Drugs instead of spirituality

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

I love BL in all its raw beauty. Countless great conversations. But one demographic property of this website that has vexed me longer than any other, is how few folks here are vocally spiritual people, relative to the general population I interact with in real life. I find this hard to come to terms with because spirituality and personal growth is one of my primary motives for taking drugs. But of course I also use drugs sometimes to numb the pain or forget. Don't we all?

I define spirituality as being open to the possibility that your life, your present existence in the apparent world around you, is part of some greater cosmic plan by some sort of higher power. Thus to not be a spiritual person, as I define it, is to not be particularly open to any such possibility, and fairly convinced that your existence and your world are accidental and inconsequential, and there is no greater plan or higher power.

From my understanding of the psychology of spirituality, it works on the simple principle that almost any amount and type of suffering becomes bearable when the sufferer truly believes their suffering is for some greater good or plan. So if you find something or someone who offers a convincing enough hint to you of what that plan (or who the Planner) might be, that just makes the drudgery, pain, and disappointment of day to day life much more bearable. Sign me up.

I have a theory, and that is that a lot of frequent drug users have drugs instead of spirituality, with drugs occupying that same niche of shock absorber for the bumpy road of life, probably because they have not been, and don't think they ever will be, able to entertain the notion that there is any greater cosmic purpose to their lives. Does anyone relate to this or think I'm onto something?

If any of you guys have found any decent online forums or subreddits that deal with the subject of drug use for primarily spiritual purposes, definitely send me a link, because it's always one thing I've felt BL could use more of. Does anyone relate to this?

 

[Foreigner]

You may be overestimating how many genuinely spiritual people exist in the world, which includes those who explore consciousness and are honest with themselves about what they find. Drugs are mind expanding but there's still a great degree of free will over what you use that expansive state for.

One time I got ahold of some world class acid but I didn't have a lot of it. For the first trip I decided to go it alone. I setup my space with candle light, lots of art work, good music, had healthy and tasty food prepared, I made sure I was in the right frame of mind, and I did it on a clear night so I could see the stars. I did a lot of meditating and self-reflecting, and it was a truly expansive night. It was a high dose btw.

For the next trip I asked my friend if he wanted to join me and so we agreed to do it at his place. His idea of a deep time was putting 2001: A Space Odyssey on his big ass, bright TV with the volume muted, and playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. He spent almost the entire trip talking, mostly about stupid shit, and I decided then and there that it would be the last time I tripped with another human being at those dosage levels. My trip kept trying to pull me inward and he wasn't comfortable with that, so he kept bringing everything back to the externalized, distracted world. The idea of going inward was way too scary for him... yet we were on the most cosmic acid I had ever done in my life. Such a pity.

Drugs can't give you what don't already have going on. All they're doing is showing you yourself.

 

[Nixiam]

Hey MDAO, nice to see you again.

Recently, my psychologist tried to explain to me that the vast majority of people are surface level, that they are only worried about shallow things, nothing deep, are veey stuck in the motions.

I told her that if she recognizes this then she is the exact same as most others in the motion, that it is arrogant at the most basic form of thought when recognizing self and what the status quo for self is. The majority of people would like to hold themselves in good light, so just because she explored psychology doesn't mean she isn't surface level when talking about others, breaking away from being human is the only way to be truly liberated from the restraints of how the essence of our thoughts are inherently predetermined (being human is in no way a bad thing btw, I only mean that we are innately biased wether we believe it or not and being inhuman would allow us to be much more objective about ourselves), in a sense that we are human and our thoughts will reflect our true self in the moment.

But I understood what she meant. If I talked about half the things I talk about here on BL at school, someone will get offended. For a variety of reasons, and one being that they might not have experience in discussing philosophy or spirituality and may feel uneducated after the conversation is over. She told me my thoughts aren't the same, to which I said, "If I were to take that to heart, to believe that I am a deeper individual among my peers and take pride in it, then my thoughts would indeed be the same.". She gave me a smile, but the pained expression in her eyes told me that she didn't quite understand. In which case my point was proven, to myself in pride after that and to her in my explanation.

I personally started my drug habit in self medicating, to compensate for how I ususally felt/feel. A lot like most people. Then it became ritual.

In aggreance with Foreigner, the number of people with spirituality in traditional sense might be largely over estimated. But spirituality might hold different meanings without it necessarily being a game of semantics. It would just be concious illusionary intention vs. natural subconcious intention.

