Psychedelic Drugs and Spiritual Experiences

[Bernard Gui]

7 hours ago, Gray said:

It would require knowledge of all the processes and the chemical state of your brains at the time of your experience, and the technology with which to replicate them. Given the right technology and information, it should be possible to replicate. But, we don't have the information in your case, and probably not the technology yet.

Yes, some of the difficulties I see with attempted scientific examination of spiritual experiences. 

[Bernard Gui]

8 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Thanks for sharing your experiences in such a thoughtful way.  I personally haven't experimented with any drugs, but from what I've read about others who have, these experiences like yours sound very similar to religious spiritual experience.  I think for many believers, they find the idea of a similar experience being replicated to be threatening to their faith system and they tend to use words like counterfeit and downplay the experiences.  

I would ask a question to the believers is, if they believe that spiritual experiences are communications from a deity, how would they expect God to communicate to them?  What mechanisms would God use to send this communication?  

I was sitting at the computer doing some music editing and listening to a radio show. An ad for internet flower delivery came on and a voice told me, "Benilindissima [my daughter on the other side of the country] needs flowers." I immediately went on line and ordered her a beautiful boquet to be delivered that day. When they were delivered, she called with profuse thanks, because things were really going badly and she was despondent. That her daddy loved her enough to send flowers lifted her out of a dark place. The flowers were a God-send, as it were. 

But, I don't send flowers, I had never ordered them on the internet nor responded to such an ad. On special occasions I might buy flowers at Safeway but only for the lovely Sister Gui. I don't pay much attention to radio ads (usually mute them) because they are annoying. I was not thinking of my daughter at the time nor was I aware things were so amiss.

Did God communicate this to me? In my world, I would say yes. Can I prove it? Of course not, but otherwise I cannot explain it. Could it be replicated? Not intentionally, but it could happen again. Perhaps it was the mixture of Coke Zero and fresh squeezed lime juice I was drinking at the time that connected me with another dimension of communication?

Edited July 10, 2017 by Bernard Gui

[Darren10]

On ‎7‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 8:27 AM, longview said:

Beware of counterfeits.  There is a reason for the Word of Wisdom to warn against ingesting stimulants.  There is no substitute for people to experience (as directly as possible) the convictions of the spirit and to try to walk with God.  "Pleasuring" with drugs in your system sends a false message and actually divert the drug user away from God.  Causing some to fall into "forbidden paths" and become lost.

You're preaching to the choir there. I'm totally with you.

[Bernard Gui]

6 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

I would say that religious experience is an altered state. You are perceiving and experiencing things that you normally do not. When I am an a hike and feel the peace of God and a connection to all life around me, I am perceiving something that is there but that I do not normally perceive, so I am in an altered state of consciousness. It is not a huge change, but it is a change nonetheless. Sometimes religious experiences are huge changes. Reading about the visions of the prophets, for example, shows a very altered state of consciousness.

Altered state for me means perceiving something that we do not normally perceive. Chemicals are just one way for that to happen. Prayer, meditation, fasting, and other religious practices are another. And sometimes God decides to just show it to us without us doing anything in preparation, too.

There are many detailed descriptions of the altered state of divine revelation in LDS scripture and history. The question from the OP is whether these can be studied and replicated in a laboratory or mimicked with hallucinatory drugs. I'm thinking, probably not. I can see no way it could be done, and the collective mind of MDD doesn't seem to be able to propose such a test. I doubt the study mentioned in the OP will further the cause of religion or science.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Bernard Gui

[Darren10]

On ‎7‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 10:26 AM, MiserereNobis said:

Interesting topic and one that came up briefly in the Nietzsche thread. I'm glad to see some people responding who have some experience with psychedelics. It definitely is a class of drugs that can be quite different from all the others and there are a lot of myths and misunderstandings surrounding them.

I have used a variety of psychedelics in a variety of situations. There have been purely recreational times just hanging out with friends, quasi-ritualistic times (Grateful Dead shows), intense individual spiritual experiments (months of using mushrooms multiple times a week to explore consciousness and spirituality), and religious ritual (peyote ceremonies with the Native American Church).

