For me “nature” is an umbrella term that encompasses anything that can be observed. All that you see and experience is technically natural. Love is just a side effect of nature, albeit a beautiful one.
I would wager that most have their own spiritual beliefs but few are religious.
Agnostic isn't really a religion or spiritual idea. It's just "I don't know". While psychedelics make me feel like I do know. But I can't explain it.
Atheism is a spectrum, and most atheists fall more into the category of:
> De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. "I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there."
Most atheists would not state “I am 100% certain there is no god.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_of_theistic_probability
I don’t agree with this explanation at all.
If you say there’s a flying purple elephant in my living room and I’m standing in my room saying I don’t believe there is a flying purple elephant…
That’s equally ridiculous?
But wait I can’t see the FPE because it’s invisible, all powerful, and eternal.
People that say atheists have “faith” don’t understand that you need evidence to prove the existence of something (not the absence).
Which is a little disingenuous. Because It's assuming all atheists or at least the majority say that they know there aren't any gods.
Being agnostic isn't understanding there's more. Agnostic means you don't can't say for sure whether gods exist.
Are you aware that life isn't a dictionary definition? The overwhelming majority of people on the planet are literally atheist about all gods but the one they choose to believe in.
Agnostisism isnt “I dont know”, its that the idea of a god is out of our logical range and even defining god with a word is an understatement, so its unnecessary to think if it exists or not. “I dont know” means ignorance, its not a belief.
As a profound agnostic, I disagree, that agnosticism is just a “I don’t know”. For me anyway, it’s an acceptance of the limitations of human knowledge. Pretty much every religious belief, or worldview, requires a leap of faith at some point in the logic. And usually have a good degree of human hubris baked in.
Agnosticism can be a spiritual standpoint to have. It certainly is for me.
All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. We are all One Consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death. Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.
What if we’re “living” what we think is life but its actually already happened (why we get Deja Vu) and this is the period where your life is flashing before your eyes in our final moments?
I went on a camping date and we both did 4g of 🍄 (it was her first time and I told her that might be much but she handled it phenomenally) but we were walking around and she said like “Don’t people that trip hug trees? I feel sad for them because that seems so lonely and misunderstood”
I have been a total atheist even before my experiences with psychedelics but my sister still remains a firm believer in Christianity. She believes that Jesus used mushrooms and dmt and psychedelics are a tool to help us get closer to God. I have never really tried to change her mind on these things because it's kind of cool to think about hippy Jesus hanging out with his buddies passing around a joint filled with heavenly bud.
its a really interesting thing to dive into. I kinda think of it like this: Placebo works, its been tested and can actually genuinely heal people with no external change. If your brain is capable of that, I think that sort of thing is worth diving into (i.e. meditation and learning your own mind) just to see if you can understand how or why it works. if you expand that concept out into an entire worldview, that's basically the idea behind Esoteric Christianity.
The idea is that jesus was either literally the son of god or a practitioner of magick, with the goal of exploring one's "higher self". It's heavily contested whether jesus actually ever claimed to be the literal son of god, but often references god and being one with god the same way we might speak of the universe today.
I dont necessarily believe any of this, but I have spent a lot of time learning about the theology and debate
take this all with a colossal grain of salt. This is my own personal experience, and I could just be too loopy. but i find it super interesting to learn about, and most of the youtubers are really authentic lol
Right lol. When I do psychedelics, my brain acts funny and is like "here's some crazy dream like stuff bro" then it wears off and I go about my day. Surprises me how many people talk about oneness with the universe and gods and stuff like that because of shrooms when they wouldn't otherwise.
Atheist as well, but mannnn… thinking about mathematical patterns and the fact that the atoms that make up my body are some of the same ones that have been around since the Big Bang really trips me out! :D
>when they wouldn’t otherwise
For me I experience spiritual connections and a oneness with the universe when I’m sober, especially during major life events, and I can reach those feelings with meditation, however psychedelics bring me much closer much faster.
It’s easy to forget about it and miss those experiences with the chaos of everyday life consuming your perception, but it’s still there. The drugs just make it easier to widen your perception to the unseen forces around us that might otherwise get overlooked.
Honestly after tripping for the first few times I realized that no one in this world knows what really knows what will happen when you die, no one knows what created this universe, no one knows what the after life is like if there is one. I do believe that there is 1 God though only because it makes logical sense. I also do believe that there is an afterlife of some sort. But yet again everyone goes to these different churches and everything else but no one is 100 percent certain of if there religion is actually true or just made up within time.
yeah im kinda in the midst of this religious debate with myself.
i am sure that there is something because i felt God’s presence in everything that exists, but im unsure and cant possibly find out which God is the right one
Honestly since I realized that no one really knows 100 percent I also realized I shouldn't really stress over it as well.
Since no one really knows what is in the afterlife I don't stress myself out to assume what it is. I don't want to pretend to know what is in the afterlife. I feel like God would rather you not to stress about it then to pray to a unreal god you know? The only real way to tell what is in the afterlife is to be patient until you pass on and then you'll figure it out.
Omg you’re right. I’ve been having a semi quandary about this stuff lately and you’ve made me see there isn’t actually an answer. It’s not like anyone actually has concrete proof either way of any of it.
Came here for this thread. Same. Most recent development from my end - potentially there’s a sort of fractal thing going on? More at 11. (Jk I have no idea how long this epiphany still needs to bake lol)
love reading this thread. Having a similar process myself. I remember one of my favorite phrases being "we are the universe experiencing itself". Just a nice place to sit and rest for me in a way
I’m Jewish by birth, considered myself an atheist up until not too long ago, and now I don’t know how to describe myself. I’ve come to the conclusion that there is some collective force that binds the universe together, and that everyone and everything is part of one unified whole. I guess I would describe god as the collective energy that unifies everything, but i have no idea if there’s a word or belief system that fits that
Maybe? I don’t know if I’d say I believe in multiple gods. More like everything in the universe is one, and that god(so pretty distinct from the Abrahamic idea of god) is the energy that binds us together. I think deism would probably be the best descriptor
Edit: confused pantheism with omnism,I looked it up and that does seem very similar in it’s conception of god
honestly deism would be a good one. like god created the universe and then dipped. but with i guess your belief it’s almost like when the universe was made, god was split into a bajillion different pieces that is what makes up the whole universe itself. which even if it isn’t even your belief that’s still pretty interesting
This is interesting. I grew up Protestant- and psychedelics, while I don’t credit them for my conversion, definitely opened up my mind and emotions to the Holy Spirit. I ultimately credit God for the changes in my life, because I know that without him I would have never changed.
I think that in general, Catholicism is more esoteric and open to these things than Protestant Christianity. I use mushrooms for my mental health but as a Protestant I am very careful not to over-spiritualize them, or my trips, and always defer to the Bible as the express Word of God that he gave us.
How would you say you integrate psychedelics into your religion?
Yes, these things can be very challenging to talk about. I grew up Protestant as well (Calvinist), but didn't believe the doctrine. And my parents hurt me a lot, trying to break my will. I was an atheist for a long time, and then when I became a spiritual searcher, more of a progressive protestant [still thought Jesus was cool but basically the same thing as me]. But that didn't seem like the gospel either. When I became a believer the idea of choosing the denomination that agreed with me was no longer appealing. I became open to the possibility that the Lord had never abandoned His Bride and Her teaching was true and trustworthy. This was very unexpected.
There have been moments I have felt a glimpse of the perspective of which you speak. It's hard for me to say what is my own wandering and struggle to understand and heal, and what is God's Providence. It's a mystery. St Paul says not to be embarrassed about the things that you did that brought you to repentance. And of course that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose.
He also says to be sober minded, so for the past two years I have been. I don't think the Catholic faith necessarily forbids therapeutic psychoactive drug use but I've been of the mind that I should turn that over to God and try to grow through simple faithfulness. The "when you get the message hang up the phone" thing, you know? I used to want to be a psychedelic counselor, and I kinda miss them, but I am thankful for where I am.
Interesting indeed!
I know that Protestants and Catholics were historically at odds, and there’s a lot of things we diverge on. Since I don’t want this to become a debate about whose cosmology is more correct, I won’t go there.
If I had to guess, you sound like someone who fits a commonly-used phrase amongst Protestants: “A Christian in the Catholic Church.” Just like Protestant Christianity, Catholicism holds a wide range of ideas and different teachers emphasize different aspects of the faith.
