psychedelics and denial of the divine

[Medatripper Tates]

BristolRob, I agree with a lot of what you have to say. The experience, the observations, what we sense, is all real. It is only the ego that is imaginary.

When we alter our ego, we alter our environment. Alter our environment, alter our ego. It seems that psychedelics combine our ego with our environment in a way that allows us to understand the unity going on within us all and everything around us.

It gives us an understanding of what it is in our ego that prevents this unity from taking place, and what prevents us from being receptive of the energy that is all around us. And this energy is what allows us to grow.

Wouldn't any creation of your mind be real? The problem with the ego being, that its creations are used to AVOID something rather than conceptualise it.

It is the conceptualizing of the ego that acts as a defense mechanism which prevents us from going deeper into the experience (which is more real). Sure you could say it’s all real, but couldn’t you say that having a NDE in a car crash is a lot more real than thinking about pie?

 

[Dondante]

I still stand by the position that the psychedelic experience is an experience in the real as opposed to the imaginary, otherwise it wouldnt feel so eerie. If the psychedelic experience was just fantasy then people wouldnt be so fascinated by it, like dreams, if they were "just froth" we would have got over their enigma by now.

I agree with this to an extent, but I think people are confusing concepts here. There is the "real" which BristolRob is talking about, that which is unchanged/unfiltered by our ego (raw perception). And there is the "real" that specialspack is referring to, which is Kant's "noumenon" or the "thing in itself". This is still inaccessible when you remove the ego. Just because you have removed the filters that organize your reality into a coherant picture of the outside world doesn't mean you have transcended your own mind ... your senses still come from your sensory organs.

I think that the psychedelic experience is an experience that allows you to transcend your ego, but not to transcend your perceptions. This is still a valuable tool. I think that by allowing a human to see the world from outside his ego, it helps one come to terms with the idea that the everyday ego-filtered reality is far from the real reality.

Specialspack makes a good point:

The Real (in the Lacanian sense) is not the same as metaphysical clams about the underlying structure of "reality" - it's not the noumenon, the "thing-in-itself".

As for Zizek, I'll need to read up on his philosophy, but at a first glance, I'll have to admit, it just doesn't seem right. I have a bunch of work to do, but I'll try to catch up with this discussion later.

From wikipedia (out of laziness):

"The 'two-world' interpretation regards Kant's position as a statement of epistemological limitation, that we are never able to transcend the bounds of our own mind, meaning that we cannot access the "thing-in-itself". Kant however also speaks of the thing in itself or transcendental object as a product of the (human) understanding as it attempts to conceive of objects in abstraction from the conditions of sensibility. Following this thought, interpreters have argued that the thing in itself does not represent a separate ontological domain but simply a way of considering objects by means of the understanding alone."

"Kant asserted that "All the preparations of reason, therefore, in what may be called pure philosophy, are in reality directed to those three problems only (God, Soul, Freedom). These themselves, however, have a still further object, namely, to know what ought to be done, if the will is free, if there is a God, and if there is a future world. As this concerns our actions with reference to the highest aims of life, we see that the ultimate intention of nature in her wise provision was really, in the constitution of our reason, directed to moral interests only. " Critique of Pure Reason, A801. Kant meant that, because of the way that we think, no one could really know if there is a God and an afterlife. But, then again, no one could really know that there was not a God and an afterlife. For the sake of society and morality, Kant asserted, people are reasonably justified in believing in them, even though they could never know for sure whether they are real or not. The sense of an enlightened approach and the critical method required that "If one cannot prove that a thing is, he may try to prove that it is not. And if he succeeds in doing neither (as often occurs), he may still ask whether it is in his interest to accept one or the other of the alternatives hypothetically, from the theoretical or the practical point of view. … Hence the question no longer is as to whether perpetual peace is a real thing or not a real thing, or as to whether we may not be deceiving ourselves when we adopt the former alternative, but we must act on the supposition of its being real." (The Science of Right, Conclusion). "

 

[gloggawogga]

The worst beliefs are those based on what other people have told us?

Yes. When you trust another persons conclusions, you trust their assumptions, often without even knowing what they are are.

it would seem to follow that scientific beliefs are the worst of the worst, since not only are they things people have told us, they're third hand in that even the people who thought of them have no direct access to the "truth" - only though experiment.

Scientific "beliefs", yes. Scientific method and understanding, no.

