Spiritual Journal, 2/4/02
Feb. 8th, 2002 03:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
novapsyche7:04 a.m.
Every once in a while, my brain reminds me that there are people who consider entheogenic use as cheating, its fruit undeserved. I want to (need to?) respond to this.
You have two people. Person A utilizes traditional methods to engender the ecstatic state. This person may use such time-tested methods as chanting, drumming, dancing, swaying, fasting, or sleep deprivation. (Of course, incidentally, traditional cultures often used entheogenic substances, but I suppose that is neither here nor there....)
Person B ingests a substance that is psychoactive.
Work involved is often brought up by entheogen-use opponents. They'd point to Person A and say, "At least this person did something to bring about this physiological change in perspective. The other person just swallowed something." Person A, also, produces the bases of his/her ecstatic state endogenously; Person B had to rely on something outside the body. It's often assumed that being reliant on an outside substance is bad and should be avoided.
In some way, this whole scenario seems to boil down to the deserving and the undeserving; the person who did the most work and was the more self-reliant is the deserving one. He/she worked hard for that ecstasy; the resultant mindset is his/her reward.
But I am reminded of something in the Bible: the rain falls on both the just and the unjust. Person B may not have put in as much grunt work, but that does not mean that he/she should be denied a similar experience to Person A.
This is eerily reminiscent of the old argument of salvation through works and salvation through faith. Our Puritan morality makes it so that we find inherent goodness in work; and we detest those who "keep their hands idle." But faith is the cornerstone of belief, and (good) works are not enough for salvation.
I'm just saying. The just and the unjust are equally treated by the universe: the sun shines on them both. Those who work for their ecstasy are not necessarily more deserving than those who use "shortcuts" or somatic triggers; they are just perceived that way by us--we, the bystanders, whose powers and levels of perception are skewed, idiosyncratic, and necessarily limited.
LSD, as well as all of the other entheogens, is no respecter of persons. The gods made manifest will do so in anyone who has consumed. The god within will blossom in both the sinner and the saint. And, in my opinion, such egalitarianism can only be positive. Equal access to and opportunity for the deeply ecstatic state is a boon for the whole of mankind. (Whether or not everyone takes part in this opportunity does not diminish the significance of the presentation and availability of that opportunity.)
Every once in a while, my brain reminds me that there are people who consider entheogenic use as cheating, its fruit undeserved. I want to (need to?) respond to this.
You have two people. Person A utilizes traditional methods to engender the ecstatic state. This person may use such time-tested methods as chanting, drumming, dancing, swaying, fasting, or sleep deprivation. (Of course, incidentally, traditional cultures often used entheogenic substances, but I suppose that is neither here nor there....)
Person B ingests a substance that is psychoactive.
Work involved is often brought up by entheogen-use opponents. They'd point to Person A and say, "At least this person did something to bring about this physiological change in perspective. The other person just swallowed something." Person A, also, produces the bases of his/her ecstatic state endogenously; Person B had to rely on something outside the body. It's often assumed that being reliant on an outside substance is bad and should be avoided.
In some way, this whole scenario seems to boil down to the deserving and the undeserving; the person who did the most work and was the more self-reliant is the deserving one. He/she worked hard for that ecstasy; the resultant mindset is his/her reward.
But I am reminded of something in the Bible: the rain falls on both the just and the unjust. Person B may not have put in as much grunt work, but that does not mean that he/she should be denied a similar experience to Person A.
This is eerily reminiscent of the old argument of salvation through works and salvation through faith. Our Puritan morality makes it so that we find inherent goodness in work; and we detest those who "keep their hands idle." But faith is the cornerstone of belief, and (good) works are not enough for salvation.
I'm just saying. The just and the unjust are equally treated by the universe: the sun shines on them both. Those who work for their ecstasy are not necessarily more deserving than those who use "shortcuts" or somatic triggers; they are just perceived that way by us--we, the bystanders, whose powers and levels of perception are skewed, idiosyncratic, and necessarily limited.
LSD, as well as all of the other entheogens, is no respecter of persons. The gods made manifest will do so in anyone who has consumed. The god within will blossom in both the sinner and the saint. And, in my opinion, such egalitarianism can only be positive. Equal access to and opportunity for the deeply ecstatic state is a boon for the whole of mankind. (Whether or not everyone takes part in this opportunity does not diminish the significance of the presentation and availability of that opportunity.)
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(no subject)
Date: 2002-02-09 09:10 pm (UTC)You completely misread my analogy. Was that an honest mistake, or were you phrasing your response that way intentionally to ridicule a strawman? I mean, how exactly do you read that passage?
I read it as a statement that, no matter human perceptions of being upright or being undeserving, the universe treats each person the same. Some people in our midst we consider "monsters"; still, the Breath of Life fills their nostrils just as it fills ours.
One may think it is "unfair" that someone can reach an ecstatic state by merely taking in some exogenous substance, but that unfairness is merely a human perception.
If the universe is divided into opposites of pleasure and pain, just and unjust, up and down, acting and not acting, judging and not judging, then the only way to be free of this is to evolve one's consciousness to the stage where none of these things are separate.
I realize that. If I hadn't, I wouldn't not have been able to use the analogy as I did. And the evolution of one's consciousness to the awareness of such things is irrelevant to the nature of the things themselves. Pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin; whether someone in the span of a lifetime comes to such a belief does not change the relationship of pleasure and pain to each other.
