Drugs aren't enlightening.

[Zay]

APOSTASY!

If you pop some pills/eat some shrooms/smoke some weed an say "whoah, the world is a triangle" and then you come off your trip and realize that it's really a square, but find that you prefer it as a triangle, you're just living an illusion. No better off than a muslim/christian.

[seafoo]

Drugs can definitely seem like the fast track to enlightenment, at first, but once you get habituated to them, its just becomes like another thing you do , and you find you're mentally back at square one.

[BlackopsNinja]

You're being vague. I've had some pretty good insights on shrooms that I wouldn't of had any other way. It's made me think about things quite differently.

[Ford Prefect]

If you pop some pills/eat some shrooms/smoke some weed an say "whoah, the world is a triangle" and then you come off your trip and realize that it's really a square, but find that you prefer it as a triangle, you're just living an illusion. No better off than a muslim/christian.

One time on MDMA I came to the rather cathartic conclusion that I love everybody, ie the entire human race. This wasn't a sort of "I love you, maan" sort of love but an semi-spiritual empathetic realization that continues to this day.

I largely agree with you when it comes to psychedelics (I'd far from discount there enthogenic quality all together, there just not for me), but I feel very confident is saying that empathogens/enactogens have many times changed me for the better.

[Lord hang man]

IF i look to the center of the universe when i am eating fungi and then come down and can not see it anymore, I attribute this to my failing eyesight.
IF i can not see god for all the atrocity my people has inflicted on itself, I attribute this to the messege falling upon deaf ears.
IF i should die again, and upon meeting the creator i realize my whole life was a facade, the only truth was love and the axis of evil was really rooted in our one soul; i will lament.

But if someone tries to tell me that anybody on this planet is better off than anyone else, i will only say that they must refer to the children. For obvious reasons.

[Zay]

You're being vague. I've had some pretty good insights on shrooms that I wouldn't of had any other way. It's made me think about things quite differently.

Are they insights that you can put into plain english, or is conditional to taking the drug? More than likely it's the latter. That's when people "we are one, matter is just energy vibrating, everything is connected, etc. " but then for evidence, you need to take the drug yourself.

I mean, I've smoked weed quite a few times, and I got the whole false epiphany, where for a moment I felt like I should get the nobel prize because making the connection just feels so extraordinary. Afterwards, the idea looked retarded and I just shrugged it off. It's a pleasant effect, for sure, but I don't think drugs should be promoted as keys to insight/enlightenment, and I've read robert anton wilson.

[ArmsMerchant]

Various drugs have been used for various spiritual purposes for upwards of 20,000 years--maybe longer--and I don't see that changing anytime soon. As a rule, they had been used for fairly specific purposes, in controlled settings in a social environment.

With street drugs today, you have no idea what you are getting, or what the dosage might be, until after you take the stuff and maybe end up in an emergency room somewhere. For this reason alone, I advise against using any drugs to enhance spirituality.

That said, I can see how in some cases, a positive experience with a psychedelic might open some doors, give one a brief glimpse of what lies beyond, and hence give one motivation to continue on the path, but using less risky means.

[InspiredByMe]

Mescaline. Read The Doors Of Perception if you have the chance.

Most drugs used for "enlightenment" are natural ones.

[Obbe]

If you pop some pills/eat some shrooms/smoke some weed an say "whoah, the world is a triangle" and then you come off your trip and realize that it's really a square, but find that you prefer it as a triangle, you're just living an illusion. No better off than a muslim/christian.

If the person is still "describing things", then yes, they are still living in an illusion. This is not to say they didn't pop in and out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva#Teaching_story) (or maybe out and into?) of enlightenment, though.

The nature of the Bodhisattva is apparent from a teaching story in which three people are walking through a desert. Parched and thirsty, they spy a high wall ahead. They approach and circumnavigate it, but it has no entrance or doorway. One climbs upon the shoulders of the others, looks inside, yells "Eureka" and jumps inside. The second then climbs up and repeats the actions of the first. The third laboriously climbs the wall without assistance and sees a lush garden inside the wall. It has cooling water, trees, fruit, etc. But, instead of jumping into the garden, the third person jumps back out into the desert and seeks out desert wanderers to tell them about the garden and how to find it. The third person is the Bodhisattva.

Are they insights that you can put into plain english, or is conditional to taking the drug? More than likely it's the latter.

Maybe 'plain english' is an inadequate way for the person to explain their insights.

