Council on Spiritual Practices Home Page Here is a report of the survey placed on this site entitled "Survey for those who have had a spiritual ('deep') experience induced by a drug". Respondents were asked to answer the seven questions with the same experience in mind, then email their replies.
73 responses have been received so far (70 by email and 3 by letter) of which 71 were usable.
Respondents were asked: "'spiritual' can mean a variety of things. What do you mean?"
Nearly all the descriptions of 'spirituality' focused on the sense that spiritual experiences were outside everyday experience and were both intense and significant. One respondent wrote simply: "an experience that was out of the ordinary" while another described it as "a deep, moving, mind altering experience".
There was generally a feeling of 'truth' or 'rightness' about spirituality: "you can feel it in your body and mind and it just clicks", "I would simply mean an experience of some 'truth' that you cannot deny although it may be frightening/challenging".
Connected to the sense that there is a overwhelming feeling of truth to the experience is the idea articulated by many of the respondents that there must be a transformative element to a spiritual experience - one person described it as "a kind of "Eureka!" for the subconscious, in which you have no choice but to view/interact with the world in a slightly different way".
Another believed that the sense of transformation is the defining element in spirituality: "The single most important factor which decides if an experience is spiritual or not, is its mental and emotional effect. If you need 2+ months to digest the experience, if during the trip you have been shown things which makes you seriously consider everything you've ever thought about yourself and life in general: it probably was a spiritual experience".
Yet another described how a spiritual experience while on ecstasy showed him the path he should take: "for the last ten years of my life I was plagued with those eternal questions: where do I come from, why am I here? Ecstasy showed me that the answer was right under my nose, that I was the answer to my own questions. I *am* here...there is no why, only a choice: spread love and acceptance every day because that is the kind of world I want to live in...or fumble around looking for some universal truth to make sense of it all. I chose the former".
From the replies also came a strong sense that spirituality is drawn from within oneself rather than being directed from outside by a God or supreme power. Some took this idea further and described spirituality in terms which emphasised its opposition to the conventional concept of 'religion'. The respondent who wrote that ecstasy showed him that he himself could provide the answers to his questions pointed out that:
"to me, it meant breaking through a lot of the dogma and programming that I had been indoctrinated with as a result of being raised in a very religious, conservative home".
While one person felt that spirituality was "knowledge that there is a true God and that you are in his presence", the general feeling was quite the reverse:
"Spirituality to me is not getting in touch with some supreme being or power that lies outside myself. Instead, my spiritual experience has come from getting in touch with power that lies inside self. Realising my potential, who I am, where I fit in this world, all of these are things I consider spiritual",
"I am talking about the core of my being... For me it has fuckall to do with institutionalised religion",
"Spirituality, to me, is getting in touch with the base part of our being, the essence of the spirit. The center and balance point within us all, that we all have come from and will eventually find again"
The transcendent nature of the experience was emphasised in many of the replies: "spiritual would define for me states in which our center of reference or core identity is no longer limited to our physical bodies or psychological egos....any hierarchy above our physical reality in a nested hierarchy set would be by definition spiritual, but one feels that the orientation in spiritual states is towards the highest (all-inclusive) one". "By "spiritual" I mean, in essence, that which goes beyond my personality and the space/time location where my individual consciousness seems to reside". "they concern the foundations of and interactions between self, being, existence, reality, time, consciousness, divinity, humanity, etc." "A subversion of the normal assumptions about the relationship of self and world, where "self" especially refers to the self as an independent, autonomous control-agent.
Some respondents felt that spirituality was purely a positive state: "to enter a transcended state where you lose all earthly worries, fears, anticipation...a state of complete contentedness. A state of clarity where thought can happen free of any earthly constraints".
"Spiritual to me means having no inhibitions of bad feelings or thoughts about a person(lover) place(beautiful lake) or thing(rave). Being spiritual to me means total acceptance and trust and above all truth".
Others felt that a spiritual experience could also be frightening or disturbing and instead emphasised the imperativeness of it: "for me spiritual experiences are those experiences which teach one fundamental things about oneself, life and universe... spiritual experiences don't have to be nice or positive but must feel true", and: "a spiritual experience teaches you what you need and not always what you want".
Respondents were not restricted in the type or number of drugs they could mention.
Drug: Number of Mentions:
| LSD | 42 |
| Ecstasy | 39 |
| Cannabis | 25 |
| Mushrooms (psilocybin) | 22 |
| DMT | 5 |
| 2-CB | 5 |
| Alcohol | 5 |
| Amphetamine | 5 |
| Cocaine | 4 |
| Mescaline | 3 |
| Dextromethorphan (DXM) | 3 |
| Nitrous Oxide | 3 |
| GHB | 2 |
| Ketamine | 1 |