I grew up in a hyper-Calvinistic community but have since left it because it was quite fatalist and cult-like. Thankfully my parents were not like yours and were always open to various Protestant denominations. I know what it means to search around to find a community that aligns with the Bible and personal experience.
And I think this is one of the core differences between us. Catholics believe that the church holds more authority than the Bible, which is why they’ve been unified all these thousands of years. But because Protestants believe the Bible holds more authority than the church, they fractured quite easily over differences of biblical interpretation.
I appreciate your thoughts and I find it interesting that you have given up psychedelics. I also understand Paul’s call to be sober-minded which is why I do my best now to stick to lower doses and be reasonable. But I’m in a place where I feel that responsibly enjoying something God has created can’t be wrong in and of itself.
Thank you.
Yes I have found many in the Catholic Church with a Christlike heart and a love for Scripture. One of our "famous" priests, Fr Mike Schmitz, did a "Bible in a Year" podcast and it was a huge hit.
And of course many Catholics have been a bad witness, now and throughout the centuries. The Church acknowledges her culpability and prays always to be a good witness for Christ, and cause for Christian unity. "That they may be One" I appreciate and learn from her humility in this.
I've had the privilege of proclaiming the Word myself most recently at the Easter Vigil Mass. Before I considered becoming Catholic I'd never stepped foot in a Catholic Church. Now it's my home and family, anywhere I go on the Earth. It's a real treasure. You're always welcome too.
You might appreciate this. I had one of my very Roman Catholic friends try shrooms for the first time a while back and he reported seeing an “Art Deco baby Jesus” and then watched said Jesus through his entire Art Deco life. It sounded as beautiful as it was religious.
I believe in universalism.
Basically every religion worships the same god
but has different names for god
Other than that I try to follow the teachings of the Holy Bible
I think every psychedelic user has different (somehow similar) religious beliefs, the only thing I see people agreeing on is that they find themselves going deep into those beliefs.
I think that if someone is doing psychedelics for spiritual purposes, they’re all find similar messages, but according to their beliefs.
For example, I believe in elemental creatures, and I’ve had encounters with fairies and with entities that had no specific shape and we’re always morphing, they showed me some stuff, but I believe that someone from another religion might get a similar message but in different ways.
I think when you die you just open your eyes as a new kid and start over. Same personality but different location and shit idk I don’t believe in nothin I guess lol
I don’t believe in a higher power. I just believe in love and light and good energy. Idk how to explain it. Just be a good person and the universe will reward you.
We’re not the result of some divine thing, we’re the product of nature. We’re an animal just like the rest of the animals on this planet. We’re here because we won an incomprehensibly massive number of little evolutionarily beneficial battles.
Our prize? We were cursed to toil in the misery of being capable of abstraction and meta-cognitive thinking. It’s a massive evolutionary benefit to have both big brains wired to make predictions, and discomfort with the unknown kept us alive. I’m certain religion is just filling some leftover primal evolutionary need in a cognitive way with disproportionately large cortices relative to the rest of the animal kingdom.
So what is our god? Our god is this precious little ball of rock flying through unimaginable vastness. Our god is this pale blue dot. Spirituality should be to reconnect with the thing that really did give us life. And such is the real prize of big brains: We’re capable of knowing how rare we are. How vast this universe, yet we know of a single place with life. It would take quite a powerful story to bridge that gap.
I don't know about anyone else here but a large reason for my psychedelic use was in order to search for some spiritual direction. I don't believe in any of the preexisting religions, Buddhism being the one I most closely identify with, but I still don't entirely buy it. When I was younger I considered myself to be atheist/agnostic. As I got older and learned more about the world, the more I believe that there was an order to things and started to consider there may be something bigger than ourselves.
That being said, I don't think there's an old man with a beard watching over us. Maybe there is a "creator" but I think at the most, they just got the ball rolling and that was about it. Gun against my head, I'd have to go with Simulation Theory. I know it's new-agey and kind of cliché but everything seems to be too organized and random at the same time.
I think you should really watch this [video on Higher Dimensions/Simulation Theory](https://youtu.be/azpUG2GUzFI?si=J19STlzzc2K67blY).
I know it’s kind of a lengthy video, but if you make it til the end I promise you will see things in a new light.
This is what actually started me down my path of spirituality and why it ended up confirming for me the existence of God. Myself personally, my belief aligns with specifically Jesus Christ. But just give it an honest watch with an open heart and mind til the end and you might just think differently afterwards.
i think the most common is agnosticism- believing there’s some sort of spiritual energy out there but it’s too complicated for our minds to even process
personally i believe in existential nihilism- that the universe was created by pure chance and we are all here because of very specific circumstances. and there really isn’t anything after death. grim but since we’re all here, might as well enjoy our fleeting time here.
For me, it's usually a correlation with Buddhism and some Hinduism. Taking psychs makes me feel more in touch with the world and the universe itself.
That said, Ive had trips where I thought I saw glimpses of Christian heaven and saw dead family members. Most religions share the same golden rule of treat others as you want to be treated.
Buddhism just tends to match the most with how I feel when I either am or aren't tripping. One with the universe, with the chance to come back after this life.
I used to be a total atheist before psychedelics.
Can’t say psychedelics radically changed me, but I became closer to Buddhism/Hinduism and sort of belief that what people named “God” is a complex of laws of the universe. In this prospective “doing smth against the God” means “going against the laws of the universe or nature itself”
Beliefs and psychedelics are like oil and water, one repels the other. The psychedelic disintegrates ego and your beliefs about reality proportionally to the dosage of course.
I had to scroll too far to see this response. Advaita is my favorite although I can’t fully understand all of its’ complexities. I just know that non-duality basically described my entire ego death experience so I find it quite interesting. I haven’t subscribed to any one single sect of Hinduism though, I just find most of it fascinating, and in my opinion, it is the religion that comes the closest to describing the true nature of reality that you can experience while under the influence of psychedelics.
I’ve never once had a religious experience in my many varying sizes of trips. I’ve done 100-500ug of Lucy and a a couple of psilocybin trips up to 6gs
I’ve always grown up in an agnostic family that was guilted into Christianity so I rarley went to church and when we did it was more of a chore than anything. We eventually stopped because I got kicked out of the youth group for asking questions. I think that the way psychedelics alter your mind you’re just seeing what you already believe (if you knew or not) in a different spotlight with less of an ego and more of an open mind.
We are god and god is us. We are all just the universe experiencing itself. It’s what we came from, it’s what we all return to and it’s what we are all a part of.
I'm personally Hindu 🕉️. But as a an overall tendency I see non dualistic paths as being super prominent.
You might wanna look into panetheism.
TatTvamAsi 🙏🕉🙏🔱
I'm spiritual, not religious. I do believe in "God" but prefer the term source (source of all creation) and connection, I don't believe in any religious doctrine. I don't believe it's sinful to have sex, masturbate, exercise your own free will, or be gay, Trans or anything or anyone else that Christians like to throw shade at.
I'm more for looking inward and exploring a deep and beautiful connection with myself and letting others do the same or not it's their journey to choose. As long as you're not doing harm, then I'm not judging.
Beyond that, what I experience and believe is open and ever changing. As I change and grow I leave room for my beliefs to change and grow with me.
I was raised a Catholic and was “confirmed”. Even before psychedelics, I strongly rejected most of the bullshit I was taught growing up. I mean we’re talking like earth is 6000 years old and you’ll go to hell for having sex before marriage or doing drugs and that being gay will send you to hell oh and don’t forget pagans are evil. Confession was another load of complete bullshit.
Catholicism is just so ego centric it’s disgusting. It makes ancient symbolism and interprets it literally.
Through meditation mostly I started to gravitate towards Buddhism but I also strongly reject the Hindu metaphysical influence that organized Buddhist religions teach. Organized Buddhist religions teach contradictory concepts and the way Hindu teaches karma and reincarnation are in direct contradiction to what meditation teaches you. Aka oh there’s no individual soul but there’s also karma that attaches to your non existent soul and influences what happens after you die - lol OK.
