Face it Faustus. As much as I have valued a thousand of your contributions on innumerable threads, on this one you have tripped up. Recognize and move on.
... I should have been more specific in my initial response, obviously...
Yup.
...
But guess what--this thread is about religious experiences. And I'm sorry, but if you are after religious or spiritual experiences (regardless of whether you believe in the supernatural), no one's imagination is going to hope to compete for the intensity and strangeness of a safely conducted psychedelic trip done with the intention of having such experiences.
...
Ok, you are being much more specific now at least, thank you.
"Intensity and strangeness" appear to be the qualities you are measuring. Fair enough.
It is still hubris of you to claim though that "no one" who has done psychadelics would say that their imagination gave them more "intense and strange" experiences.
Since you have not experienced the imaginative powers of Steven (or I for that matter) you cannot objectively compare them to our psychadelic experiences and claim the latter satisfied your criteria more than the former. I for one practiced meditation for years, and became quite good at getting my mind to the point that I could lower my "filters" enough to free all kinds of wonderous, straange, and often disturbing things to happen, to the point I stopped doing it.
Regardless, in the future, please think twice before trying to objectively rate someone else's subjective experiences. You can't possibly know what Steve has really experienced. As Judge Judy says, that would call for you to know the operation of one's mind.
But guess what--this thread is about religious experiences.
I'm an atheist. I don't want to have religious experiences. It is enough for me to know that such experiences can be induced by drugs and that their supernatural origins have been thoroughly debunked. As it happens, my own psychedelic experiences weren't remotely religious in nature and could be interpreted as religious only by persons who were already religiously inclined.
It is still hubris of you to claim though that "no one" who has done psychedelics would say that their imagination gave them more "intense and strange" experiences.
No, it is not hubris, it is scientific literacy when it comes to brain operations. You cannot, no matter how much you try, put yourself into the same mental state that a psychedelic drug will put you into, unless we are talking about doses so small as to be beneath consideration.
The same applies to most other mental states that one attempts to recreate through remembering and imagination alone. You can bring up neural activity that is sometimes close, or at least related to the actual thing, but that's it. This stuff has been attempted and measured in scientific settings.
As it happens, my own psychedelic experiences weren't remotely religious in nature and could be interpreted as religious only by persons who were already religiously inclined.
I wouldn't classify most of what I experienced as religious and spiritual in nature, either. Some were, occasionally, but not most. I don't remember the exact adjectives you used earlier in the thread to describe your own experiences with these kinds of chemicals, but I remember chuckling to myself that they accurately summed up a good chunk of what I experienced as well. Kind of why I stopped after just a few tries.
The same applies to most other mental states that one attempts to recreate through remembering and imagination alone. You can bring up neural activity that is sometimes close, or at least related to the actual thing, but that's it. This stuff has been attempted and measured in scientific settings.
BS"D
I disagree with this assumption. In fact it was the precise correlation of measureable neurological and cognitive activities of religiously disciplined (both theistic and non-theistic) persons that laid the initial framework for the early psychotropic studies (turn on, tune in and drop out.) While some practicioners used psychotropic substances to realize their experiences, others made use of sheer discipline of body and mind developed over thousands of years. Both affect the brain directly and profoundly.
It is only the myopic chronologically primitive Western perspective with its illusion of objectivity and linear time (a somewhat useful illusion still afflicting Western civilization) that results in one thinking that remembering and imagining are the two primary functions of the brain. Since the 1950's we have come to understand that the brain's cognitive abilities are mostly a function of internal editing rather than any assumed or measureable objectively perceptual input. So it is only natural that those conscious actions and environmental factors (such as drugs) that affect the brain directly will inevitably result in some extraordinarily non-median perceptions IMHO.
No, it is not hubris, it is scientific literacy when it comes to brain operations. You cannot, no matter how much you try, put yourself into the same mental state that a psychedelic drug will put you into, unless we are talking about doses so small as to be beneath consideration.
No one (except you perhaps) was claiming one could achieve the same mental state as psychadelics by using his imagination. Rather Steve and I were stating that imagination was better for us. In other words we subjectively rated the experience as more preferable.
The same applies to most other mental states that one attempts to recreate through remembering and imagination alone. You can bring up neural activity that is sometimes close, or at least related to the actual thing, but that's it. This stuff has been attempted and measured in scientific settings.
You subsequently re-qualified what better meant as meaning more inetense or bizarre, any perhaps you may be right in most cases if you were measuring those specific things, but that was not the original point.
If you would like to start a new topic claiming that psychadelic experiences are more intense and bizarre than what could be experienced using the mind alone, feel free to do so. But if someone says he prefers his imagination, how can you argue with that?
You might as well be saying I'm wrong when I say dark chocolate tastes better than milk chocolate.
I find it utterly amazing that this thread was started tonight. Because, tonight I had my first experience with DMT.
This is what happened. I smoked a small quantity under the guidance of my adult son, who is very shamanistic in his being. The first thing I felt was a rush of relaxation throughout my body and warmth. Then, I started laughing, hysterically for about 10 minutes. I was crying, tears streaming down my face laughing harder than I have ever laughed in my life. I was beside myself and loving every glorious moment.
And when it was over...doesn't last long...I was asked what was so funny? And I thought about what I was laughing about, because at the time, I had no idea.
And then it hit me...I was laughing at the absurdity of it all....
Still makes me wanna laugh now...
Peace
<'{{><
Good on ya, fish!
Jesus had two dads, and he turned out alright.~ Andy Gussert
“Feminism has fought no wars. It has killed no opponents. It has set up no concentration camps, starved no enemies, practiced no cruelties. Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions…for safety on the streets…for child care, for social welfare…for rape crisis centers, women’s refuges, reforms in the law.
If someone says, “Oh, I’m not a feminist,” I ask, “Why, what’s your problem?”
You can't sit in place and conjure up experiences that are even remotely comparable to an actual psychedelic trip. Purely impossible, neurologically. Period.
Steven said that his imagination was Better. I agreed with him. I didn't say that certain drugs would not give you experiences that were not possilble in a normal state of mind, I agreed that imagination was better. My experiences with psychadelic drugs were mostly unpleasant.
Mine were mostly trashy and cliché. As experiences go, they weren't worth having.
Mine were not trashy, only slightly cliche, but it was one of the more profound experiences I've had.
For me, the experience brought me into the 'now' in a way I could not otherwise achieve and that experience lasted 5 hours. It gave me experience in being fully present for a sustained period of time.
Jesus had two dads, and he turned out alright.~ Andy Gussert
“Feminism has fought no wars. It has killed no opponents. It has set up no concentration camps, starved no enemies, practiced no cruelties. Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions…for safety on the streets…for child care, for social welfare…for rape crisis centers, women’s refuges, reforms in the law.
If someone says, “Oh, I’m not a feminist,” I ask, “Why, what’s your problem?”
No one (except you perhaps) was claiming one could achieve the same mental state as psychadelics by using his imagination. Rather Steve and I were stating that imagination was better for us. In other words we subjectively rated the experience as more preferable.
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