What do you think the relationship is (if any) between psychedelic drugs and religious experience?

I have, but I think the reason it isn’t widespread anymore is because science can explain how and why things happen the way they do, while someone is on drugs. That’s not to say, necessarily, that people aren’t having a genuine experience, but the way science explains it, it simply takes a lot of the “magic” out of the experience. So I think that even religious people view it somewhat scientifically now. That and we also now know more of the dangers than people used to.

wow…
just wow lol

i know that there have been studies that show that people who were under the influence of psychedelic drugs had very similar experiences as people who ‘saw the light’ in near death experiences, interpreting it as a religious experience. perhaps the similarity suggests that religion is just a perceptual thing, and that’s why said religions don’t condone it, because it lessens the legitimacy of it? i don’t really know, i just thought of that when i saw the question. i don’t even know if that ^ made sense.

Peyote is obtained from Mescal buttons and it produces hallucinations.

Two excerpts from Wikipedia:

There is documented evidence of the religious, ceremonial, and healing uses of peyote dating back over 2,000 years.

From earliest recorded time, peyote has been used by indigenous peoples, such as the Huichol of northern Mexico and by various Native American Tribal Groups.

@tiffy – Well, near to death, your brain produces large amounts of DMT, which is also produced during REM sleep. It can be smoked in crystalline form, too – could that have been what the subjects were given?

I’ve said it on here many times. Our primate ancestors stumbled across some type of psychedelic (probably mushrooms) that led to a sense of self and a feeling of vast invisible forces at work (the “God feeling”).

it also led to black lights, ben & jerry’s, and R. Crumb art

Yes, i have had spiritual experiences under the influence of mushrooms, mescaline, salvia and DMT. The most intense of them all was the DMT. I saw the flash of white light and I went to heaven and was greeted by an entity. I dont even believe in god….

@Blondesjon – Have you ever heard of Terrence McKenna? He wrote a book on almost exactly that theory, claiming that the synesthesia mushrooms can bring on was behind the development of human language.

@Hobbes Food of the Gods. Amazing book, just got done reading it actually :)

@Hobbes…Where do you think I got the idea? How cool would it have been to attend one of his retreats before he died?

Interpreting a psychedelic experience as being of a religious or theistic variety has a lot to do with how a person already, prior to taking the psychedelic, understands the world and their perception of it.

A person’s ideas, values, past experiences, colours how they translate what they see and feel in the midst of a psychedelic experience. It’s been said many times that set and setting are a very key part of understanding such events and with that in mind I think when someone has a religious experience in an entirely sober and non-intoxicated state that again set and setting shouldn’t be so easily dismissed, as I think they commonly are.

The experience that comes from taking LSD and other psychedelics, while seemingly very alien and apart from our normal day to day conscious experience are simply just different ways of seeing the same things. I think when one “hallucinates” something that seems to not actually be in reality, it’s being manifested from the mind, it exists in the mind and the relationship between our mind and what we consider concrete reality is not necessarily one of observer-scene, maybe it’s all part of the same thing…

So when somebody sees God or the Devil, Buddha, or Allah, they’re seeing what they want to see, or what they expect to see, and that the actual distinction between the different experiences are simply within those who are having the experiences…

“Food of the Gods” is a great book :D Interesting theory too

McKenna was an incredibly interesting person. Listening to his talks, he veers from incredible perceptiveness and intelligence to sounding like a total whackjob to passionate romanticism.

@Blondesjon – I completely agree. I would definitely invite him to my dream dinner, too.

@Blondesjon i would love to have been able to. though i was only 12 when he died lol I think Terence McKenna is one of the most fascinating people , he was very intelligent and very articulate. I swear i could listen to him talk for days.
Me and my girlfriend made this shirt

@uberbatman That’s a great shirt, nice tie-dye too!

I think drugs are about as good an explanation for god as anything else….

I have personally not partaken in hallucinogens, but I would not be entirely averse to the proposition. When I was growing up, my mother used to tell me, “Nikipedia, never do drugs. The only exception is if you get a doctorate in divinity. Then you can do peyote buttons with a native American shaman.”

Someday I will have to ask her if a doctorate in neuroscience counts.

I think the disconnect between spirituality and drugs has more to do with the particular tenets of the religions that predominate today than anything else. Judeo-Christian and Muslim values come down pretttttty strongly against drugs in general. I think those religions rose to dominance for a host of unrelated reasons and took their anti-drug views with them, most likely.

(Also, if you want to talk about the neurobiology of spirituality, I am always down for a conversation about brains <3 <3 <3!)

@Jamspoon thanks :) it was my first attempt at tie dying

My thoughts are that if there is a spirit world that surrounds us and it was something that we could tap into through a variety of different methods (drugs, REM sleep, near death, meditation) and physically experience, then it would make sense that there was a trigger in the brain to allow us to connect with that energy source and translate that to our bodies.

I liken that connection to the collective subconscious and tapping into a wider level of thought for a short period of time.

I believe in hallucingenc drugs. I don’t believe in a god. So the two have no connection for me.
I find uberbatman’s experience to be interesting, though.

I read a marvelous group of articles in Tricycle, the Buddhist magazine, on this very subject a few years ago. They were brave enough to devote an issue to exploring the subject of whether drug-induced enlightenment experiences are authentic and whether drugs can be an aid to spirituality, as well as what is the difference between effects achieved through meditation and through psychoactive substances.

The articles, by a variety of authors, took widely differing points of view on the topic, and there was no attempt to drive them to a single conclusion. The ones I found most compelling were those that sprang out of the San Francisco scene of the sixties, from people who first got big jolts of insight into some sort of Reality through hallucinogens and then went to Zen Center and started meditating with Suzuki-roshi to do the inner work that went with it. There seemed to be a prevailing sense that you could reach illuminations of the same sort, that drugs could be a shortcut in that sense, but (considerations of risks aside) without the study of the wisdom teachings and the sincere practice of meditation you couldn’t have the same quality of understanding or the same transformational effects on your life.

Forgive any defects in this recollection of a one-time reading of several years ago. I am neither a user of hallucinogens nor an advanced practitioner of meditation, so I am remembering and rendering imperfectly. But what this does tell you is that there is thought and available literature on the subject.

I also recommend the late Terence McKenna’s books, several of them, for their explorations of this and related topics.

for starters, there is a strong relationship between psychadelic drugs and religious experience.
to begin, both are very wonderful and enjoyable, yet not physically addictive. also, they both give you a similar sense of well-being and enlightment. they cause you to not feel a strong need or want for worldly possessions and accommodations. they let you enjoy life without musing too much upon the future and the past. i am buddhist and have had great experiences with this. they really make you see more into the “correct” way of thinking and mind set, i don’t know why. i suppose it’s just because of the chemicals, such as serotonin, that they cause your brain to mass produce, that make you ungodly happy and loving.

i think there are three main reasons the use isn’t as widespread.
1) the drugs are illegal, and just not as common as they used to be. they also cost money, while enlightment is free.
2) they make big holes in your brain and hurt your body in some ways.
3) true enlightment means not needing any sort of substance to be happy or well. in order to really give into a religion, you must be able to do it on your own, without emotional steroids and stimulants. if you truly love your god or your religious practice, you should learn to be happy without the drug and feel that way without the hallucinogen.

isn’t that the point of religion anyway? to feel as happy as you would on any drug without actually harming yourself or causing addiction?