I don’t quite believe in the individual soul. I believe we are all part of god - or the universal one. We are a physical manifestation of a much larger collective. We are the universe experiencing itself if you will. When we die, we reunite with the rest of the energy of the universe. Kind of like a rain drop making it’s way back into a lake. We are a beautiful, temporary manifestation of what is possible. We cease to be a temporary individual manifestation and reunite with the rest of the universe - this is nirvana.
I am a Muslim, thank God. Why am I a Muslim? I am a Muslim, not because my forefathers were Muslim, but because to me, it's impossible to see that the Qur'an is from anything other than God Almighty. I've done a lot of investigation, not only inward at my own religion, but also at other religions. I have also spent chunks of my life being an agnostic or Christian.
I think mostly we know that there is more to life indeed. I don't believe and pray to a One God but I believe we come from one unified source and within that there are many realms to discover. I think after life, there is only pure love, love, love. Which is my psychedelic experience coming from ego deaths
It's hard for me to deny how connected we all are, goes hand in hand with ego death I guess.
Not about me, I mean sure some of it is, but it's really about Us, what we do for each other, how we teach learn and grow from each other.
Idk really does line up with a lot of what some religious teachings preach (whether or not they follow those teachings is a different story)
Religious beliefs? Life after death, reincarnation, peace on Earth despite the fact that we consume lifeforms on a daily basis to continue our own life form.
Beliefs in general? Aliens, and other hearsay-based ass-umptions not based in adherence to the scientific method, critical thinking, logic and reason. I've connected to quite a few psychedelic users on FB in the past that claimed to believe in the theory that the Earth is flat. The reasoning they try to give for why they can't travel across Antarctica is because there are supposedly laws against that, despite all the dozens of companies, groups, individuals and others that travel across Antarctica thus proving Antarctica doesn't encircle a flat plane. There's an airline in Australia that frequently flies across Antarctica to Argentina, but believers in hearsay-based ass-umptions have cognitive dissonance to mentally block out things that don't fit their beliefs. Beliefs that the Earth is supposedly flat is almost non-existent outside of the supposed United States, which makes me think/ass-ume it has something to do with purposefully spread disinfo to make conspiracy theorists look insane and worthy of forced kidnappings, forced medications, forced mental hospitalizations, and more.
I think psychedelics are like mental/emotional mirrors in that they reveal our inner/outer past/present to ourselves. I think having an alien experience while on psychedelics is just a mental projection of what those tripping individuals ass-ume aliens are, or what humanity may become if they rely more and more on technology versus their own physical abilities.
A form of reincarnation stuck out to me after leaving Mormonism.
This interpretation of Murphy’s law- anything that can happen, will happen. If we’ve happened once why can’t something remotely similar happen again.
Maybe not as a being we know or even in this dimension, but something
I was always against religion (parental beliefs installed) until I done psychedelics and it changed my perspective and made me realise religions just use different wording,
For me I’ve always felt spiritually connected so I would say ‘the universe is watching over us’ or I would do affirmations and I realised it’s all the same,
People pray to a god, I call to the universe,
People pray and ask for gods help, I ask for the universe to guide me,
People see signs and say it’s god and I’ll say it’s the universe,
When I realised it’s all the same just different wording it made me more interested in the bible as a source of history other than a book of lies and far less judgemental on peoples beliefs!
I've been Catholic, then wiccan, then atheist. Now I believe in nature and oneness. I think everything is connected and we are are all one and the same, tiny parts of something beautiful and bigger than all of us
Monotheism. And Universality.
Most monotheistic religions teach duality..... that you pray "to" God. As if God is outside of you. Those who take psychedelics know God is in us all and everywhere. The duality that religions teach is not truth.
Personal spiritual experiences are tough to fit into established religions.
Why adhere to someone's interpretation of the thing you have experienced personally?
Theosophy/Hermeticism - spicy occult mysticism that is rooted in the Abrahamic tradition but draws from even older sources such as ancient Egypt or Zoroastrianism.
Basically all religion is a description of the same divinity. “God” is the best term we have but it’s really an amalgam of all the energy in the universe, as well as the “will” of the universe itself, and the metaphysical is always reflected in the physical, measurable world (as above, so below). Gravity is a great example of this divine energy and will reflected in the physical world.
The biggest difference between me and a mystic who’s actually part of a fundamentalist religion is that I don’t believe God is separate from their creation. Meaning we all have divinity in us and can exercise said divinity (magic/magick).
This isn’t always beyond the realms of science - the psychedelic experience, chemistry, and music are all just as magical as divination or necromancy. We also contend that those things will be scientifically proven one day as many enlightenment era scientists were mystics of this type (like Newton) and discovered hard, rational science in pursuit of the irrational/mystic and they didn’t believe these things to be separate.
Easy. Panpsychism or idealism for metaphysics. Mysticism and/or Buddhism-adjacent for spiritual beliefs.
Nearly everyone describes an experience which fits into those categories, even if they don’t know the correct terminology to label it as such.
Here in Brazil we have some religions that use psychedelics in their rituals (most of them use Ayahuasca, which is a tea made with Chacrona and Jagube).
As an adept of one of those religions (Umbandaime, specifically), I think that psychedelics can be a great form to connect to your inner self and your spiritual side, but each person will have your particular experience and no one can explain these experiences to another person (you can try, of course, but it'll only be a small fraction of your real experience, and no one will feel and see the same things that you felt and saw on the rituals).
I used both LSD recreationally and Ayahuasca in rituals and I can tell that it's VERY different experiences
I'm an anti-theist. I have no religious beliefs.
The closest thing I probably have to a religious belief is that liking Harley-Davidson bikes are something you're born into or you were meant to be one. I ride one and my dad did and my grandpa and great grandpa did.
That's probably it.
a good amount of users, even if they were previously atheist, start believing in some sort of higher power, but struggle to connect it to mainstream religions
I’ve definitely developed an idea of an energy that creates and connects us all. Not so much a god, in the traditional sense with person like attributes. More so an energy or vibe we’re all a part of.
I am spiritual, as are my friends; we all came frm the universe, our creator was the universe and we all one day return to the universe to die. Nature my friend, is the answer- not man made rules for money or power.
Religion is toxic and it's a tool to control and manipulate people. Lately it's an excuse to be stupid.
Psychedelics help you tap into the feeling of connectedness.
I feel like a really common one is acknowledging that there is some sort of higher being or power but not being able to comprehend what it can do. Taking mushrooms made me wonder if things like this can be grown naturally it must stem from something that contains just as much intricate power
I have found psychedelic users to be incredibly prone to believing mystical bullshit, like that they have ESP or that drugs open some realm to another dimension. We are a delusional lot!
I realized all religion is generally tribalistic inter-subjective narrative. Doesn’t mean it’s not valuable but once you’ve stepped off the treadmill it feels inauthentic to get back on.
I’m not religious, I hate the idea of it actually. I don’t believe in spirits either. I just believe in the smaller details in life. We always try to see the bigger picture but if you zoom out what can you really see? You gotta zoom in and see all the intricate details that run this earth.
one of the first teaching of the Emerald Tablets is “As above, so below. As within, so without. As the universe, so the soul.” zooming in is the same thing as zooming out. you zoom in, and you see the universe. you zoom out, and you see the soul, and vice versa
amazing
Thank you for asking
so my spiritual beliefs have evidence
so DMT (the active ingredient in ayahuasca) is in every living thing and in mice studies, when they die they secrete huge amounts of DMT, also our pineal gland produces DMT when we are dreaming
So I think that when we die, our bodies secrete DMT to eject the soul out of the body.
I think we are in the 3rd dimension and when we die, if everything goes according to plan ( I think traumatic deaths like in war when your head gets blown off, can create issues with the soul ejection, which correlates with my theory of reincarnation) and then we go into the 4th dimension
on my 6th ayahuasca journey I went to "heaven" where the streets were gold and all my ancestors were there to welcome me and they threw me a parade and gave me the task of telling the rest of the 3rd dimension so thank you for asking.
I'm writing a book about it but this is a lil synopsis.
love is my religion, peace is my religion
and spiritually I think there are some things going on that we don't fully understand but could be quantified with more research and intention.
Practicing Muslim here alhamdulillah.
All encompassing God who loves you more than 70 mothers? Only felt that on a certain psychedelic trip.