Scientific theories are not beliefs merely based on what someone has said, they are are a form of understanding based on direct observations that you verify for your self in the laboratory. I'm sure you did a little bit of that your self in school, and even decided for your self to what extent you would accept scientific method your self. The whole point of scientific method is to come to conclusions through direct observation and understanding, and not beliefs, ideas, and conjecture, whether they are your own or some else's. When a scientist publishes results, other scientists don't just blindly buy into it, they test it for themselves. When a religious or political leader publishes something, their followers blindly buy into it often without question.

And yet all too often in these forums are lay people posting a scientific study as 'proof' of something, when in fact the study is questionable and many scientists themselves don't buy into it. But because "a scientist said so" its assumed to be true. And more often then not scientific findings that are commonly accepted turn out to be incorrect. In many those cases it only discovered because some scientists had the balls to question assumptions being made by the mainstream scientists, often risking their careers doing so. Scientific "belief" in that way is wrong.

When you are a scientist, there is a great deal of pressure to believe what others in your field believe, even if its wrong. And in the realm of politics and religion, there is also great pressure to accept what others believe. These social pressures, "group think" and in more general cases "pack mentality", lead to much deeper forms of delusion than individual delusions IMHO, including scientific "belief", as you call it.

That's s pretty extreme position -

You only call it "pretty extreme" in reference to how you your self have been swayed by group think

 

[specialspack]

EDIT - I've got to change all this now you've edited your post!

Scientific "beliefs", yes. Scientific method and understanding, no.

Scientific theories are not beliefs merely based on what someone has said, they are are a form of understanding based on direct observations that you verify for your self in the laboratory.
I'm sure you did a little bit of that your self in school, and even decided for your self to what extent you would accept scientific method your self.

Yeah, in fact it interested me so much that I went on to do a degree in the history and philosophy of science, so I could understand the construction of the scientific method.

The whole point of scientific method is to come to conclusions through direct observation and understanding, and not beliefs, ideas, and conjecture, whether they are your own or some else's. When a scientist publishes results, other scientists don't just blindly buy into it, they test it for themselves. When religious or political leader publishes something, their followers blindly buy into it often without question.

Scientific belief, "as I call it?". Nope, not just me, believe it or not...

Little detour into a refresher on epistemology: According to you - science produces "understanding", and not beliefs. The common epistemological position is that there is a thing called "knowledge", and knowledge is justified true beliefs. Scientific knowledge is just that, a subset of knowledge, and thus of justified true beliefs.

Studying any form of science requires you take an enourmous body of knowledge on trust - no students perform even a fraction of the experiments that their discipline is built on. Textbooks have to be taken at face value. The whole structure of a discipline has to be taken at face value, otherwise students would spend their lives repeating hundreds of years worth of experiments just so they could be up to date, before they could go on to any new study.

Any scientist, no matter what they are doing, has some principles that they must believe which they have never verified themselves. They regard them as justified, true beliefs because they have been verified by scientists long gone but they are beliefs non the less. I could reel of many, many examples if you want...

When you are a scientist, there is a great deal of pressure to believe what others in your field believe, even if its wrong. And in the realm of politics and religion, there is also great pressure to accept what others believe. These social pressures, "group think" and in more general cases "pack mentality", lead to much deeper forms of delusion than individual delusions IMHO, including scientific "belief", as you call it.

Of course I take the point that there are biases within the scientific community, and these are often more widespread than anyone would acknowledge (see Harry Collins' seminal work Changing Order for the best discussion of how non-scientific factors go into making scientific "fact").

Unfortunately, although the "group" produces a situation in which there is pressure to follow what others have said, to let politics, personal bias, bigotry, etc influence supposedly rational scientific conclusions, the "group" is also essential for science to function.

 

[gloggawogga]

^^^

It looks like you posted after I edited mine, but you didn't read my edits, sorry. I worded things a little better for you.

With peer reviewed science, sure, other research teams are going to try to replicate the claims given, but for the vast majority of readers of a paper, the results (and their confirmation by other groups) is going to be taken on trust.

And so when scientists are wrong, blinded by their own group think, the rest of society is mislead by them too. Doesn't change my original point.

 

[specialspack]

And so when scientists are wrong, blinded by their own group think, the rest of society is mislead by them too. Doesn't change my original point.

My point is that for science to work, scientists must take some things as given. Otherwise nothing would get done, you'd be forever re-creating other people's experiments, just so you could validate it for yourself. You portray as a flaw what is fundamental to the workings of science.