For those of you interested in the full experience i had…

I took a very small hit and closed my eyes. Immediately i saw flashes of totem poles with all these crazy faces carved into them. I then took a really big hit quickly followed by a small one held in deep, closed my eyes, blast off. There was this blindly bright flash of light and then all of a sudden i was in ancient Egypt. It is hard to describe the feeling, but it wasnt like i had any recollection of taking DMT, i felt as if i really was in egypt. Like dreaming but much more realistic. I was instantly greeted by egypts high priest. There was a strong feeling of being welcome. As i looked around i saw pyramids and all these bizarre symbols flashing before my eyes. Then all of a sudden everything started getting blurry and i became aware that i took dmt. It was wearing off, but i didnt smoke all that was in my bowl so i inhaled again. I instantly felt as if i had blasted off to the skys. Like someone had fired me out of a cannon. I remember thinking to myself that i was on my way to heaven. I should note here DMT is a funny drug how it works on your mind. You still think exactly the same nothing changes unlike most other drugs. So i thought to myself it very odd im having these feelings of going to heaven. After all i dont believe the place exists. Then all of a sudden, i was there. I was again greeted upon arrival. This time it was by this beautiful woman with long flowing brown hair. She told me her name but i forgot it, it started with an E though. It felt as if i was in the presence of an entity. There were other people here as well. None of them stood out to me, but there was again this overwhelming feeling of joy happiness and being welcomed. Once again as it really started to get good everything went blurry. And slowly this world melted away and I was back in my room.
all of the above happened in about 3 minutes lol

@elenamillaa care to back up number two on your list?

@Jeruba – thanks for sharing, that made a lot of sense to me.

@uberbatman – very interesting

The closest spiritual experience I ever had was an overwhelming (in a good way) sense of connection to… Everything. Other humans, the planet and the entire universe. No matter what questions popped into my head, there was an answer. I felt like I knew why everything was the way it was, and without a doubt, I simply knew that everyone was connected in ways that people have yet to realize. The calmness, happiness and love that I felt were pretty unbelievable.

I haven’t had the chance to personally experience it (unless you count marijuana, which I feel is a spiritual experience enhancing drug), but I recently read The Gospel According to The Beatles and a LOT of the book was dedicated to the boys’ use of LSD and its effects on their spiritual lives and journeys. It was quite interesting and I have to admit, it made me want to try LSD at least once.

@uberbatman and @Hobbes…Have either of you ever heard of or read any Alan Watts. It was nosing around in his philosophical neck of the woods that I happened upon McKenna.

awsome shirt uber

@Blondesjon no i havent, ill have to check him out.

No I’ve never combined those two.. in large part because I’ve never felt the need to try a psychedelic drug in the first place. Maybe religions stopped using it because they realized it was retarded.

Nearly every culture in the world used psychoactive drugs of one form or another. Amanita Muscaria and Datura in Europe, Salvia Divinorum and Psilocybin Mushrooms in the Oaxaca regions of Mexico, Morning Glory seeds among the Aztecs, Ayahuasca among the Amazonian Indians, and Peyote among the North American Indians, to name a few. This suggests to me that there must be some reason for it beyond being “retarded”, a label which is particularly presumptuous given that you’ve “never felt the need” to try it.

@naturalmineralwater it’s not that “retarded” when you think about it objectively.

@essieness can you give me an example?

@naturalmineralwater Give you an example of what?

@essieness of how it’s not retarded.. you know.. objectively speaking.

@naturalmineralwater I would answer that question by asking you what leads you to believe it is “retarded”.

@essieness Fair enough. (Although kind of a cop out) I just think that the use of such drugs has declined because people finally started to realize that they weren’t getting any spiritual enlightenment from them. Perhaps, just as a former drug user, they figured out that drugs can give them a temporary “happy”.... but not give them true joy. Of course, all of this is just my opinion.. I haven’t done any extensive research on the subject.

I’ve had some really profound spiritual experiences on hallucinogens, so, yes, I think there is something to certain substances aiding in a religious experience. Some of the best, happiest times I’ve had have been on mushrooms in the woods, experiencing the divine glory of nature. There’s nothing like it. Even if, at other times, I do often doubt the existence of God, in these moments, I feel the strongest connectedness to everything. It’s very moving.

@AlenaD What part of the experience made it spiritual?

@Hobbes I’ve never felt the need to try crack either. So I guess I am being presumptuous. Let’s go get some. o.O

@naturalmineralwater Touche and you have a valid argument. Thanks for a level-headed response. Lurve.

I think we are looking at the question from different points of view and stages of life. One who has not experienced hallucinogens might question it’s relation to spiritual experience out of curiosity while someone who has gone through that or similar experiences won’t.

@essieness Again, I’m very interested to hear precisely what about a psychedelic drug experience is spiritual. I think the term is being used much too loosely in this scenario.

@Natural – You’re claiming that drugs do not give spiritual experiences when you have (as you’ve said) very little knowledge about the subject. Just be a little less quick to judge.

Psychadelic experiences are often described as “spiritual” in the sense that they can make one feel a deep sense of connection to everything around them, a “oneness” with the world and humanity that seems to be at the root of many religions. The more powerful ones can even give one the experience that they are transcending reality or communicating with non-human entities.

Take this brother. May it serve you well.

@Hobbes I’m not judging anyone. I’m just stating my opinion. I don’t need to jump off a cliff to know that I would splatter at the bottom.. especially having seen so many jump before me.

Mmm. Fair enough, but I think you’re using the wrong metaphor. Use of drugs like crack might well be compared to jumping off a cliff, but psychedelics are more like swimming in the ocean. There’s a chance you might drown, sure, but if you know what you’re doing, there’s a whole world there to explore.

@Hobbes I can swim in the ocean without psychedelics.

@NaturalMineralWater I can see your point about the addiction and harm the drugs can cause. But I think we’re discussing their use removed from that side effect. If that makes sense Regardless of the possible negatives side effects of, or outcomes from, the use the drugs, what sort of gateway into the spiritual world does the high they give provide to the users?

@essieness Well that certainly would change the question. However, it’s still difficult for me to imagine needing any “medicinal” help reaching the sort of “spiritualism” described here. I have felt true joy beyond my comprehension simply by praising God. Perhaps, I’m the corn in the pea pod.

Well, religious experience is by nature a pretty mysterious thing, as far as I understand it. Who’s to say that your method is any more effective or valid than those used by Amazonian shamans or Rastafarians?

