How have psychedelics influenced your religious view?

[sheepie]

At first I was a hardcore atheist, then I took shrooms.

After the magical trip, I became an agnostic. I felt like atheism wasn't the complete picture and there is definitely something more - whether it was God or not I had no idea.

Over time I read a lot of spiritual books. Krishnamurti specifically. I felt like I was discovering something about myself but couldn't wrap my head around it (simultaneously knowing, intellectually, that it was impossible to wrap your head around - so much as you tried to). One day I took 3 tabs of acid, and I remember the exact moment where it all made sense. Everything I've read just came together and I was like OHHH I GET IT! ITS ME! As if I had just understood some 19-year long cosmic joke in one instant - and it was the funniest joke. Ever. And I realized it followed me, and will follow me forever. God isn't something that comes and goes. God is eternal and ever present, it's just about... well, realizing God.

So now I believe in God. I believe God is the real me. Who I thought I was was an illusion. You are God playing the role of being you.

How about you guys?

 

[universecannon]

Its funny how many people were atheists until mushrooms :d

"So now I believe in God. I believe God is the real me. Who I thought I was was an illusion. You are God playing the role of being you."

MANY seem to have this intuition as well..although i don't really use the word god. but what are words anyway

It would take forever to explain my story but basically i starting realizing my religion was bunk when i was about 11 and i quickly became something of a depressed atheist.. I researched various things such as ufos, conspiracies, telepathy, astral projection, and all sorts of things incessantly for a long time but things didn't really take off until i smoked marijuana at 13.

It was one of the most mind shattering experiences of my life and that night while dreaming it was like my body had dissolved into the beautifully menacing fractal kaleidoscope our world springs from, then i looped this cosmos for an eternity.. i woke up the next day feeling like this reality was but a dream and that dream was but a tiny node on the infinite wheel of the multiverse or something..it scared the hell out of me more than anything else though. I should have taken more positive things away from it but my monkey mind was clouded by fear and more just astonished than anything really.. I'd always been thunderstruck by the huge miracle of the universe, the mysteriously silly quality of existence, and the uncanny beauty of it all; but this was too much.

I think it was then that i started remembering experiences i'd had years earlier late at night lying in bed. i was off in dreamy thoughts and suddenly had something like a warm itch in my head which felt really good. While staring at my black ceiling i realized i saw an oily blob in the distance..i thought it was just the normal after-image type of thing until somehow i sort of mentally coaxed this thing in..it eventually took up my entire visual field and seamlessly morphed into dozens of faces displaying extreme emotions of all kinds that i could feel as if they were my own..

I laughed and cried while nearly paralyzed in my bed while my sense of self was gone and my awareness was lost in a weirdly satisfying feeling of connection with something i knew very intimately but had lost. I cried about our situation on earth and all the humans and other beings that were suffering because i could feel them..This happened on a few occasions and then stopped. i was probably 10 or 11 and there was no way i was going to tell anyone about it..i stuck it into the back of my mind and eventually lost memory of it as the years passed..it was just too far out there for me to integrate..

After the first marijuana trip i started seeing things in a different way and having other weird experiences that are hard to explain..it would feel like getting an aliens perspective on my reality..like looking through my eyes as if they were the windows into an entirely unfamiliar alien world, only they were my own eyes and i was dumbstruck at how alien everything i'd thought i'd known so well seemed at those moments and it was very humbling but extremely depressing and i would often just break down unable to explain to myself what was wrong..

Eventually i got into the beatles and many other esoteric things and thought AHA! the hippies were right! We're all one! :d This part of my life is all mashed together and my memory of it is far from linear..i started meditating and eventually i got turned onto bill hicks, who led me to psychedelics, and hipforums where i learned tons from some great people. Soon later i turned on to psychedelics at 16..it was a rough intro through salvia, but i eventually came to love that plant after i good whoopin'..then right after that i tried mushrooms which was a life changing experience in every sense..it was all a huge turning point in my life where a new chapter began that led me to dmt and then the nexus by 18

I'm not religious in the conventional sense at all.. i strive to be agnostic in my views since beliefs are such limiting things, but as RAW would say- i have many suspicions ...i guess i lean towards an odd species of pantheistic animism or something..i'm not sure what i would label it exactly.. ok my fingers are tired, that is all :]

 

[The Day Tripper]

I was raised christian scientist, then turned to atheism. When i was 15 i started smoking cannabis, alot, it heavily stimulated my mental development in some areas. I'd have to say that the herb made me question many things about life, reality, spirituality, etc. After a few years, and a few low dose mushroom trips that were nothing much at all, i took the first steps in hyperspace extracting some dmt.