That's when people "we are one, matter is just energy vibrating, everything is connected, etc. " but then for evidence, you need to take the drug yourself.

I disagree. To understand that "we are one", a person simply needs to ask themselves who they are. Eventually they realize there is no 'inside' without the 'outside', there is no yin without yang, and that this applies to everything.

I mean, I've smoked weed quite a few times, and I got the whole false epiphany, where for a moment I felt like I should get the nobel prize because making the connection just feels so extraordinary. Afterwards, the idea looked retarded and I just shrugged it off. It's a pleasant effect, for sure, but I don't think drugs should be promoted as keys to insight/enlightenment, and I've read robert anton wilson.

There are no "keys" to enlightenment. It is not something we progress towards anyways. It's always here, all around us, just waiting to be realized.

Taking drugs won't suddenly enlighten you. But they can show you what's behind the veil.

[dedraic]

Most drugs used for "enlightenment" are natural ones.

Fucking lies. Drugs used for spiritual means are highly dependent on the person. I've had ridiculously in depth meditations with just alcohol and opiates in my system. By altering your brain chemistry, you open doors, probably different doors at different doses. It's your will that allows you to move through these doors, and your will that allows you to integrate the experiences.

And, to note, relatively pure mescaline =/= a cactus trip. The isolation of the compound causes it to take on a different characteristic. Much different.

I think the real problem with hallucinogenic use in "spirituality" lies with the lack of a working framework through which to gain something useful from these experiences. A lot of people get caught up in creating their mythology instead of using it to gain insight into their daily lives. Then again, I've seen sober people do the same thing with meditation and lucid dreaming techniques. I've built myself a viable worldview that allows a lot of ideas to cross back to the realm of sobriety and at the least be of some interest, if not of incredible value.

They're not a fast track though, nothing really is. Take methods, use them as you will, and integrate the results of experiment as well as you can. Combine methods, find out what works for you, and use it. Drugs are kind of cool because they require no will at all to activate the altered state. You just down your tabs or pills or tea and go for it. This leaves you free to focus all of yourself internally, instead of having to maintain a certain state of consciousness through coercion of your system, and then working from that platform.

It's all in how you use it. With the proper mindset, even a six hour crack binge could be a spiritual encounter.

[EliCash]

Are they insights that you can put into plain english, or is conditional to taking the drug? More than likely it's the latter. That's when people "we are one, matter is just energy vibrating, everything is connected, etc. " but then for evidence, you need to take the drug yourself.

I mean, I've smoked weed quite a few times, and I got the whole false epiphany, where for a moment I felt like I should get the nobel prize because making the connection just feels so extraordinary. Afterwards, the idea looked retarded and I just shrugged it off. It's a pleasant effect, for sure, but I don't think drugs should be promoted as keys to insight/enlightenment, and I've read robert anton wilson.
It depends on the drug, weed isn't a psychedelic by any means, so the shit you're thinking of on it like curing Alzheimer's by using low-dose acid to create a state-based memory is obviously not going to fix anything. But certain psychedelics can bring about changes that some would call spiritual. A few months back I went on a DXM kick, I was tripping about once a week for a month or so, and I can say that ever since I have been/felt different. My outlook on the world around me has changed and I feel as though I'm viewing my life from the view of an impartial 3rd party whose take on the situation is not clouded by emotional responses.

[water bottle]

Psychedelics can give you a good look at yourself. I have to say though, I used to do a ridiculous amount of mushrooms and acid (and K, E, cacti, etc.), and I don't think anything I 'learned' from those trips actually bettered me in any way. It was just good fun. Overall, though, I agree -- if there is any path to enlightenment, it isn't in an acid blotter.

Psychedelics are still great for observing human nature, though (observing, not understanding... key point there). Watching people interact with each other while tripping is kind of beautiful. Everyone's innocent again.

[0omnidirectional]

If the person is still "describing things", then yes, they are still living in an illusion. This is not to say they didn't pop in and out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva#Teaching_story) (or maybe out and into?) of enlightenment, though.


Be Ye a Serpent or Be Ye a Dove?




Maybe 'plain english' is an inadequate way for the person to explain their insights.

Putting a mushroom experience into words is like molding the totality of existence into form.

[Cliche Guevara]

Haha, Ive definitely had some "insights" that weren't as paradigm shifting and enlightened as I thought once I regained sobreity. But I can 100% say that it was drugs that have changed my values and way of thinking in a better way. (Maybe in a way that is far less conducive to "proper society" but its a better way). Sure, I feel as if I'm going to be a child for the rest of my life, but I also feel immensely worldly and I feel as if I know the way the world truly works. (true or not, I don't particularly care).