It is interesting that most religions prescribe some sort of activity aimed to change consciousness, such as fasting, meditation, ascetic practices, etc. Think about the whirling dervishes in Sufism.

Timothy Leary was trying very hard to make spiritual experience able to be studied in some sort of scientific way via psychedelics. If you actually read him and ignore the public straw man (which he enjoyed playing into, honestly) you'll find he's got some interesting ideas. He tried running a variety of experiments similar to what is in the OP, such as the very famous Marsh Chapel Experiment:

Here's the conclusion:

From my own experiences, I cannot deny that I had experiences that I would call spiritual while using psychedelics, especially when the entire intention was spiritually focused, such as in the Native American Church. I don't have any simple explanations or conclusions from this. There is obviously some relation between brain chemistry and spiritual experience, as Gray points out, since there is a relation between brain chemistry and any/all experience. Perhaps psychedelics/entheogens can create a situation where spiritual experience is possible, but not necessary, just like other religious practices that aim to change consciousness (the fasting, meditation, etc, that I mentioned earlier).

The problem with trying to study spiritual experience scientifically, is that science tends to focus on the physically objective aspects, such as brain waves, blood chemistry, etc. That misses the whole experience, since it is a subjective experience in your mind. Timothy Leary's analogy was to imagine scientists studying you while you make love to your wife, and telling you that your experience was just dopamine, endorphins, and hormones, when of course that was not the experience you had.

I don't think I would use psychedelics again, but not because I think they aren't useful on a spiritual quest. I think they helped me find my way, but now that I am on my way they are no longer necessary. They were like a boat I used to cross a river. It would be kinda silly to sit down in the boat on dry land now.

A friend of mine I knew from scouts but later became part of his LDS ward after we moved to his area, told me one night about an "experience". I had already known he was a big drug user before his mission. In fact, he and another person I knew would (long before I was part of his ward) leave in the middle of church to go out and smoke some weed before returning to the chapel. One night he was overdosing on cocaine. During the same era he had moved out of his house because he saw his younger brother following his path in similar ways and he did not want that for his little brother. Anyway, ne nearly died while high on coke and he said he saw his own body as he stood over it. He then heard a voice which asked if he wanted to stay where he was at (in some post mortal realm) or return to his mortal life. He said he decided he was in no way ready to "move on", so to speak, and told the voice he has to return. Immediately he woke up. He then cleaned up his life and went on a mission.

The time I came to his ward was just during my senior year of high school. I went on my mission and when I returned he and I actually attended both the same local community college and single's branch. It was at this branch where he met a small Italian immigrant very faithful in the Church and they got married.

He is now very inactive and has absolutely no desire to attend church or to make it any part of his life. He is very respectful to those who continue to practice their LDS faith but will have one of it himself. He is also divorced from his Italian wife whom which they had two children. He and his ex live close by so their boys at least grew up having both of them in their lives.

I bring this all up anecdotally to promote my idea that psychedelic experiences can be spiritual but I do not find them enduring in and of themselves. endurance comes from feeling the Holy Spirit directly. I obviously know of people who have had this experience, my friend is one of them, and who no longer have a desire to stay close to God according to what they experienced. I'm sure you do as well. But one's true strength comes from God's via the Holy Spirit, not from drugs.

"I don't think I would use psychedelics again, but not because I think they aren't useful on a spiritual quest. I think they helped me find my way, but now that I am on my way they are no longer necessary. They were like a boat I used to cross a river. It would be kinda silly to sit down in the boat on dry land now."

I would say that your "real" or "authentic" experience is now without the drugs.

[hope_for_things]

31 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

I was sitting at the computer doing some music editing and listening to a radio show. An ad for internet flower delivery came on and a voice told me, "Benilindissima [my daughter on the other side of the country] needs flowers." I immediately went on line and ordered her a beautiful boquet to be delivered that day. When they were delivered, she called with profuse thanks, because things were really going awful and she was despondent. That her daddy loved her enough to send flowers lifted her out of a dark place. The flowers were a God-send, as it were. 

