I am an ex-muslim. I used to go to Quran school when I was in elementary school. I didn't think about why I was doing it back then. My friends did and my father was happy that I went. I got hooked on games and lost interest in learning long texts. I liked the stories, but I was supposed to learn long texts, so I stopped going. No one was sad. But it didn't stop there, with time, I started doubting what I was told at school (we all had mandatory islam classes). So I asked, how do you proof to me that god exists? The teacher got mad, called my father, told him that I am a non-believer and that he should school me more. Students at school took me right away to the library and showed me passages from the Quran that should prove to me that god exists. It sounded all so unlogical, but they wouldn't stop, so I made a decision... put on the face that they want to see, you will be gone soon. I pretended to believe in god, and I still do whenever I go for a visit, it keeps me out of trouble. This made my stance to religion, fath, and spirituality a negative one. Until I had an experience that I would define as spiritual, I took MDMA for the first time, and I had a feeling of connectedness with every single person in the room. Of course this effect was due to massive amounts of oxytocin in my brain, so it was in a way "fake". But it was not. Knowing that I could have this feeling and even define it as something "spiritual" was proof enough for me that spirituality is something everyone carries with him. I think that a spiritual experience is an intense and eye-opening experience. It varies from person to person (because we define what is spiritual for us and what is not). For me, it has something to do with my feeling of being connected to other humans somehow.
The other week theadvancedapes joined our Hubski call to catch up and to share what it is he is working on etc. One of the the things he has been studying are hallucinogens and how their study has been neglected. theadvancedapes, what is your take on drugs and their ability to connect us to the realm of the "spiritual?" Have your thoughts on spirituality and the existence of some higher power/force been changed by your research of hallucinogens? Thanks for the comment Cumol, you have an experience that I do not think is unique to islam. There are kids that I grew up with that had doubts about christianity but were forced to conceal them for fear of alienation within their family and even community. Good luck!
I think learning about the existence of DMT in particular has changed my views on a lot of things. In terms of experience people are going to other worlds and universes. That is a subjective fact as Benny Shanon said in "The Antipodes of Mind". And you will therefore be impressed by the DMT experience depending on whether you think subjectivity is an important property in our universe that needs to be explained. In my opinion, science undervalues subjectivity as a phenomenon because it doesn't really understand subjectivity. There are also outdated paradigms that hold research back. Either way, in my encounter with learning about psychedelics (which is still evolving) I feel like I can start to take spirituality seriously for the first time. The overall message from ayahausca appears to be "live in mystery" (which I could mean to be "live in the questions"), and it's nice to know that there is an entity in nature giving us that courage.
Since the day I tried MDMA, I have also experimented with Psilocybin (Magic Mushrooms) and LSD. And even though the effect is very different than MDMA, I can see where people might get a feeling of the experience being spiritual on hallucinogens. During my first LSD experience (it was in nature), I had a feeling of being connected to trees and grass. No idea what to do with this...
I spent what seemed like hours, but was actually the length of The Beatles Abby Road, talking with a tree at the banks of a lake in Michigan. I also ran my fingers through the water of the lake while sitting beside the tree. The next day I sat at the base of that same tree, baffled by the fact that the water was at least 20 yards away. LSD is a powerful thing, be careful and enjoy.