I've known a lot of people who've used drugs in different ways, and my observation is that people tend to attribute far too much, in terms of their own cognitive ability and potential, to the drugs. (Example: "Because of LSD, I was able to see past <psychological blockage X>." How does this person know he couldn't have seen past it without it?) People who use a lot of psychedelics (in my moderate amount of experience) tend to see reality through a drug-colored lens. To them, there's "reality" which is boring and gray and psychedelia which is interesting and profound. They lose the skill of intermingling these two aspects of life. This is what proper study of spirituality does and drugs do not: it gives you the ability to integrate your profound experiences with everyday life and to apply them to the real world.
If you are even a late beginner at meditation and go out into the woods for 4-5 hours, you'll probably have positive and beautiful experiences. No, you don't get the "trippy" visuals, but that's not the important part. Most people don't have the focus to achieve this until they start practicing, but drugs aren't a way out. I prefer meditation's failure mode, which is no experience, to that of drug use, which is negative experience.
I think psychedelics have great potential as medicines and, in ritual use, can bring lay people in contact with spiritual experiences that might not be accessible to them. The idea that these drugs are "evil" is a mixture of xenophobia, bigotry, and religious puritanism. They're not evil; they have great potential for good. On the other hand, I think the recreational use of drugs is seriously overrated.
Psychedelic dependence (of a psychological kind, because these drugs are not physically addictive) exists, but it's much more subtle than physical addiction. When you know someone has a real problem is when he starts attributing positive things (creativity, spirituality, insight) that should not rely on drugs to psychedelics. This leads into materialistic nihilism and a very unsettling style of ennui in which a person has to get further detached from reality to feel good.
Unless you can truly experience reality through their eyes you simply don't know if what they have gained would have been possible without drugs.
I, for example, don't believe in God. But I would never be so arrogant as to claim that people who do cannot reach a more complete understanding of themselves or their potential, or that this understanding is somehow more shallow than my perspective on the world. Even if I believe to my very core that my perspective is grounded in reality, and theirs in superstition.
This is what you are doing though, only you believe your perspective is grounded in spirituality (whatever that means) and theirs in materialism.
Yes, psychological dependence exists, but people become psychologically dependent on all kinds of things. That some of these things exist materially, doesn't mean the individual concerned is descending into materialistic nihilism. I don't understand why drugs get singled out as such a particular evil in this regard.
You make a fair point, and we can only reason from what we've seen.
What I've seen is a LOT of false enlightenment in a certain subculture. Hang out for a few hours with the drugged-out burnouts in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to get a sense of it. There's a certain arrogant, self-congratulatory nihilism in the "hipster" culture, and if it's taken more seriously than it deserves, it leads to some very bad places. Is it the drugs or the casual sex alone? Of course not, because drugs and sex are generally harmless (if not possibly beneficial) in moderation. It's a certain self-centered experience-chasing mindset that, for a variety of reasons, is very attractive to young people whose personalities and ideas haven't yet formed.
If people want to use drugs, then I have no problem with that. Certainly I think these chemicals should be legal and that their possible benefits should be researched. But the false enlightenment that I've seen some people fall into is dangerous. It kills a person's work ethic and leaves that person prey to mental illness. Does everyone who uses drugs fall into this pattern? Obviously, no. Do a lot of people who don't use drugs fall into it anyway? Certainly. I think that drugs make people who are exposed to that mentality and culture a lot more susceptible to falling into it, and that's the primary danger.
For the record, I think drug prohibition (which is immoral and should be ended) makes these drugs a lot more dangerous. A lot of people have to be connected to a depraved culture even to have regular access to these drugs. I've often thought that less dangerous than the chemicals themselves are the sorts of toxic people you can end up surrounding yourself with if you want regular, frequent access, due to the drugs' illegality.
I agree for the most part, and I apologise if I came off over strong in my last post.
For what it's worth I have spent a great deal of time in the company of such people. Perhaps it's the case that the majority are simply living in a deluded drug-addled mist, and certainly a great many are hedonists first and last, and would be happy to admit it.
The thing is though, I see a lot of false enlightenment everywhere. There are whole swathes of people who would consider themselves spiritual for one reason or another but don't seem the least bit capable of critical thinking, open mindedness, introspection or subtlety. Ultimately, dogmatic ideology has stunted more people's personal development than drugs ever will. Not to mention the billions murdered over the centuries.
Yet in any community you will find deeply thoughtful individuals who have clearly gained and grown a great deal from their experiences and beliefs. For this reason I cannot bring myself to write any tool of potential enlightenment off, no matter what the behaviour of the average user, or if it comes in the form of scripture or white powder.
