I am curious how many of you folks who have tripped a great many times have gone down a spiritual road as a result and discovered the trans personal realms of awareness that lie beyond the ego effect?
For me personally, I feel like psychedelics all but forced me to become more spiritual because of their tendency to break down illusions and expose the dark areas of my mind. I feel like if I had tried to continue using psychedelics without working on my spiritual growth alongside, I would not have been able to handle the increasingly shattering experiences and would either have gone crazy or simply stopped tripping due to the experiences becoming too weird and unfriendly.
As a result of my experiences, I have had many revelations about the nature of reality and the way I experience myself has completely changed.
It seems to be the case that many famous psychedelic researchers like Leary, Alpert, Grof, etc also went down spiritual paths as a result of their psychedelic experiences and developed transpersonal (beyond ego) understandings of the human psyche.
However, it seems this is not the case for everyone. For instance a friend of mine at work told me he has been using shrooms and LSD for over thirty years, had hundreds of trips, and he just considers it good fun. Its not a spiritual or transformation experience for him. I also see people on these forums who have done a lot of pyschedelics but still seem to live entirely within the egoic frame of reference. Shulgin in another guy who comes to mind, although psychedelics certainly were spiritual and transformative for him he seemed more interested in testing and making new psychedelics than in the actual revelations he received.
Could it be that people like me who can't seem to take psychedelics without having a spiritual experience are simply born more aware of the spiritual nature of reality? It's not a matter of me imagining some spiritual meaning into my trips that isn't there, because the experience is transformative for me no matter what I do. I mean, there are times when I would like to just be able to trip for fun without having to meet God but that doesn't seem possible. I can't trip without a strong possibility I will come out of the experience changed. What you wanna call the change is up to you, but I call it spiritual.
But yeah, thats my question, because I am surprised when I see long term psychedelic users talk about it as though it were some kind of recreation.
For me personally, I feel like psychedelics all but forced me to become more spiritual because of their tendency to break down illusions and expose the dark areas of my mind. I feel like if I had tried to continue using psychedelics without working on my spiritual growth alongside, I would not have been able to handle the increasingly shattering experiences and would either have gone crazy or simply stopped tripping due to the experiences becoming too weird and unfriendly.
As a result of my experiences, I have had many revelations about the nature of reality and the way I experience myself has completely changed.
It seems to be the case that many famous psychedelic researchers like Leary, Alpert, Grof, etc also went down spiritual paths as a result of their psychedelic experiences and developed transpersonal (beyond ego) understandings of the human psyche.
However, it seems this is not the case for everyone. For instance a friend of mine at work told me he has been using shrooms and LSD for over thirty years, had hundreds of trips, and he just considers it good fun. Its not a spiritual or transformation experience for him. I also see people on these forums who have done a lot of pyschedelics but still seem to live entirely within the egoic frame of reference. Shulgin in another guy who comes to mind, although psychedelics certainly were spiritual and transformative for him he seemed more interested in testing and making new psychedelics than in the actual revelations he received.
Could it be that people like me who can't seem to take psychedelics without having a spiritual experience are simply born more aware of the spiritual nature of reality? It's not a matter of me imagining some spiritual meaning into my trips that isn't there, because the experience is transformative for me no matter what I do. I mean, there are times when I would like to just be able to trip for fun without having to meet God but that doesn't seem possible. I can't trip without a strong possibility I will come out of the experience changed. What you wanna call the change is up to you, but I call it spiritual.
But yeah, thats my question, because I am surprised when I see long term psychedelic users talk about it as though it were some kind of recreation.