Mystical Experiences (w/ & w/o psychedelics)

Personally, I am with Eliyahu in that I don't find that the use of entheogens to achieve spiritual and mystical experiences diminishes the value or integrity of those experiences. There IS a reason why so many shamanistic and mystical traditions the world over embrace these mind altering preparations.

However, I do understand the tendency to want to find other routes to transpersonal states. If you only ever achieved these things while high as a kite, it would be easy to dismiss these things as purely chemical based. (As many of my colleagues here do.)

I don't see the "drugs" as the source of these experience, but rather as an aid, supplement, or catalyst to achieve things that you could reach on your own... but maybe a number of years of hard work down the line. In this way, psychedelics are more like metaphysical "coming attractions" than anything else. They can give you a foretaste of the most flashy and explosive scenes from a film that you can't quite see yet. Of course, the plot is often AWOL, and one is often left more confused than before you saw the sneak preview... but you tend to know if you want to see the film or not. Seeing the film involves doing the hard work, slowing it down, and filling in all the blanks.

I think people who don't have a practice outside their psychedelic use don't realize what those of us who do meditate, do chi kung, do yoga etc. experience when WE do the same amounts of the same substances as them. Hint: It is not the same.

Having journeyed with and guided many people into hyperspace, shared more than enough fungi, spice, and liquid sunshine with my peeps... I can say that those of us who cultivate our inner space without the sacraments get MUCH further and in a much more controllable and useful way than those who don't. Many of my friends believe that what we experience on entheogens is just misfiring neurons, but when I ask them to describe their peak experiences... they are so pale and shallow next to mine that I would also think that it could just be the effects of odd neurotransmitters etc. If your experiences are limited to visual trailing, colorful patterns, odd thought patterns, breathing walls and the occasional detailed hallucination... then you are not having the mystical experiences that others of us here are having. You may feel energy and glimpse a sense of oneness... but that is baby stuff.

It must be stated that I have nearly 40 years of experience with advanced internal arts and could lucid dream regularly as long as I can remember. I have also had a number of really incredible teachers along the way... kung fu masters, yogis, shaman of every sort etc.

To be honest, what most people achieve with psychedelics are things I can do dead sober with a few minutes of meditation or energy work. I can achieve rather remarkable mystical states without any external help whatsoever. I can also lucid dream many times a night... have volitional OOBE's (astral projection), can feel, see, and use chi to greater or lesser extents all the time... and I have come to know that entheogens have not taken me anywhere I couldn't have gone on my own. They just take me there faster, and can push the envelope a bit to expose new facets of the cosmic realms and introduce me to entities I may otherwise not have been able to contact.

I will not engage in a debate about the veracity of my claims here. (we've attempted that relatively fruitless endeavor on a number of other threads already) I have no interest in trying to convince skeptics of my experiences or abilities. Never have. As Bob Marley said "Who feels it knows it, lord." Don't believe me. After all, who am I but some anonymous dude on a forum?

I only say all this to illustrate my point that psychedelics only push you beyond the borders of your current spiritual and mystical level. If you have no mystical experiences outside your entheogen use... than I guarantee you that the ones you do have while on them could be boosted a thousandfold by putting in the hard work and developing your internal skills.

I couldn't imagine reaching anything as bizarre and strange as a psychedelic state through sober means, but if you say it's possible I guess I'll keep an open mind. Did this stuff happen after taking psychedelics? From some of the people I know who are into this stuff like you, they say the ability came with prolong psychedelic use.

I just want to point out that you don't have to be into all that to get mystical experiences on psychedelics I meditate from time to time but more just to clear my mind than reach any sort of internal realm of conscious (I have terrible patience!). BUT, I have had some VERY mindblowing experiences on psychedelics. Not just trails and patterns, but reaching states of infinity where everything that defines me is poured down a black hole and comes out opposite ended and the drug PROVES to me that there is no difference between black and white, good and evil, but that we are all one caught up in this paradox where everything no matter how far from the point is essentially the same. I've watched the earth create and destroy itself on mushrooms. All the good and bad things would create and destroy, but the world would never change. It was in perfect balance. And it told me there was no right answer, only love. Things that seem bad must exist for things that seem good. Then I saw all the different types of people standing around the edge of the world holding hands to keep it alive.