But, I don't send flowers, I had never ordered them on the internet nor responded to such an ad. On special occasions I might buy flowers at Safeway but only for the lovely Sister Gui. I don't pay much attention to radio ads (usually mute them) because they are annoying. I was not thinking of my daughter at the time nor was I aware things were so amiss.

Did God communicate this to me? In my world, I would say yes. Can I prove it? Of course not, but otherwise I cannot explain it. Could it be replicated? Not intentionally, but it could happen again. Perhaps it was the mixture of Coke Zero and fresh squeezed lime juice I was drinking at the time that connected me with another dimension of communication?

I've had these kinds of things happen to me before as well. I personally call them spiritual experiences, and I also don't think they are necessarily anything more than coincidence, but they are meaningful for me.  Serendipity perhaps, but regardless its part of what makes life beautiful.  

[Bernard Gui]

5 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

This is where Mormons and Catholics might slightly diverge, partly because of our definition and understand of God. Mormons tend to link spiritual experience to epistemology -- a spiritual experience confirms the truth of some idea. This is what you are getting at when you ask about a spiritual experience confirming whether or not someone should marry someone else, or whether or not this or that church is true.

For Catholics, spiritual experience is much more mystical. It is not necessarily about confirming the truth of a specific proposition. It is more about direct experience of that which is spiritual, of God. My spiritual experiences have taught me about my true self and its relation to God.

Here is a quote from the first chapter of Thomas Merton's (a Trappipst monk) book New Seeds of Contemplation. Please note that the word contemplation is Catholicism does not mean to sit and rationally think about something (the current/common use of the word contemplate). It is a technical term that means meditation leading to mystical spiritual experience. I'm typing this from the book, so please excuse any typos

So in the Catholic tradition, spiritual experience aspires to this. It doesn't mean that all spiritual experience has to be this ego-shattering existential experience, but they are linked. When I sense that all things are connected, it is through God that they are connected. There are times in Mass when I have received communion and have experienced that God is dwelling in me and I in Him. All of these are in the category of spiritual experience that is called contemplation.

Thank you. I'm not totally ignorant of thIngs Catholic. I grew up among Catholics in New Mexico. My Polish grandfather was devout, serving for years as a musician, sexton, and teacher at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Polish Catholic parish in Bayonne, NJ. I served my mission in Central America and conversed with hundreds of Catholic folks and a few priests. So I do appreciate the contemplative nature of Catholicism and the beauty of the beatific vision.....perhaps comparable with my concept of the Celestial kingdom.

There's a similarly rich meditative tradition in Mormonism. It is well attested in our scriptures and public discourse. A spiritual experience for us certainly may take the form of an answer to a specific question, but it can also be a prompting to give unsolicited service, a voice warning of spiritual or physical danger, an affirmation of God's love, consolation, chastisement, or instruction, an invitation to action or commitment, among other things. The words Mormons generally use are "prompting " and "ponder".

I think of these things when when I hear the words "spiritual experience." I think in our Church we might over-use and trivialize the words a bit. When someone proposes a scientific study, I cannot conceive how such a thing could be studied. I also believe such communication is available to anyone, not just Mormons.

Do you agree these can also be manifestations of the Holy Spirit?

[MiserereNobis]

11 minutes ago, Darren10 said:

I bring this all up anecdotally to promote my idea that psychedelic experiences can be spiritual but I do not find them enduring in and of themselves. endurance comes from feeling the Holy Spirit directly.

But... your story was about overdosing on cocaine, and not about psychedelics. They are absolutely NOT the same.

 

12 minutes ago, Darren10 said:

I would say that your "real" or "authentic" experience is now without the drugs.

I understand where you are coming from but I do not agree with you. My earlier psychedelic experiences led me to where I am today. That does not make them less real or authentic. It just makes them part of my past path. I feel that God used them to lead me to Him. That makes that part of my life quite real and authentic to me.

