Do you think that the use of psychedelics carries the risk with it, of spiritual and intellectual laziness?

It is relatively easy to have deeply spiritual experiences with almost any psychedelic. Integration may be more challenging ofcourse, spiritually and intellectually. But not everybody is equally succesfull in integrating these experiences.

I wouldn't say that personally. Deep work on psychedelics is hard work. They may give us a quicker glimpse of the destination but then we always have to come down in a few hours and find a way to get back there in our day to day lives. If you never knew where the destination was then no amount of hard work could get you there. You could be hard at work digging a hole for all I know. So i don't see the connection to laziness really. I say better to get the glimpse and spend 80 years on self improvement, then spend 60 years trying to get the glimpse and 20 years on self improvement. Both are hard work. But one reaps more gains.

But i dó see a lot of big ego's within the psychedelic community, starting fights over stupid, ego-related, little things (like for instance, the dismissive way, marting ball speaks of terrence mckenna as a person. The need to clearly emphasize that he has more experience with 5-MeO-DMT. A simmilar sort of fight is going on in the 'truth-changa' thread)
And there are, ofcourse, the people with a messiah-complex. And the people who claim to have absolute knowledge of the one and only 'big truth'... The great big secret of the universe that only they know about.
And then there are those who consider it the worst kind of sacrilige, whenever views of terrence mckenna are being questioned (as if most of his views aren't at least a bit provocative).

Could all of that be an unforseen side-effect of divine experiences? Having experiences that are simply too heavenly or too divine, with too little effort? Could it be the result of taking something incredible, for granted too easily? Or maybe, of not taking integration seriously enough?

It does seem as if, at least, those people don't even bother, reflecting on what they've experienced.

People have a tendency to take themselves and their experiences too seriously. I think it has to do with this much more than laziness.

Just because someone has a particular experience on a drug doesn't necessarily mean that this experience has anything to do with anything outside their head. And if 1000 people have the same experience, all that means is that they have similar brains.

Sometimes these spiritual discussions on the Nexus remind me of the idiot Christians that I grew up with desperately grasping for some deeper meaning to life.

moar like, i would rather sit here and automatically understand the universe than to experience it
also, what laziness means: life is a drag
what does it mean to feel that?: i don't really wanna live
hence why its a cardinal sin, or whatever
take moar lsd

This is an interesting topic...

I've actually started using psychedelics to resolve my spiritual issues. I was an atheist for my whole life, but before trying them out I started questioning myself "what is this higher power that people talk about? Why are so many passionate in defending their spirituality". I then went out of my way to find psychedelics, to get a glimpse of what they're talking about, thinking maybe than I'll at least understand it.

...and so I did, psychedelics do something to the brain that makes you have ideas that you would never came up without them. I immediately had a better grasp on concepts such as soul, heaven, hell, demons, reincarnation. I also went this far as thinking that we are a part of another big organism, that the universe is a brain cell from something bigger and that this bigger organism is just a small fraction of another bigger organism. That definitely changed my views towards death for a short time, but now that I really think about all of that stuff my trips were always confusing.

The reason they were confusing is because I always went too deep with my mind, and this lead me to things that I never could explain to myself. Ultimately an dead end.

After that I tried the lazy approach, diving in the experiences with stuff that I know to be true like the fact that I'm on drugs. On this way my trips actually became more significant, and enjoyable as every crazy idea was left at just that. A crazy idea. It made my trips more humorous, and more connected with what the mass people call "reality".

I finally managed to get out of the dead end, and get a more realistic view of the world. I'm still an atheist, but now I understand spiritual people, their ideas, and why people take religion so seriously.

I preceded to use psychedelics for other reasons after that point, one of which is thinking outside the box, changing my routine from time to time, analyzing for further self improvement, and last but not least because they are fun of coarse.

"I also went this far as thinking that we are a part of another big organism, that the universe is a brain cell from something bigger and that this bigger organism is just a small fraction of another bigger organism"

I dont see why that's a crazy idea. It's what we as humans are anyhow. One organism made of smaller ones.

Good topic. I started to experience quite a bit of disillusionment the more involved I became with face to face interactions with the psychedelic community. Witnessing a whole lot of toxic behavior just as you describe, Dragonrider.

I think a more critical eye should be applied to the community and the statements and actions of participants as a whole. Far too many are merely apologists for psychedelics, perhaps making up for a perceived stigma by denying any negative aspects.

In relation to the question in spiritual shortcuts, of course, the vast majority will say that just by sheer virtue of using psychedelics they are doing 'work'. I like that you point out that successful integration is the work. The reason that it is work is because it requires action, knowledge and wisdom to enact.

Far too much talk is given to the poor maligned ego in all this, when I really don't think many people even know what it really is, let alone what a term like ego death means. I find it endlessly entertaining, and a tad distressing, to hear a couple ayahuasca tourists debate who is more enlightened among them.

It isn't all unicorns and bubbles in the trip tent.

Yeah, it's a bit of a cognitive dissonance at first, isn't it?
My initial thoughts, after coming into contact with some major psychedelic assholes where "how can something as divine and beautiful as the psychedelic experience cause some people to turn into such assholes?"

But then i thought: what if it isn't in spite of, but BECAUSE of the beauty that they've experienced, that they've become such assholes?

I've read somewhere that having more money can make people greedier. Maybe because of a sense of entitlement, that comes with it.

Anyway, how to prevent becoming an asshole, when you take psychedelics?

