God in a pill & should/could the US continue to ban psilocybin?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Brain Wreck]
Well, anecdotes are not data, etc, but recently I had an (entirely legal) experience with a powerful hallucinogenic drug, and literally overnight I went from being a completely nonspiritual atheist to being a very spiritual person who believes in a higher universal consciousness. This was about 4 months ago, I took it only once, and I had no previous experience with psychedelics. It was a major, major life-changing paradigm shift for me. I feel incredibly frustrated that these healing sacred instruments carry the same legal penalty as destructive, unenlightening, escapist substances like meth.
[/QUOTE]
Now this is a post I find skin crawlingly creepy. What if someone forcibly injects/feeds me whatever you had ? What you call “sacred healing instrument” I call a mind destroying poison.

[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
Organized religion is more vulnerable to mysticism and personal revelation than it is to atheism. Organized religion depends on a series of revealed truths which it dispenses to the people in the form of a holy text or texts, and interpretations of said text. Mysticism allows people to find God on their own, dispensing with the middleman.
[/QUOTE]
I fail to see how disorganized lunacy is superior to organized lunacy. Nor do I believe that “mystical” experiences are even slightly destructive to organized religion; people are perfectly capable of working themselves into a state of religious madness in the service of their religion.

42

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Now this is a post I find skin crawlingly creepy. What if someone forcibly injects/feeds me whatever you had ? What you call “sacred healing instrument” I call a mind destroying poison.

[/QUOTE]

I don’t believe that his belief shift was due to taking the drug he took. If that were the case, I’d be a card-carrying believer! :wink: I’d like to see something that addresses this. Has anyone studied the correlation between psychedelics and born-againism?

43

I assure you it was pretty much entirely due to taking the drug.

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Now this is a post I find skin crawlingly creepy. What if someone forcibly injects/feeds me whatever you had ? What you call “sacred healing instrument” I call a mind destroying poison.
[/quote]

A substance that caused me to deviate from your dogmatic belief system is “mind-destroying”. Interesting. This is the same guise used by cultural conservatives to justify the war on drugs to control individual cognitive liberty. How does it feel to be a panicked naive suburban housewife, anyway?

It’s clear that you lack much understanding about spirituality beyond an angry child’s resentment of the organized religions. I can only respond that having a sense of sacredness and mindfulness in one’s life is a beautiful thing which does not require that I adhere dogmatically to some holy book, nor does it induce me to force it upon others.

44

[QUOTE=AskNott]
Please be aware that much of the stuff sold as psilocybin is LSD.
[/QUOTE]

As someone who has:

A) Studied economics
B) Grown Shiitake mushrooms
C) Read how to make LSD

I disagree. Mushrooms are easy to make…couple of mason jars, brown rice and a spore sample (which is easy to gather from mature mushrooms, meaning once you get one, you can pretty much always have a constant supply). What economic value is there in spraying LSD on dried mushrooms? Seems like the costs of production for that would be higher than for simply growing mushrooms. I guess if you have an abundance of LSD in an area, then maybe saying that you have mushrooms would cause a temporary price differential between the two, but…It just doesn’t add up over the long term, especially enough to make a statement like that.

Economics is also my argument against laced pot. Why would you sell something that has more expensive drugs on it for the same price as cheap and easy to get pot? I’m sure it has happened, but not nearly as much as some people try to make out. It’s like pouring an expensive wine into a screw-top bottle and selling it for the cheaper price.

Per OP: yeah, legalize them, if only to allow more comprehensive testing of them in controlled psychological studies to verify their uses. Wouldn’t it be great if depression, anxiety, etc could be cured with only a few trips down psilocybin/LSD lane?

-Tcat

45

[QUOTE=Brain Wreck]
A substance that caused me to deviate from your dogmatic belief system is “mind-destroying”. Interesting. This is the same guise used by cultural conservatives to justify the war on drugs to control individual cognitive liberty. How does it feel to be a panicked naive suburban housewife, anyway?
[/quote]

Calm down there, big guy. The statement wasn’t “I am creeped out by you and your thoughts, jerk!” I find that possibility creepy too. In the example given, forcing someone to take a mind-altering drug could have definite abusive uses. Upthread you even state the need for registered pro’s to administer the drug…It could be mind-destroying if administered negatively, even for a ‘positive’ result (thoughts of “A Clockwork Orange”).

-Tcat

46

Can’t have a debate on psilocybin and religion without referencing the classic Marsh Chapel Experiment.

Guys, Psilocybe (capital P-, ending -e) is mushrooms. While the topic under discussion is psilocybin (little p-, ending -in), a chemical derived from shrooms. In Aldous Huxley’s day, it came prepared in pill form.

For tonight’s assigment, class, read The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley.

47

Even if there is no medical or public-safety reason to ban a drug, it will be banned. The entire system is designed to suppress recreational drug use. Full stop.

