Psychedelics and God?

[jgh7]

Many people claim to go on spiritual journeys when they do psychedelics. Certain psychedelics such as DMT are considered to be extremely spiritual by many. Shamans in South America use DMT derived from the iowaska plant to go on their journeys. Other psychedilics such as Ketamine are actually used by doctors to treat depression and other illnesses.


Questions:
Do you think people can come in to contact with God or spirits by doing psychedelics? Or do they come in to contact with demons? Or is it simply hallucinations of the mind and nothing more? Do you consider psychedelics bad or immoral (both for religious and/or non-religious reasons)? Would you take the spiritual experience of a person who did psychedelics any less or more seriously than the spiritual experience of a religious person?

(I put this in the science section in case anyone wanted to go deep into chemical reactions to explain why psychedelics do what they do)

[agnosticatheist]

Many people claim to go on spiritual journeys when they do psychedelics. Certain psychedelics such as DMT are considered to be extremely spiritual by many. Shamans in South America use DMT derived from the iowaska plant to go on their journeys. Other psychedilics such as Ketamine are actually used by doctors to treat depression and other illnesses.


Questions:
Do you think people can come in to contact with God or spirits by doing psychedelics? Or do they come in to contact with demons? Or is it simply hallucinations of the mind and nothing more? Do you consider psychedelics bad or immoral (both for religious and/or non-religious reasons)? Would you take the spiritual experience of a person who did psychedelics any less or more seriously than the spiritual experience of a religious person?

(I put this in the science section in case anyone wanted to go deep into chemical reactions to explain why psychedelics do what they do)

First, from an epistemological point of view, because of the problem of other minds, we have no way of verifying what anyone outside of our mind has experienced, so we cannot say take any particular position on the experiences of another mind.

With that said, from what I have seen and am aware of, if people have actually had contact with real, non-material entities, I would say the overwhelming majority of them have been what Christians would call "demonic." I can understand the basic concepts of good and evil, and despite the fact that I reject Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc, I cannot rule out the possibility that there is a "spiritual" realm, and that there is a battle between good evil going on (That's part of why I reject Christianity, Judaism, and Islam...if good and evil exist, those three religions were/still are evil...).

Speaking from my own personal experience, I have never used psychedelics, but I have been attacked during lucid dreams, and perhaps had some "sleep paralysis" attacks as well, and usually there is some sort of presence(s), usually not visible, that is(are) what I understand to be evil. The experiences are straight up creepy and chilling; usually when I wake up from them I am creeped out and often can't go right back to sleep...

From the Christian's perspective, the psychedelic stuff is definitely off-limits, because you are taking spiritual revelation into your own hands rather than letting God handle it...

[bluethread]

There is no commandment against taking drugs, that I am aware of, and there are mystical sects that do use drugs for "spiritual" reasons. Paul does say that we should be temperate, however. Being a Pharisee, he is more of a rationalist.

Question for agnosticatheist: what do you understand the basic concepts of good and evil to be?

[agnosticatheist]

There is no commandment against taking drugs, that I am aware of, and there are mystical sects that do use drugs for "spiritual" reasons. Paul does say that we should be temperate, however. Being a Pharisee, he is more of a rationalist.

Question for agnosticatheist: what do you understand the basic concepts of good and evil to be?

I said in the hand cutting law thread that I would not be responding to you and JW further. Im only responding here to remind you of that, since you clearly forgot. You two scumbag cowards did not answer a question that, IIRC, i asked you multiple times to answer, and because of that, I am done with you two.

Bye.

[Neatras]

We know hallucinations exist. We do not know that spiritual phenomena exist.

So it would be more in line with verifiable data to classify psychedelic experiences as hallucinations. We already consider non-spiritual psychedelic experiences to be hallucinations, so why would we exclude experiences someone has that has a particular side effect of triggering the well-known phenomena of humans seeking mysticism?

[OnceConvinced]

. Im only responding here to remind you of that, since you clearly forgot. You two scumbag cowards did not answer a question that, IIRC, i asked you multiple times to answer, and because of that, I am done with you two.

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[DanieltheDragon]

There is no commandment against taking drugs, that I am aware of, and there are mystical sects that do use drugs for "spiritual" reasons. Paul does say that we should be temperate, however. Being a Pharisee, he is more of a rationalist.

Question for agnosticatheist: what do you understand the basic concepts of good and evil to be?

That is interesting and I did not know that. How influential are these mystical sects within Jewish culture I wonder.

[bluethread]

There is no commandment against taking drugs, that I am aware of, and there are mystical sects that do use drugs for "spiritual" reasons. Paul does say that we should be temperate, however. Being a Pharisee, he is more of a rationalist.

Question for agnosticatheist: what do you understand the basic concepts of good and evil to be?

That is interesting and I did not know that. How influential are these mystical sects within Jewish culture I wonder.

Though I do not adhere to Kabbalah, it is referenced in its teachings. The most common drugs used in Jewish communities are not hallucinogenic, i.e. alcohol, caffeine and nicotine. There are Scriptural and rabbinic references to times when it is appropriate to over indulge in alcohol, but temperance is the general rule.

[Youkilledkenny]

[Replying to post 1 by jgh7]

I think anything that causes one's brain to see/hear/experience out of the normal things can, and does, account for many claims such as hearing voices, experiencing visions, etc.

That said, I also believe there are people who do experience such things w/o drugs or external influences.

The difference seems to be the 'grand-ness' in said experiences: the more elaborate seem to be those from those using external means while those more mundane are from the other group.

Usually.

[Monta]

[Replying to post 2 by agnosticatheist]

"From the Christian's perspective, the psychedelic stuff is definitely off-limits, because you are taking spiritual revelation into your own hands rather than letting God handle it..."

People seeking spiritual experience are taking it with reverence - ayawasca is called spiritual molecule.
I believe some Christian churches in Spain are using it in their church services.
I would love to try it if it were available where I live and I certainly would not
take it for fun.