I had a "peak experience" last year at the end of march...

Before I tell the story, I wanted to tell you that before this happened, I did not believe in spirituality, it is/was just my nature as a scientist. Show me facts and I believe you...

It was a saturday evening. I was in London for my 6th and last month of internship. I was sitting at home, thinking about going out, it is indeed my last week here, so better do something fun!

I read about this party called Whil-y-gig. According to the reviews: "A crazy place". A party that has been going for 32 years, every month. I didn't think much about it and just went.

The queue was huge ,waited for 1.5 hours in line, in the cold. Luckily, I met some nice people standing there, they all seemed so cool and chill. Funnily, the guy I first talked to was a dealer. He was at the party with a bunch of friends. Its like church they said. They do that every other month.

This guy also told me that everyone at the party is going to be on some kind of drug, mostly MDMA. And if I needed any, I should come to him :)

At that moment, I was very again drugs. They are bad etc. but I was curious!

I went in, passed security, wanted to pay for my entrance and noticed a sign saying "kids under 12 years enter for free". And I was like WTF. Then I noticed that there are families entering the venue. Gandpas with their daughters and their grand children (about 14-16 years old).

Then I entered the place. As if you are beamed out of your reality and into another place. Colorful, magnificent place... I got rid of my coat and started talked to the people there. Very nice and open people. After 1.5 hours, I knew that if I ever try anything, it is going to be here.

So I did, I had my first dose of MDMA at a goa kind of party in the heart of london. And I can tell you, it was the most intense and spiritual experience in my life.

I was euphoric, danced like I was in sync with every single beat in the nice music. I talked to people about my deepest fears. Meditated in a triangle with a swiss neuroscientist and a gay topless meditation guru named marcel...

It was fascinating. I never felt this warm, connected and free as in that night. It is a beautiful feeling!

Since then, I know how good I can feel, and there is something so beautiful that my brain is capable of doing. Even though I know it was a chemical compound inducing something in my brain, it is spiritual for me :)

At the end of the party, 5:30am, everyone heads to the dancing area (most were chilling in the bed and coutch area by that time) and sits on the floor. The music changes to a very mellow one. Then, a huge white parachute is dropped on everyone. And people start waving it above the crowd. Then colorful balloons drop down and everyone start to be sucked into this magical moment.

Next, people started lighting up joints, big and small, taking a few hits and then passing them into the round. I have never felt so in peace with myself before. And I wish you all to have this feeling one day :)

Long story short:

Laid off February 2007. Spent some time figuring shit out, some time being pissed off. Had an opportunity to go out to Thailand for a week to help finish post on a film. Which didn't take much time. And, as we were hangin' with the locals, we got to do some fun stuff.

We headed up to Ayutthaya and, as one does, stopped at eleventy-seven places along the way. Two of these places where Buddhist temples. The second one...

So the place is packed with Thai. Me and a buddy are the only farang there. Probably 1000 people in this smoky Chinese temple on the river; think it was Chinese, anyway. And the monk running the ceremonies takes one look at me and my buddy and brings the mic over.

It's call'n'response time, you see. Monk says something, supplicant repeats it. He's been going 'round the room. He's going to get the farang to do it. And my buddy, he speaks a little Thai, but his accent's no good.

Me?

I know maybe five words in Thai. But I've always been a mimic. So I repeat along as best I can, inflection and all.

Funny thing happens. Monk stops carrying the mic around. Instead, the monk pretty much stands with me for ten minutes, calling out something, then pointing the mic at me and expecting me to repeat. Which I do, as best I can.

a thousand buddhists watching you chant in a language you don't speak

Eventually he's gotten through his prayer, which means I have, too. Everyone is hushed and reverent. The ceremony continues for a few minutes but my part in it is done. Then as everyone's filing out of the room, the monk calls me and my buddy over. Fortunately our friends show up too. Monk talks directly to them. They nod appreciatively and seriously. Nobody is joking.

I asked my friends about it on the way out to the car. They said "This sort of thing does not happen. Very rare. Very sacred. He say good fortune will smile on you - do not turn your back on it."