48

[QUOTE=Tomcat]
In the example given, forcing someone to take a mind-altering drug could have definite abusive uses. Upthread you even state the need for registered pro’s to administer the drug…It could be mind-destroying if administered negatively, even for a ‘positive’ result (thoughts of “A Clockwork Orange”).

[/QUOTE]

Well, no, actually psychedelics will not “destroy your mind”. If someone were to surreptitiously slip you something (which I am absolutely against), you could have a good, bad, or neutral experience based on what’s going on with you or your environment. And not many psychedelics are effective in the microgram range, so it’s unlikely you’d be “slipped” a substance without your knowledge.

If you were confined and force-fed the drug, well, the issue there is not with the drug, it’s with the confinement and force-feeding thereof. And again, unless you’re confined long-term and subjected to a calculated mind control campaign, you’ll still have your mind when you come out. Again, confining people and force-feeding them drugs is still illegal in the US, afaik.

49

[QUOTE=Johanna]
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley.
[/QUOTE]
That of course being a treatise on mescaline, let me be the first to correct my error (though perhaps not entirely lacking in tangential relevance to the OP). Carry on.

Also: What Larry Borgia said. Right on.

50

[QUOTE=II Gyan II]

You need to know the true way in order to recognize ‘shortcuts’. I just say, to each his own.
You misunderstand how these experiences are supposed to help. They alter your journey rather than deposit you to a destination.
[/QUOTE]

That first sentence smacks of complete and utter Bullshit!
Do I fill out form TW-EZ or do I have to have two or more people to be in the diamond lane? If there is a true way, how could there be another, shorter way?

And, If I get a crack at that ‘to each his own’ bit, then why even take me to task for my misunderstanding? My parenthetical comment clearly started with, I. And Yes, I do misunderstand. If there is no destination, then how can there possibly be a shortcut?

The first time I drank more than a sip of beer, I thought, “This is great!” But the effect dulls over time and exposure. Maybe if people take certain drugs it just raises their spiritual tolerance. And I don’t mean that in a good way.

Anecdotally, One acquaintance of mine tried to convince me that he experienced great spiritual awakenings as well as creative leaps and emotional revelations when he took various hallucinogens. But when he didn’t have them, he twitched and bitched and couldn’t hold a normal conversation. My guess was that G-d was only interested in him for his stash.

51

I think sometimes that the spiritual value of hallucinogens, as well as their value as tools for learning, is overstated or romanticized. There’s no question that the experience can be profoundly affecting, novel, overwhelming, euphoric, frightening—but I’ve noticed, on forums devoted to discussing psychedelics, many people proclaim how much they’ve “learned” from their drug experiences, and how their lives have been changed for the better.

Yet in many cases, if you ask them to give an example of something they learned, or of how their lives have improved, they cannot. I’ll allow that much about psychedelics has to be experienced to be fully appreciated in a meaningful way. But if you say, for example, “LSD has taught me a lot,” and you can’t begin to describe, even in the most general way, anything you’ve learned, or how you use your newfound knowledge in your everyday life—how valuable can that “lesson” really have been?

I’m not sure I can truthfully say I learned anything from my own use of psychedelics other than what the experience felt like, which to my curious mind, was enough. In fairness, I guess knowledge is not what I was looking for, any more than I’d look to a bottle of Pinot Noir for answers to life’s questions. I was looking to have a good time, laughing hysterically with friends, and psychedelics were definitely good at providing that much.

52

[QUOTE=Vinyl Turnip]
I don’t think I’ve heard that before. I have, however, seen people complain that real LSD is hard to find nowadays, and that much of what is sold as LSD is actually a DOx chemical such as DOB, DOC, DOI, etc., which apparently have similar effects but a longer duration (sometimes lasting two or three days).

How would one disguise a piece of blotter paper as a mushroom, anyway?
[/QUOTE]

Vinyl Turnip and a half dozen others have challenged my assertion that LSD is falsely sold as psilocybin. Let me explain. My experience with psychedelics happened about thirty years ago, and I don’t know much about the current market. Over a few years, I used LSD dozens of times.

At the time, at street level, acid came in pills, blotter paper, and a form called windowpane, which seemed to have been dried in a clear sheet and cut up into tiny squares, and sold in between pieces of transparent tape. Considering those last two forms, bulk LSD must have been available as liquid. Some of the early blotter form was about 1/2 inch square, and the drop of drug was apparent on the paper.

Some pills were also sold as psilocybin, but the experience was no different from LSD. From the posts here, I can see that most psilocybin today is sold as mushrooms. That does not mean that it’s definitely the real thing. Liquid LSD, like many drugs, is very cheap at the wholesale level. Grocery store mushrooms are cheap, too. Drip a little LSD on a food mushroom, and bingo! Psilocybin!

