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- - Ethogens and faith (https://thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-philosophy/133673-ethogens-faith.html)

Ethogens and faith

Timothy Leary and other psycadelic pioneers argue that hallucinagenic drugs can envoke an almost religious experience.

Personally i think to the prepared mind LSD, psychadelic mushrooms, and peyote can all be definitely used to help form your adult self. There are alot of positive effects from taking lsd at one point in your life. Ever notice that most people who are forward thinking and seeking change in the world usually have taken drugs at one point in their life.

'Shrooms have never had any effect on me in the manner you speak of.

Peyote was like taking a journey into my soul. It definitely was a journey worth taking and I'm a better person for having taken it. I definitely believe peyote is a highly spiritual drug.

As far as acid goes, it's what made me as weird as I am. Not saying my weirdness is a bad thing, I just think about things differently than I did before acid.

All these drugs are definitely a huge factor in the person I am today.

Quote:

Originally Posted by opentocomments

Ever notice that most people who are forward thinking and seeking change in the world usually have taken drugs at one point in their life.

I've noticed that they talk about a lot of crap but never really do anything important with their lives.

Some theologians theorize that Jesus used psychedelic drugs. He wasn't a slacker.

I've never taken any illegal/mind altering drugs. Closest I've ever come was OD-ing on my asthma medication as a kid, which was 'interesting', but not really mind (or life) altering.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I've noticed that they talk about a lot of crap but never really do anything important with their lives.

How different they are from the vast majority of people....

From my experience, it's not the drug that grants the life-altering experience but rather the person. And all to often, the drug is used as a crutch. You can have a life-altering experience just as easily from your child being born or even a walk in the park than from a drug. That's not to diminish the role of drugs entirely - certainly they have their place. Bur the idea that you can derive wisdom by solely tripping on a drug is nonsense.

I don't think any drug can take the place of real spiritual work and raising one's awareness through focus and faith.

That said, I often felt a very palpable, intense sensation of the connection between all people, and all living things while I was shrooming. I did once or twice feel an increased awareness of the supernatural or paranormal while tripping on acid, but it was not a regular thing, and it was usually very transitory, even when I was seriously tripping balls. On the other hand, for me, a big part of the shroom experience was the euphoria of connection with everything, and joy in the moment of existence.

I did have seriously spiritual visions while tripping once, but it was not during recreational use. A friend and I vision-quested at the edge of the Mojave desert once. We did a juice fast for three days, along with intensive meditation and focus, then went out to a sheltered spot on the edge of the desert, and took a cocktail of peyote and mescaline. We meditated separately while waiting for the stuff to kick in, and when it did, we both had long, long visions of intensely mystical nature. After we came down, both of us agreed that what we had experienced was helpful for us, spiritually. But we were both doing a lot of spiritual work otherwise in our lives, also: meditation, reading, prayer, etc. I would presume that the same cocktail of drugs, done recreationally, by people not doing the same kind of work and prep, would not have the same effect.

this is a tough area for me..
on the one hand, i learned alot from my passage through hallucinogens when i was a mere sprat.
on the other, i fucked up at one point and lost about year.

the material world, especially when understood through a frame of bourgeois common sense, is a diminished and uninteresting place. the world is an accumulation of things and nothing else. things can be manipulated in a superficial manner through varying levels of skill.

hallucinogens can be a device to show that these limitations obtain.
but i can't say they're necessary--but i can't say they aren't or rather weren't for me because my trajectory included them.

so i don't know.

where i think they've influenced me most is in soundwork.
but they didn't get me to whatever this place i work from is.
that just took practice, persistence and openness.
but i think they played a role in shaping what i understand working with sound to be and what it can do--how it affects me, how it can affect others. it also had something to do with the synesthetic functions that organize sound--but i don't think they come from hallucinogens, nor did my experiences do much to shape them in the longer run--at most, they helped me accept that synesthetic patterns are normal. and they are--everyone uses cross-sensory modes of organizing sense data, but their thinking ABOUT how they organize that sense data tends to erase it.

anyway. i can't say. i don't think they're a magic key. i think they can show you stuff you otherwise would block out, for better or worse. i think they can allow you to skip steps, both for better and for worse. you can get lost out there. you can fuck up. it's not all paisley and incense.

i don't think it is necessary a great idea to skip steps--but you can only determine that for yourself once you skip them.

but mostly, i don't think that putting a hallucinogen into your system will make you anything other than what you already are at that time--you'll just see more of it--and you may not like what you see. i don't think it makes you into a potentially "great" person--it can just as easily make you dysfunctional.

thinking that you can eat something and become part of some inward elite is just consumerist horseshit stood on its head.

but i wouldn't recommend or discourage anyone from taking them.

skipping steps doesn't mean that there are therefore no steps--it generally means that (a) you wont understand what you might otherwise have understood--but that doesn't mean it isn't important to encounter what you won't understand and (b) you might have trouble getting back.

