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InvisibleThe Whale

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The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action
    #14390550 - 05/02/11 06:57 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

His main point here is that psychedelics do not imbue genuine spiritual experiences, but rather catalyze something already inherent in the person (assuming they are that "type" of person to begin with). This article dismisses all of the mystical claims of neoshamanism and is highly critical of psychedelic gurus like McKenna. What say you folks?

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The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action

By James Kent

Overview: Psychedelic Drugs and Mysticism

Since the dawn of time humans have ascribed mystical properties to those things they do not fully understand. In ancient times as to this day, humans worshipped the sun, the earth, the moon, the stars, the plants, animals, and a pantheon of invisible all-powerful deities. Yet as the mortal powers of science have scrutinized the material world it has become clearer and clearer that spirits forces have little to do with workings of our reality. From the quantum scale to the furthest reaches of space we have found no room for pixies, demons or demigods, and this is widely accepted to be true within every modern field of scientific research save for one: Psychedelics.

Psychedelics are an interesting case study in mysticism for two very simple reasons: they produce mystical experiences and have a long history of traditional ritual use in order to produce mystical experiences. Because these substances are mystically effective and come pre-loaded with archetypal spiritual dogma, they can effectively be passed from generation to generation as secret keys to unlocking mystical experience. In modern times Gordon Wasson, Timothy Leary, and Terence McKenna all sold the notion of mushrooms, LSD, and DMT as gateways to hidden spirit knowledge, higher consciousness, and higher dimensions. For many modern psychedelic users the entheogenic or mystical context is the primary context in which they seek these drugs, and many hope to find a full-blown religious experiences awaiting them on the other side. And, in truth, many of them are not disappointed.

It is somewhat fashionable in the psychedelic community to use the term “entheogen” to describe all psychedelics and intoxicating plants, even though psychedelic substances are just as likely to produce delusional paranoia as divine awakenings. And while psychedelics can reliably produce mystical mind states – including communion with spirits, aliens, elves, and gods – I assert that it is naive and dangerous to use the content of the psychedelic experience as the basis for wider spiritual belief. In the U.S.A. we have a constitution which protects religious belief, so it is understandable why psychedelic enthusiasts rush to promote psychedelics as a religious endeavor to legitimize their use. Similar to those who would explore the medical use of psychedelics, the spiritual approach is always one of the first places an enthusiast will go in order to retain some credibility in the light of prohibition, and it is perfectly reasonable. But do we really have to believe it?

As someone who has explored psychedelics for some time with the full intent to verify these spiritual claims, I must say I have come up with few reasons to believe the mythology of the psychedelic spirit world any longer. Although psychedelics can produce spiritual experiences, and can have bona-fide therapeutic effects, I have found very little which would lead me to believe that spirit entities from autonomous spirit worlds are responsible for the informational content or healing powers of these experiences. And with that in mind, I now present my best case against this notion of psychedelic spirit worlds and spirit teachers, and why it can be dangerous to blithely conflate psychedelics and spirituality.

The Rational Argument

1. Psychedelics are hallucinogenic drugs, which by definition means they make you see things that aren’t real. Whatever other argument I present here, this is the one you must always come back to. Some hallucinations, particularly those that are spiritual in nature, feel very real. But the same drug that can make you see spirits can make you see demons, memories, mandalas, mundane scenes from everyday life, and just about anything you can think of (and many things you can’t). However, no matter how real or bizarre or lifelike or spiritual the experience, it all fades back to dust when the drug wears off; the pocket holographic universe in your mind folds back into 3-D space and the dream is over. Let it go.

2. Psychedelics are about the self; they are a form of self-exploration. You get out of the experience what you put into the experience. If you have a spiritual experience it is because you are a spiritual person or at a spiritual place in your thinking; if you have a bad experience it is because you are at a bad place in your life or are being destructive or negative in your thinking. You would not blame the gods for a bad trip or even a mediocre trip with no mystical fireworks, so why would you give them credit for the good ones? In other words, you are not an empty vessel passively receiving the mystical experience, you are the biological organism  that is producing it.