@Hobbes For me? I am. But it is simply empirically discerned. And as I said before.. I’ve seen so many jump off that cliff.. it’s sad to see.

@NaturalMineralWater Perhaps that true joy you feel without the use of psychedelics is what the people using them are searching for.

@essieness I can only hope.

What do you mean when you say that it has been “empirically discerned”? I know of no scientific studies on the relative subjective effectiveness of various spiritual practices.

Really, my issue here is that you’re painting all drugs with the same brush. I can completely see where you’re coming from as far as destructive drugs (cocaine, meth, heroin, crack, etc.) are concerned, but the psychedelics (or at the very least, the lighter ones like mushrooms and weed) are entirely benign.

@Hobbes Do you get a psychedelic high from weed? I want what you’re smoking.

@NaturalMineralWater no spiritual experiences from drugs? Did you not read my post above about my DMT experience? Hallucinogens are a very spiritual experience. And hobbes is right most psychedelics pose no danger to the body at all.

@essieness i get a psychedelic experience when i smoke a lot of weed.

@Hobbes By empirically discerned I mean based on my observation and experience throughout my lifetime..

@uberbatman You never answered my question about that.

I think my biggest issue is that sure.. perhaps your physical senses are enhanced by using these drugs.. but it’s not a physical sense that leads you to spirituality imho. You can’t SEE God.. only the effects of Him. I hope that makes sense. You are having a psychedelic experience.. sure.. but not a spiritual one.

@NaturalMineralWater I hate to break this to you, but you have absolutely no clue what your talking about here, and really you never will until you experience psychedelics for yourself. Somethings cannot be explained in words what happens during a trip. I assure it is a very spiritual experience and feels realer than anything youve ever felt before.

Have you met anyone who uses drugs for spiritual purposes? Or just the self-destructive types?

With the possible exception of DMT, while psychedelics can cause hallucinations, most people who use psychedelics don’t report seeing God per se, but rather a deeper understanding of reality and an experience of the spiritual dimension of things. What, to you, would define a “spiritual experience”, if not that?

As uberbatman said, though, it’s a very difficult thing to describe.

@essieness -Well, if I get high enough, I get closed eye visuals, colors seem more intense, and my mind works in an entirely different way, which I’d describe as a psychedelic experience of the mild sort.

@uberbatman I hope one day you feel the joy I’ve felt. It’s clear I cannot understand things from your perspective.

@NaturalMineralWater i dont seem to understand what joy im missing out on….

@uberbatman You’re missing out on getting joy without the reliance on a drug.

I’m getting joy watching you two talk about how you get your joy.

@NaturalMineralWater who said i rely on drugs to be happy? Just because I enjoy taking drugs doesnt mean i cant have a good time without them.

@essieness LOL. I am too, otherwise I wouldn’t be still responding.

Also, I believe we’re talking about spiritual experiences, not happiness, necessarily.

@Hobbes Yes, you’re correct there. But let’s keep watching.

@NaturalMineralWater Don’t let us down ;)

@Hobbes I suppose the definitions of a spiritual experience have simply been too vague to make this discussion very objective. For me a spiritual experience is feeling connected with God .. when all doubt is removed about His presence and I can feel His presence in my heart.. feel that He exists and is watching over me. If this is the spiritual experience you are describing .. I’m happy to announce you can get it without drugs. That’s all.

@NaturalMineralWater Maybe I should start a new thread for this, but why does God have to be a He?

@essieness Yes. New thread. lol

Hmm. Well, I suppose that’s one way of describing it. I don’t know about the Judeo-Christian God necessarily, but there’s often a feeling of being connected to something big, whether it’s the universe or Vague Spiritual Force. It’s more than that, though – the problem is that the psychedelic experience, as uberbatman pointed out, is almost impossible to describe.

@NaturalMineralWater for some reason i find it REALLY hard to believe any spiritual feelings your getting are nothing compared to a large dose of DMT.

@uberbatman What I feel is indeed indescribable. And I’m also fully aware that it’s nothing like what you feel.

Tell you what: Uber and I will agree to accept Jesus into our hearts and all that if you take a big hit or two of our good friend Dimethyltryptamine.

@Hobbes No deal howie. If you are ready to accept Jesus then no bargaining will be required.

Psst. It was a joke!

@Hobbes I know. =)

i think the point is that psychedelics can act as a short cut to that sense of connectedness with God. The difference is that the user assumes it is the drugs that are taking him to a different place, when the truth is that it was a door that was opened internally.

If you don’t recognize that, then you will have a hard time separating the two. but once you realize that you can have the same sense of connectedness in daily life, then you see that there is really no need for the drugs, because they throw off your internal balance to push you over the edge for a quick peek.

But in some ways, it is not very different from the way Catholic masses were planned back in the Dark Ages. The chanting and incense and candles all helped to give the person a sense of being somewhere other than their daily life. Now, we can actually get that sensation without going anywhere.

I think in part fireside has the right idea. Besides the strong restrictions place on any chemical precursors to d-lysergic acid, the reason that use has sharply decreased since LSD’s discovery and concurrent introduction to the public domain is largely due to the enlightenment, advertised by advocates of the psychedelic experience like Leary, Ram Das, and McKenna to name a few, that can be gained from having such an experience does not always come easily, in fact to have a truly puissant and immediately life-altering experience never happens quickly.

“Life-altering” experiences that induce intense personal reflection can often be very terrifying or unsettling for any number of reasons and can stay with a person for their entire lives, and most likely will. It’s through the integration of a psychedelic trip, whether it have been good or bad, that the most valuable insight is gained.

Integrating or digesting a substantial experience had under the influence of LSD, Mescaline, psilocybin, DMT or any other of the numerous significantly psychoactive substances that exist on our planet is a process, a process that may take a long time, it may not, it’s entirely dependent upon the individual and their experience.

From experience , I can say with conviction, that the real worth of any chemically induced perception does indeed take some time to be acknowledged and truly understood. If I might liken an LSD trip to that of taking off, getting the hell away from civilization, from power and perms, from Powerade and peach scented Glade, it’s like having walked for seven hours, carefully picked your way for another hour and half up a boulder field and scrambled frantically for thirty minutes up loose scree to find yourself atop a mountain, a real mountain, there was no clear way to the top, there was no body and there were no signs along the way to show you where to go. You brought yourself to initial trail-head and you did the rest.

Looking out from the top of the mountain you see countless valleys, lakes, and other mountains. The view is at once spectacular and terrifying, right in front of you is a clear two-hundred foot drop to rocks, but beyond that is the manifestation of utter beauty on a scale completely unlike any you encounter day to day, it all embodies the same sense of possibility and possibility translates readily into hope, as long as you can see past the very real danger of plummeting to your death. Though, I would think there are worse ways to go.

In my opinion, Leary was trying too hard.
He was grasping for the experiences, which is one sure way of not getting there.