Unless you personally know the person who grew or picked what you are buying, you don’t know what it is. Every dealer in between you and the source made a profit on it. The truth about what it really is and where it came from may have been tweaked several times before you see it. Your guy might say it was grown by a wrinkled old shaman in a jungle somewhere, or he might say a little guy in a spaceship traded it for a '56 Chevy. How do you know?

53

[QUOTE=AskNott]
How do you know?
[/QUOTE]

One doesn’t know for sure, any more than I know for sure that the bottle of aspirin really contains just ASA. It just doesn’t make economic sense. LSD is scarcer than shrooms; more difficult to make; more easily degradable; has its own demand. OTOH, shrooms are unique, in that, among illegal drugs, they are the easiest to get, once you know how. So, it could be happening, but it doesn’t make much sense.

You’re requiring some sort of coherent lexically-transmitted demonstration, but the effect is related to one’s sense of self. Let me put it this way: if there was some mechanism that enabled you to see a new color i.e. your brain generated a color sensation when interpreting some frequency outside the traditional visual spectrum. Besides explaining that you can see a new color, how would you describe the color itself?

You misunderstood what I wrote. Let me rephrase: unless you know the true way, one can’t recognize the shortcuts. Ergo, when you claim that a single experience isn’t a shortcut, you are implying that you do know the true way. Those who disagree with you will judge that implication as arrogant. So I just added, “to each his own”.

Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. Do you know for sure?

54

[QUOTE=II Gyan II]
You’re requiring some sort of coherent lexically-transmitted demonstration, but the effect is related to one’s sense of self. Let me put it this way: if there was some mechanism that enabled you to see a new color i.e. your brain generated a color sensation when interpreting some frequency outside the traditional visual spectrum. Besides explaining that you can see a new color, how would you describe the color itself?
[/QUOTE]

If by “coherent lexically-transmitted demonstration” you mean “example,” then yes. I acknowledged that words are insufficient to describe the psychedelic experience fully, but even in your example you are able to make a general statement: “I now see a new color that I couldn’t before.” You may not be able to describe the color, but I can at least understand, in a basic way, what changed for you.

If someone says “this experience taught me a lot of things and my life is different now,” but is unable to describe—on even the most basic level—something he learned, or give a single example of the way he thinks or behaves differently now, I have to question the validity of the assertion. I think the profundity, novelty, and sheer strangeness of the psychedelic experience can lead many to believe that something important has been shown them—but in the cold, sober light of day, it may be as ephemeral and disappointing as Liberal’s divine lamp instructions. By contrast, most who feel themselves transformed via religious experience—for which words can also be wholly inadequate descriptors—seem able to articulate how they have changed, and give specific examples of how they live their lives differently as a result.

55

[QUOTE=Vinyl Turnip]
“I now see a new color that I couldn’t before.” You may not be able to describe the color, but I can at least understand, in a basic way, what changed for you.
[/quote]

That’s because color is an existing shared concept. Of course, that’s why I used color as the basis for illustration.

This requires being able to articulate the differences in reference to existing shared concepts. Many of the psychedelic transformations occur at the fundamental ego level for which social linguistic discourse has no referents. I suspect very few deny that consciousness exists and yet philosophical essays often start with a mention of the lack of a rigorous definition. Even our discourse on emotions is so vague - one can be disposed hostilely in so many nuanced ways, but in everyday language, one is just angry. More detailed description may lead to either an adequate yet incomplete narrowing of identification or to uncaught misidentification (because there’s no precise standard in the first place).

This thinking results due to intepreting experiences within the present but unstated substance dualist framework dominant in the West. In other words, the content you are looking for is a piece of content that is static and is thus affirmed in all possible contexts. Your use of ‘sober’, in addition, also privileges the mundane state as the definitive arbiter, but if there’s one obvious thing that one gets from psychedelic experiences, it is that naive realism is false. Most trippers revere the psychedelic experience because it seems directly noetic rather than just due to the novelty or strangeness of it. This intuition cannot be discarded because then one would have to discard all noetic beliefs, such as that I’m seeing a monitor in front of me right now.

This should be obvious. People in different cultures often describe similar experiences similarly in basic terms but differently in terms of interpretation. For a Christian in the West, there’s Jesus and a holy white light. For others, it’s something else. Psychedelic experiences are drug-induced and aren’t necessarily shaped by existing religious framework. If you have a non-drug induced experience and you attribute to it a religious quality then you already have an existing social/religious tradition to guide you. You have to create your own framework if it’s drug-induced and you aren’t religious. On an empirical note, as I mentioned earlier, there are 10,000+ people in Brazil, who as members of syncretic religions, get together every two weeks to drink a brew containing DMT. Many of these members were former substance abusers, and are no longer so. They generally credit the experiences with the change.