There are definitely behavioural and thought changes that aren't temporary (i.e the world remains triangular) and its up to you decide whether they are "enlightening" or not, but to me, I have had experiences with a variety of different drugs that have left rather permanent impressions on me.

And it may be the case that its all one giant self-serving illusion and everything is just some drug induced cacaphony, but theres no going back.

[BlackopsNinja]

Yes of course. I'm picking up some shrooms hopefully soon and I'll be able to give you exactly what you want. But I still stand on my ideas. In comparison weed isn't a hallucinogen. You could argue that it is but it's nowhere near the level shrooms are.

If you don't think drugs should be promoted as the keys to enlightenment, then what would you suggest? I think that for those 6-8 hours that I'm trippin, I can change the way I think about aspects of my life that I wouldn't be able to do on my own. This helps me sort through problems and what have you faster and easier than I could by doing it the old fashioned way.

Are they insights that you can put into plain english, or is conditional to taking the drug? More than likely it's the latter. That's when people "we are one, matter is just energy vibrating, everything is connected, etc. " but then for evidence, you need to take the drug yourself.

I mean, I've smoked weed quite a few times, and I got the whole false epiphany, where for a moment I felt like I should get the nobel prize because making the connection just feels so extraordinary. Afterwards, the idea looked retarded and I just shrugged it off. It's a pleasant effect, for sure, but I don't think drugs should be promoted as keys to insight/enlightenment, and I've read robert anton wilson.

[dedraic]

But I still stand on my ideas. In comparison weed isn't a hallucinogen. You could argue that it is but it's nowhere near the level shrooms are.



Add some sensory deprivation, manipulation of your breathing, and the ability to focus on one point for an extended period of time, and you'll likely change your mind about what exactly your mind can do, and in the process what drugs can do. The strongest visual distortion I've ever had came from two hits of decent bud and a half hour of focused meditation on the abolishment of duality...


If you don't think drugs should be promoted as the keys to enlightenment, then what would you suggest? I think that for those 6-8 hours that I'm trippin, I can change the way I think about aspects of my life that I wouldn't be able to do on my own. This helps me sort through problems and what have you faster and easier than I could by doing it the old fashioned way.

Altered states of consciousness induced via drug use seem to have a higher capacity to lead to crippling delusions. Mostly because if you're deep in trance without a chemical aid, you can usually return yourself to baseline in a couple of minutes, with the aid, you're there and you're going to be there, thus it will make a stronger, possibly uninterpretable experience.

There's always risks, and strange little side effects that can occur, half of the understanding is realizing that these are happening and averting them, or avoiding the circumstances that cause them while in such a state. The strange side effects in and of themselves were the catalyst to understanding how to socially deprogram myself however, so considering them as purely negative is something of a mislabel...

[P_R_Deltoid]

I can't stand people who become philosophical thinkers when they do drugs. Even when I'm high, I can see how arrogant and idiotic all of their statements are, and I feel bad for them.

It really ruins my high.

[LiquidIce]

I kinda agree with the OP. Drugs just put on another filter on your senses and thoughts, they don't free them or something like that. Sure, I'm all for trying some mescaline and acid, but I don't think I might get anything out of them except for great fun.

Ask Aristotle if he used drugs to come to some of his conclusions.

[Reality Apologist]

If you don't think drugs should be promoted as the keys to enlightenment, then what would you suggest? I think that for those 6-8 hours that I'm trippin, I can change the way I think about aspects of my life that I wouldn't be able to do on my own. This helps me sort through problems and what have you faster and easier than I could by doing it the old fashioned way.

If by "the old fashioned way" you mean rigorous, logical thinking then you've answered your own question: that's the only reliable way to get at the truth. I'm certainly not opposed to drug use, but don't mistake the high for something higher: they're forms of recreation, not shortcuts around reason.

[BlackopsNinja]

I suppose you're right on some issues. But there is nothing like gettin that viewpoint while tripping. :thumbsup:

If by "the old fashioned way" you mean rigorous, logical thinking then you've answered your own question: that's the only reliable way to get at the truth. I'm certainly not opposed to drug use, but don't mistake the high for something higher: they're forms of recreation, not shortcuts around reason.

[ZeroMalarki]

Drugs can only ever be what you make them.

I don't believe they are a way of transcending reality, I really wish they were but weed just gets you high. Then sometimes it even exacerbates already existing problems.