The progression has already been shown to go belief (a mental idea), faith (realizing that belief is not enough and doesn't work) which recognizes the mind can only go so far at which point it goes in a circle, and then experience which is a direct apprehension of spiritual transpersonal realities.
As an existentialist, I have promoted the value of experience for quite some time.
You'll have to explain to me how faith is "realizing that belief is not enough and doesn't work". I know plenty of people who would argue that point with you. I would call that the collapse of belief, sure... but not faith itself. Being an apostate does not make one faithful.
It is not said that "God will blossom in the good and the bad," it is said that God is already equally present in the good and the bad in a similar way to molecules already being equally present in the good and the bad.
I equate G-d to the natural universe anyway, so your explanation seems redundant to me. My phrase about blossoming was poetic language, not hard description of cosmology.
I'm not saying that there are no arguments for using drugs to aid in spiritual pursuit, I am saying that they arguments mentioned here have all been shown by pretty much all fields of study to be extremely invalid.
Fine. I'm still researching, so I am reserving judgment (especially since I have first-hand knowledge of how psychotropic agents have aided in my own "spiritual pursuits"). I am not simply reading items written by, say, Timothy Leary (in fact, I have yet to read anything by him). I am reading up on how biochemical processes affect the brain, how brain processes affect consciousness, how consciousness (and/or belief) affects health. I do not wish to fool myself. I wish to inform myself.
I appreciate your comments and your perspective.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-02-09 09:19 pm (UTC)Entheogen, etymologically speaking, means "god within" or "god- or spirit-facilitating" (http://www.csp.org/practices/entheogens/entheogens.html ). That was what I was referring to--NOT that the Bible said that "God will blossom within the good and the bad".
I apologize for not making my meaning explicit.
Re:
Date: 2002-02-10 08:30 am (UTC)Actually, the point of it was not at all clear to me. The implication seemed to be saying what I responded to, but I didn't honestly think that's what you meant. I figured if you actually did mean something along those lines, it would be responded to. If you didn't mean that, you would rephrase. I will now respond to that rephrasing.
I read it as a statement that, no matter human perceptions of being upright or being undeserving, the universe treats each person the same. Some people in our midst we consider "monsters"; still, the Breath of Life fills their nostrils just as it fills ours.
I had thought this was somewhat obvious, but either way, I don't see how it relates to your main point.
One may think it is "unfair" that someone can reach an ecstatic state by merely taking in some exogenous substance, but that unfairness is merely a human perception.
"Merely a human perception?" Please show me why this makes it less valuable. Granted, if you are defending drug-aided spiritual practices to people who simply say, "But no fair!" then I can agree that such an attitude of "unfairness" is indeed silly (since the experience is not supposed to be some kind of reward for "playing nice"). If you are defending against those who claim that your approach can have the same (but less far-reaching) results for the price of its many shortcomings, implying that human perceptions shouldn't matter so much here is the same as saying, "Well, like, that's just your opinion, man." And the same defense could be used against you. It makes the claim that all human perceptions are equally valuable--a claim which (as I showed in my original response) is self-contradictory.
Pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin; whether someone in the span of a lifetime comes to such a belief does not change the relationship of pleasure and pain to each other.
I'm not talking about a belief. That is a mental idea. I'm talking about the direct apprehension of that oneness. I know it sounds like splitting hairs, but they are two vastly different experiences. It's easy to develop to the point where you believe that. Much harder to experience it in a moment of insight as a very tangible truth.
I would call that the collapse of belief, sure... but not faith itself. Being an apostate does not make one faithful.
Sorry, I wasn't clear on that one. That is the collapse of belief, I meant to add that faith is what soldiers on when belief collapses. It is somewhat blind, by nature, because it does not have the map of belief anymore, nor the light of experience. It is open to the possibilities (which allows the truth of experience to come in). One's beliefs often get in the way of actual experiences.
I equate G-d to the natural universe anyway, so your explanation seems redundant to me.
It has been shown in extensive works (including those of all the greatest physicists) how God cannot be equated with the natural universe. Some good and definitive references on this are written and/or compiled by Ken Wilber. _Sex, Ecology, Spirituality_ (which I've already recommended) is one, _Eye to Eye_ goes into that particular issue in detail as well, and then there is _Quantum Questions_ which is an amalgamation of the views of two dozen or more exceptional physicists (from Bohr to Einstein) who were incidentally all mystics. One can also consult their works, but I prefer going to one source to find the references and then working back to those. In this light, my analogy was not redundant. Indeed, I'm always a bit careful to use that one because it encourages people to make the same equation that you did.
I hate the 4000 character limit. The rest in a sec...
Re:
Date: 2002-02-10 08:30 am (UTC)On that issue, I would again reference Wilber's SES. His "Four Quadrants of a Holon" system has made his work pivotal in understanding and interpreting (and INTEGRATING) scientific processes and obersations, consciousness research, and cultural values. The problem with consulting most "science" texts on this is they are very partial and act as though consciousness is the end product of little particles zipping around and coincidentally fitting together in nifty and useful ways. This skews all consciousness research towards hyperactive atoms with ideas above their station. However, SES is something that opens up the argument and invites you to make your own opinions by giving a broader overview and leaving the details for you to research.
I do not wish to fool myself. I wish to inform myself.
The most noble goal. I'm not sitting here pretending I have never fooled myself. Indeed, I once had most of the same beliefs you have now. I was somewhat annoyed to find that texts showing clearly and definitely where the fallacies lay were so hard to find, though I was surprised that they actually fit my experience MORE than my prior beliefs. :)