So I would say that for "surface level" people, drugs might indeed be a non traditional sense of spirituality in subconcious intention, unlike what you and I might use it for.

I will have my first ever trip coming up pretty soon, in which case I will also submit my first trip report.

Great topic MDAO!

 

[belligerent drunk]

TL;DR

The first part of your thread I just absolutely cannot agree with. You're asking whether people believe in fairy tales as if it's a good thing. I have seen a thing or two about a thing or two, but I believe in observational science. Does that make me an unspiritual druggie?

However, your... hypotheses may be true. I wouldn't say that drugs are used instead of just spirituality, anything could take its place. But the whole idea that drugs are used as comforters is true. I mean, after all religions and all that are just comforting lies that serve the same purpose at times.

E: I want to challenge the whole "spirituality = good" notion. Especially when used as a sort of indirect attack at those who don't identify with it as their lord 'n savior. I will say it again, I'm not spiritualistic. I have seen and lived through many things that I cannot find an explanation for, I've taken LSD by the milligram, I've met the god and the devil I've gone through the things. However, in the end I realized that it's all fun and games, but spirituality is bullshit. It's belief in something despite the lacking hard evidence for it.

But you may say: what hard evidence? You don't need one, you can just believe whatever the Gaya presents you with. And that's my main problem with it. A belief should adhere to the scientific method.

A belief should adhere to the scientific method. If it fails to do the game, it's out like most of the bulllshit that goes through the system.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Foreigner and Nixiam, you guys have an interesting take on this that never really occurred to me: that people who deeply ponder the purpose and meaning of their lives in the greater scheme of things are just not common. If this is correct, then it has a number of implications that immediately dawn on me:

When I mentioned "people I interact with in real life" in my original post, I was counting people who actively practice an organized religion as spiritual. But maybe I was being too hasty. Maybe for most people, belonging to an organized religion is to spirituality what hiring a stockbroker is to being an investor -- in either case, it's not the person's cup o' joe, so they'll farm it out to somebody else and then just consider the matter settled in their minds. I'm not talking here about convinced unbelievers who continue to practice their ancestral religion for socio-ethnic reasons (common among Jews and Armenians, IME, but not other Christians). I'm talking about people who, if asked if they believe that their lives have some sort of higher purpose, would reflexively say "yes", but have never really thought about it, and have no interest in giving the matter much thought.

If what you guys are saying is true, it would appear that BL is not a distinct population from the general population, when it comes to how common truly spiritual people are. This is somewhat surprising to me, given that for thousands of years, spirituality was one of the main reasons people even used drugs. It never dawned on me just how few people are seekers like myself, because in the environment I was raised in, there was a concentration of earnest spiritual seekers, albeit typically ones who didn't use drugs for mystical purposes and still affiliated with organized religions. But then again, my understanding of the shamanic use of drugs is that in most primitive societies, a very tiny minority of people ever did such a thing, and the rest of the population just relied on the shamans' reports, which fits your idea of true spirituality being uncommon. I haven't given up hope that at some point I'll find a concentration of people who are earnest seekers and grounded compassionate humanitarians, who are open to the use of drugs to explore the deeper questions of purpose in life.

I'm not quite sure why I can't just dispassionately conclude that BL doesn't have what I'm looking for, and move on. I think it may be because this place has such a high quality of dialogue surrounding drug use, compared to most circles I've run in both in real life and online, that I would expect a vibrant dialogue about one of the oldest uses drugs had, or would expect that more people with this sort of motivation for using drugs would concentrate here. I wonder why not. And if not here, where are they concentrated?

There are times I wish I could be more superficial. Especially when I feel alienated not only from the majority population, but also from a significant number of people who like to "get deep", a significant number of whom, after much thought, have gotten comfortable with the idea that their existence has no plan or purpose -- a conclusion I don't think I'll ever be comfortable with.

Belligerent Drunk, you and I will have to agree to disagree. I am not here to argue the merits of spirituality (as I understand and define it), and I'll ask you not to take this thread in that direction. Your post is a prime example of what I'm looking to read less of, when I'm meeting with people to talk about drugs.

 

[belligerent drunk]

Belligerent Drunk, you and I will have to agree to disagree. I am not here to argue the merits of spirituality (as I understand and define it), and I'll ask you not to take this thread in that direction. Your post is a prime example of what I'm looking to read less of, when I'm meeting with people to talk about drugs.

Fair enough, I will not comment on this thread any longer if it helps other people.