3. Simply because you heard voices or saw gods or met elves does not mean that the experience has any deeper meaning beyond your own imagination. It is much easier to prove the case for delusional psychosis than it is to invoke an entire spirit world to explain your personal insights, so why make the spirit leap just because it “felt real” at the time. Dreams also feel real, but we tend to dismiss them because they are weirdly surreal, easy to forget, and we are sleeping at the time. We should have the same kind of removed perspective for our psychedelic experiences as well. We can use the content of the experience to see what it tells us about ourselves, but should not blindly rush to believe everything that comes out.

The Physical Argument

1. The human brain perceives reality on a very narrow spectrum of visible light and audible sound waves, this is how external information enters into waking thought. The human brain is a biological device, and in order to “see” something there must be electrochemical stimulation in the visual cortex. If you are making the case for spirit beings or invisible landscapes that can only be seen under the influence of psychedelics, you are making a case for the human brain being a kind of radio that can detect “spirit energy” that no other camera or mechanical energy-sensing device can perceive. While this is an interesting argument, it makes no sense. If there is a spirit energy out there that the human brain can perceive, other more sensitive devices should be able to perceive this spirit energy as well, yet none exist. Invoking the clause of “only I can see it (when I’m on drugs)” makes the claims of psychonauts all the more far-fetched, and when you ascribe spirit powers to visions produced by a chemical that naturally bonds to receptors in your visual cortex, it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how neurochemical stimulation of the neocortex results in perception. The visions are from the psychoactive molecule exciting neural activity within your brain, not from spirits emitting external waves on a higher-dimensional frequency that only you can perceive.

2. If there are autonomous spirits and a spirit world that the human mind can perceive, then these spirit formations must be made out of something. In order to morph and cohere and reflect light and create sound vibrations that the retina or cortex or neural network can perceive, these entities have to have some substrate in which to exist. Without resorting to alternate dimensions or dark matter which exist within the brain or within the psychedelic molecules themselves, the average psychonaut has no answer as to what it is the spirit world may be made out of or where we might find it. Some may try to invoke higher vibrations or alternate dimensions, but all of this speculation requires a mystical gateway to information in a spirit realm, and neither gateway nor information nor realm has any physical fingerprint in hard reality other than the firing of neurons in a brain. Attempting to externalize psychedelic visions into a spiritual framework only creates more questions than it answers, when all that is needed to produce psychedelic visions is a human neural network and a pinch of selective seratonin agonists.

The Psychosis Argument

1. While there has been no satisfactory objective proof demonstrating that a spirit world exists, there has been an abundance of proof demonstrating that psychosis exists, and that the human mind is perfectly capable of fabricating detailed alternate realities without the aid of drugs or spirits. There have been many models of psychosis offered, including the dopamine model of psychosis and the cholinergic model of mediating waking/dreaming states. Hallucinations, mystical experience, and delusions of grandeur are par for the course with psychosis – as is paranoia and irrational belief – yet many people who use psychedelics spiritually or recreationally are not fond of using the term “acute psychosis” to describe the effects, though this description clearly fits in high dose cases.

2. While psychedelics may give some people insights and an expanded consciousness, they can also lead to irrational behavior and the degradation of reason. In very simple terms, there is a psychedelic use threshold that eventually leads to mental irrationality in the user. It is unknown what this precise threshold is, and it is probably different for every person, but chronic use of high-dose psychedelics can either exacerbate existing psychotic tendencies or lead to other forms of mental irrationality, such as self-professed clairvoyance or telepathic contact with aliens, spirits, deities, and the like. Are these long-term effects best termed spiritual enlightenment or chronic recurrent delusional psychosis?