So yeah, some pretty moving experiences for sure. I'm sure all the meditation would make it easier to get to, but I think that with the right group of people and the right dose it's almost unavoidable. I do have the group of friends that just like to get high. When I trip with them It's just goofy and a good time but nothing incredibly special or life changing. Then I have the few friends who are really into philosophy and consciousness. When I trip with them I don't even have to try to reach these states. The nature of the conversation will automatically lead me there. I may or may not believe in the physical existence of hyperspace beings, but I think to toss these chemicals off as "mis-fired neurons" is a little ignorant. I hate that that stance is hailed as the most rational. I hate when people so easily say "it's just drugs." Whether the experience bears any significance or not, for a substance to have such consistent profound effects on ones brain it has to be acting on a very deep psychological level and I think that in itself is a miracle.

I knnow my abilities to percieve energy more directly came from meditating on LSD and Mesc..

I wish I could say that I am some sober meditator but actaully that's not the case here as of yet.

Nice post hyperspace fool BTW

JM

I had mystical experiences before I ever tried any drugs. Of course my parents smoked some weed before I was born, and it is possible I was exposed to certain compounds in vitro... but I would say that isn`t the main factor.

I would attribute that more to starting with martial arts at 4 and a half years old, and developing a hyperactive imagination playing old fashioned role playing games. By the time I started puffing weed, I was already pretty comfortable in Wonderland.

The fact that your experiences differ based on the crew you journey with could be attributed to you getting a contact high from their level of mystical awareness. Like I have said... telepathy is no joke... especially not when all the parties are familiar with each other and on entheogens.

Perhaps not. I do believe that someone with no abilities in this field could have staggering cosmic journeys right out of the box... with sufficient dosages. But I still think that if you took that person and trained them for 5 years in advanced meditation and energy working techniques, they would not only be able to go further, retain more, and make it all that much more enveloping and HD... but they would be able to steer and guide the experience.

A meditation practitioner (or regular lucid dreamer) develops a few major mental skills. Awareness, Focus, Intention, Willpower etc. These things can be used to navigate the psychedelic realms. Furthermore, these realms are not all that different than the ones you can reach without psychedelics. Taking a healthy dose of psychs is just like replacing your dirt bike with a rocket.

FOUL

I call foul and accuse you of engaging in semantic misdirection, as your example is a subtle (yet beautiful) diversion.

The equivalent example to the question at hand is not whether or not I disbelieve the existence of some stranger far away, about whom no one has engaged me, and therefore I have had no opportunity to form any opinion/belief, but rather...

Albert for example does not know of a stranger who exists somewhere far away. Snozz comes along and tells Albert that this person exists. Once Snozz makes that statement, Albert has three choices, to believe, disbelieve, or claim that he does not know...there can be no "absence of belief", as he has already been given information that he must accept, reject, or declare to be beyond his ability to know. It is too late for Albert to reject the notion of having been given the information from which his subsequent belief stems, as he has already been informed of the claimed existence of this stranger.

Again, this is what I (and Hyperspace Fool, I believe) was driving at with regards to the fact that anyone entering in this discussion already has too much information to claim a position of "no belief".

I am with you 100% Snozz (as the record clearly shows). I too think the "absence of belief" stance is a cop out and not possible among people who are, in fact, talking about the subject. The whole "infant who is unexposed to the idea" thing is not worth exploring IMO as there is no way to find out what they think without speaking to them and thus introducing the concept to them.

I would humbly suggest that there are more than 3 options here, though... The Apatheist position springs immediately to mind, and I think there are probably at least a couple more.

Apatheists are those people who frankly don't give a sh... hoot. They are not willing to take the time to even consider the claim generally, and thus are not accepting, rejecting or declaring it beyond their ability to know.