 

[specialspack]

I agree with this to an extent, but I think people are confusing concepts here. There is the "real" which BristolRob is talking about, that which is unchanged/unfiltered by our ego (raw perception). And there is the "real" that specialspack is referring to, which is Kant's "noumenon" or the "thing in itself". This is still inaccessible when you remove the ego. Just because you have removed the filters that organize your reality into a coherant picture of the outside world doesn't mean you have transcended your own mind ... your senses still come from your sensory organs.

Yes, thanks Dondante, there is plenty of confusion in this thread...! Although still not quite right... there are now three uses of the word "real" or "reality" going on:

1. The Real that BristolRob is talking about is Lacan's Real (I'm going to keep capitalising it so people realise it's a technical, non-standard use of the word!). The Real is nothing to do with perception, it is a thing... a state, a place that we can never return too. It is "The state of nature from which we have been forever severed by our entrance into language" ref.

2. The reality of "raw perception", perceptions unfiltered by the human mind. Primary characteristics. What Locke called "secondary characteristics" are things that are found not in the object but are subjective and determined by the mind. Primary characteristics are then part of the nature of the thing itself, shape and size. The classic distinction is that you can imagine an object without a secondary characteristic, but not a primary- having no size or shape. Of course for Kant and all the other idealists, there is no such thing as a primary characteristic, all characteristics are secondary - which brings us to...

3. The noumenon, the really real, the things-in-themselves. The true nature of the external world and the objects in it, which we can never know.

I think that the psychedelic experience is an experience that allows you to transcend your ego, but not to transcend your perceptions. This is still a valuable tool. I think that by allowing a human to see the world from outside his ego, it helps one come to terms with the idea that the everyday ego-filtered reality is far from the real reality.

Hmm... yes, transcending your ego but not your being. However, that still leaves one within the realm of the secondary characteristics. You strip away the influence of the ego, but replace it with the influence of a chemical. Neither can be said to have any more "reality" than the other, neither is closer to the real reality, the only reality that is the ground of being which supports them both, the noumenon.

As for Zizek, I'll need to read up on his philosophy, but at a first glance, I'll have to admit, it just doesn't seem right.

Eh, don't worry about Zizek - I just thought that was a useful quote to explain the nature of the Real, don't want to get into the pros and cons of his thought...

 

[co.1nspire]

Psychedelics have taught me to contradict myself and everyone else.There are no absolutes.

 

[ssstudbw01]

GREAT THREAD! (dont accidently push escape at the end of typing your reply to the thread, it erases everything!)

this topic is somthing thats been on my mind alot lately so naturaly im grateful for everyones input.

im 19 now and my 2nd psychedelic experience changed many of my views on religion. i was raised a southern baptist since birth and was bought up in a very strict and closed minded view on this topic. i am now a very spiritual person but am not religious. obvisouly no one here knows anything (unless of course you have died and would like to tell us about it).


it just makes no sense to me that the quest for truth and understanding would be punishable or have a negative after death.

i think we are all searching for our soul.
everyone will know soon enough...

 

[BristolRob]

I think you're probably right. Another argument against the loss of the divine upon death is the fact that psychedelic experiences are often frightening and unpleasant. Virtually all my psychedelic experiences have had an element of fear to them.

 

[elfdancer]

Terms that has not been used in this thread, but I think encompasses many of the opinions mentioned in the various posts are Pantheism and
Panentheism. (links to wikipedia defs) I think that these terms describe many of the people who billed themselves as "atheists" earlier.

For the lazy, the first paragraph of each definition:

Pantheism -- literally means "God is All" and "All is God". It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. More detailed definitions tend to emphasize the idea that natural law, existence, and the universe (the sum total of all that is, was, and shall be) is represented or personified in the theological principle of 'God'.

Panentheism -- is the theological position that God is immanent within the universe, but also trancends it. It is distinguished from pantheism, which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe. In panentheism, God is viewed as creator and/or animating force behind the universe, and the source of universal morality. The term is closely associated with the Logos of Greek philosophy in the works of Herakleitos, which pervades the cosmos and whereby all things were made.

I also have to say, I was honestly just thinking about this same topic a short while before, then I logged in to bluelight and this thread has scrolled up to right near the top of PD for me. Cool coincidence, eh?

 

[gloggawogga]

Alright, spack, I won't edit this one, excepting typos.

