Beyond Psychedelics

[Starward]

It is well established that psychedelic substances do occasion mystical experiences, and they continue to be used for religious and spiritual reasons. Despite the link between psychedelics and spirituality, there seems to be little follow-up in regard to the long-term changes in regards to specific religious and spiritual practices that psychedelic mystical experiences instigate and maintain. 

 

My questions to you are: 

 

How have psychedelics altered your religious and/or spiritual practice, and if so, where has it led you?

Did psychedelics reinforce your existing believes or did psychedelics cause a major redirection in your religious and/or spiritual practice?

 

 

My journey started by being raised in the Seventh Day Adventist Church, an experience completely devoid of any notion of a direct ecstatic experience of the divine. Interestingly enough, my first true transformative experience was through participation in a Voodoo ritual complete with animal sacrifice and fire worship, where for the first time I experienced a trance-like state akin to spirit possession. The next was a physical ordeal as part of martial arts practice tied to Shinto and Buddhist practices; over a period of several hours of rhythmic group vocalization under physical stress, I transcended my body, becoming an energetic wave. However, the mainstay of my everyday personal religious life was Soto Zen Buddhism; however, this was a more gradual transformative practice. It was only when I sought out psychedelics to address questions that had remained unanswered that I came to realize that I have always sought those experiences hinted at but that institutionalized religion could never provide: a direct becoming of existence, a non-dualism of Being.

 

My exposure to psychedelics, admittedly later in life, has radically fractured and transformed the quality of my religious feeling and sentiment; it could not have been more distinct. It has transformed my own understanding of what it means to live and instigated within me a deep appreciation for the profundity contained within millennia of classical religious wisdom and practice. Through a process of serendipity and synchronicity, I am now able to draw upon a classical lineage of teachers that ensures me with "corrective thought" while providing me a scaffolding for a sustaining a burgeoning spirituality sustained beyond the transient well spring of psychedelics.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 24 by Starward

[Alchemica]

I came from the ultimate spiritual void of not being open to anything other than science. Dismissing the Sacred. Eventually I think that asserted itself in a rather heavy way of coming through via endogenous ASCs etc. Over the years I realised there's got to be more to life. Started thinking there's new ways on feeling and being that don't revolve around analysing everything. How could I feel and embrace more love. Eventually, I came to the viewpoint that I needed a down-to-Earth spirituality. During the earlier stages, I was more 'open to experience', going to new places such as attending Buddhist structured meditations, prayer etc but in the end, just became more centred in wanting to be a better human in small ways. I got into structured breathwork, explored some personal meditation stuff. Sitting with Cacao in ceremony etc

 

 

These words resonated for me in terms of down-to-earth spirituality Dear Human: It’s Okay to Be Both Sacred AND Wild ⋆ LonerWolf

[withdrawl clinic]

a subject close to my heart!

 

all though i was once having an audiance with "god" on a mushy trip, i seperate spirituality from halus.

i was brought up ultra katholic, but it never clicked with me, but the singing in church felt nice.

later i realised that music was a very cool gift from nature, and that all religions have a good aim, to make you a better person...

i worship nature, and quantum physics tell me that the univers is an incredible place.

 

i have to finish this another time, i use a puplic pc, and people around me are disrespectfull...