Step XIV of My Spiritual Journey: In Which I Talk Drugs

I know I'm a day late on this, but hey - my posts go up on Wednesdays.

But first, before I begin, let me state for the record, for posterity, for my mom, and for all future employers, that I do not do drugs. Nor did I do drugs for any part of Step XIV in My Spiritual Journey. In fact, as you'll see once we get a little further along, I actually dislike drugs, especially in regards to spirituality.

So, yesterday there was a bit of a to-do, if you will, about a researcher who claims Moses was high on psychedelic drugs. I'm going to go ahead and leave that alone, as I have no idea what happened however many bajillion years ago, nor do I have any business pretending I do.

Regardless of whatever drugs Moses did or did not do, I firmly believe that there is a strong connection between spirituality and drugs. And the more I think about this, the more I realize that the relationship between spirituality and drugs is something that really annoys me about spirituality in general.

I guess I'm picturing those shaggy-haired, stoner hippies playing the bongos at some full-moon tropical isle beach party. (Well, that or Matthew McConaughey, naked, and in his own home, but that's neither here nor there.) And while I know that the stoner, bongo playing, hippie is a ridiculously stereotypical example, I, for one, believe that stereotypes exist for a reason. (Case in point: Matthew McConaughey.)

Anyway, back to my actual point. When I think of religion, I think of straitlaced, commandment-abiding, God-fearing citizens. Or, less stereotypically, I think of someone who obeys the rules / was the goody-goody always raising their hand in high-school. (No, wait. That was no less stereotypical, and well, that was me. Minus the religion part.) Whatever, the point I'm trying to make is that when I think of religion, whatever religion, I think of a specific set of beliefs and rules. And when I think of spirituality, I think of a sort of do-it-yourself holiness. And I think that sometimes this DIY spirituality leads people to search, well, externally (read: chemically) for some sort of guidance.

Look, I get it. I've asked for a guru, but I think that sometimes people confuse spiritual awakenings with psychedelic trips. For example, and to highlight the specific psychotropic drug mentioned by said researcher, Libet Johnson, heir to the ridiculously large Johnson & Johnson fortune, discusses her love for the Amazonian tree-vine drug ayahuasca in this week's New York Magazine. According to Wikipedia, "ayahuasca is used largely as a religious sacrament," and those who use it in a "non-traditional context...often align themselves with shamanism." Now, can't you just picture Matthew McConaughey jaunting off to the Amazon for his spiritual awakening? (Sorry. I'll leave him alone now.)

Honestly, there's just too much ground to cover on this topic, like peyote, which is legal to use for ritual purposes within the Native American Church, or that Simpsons episode where Homer goes to the chili cook-off and eats some crazy habanero pepper, which causes him to hallucinate and set off on a spiritual journey guided by a coyote voiced by Johnny Cash.

At the end of the day, I suppose spiritual drug-use, besides being illegal (except for peyote, dammit), is one of those "to each their own" things. Which is fine by me, but I guess my point is that how can any hallucinated journey that existed solely as a result of ingesting a psychotropic and/or psychedelic drug be considered spiritual? (I would define that as chemical. I'm just sayin'.)

The bottom line? When you find yourself in spiritual alignment with Matthew McConaughey and/or The Simpsons (see: Bonus Clip at bottom) starts making fun of you, you've got to admit that you're not only a stereotype, you're also a little absurd.

Happy Trails!

Comments

[desthmoneses]

individuals turn to drugs and spirituality because, lets face it spirituality delivers less tangible results than drugs do.

[sugarmoes]

well... there are many teachers/gurus... some of the plant variety.

[NedFlanders19]

Wow Verena,

Did you take an extra helping of judgment before writing this? Let go of the stereotypes.

Many "spiritual" experiences are about experiencing a different type of consciousness than the day to day. A true master does not need anything external to be in a more deeper state of being. However, most people are not in a space to be able to "go there" (yes, I like quote marks) without being altered in some way.

Instead of simply putting down all of these illegal substances, use your abilities and question why these consciousness altering subtances are banned. People who take these from a point of awareness, not escape, don't buy into what society says is how things are. Instead they are trying to go within and find what really is there, not what anyone else says is there.

The point is that to explore more deeply, people need to be able to let go of their normal world and dive into the abyss. In an ideal world, no one would use these, because we all would be living and expressing the deepest truth continuously.

