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psychedelics and magical thinking

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burnt

burnt

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Do psychedelics promote magical thinking? Is it a potential problem if they were legalized or used on a larger cultural scale? I'm going with broad definition of magical thinking. I don't want to limit discussion to the psychological definition of magical thinking that ones thoughts alone can cause events to happen in the outside world. But rather the entire phenomenon of trying to explain events by actions that are not related in any plausible way.

One effect of psychedelics is a tendency to promote feelings of increased significance to events or objects. Another effect of psychedelics is to cause someone under the influence to attribute causality between actions or events even though they are not really related in any way (magical thinking).

There also seems to be a relationship between cultural groups that take psychedelics or are otherwise influenced by people who do take psychedelics to have magical beliefs. Although magical beliefs are common across all cultures and religions I'm talking about an increase in this type of phenomenon in some cultures or societal sub-cultures that use psychedelics. Of course making associations with things that have no actual relationship is just another aspect of human nature that is just a result of having a conscious thinking brain but do psychedelics have a tendency to do something that makes this more likely?

We could also argue that psychedelics can help break magical thinking. For example in people with obsessive compulsive disorder magical thinking can dominate behavior (believing for instance that if you don't turn on and off the light switch 99 times something horrible will happen). Psychedelics have been shown to help some people with this type of mental disorder. Perhaps by showing the individual really for the first time since their behavior / disorder started that the belief is clearly ridiculous and shouldn't bother them. This is another aspect of the effects of psychedelics though. The increased ability to think about things in new or different ways. Psychedelic psychotherapy I think relies quite a bit on this effect (among others) to work.
 
Magical thinking is very personal. For me it is knowing something ‘for sure’ but at the same time a scientific explanation is missing. And for the outside world my magical thinking is judged as superstition.

A recent example. I smoked some changa. It all happened not the right way as I accidentally burned the leaves too quickly instead of smouldering it. As far as I could tell, the inhaled smoke did not generate any effect and as a result ‘nothing’ happened. After this I drank a cup of coffee, took some cookies and an hour later I decided to smoke some weed. The weed kicked in strong and after a while I did see some colorful three dimensional figures as had once appeared in a ayahuasca trip.

Where did they came from? Certainly not the weed. Like I said before, I burned the changa and waited an hour before taking the weed. So if at all I did inhale some of the changa correctly, than this must have lost its potency during that hour, don’t you folks think that too?

But my magical thinking told me that the changa created this all. I just know this for ‘a fact’.
 
Magical thinking might be necessary. Isn't it the very nature of the mind to associate unrelated or seemingly unrelated things to construct its view of the world? Maybe we do not like to think in a way that reveals how illusory our grasp on reality is, how miserable our pretend to build a representation of it.

When our ancestors were deciding to ask the Gods (nature) if someone should live or die, we see it has logical non sens governed by childish faith in hazard. Yet, the act in itself is incredibly revealing of how they related to the world: some problem could not be solved by a decision from a man, we should let something out of our hands decide. Isn't knowing when you shouldn't decide very wise? Isn't that very act giving power to nature and submitting to it?

It seems to me we often think very rigidly, and some malleability might bring some lanquidity. Though, all in all, I would more be concerned by thinking that our thoughts should govern our lives, and I admire the irony in dismissing gently a way of thinking that is based on thinking that our thoughts shape the world, when we very much live in a world shaped by thoughts. Coins, two sides.
 
I think we all have that tendency anyway. It normally is being somewhat counterbalanced by critical thinking. In some people, critical thinking is being shut down by psychedelic experience. For longer than the experience itself lasts.

I've refered to the so-called predictive coding theory and it's relation to psychedelics before: The idea that the brain constantly makes predictions, and that there is an error detection mechanism that is being deactivated by psychedelics. In this model, the brain is a many-layered structure. Each layer makes predictions on the layer below.

The top layer here would represent counscious experience, thinking and feeling as a whole. The great metastructure, containing references to all of the substructures. You could argue that critical thinking is the highest form of error detection. In that case, a temporary loss of critical thought would be an inherent effect of psychedelic substances.
 
