Yoga and Altered States of Consciousness – François Lorin

In this lecture, I will only address altered states of consciousness induced voluntarily, whether through yoga techniques such as meditation, the use of instruments like the shamanic drum, or the ingestion of psychotropic substances, such as ayahuasca in the Amazonian sphere.

I will speak from experience, having directly experimented with the substances used by the Belgian poet Henri Michaux (see his work: Knowledge Through the Abyss) and having been initiated into mescaline during my first trip to India, and more recently, having experienced shamanic ceremonies based on the ritual ingestion of peyote, San Pedro, and ayahuasca.

This is to disentangle the positive and negative effects of such initiations in light of the proven goal of yoga: moksha, liberation.

Born in 1941, François Lorin started to practise yoga in 1960. He studied with TKV. Desikachar in Madras from 1966 to 1987 and followed J. Krishnamurti’s talks in India and Europe, from 1963 until the end of the 1980s. He translated all TKV. Desikachar’s talks in Zinal, and obtained a diploma from Richard Moss’ Mentor programme in 1999.