Lastly, two things. First is that until you go much deeper, you will continue your pattern of thinking you're experiencing "spirituality," when its really feeding ego. I say this because of the energy behind the words you have shared. The energy behind what anyone says or does will tell you everything you want to know. There is nothing wrong or bad with you or what you've shared, it simply does not match up with a deeper vibration. Second, be very careful about asking for a guru. Check the energy behind the word and if you are not in a space where this is possible, my suggestion is to run as fast as you can. Especially if they say they have all the answers. What guru really means is best read like a text message - g u r u. Only work with someone who helps you find out what is inside you, not what they tell you is there. For my next act, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat (apologies to Bullwinkle).

Aho

[fairwitness]

I thought the title of this blog promised an interesting view on a sophisticated and important psychological issue. But, no.

It's self-evident after reading it, I guess, but why, exactly, is this person's uninformed, admitedly (proudly!) stereotypical, shallow-to-a-fault comments on ANYTHING, much less profound inquiries into the human experience of spirituality, worth a moment's attention?

Reading her posts for perspective on spirituality is like reading Seventeen Magazine to understand quantum physics--ain't gonna happen...and a waste of time. Unless you, as she is, are satisfied with shallow, absurd platitudes and glib, quasi-clever quips passing for serious inquiry into the human consition.

Please, Verena, quit wasting our time and, perhaps, sit down and shut up--as in, meditate and inquire deeply before spewing. Why, exactly, do you think we should care what your silly mind dreams up, anyway?

[payforthepizza]

wowza witness. You seem good and moral offended! lol

For real though, screw her for not being as deep as you? I always find that a good way to help others understand my philosophical perspective to call them dumb. I think most of the time they just need me to rip them a new hole to understand me though. ;)

[fairwitness]

You probably won't see this, being days later, payforthepizza, but thanks for the slap--funny and bracing. But I WAS somewhat offended by V's shallow comments about a subject I take seroiusly (not drugs, so much, but spiritual truth), and felt reading it was worse than a waste of time.

It's not about "philosophical perspective"--she HAD no such perspective, but was, as I said, "spewing" whatever bullshit came into her head as if it were meaningful. It wasn't, and such bullshit debases the subject.

I know that in this post-modern mileau ANY flip, deluded, narcissitic bullshit is equated with it's opposite and so defensible as hip irony or pseudo-insight, but some of us see it as pollution, really, to be called out and discouraged when possible. Writers like V NEED a "new one" torn, at least until they grow up and see beyond themselves.

[BongWater]

Many great comments here trying to educate this naive young would be writer. My guess is she has a medicine cabinet full of the finest shit from the most disgusting pushers in our nation.....big pharma.

In moderation, with friends in a "safe" environment, a mushroom trip can be spiritual and positive.
Using psychotropic drugs to experience a glimpse of alternate realities is both exhilarating and terrifying.
I highly recommend it to mature capable young adults. Verena should wait several years.

[acty]

Excuse me? Tripping on mushrooms is NOT in my humble opinion experiencing spirituality. Drugs are mind and mood altering substances and in my opinion TRUE spirituality comes from living authentically and real not changing who you are and how you feel. It is not easy to live a life drug and alcohol free and in my opinion that is when your true self comes out. Not when you are altering it chemically! I am not saying that you have to never drink or do drugs all i am saying is tripping on mushrooms with your friend is in no way being your authentic self. Therefore it is not being spiritual!

[LeanLeftAmerica]

Please keep in mind that your body is already a chemical factory... most (if not all) of your emotions, moods, and visual experiences are chemical in nature. Watching the evening news on shrooms makes one thing very clear... the once beautiful, charismatic shells regurgitating the days events... now appearing as warped cartoonish characters, highlights in a very unique way how meaningless their perfectly tailored appearance is. The experience sheds new light on what we call reality. I'm not talking about living each and every day in an altered state... merely an occasional journey. A trip. Nothing more, nothing less.

[payforthepizza]

will you be my guru acty? ;)

[tbone99]

So in your mind there is spiritual and nonspiritual and authentic and inauthentic selves.Just tell me then ,WHO is that inauthentic self and where did they come from? Is eating a papaya authentic or inauthentic, how about a coffee bean, a portobella, a fermented peach, a psilocybyn mushroom?

Wondering where you got your rule book?

[amigettingcanned]

Excuse me, BongWater is it? If you're going to call Verena an adolescent, I'd use a more mature alias. Even if you enjoy a hit or two, bragging about it is a cry for attention and argument-- now that's immature.

And why is "safe" in quotations? Does it not exist when searching for the spiritual while high?

