psychedelicsresearch

Thanks There is certainly coming and going, but with slow movement toward more stability, like a small kingdom gradually expanding and consolidating its borders.

I recognize that this is the conventional understanding of things, but my point is that when mind is silent there is actually not any evidence appearing that what you said is true. I can confirm that no concrete slab of ego was discovered during my investigations. I suppose my understanding of how the method is described is that there should be traces of something to follow, and I'm not getting that. Like I'm missing out on an action scene in which you follow the suspect into a dark neighborhood where it's hiding under the staircase and sleeps in your hat. My point, which I won't bother you with any more, is only that what is supposed to be obvious is in fact not obvious to me. Maybe I'm doing it right, actually. If the point of the excercise is to look for the obvious, fail to discover it, and then move into a state of peacefulness, that's actually what happens. Only it wasn't so obvious in the first place. Anyway, thanks for your time

Ok, but that I which knows that it doesn't know is my description later. Experientially in the moment of trying this method out there is only presence, a diffuse field of sense-impressions, silence, and peace. No sense of I to follow anywhere. Also no sense of needing to follow anything anywhere. So the method seems to be self-defeating. Trying to take one step forward with this, and immediately the direction and momentum is lost.

Thanks again winterknight. A question about self-inquiry practice, which has never really gone anywhere for me earlier and doesn't seem to do so now. Your description in your guide starts with this: You know that "I am" right now, right? It's obvious. Well, I don't know. Maybe when my mind is full of thoughts, there is a diffuse feeling of "I am" in the background. When I stop to look for it, however, mind gets silent, there is breathing and other sense impressions, but no identifiable sense of I. A feeling of peace prevails. Like when you are not quite looking at Mona Lisa, there is the impression that she is smiling, but when you look closely the smile disappears. So when you next say: Well, how do you know it? Where is that feeling coming from? Try to find out where in your experience it is coming from, this certainty that you are - mm, you lost me. There's no there there. The thing I'm supposed to be looking for is maybe there when I am not looking, but the act of looking immediately makes it evaporate. Like the illusion I kind of, at least intellectually, know that it is. It's like I can't get any traction with this method, and kind of decided long ago that it's not for me. Advice?

Thanks, winterknight. One final question on this topic: I sometimes observe a certain smugness or attitude of superiority in psychedelics users, as if they are true wizards in a world of Harry Potter-style muggles, whose fear of psychedelic gnosis traps them behind a self-imposed veil of ignorance. There may be something similar among meditators and other spiritual practitioners, but perhaps less pronounced. The wizard-muggle divide may not be entirely mistaken, of course, but self-congratulatory pride might nevertheless seem problematic on a path that supposedly leads toward some form of ego dissolution. How big a problem do you regard this to be? Is psychedelics use especially dangerous in this regard, as it may allow for immature people to have experiences they are not well equipped to integrate? One could imagine that for some people psychedelics use becomes a sort of anti-path that leads only to a cycle of ego-reinforcement, and that this is a major problem.

Thanks! That's already quite a bit of usefulness it seems. So this would seem to mean that the negative potential in spiritual psychedelics use is similar to the negative potential in meditation practice - or at least that the two are structurally similar. Of course, psychedelics obviously give much faster and bigger rewards than meditation, so it is much easier to get obsessed with psychedelics than with meditation, yes? Edit: I don't mean to say that psychedelics actually give bigger rewards than meditation practice in the long run, but that they do so in the short run. Ok, but the purification of mind is a process, right? It happens gradually over time, which means that there will be different stages of purification. And earlier you mentioned that psychedelics can "open your eyes", which implies that there is a state of having closed eyes and a state of having open eyes, and a possibility of moving between them. This sounds like a big change for a person, and big changes might reasonably be called transformations. Crossover effects and synergy are not more complex than in the Buddhist eigthfold path, for instance, where a strenghtening of meditation will support an ethical lifestyle and a more ethical lifestyle will support one's meditation practice. Each aspect of the path has crossover effects and synergy with all the other aspects. The same thing happens at school, where what you learn in one class has crossover effects to other classes. It does not seem difficult to place psychedelic practice into such a web of mutually supporting practices.

Thank you for the in-depth response A summary of what my undestanding obtained from this is that: I) Psychedelics can induce special experiences including glimpses of Truth, but such experiences are not in themselves Truth, and the tendency to pursue special experience may lead one to neglect other, more helpful, practices. The implication is that one should use psychedelics in moderation, and that such use should be combined with practices. II) There is an "ultimate" spiritual practice involving a clear introspective investigation of incoherent unconscious beliefs, which is unrelated to any special experience induced by either psychedelics or any other means, such as meditation. Two questions arise from this: Is it possible that psychedelics may facilitate the introspective investigation in some way? Would it be true to say that a pursuit of Truth-glimpses or samadhi experiences via meditation practice - of such intensity as to lead to neglect of self-inquiry - is equally problematic as such a pursuit via psychedelics use? You did not answer my "frivolous" question, so let me try this way. It seems obvious that having Truth-glimpses has the potential for inspiring and motivating people in the direction of spiritual practice. Can it also go further than this? In my own meditation practice, I have sometimes had experiences (nothing special) that seemed to open me up in some way and deepen the practice. Perhaps it would be correct to say that the experience changed or transformed being. So my question is: Can psychedelic-induced experiences transform being in such a way as to open one up for deeper (more profound, subtler) experiences in the future? Can such experience even facilitate more depth in other kinds of practice, such as meditation or self-inquiry? This may be related to using psychedelics "to open your eyes", which you talked about earlier. It seems possible - at least to imagination - that there could be crossover effects and synergy between psychedelic experiences and meditation practice. Again thanks. I hope I am not hijacking your thread with this. If you prefer me to move this discussion to a separate thread, just say the words.

Hello winterknight, I have read through your responses in this thread and confess to being impressed, not least by your patience. The reason I joined this forum is because I am an academic psychedelics researcher, and the underlying motivation for my work is that I want to identify how psychedelics can help and hinder progress on the spiritual path. In your responses to questions about the spiritual merits of psychedelics, you have outlined some ways in which they can be helpful, but also indicated that they are not sufficient. Would you be willing to go a bit deeper into this? If so, for my first question I would like to ask if you can mention some ways in which psychedelics can be a hindrance on the path? For my second question, I would like to look into the "glimpses of the truth" which you say psychedelics can provide. I am sorry if this seems like a frivolous question, but is it possible to specify reasons why obtaining such glimpses is beneficial for seekers? Under what circumstances may the pursuit of glimpses become an obstacle on the path? I have other questions too Thank you