If psychoactive substances can expand consciousness, why didn't they help Native American Shamans foresee their own destruction?

[bitter-truth]

Many ancient cultures — especially indigenous shamans across the Americas — used psychoactive plants and rituals to access deeper spiritual insights, foresee danger, and connect with higher realms of understanding.
If these substances truly expand consciousness and offer access to prophetic visions or spiritual knowledge, then a serious question arises:

Why didn’t these expanded states of consciousness help Native American civilizations foresee the European invasion and the ensuing genocide, displacement, and forced assimilation?

And a more general follow-up:

Do psychedelics or spiritual practices really offer practical, real-world benefits — or are their insights limited to inner perception and symbolic meaning, without the power to prevent actual historical catastrophes?

I’m asking this with genuine curiosity, not cynicism.
I’m deeply interested in both ancient knowledge and the limits of altered states.
Would love to hear diverse thoughts — spiritual, psychological, historical or philosophical.

Thank you.

 

[lost weekend]

Maybe in the same way I havnt won the lottery yet .just messing.thats a deep question to ponder

 

[Deleted member 576750]

Many ancient cultures — especially indigenous shamans across the Americas — used psychoactive plants and rituals to access deeper spiritual insights, foresee danger, and connect with higher realms of understanding.
If these substances truly expand consciousness and offer access to prophetic visions or spiritual knowledge, then a serious question arises:


And a more general follow-up:

I’m asking this with genuine curiosity, not cynicism.
I’m deeply interested in both ancient knowledge and the limits of altered states.
Would love to hear diverse thoughts — spiritual, psychological, historical or philosophical.

Thank you.

you seem to be conflating seeing the future with expanding consciousness. in my mind those two are not related at all, and honestly this is the first time ive ever heard such an idea

also how do you know that some of them didnt?

 

[Foreigner]

Many ancient cultures — especially indigenous shamans across the Americas — used psychoactive plants and rituals to access deeper spiritual insights, foresee danger, and connect with higher realms of understanding.
If these substances truly expand consciousness and offer access to prophetic visions or spiritual knowledge, then a serious question arises:


And a more general follow-up:

I’m asking this with genuine curiosity, not cynicism.
I’m deeply interested in both ancient knowledge and the limits of altered states.
Would love to hear diverse thoughts — spiritual, psychological, historical or philosophical.

Thank you.

Psychedelics connect you to god. They don't turn you into god. You don't become omniscient and omnipotent.

 

[foodcrisis]

i dunno, but i hate when people say everything is connected or everything happens for a reason, even though my next paragraph might be an example of that.

being enlightened could be being able to see the future, but part of being enlightened could just be giving up... maybe there are higher powers watching us letting us make mistakes. maybe aliens or god are just testing us to see how cruel some people could be and it was part of god's plan or this is just all created to watch all this fucked up stuff happens and see how some people care a ton and some people don't care... there are just all different energies, maybe some energies just loose out for the experience which would be the native americans.. maybe they chose not to invent guns cause aliens or whatever enjoyed watching them loose to the white men... i really don't know though.

i feel like who ever invented guns, fire and whatever else for early inventions probably used psychedelics.. idk if the white man really got there first. i dunno what the history even is. i don't think history is documented correctly and i really conspire that there were civilizations figuring out how to do stuff with oil, gas and battery power long before out modern times. like this stuff only went on on secret military bases and they preped for thousands of years just to start the 1900's. kind of hard to grasp with me writing real quick, and i don't feel like going into a ton of detail now, but i think stuff like the mayans predicting 2012 and 2060 being predicted as the end of the world by the issac newton might be cause the occult gave these people the ideas and they were working on gas powered stuff and they were just planning to see if large scale use of oil would ruin the planet.. idk.. i dunno if anyone has ever really predicted the future.. sometimes i get weird de ja vu, and i think spirituality might be real, but i take stuff with a grain of salt and i'm pretty skeptic about everything.... MIT is predicting the economy crashes in 2040, kind of in between 2012 and 2060 which is supposed to be the end of times.. kind of like the 1900's and early 2000's were something specific and then some new thing is gonna come.. kind of weird imo.

 

[bitter-truth]

you seem to be conflating seeing the future with expanding consciousness. in my mind those two are not related at all, and honestly this is the first time ive ever heard such an idea

also how do you know that some of them didnt?

That's actually a good counterpoint – it's possible that some individuals or tribes may have sensed what was coming, maybe through spiritual insight or just instinct.
But personally, I've never heard of a single historical case where a shaman clearly foresaw the European invasion and successfully led his people to long-term safety.

