4 ms·

Good crutch for the weak. I've tripped plenty of times; I'm an atheist; it was great. Next time you trip, you should reflect on your need for "spirituality" and

Good crutch for the weak. I've tripped plenty of times; I'm an atheist; it was great. Next time you trip, you should reflect on your need for "spirituality" and what it says about whatever is going on or not going on between your ears. One of the most amazing things about humans is their imagination and ability to convince themselves of almost anything. In my opinion, one of the points of doing psychedelics is to recapture your own imagination and flush out all the BS that other people have put in there to capture your mind. And here you are telling people to pour more programming back in there in the form of "spirituality."

poncho_romero 3mo ago
I'm surprised someone as enlightened as yourself can't imagine a person coming to spirituality themselves.
hankbond 3mo ago
> one of the points of doing psychedelics is to recapture your own imagination this also is my takeaway as to the primary utility. its so easy to accumulate ideas about how things _must_ be represented over time. every so often (maybe 5-10 years?) its probably good to have a way to shave them off and re-expose the surface.
pfannkuchen 3mo ago
I’m also an atheist, but just looking at the huge amount of anthropological information we have, from hunter gatherer bands to large scale civilizations, I am quite sure that a perception of god-like and spirit-like entities is built into the hardware layer in humans. That doesn’t make them “real”, of course, but it doesn’t seem to matter much whether or not they are real, and deleting them from life because they aren’t literally real is an ongoing experiment.
- semolino 3mo ago
  Yes, perception of entities during psychedelic experience is unhinged paredolia: psychedelic substances obliterate the squelch for our pattern recognition systems, of which paredolia is one. Deepdream slugdogs are sort of a synthetic analogue to this.
  - N_Lens 3mo ago
    I’m glad that you’ve got it all figured out!
    - semolino 3mo ago
      I didn't intend to sound so sure :)
- pstuart 3mo ago
  Also an atheist. Used psychedelic recreationally/recklessly in my youth but that was a long time ago. Recently returned to psychedelic use to treat depression and the best takeaway I have for the experience is "swimming with God". By God I mean "the Universe as an entity" for lack of better words. Pro tip: ketamine wins out over psilocybin for treating depression. I did try DMT once a long time ago and saw the machine elves (prior to ever hearing about them) but it felt more like "ROM artifacts" rather than alien consciousness trying to connect.
  - temp0826 3mo ago
    Ketamine treats symptoms and is more like a bandaid from what I see, and comes with its own problems (addiction). Psilocybin and ayahuasca when used properly can help you to process and resolve many types of problems (traumas, past drug/alcohol use, sins). But you have to be willing to work (if you can't bear it alone, this is where the curandero or therapist comes in. If that idea doesn't work for you then probably stick to ketamine)
    - pstuart 3mo ago
      Everybody's different. I am approaching the problem from multiple angles (pharma, non-pharma); CBT is on the table and I'm open to other non-chemical routes. Your comment conflates depression with "being sad/hurt". There's biological aspects that no amount of trauma processing (whether talk therapy or spiritual (psilocybin)). Sometimes the machine itself is broken, not the programming. I've experience significant trauma in my life and, while it shapes my being, is not the basis for my "depression". Bandaids are valuable tools. I know there are plenty of non-chemical remedies, exercise being a foundational one, that a proper treatment plan includes. So for everyone, YMMV, but clinical ketamine use has been borderline magical in readily perceptible improvements, with the caveat that it does seem to be temporary. This is a pity, because it's easy to grow mushrooms and DIY in that regard but getting K requires going through expensive gatekeeping. And to address the addictive concerns of K, for me, the treatments have had their own elements of joy but I see no recreational value for me personally. I've delt with addictive issues in the past and I have no problems facing those particular demons.
colordrops 3mo ago
What does "spirituality" mean exactly and why is it so offensive to you?
crent 3mo ago
The bastardization of the term “spiritual”/“spirituality” has done deep damage to the collective psyche. The view that spirituality is following dogma rather than an exploration of the ineffable from your own subjective experience is a widespread failure of communication.
- pstuart 3mo ago
  Agreed. I use the term as "a sense of connectedness" rather than "seeing God"
sjs382 3mo ago
You define "spiritually" differently (more narrow, for one) than the person you're replying to.