I have a few friends in this category who admit that they could probably know one way or the other if they tried hard enough, but find the entire thing to be a waste of time and utterly beneath them.

While I find the theism debates fascinating and a heap of fun, I can understand their stance, because there are plenty of subjects that I am certainly apathetic about. One example would be if someone wanted to debate whether or not X-Factor is rigged, or whether so & so was the best Soccer (football) player in the Champion's league... My lack of opinion on these topics comes completely because I couldn't care less what the answer was.

In our world where belief or disbelief in deities seems to have little or no effect on one's success in life, longevity, attractiveness to females etc. etc. It is easy to understand why people might not care. I think that it can affect your life rather profoundly, but you have to be willing to dive extremely deep into this stuff to have that transformative mystical experience, and I don't believe we are punished for not believing or trying to believe, so the incentive to go there is kind of narrow. (in that only a small cross section of the population will actually find it a worthwhile endeavor)

Certainly...in my haste to get this down I just mapped out the simple framework that generally gets thrown around here (as I see it):

Theists-------Agnostics-------Atheists.

This also ignores my own position of possibilianism and numerous others...but fit better in the metaphor than a list of all possible positions on the spectrum.

Dont spectra make for great and simple visual representations of often awkward scenarios one might attempt to describe?

Not to be taken literally of course, just easy on the mind to picture.

Your the best snozzleberry!

As HF has already conceded, many people disagree with that way of looking at it and as far as I can tell the words them self back up the people who disagree, since theist/atheist is to do with belief and gnostic/agnostic is to do with knowledge. They are not on the same axis, throwing a position pertaining to knowledge in between two positions pertaining to belief doesn't make sense. Agnostic doesn't tell you anything on it's own, it is generally used as shorthand for agnostic atheist... but agnostic theist is just as valid. An agnostic atheist doesn't have any god beliefs, but doesn't claim to know there is no god either (how many people have any of you seen ever claiming to *know* that there is no god?). An agnostic theist does believe in a god, but doesn't claim to know they are correct. This argument continues to go round and round, and I really don't see how it is particularly useful, so I'll step out of it at this stage. I've said my piece

http://en.wikipedia.org/...ism#Types_of_agnosticism

As it goes, and I hadn't bothered mentioning this earlier since I don't think it is relevant, I am a fairly strong atheist. Every god proposition that has been given to me seems to collapse with a bit of thought. The bible is full of contradictions and paradoxes, so I have to assume that it wasn't inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent being. Same goes for the Quran, it has less contradictions than the bible and has a mechanism for dealing with them which the bible lacks, but it still has many things which seem to be written from the viewpoint of an ignorant man and not from the viewpoint of an all knowing creator of the universe, so I strongly reject both of these... I am as sure about the non-existence of the Abrahamic god as I am about the non-existence of Santa. I still wouldn't claim certainty though, since really I don't feel certain about anything at all (and that's not just a handy escape route to avoid taking a stance, I just think claiming certainty about anything is naive).

As for "gods" that haven't been proposed to me... well... they fall under the category of the stranger on the other side of the world analogy. I have no idea what they may be, or not be, or any kind of characteristic they may possess. How can I reject or accept anything about a "something" that has never been presented to me and about which I know absolutely nothing.

This is not what I conceded. I said that there are people who use the terms as you do. It is a bit of a stretch to say many. Of the 100 or so books I have read on the subject... ALL OF THEM use the Theist - Agnostic - Atheist spectrum. This includes all the big atheists like Dawkins, Hitchens et. al.


Linguistically your dual axis model makes sense, and there may even be some merit to some ways of interpreting such labels as some seem to think (especially in agnostic circles). But this is a philosophical debate that goes back for centuries... it has pre-existing terminology, and this terminology is simply not your dual-axis model my friend.

Your assertion about "not having any god beliefs" is patently false as we have been showing over and over on this thread. One must have some belief in this regard if one is aware of the subject at all. The belief might be that you can't know, or that you can but don't know, or that you don't care to know... you can be leaning in one direction or the other... as well as have the basic knowing in the positive or negative. No belief is simply not feasible if you have thought about it even for 1 minute.