The Validation Argument

1. If we are to throw out all the arguments posed so far and concede for a moment that psychedelics offer some access to the wisdom of the spirits, there are still a few problems. In order to prove the autonomy of the spirits encountered on a psychedelic trip, various tests have been proposed to see if new information can be gleaned in the spirit dimension. According to traditional lore, shamen are able to use psychedelics to diagnose and cure disease, divine the use of plants, find missing objects, and perhaps even see the future. These all seem like very magical and mystical things when posed in that context, but if you take into account that human beings can do all of those things already, without the aide of psychedelic drugs, then you start to see how flimsy the whole spirit-knowledge thing becomes. There are a few famous reported cases of people making amazing discoveries with the aid of psychedelics, but the people who make these discoveries are usually brilliant to begin with. It would be one thing if history was filled with tales of Navaho wizards finding the secret cure for smallpox, Mayan wizards finding the secret formula for gunpowder, Or Amazonian wizards finding the magical power to save the rainforests, but we know the opposite is true. When faced with real hard-world technology, the sacred wisdom offered by the psychedelic spirit realm shows its painful limitations.

2. If information is actually received from the spirit world during the psychedelic session, then it has become patently obvious that much of the information from the spirit world is not to be trusted. Even traditional shaman warn of trickery and deceit from the spirit realm, so what good is their data? One would assume that if you were to commune with actual spirits that they wouldn’t steer you wrong, but often they do. So what are we to make of their purpose, and why would we place such importance on their knowledge? Clinging to the spirit delusion forces one to adopt paradoxical conclusions such as “Spirit entities exist, but they confound and play tricks in order to make it impossible to objectively test their data and thus prove their own existence.” As far-fetched as this statement may seem, many people willingly ignore all the other evidence and swallow such spirit logic as long as it allows them to retain the belief in these entities. The other option, which is “Perhaps I just imagined it all while high on drugs,” seems overly simple in comparison, and yet the simplest answer is usually the correct one.

The Dangerous Argument

1. If psychedelics are considered to be spiritual, and spiritual is good, then it should be good and spiritual to do as many psychedelics as we want. This may sound right on paper, but it is hardly a guarantee in the real world. People who approach psychedelics with a spiritual attitude may be less likely to abuse them, but others may cloak rampant abuse in spiritual terms to make their destructive behavior seem more legitimate. And even those who are spiritually rigorous and limit their use still run the risk of becoming occult, messianic, megalomaniacal, and delusional in their larger spiritual beliefs. While the usual result of this process is merely a spiritual quirkiness or New Age eccentricity, it is not unheard of for these initial quirky beliefs to turn dark, experimentally risqué, and antisocial after prolonged use. There is a line that must be watched here, the spiritual argument does not hold for all personal use models.

2. The greatest untold secret of religion is that the shaman (priests) invented spirits and the spirit world in order to gain power within the tribe. Yes, it sounds cynical, but it is the truth. Think about those who invoke spirits to back up their edicts and see what you think. Invoking spirits give legitimacy to the shaman’s decrees. If the shaman thinks the tribe should move down-river he tells the tribes that the spirits want the tribe to move down river, and that they will be angered if they don’t comply. It is easy to argue with a shaman, it is harder to argue with the spirits. Since the shaman is the tribe’s mediator to the spirit world, the power to intoxicate the tribe and give them spiritual visions only enhances the shaman’s power and ability to influence the tribe by spiritual deception. With tribe members of lesser intelligence a clever shaman can have them thinking and believing whatever he tells them, and this is as true today as it was ten thousand years ago.

