Alcohol - Entheogen of the masses

[Sadhaka]

I have wondered what revealing self-analytical insights are being gained by the individual who is lying unconscious on a nightclub toilet floor awash with piss and puke- apart from perhaps 'I should find myself a more civilised tool for self-exploration'....

That was brilliant!

You're making an awful large presumption that these artists could have created their work when they weren't influenced with alcohol. I, for one, don't believe it.

Well... I won't argue about that. Their addiction was a part of their wholeness so I won't even try to make such assumption. But when you approach arts with a scientific edge and a solid methodology then psychoactives - in general - aren't the key factor. With so many sober artists it's obvious that creativity has nothing to do with intoxicating.

But you do have a point but I would say that it's more about psycho-dynamics. It's not that alcohol was entheogenic but it could be an useful tool in lifting one's inhibitions. As much as love, traumatic experience or meditation. Everything can unlock your creativity or motivate you to do something. But the key must to fit the lock. But it doesn't make alcohol a psychedelic. I know that psychedelics blur borders and it's tempting to call everything as psychedelic: religion, society, physics, mind, substances, colours, shapes, people... everything. But it makes "psychedelic" meaningless or "Absolute". If alcohol is entheogenic then WHY psychedelics are so astonishing when people familiar with alcohol take them? I have taken poppies, coke, speed.... but only psychedelics are astonishing, magical and so liberating. Only psychedelics made me experience divinity. Alcohol is faaar from divinity.

Just because you can realise something during drinking sessions (as well as on hikes, playing games, whatever) doesn't make it an entheogen.

I really see no point in further discussion. No one will ever convince me that black is white. Overusing terms like "entheogen" only confuses. Besides, calling alcohol an entheogen is against definition of the word.

 

[Global]

I have wondered what revealing self-analytical insights are being gained by the individual who is lying unconscious on a nightclub toilet floor awash with piss and puke- apart from perhaps 'I should find myself a more civilised tool for self-exploration'....

That was brilliant!

You're making an awful large presumption that these artists could have created their work when they weren't influenced with alcohol. I, for one, don't believe it.

Well... I won't argue about that. Their addiction was a part of their wholeness so I won't even try to make such assumption. But when you approach arts with a scientific edge and a solid methodology then psychoactives - in general - aren't the key factor. With so many sober artists it's obvious that creativity has nothing to do with intoxicating.

But you do have a point but I would say that it's more about psycho-dynamics. It's not that alcohol was entheogenic but it could be an useful tool in lifting one's inhibitions. As much as love, traumatic experience or meditation. Everything can unlock your creativity or motivate you to do something. But the key must to fit the lock. But it doesn't make alcohol a psychedelic. I know that psychedelics blur borders and it's tempting to call everything as psychedelic: religion, society, physics, mind, substances, colours, shapes, people... everything. But it makes "psychedelic" meaningless or "Absolute". If alcohol is entheogenic then WHY psychedelics are so astonishing when people familiar with alcohol take them? I have taken poppies, coke, speed.... but only psychedelics are astonishing, magical and so liberating. Only psychedelics made me experience divinity. Alcohol is faaar from divinity.

Just because you can realise something during drinking sessions (as well as on hikes, playing games, whatever) doesn't make it an entheogen.

I really see no point in further discussion. No one will ever convince me that black is white. Overusing terms like "entheogen" only confuses. Besides, calling alcohol an entheogen is against definition of the word.

I would just like to point out that the terms 'psychedelic" and 'entheogenic' are not necessarily interchangeable. Entheogens are a much broader category of substance referring to those that build you spiritually in some way, or literally "to generate God from within." There are substances that are entheogens that are not psychedelic. Also, what about alcohol defies the definition of entheogen?

 

[BananaForeskin]

I used to spend rainy, hungover afternoons wrapped in a blanket playing "Pharaoh". Feel like that should fit into the discussion somehow...

 

[wet_rabbit]

I used Everclear in an LSA extraction to make a kind of morning glory liquor once, and the alcohol intensified the effects of the LSA beyond anything I have experienced on LSA alone. A combination of an accepted psychedelic entheogen boosted with 100% grain alcohol used to put me in touch with the divinity inside me, yes alcohol can be used as an entheogen, perhaps even unintentionally and indirectly. After many recent embarrassing black-out nights, I put the bottle down for good, and have about 4 months off it now. It essentially turned me away from itself, and since then I have been able to use weed and shrooms to greater effect than ever before. Just by being so awful and painful and driving me to dry up alcohol has put me closer to that divine part within. Also I would imagine absinthe qualifies as an entheogen in most peoples books, though that whole wormwood thing probably disqualifies it in a lot of minds. Personally, the world is my entheogen. Try salt water!

