Greetings from the heart of the Mojave! I've been poking around the Nexus for a long time before I finally broke down and joined. I mostly prefer "independent study" and to answer my own questions without troubling others, so I will try very hard not to ask anything that has been clearly answered elsewhere.
I'm in my mid-30's and entheogens have played a major role in my life since I was 19 years old. I've always been strange and was raised in the "Just Say No" generation, which I really believed in during my childhood and teenage years. When I was 19, a friend who was equally strange suggested I try psilocybin mushrooms because I was interested in shamanism due to some strange experiences I had in life. I was only open to the experience at the time because of that interest, and because I knew the mushrooms were natural and not so much of a "drug" in my mind (yet I never even smoked marijuana until after my first experience with psilocybin mushrooms). My first experience was pretty light, some Mexican cubensis my friend provided, but I was intrigued. The second experience I had, with some Hawaiian cubensis, blew me away with an unexpected ego death experience. I was going for a higher dose, but did not realize just how much more potent those mushrooms were going to be than my first batch, and overshot - or so I thought at the time. I later realized it was exactly the right dose.
After a few more experiences, I decided to grow my own psilocybin mushrooms. I don't do this anymore, but for quite some time in my past this was my favorite "hobby," though I can't really call it that because it was a spiritual practice. I entered into a close, shamanic relationship with the mushrooms. I personally do believe very strongly in their presence as divine entitites. I grew Equadorians (my favorites), Cambodians and Golden Teachers. The first time I made a lemon tea with my home grown mushrooms, I had an experience I had previously been lead to believe could only happen with something like Ayahuasca. I'm not saying it was the same as an Ayahuasca experience, and keep in mind this was over a dozen years ago and so there wasn't nearly as much information on psychedelics as there is now, so at the time the only psychedelic I had heard could give you full, realistic sensations of total body transport to a completely different reality was Ayahuasca (I didn't really know about freebase DMT at the time). After that, that became my "method" - I would make a tea and aim for a level 4-5 trip each time (I did not trip often compared to what I have read many people doing, I had approximately a quarterly schedule). I gave my excess mushrooms away to other spiritually minded friends and helped new people who were interested in the entheogenic experience access it safely.
I was initially pretty stuffy about the idea of trying anything artificial, but after a lot of research and discussion with others, I decided to give LSD a try when I had the opportunity. That was quickly added to my entheogenic practice, though I use it for different sorts of journeys than the mushrooms. I recognize the synthetic nature of LSD and that there isn't an external spiritual presence, but I do feel that it is useful for exploring one's own divinity and that of the surrounding world by opening the doors of perception in its own way. It's just not a guided journey across the entire multiverse the way higher doses of mushrooms can be. But, when I think of my top 5 most life-changing trips, one of them was on LSD.
Currently I'm growing some San Pedro cacti, though I have yet to experience mescaline, it is something I am looking forward to. But, the main reason I joined this forum is because, during my entheogenic journeys within the last couple years, I kept getting a nudge that I needed to experience DMT. I set the ball in motion for that, but now that I could smoke it, I find I have actually been sitting on the DMT for months. I feel that everything must be "right" and if anything, I have confused myself by reading too much and just need to talk to some actual people about things. So, here I am.
Vi veri universum vivus vici