poncho_romero 3mo ago

I'm surprised someone as enlightened as yourself can't imagine a person coming to spirituality themselves.

hankbond 3mo ago

> one of the points of doing psychedelics is to recapture your own imagination this also is my takeaway as to the primary utility. its so easy to accumulate ideas about how things _must_ be represented over time. every so often (maybe 5-10 years?) its probably good to have a way to shave them off and re-expose the surface.

pfannkuchen 3mo ago

I’m also an atheist, but just looking at the huge amount of anthropological information we have, from hunter gatherer bands to large scale civilizations, I am quite sure that a perception of god-like and spirit-like entities is built into the hardware layer in humans. That doesn’t make them “real”, of course, but it doesn’t seem to matter much whether or not they are real, and deleting them from life because they aren’t literally real is an ongoing experiment.

semolino 3mo ago
Yes, perception of entities during psychedelic experience is unhinged paredolia: psychedelic substances obliterate the squelch for our pattern recognition systems, of which paredolia is one. Deepdream slugdogs are sort of a synthetic analogue to this.
- N_Lens 3mo ago
  I’m glad that you’ve got it all figured out!
  - semolino 3mo ago
    I didn't intend to sound so sure :)
pstuart 3mo ago
Also an atheist. Used psychedelic recreationally/recklessly in my youth but that was a long time ago. Recently returned to psychedelic use to treat depression and the best takeaway I have for the experience is "swimming with God". By God I mean "the Universe as an entity" for lack of better words. Pro tip: ketamine wins out over psilocybin for treating depression. I did try DMT once a long time ago and saw the machine elves (prior to ever hearing about them) but it felt more like "ROM artifacts" rather than alien consciousness trying to connect.
- temp0826 3mo ago
  Ketamine treats symptoms and is more like a bandaid from what I see, and comes with its own problems (addiction). Psilocybin and ayahuasca when used properly can help you to process and resolve many types of problems (traumas, past drug/alcohol use, sins). But you have to be willing to work (if you can't bear it alone, this is where the curandero or therapist comes in. If that idea doesn't work for you then probably stick to ketamine)
  - pstuart 3mo ago
    Everybody's different. I am approaching the problem from multiple angles (pharma, non-pharma); CBT is on the table and I'm open to other non-chemical routes. Your comment conflates depression with "being sad/hurt". There's biological aspects that no amount of trauma processing (whether talk therapy or spiritual (psilocybin)). Sometimes the machine itself is broken, not the programming. I've experience significant trauma in my life and, while it shapes my being, is not the basis for my "depression". Bandaids are valuable tools. I know there are plenty of non-chemical remedies, exercise being a foundational one, that a proper treatment plan includes. So for everyone, YMMV, but clinical ketamine use has been borderline magical in readily perceptible improvements, with the caveat that it does seem to be temporary. This is a pity, because it's easy to grow mushrooms and DIY in that regard but getting K requires going through expensive gatekeeping. And to address the addictive concerns of K, for me, the treatments have had their own elements of joy but I see no recreational value for me personally. I've delt with addictive issues in the past and I have no problems facing those particular demons.

colordrops 3mo ago

What does "spirituality" mean exactly and why is it so offensive to you?

crent 3mo ago

The bastardization of the term “spiritual”/“spirituality” has done deep damage to the collective psyche. The view that spirituality is following dogma rather than an exploration of the ineffable from your own subjective experience is a widespread failure of communication.

pstuart 3mo ago
Agreed. I use the term as "a sense of connectedness" rather than "seeing God"

sjs382 3mo ago

You define "spiritually" differently (more narrow, for one) than the person you're replying to.