If there were any, they must have been very few and exceptional cases.
And considering the massive scale of destruction – estimates range from 20 to 60 million dead across the Americas – their survival sadly didn't have much real-world impact on the outcome.

So even if consciousness-expanding practices can offer insight, it seems they didn’t prevent the collapse of entire civilizations.

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

To me, expanding consciousness can mean a lot of personal things to people & not necessarily telepathy or knowing of the future.

When I trip & suddenly all my anger, bitterness & clouded judgement disappears, I'd say my consciousness has been "expanded" to see the world in a different way.
Getting rid of those emotions & feelings can help people gain knowledge or understanding of things (that matter to them or those close to them).
Perhaps a new perspective that they wouldn't have otherwise had.
In that regard, I do believe psychedelics can be useful tools.

But I also think a lot of people use spiritual stuff to justify their enjoyment of "getting high", which society has shunned as an immoral & "bad" thing for decades now. Nothing wrong with wanting to get high or trip though either.

It's pretty crazy when you think that about a 100 years ago, you could walk into a store & buy heroin for your cough. And now we live in a society where you have to show ID & ask for some stupid pseudoephedrine from behind the counter.

 

[marcoman]

Many tribes their shamans did see the future. Read about The Hopi Prophecy, that's an interesting one. There are others too...but they all have about the same scenarios. Plenty of details that mark of what and when will unfold. Much like the Christian bibles Revelation. I don't subscribe to any "religions" but find the First Nations spiritual beliefs the most believable and on-point. Remember there are over 590 Native tribes and their beliefs all have their differences. Personally I wonder if the end of mankind will be caused directly by us or a natural event. I think this earth will be just fine once we are all gone. And in all reality it's only a small group of elites with unlimited power and money destroying things. Change is coming..and IMO, it's needed and I welcome it, even if it's ugly and nasty. No one can deny that a complete Renewal is needed. Everything is totally fucked up beyond recognition. There's a Spiritual Battle taking place. How it ends up, IMO, will be a good thing. Peace on Earth and all that cool shit!

 

[burn out]

Supposedly the Hopi did see it coming but seeing it coming and stopping it are two different thing. The hopi weren't living on the eastern part of the USA so they were not among the first tribes that were encountered. I copied this from chat gpt about them:

​

The Hopi are known for a complex prophetic tradition. According to some Hopi elders, they were visited by beings (sometimes described as "Kachinas") who warned of the arrival of a “white brother” or “Pahana” who would either come in peace or in conquest depending on humanity’s spiritual state.


One prophecy describes the arrival of “white-skinned people” with crosses and a destructive path:

• They will come and take the land.
• They will build a spider web (interpreted as railroads or telecommunications).
• They will spin a world wide web (interpreted as the internet by modern readers).
• They will bring great shaking (earthquakes, war).

 

[M1sterEd]

Am I missing something? I don’t recall seeing into the future taking psychoactive substances. Although I am certain I time traveled at high school homecoming game.

 

[burn out]

Am I missing something? I don’t recall seeing into the future taking psychoactive substances. Although I am certain I time traveled at high school homecoming game.

It doesn't happen every time you take a psychoactive but it is something that people report from time to time, especially with high doses of certain substances like amanita muscaria and ketamine. Are you very experienced with high doses of those substances? If not, it's no wonder you never saw into the future. It's not necessarily an easy thing to do. However shamans and medicine have developed techniques for it and so they are more likely to succeed with or without substances.

 

[JackARoe]

Do psychedelics or spiritual practices really offer practical, real-world benefits — or are their insights limited to inner perception and symbolic meaning, without the power to prevent actual historical catastrophes?

Nice topic, I could not find any answers or guessing for your first question.....yet. This one I can answer because lately I have been talking about subjective/objective experiences. It did seem to me for years that the whole release of psychedelics on the public was a subjective thing. Stuff we could not see in another person's head. However there are tangible outcomes in the music and art world. Probably science too.

It seemed like a hippy sticking a flower in a rifle pointed at them was something only the hippy could see. But now I see that one person can spread out an idea to another who has never taken psychedelics. So in my opinion they can help prevent man made historical catastrophes. However society is pretty stubborn. But I do think one person that goes from violence to peace because of a psychedelic can be influencing and spread outward. So in that aspect I think there are real world benefits that spread out amongst other people just by the creation of an idea.