By Jason Charles on 4/12/2017 (7 years 255 days ago) New Age & Occult
A trend among celebatarians, liberty activists and anarchists lately has been the popularization of shamanic retreats and psychedelic experiences as a means towards achieving "total freedom" and "healing." I encourage everyone to read this, but I really hope it reaches people who have fallen prey to the allure of psychedelic adventurism. In my experience it is fun and enlightening for a very short space, then its dark nature surfaces.
Testimony
In full disclosure I totally understand this journey and search towards truth, especially for those that love freedom. I get this more than most. I personally had spent many years pursuing inner truth through the use of psychoactive substances of every sort, and then into advance dreaming and OBE techniques as a superior avenue into the spiritual. I have experienced all of this in both shamanistic and new age structures of teaching, and also went well beyond as I came to my own understandings and frameworks of inner knowledge and methodologies of access. This is part of my testimony toward Christ, one I will never regret because it was grounded in my desire for truth.
The Allure of Psychedelic Experiences for Truth Seekers
It is a tangible, driving force, this search for truth in the life of a truth-seeker. Anybody that is innately hard-wired to be a truth-seeker will often search for inner truth and spiritual awakenings, as well as political truth and justice. Both of these things go hand-in-glove. Truth is without a doubt a rare commodity in this world. As we pull away from the lies that are accepted in our culture, we start to realize many things. Mainly that we have taken on many of those lies ourselves as a result of the worlds pervasive influence. As a means to purge our beings of these lies, the search for truth inevitably leads many in the liberty movement towards spiritual seeking among the relics of religion and philosophy.
So what happens when religions fail us, philosophies fail us, and rabid activism towards change of the system fails to satiate us as truth-seekers? Well naturally, seeing the failure of these things, truth-seekers turn inside through the use of drugs in combination with new age practices in hopes of finding some redeeming qualities within our own beings, and within the world. Celebrities such as Joe Rogan also have served to popularize this avenue of truth-seeking, accepting the Terrence McKenna theory of the Psychedelic ape. A theory that says humans are just apes that ate too many psychedelic mushrooms and evolved. The thought being, by ingesting more mushrooms we as humans can evolve to the next stage of evolution. So where are all these evolved beings currently? There are many who have dosed themselves into retardation but surely not enlightenment.
This I feel is where many people who are in the liberty movement reside today. They have long ago become disenchanted with religions, philosophies and hopes for political change. They have expended money, resources, time and talents in activism pursuits in hopes of reforming our wicked government and institutions to no avail, and often too the hurt of the average activist in terms of lost time and financial security.
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What do you want? The truth or the Truth?
So if you are awake, and this search has become your reality over the course of your truth-seeking career, let us first be truthful with ourselves. The urge to turn to the psychedelic experiences is a last ditch effort by many to reconcile their failed attempt at finding truth in the outside world, and is really a desperate hope it can be found on the inside.
Here are a few pitfalls I have learned about the psychedelic and new age experience in hopes it helps anyone stuck in the false hope of psychedelic enlightenment.
Note: Psychoactive drugs are defined for the purposes of this article as any drug that alters or enhances consciousness in expanded capacity. Examples being LSD, Peyote, Psychoactive Mushrooms, Ayuhuasca, etc.
False Promise: Psychoactive Drugs are the Fast Track Towards Spiritual Enlightenment
Honestly, if you're looking towards drugs for emotional healing and spiritual enlightenment, this implies you are already a very damaged person internally, and currently without enlightenment at the moment, right? So logically, to use extremely powerful psychedelic drugs to expand consciousness you run the risk of only expanding the knowledge of your faults. The psychedelic experience just becomes a nauseating endless feedback loop of internal scrutinizing; a constant, internal regurgitation of your personal short-comings every time you use any psychoactive substance ad infinitum.
So as issues of ego, lust, pride, fear, paranoia, and trauma are placed under the magnifying glass of your doped-up, expanded consciousness, the person in sudden realization feels they are absolving themselves of these issues. The reality is, heightened awareness doesn't equate to expulsion of our wicked attributes. In fact even though one might cry and weep in realization under the influence of the substance, after 3 or 4 days that realization wears off and you are again stuck with your wicked, sober, helpless self. Same situations, same patterns, same underling destructive behaviors, same you. The drug does nothing to free you from any personal demons, and people will dose themselves 100's of times thinking that at some point they will be free from their corrupted nature, but in reality it never happens.