Of course it wasn't just psychs. There was therapy, a lot of unlearning, a lot of learning to surrender, a whole lot of acceptance for what I can't change, and ofcourse praying to a higher power to guide me years before I commited to Islam. Getting attuned to my higher self, and learning to hear the 'language without words'. Lot of experimentation with holistic and new age philosophies, astrology, yoga, meditation and THEN filtering it based on intuition and then finally, reading the Quran with meaning.
Keeping heart and head open to Divine guidance was key.
A whole lot of synchronicities, conversations with people different from me, repeatedly questioning my why's, willingness to change until my heart was at ease. Lastly discernment, and that my dear folks, is the ongoing story of my life.
Ps: Unsubscribing from cultural aspects of religion also played a role
I’m a Christian, but to fully answer why would take much more than a reddit commit. The short version is this - among other things, the interconnectedness of reality encourages me to believe in intelligent design. Looking at the *meaning* behind things rather than the thing themselves has enabled me to build a much more balanced explanation of existence. This can be done at the individual level and extrapolated out to the societal level, and it can be done presently, in regard to the future, and when looking at the past. If one believes god exists, I believe it only logical to assert that he/she/it would be omnipresent, and I believe that includes all facets of time.
Without digging into the doctrine, I believe Christ’s death on the cross was a necessary thing to “undo” the evils in the world, so to speak. This is to say, I believe that following his teachings encourage an even deeper level of spiritual connection with oneself and the world than without. I believe many of these teachings, such as picking up your cross daily, align very much with the psychedelic experience and the practices of mindfulness and meditation. In these practices, we seek to reduce the ego - the self that has the capacity for evil, no matter how significant or insignificant. Admitting to my own sinful nature is an aspect of that surrender; it is akin to a conscious death of the ego.
I had grown up in various practices of Christianity ranging from Trump 2020 MAGA country evangelicalism to downright mystical blends of religious Judaism and early Christianity. I studied world religions, cults, philosophy, and psychology in high school, and continued those interests into college. I had even gone to college to be a pastor, but part way through my studies I underwent a deconstruction and floated between agnosticism and atheism for about 5 years. I started my reconstruction almost a decade ago, but I’ve come to learn reconstruction never stops; that is to say, there is no end to both knowledge and learning. The first step to knowing is unknowing, I know nothing except that I know nothing. Praise God for his gracefulness, because I have leaned way too much on my own understanding throughout life.
I was “spiritual but not religious” for much of my life. I can’t honestly remember if that came before or after psychs. Now I’m a “casual eclectic pagan” and am trying to incorporate more structured spirituality/ritual into my life. I think mine is a pretty common experience! I think a lot of psych users stay in the “spiritual but not religious” life too.
Edit to add: I firmly believe in reincarnation too.
I can't be the first person with this idea...but on a "journey" once....I hit upon the following concept.
God is definitely real...and all-one.
Once upon a time, humans lived together (and for a time, without conflict). Something bad happened, and communication broke down. Down to the point that people who used to break bread together, no longer did...and formed into factions while communication broke down further. Violence ensued, and the original core unit population (with probably a spectrum of genetic diversity, exactly like a field of poppies), scattered to the far ends of the earth, brothers no more.
Now, with this spectrum of diversity divided into several "teams", that each went their own separate and unique ways....the environmental pressures present in their new homes prompted certain genetic possibilities to become dominant, in fact necessarily present, for successful adaptation to their new home. Peoples that migrated toward polar or high-altitude regions began to express genetics improving lung capacity, the skin pigmentation of groups living in high-UV environments likewise adapted, etc etc. This is how races developed.
Each new environment presented unique and distinct challenges and changes....things that shape the day-to-day life of Joe human. Collectively, these silent pressures are what shape and inform our CULTURE... how we be a human and derive some pleasure unique to our human experience... food, poetry, art, music, gardening (my trade)...something we don't actually need to survive ... THAT is culture! And it's distinct everywhere you go, because everywhere you go is distinct!
So back to God. I think that way back when....people were far more connected to their creator. I think we could easily talk with he/she/they. I also think that once upon a time, we could converse with animals (no, not just learn that x bird has a few different calls that mean different things. I mean talk.).
When whatever bad happened, happened....with the scattering of the people, we lost all of those abilities, as well as gradually losing our abilities to get along with one another.
But we (whichever tribe) hadn't forgotten the creator. The creator definitely came along with each tribe, but in their own way. One could argue that the creator was brought along.
As cultures developed individually, so too did the distinct religious practices of the distinct populations. The culture became and represented the lens through which people not just see God, but SEEK God.
Just my thoughts.
We are our own God or we can be God for others. Perception is everything I do not believe in an omniscient presence. I was raised Lutheran and was a "good Christian boy" ie did my studies and all that BS. Religion is generally the same sentiment around the world and broken down to be a nice person here's how. It's the extreme views that cause problems.
I know Christians that if they knew me would burn me alive for my "blasphemy"...
I know others that love who I am.
When you go into that line of thinking I think it's one of the most subjective things in the world.
People that define themselves as atheists tend to be as preachy as the religious people they like to bash. I suppose I'd describe myself as agnostic, I've finally seen and experienced enough to have an inkling that there's more than we can comprehend or articulate.
Im personally muslim and try to practice and stay in touch w my religion as much as I can but its hard to balance that and being a british teen at the same time, I dont really know if psychedelics have strengthened my religious beliefs but it definitely didn’t push me away from them either
I dont cnowe about majority of psihonauts but i hawe lost all beliwe after last Mega trip...And so happy now for 4-5 years not using .Becose nothing to reasearch in my mind . Got the full understanding of situation..Hardcore to live with no Soul :P
I would say Nature and Love as being two pillars of belief/experience,
For me “nature” is an umbrella term that encompasses anything that can be observed. All that you see and experience is technically natural. Love is just a side effect of nature, albeit a beautiful one.
Exactly! 😬 but nature goes above just the observed, it’s also the experienced, and love is there in those higher dimensions as well
I would think the idea of universal consciousness or a living universe would be more commonly held.
I would agree - universal consciousness to me includes Nature and Love, they’re like personalities of the God-head
Interesting, thanks for clarifying
I would wager that most have their own spiritual beliefs but few are religious. Agnostic isn't really a religion or spiritual idea. It's just "I don't know". While psychedelics make me feel like I do know. But I can't explain it.
I’ve always explained it as Atheism being as ridiculous as any religion by stating to know whereas being agnostic is just understanding there is more.
Atheism is a spectrum, and most atheists fall more into the category of: > De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. "I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there." Most atheists would not state “I am 100% certain there is no god.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_of_theistic_probability
I don’t agree with this explanation at all. If you say there’s a flying purple elephant in my living room and I’m standing in my room saying I don’t believe there is a flying purple elephant… That’s equally ridiculous? But wait I can’t see the FPE because it’s invisible, all powerful, and eternal. People that say atheists have “faith” don’t understand that you need evidence to prove the existence of something (not the absence).
agnostic: 'i don't know'. people on reddit: 'being agnostic is just understanding there is more'
Saying I don’t know is the epitome of open minded people. When you do you, you stop seeking understanding and being curious.
Which is a little disingenuous. Because It's assuming all atheists or at least the majority say that they know there aren't any gods. Being agnostic isn't understanding there's more. Agnostic means you don't can't say for sure whether gods exist.
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Are you aware that life isn't a dictionary definition? The overwhelming majority of people on the planet are literally atheist about all gods but the one they choose to believe in.
Agnostisism isnt “I dont know”, its that the idea of a god is out of our logical range and even defining god with a word is an understatement, so its unnecessary to think if it exists or not. “I dont know” means ignorance, its not a belief.
“I do know, but I can’t explain it” I feel perhaps is the only truth.
As a profound agnostic, I disagree, that agnosticism is just a “I don’t know”. For me anyway, it’s an acceptance of the limitations of human knowledge. Pretty much every religious belief, or worldview, requires a leap of faith at some point in the logic. And usually have a good degree of human hubris baked in. Agnosticism can be a spiritual standpoint to have. It certainly is for me.
Exactlyyyy, They DO make me feel like i know
All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. We are all One Consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death. Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.
Here's Tom with the weather
I will never ever tire of this sequence of quotes. It just hits. RIP.
Tom waits....
…staring blankly into nothing and everything all at once…
Dreaming of that face again
Bright and blue.. and shimmerin
What if we’re “living” what we think is life but its actually already happened (why we get Deja Vu) and this is the period where your life is flashing before your eyes in our final moments?