Juxtapose him with Ken Kesey and you see the difference.

i’m just going by what i’ve read and what i’ve experienced really with number two.
i know some people who’ve done insaneeee amounts and are now complete burnouts.
and after my experience, for a few weeks, i was completely out of it and felt not only incredibly stupid, but also like i couldn’t do normal things i’d always done.

How we understand “spiritual experience” is key here. This thread thus far hints at several ways of looking at it.

For many, there’s an element of other-worldliness to spiritual experience, of transport to another realm, or seeing extraordinary things. For others, it’s an emotional experience: overwhelming happiness or peace. For a whole bunch more, there have to be spirit entities involved.

I can see the appeal in all these, but what bothers me about them is that they implicitly draw a distinction between spiritual experience and mundane experience. They all, in one way or another, separate spiritual experience from the nitty-gritty of life and make it privileged and precious.

In my view, spiritual experience is useless if it has nothing to do with my moment-by-moment life. It shouldn’t be a place I go to to get away from ordinariness; it should be deeply involved with the ordinary in a way that transforms my relationship to the ordinary.

I have zero experience with hallucinogenics, but I won’t deny that it’s possible for them to affect this kind of transformation. I don’t think their power lies in the emotions or sensory transport they trigger, though; those are misleading distractions. But I do believe people when they say that drugs have given them insight into the unity, the connectedness, of all things.

From my meditation experience I know that our feeling of the separateness of things from each other, and of ourselves from everything else, is something that our own minds create. If we stop creating that illusion, the separation simply vanishes and the fundamental unity of the world becomes obvious. This isn’t transport of any kind, or even seeing something that isn’t usually there. It’s just understanding an aspect of our everyday world that we had always overlooked. And that understanding is deeply transformative because it shifts our entire scheme of relationships.

Drugs can, I think, effectively cause the brain to stop generating the illusion of separation, as can other non-chemical practices. But the problem then becomes one of how to integrate that experience into life – put it to work, so to speak (@Jeruba touched on this earlier). It’s when things take a nasty turn in life that this gets put to the test. Does that experience of unity inform how you deal with conflict, the suffering of others, sickness and death? Or is it just a memory of a cool experience?

Well said.

I’m okay with certain drug use, as long as it never becomes something a person has to rely on, for any reason. I have warned people away from certain drugs, even if I myself enjoyed it, simply because I felt that it might pose some kind of danger to them.

I can only speak for myself when I say that what I experienced will stay with me for the rest of my life and will never simply become a memory “of a cool experience”. However, I’m already a very spiritual person, so that makes sense. What I felt made me want to change the world (even more) and people’s perceptions of what they think reality is… Or what they think it has to be.

If Naturalmineralwater gets those good feelings from the god they believe in, so be it. If Harp gets them through meditation alone, good. Not everyone reaches enlightenment the same way, which is something I think more people need to realize. Consumption in moderation is key here – even in terms of believing in a higher power, meditation and other things. People think, too often, that their way is the right way. It’s when people start thinking that their way is the right way, the only way… When things start to go wrong.

Honestly… Who cares how someone reaches enlightenment as long as they’re doing so responsibly and with an open mind?

The goal is to reach a state of continuous wakeful awareness.
Enlightenment is just the gate the path continues.

The question is which method is more likely to be sustainable and not interfere with that balance.

I truly don’t know if there is even an answer to that. Being a spiritual person before and after I tried certain drugs… I can’t say that I know. However, I can easily see how even trying a drug once and never again, could open people’s minds and put them on the path to enlightenment. It highly depends on the individual to begin with.

If you have someone doing drugs simply because they can’t feel good or enlightened off of them, then obviously meditation is the best route for them to take, because they’re doing drugs for the entirely wrong reason and need to do some soul-searching to begin with.

If you have someone who is already on the path to enlightenment and they wish to experience things a little differently, drugs are there, as a part of their journey.

Either can be sustainable, in my opinion. It’s about striking a balance to find a balance. Ugh. I don’t like how that sounds, but I don’t know how else to put it.

Has anyone had religious or spiritual experiences under the influence of a drug?

I have had at least as many without. of course, the time I have spent drugged-up occupies a tiny slice of time compared to the time I have spent without. the first time I did LSD, though, I felt more skeptical and rational than ever. I thought, “okay this indicates strongly that religious and mystical experience comes from brain chemistry.” not that that thought had not come across to me before.

Why do you think their use in religious practice is no longer widespread (as it was among many ancient religions)?

shitloads of religions still use drugs, just not the big ones! the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) tend to forbid it. so does Buddhism. if you crunched down all the religions without reference to number of followers, you’d find a lo more tolerance for drug use.

that said, I personally believe that revisionist scholars have overemphasized the importance of drugs to religions. no particular evidence I have, just a hunch which may come from bias as I believe theirs does. (I have temporal lobe epilepsy so mystical states come naturally to me.)

@fireeside, The goal is to reach a state of continuous wakeful awareness.

not everyone thinks so. some religious sects preach getting stoned in Godbliss. of course you may or may not consider that a false dichotomy. (beyond a certain stage apparent opposites merge.)

I’ve never taken a hallucinogenic. Flashback to when I was young—maybe my late teens or early 20s—I was afraid to take them. Not because it is illegal, or I thought I might get caught, or people might think less of me. Not any of those.

One of the reasons why I didn’t do it is because I had a very strong feeling that if I went on that trip, I would not return. So, flash forward to last year. I found out that I was bipolar. It seems that if a bipolar person drops acid, it has much more serious consequences—like, yeah, you might not come back.

The other reason was that I didn’t think I needed it. As a youth, I was a seeker. I really, really wanted to have a mystical experience. When it happened, I wasn’t sure that was it, because it wasn’t magic or sudden; it was just a lesson, like the lesson Harp spoke of: connectedness.

I happened to be wandering through a playground at night. I was standing near a swing set, and I looked up. It was a very clear night, and the stars were abundantly visible. Somehow the sight grabbed, and I couldn’t look away. I had the feeling that all the stars were (were like?) people, and looking at them all in the sky like that, I could see how they were all connected; how each one was in relationship to all the others; and nothing could exist without this relationship.

Anyway, I knew from then on that people were connected, each to the other. Later on I figured out the environment was part of that. I had no idea it was a lesson that some religions might teach (I never followed any religion). I was still looking for my mystical experience.

Of course, that idea stuck with me, even though I didn’t recognize its import at the time. I mean, I knew it was an important idea; I just didn’t realize how important.

One more thing about that: the insight came with a feeling. That feeling of connectedness. It seemed unusual, but I had another feeling about that feeling. I felt I could bring it back any time I wanted to. I don’t know if that’s true, because I’ve never really tried to bring it back. Now, many years later, I don’t know if it’s true that I can bring it back if I want to. On the other hand, I now have a much greater appreciation of what it meant.

For most of that time, between then and now, I didn’t think much of it, and was searching for meaning. Gradually, it came. Largely through conversations like this. In seeing other people’s ideas, and thinking them through, and seeing what made sense to me and what didn’t, given my training, I created an understanding of the context that my experiences fit into.

