Losing my religion.

[Elspode]

Originally posted by Whit
Isn't it interesting that the first three steps can be done chemically? In a bar for example? Granted the very important last step didn't get quoted here. But I wanted to point out that pure hedonism can seem spiritual.

The tricky part of that is not letting the tools become the experience. Shamen and other seekers and practitioners have used substances to obtain insight for millenia. However, if you start making the substance the thing rather than what you learn while using the substance, you are going to miss the goal.

As a recovering drunkard, I think I can speak of this with some certainty. It was only after I stopped drinking that I truly was able to absorb the lessons I learned while being loaded, because when I was a drunk, there was no persepective.

Strangely, not everything I learned from being drunk was bad, believe it or not.