I wouldn't say psychedelics inherently lead to (or strengthen a predisposition toward) magical thinking. They certainly can be used to reinforce delusion, but I think your OCD example is a good demonstration of how they can also be used to cut through delusion.

In as much as psychedelics influence cosmology and cosmology provides a framework or lens through which one views the world, imo psychedelics could be described as magical tools.

Take for example an Amazonian villager, he marries the most beautiful woman in the next village over, inviting jealousy from many other men in that village and surrounding villages that also had their eye on the beautiful woman. One of these other men hires a sorcerer to shoot virotes into the first man. He falls deathly ill and seeks the help of a powerful curer to remove the darts and make him well again.

This is an example of a cosmology that is psychedelically informed and well steeped in sorcery, spirits, and shamanism, or magical thinking. Is it a coincidence that the man fell ill after being spiritually attacked? Maybe. Is there any doubt in the mind of the two men, the sorcerer, and the curer? Not at all, this is just the way the world works in Amazonian cosmology.

Belief is a powerful thing. I think the materialist rational mind is quick to wave away magical thinking as some kind of delusional relic from when we "didn't know any better" but there is much we don't understand about the role of the mind and the way it effects experience, perhaps there is still a bit of room in this overly intellectualized world for some magic and mystery yet.

Arthur C. Clarke said:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
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Everyone's made great points; also, I think critical thinking and magical thinking can coexist very harmoniously. I think there isn't really much harm in magical thinking when you are critical of it :). I often play with it myself as a sort of consciousness expansion tool, and I am incredibly fond of critical thinking as well; I know full well what's supposed to be "real" and what logic dictates, etc, but I can happily entertain several possible stories about "reality" at once. It makes for a fun and colourful experience of life.

Anyway, science is not quite there yet with explaining "reality". we continually discover new things which were previously undetectable or impossible; they just recently discovered an entire new organ in the body, for example. So who are we to dismiss a "magical" thought? how can we be sure what is connected and what isn't? we can't really, there's a lot of stuff that seems to be reasonably predictable, and some which is less so, and everything is variable to some degree.

So, I don't know the answer to your question, but statistically by this thread, it seems possible the answer is yes, though correlation does not imply causation!
 
I don't think that psychedelics lead to magical thinking. This is in fact a derogatory term in psychology which denotes that the idea of ones thoughts affecting the world or events is fallacious. But I think that thoughts do impact reality. Science's reductionist approach to this says there must be a correlation, but that is too simple. I think psychedelics can catalyze great change, but it's hard to conceptualize those experiences to oneself, let alone others.

I think that magic is real though. I do not follow any particular ideology or religion, yet have witnessed things others would think crazy. I think our science is not sufficiently advanced enough to prove the existence of other dimensions, spirits, the validity of plant intelligences, souls, the function of time, consciousness.

there are also other shamanic cultures outside of Amazonia, for instance the reindeer-Evenki are a nomadic people heavily steeped shamanic traditions. They do not take psychedelics though. When an old powerful shaman dies, there is not another to immediately take his/her place as they may not be advanced enough. The community can quickly descend into chaos, as the spirit of the dead shaman is not around to protect them from evil spirits. This can lead to blood-feuds, where a member of another clan is stalked, cursed at, and ultimately murdered in order to appease the spirits. The eyes are pulled out. This could be an example of confirmation of their fears. They became possessed of the evil things and committed these heinous acts. This is what happens when shamans die sometimes. The shaman attains altered states of consciousness and is wise as they traverse the spirit world, but the other members of the clan aren't nearly as intelligent.

I think there are spirits that help us, but also understand that the human body is the true healer, these plants can assist the person in tapping into their personal healing potential, and also the opposite. This is one of the reasons I think synthetic psychedelics like LSD are inferior to the natural ones. They do not have a spirit, something alive, but are dead.
 
I think this is an interesting question burnt. I believe magical thinking is almost as old as thought itself and perhaps IS our original mode of thinking. I can't think of an instance where psychedelic medicines when used in a traditional context aren't worked with magically. Of course there are other cultures which use other means to alter consciousness to facilitate magic. Now that materialist thinking has saturated the world I think magic thinking has been sadly suppressed as a side effect. Magical thinking can be however quite scientific..albeit a subjective one which rules it out of discourse in materialist scientific thinking.

