Is entheogen use a /his/ or /sci/ topic?
Personally, I'm terrified by the level of similarity in cultures known to use them and other psychedelic/hallucinogenic drugs. They just scramble your brain and make you THINK you're communicating with extraneous entities, right? There's nothing to it but pharmacology, right?
>>1301345
>if the universe is infinite then all the atoms that make up your consciousness will eventually rearrange themselves in the same order, effectively reincarnating you. this will happen an infinite number of times with and infinite number of variations.
>>1301365
shieet
>>1301365
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tliWDMrOjoQ
>>1301345
It's /x/
>>1301345
I think it is like overclocking your brain. The new molecules that go into your brain can affect how you think, see, etc. Structure of those molecules might have something to do with how the brain innately works, or how those molecules' shapes affect the existing neurotransmitters. Look into phosphenes; they are supremely interesting in this discussion.
I think the brain is just a bunch of molecules and there is no actual awareneness of itself. Adding new and different organics into the mix make the brain still work, but work differently, so you are conscious of the altered consciousness. Its really hard to talk about without sounding ontological or religious but I definitely think psychedelics in nature exist because being eaten is to their advantage; they make compounds that brains (of animals as well as humans) will enjoy, incentivizing eating the psychedelic plant/fungus. That said, I feel like human consciousness evolved in symbiosis with those plants/fungi. I'm not a proponent of the "stoned ape" theory but I definitely think our religion and ideas of animism stem from entheogens.
>>1301345
>>1302270
Oh I misread the OP: yeah cultural similarities are because of the pharmacology. Wonder why Indian aesthetics are so pleasant to stoners, and weed-smokers are generally peaceful, nonviolent, and really into Indian religion? Its because the Vedic Aryans came from Afghanistan (home of Kush in both literal senses) and the "soma" of their texts is cannabis mash. We've found potsherds with cannabis remains on the inside, and the effects of Soma as described line up very well with that of Cannabis.
Similarly, consider the Nahua religion, full of death, evil spirits, and natural forces that move in cycles. This lines up very well with peyote and ayahuasca, two entheogens they were known to have used. Both of those cause a staggering appreciation for geometry, and as the human brain craves order, it manufactures fractal patterns (seen in Nahua aesthetics, but absent from Mayan ones).