[payforthepizza]

LOL.
I agree that bongwaters comment was a little pissy, but are you serious canned?
Verena may be a bit square, but that comment takes the cake ;)

p.s. How do you get a philosopher off your porch?

[BongWater]

canned, I called her naive and young. Her words seemed to lead many others here to come to a similar conclusion. I did not call her an adolescent.

Are you also clairvoyant?

BongWater a cry for attention......project much?

I used "safe" as relates to mushrooms as a subjective term. Think.

Lastly, I see you have only commented on five threads at Huffington Post, three of them on Ms. Von Pfettens stories. Good for you, stick up for your friends, even when their flippant condescending writing results in negative feedback.

TRoll, you may have giggled with your friends in a Mosque or a Church too, does that render them non-spiritual?

Different people find spirituality in different ways and places. I would not condemn whirling Dervishes for their crazy dizzy dance as I have never tried it, nor do I have much interest in trying it.

I am not qualified to praise or reject their dance. I can simply marvel and be happy at all the variety and cultures that exist on our planet. I suggest you are in no position to define who gets to use what methods to pursue spirituality.

acty, can a person not live "authentically" and do some psychotropic substances a few times a year? Or maybe a few times in their life?
Have you used any prescription drugs? Do you eat processed food? Let me suggest a link and a movie for you to challenge your view of chemicals and just what constitutes a mind altering experience......

http://www.whatthebleep.com/

[T.Roll]

Mushrooms are spiritual? Back in the day, we'd snack on them, then sit around and giggle.

[larstein]

The term "spiritual" is completely misunderstood because it has traditionally been defined by religion. If you understand that "spirit" is relationship itself, a creative confluence between two or more energy systems, conceptual entities, or objects, then you realize material IS spirit, and spirituality is simply seeing with a new set of eyes what is in front of you. Psychedelic drugs make "what is" visible for a little while, until the ego-mind begins again to re-define and re-catagorize in order to gain control over what it fears. Quantum science has shown that we are all basically light entities vibrating at levels which give the illusion of materiality to eyes created to see limited frequency ranges. Spirituality and chemistry are one and the same thing. What activates spiritual/chemical development are psychological responses - love, hate, and the gamut in between.

As far as gurus go, trust the inner guru. Anything else is un-American.

[payforthepizza]

"Quantum science has shown that we are all basically light entities vibrating...."

I call shannagens on that ;)

But I do very much agree that spiritual and material are two words describing the same things, just viewed from different points.

[Erdgeist]

I found this blog, The Zennist. This person seems to have the right idea of what is spirituality. Other sites I have been to put a lot of emphasis on external morality which I think is a huge mistake. http://zennist.typepad.com/

[wm1066]

That bad acid trip I took in the seventies helped me make it through an accidental poisoning in the eighties. An accident that has kept me in pain ever since. It helped me be able to ride things out.
Now the peyote I ate with a holy man from India was fullfilling.
But I have no desire to do it again. I think the drugs help you see alternative ways of seeing....forcefully.

[stevesrant]

Contemporary American society has decided that only the most addicting and deadly - tobacco - and mind numbing - alcohol - drugs should be legal. And then refuses to call them drugs. Just saying.

[naturallight]

Ahh...huffpost tackling the mysteries of the universe.

If you would like to read more on this subject than a short diatribe by a valley girl,

may I suggest Daniel Pinchbeck's "2012: The Return Of Quetzalcoatl"

[VerenaVonPfetten]

Hey! I'm from Canada, not California, silly. But, like, feel free to mock away. I'm sure there's an "eh" or an "aboot" joke you've got laying around.

[naturallight]

From Publishers Weekly
Pinchbeck, journalist and author of the drug-riddled psychonaut investigation Breaking Open the Head, has set out to create an "extravagant thought experiment" centering around the Mayan prophecy that 2012 will bring about the end of the world as we know it, "the conclusion of a vast evolutionary cycle, and the potential gateway to a higher level of manifestation." More specifically, Pinchbeck's claim is that we are in the final stages of a fundamental global shift from a society based on materiality to one based on spirituality. Intermittently fascinating, especially in his autobiographical interludes, Pinchbeck tackles Stonehenge and the Burning Man festival, crop circles and globalization, modern hallucinogens and the ancient prophesy of the Plumed Serpent featured in his subtitle. His description of difficult-to-translate experiences, like his experimentation with a little-known hallucinogenic drug called dripropyltryptamine (DPT), are striking for their lucidity: "For several weeks after taking DPT, I picked up flickering hypnagogic imagery when I closed my eyes at night ... In one scene, I entered a column of fire rising from the center of Stonehenge again and again, feeling myself pleasantly annihilated by the flames each time." Pinchbeck's teleological exploration can overwhelm, and his meandering focus can frustrate, but as a thought experiment, Pinchbeck's exotic epic is a paradigm-buster capable of forcing the most cynical reader outside her comfort zone.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

[jesusquintana]

Yes! I second that recommendation. As well as his first book, "Breaking Open the Head." Verena, spouting ignorance is seldom funny, or satirical, or "tongue in cheek."

