The cause of the current of the problem of palliative medicine in the “mirror” of shmerian-akkadian mythology
K. V. Ivanov
Bioethics Journal November 30, 2024 DOI: 10.19163/2070-1586-2024-17-2-21-26 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | End-of-life distress |
| Key points | Argues that the historical taboo on entheogens stems from their capacity to produce a state of psychological wholeness that reduced adaptive activity, threatening archaic society, and questions the ban's applicability to incurable patients. |
Abstract
The unreliability of modern methods of treating existential distress in incurable patients draws the attention of a number of specialists to the possibility of using such an effective means of combating thanataphobia as gaining a symbolic experience of death – rebirth in palliative care, the simplest and most effective way of generating which is the use of entheogens. However, the topic of psychedelic therapy of the dying patients causes a wary attitude of society, despite the habitually high level of narcotic saturation of the field of palliative medicine. This attitude seems to be clearly conditioned by the cultural tradition of the prohibition of eating fruits from the Tree of Life, traced back to the era of Sumer and Akkad. Interpretation and analysis of the content of the mythological works of this ancient civilization give grounds to assert that the initial reason for the historical taboo on entheogens was the effect of the experience of symbolic rebirth in the form of the formation of the so-called psychological “wholeness”, i.e. a state of complete inner serenity, accompanied by a sharp decrease in the need for “external” adaptive activity. This circumstance, without a doubt, posed a fundamental threat to the well-being and security of society in the conditions of the archaic availability of this class of psychotropic substances. Such an “adaptive-civilizational” nature of the ban raises the question of its expediency in relation to those incurable patients for whom palliative means of distress therapy used by modern medicine turn out to be untenable.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on end-of-life distress, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Palliative Nursing and Sacred Medicine: A Holistic Stance on Entheogens, Healing, and Spiritual Care. Patients with advanced serious illness | 2019 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Psychedelics and Dying Care: A Historical Look at the Relationship between Psychedelics and Palliative Care. Historical context of dying care | 2019 | Historical analysis | |
| Psychedelics, spirituality, and existential distress in patients at the end of life. | 2025 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Psychedelic Ethics in Palliative Care. | 2025 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Responding to existential distress at the end of life: Psychedelics and psychedelic experiences and/ as medicine | 2024 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |