From what I understood about the traditional context of the term "enlightenment" when I was into buddhism and other eatern traditions is that there was no linear time limit attached to the context. It is a state of timelessness whether it lasted 5 minutes or 500 years..saying it is a continuous state of being might not necessarily fit in with the traditional understanding of the term.

cultural relativism. its an important think to consider before pointing human sacrifice in the ancient civilizations as a condemnable thing. we all know Maya civilization's achievements in terms of astronomy, medicine and many other things. We on our postmodern way of life consider murder and sacrifice as a crime but, it hasnt always been like this. if we, mind travalers, cannot conceibe human sacrifice as a way to improve this world, then who? who knows... maybe a human's sacrifice generates some sort of good thing for the surrounding light of his community or something..

i do not want to kill anyone, im not promoting human death, im just considering it from a metaphysycal point of view.

Good point on the moral relativism, caliwa. It is pretty pointless to condemn past cultures for their transgressions (Greek slavery, 1800's witch burning, etc.), UNLESS we use it as a window to critically view ourselves, and recognize that future generations may well see our 'lack of morality' as shocking.

5 grams of cocaine ( no matter the quality) can put a man 20 good years in jail. our modern society is putting people in jail all over the world because of carrying some herbs and bad quality substances, for a monstrous ammount of time. its that condemnable? i say yes, i say its monstrous.

to the Op

obviously some of the mayans were sick , now we all know psychadelics can influence sick people and bring more problems to the surface

moreover psychadelics don't mean magic medicines to healing and light for everyone , some people actually suffer a lot after taking these medicines as you'll find some threads of people suffering popping up on nexus from time to time after consuming psychadelics , also do people remember the Manson's i mean they were taking acid and then went out just killing people

crazy people will do crazy things , psychadelics can only help them become crazier faster , also mayans were into scolpamine alkaloids too so that could have been another problem as many people on brugmansia and other plants from the family have found to commit crimes , loot people , murder and do all sort of nasty stuff

the only bad thing i feel is that the mushrooms could not help these retarded mayans to evolve , sometimes mushrooms cannot help , probably if they had dmt who knows ??

also if they had Traveler as the head shaman ,the moderators and the members here , things could have been very different for the mayans and maybe they would not be sacrificing children