Anyone use entheogens for spiritual purposes?

[Schraff]

This seems more at home here than at the Better Living Through Chemistry forum...

I don't know if anyone here is interested in Shamanism/neopagan rituals, but I've been giving a lot of thought to incorporating substances into my meditation schedule. Some of my most spiritual moments have been aided by these substances, so it seems like a natural course of action. Anyone want to share what they use drugs for- spiritwork, imprinting, etc?

[---Beany---]

Peyote. Some native americans use it as part of their prayers. Apparently it send your consciousness straight into the spirit world for the duration.

Remember in "Young Guns"? When the Indian guy gives them a drink and they go into the spirit world. That was Peyote.

I have a friend who took it and he said that he was wondering around a temple made of jewels and he walked around and spoke to spirit souls who were also in there. Perhaps the jewelled temple was part of his imagination but I think the spirit souls would have been real.



Personally I've only taken weed and shrooms. The weed doesn't really give spiritual experiences but the relaxation it gives you helps you to focus; one think which is pretty much essential for spiritual exploration. When I had the shrooms I had a lot of profound realisations.

[This message has been edited by ---Beany--- (edited 02-24-2004).]

[LostCause]

I do most of my spiritual studies through use of dorky things like physics and studying/reading. But, to mediate I sometimes go into a meditative state.

I've also had - what I consider spiritual experiences, moments of enlightenment - on cannabis, peyote, salvia, mescaline, shrooms, diphenhydramine, alcohol, etc...

However, I've found that different drugs produce different types of experiences. Most spiritual I've found in order of most experiences to least, would be (and of course everyone is different.):

No. 1: Shrooms

No. 2: Alcohol

No. 3: Cannabis

No. 4: Diphenhydramine/Dramamine

No. 5: Peyote

No. 6: Mescaline

No. 7: Salvia

Alcohol and cannabis may be more at the top simply because it's easier to get so I've had more experiences with it period, but I've found I derive much more from an alcoholic experience than most people do.

I'm a lush. It's where my bliss is. It also keeps me from becoming a drug addict.

But, I've found that mescaline and salvia, in particular, are best for examining yourself and your life, but not so good for spiritual purposes.

*debating whether or not to send this to BLTC forum*

...

Cheers,

Lost

[---Beany---]

No, don't send to BLTC. It's a fresh topic for this forum.

BTW, what do you class as a spiritual experience? I feel more spiritual after taking alchohol but that's only because I'm more relaxed and my feelings of love for God (Or spirituality) are increased. I wouldn't class this as a spiritual experience.

[This message has been edited by ---Beany--- (edited 02-24-2004).]

[Craftian]

quote:Originally posted by LostCause:

No. 4: Diphenhydramine/Dramamine

I'm interested in what makes you rank Dramamine #4.

[LostCause]

"BTW, what do you class as a spiritual experience?"

- I've become able to enter an altered state of mind (sober and/or otherwise), while maintaining in my main concious state. It took years of meditation and lucid dreaming excercises to attain this ability, but it's really just excercises of the mind and anyone who really tries can do it.

Anyways, I've gotten to the point where I'm sensitive enough to feel/sense the vibrations (I'd really need to go really indepth to explain it and it would take hours) and am "contacted". It's not so much like a voice or anything like that. It's more like getting a mental injection.

The first time it happened, I was sober, and it was very strange. All of a sudden it felt like there was literally an ambilical (sp) attached to my abdomen and sentiment (the best way I can describe it. It was like words transferred through emotion.) was pourn into me from an identifiable source.

This occassionally happens without me coercing it. It sometimes happens when completely sober. I could be just reading a book or walking down the street and it will occur. While it's happening, everything I do it's like when you're trying to maintain on shrooms or something. You're kind of on autopilot and all you can do is try to appear normal while what's going on in your head goes on.

This mostly happens spontaneously when I'm on alcohol. In fact, it almost always happens when I've had enough to drink. (That doesn't mean drunk.) But it has happened to me spontaneously, on all those drugs when I could tell that it was the drug that was "opening the door".

"I'm interested in what makes you rank Dramamine #4."

- Actually, the only reason I listed dramamine is because the trip is similiar to diphenhydramine. I've never actually experienced anything spiritually related, worth mentioning, on dramamine. I meant mostly diphenhydramine.

Diphenhydramine is No. 4, because I find it's hallucinations are so realistic they are often very distracting from any real communications. Also, it provides a very "chemically" trip. The hallucinations, often look like the swirls in cough syrup. Almost as if they were generated by a computer. So, aside from everything else, I feel the chemical aspect of it throws me off a bit.