Something I can say is psychedelics have a close association with magical 'revivals' in our culture. Aleister Crowley who is arguably the most famous modern occultist/magician was familiar and experimented with peyote and cannabis (see this talk:
). Then just after a huge wave of LSD entered the our culture we have an entirely new way of thinking of magic (chaos magic) coming into being in the 70s. Crowley was also one of Timothy Leary's inspirations and we know how close Leary is associated with psychedelic medicines.

I can't say one way or another if psychedelic use creates magical thinking I think there is definitely at the very least a strong correlation (yes correlation does not mean causation..). There is obviously many people who have taken psychedelics who don't think magically. My own personal experience says that it certainly helps at least, my psychedelic experiences have felt like an initiation and a loosening of materialist thinking that has allowed magical thinking some room to plant a seed in my mind and start to grow.
 
Super post. So much tek and not enough groking on the intense mystical insight gifted by the plants! IMO.

Seems likely to a psychedelist of 4 decades, that the real reason for a "psychedelic lifestyle", is indeed the "magical thinking" so engendered. Not for the fireworks, but for the non-linear, trans-rational ideation that reminds us to remain humble and curious.

Our concensus state perceptual apparatus melded with the scientific method models the physical. It is for metaphysical model building that we turn to plant teachers. Recall that Realativty and Quantum theory FORCE us to reckon with a commingling of physical and metaphysical, rational and arational. Barely recognized colloquially, even a rudimentay survey of these SCIENTIFIC theories, reveals that the actual nature of our reality defies classical reasoning and linguistic parlance. The plasticity of the space-time matrix, waves of probability and the Uncertainty principle(not observer effect) articulate a profound and fundamental queerness to aspects of reality that had classically been described as immutable.

I'll leave a paper for those tickled by the "magic" that is reality. But briefly, appreciate that Uncertainty describes a limitation on our capacity to know. It reveals the inextricable pairing of matter with space AND energy with time. The information available to us is definitionally "fuzzy". As we gain information about one aspect of matter, other aspects become less defined. Trying to "pin" a particle-event to a particualar space-time locus is disallowed NOT by our imperfect perceptual apparatus(physiologic and mechanical), BUT by the fundamental uncertainty of reality unfoldment!


Peace
 
Thanks everyone for your thoughtful replies. I definitely think there is an overlap between magical thinking and creativity. The difference between delusion and true inspiration that comes from psychedelics is something I find super interesting. We can of course have this sort of discussion about the difference between scientific thinking and more religious type thinking without talking about psychedelics. But I guess I'm focused on the psychedelics because to me they are an alternative to religion and spirituality (in the supernatural sense). I get something that I consider more real out of psychedelics then what others get from religion. I say this as someone who has an almost total materialist non-spiritual world view.

Anyway I recently started thinking about this topic again because of a book I read called "Fantasyland" by Kurt Anderson. The main focus of the book is about how American culture is and always has been steeped in crazy religious beliefs that has led us to this weird modern era where facts don't matter and people can believe whatever they want. The "I can make my own truth" mentality. There is also a chapter describing the 1960's and the role psychedelics played in this sort of thinking in the modern era that I found particularly interesting given my interest in psychedelic legalization. He is especially critical of the Esalen Institute and its cultural impact. This type of thinking is not just limited to the conservative religious types but also this kind of post-modern leftist pseudo-intellectualism that is so common these days.

To respond to some of what was mentioned above I do consider the magical darts sorcery stuff that shamans talk about as purely magical thinking (that also happens to be inspired by plant based psychedelic drugs). That is not meant to denigrate those cultures. I have enormous respect for shamans plant knowledge. I find it a massive cultural tragedy such knowledge is being lost. The criticism applies to a rain dance as much as it does to prayer in a church. I've read the Tao of Physics (the link from Legarto Rey) and I guess my opinion of that book is that it is a superficial connection being made to statements about quantum physics and its relationship to Buddhist ideas (no offense intended). I've posted a lot on here about my views on the quantum new age trend in some old threads many years ago :twisted:

I guess the whole reason I'm concerned about this is I view this kind of trend to deny facts and pretend anything is true as dangerous. We are facing a very real ecological crisis and people are in complete denial about it. To me psychedelics have always been a way to connect to nature and feel deeply connected to other forms of life on earth. I don't need to believe in anything supernatural to get that experience out of psychedelics. I want other people to feel that type of experience because I think it can inspire others to care more about natures and even each other. Psychedelics have the potential to help many social and psychological problems. So I want psychedelics to be legal and studied and discussed. But I wonder could this maybe send us further over the cliff into this no facts madness?
 