For the last twenty years, I have been following a practice that, for most people, just seems like a fun thing to do. It is a fun thing to do, but over the years I’ve come to realize it’s a spiritual thing to do, also. I’ve come to realize that through dance and music, I can reliably throw myself into that space where I become aware of that connection between me and everything. Well, it was fairly reliable until I started experiencing major depression. Then, it was spotty, but it never went away entirely. It did help keep me alive through that time.

I’ve been talking about this intellectually (and I will get back to drugs), but now I have to deal with the hard part. How do I use words to explain something that happens in a wordless place? It’s an experience that, because it happens with a different mind, a mind that doesn’t use words, it is both hard to remember and hard to describe.

I believe that is why early one-god religions said that you shouldn’t speak the name of the deity. The experience of this sense of connection can not be described. Some claim it is an experience of relgion. Or of God. In Taoism, they say, “he name that can be named is not the real name,” and “those who know don’t say and Those who say don’t know.” I’ll bet there are many more examples from just about every religion.

So, whatever I say now, is really just a lie. It might be a well-intentioned lie, but it is still misleading. This is why you have to experience it to know it.

I got there last night. I think it’s easier as a musician. You find yourself in a kind awareness of so many things at once: what the leader is doing, what every single musician is doing, the rhythm, the harmonic structure; the melodic structure, what the dancers are doing…. and you have to pay attention to all these things at once, AND figure out what to play next.

It can’t be done. At least not with normal consciousness. You have to more into another kind of conciousness, that is also awareness and connectedness at the same time. It can’t be done, and yet it is done. I have ideas about how, but I’ve gone on too long already.

So, back to drugs. I’m sure that drugs can be a shortcut to the same place. However, they do it at a huge cost to your health. They also don’t stay with you, and you have to use them again to return. I don’t think it’s cost effective.

Also, being the calvinist I am, I think that if you do something without effort, you don’t value it properly. If you work at something, it becomes more valuable. The work is worth it. At least, that’s what I think.

I also think there is an inherent contradiction when you use drugs to feel connected. Drugs are done solo. Most other practices are done as a group. That gives you a leg up on developing that sense, that magical, wonderful, amazing place to be. I am a terribly lucky fellow, that I get to be there almost every week.

Speaking of Calvinist, here comes Hobbes : P

@daloon – Thank you, that was a wonderful story and contribution.

I do feel you have some misconceptions about drug use, though. As I’ve said before, I’m (for the most part) talking about non-addictive, non-health harming drugs. The experience lasts as much as anything does (which is to say, not at all), but the memory of it is (usually) just as permanent as your memory of looking at the stars. Also, while drugs can be done solo, they often aren’t, and besides, all revelations are personal, right?

@fireside – Buh dum shhh

I think some of you are on a dangerous track by suggesting moderate drug use is in any way beneficial. But again… just me. If drugs were to have no negative side effects this question becomes rather interesting indeed… but that’s just not reality.

Perhaps people are making the mistake of thinking that spiritual enlightenment is some complicated process.. where you have to take the secret trap door through your mind to obtain it. Maybe that’s the precise difference for me. For me it’s all rather simple.

@NaturalMineralWater please educate yourself on the effects off hallucinogens. Then tell me the negative effects.

—- DMT is illegal in the United States of America and many other countries.
—- DMT is not a chemical that is checked for with any type of known drug test.
—- Repeated usage will not cause physical or psychological addiction.
—- A sitter is recommended when consuming DMT or related compounds.
—- Yes. Negative effects

3 out of 4 experts don’t recommend it. Seems the experts are even confused.

Either way, don’t make the mistake of thinking that side effects need be physical in order to be negative.

EDIT: I just had to add this quote: (—“The study states, ”...treatment with DMT, in contrast to TP, resulted in a significant increase of the heart weight.” Obviously this is not a good thing and has me a little worried. —). I could probably find more.. but now I’m just having fun.

The Vaults of Erowid have a great deal of information about DMT and many other substances.

@NaturalMineralWater – You seem to have a rather biased opinion of drugs. I’m not addicted to hallucinogens, nor do I require them to be happy. My attitude toward them is much like that of native peoples; these things should be treated with respect and used with a constructive mindset. I do use them as a spiritual tool, in this sense. I use them to gain insights into myself and the world, to feel divinity itself, which I think is very much that sense of absolute connectedness with everything.

I thought this statement was excellent: “most people who use psychedelics don’t report seeing God per se, but rather a deeper understanding of reality and an experience of the spiritual dimension of things. What, to you, would define a “spiritual experience”, if not that?”

I don’t do them very often, nor do I have to have them to have a spiritual experience. I’ve had many more experiences not on anything. I would take them to incite this state in a natural setting (such as out in the woods). The benefit of a hallucinogen over a spontaneous experience is that I can make it into a spiritual ritual and it will last several hours, which gives me a good deal of time to be immersed in it. It changes my perspective and I see things differently, which can be enlightening. The feeling of being a perfect creature, that everything on Earth is perfectly created, and of being connected to all the birds, the plants, the trees, the water.. often it is very joyful and moving. My belief is that, if there is a God, mushrooms and the like are a gift to aid us in our journey to the divine.

I think it’s key to note that you have a fundamentally different opinion of drugs than a bunch of us and I don’t know what use there is discussing it. I honestly don’t mean that snarkily, I’m just being honest.. it leads to a circular argument that goes nowhere. I absolutely agree that some drugs should not be messed with because the health risks and the potential for addiction are far too high. I just don’t buy the party line that all drugs are bad, especially when some drugs (alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine) are legal and socially-acceptable. Not all of the laws in this country are based on common sense; marijuana criminalization, for example, was based entirely on a ridiculous fear-mongering propaganda campaign in the 1930’s. Even Nixon’s Shafer Commission (made up of physicians, mental health doctors, law makers, and law enforcers) recommended that marijuana be decriminalized. Nixon chose fear over reason. My point is that the government doesn’t always know what’s best.

The God you believe in is supposed to be omniscient. If that is true, God knew He was creating these altering substances in nature. So what is so wrong about using the plants, fungi, and other organisms God created? We use so many different things in nature for food, clothing, dyes, medicines, cosmetics, etc.. I just don’t see what the big deal is, if it’s done responsibly.

@Hobbes… Every drug has a cost. They may not harm your health like a poison does, but they are poison. You take Lithium long enough, it’ll destroy your liver. I know you are talking about a relatively rare use, but even then, what happens the next day? Are you telling me you don’t have any recovery time? Whever I tried anything, even just pot, it took me a day or even two to recover. I think you are underestimating the cost of your drugs that supposedly have no ill health effects.

The memory might last, but it might not. I know of many people who got really screwed up after taking a lot of hits of LSD. Some in my own family. I know others who weren’t screwed up, but, it is clearly possible. So memory may or may not be there.