Cheers,

Lost

[Schraff]

Great post, lost. It reminds me of my first "spiritual awakening"- and I do mean first, because I was raised an atheist.

I was on acid with a few close friends in the park. One was a little younger than I, and we weer having this amazing conversation on social interactions. Offhandedly, he said, "Yeah, because we're all connected." As the significance of this seemingly nonchalant statement sank in, he breathed, "Oh my god." I kissed his hands and told him he understood; we were both so happy. We both lay on the grass, I could hear the earth "talking"; not really words, of course, but a feeling that couldn't be mistaken for anything else. It was vibrations sent from the core of the planet, echoed in a million tiny voices of the grass, deep sighs of the trees...

The message I recieved that day was "I forgive you." I was loved by the earth even though I sometimes forgot to recycle, even though I use paper products, even though I was so out of tune with her* and myself. It was one of the best days of my life.

*I say "her" just because that's what I can relate to. I think that a lot of things we don't understand transcend gender, but due to a limited language we have to label them "male" spirits or "female" spirits. Oh well...

[I_Like_Traffic_Lights]

I think that enthaogens help with spiritual and enlightening moments because it feels (to me) to jump start a chain reaction of energy and activity in the part of the brain that's mostly dormant in most people. I think Timothy Leary talked about this in his 8 Circuits of Conciousness. Anyway for the everday life of everyday people there's countless various "filters" in the mind. Put there from society, or desire to survive, or fear, or whatever they're there. There's just so many things that can be thought the filters make everyday thinking a little bit easier on you. The enthaogens remove these filters and allows for much much deeper thinking. Usually from the part of the mind that seems spiritual, reflective, infinite, maybe even as if God were speaking to you.

I've found that during these journies suddenly EVERYTHING is an amazing omen. Everything syncs up perfectly with the mood, with how and what you're thinking. Like everything in your life has been leading up to that very moment, and that it hits you that everything in your life has been leading up to that moment. That your entire life leads up to EVERY moment of your life. That every moment is nothing but carried reprucussions of the moment before and the stepping stone to the next moment so you'd better make the most of it and live the fucker.

Music is a beautiful and essential part of the trip and life for that matter. Existance without music without any kind of rythym just would not work. Psychadelics help show this, the music will sync up with your heart beat.

[ArmsMerchant]

Sure, back in the 60s.

Nowadays, I find sonic driving to be much more effective, safer, and more controllable.

If you want to talk about this in more depth, feel free to email me. I don't get on totse much.

[evolove]

Using various drugs to liven ones experience is the best but hardest way to gain enlightment, ie. Nirvana which should be our only goal, not simple tid bits. However this method is used very little (in a proper manner) in these days, there may be a handful of people in the world who truly know what they're doing in this respect, and even if you could find them, perhaps fewer who would teach most people in this manner, it requires a very special person in regards to the student. And it next to impossible for one to fully suceed in this way by themselves. It is perhaps usful to gain some understanding of altered states, but these should be almost ignored anyway. The best bet for this would be the indiviuals in Southern America, and perhaps the Native Americans that still use Peyote, but I don't think they easily let people join in either. Concerning the Shaman of South America, from what I've read, I'm sure there are the greater ones that none of us have ever heard of, they do not seem to have the knowledge/experience of Nirvana, but just experience in higher states of awearness in realtion to the norm, and a varring degree of superior knowledge to most people, myslef definately included.

I've tried this personaly, as you could tell it didn't work for me, though it did give some results, I could perhaps be even better off now if I'd never used drugs, but that's neither here nor there I guess.

If you take this seriously I would strongly sujest being extremily intelligent in every respect to what and how you use, and also in the other parts of your life, this I think would be very nessecary, and one of my main reasons for failure.



In regard to Sonic Driving, this occurs naturaly within the conciousness, and is much more finely tuned to the needs/benifits of the indivual at various times, there is no need for an outside sorce of sound for spiritual upliftment.

Ps. For a substance I would recomend Mescaline, out those I've tried, Marijuana, Mushrooms, LSD, Salvia Divinorium(sp?) though I used DMT or LSA which maybe also good, or Ibogaine but that seems to be fairly harsh in a few respects. I'm sure there are many others. But I'd say it's probably best to use different ones at differnt times. You will sort all this stuff out for yourself I guess.

Best of luck.