Psychedelics as a spiritual practice! (Need your perspective!)

[Verg0]

Hey everyone! 

I was invited to give a presentation at a psychedelic symposium and just realized this is quite a big event from Kings College London`s Psychedelic Reasearch department.  And it's happening in a week. Now I am nervous and wanna come up with some very valuable, novel, memorable and exciting perspectives that engage this mostly academic audience. 

I am just a little psychonaut , having explored and studied the realm of psychedelics and self-realization on my own over the past 9 years. 

I wanna talk about "Psychedelicss as a spiritual practice: The dance of detached appreciation" and would love to gather reflections on my ideas to structure the talk. 

Also, I would love your perspectives on the topic!! 

How do you think Psychedelics could be used as a spiritual practice?

Can psychedelics be a true spiritual practice? What does that even mean? What is the relationship between psychedelics and self-realizaiton? How do we deal with the paradox that they may "accelerate" spiritual development through intese purification, while the pursuit of and attachment to a goal in spirituality may itself be a trap? How does integration fot into all of this? And what dangers and pitfalls do we have to be aware of when using psychedelics as a spiritual practice? 

Any critial, amazing resources regarding this are also very welome! 

 

Here`s some ideas I got already: 

1. Psychedelics as Training Grounds for "Spiritual Traits"
-Seeing them as training for deep spiritual traits.
Deep psychedelic journeys help us cultivate humility, surrender, patience, resilience, non-judgment, detachment, acceptance, forgiveness and other traits aligned with Truth. 
So if we consciously approach psychedelics as a space for practice, we mature spiritually. 

2. Psychedelics as the Direct Recognition of Reality
They reveal the deeper nature of existence: Selflessness, Unity, Omnipresence, Perfection, Goodness -  and all the other facets of God Leo covered in many of his videos. 
It’s about direct experience of qualities of reality and existence. 

3. Psychedelics as the Path of Paradox
Psychedelics work seems to be infinite. They make the realize deep not-knowing. The mystery beyond language. Beyond scientific understanding. 

 

Also we got things like:

-The Reality of Substance-Induced Awakening

-Psychedelics as  a "Truth -revealing- state". 

-The value of temporary mystical peak expereinces 

-The reality that your classical mystcial experience is in no way guarandeed through psychedelics (it seems to be a matter of grace - even though psychedelics are infinitely more reliable for this than something like yoga retreats) 

-Psychedelic bypassing 

 

And most importantly, what I wanna make the centerpiece of the talk - which is an idea that was arising from my personal insights: 

That Psychedelics as a true spiritual practice shall be an end in and of themselves, not a means to an end. 

Just as true Meditation is not a means to reach "Enlightenment/Awakening", but an end in and of itself. It is the embodiment of Truth. Here. Now. 

This speaks to the trap of chasing the high, of attaching to peak expereinces, of deeming them to be better or superior to ordinary states of conciousness. 

I feel the view "I take psychedelics to be more realized or healed or whatever" is fundamentally flawed, even though they might hold the potential for that to be the case to some extent. 

From my point of view, all states of cociousness are Truth. And so the best practice I can do is to appreciate every state with uncondictional, infinite appreciation. 

And psychedelics are an amazing place for this practice, as it`s so easy to attach to the bliss and be aversed to and judge the demons. 

We attach to appearances while the core of spirituality is not to hold on to any appearance whatsoever. 

Simply to love all appearances. To love them. 

 

There is more - but this is just my little incomplete rant for a start. 

 

What are your reflections of this? 

How could I structure the talk in a way where I center it around one crutial idea, that the audience takes away, that is of immense value? 

(Any public speaking tipps are also warmly welcome - it will be a 45 minute presentation) 

To balance it with personal stories and maybe "real data" - whatever that even means. 

Any other contributions or insights? 

 

Thanks ❤️

 

PS - Leo, have you ever thought about speaking at psychedelic conferences & events? I feel your contributions might be much appreciated. 

I love to work in person, it opens up completely new realms beyond speaking into a camera. 

 

 

[OBEler]

@Verg0 hey I love your channel because it's unique about 5 Meo and love to follow your personal journey.

I am highly academic myself (have two degrees in different subjects) so I just give you some advice how to speak to such an audience:

As you already know probably you cannot speak like in your channel in unstructured, repetitive way. Be clearly pointed. Do not repeat  a point with different words over and over again.

Don't speak about your own journey , that's highly subjective, be more general.

Don't speak too much about soft facts like motivation and feelings. Don't be a philosoph. Don't talk like a Buddhist who throws out wise words, concentrate on psychedelics. They want to hear about psychedelics.

Deliver high quality facts. I know you are more the feeling guy who entertains. I would be careful to not fulfill the clichees, like represent the typical ayahuasca hippie. Deliver facts and remember quality over quantity. Also I recommend to get a hair cut, wear normal clothes, put your nose strips off, hide your pipe. They will judge that quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 16 hours ago by OBEler

[Rising Spirit]

In all honesty, my spiritual journey actually began as a boy.  An accidental near-drowning gave me a NDE and an OBE that changed my views forever.  Granted, as viewed from a child's perspective.  But after imbibing LSD in 1977, I learned the power and illumination of sacred medicines.  This naturally, led to my fascination for Yogic philosophy and practices.  Yes, to this day I credit psychedelics with giving me a taste of Samadhi.  But honoring the spiritual paths and bringing their teachings into my day-to-day existence has become secondary nature.  And when speaking before an assemblage as you will be, my advice is to be as clear and concise as possible.  Few lay persons can comprehend nonduality nor the living Spiritus, given their proclivity towards factual reasoning.  Therefore, it's best to present your talk as not neccussarily being a "sermon" rather, a provocative invitation and as succinctly as you can.  I feel that there is a definite science to enlightenment/ spiritual awakening and as such, there is a lot of ground to cover.  Play it as rooted and clear headed as you can. 

Namaste 🙏 

Edited 20 hours ago by Rising Spirit