant based psychedelic, my most recent journey being with 1P-LSD (a prodrug to LSD), my experience was more social than introspective or spiritual. It was time I connected to spirit again and so I decided to make a psilocybin mushroom tea using a method known in the community as "lemon tek".

More info on psilocybin and lemon tek can be found here:

Psilocybin Mushroom Guide

Lemon tek

I did not know what to expect going into this experience, but I was hoping to find some answers. After finishing my tea I decided to lay down on the couch and wait for the effects to kick in. At this point I was feeling very mild effects and honestly contemplated making another tea. I eventually began feeling drowsy and decided it was time to close my eyes (a typical come up experience for me). What I did not expect was how quickly the effects were going to kick in. I was immediately immersed into complex and vivid geometrical patterns. Within these I began to recognize as figures that resembled the jester beings. My initial instinct was to open my eyes and reject the experience, likely due to the intensity of the sudden onset of effects. But I didn't. Instead I reminded myself about my intentions going into the experience, and took this opportunity to get what I came for.

To find out exactly what these beings wanted from me.

Their complex movements made it extremely difficult to focus, and again I felt the need to reject the experience. I took a deep breath and told myself to just relax and see what it is they were trying to show me. As I began to accept what was happening to me, and trust that I was safe in this experience, I realized they were putting on a sort of show for me...but wait.. it wasn't for me, it was about me ! Just as I had previously feared, they were making fun of me! BUT as soon as I realized what about I began to laugh with them. I had realized that I have been getting so caught up in trying to determine the course of my future (things I realistically had no present control over) that I was forgetting to enjoy what was right in front of me. It was hilarious to them that one would sacrifice their current happiness over a hypothetical future, and they were right. I knew it for a long time but for some reason I couldn't break out of that cycle. It took an encounter with some sort of cosmic jester beings to finally accept that I have been making a fool of myself all this time.

I think its safe to say that I found what I was looking for.

The next day, I woke up feeling refreshed and for the next while I felt like the burden of "the future" had been lifted off of my shoulders.

Third Encounter

A couple of weeks ago, about a year since my last encounter, I started thinking about the jesters again. It was like I unconsciously knew that I needed to remember the lessons that were shared with me during our last journey together. This time I knew what they were trying to tell me but still had difficulty getting myself to follow through (I started doing yoga on a regular basis and planning more me time, but still struggled with staying present enough to fully enjoy these activities).

On December 23rd, my partner and I had made plans to consume psilocybin together. I did not go into the experience with any specific intentions (intention setting is usually recommended to set the tone of an experience), but was not surprised to find the jesters awaiting me on the other side. As soon as my visual field became filled with circus like patterns, I began to laugh and mutter something under my breath about "those tricky little bastards". In what felt like only an instance I became aware of the fact that I have been, again, spending too much time outside of the present moment in a way that prevented me from enjoying the little things I did have. This time I was more preoccupied with a near, as opposed to distant, future (work). I was getting so defeated by having to work everyday that I wasn't giving myself permission to by anyone other than the "me" I had to be when working. This was exhausting. I remembered the feeling I felt a few weeks earlier when I experienced a "burnout" and realized how easy it was to go there again if I did not give myself the space I needed to be myself (I won't give any details into this experience but lets just say its a place I did not want to be again).

For a minute I allowed the jesters to fuel my own self doubt and began to blame myself for not setting enough boundaries between my own time and work. I started to lose hope because I did not believe I had what it took (nor was it practically reasonable) to set the boundaries I thought I needed for myself (taking full days off of work). Then, suddenly I realized that it did not have to necessarily be that way. Even though I worked most days, I often had days that only required me to work 3-5 hours. During the rest of the day I had an opportunity to schedule in "me" time. The insight I got wasn't to necessarily schedule specific activities into my life, but to embrace this time as my own. In other words, put work aside and embrace the "me" that doesn't get to be in a working space.

*There was a whole other rollercoaster of emotions and "insights" that followed that night but that is another story for another time. Or if you're seriously interested you can just ask me directly and I may give you the details

Needless to say, whether these experiences are truly encounters with some sort of cosmic entity, or manifestations of my own (or a collective?) (un)consciousness, they have clearly had a significant impact on my life. I have honestly been in a good place since having this experience (despite some pretty heavy reflections that followed that night) and truly believe that integration is key to a healthy relationship with psychedelics.

For more information on integration check out this article by Psychedelics Today:

https://psychedelicstoday.com/2020/05/27/everything-you-need-to-know-about-psychedelic-integration/

For a list of practitioners that offer psychedelic integration see:

https://psychedelic.support/

I also acknowledge that that access to professional integration is not realistic for ever body. Other ways to integrate include seeking other supports (friends, online communities) you can discuss your experiences with, as well as starting a regular self reflective practice (e.g journaling, meditation, yoga, art, music, really whatever works for you).

Feel free to send me a message if you are looking for assistance in finding free resources that can assist with the integration process, or simply would like more information on something I brought up.

-Chasse