It is physically impossible to stay in the psychedelic state for more than a few days depending on what substance you may take. This means eventually you have to come down and face the reality that the only way to change yourself is through discipline. The psychoactive state actually puts you in a state in which you are perpetually vulnerable to the enemies attack on your mind. Sobriety truly is the only place in which gains can be achieved towards understanding and helping rid yourself of spiritual and emotional issues.
The Bible reminds us that sobriety and vigilance is required to repel the devils advance in our lives, it is the only way to prevent our sinful natures from consuming us. The Psychedelic experience only serves to highlight something that will remain well after the experience is gone, therein lies its only value.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 1 Peter 5:8
False Promise: The Truth Lies Within
The promise of the New Age movement, and the psychedelic experience is that truth is in you. The answers to all life’s great questions can be found within you is the mantra. All you have to do is push the boundaries of inner space through drug use and meditative techniques and you will find your answers. The problem with this thinking is, if truth is in you, then truth becomes subjective, which means what I find inside me becomes truth by the simple virtue that it is inside me. This is called moral relativism and is exactly why we have a failing culture. If everyone has their own truth, then nothing can be condemned. It is the underpinning philosophy of lawlessness and a break-down of universally derived objective truths that govern and uphold society. Truths such as don’t murder, becomes subjective. It is equivalent to saying some people abort babies and that’s okay, and some soldiers kill innocent people and that’s okay too. When we all know instinctively that murder is never okay and it isn’t subjective to someone’s convenience and personal preference. The human heart that is convinced that it is the source of all truth, is then easily convinced that you are your own god. That is the devils lie from the beginning. In fact, I dare anyone to try and live as if they were a god and see if you don’t end up in a mental hospital. The objective truth of this world that you are not a god, will be a rude awakening in short order. The heart is capable of great deception, not truth.
The Bible says that above all else the heart is deceitful; to search the heart out with the aid of psychedelic experiences is a fool’s errand considering our hearts are sick and imperfect.
"The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?" Jeremiah 17:9
False Promise: Psychoactive Drugs Purify and Enhance Consciousness
All psychoactive drugs have similar outcomes towards expansion of consciousness, but take special note that each substance will skew, blur, warble, or taint that experience depending on the unique chemical makeup of any given psychoactive drug. There is a distortion effect on consciousness due to the effects drugs have on the brain. The spectrum of distortion on perception can be varied depending on the psychoactive drug, but what remains is the fact that perception is distorted through the lens of whatever drug you may be on. This infers there is not a purifying effect, but really an obscuring and distorting effect. You couple the chemical make-up of the drug with the unique chemical make-up of each individual and you get a myriad of configurations and experiences. This effect can range from a positive experience or in some cases horrifyingly culminating in a bad trip. None-the-less what we are left with is your experience will forever be tainted through the lens and consciousness warping attributes of any given drug. What is real, valid and worthwhile as a spiritual experience will always be tainted with the warping, and controlling factors overlaid by the drug itself. Can such experiences be trusted as a means of truth if it is common knowledge they are hallucinogenic in nature? No, they can’t. Your spiritual moments will always remain in question as to whether or not that was just the “drug” or if it was a real spiritual experience. If you can’t reproduce the experience without the drug, than it was a drug induced experience and not a spiritual experience.
King David knew where the source of a purified mind and right conscience comes from, it can only come from God. No amount of meditation, dreaming techniques, or drug induced spiritual experiences will remove the evil from your heart. That is something only the Holy Spirit can purge you of.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Psalms 51:10
False Promise: Spirit Guides
I mentioned above that pursuing psychedelic experiences as a means towards finding truth is only fun for a small time. Like a moth attracted to a flame, when you are in a psychedelic state you will be visited by a flurry of what seems like sentient spiritual beings of all shapes and sizes. They often take the shape of people you feel you know, or as energetic blobs, internal voices, etc. Very rarely do they manifest themselves in the physical. There are exceptions to this rule, there certainly are entities that can manifest themselves physically, these are extremely powerful but in reality you will never be important enough to be engaged directly. They simply do not benefit from revealing their true nature to just anyone, especially some nobody druggy.