Now, as to company while taking drugs—it really isn’t the same as achieving this state with other people. The magic of drugs, even if done in company, will happen with or without company. To dance or make music—you could do them alone, but why bother? The other thing is that you really can’t achieve this connected consciousness if there aren’t other people there to do it with. It’s a collective effort, and it has to be a collective effort. You don’t have that with drugs, because drugs just bypass all that work.

You can buy a frozen dinner in the supermarket and heat it in the microwave, or you can cook a meal from fresh ingredients on your own stove, with your own food sense.

You can pop a cd in the player or an mp3 in your iPod, and you’ll get music. You can listen live, and you’ll get music. You can make the music yourself, with friends, and you’ll have MUSIC.

The easy way will never have the quality of the hard way. It just can’t. It’s not individualized. It’s not related to the current circumstances. It’s not made to order. It’s not made with love. It’s not made of the moment. As such, you have no idea what went into it. Not only will you not know how it will come out, you won’t understand it’s relevance. One size does not fit all. Using drugs for these experiences is like saying that one size fits all.

@AlenaD You’re right. I do have a bias against drugs. As I said a couple times already.. I’ve already seen so many people jump off that particular cliff. The rush was great on the way down.. but the rocks were sharp at the bottom.

But you are right.. pairing drugs with a “constructive mindset” will never be my thing.

As far as your argument toward the bottom there.. it is rather common. God also created cliffs… did He mean for us to jump off of them? Ok.. that’s officially the last time I will use a cliff as part of an analogy.. even I am getting tired of it. xD

Well, you’re sort of confusing things with that cliff analogy (cliff = death). First of all, jumping off is not the only use a human can find for a cliff. Paleo-Indians drove buffalo off them, for example. It’s like saying alcohol = death. Of course alcohol (or a cliff) can kill you, but not if used in an intelligent manner.

@AlenaD It would be silly to assume that it’s only death at the bottom of a cliff.

@NaturalMineralWater your link didnt really prove much, sorry. For one this is coming from a web forum, but even still i can break down to you why its bunk. This kid clearly states he was free basing it off a piece of aluminum foil through a straw. Its not the drugs thats causing the negative effects, its the user.

As for the dreams, that is completely normal and would not call that a negative effect in the slightest. You need to realize DMT is not like any other drug out there. It is the most intense one known to man. When you put your mind through something that intense you cant expect it not to come back to it, especially in REM sleep. You have to know going into it that this stuff is probably going to happen for the next week or two after the DMT. Every now and then i will have a dream that a smoke DMT and it is the full trip played out in my head. I again dont see this as a negative though. Then again i guess its just perspective, imo the kid on the forum who complains of this never really understood what DMT was about in the first place.

As for your experts recommending not taking a mind altering drug….well now, did you expect anything different, really?

@daloon i guess its just because your inexperienced with hallucinogens, but the magic of taking these drugs alone diminishes greatly in comparison to taking them with close friends. Drugs are not a short cut to enlightenment as your trying to say, just a different route.

As for your other two examples about FOOD and MUSIC, im pretty sure most users are a lot more likely to do both of these things the “hard” way when on drugs vs sober. I know i am at least.

“Not only will you not know how it will come out, you won’t understand it’s relevance.”
Your missing the beauty of hallucinogens. I do know how it will come out. If i go into a trip with a good mindset and with people i care about, i dont need to know exactly how its going to turn out, i just know its going to be good and im going to have a good time. As far as understanding the relevance, no, i probably wont the next day, or maybe even weeks after that, but you can often find meanings in these hallucinations.

Its not about the final destination, its all about the trip.

@uberbatman There’s nothing that I could link to to prove DMT has negative effects.. only personal stories.. accounts…such as the person speaking about heart damage… I suppose you will have to gather your own empirical evidence. Either way, it’s irrelevant to the question posed. If having a spiritual experience without a drug is possible.. of what use is the drug? I only hope you are capable one day.

@NaturalMineralWater “If having a spiritual experience without a drug is possible.. of what use is the drug? ” You are aware of the fact that these drugs are a great deal of fun as well right? I also dont think you can really say with any conviction that your spiritual experiences are anything like my drug induced ones. I mean really you can never know cause you cant compare something like that, but im willing to wager the drug induced ones being a LOT more intense than the non. Even if someone like you were to use a hallucinogen youd soon realize what you experienced before is NOTHING like this.

i guess it is like alenad said, you wont ever really be able to understand. No matter how well of an argument i make, youll still be completely clueless to what im really trying to say because you havent experienced anything like it yourself. And so we debate in a circle over and over and over…....

@uberbatman Yes, I said this waaaaay up by the top: “What I feel is indeed indescribable. And I’m also fully aware that it’s nothing like what you feel.”

If it’s any consolation for myself (I should know right?), nothing you’ve said has convinced me that it’s a worthwhile endeavor to experiment with.

We’ve hardly debated, but I agree it has been circular. I rather enjoy the ride.

@NaturalMineralWater agreed :P

I don’t even think this is worth arguing over. Most people are sitting here, thinking that their way is the only way, which frankly… Pisses me off on a personal level. That way of thinking is definitely a step off the path.

The key here is for people to be responsible, no matter what the belief. Using drugs to get further enlightenment does not cheapen the experience, if you’re doing them for the right reasons. What about making music while on them? Creating art while on them? Making actual efforts to connect to other people, in many different ways? I’ve seen it and experienced it. Stupid people don’t do things like that, they only take drugs to get high because it “sounds fun”, which absolutely cheapens the experience. But that’s not how it is for everyone.

Unless people have personally tried it, responsibly and for the right reasons, I think it’s very presumptuous for you to say that drugs cheapen the experience. There is absolutely no way for you to know, unless you’ve done them. Besides, not everyone does get enlightenment while on drugs. If you’re a stupid person, it’s just not going to happen. The interest has to be there in the first place. Like I said above, you have to be on the path already to experience anything worthwhile.

@DrasticDreamer: do you value easy things as much as difficult things? Say, any instrument you picked up, you could play perfectly the first time. Would you value it as much as if you had to struggle for years to learn how to play the instrument? Usually people appreciate things they have to work hard for much more than things that are easy, but your experience could be otherwise.

@uberbatman: so now I’m curioius. What hallucinogens have you taken; with whom; what was the trip like; and what did you learn from it? Did you have anyone guide you in any of these experiences, or did you go in blind? If you had a guide, what was your relationship to the guide and how did they guide you?

Over and over we see the same statement. You don’t know unless you’ve tried it. No, I don’t know what the “trip” is like .. but I have SEEN it.. and I want no part of it. Fair enough?

@daloon – Proper use of hallucinogens does actually take work. There is a certain level of skill required to navigate the effects, and a degree of mental balance is certainly necessary to prevent a bad trip. This skill takes practice to improve, just like anything else, not to mention the research one should do and knowledge one should have about a drug before taking it.

@NaturalMineralWater – Fair enough, as long as you recognize people’s right to go on whatever trips they desire.

@Hobbes Have at it. Just stay away from me. LOL

I don’t Ms. Mineral Water.