[Bernard Gui]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Implementing a program designed to test out the claims made -- actual practice of the principles being tested, along with prayer, fasting, Scripture reading, participation in liturgy, compassionate service -- the sorts of things the Brethren usually recommend.  My research reveals that this approach is efficacious regardless of one's religious tradition:  Indeed, it can result in a completely unexpected vision or experience -- one which is personal and non-transferrable.  It also leads to deeper insights as well as to stronger empathy.  Some people even speak of it in the context of the stages of spiritual growth.  However we define it, it is essential to true faith.

You are singing my song. Thank you. I can see that it would be difficult to convince others that all this comes from and is evidence of a loving God unless they experience it themselves.

[CV75]

15 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

How would you define it?

Not being one to conduct such an experiment, I do not know. But I suppose "religious experience" would need to be defined by the participants by means of a facilitated focus group. I think selecting the participants would be of primary importance; the more alike in their religious affiliation and mental health the better; and some expertise in screening, profiling and identifying those who truly believe in their religion would help. Several cohorts would need to be developed and tested separately, eventually (and gradually) combining test subjects of different religions, degrees of adherence and levels of mental health into the test session. No subject would be tested more than once.

Edited July 10, 2017 by CV75

[MiserereNobis]

3 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Thank you. I'm not totally ignorant of thIngs Catholic. I grew up among Catholics in New Mexico. My Polish grandfather was devout, serving for years as a musician, sexton, and teacher at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Polish Catholic parish in Bayonne, NJ. I served my mission in Central America and conversed with hundreds of Catholic folks and a few priests. So I do appreciate the contemplative nature of Catholicism and the beauty of the beatific vision.....perhaps comparable with my concept of the Celestial kingdom.

There's a similarly rich meditative tradition in Mormonism. It is well attested in our scriptures and public discourse. A spiritual experience for us certainly may take the form of an answer to a specific question, but it can also be a prompting to give unsolicited service, a voice warning of spiritual or physical danger, an affirmation of God's love, consolation, chastisement, or instruction, an invitation to action or commitment, among other things. The words Mormons generally use are "prompting " and "ponder".

I think of these things when when I hear the words "spiritual experience." I think in our Church we might over-use and trivialize the words a bit. When someone proposes a scientific study, I cannot conceive how such a thing could be studied. I also believe such communication is available to anyone, not just Mormons.

Do you agree these can also be manifestations of the Holy Spirit?

Yes, I agree that the Spirit can manifest in many many ways and I also agree that God can communicate with whomever He wants, regardless of their religion, worthiness, or other factor.

I also agree with you that it would be difficult to study these things in the traditional scientific sense, because science looks at objective physical things, while spiritual experiences are subjective spiritual.

[Bernard Gui]

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I've had these kinds of things happen to me before as well. I personally call them spiritual experiences, and I also don't think they are necessarily anything more than coincidence, but they are meaningful for me.  Serendipity perhaps, but regardless its part of what makes life beautiful.  

Since these kind of things fit into my world view and Mormon theology,  I chalk them up to revelation, not serendipity.

Edited July 11, 2017 by Bernard Gui

[Bernard Gui]

2 hours ago, CV75 said:

Not being one to conduct such an experiment, I do not know. But I suppose "religious experience" would need to be defined by the participants by means of a facilitated focus group. I think selecting the participants would be of primary importance; the more alike in their religious affiliation and mental health the better; and some expertise in screening, profiling and identifying those who truly believe in their religion would help. Several cohorts would need to be developed and tested separately, eventually (and gradually) combining test subjects of different religions, degrees of adherence and levels of mental health into the test session. No subject would be tested more than once.

Sounds complicated.

[Bernard Gui]

3 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

But... your story was about overdosing on cocaine, and not about psychedelics. They are absolutely NOT the same.

 

I understand where you are coming from but I do not agree with you. My earlier psychedelic experiences led me to where I am today. That does not make them less real or authentic. It just makes them part of my past path. I feel that God used them to lead me to Him. That makes that part of my life quite real and authentic to me.

I would like to know what real and authentic means.

 

[deli_llama]

17 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

Anyone have a useable definition of "spiritual experience"?

I think that there is already a useable definition of "spiritual experience" in the context of scientific studies. 

RSME: Religious Spiritual Mystical Experience, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_experience to flesh it out. 