3. If psychedelic spiritual practice is to be rigorously imposed it must be done so in the framework of institutionalized, organized religion. The traditional shamanic model is a blend of paganism, animism, and pantheism, and it has been demonstrated by syncretic offshoots like Santo Daime that these traditional religious practices can be further blended with the practices of Christianity, Catholicism, and Buddhism to some degree of success. However, for every successful syncretic church there lies the risk of rogue cults or cult leaders who use the trappings of syncretic rituals as venues for sexual exploitation, antisocial programming, and cult brainwashing. The oversight in organized psychedelic churches must be just as rigorous if not more so than in mainstream churches; the potential for abuse of power is simply too high for this trend to go unchecked. In smaller psychedelic cults there is no oversight for spiritual abuse, so this document is their oversight. Don’t believe psychedelic gurus.

What to Believe about Psychedelics?

While I would say that the evidence against psychedelics as a gateway to the spirit world is overwhelming, there are many who still hold out the hope or belief that this is a viable theory. It is my assertion that people who have spiritual experiences on psychedelics have merely awakened a spiritual aspect within themselves by entering into the experience with a spiritual mind-set. The content of any psychedelic trip is typically the result of the context in which the substance is ingested and the spiritual or entheogenic trip is merely one of many possible results. Within the proper sacred ritual setting, the ingestion of a psychedelic will result in a bona-fide mystical experience and this is something we should not forget. Within this entheogenic experience the user may hear voices; see spirits and disincarnate entities; feel the presence of God or Gaia or the other; or perhaps have an astral journey where they leave their body and travel through time, to alternate dimensions, or across the barrier of life and death and into the spirit world. These are all what we would expect from a decent and fulfilling mystical experience, and it is true that psychedelics can, in the right conditions, deliver these experiences with far greater ease than any other technique known to humans. This fact is almost indisputable at this point.

The psychedelic experience is very sacred and awe-inspiring, so it seems logical that any information revealed within the experience should be considered divine in origin; all-important. And yet, when the all-important message from the spirit-journey is eventually remembered or filtered down or revealed in a sober mind-state, it is often riddle-like and vague, or something that seemed important at the time but is in reality quite mundane, or something that is fascinating or meaningful only to the subject who received the epiphany, or flat obvious to everyone else in hindsight. This muddled-message syndrome can leave the subject feeling depressed and isolated for days after any full-blown mystical psychedelic contact. Like an alien abduction, the experience is so strange and absurd and startling and crazy that people may feel unable to talk about their experiences in any meaningful way without making loved-ones worry about their sanity. It can be elating and devastating at the same instant, so how does one integrate such experiences back into the mundane doings of hard reality?

When this feeling of spiritual isolation turns outward it leads to art and story and perhaps even mythology, turning the psychedelic experience into a metaphoric icon that can be shared with others. When this isolation turns inward it becomes occult philosophy and metaphysical belief that weaves itself like a circle into pseudo-religious dogmatic forms. The cyclical path between these two outward and inward extremes should be familiar to anyone who experiments seriously with psychedelic drugs. People who use psychedelics for any length of time will also experiment with visual art, music, the manipulation of language, and the creation of occult belief systems. This ongoing process of turning entheogenic experience into shared cultural form only serves to strengthen and enlarge the archetype of the invisible landscape we think of as the “psychedelic space”. Where there was one only plant-spirits, jaguars, snakes, icaros and santitios, now there are machine elves, hyperspatial aliens, wicked jesters, trance music, and even Elvis, Mickey Mouse, Jesus, Mary, Buddha, Yahweh, and all the old-world Hindu deities along for the ride. Hence, the spirit world is not a fixed autonomous space, it is a epiphenomenona of our own cultural imagination which grows and shrinks in proportion with our own subjective cultural awareness. The psychedelic space is not autonomous, it is a reflection of who we are.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that there is a fundamental connection between spiritual experience and belief in a spirit world, and the more powerful the spiritual experience the more powerful the belief; this is an easy assumption to make. Since psychedelics offer such powerful spiritual experiences, it is easy to see why people view psychedelics as spiritual objects and craft elaborate rituals and mythologies regarding their use and purpose. This is a very natural human thing to do, and in many ways it is easier to invoke spirits and a spirit world than it is to believe that your brain is capable of such profound experiences.