My first few pharma attempts were with fb and rue, specifically unweighted amounts of dmt. Those were some primitive times, in that regard, and i soon learned to be methodical and careful with my extractions, and dosing. Purchased a mg scale and never looked back.

Anyway, my first "real" pharma experience was a extremely spiritual trip for me. I could feel something calling, as i was coming up in my room. I got up, walked out of my house, and walked for the forest/meadow near where i live. upon arriving i was just starting to trip, and things began to take on a "sheen of life" as best as i describe it. I started walking down the usual path, and things began to become intense very fast.

I felt bombarded with information, information never before recognized in its true form. I could only come to the conclusion that this was the life of the planet, radiating from everything, even me. It began to project visions and mental hyperbole, metaphor, and poetry to evoke new ideas upon my consciousness. Everything was alive, interacting, radiating information, and somehow it all made sense finally. Somehow, something larger exists, and the fact that we are almost completely ignorant of it boggled my mind.

Not in the traditional, materially based concept of "god" as an separate entity from our physical realm. But something that exists throughout, i quickly reviewed my childhood christian scientist education i had previously been disillusioned with and found not all was complete bs. That part about mind over matter, and the incredible power of healing yourself by changing "meta-programming" your mind had some relevance to it in my mind now.

The fact that the entire universe could be some gigantic computer, and as humans with a relatively advanced neural apparatus could interact with the universe and its various forms of information in novel ways came to mind. I started really listening to what mckenna had to say about this, and his ideas and method of thinking resonated with me on a deep level. I think its something about curiosity, and the desire to get to the bottom of things, but being prepared for the wild things you will see that may change your mind on the way there.

So i guess i went from a christian scientist, to atheism, to semi-agnosticism, then agnosticism/shamanism. I suppose it would be wise to explore the rest of the worlds religions to try and deviate at least some meaning from then and add balance to the picture. However, i plan to take a through look at the worlds oldest spiritual/"religious" tradition first, Shamanism just seems to have something deep and ancient about it that's kinda spooky in a good way.

Kinda like everything beyond shamanism (religion wise) is just a cheap knockoff that doesn't deliver the spiritual goods 90% of the time. But they have nuggets of truth thrown in to confuse and deceive you into believing the whole shebang as is always necessary. i came to the conclusion that experience itself, when diversified and fully invested can temper you to everything but the truth. And that's what were really here for, to perceive and an experience the universe in novel ways for the "greater mind" to absorb and reflect upon. That greater mind with witch we are one.

 

[TakesOneToKnowOne]

Sheepie,

I believe you are right, so I suppose that makes me you? 8) As in "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together"?

Profound is profound, no matter how the feeling is delivered. The spoken and written religious traditions of the world deliver what some people perceive to be profound messages about reality and morality...so do drugs. It seems to me that every sentence really ought to start with "It seems to me that..."

Overall, I believe truth to be an ineffable duality (get it? ineffable as a term used to describe something that's indescribable?) In the end, what matters is remembering that profound feeling you've attained at various times throughout your life when you feel you've really found the truth. That feeling will be a beacon of truth throughout your life only if you allow it to be, but it will be stronger than any other beacon because it will be the truth.

Anyways, those are just my thoughts. Don't ever accept anything that anyone says, even what I say, unless it makes sense to you.

Lovingly,

One

 

[matukuul]

I had literally the exact same realization as the OP when I first started heavily using acid and reading books on the subject also. It really is the funniest joke ever. Many people have hangups about the word God, but I kind of like it.

