Ideology

[iksaxophone]

Have you ever been distinctly broken out of an ideology or some other incorrect notion during/after an entheogenic experience?

 

[treezy z]

No I have not. I also consider most ideologies that the psychedelic movement has put forward idiotic, destructive, and delusional. (Basically anything the hippies preached on to the present day. Also, the only "gurus" I like are John Lilly because he was k'd out insane and Terrence McKenna because he gives a good lecture.)

 

[pupnik]

Eww Terrence

 

[iksaxophone]

Haha, well all ideologies are idiotic and destructive...what I?m getting at is this: psychs have been proven to increase neuroplasticity (that is, make people more open-minded). But from my experience this comes at the cost of one thing: rigor. A lot of the psychedelic people I know are totally open to listen to anything anyone might have to say, and COMPLETELY and MADDENINGLY closed to actually scrutinizing what someone is saying. Let alone scrutinizing their own ideas.
It?s almost like psychs give you the patience to be receptive but destroy your ability to discriminate.

 

[iksaxophone]

BUT I think it is clear that this refusal to examine is itself an ideology. Which makes me hopeful that in the right situation and the right dose these...spiritual hijackers...might have a revelation that it is actually necessary to think and criticize (especially one?s own self).

 

[Vediog]

As an atheist, I had my one and only experience with "divinity" on 30mg 4-aco-dmt + 150mg MDMA. It was such an intense feeling of an unseeable entity watching over me, a feeling I can only describe as holiness.

It was difficult to reconcile atheism with this experience for a week or two afterward, however, I eventually decided that since I have never felt this sensation before while sober, not even a hint of it, that I can attribute it solely to having taken large doses of strong drugs.

Before that, and since, if I contemplate spirituality and religion while tripping I simply reinforce my own views in sort of a loop until I move on to another thought.

 

[pupnik]

BUT I think it is clear that this refusal to examine is itself an ideology. Which makes me hopeful that in the right situation and the right dose these...spiritual hijackers...might have a revelation that it is actually necessary to think and criticize (especially one?s own self).

I think this is the psychic inertia from cannabis. LSD does not do this, although it leaves a void from loss of 'extra clarity' once you come down, whether things got clearer or not.

 

[The Hypnotist]

Ideology is an important part of our identity. I think when you are on psychedelics you can get other perspectives on ideas but probably a single experience cannot shatter an ideologic system. Probably because you can only check ideas from other ideas, the non biased perspective is kind of an utopia, we are all condicionated at least by past experiences and our reduced and personal knowledge about reality. Don't take that as some form of full relativism, as some ideologies are much more biased than others, just a pinch of it.The process of breaking with and ideology is long and emotionaly painful, I think because breaking with an ideology means breaking with your own identity and in some way the groups you form part of. Not as easy as changing some ideas, you are changing perception: of the world, of yourself, of others and other's perception on you.

In any case psyquedelics can offer you a mystical experience which can awake a spiritual view of reality which is not common in our times. That surely can have lasting effects in your perception of things in that sense. If that is derisable or not, will probably depend on your quality of life under each ideology. It is a very complicated subject. One thing I ask myself a lot is: Am I having an idea or an idea is having me? Jung used to say that people don't have ideas, ideas have people.

A good method to detect how biased an ideologic system is, would be to see how much predictability have the opinions of someone. Because it means they are not really thinking, they are just borrowing from a supposed great ideologic system standarised the right answer. Some kind of unconscious hypocrisy.
If we take my premise before: Ideologic systems are affected by past experiences and our personal and unique knowledge of reality, there should be as many ideologic systems as people on the planet.

 

[Moxious]

Have you ever been distinctly broken out of an ideology or some other incorrect notion during/after an entheogenic experience?

An ideology is a belief system, an entheogen is defined as a substance that generates beliefs. If you had an entheogenic experience, your ideology is necessarily changed. If not then it was not an entheogenic experience.

How often psychedelic experiences are entheogenic is another question entirely

 

[iksaxophone]

Ideology is an important part of our identity. I think when you are on psychedelics you can get other perspectives on ideas but probably a single experience cannot shatter an ideologic system. Probably because you can only check ideas from other ideas, the non biased perspective is kind of an utopia, we are all condicionated at least by past experiences and our reduced and personal knowledge about reality. Don't take that as some form of full relativism, as some ideologies are much more biased than others, just a pinch of it.The process of breaking with and ideology is long and emotionaly painful, I think because breaking with an ideology means breaking with your own identity and in some way the groups you form part of. Not as easy as changing some ideas, you are changing perception: of the world, of yourself, of others and other's perception on you.

In any case psyquedelics can offer you a mystical experience which can awake a spiritual view of reality which is not common in our times. That surely can have lasting effects in your perception of things in that sense. If that is derisable or not, will probably depend on your quality of life under each ideology. It is a very complicated subject. One thing I ask myself a lot is: Am I having an idea or an idea is having me? Jung used to say that people don't have ideas, ideas have people.