But we must not lose sight of the fact that the human imagination allows for the infinite exploration of all possible forms, a feat which is mystical and godlike in its own capacity. By activating the human imagination in such a dramatic way, psychedelics give us raw access to that infinite well of godlike creation. When we designate psychedelic content as spiritual in origin we dismiss the wondrous capacity of the human imagination, simultaneously denigrating our own creative capacities and undermining all testable reason. It must stop.

And thus I say that we as a culture should abandon this notion of a psychedelic theology once and for all, and reject the claims of any expert or shaman or guru who claims intimate access to sacred psychedelic spirits, spirit realms, or mystical secrets. Instead of pondering over spirit dimensions and non-physical entities we should stay focused on the miracle of the human mind and the human body, and the notion that psychedelics can unlock the self-reflective power of the mind to produce infinite permutations of complex forms, for good or for bad, mystical or mundane. This is their true function and their gift, and we should not lose sight of that simple power.


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Edited by The Whale (05/03/11 05:29 PM)

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OfflineAnthony917
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Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: The Whale]
    #14390569 - 05/02/11 07:02 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

that's really fucking long, so I'm posting to remind myself to read it when I'm not really stoned


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Prisoner#1 said: I got my ass kicked by a 9yo when I was 17
Trippin? Click Me




What is life? I'm tired of life...

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OfflineNewbieS
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Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action (moved) [Re: The Whale]
    #14390601 - 05/02/11 07:11 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

This thread was moved from The Pub.

Reason:
Better suited here.

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OfflineShroomXolomilco
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Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: Anthony917]
    #14390652 - 05/02/11 07:21 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Read the whole thing.  Interesting read.

I, for one, use psychedelics primarily to have a spiritual experience.  But by saying spiritual experience, I mean many things:

- becoming at peace with myself
- becoming at peace with the world
- astral projecting (my favorite... I've only had a couple of these)
- to show others what else this life has to offer

I don't try to talk to God or elves or any of that kind of stuff. I'm a very religious person outside of psychedelics.  I feel like if I want to talk to God that that would best be done while not under the influence of a drug.

I think that the user can use psychedelics for whatever reason they want, as long as it is in a safe and smart manner. 

Life is what you make it.

Edited by ShroomXolomilco (05/02/11 07:25 PM)

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OfflineGreenvalley
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Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action (moved) [Re: Newbie]
    #14390663 - 05/02/11 07:22 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

I read about three quarters of it. I felt like whenever he was arguing for the person who uses psychedelics in a 'spiritual' context, he made them seem like a complete idiot who thinks they actually see elvs and worship the sun.

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OfflineDesertedAnt
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Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: ShroomXolomilco]
    #14390748 - 05/02/11 07:38 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Great read Whale.

Would you be for, or against a pyschedelic church then?

A safe haven for those who wanted to experience the mystique of imagination and spirituality throught the means of mind altering substances.


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Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?
~Calvin and Hobbes

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Offlinenoobieman
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Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: DesertedAnt]
    #14390938 - 05/02/11 08:09 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

The epistemological challenges involved in this discussion make an analysis impossible. Any attempt at logical conclusion is laughable. For anyone.

To address your particular angle...one cannot use psychedelics to verify anything "spiritual." It's like using a wrench to verify the literary value of Shakespeare. The problem is semantic, for spirituality is, as you allude, subjective. So what is it exactly one would even to attempt to verify?

"The existence of non corporeal entitities interacting with human consciousness via some hallucinogen," one might say. OK...but what if my spiritual belief is that consciousness is a shared construct, and that no such thing as separateness actually exists? What if the meatsuit we walk around in only makes separateness seem real? At that point there are no entities, there is only a "we." Then the argument that my psychedelic experiences are some extension of my own consciousness loses coherence. Because so would everything in Reality be. And perhaps psychedelics only allow me to briefly connect with truths otherwise shielded from me by my current physicality.