 

[sleepirasta]

Jesus was a fungus among us!

 

[AlbertKLloyd]

Psychedelics really haven't influenced my spiritual views, but in considering them and having used them many times and seen others use them as well my considerations did shape my views of psychedelics in religious roles and settings.

I believe psychedelics to affirm beliefs, diverse beliefs, in numerous people. I've seen atheists take them and testify that they understood that there was no god. I've seen Christians take them and testify about Jesus. I have also seen the same type of thing happen for agnostics, for Jews, for neopagans etc.

I have also seen a lot of people take mushrooms or LSD and have the resulting trip change their lives, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, and nearly always there is a religious content to the catalytic experience.

Personally I think that experience might be akin to clever interactive machine that is designed to make you doubt and believe at the same time. I pray all the time and it works perfectly, I am very spiritual, but I also do not believe in the bible whatsoever or in a personal god, so to speak. I cannot say I believe in a creator or a god with an agenda, nor do I believe that life is pointless, but I can say that humans strike me as a very vain species who tend to think of themselves as the center of the universe, as if humans are the point of existence. I can't say that I think we are any more important, or less so, than ants.

 

[PrimalWisdom]

I was a pretty hardcore Athiest even after my first few trips. it took an acid and shroom combo to make me change my mind.
I had always only really taken psychedelic experiences at face value, pretty colours, weird sensations and all the 2d aspects of them seemed to be the things I focused on.
During that trip I had an AHA moment and could understand the interconnectedness of everything, the energy flows that constantly surround us were visible, and I had this overwhelming sense that there was indeed something else going on. I couldn't believe I had overlooked these things during my many other trips. From there I researched as much as I could about consciousness, energies (cosmic and terrestrial)creation, history etc... and eventually came to the decision that well there must be something else going on apart from a coincidence with impossible odds.
Basically I now believe that there is some sort of Mega-consciousness/network of consciousness that we are connected to, or at least can access during certain rituals/psychoactive experiences and even dreaming/meditating. I tend not to narrow my idea of where we came from, who we are, but rather read and watch as much as I can on the subject. I mean there's no way we can know for sure, but it sure as hell is apparent that there's something more to us been here on this rock hurtling through space and time. Even if there isn't it at least makes my time here a bit more exciting.

 

[DeMenTed]

The only religious experience ive had was on lsd. Man made drug man made religion.

 

[tigerstrike92]

I have had some pretty intense spiritual journeys, even if through cannabis alone. But i must say, LSA and Cannabis... while listening to dubstep, made me transcend my body. I was raised and still am a christian, but its more of my own version of it. Some things make complete sense, and some are even reinforced by entheogens I have taken. Then I leave all the other bull shit at the door. I genuinely believe that these plants are here for a reason. But basically, through my trips, i have realized..

Everything is awesome
Shit happens
There is moar to this life than we realize or think.

 

[Pandora]

I spent over 4 decades being a hardcore, even card-carrying, national and regional atheist. Many people, books and drugs had tried to convert me with no luck.

Then I tried DMT.

My viewpoint has evolved, but overall I'd say DMT taught me to simultaneously be more open minded and more skeptical.

I see no evidence of Gods and Goddesses - these are made up stories by people who were interested in power and control long ago. Go back further and you might get someone having a numinous vision but that got corrupted and perverted so long ago it's hardly worth mentioning.

BUT, my DMT use has opened my mind to hyper-spatial and hyper-dimensional possibilities. The concept that there may be more going on than we've been told by science and measurement to date.

So, I now identify sometimes as agnostic, sometimes as deist and sometimes as "spiritual atheist" to hardcore identify that I do not believe in an anthropomorphic patriarchal "God" that watches over us, judges us and provides an "afterlife." But the atheist is long gone.

 

[MelCat]

I spent over 4 decades being a hardcore, even card-carrying, national and regional atheist. Many people, books and drugs had tried to convert me with no luck.

Then I tried DMT.

My viewpoint has evolved, but overall I'd say DMT taught me to simultaneously be more open minded and more skeptical.