You've taken original point entirely out of context, it was a point about the weaknesses of metaphysical belief systems. Nonetheless it is a weakness of scientific knowledge too.

Scientific belief, "as I call it?". Nope, not just me, believe it or not...

Science develops theories, which can and do change, as new observations are made. Religion has beliefs, which tend not to change, even when contradicting observations are made. Sorry if my semantics aren't right, but there is a difference between the two. Studying science does not mean you should trust anything blindly. Science is a method of inquiry, not a set of beliefs like a religion.

And my point was never that you shouldn't trust memories or beliefs or beliefs of others. You just shouldn't trust them as much as your own direct experience. When new experience contradicts beliefs, you need to accomodate the new experience, adjusting your beliefs accordingly. And when your experiences contradict the experiences of others, you should put the greatest trust in your own direct experiences.

According to you - science produces "understanding"

Uhm...I said no such thing. I referred to scientific method and understanding, and was referring to the approaches used by science to acquire knowledge not the body of knowledge its self. The body of knowledge contained by science is dynamic and changing. The underlying methods of inquiry haven't changed very much over the last few hundred years.

The common epistemological position is that there is a thing called "knowledge", and knowledge is justified true beliefs. Scientific knowledge is just that, a subset of knowledge, and thus of justified true beliefs.

I do not consider scientific knowledge anything more than approximate knowledge, not true knowledge. I've always thought "epistemology" is a big word that some philosophers like to label themselves with, nothing more.

Studying any form of science requires you take an enourmous body of knowledge on trust - no students perform even a fraction of the experiments that their discipline is built on. Textbooks have to be taken at face value. The whole structure of a discipline has to be taken at face value,

I disagree. My teachers didn't tell me to take things at face value. Most encouraged me to think for my self. But after trying a given percentage of the experiments in the books and they worked as would be expected under the various conditions, and after seeing that technologies based on such theories work, I learned to trust the ability of the theories to make predictions to a certain extent. Sort of an Occam razor sort of a thing. Yet my teachers still advised me that while it was very unlikely, I could be come famous if I could either disprove the theories, or come up with better formulations of them.

I know lots of people who go to school and get science degrees, and are basically stupid. They go to school, take everything for face value, work hard, pass the courses, and get good jobs. But they don't think for themselves, and aren't like the real scientists, the one's who think outside the box, who question long standing assumptions, and come up with newer better theories. I would say that too many scientists taking things for face value is what leads to bad theories being accepted in the first place, as well as stagnation of good theories that can be improved upon.

Unfortunately, although the "group" produces a situation in which there is pressure to follow what others have said, to let politics, personal bias, bigotry, etc influence supposedly rational scientific conclusions, the "group" is also essential for science to function.

I didn't say science didn't rely on a cooperative effort. But cooperative effort can go one way or another. For science to avoid the pitfalls of group think delusion or political pressure, it needs the diligence of every scientist as an individual to be critical thinker and not to cave in to the pressure of group think and politics. A good scientist doesn't just believe things because everyone else in his field takes it for face value, or because he'd lose his job if he didn't. He thinks it out. He sees things for himself and makes the best decision based on the information available. He may not understand everything in depth, but he still makes a thought out choice. And if he disagrees or has doubts, he needs to say it. Of course, if its bad for his career and he has a family to support, he won't.

My point is that for science to work, scientists must take some things as given. Otherwise nothing would get done,

But you still do that with some very serious discretion, I hope.

You portray as a flaw what is fundamental to the workings of science.

Accepting things for face value or due to social pressure is not fundamental to the workings of science. Peer review and critical thinking are fundamental to the workings of science. Accepting things for face value is a human limitation because we have limited time. Accepting things due to social pressure is due to other human weaknesses. And those limitations that we all have as humans are also the weaknesses of science. Science is a discipline, i.e. it requires a certain discipline to follow the methods of scientific inquiry, and thus its only as good as we humans as a group can discipline our selves.

 

[atara]

I know lots of people who go to school and get science degrees, and are basically stupid.

drive-by Zen shoot-out!

A monk asked Tozan when he was weighing some flax: `What is Buddha?'

Tozan said: `This flax weighs three pounds.'

 

[DwayneHoover]

Psychedelics have taught me to contradict myself and everyone else.There are no absolutes.

As my hero Walt Whitman wrote "I am large. I contain multitudes!"