56

[QUOTE=II Gyan II]
On an empirical note, as I mentioned earlier, there are 10,000+ people in Brazil, who as members of syncretic religions, get together every two weeks to drink a brew containing DMT. Many of these members were former substance abusers, and are no longer so. They generally credit the experiences with the change.
[/QUOTE]
Sounds like they just switched drugs.

57

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Sounds like they just switched drugs.
[/QUOTE]

Sounds like you like glib one-liners and don’t know what you are talking about. If you know even the basic difference between the nature of a psychedelic like DMT and something like alcohol or cocaine, then you know that your quip is nonsensical.

58

[QUOTE=II Gyan II]

You misunderstood what I wrote. Let me rephrase: unless you know the true way, one can’t recognize the shortcuts. Ergo, when you claim that a single experience isn’t a shortcut, you are implying that you do know the true way. Those who disagree with you will judge that implication as arrogant. So I just added, “to each his own”.
[/QUOTE]

I really don’t think I misunderstood this time.

Maybe try telling me again how I need to know the true way before I can speak about shortcuts.

As for shortcuts themselves, I don’t even believe in them when it comes to driving. There are shorter and longer ways and faster and cheaper ways and on and on. Those are all based on some objective criteria. If nothing else, a map. The only time there is a true short cut is when there is no other way to get from point A to point B and someone or something changes that. New information, maybe…

In the case of G-d or “spirituality” there is nothing objective at all. There is no destination, no path, no final goal and no intermediate steps or plateaus. I don’t claim to know “the way,” only that to say there are spiritual “shortcuts” is misnomer.

My experience with phsychedelics is that they trigger feelings and emotions that already occur normally, just in a more intense way. I don’t understand trails and other visual or auditory hallucinations, but I have somtimes had incredibly brief experiences comparable to those “trippy” feelings without using any drugs.

My feeling is that the “spiritual” sensation associated with psylocibin is probably more closely related to the munchies than it is to the Rapture.

59

[QUOTE=AskNott]
Some pills were also sold as psilocybin, but the experience was no different from LSD. From the posts here, I can see that most psilocybin today is sold as mushrooms. That does not mean that it’s definitely the real thing. Liquid LSD, like many drugs, is very cheap at the wholesale level. Grocery store mushrooms are cheap, too. Drip a little LSD on a food mushroom, and bingo! Psilocybin!
[/QUOTE]

Well, a couple of problems there. First, from what I hear, LSD is quite difficult to synthesize, comes from a small number of sources, and has gotten a lot more scarce and expensive since the missile silo bust in 2000. Second, it is also very perishable. Contrast that with magic mushrooms, which grow wild in cow pastures, and for which spores and grow kits are readily available over the internet. Plus, they keep a lot longer without degrading.

What sense on earth would it make to squander a scarce, expensive drug by passing it off for something that is much more readily available and cheaper? That’s like saying “be careful of what people are calling aluminum out there… a lot of it is really just platinum.”

60

[QUOTE=II Gyan II]
This thinking results due to intepreting experiences within the present but unstated substance dualist framework dominant in the West. In other words, the content you are looking for is a piece of content that is static and is thus affirmed in all possible contexts. Your use of ‘sober’, in addition, also privileges the mundane state as the definitive arbiter, but if there’s one obvious thing that one gets from psychedelic experiences, it is that naive realism is false.
[/QUOTE]

I would be curious to know under whose framework “THE LAMP IS ON” becomes a particularly meaningful lesson.

The fact is that most of us (with perhaps a few intrepid exceptions) spend the majority of our lives in the “mundane state,” so for anything learned in the psychedelic state to be considered valuable (as opposed to merely interesting or amusing), it has to be durable and translatable, in some respect, to the real, “sober” world. To speak of changes at the ego level is all well and good, but if these changes are only evident to the user and cannot be defined, described, or characterized in any way, they begin to take on an “Invisible Pink Unicorn” quality.

I guess I should clarify that I am not disputing the notion that psychedelics can provide a person with insights, and that the experience may produce lasting changes. I was more expressing a mild annoyance with a subset of users who I feel exaggerate the insights they have gained. There is a cliquish, somewhat affected atmosphere in many forums where psychedelics are discussed, and “I’ve learned so much by taking psychedelics” is a kind of shibboleth. It’s like asking a self-professed voracious reader what books they’ve read recently and getting a blank stare in response.

[QUOTE=II Gyan II]
On an empirical note, as I mentioned earlier, there are 10,000+ people in Brazil, who as members of syncretic religions, get together every two weeks to drink a brew containing DMT. Many of these members were former substance abusers, and are no longer so. They generally credit the experiences with the change.
[/QUOTE]

That is something that I can relate to as a concrete example of a real change wrought (or at least catalyzed) by psychedelics. Some (like Der Trihs) probably find the frequency of the DMT use alarming—we tend to like our quick fixes. But I see it as an good example of a positive (and identifiable) change.