I guess what I mean by belief system are traditional religious convictions, ie. if you were a devout Christian before ( or other), has regular DMT use caused an increase or decrease in your (prior to DMT use) faith or even erased it completely?

DMT completely shattered the way I perceive spirituality/religion/god/reality. On the most fundamental level.

As a label I'm still agnostic and believe I can't comprehend wtf really is. But sometimes I try. DMT certainly expanded my realm of imagination which I'd say includes my belief system.

If by religious convictions I can take you to mean every aspect of the character that I play out in response to stimulus, then yes. Also I wouldn't say it has changed me, but allowed me to understand that I am not necessarily the person that I am being. It's strange, but sometimes I get this daunting shift of perception wherein; I can't help but notice that everything I'm experiencing is a necessary lie, kept alive mostly as it consists of the easiest path forward, the path of least resistance you might say, the comfy route and the comfort lulls me. D.M.T. seems to challenge that comfort or maybe shifts the ideas associated with comfort to a more active set, I guess I would say I am fairly passive in my endeavors for change in the world, I take a lot In but don't produce a lot. So D.M.T. had made me want to grow my comfort as to have more freedom of action, learn learn learn.

your question reminds me of a thread that I started back in April this year titled Religiousness and it's relevance to spice, the topic is very similar to what you're asking, hope it helps give you answers that you're looking for

Personally, I don't think religion should be brought into the factor of DMT, spirituality, YES spirituality, bring that into the equasion, all religion started as spirituality, symbolic of astrology, astronomy and sacred use of herbs/medicines, eventually being warped and manipulated into control mechanisms. One could say that religion is organised spirituality with indoctrination into control. "Oh you know those places the shamans and mystics tell you about? When you die, you're PUNISHED!!! if you don't do what I say in this life". One could also argue and it's my personal favourite that the majority of major religion is actually symbolic of DMT space, I've recently started reading into the Quballah/Kaballah/Caballa, the books of the Zohar, amongst other religious text and sacred texts, a lot of the places and events described as incredibly symbolic of the DMT space, or representative of the chaos the universe emerged from in genesis.

My own beliefs, I was thoroughly scientific before taking DMT and if anything, it's completely dumbfounded my belief system, radically changing who I am and what I actually believe in, before I was agnostic, almost athiest, believing in nothing.. now, I believe in the power of the universe and what we are all part of.

A friend of mine and myself both describe "God" as something we both called "Pulse" the throbbing heart of creation, an eye covered in blinding light, with the sacred geometry and metatrons cube encasing it, constantly merging and changing into something else.

I think that DMT is representative of the chaos or "realm of the dead" most spiritual and sacred belief systems speak of and God is the universe itself, everything we walk in, touch, smell and feel, consciousness itself.. although, I still cannot claim to know anything, for in reality I know nothing and nothing is worth knowing.

Sure thing, I'll check it out, thanks.

Interesting views expressed here. However broad the spectrum of spirituality may be, how it relates to the DMT sensorium,though facinating it wasn't my main question, which was more along the lines of a fully fledged Christian ( or Muslim for that matter) having his/her entrenched beliefs/ perceptions of said religion altered, or turned upside down after some deep hyperspace experiences.

In my own case, being at the core a spiritual person and a die hard adherent to the Christian faith, the spice has thrown a "spanner in the works" so to speak. Perhaps best illustrated that prior to DMT use I perceived the power of a God in my life as a force acting on my physical surroundings, notably through real life events that spoke to me in a very subtle way, I could litteraly "feel guidance, reassurance, the promise of better things to come.
Not that I've been a good Christian, I've acted more like a satanist these last few years!

The DMT experiences have internalised the whole dialogue into a fairly convincing scenario of " a cruel sublime beauty" that is totaly devoid of that linear logic that I'd previously been accustomed too.

I'm not unduly worried about this, "Que sera sera" If there is such a thing as a benevolent God, then any psychedelic effect is just a side show, brain candy, usefull for introspection/ creativity and self discovery, available to a small minority of individuals brave enough to navigate the laberinth of the mind.