It is a definition that is used in scientific studies, such as this one involving Carmelite nuns, found here: https://institutpsychoneuro.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Beauregard2006-Carmelites-fmri.pdf

It is a study which could be replicated, and could also be adjusted to test LDS subjects, if you could find a similar sample size of skilled spiritual practitioners along the lines of the nuns.  There have been similar studies with Tibetan Buddist monk, yoga practitioners, shamanic practioners, and the like.  

Perhaps I have read some of the comments incorrectly, but I don't see why it would be difficult to test LDS subjects. It might be, as has been mentioned, we Mormons, in general, seem to have a narrower definition of what is a spiritual experience, and tend to dismiss other religious or cultural spiritual and/or mystical experiences as lesser, or false. So it might be we need to be willing to expand out expectations of what is a spiritual experience to include those aspects with which we are less familiar.

 

Edited July 11, 2017 by deli_llama
remedy for phone-typing

[CV75]

8 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Sounds complicated.

That's why I'm not one to conduct such an experiment, LOL.

[mfbukowski]

On 7/9/2017 at 8:09 AM, Gray said:

Discover the chemical processes going on in each of your brains at the time and replicate the conditions, I would guess.

Which still would not explain the spiritual phenomenon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F

http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf

But of course you will not read the paper Nagel actually wrote.

The very existence of this thread is based on a major error, explained in this paper, but I am not going to waste time on it for the 93rd time here.

But I already have.

 

[mfbukowski]

On 7/9/2017 at 0:59 AM, Bernard Gui said:

In a recent study, several religious leaders participated in an experiment to test if using psychedelic mushrooms compared with or enhanced spiritual experiences.

1. Would you participate in such a study?

2. Is this a valid way to test spiritual experiences?

3. Do you believe your experiences with the Spirit as a Latter-Day Saint can be tested in a lab situation or replicated at will?

4. What would be a valid scientific test of your experience and would you subject it to such testing?

Beside the fact that a description of the chemical reaction is not a description of the experience- they cannot be made logically equivalent

Don't let these yahoos rattle you- your points are excellent but besides your points there is an issue of logical equivalence here which they are assuming and that connection is not warranted.

Sorry I don't have much time right now to get into this.

[longview]

19 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

Is our real self the Spirit entity that was created by God or the uncreated intelligence from which it was created?

The uncreated intelligence makes the core of the spirit entity (child of God).  Spirit children have much greater capabilities and attributes than the previous state.  The union of spirit entity with "Clay Tabernacles" provide further features not found in the pre-existence.  The resurrection will be unbelievably glorious (even in the least kingdom).

19 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

What of the data collected by our human brains will be retained by resurrected beings?

No question.  Many scriptures attest that every thought and desires we will have to account for in the hereafter.

19 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

Are you saying God does not use chemical/electronic means of communication, but communicates only with the spirit?

I am guessing that God only needs to make spirit to spirit communication.  Lucifer and his angels cannot read the spirit mind but they can see all aspects of human bodily function including anger, lusting (hormones), fear, etc.  They might even manipulate our bodies (during our enslavement to evil spirits).

[mfbukowski]

On 7/9/2017 at 8:41 AM, Gray said:

Well it's too late now. The experience is long gone. There's no way to measure what happened to you. But given the right conditions and information,  it should be possible to replicate any spiritual/emotional experience.

I know you are wrong, but let's grant this assumption.

Suppose you capture the chemical reactions of being chased by a bear perfectly on your magic tape recorder computer thingy.

Suppose you later play it back.

Does that mean the bear was not real?

Or suppose on the other side of the question, you were able to capture the First Vision perfectly as you did the bear chasing you.

On playing it back, does that mean that God did not appear to Joseph?

Surely brain chemicals are related to how we experience the world but what we learn from those experiences ARE NOT the chemicals- it is the effect of the experience in our lives that changes our lives.

If you drove crazy and and a perfect recording of driving off a cliff - the experience and the chemicals- would that show others that they should not drive crazily?

Of what value is a discussion such as this one making the obvious point that chemical reactions are related to brain states to ANYTHING?

