Gary Weber has a PhD in material science and ran several research labs for Fortune 50 companies and the US government. He obviously has a solid materialist/science background. Robert Wright did an interview with Gary Weber on the experiences of these mystical states and a biological explanation of them. Gary had these experiences and neurophysiological changes through meditation and yoga. https://meaningoflife.tv/videos/31355
His website has more detailed discussions on the brain studies and his background. His meditation tradition is mainly from Advaita Vedanta. https://happiness-beyond-thought.com/
What has psilocybin to do with enlightenment? Nothing.
It is good for collectors of "mystical experiences," however, those who collect gold coins instead will find their collections at least will not tarnish with age, and neither collection will do anything when it is time to pass beyond the veil. Even here, with physical possessions, your family can at least load them on the viking ship with your corpse and burn them.
The question would not have been asked in 1968 when Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention issued "We're Only In It For The Money". The first track of side 2 was "Nasal Rentive Calliope Music" (which was only nomianlly music), the lyric of which was:
"Beautiful! God! It's God! I see God!".
The words were recited by a then uncredited Eric Clapton.
We all assumed that the words reflected the experience of someone who had ingested a stiff dose of one of the then popular "psychedelic" intoxicants such as LSD (synthetic chemical), mescaline (Peyote cactus), or psilocybin ( mushrooms thus "shrooms")
1968 also saw the publication of "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge" by Carlos Castaneda • University of California Press. The book presents the author's apprenticeship to a Yaqui Indian Sorcerer, Don Juan Matus from Sonora, Mexico, which involved consuming lots of peyote and psilocybe mexicana mushrooms. The book was a New York Times best-seller, and it - along with its sequels - sold over 10 million copies in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Teachings_of_Don_Juan
Don't be jealous. 1968 was a dog of a year. I still think it was the nadir of my lifetime.
There are those who claim that psychedelics can be a useful component of psychotherapy. I am skeptical, but believe the matter should be determined through carefully designed double blind experiments. Stranger things have been true.
A lot of the claims are in the subjective realm. I just find it hard to digest as a materialist. As someone who is born and raised in India, my country/religion being one of the contributors to this subject from the spiritual/practitioners realm I have to say a lot of it is just not digestible. I have been practicing meditation on and off for a few years. It has benefits, but I have not had any of these "experiences" (maybe I suck at it). I will not be trying psychedelics because I just do not feel the need for it. But, then let people try these things. It only makes them kinder it seems.
When Rav talks about the use of these drugs in conjunction with therapy for anxiety and ptsd it sounds like it is just a variation of, or gateway to, exposure therapy. At the VA the new thing is Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) for ptsd, but it is more or less a gimmick that gets a population that may have hesitancy with therapy to do exposure therapy.
Let's not get too carried away. MDMA causes pretty severe vasoconstriction, which is not good for the cardiovascular system. It raises body temperature, and in combination with the vasoconstriction can and does cause strokes. Rarely, and something that is more associated with dance parties, but still. In the longer term, it dysregulates the serotonin system so it can actually cause depression rather than help with it, and can cause damage to the heart valves. It is an interesting and potentially useful substance but the advocates overstate the safety profile.
Gary Weber has a PhD in material science and ran several research labs for Fortune 50 companies and the US government. He obviously has a solid materialist/science background. Robert Wright did an interview with Gary Weber on the experiences of these mystical states and a biological explanation of them. Gary had these experiences and neurophysiological changes through meditation and yoga. https://meaningoflife.tv/videos/31355
His website has more detailed discussions on the brain studies and his background. His meditation tradition is mainly from Advaita Vedanta. https://happiness-beyond-thought.com/
What has psilocybin to do with enlightenment? Nothing.
It is good for collectors of "mystical experiences," however, those who collect gold coins instead will find their collections at least will not tarnish with age, and neither collection will do anything when it is time to pass beyond the veil. Even here, with physical possessions, your family can at least load them on the viking ship with your corpse and burn them.
"What has psilocybin to do with enlightenment?"
The question would not have been asked in 1968 when Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention issued "We're Only In It For The Money". The first track of side 2 was "Nasal Rentive Calliope Music" (which was only nomianlly music), the lyric of which was:
"Beautiful! God! It's God! I see God!".
The words were recited by a then uncredited Eric Clapton.
Listen to it for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aieoOz-dFo
We all assumed that the words reflected the experience of someone who had ingested a stiff dose of one of the then popular "psychedelic" intoxicants such as LSD (synthetic chemical), mescaline (Peyote cactus), or psilocybin ( mushrooms thus "shrooms")
1968 also saw the publication of "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge" by Carlos Castaneda • University of California Press. The book presents the author's apprenticeship to a Yaqui Indian Sorcerer, Don Juan Matus from Sonora, Mexico, which involved consuming lots of peyote and psilocybe mexicana mushrooms. The book was a New York Times best-seller, and it - along with its sequels - sold over 10 million copies in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Teachings_of_Don_Juan
Originally claimed to be a non fiction work of anthropology, it is now widely believed to be a fiction. https://www.straightdope.com/21343536/did-carlos-castaneda-hallucinate-that-stuff-in-the-don-juan-books-or-make-it-up
Don't be jealous. 1968 was a dog of a year. I still think it was the nadir of my lifetime.
There are those who claim that psychedelics can be a useful component of psychotherapy. I am skeptical, but believe the matter should be determined through carefully designed double blind experiments. Stranger things have been true.
A lot of the claims are in the subjective realm. I just find it hard to digest as a materialist. As someone who is born and raised in India, my country/religion being one of the contributors to this subject from the spiritual/practitioners realm I have to say a lot of it is just not digestible. I have been practicing meditation on and off for a few years. It has benefits, but I have not had any of these "experiences" (maybe I suck at it). I will not be trying psychedelics because I just do not feel the need for it. But, then let people try these things. It only makes them kinder it seems.
When Rav talks about the use of these drugs in conjunction with therapy for anxiety and ptsd it sounds like it is just a variation of, or gateway to, exposure therapy. At the VA the new thing is Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) for ptsd, but it is more or less a gimmick that gets a population that may have hesitancy with therapy to do exposure therapy.
Let's not get too carried away. MDMA causes pretty severe vasoconstriction, which is not good for the cardiovascular system. It raises body temperature, and in combination with the vasoconstriction can and does cause strokes. Rarely, and something that is more associated with dance parties, but still. In the longer term, it dysregulates the serotonin system so it can actually cause depression rather than help with it, and can cause damage to the heart valves. It is an interesting and potentially useful substance but the advocates overstate the safety profile.