You don't seem like a very strong atheist to me. A strong atheist would own that he believes there are no gods. You seem to want to say that... thus your Santa analogy, but you have hedged your bet with the typical (and very rational I might add) stance that you can't be completely sure of anything.


At any rate, since it seems you want to duck out of this debate, I will just say that the Bible and The Quran are not the totality of theistic conception. They barely scratch the surface really... even among religious theism. It is quite possible you might find a branch of Theism that actually makes sense to you. I would look to the non-religious concepts of deity. If your willingness to entertain the concept of deity is limited to cursory inspections of the Jehovah of the Bible and the Allah of the Quran, then it might be more proper to think of yourself as simply anti-Christian and anti-Muslim (again both very rational stances to take).

The term agnostic doesn't go back centuries, it goes back a century and a bit. The terms atheist and theist were around centuries before the term agnostic... so what was used during that period to describe what you would call an agnostic? What label would someone like me have had at that time? (hint: atheist) Dawkins has identified himself on separate occasions as atheist, agnostic, and agnostic atheist (if you really insist I will hunt down a video of him identifying as agnostic in an interview... but I'd rather you just take my word that he did). Hitchens identifies as anti-theist and atheist. These people are two of the "strongest" atheist's I have ever come across, I have read a book of each of theirs and they all but claim certainty, and in passing they will make claims of certainty on the subject (Hitchens when asked what will happen to him when he dies stated "nothing, I will cease to exist". That is a gnostic claim). Yet when it comes down to it they will still call themself agnostic if that word is introduced.

You seem quite intent on putting your own labels on me. I am not anti Christian, or anti Muslim... although I am somewhat anti-Islam and anti-Christianity, but these are not defining points of my character. I know those are not the only god propositions floating around, far from it, but they are the only two that I have investigated and the only two that I have had people try to insist I should believe. I don't have time to look into the thousands of religions humanity has conjured up over the millennia. I got shit to do

I don't have to take a stance on things I am unaware of. I have no interest in investigating every god proposition ever thought up. I am always happy to have someone try and give me some evidence to change my mind. Not necessarily empirical evidence, anything that anyone wants to call evidence I will look at. If you want to explain to me your stance and why you call yourself a theist them you are free to and I will give it some sincere thought. perhaps you will turn me into some form of theist, or perhaps it will just be another proposition for which I see no evidence and am content to reject it.

I'm not particularly wanting to duck out of this debate. I signed up here after a long time lurking specifically to respond to something in this thread, but I had hoped I could just tell you I was right and that would be the end of it (j/k)

HyperspaceFool, you say you have read authors like Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens but you are completely misunderstanding what they are saying. I being an atheist as well as an anti-theist have great passion for this subject and set aside time almost every night to self educating and learning on the subject. Here is what I have learned.

Were you seem to be confused. Atheism doesn't not conclude there is no god. Theist propose that there is a God or there are gods. Since its is their proposal of an omnipotent being the burden of proof is in their court. All atheism says is that none of their proposed evidence supports their claim of the existence of a god. Atheism does not make a conclusion that there is no god.

We simply say we have seen no evidence, heard no arguments that stand up convincingly for us to hold a belief that a god exists.
A proper atheist does not include his her own opinion on the matter which is why atheism should not try to conclude their is no god. The claim can not be falsified admittedly by science and philosopher's so personal feelings or thoughts are kept out. We look at the evidence and in the case of theism the overwhelming lack of evidence. Since nobody can prove there is no god atheism can't and should not try to make this claim, but only can state that there is no sufficient evidence to back up their proposal that god exists. Therefore there is nothing to believe in. Non belief is NOT a belief! This is where you are most mistaken.

