[notliketherest]

All of this "self exploration, cosmos consciousness, soul enlightenment" justification for using these drugs sounds to me like the promises of profit in Tim Ferris' 4 hour work week: 1) take drugs 2) ??? 3) Enlightenment. You know that Mt Fuji analogy whereby a hiker hikes to the top of Mt Fuji for enlightenment, choosing his path on the way? Well it seems to me like this people are looking for a quick helicopter ride to the top. And having used these drugs myself in the past, I was so stupid and naive to think that it would impart the wisdom that decades of life should give you. Idk to me this all seems like a bunch of bullshit.

[empath75]

Drug experiences are still experiences and like any experience, you can learn something from them or waste them.

At the absolute least, a psychedelic experience should teach you a lesson about the reliability of the senses and about how subjective our experience of reality can be, which is a valuable lesson to learn, IMO, and no matter how much you understand it intellectually, directly experiencing it is another matter entirely.

[notliketherest]

You make a good point - the psychedelic experience can lead to a greater sense of empathy in that you perceive the world not through the eyes of your ego but as "all one" (over simplification). An increase in empathy is a good thing but equating these drugs to a magic pill for self actualization is wrong.

[posterboy]

> world not through the eyes of your ego

in most cases, you don't see much of the world past you own eyes anymore, but some "fantasy", which is why it is aptly called an hallucinogen. It messes with your head and you have a hard time making sense of the world so you revert to some basic notions of knowledge, that appear like an epiphany because they are that basic. I don't think these are new found insights and good luck if these facilities of your brain are damaged in the process. It is called acid for a reason.

Edit: A neat analogy would be fuzzing a production system. Not only that, it is randomly deleting files and flipping bits of memory to see how robust the system is. If your system is error free, the fuzzing is not a problem, but every system has bugs.

[sn9]

It seems like the people profiled in the article failed to learn that completely. Instead they go on about plant spirits and vibrations and other things they hallucinated as if they were actually real. That the perception of truth and truth itself are the same thing.

You don't need drugs at all to learn how subjective our own perceptions of reality are. And the risks suggest that it would be unwise to do so.

[empath75]

Like I said, you can waste it, amd lots of people do. Some people go through their entire lives and learn nothing. I'm sure you can appreciate that reading about a rose is not the same as smelling and seeing and holding a rose, though.

[pazimzadeh]

Interesting that you used the helicopter analogy. I used the same analogy earlier this year when trying to convince someone to try LSD. In my analogy, the helicopter won't drop you off at the summit (LSD only lasts 12 hours), it will only help you fly around and see if there are any alternate paths that you could take. If you are already aware that there is a path up the mountain, then taking a helicopter up would be wasteful. But if you get stuck in a local valley and can't find your way up, you might despair and stop trying to climb. Once you fly around and find a plausible path, the helicopter drops you off where you started and it's up to you to climb up the mountain.

[dwaltrip]

They are a tool. I think a good analogy is an empty notebook. The notebook provides a potential medium for personal enrichment, but you need to have a prepared mind to get anything out of it.

I would argue that psychedelics are much more powerful than a notebook, but also require greater care and preparation.

Many opt to simply have the analogous experience of "doodling in the notebook", as it requires much less effort and can be great fun. However, this does leave greater potential for a bad trip if one is not ready to face what they may encounter.

[CuriouslyC]

I wouldn't describe the drug as imparting wisdom, so much as letting you view the world through eyes unfettered by cultural programming. The wisdom comes from holding on to that feeling of unfettered experience, and trying to progressively deconstruct your cultural programming until you return to that place.