 

[Sadhaka]

I would just like to point out that the terms 'psychedelic" and 'entheogenic' are not necessarily interchangeable. Entheogens are a much broader category of substance referring to those that build you spiritually in some way, or literally "to generate God from within." There are substances that are entheogens that are not psychedelic. Also, what about alcohol defies the definition of entheogen?

You are right but "entheogen is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context". I don't see this to be the cause in the "masses". Occasional and spontaneous transgression is not enough to call it entheogen. Most if not almost all people drink alcohol to get drunk, not to see their divinity within.

 

[tigerstrike92]

Maybe alcohol isn't an entheogen.

Maybe it is an ethnogen (i might have completely made this word up). But ethnogen as in it has significant importance to the evolution of different cultures, including modern day peoples.

Yes, no, maybe?

 

[BananaForeskin]

Most if not almost all people drink alcohol to get drunk, not to see their divinity within.

Yes, but many people smoke marijuana just to get stoned, and there are quite a few who only take acid/shrooms to "see shit".
Does that disqualify them as entheogens?

 

[Sadhaka]

Yes, but many people smoke marijuana just to get stoned, and there are quite a few who only take acid/shrooms to "see shit".
Does that disqualify them as entheogens?

I have no clue, to be honest. It seems that "entheogen" is standing in opposition to "recreational". So it would be better to say that some substance is taken as entheogen but is not entheogen per se. Context defines it.

Is alcohol an entheogen of the masses? No, because masses don't intoxicate themselves with alcohol in a spiritual context and they don't seek to get in touch with God by drinking. It could be but not in so materialistic culture that we live in.

It's interesting that shamans in the Siberia are dropping their fly agarics for vodka. In this context, vodka is an entheogen and amanita mushrooms are not.

Using wine in Christian Churches can be considered as entheogen but I oppose this statement because quantity is extremely symbolic and wines effects are not important. It's just that wine is in the colour of blood and that's all.

 

[SnozzleBerry]

It seems that "entheogen" is standing in opposition to "recreational". So it would be better to say that some substance is taken as entheogen but is not entheogen per se. Context defines it.

Agreed - this is essentially stated in the definition of the term "entheogen" (or at least clearly implied).

Is alcohol an entheogen of the masses? No, because masses don't intoxicate themselves with alcohol in a spiritual context and they don't seek to get in touch with God by drinking. It could be but not in so materialistic culture that we live in.

It's interesting that shamans in the Siberia are dropping their fly agarics for vodka. In this context, vodka is an entheogen and amanita mushrooms are not.

Very well put, a very illustrative example :d

 

[soulfood]

It's often viewed as quite sad to drink alone.

Sometimes when I'm not feeling quite myself I will sit down with a bottle of good quality rum and listen to some music and it has a way of rebooting my mind akin to a DMT flash. Obviously it's not as instant and I have to work a little harder for it, but I think the quality is definately there.

Also this isn't true for all obviously, but for me alcohol also has an anti-abuse property stronger than any other, in that if I overdo it chances are I won't want to drink for at least 6 months

 

[EquaL Observer]

Used to drink all the time. Bad times. Poor health. Bad moods. Pointless drunk events.

The hangovers after 3 weeks or so of drinking, I found my first hallucinations and lucid dreams... very enchanting.

Occasionally the profound confusion of waking up and understanding nothing of the night before is a joy...

Town on a Friday night, or even listening to the sounds in my village is a horror - though I'm becoming less easily annoyed by the mass ill-consideration in the world

 

[Global]

I have no clue, to be honest. It seems that "entheogen" is standing in opposition to "recreational". So it would be better to say that some substance is taken as entheogen but is not entheogen per se. Context defines it.

Is alcohol an entheogen of the masses? No, because masses don't intoxicate themselves with alcohol in a spiritual context and they don't seek to get in touch with God by drinking. It could be but not in so materialistic culture that we live in.

Very well put Sadhaka