I see no evidence of Gods and Goddesses - these are made up stories by people who were interested in power and control long ago. Go back further and you might get someone having a numinous vision but that got corrupted and perverted so long ago it's hardly worth mentioning.

BUT, my DMT use has opened my mind to hyper-spatial and hyper-dimensional possibilities. The concept that there may be more going on than we've been told by science and measurement to date.

So, I now identify sometimes as agnostic, sometimes as deist and sometimes as "spiritual atheist" to hardcore identify that I do not believe in an anthropomorphic patriarchal "God" that watches over us, judges us and provides an "afterlife." But the atheist is long gone.

This resonates strongly with my religious experience as well. My Mom tried to bring me up as a Christian and made me go to church when I was younger. She also raised me to think for myself and when I was old enough, she respected that I no longer wanted to go.

Growing up in a primarily Southern Baptist area, it was pretty easy to see how much hypocrisy went hand and hand with Christianity. Then you see how all of the religions kinda hate each other. I mean, seriously, someone is SERIOUSLY missing the point here and no one in those circles will seem to admit it.

Anyway, all of these revelations really put a bad taste in my mouth toward religion. As far as I was concerned, they were all full of it. I would take the bits and pieces of the good things they would say and merge them into my life. I strive to be a "good" person and love my fellow man. Karma has been more of my religion than anything else.

Growing up in America, the schools make out the stories of Native Americans and the spirits as a bunch of mumbo jumbo. I've always been fascinated with the Native Americans and how they lived but I never could really wrap my head around their religion. Spirit World? Really? C'mon... Really? It's like I wanted to believe but I had to remain skeptical.

It's funny, the first time I'm introduced to DMT... My buddy hands me a bong with around 100mg right on top. He asks me, with a mischievously evil and enthusiastic look in his eye.. "You wanna meet Jesus?!?" Of course I say hell yeah and proceed to smoke as much of it as I could, as fast as I could.

While I never went to hyperspace, I did go to CandyLand and beyond all of the amazing patterns, I saw 3 Native American cheifs on the wall. We never exchanged any dialog but there was definitely a mutual awareness of each others presence. I remember saying during the experience "This is kinda like dying"

After that, the Spirit World made sense. I had experienced it. I got it. All of the religions are pointing to THIS. They're all wrong, but they're all right. I get it now. I don't know what it is, but I know there is SOMETHING.

It was exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it. I'm just glad that the Nexus was here at that same time so I could start to make sense of the rest of it.

 

[damon]

I don't take God lightly, but not too seriously. There is no way to know, until you die, and then it might be too late. I spent a lot of time studying old religions in university, and they are all basically the same, good messages wrapped around myths. I respect the beliefs of others though, because I believe the same things, but in different terms. People generally think of God in their own image, as a person, whereas I think of myself and all living things to be extensions of God (same as the OP). Only God knows, but I really don't think he cares if we call ourselves Hindu or Christian or even Atheist. Caring and humor could just be some of the things that make us individual humans, like having 10 fingers and 9.5 toes (for the individual missing 0.5, who might also be very humorous).

Forgot to mention that my view was molded by 10 or so heavy shroom/rue 10g/7g sessions 10+ years ago. I have recently found that aya takes me to the same place, but I just don't have the same desire to go there. I prefer shorter vaping sessions now.

 

[tele]

Yes they have. They are one of the few things that show us that there are much more to consciousness than our daily lives/consciousness. That is other dimensions etc., just to show us a glimpse of the endless possibilities of consciousness.
Plants are my religion:lol:

 

[universecannon]

I don't take God lightly, but not too seriously. There is no way to know, until you die, and then it might be too late. I spent a lot of time studying old religions in university, and they are all basically the same, good messages wrapped around myths. I respect the beliefs of others though, because I believe the same things, but in different terms. People generally think of God in their own image, as a person, whereas I think of myself and all living things to be extensions of God (same as the OP). Only God knows, but I really don't think he cares if we call ourselves Hindu or Christian or even Atheist. Caring and humor could just be some of the things that make us individual humans, like having 10 fingers and 9.5 toes (for the individual missing 0.5, who might also be very humorous).