And then we went to Ayutthaya.

A month later I was mixing national television.

*

I owe that temple some baht. Gotta make it back one of these days.

I don't believe in the supernatural at all, or any sort of presence outside humanity, but I find things we do, as humans, far more interesting and evocative because of it many times. We are absolutely transcendent creatures and I am in awe of many things we can do, and music is the pinnacle of this. There is a single moment in my life that I know surpasses all else for this reason, and that surpasses the natural world that only humans are capable of, and it was at a concert, Coachella in 2010.

We had been standing in a mass of people for around seven or eight hours at this point listening to some of the best bands in the world, but specifically waiting to get up front for one of our friends to see Atoms for Peace up as close as possible. I was waiting myself for the act before that, Jonsi of Sigur Ros. If you don't know him or Sigur Ros, I highly encourage you to look them up. The music itself it... Otherworldly. It's extraordinary, but in concert he was even better. At this point, it was maybe 6:30, the sun was starting to set and the heat had broken, there were about 10,000 people behind us, and Jon is beginning the last song of his set, the last off the album too, Grow Till Tall (listen to this loud, with good headphones if you have them).

The song starts very softly, people are listening, but there are 10,000 in this crowd, most of them waiting for the next act. The instrumentation starts to grow some and the sky above us is gorgeous. Indio is the middle of a desert, so the sky is ablaze with oranges and purples in the clouds, the sun behind one right now. The song builds more, every piece of the band is coming into it now except the drummer and the bassist (Alex Somer's, Jon's boyfriend). The crowd is noticably quieter, absolutely drawn in by Jon's singularity in this, but by the time the drums come in, at the peak of the first crescendo, the clouds break and just drench the stage in sunlight. Every member on stage is deeply into what they're doing, in one of those moments where you can just see them love what they're doing, and the drummer is there slamming away with the biggest grin I've ever seen while Jon works the pedals, swaying softly as he brings in more and more distortion to the song. He falls to his knees as sings his heart out into the mic, and I swear to you, everything else in the world at that moment, every one of the people in the audience behind us, every other part of the field, everything is perfectly silent except the booming coming from the stage. He draws it out longer than the song goes on the album, and not one person around me that I could see wasn't in tears. I've been to a lot of concerts, but never one where every person around me was feeling what was happening more than right there.

It must have only lasted a minute at the most, but to have that musical oneness that lil aptly names with so many people, from a person that can capture emotion and create music that well, it felt like it lasted an hour. four years later I cannot think of that moment without tearing up and getting gooseflesh. That's spirituality to me, to have something that just ruptures a piece of your emotions as a whole, not an emotion, nothing specific, it just calls on all your emotions and to have that be part of the human condition, with so many others, caused by another human. Nothing will compare to that.

I don't know about "spiritual", but sometimes I reflect on my own existence, the fact that I did not exist billions of years before I was born, and it took an unbroken sequence of events in order to bring me into existence, and I feel connected to the Universe as a result of that. Just the fact that I have a brain consisting of billions of neurons, that is constantly processing information about the Universe, that can create ideas, is amazing to me. Oh, and simply the size of the Universe, the billions of galaxies that exist and the number of civilizations that probably exist- that can keep me occupied for quite a while.

Like ButterflyEffect, I also am not religious. From time to time I go to church or other service, but rarely do I feel anything close to spirituality. I am not affected by the words and music as the others around me, nor does it bother me. The closest I've felt to being "spiritual" was at a Taizé service a few years ago. It wasn't spirituality that I felt though. It was peace and tranquility. A feeling of complete relaxation and a closer connection to the world around me.

Taizé services are pretty incredible. Nobody preaches and the leader of the service doesn't make themselves obvious. Instead it's a smooth transition between simple, beautiful songs and, if I remember correctly, there was a moment to declare the people you wish to pray for, and then more songs. The service ended in complete silence.

I left the church feeling refreshed and at peace. A moment later my brother and our friend started talking about how stupid the whole thing was. Apparently I was the only one who found serenity.

