A Critical Perspective on Psychedelic Use

[Oeaohoo]

I’m currently researching psychedelics as I plan to experiment with them more rigorously in the future and I came upon this interesting essay which criticises their use from a Perennial Traditionalist perspective:

https://charles-upton.com/2018/02/25/on-psychedelics-and-or-entheogens-drug-induced-mysticism-revisited/

I’m not posting this because I agree with everything he says, nor do I imagine any of you will. Let me know what you think of it!

[Oeaohoo]

The very end of this essay felt particularly relevant to the mistakes I have made on my own spiritual journey:

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Furthermore, those who are brought so near to the mysterium tremendum while being denied the final consummation may be subject to Luciferian temptations that the rest of us will probably never encounter, chief among them being the temptation to embrace a Luciferian consummation in a counterfeit Absolute designed in the infernal regions. Anyone who succumbs to such a temptation (which will most likely be presented to him or her in the deep unconscious regions of the soul), or is even confronted with it—assuming that the victim is not able to allow God to heal the psycho-spiritual damage that makes him or her susceptible to it—may effectively be denied Union with Absolute Reality for the remainder of this life, and possibly also the next.

[Oeaohoo]

I thought this part about the UFO phenomenon was very interesting:

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Question: You have undertaken an in-depth study of UFO phenomenon in light of traditional metaphysics in your book Cracks in the Great Wall (2005). There are numerous writers and researchers within the psychedelic world who claim that there is a connection between the psychedelic experience and UFO’s sightings and/or abductions, especially for those who use the substance DMT (dimethyltryptamine). To many this might be the siren call or the advent of the New Age, but to the exponents of the perennial philosophy this has the characteristics of the Kali-Yuga written all over it. Could you please speak to this?

Answer: As I see it, the UFO “aliens” are denizens of the intermediary or psychic plane, what Muslims call the Jinn. So it is not surprising that the use of psychedelics could make one more vulnerable to incursions from that world. René Guénon in The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times [1953] spoke of “fissures” appearing in the “Great Wall” separating the material plane from the intermediary plane, fissures that open our world to “infra-psychic” forces; to me the UFO phenomenon is a perfect example of this process. These fissures appear due to cyclical degeneration and the approaching dissolution of our world, but they are further widened and exploited by human activity, sometimes unconscious, sometimes deliberate. I believe that such things as the spread of the electronic media, including the internet, the liberation of nuclear energy, the use of psychedelics and the general fascination with psychic powers and the paranormal continue to widen the cracks in the Great Wall, which, since it acts as the border between the material and the psychic worlds, can be affected by both material and psychic means; the very fact that such powerful psychic experiences can be produced by a material substance like LSD undoubtedly furthers this process. And it is interesting in this context that, according to Timothy Leary [1920-1996], LSD was not “activated” as a psychedelic until the first atomic bomb was detonated in New Mexico. (On the material side, this border apparently has something to do with the electromagnetic spectrum, which is why automobile engines will often die and electronic equipment malfunction in close proximity to a UFO.) Furthermore, those people Guénon called “agents of the Counter-Initiation” are working to widen the cracks in the Great Wall consciously and deliberately.

The case of pioneer rocket scientist Jack Parsons [1914-1952] comes immediately to mind. Parsons was a follower of black magician Aleister Crowley [1875-1947] and an associate of L. Ron Hubbard [1911-1986], another follower of Crowley, who founded the Church of Scientology and who also (according to my correspondence with Beat Generation writer William Burroughs [1914-1997] in the late 1960’s, when Burroughs was in the process of breaking with Scientology) had a background in Naval Intelligence, something confirmed by Peter Levenda in his trilogy Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft. Parsons, according to UFOlogist Jacques Vallée [b. 1939] in his book Messengers of Deception [1979], claimed to have met a “Venusian” in the Mojave Desert; according to Levenda he performed Pagan rituals at his launchings. He went on to co-found both the Aerojet Corporation and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; a crater was named after him on the dark side of the Moon. Parsons openly stated that he was working to open a “door” into another dimension; it was shortly after his Mojave Desert rituals that the first major post-WWII civilian sightings of UFOs occurred in North America, through of course there is no way of knowing if the two are related. (In the careers of Crowley, Parsons and Hubbard we can see clear indications of the action of the Counter-Initiation.) So conscious or unconscious “invocations” of the Jinn appear to be a major factor in the breakdown of the energy-wall between the material and the intermediary plane; such invocations are undoubtedly inspired by the Jinn themselves, specifically the kafir or unbelieving Jinn (the demons, that is; the Qur’an teaches that some of the Jinn are unbelievers and some are Muslims). In other words, the kafir Jinn are working to break down the Great Wall from their side as well. When the Wall finally crashes, our world will end.

This reminds me very much of Twin Peaks: The Return, especially the 8th episode about the nuclear explosion, a vivid depiction of how dark forces have taken over the world. I know that Mark Frost was interested in Kenneth Grant so that makes sense…

This is the water And this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes and dark within.

Edited yesterday at 02:40 PM by Oeaohoo

[Oppositionless]

22 hours ago, Oeaohoo said:

The very end of this essay felt particularly relevant to the mistakes I have made on my own spiritual journey:

Sounds like it's just not talking about not wanting to fully awaken. Doesn't seem like it has much to do with psychedelics , unless the "non awakening" awakening psychedelics produce is particularly seductive. But the idea that you will permanently be unable to awaken if you momentarily succumb to an imitation of it is pure fear mongering, in my opinion. When I trip it's with the intention of lasting change , the momentary glimpse is secondary.