I think you're right on a lot of this. I guess that all I would say is that the proportions are different. You're more likely to find false prophets, psychosis, and disturbing detachment from reality in Williamsburg drug culture than in monastic Buddhism, but this is a contrived comparison that maybe doesn't mean very much. Still, I'd much rather (in the distant future when I'm raising kids) find out that my 17-year-old kid was practicing Zen Buddhism than find out that he or she was using LSD. If the latter, I'd do everything I could to encourage him or her to use it safely and in an intelligent way, but I'd still prefer the former. And I'd definitely let a child attend a meditation retreat if I thought he was ready; I wouldn't give help him or her find LSD, though.
I'm a pragmatist at heart, much more than a moralist. If drugs can make peoples' lives better, they should be used.
Totally hear you, and that's why I've always said "dumb people do dumb stuff on drugs". Brilliant people have very interesting experiences on drugs. One of the reasons university is such an important community to experiment in!
Your points are all valid. Nevertheless the amount drugs have contributed to various creative and technological innovations cannot be quantified. Things we all enjoy were at least aided by them. Thus drugs, whether we like it or not, are a part of what we have and who we are.
This is true nowhere more than in Northern California where we're also uniquely a land of pioneers, and eccentrics. We are all of the above and it's not clear which is cause or effect. Nevertheless, this hodge-podge has led to a center of innovation and a culture that seeks to overthrow traditions. For many individuals drugs are important in their own cultural development, how they see the world, etc.
Like the woman says in the article: drugs can help people 'see the top of the mountain', so they realize they don't need to keep on doing what they were otherwise doing. If you've personally not experienced this, that's fine, but please don't diminish important experiences from others, solely because you don't like the idea of requiring an external adulterant to achieve.
Keep in mind we're all reliant on adulterants, whether they're friends, education, caffeine, or a walk in the woods like you say. All of this is life experience, and we are life.
"I prefer meditation's failure mode, which is no experience, to that of drug use, which is negative experience."
You can actually develop 'meditation sickness', which is essentially psychosis brought on from either excessive meditation or else meditation the wrong way. It's not super common, but it's still generally advised that people not take up a meditation practice without expert supervision.
What is "excessive" meditation? People die after playing video games for 16 hours, but no one is going to argue that playing them for a couple hours a day is physically dangerous.
I generally think the "meditation sickness" is more scare than substance, without much evidence for a causative link, but I think it's possible in certain circumstances. For example, I've heard of inexperienced people (i.e. people who've taken one hatha yoga class) going on week-long retreats and having negative experiences (including temporary psychosis and anxiety disorders) but that's not what I'm talking about. That's about as irresponsible as for an overweight person who can barely walk a mile to try out for a marathon.
I think that a lot of "meditation sickness" comes from people who are prodromal of some sort of psychological crisis and (because of their increasingly difficult mental state) become interested in altering their consciousness, and that the psychotic break was not caused by the meditation but would have happened anyway. I can't prove that, but it's been my suspicion for a long time. For those who might argue that meditation is therefore bunk because some people who meditate end up getting frank mental illness anyway, my counterpoint would be that it's foolish to expect that a novice meditator can meditate his way out of a potentially physical mental illness; he needs medical help.
What is very dangerous is when people try to use meditation or yoga in lieu of other well-tested, scientific medical treatment, which some New Age types believe in even though most actual meditators and yogis advise strongly against it. I talked to a very accomplished yoga teacher about using meditation to treat panic disorder (didn't want to use benzos) and he said, "Meditate, but see a doctor and take his advice. You can't meditate your way out of this, right now, any more than a person with heart disease can meditate out of that."
There was a rumor a while back that some of these South Korean internet cafes were putting low doses of mood enhancing drugs in the air so that people got depressed when they left, though I'm pretty sure that was just an urban legend.
Reminds me of stories about casinos who pump additional pure oxygen into the air to make gamblers feel "more alive and awake" while they're there (and thus experiencing a low when they leave).
I could be wrong but I believe the purpose of oxygen in casinos is purely to help people play longer without getting tired, thus losing more money that way.
If you are even a late beginner at meditation and go out into the woods for 4-5 hours, you'll probably have positive and beautiful experiences. No, you don't get the "trippy" visuals, but that's not the important part. Most people don't have the focus to achieve this until they start practicing, but drugs aren't a way out. I prefer meditation's failure mode, which is no experience, to that of drug use, which is negative experience.
I think psychedelics have great potential as medicines and, in ritual use, can bring lay people in contact with spiritual experiences that might not be accessible to them. The idea that these drugs are "evil" is a mixture of xenophobia, bigotry, and religious puritanism. They're not evil; they have great potential for good. On the other hand, I think the recreational use of drugs is seriously overrated.
Psychedelic dependence (of a psychological kind, because these drugs are not physically addictive) exists, but it's much more subtle than physical addiction. When you know someone has a real problem is when he starts attributing positive things (creativity, spirituality, insight) that should not rely on drugs to psychedelics. This leads into materialistic nihilism and a very unsettling style of ennui in which a person has to get further detached from reality to feel good.