On a separate note, besides all the above points I made, the burden of proof being pushed onto atheists to dis prove theist claims is ludicrous as well as a weak tactic of theism. If someone claims that there are unicorns in existence its not the responsibility of science to prove no unicorns exist. Also the very label of atheist has been shown to be an unnecessary and made up word. For example there is no name for a person that does not collect stamps. They are simply a person, while a person who does collect stamps can be called a stamp collector and this is accurate. The term atheist seems to give credibility to the belief of god by implying that it is such a rational and debatable claim that it warrants a name for those who don't hold this belief. In actuality a person that believes in god with no evidence but holds this belief of the existence of god on faith is a theistic person but a person that thinks rationally and with reason is a person with no extra descriptive titles needed.

Also you said to another poster that they are not a solid atheist because they don't conclude there is no god but hopefully you see that they are very proper in their thought process and are what a good atheist is.

IMO ......

The belief that theism is an intelectually invalid choice is still a belief no matter how you care to cut it. Therefore the notion that atheists are only folowing some sort of natural law of observation by not believing in what is not physically apperant is a deeply flawed argument....

in a sense Olympus Mon is right.... atheism does not conclude there is no God... Atheism concludes that it is an intullectually superior theory..and that in itself constitutes the very definition of a belief. The belief that all other beliefs are intellectually inferior.

Well for starters your first point was never brought up till now in the conversation of atheism being a belief which it is NOT. Again atheism is the lack of a belief in a proposed being, god. So if you wish to discuss the belief that atheist believe theism is less intellectual I'd be happy to do so.

The belief of god is based on self evidence, faith and emotions all of which do not fall under intellect at all so yes I would agree that I hold your stated belief. Not believing in god after looking at the data from observing our physical universe on the other hand is using intellect to decide whether you share a thesistic belief in god or not.

Next... ATHEISM is NOT a theory! I'm not sure how many times it must be correctly defined for people to understand what atheism is and isn't. Your so called flawed method of determination couldn't be more rational and responsible. To determine if a claim is valid or true there is no better method than observation and study of the physical universe other wise known as science. Its is not a natural law of observation as you put it, in fact there is no such thing. If there is a god, one that effects the world we live in then that god or its effects should be able to be detected or observed with the method of understanding and observation we call science.

I don't think anyone is saying theism is invalid, at least they'd be dumb to think so. I think the main argument is that it appears silly to pick certain doctrine with no evidence. Out of all the possible religions and mythology it seems almost illogical to point to one and say "well THIS one is true but not the others." But of course that's just a belief. I'm sure some people have well justified reasons for believing their religions, but not all. Many are just sheep that take after tradition. I think why some people hold science in high esteem is that there is no tradition involved (at least there shouldn't be). It's purely unbiased observation in it's most true sense.

Also, atheism doesnt include the belief that it's superior. Thats just the personal bias that tends to tag along with our ego's.

@OlympusMons

It appears that you have not read this thread all the way through, but are merely jumping in somewhere near the end. We have gone through this over and over and it is kind of beyond debate at this point as to the clear definition of Atheism that has already been established.

Since you seem to have missed it, though I will present a quick recap. Atheism is defined into broad and narrow definitions as so:

"Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. "

It is typical for agnostics who like to think of themselves as atheists to insist on this non-belief thing. But even here, the broad definition is simply not a lack of any belief but a rejection of belief. It may be worthwhile for you to check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism for a more detailed explanation of broad v. narrow, weak v. strong, negative v. positive, and implicit v. explicit. It is simply not helpful for anyone to project the idea that your version of the word is the only correct usage... when in fact, this is not the case.

No one denied that you could use the term in a weak manner, but we spent a few pages coming to the conclusion that used in that way, the term is nearly worthless as it says nothing that the word agnostic doesn't already say. Now we have a similar revival here with Garyp88 and his insistence that only his usage of these terms (an interesting if not all that widespread 2 axis version which leaves us with 8 possible varieties of theist, atheist and agnostic) is valid.

The fact is, guys, that people use these terms all kinds of ways. My point is that sticking to the most well established and specific usages makes the most sense. This is clearly the spectrum of Atheist - Agnostic - Theist. In this model, all you "atheists" who want to waffle about their disbelief in, or belief that there are no, gods are probably more accurately agnostics.