I spent several years experiencing this so called luciferian imitation of awakening, via cannabis, but that had no impact whatsoever on my ability to experience real awakening via 5 meo and later kriya yoga .

There's a lot of paranoia among spiritual people. "Conspirituality" is a term for it. It's a trap. Psychedelics increase full brain communication and decrease activity in the default mode network. That's it. The spiritual mind loves elaborate spiritual stories . But it's bullshit, realize you're God, that's spirituality.

 

*** okay maybe that's not all psychedelics do. But as a counterpoint to new age paranoia I said that.

Edited 22 hours ago by Oppositionless

[Oeaohoo]

13 hours ago, Oppositionless said:

There's a lot of paranoia among spiritual people. "Conspirituality" is a term for it. It's a trap. Psychedelics increase full brain communication and decrease activity in the default mode network. That's it. The spiritual mind loves elaborate spiritual stories . But it's bullshit, realize you're God, that's spirituality.

I agree with this up to a point. However, the path to God is fraught with obstacles. A degree of paranoia is necessary to avoid falling into the many traps that the adversary has set for you.

[Carl-Richard]

If you care about lasting enlightenment, "when you get the message, put down the phone" seems more accurate than not. My first LSD trip at 18 showed me the problem of suffering, dukkha, perpetual dissatisfaction, seeking, grasping, clinging. It was so apparent to me that I just laid in my bed for hours with a slight frown, trying to avoid the feeling of tension when deciding to do anything. And trips after that were more just ventures into forms, Maya, highly abstract spaces of mind, of extreme self-reference and irony, of deep sensations of profundity, complexity, vastness. But of course, the mystical unity experience was always lingering in the background, trying to creep in at the center stage of experience. But I was then grasping, clinging to experience, the moments I could do that. The trip became a game of trying to avoid the truth creeping in despite the growing discomfort as the trip progressed. And the end of the trip was soaked with weed to alleviate this sense of discomfort, to avert the eyes and bodily sensors from what was truly the lesson. Only when I laid down all drugs, a true feeling of spiritual quest was revealed.

Edited 9 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Oeaohoo]

@Carl-Richard I resonate with what you said in that, when I was younger, my interest in spirituality had a more cynical, Buddhistic and Schopenhauerian flavour: the world is suffering, pain outweighs pleasure, most pleasure is just the release of painful tension, free-will is an illusion, and so on. As I have gotten older it has taken on a more worldly, life-affirming and Nietzschean form. Now I hope I can move into the Hegelian synthesis of these two!

46 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Only when I laid down all drugs, a true feeling of spiritual quest was revealed.

It reminds of this part of the essay I mentioned above:

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Question: Do you have any further reflections on these experiences in light of your present-day outlook on psychedelics? Did your use of psychedelics prompt you to enter a more sustaining spiritual path? And do you still use psychedelics in conjunction with your spiritual practice?

Answer: Yes: the conclusion that, from the spiritual perspective, no trip is good—especially if one is actually able to access higher consciousness or “see God” by means of it (assuming, of course, that these experiences are not delusions, or so mixed with delusionary elements that the way to the valid experiences and insights they counterfeit is not in fact blocked forever). If you drop acid, see horrible hallucinations and experience excruciating feelings of loneliness, degradation and fear, you may actually be luckier than if you experience “ecstasy” and “profound insight” and “consciousness of God”, if not (momentary) “liberation from the wheel of becoming”. If you break your way into the Inner Chamber on your own initiative, you have committed sacrilege—how can you ever become obedient to and annihilated in God’s will if you think you have the right to break into His house any time the fancy suits you? I am not saying that the higher consciousness that can on certain occasions be experienced through psychedelics may not sometimes have a positive effect on one’s life and outlook—but at what cost?

Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh [1926-2008], my first Sufi shaykh, strictly prohibited the use of all drugs, including psychedelics. My 20 years under his guidance were mostly spent laboriously recollecting and healing the psyche I had blown to the four winds through the use of psychedelics, and also undoubtedly through the abuse of kundalini-yoga practiced without benefit of a teacher and a tradition. If I had never entered the Sufi path, however, I might never have seen just how damaged I was; I might have tripped on from one psychic state to another and never realized that I was headed for destruction, if not in this world then certainly in the next. In the words of the Noble Qur’an, God guides aright whom He will and leads astray whom He will….God is the best of plotters. And as for whether or not psychedelics in some way prompted me to enter the Sufi path, that is hard to answer. I entered that path because God called me. Whether He called me through certain valid insights or salutary warnings provided by psychedelics is by and large irrelevant. If you find God after being disappointed in love or wounded in war, does this mean you can recommend such experiences to other people as a way of finding God? All these trappings of personal destiny are at best irrelevant, and at worst a case of idolatry. If you worship the occasion you will never find the Essence; if you worship the means you will never reach the End. It may be that psychedelics were part of the occasion for my entry into the Spiritual path, but the occasion is not the cause. And I haven’t used any psychedelic substance, including marijuana, for over 20 years.

[Oppositionless]

You won't necessarily get the message from one or two trips . I could take a dozen. Myself I had spiritual aspirations , I wanted to be enlightened, but it wasn't until the 5 meo dmt that my body seemed to want to do spiritual practices. Now I don't feel I need psychedelics but I can't say it didn't have a huge effect. Before I didn't meditate at all, now I mediate every day.

Edited 2 minutes ago by Oppositionless