Evangelists use the body's adrenaline to induce euphoria, confusion and other effects. In turn, this leads to misattribution of arousal. Kinda like how the hero and the token female start making out at the end of an action movie.

The Marsh Chapel Experiment - wiki

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^refers to an experiment attempting to ascertain whether or not pscilocybin can be used as an agent to produce 'genuine' mystical experiences in the religiously inclined - much as described by the mystical saints.

precis: yes. buried immediately, naturally.

What authority could possibly back up the idea of personal, divine revelation characterised by peace and love to the masses?

Quote:

25 years later: A follow-up study

25 years later, a comprehensive follow-up study was carried out to determine the nature of any lasting long term effects (Doblin, R. 1991. Pahnke's "Good Friday Experiment": A Long-Term Follow-Up and Methodological Critique. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, Vol. 23, No.1.) The author noted:

Each of the psilocybin subjects had vivid memories of portions of their Good Friday experience . . . The experimental subjects unanimously described their Good Friday psilocybin experience as having had elements of a genuinely mystical nature and characterized it as one of the highpoints of their spiritual life. Some subjects reported that the content of their experience was specifically involved with the life of Christ and related directly to the Christian message while others had experiences of a more universal, non-specific nature. Most of the control subjects could barely remember even a few details of the service . . .

Each of the psilocybin subjects felt that the experience had significantly affected his life in a positive way and expressed appreciation for having participated in the experiment. Most of the effects discussed in the long-term follow-up interviews centered around enhanced appreciation of life and of nature, deepened sense of joy, deepened commitment to the Christian ministry or to whatever other vocations the subjects chose, enhanced appreciation of unusual experiences and emotions, increased tolerance of other religious systems, deepened equanimity in the face of difficult life crises, and greater solidarity and identification with foreign peoples, minorities, women and nature.

While the author criticized Walter Pahnke for downplaying the frightening experiences and emotional struggles that were experienced by some of the experimental subjects (one of whom was administered a tranquilizer to help him calm down) Doblin also noted that:

Despite the difficult moments several of the psilocybin subjects passed through, the subjects who participated in the long-term follow-up reported a substantial amount of persisting positive effects and no significant long-term negative effects. Even the subject who was tranquilized in the original experiment reported only "slightly harmful" negative persisting effects at the six-month follow-up . . .

All psilocybin subjects participating in the long-term follow-up, but none of the controls, still considered their original experience to have had genuinely mystical elements and to have made a uniquely valuable contribution to their spiritual lives. The positive changes described by the psilocybin subjects at six months, which in some cases involved basic vocational and value choices and spiritual understandings, had persisted over time and in some cases had deepened. The overwhelmingly positive nature of the reports of the psilocybin subjects are even more remarkable because this long-term follow-up took place during a period of time in the United States when drug abuse was becoming the public's number one social concern, with all the attendant social pressure to deny the value of drug-induced experiences. The long-term follow-up interviews cast considerable doubt on the assertion that mystical experiences catalyzed by drugs are in any way inferior to non-drug mystical experiences in both their immediate content and long-term positive effects . . .

Thus, despite having an experience that was "unanimously described as having had elements of a genuinely mystical nature and characteriz[ing] it as one of the highpoints of their spiritual life . . . [that] had significantly affected [their lives] in a positive way" the experimental subjects who had received psilocybin had little opportunity to ever have such experiences again.

For most this was their life's only psychedelic experience, in part because there have been no legal opportunities for such experiences for the last twenty-five years in the United States (or in any of the roughly 90 countries who are party to the international drug control treaties coordinated by the United Nation's World Health Organization).

How sad.

source

Personally, I'm very much in favour of people having access to these substances in a controlled manner. Recreationally if they want, but under guidance preferably.

I would describe the times where i used psilocybin particularly, as a wonderful enlightening of the spirit. 100% positive and without dangerous side-effects.

Quote:

I've noticed that they talk about a lot of crap but never really do anything important with their lives.

I refer the honourable gentleman to the divine Hicks:

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Ahh... The dangers of drug use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

That very well sums up how I feel on this topic, but said with much more grace than I could muster.