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Can psychedelics make you a better person?

philosophyforlife.org

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Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#31

Post by bfuller »

12bytes wrote: post #23
lumberjack wrote: post #18

Is you need drugs to become more open minded and empathetic, the source of the problem is your upbringing, and by proxy the culture. The contemporary liberal western culture actively works towards shaping us into selfish materialistic consumerist narrow minded soulless beings. Half a trillion dollars per year go towards this effort, and the solution is start drugging ourselves with LSD? Bet, if that ever became commo…

you're painting "drugs" with a broad brush psychedelics are not like cocaine, despite what the 'gubbmunt' would like you to believe - rather they are like a window into your 'self' - if you think of psychedelics in terms of frequency, you might better understand the tremendous potential they hold with regard to a laundry list of ailments, including depression, PTSD, etc.

I don't take LSD and go listen to electronic music because its a window to my 'self'. I take it because its fun and feels good, the same reason people take cocaine.

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#32

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

arca_vorago wrote: post #25

ctrl+f ego... no hits? I've never done a psychedelic other than a very spiritual moment with salvia divinorum, but I have read up on them extensively, (they are often touted to help with ptsd), and the one major common factor is their ego-busting nature. Ego is a good thing in many ways, but due to societal and cultural strangeness, it is sometimes warped into overdrive (arrogance, etc) and sometimes too puny (low se…

From my completely inexpert perspective, and keeping in mind I've never taken any psychedelics, I'd guess that 'ego-busting' as you call it is almost certainly the component of value here. Our traditional notions of self are ridiculously naive and very poorly model reality, and I think working from poor models of reality is part of why we suffer like we do, which leads us to being worse people. Psychedelics allow people to more easily shift their perspective and see the world differently, hopefully expanding their conception of it and enlightening their understanding of their place within it, but they are not the only way to do that.

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#33

Post by bsenftner »

srge wrote: post #21

Psychedelics (LSD, shrooms) made me a better person. I don’t know anyone who became less caring, less respectfull, more violent or more greedy after doing those drugs. I would argue that psychedelics make you more human, in the good sense of the word.

I know of one guy, a brilliant man, who after a period of a month taking shrooms practically every day had a personality shift that is easiest described as "like Rick" from "Rick & Morty" - he became convinced he was the smartest man in the universe, dangerously smart and people would kill him if they knew how incredibly smart he was. That attitude stayed with him, and destroyed him; about a decade later he died due to alcohol poisoning as a result of his overwhelming rejection by others from his elevated behavior insisting his superiority over others. Clearly, he had original issues the shrooms simply magnified out of his control.

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#34

Post by germinalphrase »

acetoxy wrote: post #6

4 months of working with ayahuasca with some of the best shamans in the amazon cured my depression, anxiety and panic attacks. During that time I have seen so many people get cured from all sorts of different issues. It's an amazing medicine. If you decide to do it, make sure you do some proper research on which centers are good before you go.

How can someone effectively research which centers are good? It seems really vulnerable to hucksters putting on a good show.

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#35

Post by senorjazz »

arunix wrote: post #8
acetoxy wrote: post #6

4 months of working with ayahuasca with some of the best shamans in the amazon cured my depression, anxiety and panic attacks. During that time I have seen so many people get cured from all sorts of different issues. It's an amazing medicine. If you decide to do it, make sure you do some proper research on which centers are good before you go.

For those wanting to go down this road, where do you even start?

Buy ticket to Ecuador / Peru. Head towards Amazon basin. Is advertised around.

Ecuador shaman / healers / dealers whatever you want to call them are government licensed (san pedro / ayuascaha. Peru they are not. You can find good places in both, but more cowboy outfits abound in Peru

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#36

Post by tdb7893 »

srge wrote: post #21

Psychedelics (LSD, shrooms) made me a better person. I don’t know anyone who became less caring, less respectfull, more violent or more greedy after doing those drugs. I would argue that psychedelics make you more human, in the good sense of the word.

I had some friends in college who took LSD periodically and they were still not great people and many of them still had anxiety so it's definitely not a silver bullet for personal problems. They also trashed an apartment and got arrested while on it once so that might've colored my views on it.

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#37

Post by arca_vorago »

Jefro118 wrote: post #28
arca_vorago wrote: post #25

ctrl+f ego... no hits? I've never done a psychedelic other than a very spiritual moment with salvia divinorum, but I have read up on them extensively, (they are often touted to help with ptsd), and the one major common factor is their ego-busting nature. Ego is a good thing in many ways, but due to societal and cultural strangeness, it is sometimes warped into overdrive (arrogance, etc) and sometimes too puny (low se…

LSD doesn't have CIA origins, it's effects were discovered accidentally by Albert Hoffman. The CIA later commandeered research around LSD in order to look into how it could help train military personnel and also potentially be used as a weapon (while also stopping the research that was being done on its usefulness for therapy and creative problem solving). LSD is indeed more potent than some naturally occuring psyche…

I wasn't saying the CIA was it's discoverer, but rather it is the one that pushed LSD as part of the counter-culture movement of the 60's, which included experimentation on people (often without them knowing) in mkultra/artichoke programs and more.

A quote from Timothy Leary: "I give the CIA total credit for sponsoring and initiating the entire conciousness movemenet, counter-culture events of the 1960's."

As for why synthetics are dangerous, I think there is a thesis paper waiting to happen on that. Mostly because I don't think we fully understand the effects in total of some drugs. For example, I had friends the VA was trying to put on synthetic THC... but every single one of them said it was horrible, and I came to the conclusion that THC(a/b) alone is bad and that it's the natural combination of it and the other 300+ cannabinoids, including CBD, that really show promising medical benefits.

Re: Can psychedelics make you a better person?

#39

Post by dahart »

eksemplar wrote: post #10
cbluth wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never taken ayahuasca, but I have seen many videos on youtube, and read many articles about to understand the nature of an "ayahuasca shaman ritual", as I might call it. I would start with diligent research, and you will probably naturally discover the next steps "down this road" yourself. I understand that the "sanctity" of ayahuasca is revered by many people that are privy to it's "powers", and is not to be…

Can YouTube videos be considered research? Are they build on empirical data and peer reviewed? Don’t get me wrong, go right a head and drink the funky tea, just don’t call monetized experiences of random content producers “research”. If you do that, then you’ll be telling me weed cures broken bones next, or warn me not to vaccinate my children.

Yes, YouTube videos can be considered research, because that word itself does not imply peer review. You may have misunderstood how the word research is being used in this thread.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/research

Definitions 1 "careful or dilligent search" and 3 "the collecting of information about a particular subject" are the forms that were being used in this thread. When @acetoxy suggested doing some research on which centers are good, the idea was to get some info in advance, not to perform perform and publish double blind peer reviewed studies of their effectiveness.

I feel like adding, only because it seems funny & totally apropos to this thread & article on LSD, not to patronize you: try to open your mind to the alternative possibilities.

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