Allowing vulnerability in the face of pre-programmed but unnecessary defensiveness is an empowered skill, but a complicated one to develop.
The complication is that these programs of defensiveness are tangled up in the automatic interpretations of reality embedded in our nervous system, continuously propagating the stories in our head that tell us not only who we are but the nature of the world and where we fit within it. It’s pretty tough to convince your ancient biology, deeply conditioned by the social and psychological realities of the world we grew up and the world in which we still live, that we are safe to let our guards down when it is convinced otherwise. Learning to do so, however, learning to be vulnerable when the time comes for it, is a skill that allows nurturing human relationships and, thus, nutritive communities as well.
There are many possible ways that we can learn to allow vulnerability, most of which built by relationships that allow for a sense of safety and reciprocity. One of which, however, is the focus of this episode of Adventures Through The Mind and, believe it or not, it’s psilocybin mushrooms! Specifically, the use of psilocybin mushrooms in a context that honours them as a sacred pant (or fungi, in this case) and ensures the secure passage of the mycophagist through their psychedelic experience and back into a community of others who have taken the journey as well.
Even more specifically, this episode not only discusses the power of psilocybin to help us develop the skill of confident vulnerability but what such a psychedelic lesson might mean for masculinity in the cultural context of inner-city Detroit. To take us through this discussion, we welcome Ser Moudou Awa Balla Baqui, aka Baba Moudou Baqui, a lifelong citizen of Detroit’s Highland Park and third generation metaphysician.
Moudou Baqui (aka, Justin Petty, M. Ed.) is an activist, Certified Level II Reiki healer, martial artist, urban shaman, behavioural specialist and educator. His journey into the esoteric started with his father, former Grand Master of a local chapter of an international mystical order, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who began his studies in the early 1900s. At his father’s urging, he continued his studies of ancient knowledge without the formality of known institutions. He has further advanced his studies of shamanism, metaphysics and ethnogenics via travel on several continents and tutelage under different intellectual traditions. Among his teachers, he credits Ahati Kilindi Iyi as a key figure in his knowledge of ethnobotany and the martial sciences.
I met Moudou at OZORA festival 2018, where he gave an excellent lecture on the role of the feminine in ancient warfare through the use of psychoactive plants and magic. However, when we sat down to do an (on-location) interview we ended up talking less about the history of magical warfare and more about the challenges of crime and violence in the inner-city of Detroit, as well as the potential of psilocybin-awakened confident vulnerability to release the men of that culture from the toxic masculinity that eats away at the integrity of their relationships and the community as a whole.
We also talk about Moudou’s journey with psilocybin and martial arts in the context of growing up in the inner-city, and the role psilocybin played in his grieving process after the death of his father. I really enjoyed talking with Moudou, and I trust you will enjoy the conversation as well.
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Moudou Baqui (aka, Justin Petty, M. Ed.) is an activist, Certified Level II Reiki healer, martial artist, urban shaman, behavioural specialist and educator. His journey into the esoteric started with his father, former Grand Master of a local chapter of an international mystical order, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who began his studies in the early 1900s. At his father’s urging, he continued his studies of ancient knowledge without the formality of known institutions. He has further advanced his studies of shamanism, metaphysics and ethnogenics via travel on several continents and tutelage under different intellectual traditions. Among his teachers, he credits Ahati Kilindi Iyi as a key figure in his knowledge of ethnobotany and the martial sciences.
