Why have we never seen aliens? Ayahuasca and a conscious civilization
The most advanced planetary civilizations may have discovered that development of their species wasn’t about conquering outer space but rather inner space, and sacred plants of the Amazon and ancestral practices may hold an answer.
Fermi’s paradox questions: Making the lowest possible estimate, there could be 100,000 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy alone. So why have you never seen an alien?…Where is everyone?
Scientist Nikolai Kardashev developed a method for ranking entire civilizations, based on that the most advanced ones handle a higher level of energy use.
But when we question it, this way of thinking assumes that civilizations will progress catalyzed by curiosity, greed, or desires for exploration and expansionism. I understand Kardashev for proposing this, as he has had to rely on the standard we have historically evidenced in our human society as the only sample source. He manages the scenario that in order to grow as a species, more energy needs to be accumulated, forcing advanced civilizations to explore outer space to capture energy from great stars to supply the expansion.
But what if we don’t see aliens because advanced civilizations don’t have the need to explore outer space?
A hypothesis for the “paradox”
This expansionist and energy-centered progress has historically proven to be a flawed, aggressive and ultimately destructive system.
What if the answer to Fermi’s Paradox is that no civilization in the universe that progressed did so by accumulating more energy and expanding outwards? Then, it could be possible that civilizations that became advanced enough understood the importance of being conscious, of not needing so much energy, so many resources, so much money, so much procreation, so many things…And maybe that’s why we don’t see spaceships conquering galaxies, because space exploration could have been done inwards and discovered that the reality of existence and the universe does not depend on things that occupy a physical volume in space, but on elevated states of consciousness whose importance in the progress of a species we still cannot understand.
If you have had a profound experience with Ayahuasca, mushrooms, or some equivalent method to access expanded states of consciousness, perhaps you have felt that increase of mindfulness capacities and “inward expansionism” and accessed through your consciousness to some kind of understanding about the universe. Why those who have revealing psychedelic experiences talk so much about the universe? About the reality of existence? About the unity of everything and feeling “being the universe”?
A theory my team is working on is that these entities or beings that we see in psychedelic journeys or dreams have something to do with beings from other parts of the universe. That it’s in that invisible world where we connect with everything and that is how we travel through the universe, not using a physical machine that will never exceed the speed of light.
The curious thing is that Kardashev associates the progress of humanity with energy, and that may be so. Only that it might not be about accumulating electrical energy to power machines to improve our lives, but on channeling other types of internal energy that connect us in a harmonious way with our environment to power our lives in ways that escape our current understanding.
The Unconscious Human Problem
Most of society is built around humanity’s inability to change. We develop tools and allocate funds based on the premise that we have to conform to a system where the component of less conscious humans won’t allow for “in an ideal world” scenarios. For instance, global hunger today is not a production problem but a management problem, situation that might be different if some humans behind the system were more conscious.
The Unconscious Human Problem is an important one and there are many instruments to confront this, from educational programs to tougher regulations, but our species might need a quicker solution if we want to make it. As most hippies would say: The world would just be a better place if people were genuinely good to others.
If you’ve had a psychedelic experience you may also have felt self-transcendent phenomena like your ego dissolving and the sense that you are everyone and that everyone is connected. If we could get to the bottom of this and truly understand this concept on why we are all one, why would we do stuff that would damage others? This doesn’t mean the solution is giving psychedelics to everyone, but to study what’s behind this and similar tools to better understand how we could help fostering this mindset to people, especially the ones making important decisions.
Unraveling the nature of existence through ancient practice
Accessing expanded states of consciousness may help us understand how to become more conscious with others and the environment, and also give us a better understanding of the so-called invisible world, allowing us to come into contact with other dimensions, spaces or entities, which studied under the right perspective could bring us closer to understanding the nature of reality and existence.
Many initiatives seek to understand the nature of existence from fields such as biology, cosmology or quantum physics, and during sessions with our team we often realize that we are still limited to the axioms that modern science has established for us, and we cannot explore certain spaces in a way that cannot be evidenced with the instruments that we have all agreed to use.
While we talk about molecules and atoms, the Shipibo-Konibo indigenous people talk about spirits and dimensions.
The Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous Nation, in the Peruvian Amazon, has existed for more than 4,000 years and is one of the multiple ethnic groups that have been experimenting for millennia with sacred plants such as Ayahuasca.
What modern scientists explain with molecules and atoms, ancestral healers “onanyabo” explain with spirits and dimensions. Although it’s really way more complex than that.
Whoever has had the opportunity to meet a true wise healer has perhaps been able to witness intriguing ways of looking at life, with approaches that carry traditional knowledge transmitted orally through generations and that are usually based on a different ontology or epistemology. What some indigenous communities in the Amazon call ancestral science is a form of empirical science, developed by smart people who may help us find that right perspective that humanity needs. And if there is a time for us to come together, it is now.
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Álvaro Zárate is co-founder and CEO at Endocosmic Foundation, where they build or back initiatives exploring humanity’s future through consciousness expansion and ancestral practices. One of their initiatives, Microhuasca, works on Ayahuasca microdosing for mental health and self-exploration.
Previously, he’s worked 10 years developing entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems in LatAm, leading independent initiatives that helped build the startup ecosystem in Peru. He founded Startup Academy, first private incubator in Peru, City Incubators, where they supported a portfolio of +2,000 early stage startups and Doer, smart guide for accelerators and related institutions.