 

[socko]

Carter's (the photographer) suicide note: I am depressed … without phone … money for rent … money for child support … money for debts … money!!! … I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners … I have gone to join Ken [recently deceased colleague Ken Oosterbroek] if I am that lucky.

Where does this little girl and billions like her fit into "God's Plan?"

How deep do you need to look before you find the deeper meaning of things?

I define spirituality as being open to the possibility that your life, your present existence in the apparent world around you, is part of some greater cosmic plan by some sort of higher power. Thus to not be a spiritual person, as I define it, is to not be particularly open to any such possibility, and fairly convinced that your existence and your world are accidental and inconsequential, and there is no greater plan or higher power.

 

[turkalurk]

The first part of your thread I just absolutely cannot agree with. You're asking whether people believe in fairy tales as if it's a good thing. I have seen a thing or two about a thing or two, but I believe in observational science. Does that make me an unspiritual druggie?

However, your... hypotheses may be true. I wouldn't say that drugs are used instead of just spirituality, anything could take its place. But the whole idea that drugs are used as comforters is true. I mean, after all religions and all that are just comforting lies that serve the same purpose at times.

E: I want to challenge the whole "spirituality = good" notion. Especially when used as a sort of indirect attack at those who don't identify with it as their lord 'n savior. I will say it again, I'm not spiritualistic. I have seen and lived through many things that I cannot find an explanation for, I've taken LSD by the milligram, I've met the god and the devil I've gone through the things. However, in the end I realized that it's all fun and games, but spirituality is bullshit. It's belief in something despite the lacking hard evidence for it.

But you may say: what hard evidence? You don't need one, you can just believe whatever the Gaya presents you with. And that's my main problem with it. A belief should adhere to the scientific method.

you come off like such a blow hard! did you get raped by a priest or something. have you studied all religions? Do you realize how apparent your butthurt is with respect to anything spiritual or religious? Your bias is so obvious its to the point of religious bigotry.

I bet you are not a chemist either. Maybe you work in the field, but that could mean anything. The guy who extracts thc from weed to make my hash oil is a chemist too. what do you cook meth or something? You just stike me as someone who thinks very highly of themselves, but is just as full of shit as everyone else. What a closeminded fool. You get all mad when someone suggests anything lacking about a person without spirituality, but its ok for you to call all spirituality and religion bullshit. I sincerely hope that someday you are able to pull your head out of your ass. Scratch that, its not sincere because I don't give a fuck about people like you.

 

[Xorkoth]

I'm going to ask that we get back to the topic please...

I think the reason there aren't more drug users that are spiritual in the sense that you're talking about the term is simply a matter of cultural context and availability. Culturally, drugs have a tremendously different place here and now than they have in other places and times. In an indigenous setting, or in many previous non-indigenous settings too, the drugs were not understood scientifically at all. They were cultural/spiritual sacraments that were regarded with reverence. In many cases only the shamans ever ingested them, people who were deeply immersed in a spiritual life already. The daily life of people was much more centered around spirituality as well. These days there is a strong anti-spirituality current which was the result of great scientific achievements and understandings.

Combined with that, we have a powerful cultural norm in place especially among younger generations where it's popular to take drugs, and especially at young ages when people try drugs first (but also widespread throughout all ages), people are generally trying to party... most simply aren't looking for anything beyond that. And the availability of drugs these days (now more than ever because of the Internet) means that a greater percentage of total people will end up doing drugs. Psychedelics are quite popular too, so a lot more people are taking them, and it's a pretty random sample. People that are searching for a spiritual experience can find them easily if they put some effort in, but so can any single other person, most of whom, as always, are not looking for that. I think it's always been a small subset of people who seek mind expansion/spirituality, it's just that the sample base for drug users has radically shifted.

For what it's worth, I find a lot of satisfying discussion on Bluelight about the deeper aspects of drugs, mostly in PD, not all the time but it's there.

 

[Nixiam]

I think b_d only seemed harsh in his post because he has repetedly beaten the topic in the dirt, announced his stance numerous times and may feel frustration since, in his mind, spirituality in the traditional sense is highly unlikely to exist or occur due to stronger scientific, testable information. He is a pretty intelligent individual, and in his name you can clearly read "belligerent". I think you guys gotta give the guy credit for recognizing the nature of his posts. I know that it is easy to get a bit offended by posts that relate to a topic we hold so close to our hearts, be it observational science or spirituality.

But it seems that the actual percentage of users on BL that post regularly in P&S is small. Let's try to be chill with eachother, guys. It's more enjoyable, I think.