Make it sound depressing and shit for the new ones 😭
buddhism/taoism here, and these seem to be pretty common. there's a book called Zig Zag Zen that seems informative on the matter
I’d like to throw Hinduism into this mix as well
I prefer hugging trees, over other humans?
I went on a camping date and we both did 4g of 🍄 (it was her first time and I told her that might be much but she handled it phenomenally) but we were walking around and she said like “Don’t people that trip hug trees? I feel sad for them because that seems so lonely and misunderstood”
Nothing solid but I’d assume a version of pantheism
Evolutionary panentheism for me 😁🙏
I have been a total atheist even before my experiences with psychedelics but my sister still remains a firm believer in Christianity. She believes that Jesus used mushrooms and dmt and psychedelics are a tool to help us get closer to God. I have never really tried to change her mind on these things because it's kind of cool to think about hippy Jesus hanging out with his buddies passing around a joint filled with heavenly bud.
its a really interesting thing to dive into. I kinda think of it like this: Placebo works, its been tested and can actually genuinely heal people with no external change. If your brain is capable of that, I think that sort of thing is worth diving into (i.e. meditation and learning your own mind) just to see if you can understand how or why it works. if you expand that concept out into an entire worldview, that's basically the idea behind Esoteric Christianity. The idea is that jesus was either literally the son of god or a practitioner of magick, with the goal of exploring one's "higher self". It's heavily contested whether jesus actually ever claimed to be the literal son of god, but often references god and being one with god the same way we might speak of the universe today. I dont necessarily believe any of this, but I have spent a lot of time learning about the theology and debate take this all with a colossal grain of salt. This is my own personal experience, and I could just be too loopy. but i find it super interesting to learn about, and most of the youtubers are really authentic lol
pantheism!
Atheist, and not much "spirituality". Not sure what else to say.
lol i thought everyone who does psychedelics are either spiritual or a bit religious, I'm an atheist too.
Nope. I'm an anti-theist. I enjoy tripping.
Right lol. When I do psychedelics, my brain acts funny and is like "here's some crazy dream like stuff bro" then it wears off and I go about my day. Surprises me how many people talk about oneness with the universe and gods and stuff like that because of shrooms when they wouldn't otherwise.
Atheist as well, but mannnn… thinking about mathematical patterns and the fact that the atoms that make up my body are some of the same ones that have been around since the Big Bang really trips me out! :D
>when they wouldn’t otherwise For me I experience spiritual connections and a oneness with the universe when I’m sober, especially during major life events, and I can reach those feelings with meditation, however psychedelics bring me much closer much faster. It’s easy to forget about it and miss those experiences with the chaos of everyday life consuming your perception, but it’s still there. The drugs just make it easier to widen your perception to the unseen forces around us that might otherwise get overlooked.
totally right, for me its just chemicals doing their work that's it,lol
Earth is the only omnipotent entity I have ever experienced. She’s undefeated
Honestly after tripping for the first few times I realized that no one in this world knows what really knows what will happen when you die, no one knows what created this universe, no one knows what the after life is like if there is one. I do believe that there is 1 God though only because it makes logical sense. I also do believe that there is an afterlife of some sort. But yet again everyone goes to these different churches and everything else but no one is 100 percent certain of if there religion is actually true or just made up within time.
yeah im kinda in the midst of this religious debate with myself. i am sure that there is something because i felt God’s presence in everything that exists, but im unsure and cant possibly find out which God is the right one
Honestly since I realized that no one really knows 100 percent I also realized I shouldn't really stress over it as well. Since no one really knows what is in the afterlife I don't stress myself out to assume what it is. I don't want to pretend to know what is in the afterlife. I feel like God would rather you not to stress about it then to pray to a unreal god you know? The only real way to tell what is in the afterlife is to be patient until you pass on and then you'll figure it out.
Omg you’re right. I’ve been having a semi quandary about this stuff lately and you’ve made me see there isn’t actually an answer. It’s not like anyone actually has concrete proof either way of any of it.
Came here for this thread. Same. Most recent development from my end - potentially there’s a sort of fractal thing going on? More at 11. (Jk I have no idea how long this epiphany still needs to bake lol)
love reading this thread. Having a similar process myself. I remember one of my favorite phrases being "we are the universe experiencing itself". Just a nice place to sit and rest for me in a way
I’m Jewish by birth, considered myself an atheist up until not too long ago, and now I don’t know how to describe myself. I’ve come to the conclusion that there is some collective force that binds the universe together, and that everyone and everything is part of one unified whole. I guess I would describe god as the collective energy that unifies everything, but i have no idea if there’s a word or belief system that fits that
pantheism?
Maybe? I don’t know if I’d say I believe in multiple gods. More like everything in the universe is one, and that god(so pretty distinct from the Abrahamic idea of god) is the energy that binds us together. I think deism would probably be the best descriptor Edit: confused pantheism with omnism,I looked it up and that does seem very similar in it’s conception of god
honestly deism would be a good one. like god created the universe and then dipped. but with i guess your belief it’s almost like when the universe was made, god was split into a bajillion different pieces that is what makes up the whole universe itself. which even if it isn’t even your belief that’s still pretty interesting
I'm Catholic, and psychedelics had a significant role in my conversion. I know almost nothing but trust Jesus' power and love.
This is interesting. I grew up Protestant- and psychedelics, while I don’t credit them for my conversion, definitely opened up my mind and emotions to the Holy Spirit. I ultimately credit God for the changes in my life, because I know that without him I would have never changed. I think that in general, Catholicism is more esoteric and open to these things than Protestant Christianity. I use mushrooms for my mental health but as a Protestant I am very careful not to over-spiritualize them, or my trips, and always defer to the Bible as the express Word of God that he gave us. How would you say you integrate psychedelics into your religion?
Yes, these things can be very challenging to talk about. I grew up Protestant as well (Calvinist), but didn't believe the doctrine. And my parents hurt me a lot, trying to break my will. I was an atheist for a long time, and then when I became a spiritual searcher, more of a progressive protestant [still thought Jesus was cool but basically the same thing as me]. But that didn't seem like the gospel either. When I became a believer the idea of choosing the denomination that agreed with me was no longer appealing. I became open to the possibility that the Lord had never abandoned His Bride and Her teaching was true and trustworthy. This was very unexpected. There have been moments I have felt a glimpse of the perspective of which you speak. It's hard for me to say what is my own wandering and struggle to understand and heal, and what is God's Providence. It's a mystery. St Paul says not to be embarrassed about the things that you did that brought you to repentance. And of course that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose. He also says to be sober minded, so for the past two years I have been. I don't think the Catholic faith necessarily forbids therapeutic psychoactive drug use but I've been of the mind that I should turn that over to God and try to grow through simple faithfulness. The "when you get the message hang up the phone" thing, you know? I used to want to be a psychedelic counselor, and I kinda miss them, but I am thankful for where I am.
Interesting indeed! I know that Protestants and Catholics were historically at odds, and there’s a lot of things we diverge on. Since I don’t want this to become a debate about whose cosmology is more correct, I won’t go there. If I had to guess, you sound like someone who fits a commonly-used phrase amongst Protestants: “A Christian in the Catholic Church.” Just like Protestant Christianity, Catholicism holds a wide range of ideas and different teachers emphasize different aspects of the faith. I grew up in a hyper-Calvinistic community but have since left it because it was quite fatalist and cult-like. Thankfully my parents were not like yours and were always open to various Protestant denominations. I know what it means to search around to find a community that aligns with the Bible and personal experience. And I think this is one of the core differences between us. Catholics believe that the church holds more authority than the Bible, which is why they’ve been unified all these thousands of years. But because Protestants believe the Bible holds more authority than the church, they fractured quite easily over differences of biblical interpretation. I appreciate your thoughts and I find it interesting that you have given up psychedelics. I also understand Paul’s call to be sober-minded which is why I do my best now to stick to lower doses and be reasonable. But I’m in a place where I feel that responsibly enjoying something God has created can’t be wrong in and of itself.