The truth of the matter is, this world and the spirit world is filled with spiritual entities. It has been my experience that 99.99% of any sentient being that you may encounter whether in a psychedelic state or in dreaming is really a demon. The vast majority of these entities are very low caliber entities that are just looking to create situations of energetic exchange or outbursts. They do that because this is literally how they feed, they feed on strong emotional outbursts. Their methodology is to inject thoughts inside your head that create animal fear and panic, extreme anger, sexual lust and perversion, or create scenarios of intense drama between you and friends and family. People who give themselves over to these voices and entities, and make room for them in their lives will almost without exception experience emotional turmoil and drama because these entities attack your mind, congregating around you, and see you as a easy source of food.
They are very clever in how they create these situations and responses, but be forewarned no matter how loving, reasonable or well intentioned these entities appear in different states, mark my words the chaos in your life will skyrocket. Most people are not sophisticated enough to connect the dots between this activity in your spiritual seeking, and the life problems that begin to envelop them. This can sometimes escalate to the point of full-on demonic possession, which for a small-fry impish demon is all they can hope to achieve.
The Apostle Paul talked about this internal war. These entities, or thought demons as I call them utilize your unprotected mind as a play-toy, and always managing to pull you into your sin nature, and placing you into perpetual captivity. That is what happens to these new agers, they become flaky, oblivious, and naive. They enter into sexual perversities at a whim, and are perceived by the rest of humanity as being so out there they hardly have a foot in reality. They are damaged by the drugs they take, and damaged by the lifestyle and worldview they take on under the influence of both new age teachers and the demons that they attract to themselves.
We all experience these thought demons, but those that engage the spiritual world become lost to the influence and control of outside forces. Some people are even stupid enough to channel these beings, as if they these entities won’t claim possession of your mind and body as a result. They are very greedy with their hosts.
The Apostle Paul talked about the law of sin in Romans 7, this is what these entities do, they attempt to drag you deeper and deeper into your sin nature, and they offer spiritualized rationalizations as a means to keep you there. Their lies are always disguised as gifts of power.
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Romans 7:23
False Promise: Enlightenment
Really if you look at the concept of enlightenment in any spiritually based practice, what you have is a teaching that promotes and breeds spiritual passivity. The goal is to rid yourself of the cares of this world, to detach from your normal routines, connections and responsibilities as if these things are of no significance. Nothing can be further from the truth, our lives are extremely important. Everything we do and engage in is imbued with importance especially considering our responsibilities to our family, and society, and also towards the reforming of evil government.
The Bible requires us to engage in this world, it does not equate true spirituality with tuning out, in fact quite the opposite. The Bible says that we will be judge for every action and inaction in this life. Chasing after enlightenment to the neglect of your responsibilities to yourself, your family and society will only incur that wrath of God upon your life at judgment. It truly is a selfish act to disengage. It is not a noble act as the new age mantra loves to make out. Look at the ascetics in eastern traditions they are pathetic, and they achieve no demonstratable gifts or powers as result of their so called “enlightenment.” If they would they would be able to fly, teleport, levitate or something, but they don’t, all they do is stink of BO and be lazy and unproductive with their lives in some false show of spiritualism.
A great parable that Jesus gave was the parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14. God gives to those who prove themselves worthy and are productive in this world.
Conclusion
Hanging out in the jungle drinking some Ayuhusca and getting selfies with the Shaman afterwards to post to your Instagram is not productive. Any effects of healing you may think you attain during these trips will wear off in a matter of days, and you will be stuck with your old self. This is a guarantee. While I appreciate the desire to heal oneself spiritually and emotionally, and find peace in a world filled with war and hate; no amount of psychedelic experiences will give you that. At least these people look towards a spiritual answer, atheists are still oblivious. People who try to work towards their own enlightenment are caught in a legalistic worldview that states they themselves can work themselves into enlightenment. Please sign-up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook.
So the lesson I wish to convey is simply while it the psychedelic experience seems like a legitimate method towards enlightenment you only end up in a battle for your very soul against very devious forces. Taking these drugs leaves you in a vulnerable state sometimes for days. Never engage the enemy on their own field of battle, that is the first rule of war.
We are fallen and no matter how much you work towards achieving these goals you will only remain stuck in your fallen nature, and what is more you only end up attracting the demonic. It is only the Holy Spirit of God that can help you overcome your sin nature. If you want healing then you have to bend your knee and recognize the authority God has over your life as your sustainer and Creator. Then you must accept the gift he presented all mankind through the love and sacrifice Jesus demonstrated on the cross. At that point the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the real and only legitimate spiritual guide comes into your live and guides you into true knowledge and peace.
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. John 14:26
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