This is precisely the ideology I think the bible get's at, "Thou shalt not make false idols" the false idol being the idolatry of personifying a "God", we are in God.. you experience god all the time however you want to call it, but yeah I'm going off the question so i'll leave it again.. xD nice thread though, some interesting answers

DMT completely changed my mindset even before smoking it. I used to be a devout Christian (in faith not practice), believing in Extraterrestrials and evolution wholeheartedly as well. As I began my journey down the path of knowledge I began to find more and more inconsistencies with the bible. Soon the only thing holding me back was fear of Hell. Then I found DMT and it became my life, studying it, researching it. I lurked on the Nexus for a couple years and after experimenting with many drugs I FINALLY found and smoked DMT. I'm still on my spiritual journey but I will never return to controlling fear filled chains of Christianity. I despise the organized religion and if in some fucked up way it was all true (what a joke), I would rather burn in Hell for eternity than assist any Abrahamic religion in its attempt to control the world in this short lifetime. I refuse to be chained by anyone or anything. I am raw conscious energy that cannot be contained. We are free spirits my fellow Nexians, misunderstood by the fear filled horde of close minded ignorant Humanity.

nope.

I figured out how to think for myself and question long before I tried any drugs.

religion never gave me any answers to the questions I had. it only gave me more questions without answers, and incongruities.
that works for some people, gives them peace of mind, but not me.

I came into psychedelics as a materialist atheist, so there was no traditional religious worldview to shatter to begin with. But it did certainly force me to revisit my simplistic atheist viewpoint. A couple white light godhead experiences will definitely do that to you. But one thing that psychedelics always make clear is that there is no external authority that can have anything meaningful to say about my personal spiritual experience. It's cometely up to me... This I find highly empowering, although I could see how it could be unsettling to someone with a strongly traditional religious upbringing.

Then there are the other side effects: disdain for crass consumer culture, ongoing questioning of authority of all kinds. A permanent habit of change; a comfort with the continuous malleability of reality and self.

Powerful appreciation for the small things in life, for the present moment.

Never had much of any religious views. Never really ascribed to anything. I've always felt that as a human being, trying to put something that is outside the realm of everyday physical existence in a linear/physical/materialistic perspective to be just a bit silly. I've always loved quantum physics and the obvious notion that things aren't as they appear. Yes, we have this everyday tangible existence that is certainly 'real' in it's own respects, but the deeper we probe into the everyday outside world and ourselves, we learn that there is undoubtly 'something' going on that is beyond our capability of fully understanding. DMT has solidified that view, showing that we know so so little....and im at peace with that The Vedas, Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads have always been something I strongly gravitate towards in terms of explanation. Highly reccomended.

We are inconceivably more special than we give ourselves credit for, and so is everything else. Positive...negative....it's all really a beautiful thing

As far as Religion in the conventional sense goes, I was raised as a jehovah's witness until my early teens but spent most of my time during services drawing and not really paying much attention. It did mean that I was fairly sheltered from "the world" but I mostly resented this. There was an occasion, after I had just finished a bible study with one of the witnesses that had supposedly taken me under his wing, upon which I was confronted for the first time directly about certain things such as image and dress and music and other personal aspects that had been developing as my social intercourse widened, which got pretty much down to "you shouldn't do these things", but upon questioning got no satisfactory answers as to why, it all seemed rather silly. I remember feeling slightly dizzy and as if I was turning slowly round as I was being confronted about dress sense, which I pretty much didn't care about. What I did care about was being told how to dress with no good reason as to why I shouldn't dress other ways. I never went back to study with that guy and slowly stopped going to regular service.

As for D.M.T. and religion I am not sure I have had a popper breakthrough experience, I've, as yet, not come into contact with any "entities", and no matter how real an encounter seems I have been warned not to take it too seriously planet side. I have had some wonderful and eye opening experiences though, D.M.T. really opens me up.

All belief systems are self made fabrications.