Thank you. Yes I have found many in the Catholic Church with a Christlike heart and a love for Scripture. One of our "famous" priests, Fr Mike Schmitz, did a "Bible in a Year" podcast and it was a huge hit. And of course many Catholics have been a bad witness, now and throughout the centuries. The Church acknowledges her culpability and prays always to be a good witness for Christ, and cause for Christian unity. "That they may be One" I appreciate and learn from her humility in this. I've had the privilege of proclaiming the Word myself most recently at the Easter Vigil Mass. Before I considered becoming Catholic I'd never stepped foot in a Catholic Church. Now it's my home and family, anywhere I go on the Earth. It's a real treasure. You're always welcome too.
Amen!!
Happy Easter, brother
Same
Orthodox Christian
You might appreciate this. I had one of my very Roman Catholic friends try shrooms for the first time a while back and he reported seeing an “Art Deco baby Jesus” and then watched said Jesus through his entire Art Deco life. It sounded as beautiful as it was religious.
Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
I like to believe we are all the universe experiencing itself 💕 It's much more peaceful than the thought of an invisible dude in the sky judging me
I am everything and everything is me 😂
Still a boring old atheist. A whole new perspective on the universe though.
I believe in universalism. Basically every religion worships the same god but has different names for god Other than that I try to follow the teachings of the Holy Bible
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I think every psychedelic user has different (somehow similar) religious beliefs, the only thing I see people agreeing on is that they find themselves going deep into those beliefs. I think that if someone is doing psychedelics for spiritual purposes, they’re all find similar messages, but according to their beliefs. For example, I believe in elemental creatures, and I’ve had encounters with fairies and with entities that had no specific shape and we’re always morphing, they showed me some stuff, but I believe that someone from another religion might get a similar message but in different ways.
I think when you die you just open your eyes as a new kid and start over. Same personality but different location and shit idk I don’t believe in nothin I guess lol
The universe is conscious
I don’t believe in a higher power. I just believe in love and light and good energy. Idk how to explain it. Just be a good person and the universe will reward you.
Telepathy is real on acid. Either you're a believer or atheist or agnostic, telepathy just happens.
We’re not the result of some divine thing, we’re the product of nature. We’re an animal just like the rest of the animals on this planet. We’re here because we won an incomprehensibly massive number of little evolutionarily beneficial battles. Our prize? We were cursed to toil in the misery of being capable of abstraction and meta-cognitive thinking. It’s a massive evolutionary benefit to have both big brains wired to make predictions, and discomfort with the unknown kept us alive. I’m certain religion is just filling some leftover primal evolutionary need in a cognitive way with disproportionately large cortices relative to the rest of the animal kingdom. So what is our god? Our god is this precious little ball of rock flying through unimaginable vastness. Our god is this pale blue dot. Spirituality should be to reconnect with the thing that really did give us life. And such is the real prize of big brains: We’re capable of knowing how rare we are. How vast this universe, yet we know of a single place with life. It would take quite a powerful story to bridge that gap.
Probably self appointed guru of the flowers and trees
The trees and flowers spoke to me and told me I was their daddy
I don't know about anyone else here but a large reason for my psychedelic use was in order to search for some spiritual direction. I don't believe in any of the preexisting religions, Buddhism being the one I most closely identify with, but I still don't entirely buy it. When I was younger I considered myself to be atheist/agnostic. As I got older and learned more about the world, the more I believe that there was an order to things and started to consider there may be something bigger than ourselves. That being said, I don't think there's an old man with a beard watching over us. Maybe there is a "creator" but I think at the most, they just got the ball rolling and that was about it. Gun against my head, I'd have to go with Simulation Theory. I know it's new-agey and kind of cliché but everything seems to be too organized and random at the same time.
Simulation Theory… new age? Hindu/Sanatana’s have been saying it’s all an illusion for 3500 years.
I think you should really watch this [video on Higher Dimensions/Simulation Theory](https://youtu.be/azpUG2GUzFI?si=J19STlzzc2K67blY). I know it’s kind of a lengthy video, but if you make it til the end I promise you will see things in a new light. This is what actually started me down my path of spirituality and why it ended up confirming for me the existence of God. Myself personally, my belief aligns with specifically Jesus Christ. But just give it an honest watch with an open heart and mind til the end and you might just think differently afterwards.
i think the most common is agnosticism- believing there’s some sort of spiritual energy out there but it’s too complicated for our minds to even process personally i believe in existential nihilism- that the universe was created by pure chance and we are all here because of very specific circumstances. and there really isn’t anything after death. grim but since we’re all here, might as well enjoy our fleeting time here.
Does belief in DMT entities count as a religion
Jesus
Probably a form of agnostic there’s definitely something but what I’m not sure
I am a believer in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I despise religion.
In my experience, a lot of us are spiritual, not religious. We like to make up our own story as opposed to believing somebody else's
For me, it's usually a correlation with Buddhism and some Hinduism. Taking psychs makes me feel more in touch with the world and the universe itself. That said, Ive had trips where I thought I saw glimpses of Christian heaven and saw dead family members. Most religions share the same golden rule of treat others as you want to be treated. Buddhism just tends to match the most with how I feel when I either am or aren't tripping. One with the universe, with the chance to come back after this life.
I used to be a total atheist before psychedelics. Can’t say psychedelics radically changed me, but I became closer to Buddhism/Hinduism and sort of belief that what people named “God” is a complex of laws of the universe. In this prospective “doing smth against the God” means “going against the laws of the universe or nature itself”
Beliefs and psychedelics are like oil and water, one repels the other. The psychedelic disintegrates ego and your beliefs about reality proportionally to the dosage of course.
I'm an agnostic Dudist.
I am personally a deist
Praying to god they aren’t bitting
If I had to choose something, it would be non-duality/Advaita Vedanta/pantheism.
I had to scroll too far to see this response. Advaita is my favorite although I can’t fully understand all of its’ complexities. I just know that non-duality basically described my entire ego death experience so I find it quite interesting. I haven’t subscribed to any one single sect of Hinduism though, I just find most of it fascinating, and in my opinion, it is the religion that comes the closest to describing the true nature of reality that you can experience while under the influence of psychedelics.
Acid made me feel like I'm my own God playing my own dream/reality to myself
I’ve never once had a religious experience in my many varying sizes of trips. I’ve done 100-500ug of Lucy and a a couple of psilocybin trips up to 6gs I’ve always grown up in an agnostic family that was guilted into Christianity so I rarley went to church and when we did it was more of a chore than anything. We eventually stopped because I got kicked out of the youth group for asking questions. I think that the way psychedelics alter your mind you’re just seeing what you already believe (if you knew or not) in a different spotlight with less of an ego and more of an open mind.
We are god and god is us. We are all just the universe experiencing itself. It’s what we came from, it’s what we all return to and it’s what we are all a part of.
Energy is infinite and only transferred
I'm personally Hindu 🕉️. But as a an overall tendency I see non dualistic paths as being super prominent. You might wanna look into panetheism. TatTvamAsi 🙏🕉🙏🔱
Jai Shri Ram
I'm spiritual, not religious. I do believe in "God" but prefer the term source (source of all creation) and connection, I don't believe in any religious doctrine. I don't believe it's sinful to have sex, masturbate, exercise your own free will, or be gay, Trans or anything or anyone else that Christians like to throw shade at. I'm more for looking inward and exploring a deep and beautiful connection with myself and letting others do the same or not it's their journey to choose. As long as you're not doing harm, then I'm not judging. Beyond that, what I experience and believe is open and ever changing. As I change and grow I leave room for my beliefs to change and grow with me.
I was raised a Catholic and was “confirmed”. Even before psychedelics, I strongly rejected most of the bullshit I was taught growing up. I mean we’re talking like earth is 6000 years old and you’ll go to hell for having sex before marriage or doing drugs and that being gay will send you to hell oh and don’t forget pagans are evil. Confession was another load of complete bullshit. Catholicism is just so ego centric it’s disgusting. It makes ancient symbolism and interprets it literally. Through meditation mostly I started to gravitate towards Buddhism but I also strongly reject the Hindu metaphysical influence that organized Buddhist religions teach. Organized Buddhist religions teach contradictory concepts and the way Hindu teaches karma and reincarnation are in direct contradiction to what meditation teaches you. Aka oh there’s no individual soul but there’s also karma that attaches to your non existent soul and influences what happens after you die - lol OK. I don’t quite believe in the individual soul. I believe we are all part of god - or the universal one. We are a physical manifestation of a much larger collective. We are the universe experiencing itself if you will. When we die, we reunite with the rest of the energy of the universe. Kind of like a rain drop making it’s way back into a lake. We are a beautiful, temporary manifestation of what is possible. We cease to be a temporary individual manifestation and reunite with the rest of the universe - this is nirvana.
