Psychedelics

[Astra052]

Has anyone here tried psychedelics? I feel like I already know the answer to that question but to follow up, how do you feel like they have changed your perspective on things? Have they shown you anything new? Did you have a particularly profound experience? How would you say psychedelics and idealism relate? There seems to be a large amount of overlap between the two interests.

[5MeO-DMT_Philosopher]

Yes, I've tried high doses of DPT and 5-MeO-DMT and medium doses of 2-CB and 1P-LSD

1P-LSD and 2C-B weren't that profound but after DPT and 5-MeO breakthroughs I went from physicalist atheist to seriously considering Idealism now. However, there is still the assumption of other alters to make if you wanna make that ultimate experience compatible with idealism because when you're there, it feels like you become a solipsistic master of the universe and I'm the only one who exists, there are no others.

The experience itself is very very profound. I've done over 20 different recreational drugs in my life and nothing was even close to a breakthrough into God in terms of its long-term change in my thinking about reality. 5-MeO-DMT is the most powerful drug for exploring consciousness, for sure

And here is the thing I know Sam Harris, Sean Carrol, and a lot of other materialists has tried mushrooms or LSD but they still haven't had a breakthrough because those are just too weak substances in the normal dose range to dissolve them into the solipsistic master of the universe. The difference between having even a very profound high-dose LSD trip and a breakthrough on 5-MeO is insane.

[Jim Cross]

There is no direct connection between idealism and psychedelics. Take it from Timothy Leary, author of



“The level of intelligence has been tremendously increased, because people are thinking and communicating in terms of screens, and not in lettered books. Much of the real action is taking place in what is called cyberspace. People have learned how to boot up, activate, and transmit their brains.

Essentially, there’s a universe inside your brain. The number of connections possible inside your brain is limitless. And as people have learned to have more managerial and direct creative access to their brains, they have also developed matrices or networks of people that communicate electronically. There are direct brain/computer link-ups. You can just jack yourself in and pilot your brain around in cyberspace-electronic space.”
― Timothy Leary, Chaos & Cyber Culture

[AshvinP]

Has anyone here tried psychedelics? I feel like I already know the answer to that question but to follow up, how do you feel like they have changed your perspective on things? Have they shown you anything new? Did you have a particularly profound experience? How would you say psychedelics and idealism relate? There seems to be a large amount of overlap between the two interests.

No, but... when asked about it, Jung wrote the following with the now famous title, "Beware of Unearned Wisdom", and he was a very wise man.

It has indeed very curious effects— of which I know far too little. I don’t know either what its psychotherapeutic value with neurotic or psychotic patients is. I only know there is no point in wishing to know more of the collective unconscious than one gets through dreams and intuition.

The more you know of it, the greater and heavier becomes our moral burden, because the unconscious contents transform themselves into your individual tasks and duties as soon as they begin to become conscious.

Do you want to increase loneliness and misunderstanding? Do you want to find more and more complications and increasing re­sponsibilities? You get enough of it.

If I once could say that I had done everything I know I had to do, then perhaps I should realize a legitimate need to take mescalin.
But if I should take it now, I would not be sure at all that I had not taken it out of idle curiosity.

I should hate the thought that I had touched on the sphere where the paint is made that colours the world, where the light is created that makes shine the splendour of the dawn, the lines and shapes of all form, the sound that fills the orbit, the thought that illuminates the darkness of the void.

There are some poor impoverished creatures, perhaps, for whom mescalin would be a heaven-sent gift without a counterpoison, but I am profoundly mistrustful of the “pure gifts of the Gods.” You pay very dearly for them.

This is not the point at all, to know of or about the unconscious, nor does the story end here; on the contrary it is how and where you begin the real quest.

If you are too unconscious it is a great relief to know a bit of the collective unconscious. But it soon becomes dangerous to know more, because one does not learn at the same time how to balance it through a conscious equivalent.

That is the mistake Aldous Huxley makes: he does not know that he is in the role of the “Zauberlehrling,” who learned from his master how to call the ghosts but did not know how to get rid of them again:

It is really the mistake of our age: We think it is enough to discover new things, but we don’t realize that knowing more demands a cor­responding development of morality. Radioactive clouds over Japan, Calcutta, and Saskatchewan point to progressive poisoning of the uni­versal atmosphere.

I should indeed be obliged to you if you could let me see the ma­terial they get with LSD. It is quite awful that the alienists have caught hold of a new poison to play with, without the faintest knowl­edge or feeling of responsibility. It is just as if a surgeon had never leaned further than to cut open his patient’s belly and to leave things there.

When one gets to know unconscious contents one should know how to deal with them. I can only hope that the doctors will feed themselves thoroughly with mescalin, the alkaloid of divine grace, so that they learn for themselves its marvellous effect.

You have not finished with the conscious side yet. Why should you expect more from the unconscious?

For 35 years I have known enough of the col­lective unconscious and my whole effort is concentrated upon prepar­ing the ways and means to deal with it.

[Astra052]

Yes, I've tried high doses of DPT and 5-MeO-DMT and medium doses of 2-CB and 1P-LSD

1P-LSD and 2C-B weren't that profound but after DPT and 5-MeO breakthroughs I went from physicalist atheist to seriously considering Idealism now. However, there is still the assumption of other alters to make if you wanna make that ultimate experience compatible with idealism because when you're there, it feels like you become a solipsistic master of the universe and I'm the only one who exists, there are no others.

The experience itself is very very profound. I've done over 20 different recreational drugs in my life and nothing was even close to a breakthrough into God in terms of its long-term change in my thinking about reality. 5-MeO-DMT is the most powerful drug for exploring consciousness, for sure

And here is the thing I know Sam Harris, Sean Carrol, and a lot of other materialists has tried mushrooms or LSD but they still haven't had a breakthrough because those are just too weak substances in the normal dose range to dissolve them into the solipsistic master of the universe. The difference between having even a very profound high-dose LSD trip and a breakthrough on 5-MeO is insane.