But not to derail the topic so early in its life, drugs that modify perception probably will show what a person is willing to seek, who they might be, and how to be objective when considering both.
The effect it might have on a person who has no will to consider conciousness, or things unexplained probaby won't have a trip inspiring them to do so, like Foreigner suggested.

I feel uncomfortable when people I admire get a litlle feudal with eachother.

Regards

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Xorkoth, your post is pretty insightful. Maybe I ought to spend more time hanging out in PD, since psychedelics and dissociatives are the class of drugs I find myself most drawn to these days.

Nixiam, I have a love-hate relationship with philosophy, for the very reason that it favors the adversarial. Academic philosophy, in fact, has a reputation as the bad boys' club of academe. It's an endeavor I often enjoy more as a spectator sport than as a participant, largely because I'm a highly sensitive person, and it takes a pretty thick skin to bare your most cherished ideas about life for others to criticize. I have to really be in the mood for a spirited philosophical debate, meaning feeling pretty resilient. I chose a job that deals in pure human misery; when I come home, I am seldom in the mood to have my basic preconceptions about life challenged, as healthy a thing as that is from time to time.

 

[Nixiam]

Oh yeah man, I absolutely understand. Part of the reason I started that other thread is because I wanted to see if I could overcome some of my sensitivity. I also dislike my preconceptions being changed, but I feel like if I am going to be objective about anything then I would need to be an outsider looking in on each perspective, as well as an insider looking out.

I don't have a problem really with adversary, it only becomes a problem for me when I feel the animosity of disagreement is too strong and directly affects conversation flow. Woud be less enjoyable.

I love how conversations evolve in P&S. After about the first page they are hardly about the actual topic, but talking tbings through help clear the mist, then it is easier for our eyes to readjust to the topic without a tainted perspective. Reevaluation occurs, and then the beauty starts all over again and only gets deeper and more inspiring.

 

[Foreigner]

Foreigner and Nixiam, you guys have an interesting take on this that never really occurred to me: that people who deeply ponder the purpose and meaning of their lives in the greater scheme of things are just not common. If this is correct, then it has a number of implications that immediately dawn on me:

When I mentioned "people I interact with in real life" in my original post, I was counting people who actively practice an organized religion as spiritual. But maybe I was being too hasty. Maybe for most people, belonging to an organized religion is to spirituality what hiring a stockbroker is to being an investor -- in either case, it's not the person's cup o' joe, so they'll farm it out to somebody else and then just consider the matter settled in their minds. I'm not talking here about convinced unbelievers who continue to practice their ancestral religion for socio-ethnic reasons (common among Jews and Armenians, IME, but not other Christians). I'm talking about people who, if asked if they believe that their lives have some sort of higher purpose, would reflexively say "yes", but have never really thought about it, and have no interest in giving the matter much thought.

If what you guys are saying is true, it would appear that BL is not a distinct population from the general population, when it comes to how common truly spiritual people are. This is somewhat surprising to me, given that for thousands of years, spirituality was one of the main reasons people even used drugs. It never dawned on me just how few people are seekers like myself, because in the environment I was raised in, there was a concentration of earnest spiritual seekers, albeit typically ones who didn't use drugs for mystical purposes and still affiliated with organized religions. But then again, my understanding of the shamanic use of drugs is that in most primitive societies, a very tiny minority of people ever did such a thing, and the rest of the population just relied on the shamans' reports, which fits your idea of true spirituality being uncommon. I haven't given up hope that at some point I'll find a concentration of people who are earnest seekers and grounded compassionate humanitarians, who are open to the use of drugs to explore the deeper questions of purpose in life.

I'm not quite sure why I can't just dispassionately conclude that BL doesn't have what I'm looking for, and move on. I think it may be because this place has such a high quality of dialogue surrounding drug use, compared to most circles I've run in both in real life and online, that I would expect a vibrant dialogue about one of the oldest uses drugs had, or would expect that more people with this sort of motivation for using drugs would concentrate here. I wonder why not. And if not here, where are they concentrated?

There are times I wish I could be more superficial. Especially when I feel alienated not only from the majority population, but also from a significant number of people who like to "get deep", a significant number of whom, after much thought, have gotten comfortable with the idea that their existence has no plan or purpose -- a conclusion I don't think I'll ever be comfortable with.

