I'm reviving this old topic to discuss a substance which I've found a common nominator amongst some spiritual aspirants, even though observing the discussions on (mostly American) internet forums. There has been several cases in which when a newcomer has been asking what is the key to spiritual enlightenment, the reply has simply been DMT.
Now, I'm not sure if we've had this discussion already on the Finnish forum, but I wanted especially to bring it to the international side to possibly also get feedback from our international users. Are you familiar with this substance? Is the use of it common?
After brief conversations with fra Kenazis I learned that this is a substance of which there has been research, that it might be emitting in the brain at the moment of death. Since the substance is highly hallucinogenic, this would explain the "near death experiences" that many survivors of a brief moment of death have witnessed. Kenazis also mentioned an author already in this thread,
Terence McKenna, who has written some (non-scientific) literature on the subject.
This is much explained in the Wikipedia article
here, but DMT seems to be, as used in the modern Western world, a synthesised, highly hallucinogenic substance, the effect of which lasts for a relatively short time (5-15 minutes). The article also mentions that:
Wikipedia wrote:"it has been consumed by indigenous Amazonian Indian cultures in the form of ayahuasca for divinatory and healing purposes."
So maybe there is a possibility that some sort of a connection to spirituality can be found after all?
What I'm asking here is, is this drug becoming a sort of a shortcut to spiritual experience? Doesn't it attach the experience closely to the abuse, thus making the whole aspiration a sort of an escapist fieldtrip?
As a clarification, I don't use drugs myself, but I don't condemn it either. It is okay if it works for someone, but it most certainly doesn't work for me. But yes, feel free to comment. I'd be happy to hear everybody's comments on this, whatever their nature may be..