I agree with you here. A lot of people think they've seen all there is to see with psychedelics after only doing an LSD trip or two without touching things like a high psilocybin trip or 5-MeO. I think greater legal access to these substances will result in a major shift regarding how a lot of people think about consciousness. Once you completely lose concepts and just have a full feeling of the "All" it changes how you see things.

[Jim Cross]

Once you completely lose concepts and just have a full feeling of the "All" it changes how you see things.

Beware of set and setting. A lot of how you interpret what you experience is what you want or expect to experience.

The set and setting hypothesis basically holds that the effects of psychedelic drugs are dependent first and foremost upon set (personality, preparation, expectation, and intention of the person having the experience) and setting (the physical, social, and cultural environment in which the experience takes place)

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/1 ... 4516683325

[Soul_of_Shu]

As mentioned elsewhere, I've no experience with 5-Me0-dmt, but have recreationally taken mescaline and psilocybin many years ago, with no real 'spiritual' intention, and while I've no clue what the actual dosage was, not being done in any methodical or measured way, I suspect that it was not nearly high enough to have the truly profound effects they are capable of, albeit the experience left me evermore doubtful of the materialist paradigm I had been indoctrinated into. I do know that BK has explored some psychedelic modality, which he's not specific about, delving into those explorations in his book Dreamed Up Reality, whereby I feel it's safe to say the experiences he reports, quite profound according to his detailed descriptions, were useful insofar as informing the model of idealism he was formulating in those early stages.

In any case, my own experience, involving no psychedelics, of the so-called 'nondual' state, much like is described by mystics of all sorts, usually from the meditative traditions but not always, happened inexplicably out of the blue, being blown away to the very core of ones being ~ understanding that this is apparently quite rare ~ and if there is any more profound experience to be had, I can't imagine what that might be.

[SanteriSatama]

Shrooms, Ayahuasca and Peyote, the latter two in traditional indigenous settings. Also some other little experimentation and tasting, including a period of microdosing iboga.

In my case the psychadelic experiences have had a a complementary relation with other spontaneous and meditative spiritually transformative experiences.

I can't say that I've ever really believed in materialism, concluding that idealism offers a better frame of investigation than aspect-dualism is mainly due to philosophical process. My approach to general frame of idealism can be characterized by terms 'process philosophy' and 'animism'.

[Lou Gold]

I've not experienced all of the mentioned substances but, following 23 years of serious sustained spiritual use including literally 1000's of personal doses and lots of observations of others, I'd pretty much say yes to all the comments above.

[AshvinP]

Has anyone here tried psychedelics? I feel like I already know the answer to that question but to follow up, how do you feel like they have changed your perspective on things? Have they shown you anything new? Did you have a particularly profound experience? How would you say psychedelics and idealism relate? There seems to be a large amount of overlap between the two interests.

No, but... when asked about it, Jung wrote the following with the now famous title, "Beware of Unearned Wisdom", and he was a very wise man.

It has indeed very curious effects— of which I know far too little. I don’t know either what its psychotherapeutic value with neurotic or psychotic patients is. I only know there is no point in wishing to know more of the collective unconscious than one gets through dreams and intuition.

The more you know of it, the greater and heavier becomes our moral burden, because the unconscious contents transform themselves into your individual tasks and duties as soon as they begin to become conscious.

Do you want to increase loneliness and misunderstanding? Do you want to find more and more complications and increasing re­sponsibilities? You get enough of it.

If I once could say that I had done everything I know I had to do, then perhaps I should realize a legitimate need to take mescalin.
But if I should take it now, I would not be sure at all that I had not taken it out of idle curiosity.

I should hate the thought that I had touched on the sphere where the paint is made that colours the world, where the light is created that makes shine the splendour of the dawn, the lines and shapes of all form, the sound that fills the orbit, the thought that illuminates the darkness of the void.

There are some poor impoverished creatures, perhaps, for whom mescalin would be a heaven-sent gift without a counterpoison, but I am profoundly mistrustful of the “pure gifts of the Gods.” You pay very dearly for them.

This is not the point at all, to know of or about the unconscious, nor does the story end here; on the contrary it is how and where you begin the real quest.

If you are too unconscious it is a great relief to know a bit of the collective unconscious. But it soon becomes dangerous to know more, because one does not learn at the same time how to balance it through a conscious equivalent.

That is the mistake Aldous Huxley makes: he does not know that he is in the role of the “Zauberlehrling,” who learned from his master how to call the ghosts but did not know how to get rid of them again:

It is really the mistake of our age: We think it is enough to discover new things, but we don’t realize that knowing more demands a cor­responding development of morality. Radioactive clouds over Japan, Calcutta, and Saskatchewan point to progressive poisoning of the uni­versal atmosphere.

I should indeed be obliged to you if you could let me see the ma­terial they get with LSD. It is quite awful that the alienists have caught hold of a new poison to play with, without the faintest knowl­edge or feeling of responsibility. It is just as if a surgeon had never leaned further than to cut open his patient’s belly and to leave things there.

When one gets to know unconscious contents one should know how to deal with them. I can only hope that the doctors will feed themselves thoroughly with mescalin, the alkaloid of divine grace, so that they learn for themselves its marvellous effect.

You have not finished with the conscious side yet. Why should you expect more from the unconscious?

For 35 years I have known enough of the col­lective unconscious and my whole effort is concentrated upon prepar­ing the ways and means to deal with it.

I believe he was specifically asked about mescaline and LSD fyi.