 

[SpecialK_]

I've only really read the first page, but it's worth remembering that psychedelics have been used for religious experiences since early discoveries. Some religions even worshipped them, saying that it brought them closer to god, etc. There are some very interesting links out there, I wish I could source the ones I've read but I can't, Google would definitely help you out though.

 

[FluoTox]

Really interesting thread. So many good posts to read.

I don't think I have much to say, what others haven't already posted. But anyway here my view of things:

Religion(or politic) is just for a group of people who cannot live with self-responsibility. They live by rules made of pure arbitrariness. Who is to judge whats wrong or right? Following religion it must be a god-force. Following politic it must be a elite-force.
Psychedelics have showed me, that wrong or right is just an illusion for those, who don't want to be fully aware of what happens.
you can also exchange "wrong" or "right" with "hell" or "heaven" if you want.

Self-responsibility is beyond right or wrong. Beyond dualism.

I think god isn't a force. God is the pure potential of being. The potential of everything that exist and will exist. Psychedelics show you this "god" in the sense of potential which lies beyond self determinated boundaries. Now if Ego-Death(Boundarie breakdown) is expierenced, we can see, that the "beyond-potential" is always attached to our self. We see the true potential of what could be and that it lies within us. (and not within a higher force )

This change the outlook of what we could reach.

But Psychedelics can also show "how" a individual reality is build. It shows the dynamics of believe, perception and knowlegde. It doesn't show you what's true or wrong. It doesn't show you the "real" reality in an absolute sense. It gives you the knowlegde of how to customize own reality through perception and believe.

That's why the integration process after an psychedelic experience is very important for personal evolution.

Evolution is the progress of customizing own perception of reality, to maximize the possible potential of possibilities while experience the "NOW". "Everything could happen just right now"

Love, in my thinking , is the marriage between the two sides of the dualism.
With love we can overcome dualism(boundaries) and further unfold our full potential
That's how I understand the meaning of "Love is the way to god".

Simple answer : Psychedlics are showing the divine potential.

 

[yardbirdrc]

I haven't read through this whole thread so forgive me if some of this has been said before.

I was raised Catholic and then had a tryst with the various eastern philosophies before eventually becoming a functional atheist around the time I entered high school, though I still kept reading the Tao and various Buddhist texts. This was all before psychedelics entered my life, so I can't attribute my "snapping out of it" to the psychedelic experience.

One of the most important philosophical moments in my life was the realization that life had no meaning. This was in late high school when I was reading a lot of Camus, after losing my marijuana virginity but before the big-boy toys started showing up in my stash. It was like a huge weight was lifted off my chest, I have nobody's expectations or rules to conform to but my own. Nobody is watching me and taking toll. I know this seems kind of obvious to a lot of people but at the time it was a new and revolutionary idea in my mind. To this day I still firmly believe this and honestly I don't know what my life would be without this belief.

The idea persists into my psychedelic states. I've had moments that I'd classify as close to "spiritual" on psychedelics, mostly tryptamines. That being said I've never lost sight of the fact that these are drugs with very precise physical mechanics, not literal gateways to other dimensions. Since perception creates our reality we can't call these experiences "unreal", as they are very real to the subject, but we can't assume that just because we saw "God" on mushrooms that means he or it exists outside of the context of that experience. People just like to slap a supernatural explanation on complex natural events they don't understand. That's how religion came to exist in the first place, and that's how some people come to believe things like DMT elves or Salvia people exist in an objective space.

These are drugs, people. They change the way you think temporarily. We can use the insights and lessons that we learn in that perspective in our waking sober lives, but we should never confuse those planes of existence we reach with our own daily one entirely.

To answer the question of the OP more directly, you simply have some more letting-go to do. The only reason you believe ANYTHING happens after death is because you were lied to by people who sought to replace their ignorance with fantasy out of fear. Nobody knows what happens after death, not one living person. Don't let them tell you otherwise. You're still maintaining some vestiges of the way the church trained you to think as a child. From the tone of your post it seems like now you're past that (I hope), and kudos for that. Nobody judges you besides yourself and your society and none of your actions (including taking LSD) have any meaning outside that which you give them. We have enough to worry about in this culture trying to practice our hobby and craft (and pursue our happiness) out of the reach of the long arm of the law. We don't need to waste time thinking about afterlife what-ifs... nobody does. It's just not constructive.

 

[pharmakos]

maybe psychedelics are better than heaven, and so instead of going to heaven after you die you just reincarnate on earth so that you can take more drugs!