Mystical Angels

Is a spiritual or mystical experience any less real because it was induced by psychedelics ?

i personally think that any experience is real if you believe it and can benefit from it...what do you'll think?

Public Comments

1. Psychedelics have a time honored place in mankind's eternal quest to pierce the veil. The human mind is miraculous and I recommend Carlos Castaneda's writing to anyone who is interested in the subject. Some of the sronger stuff requires a spirit guide because you can get overwhelmed by the experience and have a really bad trip.
2. I think you are very wrong. Believing a poison is beneficial to your well-being will not save you. Believing that 'god' will save you will quite possibly induce you to fore-go action to save yourself.
3. True reality has no begining or ending. Thought has it begining with the creator and it extends to all of His children thoughout His creation. Nothing exisits out side of consciousness in Gods or man. Only God can creat that which is real, man may create but it is always subject to reality by it realtions to God. "In theory you may think of God as the Creator, and he is the personal creator of Paradise and the central universe of perfection, but the universes of time and space are all created and organized by the Paradise corps of the Creator Sons. The Universal Father is not the personal creator of the local universe of Nebadon; the universe in which you live is the creation of his Son Michael. Though the Father does not personally create the evolutionary universes, he does control them in many of their universal relationships and in certain of their manifestations of physical, mindal, and spiritual energies. God the Father is the personal creator of the Paradise universe and, in association with the Eternal Son, the creator of all other personal universe Creators. Page 24
4. I have wondered this myself. But again, people claim that they have presumably found ways in which to induce/simulate the whole near death experience with whatever drugs or oxygen deprivation methods they have and to me, that cheapens it. It's like they're saying just because we can induce it this way, that means that near death experiences are false and blah blah blah. So, I don't know, maybe the use of psychedelics is sort of the same thing. Inducing an experience that's not real and kind of cheapening the real experience in the process. In people's minds anyway. I guess it's possible there is no difference. People who are extremely opposed to drug use itself are inevitably going to say it's less real. But we don't know much about how the human brain really works and even less about alternate dimensions/heaven & hell/after death. Who's to say that drugs don't allow for the separation of the soul from the body during a high and hence the experience of something spiritual? Even if it's something scary, it's just another spiritual level, supposedly.
5. I would say an experience is an experience. No two experiences are the same, not from person to person nor situation to situation. Its all about our interpretation of the events at that exact moment in time. Some theories believe that meds can alter the brain waves similar to meditative states. Sounds similar to me.
6. Interesting, question. I think that psychedelic experiences can qualify as mystical. This relates to a few issues: 1) Do mystical experiences need to involve contact with something that is "beyond" the merely human? Some people think that they do, and for them, it is difficult to believe that psychedelic experiences can be mystical. But there are a wide variety of philosophers - from Lucretius, to Spinoza, to Deleuze - who believe in an "immanent frame" of experiences that is not scientifically explicable but is also not transcendent or divine. This might be the realm where experiences brought on by certain styles of meditation are reached. I believe it is perfectly reasonable that psychedelics can attune you to this realm. 2) Do drugs "invalidate" an experience, or make it "less real"? Again, a lot of people thing you basically just see "fake" things on drugs, and therefore no experience on them can be authentic. That's really misguided if you ask me. We are taught by our societies to process our experiences and perceptions in certain ways, to draw certain limits between the possible and the impossible. I think that psychedelics just allow us to break out of some of those structures - even the ones that are deeply hardwired into our brain chemistry by centuries of evolution - and approach the world differently. My personal belief is that qualities of the world (and for religious people, qualities beyond the world) that we frequently describe as mystical cannot be described in words... they can only be demonstrated or experienced. I think you are right to say that what matters is learning from it. There have been studies of religious experiences brought on by LSD, and how they can cause fundamental changes in one's outlook, making one happier and more optimistic. What is unreal about that? Nothing, if you ask me. By allowing us to have new experiences, psychedelics can indeed bring about revelations. Just be safe and all that!
7. Is it real in the same way that your computer monitor is real?
8. Does looking through telescope make something not-real? Of course not. But you have to be careful not to confuse a telescope with a kaleidoscope. One shows you an external reality and the other shows you only an internal one. You can tell the difference by trying to reach the same experience without the tool. If you can do so, then the tool was just an aid. If you cannot, then what you saw was the reality of the tool instead of the reality of the world. Keep that in mind.
9. i know this: after taking lsd even once, you'll never be the same again. it shows you entirely new things.
10. Some say that the spiritual realm is more real than the physical. Pax Christi+
11. You create your reality. This can easily be proved by the way different people see different situations in different ways- but that's an argument for another question. If you agree with the fact that you create your reality, any experience you "experience" is your reality. Thus the experience was "real". As far as benefiting is concerned- it depends on the type of psychedelics you have taken and their effects on you brain's ability to think/work. I guess the best answer would be (since you create your reality ;)) that you can benefit as much as you want from it- since you're creating your reaction to the event. Hope you followed that lol.
12. If you want to ensure the validity of the spiritual experience, then yes.. it is less real. No spiritual experience can be guaranteed to be real. But you can have more faith in them if they werent chemically induced and artificial. Dont you think if you had intrinsic insight, or the spiritual side had a reason to aid in your experiences, that they would have without the need for you to take physical action in a physical universe? Drugs tend to skew your perceptions, induce hallucination... not unlike a psychotic murderer who has a rationale for their actions... it makes sense to them, but isnt necessarily rightness and spiritual-ness, but a product of a faulty physical... its spiritually meaningless if you cant guarantee it didnt come from an external, transcendental source. Not only do drugs skew your experiences, but it also skews your capacity to reason about those experiences... compromising your interpretation and objectivity. I have never taken a drug in my life... I am not obsessed or rooted in the physical... I am not about pleasure or escape... I am not materialistic. I have had real experiences of a spiritual nature. No extreme trauma or drugs necessary. I pursued truth with an open and non-desperate heart... accepting that perhaps some people arent given experiences... but I had them anyway as a product of my mentality and way of life. And I was raised atheist. So you can imagine how much it has opened my eyes. True spiritualists dont need to manipulate the physical... that is the exact opposite of what it means to be spiritual.