There was this topic about whether or not a new psychedelic revolution is underway.
And a new psychedelic revolution...i'm all for it. But what IF a new psychedelic revolution is underway? How to prevent it leading to the same kind of dissilusionment, as the 60s did?

Possibly think about these so called spiritual issues as psychological.

Being an asshole, as well as being lazy, is human nature- And the only way you can escape your human nature is by not being a human, i.e. dead...

Tru Fax!

So is questioning the validity of other peoples spiritual experiences a product of human nature. As for being an arsehole, i think that arseholery is in the eye of the beholder. This is nicely illustrated by the schrodinger's cat thought experiment, whereby the subject is placed in a box and exists simultaneously as an arsehole and not an arsehole. Once an outside observer comes along, they can determine whether the person in the box is in fact an arsehole....Or not.

Yeah, that rings true to me...but then, if the normal asshole/not asshole ratio is about 50/50%, there must be a reason for why that's so, and not 60/40 or something else.

I have the suspicion that a better integration of the psychedelic experience could drasticly improve a person's overall 'asshole-being' statistics.

That's it, and is a little scary, because it's really hard to confront. Some of the worst ones have a lot of defenders. A lot if these people pull off the 'ultra spiritual',thing really well, a lot of them are narcissistic sociopaths, some are both.

The really bad ones know that they are in a place rife with lost people seeking guidance answers and truth. Offer a little, wear some white and beads and Bam! Instant shaman.

Sham-men like that Trinity deGuzman guy pop up like weeds in this environment, it's up to us to self police this thing and call them out. Responsibly of course, without personal agenda.

Maybe I'm getting to the place where I'm second guessing everything, re analyzing my intentions and the community I'm involved in because I've been in long enough to see the dark corners. Which is a good thing. I just feel like I'm beyond the apologetic phase and don't need to over amplify all the shiny good stuff, but begin to look at some of the not so great parts to see what can be done.

I do think there is unquestionably a renaissance, a resurgence, a reawakening, paradigm shift, awareness, whatever you want to call it. Finally, psychedelics will be at least partially available legally through therapists' offices pretty soon. The legalization of weed I always point to, and a general about face in the public conversation about drug use and abuse, as well as drastic improvements in the quality and accessibility to treatment and change in policy away from harsher sentencing guidelines are all signs.

The community here at the nexus is highly equipped to be on the front lines of this shift and indeed I think it is. The conversations here have gone on to become The Conversations around some of the concepts, attitudes and behavior in the larger community. That's big responsibility, folks!

Hard to say what spirituality is, let alone spiritual laziness, but I don't think psychedelics are going to get you anywhere on their own if you want to make any kind of personal progress, spiritual, psychological, or whatever. I think that is well established.

Less well established is that psychedelics can exacerbate various undesirable personality traits (and/or disorders). In encountering psychedelics, people who would otherwise be mere toxic sleazebags are gifted with a "mission" and an enhanced means to pursue it.

I think psychedelics are an excellent neurological and psychological tonic, sometimes a physical tonic, definitely for me an emotional tonic, and perhaps a "spiritual" tonic. What they probably shouldn't be seen as is a "path" in and of themselves.

Thanks Null 24, This very closely resembles my sentiment.

I feel that so much of this spirituality stands in the way both of truly understanding what psychedelic states of mind are and of integrating them into our modern western culture that has been made possible largely by science.

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that keeps popping up in science pointing toward some sort of link between psychedelics and a spiritual something. If we want to find a more tangible link here, it's not going to come from spiritual exercises alone. The same rigorous science that finds these links will continue to be the venue of discovery.

Don't get me wrong here. I truly hope that a link is found, but much of this spiritual "garbage" only stands in the way. Only when we consider all options including that it might all just be in our heads, will we uncover anything resembling the truth.

In the mean time, what we do know is that these substances are powerful psychological tools. Spiritual tools... ... perhaps, but possibly delusional.

As i said before, being an arsehole is dependent on the observer. So if your claim that 50% of the world are arseholes is true, one 50% (or a percentage thereof) will think that the other 50% are arseholes. Which 50% is right?
At least if half the world are arses and the other half arn't it shows that there is a cosmic balance at play. It also gives the 50% who arn't a chance to look down on the other 50% and be (arse)holier than thou.

I think the posts in this thread are quite pertinent to this one.

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=67920

Those who are serious about self-growth gain more from psychedelics than the boring hedonist.

The problems with large groups of people are the people. I had to spend a week at the VA hospital a couple of months ago. I was chatting with a nurse who used to be a science teacher and commented that half of her students were below average. That blew her mind and put her in denial she is like "I don't believe that." So a science teacher does not believe in the bell curve distribution?

People do Psychedelics for a multitude of reasons. I am nearing the end of my journey in this world and for me and a lot of people doing Psychedelics, it makes the transition from this plane of existence a lot less scary.

Can it lead to spiritual laziness yes it can. Can it lead to deeper understanding of the mystery of life yes it can. I have been a Buddhist for a while and have done some ten day silent meditation retreats. The last few days are so beautiful I can see the intricate nature of everything. Ajahn Braham tells a story of how one retreat he used the bathroom and was looking at wonder at his shit it was so beautiful.

I think it is all about intention. If you do Psychedelics with the intention of spiritual growth you might get some. My last trip on Mushrooms was not pleasant by any means but it was very healing.

The key is combining Entheogens with intention to direct spiritual practices. Entheogens are one piece of a grand spiritual continuum, but they are not the be all end all. That said they can be an extremely important and productive aspect of a spiritual practice