This is only an example of the quandaries you face extricating semantic notions of spirituality and consciousness. Others are even more convoluted and abstract. The metaphor of frequencies, with our brains tuning into everything from our deep subconscious to non corporeal sentient shadows of Alpha Centauri, to transdimensional (spiritual) godlike beings...how could one hope to "verify" anything?

All one can do is set up the simpler ideas and knock them down...I'm sorry but the possibilities exceed human processing capacity. And even if a godlike being did tell you the absolute truth, how would you know?

Edited by noobieman (05/02/11 08:12 PM)

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InvisibleThe Whale

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Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: DesertedAnt]
    #14390959 - 05/02/11 08:13 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

I don't think you need a church for that. A "church" of anything usually implies a doctrine or ideology, and psychedelics seem to be the anti-thesis of doctrine.


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OfflineLed Zeppelin
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Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: The Whale]
    #14391542 - 05/02/11 09:44 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

I agree with this article. Its pretty obvious these drugs don't take you to spiritual dimensions but instead take you to new dimensions in your brain. i still think you can learn things about yourself from psychedelics though

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Offlinerhave
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Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: noobieman]
    #14391976 - 05/02/11 10:57 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

noobieman said:
The epistemological challenges involved in this discussion make an analysis impossible. Any attempt at logical conclusion is laughable. For anyone.

"The existence of non corporeal entitities interacting with human consciousness via some hallucinogen," one might say. OK...but what if my spiritual belief is that consciousness is a shared construct, and that no such thing as separateness actually exists? What if the meatsuit we walk around in only makes separateness seem real? At that point there are no entities, there is only a "we." Then the argument that my psychedelic experiences are some extension of my own consciousness loses coherence. Because so would everything in Reality be. And perhaps psychedelics only allow me to briefly connect with truths otherwise shielded from me by my current physicality.

All one can do is set up the simpler ideas and knock them down...I'm sorry but the possibilities exceed human processing capacity. And even if a godlike being did tell you the absolute truth, how would you know?




One can reduce any idea to meaninglessness with a couple impossible to disprove "what if"s.  Does this mean we shouldn't try to determine if anything is valid?

I tend to agree with the author's general conclusion though not several of his arguments.  I'm an atheist though so I don't see any good reasons to believe in the existence of spirits or gods.  Actually, in my opinion smoking some DMT and seeing a god-like being is at least as good a reason to believe in the existence of a god as the Bible saying there is one.

I think i feel the same effects as someone who believes psychedelics are a link to a spirit realm, I just don't interpret those feeling as having anything to do with spirits(unless I'm drunk too).

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OfflineFlowing
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Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: rhave]
    #14392453 - 05/03/11 12:37 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

I use psychedelics for philosophical, psycho-therapeutic reasons.

Humans trying to learn the secrets of the universe is like dogs trying to learn algebra. Of course psychedelics won't teach you them.

We focus entirely too much on how important our souls are and how big we are when our planet is barely just an atom in an ocean.


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He believed that educated people
could make up their own minds.
His motto, as head of one of the first and
most important review panels, was great encouragement: "We're not here
to play God."


-DMT: The Spirit Molecule

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Offlinenoobieman
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Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: rhave]
    #14393199 - 05/03/11 07:24 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

rhave said:
Quote:

noobieman said:
The epistemological challenges involved in this discussion make an analysis impossible. Any attempt at logical conclusion is laughable. For anyone.

<snip>

All one can do is set up the simpler ideas and knock them down...I'm sorry but the possibilities exceed human processing capacity. And even if a godlike being did tell you the absolute truth, how would you know?




One can reduce any idea to meaninglessness with a couple impossible to disprove "what if"s.  Does this mean we shouldn't try to determine if anything is valid?