I always love this burden of proof thing, though. It is as if I came on this thread trying to convince you that there are gods. I have not done, and will not be doing, any such thing. I have merely been defining here various lesser known types of theism that often include people who start off claiming atheism.

At any rate, there is no burden of proof either way... everyone knows that there is no proof possible for atheism or theism. Asking for the impossible is somewhat childish. The only rational stance to take outside of direct personal revelation is agnosticism. (Apatheism and Possibilianism are also rational). Proof either way on any universal scale is not likely to be forthcoming.

I submit that if you don't believe in gods... own that. Be an atheist in its proper sense. If you refuse to say you disbelieve, but want to cling to some "lack of belief" or "absence of belief" model, I have to cry foul. Disbelief is a belief. If you have spent time thinking about this... you have a belief. It might just be that you believe you don't have enough information to sway you towards theism and you default to atheism out of principle.

This is clearly agnosticism though. If you are Garyp88 you might want to call this agnostic atheism. If this was merely about rejecting claims, you couldn't debate this with people who weren't making any claims.

No. I firmly believe this is a Question. One that every human of more than 4 years of age will probably ask themselves even without any prompting whatsoever. The question is:

"Do you believe in G*d or gods?"

There is nothing to reject here. You simply answer yes, no, maybe, possibly, not sure, don't care, or whatever.

All the rest is just typical muddying the waters to avoid the issue. (A logical fallacy by the way)

Note that a god can be an ET who interacted with humans or even just the natural universe as it is without anything remotely mystical or supernatural about it.

I don't think anyone is saying theism is invalid, at least they'd be dumb to think so. I think the main argument is that it appears silly to pick certain doctrine with no evidence. Out of all the possible religions and mythology it seems almost illogical to point to one and say "well THIS one is true but not the others." But of course that's just a belief. I'm sure some people have well justified reasons for believing their religions, but not all. Many are just sheep that take after tradition. I think why some people hold science in high esteem is that there is no tradition involved (at least there shouldn't be). It's purely unbiased observation in it's most true sense.

Also, atheism doesnt include the belief that it's superior. Thats just the personal bias that tends to tag along with our ego's.

It has been brought up, and Atheism is certainly a belief.

It really seems you have not read this thread or the simple to grasp wikipedia page linked to above.

Lack of a belief may well be agnosticism... but even that (if swept into atheism via a very broad definition) is still a belief. It is a belief that you have not enough proof to sway you from your default position that there are no gods.

Note to JM: There are (as I have discussed here many times) plenty of branches of theism that are non-religious. It is very possible to reject all religions and be firmly anti-religion and still be a theist.

I have spent time thinking about it. I came to the conclusion "I don't know." By such a statement I "have no belief in God." Or I "do not believe in god." But also by that statement I acknowledge a lack of knowledge and therefor a lack of belief. And that's why not believing is not the same as believing something "is not" which makes atheism, by literal definition, capable of both passive and aggressive stances. I won't argue it in a historical context, but if you want to go strictly by language that's what it is.

Also, hyperspace fool... you keep referencing the wikipedia article. I already referenced my defense in the same article and you still seem to be ignoring it.

"Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist." That was the sentence RIGHT after the ones you quoted.

Olypus Mon wrote:



I absolutely agree with that...what I don't agree with is the belief that the scientific method is a flawless method of observation...

I don't actually think people understand the full potential of their observational powers and I believe that this is part of what psychedelics clearly demonstrate to us...

By assuming that it is imossible to see god you are asserting that your observational potential as a living being has been fully realized. I'm sure you noticed by now from taking DMT that it has not.

You are seriously believeing that there is not more to the story of reality than what your eyes plainly percieve there to be in sober reality?

It is a widely accepted idea in modern psychology that humans see what they want to see. How then could human being possibly be recieving a comepletely accuarate picture of reality as it truly exists outside of perceptual interpretations?