Forgot to mention that my view was molded by 10 or so heavy shroom/rue 10g/7g sessions 10+ years ago. I have recently found that aya takes me to the same place, but I just don't have the same desire to go there. I prefer shorter vaping sessions now.

You took 10grams of dried mushrooms and 7 grams of rue together..10 times? Either of those psychedelics alone, and at half those amounts, would be a strong dose

 

[MelCat]

Forgot to mention that my view was molded by 10 or so heavy shroom/rue 10g/7g sessions 10+ years ago. I have recently found that aya takes me to the same place, but I just don't have the same desire to go there. I prefer shorter vaping sessions now.

You took 10grams of dried mushrooms and 7 grams of rue together..10 times? Either of those psychedelics alone, and at half those amounts, would be a strong dose

Yeah, if that's not a typo, I'm sure you do have some pretty strong feelings about what God really is. That's hardcore. I couldn't imagine going through something like that once, much less 10 times.

 

[damon]

Yes, that's right, 10g PF method cubensis with 7g rue. I'm a big guy, and the shrooms after a while by themselves weren't getting me where I wanted. This is a dose not to be taken lightly by anyone. It was never as "alien" as aya is to me now. Everything was "more familiar" type of visions. For instance, I started getting major delusions of grandeur, which is why I stopped. I dosed usually once per month. I was once an astronaut, to be launched to somehow save the world. Everyone was in on a plot to deceive me, hiding their true purpose of one day loading me on this ship to save reality. I was a savior, so to speak. Of course I was never let in on the secret, until my eyes were openned. I even made an appearance on Jay Leno, somehow on the show live (not live in reality) and watching myself on the TV at the same time. It was all a very joyous occasion, and I wasn't afraid. I experienced a rocket launch (not like a breakthrough), there were lots of fireworks, reality was preserved, and the next thing I know I'm back home. I could have sworn it was real. It was a trip, that's for sure. This was my wildest trip, and maybe the only one with a story-like theme, but not my deepest, I can't describe those.

 

[greyberg]

Psychedelics have made me far more tolerant of others and their beliefs. Not that I was outwardly intolerante at all before, but internally I just accept others beliefs as the belief that works for them and I am happy for them rather than think to myself how stupid the idea of "god" is. I appreciate the sense of community that Religion gives people and I feel very happy for people who religion has helped and given a good fulfilled life to. It just does not work for me, which is cool.

I identify very much with this statement of PANDORAS:

hyper-spatial and hyper-dimensional possibilities. The concept that there may be more going on than we've been told by science and measurement to date.

Very much so. I feel like there is so much we do not know, but knowing that the possibilities are there gives me some sort of comfort.

I don't like putting boxes around things you can't see. We really have no idea. I like that.

 

[ataraxia]

I think psychedelics probably influenced my total rejection of all things religious.

They also influenced the way I see the world around me and how I interact with it. They kind of cleared the cobwebs in my brain, i think more logically, don't stress or get confused, have more patience, compassion, am less judgmental and more aware how my choices affect other people and the environment. They instilled a sense of respect and wonder in the natural world, humanity and personal relationships.

But their biggest influence I think is the sense of awe! I am constantly amazed by the knowledge we have gained from scientific inquiry and inspired by peoples creativity. To me these are glimpses into what is going on, like an earthworm trying to comprehend quantum physics. Psychedelics are an awe-inspiring glimpse into the mystery, way too mysterious for my tripping fallible brain to come to any godlike conclusions.

Having said that mostly I use psychedelics because they are fun And having said that I haven't had a breakthrough on DMT yet!

 

[cker]

For me psychs have given me the impression that none of the conventional religions have 'it' figured out. I have learned that there is an infinite world of possibilities and that one of them is that nature has bestowed many gifts way beyond our normal perception. I believe psychs have some ability to show us what these possibilities are. I haven't figured out the meaning of much but I think there may be meanings we know but cannot easily connect with. I'd like to live in the world in a way I feel it should be. "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."