[rabb046]

Don't forget caffeine. Who needs meth when Starbucks is on every corner.

[headcold]

You get feelings of religious profoundity from a certain part of your brain that rewards you doing certain things. It has a function evolutionarily and as an aspect of a community of individuals - those who bond together best are more likely to be successful. The drugs just activate that part of the brain and cause it to work.

I've butchered probably a more accurate description of this, but generally the point is: communicating with a spiritual nether-being is in your head in the first place, and the drugs just cause you to feel like He or It is listening to you and that you are a part of some universal connectivity. You can have the same experience by having a traumatic head injury.

I've tried religion and drugs. Neither worked, but the drugs were pretty fun, for a while. If you want a transcendental experience, smoke a bowl and watch Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

[VerenaVonPfetten]

Thank you! You did a couple things that I really appreciate. Firstly, you understand what "tongue-in-cheek" means. Secondly, you likened psychotropic drugs to a traumatic head injury. And thirdly, well, I don't remember that. I must have been too busy getting high.

[rabb046]

Carl Sagan - Very Important Pothead.

http://www.veryimportantpotheads.com/main2.html

[tbone99]

To paraphrase the writer:

"The bottom line? When you find yourself in spiritual alignment with George Bush, the conservatives answer to compassion and/or the Simpsons start making fun of you ( insert one of many anti - drug christian names here i.e.Ted Haggard, Tom DeLay, or Sen Craig) you've got to admit that you're not only a stereotype, you're also a little absurd."'

I'll take a nude bongo playing Matthew McConaughey anyday, over a mass murderer but oh- so -church- going Dick Cheney ,as my spirtual guru.

[pippijumpstockings]

Verena. This is Syd.

I was recently auditioning Shrinks (in case you didn't know, I am crazy). One of the ones who didn't make it was a lovely south african woman who suggested I do acid to experience spiritual awakening. Now, I like acid as much as the next girl, but I also feel that drugs tend to exacerbate my problems, not solve them. Just saying.

[Paw1]

If you feel spiritually fulfilled without drugs, Verena, good for you. If you believe all seekers of spirituality through drugs are shaggy haired stoners, the only one that's confused is you. Like WilliePilgrim below says, we all find our path to enlightenment in different ways. And what better way that by yourself, without a self proclaimed spiritual leader to get in the way?

[rabb046]

Don't do drugs, mmkay. Drugs are bad, mmkay. The writer dislikes drugs (unlike dirty martinis), has never done drugs (except alcohol, which is not really a drug since it's legal so that's OK), and is really annoyed by the relationship between drugs and spirituality. Then the bottom line - if the Simpsons make fun of you in an episode featuring Homer's chile pepper induced trip, you're absurd. Some might consider writing about something of which you have no experience absurd, but I digress.

Suggestion: For your next spiritual journey, score some mushrooms, spend the day outside in nature, come back and tell us how profoundly unaffected you were by the whole shebang.

Or maybe you can just review the new Black Crowes album before you listen to it. I'd love to hear your preconceived thoughts on that.

[martinchill]

i don't know who this poster is - but she clearly has no idea what she's talking about.

concerning drugs or spirituality.

[VerenaVonPfetten]

I'm sorry that I'm not posting about my excessive drug use. I guess I missed the memo where drugs became cool and / or legal.

[Mat8675]

Cheers!!

[VerenaVonPfetten]

Oooh! Snap.

[payforthepizza]

Hey friend,
I love your posts, and though I'd share my thoughts on this topic.
I don't consider myself a "spiritual" person, but I'm pretty sure I experience the same things spiritual people do...i just attribute the events in my life to coincidence and not to fate and the like. But my point is that everything that we experience that is spiritual and divine will happen to us anyway, but its the way we define it that constructs our beliefs. And I have to tell you, anything that effects our perception, including drugs, can go a long way in making the normal into the spiritual. At least for me.
Its complicated, but I look forward to your next post ;)