I gave them up, but your avatar would be pretty hard to stop looking at on hallucinogens.

Are you furry or spikey?

@daloon Marijuana, Salvia, Mushrooms, LSD, LSA, Mescaline, and DMT. I have taken hallucinogens with close friends, my girlfriend, and occasionally people i didnt really know at music festivals. Ive had some guided trips and some i went into blind.

As for the guided ones, it was usually a long walk or something planed out before taking the hallucinogen. (usually mushrooms) But not much more guidance beyond that, i dont really like to go searching for something from the drugs, i find when you try and influence it too much, you dont get as much from it. It seems you get the most from the experience when you sit back and enjoy the ride, and go where the drug wants to take you. Ive also had a sitter for the first time i did Salvia and DMT as they are both drugs that are highly intense but short lived. The problem is, your completely out of it and in a trance under these drugs and sometimes (more common with salvia) you want to get up and walk around. Obviously this is an issue when you can not see or hear anything of this world so a sitter is important to keep you safe. Both times it was my girlfriend who watched over me.

What have a learned from my trips? Well now thats a much much harder question to answer as its a very personal thing and would be quite hard to put into words the experiences ive had. Some of these drugs have permanently changed me and how i think though. Mushrooms have made me more aware of how everything is connected and all life has value. LSD has opened my mind to a whole different way of thinking and problem solving. Mescaline to be perfectly honest was just a really good time for me. I did it once at a music festival and had the intentions going into it to just have a good time with my best friend and well we did. The whole time during the trip i couldnt help but feel i was back in time with the Aztecs. Its a strange feeling to describe.
And then theres DMT. Pandoras Box. I can not begin to explain the things ive seen while under the influence of this, but i have never felt anything like it in my life. Ive been back in time. Ive spoken with entities. Ive experienced the end of the world…the universe… everything just a void eternal darkness and the most intense fear of my life, and then rebirth like the phoenix rising from the ashes. Ive been to heaven and hell. Spoken to aliens and creatures that words cannot describe. And when i say ive “been there” i mean it. DMT is unlike any other hallucinagen where you know youve taken a drug and you know your tripping. The second after you exhale the smoke from DMT you instantly forget what happened. You forget everything and this DMT land is all that feels real to you.

I have taken my fair share of hallucinogenic drugs, but i have not once ever had a bad trip. I dont think is possible for me to experience one in all honesty. As long as you go into it with an open mind, with a safe setting, and people, you’ll be fine. Most of all though, you must respect the drug. Do your damn research before you go putting whatever into your body. That is where people get into trouble with these drugs. They just take whatever and then arent ready for the full effects when it hits them, then the freak out, have a bad trip, do something stupid, and then drugs are to blame, not the asshole who was irresponsible.
Know your body, Know your drug.

@fireside that’s Mr Mineral Water

@uberbatman all i can say is wow… and keep the rest of my thoughts to myself.

@NaturalMineralWater – oops!. Well, this gives me the chance to point out that I am missing “know, ” between “don’t” and “Ms.”

So, sorry sir! (it happened to me once too)

@fireside no worries.. my avatar is genderless…. I think

@uberbatman: Well, I definitely understand about the things you can’t describe. I try, but I can’t do it justice. Like I said, I don’t think it is possible to say in words.

Your description of entities and whatnot, and time travel, etc, remind me of stories of schizophrenia. It makes me wonder what the drugs do to the brain chemicals.

I think it’s interesting to take such trips, although now, it sounds like you really lose touch with this world. It sounds a lot like Carlos Castaneda’s descriptions. You leave the body without leaving your body. You experience all kinds of things, separated from your senses of the world. It reminds me of a carnival ride. A carnival ride of the soul.

I have often wondered what would happen to me, if I took such things. It scares me, because I have experienced some of those things you describe without drugs. I know I could easily go too far. I guess I prefer the ways I know I can control—at least to the extend that I can bug out if I need to. Perhaps I’m too cautious.

We can’t, of course, compare the meaning of these things. I shouldn’t have tried. We all have our own paths. The same is true for religious or spiritual experiences. They are inside our heads, and no one else can know them. We’re like Hermes—the messenger god, who always tried to trick people, by making his messages confusing. We are sending messages to ourselves, but they are very confusing. What we make of them is personal. I don’t know where that leaves us, but it is interesting, and I hope you are right that it won’t harm your health.

@hobbes hm, possibly, that does make sense. (:

@daloon “They are inside our heads, and no one else can know them. ” This is untrue for my “trip”. Perhaps that’s why I prefer it. My “trips” are affirmed each time I go to church, or have a bible study, or a meaningful prayer session wherever I happen to be. It isn’t a needle for which I have to grasp amongst a stack of other needles.

@NaturalMineralWater: Huh? Are you saying your church members can read your mind? Or that you can read their minds?

@daloon Not at all. I’m saying that my “trip” (even though I hate calling it that because it’s not what it is) is shared by those others as well. It’s the same “trip” amongst us as evidenced by testimonies. It isn’t something random and enlightening specifically within one person’s head.. induced by a drug. We all see the effects of this particular gravity and its effects on others around us. It seems to go beyond mere chemicals in our brains. It seems to have a spiritual aspect… one not restricted to the confines of our imagination… one not trapped in the box of our brain..

I have to agree, there’s still a lot of shared spiritual experiences that can be had without drugs.

Who said multiple people under the influence of drugs cant experience the same thing at the same time? I’ve definitely experienced this before. Your very easily influenced while tripping sooo if one person talks about whats happening with their experience it starts to blend into yours and all of a sudden your both experiencing the same thing together.

But do you experience these things in the confines of your own home, or your own car.. and then find you had the same experience as another via testimony the next day? It seems you’re grasping at straws here. You at one moment claim that your “trip” is supremely different, then the next defend an ill conceived similarity.

If I might interject: he’s been claiming that any given trip is different from everything else you experience in your life, and thus is difficult to describe to those who haven’t experienced it. People who go on the trip with you, however, can often be going through the same thing, and thus the experience can be shared.

We’re comparing a massive “trip”.. being Christians the world over.. with someone high talking to someone else high. You can see why I wonder.

@NaturalMineralWater – Actually, we’re talking Religious experience so the comparative sample set is even larger than Christianity.

Yes, there can be shared visuals and emotions during a trip.
That is something that can happen in religious experiences also.

Religious experiences the world over take many different forms and some may sound more wild than uber’s stories. I suspect that when asked to describe your religious experiences, they may be far less vivid than uber’s. But they are no less real to you in that you take them and integrate those experiences with your view of the world.

There are other ways to look for enlightenment, without a doubt, but that doesn’t negate the experience.

@fireside I specifically narrowed my sample set to Christianity because I didn’t want to speak on behalf of those who’s experiences “may sound more wild than uber’s”. I don’t know what those other groups feel or see.