I don't think you need to worry about that. This 'everything goes' paradigm, probably isn't something that people realy believe in anyway. It is merely an instrumental belief: it serves as a shield or smokescreen, to defend positions that normally are very hard to defend with any real argument.
It also serves as an excuse for moral or intellectual lazyness.

Especially people who are intellectually very lazy, tend not to care very much about the content of the intellectual tools they deploy. They've just picked it up somewhere and it provides a valuable excuse for not thinking, so why bother about whether it is valid of not?

The thing with 'post truth' is that it loses it's lure when it is being used too much. If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. And if you then keep repeating it, people grow tired of it.

It's just like fashion.
 
Maybe what I'm more concerned about is that its already happened. These attitudes of there are no facts, truthiness, there is no objectivity, etc permeates society these days at least in the USA. The 1960's cultural changes ushered in my psychedelics may have contributed. Those cultural changes are not all bad mostly good actually but the "I think therefore its true" mentality I find an unwanted side effect.
 
burnt said:
Maybe what I'm more concerned about is that its already happened. These attitudes of there are no facts, truthiness, there is no objectivity, etc permeates society these days at least in the USA. The 1960's cultural changes ushered in my psychedelics may have contributed. Those cultural changes are not all bad mostly good actually but the "I think therefore its true" mentality I find an unwanted side effect.
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Yeah, i see what you mean.

But the thing is that: 1-It's a lie, and 2-it's utterly bonkers, it's not even a very elaborate lie.
Someday, someone will come along and say: "hey, the emperor's got no clothes on".

People who'll tell you that there is no such thing as truth, usually have an agenda. And it's usually a pretty radical agenda (either very much on the left, very much on the right, or very, very religious). And all the arguments to back up this radical agenda are usually very easy to dismiss.
That's the very reason that they resort to this silly argument in the first place.

The funny thing is that they usually contradict themselves in also a very radical way. Because they want to refute things like science or common sense, accusing science of being dogmatic, common sense of being entirely illusory....but they are never willing to hold their own little dogma's to the same 'scrutiny'. And their own little 'absolute and undeniable facts' always tend to be not just a little more absolute, rigid and totallitarian, and a lot more speculative and baseless as well.

Ofcourse the united states is a lot more a 'dog-eat-dog' kind or world than say, western europe. And it may be that this is also part of the problem. American society may have become so polarized that there simply may be far less common ground left anymore. People may identify themselves with their own little bubbles so much, that the meaning of 'truth' is being reduced to just another means, in the fight for a place under the sun. A propaganda tool or a shared, tribal, sectarian myth: "right or wrong, MY country", or in this case "true or false, MY bubble".
 
I guess it seems like a long term trend and that is the problem. The recent Trump era insanity about no facts is the culmination of this sort of world view that has been building in various parts of society for a long time. Its always been part of religious traditions especially the fundamentalist ones. But it has also infected academia and the places that were once considered bastions of knowledge and truth. Its post-modernism. Its new age philosophy.

Here is a little summary of book that got me thinking on this topic lately:

www.nytimes.com

Fake News: It’s as American as George Washington’s Cherry Tree (Published 2017)

Kurt Andersen’s “Fantasyland” argues that alternative facts are baked into the American character.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

In the 1960s fantasyland goes into overdrive. Psychedelics, academic scholarship and the New Age movement conspire to make reason and reality the realms of idiots and squares. After the Kennedy assassinations, conspiracy theories become not just a fringe hobby but a “permanent feature of the American mental landscape.” U.F.O. sightings explode, and the stories become ever more elaborate, involving abductions and cover-ups and frolics and secret alliances with interplanetary beings.
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