If someone tripped once, had a profound experience and after 2 years of no psychedelic use still says it changed him, yes I'll take his word for it.
A stupendously fallacious arguement. This is like saying "I learned grammar and spelling in school, but 20 years later I'm using internet shorthand on an iPhone, so my english language tuition was pointless". Bollox. You learned grammar and spelling
then, and it enabled you to write whatever you wanted
then, which through an infinitely complex series of causal events affected what situation you find yourself in
now. Just because you are not writing cute poems and essays on parchment with a fountain pen anymore doesn't mean what you learned was completely irrelevant to what you are doing now.
Obviously, everything is impermanent. As I go through life, I fluctuate through periods of greater awareness and lesser awareness. The general trend is towards greater awareness because I attain for continuous self-betterment, but nothing stays still in the way that you are expecting people to prove. That goes for everything in existence, not just people's experiences with psychedelic drugs.
dezz said:
They often have a hard time describing what actually changed them. It's because you gained NOTHING.
Speak for yourself mate. I gain enormous benefits from psychedelic use. One of those benefits is the pure fun, euphoria, and amazement at the time of the trip itself. That alone should easily be enough to justify their use (if they even need justifying in your eyes). Other benefits are intellectual, emotional, and spiritual in nature, and last way beyond the trip itself.
Here, I'll list some:
I have come to appreciate music more, to the point of having braingasms with my favourite music. I have gained a massive increase in visuo-spatial awareness and creativity. I have learned to meditate and breathe properly because of psychedelics (not by reading books). In fact I initially learned basic breathing techniques and even yoga mudras purely from intuition/cell memory catalyzed by these states. It was only after researching more in those directions that it all made sense.
I have learned to take the time to appreciate the beauty of everything in the moment. I have learned that love is the purest essence of everything. I have learned to watch myself and see when I am being untrue to myself, or when my thoughts are getting me in trouble. I have understood karma, and interdependent co-arising. I have learned that the time is now. I have learned that there is far more to existence than what my preconceived ideas of reality lead me to beleive.
I have an increased efficiency for cognitive fucntioning and holistic knowing. I have understood what is to be "out of balance" and "in balance", since you only see it when you have a moment of pure harmony. I understand Yoga, whereas before I thought it was just people making shapes with their bodies.
I've understood how the mind works 100% in union with the body, and how that translates to what is happing in the reality around and about me. I've learned to let go of my existential guilt (guilt about existing) and to let it roll and go with the super-euphoric orgiastic fluid joyride of existence. I felt stuck like a raisin in a sticky pudding. Now my mind feels like a greased up baby in a waterslide.
I understand why the stranger aspects of physics make sense. Nassim Haramein's "Schwartzchild Proton" makes sense to me after psychedelics. The prospect of one proton (and therefore any particle or given amount of mass) containing the entire mass of the universe within it is staggering at first, but it makes so much sense. I would never have understood such things without having engaged in the exploration of the psychedelic space. The universe is now a very different place to how I used to see it. Whereas I used to see the universe as an illogical mess of unfathomable proportions, I now see it as much smaller and closer to the heart than I could ever have imagined. It was always a fantasy of mine to understand "things" much better, and I wasn't making any progress until I started using psychedelics. And now meditation and yoga has put on the afterburners and taken it to a whole new level of extreme.
All of these things have lead to enormous happiness and euphoria in my life, a quantum leap from where I was at before I started using psychedelics.
To expect a psychedelic drug experience to hand you enlightenment on a plate is pure fantasia, and it shows that your expectations of the psychedelic experience are completely distorted. Just because I'm not "enlightened" (an impossibility), does not mean that my psychedelic drug experiences have not been worthy or beneficial. On the contrary, my experiences have benefitted me in ways I just can't even begin to elucidate up on. I'm sorry if you can't understand that. If they did not benefit me, I wouldn't use them. I'm sure there are people who would think that base jumping is a worthless pursuit, but ask the people who engage in it. They gain enourmous benefits, even if it's just for the sheer amazing rush of the activity.