I think i feel the same effects as someone who believes psychedelics are a link to a spirit realm, I just don't interpret those feeling as having anything to do with spirits(unless I'm drunk too).




I'm not throwing random ideas out to make a case for "god." I'm providing just a sample of the endlessly complex challenges that await someone who embarks upon the mission to explain Reality.

You can eliminate ideas you can comprehend, but you cannot logically pretend that doing so eliminates other possibilities. The humility to recognize one's inherent limitations is key to understanding the value of your conclusions. Among these limitations is the inevitable:  by the time you are old enough to conceptualize this stuff, you have already consumed, integrated, and employed an imperfectly stitched-together quilt of borrowed ideas to synthesize "your" own. The well is already tainted by the sloppiness of human consciousness, individually and collectively.

The goal of dissecting consciousness (let alone the Whole of Reality) goes far beyond building a better nuke or propelling a chunk of metal into space. One's personal belief system is irrelevant in proportion to their intellectual integrity.

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OfflineNunbuh_Chrubble
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Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: noobieman]
    #14395122 - 05/03/11 04:08 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

I think that the flaw in any spiritual view of psychedelics is that people don't understand this one simple thing:

Quote:

The psychedelic space is not autonomous




But ignoring this notion is also the critical flaw in any rational argument against spiritualism of many sorts.

If you're looking for autonomous entities, then you're setting yourself up to fail. But having a nuanced understanding of the inseparability of experience and "reality" will lead you to conclusions which are both reasonable yet also embrace the mystery.

In my own attempts to explore the alternate psychedelic dimension I've come to the conclusion that all notions of a "REAL" reality are total bullshit. And that rather we live in shared linguistic constructions and the only thing that comes close to "real" is what we can all agree on.

You look at an object and I look at that same object and we both agree on it's existence and characteristics, then it must be real. That's the criteria. You have a dream and I have a dream, and so we talk about them and agree that there are these things called "dreams" and that we often share similar kinds of dream experiences like falling, or being unable to run from a monster. You smoke some DMT and I smoke some DMT, and we recount our experiences and find similarities like elves and spirit worlds.

Asking "is it real?" is a naive and stupid question which can't be answered. Better questions to ask might be "is it useful?" or "is it helpful?" and "how so?". "What does this mean about the validity of my sober/waking experiences?" These are the kinds of questions that a matured psychonaut will ask.


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"This day is a lover..."

~Rumi

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OfflineNature Boy
Stranger than most
Male User Gallery


Registered: 07/09/07
Posts: 8,246
Loc: Samsara
Last seen: 3 days, 15 hours
Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: The Whale]
    #14395150 - 05/03/11 04:15 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

The Whale said:
His main point here is that psychedelics do not imbibe genuine spiritual experiences...




Imbibe???  I stopped reading right there.  Try imbue.  When communicating in writing, words matter.

N.B.


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All submitted posts under this user name are works of pure fiction or outright lies.  Any information, statement, or assertion contained therein should be considered pure unadulterated bullshit.  Note well:  Sorry, but I do not answer PM's unless you are a long-time trusted friend.  If you have a question, ask it in the appropriate thread.

                                                                               

Edited by Nature Boy (05/03/11 04:16 PM)

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Offlinemicrodotty
Pro darts player!


Registered: 03/01/11
Posts: 1,670
Loc: England Flag
Last seen: 6 years, 11 months
Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: Nature Boy]
    #14395220 - 05/03/11 04:30 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Im gonna do an ouija board in the most haunted pub in england whilst on LSD...  then we'll see spirits!

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Invisiblemuistrue
Inspired by the mystery
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Registered: 03/20/05
Posts: 12,899
Loc: Behind the Redwoods
Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: microdotty]
    #14395261 - 05/03/11 04:39 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

microdotty said:
Im gonna do an ouija board in the most haunted pub in england whilst on LSD...  then we'll see spirits!




