what is your definition of psychedelic?

[okeedoe]

Each and every kind of human activity is strongly conditioned by culture, regardless of the definition of culture.

[Susan Butcher]

I don't think of the "psychedelic" as being something long past, though I can understand why Americans think of it this way. Its influence there was very strong for a very short time. But the psychedelic experience has a timeless quality. We mustn't forget that in other parts of the world people have been consuming psychedelic plants for thousands of years. Also, in industrialised nations, there are cultural dissidents who continue the tradition. These days, they prefer to stay hidden.

It's hard to clearly define what's psychedelic because of "the Unspoken Thing", the central numinous aspect of it. In other words, unless you already know what "psychedelic" is, explanations sound like wishy-washy bullshit.

[okeedoe]

Mysterium tremendum has a stronger presence in me than mysterium fascinans and that decreases my integral experience of presence of a divinity. That makes me a spiritual cunt. And because the cunt needed a fuck I used to fuck my soul with booze and comfortable illusions.

I once had asked you,dear Susan, to lend me an ilision you didn't need anymore and you offered me the most terrifying paradoxal possibility for me-a possible truth caped with an illusion.

[usedtobebabson]

Got confused. I was thinking psychedelic music. The question was simply the definition of psychedelic. I know the answer, but there are no words capable of conveying it

[Susan Butcher]

Even if the question was just about music, philosophical issues are an important part of it. Now, if someone had asked "What's the definition of heavy metal?" it would be quite different!

OKD, it can be scary for me, too. Humour's my equivalent of alcohol in warding off the fear of God.

[oldblue]

psyche+deloun

to show the soul.


what is the soul?

[redrabid]

For me god, gods, godesses, souls are human inventions that lost their purpose long ago. High time for humanity itself to take care of its fate. That is complicated enough without the disturbing interference of our self-created demons (as our gods turn out to be) in our lives. It may be my limited experience with hallucogenics, but those drugs brought me never closer to heaven, but instead closer to earth, to myself.

[okeedoe]

Well,what your experience might be and how you perceived it largely depends on your personal quality and mental architecture .
We all do have our stories but no one knows the real answer for what we have experienced.It is the questions that are important. See the old oldblue?He is not pretending to be wise by presenting us the pretentious answers.He is more subtle than that.By 'superiorly' asking a 'big' questions he stimulates his mind in order to achieve intelectual pleasure and to satisfy his ego.

[redrabid]

Come on, Okeedoe, don't be so patronizing.
Asking questions is step one, certainly as gods usually don't like questions very much. They are much better in dictating divine truth. But looking for answers is important (you do agree of course, you gave us lots) when you see how visions of heaven can blur our view of earth. Why do humans torment themselves (and each other) so much with their own creations? Why are humans so mesmerized by their own illusions? Why do they see themselves as "children of god"?

[okeedoe]

Don't regard the big G just as a religious conception.It might be something much more different and complex than that,Red.Asking questions is not just a step one ,it is an endless process in discovering who ,what,where,how,when,why.God(whatever it is) loves to hear us questioning.He put the curiosity in our inteligence.There is no inteligence without curiosity.It is the church dogmatics that doesn't like questions.But it is an another story.
An achieved answer only produce a new question.That's how we go forward even if it has always been a rough and winding road.Maybe metaphysics and dialectics are not incompatible to each other.What is science without religion ,what is religion without science ?Einstein claimed to know.Homo religiosus has been developing since the emergance of Neanderthals.

Why do we see ourmselves as "children of god"?You mean we were scared to be alone so we invented Him?We need a mighty father to guide and protect us?
Don't think it has never occured to me.I only know that I don't know a shit about these things.

[Susan Butcher]

Transcendental experience is a part of being human. We lose something by rationalising it away. I'm not going to argue about gods, but nothing's going to shift my belief in the human spirit.

[okeedoe]

Well said.

[usedtobebabson]

I think "the soul" is our imaginary stab at attaining immortality. See, there's a lot we don't understand, so we use labels like God and Souls to refer to them. To say that our soul is the sum total of our bodies, brain heart, blood, etc, is not very romantic. To say that the "I" in the body dies when the body does, doesn't help the human case for immortality.

My personal opinion is that humans need to transcend these myths to attain real, authentic Zen.

[redrabid]

Some time ago I read an article that stated that the susceptibility for religion may be caused by a specific gene. I doubt very much if that is true, but if it is, I for sure don't have it. I am an unbeliever. I am convinced that God, Allah, Ishtar or whatever his/her/its name is, doesn't exist. And no one can prove otherwise. Homo religiosus is just an invention. We don't know anything about the believes of the human species before history, before humans invented writing some 5000 years ago, so we'll never know for sure whether they had any religion at all. It may be a recent invention.
That I am an unbeliever doesn't mean that I am incapable of a deeply felt wonder. Ever since I was young I am fascinated by astronomy (mind the n and m). Looking into space, with or without a telescope, on a dark night far away from any city, never fails to give me a strong feeling or emotion, that I can't describe other than "transcendental awe". It is a quite humbling experience. It makes me realise how insignificant humans are compared to the vastness, the grandeur and beauty of the universe: we don't mean "shit to a tree". Lots of people, including scientists, will recognize this feeling of admiration for the workings of nature. But this emotion is independent of religion, it is not religious, though some will say that it is, as they broaden the definition of god to "the underlying force of the universe" or whatever. That just cheating with words in my opinion.
Quoting Einstein "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" isn't exactly fair play either. Einstein more than one said that the idea of a personal god was alien to him. He said that he was an unbeliever. He made it clear that if there was something to be called "religious" in him it was "the admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it". He certainly didn't imply that science and religion are not imcompatible.
It is not only the church that is hostile to the pursuit of knowledge. The story of Eve and the snake tells all, doesn't it.

[oldblue]

<<I am convinced that God, Allah, Ishtar or whatever his/her/its name is, doesn't exist. And no one can prove otherwise.>>

and isn't the opposite true as well.