Now, I'm aware that there's a lot of anti-drug propaganda out there that put out lies through phony science, but I've seen the effect of things first hand. I've seen good trips and I've seen bad trips, I've experienced things for myself too. For a while, you can be granted a new understanding of things but that does not mean that your new understanding is the correct one.

The original hypothesis "drugs aren't enlightening" is correct.

Nobody is truly "enlightened". An epiphany that you have on drugs tends to apply only to you. If you find that it makes your life better, then follow it through. But arrogance is a dangerous thing, don't believe you have the right answer because the shrooms told you.

I was sure that I had the right idea whenever I last did them and hell, I'd take them again, but I'd either write down what I decided during the midst of confusion and euphoria or take it with a grain of salt.

[Danger]

DMT has been produced naturally in the human brain for the last 40,000 years .. Today it is one of the most illegal substances in the world.. Who are you to say what is or is not enlightening to someone?

Some say it is actually allowing you access to other realm's/dimensions... Lucid dreamers know what im talking about... It's natural and has a natural function the government dosnt want you to know about.. a few people can control the amount of dmt which is excreeted into their brains; others have their pituitary glands become less/non active and need chemical help to experience such mindstates...

The government is hiding information from you...



Condemnation before investigation is the height of ignorance...

[0omnidirectional]

You can use a hammer and smash your hand, but you use that same hammer and build a tree house.


If you take shrooms in a negative environment, while your mind is littered with trash, you're probably going to smash your hand.

If you've been mediating the last couple of days, and you're trying find a way (not necessarily a solution) up a particular mountain. Then you contemplate upon this point with the intention of finding a way, then you eat four grams of psilocybin mushroom. You'll probably find a way.


What is really interesting about shrooms is how you have this wave flowing to the right of you, then you have this other stream waving at a different frequency to the center, and some sort of whirl pool over to the left. And you're observing all these thought streams at once with a rediculous shroom smile across you face. If someone where to ask you what you're smiling about all you can do is laugh because there is just way to much going on at once to stop and tell them.


I think psychedelics could be very useful tools for science and spirituality when used respect.

[DJ Meaty Cheeks]

From a wiki entry on Alexander Shulgin:

He would later write that everything he saw and thought "had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid... I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability."[1]

[drBOX]

I'm viewing my life from the view of an impartial 3rd party whose take on the situation is not clouded by emotional responses.

And why is this a good thing?

If by "the old fashioned way" you mean rigorous, logical thinking then you've answered your own question: that's the only reliable way to get at the truth. I'm certainly not opposed to drug use, but don't mistake the high for something higher: they're forms of recreation, not shortcuts around reason.

Ayn Rand ftw.

I tend to agree with the original poster on this one. I know lots of people who use drugs, specifically psychedelics, and are certainly none the better for it.

Too often they are looking for the short-cut, the solution to the problems of life without adequately grasping what it takes, what it means to be a fully functioning and psychologically healthy individual. The best I can do is provide quotations from those who are much more articulate than I.

From The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck M.D. --

"In describing the prolonged "oneness with the universe" associated with real love as compared to the momentary oneness of orgasm, I used the words "mystical union." Mysticism is essentially a belief that reality is oneness. The most literal of mystics believe that our common perception of the universe as containing multitudes of discrete objects-- stars, planets, trees, birds, houses, ourselves -- all separated from one another by boundaries is a misperception, an illusion. To this consensual mispercetion, this world of illusion that most of us mistakenly believe to be real, Hindus and Buddhists apply the word "Maya." They and other mystics hold that true reality can be known only by experiencing the oneness through a giving up of ego boundaries. It is impossible t really see the unity of the universe as long as one continues to see oneself as a discrete object, separate and distinguishable from the rest of the universe in any way, shape or form. Hindus and Buddhists frequently hold, therefore, that the infant before the development of ego boundaries knows reality, while adults do not. Some even suggest that the path toward enlightenment or knowledge of the oneness of reality requires that we regress or make ourselves like infants. This can be a dangerously tempting doctrine for certain adolescents and young adults who are not prepared to assume adult responsibilities, which seem frightening and overwhelming and demanding beyond their capacities. "I do not have to go through this," such a person might think. "I can give up trying to be an adult and retreat from adult demands into sainthood." Schizophrenia, however, rather than sainthood is achieved by acting on this supposition.