A good method to detect how biased an ideologic system is, would be to see how much predictability have the opinions of someone. Because it means they are not really thinking, they are just borrowing from a supposed great ideologic system standarised the right answer. Some kind of unconscious hypocrisy.
If we take my premise before: Ideologic systems are affected by past experiences and our personal and unique knowledge of reality, there should be as many ideologic systems as people on the planet.

I detect a JBP listener! And I get what you?re saying, but I would argue that it?s not necessary to have an ideology. It?s possible (though difficult) to to recognize that there is no one answer to everything.
To be fair, I can?t think of a specific way: currently I?m trapped under an ideology where the ?answer? is relentless criticism. And escaping that is fucking hard, because in order to dismantle that idea I would have to criticize it...

 

[The Hypnotist]

Haha, I should stop listening then? I was mixing things from other's and own ideas I thought. I am a psychology student too, so I have done quite a lot of studies on identity, but social psychology is a mine field, you don't know what is science and what indoctrination. The psychology lessons of Peterson are a must and 99% of what I can say of him is fantastic but I would argue that he clearly have an ideology, a very reasonable one, but an ideology nonetheless. And he is far to angry, loud and righteous too. In any case he was a big help in my metamorphosis from anarchist to undefined and his views of Christian myths are some of the best I have seen about Christianity. Not to the point of becoming one though, it's a spiritual system dying slowly.

About your problem, nothing wrong about criticism, the problem with it might be if it goes together with negative emotions. Or when it gets kind of an habit where you critic automaticaly with lots of ego and sophist tricks on it. In any case, I can relate with your problem and share it. Might be a life's job.

 

[Cheshire_Kat]

Have you ever been distinctly broken out of an ideology or some other incorrect notion during/after an entheogenic experience?

Frequently

 

[iksaxophone]

The Hypnotist, no don?t stop listening! The guy has plenty of food for thought.
And that?s true about egoistic sophistry...that?s why I think that the biggest part of having a well rounded perspective is asking others to criticize you. Which is about a thousand times more important than criticizing others. It improves your worldview, and prevents your ego from getting too big while making it stronger and healthier from the ?exercise?. Hence the above thread.

 

[The Hypnotist]

I was not planning to stop. I know he is a machine of creating food for thought. But I see some part of his followers are starting to believe in him blindly and just repeat what he says without self-reflection, that's a red flag and I surely plead guilty of it sometimes. So when you managed to identify me as a listener, I've got worried. It is kind of difficult not to go through a phase where you find a new perspective of the world that makes much more sense that the one you had before thanks to somebody's teachings, and you buy all of it. Starting very critical, then softening to complete belief and then overcoming that faith and keeping what it really makes sense based in your experience and throwing away the weak spots in anybody's views, again based in your experience,. That last part of the process is not happening for lots and it is worrying no matter how clever or "right" is the guru. If you are really thinking you'll have to disagree and agree with everybody at some point. Hence the right vs left bullshit, but maybe needed in some way, political spectrum. So difficult to keep some equilibrium between being critical and not being a smartass.

It is good what you say about learning to take criticism, surely quite healthy. Self-importance is quite an insidious disease, some kind of fail in the development process that leads to maturity. It is like building an imaginary identity that protects you from the world and at the same time doesn't let you get a transparent picture of who you are and where you need development. And ego screen between your image and who you are. In any case, very different to understand this intellectually than putting it into practice.
I think the value of non ordinary states of conciousness comes from letting you experimenting some of those teaching emotionaly and not just intellectually. But as Wilber comments about psychedelics, they don't stick, just a glimpse of a truer reality and back to your old, hence meditation might be a more permanent route, as hard and painful as it is. Jung said that psychedelics were a bit too much unconscious opening to digest, in my opinion it probably depends for who and at which point. Chronic use of psychedelics without a route map might be really confusing, a good rule of thumb might be to accomplish to put into practice whatever the lesson psychedelics gave you before going again to the oracle. Again easier said than done, feel a bit like a hypocrite who doesn't put into practice his preaching. As Allan Watts said to his son when he was killing himself slowly with alcohol after all his preaching, something like "Sure I could fix it but it would be too much effort".

 

[iksaxophone]

Hahaha, so what you?re saying is you unconsciously became the predictable ideologue that your own quote from Peterson warned against, by making that quote?? They should use that in English courses to illustrate irony.
I understand your worry but honestly you seem like you have some well formulated opinions of your own...so don?t get stressed about it.
What you?re saying about the process of adherence to a guru really makes sense to me. One of the ways I think I?ve evaded that with Peterson is by listening to his talks about god and morality. He has a childish and simplistic view of that subject, which has helped me remain a bit more objective with regards to his other thinking.