The real goal you seem to be advancing, Milan, is spirituality, not psychedelics per se. Based on testimony from people I trust and some slightly dubious research, I think psychedelics can likely be helpful in that, but they shouldn’t be our frontline tool. I think meditation is a much better candidate for that.
Sam Harris and Michael Pollan argue that psychedelics are useful for convincing people there’s a there there, and that makes sense to me. You have to put a lot of time and blind effort into meditation to get that same assurance. But the struggle, and particularly “asking” for deeper wisdom through your faithful efforts, is a really important part of spiritual realization according to most traditions (and in my personal experience). Based on what I’ve read (haven’t taken them), I don’t think taking psychedelics often does the trick on its own.
And there are many downsides to psychedelics. People who don’t know how mentally unstable they are may take them and be thrown badly off-kilter. Bad trips are harrowing and can reach unimaginable heights of terror. I don’t think most people have the slightest clue how deeply and completely their minds could torture them. Even if people one day are grateful for what they’ve been through (as I am now with my mental illness), I would not knowingly inflict that risk on people when there are gentler ways. Even intense meditation can have these destabilizing effects, but psychedelics are much more potent, can’t be stopped on demand, and can be wielded by totally unskilled people. My guess is that the the most common harm comes from tripping habitually out of sensation-seeking rather than humbly to gain self-insight or wisdom. Again, this can happen in meditation, too, but it’s a lot less likely. When you add in all the infrastructure necessary to mitigate these risks, like comprehensive mental health screenings and guides and practice sessions, doing psychedelics right doesn’t seem that much easier than a meditation retreat and it doesn’t teach you any skills. The advantage of psychedelics at that point is speed and the guarantee that some experience of altered consciousness will take place, which is not nothing, but all this safety equipment undercuts the elegance of taking a little pill proponents have harped on.
Psychedelics could be a more EA-style intervention than meditation (if either of them qualify) because pills are scalable, but creating a safe environment with skilled guides is a lot less so. Meditation can be taught by one teacher to many people in parallel with much less equipment. It can even be taught pretty well through apps. Meditation takes longer to reach the experiences/insights psychedelics throw up in your face, but they are more digestible through meditation and insight alone is insufficient for most people to transform their lives—the vast majority also need skills like equanimity acquired through practice.
Psychedelics probably have a role to play, but I do not think they are the magic bullet proponents claim they are. They come with serious dangers, and mitigating those dangers undercuts their scalability, which was imo their biggest EA selling point. Safer alternatives, the vast array of meditative schools and techniques, exist. Psychedelics have some advantages over traditional meditation—speed and guaranteed action—but they are no panacea. My best guess is that they should be a targeted prescription for certain roadblocks on the spiritual path.
The real goal you seem to be advancing, Milan, is spirituality, not psychedelics per se. Based on testimony from people I trust and some slightly dubious research, I think psychedelics can likely be helpful in that, but they shouldn’t be our frontline tool. I think meditation is a much better candidate for that.
Sam Harris and Michael Pollan argue that psychedelics are useful for convincing people there’s a there there, and that makes sense to me. You have to put a lot of time and blind effort into meditation to get that same assurance. But the struggle, and particularly “asking” for deeper wisdom through your faithful efforts, is a really important part of spiritual realization according to most traditions (and in my personal experience). Based on what I’ve read (haven’t taken them), I don’t think taking psychedelics often does the trick on its own.
And there are many downsides to psychedelics. People who don’t know how mentally unstable they are may take them and be thrown badly off-kilter. Bad trips are harrowing and can reach unimaginable heights of terror. I don’t think most people have the slightest clue how deeply and completely their minds could torture them. Even if people one day are grateful for what they’ve been through (as I am now with my mental illness), I would not knowingly inflict that risk on people when there are gentler ways. Even intense meditation can have these destabilizing effects, but psychedelics are much more potent, can’t be stopped on demand, and can be wielded by totally unskilled people. My guess is that the the most common harm comes from tripping habitually out of sensation-seeking rather than humbly to gain self-insight or wisdom. Again, this can happen in meditation, too, but it’s a lot less likely. When you add in all the infrastructure necessary to mitigate these risks, like comprehensive mental health screenings and guides and practice sessions, doing psychedelics right doesn’t seem that much easier than a meditation retreat and it doesn’t teach you any skills. The advantage of psychedelics at that point is speed and the guarantee that some experience of altered consciousness will take place, which is not nothing, but all this safety equipment undercuts the elegance of taking a little pill proponents have harped on.
Psychedelics could be a more EA-style intervention than meditation (if either of them qualify) because pills are scalable, but creating a safe environment with skilled guides is a lot less so. Meditation can be taught by one teacher to many people in parallel with much less equipment. It can even be taught pretty well through apps. Meditation takes longer to reach the experiences/insights psychedelics throw up in your face, but they are more digestible through meditation and insight alone is insufficient for most people to transform their lives—the vast majority also need skills like equanimity acquired through practice.
Psychedelics probably have a role to play, but I do not think they are the magic bullet proponents claim they are. They come with serious dangers, and mitigating those dangers undercuts their scalability, which was imo their biggest EA selling point. Safer alternatives, the vast array of meditative schools and techniques, exist. Psychedelics have some advantages over traditional meditation—speed and guaranteed action—but they are no panacea. My best guess is that they should be a targeted prescription for certain roadblocks on the spiritual path.