Most mystics understand the truth that was elaborated at the discussion of discipline: namely, that we must possess or achieve something before we can give it up and still maintain our competency and viability. The infant without its ego boundaries may be in closer touch with reality than its parents, but it is incapable of surviving without the care of these parents and incapable of communicating its wisdom. The path to sainthood goes through adulthood. There are no quick and easy shortcuts. Ego boundaries must be hardened before they can be softened. An identity must be established before it can be transcended. One must find one's self before one can loose it. The temporary release from ego boundaries associated with falling in love, sexual intercourse or the use of certain psychoactive drugs may provide us with a glimpse of Nirvana, but not with Nirvana itself. It is a thesis of this book that Nirvana or lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth can be achieved only through the persistent exercise of real love.

------------

"A final word on the discipline of balancing and its essence of giving up: you must have something in order to give it up. You cannot give up anything you have not already gotten. If you give up winning without ever having won, you are where you were at the beginning: a loser. You must forge for yourself an identity before you can give it up. You must develop an ego before you can lose it. This may seem incredibly elementary, but I think it is necessary to say it, since there are many people I know who possess a vision of evolution yet seem to lack the will for it. They want, and believe it is possible, to skip over the discipline, to find an easy short-cut to sainthood. Often they attempt to attain it by simply imitating the superficialities of saints, retiring to the desert or taking up carpentry. Some even believe that by such imitation they have really become saints and prophets, and are unable to acknowledge that they are still children and face the painful fact that they must start at the beginning and go through the middle."



These words ring true to me, I don't know how you could begin to establish an argument against them. I would also suggest the book which is about psychological health.

Ayn Rand in The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution is a little more condemning...

...But there is one emotion which the hippies do experience intensely: chronic fear. If you have seen any of them on television, you have seen it leaping at you from the screen. Fear is their brand, their hallmark; fear is the special vibration by which they claim to recognize one another...

It is fear that drives them to seek the warmth, the protection, the 'safety' of a herd. When they speak of merging their selves into a 'greater whole,' it is their fear that they hope to drown out in the undemanding waves of unfastidious human bodies.And what they hope to fish out of that pool is the momentary illusion of an unearned personal significance.
But all discussions or arguments about the hippies are almost superfluous in the face of one overwhelming fact: most of the hippies are drug addicts.
Is there any doubt that drug addiction is an escape from an unbearable inner state, from a reality one cannot deal with, from an atrophying mind one can never full destroy? If Appolonian reason were unnatural to man, and Dionysian 'intuiton' brought him closer to nature and truth, the apostles of irrationality would not have to resort to drugs. Happy, self-confident men do not seek to get 'stoned.

Drug addiction is the attempt to obliterate one's consciousness, the quest for deliberately induced insanity. As such, it is so obscene an evil that any doubt about the moral character of its practitioners is itself an obscenity.

"In the early stages of mankind's development, that view was provided by religion, i.e., by mystic fantasy Man's psycho-epistemological need is the reason why even the most primitively savage tribes always clung to some form of religious belief; the mystic (i.e. anti-reality) nature of their view was the cause of mankind's incalculably long stagnation.

I would also suggest this book.

My personal experience goes along the lines of the quotations I have above. Drugs (psychedelics) may be occasionally useful as a tool for insight, but all to often I see them used in a way that absolves any real sense of insight or advantage.

I've got a cousin who is a heavy psychedelic user. He puts out an image of maturity, zen, shaman, hippie, etc. and puts it to good use. It almost fooled me. As I became closer with him (he moved in with me and we worked together for a while) it became clear that this was all a facade. Under periods of stress or in anger/disagreement he seemed to regress quite heavily into something of a child. He was never able to get sober, and actually decided to start selling drugs after my family gave him a place to live.

I could go on an on, I guess I just mean that the contradictions in his image and behavior are enormous.

[nutsack]

I think psychedelics could be very useful tools for science and spirituality when used respect.

This. They ARE useful tools, and should be seen as such.

[Aldaraia]

DXM, while not giving me new perspectives on how humans live, it has really helped enlighten me on my own ways of living over just a few intense trips, the previous way I was living was not a good one, simply did not care about school at all, the DXM helped me think about how I'm fucking my future up and what a selfish bastard I was, I could see that my life was going nowhere. I just skipped school a lot to stay home and smoke weed, yeah I was a loser.

After the trip I decided to dedicate more time to schoolwork and I managed to pass all my classes this year instead of failing one or two, while managing to become a more likable person as well. I don't care what you think, it HAS enlightened me on the effects of my own lifestyle.