Or at least hallucinate them. :yesnod:


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InvisibleThe Whale

Registered: 11/01/10
Posts: 2,384
Loc: Flag
Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: Nature Boy]
    #14395263 - 05/03/11 04:39 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Nature Boy said:
Quote:

The Whale said:
His main point here is that psychedelics do not imbibe genuine spiritual experiences...




Imbibe???  I stopped reading right there.  Try imbue.  When communicating in writing, words matter.

N.B.




You seem overly exuberant that you caught what was a simple mistake on my part.

Good for you.

:brilliant:


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Invisibleredgreenvines
irregular verb
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Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,851
Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: The Whale]
    #14395396 - 05/03/11 05:04 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

I have been in touch with Kent.
there is something megalomanic about him.
also he neglects the fact that we can be intelligent people and yet know almost nothing in a total way.
we frequently depend on intermediate constructs or proxies.
we intend to drive a car and so we do what we have trained ourselves to do.
but while driving a thousand things happen that never happened before and we deal with them out of will, intention and care.
will
intention and care are the essence of magic.
I am a very scientific person, but I must say that I do not know my life through science, but through my senses and my will.
I live a magical life and review everything scientifically.
while things are happening, I am in the thrall of something spiritual.
afterwards, I can be very clinical about it.


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:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:

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InvisibleThe Whale

Registered: 11/01/10
Posts: 2,384
Loc: Flag
Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: redgreenvines]
    #14395491 - 05/03/11 05:25 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
I have been in touch with Kent.
there is something megalomanic about him.





His argument often times depends on heavily criticizing others while not giving equal credit to others whose ideas his own premises depend on. It's akin to beating away competition with a stick, but only doing so by standing on top of other people's shoulders--none of whom receive credit after you "effectively dismiss" the opposition.

Anyhoo, as is usually the case with people who become overly staunch with the scientific approach to psychedelics, Kent probably hasn't had his buttcheeks flossed by a heroic dose in a long while. The calm subtlety with which Nichols and a few others discuss these things lead me to believe their chemical vials are collecting more dust than their own amygdalas.


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Invisiblejoemolloy
DMT is Bullshit


Registered: 04/12/09
Posts: 6,525
Re: The Case Against the Spirit World Model of Psychedelic Action [Re: The Whale]
    #14395621 - 05/03/11 05:53 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

The Whale said:
Quote:

redgreenvines said:
I have been in touch with Kent.
there is something megalomanic about him.





His argument often times depends on heavily criticizing others while not giving equal credit to others whose ideas his own premises depend on. It's akin to beating away competition with a stick, but only doing so by standing on top of other people's shoulders--none of whom receive credit after you "effectively dismiss" the opposition.

Anyhoo, as is usually the case with people who become overly staunch with the scientific approach to psychedelics, Kent probably hasn't had his buttcheeks flossed by a heroic dose in a long while. The calm subtlety with which Nichols and a few others discuss these things lead me to believe their chemical vials are collecting more dust than their own amygdalas.




Kent is brilliant, articulate, and well reasoned.  He's been there, done that, and thought deeply about it.  Some people come to the conclusion that the whole psychedelic experience is a funny type of masturbation with no more meaning than a good old fashioned internet porn expedition that ends with a hearty orgasm.  You move on with your life, it was pretty intense and cool, but dwelling on it is retarded.  Giving it a moment of reflection or brain energy to interpret it would not lead to growth or understanding.  It would just have me obsessing over my own narcissism.

These arguments are kind of difficult because they boil down to a type of religious belief about these drugs.  They certainly feel religious, they feel like what an infusion of divinity should feel like, right?  Certainly. 

But I am still not a believer.  I am just fucked up on powerful chemicals that distort my thought processes.

We are out there, we have tripped countless times, traveled the whole spectrum of the psychedelic experience, and called bullshit on it.


--------------------
Don't PM me with bullshit.  I don't sell or trade cactus and I don't know where you can get any, other than your mother's ass.

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