I am sympathetic to the people who advocate taking psychedelic drugs to enhance consciousness and to explore inner realms. They would say this is especially beneficial in an atheistic society such as ours for it frees us from the iron grip of materialism and shines light into the dark clouds that obscure the modern mind. We are given the direct experience of something beyond standard physical plane consciousness and we can know for ourselves that we are not body but mind and that mind has multi-dimensional aspects. As a teenager I took LSD a few times so I know the transformative effect psychedelics can have, especially if you take them in a reverential frame of mind rather than for kicks, humbling yourself before the majesty of the universe.
However, sympathy does not mean approval. I believe that the use of drugs, which is very ancient, came about when early human beings began to lose natural contact with the spiritual realms as the material world closed about them. This was in line with the evolution of consciousness which requires the development of a solid centre, the self, and a rational thinking mind that can become a co-creator with God rather than a passive participant in the general spiritual flow of life. A lot of people try to get back to this flow but that is like a reversion to childhood and it is spiritually immature. We must go forward into a new and higher awareness, one in which we do not merge into the all but become full spiritual individuals, mature, responsible, creative. Sometimes people need a cold shower rather than a warm bath in order to wake them up. Drugs were and are an escape. Early man resorted to them to try to recapture what he had lost but his spiritual progress demanded that he move on and did not revert to what he had known in the past.
Drugs are not recommended and never have been recommended by any proper spiritual teacher. The reason is they are attempts to break the barrier God has placed between this world and the next by artificial means. This barrier can be broken but it should be broken by natural spiritual development if the encounter with the next world is to be authentic and psychically healthy. Drug takers may encounter non-material beings in their experiences and these beings may seem to offer guidance and advice but there are many denizens of the inner realms and you will not encounter true higher beings if you seek to take heaven by force. Your experience will be limited and you may well only experience the world of the demons, albeit often dressed up to resemble what seems a deep and exciting mystery to the unwary.
We are not here not to experience the glories of the spiritual world but to learn the lessons of the material one though with the understanding that the spiritual is primary. It is possible that in this benighted and ignorant age drugs can help guide one towards a previously dismissed and rejected higher reality but anything other than brief use will take you off the true spiritual path which is not about experience but the sanctification of the soul.
Since the Fall we have been cut off from Paradise. To attempt to recapture the paradisiacal state by artificial means, whether that be a drug or technique, special breathing, prolonged fasting or even excessive meditation, is an irreligious act that seeks to put you above God. The experience gained will be tainted and a counterfeit one to true mystical experience because it will be lacking the humility and purity of motive which alone guarantee truth and ascent to higher realms. It will lead the individual away from God as he really is and towards one of the many imitations that exist both in this world and the next. The fact that so many people who advocate psychedelics report encounter with pagan deities or similar supernatural beings confirms this. These, if not demons and they may well be, are leftovers from previous cycles of evolution. They continue to exist in the inner worlds but not on proper spiritual levels.
Consciousness is a spiritual thing but it is squeezed into a physical body to learn lessons which can eventually take it beyond the physical and beyond the spiritual as normally considered to the divine. In a physical body consciousness becomes severely restricted but can also be focussed and express greater powers of self-will and motivation than when not so restricted. To seek to escape this through drugs is to seek change from without but change to be real must come from within. You reach the divine by becoming inwardly divine yourself not from attempting to steal what is not yours. A truly spiritual consciousness is not the result of what you experience or even what you feel or what you know. It comes from what you are and that to be of the right stuff demands humility, love of God and openness to the spirit of Christ.
This post follows on from the one about ancient civilisations in that Graham Hancock, the most prominent mainstream proponent of that idea, is also an enthusiast for psychedelic exploration of consciousness. I just want to say you can be right about one aspect of the esoteric/mystical but completely wrong about other aspects. This is actually quite common and simply shows the importance of real spiritual discrimination and correct understanding of what the spiritual truly is. It is not higher consciousness. The devil has higher consciousness after a fashion. It is orientation of the heart to goodness, beauty and truth in their higher aspects and a humble dedication to bring one's own soul into line with that regardless of what this may cost in terms of personal sacrifice and renunciation. A tall order perhaps but that is what it is and we are all called to that path. There are no short cuts.