What is this supposed to prove?

That God is not "real" because He is just a chemical reaction??

What precisely is NOT a chemical reaction in the brain?   

All of reality is a chemical reaction in the brain- so the flip what??

Read the Rorty quote below yet once more

Everything and everyone you know is an electro-chemical brain state in your brain.  What's the point??

 

Quote

Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

So go ahead and use your chemicals to bash other people's chemicals but just know it's still all "chemicals" or "experiences" - WORDS and solves nothing about anything REAL.  All you are doing is adding zeros but keeping the equation logically constant on both sides.  In other words its a waste of time.

OK now I really do need to go.

In the 60's I actually would thank God for my chemicals.  No kidding.

Edited July 11, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, deli_llama said:

 

It is a definition that is used in scientific studies, such as this one involving Carmelite nuns, found here: https://institutpsychoneuro.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Beauregard2006-Carmelites-fmri.pdf

Quote

The main goal of this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was to identify the neural correlates of a mystical experience

Nice but so what?  Now we know where mystical experience resides in the brain but it has nothing to do with the "reality" of the experience.

Thank God for your chemicals that you can know what others don't.   

 

Edited July 11, 2017 by mfbukowski

[deli_llama]

Huh?

27 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Nice but so what?  Now we know where mystical experience resides in the brain but it has nothing to do with the "reality" of the experience.

Thank God for your chemicals that you can know what others don't.   

 

Wasn't my point sir, I was offering a suggestion to a couple of specific questions he had asked. 

And, I do not disagree. It has nothing to do with the reality of the experience. Nor did I say that such-and-such is where the mystical experience resides.  

If pressed, the most I would probably say is that this is how brain, as an organ, behaves when these experiences occur. This is what we can record, observe, measure as the nuns underwent the RSME. 

I am curious, what chemicals are you speaking of?  I have not said here that I used psychedelics, recommended it here, nor have I claimed to know what others don't.  Otherwise, if you were speaking of brain chemistry and religious experience, I haven't offered my thoughts on topic. I can't imagine what else you mean. 

Just sayin'

[MiserereNobis]

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Which still would not explain the spiritual phenomenon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F

http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf

But of course you will not read the paper Nagel actually wrote.

The very existence of this thread is based on a major error, explained in this paper, but I am not going to waste time on it for the 93rd time here.

But I already have.

 

Edit: Deleted because I was being an ***. Sorry.

 

Edited July 11, 2017 by MiserereNobis

[mfbukowski]

13 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

Mark, we know what you believe. Some of us have read these papers and studied these philosophers that you often quote (I'll scream if you put that Rorty video up again, because YES I have watched it). The bottom line is that we don't agree with you. Please don't act like it is some sort of settled question and the only reason people don't agree with you is because they are not educated enough or haven't read enough. That is a very condescending position and you've pushed it to its extreme in your posts here. As you very well know, there are many philosophers much more educated than you that disagree with your positions, so please, again, do not present your position as the only possible one for educated and well-read people.

Thank you.

ETA: And if you are going to condescendingly say you are not going to waste your time with this thread, then please keep your word and stop posting here.

 

So I am a liar, we all need to repent of something

So why not refute my position?  I guess I hit a nerve or something

Oh well you get your wish even if you do not choose to take on the issues I have raised.

Edited July 11, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, deli_llama said:

Huh?

Wasn't my point sir, I was offering a suggestion to a couple of specific questions he had asked. 

And, I do not disagree. It has nothing to do with the reality of the experience. Nor did I say that such-and-such is where the mystical experience resides.  

If pressed, the most I would probably say is that this is how brain, as an organ, behaves when these experiences occur. This is what we can record, observe, measure as the nuns underwent the RSME. 

I am curious, what chemicals are you speaking of?  I have not said here that I used psychedelics, recommended it here, nor have I claimed to know what others don't.  Otherwise, if you were speaking of brain chemistry and religious experience, I haven't offered my thoughts on topic. I can't imagine what else you mean. 

Just sayin'

Sorry, didn't mean to offend

I just didnt know what the point of your post was, thanks for clarifying