Here’s the crux of the matter in my mind:
Suppose I was convinced that in order to have a better spiritual experience I should try DMT. Suppose I then told my friends and they all believed me and tried it too. Suppose it branched out and eventually the whole world was anxious to use DMT. It becomes legalized, sold right next to the Arrowhead water in the supermarket. Is this a world I would want to live in? Unquestionably no.

On the other hand, suppose if you were to believe in Jesus Christ and accept him as your personal savior. Suppose you become a Christian. You tell your friends and it branches out to cover the whole world. It would not be a world devoid of problems, yet it is a world I would most assuredly embrace.

Now, of course, neither of these scenarios will ever take place.. I use these suppositions only to demonstrate a point. Please correct me if I’m wrong. It appears that I am “arguing” my cause from the perspective that if you were to believe you would have a better life.. an inner joy made manifest by the Holy Spirit. Whereas it appears that @uberbatman is “arguing” his cause from a defensive standpoint. Sort of a “I have the right to do this, so don’t try and stop me”.

Is the experience you gain from DMT and other hallucinogens something you would want the whole world to share?

No, certainly not.
I have seen too many people lose it on hallucinogens because they couldn’t handle it.
I have also seen too many people who go overboard on other drugs because they enjoy the physical sensations.

Simply put, it is far less dangerous to the individual to get an excess of religion than an excess of drugs.

That said, I can’t deny the changes that I feel may have been attributed to some of my experiences and to say that they had no bearing on my outlook on life would be dishonest.

@NaturalMineralWater
If you did some research into DMT you would see that many people experience the same exact thing. Even if theyve never read of these things prior to trying DMT they often share experiences. Bright flashes of light, chrysanthemum patterns, mechanical elves. I once saw a very distinct pattern under the influence of DMT. A couple weeks later i was browsing a DMT forum and there it was, the same exact pattern Turns out its a shaman pattern for those going into the spirit world. Thats what makes me think theres a lot more to drugs than many believe.

PS the whole world does experience DMT, every single night. You do have dreams dont you?

@uberbatman You are all taking the same drug. It would be foolish to think you wouldn’t experience some of the same effects. You’re missing my point. The whole world does not experience DMT the way you do. Now you’re just being silly.

Mechanical Elves?

@NaturalMineralWater no, not in the same way, but the point is that we all experience it. I dont see how the world would be such a horrible place if everyone had experience it like i do though. Your the one missing the point though, it isnt just a few effects, its many things. Check out DMT Nexus if your actually interested in learning about it.

@fireside yeaaaa its hard to explain, they arent always mechanical elves persay, sometimes gnomes sometimes you cant even see them, but you can always feel their presence. It seems they are the ones who live in the DMT realm. They are always there to welcome me everytime i voyage over to that land and are always celebrating upon arrival. They have taught me a great many things in my journeys too :).
The gnomes have learned a new way to say hooooray

@uberbatman No offense, but learning that DMT use can change the weight of my heart was reason enough to discontinue research… as well as cross DMT off my list of things to try before I die.

@whoever I’m a little disheartened that I don’t seem to have much support in this thread. More evidence of the times I suppose…. that it’s about 3:1 in favor of illegal drug use. Hooray liberalism.

No, I never recommended it.
So 2:1:1

Okay, if it’s us just being liberal drugheads, here’s some food for thought.. if there’s no merit to psychadelics and religious ritual, why is it that native Americans are allowed to continue their use of peyote buttons in religious ceremonies, despite peyote being illegal for everyone else?

@fireside If I were to actually count everyone I think it’s 4::2:1 lol Either way, it’s worse than I would have hoped.

@AlenaD Because we don’t live in a utopia? Are you suggesting that we legalize DMT? Or are you suggesting that we make peyote illegal across the board?

NMW – I find it difficult to debate with you when you put words in my mouth. It makes me feel like my point isn’t getting across. I will say it again: I think certain plants should not be feared or demonized, they should be used responsibly and with respect. To be honest, I think a lot of Americans aren’t responsible where substance use comes into play, and that includes the legal ones. I’m simply stating that moderation and using one’s brain are key.

You danced around my question: if there’s no merit to psychadelics and religious ritual, why is it that Native Americans are allowed to continue their use of peyote buttons in religious ceremonies, despite peyote being illegal for everyone else? Really think about it for a moment. I’m not asking why peyote isn’t legal for everyone. I’m just asking to explore the idea that these religious ceremonies involving peyote have enough merit that they are permitted to continue.

@AlenaD I’m not interested in debating or dancing with you. I was just asking you a question about your question. I don’t want to put “straw men” into this field. I prefer to discuss, not debate. The word debate implies that there are opposing viewpoints. Instead, I’d prefer to just say we have viewpoints.

Now that you have worded it more clearly… no.. I don’t think there’s merit to it at all. I think it is still legal solely as a preservation of culture. Perhaps they believe it has merit. I do not.

I wonder on what basis you can claim such strong convictions about something as subjective as religious experience? Spirituality tends to be based, at its core, on personal feeling and soul-searching, rather than external evidence. So, how can you be so sure that your particular subjective experience is so right, so absolutely infallible that all others are utterly inferior?

can i give you more than one GA hobbes :P

@Hobbes I simply said that I personally don’t believe it has merit. I never said anything about inferiority and all that other jazz you added.

Meh. This thread is starting to make me sleepy.

Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that something which lacks merit is necessarily inferior to that which has merit. But if you want me to use a different term, I will: “How can you be so sure that it is without merit when all such beliefs are necessarily subjective and personal?”

The words are all there, but the punctuation is flawed. You’ve put up a exclamation point whereas I had only put a period.

I don’t believe that “all such beliefs are necessarily subjective and personal”. That’s a pretty ambiguous statement and yet another straw man thrown into the mix. If that were the case, than for some there might be merit to murdering kittens to achieve their religious experience.

Use whatever words you like.. we’ve been repeating the same crap over and over again anyway. xD

Let’s get back on track already.
You think DMT and other such hallucinogens (substance that produces hallucinations) can yield a “spiritual experience”. – I do not.

You believe that there is a connection between religious experience and DMT.. and by extension would be perfectly ok with the world’s population being responsible, yet regular users of DMT. – I do not.

It’s a bit difficult to “argue” with someone who willingly subjects themselves to hallucinations. xD I think I’ve said enough.

@NaturalMineralWater I realize you do not, but the question was how can you say it with such conviction if you have no experience yourself?

I also dont appreciate “It’s a bit difficult to “argue” with someone who willingly subjects themselves to hallucinations. xD I think I’ve said enough.” Does the fact that we take these drugs make us any less intelligent or logical?

I feel stupid for not remembering to mention this before but something else to think about, psychedelic drugs are often called entheogens.

entheogen-generating the divine within

I think that religion and religous experience are about believing in something, I believe that some people’s minds need to be more open to things. Combined I think that sometimes psychedelic drugs release ones inhibitions towards believing something that one cannot explain making it easier to just accept something on faith which in my own personal opinion is exactly what religion is about…accepting something on faith and belief alone.