I'm not a religious person, but I do have spiritual moments every so often. I'll touch on two, maybe three of them.

I've been to France twice now, and both times I've made my way to Normandy. The picture below is one that I took my second time going there. It was a very windy and rainy day during the morning while I was at the cemetery and beaches, but managed to clear up by the time I made my way towards the preserved bunkers. Nowadays it is a serene place, incredibly peaceful. I'm sure it was more or the less that way during the entirety of it's existence, save for WWII and maybe some Breton/French/English war. Being there and thinking of how many people died on the spots that I was walking about how integral of an effort it was was a spiritual experience for me.

The next is more general, but whenever I'm at a concert and everybody is singing along or people are dancing/moshing to the music and suddenly the individuality is lost. All that is left is a mess of people becoming one with the band and the music that is in the air. It's an incredible experience when you lose yourself in something more and just let the music take over. That, to me, is an entirely spiritual and therapeutic experience.

(Stage Rush during the last act of a concert I organized.)

Also, I would agree with your view on spirituality and being in love with another person.

Interesting to see some common themes here.

I, too, was raised Christian (southern baptist!) from birth, but never really... got into it. My family went to church every single Sunday that we were home, unless something catastrophic cropped up. Honestly, I kind of resented it. Sleeping in longer would have been my choice, but I wasn't given one. When the answer to every single question is "Jesus" or "The Bible", things get kind of redundant after awhile. As far back as I can remember, I never felt a damn thing. I wanted to, but no dice.

Eventually, I went off to college, where I didn't live in a place so subject to my parents' will. Despite their requests, I never "found a new church", and began studying physics. I knew how to use the internet, and my friend introduced me to erowid.org... you can see where this is going.

Mushrooms made me feel something, maybe not the first time I felt like I had some sense of "spirituality", but certainly the strongest. I tripped a few times on various psychedelics, even smoked DMT once. The emerging skeptic in me posited that consciousness, perception, spirituality, reality, etc. were chemical reactions, neurons firing... our brains working. That the universe streams in, and our brain is like a sieve, or a tennis racket. Taking psychedelics seemed to move some of the strings around, shifting perceptions, changing neural firing modes, perhaps catalyzing new thinking patterns. I still wonder if spirituality induced by psychedelics may be some relic of novel neurochemistry, and maybe Jesus freaks could placebo themselves into recreating this... via what exact mechanism, I have no idea.

The dreamer in me still wants to believe that we aren't just cosmic accidents, that spirituality isn't an illusion, a construct of the human mind. I think any leftover spirituality I harbor is largely based in those psychedelic moments, as they were just so... powerful. If monks are able to achieve states of mind similar to those produced by psychedelics, then what the hell am I doing living this stressful American lifestyle when I could be meditating and practicing yoga for huge intervals of time? I guess I'm afraid... afraid that spirituality is fake, that it's like an addiction, another illusion, and in the end, death is forever. Sure, maybe the DMT released into the brain at the moment of passing makes time dilate forever and we recede into our own personal heavens, but... is that "real"? No. Not in the objective sense of the term.

Still, I would say that to this day, I am mildly spiritual, and an agnostic. Studying physics has revealed to me that the universe is stranger than any work of fiction. There is still much room for the possibility of a "god", although I deplore referring to "it" using such verbiage. I doubt that we'll ever figure it all out, but maybe that's for the best.

Anyway, cheers for allowing me to summarize my thoughts, it's a healthy thing!

I'm an atheist and the absolute zero of spirituality, but I understand what it is to know and not just believe with all my heart that God is real.

I was raised Christian, and for the first third of my life I took it to heart. My family went to church and sent me to a Catholic school, but out of that there was never any saying of grace at meals, calls to pray before bed or any other time, nor were there isolationist comments made about the religious character of friends or anyone else. In short, observant, but mellow. Actually, as a Catholic, they were lucky to even get the observant part of us.

