Max, as entertaining as I have found the psychedelic/religion allegory, I just don't believe it. Occams razor suggests that jesus was actually a human, not a mushroom or something as ambiguous experience. Were this the case, how has such a closely examined secret not ever even been slightly revealed or intimated prior to the dawn of the western psychedelic age? I'm not going to repeat my hammer/nail cliché, but you get the idea....
ismene said:
I think the bigger logical fallacy here is the idea that "Because I've experienced it that means anyone can".
Perhaps, but that's merely an inversion of saying "because I haven't experienced it, no-one has". Its a lot more presumptuous to assume that your own singular experience is more credible then multiple experiences, experienced by multiple individuals. Weight of numbers, and sure, some of those numbers are mistakenly (or hopefully) describing milder experiences, but its not logical or fair to discount a huge quantum of people and their meaningful and sometimes life-changing experiences. Trust me, I haven't enjoyed any ego-death experiences and have actually found the long-lasting effects to be quite unsettling; but the
truth that I feel I have had a glimpse of has made my enjoyment of my life immensely vaster and deeper. Perhaps some people simply can't experience this? I don't know, it seems that way I suppose....
Issy, you must take some salvia- I am basically prescribing it to you. The only amnesiac property it has is one that seems to prevent one from recalling that they have taken a drug; the utterly bizarre visual effects are occurring apropos of nothing. There is no point or frame of reference, no before or after, just pure (and quite terrifying) existence. Its incredibly unpleasant, but the effects of a high dose, for almost everyone I've known to take it, are consistent with all descriptions of ego-death/loss. Give it a try- its illuminating but not remotely enjoyable, but may give you some idea of what people are talking about in regards to ego-death.