Psychedelics are a road to greater self-awareness and self-actualization. But the path is fraught with potential for delusion and rose colored glasses, and a lot of heavy trippers become just really out of touch, while feeling they're more in touch than everyone else. I would say that disciplined spiritual practice, meditation, etc, probably are a less dangerous road to go down for trying to heighten your awareness. A peak psychedelic experience can happen, whether intentionally, or not (my first trip changed my life but I expected to see some dancing fairies and giggle a lot, sort of like super weed, with hallucinations, I did not AT ALL expect the sort of paradigm-shifting, life-altering experience I had). When a peak experience happens, it is a brief sort of "shortcut" glimpse to a way of being that is much different from anything you've experienced before. This can, in positivre cases, lead to great amounts of thought and introspection, and can lead to changes in lifestyle and belief system. In some cases, this can be highly beneficial for the person (like me). The risk is that, well, for one, not everyone is comfortable enough with themselves to handle a trip, despite the acid head mentality of "let's dose everyone, the world would change" (I was that guy for a while for the record). Some people are deeply in hiding, and a trip can be powerfully confronting, and that confronting can traumatize people and lead to negative outcomes. And then the other risk is that for someone who had a peak experience and it changed their perspective, they can start to chase the psychedelic experience/ego death, instead of integrating their experiences and doing additional work while sober to try to truly become the thing that this trip showed you that you could be.
I have felt a few times that the drug (generally plant drugs, especially ibogaine) has its own consciousness and intention, but I am easily willing to accept that it is just an aspect of my own subconscious mind projecting into a separate presence, during a highly altered state. I am agnostic about that sort of thing but I lean toward it being just an aspect of yourself. I believe, from my experiences with oneness on early psychedelic trips, that we are all the universe experiencing itself subjectvely, so we all technically have access to information outside our human selves, since we are so much more than our human selves.
But again, I am not going to try to claim I know for 100% sure that is true. I do believe it, I would not say I am agnostic on that point, but I try to always keep an open mind and allow my opinions to change. But also like I said before, my beliefs bring me a lot of peace and satisfaction and a sense of spirituality and connection to something greater, which I believe humans evolved to crave and need to be totally in balance.
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