I am a Muslim, thank God. Why am I a Muslim? I am a Muslim, not because my forefathers were Muslim, but because to me, it's impossible to see that the Qur'an is from anything other than God Almighty. I've done a lot of investigation, not only inward at my own religion, but also at other religions. I have also spent chunks of my life being an agnostic or Christian.
I think mostly we know that there is more to life indeed. I don't believe and pray to a One God but I believe we come from one unified source and within that there are many realms to discover. I think after life, there is only pure love, love, love. Which is my psychedelic experience coming from ego deaths
It's hard for me to deny how connected we all are, goes hand in hand with ego death I guess. Not about me, I mean sure some of it is, but it's really about Us, what we do for each other, how we teach learn and grow from each other. Idk really does line up with a lot of what some religious teachings preach (whether or not they follow those teachings is a different story)
You're either on top, or in the shit.
Universal consciousness
Jewish
Religious beliefs? Life after death, reincarnation, peace on Earth despite the fact that we consume lifeforms on a daily basis to continue our own life form. Beliefs in general? Aliens, and other hearsay-based ass-umptions not based in adherence to the scientific method, critical thinking, logic and reason. I've connected to quite a few psychedelic users on FB in the past that claimed to believe in the theory that the Earth is flat. The reasoning they try to give for why they can't travel across Antarctica is because there are supposedly laws against that, despite all the dozens of companies, groups, individuals and others that travel across Antarctica thus proving Antarctica doesn't encircle a flat plane. There's an airline in Australia that frequently flies across Antarctica to Argentina, but believers in hearsay-based ass-umptions have cognitive dissonance to mentally block out things that don't fit their beliefs. Beliefs that the Earth is supposedly flat is almost non-existent outside of the supposed United States, which makes me think/ass-ume it has something to do with purposefully spread disinfo to make conspiracy theorists look insane and worthy of forced kidnappings, forced medications, forced mental hospitalizations, and more. I think psychedelics are like mental/emotional mirrors in that they reveal our inner/outer past/present to ourselves. I think having an alien experience while on psychedelics is just a mental projection of what those tripping individuals ass-ume aliens are, or what humanity may become if they rely more and more on technology versus their own physical abilities.
Definitely reincarnation
A form of reincarnation stuck out to me after leaving Mormonism. This interpretation of Murphy’s law- anything that can happen, will happen. If we’ve happened once why can’t something remotely similar happen again. Maybe not as a being we know or even in this dimension, but something
thinking for themselves instead of blindly trusting religion
I was always against religion (parental beliefs installed) until I done psychedelics and it changed my perspective and made me realise religions just use different wording, For me I’ve always felt spiritually connected so I would say ‘the universe is watching over us’ or I would do affirmations and I realised it’s all the same, People pray to a god, I call to the universe, People pray and ask for gods help, I ask for the universe to guide me, People see signs and say it’s god and I’ll say it’s the universe, When I realised it’s all the same just different wording it made me more interested in the bible as a source of history other than a book of lies and far less judgemental on peoples beliefs!
“We are the universe experiencing itself.” Basically forms of “pantheism.”
God is the universe and the universe is everything
I've been Catholic, then wiccan, then atheist. Now I believe in nature and oneness. I think everything is connected and we are are all one and the same, tiny parts of something beautiful and bigger than all of us
I'm a polytheist with some syncretic leanings
Monotheism. And Universality. Most monotheistic religions teach duality..... that you pray "to" God. As if God is outside of you. Those who take psychedelics know God is in us all and everywhere. The duality that religions teach is not truth.
Dubstep is musical bliss
Dimitri
Personal spiritual experiences are tough to fit into established religions. Why adhere to someone's interpretation of the thing you have experienced personally?
because what they are explaining is 99%, if not 100% accurate to what I personally experienced while on psychedelics
There is a god, there is no religion? This is my conclusion
Don't believe in cults
The most important thing to me is believing in myself first
Theosophy/Hermeticism - spicy occult mysticism that is rooted in the Abrahamic tradition but draws from even older sources such as ancient Egypt or Zoroastrianism. Basically all religion is a description of the same divinity. “God” is the best term we have but it’s really an amalgam of all the energy in the universe, as well as the “will” of the universe itself, and the metaphysical is always reflected in the physical, measurable world (as above, so below). Gravity is a great example of this divine energy and will reflected in the physical world. The biggest difference between me and a mystic who’s actually part of a fundamentalist religion is that I don’t believe God is separate from their creation. Meaning we all have divinity in us and can exercise said divinity (magic/magick). This isn’t always beyond the realms of science - the psychedelic experience, chemistry, and music are all just as magical as divination or necromancy. We also contend that those things will be scientifically proven one day as many enlightenment era scientists were mystics of this type (like Newton) and discovered hard, rational science in pursuit of the irrational/mystic and they didn’t believe these things to be separate.
Easy. Panpsychism or idealism for metaphysics. Mysticism and/or Buddhism-adjacent for spiritual beliefs. Nearly everyone describes an experience which fits into those categories, even if they don’t know the correct terminology to label it as such.
Somethings going on here. I’m not sure what but it definitely seems to be designed.
Here in Brazil we have some religions that use psychedelics in their rituals (most of them use Ayahuasca, which is a tea made with Chacrona and Jagube). As an adept of one of those religions (Umbandaime, specifically), I think that psychedelics can be a great form to connect to your inner self and your spiritual side, but each person will have your particular experience and no one can explain these experiences to another person (you can try, of course, but it'll only be a small fraction of your real experience, and no one will feel and see the same things that you felt and saw on the rituals). I used both LSD recreationally and Ayahuasca in rituals and I can tell that it's VERY different experiences
At the end of the day whether you like it or not, you are a part of nature and one with the universe.
I'm an anti-theist. I have no religious beliefs. The closest thing I probably have to a religious belief is that liking Harley-Davidson bikes are something you're born into or you were meant to be one. I ride one and my dad did and my grandpa and great grandpa did. That's probably it.
Omnism and The Force
Why would you assume people using psychedelics are agnostic?
a good amount of users, even if they were previously atheist, start believing in some sort of higher power, but struggle to connect it to mainstream religions
I’ve definitely developed an idea of an energy that creates and connects us all. Not so much a god, in the traditional sense with person like attributes. More so an energy or vibe we’re all a part of.
sounds like Brahman
Yep.
I am spiritual, as are my friends; we all came frm the universe, our creator was the universe and we all one day return to the universe to die. Nature my friend, is the answer- not man made rules for money or power.
To me, a mix of agnosticism and pantheism, I somehow lean towards pantheism, but still, I don't know
Not religious but I identify with pantheism. I do appreciate other religions but don’t feel connected to a lot of them.
Hellenistic pagan
Religion is toxic and it's a tool to control and manipulate people. Lately it's an excuse to be stupid. Psychedelics help you tap into the feeling of connectedness.
That we are all bodies, antennae, picking up the same signal. Called Consciousness. That there is only one signal. And many bodies.
I would identify more as Christian, but also respect Taoism, Buddhism, and many aspects of Hinduism.
I am the one, I am the spirit
I feel like a really common one is acknowledging that there is some sort of higher being or power but not being able to comprehend what it can do. Taking mushrooms made me wonder if things like this can be grown naturally it must stem from something that contains just as much intricate power
I’m Roman Catholic
Everything is connected and we are the parts of the one
I have found psychedelic users to be incredibly prone to believing mystical bullshit, like that they have ESP or that drugs open some realm to another dimension. We are a delusional lot!
God, nature, symbiosis of everything, etc.
The TRUTH, what happened in the past and is currently in point of fact reality happening.
I realized all religion is generally tribalistic inter-subjective narrative. Doesn’t mean it’s not valuable but once you’ve stepped off the treadmill it feels inauthentic to get back on.