Belligerent Drunk, you and I will have to agree to disagree. I am not here to argue the merits of spirituality (as I understand and define it), and I'll ask you not to take this thread in that direction. Your post is a prime example of what I'm looking to read less of, when I'm meeting with people to talk about drugs.

As a preface to my post, I'd like to mention that the word "spiritual" is so ambiguous as to be almost meaningless... but I like your word "seeker" better because it describes how I've spent most of my life. I don't know if it's the way I'm wired or just the unique combination of nature and nurture, but I have spent a lot of my life seeking... through travel, through study, through different communities, through drugs, whatever gives me those "aha!" moments. At this point I find seeking absolutely pointless but it takes a lot of seeking and suffering in order to get to that point. I no longer see these questions as deeper, just... other. All things being equal, and all things being part of the One, being spiritual doesn't make anyone better. Where do we think we're trying to get to? This is as good as it gets, whatever you choose to do.

If you grew up surrounded by spiritually inclined people who weren't religious but who were "seekers", then you were lucky in a way. In my long sojourns I have found a literal dearth of meaning under most rocks I turned over. I loved travel a lot and met some insightful people, but really it's "same shit different pile" everywhere I've been. And really it works inwardly the same way. Every insight you discover that makes you think you're getting somewhere? Same shit different pile. You think it's "deep" but nothing is deeper. When you die you still lose everything, and spiritual people die every day. It's all Empty.

Here on the north American west coast it's so frou frou that it's worse than places where people are purely materialistic. Everyone is walking around with their sacred geometry tattoos, wearing exotic clothing and trying to be all sacred and shit. It's a performance. But when you challenge people with useful inquiry to really point them toward their true freedom, they get scared or just think you're a total weirdo.

I'm reluctant to give in to stories anymore but one story that still resonates is that we live in a degenerate age. It doesn't mean humans are worthless or aren't worth loving, or that we are beyond hope. It means that priorities are severely directed toward material crap and carnal pursuits. Again, no right or wrong. Most of humanity is living that way; some flirt with the periphery of things beyond but most don't bother themselves, or they relate to these subjects in a very proscribed way because they care more about avoiding fear of death and what their fellow humans think of them than anything else. And can you blame them? There's no rule book and everyone is just clinging to each other.

At the same time it's all just a dream, capable of producing anything. MDAO, if you are really looking for others who can reflect yourself back at you, surely you can find those people? If you PM me I can give you some suggestions.

 

[Ksa]

I am spiritual lol I studied comparative religions, I can quote from 7 scriptures chapter number verse number but I'm an atheist

I think the Indians are closer to Truth when they claim that anything is God, cows are God, Hindus are Gods, stone is God, bird is God. Anything is God. I think that's true because, spiritual or not, when you wonder who is your God that created you, before mentioning the God of Abraham you think about your father's penis and mothers vagina.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Foreigner, I don't know if I'm quite cynical enough to conclude "same shit different pile", but I'll gladly admit you have to sift through an awful lot of rocks to find the diamonds in this life.

What you say about the material world's inherent decrepitude resonates with me, foreigner. I think what you're saying is exactly what Qabbalistic and Gnostic writers meant when they talk about each of us being dispersed shards of a shattered piece of glass, yearning to put back together and make whole what has been broken. In any case this solves the Problem of Evil, socko, which I'll admit is one of several philosophical problems which has kept me up at night over the years.

 

[drug_mentor]

What you say about the material world's inherent decrepitude resonates with me, foreigner. I think what you're saying is exactly what Qabbalistic and Gnostic writers meant when they talk about each of us being dispersed shards of a shattered piece of glass, yearning to put back together and make whole what has been broken. In any case this solves the Problem of Evil, socko, which I'll admit is one of several philosophical problems which has kept me up at night over the years.

How exactly do you think this shattered glass interpretation of the world solves the problem of evil? It is hard for me to see how this is supposed to follow.

Even if such an interpretation does avoid the problem of evil, one would need particularly strong reasons to be committed to this view in order for the problem to be solved. Do you feel that such strong reasons to be committed to this view exist, if so, what are they?

I have a theory, and that is that a lot of frequent drug users have drugs instead of spirituality, with drugs occupying that same niche of shock absorber for the bumpy road of life, probably because they have not been, and don't think they ever will be, able to entertain the notion that there is any greater cosmic purpose to their lives. Does anyone relate to this or think I'm onto something?

