Snakes & Ladders: Kabbalah & the Psychedelic Revolution

Comments · 134

• JG

  @JG-mt3rp · 1 year ago

  This is so fascinating. The Chabad rabbis always have the best lectures.

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• SH

  @sharonfahey5374 · 1 year ago (edited)

  Thank you Rabbi, this has become big in the Veterans community and you can see it sliding into places in the name of "healing" or wanting to know themselves to be more like "Hashem created them to be". Hashem's Torah saved me, Hashem has been healing me through the Torah and my teshuvah is amazingly truthful and real through Hashem.

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• MA

  @marciateperman8811 · 1 year ago (edited)

  Great shiur. Funny you released this shiur now. I am a somatic therapist and I have experienced so much growth, healed painful experiences and accessed creativity to find more meaning and purpose without any drugs...and I was wondering how the "healing medicine" of the snake wasn't kosher. Because I intuitively feel is not. Thank you Rabbi Menusi.

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• VE

  @venuscraig748 · 1 year ago

  I respect the way you brought this topic together. very smart

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• JA

  @jacksaranta7574 · 1 year ago

  Thank you, Rabbi Nir Menussi ❤<br>Timely and beautiful message ❤<br>Baruch Hashem!<br>Am Ysrael chai ❤

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• MK

  @MK-mt2lh · 1 year ago

  I think there are a few things worth diving deeper into. You addressed Ayahuasca, but there’s much more to psychedelics. Let’s break it down:<br><br>Ayahuasca is a plant brew made from two main components: Chacruna (Psychotria viridis), which contains DMT, and Banisteriopsis caapi, which contains MAOIs (monoamine oxidase inhibitors) that allow the DMT to be orally active. When consumed, the MAOIs prevent the body from breaking down the DMT too quickly, resulting in a slower, longer experience—usually lasting 4 to 8 hours.<br><br>In the brain, Ayahuasca reduces activity in the Default Mode Network (linked to ego and overthinking) and increases communication between emotional and memory regions like the amygdala and hippocampus. It often leads to emotionally vivid, symbolic visions and deep personal insights.<br><br>Most experiences are described as journeys through memory, emotional healing, ancestral visions, or encounters with symbolic spiritual guides. It’s not usually an out-of-body realm experience, but more like guided internal therapy. Neurologically, it resembles states seen in dreams, psilocybin trips, LSD, hallucinations, and even psychosis—high in emotional content, but shaped by the subconscious.<br><br>Why does this help people heal? Because Ayahuasca quiets the ego, brings buried memories to the surface, and allows unresolved trauma to be processed in a safe, meaningful way—especially when used with intention and guidance.<br><br>DMT, the core molecule in Ayahuasca, acts much faster and more intensely when smoked or inhaled. Unlike Ayahuasca’s slow unfolding, DMT launches the user into an experience within seconds—and this experience is fundamentally different.<br><br>Also worth mentioning: One of the spices used by the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) on Yom Kippur in the Beit HaMikdash may have contained psychoactive compounds, possibly related to DMT. Scholars have speculated that this could have played a role in inducing altered states during the incense offering (Ketoret) in the Holy of Holies—a moment of direct encounter with the Divine.<br><br>In the brain, DMT functions very differently from typical psychedelics. Whereas dream states and hallucinations are shaped by emotion and memory centers, DMT produces precise, highly organized neuronal activity, especially in the visual cortex and thalamus. People often report entering a realm that feels “more real than real life,” populated by complex entities, geometric architectures, and overwhelming clarity. It doesn’t feel imagined or dreamlike—it feels like entering another dimension. The brain doesn’t appear chaotic—it fires in a sharp, synchronized, and structured way, almost as if it&apos;s receiving another layer of reality rather than generating one.<br><br>This makes DMT an entirely different experience than Ayahuasca—faster, more immersive, less symbolic, and neurologically more refined.<br><br>And finally, recent archaeological studies uncovered traces of THC on an Israelite altar from over 2,000 years ago. Whether it was used for its scent, psychoactive properties, or something else isn’t fully clear—but it’s a powerful reminder that plant-based substances may have played a deeper role in ancient spiritual practice than we often assume.

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• PL

  @plentinough7222 · 1 year ago (edited)

  One makes more of a mess with psychedelics. Rabbi, I did not experience what I experienced yesterday from my soul to come upon your presentation today. What I experienced was that historically I have experienced emotional pain and with that I feel that I need to feel pain, or I don’t feel alive without pain. I was simply tweezing a few stray eyebrow hairs and the REALIZATION came to me. And today! Here you are and you explained from the beginning of time that I am not alone and now I am truly on my way to “lightness” and true “connection”. &nbsp;Thank you. When the student is ready the teacher will appear.

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• VE

  @vendetta7221134 · 1 year ago

  I am not Jewish but this was phenomenal. G-d bless you and guide you rav

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• LE

  @leahzlata · 1 year ago

  This was brilliant. Thank you so much!

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• K-

  @k-g-8-8 · 1 year ago (edited)

  Thank you Rabbi for covering &nbsp;this and sharing your opinion. Discussing the &quot;age of heart&quot; you mentioned the advent of modern psychology started with Freud I think it is worth mentioning also his younger colleague and in a way intelectual successor Carl Gustav Jung who modeled modern psychoanalysis with his unique approach of conscious analysis of the subconcious, &quot;shadow working&quot;, individuation process, I think it really touches and corresponds to ideas you are sharing at the end of video about the current &quot;age of snake / age of messiah&quot;.

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• AN

  @annalouisepaul · 1 year ago (edited)

  Dance and movement can help us enter into the deep work. Somatic embodiment is the awakening we need to raise mashiach energy.

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• AL

  @alexandrefernandes1116 · 11 months ago

  Shalom,rabbi. Just awesome! Mindblowing shiur. Todah!