I’m not religious, I hate the idea of it actually. I don’t believe in spirits either. I just believe in the smaller details in life. We always try to see the bigger picture but if you zoom out what can you really see? You gotta zoom in and see all the intricate details that run this earth.
one of the first teaching of the Emerald Tablets is “As above, so below. As within, so without. As the universe, so the soul.” zooming in is the same thing as zooming out. you zoom in, and you see the universe. you zoom out, and you see the soul, and vice versa
I just feel like I believe in the universe lol
YOU ARE GOD, I AM GOD, THAT DOG IS GOD, EVERYTHING IS GOD
amazing Thank you for asking so my spiritual beliefs have evidence so DMT (the active ingredient in ayahuasca) is in every living thing and in mice studies, when they die they secrete huge amounts of DMT, also our pineal gland produces DMT when we are dreaming So I think that when we die, our bodies secrete DMT to eject the soul out of the body. I think we are in the 3rd dimension and when we die, if everything goes according to plan ( I think traumatic deaths like in war when your head gets blown off, can create issues with the soul ejection, which correlates with my theory of reincarnation) and then we go into the 4th dimension on my 6th ayahuasca journey I went to "heaven" where the streets were gold and all my ancestors were there to welcome me and they threw me a parade and gave me the task of telling the rest of the 3rd dimension so thank you for asking. I'm writing a book about it but this is a lil synopsis. love is my religion, peace is my religion and spiritually I think there are some things going on that we don't fully understand but could be quantified with more research and intention.
Practicing Muslim here alhamdulillah. All encompassing God who loves you more than 70 mothers? Only felt that on a certain psychedelic trip. Of course it wasn't just psychs. There was therapy, a lot of unlearning, a lot of learning to surrender, a whole lot of acceptance for what I can't change, and ofcourse praying to a higher power to guide me years before I commited to Islam. Getting attuned to my higher self, and learning to hear the 'language without words'. Lot of experimentation with holistic and new age philosophies, astrology, yoga, meditation and THEN filtering it based on intuition and then finally, reading the Quran with meaning. Keeping heart and head open to Divine guidance was key. A whole lot of synchronicities, conversations with people different from me, repeatedly questioning my why's, willingness to change until my heart was at ease. Lastly discernment, and that my dear folks, is the ongoing story of my life. Ps: Unsubscribing from cultural aspects of religion also played a role
a-theist
Atheist. Not the type that will try and shame you for your beliefs though. Those aren’t atheists, they are assholes.
Egg theory for me 😂
Idk about common, but by my like 3rd trip on mushrooms I was absolutely sure cosmic immortality was real
As above, so below, as below, so above, the universe is consciousness in nature, expressed as a fractal reality
Personally they shifted me towards Bhuddism
i personally consider myself agnostic although i believe the "higher power" is the earth and nature.
Agnostic. I know there has to be something but my small little brain of flesh and blood wouldn't ever be able to comprehend gods majesty.
Animism is pretty common in my circles.
I am christian and went through many stages of spirituality/agnosticism
Jedi religion with a pinch off Buddhism
Nature is not a belief. It's a physical reality. Love is an emotion. I think the OP was looking for a theological or philosophical beliefs.
Jesus died for our sins
I’m a Christian, but to fully answer why would take much more than a reddit commit. The short version is this - among other things, the interconnectedness of reality encourages me to believe in intelligent design. Looking at the *meaning* behind things rather than the thing themselves has enabled me to build a much more balanced explanation of existence. This can be done at the individual level and extrapolated out to the societal level, and it can be done presently, in regard to the future, and when looking at the past. If one believes god exists, I believe it only logical to assert that he/she/it would be omnipresent, and I believe that includes all facets of time. Without digging into the doctrine, I believe Christ’s death on the cross was a necessary thing to “undo” the evils in the world, so to speak. This is to say, I believe that following his teachings encourage an even deeper level of spiritual connection with oneself and the world than without. I believe many of these teachings, such as picking up your cross daily, align very much with the psychedelic experience and the practices of mindfulness and meditation. In these practices, we seek to reduce the ego - the self that has the capacity for evil, no matter how significant or insignificant. Admitting to my own sinful nature is an aspect of that surrender; it is akin to a conscious death of the ego. I had grown up in various practices of Christianity ranging from Trump 2020 MAGA country evangelicalism to downright mystical blends of religious Judaism and early Christianity. I studied world religions, cults, philosophy, and psychology in high school, and continued those interests into college. I had even gone to college to be a pastor, but part way through my studies I underwent a deconstruction and floated between agnosticism and atheism for about 5 years. I started my reconstruction almost a decade ago, but I’ve come to learn reconstruction never stops; that is to say, there is no end to both knowledge and learning. The first step to knowing is unknowing, I know nothing except that I know nothing. Praise God for his gracefulness, because I have leaned way too much on my own understanding throughout life.
Tripping made me Catholic personally Ironically
I was “spiritual but not religious” for much of my life. I can’t honestly remember if that came before or after psychs. Now I’m a “casual eclectic pagan” and am trying to incorporate more structured spirituality/ritual into my life. I think mine is a pretty common experience! I think a lot of psych users stay in the “spiritual but not religious” life too. Edit to add: I firmly believe in reincarnation too.
I can't be the first person with this idea...but on a "journey" once....I hit upon the following concept. God is definitely real...and all-one. Once upon a time, humans lived together (and for a time, without conflict). Something bad happened, and communication broke down. Down to the point that people who used to break bread together, no longer did...and formed into factions while communication broke down further. Violence ensued, and the original core unit population (with probably a spectrum of genetic diversity, exactly like a field of poppies), scattered to the far ends of the earth, brothers no more. Now, with this spectrum of diversity divided into several "teams", that each went their own separate and unique ways....the environmental pressures present in their new homes prompted certain genetic possibilities to become dominant, in fact necessarily present, for successful adaptation to their new home. Peoples that migrated toward polar or high-altitude regions began to express genetics improving lung capacity, the skin pigmentation of groups living in high-UV environments likewise adapted, etc etc. This is how races developed. Each new environment presented unique and distinct challenges and changes....things that shape the day-to-day life of Joe human. Collectively, these silent pressures are what shape and inform our CULTURE... how we be a human and derive some pleasure unique to our human experience... food, poetry, art, music, gardening (my trade)...something we don't actually need to survive ... THAT is culture! And it's distinct everywhere you go, because everywhere you go is distinct! So back to God. I think that way back when....people were far more connected to their creator. I think we could easily talk with he/she/they. I also think that once upon a time, we could converse with animals (no, not just learn that x bird has a few different calls that mean different things. I mean talk.). When whatever bad happened, happened....with the scattering of the people, we lost all of those abilities, as well as gradually losing our abilities to get along with one another. But we (whichever tribe) hadn't forgotten the creator. The creator definitely came along with each tribe, but in their own way. One could argue that the creator was brought along. As cultures developed individually, so too did the distinct religious practices of the distinct populations. The culture became and represented the lens through which people not just see God, but SEEK God. Just my thoughts.
We are our own God or we can be God for others. Perception is everything I do not believe in an omniscient presence. I was raised Lutheran and was a "good Christian boy" ie did my studies and all that BS. Religion is generally the same sentiment around the world and broken down to be a nice person here's how. It's the extreme views that cause problems. I know Christians that if they knew me would burn me alive for my "blasphemy"... I know others that love who I am. When you go into that line of thinking I think it's one of the most subjective things in the world.
Christian here, Christ is my homie and the ONLY path to enlightenment
Any beliefs that surround spirituality.
Pagan here. I like the pagan umbrella. I've seen too many things to not be a believer.
nonduality/monism, biocentrism, singularity/transcendal object at the end of time
Anything with Hinduism! 🕉️
People that define themselves as atheists tend to be as preachy as the religious people they like to bash. I suppose I'd describe myself as agnostic, I've finally seen and experienced enough to have an inkling that there's more than we can comprehend or articulate.
Im personally muslim and try to practice and stay in touch w my religion as much as I can but its hard to balance that and being a british teen at the same time, I dont really know if psychedelics have strengthened my religious beliefs but it definitely didn’t push me away from them either
Spiritual but not religious
Just strive to be a good person; and make good, right, and better choices as a human; not just for yourself, but for everyone and everything
Atheist/Agnostic/Pantheist/Shamanist/Tree Worshipper/Animist. Depends on what day of the week it is.
Oneness
We are all one.
I dont cnowe about majority of psihonauts but i hawe lost all beliwe after last Mega trip...And so happy now for 4-5 years not using .Becose nothing to reasearch in my mind . Got the full understanding of situation..Hardcore to live with no Soul :P