I don't think this describes me at all. I was never in to spirituality, even before I got into drugs. There is simply nothing in spirituality for me, I can't reconcile any kind of spiritual belief as rational and I don't feel a need to explain my life in terms of a cosmic plan or anything like that. I am not a closed minded person, I like having my beliefs challenged, personally I find philosophy a much more satisfying pursuit to this end than spirituality, but to each their own I suppose.

Lots of people who don't use drugs aren't spiritual, I would say most non-drug users I know aren't into spirituality. I can't say I have observed an obvious trend where drug users tend to be less spiritual than non-drug users. It is certainly true that people often use drugs and/or spirituality as a shock absorber in life, but plenty use both to this end, and plenty use neither to this end. I don't think there is an obvious connection between drug use and spirituality one way or the other.

 

[Foreigner]

Foreigner, I don't know if I'm quite cynical enough to conclude "same shit different pile", but I'll gladly admit you have to sift through an awful lot of rocks to find the diamonds in this life.

Sorry, it's not actually meant to be as cynical as I'm making it sound. My life kind of sucks right now and I think that bleeds through a bit. I find the underlying thing I'm talking about to be quite freeing and when I meditate on emptiness it's a rather heart-felt feeling.

What I mean by same shit, different pile is that nothing is separate and so chasing the external is only changing the window dressing of the same theme. There's nowhere really to go and nothing is "better". I don't know how else to describe it apart from saying that it's not an ideology or a philosophy you acquire, it's a product of sheer letting go. When you have nothing left to lose then there's less concern about seeking.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

drug mentor, as I understand it, the metaphor means that we are each a part of one connected whole, and that the cost of being a first person participant in this material world was losing sight of this fact and focusing instead on our individual separateness. This suffering will continue until we find a way to reunite with our Source, and recognize that we are merely emanations of it. The was this solves the problem of evil is that it proposes we sentient beings hurt other sentient beings, by our action or inaction, out of ignorance of our true nature as pieces of the Godhead, and that once we shed this ignorance, we will fall into a pattern of being at peace with, and full of compassion for, yourself, other sentient beings, and the world at large. I'm no expert on this, though.

Why believe it? Well, this is a common message I've distilled from wisdom figures I've read from all around the world. It seems to be a common conclusion that mystics have reached. But at the bottom of it all, I believe because I want to. Life is pretty painful, and I see that in many manifestations daily. It helps to stay open to the possibility that I'm here in this life right now on some sort of cosmic mission, whatever that may be. In my list of priorities in life, having a life that's meaningful definitely ranks above having a life that is systematically and rationally understood.

 

[socko]

I don't know anything about the gnostic or qabbalistic writers, but the idea that our part of the cosmos is like shattered pieces of glass makes some sense. It's saying something went horribly wrong during creation and what was Good blew up and exploded into trillions of pieces. We can choose to try to find the shattered pieces of the "platonic" good.
Also, it's a fallacy to believe that because science doesn't give an opinion on spirituality therefore spirituality doesn't exist. Science is very limited in the questions it can address. What happened before the Big Bang comes to mind. By definition, time might not have existed here, but it or something analogous to it had to exist somewhere else for it to have happened. Expansion is the change in volume over time.
Despite all of the books and papers written by Nobel Prize winners and neuroscientists that attempt to explain consciousness, science still fails at explaining it. The books and papers are nothing but a bunch of hand waving by famous people.

 

[Ksa]

I don't know anything about the gnostic or qabbalistic writers, but the idea that our part of the cosmos is like shattered pieces of glass makes some sense. It's saying something went horribly wrong during creation and what was Good blew up and exploded into trillions of pieces. We can choose to try to find the shattered pieces of the "platonic" good.
Also, it's a fallacy to believe that because science doesn't give an opinion on spirituality therefore spirituality doesn't exist. Science is very limited in the questions it can address. What happened before the Big Bang comes to mind. By definition, time might not have existed here, but it or something analogous to it had to exist somewhere else for it to have happened. Expansion is the change in volume over time.
Despite all of the books and papers written by Nobel Prize winners and neuroscientists that attempt to explain consciousness, science still fails at explaining it. The books and papers are nothing but a bunch of hand waving by famous people.

Because awareness is the product of turning on a very complex machine, if they can't explain the machine properly, how can they explain awareness?

Awareness is the ability of things to happen inside your head as a result of an outside stimuli. The more things happen in shorter time, the bigger your awareness is. It may not always be of good quality because with schizophrenia, awareness is so big that you're aware of things that don't exist also, so the quality can vary but quantity wise it's like that, things that happen inside the head when something happens outside the head, that's awareness.