Anyway, I took it seriously on my own, well above what was asked or demanded of me from my parents or teachers. I prayed by myself at night in bed, and I remember well the physical and emotional feelings that washed over me in times of communion. I remember the distinction between belief, and what I had, which was certain knowledge. This is one thing that I think many atheists that have never been very religious struggle with grasping:

They see faith in others as a manifestation of belief. They say "even the word faith implies belief in absence of proof."

Like that matters.

What they don't realize is that to us, faith represented knowledge that was actually stronger and more self evident than a collection of empirical evidence. It was quite simply truer than the Sun always rising in the East.

It's why I don't argue with theists unless we both realize that neither of us is actually trying to convince the other of anything (in that case, let's shoot the shit if I've got nothing better to do).

I'm lucky that I've always been curious and introspective. My faith couldn't survive me looking directly at it in an uncompromising way (my purposeful quest to understand the incredible deepness of my faith is what led to its destruction).

So that was it. That was the last time I felt most spiritual. Somewhere around 15 years of age I'd say. It wasn't anything positive or particularly destructive. Just very intense and misinformed, though there is something to be said for knowing that the omnipotent creator of the Universe personally wants you to succeed. I think the placebo effect is serving a lot of people out there very well.

When I first (and lastly, hopefully) seriously considered suicide.

Following that, whenever I travel.

I was a very atheistic person, tryting to be absolutely logical and rational. I used to read lots of books on it though, like J Krishnamurthy and Osho and so on. Then once I did mushrooms and had an ego death but didnt really understand what happened.

Then after some time, Im not sure how but I was watching a movie and it really clicked for me, esp because of the character in the movie, about how life is more than about being cold and rational and along with that, in a few weeks, lots of huge changes happened in my life all at the same time, like relationship problems and leaving college and such which really sealed it for me and I was walking around like I was enlightened for a long time. I did mushrooms again and had the ego death again and understood what was going on a lot.

I turn off the spiritual feeling alot, when I have to be get work done and such. It helps to feel ambitious and cold then. And routines really affect it sometimes and being around people that make you miserable sometimes makes you forget it, that you can be happy all the time and your happines is all in your own hands. But yes, I can turn it on too, its like something I can access when ever I need it. And I find that helping others make me feel it stronger. Its when I feel jealousy and envy that I really need it though. It helps me pass over those feelings without getting caught in it. Its like spirituality is a tool I can use and access whenever I need. The biggest change is the feeling of love and compassion. Im not sure if its becaue Im used to being really cold or something but I find romantic love and compassion coming to the same thing and compassion is something I enjoy more now. And all the religions make sense, compassion isnt something thats considered good because it helps everyone as a whole or takes us to heaven but because its good of us. It makes us stronger spiritually. Even when Im feeling my worst and disconnected, I just have to do something to help others or try to be compassionate to get back to where I was, happy and blissful. So in a sense, Im being selfish when being compassionate but Im not doing it for some imaginary man in the sky.

Every now and then something still clicks for me though. Its easier understanding stuff now because I just need to focus on what makes me feel the spiritual energy stronger to know what works and what doesnt. Im finding out that religions or superstitions or god or a little belief in magic of somekind is actually good for us. It doesnt have to be god, but it has to be sacred. Im not sure yet but I think its the sacredness that really gets to us.

I posted about this elsewhere on Hubski, in brief and barely. At some point I'll have the wherewithal to go into depth.

Honestly, never. I was raised with a christian influence, although we RARELY went to church, other than the occasional Sunday school taught by my uncle, a baptist minister. He was cool, and it was maybe like once a year, or on the holidays. We also bad some bible story kids books around.

I started going to a Methodist church nearby in high school because the youth group was fun. Never really "felt" it though. It was mostly a time killing social thing. Luckily Methodists are generally very liberal.

My parents were proud I got into church on my own, but I slowly drifted out of it. My parents didn't worry or even seem to notice. I because a communist, then a christian anarchist, then a regular anarchist.

I'm atheist now, but into Discordianism. My anti-religion comments don't bother anyone at home.